From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Tue Feb  1 02:31:31 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 19:31:31 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] perceiving deception?
In-Reply-To: <01C5077B.CE9F37C0.shovland@mindspring.com>
References: <01C5077B.CE9F37C0.shovland@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <41FEEA03.1020202@solution-consulting.com>

These are interesting, thanks for your help, Steve

Steve Hovland wrote:

>I remember hearing that but can't recall the words.
>
>Try this- some interesting stuff came up:
>
>http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=people+detect+lying&btnG=Google+Search
>
>
>Steve Hovland
>www.stevehovland.net
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
>Sent:	Monday, January 31, 2005 7:58 AM
>To:	The new improved paleopsych list
>Subject:	[Paleopsych] perceiving deception?
>
>Some time ago there was a report of a portion of the brain being 
>specialized for perceiving deception. I cannot find that reference; can 
>anyone help me?
>Lynn
>
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>
>  
>



From shovland at mindspring.com  Tue Feb  1 09:16:20 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 01:16:20 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] A superpower on life support
Message-ID: <01C507FB.A4058CA0.shovland@mindspring.com>

In recent years the US has been styling itself as 
the last remaining superpower, able to dictate
the establishment of a Pax Americana without
significant opposition.

If you look at our finances, you see a different
picture.

The USSR crumbled because they could no
longer afford the Cold War game.

We are about to crumble because we can no
longer pay cash to finance our activities.

Most of our prosperity is financed by a mountain
of debt that now threatens the economy of the
entire planet.

In their foolish greed our largest corporations
have exported vast amounts of capital to India
or China, who now have trade surpluses while
we have trade deficits that compound our
budget deficits.  This is a zero sum game.

The day will come when the world recognizes
that we have spent all of the gold that we found
at the end of our continental rainbow a mere
200 years ago.

When that day comes they will no longer buy
Dollar bonds, but Euro bonds.  Indeed, the last
straw with Saddam Hussein was that he started
to price his oil in Euro's.

When that day comes we will find that India,
China, Japan, and Europe will be our equal 
partners because we won't be in any position
to refuse their demands.

When that day comes we will no longer be
a psychotic Gulliver stomping on all who dare
to oppose us.  We will be one among equals
living in a more benign equilibrium with the
planet.


Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net




From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Tue Feb  1 13:59:41 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2005 06:59:41 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] Kerrey on Social Security
Message-ID: <41FF8B4D.1060802@solution-consulting.com>

No, not John Kerry, the smart Kerrey.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110006234
Pride and Prejudice
"Hell no, we won't go" is the wrong liberal approach on Social Security 
reform.

BY BOB KERREY
Tuesday, February 1, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

The late Pat Moynihan used to joke when I asked him why liberals were so 
reluctant to consider changing Social Security so that it guaranteed 
wealth as well as income: "It's because they worry that wealth will turn 
Democrats into Republicans." Leaving aside that possible correlation, it 
will be a shame if liberal voices, values and ideas are not brought into 
the debate initiated by President Bush's Social Security reform 
proposal. To make certain the reforms are done correctly liberal 
thinking is urgently needed.

There is no doubt that Social Security and Medicare are two of 
liberalism's most enduring and popular triumphs. And there is no doubt 
that a vocal and influential minority remains true to its strong 
conservative belief that the Social Security Act of 1935 and the 1965 
amendments to this act, which created Medicare and Medicaid, represent 
socialistic and dangerous interferences with the marketplace. However, 
liberals are wrong to fear that President Bush's proposal represents a 
threat to Social Security.

I sincerely hope they do not merely defend their proudest achievement. I 
hope they see that President Bush is giving them an opportunity to 
finally do something about the rich getting richer and the poor getting 
poorer.

First of all, fears that Social Security will be destroyed are 
exaggerated. Across all generations and within both major parties, 
Social Security and Medicare are seen as a vital part of American life. 
They represent a powerful intergenerational contract between younger 
Americans in the work force who agree to be taxed on behalf of older, 
eligible Americans. What makes the contract work is that the expectation 
of those in the work force is that when they pass the age of 
eligibility, successive generations of workers will not object to the 
taxes that must be imposed on them to cover the costs of their income 
and health benefits.

Secondly, President Bush's fears of a bankrupt Social Security and his 
rhetoric of the program being in financial crisis are also exaggerated. 
Relatively small changes in taxes and/or benefits would restore the 
promise to all living beneficiaries--those eligible today and those 
eligible in the future. Unlike the situation that existed in 1983, when 
Congress and the president acted to avoid a financial crisis, today's 
financial problems are relatively small.

On the other hand, there are two problems with Social Security that are 
serious enough to be called a crisis. The first is that in eight years 
the income from a 12.4% payroll tax will be insufficient to pay the old 
age, survivor and disability benefits owed at that time. From that point 
on, Social Security will begin to redeem some of the hundreds of 
billions of dollars of Treasury bonds it has "accumulated in the trust 
fund" in order to issue monthly checks to beneficiaries.

Though these bonds are far from "worthless," as some critics allege, the 
picture of them "accumulating in a trust fund" is not accurate either. 
That is because, in order to convert these bonds into cash, the U.S. 
Treasury will use the cash from individual and corporate income taxes. 
While some income taxes are currently used to pay Social Security 
benefits, the dollar amounts do not pose a serious budgetary challenge. 
In eight years that will change. Coupled with the cost of Medicare and 
Medicaid, the annual benefit demands of Social Security will put real 
pressure on Congress to cut spending on defense and nondefense 
appropriations.

It is at this point in time that the demographic and monetary demands of 
the baby boom generation will become painfully apparent. The 
disinvestment in public infrastructure caused by the growth in Medicare 
and Medicaid will become even worse than it is today. And the nature of 
this crisis will be considerably more daunting than that faced squarely 
by Congress and the president in 1983. Liberals, who have silently 
watched the share of state and federal spending apportioned to the 
elderly grow at the expense of education, training, child care and 
research, will be appalled to discover how much their silence has cost them.

The second crisis is the one for which liberals are even more urgently 
needed. This crisis is the shockingly low rates of savings and pitifully 
inadequate amount of preparation being made by American households for 
their old age. If liberals were to join this debate and insist upon 
provisions that would lead to dramatic reductions of the numbers of poor 
elderly, the outcome could be a dramatically enhanced quality of life 
for all, reduced dependency upon welfare in old age, and downward 
pressure on the social costs of growing old.

If liberals joined this debate they would insist that the guaranteed 
transfer payment of Social Security remain intact. With the evidence 
that trade, technology and immigration are putting downward pressure on 
unskilled wages, they might even be able to succeed in changing the 
current benefit formula so that more than 50% of the first $900 of 
income was replaced. Perhaps they could even convince their Republican 
colleagues to eliminate penalties that affect stay-at-home women.

Liberals would fight to make certain that contributions to private 
accounts were progressive in order to benefit lower-wage workers. They 
might even argue that accounts be opened at birth, thus giving Americans 
the longest possible time to accumulate wealth. No doubt they would 
insist that investment options be carefully regulated to keep 
administrative costs and risks as low as possible. And since liberals 
oftentimes understand the good that markets can do even more than some 
of their conservative colleagues, they could see the wisdom of changing 
the tax code so that no income taxes were levied on income that went 
into these savings accounts. All of these would practically guarantee a 
muscular market response that would give future Americans larger amounts 
of insured non-employment income to add to the $800 per month on average 
they receive from Social Security.

None of this will happen if liberals merely shout "hell no, we won't 
go." The best they can hope for with that strategy is to prevent reform 
from happening. They should feel no pride of accomplishment if that is 
the result.

Mr. Kerrey, a Democratic former senator from Nebraska, is the president 
of New School University, in New York City.



From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Tue Feb  1 14:01:57 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2005 07:01:57 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] The future of oil
Message-ID: <41FF8BD5.9020805@solution-consulting.com>

I tried to send this yesterday; I don't think it went through. This is a 
very counter-intuitive piece, good for challenging the popular notions.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110006228
Oil, Oil Everywhere . . .
Why is it expensive? Because it's so cheap.

BY PETER HUBER AND MARK MILLS
Sunday, January 30, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

The price of oil remains high only because the cost of oil remains so 
low. We remain dependent on oil from the Mideast not because the planet 
is running out of buried hydrocarbons, but because extracting oil from 
the deserts of the Persian Gulf is so easy and cheap that it's risky to 
invest capital to extract somewhat more stubborn oil from far larger 
deposits in Alberta.

The market price of oil is indeed hovering up around $50 a barrel on the 
spot market. But getting oil to the surface currently costs under $5 a 
barrel in Saudi Arabia, with the global average cost certainly under 
$15. And with technology already well in hand, the cost of sucking oil 
out of the planet we occupy simply will not rise above roughly $30 a 
barrel for the next 100 years at least.

The cost of oil comes down to the cost of finding, and then lifting or 
extracting. First, you have to decide where to dig. Exploration costs 
currently run under $3 per barrel in much of the Mideast, and below $7 
for oil hidden deep under the ocean. But these costs have been falling, 
not rising, because imaging technology that lets geologists peer through 
miles of water and rock improves faster than supplies recede. Many 
lower-grade deposits require no new looking at all.

To pick just one example among many, finding costs are essentially zero 
for the 3.5 trillion barrels of oil that soak the clay in the Orinoco 
basin in Venezuela, and the Athabasca tar sands in Alberta, Canada. Yes, 
that's trillion--over a century's worth of global supply, at the current 
30-billion-barrel-a-year rate of consumption.

Then you have to get the oil out of the sand--or the sand out of the 
oil. In the Mideast, current lifting costs run $1 to $2.50 per barrel at 
the very most; lifting costs in Iraq probably run closer to 50 cents, 
though OPEC strains not to publicize any such embarrassingly low 
numbers. For the most expensive offshore platforms in the North Sea, 
lifting costs (capital investment plus operating costs) currently run 
comfortably south of $15 per barrel. Tar sands, by contrast, are simply 
strip mined, like Western coal, and that's very cheap--but then you 
spend another $10, or maybe $15, separating the oil from the dirt. To do 
that, oil or gas extracted from the site itself is burned to heat water, 
which is then used to "crack" the bitumen from the clay; the bitumen is 
then chemically split to produce lighter petroleum.

In sum, it costs under $5 a barrel to pump oil out from under the sand 
in Iraq, and about $15 to melt it out of the sand in Alberta. So why 
don't we just learn to love hockey and shop Canadian? Conventional 
Canadian wells already supply us with more oil than Saudi Arabia, and 
the Canadian tar is now delivering, too. The $5 billion (U.S.) Athabasca 
Oil Sands Project that Shell and ChevronTexaco opened in Alberta last 
year is now pumping 155,000 barrels per day. And to our south, 
Venezuela's Orinoco Belt yields 500,000 barrels daily.

But here's the catch: By simply opening up its spigots for a few years, 
Saudi Arabia could, in short order, force a complete write-off of the 
huge capital investments in Athabasca and Orinoco. Investing billions in 
tar-sand refineries is risky not because getting oil out of Alberta is 
especially difficult or expensive, but because getting oil out of Arabia 
is so easy and cheap. Oil prices gyrate and occasionally spike--both up 
and down--not because oil is scarce, but because it's so abundant in 
places where good government is scarce. Investing $5 billion over five 
years to build a new tar-sand refinery in Alberta is indeed risky when a 
second cousin of Osama bin Laden can knock $20 off the price of oil with 
an idle wave of his hand on any given day in Riyadh.

The one consolation is that Arabia faces a quandary of its own. Once the 
offshore platform has been deployed in the North Sea, once the humongous 
crock pot is up and cooking in Alberta, its cost is sunk. The original 
investors may never recover their capital, but after it has been written 
off, somebody can go ahead and produce oil very profitably going 
forward. And capital costs are going to keep falling, because the cost 
of a tar-sand refinery depends on technology, and technology costs 
always fall. Bacteria, for example, have already been successfully 
bioengineered to crack heavy oil molecules to help clean up oil spills, 
and to mine low-grade copper; bugs could likewise end up trampling out 
the vintage where the Albertan oil is stored.

In the short term anything remains possible. Demand for oil grows daily 
in China and India, where good government is finally taking root, while 
much of the earth's most accessible oil lies under land controlled by 
feudal theocracies, kleptocrats, and fanatics. Day by day, just as it 
should, the market attempts to incorporate these two antithetical 
realities into the spot price of crude. But to suppose that those prices 
foreshadow the exhaustion of the planet itself is silly.

The cost of extracting oil from the earth has not gone up over the past 
century, it has held remarkably steady. Going forward, over the longer 
term, it may rise very gradually, but certainly not fast. The earth is 
far bigger than people think, the untapped deposits are huge, and the 
technologies for separating oil from planet keep getting better. U.S. 
oil policy should be to promote new capital investment in the United 
States, Canada, and other oil-producing countries that are politically 
stable, and promote stable government in those that aren't.

Messrs. Huber and Mills are co-authors of "The Bottomless Well: The 
Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of 
Energy," just out from Basic Books



From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  1 15:34:35 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 10:34:35 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Miami Herald: Lizzie Grubman spins a comeback
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502011033060.11285@panix1.panix.com>

Lizzie Grubman spins a comeback
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/10658534.htm

    Jail time softened PR goddess' intensity. Soon, you'll see it on TV.
    BY LYDIA MARTIN

    It's 3 in the morning, New Year's Eve. Ingrid Casares, she of the
    celebrity liaisons, guards the door to a VIP room at the Raleigh Hotel
    like a riled Doberman.

    Bouncers just stand there while Ingrid dismisses partyers who claim
    they know -- whomever.

    Here comes New York celebrity publicist Lizzie Grubman, who once would
    have swiftly beaten Casares in a contest for most high-strung. But
    she's now soft and Zen, even as things heat up and beefy guys in black
    suits and earpieces start shepherding in stars.

    Lizzie, who on March 10 will make a debut in her own MTV reality show,
    wants to help a friend get a couple of not-so-fabulous associates past
    Ingrid, and though they're throwing the party together, Lizzie has to
    engage in a little back and forth with Ingrid before Ingrid relents
    and lets the guys in.

    ''It's OK, Ingrid,'' Lizzie says in a hushed tone, avoiding what once
    upon a time might have turned into an amusing little power clash.

    ''I've changed a lot as a person,'' Lizzie says a couple of days later
    over bubbly water and cigarettes at the Shore Club.

    As publicist for Britney Spears, Jay-Z, the Backstreet Boys and P.
    Diddy, she was used to seeing her name in bold. But she got more press
    than she could stand when she backed her father's Mercedes SUV into a
    crowd outside a Hamptons nightclub in the summer of 2001, injuring 16.
    Witnesses claimed she used choice words as she bolted.

    She pleaded guilty to assault charges and leaving the scene of an
    accident, and in the fall of 2002 served 37 days of a 60-day sentence,
    getting off early for good behavior.

    The ordeal seems to have left an impression. Lizzie speaks calmly now,
    and she listens.

    ``I'm more centered, more focused. Words can't even explain everything
    I've learned. I feel so fortunate to get a second chance. I realize
    how lucky I was to have such great family and friends around me when
    it all happened. I hid for so long. But I was lucky that I had people
    working for me, and clients, too, who were so loyal. I was virtually a
    zombie. I would go to the office, but I was not functioning.''

    Lizzie says her mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer on the day of
    the accident. She died 21 days later.

    ``A client of mine made me drive to the Hamptons anyway, to open a
    place that didn't even open. I should have stayed with my mother. When
    I got there he didn't have the permits. I wish that night had never
    happened. And I wish I could have properly mourned my mother.''

    The nightmare may be close to over (there are still pending civil
    suits) but Lizzie continues lying low.

    ''I work out like a freak, I go to work, I come home and I'm asleep by
    9:30 or 10,'' says Lizzie, who now avoids drinking and clubbing. ``I'm
    not going to sit here and tell you that I'm spiritual now. I just
    realized I needed to slow down. I think I'm approachable now, and much
    more humble.''

    READY FOR PRIME TIME?

    The homebody thing seems exactly the wrong image for Lizzie as her
    reality show prepares to hit MTV. PoweR Girls will feature Lizzie and
    her lovely assistants as they run star-studded events in Manhattan,
    the Hamptons, Miami and Los Angeles.

    ''It's not that I don't go out. It's just that now I only do it if I
    have to,'' she says. ``I tell a lot of clients, listen, I'll represent
    you, but you won't see me at the event. I have young kids who do that
    for me. That's their job now. I paid my dues. And I'm 33. There's no
    reason why any 33-year-old girl should be in the nightclubs every
    night.''

    How about for the sake of meeting a guy? Lizzie broke up with her
    boyfriend of a year and a half just a month ago.

    ``All my old boyfriends were nightclub owners. Never again.''

    The MTV show has been billed as Apprentice meets Sex and the City. But
    it's not a contest. It's more about celebrity gawking.

    ''The show is about these girls in their early 20s who work for
    Lizzie, who is their mentor,'' says Tony DiSanto, senior vice
    president of production for MTV. ``She gives them a lot of rope. She's
    nurturing, but she's also tough on the girls.''

    ''I'm in it as much as Donald Trump is in his show,'' says Lizzie.
    ``It's about the ins and outs of the PR business. You'll get the
    behind-the-scenes of a celebrity getting ready to launch a CD or
    whatever.''

    Some of the show was shot on South Beach this past summer during MTV's
    Video Music Awards, at Mansion, Mynt and the Shore Club.

    FAMOUS, NOT INFAMOUS

    Lizzie says she now imparts her keep-a-low-profile philosophy on
    clients. She has learned that less is more.

    ``My job is to make people famous. But getting famous is not about
    going out at night. Going out at night can be your fatal flaw.
    Overexposure is the worst. People don't want to see you every day.
    They don't want to read about you every day. It's boring. You have to
    go to the right events, or you won't have any credibility.''

    So, like, Paris Hilton is totally overexposed?

    ''I love Paris. She's a very good friend of mine,'' says Lizzie, who
    isn't a publicist for nothing.

    When Casares and her partners decided to throw a blowout New Year's
    Eve party at the Raleigh, they enlisted Lizzie's help. Lizzie was glad
    to, since she was putting another event together right next door at
    the Shelbourne.

    Among the names in bold who showed at the Raleigh: Paris and Nicky
    Hilton, Boris Becker, Lindsay Lohan, the Olsen twins, a couple of
    Wayans, John Stamos.

    ''Basically, I brought my celebrities over,'' says Lizzie. Then she
    remembers to be nice. ``But I mean, Ingrid and Paris are very good
    friends. So it wasn't just me.''

    As open as she comes off these days, Lizzie draws the line at talking
    about her time in jail. She also won't shed light on what her close
    friend Martha Stewart might be going through.

    ``I can't talk about her or prison or give you any other details
    because I have civil cases still pending. But, yes, I can relate to
    what she's going through.''

    Lizzie's cell phone, Blackberry and Sidekick, all three lined up on
    the table, keep going off. She needs to take her leave. But not before
    she offers the one line she keeps repeating to the media. Only a cynic
    would call it just spin. There's something about the barely audible
    tone that says the whole thing still smarts.

    ``There is not a day that goes by that I don't think about the people
    who got hurt in that car accident. I feel awful, I really do.''


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  1 15:37:15 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 10:37:15 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Gawker: Monica's Comeback
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502011034410.11285@panix1.panix.com>

Soho House Showdown: Monica Lewinsky Vs. Chelsea Clinton
http://www.gawker.com/news/culture/nightlife/soho-house-showdown-monica-lewinsky-vs-chelsea-clinton-028999.php

    chelsea.JPG A reader sends us a very special Page Six sighting:

      Chelsea Clinton and Monica Lewinsky in Soho House last night at
      different ends of the lounge.

    Whoa. We didn't know Soho House was still open! And we can only
    imagine how things went down in the ladies' room:

      Monica: Um, this is awkward.
      Chelsea: Yeah.
      Monica: Come on, Chelsea--can't we get past this? Aren't we ever
      going to be friends?
      Chelsea: No, Monica. You humped my dad's Cristo.
      Monica: But I brought [3]analingus to the forefront of national
      consciousness. Surely that's helped things with you and Ian!
      Chelsea: Stay the hell away from my boyfriend.

    [4]Sightings... [Page Six]

    ? [6]Monica Lewinsky

    ? [7]Monica Lewinsky, reality TV show host

    ? [8]Monica Lewinsky Continues To Make The Universe Collapse

    ? [9]Chelsea Clinton at "McKinney"

    ? [10]"I love Chelsea Clinton"

    ? [11]Soho House NY

    ? [12]more...

    ? [13]Back to Gawker front page

    [14]Front Page

email

    [15]"tips at gawker.com" , or AIM [16]gawkbox

[17]Published by Gawker Media

References

    3. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/icreport/7groundsfoot.htm
    4. http://www.nypost.com/seven/01062005/gossip/37735.htm
    5. http://www.gawker.com/topic/advertising-010293.php
    6. http://www.gawker.com/news/unused/urges/monica-lewinsky-011930.php
    7. http://www.gawker.com/news/unused/diary/monica-lewinsky-reality-tv-show-host-011661.php
    8. http://www.gawker.com/news/unused/entertainment/monica-lewinsky-continues-to-make-the-universe-collapse-023039.php
    9. http://www.gawker.com/news/unused/diary/chelsea-clinton-at-mckinney-011083.php
   10. http://www.gawker.com/news/unused/diary/i-love-chelsea-clinton-011685.php
   11. http://www.gawker.com/news/unused/diary/soho-house-ny-010435.php
   12. http://www.gawker.com/news/culture/nightlife/index.php
   13. http://www.gawker.com/
   14. http://www.gawker.com/
   15. mailto:tips at gawker.com

From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  1 15:38:58 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 10:38:58 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: Newt's Comeback
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502011037210.11285@panix1.panix.com>

The New York Times > Books > Books of The Times | 'Winning the Future':
Does Tomorrow Belong to Gingrich's 'Popular Majority'?
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/01/books/01kaku.html
5.2.1
BOOKS OF THE TIMES | 'WINNING THE FUTURE'
Does Tomorrow Belong to Gingrich's 'Popular Majority'?
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI

WINNING THE FUTURE: A 21st Century Contract With America
By Newt Gingrich
243 pages. Regnery. $27.95

    In his sloppy, poorly reasoned new book "Winning the Future," the
    former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich sets up an either/or dynamic
    between "the liberal elite minority" and "the popular majority," and
    makes this aggrieved assertion: "Since the 1960's, the conservative
    majority has been intimidated, manipulated and bullied by the liberal
    minority. The liberal elites who dominate academia, the courts, the
    press and much of the government bureaucracy share an essentially
    European secular-socialist value system. Yet they have set the terms
    of the debate, which is why 'politics as usual' is a losing
    proposition for Americans."

    Never mind that the Republicans currently control the White House and
    both houses of Congress. Never mind that a majority of the nation's
    governors are Republicans and that a majority of Supreme Court
    justices were appointed by Republican presidents. Never mind that Fox
    News further established itself as the dominant cable news network
    last year, outdrawing all of its competitors combined in prime time
    and extending its lead over CNN. Never mind that the Bush
    administration argues the last election gave it a mandate for the war
    in Iraq, or that it is now pushing Social Security reform (of a sort
    supported by Mr. Gingrich) and a conservative agenda on a host of
    social issues.

    Indeed Mr. Gingrich's complaint that "the liberal elite minority is
    winning and the popular majority is losing" suggests that the author
    still has a mindset from the 1980's and early 90's (when his party was
    in the minority and he made a name for himself as a backbench
    revolutionary). It also points to larger problems with this book as a
    whole: the author's fondness for reductive Manichean dichotomies; his
    tendency to ignore facts that might contradict or undermine his
    thesis; and his substitution of attention-grabbing assertions for
    thoughtful analysis.

    Similar problems contributed to Mr. Gingrich's fall from grace in
    1998, when he announced that he was stepping aside as speaker and
    leaving Congress in the wake of unexpected Republican losses in the
    midterm elections.

    It was a fall brought about, in part, by Mr. Gingrich's reputation as
    a polarizing bomb-thrower, his proclivity for overreaching, his
    failure to unite House Republicans around a persuasive agenda and his
    misreading of the public mood about the impeachment of President Bill
    Clinton. Combined with voter anger at the Republicans for the
    budget-related federal shutdowns in 1995 and Mr. Clinton's co-option
    of issues like welfare reform and a balanced budget, these missteps
    helped sink Mr. Gingrich, the man who four years earlier had been
    hailed as a visionary for winning Republican control of Congress with
    a 52-seat pickup and a controversial Contract With America that
    proposed to radically cut back the size of the federal government.

    In "Winning the Future," Mr. Gingrich hops and skips over his earlier
    travails to deliver a kind of updated version of the Contract With
    America, a move that also seems designed as the opening sally in a
    political comeback attempt. Book-tour stops in Iowa and New Hampshire
    are on the author's schedule, and much of the volume reads like a
    platform for a possible 2008 presidential run.

    As with the 1994 Contract With America, Mr. Gingrich here stresses
    less regulation, more free enterprise, lower taxes and fewer
    entitlements. But some chapters suggest that the author is trying to
    reposition himself within the Republican Party: whereas Mr. Gingrich,
    as House speaker, was more identified with tax cutters than with
    social conservatives and the religious right, he includes an entire
    chapter in this volume about "the centrality of our Creator in
    defining America" (in which he rails against what he calls "the
    secular left's unending war against God in America's public life"). He
    vigorously endorses President Bush's plan to export democracy to the
    Middle East (he calls it "the only strategy that can make America
    secure"), but acknowledges the alarming inadequacies of the
    administration's postwar planning: "Iraq is a mess," he writes. "It is
    going to remain a mess for a long time."

    Like his 1995 book "To Renew America," this volume is replete with
    windy talk about big, ambitious plans (in this case, remaking health
    care and the Social Security system) but short on details,
    slip-sliding over counter arguments and practical impediments to his
    vision. Mr. Gingrich calls for an intelligence community "about three
    times the size of the current system," but fails to explain how this
    would be paid for, how it would be organized or how current problems
    (from the F.B.I.'s failed computer systems to interagency turf wars)
    would be corrected. He writes at length about the difficulties faced
    by the current Social Security system, but fails to apply equal
    scrutiny to the risks and costs involved in setting up personal
    investment accounts.

    On other subjects, Mr. Gingrich settles for chirpy, Pollyanna-ish
    assertions and fuzzy musings about the sort of technological change he
    has long championed. On health care and balancing the budget, he
    writes: "We must transform the health system so people can live longer
    and healthier lives while taking 20 percent out of the cost of the
    system. We can achieve this through the efficiencies of information
    technology, and by the kind of waste reduction and productivity
    increases that have been common in manufacturing for the last 30 years
    and in service industries for the last 15 years."

    Many of Mr. Gingrich's arguments are riddled with gaps in logic. While
    he repeatedly ratifies the presidency of George W. Bush in this book,
    he complains that the Supreme Court - which effectively decided the
    presidential election of 2000 - has become a mechanism by which
    "appointed lawyers can redefine the meaning of the U.S. Constitution
    and the policies implemented under that Constitution either by
    inventing rationales out of thin air or by citing whatever foreign
    precedent they think helpful." He adds that "this is not a judiciary
    in the classic sense, but a proto-dictatorship of the elite pretending
    to still function as a Supreme Court," and yet he cites overrulings
    and reversals by the Supreme Court to try to impugn decisions made by
    the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which he scorns even more.

    This same chapter, "Bringing the Courts Back Under the Constitution,"
    is filled with vintage Gingrichian bomblets sure to provoke talk. He
    asserts that "there is significant precedent in American history for
    believing that the legislative and executive branches can force the
    judicial branch into changing its views when they are out of touch
    with the values of the vast majority of Americans." And he argues that
    "Ninth Circuit judges who found the motto 'one nation under God'
    unconstitutional could be considered unfit to serve and be impeached."

    These are the sorts of pronouncements that won Mr. Gingrich attention
    as a minority firebrand before the 1994 elections, but they are also
    the sorts of pronouncements that got him into trouble as speaker of
    the House. He seems to be hoping that this time they will help him
    assume the moniker of the Democratic president he was so obsessed
    with: the Comeback Kid.


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  1 15:49:29 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 10:49:29 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: Law Barring Junk E-Mail Allows a Flood Instead
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502011048020.11285@panix1.panix.com>

The New York Times > Technology > Law Barring Junk E-Mail Allows a Flood Instead
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/01/technology/01spam.html
5.2.1

    By TOM ZELLER Jr.

    A year after a sweeping federal antispam law went into effect, there
    is more junk e-mail on the Internet than ever, and Levon Gillespie,
    according to [1]Microsoft, is one reason.

    Lawyers for the company seemed well on the way to shutting down Mr.
    Gillespie last September after he agreed to meet them at a
    [2]Starbucks in Los Angeles near the University of Southern
    California. There they served him a court summons and a lawsuit
    accusing him, his Web site and 50 unnamed customers of violating state
    and federal law - including the year-old federal Can Spam Act - by
    flooding Microsoft's internal and customer e-mail networks with
    illegal spam, among other charges.

    But that was the last the company saw of the young entrepreneur.

    Mr. Gillespie, who operated a service that gives bulk advertisers
    off-shore shelter from the antispam crusade, did not show up last
    month for a court hearing in King County, Wash. The judge issued a
    default judgment against him in the amount of $1.4 million.

    In a telephone interview yesterday from his home in Los Angeles, Mr.
    Gillespie, 21, said he was unaware of the judgment and that no one
    from Microsoft or the court had yet followed up. But he insisted that
    he had done nothing wrong and vowed that lawsuits would not stop him -
    nor any of the other players in the lucrative spam chain.

    "There's way too much money involved," Mr. Gillespie said, noting that
    his service, which is currently down, provided him with a six-figure
    income at its peak. "And if there's money to be made, people are going
    to go out and get it."

    Since the Can Spam Act went into effect in January 2004, unsolicited
    junk e-mail on the Internet has come to total perhaps 80 percent or
    more of all e-mail sent, according to most measures. That is up from
    50 percent to 60 percent of all e-mail before the law went into
    effect.

    To some antispam crusaders, the surge comes as no surprise. They had
    long argued that the law would make the spam problem worse by
    effectively giving bulk advertisers permission to send junk e-mail as
    long as they followed certain rules.

    "Can Spam legalized spamming itself," said Steve Linford, the founder
    of the Spamhaus Project, a London organization that is one of the
    leading groups intent on eliminating junk e-mail. And in making spam
    legal, he said, the new rules also invited flouting by those intent on
    being outlaws.

    Not everyone agrees that the Can Spam law is to blame, and lawsuits
    invoking the new legislation - along with other suits using state laws
    - have been mounted in the name of combating the problem. Besides
    Microsoft, other large Internet companies like AOL and [3]Yahoo have
    used the federal law as the basis for suits.

    Two prolific spam distributors, Jeremy D. Jaynes and Jessica DeGroot,
    were convicted under a Virginia antispam law in November, and a $1
    billion judgment was issued in an Iowa federal court against three
    spam marketers in December.

    The law's chief sponsor, Senator Conrad Burns, Republican of Montana,
    said that it was too soon to judge the law's effectiveness, although
    he indicated in an e-mail message that the Federal Trade Commission,
    which oversees its enforcement, might simply need some nudging.

    "As we progress into the next legislative session," Mr. Burns said,
    "I'll be working to make sure the F.T.C. utilizes the tools now in
    place to enforce the act and effectively stem the tide of this
    burden."

    The F.T.C. has made some recent moves that include winning a court
    order in January to shut down illegal advertising from six companies
    accused of profiting from thousands of X-rated spam e-mail messages.
    But so far, the spam trade has foiled most efforts to bring it under
    control.

    A growing number of so-called bulletproof Web host services like Mr.
    Gillespie's offer spam-friendly merchants access to stable offshore
    computer servers - most of them in China - where they can park their
    Web sites, with the promise that they will not be shut down because of
    spam complaints.

    Some bulk e-mailers have also teamed with writers of viruses to steal
    lists of working e-mail addresses and quietly hijack the personal
    computers of millions of unwitting Internet users, creating the
    "zombie networks" that now serve, according to some specialists, as
    the de facto circulatory system for spam.

    "We've thrown everything but the kitchen sink at this problem," said
    Chris Smith, the senior director of product marketing for Postini, a
    company that filters e-mail for corporations. "And yet, all of these
    efforts have yet to make a significant dent."

    Mr. Smith was speaking in a conference call with reporters last week
    to discuss Postini's 2005 e-mail security report, which echoed the
    bleak findings of recent academic surveys and statistics from other
    vendors that filter and monitor e-mail traffic.

    A survey from Stanford University in December showed that a typical
    Internet user now spends about 10 working days a year dealing with
    incoming spam. Industry analysts estimate that the global cost of spam
    to businesses in 2005, in terms of lost productivity and network
    maintenance, will be about $50 billion ($17 billion in the United
    States alone). And the Postini report concluded that most legislative
    measures - in the United States, Europe and Australia - have had
    little impact on the problem.

    The American law requires solicitations to be identified as such in
    the subject line and prohibits the use of fake return addresses, among
    other restrictions. But the real soft spot in the American law,
    critics have argued, is that it puts a burden on recipients to choose
    to be removed from an e-mailers list - an "opt out" feature that bulk
    mailers are obligated by the law to provide. (The European and
    Australian systems requires bulk mailers, in most cases, to receive
    "opt in" authorization from recipients.)

    While a law-abiding bulk mailer under the American law might remove a
    person from its list, critics say, the scofflaw spammer simply takes
    an opt-out message as verification that the e-mail address is current
    and has a live person behind it.

    "Any spammer worth his salt is not going to follow Can Spam," said
    Scott Petry, Postini's founder and senior vice president for products
    and engineering, "because it would be filtered out immediately."

    Defenders of the Can Spam Act say blaming any one law is far too
    simple.

    "Most people say it's a miserable failure," said Anne Mitchell, who
    helped draft the legislation and is the chief executive of the
    Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy, a research group in
    California. "But I see it as a lawyer would see it. To think that law
    enforcement agencies can make spam stop right away is silly. There's
    no such thing as an instant fix in the law."

    She and others note that filtering software has become particularly
    adept at catching the vast majority of spam before it ever gets to a
    user's in-box. Legitimate e-mail messages do sometimes get caught in
    such nets - a drawback that generates its own chorus of complaints.
    But some specialists have also suggested that the overall success of
    identifying and weeding out junk e-mail from in-boxes may actually
    help explain the current surge in spam.

    "The more effective the filtering technology," Ms. Mitchell said, "the
    more spam they have to send to get the same dollar rate of return."

    Those rates of return can be staggeringly high (and the costs of entry
    into the market relatively low).

    A spammer can often expect to receive anywhere from a 25 percent to a
    50 percent commission on any sales of a product that result from a
    spam campaign, according to a calculus developed by Richi Jennings, an
    Internet security analyst with Ferris Research, a technology industry
    consulting firm.

    Even if only 2,000 of 200 million recipients of a spam campaign - a
    single day's response rate for some spammers - actually go to a
    merchant's Web site to purchase a $50 bottle of an herbal supplement,
    a spammer working at a 25 percent commission will take in $25,000. If
    a spammer makes use of anonymous virus-enslaved computers to spread
    the campaign, expenses like bandwidth payments to Internet service
    providers are low - as is the likelihood of anyone's tracking down who
    pushed the "send" button.

    The overlapping and truly global networks of spam-friendly merchants,
    e-mail list resellers, virus-writers and bulk e-mailing services have
    made identifying targets for prosecution a daunting process. Merchants
    whose links actually appear in junk e-mail are often dozens of steps
    and numerous deals removed from the spammers, Mr. Jennings said, and
    proving culpability "is just insanely difficult."

    The new federal law does give prosecutors some leverage to go after
    the merchants - but it must be proved that they knew, or should have
    known, that their wares were being fed into the illegal spam chain.

    "We wait to see a real test case of that," Mr. Jennings said.

    In the meantime, analysts predict, more viruses will commandeer more
    personal computers as zombie spam transmitters - which besides free
    relays give spammers a thicker cloak of anonymity. Mr. Jennings
    estimates that hijacked machines handle 50 percent of the spam stream,
    and other analysts have put the percentage higher.

    Analysts also expect more use of virus bombs - called directory
    harvest attacks - to wrest working e-mail addresses from Internet
    service providers. "It's the silent killer of e-mail servers," Mr.
    Smith of Postini said.

    And bulletproof services like Mr. Gillespie's and another,
    [4]Buprhost.com, are intent on continuing to offer spam-friendly
    merchants a haven from antispam complaints, starting at $89 a month.

    "If your Web site host receives complaints or discovers that your Web
    site has been advertised in e-mail broadcasts, they may disconnect
    your account and shut down your Web site," explains Buprhost.com,
    which promises no such disruptions. "The reason we can do this is that
    we put your Web site in our overseas server where the local law will
    protect your Web sites."

    "It's very simple," Mr. Petry of Postini said of the junk e-mail
    scourge. "Spam is technically very easy to send."

    Which is why, according to Aaron Kornblum, Microsoft's Internet safety
    enforcement lawyer, suits against spam enablers like Mr. Gillespie are
    an important, if incremental, new front to pursue.

    "Microsoft's efforts in filing these lawsuits is to stop spammers -
    and in this case hosting services that cater to spammers - from plying
    their trade," said Mr. Kornblum, who noted that Microsoft was working
    to enforce the $1.4 million judgment against Mr. Gillespie.

    "Our objective with sustained enforcement activity is to change the
    economics of spamming, making it a cost-prohibitive business model
    rather than a profitable one."

References

    1. http://www.nytimes.com/redirect/marketwatch/redirect.ctx?MW=http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom/nyt-com/html-companyprofile.asp&symb=MSFT
    2. http://www.nytimes.com/redirect/marketwatch/redirect.ctx?MW=http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom/nyt-com/html-companyprofile.asp&symb=SBUX
    3. http://www.nytimes.com/redirect/marketwatch/redirect.ctx?MW=http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom/nyt-com/html-companyprofile.asp&symb=YHOO
    4. http://Buprhost.com/


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  1 15:50:21 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 10:50:21 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] J. Studies in Int. Ed.: Wine Is for Drinking,
 Water Is for Washing:
 Student Opinions About International Exchange Programs
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502011049500.11285@panix1.panix.com>

Wine Is for Drinking, Water Is for Washing: Student Opinions About
International Exchange Programs

First, the summary from The Chronicle of Higher Education:

A glance at the current issue of
the "Journal of Studies in International Education":
What students value about studying abroad

Students value their study-abroad experiences, but more for the
experience than the study, say two scholars at Pennsylvania
State University at University Park.

Hubert B. Van Hoof, a professor of hospitality management, and
Marja J. Verbeeten, an assistant professor of hospitality
management, surveyed college students who had participated in
international-study programs, including foreign students who had
studied in the United States. The authors found that the
students felt "almost unanimous enthusiasm" for their experience
in terms of their personal development.

Students said they felt that the experience "had brought them a
greater understanding of other cultures" and "had helped them
appreciate their own culture more," the scholars write.

When asked what advice they would give other students
considering studying abroad, the survey respondents' most common
answers "were along the lines of 'Do it!'; 'You'll regret it if
you don't!'; 'Experience as much as possible'; and 'Keep an open
mind.'"

Mr. Van Hoof and Ms. Verbeeten urge more such research to see
what students are getting out of their studies abroad. "It is no
longer sufficient," they write, "for educators to say that the
international-study experience is invaluable and necessary in
the education of our students because they think it is so."

The article, "Wine Is for Drinking, Water Is for Washing:
Student Opinions About International Exchange Programs,"
will be online for a limited time at
http://jsi.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/9/1/42

-----------------------

Wine Is for Drinking, Water Is for Washing: Student Opinions About
International Exchange Programs
Hubert B. Van Hoof Marja J. Verbeeten
Journal of Studies in International Education, Vol. 9 No. 1, Spring 2005
42-61

This article reports on a study done among students who participated in
student exchange programs, both in the United States and other parts of
the world, between January 2001 and May 2003. Issues such as why
students decide to study abroad, why they select a certain institution,
how their home institution compares to a partner institution abroad, and
what they consider to be the relevance of their international experience
were investigated. Students agreed with the literature on the topic to a
large extent and were very positive about the experience. Some
interesting differ?ences of opinion between incoming (to United States)
and outgoing (from United States) students were observed.

Keywords: study abroad; exchange programs; international education

When Penny Barend, a 3rd-year hospitality management student at
North?ern Arizona University, arrived in Italy for a year of studies at
the American International University in Florence, she did so with an
open mind. Peers, par?ents, and professors had told her that this was
going to be the best experience of her life and that living and studying
in Italy were going to be very different from living and studying in
Arizona. Different, she had been told, is not better or worse-it is just
different.
When she sat down for dinner with her host family on her very first
night, she asked for some water with her meal, a common request in the
United States. Yet, the response she got from a 75-year-old Italian was
not what she had expected: "Wine is for drinking, water is for washing,"
he said. With this, she was wel?comed to the world of living and
studying abroad, and this incident stuck with her and became the theme
of her valedictorian speech at her graduation cere-
mony 3 years later. She will always look upon a glass of water in a
different light, as will many who heard her speech.
Over the years, we have published several articles on the benefits of
students living, working, and studying abroad (Van Hoof, 1999a, 2000,
2001) and have related these experiences to the benefits of
international education as identified in the literature on the topic.
The most common benefit identified is the student's exposure to
different social and cultural environments (Arndt, 1984; Calleja, 1995;
Lamey, 1990; Saliba, 1995; Swanson, 1969). Also mentioned is the fact
that living in another culture changes one's stereotypes of other
nationalities (Stangor, Jonas, Stroebe, & Hewstone, 1994) and that it
presents one with an alternative view of the world (Remy, Nathan,
Becker, & Torney, 1975). Students acquire a "new-found recognition of
the extent to which their own cultural val?ues and norms differ from
those of their counterparts in their host country"(Rob-erts, 1998, p.
65). That this does not necessarily lead to a truly global perspective
is lamented by some (Anderson, 1990; Van Spaandonck, 1995) but is to be
expected, given the age and maturity levels of the students. Yet, it has
also been found that students who participate in exchange programs tend
to be a little more mature than their peers who did not study abroad
(Frisch, 1990).
The literature has highlighted the role of these international programs
in shaping a rounded, culturally sensitive individual, which happens to
be one of the guiding principles of higher education around the world.
As Vestal (1994) states, "These programs are commonly based on the
conviction that quality edu?cation must reflect and encompass knowledge
of diverse societies and cultures as well as the realities of global
interdependence" (p. 15). As such, they fit in well with the drive to
internationalize, which dominates university campuses across the globe
nowadays (Barnett & Wu, 1995; Lawson, White, & Dimitriadis, 1998; Van
Hoof, 1996). A concrete example of this drive to internationalizeis
Harvard University, where students are now expected to have a passport
(which is still not common in the United States), and where
internationalization has been made one of the cornerstones of curricular
developments at the university.
It is safe to assume that the most important benefits of international
education have been identified and that, as De Wit (1997) stated some 6
years ago, the time is ripe to move from the descriptive phase to a more
analytical phase in the study of international education. In 1999, we
analyzed the opinions of U.S. industry recruiters concerning a student's
international experience and found that they did not value the
international experience very highly (Van Hoof, 1999b). This article
reports on a study done among students who participated in exchange
programs. The intent of the study was to compare student opinions about
inter?national exchange programs to those expressed in the literature
and to investi?gate what students saw as the biggest benefits and
challenges of the experience, why they decided to go abroad, how the
education they received abroad com?pared to that at their home
institutions, and what, in their minds, the relevance of the experience
was to their personal and professional development.

METHOD AND DATA COLLECTION

The survey that provided the data for the study was conducted during the
months of March, April, and May 2003 among 1,487 undergraduate students
in the database of the International Office at Northern Arizona
University. These students had studied abroad during the period of
January 2001 to May 2003, were either incoming (to the United States) or
outgoing (from the United States), and represented numerous majors and
disciplines, as well as various age levels.

Questionnaire Design

The questionnaire was designed to gain insights into the perceptions of
stu?dents about their study abroad experiences. As stated earlier, its
intent was to determine whether students corroborated the opinions
expressed in the literature on international education. The payoffs of
international education as identified in the literature can be
summarized as follows: (a) exposure to different social and cultural
environments; (b) changing of stereotypes that might exist; and (c)
students become more mature because they live in other cultures and
become well-rounded, culturally sensitive adults. Questions such as,
"Why did you decide to study abroad as an exchange student?" "What do
you consider the greatest benefit of studying abroad?" and "What do you
consider the greatest challenge of studying abroad?" for instance,
directly addressed some of these issues (see Appendix).
Of secondary relevance was the fact that this survey provided the
administra?tors and educators at this particular university with
valuable information about their own performance in educating and taking
care of international students, as well as with information about their
exchange partners.
It was decided to use a Web-based survey format in this study. The
primary reason for doing so was that it could be distributed to a large
target audience at a much lower cost and more quickly than a traditional
survey (Couper, 2000; Schonland & Williams, 1996). Moreover, data
collection and conversion could be done automatically, and the target
audience could be encouraged by meansof a personal e-mail message. Its
most important benefits, though, were the conve?nience for both the
respondents and the researchers and the fact that it was felt that
respondents in this particular age group would be more likely to respond
to an electronic format than to any of the more traditional survey
tools.
An important concern about Web surveys is their low response rate,
espe?cially when sent out to the general population (Schaefer & Dillman,
1998; Tse, 1998). Yet, in this case, the population under study was
relatively small, and its members could be reached at their personal
e-mail addresses. It was expected that these students would be
interested in sharing their opinions about their semester abroad
experiences, which was supported by the relatively high response rate
obtained.
The questionnaire was a four-page, self-administered instrument (see
Appen?dix). It was estimated that it would take respondents about 10
minutes to com?plete. Most of the questions were closed-ended, requiring
a choice from a num?ber of alternatives presented.
In the first part of the survey, respondents were asked to provide
demographic information. They were asked to provide information about
their gender, their country of origin, the country where they had
studied abroad, the institution they had studied at, their academic
status (freshman, sophomore, etc.), their majors at their home
institution and at their exchange institution, and how long theyhad
studied abroad.
The second part of the survey was divided into six sections and examined
the students' perceptions about their international studies and
experiences. In the first section, two questions asked them what their
reasons were for studying abroad and why they had selected the
institution in particular. They were asked to compare their exchange
programs to their home institutions by means of rat?ing them on a
5-point Likert-type scale. The questions looked at (a) academic level of
difficulty, (b) care for their general needs as students, (c) housing
arrangements, and (d) overall levels of organization and structure at
the exchange institution.
The third section examined what they liked most and least about their
exchange institution and what they perceived to be the main difference
between studying at home and abroad. Three questions (once again on a
5-point scale)in the fourth section then asked them to rate the
relevance of their semester abroad to future job opportunities, their
academic program at home, and their own per?sonal development.
The fifth section contained four questions. The first two asked the
respon?dents if they would study abroad again at the same institution
and if they would study abroad again at another institution. Then they
rated the overall quality of the academic program abroad and how they
felt about the overall experience. The final section then asked them to
describe what they felt were the greatest benefits and challenges of
studying abroad and what advice they would give to students who were
also considering studying abroad. This was done in an open-ended format.


Sample Design, Data Collection, and Limitations
Sample design. As stated earlier, all 1,487 undergraduate students who
were in the database of the International Office at Northern Arizona
University were selected to participate in this study for the following
reasons:

1. The database was readily available and up-to-date at the university's
International Office, with e-mail addresses of all the respondents being
part of the database;

2. The International Office was very willing to participate in the
study, as they would obtain valuable information about their own
performance at the university they represented;

3. The students' interest in the topic and their willingness to complete
the survey were expected to be high, due to the nature of the
experience;

4. Respondents could be contacted easily by means of e-mail.

Data collection. On February 26, 2003, a letter signed by both the
director of the International Office at Northern Arizona University and
the researchers was sent to a pilot group of 60 students. In the letter,
the respondents were requested to cooperate and were directed to a Web
site that contained the survey. One week later, 40 pilot group
respondents had completed the survey. As there were no major adjustments
to be made based on the feedback from the pilot group, the letter was
then sent to all the remaining students in the database on March 7,
2003, by means of e-mail. On March 24, 2003, a reminder was sent out.
The Web site with the survey was kept open until the end of the spring
2003 semester, May 9, 2003. At that time, a total of 353 students had
responded to the survey, a 23.74% response. Given the concern that Web
surveys generally tend to generate a low response rate, this was deemed
very good.
Limitations. The main limitation of this study is the fact that it was
based on a database of students at only one university. All outgoing
students studied at one of the 10 colleges and schools at Northern
Arizona University, and all incoming stu?dents came to the university
from its established network of partners abroad. Opin?ions therefore say
more about Northern Arizona University and its foreign partners than
about other universities, and the results cannot be generalized beyond
the scope of the study. Yet, with incoming students coming from 22
different countries, outgo?ing students going to 23 different countries,
and more than 50 different majors repre?sented in the sample, the
results can be considered characteristic of some general ten?dencies and
representative of opinions of students worldwide.
This article will first discuss the demographic data and the descriptive
results of the analyses. After that, it will look at the outcomes of
various comparative analyses and describe whether any observed
differences between groups in the descriptive section were significant.
Finally, it will summarize some of the pre?dominant opinions about the
benefits and challenges of studying abroad and offer some suggestions
for further research. All data analyses were done using SPSS 11.0.

DESCRIPTIVE RESULTS

Demographics

Of the 353 students who responded to the survey, 250 (70.8%) were female
and 103 (29.2%) were male. As stated earlier, these students came from
22 dif?ferent countries, with a large majority coming from the United
States (80.7%). Among these outgoing American students, the largest
numbers went to such countries as the Netherlands, Germany, the United
Kingdom, Spain, Australia, and Mexico. But there were also students who
went to Costa Rica, Chile, Malta, Korea, Japan, Ireland, Italy, Russia,
China, and Sweden, for instance.
Among the incoming students, Germany and the Netherlands were most
heavily represented in the sample. Examples of other countries
represented were the United Kingdom, Australia, Mexico, Spain, France,
Czech Republic, China, Malaysia, Bulgaria, Belgium, and the Ukraine. Of
course, these countries of ori?gin reflect the international contacts of
the university. Yet, they are also indica?tive of the multitude of
nationalities in the sample.
A large majority (93.7%) of the respondents were juniors (3rd year) or
seniors (4th year) at their home institutions, reflecting a trend among
universi?ties not to send students abroad very early on in their
academic careers. The num?ber of majors represented was considerable,
with more than 50 distinctly differ?ent majors or fields of study being
identified. These majors ranged from business and management to art,
from chemistry to education, from languageto history, and from ceramics
to journalism. Most of the respondents had studied abroad for one
semester (63.0%), with the remainder either going for two semes?ters
(28.7%) or three or more (8.3%) (see Table 1).

Reasons for Studying Abroad

In the first section of the survey, the respondents were asked why they
had decided to study abroad and were requested to rank a number of
distinctly different reasons in order of importance. The three most
important reasons for studying abroad identified were as follows:

1. It is/was a good opportunity to live in another culture;

2. It is/was a good opportunity to travel;

3. I liked the country my exchange program was located in.

Table 1 Student Demographics (N = 353)
N  Valid %
Gender
Male  103  29.2
Female  250  70.8
Incoming/outgoinga
Incoming  32  9.1
Outgoing  321  90.9
Academic statusa
Freshman  3  .9
Sophomore  17  5.3
Junior  98  30.5
Senior  203  63.2
Durationa
One semester  213  63.0
Two semesters  97  28.7
Three or more semesters  28  8.3

a. Total N is not 353 because of missing values for the variable.
When asked why they had selected the particular institution abroad, the
three most important reasons were as follows:

1. It was available as a partner at my home institution;

2. I liked the country the program was located in;

3. People I know also go/went there.

Assessments: Academics, Care, Housing, and Organization at the Receiving
Institution
In four questions, the survey then asked the respondents to rate the
academic level of difficulty, care for their needs as a student,
housing, and organization/ structure at the exchange institution as
compared to their home institution. This was done on a 5-point
Likert-type scale, with 1 being much worse/much easier,3 being
same,and5being much better/much more difficult. This scale was
primar?ily used to allow for comparative analysis of opinions later.
A majority of the respondents (59.0%) felt that the academic level of
diffi?culty of the program abroad was the same (25.5%) or easier (33.5%)
as com?pared to their home institutions, whereas 41.0% felt that
academics were more demanding abroad. The mean rating was 3.02, with a
standard deviation of 1.05. In terms of the care they received for their
needs as students (such as staff avail?ability, academic advising, and
counseling), 39.2% of them rated it as better, 30.0% felt it was the
same, and 30.8% felt it was worse than at home, a very even distribution
(M = 3.08, SD = 1.18).
Housing is always a major concern for students when they go abroad, and
not only for them but also, for instance, for their parents. In this
case, 45.2% of the respondents felt that their housing arrangements were
better than at home, 25.7% felt it was the same, and only 29.2% felt
they were worse than at home (M =3.25, SD = 1.07). Finally, when asked
how they assessed the overall level of structure and organization at
their exchange institution, 26.4% rated it as better, 33.0% felt it was
the same, and 42.6% thought it was worse than at home (M = 2.81, SD =
1.12) (see Table 2).

Relevance of the Experience

Three questions asked the respondents to rate the relevance of their
interna?tional experience to future job opportunities, the academic
program at their home institution, and their own personal development.
It is reasonable to assume that it would be difficult for students at
this stage of their lives to assessthe rele?vance of the international
experience on future job opportunities and their own personal
development accurately. Yet, these questions were included for various
reasons. First, the answers to these questions could be used to
reinforce opinions expressed in other questions about the importance the
study abroad respondents attach to the experience. Second, the answers
could also be used to provide some insight into whether young adults
think about the consequences of their interna?tional experience to their
personal and professional lives and place the experi?ence in a much
broader perspective. Third, the answers to these questions could be
compared to opinions expressed in the literature.
Ratings were on a 5-point scale again, with 1 being completely
irrelevant,3 being relevant,and5being extremely relevant. When asked to
rate the relevance of the experience to their future job opportunities,
58.1% of the students rated it as very or extremely relevant, 33.1%
rated it relevant, and only 8.9% felt itwas irrelevant (M = 3.75, SD =
.98). With regard to their academic program at home, the ratings were
48.5% very or extremely relevant, 37.5% relevant, and 14.0% irrelevant
(M = 3.52, SD = 1.06). Yet, when it came to determining what it had
meant to their personal development, the respondents were most
enthusiastic: 67.7% considered it extremely relevant, 23.0% felt it was
very relevant, and only 2 respondents (.6%) considered it irrelevant.
This almost unanimous enthusi?asm was reflected in the mean rating of
4.57 and a standard deviation of .69 (see Table 3).
Table 2 Student Assessment of Academic Difficulty, Care, Housing, and
Organization: Exchange Institution Compared to Home Institution
Exchange Program Compared to Home  Na  Valid %  M/SD
Academic level of difficulty
Much easier  28  7.9  M: 3.02
Easier  82  24.9  SD: 1.05
Same  84  25.5
More difficult  124  37.7
Much more difficult  11  3.3
Level of care for your general needs
Much worse  39  11.8  M: 3.08
Worse  63  19.1  SD: 1.18
Same  99  30.0
Better  91  27.6
Much better  38  11.5
Housing arrangements
Much worse  10  3.1  M: 3.25
Worse  85  26.0  SD: 1.07
Same  84  25.7
Better  108  33.0
Much better  40  12.2
Overall level of organization/structure
Much worse  42  12.7  M: 2.81
Worse  92  27.9  SD: 1.12
Same  109  33.0
Better  62  18.8
Much better  25  7.6

a. Total N is not 353 because of missing values for the variable.

Would You Do It Again?
Under the heading of "Would you do it again?" the respondents' opinions
and feelings about their semesters abroad were further analyzed. They
were asked, if it were possible, whether they would study abroad again
at the same institution and at another institution. Moreover, they had
the option here to indicate why they would or would not choose to repeat
the experience, providing important information on the quality of the
programs and the experience to organizersof those programs.
Two thirds (61.1%) of the respondents indicated that they would study
again at the same institution, and 95.0% of them said that they would
study abroad again at another institution-a ringing endorsement, yet
more so for the study abroad experience than for the institution they
studied at. A sampling of the rea?
Table 3 The Relevance of the Study Abroad Experience
Relevance of Semester Abroad Experience to  Na  Valid %  M/SD
Future job opportunities
Completely irrelevant  4  1.4  M: 3.75
Irrelevant  22  7.4  SD: 0.98
Relevant  98  33.1
Very relevant  91  30.7
Extremely relevant  81  27.4
Academic program at home
Completely irrelevant  12  4.0  M: 3.52
Irrelevant  30  10.0  SD: 1.06
Relevant  112  37.5
Very relevant  82  27.4
Extremely relevant  63  21.1
Your personal development
Completely irrelevant  1  .3  M: 4.57
Irrelevant  1  .3  SD: 0.69
Relevant  26  8.7
Very relevant  69  23.0
Extremely relevant  203  67.7

a. Total N is not 353 because of missing values for the variable.
sons for not wanting to go back to the same school includes such
comments as "courses are irrelevant," "been there, done that," "I got
bored there," "too unor?ganized," and "I would like to get a broader
perspective and experience something new."
By the same token, some of the reasons that students overwhelmingly
endorsed the experience rather than the individual programs were, "the
dynam?ics of an exchange teach you a lot," "I realize there are more
opportunities now," and "my personal development was incredible, and I
want to see more."

Overall Ratings
Finally, when it was time to ask for some overall assessments, the
respondents looked at the overall quality of the academic program they
did abroad, and the overall quality of the experience in general, on a
scale where 1 = very poor,3= neutral,and5= outstanding. As became
apparent throughout all of the other questions, the study abroad
experience was perceived as having a much larger effect on the students'
personal developments than on their academic careers, as 71.9% of them
rated the overall quality of the academic program as good or
out?standing (M = 3.84, SD = .92). Nearly all of them (96.2%) felt that
the quality of the overall study abroad experience was good or
outstanding (M = 4.65, SD = .57).

COMPARATIVE RESULTS
To determine if any of the observed differences of opinion were
significant, t tests were used to compare the groups. The groups
compared in this sample were males and females, and incoming versus
outgoing students, which was by far the most important comparison.

The Effect of Gender on Perceptions
The study first looked at whether the gender of the respondent had any
signifi?cant effect on his or her perceptions about the study abroad
experience. As there were two groups separated based on the value of a
single variable (male-female), and as the level of data provided by the
questions using the 5-point Likert-type scale was ordinal, this analysis
was done by means of t tests. In all instances, the null hypotheses
assumed that the population means were equal, and the alpha levelwas
setat.05.
The study found only one significant difference of opinion between male
and female students. It was found that female students rated the level
of care for their personal needs as a student at the exchange
institution significantly higher than males. With a significance score
of .050, the null hypothesis of equality of mean ratings could be
rejected. In none of the other questions was there a significant
difference of opinions between males and females (see Table 4).
Although hardly any of the differences of opinion were found to be
signifi?cant, a closer look at the mean ratings of males and females, as
expressed in Table 4, shows that in all cases, the female ratings were
higher than those ofthe males, suggesting that female students were
generally more appreciative of many of the aspects of the study abroad
experience than males.

The Effect of Incoming Versus Outgoing
The obvious and most important comparison this study performed was to
look at the differences of opinion between incoming and outgoing
students. Once again, t tests were used to determine if any of the
differences of opinions were significant. The alpha level was set at
.05, and the null hypotheses assumed equality of mean ratings.
In this case, the study noticed several significant differences of
opinion between the two groups. First, it was found that incoming
students rated the overall quality of the academic programs in the
United States significantly lower
Table 4 Effect of Gender on Perceptions
Exchange Program Compared to Home  Na  M  SD  F  Sig.
Academic level of difficulty
Male  96  2.93  .976  .698  .404
Female  229  3.07  1.084
Level of care for your general needs
Male  96  3.06  1.103  3.862  .050**
Female  230  3.10  1.220
Housing arrangements
Male  93  3.12  1.051  .213  .645
Female  230  3.31  1.073
Overall level of organization/structure
Male  96  2.75  1.086  .057  .811
Female  230  2.83  1.122
Relevance of Semester
Abroad Experience to  Na  M  SD  F  Sig.
Future job opportunities
Male  87  3.62  .967  .239  .626
Female  206  3.81  .988
Academic program at home
Male  87  3.46  .986  1.376  .242
Female  209  3.53  1.083
Personal development
Male  87  4.47  .696  1.795  .181
Female  210  4.61  .692
Rate the quality of the academic
program you did abroad
Male  84  3.71  .964  1.029  .311
Female  194  3.89  .907
Rate the quality of the overall
experience abroad
Male  84  4.63  .576  .300  .584
Female  197  4.65  .565

a. Total N is not 353 because of missing values for the variable.
**Significant at the .05 level.
than students who had studied outside of the United States (F prob. =
.005). Sec?ond, incoming students rated the quality of the housing
arrangements in the United States significantly higher than their peers
who had studied outside of the United States (F prob. = .004). And
finally, incoming students rated the rele?vance of their semester abroad
experience to their academic program at home significantly higher than
their peers from the United States who had left the country (F prob. =
.17) (see Table 5). The latter was somewhat surprising, given that
incoming students had rated the quality of the academic program
significantly lower at an earlier stage.

CONCLUSION
The study of international education has started to move from a purely
theo?retical and conceptual approach to a more analytical approach, a
sign that inter?national education has not only gained importance as a
field of study but also has become an important part of many university
curricula all over the world. As more and more institutions have begun
to mandate an international experience in the degree programs of their
students, be it in the form of a semester of studies or an industry
internship, more quantitative and qualitative research is needed to
improve the quality of the programs offered and to test the validity of
the assumptions on which those programs are built. It is no longer
sufficient for edu?cators to say that the international study experience
is invaluable and necessary in the education of our students because
they think it is so. These opinions have to be backed up with hard
facts, and we have to move away from mere anecdotal evidence.
There is a wealth of information that needs to be explored empirically,
and this study is only at the very tip of that iceberg. It is important
for the study of international education to start analyzing the
perceptions of the students involved in such programs, not only to
corroborate predominant ideas aboutthe benefits and challenges of
international education but also for purely practical reasons. The
practitioners in the field, those who administer international pro?grams
and maintain international relationships on behalf of their
universities, need to know what students think about their product
offerings. They need tobe aware of consumer sentiments when they market
and sell these programs to future respondents and in making
modifications to existing programs, and those decisions need to be based
on facts.
The results of this study can be used in several ways. They can be used
not only as a means to test the validity of our theoretical assumptions
about interna?tional education, a means to determine whether student
perceptions agree with the literature. It can also be a practical tool
in the day-to-day administration of the exchange programs. Whereas the
results of this study will be of particular interest to the
International Office at Northern Arizona University, the results of
further research and similar studies at other institutions can benefit
practitioners worldwide.
Table 5 Effect of Incoming and Outgoing Status on Perceptions
Exchange Program Compared to Home  Na  M  SD  F  Sig.
Academic level of difficulty
In  26  2.65  1.129  .128  .721
Out  203  3.06  1.039
Level of care for your general needs
In  26  3.08  1.093  .491  .484
Out  304  3.08  1.191
Housing arrangements
In  25  3.32  .802  8.392  .004***
Out  302  3.25  1.088
Overall level of organization/structure
In  26  2.46  .905  1.227  .269
Out  304  2.84  1.128
Relevance of Semester
Abroad Experience to  Na  M  SD  F  Sig.
Future job opportunities
In  23  3.87  1.180  .304  .582
Out  273  3.74  .966
Academic program at home
In  23  3.57  1.343  5.748  .017**
Out  276  3.51  1.032
Personal development
In  24  4.67  .868  .406  .525
Out  276  4.57  .676
Rate the quality of the academic
program you did abroad
In  23  3.39  1.196  8.059  .005***
Out  258  3.88  .888
Rate the quality of the overall
experience abroad
In  23  4.74  .449  2.802  .095
Out  261  4.64  .575

a. Total N is not 353 because of missing values for the variable.
**Significant at the .05 level. *** Significant at the .01 level.
This study found that students generally corroborate what the literature
on the topic has identified as being the most important benefits of
international educa?tion. They felt that an international education
first and foremost benefited them personally and that it helped them in
becoming more mature and worldly adults, compassionate in the face of
cultural difference, and able to live and work in environments that are
dissimilar to what they are used to at home. As might have been
expected, their interest in studying abroad was piqued more by the
location of their host institution and by the ability to travel and see
something of the world than by academics.
Incoming students placed a little more emphasis on the academic aspects
of an international education than outgoing students, it seemed, and
they were more critical of their exchange institution in that regard.
Yet, at the same time they were significantly more impressed with the
structure and housing arrange?ments at their U.S. exchange university,
as compared to what they experienced at their home institutions.
When asked what they saw as the greatest benefits of studying abroad, by
far the most common comments were that it had brought them a greater
understand?ing of other cultures, that it had helped them appreciate
their own culture more, that it enabled them to learn more about
themselves, and that it had enriched them personally. The words and
ideas that came up most often in the many chal?lenges that were
described were sentiments like "adapting," "adjusting,""being away from
home," "breaking stereotypes," "culture shock," "language barrier,"
"managing," "staying patient," and "trying to assimilate." Yet, even
though these were seen as challenges, they are, in many ways, not
negatives at all and valuable to the development of the student, both
personally and academically.
In terms of what advice they would give to students considering going
abroad, the most common answers were along the lines of "Do it!";
"You'll regret it if you don't!"; "Experience as much as possible"; and
"Keep an open mind." What better endorsement for international education
than that? We are doing the right thing in enabling students to live,
work, and study in other cultures and societies and in helping them
understand what water and wine are really for, and our stu?dents agree
with us wholeheartedly.
APPENDIX Survey: Student Perceptions About International Exchange
Programs

Demographic Data
1. What is your gender?
Male Female


2. What is your country of origin?

3. In which country did you spend your study abroad?

Australia Mexico
Chile Netherlands
France Spain
Germany United Kingdom
Ireland USA
Japan Other (please specify)


4. What is the institution you study/studied at as an exchange student?

5. What is your academic status?

Freshman
Sophomore
Junior
Senior


6. What is/was your major at your home institution?

7. What was/is your major at your exchange institution?

8. How long do/did you study abroad?

One semester
Two semesters
More than two semesters


Perceptions
1.
Please rate the following in order of importance (1 = highest, 7 =
lowest) as reasons why you decided to study abroad as an exchange
student.

It could be used as part of my degree program
It is/was a good opportunity to travel
My parents/relatives suggested I should go
I went because I was interested in the academic institution/program
abroad
It was a good opportunity to live in another culture
I liked the country the program was located in
Other (please specify)


2.
Why did you select the particular institution you studied at as an
exchange student?


I had heard of its reputation
People I know also go/went there
I liked the country it is/was located in

It was available as a partner of my home institution
I could not go anywhere else
It was a cheap alternative
Other (please specify)

3.
How would you assess the academic level of difficulty of the exchange
program you participate(d) in, as compared to that of your home
institution?

Much Easier	Easier Same More Difficult Much More Difficult

4.
How would you assess the level of care for your general needs as a
student (academic advising, housing, availability of staff, for
instance) at your exchange institution as compared to your home
institution?

Much Less Less Same Better Much Better

5.
How would you assess the housing arrangements at your exchange
institution as compared to those

at your home institution? Much Worse Worse Same Better Much Better

6.
How would you assess the overall level of organization and structure at
your exchange institution,

as compared to that at your home institution? Much Worse Worse Same
Better Much Better

7.
In general, what do/did you like best about your exchange institution?

8.
In general, what do/did you like least about your exchange institution?

9.
What was the main difference between studying at your home institution
and studying at your exchange institution?

10.
How would you assess the relevance of your semester abroad to your
future job opportunities?

Completely Extremely Irrelevant Irrelevant Relevant Very Relevant
Relevant

11.
How would you assess the relevance of your semester abroad to your
academic program at your home institution?

Completely Extremely Irrelevant Irrelevant Relevant Very Relevant
Relevant

12.
How would you assess the relevance of your semester abroad to your
personal development?

Completely Extremely Irrelevant Irrelevant Relevant Very Relevant
Relevant

13.
If it were possible, would you study abroad again at the same
institution? Yes No Why?

14.
If it were possible, would you study abroad again at another
institution? Yes No Why?

15.
How would you rate the overall quality of the academic program you did
abroad? Very Poor Poor Neutral Good Outstanding

16.
How would you rate the quality of the overall experience abroad? Very
Poor Poor Neutral Good Outstanding

17.
What do/did you consider to be the greatest benefit of studying abroad?

18.
What do/did you consider to be the greatest challenge of studying
abroad?

19.
What advice would you give to students who are considering studying
abroad?


Thank You!

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Hubert B. Van Hoof, Ph.D., is the director of the School of Hospitality
Manage?ment at Penn State University. Prior to his July 1, 2004,
appointment at Penn State, he was the assistant dean at the School of
Hotel and Restaurant Management at Northern Arizona University where he
was responsible for developing and main?taining the school's
international contacts. He has published extensively on the benefits of
international education, in particular with regard to hospitality
management education.
Marja J. Verbeeten, Ed.D., is an assistant professor at the School of
Hospitality Man?agement at Penn State University. A native of the
Netherlands, she has taught at various universities in the United States
in the area of hospitality management, with particular emphases in
information technology and managerial accounting and cost control.
Dur?ing the fall 2003 semester, she taught as a visiting professor at
the International Univer?sity of Applied Sciences, Bad Honnef-Bonn in
Germany. She was a faculty member in the Summer Studies in Europe
program at Northern Arizona University from 1994 to 2004.

From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  1 15:51:25 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 10:51:25 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Scotsman: New research shows Turin Shroud is no
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Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502011050400.11285@panix1.panix.com>

New research shows Turin Shroud is no medieval fake
http://news.scotsman.com/print.cfm?id=102832005&referringtemplate=http%3A%2F%2Fnews%2Escotsman%2Ecom%2Fscitech%2Ecfm&referringquerystring=id%3D102832005

    Fri 28 Jan 2005
    New research shows Turin Shroud is no medieval fake
    JAMES REYNOLDS
    SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT

    THE Turin Shroud, dismissed as a medieval fake after scientific
    studies in 1988, could actually date back to 1000BC, according to new
    research.
    A study based on new analysis of the shroud, believed by many to be
    the burial cloth used to wrap Jesus Christ after his crucifixion,
    suggests it is between 1,300 and 3,000 years old.
    In 1988, analysis using radiocarbon dating techniques concluded it was
    a medieval fake. But this was dismissed by the new study, published in
    the US peer-reviewed journal Thermochimica Acta, which claims the
    sample used in that research was taken from "an expertly rewoven
    patch" used to repair fire damage and, as such, does not give a true
    measure of its age.
    The shroud is a large piece of linen showing the faint full-body image
    of a blood-covered man on its surface. Because many believe it to be
    the burial cloth of Jesus, researchers have tried to determine its
    origin through numerous modern scientific methods, including the 1988
    Carbon-14 tests at three radiocarbon labs which dated the artefact
    from between 1260 and 1390AD.
    But Raymond Rogers, a chemist at the Los Alamos Laboratory in New
    Mexico, who conducted the tests, said: "As unlikely as it seems, the
    sample used to test the age of the Shroud of Turin in 1988 was taken
    from a rewoven area.
    "Pyrolysis mass spectrometry results from the [new] sample area,
    coupled with microscopic and microchemical observations, prove that
    the radiocarbon sample was not part of the original shroud. [That
    sample] has completely different chemical properties than the main
    part of the shroud relic."
    He went on: "The 1988 sample tested was dyed in Italy at about the
    time the Crusaders' last bastion fell to the Mameluke Turks in AD
    1291. The radiocarbon sample cannot be older than about AD 1290,
    agreeing with the age determined in 1988. However, the shroud itself
    is actually much older."
    Since its existence was first recorded in France in 1357, it has been
    damaged in several fires, including a church inferno in 1532. It is
    said to have been restored by nuns, who patched the holes and stitched
    the garment to a reinforcing material known as the Holland cloth.
    The 1988 study, co-ordinated by the British Museum, which acted as the
    official clearing house for all its findings, apparently ruled out the
    possibility that the shroud wrapped the body of Christ. It led to the
    then Cardinal of Turin, Anastasio Alberto Ballestrero, saying the
    shroud was a hoax.
    Since then, several attempts have been made to challenge the
    authenticity of that analysis. Perhaps the greatest corroboration of
    the new study will be if the shroud's custodians permit further
    samples of the original, unrepaired cloth to be taken for radiocarbon
    analysis. If they do, these tests could confirm the new study. If not,
    people may draw their own conclusions.
    Michael Minor, the vice-president of the American Shroud of Turin
    Association for Research, said: "This is the most significant news
    about the Shroud of Turin since the C-14 dating was announced in 1988.
    The C-14 dating isn't being disputed. But [the new research] is saying
    that they dated the rewoven area."
    Father Paul Conroy, a spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland,
    said: "In order to prevent irreparable damage, only very tiny samples
    were made available [in 1988]. It seems they were taken from a more
    recent piece of cloth that was used to try and reinforce the original
    or repair it after fire damage.
    "Although the winding cloths themselves are not primary evidence and
    are more circumstantial, across the centuries this shroud has had a
    very close association with Christ and the extraordinary event which
    lies at the heart of the Christian Gospel, Jesus rising from the
    dead."


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  1 15:54:40 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 10:54:40 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Red Herring: The hundred-buck PC
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502011051310.11285@panix1.panix.com>

The hundred-buck PC
http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=11203

[So once everyone has computers--I presume online instruction will be 
nearly free--and everyone has access to education, there will be no more 
need for redistribution to achieve equality of opportunity world-wide 
after one more generation.]

    MIT's Nicholas Negroponte pushes a cheap PC for the rest of the world.
    January 29, 2005

    The founder and chairman of the MIT Media Lab wants to create a $100
    portable computer for the developing world. Nicholas Negroponte,
    author of Being Digital and the Wiesner Professor of Media Technology
    at MIT, says he has obtained promises of support from a number of
    major companies, including [35]Advanced Micro Devices, Google,
    [36]Motorola, Samsung, and News Corp.

    The low-cost computer will have a 14-inch color screen, AMD chips, and
    will run Linux software, Mr. Negroponte said during an interview
    Friday with Red Herring at the World Economic Forum in Davos,
    Switzerland. AMD is separately working on a cheap desktop computer for
    emerging markets. It will be sold to governments for wide
    distribution.

    Mr. Negroponte and his supporters are planning to create a company
    that would manufacture and market the new portable PCs, with MIT as
    one of the stakeholders. It is unclear precisely what role the other
    four companies will play, although Mr. Negroponte hopes News Corp.
    will help with satellite capacity.

    An engineering prototype is nearly ready, with alpha units expected by
    year's end and real production around 18 months from now, he said. The
    portable PCs will be shipped directly to education ministries, with
    China first on the list. Only orders of 1 million or more units will
    be accepted.

    Mr. Negroponte's idea is to develop educational software and have the
    portable personal computer replace textbooks in schools in much the
    same way that France's Minitel videotext terminal, which was developed
    by [37]France Telecom in the 1980s, became a substitute for phone
    books.

    Mr. Negroponte has been interested in developing computing in the
    developing world for some time. He and his wife have funded three
    schools in rural Cambodia, helping outfit them with regular laptops
    and broadband connections.

    Major companies from [38]Hewlett-Packard to Microsoft to Dupont,
    facing saturated markets in the richest industrial countries, have
    shown an interest in developing less expensive products to sell in
    low-income countries in south Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

References

   35. http://studio.financialcontent.com/Engine?Account=redherring&PageName=QUOTE&Ticker=AMD
   36. http://studio.financialcontent.com/Engine?Account=redherring&PageName=QUOTE&Ticker=MOT
   37. http://studio.financialcontent.com/Engine?Account=redherring&PageName=QUOTE&Ticker=FTE
   38. http://studio.financialcontent.com/Engine?Account=redherring&PageName=QUOTE&Ticker=HPQ


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  1 16:02:54 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 11:02:54 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] The Soviet Art of Brain Washing / A Synthesis of the
 Russian textbook on Psychopolitics
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502011054510.11285@panix1.panix.com>

The Soviet Art of Brain Washing / A Synthesis of the Russian textbook
on Psychopolitics
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7006/psychopolitics

[The other part is appended.]

    A synthesis of the Russian
    Textbook on Psychopolitics

    PSYCHOPOLITICS - the art and
    science of asserting and maintain-
    ing dominion over the thoughts and
    loyalties of individuals, officers,
    bureaus, and masses, and the ef-
    fecting of the conquest of enemy
    nations through "mental healing."

                                EDITORIAL NOTE

    From May 2, 1936, to October 10, 1939, I was a dues-paying member of
    the Communist Party, operating under my own name, Kenneth Goff, and
    also the alias John Keats. In 1939, I voluntarily appeared before the
    Un-American Activities Committee in Washington, D.C., which was
    chairmanned at that time by Martin Dies, and my testimony can be found
    in Volume 9 of that year's Congressional Report.

    During the period that I was a member of the Communist Party, I
    attended their school which was located at 113 E. Wells St.,
    Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and operated under the name Eugene Debs Labor
    School. Here we were trained in all phases of warfare, both
    psychological and physical, for the destruction of the Capitalistic
    society and Christian civilization. In one portion of our studies we
    went thoroughly into the matter of psychopolitics. This was the art of
    capturing the minds of a nation through brainwashing and fake mental
    health -- the subjecting of whole nations of people to the rule of the
    Kremlin by capturing their minds. We were taught that the degradation
    of the populace is less inhuman than their destruction by bombs, for
    to an animal lives only once, any life is sweeter than death. The end
    of a war is the control of a conquered people. If a people can be
    conquered in the absence of war, the end of war will have been
    achieved without the destructions of war.

    During the past few years, I have noted with horror the increase of
    psychopolitical warfare upon the American public. First, in the
    brainwashing of our boys in Korea, and then in the well financed drive
    of mental health propaganda by left-wing pressure groups, wherein many
    of our states have passed Bills which can well be used by the enemies
    of America to subject to torture and imprisonment, those who preach
    the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and who oppose the
    menace of Communism. A clear example of this can be seen in the
    Lucille Miller case. In this warfare the Communists have definitely
    stated: "You must recruit every agency of the nation marked for
    slaughter into a foaming hatred of religious healing."

    Another example of the warfare that is being waged can be seen in the
    attempt to establish a mental Siberia in Alaska, which wa called for
    in the Alaskan Mental Health Bill. A careful study of this Bill will
    make you see at once that the land set aside under the allotment could
    not be for that small territory, and the Bill within itself
    establishes such authority that it could be turned into a prison camp
    under the guise of mental health for everyone who raises their voice
    against Communism and the hidden government operating in our own
    nation.

    This book was used in underground schools, and contains the address of
    Beria to the American students in the Lenin University prior to 1936.
    The text in the book in general is from the Communist Manual of
    Instructions of Psychopolitical Warfare, and was used in America for
    the training of Communist cadre. The only revision in this book is the
    summary, which was added by the Communists after the atomic bomb came
    into being. In its contents you can see the diabolical plot of the
    enemies of Christ and America, as they seek to conquer our nation by
    subjecting the minds of our people to their will by various sinister
    means.

    This manual of the Communist Party should be in the hands of every
    loyal American, that they may be alerted to the fact that it is not
    always by armies and guns that a nation is conquered.

    Kenneth Goff
      _________________________________________________________________

                                   CONTENTS

    [1]Editorial Note
    [2]An Address By Lavrent Pavlovich Beria
    [3]CHAPTER I:
    The History and Definition of Psychopolitics
    [4]CHAPTER II:
    The Constitution of Man as a Political Organism
    [5]CHAPTER III:
    Man as an Economic Organism
    [6]CHAPTER IV:
    State Goals for the Individual and Masses
    [7]CHAPTER V:
    An Examination of Loyalties
    [8]CHAPTER VI:
    The General Subject of Obedience
    [9]CHAPTER VII:
    The History and Definition of Psychopolitics
    [10]CHAPTER VIII:
    Degradation, Shock and Endurance
    [11]CHAPTER IX:
    The Organization of Mental Health Campaigns
    [12]CHAPTER X:
    Conduct Under Fire
    [13]CHAPTER XI:
    The Use of Psychopolitics in Spreading Communism
    [14]CHAPTER XII:
    Violent Remedies
    [15]CHAPTER XIII:
    Recruiting of Psychopolitical Dupes
    [16]CHAPTER XIV:
    The Smashing of Religious Groups
    [17]CHAPTER XV:
    Proposals Which Must Be Avoided
    [18]CHAPTER XVI:
    In Summary

                  AN ADDRESS BY [19]LAVRENT PAVLOVICH BERIA

    American students at the Lenin University, I welcome your attendance
    at these classes on Psychopolitics.

    Psychopolitics is an important if less known division of Geo-politics.
    It is less known because it must necessarily deal with highly educated
    personnel, the very top strata of "mental healing."

    By psychopolitics our chief goals are effectively carried forward. To
    produce a maximum of chaos in the culture of the enemy is our first
    most important step. Our fruits are grown in chaos, distrust, economic
    depression and scientific turmoil. At least a weary populace can seek
    peace only in our offered Communist State, at last only Communism can
    resolve the problems of the masses.

    A psychopolitician must work hard to produce the maximum chaos in the
    fields of "mental healing." He must recruit and use all the agencies
    and facilities of "mental healing." He must labor to increase the
    personnel and facilities of "mental healing" until at last the entire
    field of mental science is entirely dominated by Communist principles
    and desires.

    To achieve these goals the psychopolitician must crush every
    "home-grown" variety of mental healing in America. Actual teachings of
    James, Eddy and Pentecostal Bible faith healers amongst your
    mis-guided people must be swept aside. They must be discredited,
    defamed, arrested, stamped upon even by their own government until
    there is no credit in them and only Communist-oriented "healing"
    remains. You must work until every teacher of psychology unknowingly
    or knowingly teaches only Communist doctrine under the guise of
    "psychology.". You must labor until every doctor and psychiatrist is
    either a psycho-politician or an unwitting assistant to our aims.

    You must labor until we have dominion over the minds and bodies of
    every important person in your nation. You must achieve such disrepute
    for the state of insanity and such authority over its pronouncement
    that not one statement so labeled could again be given credence by his
    people. you must work until suicide arising from mental imbalance is
    common and calls forth no general investigation or remark.

    With the institutions for the insane you have in your country prisons
    which can hold a million persons and can hold them without civil
    rights or any hope of freedom. And upon these people can be practiced
    shock and surgery so that never again will they draw a sane breath.
    You must make these treatments common and accepted. And you must sweep
    aside any treatment or any group of persons seeking to treat by
    effective means.

    You must dominate as respected men the fields of psychiatry and
    psychology. You must dominate the hospitals and universities. You must
    carry forward the myth that only a European doctor is competent in the
    field of insanity and thus excuse amongst you the high incidence of
    foreign birth and training. If and when we seize Vienna, you shall
    have then a common ground of meeting and can come and take your
    instructions as worshippers of Freud along with other psychiatrists.

    Psychopolitics is a solemn charge. With it you can erase our enemies
    as insects. You can cripple the efficiency of leaders by striking
    insanity into their families through the use of drugs. You can wipe
    them away with testimony as to their insanity. By our technologies,
    you can even bring about insanity itself when they seem to resistive.

    You can change their loyalties by psychopolitics. Given a short time
    with a psychopolitician you can alter forever their loyalty of a
    soldier in our hands or a statesman or a leader in his own country, or
    you can destroy his mind.

    However, you labor under certain dangers. It may happen that remedies
    for our "treatments" may be discovered. It may occur that a public hue
    and cry may arise against "mental healing." It may thus occur that all
    mental healing might be placed in the hands of ministers and taken out
    of the hands of our psychologists and psychiatrists. But the
    Capitalistic thirst for control, Capitalistic in-humanity and general
    public terror of insanity can be brought to guard against these
    things. But should they occur, should independent researchers actually
    discover means to undo psychopolitical procedures, you must not rest,
    you must not eat or sleep, you must not stint one tiniest bit of
    available money to campaign against it, dis-credit it , strike it down
    and render it void. For by an effective means all our actions and
    researches could be undone.

    In a Capitalistic state you are aided on all sides by the corruption
    of the philosophy of man and the times. You will discover that
    everything will aid you in your campaign to seize, control and use all
    "mental healing" to spread our doctrine and rid us of our enemies
    within their own borders.

    Use the courts, use the judges, use the Constitution of the country,
    use its medical societies and its laws to further our ends. Do not
    stint in your labor in this direction. And when you have succeeded you
    will discover that you can now effect your own legislation at will and
    you can, by careful organization of healing societies, by constant
    campaign about the terrors of society, by pretense as to your
    effectiveness make you Capitalist himself, by his own appropriations,
    finance a large portion of the quiet Communist conquest of the nation.

    By psychopolitics create chaos. Leave a nation leaderless. Kill our
    enemies. And bring to Earth, through Communism, the greatest peace Man
    has ever known.

    Thank You

                                  CHAPTER I
                        THE HISTORY AND DEFINITION OF
                                PSYCHOPOLITICS

    Although punishment for its own sake may not be entirely without
    recompense, it is, nevertheless, true that the end and goal of all
    punishment is the indoctrination of the person being punished with an
    idea, whether that idea be one of restraint or obedience.

    In that any ruler has, from time beyond memory, needed the obedience
    of his subject in order to accomplish his ends, he has thus resorted
    to punishment. This is true of every tribe and state in the history of
    Man. Today, Russian culture has evolved more certain and definite
    methods of aligning and securing the loyalties of persons and
    populace, and of enforcing obedience upon them. This modern outgrowth
    of old practice is called Psychopolitics.

    The stupidity and narrowness of nations not blessed with Russian
    reasoning has caused them to rely upon practices which are, today, too
    ancient and out-moded for the rapid and heroic pace of our time. And
    in view of the tremendous advance of Russian Culture in the field of
    mental technologies, begun with the glorious work of Pavlov and
    carried forward so ably by later Russians, it would be strange that an
    art and science would not evolve totally devoted to the aligning of
    loyalties and extracting the obedience of individuals and multitudes.

    Thus we see that psychopolitical procedures are a natural outgrowth of
    practices as old as Man, practices which are current in every group of
    men throughout the world. Thus, in psychopolitical procedures there is
    no ethical problem, since it is obvious and evident that Man is always
    coerced against his will to the greater good of the State, whether by
    economic gains or indoctrination into the wishes and desires of the
    State.

    Basically, Man is an animal. He is an animal which has been given a
    civilized veneer. Man is a collective animal, grouped together for his
    own protection before the threat of the environment. Those who so
    group and control him must have in their possession specialized
    techniques to direct the vagaries and energies of the animal Man
    toward greater efficiency in the accomplishment of the goals of the
    State.

    Psychopolitics, in one form or another, have long been used in Russia,
    but the subject is all but unknown outside the borders of our nation,
    save only where we have carefully transplanted our information and
    where it is used for the greater good of the nation.

    The definition of Psychopolitics follows.

    Psychopolitics is the art and science of asserting and maintaining
    dominion over the thoughts and loyalties of the individuals, officers,
    bureaus, and masses, and the effecting of the conquest of the enemy
    nations through "mental healing."

    The subject of Psychopolitics breaks down into several categories,
    each a natural and logical proceeding from the last. Its first subject
    is the constitution and anatomy of Man, himself, as a political
    organism. The next is an examination of Man as an economic organism,
    as this might be controlled by his desires. The next is classification
    of State goals for the individual and masses. The next is an
    examination of loyalties. The next is the general subject of
    obedience. The next is the anatomy of the stimulus-response mechanisms
    of Man. The next is he subjects of shock and endurance. The next is
    categories of experience. The next is the catalyzing and aligning of
    experience. The next is the use of drugs. The next is the use of
    implantation. The next is the general application of Psychopolitics
    within Russia. The next is the organizations outside Russia, their
    composition and activity. The next is the creation of slave philosophy
    in a hostile nation. The next is countering anti-psychopolitical
    activities abroad, and the final one, the destiny of psychopolitical
    rule in a scientific age. To this might be added many sub categories,
    such as the nullification of modern weapons by psychopolitical
    activity.

    The strength and power of Psychopolitics cannot be overestimated,
    particularly when used in a nation decayed by pseudo-intellectualism,
    where exploitation of the masses combines readily with psychopolitical
    actions, and particularly where the greed of Capitalistic or
    Monarchial regimes has already brought about an overwhelming incidence
    of neurosis which can be employed as the groundwork for
    psychopolitical action and psychopolitical corps.

    It is part of your mission, student, to prevent psychopolitical
    activity to the detriment of the Russian State, just as it is your
    mission to carry forward in our nation and outside it, if you are so
    assigned, the missions and goals of Psychopolitics. No agent of
    Russian could be even remotely effective without a thorough grounding
    in Psychopolitics, and so you carry forward with you a Russian trust
    to use well what you are learning here.

                                  CHAPTER II
                         THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN AS A
                              POLITICAL ORGANISM

    Man is already a colonial aggregation of cells, and to consider him an
    individual would be an error. Colonies of cells have gathered together
    as one organ or another of the body, and then these organs have,
    themselves, gathered together to form the whole. Thus we see that man,
    himself, is already a political organism, even if we do not consider a
    mass of men.

    Sickness could be considered to be a disloyalty to the remaining
    organisms on the part of one organism. This disloyalty, becoming
    apparent, brings about a revolt of some part of the anatomy against
    the remaining whole, and thus we have, in effect, an internal
    revolution. The heart, becoming disaffected, falls away from close
    membership and service to the remainder of the organism, and we
    discover the entire body in all of its activities is disrupted because
    of the revolutionary activity of the heart. The heart is in revolt
    because it cannot or will not co-operate with the remainder of the
    body. If we permit the heart thus to revolt, the kidneys, taking the
    example of the heart, may in their turn rebel and cease to work for
    the good of the organism. This rebellion, multiplying to the other
    organs and the glandular system, brings about the death of the
    "individual." We can see with easy that the revolt is death, that the
    revolt of any part of the organism results in death. Thus we see that
    there can be no compromise with rebellion.

    Like the "individual" man, the State is a collection of aggregations.
    The political entities within the State must, all of them, co-operate
    for the greater good of the State lest the State itself fall asunder
    and die, for with the disaffection of any single distrust we discover
    and example set for other districts, and we discover, at length, the
    entire State falling. This is the danger of revolution.

    Look at Earth. We see here one entire organism. The organism of Earth
    is an individual organism. Earth has as its organs the various races
    and nations of men. Where one of these is permitted to remain
    disaffected, Earth itself is threatened with death. The threatened
    rebellion of one country, no matter now small, against the total
    organism of Earth, would find Earth sick, and the cultural state of
    man to suffer in consequence . Thus, the putrescent illness of
    Capitalist States, spreading their puss and bacteria into the healthy
    countries of the world would not do otherwise than bring about the
    death of Earth, unless these ill organisms are brought into loyalty
    and obedience and made to function for the greater good of the
    world-wide State.

    The constitution of Man is so composed that the individual cannot
    function efficiently without the alignment of each and every part and
    organ of his anatomy. As the average individual is incapable, in an
    unformed and uncultured state, as witness the barbarians of the
    jungle, so must he be trained into a co-ordination of his organic
    functions by exercise, education, and work toward specific goals. We
    particularly and specifically note that the individual must be
    directed from without to accomplish his exercise, education, and work.
    He must be made to realize this, for only then can he be made to
    function efficiently in the role assigned to him.

    The tenets of rugged individualism, personal determinism, self-will,
    imagination, and personal creativeness are alike in the masses
    antipathetic to the good of the Greater State. These willful and
    unaligned forces are no more than illnesses which will bring about the
    disaffection, disunity, and at length the collapse of the group to
    which the individual is attached.

    The constitution of Man lends itself easily and thoroughly to certain
    and positive regulation from without of all of its functions,
    including those of thinking, obedience, and loyalty, and these things
    must be controlled if a greater State is to ensue.

    While it may seem desirable to the surgeon to amputate one or another
    limb or organ in order to save the remainder, it must be pointed out
    that this expediency is not entirely possible of accomplishment where
    one considers entire nations. A body deprived of organs can be
    observed to be lessened by its effectiveness. The world deprived of
    the workers now enslaved by the insane and nonsensical idiocies of the
    Capitalists and Monarchs of Earth, would, if removed, create a certain
    disability in the world-wide State. Just as we see the victor forced
    to rehabilitate the population of a conquered country at the end of a
    war, thus any effort to depopulate a disaffected portion of the world
    might have some consequence. However, let us consider the inroad of
    virus and bacteria hostile to the organism, and we see that unless we
    can conquer the germ, the organ or organism which it is attacking
    will, itself, suffer.

    In any State we have certain individuals who operate in the role of
    the virus and germ, and these, attacking the population or any group
    within the population, produce, by their self-willed greed, a sickness
    in the organ, which then generally spreads to the whole.

    The constitution of Man as an individual body, or the constitution of
    a State or a portion of the State as a political organism are
    analogous. It is the mission of Psychopolitics first to align the
    obedience and goals of the group, and then maintain their alignment by
    the eradication of the effectiveness of the persons and personalities
    which might swerve the group towards disaffection. In our own nation,
    where things are better managed and where reason reigns above all
    else, it is not difficult to eradicate the self-willed bacteria which
    might attack one of our political entities. But in the field of
    conquest, in nations less enlightened, where the Russian State does
    not yet have power, it is not as feasible to remove the entire
    self-willed individual. Psychopolitics makes it possible to remove
    that art of his personality which, in itself, is making havoc with the
    person's own constitution as well as the group with which the person
    is connected.

    If the animal man were permitted to continue undisturbed by
    counter-revolutionary propaganda, if he were left to work under the
    well-planned management of the State, we would discover little
    sickness amongst Man, and we would discover no sickness in the State.
    But where the individual is troubled by conflicting propaganda, where
    he is made the effect of revolutionary activities, where he is
    permitted to think thoughts critical of the State itself, where he is
    permitted to question of those in whose natural charge he falls, we
    would discover his constitution to suffer. We would discover, from
    this disaffection, the additional disaffection of his heart and of
    other portions of his anatomy;. So certain is this principle that when
    one finds a sick individual, could one search deeply enough, he would
    discover a mis-aligned loyalty and an interrupted obedience to that
    person's group unit.

    There are those who foolishly have embarked upon some spiritual
    Alice-in-Wonderland voyage into what they call the "subconscious" or
    the "unconscious" mind, and who, under the guise of "psychotherapy"
    would seek to make well the disaffection of body organs, but it is to
    be noted that their results are singularly lacking in success. There
    is no strength in such an approach. When hypnotism was first invented
    in Russia, it was observed that all that was necessary was to command
    the unresisting individual to be well in order, many times, to
    accomplish that fact. The limitation of hypnotism was that many
    subjects were not susceptible to its uses, and thus hypnotism has had
    to be improved upon in order to increase the suggestibility of
    individuals who would not otherwise be reached. Thus, any nation has
    had the experience of growing well again, as a whole organism, when
    placing sufficient force in play against a disaffected group. Just as
    in hypnotism any organ can be commanded into greater loyalty and
    obedience, so can any political group be commanded into greater
    loyalty and obedience should sufficient force be employed. However,
    force often brings about destruction and it is occasionally not
    feasible to use broad mass force t o accomplish the ends in view.
    Thus, it is necessary to align the individual against his desire not
    to conform.

    Just as it is a recognized truth that Man must conform to his
    environment, so it is a recognized truth, and will become more so as
    the years proceed, that even the body of Man can be commanded into
    health.

    The constitution of Man renders itself peculiarly adapted to
    re-alignment of loyalties. Where these loyalties are indigestible to
    the constitution of the individual itself, such as loyalties to the
    'petit bourgeoisie,' the Capitalist, to anti-Russian ideas, we find
    the individual body peculiarly susceptible to sickness, and thus we
    can clearly understand the epidemics, illnesses, mass-neuroses,
    tumults and confusions of the United States and other capitalist
    countries. Here we find the worker improperly and incorrectly loyal,
    and thus we find the worker ill. To save him and establish him
    correctly and properly upon his goal toward a greater State, it is an
    overpowering necessity to make it possible for him to grant his
    loyalties in a correct direction. In that his loyalties are swerved
    and his obedience cravenly demanded by persons antipathetic to his
    general good, and in that these persons are few, even in a Capitalist
    nation, the goal and direction of Psychopolitics is clearly
    understood. To benefit the worker in such a plight, it is necessary to
    eradicate, by general propaganda, by other means, and by his own
    co-operation, and self-willedness of perverted leaders. It is
    necessary, as well, to indoctrinate the educated strata into the
    tenets and principles of co-operation with the environment, and thus
    to insure the worker less warped leadership, less craven doctrine, and
    more co-operation with the ideas and ideals of the Communist State.

    The technologies of Psychopolitics are directed to this end.

                                 CHAPTER III
                         MAN AS AN ECONOMIC ORGANISM

    Man is subject to certain desires and needs which are as natural to
    his being as they are to that of any other animal. Man, however, has
    the peculiarity of exaggerating some of these beyond the bounds of
    reason. This is obvious through the growth of leisure classes,
    pseudo-intellectual groups, the "petit bourgeoisie," Capitalism, and
    ott her ills.

    It has been said, with truth, that one tenth of a man's life is
    concerned with politics and nine-tenths with economics. Without food,
    the individual dies. Without clothing, he freezes. Without houses and
    weapons, he is prey to the starving wolves. The acquisition of
    sufficient items to answer these necessities of food, clothing and
    shelter, in reason, is the natural right of a member of an enlightened
    State. An excess of such items brings about unrest and disquiet. The
    presence of luxury items and materials, and the artificial creation
    and whetting of appetites, as in Capitalist advertising, are certain
    to accentuate the less-desirable characteristics of Man.

    The individual is an economic organism, in that he requires a certain
    amount of food, a certain amount of water, and must hold within
    himself a certain amount of heat in order to live. When he has more
    food than he can eat, more clothing than he needs to protect him, he
    then enters upon a certain idleness which dulls his wits and
    awareness, and makes him prey to difficulties which, in a less toxic
    state, he would have foreseen and avoided. Thus, we have a glut of
    being a menace to the individual.

    It is no less different in a group. Where the group acquires too much,
    its awareness of its own fellows and of the environment is accordingly
    reduced, and the effectiveness the group in general is lost.

    The maintaining of a balance between gluttony and need is the province
    of Economics proper, and is the fit subject and concern of the
    Communist State.

    Desire and want are a state of mind. Individuals can be educated into
    desiring and wanting more than they can ever possibly obtain, and such
    individuals are unhappy. Most of the self-willed characteristics of
    the Capitalists come entirely from greed. He exploits the worker far
    beyond any necessity on his own part, as a Capitalist, to need.

    In a nation where economic balances are not controlled, the appetite
    of the individual is unduly whetted by enchanting and fanciful
    persuasions to desire, and a type of insanity ensues, where each
    individual is persuaded to possess more than he can use, and to
    possess it even at the expense of his fellows.

    There is, in economic balances, the other side. Too great and too long
    privation can bring about unhealthy desires, which, in themselves,
    accumulate in left action, more than the individual can use. Poverty,
    itself, as carefully cultivated in Capitalist States, can bring about
    an imbalance of acquisition. Just as a vacuum will pull into it
    masses, in a country where enforced privation upon the masses is
    permitted, and where desire is artificially whetted, need turns to
    greed, and one easily discovers in such states exploitation of the
    many for the benefit of the few.

    If one, by the technologies of Psychopolitics, were to dull the
    excessive greed in the few who possess it, the worker would be freed
    to seek a more natural balance.

    Here we have two extremes. Either one of them are an insanity. If we
    wish to create an insanity we need only glut or deprive an individual
    at long length beyond the ability to withstand and we have a mental
    imbalance. A simple example of this is the alternation of too low with
    too high pressures in a chamber, an excellent psychopolitical
    procedure. The rapidly varied pressure brings about a chaos wherein
    the individual will cannot act and where other wills then, perforce,
    assume control.

    Essentially, in an entire country, one must remove the greedy by
    whatever means and must then create and continue a semi-privation in
    the masses in order to command and utterly control the nation.

    A continuous hope for prosperity must be indoctrinated into the masses
    with many dreams and visions of glut of commodity and this hope must
    be counter-played against the actuality of privation and the
    continuous threat of loss of all economic factors in case of
    disloyalty to the State in order to suppress the individual wills of
    the masses.

    In a nation under conquest, such as America, our slow and stealthy
    approach need take advantage only of the cycles of booms and
    depressions inherent in Capitalistic nations in order to assert of
    more and more strong control over individual wills. A boom is as
    advantageous as a depression for our ends, for during prosperity our
    propaganda lines must only continue to point up the wealth the period
    is delivering to the selected few to divorce their control of the
    State. During a depression one must only point out that it ensued as a
    result of the avarice of a few and the general political incompetence
    of the national leaders.

    The handling of economic propaganda is not properly the sphere of
    psychopolitics but the psychopolitician must understand the economic
    measures and Communist goals connected with them.

    The masses must at last come to believe that only excessive taxation
    of the rich can deliver them of the "burdensome leisure class" and can
    thus be brought to accept such a thing as income tax, a Marxist
    principle smoothly slid into Capitalistic framework in 1909-1913 in
    the United States. This, even though the basic law of the United
    States forbade it and even though Communism at that time had been
    active only a few years in America. Such success as the Income Tax
    law, had it been followed thoroughly could have brought the United
    States and not Russia into the world scene as the first Communist
    nation. But the virility and good sense of the Russian peoples won. It
    may not be that the United States will become entirely Communist until
    past the middle of the century, but when it does it will be because of
    our superior understanding of economics and of psychopolitics.

    The Communist agent skilled in economics has as his task the suborning
    of tax agencies and their personnel to create the maximum disturbances
    and chaos and the passing of laws adapted to our purposes and to him
    we must leave this task. The psychopolitical operator plays a
    distinctly different role in this drama.

    The rich, the skilled in finance,the well informed in government are
    particular and individual targets for the psychopolitician. His is the
    role of taking off the board those individuals who would halt or
    corrupt Communist economic programs. Thus every rich man, every
    statesman, ever person well informed and capable in government, must
    have brought to his side as a trusted confidant, a psychopolitical
    operator.

    The families of these persons are often deranged from idleness and
    glut and this fact must be played upon, even created. The normal
    health and wildness of a rich man's son must be twisted and perverted
    and explained into neurosis and then, assisted by a timely
    administration of drugs or violence, turned into criminality or
    insanity. This brings at once someone in "mental healing" into
    confidential contact with the family and from this point on the very
    most must then be made of that contact.

    Communism could best succeed if at the side of every rich or
    influential man there could be placed a psychopolitical operator, an
    undoubted authority in the field of "mental healing" who could then by
    his advice or through the medium of a wife or daughter by his guided
    options direct the optimum policy to embroil or upset the economic
    policies of the country and, when the time comes to do away forever
    with the rich or influential man, to administer the proper drug or
    treatment to bring about his complete demise in an institution as a
    patient or dead, as a suicide.

    Planted beside a country's powerful persons the psychopolitical
    operator can also guide other policies to the betterment of our
    battle.

    The Capitalist does not know the definition of war. He things of war
    as attack with force performed by soldiers and machines. He does not
    know that a more effective if somewhat longer w ar can be fought with
    bread or, in our case, with drugs and the wisdom of our art. The
    Capitalist has never won a war in truth. The psychopolitician is
    having little trouble winning this one.

                                  CHAPTER IV
                  STATE GOALS FOR THE INDIVIDUAL AND MASSES

    Just as we would discover an individual to be ill, whose organs, each
    one, had a different goal from the rest, so we discover the
    individuals and the State to be ill where goals are not rigorously
    codified and enforced.

    There are those who, in less enlightened times, gave Man to believe
    that goals should be personally sought and held, and that, indeed,
    Man's entire impulse toward higher things stemmed from Freedom. We
    must remember that the same peoples who embraced this philosophy also
    continued in Man the myth of spiritual existence.

    All goals proceed from duress. Life is a continuous escape. Without
    force and threat, there can be no striving. Without pain, there can be
    no desire to escape from pain. Without the threat of punishment, there
    can be no gain. Without duress and command, there can be no alignment
    of bodily functions. Without rigorous and forthright control, there ca
    be no accomplished goals for the State.

    Goals of the State should be formulated by the State for the obedience
    and concurrence of the individuals within that State. A State without
    goals so formulated is a sick State. A State without the power and
    forthright wish to enforce its goals is a sick State.

    When an order is issued by the Communist State, and is not obeyed, a
    sickness will be discovered to ensue. Where obedience fails, the
    masses suffer.

    State goals depend upon loyalty and obedience for their
    accomplishment. When one discovers a State goal to be interpreted, one
    discovers inevitably that there has been an interposition of
    self-willedness, of greed, of idleness, or of rugged individualism and
    self-centered initiative.The interruption of a State goal will be
    discovered as having been interrupted by a person whose disloyalty and
    disobedience is the direct result of his own mis-alignment with life.

    It is not always necessary to remove the individual. It is possible to
    remove his self-willed tendencies to the improvement of the goals and
    gains of the whole. The technologies of Psychopolitics are graduated
    upon the scale which starts somewhat above the removal of the
    individual himself, upward toward the removal only of those tendencies
    which bring about his lack of co-operation.

    It is not enough for the State to have goals. These goals, once put
    forward, depend upon their completion, upon the loyalty and obedience
    of the workers. These, engaged for the most part, in hard labors, have
    little time for idle speculation, which is good. But, above them,
    unfortunately, there must be foremen of one or another position, and
    one of whom might have sufficient idleness and lack of physical
    occupation to cause some disaffecting independency in his conduct and
    behaviour.

    Psychopolitics remedies this tendency toward disaffection when it
    exceeds the common persuasions of the immediate superiors of the
    person in question.

                                  CHAPTER V
                         AN EXAMINATION OF LOYALTIES

    If loyalty is so important in the economic and social structure, it is
    necessary to examine it further as itself.

    In the field of Psychopolitics, loyalty means simply 'alignment.' It
    means, more fully, alignment with the goals of the Communist State.
    Disloyalty means entirely mis-alignment, and more broadly,
    mis-alignment with the goals of the Communist State.

    When we consider that the goals of the Communist State are to the best
    possible benefit of the masses, we can see that disloyalty, as a term,
    can embrace Democratic alignment. Loyalty to persons not
    communistically indoctrinated would be quite plainly a mis-alignment.

    The cure of disloyalty is entirely contained in the principles of
    alignment. All that is necessary to do, where disloyalty is
    encountered, is to align the purposes of the individual toward the
    goals of Communism, and it will be discovered that a great many
    circumstances hitherto distasteful in his existence will cease to
    exist.

    A heart, or a kidney in rebellion against the remainder of the
    organism is being disloyal to the remainder of the organism. To cure
    the heart or kidney it is actually only necessary to bring its
    activities into alignment with the remainder of the body.

    The technologies of Psychopolitics adequately demonstrate the
    workability of this. Mild shock of the electric variety can, and does,
    produce the re-cooperation of a rebellious body organ. It is the shock
    and punishment of surgery which, in the main, accomplishes the
    re-alignment of a disaffected portion of the body, rather than the
    surgery itself. It is the bombardment of X-Rays, rather than the
    therapeutic value of X-Rays which causes some disaffected organ to
    once again turn its attention to the support of the general organism.

    While it is not borne out that electric shock has any therapeutic
    value, so far as making the individual more sane, it is adequately
    brought out that its punishment value will create in the patient a
    greater co-operative attitude. Brain surgery has no statistical data
    to recommend it beyond its removal of the individual personality from
    amongst the paths of organs which were not permitted to co-operate.
    These two Russian developments have never pretended to alter the state
    of sanity. They are only effective and workable in introducing an
    adequate punishment mechanism to the personality to make it cease and
    desist from its courses and egotistical direction of the anatomy
    itself. It is the violence of the electric shock and the surgery which
    is useful in subduing the recalcitrant personality, which is all that
    stands in the road of the masses or the State. It is occasionally to
    be discovered that the removal of the preventing personality by shock
    and surgery then permits the regrowth and re-establishment of organs
    which have been rebelled against by that personality. In what a
    well-regulated state is composed of organisms, not personalities, the
    use of electric shock and brain surgery in Psychopolitics is clearly
    demonstrated.

    The changing of loyalty consists, in its primary step, of the
    eradication of existing loyalties. This can be done in one of two
    ways. First, by demonstrating that previously existing loyalties have
    brought about perilous physical circumstances, such as imprisonment,
    lack of recognition, duress, or privation, and second by eradicating
    the personality itself.

    The first is accomplished by a steady and continuous indoctrination of
    the individual in the belief that his previous loyalties have been
    granted to an unworthy source. One of the primary instances in this is
    creating circumstances which apparently derive from the target of his
    loyalties, so as to rebuff the individual. As part of this there is
    the creation of a state of mind in the individual, by actually placing
    him under duress, and then furnishing him with false evidence to
    demonstrate that the target of his previous loyalties is, itself, the
    course of the duress. Another portion of this same method consists of
    defaming or degrading the individual whose loyalties are to be changed
    to the target of his loyalties, i.e., superiors or government, to such
    a degree that this target, at length, actually does hold the
    individual in disrepute, and so does rebuff him and serve to convince
    him that his loyalties have been misplaced. These are the milder
    methods, but have proven extremely effective. The greatest drawback in
    their practice is that they require time and concentration, the
    manufacture of false evidence, and a psychopolitical operator's time.

    In moments of expediency, of which there are many, the personality
    itself can be rearranged by shock, surgery, duress, privation, and in
    particular, that best of psychopolitical techniques, implantation,
    with the technologies of neo-hypnotism. Such duress must have in its
    first part a defamation of the loyalties, and in its second, the
    implantation of new loyalties. A good and experienced psychopolitical
    operator, working under the most favorable circumstances, can, by the
    use of psychopolitical technologies, alter the loyalties of an
    individual so deftly that his own companions will not suspect that
    they have changed. This, however, requires considerably more finesse
    than is usually necessary to the situation. Mass neo-hypnotism can
    accomplish more or less the same results when guided by an experienced
    psychopolitical operator. An end goal in such a procedure would be the
    alteration of the loyalties of an entire nation in a short period of
    time by mass neo-hypnotism, a thing which has been effectively
    accomplished among the less-usable states of Russia.

    It is adequately demonstrated that loyalty is entirely lacking in that
    mythical commodity known as 'spiritual quality.' Loyalty is entirely a
    thing of dependence, economic or mental, and can be changed by the
    crudest implementations. Observation of workers in their factories or
    fields demonstrates that they easily grant loyalty to a foreman or a
    woman, and then as easily abandon it and substitute another
    individual, revulsing, at the same time, toward the person to whom
    loyalty was primarily granted. The queasy insecurity of the masses in
    Capitalistic nations finds this more common than in an enlightened
    State, such as Russia. In Capitalistic states, dependencies are so
    craven, wants and privations are so exaggerated, that loyalty is
    entirely without ethical foundation and exists only in the realm of
    dependency, duress, or demand.

    It is fortunate that Communism so truly approaches an ideal state of
    mind, for this brings a certain easiness into any changing loyalties,
    since all other philosophies extant and practiced on Earth today are
    degraded and debased, compared to Communism. It is then with a certain
    security that a psychopolitical operator functions, for he knows that
    he can change the loyalty of an individual to a more ideal level by
    reason alone, and only expediency makes it necessary to employ the
    various shifts of psychopolitical technology. Any man who cannot be
    persuaded into Communist rationale is, of course, to be regarded as
    somewhat less than sane, and it is, therefore completely justified to
    use the techniques of insanity upon the non-Communist.

    In order to change loyalty it is necessary to establish first the
    existing loyalties of the individual. The task is made very simple in
    view of the fact that Capitalistic and Fascistic nations have no great
    security in the loyalty of their subjects. And it may be found that
    the loyalties of the subjects, as we call any person against whom
    psychopolitical technology is to be exerted, are already too faint to
    require eradication. It is generally only necessary to persuade with
    the rationale and overwhelming reasonability of Communism to have the
    person grant his loyalty to the Russian State. However, regulated only
    by the importance of the subject, no great amount of time should be
    expended upon the individual, but emotional duress, or electric shock,
    or brain surgery should be resorted to, should Communist propaganda
    persuasion fail. In a case of a very important person, it may be
    necessary to utilize the more delicate technologies of Psychopolitics
    so as to place the per son himself, and his associates, in ignorance
    of the operation. In this case a simple implantation is used, with a
    maximum duress and command value. Only the most skilled
    psychopolitical operator should be employed on such a project, as in
    this case of the very important person, for a bungling might disclose
    the tampering with his mental processes. It is much more highly
    recommended, if there is any doubt whatever about the success of an
    operation against an important person, to select out as a
    psychopolitical target persons i his vicinity in whom he is
    emotionally involved. His wife or children normally furnish the best
    targets, and these can be operated against without restraint. In
    securing the loyalty of a very important person one must place at his
    side a constant pleader who enters a sexual or familial chord into the
    situation on the side of Communism. It may not be necessary to make a
    Communist out of the wife, or the children, or one of the children,
    but it might prove efficacious to do so. In most instances, however,
    this is not possible. By the use of various drugs, it is, in this
    modern age, and well within the realm of psychopolitical reality,
    entirely too easy to bring about a state of severe neurosis or
    insanity in the wife or children, and thus pass them, with full
    consent of the important person, and the government in which he
    exists, or the bureau in which he is operating, into the hands of a
    psychopolitical operator, who then in his own laboratory, without
    restraint or fear of investigation or censor, can, with electric
    shock, surgery, sexual attack, drugs, or other useful means, degrade
    or entirely alter the personality of a family member, and create in
    that person a psychopolitical slave subject who, then, on command or
    signal, will perform outrageous actions, thus discrediting the
    important person, or will demand, on a more delicate level, that
    certain measures be taken by the important person, which measures are,
    of course, dictated by the psychopolitical operator.

    Usually when the party has no real interest in the activities of
    decisions of the important person, but merely wishes to remove him
    from effective action, the attention of the psychopolitical operator
    need not to be so intense, and the person need only be passed into the
    hands of some unwitting mental practitioner, who taught as he is by
    psychopolitical operators, will bring about sufficient embarrassment.

    When the loyalty of an individual cannot be swerved, and where the
    opinion, weight, or effectiveness of the individual stands firmly in
    the road of Communist goals, it is usually best to occasion a mild
    neurosis in the person by any available means, and then, having
    carefully given him a history of mental imbalance, to see to it that
    he disposes of himself by suicide, or by bringing about his demise in
    such a way as to resemble suicide. Psychopolitical operators have
    handled such situations skillfully tens of thousands of times, within
    and without Russia.

    It is a firm principle of Psychopolitics that the person to be
    destroyed must be involved at first or second hand in the stigma of
    insanity, and must have been placed in contact with psychopolitical
    operators or persons trained by them, with a maximum amount of tumult
    and publicity. The stigma of insanity is properly placed at the door
    of such persons' reputations and is held there firmly by bringing
    about irrational acts, either on his own part or in his vicinity. Such
    an activity can be classified as a partial destruction of alignment,
    and if this destruction is carried forward to its furthest extent the
    mis-alignment on the subject of all loyalties can be considered to be
    complete, and alignment on new loyalties can be embarked upon safely.
    By bringing about insanity or suicide on the part of the wife of an
    important political personage, a sufficient mis-alignment has been
    instigated to change his attitude. And this, carried forward firmly,
    or assisted by psychopolitical implantation can begin the rebuilding
    of his loyalties, but now slanted in a more proper and fitting
    direction.

    Another reason for the alignment of psychopolitical activities with
    the mis-alignment of insanity in that insanity, itself, is a despised
    and disgraced state, and anything connected with it is lightly viewed.
    Thus, a psychopolitical operator, working in the vicinity of an insane
    person, can refute and disprove any accusations made against him by
    demonstrating that the family itself is tainted with mental imbalance.
    This is surprisingly effective in Capitalistic countries where
    insanity is so thoroughly feared that no one would dream of
    investigating any circumstances in its vicinity. Psychopolitical
    propaganda works constantly and must work constantly to increase and
    build up this aura of mystery surrounding insanity, and must emphasize
    the horribleness of insanity in order to excuse non-therapeutic
    actions taken against the insane. Particularly in Capitalistic
    countries, an insane person has no rights under law. No person who is
    insane may hold property. No person who is insane may testify. Thus,
    we have an excellent road along which we can travel toward our certain
    goal and destiny.

    Entirely by bringing about public conviction that the sanity of a
    person is in question, it is possible to discount and eradicate all of
    the goals and activities of that person. By demonstrating the insanity
    of a group, or even a government, it is possible, then, to cause its
    people to disavow it. By magnifying the general human reaction to
    insanity, through keeping the subject of insanity, itself, forever
    before the public eye, and then, by utilizing this reaction by causing
    a revulsion on the part of a populace against its leaders or leaders,
    it is possible to stop any government or movement.

    It is important to know that the entire subject of loyalty is thus as
    easily handled as it is. One of the first and foremost missions of the
    psychopolitician is to make an attack upon Communism and insanity
    synonymous. It should become the definition of insanity, of the
    paranoid variety, that "A paranoid believes he is being attacked by
    Communists." Thus, at once the support of the individual so attacking
    Communism will fall away and wither.

    Instead of executing national leaders, suicide for them should be
    arranged under circumstances which question their demise. In this way
    we can select out all opposition to the Communist extension into the
    social orders of the world, and render populace who would oppose us
    leaderless, and bring about a state of chaos or mis-alignment into
    which we can thrust, with great simplicity, the clear and forceful
    doctrines of Communism.

    The cleverness of our attack in this field of Psychopolitics is
    adequate to avoid the understanding of the layman and the usual stupid
    official, and by operating entirely under the banner of authority,
    with the oft-repeated statement that the principles of psychotherapy
    are too devious for common understanding, an entire revolution can be
    effected without the suspicion of a populace until it is an
    accomplished fact.

    As insanity is the maximum mis-alignment, it can be grasped to be the
    maximum weapon in severance of loyalties to leaders and old social
    orders. Thus, it is of the utmost importance that psychopolitical
    operative infiltrate the healing arts of a nation marked for conquest,
    and bring that quarter continuous pressure against the population and
    the government until at last the conquest is affected. This is the
    subject and goal of Psychopolitics, itself.

    In rearranging loyalties we must have a command of their values. In
    the animal the first loyalty is to himself. This is destroyed by
    demonstrating errors to him, showing him that he does not remember,
    cannot act or does not trust himself. The second loyalty is to his
    family unit, his parents and brothers and sisters. This is destroyed
    by making a family unit economically non-dependent, by lessening the
    value of marriage, by making an easiness of divorce and by raising the
    children whenever possible by the State. The next loyalty is to his
    friends and local environment. This is destroyed by lowering his tru
    st and bringing about reportings upon him allegedly by his fellows or
    the town or village authorities. The next is to the State and this,
    for the purposes of Communism, is the only loyalty which should exist
    once the state is founded as a Communist State. To destroy loyalty to
    the State all manner of forbidding for youth must be put into effect
    so as to disenfranchise them as members of the Capitalist state and,
    by promises of a better lot under Communism, to gain their loyalty to
    a Communist movement.

    Denying a Capitalist country easy access to courts, bringing about and
    supporting propaganda to destroy the home, creating and continuous
    juvenile delinquentcy, forcing upon the state all manner of practices
    to divorce the child from it will in the end create chaos necessary to
    Communism.

    Under the saccharine guise of assistance to them, rigorous child labor
    laws are the best means to deny the child any right in society. By
    refusing to let him earn, by forcing him into unwanted dependence upon
    a grudging parent, by making certain in other channels that the parent
    is never in other than economic stress, the child can be driven in his
    teens into revolt. Delinquency will ensue.

    By making readily available drugs of various kinds, by giving the
    teen-ager alcohol, by praising his wildness, by stimulating him with
    sex literature and advertising to him or her practices as taught at
    the Sexpol, the psychopolitical operator can create the necessary
    attitude of chaos, idleness and worthlessness into which can then be
    cast the solution which will give the teen ager complete freedom
    everywhere --Communism.

    Should it be possible to continue conscription beyond any reasonable
    time by promoting unpopular wars and other means, the draft can always
    stand as a further barrier to the progress of youth in life,
    destroying any immediate hope to participate in his nation's civil
    life.

    By these means the patriotism of youth for their Capitalistic flag can
    be dulled to a point where they are no longer dangerous as soldiers.
    While this might require many decades to effect, Capitalisms short
    term view will never envision the lengths across which we can plan.

    If we could effectively kill the national pride and patriotism of just
    one generation, we will have won that country. Therefore, there must
    be continual propaganda abroad to undermine the loyalty of the
    citizens in general and the teen-ager in particular.

    The role of the psychopolitical operator in this is very strong. He
    can, from his position as an authority on the mind, advise all manner
    of destructive measures. He can teach the lack of control of this
    child at home. He can instruct, in an optimum situation, the entire
    nation in how to handle children -- and instruct them so that the
    children, given no control, given no real home, can run wildly about
    with no responsibility for their nation or themselves.

    The mis-alignment of the loyalty of youth to a Capitalistic nation
    sets the proper stage for a realignment of their loyalties toward
    Communism. Creating a greed for drugs, sexual misbehavior and
    uncontrolled freedom and presenting this to them as a benefit of
    Communism, will with ease, bring about our alignment.

    In the case of strong leaders amongst youthful groups, a
    psychopolitical operator can work in many ways to use or discard that
    leadership. If it is to be used, the character of a girl or boy must
    be altered carefully into criminal channels and a control by
    blackmail, or other means, must be maintained. But where the
    leadership is not susceptible, where it resists all persuasions and
    might become dangerous to our Cause, no pains must be spared to direct
    the attention of the authorities to that person and to harass him in
    one way or another until he can come into the hands of the juvenile
    authorities. When this has been effected, it can be hoped that a
    psychopolitical operator, by reason of child advisor status, can, in
    the security of the jail and cloaked by processes of law, destroy the
    sanity of that person. Particularly brilliant scholars, athletes and
    youth group leaders must be handled in either one of these two ways.

    In the matter of guiding the activities of juvenile courts, the
    psychopolitical operator entertains here one of his easier tasks. A
    Capitalistic nation is so filled with injustice in general that a
    little more passes without comment. In juvenile courts there are
    always persons with strange appetites whether these be judges or
    police man or women. If such do not exist, they can be created. By
    making available to them young girls or boys in the "security" of the
    jail or the detention home and by appearing with flash cameras or
    witnesses one becomes equiped with a whip adequate to direct all the
    future decisions of that person when these are needed.

    The handling of youth cases by courts should be led further and
    further away from law and further and further into "mental problems"
    until the entire nation thinks of "mental problems" instead of
    criminals. This places vacancies everywhere in the courts, in the
    offices of district attorneys, or police staffs which could then be
    filled with psychopolitical operators and these become the judges of
    the land by their influence and into their hands comes the total
    control of the criminal, without whose help a revolution cannot ever
    be accomplished.

    By stressing this authority over the problems of youth and adults in
    courts one day the demand for psychopolitical operators could become
    such that even the armed services will use "authorities on the mind"
    to work their various justices and when this occurs, the armed forces
    of the nation then enter into our hands as solidly as if we commanded
    them ourselves. With the slight bonus of having thus a skilled
    interrogator near every technician or handler of secret war apparatus,
    the country, in even of revolution, as did Germany in 1918 and 1919
    will find itself immobilized by its own Army and Navy fully and
    entirely in Communist hands.

    Thus the subject of loyalties and their re-alignment is in fact the
    subject of non-armed conquest of an enemy.
      _________________________________________________________________

                                     [20]
                                    Part 2

References

    1. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7006/psychopolitics#anchorED
    2. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7006/psychopolitics#anchorADD
    3. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7006/psychopolitics#anchor1
    4. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7006/psychopolitics#anchor2
    5. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7006/psychopolitics#anchor3
    6. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7006/psychopolitics#anchor4
    7. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7006/psychopolitics#anchor5
    8. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7006/psychopolitics-pt2.html#anchor6
    9. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7006/psychopolitics-pt2.html#anchor7
   10. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7006/psychopolitics-pt2.html#anchor8
   11. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7006/psychopolitics-pt2.html#anchor9
   12. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7006/psychopolitics-pt2.html#anchor10
   13. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7006/psychopolitics-pt2.html#anchor11
   14. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7006/psychopolitics-pt2.html#anchor12
   15. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7006/psychopolitics-pt2.html#anchor13
   16. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7006/psychopolitics-pt2.html#anchor14
   17. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7006/psychopolitics-pt2.html#anchor15
   18. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7006/psychopolitics-pt2.html#anchor16
   19. http://www.dana.edu/~dwarman/rwp.htm
   20. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7006/psychopolitics-pt2.html
-----------

The Soviet Art of Brain Washing / A Synthesis of the Russian textbook on 
Psychopolitics
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7006/psychopolitics-pt2.html

    A synthesis of the Russian
    Textbook on Psychopolitics
      _________________________________________________________________

                                    Part 2
      _________________________________________________________________

                                  CHAPTER VI
                       THE GENERAL SUBJECT OF OBEDIENCE

    Obedience is the result of force.

    Everywhere we look in the history of the Earth we discover that
    obedience to new rulers has come about entirely through the
    demonstration on the part of those rulers of greater force than was to
    be discovered in the old ruler. A population overridden, conquered by
    war, is obedient to its conqueror. It is obedient to its conqueror
    because its conqueror has exhibited more force.

    Concurrent with force is brutality, for there are human considerations
    involved which also represent force. The most barbaric, unrestrained,
    brutal use of force, if carried far enough, invokes obedience. Savage
    force, sufficiently long displayed toward any individual, will bring
    about his concurrence with any principle or order.

    Force is the antithesis of humanizing actions. It is so synonymous in
    the human mind with savageness, lawlessness, brutality, and barbarism,
    that it is only necessary to display an inhuman attitude toward
    people, to be granted by those people the possession of force.

    Any organization which has the spirit and courage to display
    inhumanity, savageness, brutality, and an uncompromising lack of
    humanity, will be obeyed. Such a use of force is, itself, the
    essential ingredient of greatness. We have o hand no less an example
    to our great Communist Leaders, who, in moments of duress and trial,
    when faced by Czarist rule, continued over the heads of an enslaved
    populace, yet displayed sufficient courage never to stay their hands
    in the execution of the conversion of the Russian State to Communist
    rule.

    If you would have obedience you must have no compromise with humanity.
    If you would have obedience you must make it clearly understood that
    you have no mercy. Man is an animal. He understands, in the final
    analysis, only those things which a brute understands.

    As an example of this, we find an individual refusing to obey and
    being struck. His refusal to obey is now less vociferous. He is struck
    again, and his resistance is lessened once more. He is hammered and
    pounded again and again, until, at length, his only thought is direct
    and implicit obedience to that person from whom the force has
    emanated. This is a proven principle. It is proven because it is the
    main principle of Man, the animal, has used since his earliest
    beginnings. It is the only principle which has been effective, the
    only principle which has brought about a wide and continued belief.
    For it is to our benefit that an individual who is struck again, and
    again, and again from a certain source, will, at length, hypnotically
    believe anything he is told by the source of the blows.

    The stupidity of Western civilizations is best demonstrated by the
    fact that they believe hypnotism is a thing of the mind, of attention,
    and a desire for unconsciousness. This is not true. Only when a person
    has been beaten, punished, and mercilessly hammered, can hypnotism
    upon him be guaranteed in its effectiveness. It is stated by Western
    authorities on hypnosis that only some twenty percent of the people
    are susceptible to hypnotism. This statement is very untrue. Given
    enough punishment, all of the people in any time and place are
    susceptible to hypnotism. In other words, by adding force, hypnotism
    is made uniformly effective. Where unconsciousness could not be
    induced by simple concentration upon the hypnotist, unconsciousness
    can be induced by drugs, by blows, by electric shock, and by other
    means. And where unconsciousness cannot be induced so as to make an
    implantation or an hypnotic command effective, it is only necessary to
    amputate the functioning portions of the animal man's brain to render
    him null and void and no longer a menace. Thus, we find that hypnotism
    is entirely effective.

    The mechanisms of hypnotism demonstrate clearly that people can be
    made to believe in certain conditions, and even in their environments
    or in politics, by the administration of force. Thus, it is necessary
    for a psychopolitician to be an expert in the administration of
    forces. Thus, he can bring about implicit obedience, not only on the
    part of individual members of the populace, but on the entire populace
    itself and its government. He need only take unto himself a
    sufficiently savage role, a sufficiently uncompromising inhuman
    attitude, and he will be obeyed and believed.

    The subject of hypnotism is a subject of belief. What can people be
    made to believe? They can be made to believe anything which is
    administered to them with sufficient brutality and force. The
    obedience of a populace is as good as they will believe.

    Despicable religions, such as Christianity, knew this. They knew that
    if enough faith could be brought into being a populace could be
    enslaved by the Christian mockeries of humanity and mercy, and thus
    could be disarmed. But one need not count upon this act of faith to
    bring about a broad belief. One must only exhibit enough force, enough
    inhumanity, enough brutality and savageness to create implicit belief
    and therefore and thereby implicit obedience. As Communism is a mater
    of belief, its study is a study of force.

    The earliest Russian psychiatrists, pioneering this science of
    psychiatry, understood thoroughly that hypnosis is induced by acute
    fear. They discovered it could also be induced by shock of an
    emotional nature, and also by extreme privation, as well as by blows
    and drugs.

    In order to induce a high state of hypnosis in an individual, a group,
    or a population, an element of terror must always be present on the
    part of those who would govern. The psychiatrist is aptly suited to
    this role, for his brutalities are committed in the name of science
    and are inexplicably complex, and entirely out of the view of the
    human understanding. A sufficient popular terror of the psychiatrist
    will, in itself, bring about insanity on the part of many individuals.
    A psychopolitical operative, then, can, entirely cloaked with
    authority, commence and continue a campaign of propaganda, describing
    various "treatments" which are administered to the insane. He can, in
    all of his literature and his books, list large numbers of pretended
    cures by these means. But these "cures" need not actually produce any
    recovery from a state of disturbance. As long as the psychopolitical
    operative or his dupes are the only authorities as to the difference
    between sanity and insanity, their word as to the therapeutic value of
    such treatment will be the final word. No layman would dare adventure
    to place judgement upon the state of sanity of an individual who the
    psychiatrist has already declared insane. The individual, himself, is
    unable to complain, and his family, as will be covered later, is
    already discredited by the occurrence of insanity in their midst.
    There must be no other adjudicators of insanity, otherwise it could be
    disclosed that the brutalities practiced in the name of treatment are
    not therapeutic.

    A psychopolitical operative has no interest in "therapeutic means" or
    "cures." The greater number of insane in the country where he is
    operating, the larger number of the populace will come under his view,
    and the greater will become his facilities. Because the problem is
    apparently mounting into uncontrollable heights, he can more and more
    operate in an atmosphere of emergency, which again excuses his use of
    such treatments as electric shock, the pre-frontal lobotomy,
    trans-orbital leucotomy, and other operations long-since practiced in
    Russia on political prisoners.

    IT is to the interest of the psychopolitical operative that the
    possibility of curing the insane be outlawed and ruled out at all
    times. For the sake of obedience on the part of the population and
    their general reaction, a level or brutality must, at all costs, be
    maintained. Only in this way can the absolute judgement of the
    psychopolitical operative as to the sanity or insanity of public
    figures be maintained in complete belief. Using sufficient brutality
    upon their patients, the public at large will come to believe utterly
    anything they say about their patients. Furthermore, and much more
    important, the field of the mind must be sufficiently dominated by th
    e psychopolitical operative, so that whatever tenets of the mind are
    taught they will be hypnotically believed. The psychopolitical
    operative, having under his control all psychology classes in an area,
    can thus bring about a complete reformation of the future leaders of a
    country in their educational processes, and so prepare them for
    Communism.

    To be obeyed, once must be believed. If one is sufficiently believed,
    one will unquestioningly be obeyed.

    When he is fortunate enough to obtain into his hands anyone near to a
    political or important figure, this factor of obedience becomes very
    important. A certain amount of fear or terror must be engendered in
    the person under treatment so that this person will then take
    immediate orders, completely and unquestioningly, from the
    psychopolitical operative, and so be able to influence the actions of
    that person who is to be reached.

    Bringing about this state of mind on the part of a population and its
    leaders -- that a psychopolitical operative must, at all times, be
    believed -- could eventually be attended by very good fortune. It is
    not too much to hope that psychopolitical operatives would then, in a
    country such as the United States, become the very intimate advisors
    to political figures, even to the point of advising the entirety of a
    political party as to its actions in an election.

    The long view is the important view. Belief is engendered by a certain
    amount of fear and terror from an authoritative level, and this will
    be followed by obedience.

    The general propaganda which would best serve Psychopolitics would be
    a continual insistence that certain authoritative levels of healing,
    deemed this or that the correct treatment of insanity. These
    treatments must always include a certain amount of brutality.
    Propaganda should continue and stress the rising incidence of insanity
    in a country. The entire field of human behaviour, for the benefit of
    the country, can, at length, be broadened into abnormal behaviour.
    Thus, anyone indulging in any eccentricity, particularly the
    eccentricity of combatting psychopolitics, could be silenced by the
    authoritative opinion on the part of a psychopolitical operative that
    he is acting in an abnormal fashion. This, with some good fortune,
    could bring the person into the hands of the psychopolitical operative
    so as to forever more disable him, or to swerve his loyalties by
    pain-drug hypnotism.

    On the subject of obedience itself, the most optimum obedience is
    unthinking obedience. The command gien must be obeyed without any
    rationalizing on the part of the subject. The command must, therefore,
    be implanted below the thinking process of the subject to be
    influenced, and must react upon him in such a way as to bring no
    mental alertness on his part.

    It is in the interest of Psychopolitics that a population be told that
    an hypnotized person will not do anything against his actual will,
    will not commit immoral acts, and will not act so as to endanger
    himself. While this may be true of light, parlour hypnotism, it
    certainly is not true of commands implanted with the use of electric
    shock, drugs, or heavy punishment. It is counted upon completely that
    this will be discredited to the general public by psychopolitical
    operatives, for if it were to be generally known that individuals
    would obey commands harmful to themselves, and would commit immoral
    acts while under the influence of deep hypnotic commands, the actions
    of many people, working unknowingly in favor of Communism, would be
    too-well understood. People acting under deep hypnotic commands should
    be acting apparently of their own volition and out of their own
    convictions.

    The entire subject of psychopolitical hypnosis, Psychopolitics in
    general, depends for its defense upon continual protest from
    authoritative sources that such things are not possible. And, should
    anyone unmask a psychopolitical operative, he should at once declare
    the whole thing a physical impossibility, and use his authoritative
    position to discount any accusation. Should any writings of
    Psychopolitics come to view, it is only necessary to brand them a hoax
    and laugh them out of countenance. Thus, psychopolitical activities
    are easy to defend.

    When psychopolitical activities have reached a certain peak, from
    there on it is almost impossible to undo them, for the population is
    already under the duress of obedience to the psychopolitical
    operatives and their dupes. The ingredient of obedience is important,
    for the complete belief in the psychopolitical operative renders this
    statement cancelling any challenge about psychopolitical operations
    irrefutable. The optimum circumstances would be to occupy every
    position which would be consulted by officials on any question or
    suspicion arising on the subject of Psychopolitics. Thus, a
    psychiatric advisor should be placed near at hand in every government
    operation. As all suspicions would then be referred to him, no action
    would ever be taken, and the goal of Communism could be realized in
    that nation.

    Psychopolitics depends, from the viewpoint of the layman, upon its
    fantastic aspects. These are its best defense, but above all these
    defenses is implicit obedience on the part of officials and the
    general public, because of the character of the psychopolitical
    operative in the field of healing.

                                 CHAPTER VII
                         ANATOMY OF STIMULUS-RESPONSE
                              MECHANISMS OF MAN

    Man is a stimulus-response animal. His entire reasoning capabilities,
    even his ethics and morals, depends upon stimulus-response machinery.
    This has long been demonstrated by such Russians as Pavlov, and the
    principles have long been used in handling the recalcitrant, in
    training children, and in bringing about a state of optimum behaviour
    on the part of a population.

    Having no independent will of his own, Man is easily handled by
    stimulus-response mechanisms. It is only necessary to install a
    stimulus into the mental anatomy of Man to have that stimulus
    reactivate and respond any time an exterior command source calls it
    into being.

    The mechanisms of stimulus-response are easily understood. The body
    takes pictures of every action in the environment around the
    individual. When the environment includes brutality, terror, shock,
    and other such activities, the mental image picture gained, contains
    in itself all the ingredients of the environment. If the individual,
    himself, was injured during the moment, the injury, itself, will re
    manifest when called upon to respond by an exterior command source.

    As an example of this, if an individual is beaten, and is told during
    the entirety of the beating that he must obey certain officials, he
    will, in the future, feel the beginnings of the pain the moment he
    begins to disobey. The installed pain, itself, reacts as a policeman,
    for the experience of the individual demonstrates to him that he
    cannot combat, and will receive pain from, certain officials.

    The mind can become very complex in its stimulus responses. As easily
    demonstrated in hypnotism, an entire chain of commands, having to do
    with a great many complex actions, can be beaten, shocked, or
    terrorized into a mind, and will there lie dormant until called into
    view by some similarity in the circumstances of the environment to the
    incident of punishment.

    The stimulus we call the "incident of punishment" where the response
    mechanism need only contain small part of the stimulus to call into
    view the mental image picture, and cause it to exert against the body,
    the pain sequence. So long as the individual obeys the picture, or
    follows the commands of the stimulus implantation he is free from
    pain.

    The behaviour of children is regulated in this fashion in every
    civilized country. The father, finding himself unable to bring about
    immediate obedience and training on the part of his child, resorts to
    physical violence, and after administering punishment of a physical
    nature to the child on several occasions, is gratified to experience
    complete obedience on the part of the child each time the father
    speaks. In that parents are wont to be lenient with their children,
    they seldom administer sufficient punishment to bring about entirely
    optimum obedience. The ability of the organism to withstand punishment
    is very great. Complete and implicit response can be gained only by
    stimuli sufficiently brutal to actually injure the organism. The
    Kossack method of breaking wild horses is a useful example. The horse
    will not restrain itself or take any of its rider's commands. The
    rider, wishing to break it, mounts, and takes a flask of strong Vodka,
    and smashes it between the horse's ears. The horse, struck to its
    knees , its yes filled with alcohol, mistaking the dampness for blood,
    instantly and thereafter gives its attention to the rider and never
    needs further breaking. Difficulty in breaking horses is only
    occasioned when light punishments are administered. There is some
    mawkish sentimentality about "breaking the spirit," but what is
    desired here is an obedient horse, and sufficient brutality brings
    about an obedient horse.

    The stimulus-response mechanisms of the body are such that the pain
    and the command subdivide so as to counter each other. The mental
    image picture of the punishment will not become effective upon the
    individual unless the command content is disobeyed. It is pointed out
    in many early Russian writings that this is a survival mechanism. It
    has already been well and thoroughly used in the survival of
    Communism.

    It is only necessary to deliver into the organism a sufficient
    stimulus to gain an adequate response.

    So long as the organism obeys the stimulus whenever it is restimulated
    in the future, it does not suffer from the pain of the stimulus. But
    should it disobey the command content of the stimulus, the stimulus
    reacts to punish the individual. Thus, we have an optimum
    circumstance, and one of the basic principles of Psychopolitics. A
    sufficiently installed stimulus will thereafter remain as a police
    mechanism within the individual to cause him to follow the commands
    and directions given to him. Should he fail to follow these commands
    and directions, the stimulus mechanism will go into action. As the
    commands are there with the moment of duress, the commands themselves
    need never be repeated, and if the individual were to depart thousands
    of miles away from the psychopolitical operative, he will still obey
    the psychopolitical operative, or, himself, become extremely ill and
    in agony. These principles, built from the earliest days of Pavlov, by
    constant and continuous Russian development, have, at last, become of
    enormous use to us in our conquest. For less modern and well-informed
    countries of Earth, lacking this mechanism, failing to understand it,
    and coaxed into somnolence by our own psychopolitical operatives, who
    discount and disclaim it, cannot avoid succumbing to it.

    The body is less able to resist a stimulus if it has insufficient food
    and is weary. Therefore, it is necessary to administer all such
    stimuli to individuals when their ability to resist has been reduced
    by privation and exhaustion. Refusal to let them sleep over many days,
    denying them adequate food, then brings about an optimum state for the
    receipt of a stimulus. If the person is then given an electrical
    shock, and is told while the shock is in action that he must obey and
    do certain things, he has no choice but to do them, or to
    re-experience, because of his mental image picture of it, the electric
    shock. This highly scientific and intensely workable mechanism cannot
    be over-estimated in the practice of psychopolitics.

    Drugging the individual produces an artificial exhaustion, and if he
    is drugged, or shocked and beaten, and given a string of commands, his
    loyalties, themselves, can be definitely rearranged. This is P.D.H.,
    or Pain-Drug Hypnosis.

    The psychopolitical operative in training should be thoroughly studied
    in the subject of hypnotism and post-hypnotic suggestion. He should
    pay particular attention to the "forgetter mechanism" aspect of
    hypnotism, which is to say, implantation in the unconscious mind. He
    should note particularly that a person given a command in a hypnotic
    state, and then told when still in that condition to forget it, will
    execute it on a stimulus-response signal in the environment after he
    has "awakened" from his hypnotic trance.

    Having mastered these details fully, he should, by practicing upon
    criminals and prisoners, or inmates available to him, produce the
    hypnotic trance by drugs, and drive home post-hypnotic suggestions by
    pain administered to the drugged person. He should then study the
    reactions of the person when "awakened," and should give him the
    stimulus-response signal which would throw into action the commands
    given while in a drugged state of duress. By much practice he can then
    learn the threshold dosages of various or additional drug shock
    necessary to produce the optimum obedience to the commands. He should
    also satisfy himself that the is no possible method known to Man --
    there must be no possible method known to Man -- of bringing the
    patient to awareness of what has happened to him, keeping him in a
    state of obedience and response while ignorant of its cause.

    Using criminals and prisoners, the psychopolitical operative in
    training should then experiment with duress in the absence of
    privation,administering electric shocks, beatings, and terror-inducing
    tactics, accompanied by the same mechanisms as those employed in
    hypnotism, and watch the conduct of the person when no longer under
    duress.

    The operative in training should carefully remark those who show a
    tendency to protest, so that he may recognize possible recovery of
    memory of the commands implanted. Purely for his own education, he
    should then satisfy himself as to the efficiency of brain surgery in
    disabling the non-responsive prisoner.

    The boldness of the psychopolitical operative can be increased
    markedly by permitting persons who have been given pain-drug hypnosis
    and who have demonstrated symptoms of rebelling or recalling into the
    society to observe how the label of "insanity" discredits and
    discounts the statements of the person.

    Exercises in bringing about insanity seizures at will, simply by
    demonstrating a signal to persons upon whom pain-drug hypnosis has
    been used, and exercises in making the seizures come about through
    talking to certain persons in certain places and times should also be
    used.

    Brain surgery, as developed in Russia, should also be practiced by the
    psychopolitical operative in training, to give him full confidence in
    1) the crudeness with which it can be done, 2) the certainty of
    erasure of the stimulus-response mechanism itself, 3) the production
    of imbecility, idiocy, and dis-coordination on the part of the
    patient, and 4) the small amount of comment which casualties in brain
    surgery occasion.

    Exercises in sexual attack on patients should be practiced by the
    psychopolitical operative to demonstrate the inability of the
    pain-drug hypnosis to recall the attack, while indoctrinating a lust
    for further sexual activity on the part of the patient. Sex, in all
    animals, is a powerful motivator, and is no less so in the animal Man,
    and the occasioning of sexual liaison between females of a target
    family and indicated males, under the control of the psychopolitical
    operative, must be demonstrated to be possible with complete security
    for the psychopolitical operative, thus giving into his hands and
    excellent weapon for the breaking down of familial relations and
    consequent public disgraces for the psychopolitical target.

    Just as a dog can be trained, so can a man be trained. Just as a horse
    can be trained, so can a man be trained. Sexual lust, masochism, and
    any other desirable perversion can be induced by pain-drug hypnosis
    and the benefit of the Psychopolitics.

    The changes of loyalties, allegiances, and sources of command can be
    occasioned easily by psychopolitical technologies, and these should be
    practiced and understood by the psychopolitical operative before he
    begins to tamper with psychopolitical targets of magnitude.

    The actual simplicity of the subject of pain-drug hypnosis, the use of
    electric shock, drugs, insanity-producing injections, and other
    material, should be masked entirely by technical nomenclature, the
    protest of benefit to the patient, by an authoritarian pose and
    position, and by carefully cultivating governmental positions in the
    country to be conquered.

    Although the psychopolitical operative working in universities where
    he can direct the curricula of psychology classes is often tempted to
    teach some of the principles of Psychopolitics to the susceptible
    students in the psychology classes, he must be thoroughly enjoined to
    limit his information in psychology classes to the transmittal of the
    tenets of Communism under the guise of psychology, and must limit his
    activities in bringing about a state of mind on the part of the
    students where they will accept Communist tenets as those of their own
    action and as modern scientific principles. The psychopolitical
    operative must not, at any time, educate students fully in
    stimulus-response mechanisms, and must not impart to them, save those
    who will become his fellow workers,the exact principles of
    Psychopolitics. It is not necessary to do so, and it is dangerous.

                                 CHAPTER VIII
                       DEGRADATION, SHOCK AND ENDURANCE

    Degradation and conquest are companions.

    In order to be conquered, a nation must be degraded, either by acts of
    war, by being overrun, by being forced into humiliating treaties of
    peace, or by the treatment of her populace under the armies of the
    conqueror. However, degradation can be accomplished much more
    insidiously and much more effectively by consistent and continual
    defamation.

    Defamation is the best and foremost weapon of Psychopolitics on the
    broad field. Continual and constant degradation of national leaders,
    national institutions, national practices, and national heroes must be
    systematically carried out, but this is the chief function of the
    Communist Party Members, in general, not the psychopolitician.

    The realm of defamation and degradation, of the psychopolitician, is
    Man himself. By attacking the character and morals of Man himself, and
    by bringing about,through contamination of youth, a general degraded
    feeling, command of the populace is facilitated to a very marked
    degree.

    There is a curve of degradation which leads downward to a point where
    the endurance of an individual is almost at end, and any sudden action
    toward him will place him in a state of shock. Similarly, a soldier
    held prisoner can be abused, denied, defamed, and degraded until the
    slightest motion on the part of his captors will cause him to flinch.
    Similarly, the slightest word on the part of his captors will cause
    him to obey, or vary his loyalties and beliefs. Given sufficient
    degradation, a prisoner can be caused to murder his fellow countrymen
    in the same stockade. Experiments on German prisoners have lately
    demonstrated that only after seventy days of filthy food, little
    sleep, and nearly untenable quarters, that the least motion toward the
    prisoner would bring about a state of shock beyond his endurance
    threshold, and would cause him to hypnotically receive anything said
    to him. Thus, it is possible, in an entire stockade of prisoners, to
    the number of thousands, to being about a state of complete servile
    obedience, and without the labor of personally addressing each one, to
    pervert their loyalties and implant in them adequate commands to
    insure their future conduct, even when released to their own people.

    By lower the endurance of a person, a group, or a nation, and by
    constant degradation and defamation, it is possible to induce, thus, a
    state of shock which will receive adequately any command given.

    The first thing to be degraded in any nation is the state of Man,
    himself. Nations which have high ethical tone are difficult to
    conquer. Their loyalties are hard to shake, their allegiance to their
    leaders is fanatical, and what they usually call their spiritual
    integrity cannot be violated by duress. It is not efficient to attack
    a nation in such a frame of mind. It is the basic purpose of
    Psychopolitics to reduce that state of mind to a point where it can be
    ordered and enslaved. Thus, the first target is Man, himself. He must
    be degraded from a spiritual being to an animalistic reaction pattern.
    He must think of himself as an animal, capable only of animalistic
    reactions. He must no longer think of himself, or of his fellows, as
    capable of "spiritual endurance," or nobility.

    The best approach toward degradation in its first stages is the
    propaganda of "scientific approach" to Man. Man must be consistently
    demonstrated to be a mechanism without individuality, and it must be
    educated into a populace under attack that Man's individualistic
    reactions are the product of mental derangement. The populace must be
    brought into the belief that every individual within it who rebels in
    any way, shape, or form against the efforts and activities to enslave
    the whole, must be considered to be a deranged person whose
    eccentricities are neurotic and insane, and who must have at once the
    treatment of a psychopolitician.

    An optimum condition in such a program of degradation would address
    itself to the military forces of the nation, and bring them rapidly
    away from any other belief than the disobedient one must be subjected
    to "mental treatment." An enslavement of a population can fail only if
    these rebellious individuals are left to exert their individual
    influences upon their fellow citizens, sparking them into rebellion,
    calling into account their nobilities and freedoms. Unless these
    restless individuals are stamped out and given into the hands of
    psychopolitical operatives early in the conquest,there will be nothing
    but trouble as the conquest continues. The officials of the
    government, students, readers, partakers of entertainment,must all be
    indoctrinated, by whatever means, into the complete belief that the
    restless, the ambitions, the natural leaders, are suffering from
    environmental maladjustments, which can only be healed by recourse to
    psychopolitical operatives in the guise of mental healers.

    By thus degrading the general belief in the status of Man it is
    relatively simple, with co-operation from the economic salients being
    driven into the country, to drive citizens apart, one from another, to
    bring about a question of the wisdom of their own government, and to
    cause them to actively beg for enslavement.

    The educational programs of Psychopolitics must, at every hand, seek
    out the levels of youth who will become the leaders in the country's
    future, and educate them into the belief of the animalistic nature of
    Man. This must be made fashionable. They must be taught to frown upon
    ideas, upon individual endeavor. They must be taught, above all
    things, that the salvation of Man is to be found only by his adjusting
    thoroughly to this environment.

    This educational program in the field of Psychopolitics, can best be
    followed by bringing about a compulsory training in some subject such
    as psychology or other mental practice, and ascertaining that each
    broad program of psychopolitical training be supervised by a
    psychiatrist who is a trained psychopolitical operative.

    As it seems in foreign nations that the church is the most ennobling
    influence, each and every branch and activity of each and every
    church, must, one way or another, be discredited. Religion must become
    unfashionable by demonstrating broadly, through psychopolitical
    indoctrination, that the soul is non-existent, and that Man is an
    animal. The lying mechanisms of Christianity lead men to foolishly
    brave deeds. By teaching them that there is a life here-after, the
    liability of courageous acts, while living, is thus lessened. The
    liability of any act must be markedly increased if a populace is to be
    obedient. Thus, there must be no standing belief in the church, and
    the power of the church must be denied at every hand.

    The psychopolitical operative, in his program of degradation, should
    at all times bring into question any family which is deeply religious,
    and, should any neurosis or insanity be occasioned in that family, to
    blame and hold responsible their religious connections for the
    neurotic or psychotic condition. Religion must be made synonymous with
    neurosis and psychosis. People who are deeply religious would be less
    and less held responsible for their own sanity, and should more and
    more be relegated to the ministrations of psychopolitical operatives.

    By perverting the institutions of a nation and bringing about a
    general degradation, by interfering with the economics of a nation to
    the degree that privation and depression come about, only minor shocks
    will be necessary to produce, on the populace as a whole, an obedient
    reaction or an hysteria. Thus, the mere threat of war, the mere threat
    of aviation bombings, could cause the population to sue instantly for
    peace. It is a long and arduous road for the psychopolitical operative
    to achieve this state of mind on the part of the whole nation, but no
    more than twenty or thirty years should be necessary in the entire
    program. Having to hand, as we do, weapons with which to accomplish
    the goal.

                                  CHAPTER IX
                             THE ORGANIZATION OF
                           MENTAL HEALTH CAMPAIGNS

    Psychopolitical operatives should at all times be alert to the
    opportunity to organize "for the betterment of the community" mental
    health clubs or groups. By thus inviting the co-operation of the
    population as a whole in mental health programs, the terrors of mental
    aberration can be disseminated throughout the populace. Furthermore,
    each one of these mental health groups,properly guided, can bring, at
    last, legislative pressure against the government to secure adequately
    the position of the psychopolitical operative, and to obtain for him
    government grants and facilities, thus bringing a government to
    finance its own downfall.

    Mental health organizations must carefully delete from their ranks
    anyone actually proficient in the handling or treatment of mental
    health. Thus must be excluded priests, ministers, actually trained
    psychoanalysts, good hypnotists, or trained Dianeticists. These, with
    some cognizance on the subject of mental aberration and its treatment,
    and with some experience in observing the mentally deranged, if
    allowed frequency within institutions,and if permitted to receive
    literature, would, sooner or later, become suspicious of the
    activities engaged upon by the psychopolitical operative. These must
    be defamed and excluded as "untrained," "unskillful," "quacks," or
    "perpetrators of hoaxes."

    No mental health movement with actual goals of mental therapy should
    be continued in existence in any nation. For instance, the use of
    Chinese acupuncture in the treatment of mental and physical
    derangement must, in China, be stamped out and discredited thoroughly,
    as it has some efficacy, and, more importantly, its practitioners
    understand, through long conversation with it, many of the principles
    of actual mental health and aberration.

    In the field of mental health, the psychopolitician must occupy, and
    continue to occupy, through various arguments, the authoritative
    position on the subject. There is always the danger that problems of
    mental health may be resolved by some individual or group, which might
    then derange the program of the psychopolitical operative in his
    mental health clubs.

    City officials, socialites, and other unknowing individuals, on the
    subject of mental health, should be invited to full co-operation in
    the activity of mental health groups. But the entirety of this
    activity should be to finance better facilities for the
    psychopolitical practitioner. To these groups it must be continually
    stressed that the entire subject of mental illness is so complex that
    none of them, certainly, could understand any part of it. Thus, the
    club should be kept on a social and financial level.

    Where groups interested in the health of the community have already
    been formed, they should be infiltrated and taken over, and if this is
    not possible, they should be discredited and debarred, and the
    officialdom of the area should be invited to stamp them out as
    dangerous.

    When a hostile group dedicated to mental health is discovered, the
    psychopolitician should have recourse to the mechanisms of peyote,
    mescaline, and later drugs which cause temporary insanity. He should
    send persons, preferably those well under his control, into the mental
    health group, whether Christian Science or Dianetics or faith
    preachers to demonstrate their abilities upon this new person. These,
    in demonstrating their abilities, will usually act with enthusiasm.
    Midway in the course of their treatment, a quiet injection of peyote,
    mescaline, or other drug, or an electric shock, will produce the
    symptoms of insanity in the patient which has been sent to the target
    group. The patient thus demonstrating momentary insanity should be
    immediately be reported to the police and taken away to some area of
    incarceration managed by psychopolitical operatives, and so placed out
    of site. Officialdom will thus come into a belief that this group
    drives individuals insane by their practices,and the practices of the
    group will them be despised and prohibited by law.

    The values of a widespread mental health organization are manifest
    when one realizes that any government can be forced to provide
    facilities for psychopolitical operatives in the form of psychiatric
    wards in all hospitals, in national institutions totally in the hands
    of psychopolitical operatives, and in the establishment of clinics
    where youth can be contacted and arranged more seemingly to the
    purposes of Psychopolitics.

    Such groups form a political force, which can then legalize any law or
    authority desired for the psychopolitical operative.

    The securing of authority over such mental health organizations is
    done mainly be appeal to education. A psychopolitical operative should
    make sure that those psychiatrists he controls, those psychologists
    whom he has under his orders, have been trained for an excessively
    long period of time. The longer the training period which can be
    required, the safer the psychopolitical program, since no new group of
    practitioners can arise to disclose and dismay psychopolitical
    programs. Furthermore, the groups themselves cannot hope to obtain any
    full knowledge of the subject,not having behind them many, many years
    of intensive training.

    Vienna has been carefully maintained by Psychopolitics, since it was
    the home of Psychoanalysis. Although our activities have long been
    dispersed any of the gains made by Freudian groups, and have taken
    over these groups, the proximity of Vienna to Russia, where
    Psychopolitics is operating abroad, and the necessity "for further
    study" by psychopolitical operatives in the birth-place of
    Psychoanalysis, makes periodic contacts with headquarters possible.
    Thus the word "psychoanalysis" must be stressed at all times, and must
    be pretended to be a thorough part of the psychiatrist's training.

    Psychoanalysis has the very valuable possession of a vocabulary, and a
    workability which is sufficiently poor to avoid recovery of
    psychopolitical implantations. It can be made fashionable throughout
    mental health organizations, and by learning its patter, and by
    believing they see some of its phenomena, the members of mental health
    groups can believe themselves conversant with mental health. Because
    its stress is sex, it is, itself, adequate defamation of character,
    and serves the purposes of degradation well. Thus, in organizing
    mental health groups, the literature furnished such groups should be
    psychoanalytical in nature.

    If a group of persons interested in suppressing juvenile delinquency,
    in caring for the insane, and the promotion of psychopolitical
    operatives and their actions can be formed in every major city of a
    country under conquest, the success of a psychopolitical program is
    assured, since these groups seem to represent a large segment of the
    population. By releasing continuing propaganda on the subject of dope
    addiction, homosexuality, and depraved conduct on the part of the
    young, even the judges of a country can become suborned into reacting
    violently against the youth of the country,thus mis-aligning and
    aligning the support of youth.

    The communication lines of psychopolitics, if such mental health
    organizations can be well established, can thus run from its most
    prominent citizens to its government. It is not too much to hope that
    the influence of such groups could bring about a psychiatric ward in
    every hospital in the land,and psychiatrists in every company and
    regiment of the nation's army, and whole government institutes manned
    entirely by psychopolitical operatives, into which ailing government
    officials could be placed, to the advantage of the psychopolitician.

    If a psychiatric ward could be established in every hospital in every
    city of a nation, it is certain that, at one time or another, every
    prominent citizen of that nation could come under the ministrations of
    psychopolitical operatives or their dupes.

    The validation of psychiatric position in the armed forces and
    security-minded institutions of the nation under conquest could bring
    about a flow and fund of information unlike any other program which
    could be conceived. If every pilot who flies a new plane could come
    under the questioning of a psychopolitical operative, if the compiler
    of every military action could thus come under the review of
    psychopolitical operatives, the simplicity with which information can
    be extracted by the use of certain drugs, without the after-knowledge
    of the soldier, would entirely cripple any over action toward
    Communism. If the nation could be educated into turning over to
    psychopolitical operatives ever recalcitrant or rebellious soldier, it
    would lose its best fighters. Thus, the advantage of mental health
    organizations can be seen, for these, by exerting an apparent public
    pressure against the government, can achieve these ends and goals.

    The financing of a psychopolitical operation is difficult unless it is
    done by the citizens and government. Although vast sums of money can
    be obtained from private patients, and from relatives who wish persons
    put away, it is, nevertheless, difficult to obtain millions, unless
    the government itself is co-operating. The co-operation of the
    government to obtain these vast sums of money is best obtained by the
    organization of mental health groups composed of leading citizens, and
    who bring their lobbying abilities to bear against the nation's
    government. Thus can be financed many programs, which might otherwise
    have to be laid aside by the psychopolitician.

    The psychopolitical operative should bend consistent and continual
    effort toward forming and continuing in action innumerable mental
    health groups.

    The psychopolitical operative should also spare no expense in smashing
    out of existence, by whatever means, any actual healing group, such as
    that of acupuncture, in China; such as Christian Science, Dianetics
    and faith healing, in the United States; such as Catholicism in Italy
    and Spain; and the practical psychological groups of England.

                                  CHAPTER X
                              CONDUCT UNDER FIRE

    The psychopolitician may well find himself under attack as an
    individual or a member of a group. He may be attacked as a Communist,
    through some leak in the organization, he may be attacked for
    malpractice. He may be attacked by the families of people whom he has
    injured. In all cases his conduct of the situation should be calm and
    aloof. He should have behind him the authority of many years of
    training, and he should have participated fully in the building of
    defense in field of insanity which give him the only statement as to
    the conditions of the mind.

    If he has not done his work well, hostile feeling groups may expose an
    individual psychopolitician. These may call into question the efficacy
    of psychiatric treatment such as shock, drugs, and brian surgery.
    Therefore, the psychopolitical operative must have to hand innumerable
    documents which assert enourmously encouraging figures on the subject
    of recovery by reason of shock, brain surgery, drugs and general
    treatment. Not one of these cases cited need be real, but they should
    be documented and printed in such a fashion as to form excellent court
    evidence.

    When his allegiance is attacked, the psychopolitical operative should
    explain his connection with Vienna on the grounds that Vienna is the
    place of study for all important matters of the mind.

    More importantly, he should rule into scorn, by reason of his
    authority, the sanity of the person attacking him, and if the
    psychopolitical archives of the country are adequate many defamatory
    data can be unearthed and presented as a rebuttal.

    Should anyone attempt to expose psychotherapy as a psychopolitical
    activity, the best defense is calling into question the sanity of the
    attacker. The next best defense is authority. The next best defense is
    a validation of psychiatric practices in terms of long and impressive
    figures. The next best defense is the actual removal of the attacker
    by giving him, or them, treatment sufficient to bring about a period
    of insanity for the duration of the trial. This, more than anything
    else, would discredit them, but it is dangerous to practice this, in
    the extreme.

    Psychopolitics should avoid murder and violence, unless it is done in
    the safety of the institution, on persons who have been proven to be
    insane. Where institution deaths appear to be unnecessary, or to rise
    in "unreasonable number," political capital might be made of this by
    city officials or legislature. If the psychopolitical operative has,
    himself, or if his group has done a thorough job, defamatory data
    concerning the person, or connections, of the would-be attacker should
    be on file, should be documented, and should be used in such a way as
    to discourage the inquiry.

    After a period of indoctrination, a country will expect insanity to be
    met by psychopolitical violence. Psychopolitical activities should
    become the only recognized treatment for insanity. Indeed, this can be
    extended to such a length that it could be made illegal for electric
    shock and brain surgery to be omitted in the treatment of a patient.

    In order to defend psychopolitical activities, a great complexity
    should be made of psychiatric, psychoanalytical, and psychological
    technology. Any hearing should be burdened by terminology too
    difficult to be transcribed easily. A great deal should be made out of
    such terms as schizophrenia, paranoia, and other relatively
    undefinable states.

    Psychopolitical tests need not necessarily be in agreement, one to
    another, where they are available to the public. Various types of
    insanity should be characterized by difficult terms. The actual state
    should be made obscure, but by this verbiage it can be built into the
    court or investigating mind that a scientific approach exists and that
    it is too complex for him to understand. It is not to be imagined that
    a judge or a committee of investigation should inquire too deeply into
    the subject of insanity, since they, themselves, part of the
    indoctrinated masses, are already intimidated if the psychopolitical
    activity has caused itself to be well-documented in terms of horror in
    magazines.

    In case of a hearing or trial, the terribleness of insanity itself,
    its threat to the society, should be exaggerated until the court or
    committee believes that the psychopolitical operative is vitally
    necessary in his post and should not be harassed for the activities of
    persons who are irrational.

    An immediate attack upon the sanity of the attacker before any
    possible hearing can take place is the very best defense. It should
    become well-known that "only the insane attack psychiatrists." The
    by-word should be built into the society that paranoia is a condition
    "in which the individual believes he is being attacked by Communists."
    It will be found that this defense is effective.

    Part of the effective defenses should include the entire lack in the
    society of any real psychotherapy. This must be systematically stamped
    out, since a real psychotherapy might possibly uncover the results of
    psychopolitical activities.

    Jurisprudence, in a Capitalistic nation,is of such clumsiness that
    cases are invariably tried in their newspapers. We have handled these
    things much better in Russia, and have uniformly brought people to
    trial with full confessions already arrived at (being implanted)
    before the trial took place.

    Should any whisper, or pamphlet, against psychopolitical activities be
    published, it should be laughed into scorn, branded an immediate hoax,
    and its perpetrator or publisher should be, at the first opportunity,
    branded as insane and by the use of drugs the insanity should be
    confirmed.

                                  CHAPTER XI
                                  THE USE OF
                    PSYCHOPOLITICS IN SPREADING COMMUNISM

    Reactionary nations are of such a composition that they attack a word
    without understanding of it. As the conquest of a nation by Communism
    depends upon imbuing its population with communistic tenets, it is not
    necessary that the term "Communism" be applied at first to the
    educative measures employed.

    As an example, in the United States we have been able to alter the
    works of William James, and others, into a more acceptable pattern,
    and to place the tenets of Karl Marx, Pavlov, Lamarck, and the data of
    Dialectic Materialism into the textbooks of psychology, to such a
    degree that anyone thoroughly studying psychology becomes at once a
    candidate to accept the reasonableness of Communism.

    As every chair of psychology in the United States is occupied by
    persons in our connection, the consistent employment of such texts is
    guaranteed. They are given the authoritative ring, and they are
    carefully taught.

    Constant pressure in the legislatures of the United States can bring
    about legislation to the effect that every student attending a high
    school or university must have classes in psychology.

    Educating broadly the educated strata of the populace into the tenets
    of Communism is thus rendered relatively easy, and when the choice is
    given them whether to continue in a Capitalistic or a Communistic
    condition, they will see, suddenly, in Communism, much more
    reasonability than in Capitalism, which will now be of our own
    definition.

                                 CHAPTER XII
                               VIOLENT REMEDIES

    As a populace, in general, understand that a violence is necessary in
    the handling of the insane, violent remedies seem to be reasonable.
    Starting from a relatively low level of violence, such as
    strait-jackets and other restraints, it is relatively easy to encroach
    upon the public diffidence for violence by adding more and more
    cruelty into the treatment of the insane.

    By increasing the brutality of "treatment," the public acceptance of
    such treatment will be assisted, and the protest of the individual to
    whom the treatment is given is impossible, since immediately after the
    treatment he is incapable. The family of the individual under
    treatment is suspect for having had in its midst, already, an insane
    person. The family's protest should be discredited.

    The more violent the treatment, the more command value the
    psychopolitical operative will accumulate. Brain operations should
    become standard and commonplace. While the figures of actual deaths
    should be repressed wherever possible, nevertheless, it is of no great
    concern to the psychopolitical operative that many deaths do occur.

    Gradually, the public should be educated into electric shock, first by
    believing that it is very therapeutic, then by believing that it is
    quieting, then by being informed that electric shock usually injures
    the spine and teeth, and finally, that if very often kills or at least
    breaks the spine and removes, violently, the teeth of the patient. It
    is very doubtful if anyone from the lay levels of the public could
    tolerate the observation of a single electric shock treatment.
    Certainly they could not tolerate witnessing a prefrontal lobotomy or
    trans-orbital leucotomy. However, they should be brought up to a level
    where this is possible, where it is the expected treatment, and where
    the details, of the treatment itself can be made known, thus to the
    increase of psychopolitical prestige.

    The more violent the treatment, the more hopeless insanity will seem
    to be.

    The society should be worked up to the level where every recalcitrant
    young man can be brought into court and assigned to a psychopolitical
    operative, be given electric shocks, and reduced into unimaginative
    docility for the remainder of his days.

    By continuous and increasing advertising of the violence of treatment,
    the public will at last come to tolerate the creation of zombie
    conditions to such a degree that they will probably employ zombies, if
    given to them. Thus a large strata of the society, particularly that
    which was rebellious, can be reduced to the service of the
    psychopolitician.

    By various means, a public must be convinced, at least, that insanity
    can only be met by shock, torture, deprivation, defamation,
    discrediting, violence, maiming, death, punishment in all its forms.
    The society, at the same time, must be educated into the belief of
    increasing insanity within its ranks. This creates an emergency, and
    places the psychopolitician in a saviour role, and places him, at
    length, in charge of the society.

                                 CHAPTER XIII
                   THE RECRUITING OF PSYCHOPOLITICAL DUPES

    The psychopolitical dupe is a well-trained individual who serves in
    complete obedience to the psychopolitical operative.

    In that nearly all persons in training are expected to undergo a
    certain amount of treatment in any field of the mind, it is not too
    difficult to persuade persons in the field of mental healing to
    subject themselves to mild or minor drugs or shock. If this can be
    done, a psychological dupe on the basis of pain-drug hypnosis can
    immediately result.

    Recruitment into the ranks of "mental healing" can best be done by
    carefully bringing to it only those healing students who are, to some
    slight degree, already depraved, or who have been "treated" by
    psychopolitical operatives.

    Recruitment is effected by making the field of mental healing very
    attractive, financially, and sexually.

    The amount of promiscuity which can be induced in mental patients can
    work definitely to the advantage of the psychopolitical recruiting
    agent. The dupe can thus be induced into many lurid sexual contacts,
    and these, properly witnessed, can thereafter be used as blackmail
    material to assist any failure of pain-drug hypnosis in causing him to
    execute orders.

    The promise of unlimited sexual opportunities, the promise of complete
    dominion over the bodies and minds of helpless patients, the promise
    of having lawlessness without detection, can thus attract to "mental
    healing" many desirable recruits who will willingly fall in line with
    psychopolitical activities.

    In that the psychopolitician has under his control the insane of the
    nation, most of them have criminal tendencies, and as he can, as his
    movement goes forward, recruit for his ranks the criminals themselves,
    he has unlimited numbers of human beings to employ on whatever
    projects he may see fit. In that the insane will execute destructive
    projects without question, if given the proper amount of punishment
    and implantation, the degradation of the country's youth, the
    defamation of its leaders, the suborning of its courts becomes
    childlishly easy.

    The psychopolitician has the advantage of naming as a delusory symptom
    any attempt on the part of the patient to expose commands.

    The psychopolitician should carefully adhere to institutions and
    should eschew practice whenever possible, since this gives him the
    greatest number of human beings to control to the use of Communism.
    When he does act in private practice, it should be only in contact
    with the families of the wealthy and the officials of the country.

                                 CHAPTER XIV
                       THE SMASHING OF RELIGIOUS GROUPS

    You must know that until recent times the complete subject of mental
    derangement, whether so light as simple worry or so heavy as insanity,
    was the sphere of activity of the church and only the church.

    Traditionally in civilized nations and barbaric ones the priesthood
    alone had in complete charge the mental conditions of the citizen. As
    a matter of great concern to the psychopolitician this tendency still
    exists in every public in the Western World and scientific inroads
    into this sphere has occurred only in official and never in public
    quarters.

    The magnificent tool wielded for us by Wundt would be as nothing if it
    were not for official insistence in civilized countries that
    "scientific practices" be applied to the problem of the mind. Without
    this official insistence or even if it relapsed for a moment, the
    masses would grasp stupidly for the priest, the minister, and the
    clergy when mental condition came in question. Today in Europe and
    America "scientific practices" in the field of the mind would not last
    moments if not enforced entirely by officialdom.

    It must be carefully hidden that the incidence of insanity has
    increased only since thee "scientific practices" were applied. Great
    remarks must be made of the "the pace of modern living" and other
    myths as the cause of the increased neurosis in the world. It is
    nothing to us what causes it if anything does. It is everything to us
    that no evidence of any kind shall be tolerated afoot to permit the
    public tendency toward the church its way. If given their heads, if
    left to themselves to decide, independent of officialdom, where they
    would place their deranged loved ones the public would choose
    religious sanitariums and would avoid as if plagued places where
    "scientific practices" prevail.

    Given any slightest encouragement, public support would swing on an
    instant all mental healing into the hands of the churches. And there
    are Churches waiting to receive it, clever churches. That terrible
    monster, the Roman Catholic Church, still dominates mental healing
    heavily throughout the Christian world and their well schooled priests
    are always at work to turn the public their way. Among Fundamentalist
    and Pentecostal groups, healing campaigns are conducted, which,
    because of their results, win many to the cult of Christianity. In the
    field of pure healing the Church of Christ Science of Boston,
    Massachusetts excels in commanding the public favor and operates many
    sanitariums. All of these must be swept aside. They must be ridiculed
    and defamed and every cure they advertise must be asserted a hoax. A
    full fifth of a psychopolitician's time should be devoted to smashing
    these threats. Just as in Russian we had to destroy, after many, many
    years of most arduous work, the Church, so we must destroy all faiths
    in nations marked for conquest.

    Insanity must be made to hound the footsteps of every priest and
    practitioner. His best results must be turned to jabbering insanities
    no matter what means we have to use.

    You need not care what effect you have upon the public. The effect you
    care about is the one upon officials. You must recruit every agency of
    the nation marked for slaughter into a foaming hatred of religious
    healing. You must suborn district attorneys and judges into an intense
    belief as fervent as an ancient faith in God that Christian Science or
    any other religious practice which might devote itself to mental
    healing is vicious, bad, insanity-causing, publicly hated and
    intolerable.

    You must suborn and recruit any medical healing organization into
    collusion in this campaign. You must appeal to their avarice and even
    their humanity to invite their co-operation in smashing all religious
    healing and thus, to our end, care of the insane. You must see that
    such societies have only qualified Communist-indoctrinees as their
    advisors in this matter. For you can use such societies. They are
    stupid and stampede easily. Their cloak and degrees can be used quite
    well to mask any operation we care to have masked. We must make them
    partners in our endeavor so that they will never be able to crawl from
    beneath our thumb and discredit us.

    We have battled in America since the century's turn to bring to
    nothing any and all Christian influences and we are succeeding. While
    we today seem to be kind to the Christian, remember, we have yet to
    influence the "Christian world" to our ends. When that is done we
    shall have an end of them everywhere. You may see them here in Russia
    as trained apes. They do not know their tether is long only until the
    apes in other lands have become unwary.

    You must work until "religion" is synonymous with "insanity."" You
    must work until the officials of city, county and state governments
    will not think twice before they pounce upon religious groups as
    public enemies.

    Remember, all lands are governed by the few and only pretend to
    consult with the many. It is no different in America. The petty
    official, the maker of laws alike can be made to believe the worst. It
    is not necessary to convince the masses. It is only necessary to work
    incessantly upon the official, using personal defamations, wild lies,
    false evidences and constant propaganda to make him fight for you
    against the church or against any practitioner.

    Like the official, the bona-fide medical healer also believes the
    worst if it can be shown to him as dangerous competition. And like the
    Christian, should he seek to take from us any right we have gained, we
    shall finish him as well.

    We must be like the vine upon the tree. We use the tree to climb and
    then, strangling it, grow into power on the nourishment of its flesh.

    We must strike from our path any opposition. We must use for our tools
    any authority that comes to hand. And then at last, the decades sped,
    we can dispense with all authority save our own and triumph the
    greater glory of the Party.

                                  CHAPTER XV
                       PROPOSALS WHICH MUCH BE AVOIDED

    There are certain damaging movements which could interrupt the
    psychopolitical conquest. These coming from some quarters of the
    country, might gain headway and should be spotted before they do, and
    stamped out.

    Proposals may be made by large and powerful groups in the country to
    return the insane to the care of those who have handled mental healing
    for tribes and populace for centuries--the priest. Any movement to
    place clergymen in charge of institutions should be fought on the
    grounds of incompetence and the insanity brought about by religion.
    The most destructive thing which could happen to a psychopolitical
    program would be the investment of the ministry with the care of the
    nation's insane.

    If mental hospitals operated by religious groups are in existence,
    they must be discredited and closed, no matter what the cost, for it
    might occur that the actual figures of recovery in such institutions
    would become known, and that the lack of recovery in general
    institutions might be compared to them, and this might lead to a
    movement to place the clergy in charge of the insane. Every argument
    must be advanced early, to overcome any possibility of this ever
    occurring.

    A country's law must carefully be made to avoid any rights of person
    to the insane. Any suggested laws or Constitutional Amendments which
    make the harming of the insane unlawful, should be fought to the
    extreme, on the grounds that only violent measures can succeed. If the
    law were to protect the insane, as it normally does not, the entire
    psychopolitical program would very possibly collapse.

    Any movements to increase or place under surveillance the orders
    required to hospitalize the mentally ill should be discouraged. This
    should be left entirely in the hands of persons well under the control
    of psychopolitical operatives. It should be done with minimum
    formality, and no recovery of the insane from an institution should be
    possible by any process of law. Thus, any movement to add to the legal
    steps of the processes of commitment and release should be discouraged
    on the grounds of emergency. To obviate this, the best action is to
    place a psychiatric and detention ward for the mentally ill in every
    hospital in a land.

    Any writings of a psychopolitical nature, accidentally disclosing
    themselves, should be prevented. All actual literature on the subject
    of insanity and its treatment should be suppressed, first by actual
    security, and second by complex verbage which renders it
    incomprehensible. The actual figures of recovery or death should never
    be announced in any papers. Any investigation attempting to discover
    whether or not psychiatry or psychology has ever cured anyone should
    be immediately discouraged and laughed to scorn, and should mobilize
    at the point all psychopolitical operatives. At first, it should be
    ignored, but if this is not possible, the entire weight of all
    psychopoliticians in the nation should be pressed into service. Any
    tactic possible should be employed to prevent this from occurring. To
    rebut it, technical appearing papers should exist as to the tremendous
    number of cures effected by psychiatry and psychology, and whenever
    possible, percentages of cures, no matter how fictitious, should be
    worked into legislative papers, thus forming a background of
    "evidence" which would immediately rebut any effort to actually
    discover anyone who had ever been helped by psychiatry or psychology.

    If the Communistic connections of an psychopolitician should become
    disclosed, it should be attributed to his own carelessness, and he
    should, himself, be immediately branded as eccentric within his own
    profession.

    Authors of literature which seek to demonstrate the picture of a
    society under complete mental control and duress should be helped
    toward infamy or suicide to discredit their works.

    Any legislation liberalizing any healing practice should be
    immediately fought and defeated. All healing practices should
    gravitate entirely to authoritative levels, and no other opinions
    should be admitted, as these might lead to exposure.

    Movements to improve youth should be invaded and corrupted, as this
    might interrupt campaigns to produce in youth delinquency, addiction,
    drunkenness, and sexual promiscuity.

    Communist workers in the field of newspapers and radio should be
    protected wherever possible by striking out of action, through
    Psychopolitics, any persons consistently attacking them. These, in
    their turn, should be persuaded to give every possible publicity to
    the benefits of psychopolitical activities under the heading of
    "science."

    No healing group devoted to the mind must be allowed to exist within
    the borders of Russia or its satellites. Only well-vouched-for
    psychopolitical operatives can be continued in their practice, and
    this only for the benefit of the government or against enemy
    prisoners.

    Any effort to exclude psychiatrists or psychologists from the armed
    services must be fought.

    Any inquest into the "suicide" or sudden mental derangement of any
    political leader in a nation must be conducted only by psychopolitical
    operatives or their dupes, whether Psychopolitics is responsible or
    not.

    Death and violence against persons attacking Communism in a nation
    should be eschewed as forbidden. Violent activity against such persons
    might bring about their martyrdom. Defamation, and the accusation of
    insanity, alone should be employed, and they should be brought at last
    under the ministrations of psychopolitical operatives, such as
    psychiatrists and controlled psychologists.

                                 CHAPTER XVI
                                  IN SUMMARY

    In this time of unlimited weapons, and in national antagonisms, where
    atomic war with Capitalistic powers is possible, Psychopolitics must
    act efficiently as never before.

    Any and all programs of Psychopolitics must be increased to aid and
    abet the activities of other Communist agents throughout the nation in
    question.

    The failure of Psychopolitics might well bring about the atomic
    bombing of the Motherland.

    If Psychopolitics succeeds in its mission throughout the Capitalistic
    nations of the world, there will never be an atomic war, for Russia
    will have subjugated all of her enemies.

    Communism has already spread across one-sixth of the inhabited world.
    Marxist Doctrines have already penetrated the remainder. An extension
    of the Communist social order is everywhere victorious. The spread of
    Communism has never been by force of battle, but by conquest of the
    mind. In Psychopolitics we have refined this conquest to its last
    degree.

    The psychopolitical operative must succeed, for his success means a
    world of Peace. His failure might well mean the destruction of the
    civilized portions of Earth by atomic power in the hands of
    Capitalistic madmen.

    The end thoroughly justifies the means. The degradation of populace is
    less inhuman than their destruction by atomic fission, for to an
    animal who lives only once, any life is sweeter than death.

    The end of war is the control of a conquered people. If a people can
    be conquered in the absence of war, the end of war will have been
    achieved without the destruction of war. A worth goal.

    The psychopolitician has his reward in the nearly unlimited control of
    populace, in the uninhibited exercise of passion, and the glory of
    Communist conquest over the stupidity of the enemies of the People.

                                   THE END
                     ___________________________________

                           This book was posted by
                               Courageous Lion
                           He can be emailed at...
                           [1]Courageous Lion's Den

References

    1. mailto:courageouslion at amprom.org?subject=Psychopolitics


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  1 16:04:46 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 11:04:46 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: A New Language Arises,
	and Scientists Watch It Evolve
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502011104050.11285@panix1.panix.com>

The New York Times > Science > A New Language Arises,
and Scientists Watch It Evolve
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/01/science/01lang.html
5.2.1

    By NICHOLAS WADE

    Linguists studying a signing system that spontaneously developed in
    an isolated Bedouin village say they have captured a new language
    being generated from scratch. They believe its features may reflect
    the innate neural circuitry that governs the brain's faculty for
    language.

    The language, known as Al Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language, is used in a
    village of some 3,500 people in the Negev desert of Israel. They are
    descendants of a single founder, who arrived 200 years ago from Egypt
    and married a local woman. Two of the couple's five sons were deaf, as
    are about 150 members of the community today.

    The clan has long been known to geneticists, but only now have
    linguists studied its sign language. A team led by Dr. Wendy Sandler
    of the University of Haifa says in The Proceedings of the National
    Academy of Sciences today that the Bedouin sign language developed
    spontaneously and without outside influence. It is not related to
    Israeli or Jordanian sign languages, and its word order differs from
    that of the spoken languages of the region.

    Linguists have long disputed whether language is transmitted just
    through culture, as part of the brain's general learning ability or is
    internally generated with the help of genetically specified neural
    circuits that prescribe the elements of grammar. Since children learn
    to speak from those around them, there is no obvious way of separating
    what is learned from what is innate except by observing a new language
    being developed from scratch, something that happens very rarely.

    Two special opportunities to study a new language and identify its
    innate elements have recently come to light. One is Nicaraguan sign
    language, a signing system developed spontaneously by children at a
    school for the deaf founded in 1977 in Nicaragua. The other is the
    Bedouin sign language being described today. Sign languages can
    possess all the properties of spoken language, including grammar, and
    differ only in the channel through which meaning is conveyed.

    Two features of the Bedouin sign language that look as if they come
    from some innate grammatical machinery are a distinction between
    subject and object, and the preference for a specific word order, said
    Dr. Mark Aronoff of Stony Brook University, an author of today's
    report. The word order is subject-object-verb, the most common in
    other languages. Dr. Aronoff said that the emergence of a preferred
    order was the critical feature, and that it was too early to tell if
    subject-object-verb is the particular order favored by the brain's
    neural circuitry.

    Linguists hope to learn more about the brain's language machinery by
    identifying the features that the Bedouin and Nicaraguan sign
    languages hold in common.

    Dr. Ann Senghas, who has studied Nicaraguan sign language for 15
    years, said she agreed with Dr. Aronoff that the subject-object
    distinction and word order could be innate features.

    Dr. Senghas, who is at Barnard College in New York, said the preferred
    word order in Nicaraguan sign language kept changing with each cohort
    of children. The language has now acquired the signed equivalents of
    case endings, the changes used in languages like Latin to show if a
    word is the subject or object of a sentence. Word order can be less
    rigorous in languages that use case endings.

    The Bedouin sign language, which has not yet acquired case endings, is
    also under development. The third generation is signing twice as fast
    as the first and is using longer sentences, said Dr. Carol Padden of
    the University of California, San Diego, another author of the new
    report.

    Dr. Steven Pinker, a cognitive scientist at Harvard, said the Bedouin
    sign language was "unquestionably an important finding." Together with
    the work on Nicaraguan sign language and other studies, he said, it
    "suggests that the human mind has the motive and means to create an
    expressive grammatical language without requiring many generations of
    fine tuning, trial and error, and accumulation of cultural
    traditions."

    The absence of case endings, or inflection, in the clan's language was
    not surprising, Dr. Pinker said, because this form of change, known as
    morphology to linguists, often takes many generations to develop. Both
    morphology and syntax, the ordering of words in phrases, may use
    "fundamentally the same mental machinery, which operates inside a word
    in the case of morphology and inside a phrase in the case of syntax,"
    he said.

    Some researchers have speculated that language evolved first in the
    form of a system of gestures, with sound taking over only later as the
    preferred channel of communication. Evidence that gesture is still
    deeply embedded in language can be seen in the fact that people
    gesticulate even when on the phone.

    Does the vigor and spontaneity of Bedouin and Nicaraguan sign
    languages support the idea that a gesture-based language evolved
    first? Dr. Senghas said the two languages "are not evidence about what
    came first" but confirm that gesture is an integral part of language.

    The clan sign language, which started only 70 years ago, is unusual in
    being understood by the whole community, not just the deaf, since
    hearing people use it to communicate with their deaf relatives. The
    signs have already become symbolic: the sign for "man" is the twirl of
    a finger to indicate a moustache, although men no longer wear them.

    The Bedouin village is not geographically remote - it is near a large
    McDonald's - but is socially isolated from other Bedouin who look down
    on its origins. There are now more contacts with the outside world,
    and the deaf children are being exposed to Israeli sign language in
    school. The Bedouin sign language may not withstand modernization and
    marriage outside the community. "This is a pretty short flowering,"
    Dr. Aronoff said.


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  1 16:05:47 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 11:05:47 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: Evolution Takes a Back Seat in U.S. Classes
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502011104570.11285@panix1.panix.com>

The New York Times > Science > Evolution Takes a Back Seat in U.S. Classes
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/01/science/01evo.html
5.2.1

    By CORNELIA DEAN

    Dr. John Frandsen, a retired zoologist, was at a dinner for teachers
    in Birmingham, Ala., recently when he met a young woman who had just
    begun work as a biology teacher in a small school district in the
    state. Their conversation turned to evolution.

    "She confided that she simply ignored evolution because she knew she'd
    get in trouble with the principal if word got about that she was
    teaching it," he recalled. "She told me other teachers were doing the
    same thing."

    Though the teaching of evolution makes the news when officials
    propose, as they did in Georgia, that evolution disclaimers be affixed
    to science textbooks, or that creationism be taught along with
    evolution in biology classes, stories like the one Dr. Frandsen tells
    are more common.

    In districts around the country, even when evolution is in the
    curriculum it may not be in the classroom, according to researchers
    who follow the issue.

    Teaching guides and textbooks may meet the approval of biologists, but
    superintendents or principals discourage teachers from discussing it.
    Or teachers themselves avoid the topic, fearing protests from
    fundamentalists in their communities.

    "The most common remark I've heard from teachers was that the chapter
    on evolution was assigned as reading but that virtually no discussion
    in class was taken," said Dr. John R. Christy, a climatologist at the
    University of Alabama at Huntsville, an evangelical Christian and a
    member of Alabama's curriculum review board who advocates the teaching
    of evolution. Teachers are afraid to raise the issue, he said in an
    e-mail message, and they are afraid to discuss the issue in public.

    Dr. Frandsen, former chairman of the committee on science and public
    policy of the Alabama Academy of Science, said in an interview that
    this fear made it impossible to say precisely how many teachers avoid
    the topic.

    "You're not going to hear about it," he said. "And for political
    reasons nobody will do a survey among randomly selected public school
    children and parents to ask just what is being taught in science
    classes."

    But he said he believed the practice of avoiding the topic was
    widespread, particularly in districts where many people adhere to
    fundamentalist faiths.

    "You can imagine how difficult it would be to teach evolution as the
    standards prescribe in ever so many little towns, not only in Alabama
    but in the rest of the South, the Midwest - all over," Dr. Frandsen
    said.

    Dr. Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for
    Science Education, said she heard "all the time" from teachers who did
    not teach evolution "because it's just too much trouble."

    "Or their principals tell them, 'We just don't have time to teach
    everything so let's leave out the things that will cause us problems,'
    " she said.

    Sometimes, Dr. Scott said, parents will ask that their children be
    allowed to "opt out" of any discussion of evolution and principals
    lean on teachers to agree.

    Even where evolution is taught, teachers may be hesitant to give it
    full weight. Ron Bier, a biology teacher at Oberlin High School in
    Oberlin, Ohio, said that evolution underlies many of the central ideas
    of biology and that it is crucial for students to understand it. But
    he avoids controversy, he said, by teaching it not as "a unit," but by
    introducing the concept here and there throughout the year. "I put out
    my little bits and pieces wherever I can," he said.

    He noted that his high school, in a college town, has many students
    whose parents are professors who have no problem with the teaching of
    evolution. But many other students come from families that may not
    accept the idea, he said, "and that holds me back to some extent."

    "I don't force things," Mr. Bier added. "I don't argue with students
    about it."

    In this, he is typical of many science teachers, according to a report
    by the Fordham Foundation, which studies educational issues and backs
    programs like charter schools and vouchers.

    Some teachers avoid the subject altogether, Dr. Lawrence S. Lerner, a
    physicist and historian of science, wrote in the report. Others give
    it very short shrift or discuss it without using "the E word," relying
    instead on what Dr. Lerner characterized as incorrect or misleading
    phrases, like "change over time."

    Dr. Gerald Wheeler, a physicist who heads the National Science
    Teachers Association, said many members of his organization "fly under
    the radar" of fundamentalists by introducing evolution as
    controversial, which scientifically it is not, or by noting that many
    people do not accept it, caveats not normally offered for other parts
    of the science curriculum.

    Dr. Wheeler said the science teachers' organization hears "constantly"
    from science teachers who want the organization's backing. "What they
    are asking for is 'Can you support me?' " he said, and the help they
    seek "is more political; it's not pedagogical."

    There is no credible scientific challenge to the idea that all living
    things evolved from common ancestors, that evolution on earth has been
    going on for billions of years and that evolution can be and has been
    tested and confirmed by the methods of science. But in a 2001 survey,
    the National Science Foundation found that only 53 percent of
    Americans agreed with the statement "human beings, as we know them,
    developed from earlier species of animals."

    And this was good news to the foundation. It was the first time one of
    its regular surveys showed a majority of Americans had accepted the
    idea. According to the foundation report, polls consistently show that
    a plurality of Americans believe that God created humans in their
    present form about 10,000 years ago, and about two-thirds believe that
    this belief should be taught along with evolution in public schools.

    These findings set the United States apart from all other
    industrialized nations, said Dr. Jon Miller, director of the Center
    for Biomedical Communications at Northwestern University, who has
    studied public attitudes toward science. Americans, he said, have been
    evenly divided for years on the question of evolution, with about 45
    percent accepting it, 45 percent rejecting it and the rest undecided.

    In other industrialized countries, Dr. Miller said, 80 percent or more
    typically accept evolution, most of the others say they are not sure
    and very few people reject the idea outright.

    "In Japan, something like 96 percent accept evolution," he said. Even
    in socially conservative, predominantly Catholic countries like
    Poland, perhaps 75 percent of people surveyed accept evolution, he
    said. "It has not been a Catholic issue or an Asian issue," he said.

    Indeed, two popes, Pius XII in 1950 and John Paul II in 1996, have
    endorsed the idea that evolution and religion can coexist. "I have yet
    to meet a Catholic school teacher who skips evolution," Dr. Scott
    said.

    Dr. Gerald D. Skoog, a former dean of the College of Education at
    Texas Tech University and a former president of the science teachers'
    organization, said that in some classrooms, the teaching of evolution
    was hampered by the beliefs of the teachers themselves, who are
    creationists or supporters of the teaching of creationism.

    "Data from various studies in various states over an extended period
    of time indicate that about one-third of biology teachers support the
    teaching of creationism or 'intelligent design,' " Dr. Skoog said.

    Advocates for the teaching of evolution provide teachers or school
    officials who are challenged on it with information to help them make
    the case that evolution is completely accepted as a bedrock idea of
    science. Organizations like the science teachers' association, the
    National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the
    Advancement of Science provide position papers and other information
    on the subject. The National Association of Biology Teachers devoted a
    two-day meeting to the subject last summer, Dr. Skoog said.

    Other advocates of teaching evolution are making the case that a
    person can believe both in God and the scientific method. "People have
    been told by some evangelical Christians and by some scientists, that
    you have to choose." Dr. Scott said. "That is just wrong."

    While plenty of scientists reject religion - the eminent evolutionary
    theorist Richard Dawkins famously likens it to a disease - many others
    do not. In fact, when a researcher from the University of Georgia
    surveyed scientists' attitudes toward religion several years ago, he
    found their positions virtually unchanged from an identical survey in
    the early years of the 20th century. About 40 percent of scientists
    said not just that they believed in God, but in a God who communicates
    with people and to whom one may pray "in expectation of receiving an
    answer."

    Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, said
    he thought the great variety of religious groups in the United States
    led to competition for congregants. This marketplace environment, he
    said, contributes to the politicization of issues like evolution among
    religious groups.

    He said the teaching of evolution was portrayed not as scientific
    instruction but as "an assault of the secular elite on the values of
    God-fearing people." As a result, he said, politicians don't want to
    touch it. "Everybody discovers the wisdom of federalism here very
    quickly," he said. "Leave it at the state or the local level."

    But several experts say scientists are feeling increasing pressure to
    make their case, in part, Dr. Miller said, because scriptural
    literalists are moving beyond evolution to challenge the teaching of
    geology and physics on issues like the age of the earth and the origin
    of the universe.

    "They have now decided the Big Bang has to be wrong," he said. "There
    are now a lot of people who are insisting that that be called only a
    theory without evidence and so on, and now the physicists are getting
    mad about this."


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  1 16:07:02 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 11:07:02 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: For Some Girls,
 the Problem With Math Is That They're Good at It
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502011106160.11285@panix1.panix.com>

The New York Times > Science > Essay: For Some Girls,
the Problem With Math Is That They're Good at It
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/01/science/01math.html
5.2.1

    ESSAY

For Some Girls, the Problem With Math Is That They're Good at It

    By CORNELIA DEAN

    A few years ago, I told Donald Kennedy, editor of the journal Science,
    that I wanted to write an essay for his publication. It would say,
    "Anyone who thinks that sexism is no longer a problem in science has
    never been the first woman science editor of The New York Times."

    I never wrote the essay. But the continuing furor over Dr. Lawrence H.
    Summers's remarks on women and science reminds me why I thought of it.

    For those who missed it, Dr. Summers, the president of Harvard, told a
    conference last month on women and science that people worried about
    the relative dearth of women in the upper ranks of science should
    consider the possibility that women simply cannot hack it, that their
    genes or the wiring of their brains somehow leave them less fit than
    men for math, and therefore for science.

    Dr. Summers has since said clearly that he does not believe that girls
    are intellectually less able than boys. But maybe his original
    suggestion was right. If we ever figure out exactly what goes on
    inside the brain, or how our genes shape our abilities, we may find
    out that men and women do indeed differ in fundamental ways.

    But there are other possibilities we should consider first. One of
    them is the damage done by the idea that there is something wrong
    about a girl or woman who is really good at math.

    I first encountered this thinking as a seventh grader who was scarred
    for life when my class in an experimental state school for brainiacs
    was given a mathematics aptitude test. The results were posted and
    everyone found out I had scored several years ahead of the next
    brightest kid. A girl really good in math! What a freak! I resolved
    then and there on a career in journalism.

    I encountered the attitude again shortly after I became science
    editor, taking up a position I was to hold from 1997 to 2003. I went
    to the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement
    of Science, a convention that attracts thousands of researchers and
    teachers. My name tag listed my new position, and the scientists at
    the meeting all seemed to have the same reaction when they read it:
    "You're the new science editor of The New York Times!?"

    At first I was deluded enough to think they meant I was much too
    delightful a person for such a heavy-duty job. In fact, they were
    shocked it had been given to a woman.

    This point was driven home a few weeks later when, at a dinner for
    scientific eminences, a colleague introduced me to one of the nation's
    leading neuroscientists. "Oh yes," the scientist murmured, as he
    scanned the room clearly ignoring me. "Who is the new science editor
    of The New York Times, that twerpy little girl in short skirts?"

    Dumbfounded, I replied, "That would be me."

    A few weeks after that I was in another group of scientific eminences,
    this one at a luncheon at the Waldorf. The spokeswoman for the group
    that organized the event introduced me to one of the group's most
    eminent guests, a leading figure in American science policy.

    "Oh," he said kindly but abstractedly, "you work for The New York
    Times. How nice." The spokeswoman explained, again, that I was the
    newspaper's science editor. "An editor," he said. "How nice." The
    woman explained again, but again he could not take it in. "Oh,
    science," he said, "How nice." At this point the spokeswoman lost
    patience. She grabbed the honored guest by both shoulders, put her
    face a few inches away from his and shouted at him - "She's it!"

    Not long after, I answered the office telephone, and the caller, a
    (male) scientist, asked to speak to several of my colleagues, all male
    and all out. "May I help you?" I inquired. "No, no, no," he replied.
    "I don't want to talk to you, I want to talk to someone important!"

    Even at the time, I could laugh at these experiences. After all, I was
    a grown-up person who could take care of herself. (I informed the
    caller that all the men he wanted to talk to worked for me, and then I
    hung up. As for Dr. Twerpy, he should know that he was not the first
    man to refer to me professionally as "that little girl." I reported on
    the doings of the other one until he was indicted.)

    But the memories of the seventh grader are still not funny. Neither is
    it amusing to reflect on what happened to a college friend who was the
    only student in her section to pass linear algebra, the course the
    math department typically used to separate the sheep from the
    mathematical goats. Talk about stigma! She changed her major to
    American civilization.

    Another friend, graduating as a math major, was advised not to bother
    applying for a graduate research assistantship because they were not
    given to women. She eventually earned a doctorate in math, but one of
    her early forays into the job market ended abruptly when she was told
    she should stay home with her husband rather than seek employment out
    of town.

    Experiences like hers - the outright, out-loud dashing of a promising
    mathematician's hopes simply because of her sex - are no longer the
    norm. At least I hope not. But they are enough, by themselves, to tell
    us why there are relatively few women in the upper ranks of science
    and mathematics today.

    Meanwhile, as researchers have abundantly documented, women continue
    to suffer little slights and little disadvantages, everything from
    ridicule in high school to problems with child care, to a much greater
    degree than their male cohorts. After 10 or 15 years, these little
    things can add up to real roadblocks.

    So if I wanted to address the relative lack of women in the upper
    reaches of science, here is where I would start. By the time these
    problems are eliminated, maybe we'll know what really goes on inside
    the brain and inside the chromosomes. Then it will be time to wonder
    if women are inherently less fit for math and science.


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  1 18:30:24 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 13:30:24 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: Minds of Their Own: Birds Gain Respect
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502011329530.11285@panix1.panix.com>

The New York Times > Science > Minds of Their Own: Birds Gain Respect
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/01/science/01bird.html
5.2.1
[Click on the URL to get to a graphic.]

    By SANDRA BLAKESLEE

    Birdbrain has long been a colloquial term of ridicule. The common
    notion is that birds' brains are simple, or so scientists thought and
    taught for many years. But that notion has increasingly been called
    into question as crows and parrots, among other birds, have shown what
    appears to be behavior as intelligent as that of chimpanzees.

    The clash of simple brain and complex behavior has led some
    neuroscientists to create a new map of the avian brain.

    Today, in the journal Nature Neuroscience Reviews, an international
    group of avian experts is issuing what amounts to a manifesto. Nearly
    everything written in anatomy textbooks about the brains of birds is
    wrong, they say. The avian brain is as complex, flexible and inventive
    as any mammalian brain, they argue, and it is time to adopt a more
    accurate nomenclature that reflects a new understanding of the
    anatomies of bird and mammal brains.

    "Names have a powerful influence on the experiments we do and the way
    we think," said Dr. Erich D. Jarvis, a neuroscientist at Duke
    University and a leader of the Avian Brain Nomenclature Consortium.
    "Old terminology has hindered scientific progress."

    The consortium of 29 scientists from six countries met for seven years
    to develop new, more accurate names for structures in both avian and
    mammalian brains. For example, the bird's seat of intelligence or its
    higher brain is now termed the pallium.

    "The correction of terms is a great advance," said Dr. Jon Kaas, a
    leading expert in neuroanatomy at Vanderbilt University in Nashville
    who did not participate in the consortium. "It's hard to get
    scientists to agree about anything."

    Scientists have come to agree that birds are indeed smart, but those
    who study avian intelligence differ on how birds got that way.
    Experts, including those in the consortium, are split into two warring
    camps. One holds that birds' brains make the same kinds of internal
    connections as do mammalian brains and that intelligence in both
    groups arises from these connections. The other holds that bird
    intelligence evolved through expanding an old part of the mammal brain
    and using it in new ways, and it questions how developed that
    intelligence is.

    "There are still puzzles to be solved," said Dr. Peter Marler, a
    leading authority on bird behavior at the University of California,
    Davis, who is not part of the consortium. But the realization that one
    can study mammal brains by using bird brains, he said, "is a
    revolution."

    "I think that birds are going to replace the white rat as the favored
    subject for studying functional neuroanatomy," he added.

    The reanalysis of avian brains gives new credibility to many behaviors
    that seem odd coming from presumably dumb birds. Crows not only make
    hooks and spears of small sticks to carry on foraging expeditions,
    some have learned to put walnuts on roads for cars to crack. African
    gray parrots not only talk, they have a sense of humor and make up new
    words. Baby songbirds babble like human infants, using the left sides
    of their brains.

    Avian brains got their bad reputation a century ago from the German
    neurobiologist Ludwig Edinger, known as the father of comparative
    anatomy. Edinger believed that evolution was linear, Dr. Jarvis said.
    Brains evolved like geologic strata. Layer upon layer, the brains
    evolved from old to new, from fish to amphibians to reptiles to birds
    to mammals. By Edinger's standards, fish were the least intelligent.
    Humans, created in God's image, were the most intelligent. Edinger cut
    up all kinds of vertebrate brains, noting similarities and
    differences, Dr. Jarvis said.

    In mammals, the bottom third of the brain contained neurons organized
    in clusters. The top two-thirds of the brain, called the neocortex,
    consisted of a flat sheet of cells with six layers. This new brain,
    the seat of higher intelligence, lay over the old brain, the seat of
    instinctual behaviors.

    In humans, the neocortex grew so immense that it was forced to assume
    folds and fissures, so as to fit inside the skull.

    Birds' brains, in contrast, were composed entirely of clusters.
    Edinger concluded that without a six-layered cortex, birds could not
    possibly be intelligent. Rather, their brains were fully dedicated to
    instinctual behaviors.

    This view persisted through the 20th century and is still found in
    most biology textbooks, said Dr. Harvey Karten, a neuroscientist at
    the University of California, San Diego, and a member of the
    consortium, whose research has long challenged the classic view.

    There is a bird way and a mammal way to create intelligence, Dr.
    Karten said. One uses clusters. One uses flat sheet cells in six
    layers. Each exploits the basic design of having a lower brain and a
    higher brain with mutual connections.

    In the 1960's, Dr. Karten carried out experiments using new techniques
    to trace brain wiring and identify the paths taken by various brain
    chemicals. In humans, a chemical called dopamine is found mostly in
    lower brain areas, called basal ganglia, which consist of clusters.

    Using the same tracing techniques in birds, Dr. Karten found that
    dopamine also projected primarily to lower clusters and no higher.
    Later studies show numerous similarities between clusters in the
    mammalian brain and lower clusters in the avian brain. Experts now
    agree that the two regions are evolutionarily older structures that
    lie underneath a newer mantle.

    Where the experts divide is on the question of the upper clusters in a
    bird's brain. Agreed, they are not primitive basal ganglia. But where
    did they come from? How did they evolve? What is their function?

    Dr. Karten and others in the consortium think these clusters are
    directly analogous to layers in the mammalian brain. They migrate from
    similar embryonic precursors and perform the same functions.

    For example, in mammals, sensory information - sights, sounds, touch -
    flows through a lower brain region called the thalamus and enters the
    cortex at the fourth layer in the six-layered cortex.

    In birds, sensory information flows through the thalamus and enters
    specific clusters that are functionally equivalent to the fourth
    layer. In this view, other clusters perform functions done by
    different layers in the mammal brain.

    A second group, including Dr. Georg Striedter of the University of
    California, Irvine, a consortium member, believes that upper clusters
    in the avian brain are an elaboration of two mammalian structures -
    the claustrum and the amygdala. In this view, these structures look
    alike in bird and mammal embryos. But in birds they grow to enormous
    proportions and have evolved entirely new ways to support
    intelligence.

    In mammals, the amygdala is involved in emotional systems, Dr.
    Striedter said. "But birds use it for integrating information," he
    said. "It's not emotional anymore."

    Meanwhile, examples of brilliance in birds continue to flow from
    fields and laboratories worldwide.

    Dr. Nathan Emery and Dr. Nicola Clayton at the University of Cambridge
    in England study comparisons between apes and corvids - crows, jays,
    ravens and jackdaws. Relative to its body size, the crow brain is the
    same size as the chimpanzee brain.

    Everyone knows apes use simple tools like twigs, Dr. Emery said,
    selecting different ones for different purposes. But New Caledonian
    crows create more complex tools with their beaks and feet. They trim
    and sculpture twigs to fashion hooks for fetching food. They make
    spears out of barbed leaves, probing under leaf detritus for prey.

    In a laboratory, when a crow named Betty was given metal wires of
    various lengths and a four-inch vertical pipe with food at the bottom,
    she chose a four-inch wire, made a hook and retrieved the food.

    Apes and corvids are highly social. One explanation for intelligence
    is that it evolved to process and use social information - who is
    allied with whom, who is related to whom and how to use this
    information for deception. They also remember.

    Clark nutcrackers can hide up to 30,000 seeds and recover them up to
    six months later.

    Nutcrackers also hide and steal. If they see another bird watching
    them as they cache food, they return later, alone, to hide the food
    again. Some scientists believe this shows a rudimentary theory of mind
    - understanding that another bird has intentions and beliefs.

    Magpies, at an earlier age than any other creature tested, develop an
    understanding of the fact that when an object disappears behind a
    curtain, it has not vanished.

    At a university campus in Japan, carrion crows line up patiently at
    the curb waiting for a traffic light to turn red. When cars stop, they
    hop into the crosswalk, place walnuts from nearby trees onto the road
    and hop back to the curb. After the light changes and cars run over
    the nuts, the crows wait until it is safe and hop back out for the
    food.

    Pigeons can memorize up to 725 different visual patterns, and are
    capable of what looks like deception. Pigeons will pretend to have
    found a food source, lead other birds to it and then sneak back to the
    true source.

    Parrots, some researchers report, can converse with humans, invent
    syntax and teach other parrots what they know. Researchers have
    claimed that Alex, an African gray, can grasp important aspects of
    number, color concepts, the difference between presence and absence,
    and physical properties of objects like their shapes and materials. He
    can sound out letters the same way a child does.

    Like mammals, some birds are naturally smarter than others, Dr. Jarvis
    said. But given their range of behaviors, birds are extraordinarily
    flexible in their intelligence quotients. "They're right up there with
    hominids," he said.


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  1 18:33:25 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 13:33:25 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Public Interest: Russia, The Sick Man of Europe
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502011332260.11285@panix1.panix.com>

Russia, The Sick Man of Europe
http://www.thepublicinterest.com/current/article1.html
Winter 2005
By Nicholas Eberstadt

    The Russian Federation today is in the grip of a steadily tightening
    mesh of serious demographic problems, for which the term "crisis" is
    no overstatement. This crisis is altering the realm of the possible
    for the country and its people--continuously, directly, and adversely.
    Russian social conditions, economic potential, military power, and
    international influence are today all subject to negative demographic
    constraints--and these constraints stand only to worsen over the years
    immediately ahead.

    Russia is now at the brink of a steep population decline--a peacetime
    hemorrhage framed by a collapse of the birth rate and a catastrophic
    surge in the death rate. The forces that have shaped this path of
    depopulation and debilitation are powerful ones, and they are by now
    deeply rooted in Russian soil. Altering Russia's demographic
    trajectory would be a formidable task under any circumstances. As yet,
    unfortunately, neither Russia's political leadership nor the voting
    public that sustains it have even begun to face up to the enormous
    magnitude of the country's demographic challenges.

                          Negative population growth

    On New Year's Day 1992--one week after the dissolution of the Soviet
    Union--Russia's population was estimated to be 148.7 million. As of
    mid 2004, according to the Russian State Statistics Committee
    (Goskomstat), the Russian Federation's population was 143.8 million.
    During its first eleven and a half years of post-Communist
    independence, Russia's population had apparently declined by almost
    five million people, or over 3 percent.

    In proportional terms, this was by no means the largest population
    loss recorded during that period. According to estimates and
    projections by the U.N. Bureau of the Census, over a dozen states with
    a million people or more experienced a population decline between mid
    1992 and mid 2004, 11 of these amounting to drops of 3.1 percent or
    more. Unlike some of these drops, however--Bosnia, for example, whose
    population total fell almost 10 percent--Russia's decline could not be
    explained by war or violent upheaval. In other places, population
    decline was due entirely to emigration (Armenia, Kazakhstan), or
    nearly so (Georgia). Russia, by contrast, had absorbed a substantial
    net influx of migrants during those years--a total net addition of
    over 5.5 million newcomers was tabulated between the territory's
    Soviet-era January 1989 census and its October 2002 population count.

    Despite the mitigating impact of immigration, Russia's post-Communist
    population decline was larger in absolute terms than any other
    country's over the past decade. Furthermore, continuing population
    decline--at a decidedly faster tempo--is envisioned for Russia for as
    far as demographers care to project into the future. The only question
    is how steep the downward path will be. The U.S. Census Bureau, for
    example, offers the relatively optimistic projection of a "mere" 14
    million person drop in Russia's population between 2000 and 2025--an
    average net decline of about 560,000 persons a year. The U.N.
    Population Division's (UNPD) "medium variant" projection, by contrast,
    suggests a drop of more than 21 million over that same quarter
    century--about 840,000 persons a year for the period as a whole.

    In the years ahead, Russia's population decline will continue to
    accelerate because the prospective flow of net migration into Russia
    is drying up. The officially tabulated annual levels of immigration
    to, and emigration from, Russia have declined markedly since the early
    1990s-and officially measured net inflows to Russia have likewise
    dropped very significantly. These official numbers reflect the
    swelling, cresting, and spending of the migration wave of ethnic
    Russians from the "near abroad" who resettled to the Russian
    Federation during and immediately after the breakup of the Soviet
    Union.

    The draw of Russia to the (now smaller) pool of overseas Russians
    appears to have been much diminished, while the allure to foreign
    ethnics of living on Russian soil does not seem to be increasing
    appreciably. Russia's reported economic growth rate in the very first
    years of the twenty-first century has been has been positive, even
    brisk. Nevertheless, according to official figures, the net inflow of
    migration to Russia totaled less than 80,000 in all of 2002, and a
    mere 25,000 in the first seven months of 2003. By the first quarter of
    2004, according to official statistics, the officially tallied surfeit
    of immigrants over emigrants was barely 4,000 persons.

    With in-migration flows thus subsiding, Russia's population must
    mirror, with ever-greater faithfulness, the actual balance of births
    and deaths within the country. And in post-Communist Russia, the
    current disproportion between deaths and births is stark, indeed
    astonishing.

    Russia, to be sure, is not the only European country registering more
    deaths than births nowadays--according to the Council of Europe's
    numbers, fully 19 European states currently report "negative natural
    increase." But, in other European settings, the balance is often still
    quite close. For example, in Italy--the poster child in many current
    discussions of a possible "depopulation" of Europe--there are today
    about 103 deaths for every 100 live births. Russia, by contrast,
    currently reports about 160 deaths for every 100 births.

    Examples of extreme surfeits of mortality over natality are, to be
    sure, familiar from human history. But in the past, these were
    witnessed only during times of famine, pestilence, war, or mass
    disaster. As a peacetime phenomenon it is utterly new, and while it is
    not unique to Russia these days--the excess of deaths over births is
    nearly as great today in Belarus, Bulgaria, and Latvia, and even more
    exaggerated in Ukraine--the Russian Federation is perhaps the most
    important example of this post-Communist demographic condition.

    Russia's abrupt and brutal swerve onto the path of depopulation began
    during the final crisis of the Soviet state. Over the two decades
    before Mikhail Gorbachev's 1985 accession to power, Russia's births
    regularly exceeded deaths; natural increase typically ranged from
    700,000 to 1,000,000 during those years. After 1987, however, births
    began to fall sharply, and deaths to rise. Both tendencies were
    further accentuated after the collapse of the USSR. The first full
    year of post-Communist governance for Russia, 1992, also marked the
    shift to negative natural increase for the Russian Federation, with
    200,000 more deaths than births. A decade later, Russia's death total
    was over 50 percent higher than in 1987 (2.3 million vs. 1.5 million),
    while its birth level was over one million lower (1.4 million vs. 2.5
    million). In 1987, Russia recorded a natural increase of 968,000; in
    2002, deaths surpassed births by almost exactly the same magnitude
    (935,000).

    This is an extraordinary result, but it is hardly exceptional.
    Tabulated deaths have outnumbered births by 900,000 or more in Russia
    in 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2002, by nearly 900,000 in 2003, and by over
    420,000 in the first half of 2004. In all, between the eve of 1992 and
    the summer of 2004 the Russian Federation evidently recorded 10
    million more burials than births.

                       Where have all the babies gone?

    Russia's current depopulation bears all the trappings of a
    "demographic shock," reflecting the vast, historic change from Soviet
    totalitarianism to a commercial democracy. Though it might seem
    reasonable to expect that earlier, more "normal" demographic patterns
    would reassert themselves as the reverberations from Russia's
    "transition" subside, there are good reasons to believe that Russia's
    current, seemingly anomalous population trends define a new norm for
    the country. Remarkably low birth rates and terrifyingly high death
    rates can accurately be described as regular, rather than transitory,
    features of the new Russian demographic terrain. A powerful and
    self-reinforcing network of social factors--forces typically resistant
    to rapid or easy emendation--will likely keep fertility low and
    mortality high in the Russian Federation. Until these fundamentals
    change, depopulation and tragically foreshortened lives will be the
    distinguishing features of the Russian population profile.

    Consider Russia's current fertility patterns. In a society with the
    Russian Federation's present survival patterns, women must bear an
    average of about 2.33 children per lifetime to assure population
    stability over successive generations. In the late Soviet era, Russian
    fertility levels were near replacement: The country's total fertility
    rate (TFR) fluctuated near two births per woman from the mid 1960s
    through the mid 1980s. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the
    Russian fertility rate likewise collapsed, plummeting from 2.19 births
    per woman in 1986-87 to 1.17 in 1999. Moreover, extreme subreplacement
    fertility is not peculiar to certain regions of Russia today; to the
    contrary, it prevails across almost the entire territorial expanse of
    the Federation.

    Since 2001, there have been some indications of a resurgence of
    fertility in the Russian Federation. For the year 2002, according to
    Goskomstat, the country's total fertility rate has risen to 1.32. And
    for the year 2003, according to Russian Federation President Vladimir
    V. Putin in his 2004 New Year's Day address, an "especially joyous"
    auspice was the absolute increase in births over the previous year.
    According to Goskomstat, Russia's total births rose in 2003 to 1.48
    million-by that report, a 6 percent increase over the previous year.
    Birth figures for the first half of 2004, for their part, are 2
    percent higher than for the first half of 2003.

    These signs of improvement raise the question: If Russian fertility
    fell suddenly and sharply with the demise of the Soviet Union, might
    it not also rebound vigorously in an auspicious political and economic
    environment? That possibility cannot be entirely ruled out.
    Demographic science, after all, lacks any robust techniques for
    accurately predicting future fertility patterns. But even supposing an
    improvement in social conditions and an increase in general levels of
    confidence (improvements, it should be pointed out, not entirely
    independent from the demographic trends under discussion here), there
    are a number of factors weighing against a significant upsurge in the
    Russian birthrate--much less a return to earlier, Soviet-era, levels
    of fertility.

    First, Russia's poor and declining overall health patterns extend to
    the area of reproductive health. Notably, involuntary infertility is a
    more significant problem for Russia than for any other Western
    country. And the problem is getting worse, not better. To be sure,
    data on infertility for contemporary Russia are not entirely reliable.
    According to some recent reports, however, 13 percent of Russia's
    married couples of childbearing age are infertile--nearly twice the 7
    percent for the United States in 1995 as reported by the National
    Center for Health Statistics. Other Russian sources point to an even
    greater prevalence of infertility today, with numbers ranging as high
    as 30 percent of all males and females of childbearing age. Whatever
    the true level, medical diagnoses of infertility in Russia are clearly
    on the rise--suggesting that the 13 percent estimate and others of its
    ilk are more than just a statistical fluke.

    With respect more specifically to female infertility, Russia suffers
    today from two pronounced and highly unusual risks. For one thing,
    Russian womanhood has, quite literally, been scarred by the country's
    extraordinary popular reliance on abortion as a primary means of
    contraception--with the abortions in question conducted under the
    less-than-exemplary standards of Soviet and post-Soviet medicine. A
    Russian woman nowadays can expect to have more abortions than births
    over the course of her childbearing years. In 1988, at the end of the
    Soviet era, Russian women underwent an officially tabulated 4.6
    million abortions--two for every live birth. In 2002, the country
    officially reported 1.7 million abortions--over 120 for every 100 live
    births.

    And the problem of involuntary infertility in Russia today is further
    exacerbated by the current explosive spread of potentially curable
    sexually transmitted infections (STIs). According to official figures,
    for example, the incidence of syphilis in 2001 was one hundred times
    higher in Russia than in Germany, and several hundred times higher for
    Russia than a number of other European countries. One recent survey in
    St. Petersburg calculated that 15 percent of the college students
    questioned had at least one sexually transmitted disease. Since
    untreated or inadequately treated STIs can result in sterility the
    potential for inadvertent impediments to childbearing for Russia's
    young men and women due to such infections could be appreciable.

    A second obstacle to an increase in the Russian birthrate is the
    Russian family itself. Russian patterns of family formation have been
    evolving markedly over the past generation--and not in a direction
    conducive to larger families. Simply put, young Russians are now much
    less likely to marry--and ever more likely to divorce if they do.

    Between 1981 and 2001, marriage rates fell by over one third, while
    divorce rates rose by one third. In 2001, Russia recorded three
    divorces for every four new marriages--a breakup ratio even higher
    than Scandinavia's. The human import of these trends can perhaps be
    better understood by thinking in terms of a woman's odds of getting
    married or divorced. In 1990, under Russia's then-prevailing
    nuptiality patterns, marriage was almost universal--and the odds of
    eventually divorcing were about 40 percent. By 1995, the odds of
    getting married were down to 75 percent--while the odds of eventual
    divorce had risen to 50 percent. In just five years a Russian woman's
    odds of forming a lasting marriage dropped from about three in five to
    three in eight. Since then, the odds of having a lasting marriage in
    Russia seem to have declined still further.

    At the same time that Russian marriages were becoming less common--and
    more fragile--the disposition to childbearing outside of marriage was
    increasing. In 1987--the recent high-water mark for Russian
    fertility--about 13 percent of the country's newborns were out of
    wedlock. By 2001, the proportion had more than doubled, to nearly 29
    percent. The overwhelming majority of Russia's newly emerging cohort
    of illegitimate children, it seems, were being raised by single
    mothers. Consensual unions and cohabitation still account for the
    living arrangements of only a tiny fraction of Russia's young adults.

    The rapid decline of the two-parent family in contemporary Russia
    undercuts prospects for substantial increases in national fertility
    levels. Relative to available household resources, all other things
    being equal, raising children in a mother-only family is a much more
    expensive and difficult proposition than in an intact family. It is
    true that fertility rates in Russia are currently 20 to 30 percent
    below those of the Scandinavian countries, even though the level of
    marital commitment in the Nordic countries is low, and the level of
    illegitimacy is high. But unlike the Scandinavian welfare states,
    Russia does not provide generous public benefits to help mothers raise
    their young children--nor could the Russian state afford to do so even
    if it were so inclined.

    The third, and perhaps most important, obstacle to higher Russian
    birthrates is that Russian fertility rates are reflective of larger
    European trends. True, Russia's levels currently list toward the lower
    end of the European spectrum. Even so, they are actually higher than
    for some other post-Communist areas whose "transitions" to democracy
    and free markets look rather more complete--and are scarcely lower
    than the current levels in a number of the established market
    democracies of the European Union. Viewed over a longer horizon,
    Russia's postwar fertility levels and trends look altogether
    "European." Although the precise timing of Russia's fertility decline
    is distinct, Russia has nevertheless clearly followed the same general
    path as Italy, Spain, and Germany.

    From a European perspective, in short, Russia's current levels of
    extremely low fertility would hardly stand out as exceptional. It is
    thus far from obvious that the further suffusion into Russia of
    "European" norms and attitudes about family size (to the extent that
    such attitudes and norms are not already firmly rooted in Russian
    soil) should serve to buoy childbearing in the Russian Federation.
    Quite to the contrary. It is equally possible that an embrace of
    particular aspects of childbearing patterns currently manifest through
    much of the European Union (EU) could actually depress birth rates in
    Russia in coming years. Throughout the EU, for example, the median age
    at marriage for women is the late 20s, while it is still about 22 in
    Russia; Russia's median female age at first birth, correspondingly, is
    distinctly lower than in most EU countries (23 vs. 27 to 29). A shift
    toward these EU patterns of marriage and maternity would have the
    immediate effect of postponing births, and thus probably lowering
    annual fertility further.

                            The grim reaper cometh

    If Russia's low fertility rates are cause enough for concern, its
    mortality rates are scandalously high. Broad segments of the Russian
    populace have suffered a disastrous long-term retrogression in health
    conditions.

    A marked deterioration of public health in an industrialized society
    during peacetime is counterintuitive and highly peculiar. At first
    glance, the very fact that Russia's mortality catastrophe looks so
    anomalous might seem to suggest that the problem should be
    intrinsically remediable--if not positively self-correcting. The
    particulars of Russia's health and mortality woes, however, underscore
    just how difficult it will be to achieve even modest improvements in
    the years immediately ahead--and how vulnerable Russia remains to
    further degradations of public health.

    Over the four-plus decades between 1961-62 and 2003, life expectancy
    at birth in Russia fell by nearly five years for males; it also
    declined for females, although just slightly, making for an overall
    drop in life expectancy of nearly three years over this four-decade
    span. Age-standardized mortality rates cast an even grimmer light on
    Russia's continuing health crisis: Between the mid 1960s and the start
    of the twenty-first century, these rates underwent a long and uneven
    rise, climbing by over 15 percent for women and over 40 percent for
    men.

    Russia's upswing in mortality was especially concentrated among its
    working-age population, and here the upsurge in death rates was
    utterly breathtaking. Over the three decades between 1970-71 and 2001,
    for example, every female cohort between the ages of 20 and 59
    suffered at least a 30 percent increase in death rates; for men
    between the ages of 40 and 59, the corresponding figures uniformly
    reached, and some cases exceeded, 60 percent.

    What accounted for this peacetime collapse in public health standards?
    To go by Russia's (admittedly less than perfect) cause-of-death
    statistics, nearly all of the increase in mortality rates for men--and
    absolutely all of the increase for women--can be traced to an
    explosion in deaths attributed to cardiovascular disease (CVD--heart
    disease plus strokes) and injuries. Between the mid 1960s and the end
    of the twentieth century, CVD mortality rates in Japan, Western
    Europe, and North America fell sharply. Russia, by contrast, suffered
    an explosion of cardiovascular death over the same period. Between
    1965 and 2001, Russia's age-standardized death rate for CVD surged by
    25 percent for women--and it soared by 65 percent for men. Today,
    CVD-related mortality in Russia is four times higher than in Ireland,
    five times higher than in Germany, and eight times higher than in
    France.

    As for mortality attributed to injury--murder, suicide, traffic,
    poisoning, and other violent causes-age-adjusted levels for Russian
    men and women alike more than doubled between 1965 and 2001. Among
    contemporary societies at peace, Russia's level of violent deaths
    places the country practically in a category of its own. For men under
    65 years of age, Russia's death rate from injury and poisoning is
    currently over four times as high as Finland's, the nation with the
    worst rate in the EU. Russia's violent death rate for men under 65 is
    nearly six times as high as Belgium's, over nine times as high as
    Israel's, and over a dozen times that of the United Kingdom. As is
    well known, men are more likely than women to die violent deaths--but
    in a gruesome crossover, these death rates for Russian women are now
    higher than for most western European men.

    Russia's dismal health record can be explained in terms of a
    multiplicity of unfavorable social, behavioral, and policy tendencies:
    pervasive smoking; poor diets; sedentary life styles; increasing
    social atomization and anomie; the special economic stresses of
    Russia's "transition"; the unimpressive capabilities of the Soviet
    medical system and the limited coverage of its successor. At the end
    of the day, however, it is impossible to overlook the deadly
    contribution of the Russian love of vodka.

    From the sixteenth century--when vodka was first introduced to a
    receptive public--up to the present day, Russians have always
    demonstrated a predilection to drink heavy spirits in astonishing
    excess--a fact remarked upon by visiting foreigners for centuries.
    Russia's thirst for hard liquor seems to have reached dizzying new
    heights in the late Soviet era, and then again in the early
    post-Communist era. By 1984, according to some estimates, the per
    capita level of alcohol intake in Russia was roughly three times as
    high as in 1913 (that pre-revolutionary era not exactly being
    remembered as a time of temperance). By the mid 1990s, Russian per
    capita alcohol intake may have even slightly surpassed its previous,
    Communist-era, zenith. In 1994, for example, the estimate of pure
    alcohol consumed by the population aged 15 and older amounted to 18.5
    liters per capita annually--the equivalent of 125 cc. of vodka for
    everyone, every day.

    As it happens, in recent decades variations in alcohol consumption
    seem to track fairly closely with changes in Russian mortality (and
    especially with male mortality)--the former being a leading indicator
    for the latter. Heavy drinking is directly associated with Russia's
    appallingly high risk of deadly injury--and Russia's binge drinking
    habits also seems to be closely associated with death through cardiac
    failure.

    At the moment, the expert prognosis for Russian mortality in the years
    immediately ahead is pessimistic. The U.N. Population Division, for
    example, estimates the life expectancy for Russian men today to be
    lower than the average for men from the world's "less developed
    regions" (such as Africa, Asia, and Latin America)--and though UNPD
    projections envision improvements for Russia in the coming decades,
    Russia does not reach the level of the less developed regions until
    around 2020. The U.S. Census Bureau, for its part, estimates that life
    expectancy for Russian men over the coming two decades will
    approximate the levels for their counterparts in Bangladesh and
    Pakistan--and will remain steadily below the levels anticipated for
    India.

    Yet somber as these readings appear, they may nevertheless prove
    excessively optimistic. The Census Bureau projections for Russian
    mortality, for example, have tended to err on the high side: Where the
    Census Bureau projections in 2002 put Russian male life expectancy for
    2002 at 62.3 years, Goskomstat's actual data for that year turned out
    to be three and a half years lower. And although the UNPD is imagining
    unexceptional improvements in male health levels over the next two
    decades--less than four years' increase between 2000-5 and
    2020-25--there are reasons to think such a goal highly ambitious under
    Russia's current circumstances. The problem, simply put, is that
    today's Russians seem to be less healthy than their parents.
    Consequently, merely managing to re-attain the survival rates reported
    by that earlier generation will take some doing. It is an
    accomplishment that cannot be taken for granted.

    Comparing the mortality schedules of successive birth cohorts in
    Russia places the problem of "negative health momentum" in even
    clearer perspective. In industrialized Western societies in the
    postwar era, younger generations have come routinely to enjoy better
    survival rates than their predecessors. Sometimes these improvements
    have been truly dramatic. In contemporary Japan, for example, men born
    in the early 1950s have, over their life course thus far, experienced
    death rates roughly half as high at any given age as those that were
    recorded for the cohort born 20 years before them. By contrast, there
    has been no improvement in survival schedules for rising birth cohorts
    among the two generations of Russian men born between the late 1920s
    and the late 1980s. Quite the opposite: Over its life course, each
    rising cohort of Russian men seems to be charting out a more dismal
    mortality trajectory than the one traced by its immediate
    predecessors.

    The "negative momentum" apparent in Russia's modern-day mortality
    trends makes the objective of broad, sustained improvements in public
    health especially unlikely in the years ahead. And this analysis, it
    is worth noting, has yet to take into account the possibility of
    additional new health troubles on the horizon. Yet such problems are,
    quite plainly, gathering today. Foremost among them may be Russia's
    still-mounting epidemic of HIV/AIDS. As we have already seen, curable
    STIs are now rampant in Russia--and generally speaking, epidemic
    levels of curable STIs seem to serve as a leading indicator for the
    spread of HIV.

    Russian authorities have registered a cumulative total of just under
    300,000 cases of HIV, while the U.N. Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS
    (UNAIDS) estimates that over 800,000 Russians were living with HIV as
    of 2003 (with an upper estimate of 1.4 million). The U.S. National
    Intelligence Council (NIC) suggests that the true number as of 2002
    could have been as high as 2 million. If the UNAIDS central estimate
    were accurate, Russia's adult HIV prevalence rate would be over 2
    percent; by the NIC's 2002 estimates, it could already have been as
    high as 2.5 percent in 2002. The future course of Russia's HIV
    epidemic is likewise clouded in uncertainty. Clearly, though, HIV has
    the potential to cancel any prospective health progress in Russia over
    the coming generation.

    Progress is, of course, to be prayed for--and under the right
    circumstances, some progress may be achieved. But major reductions in
    Russia's awful toll of excess mortality do not look to be in the cards
    any time soon.

                   The tightening demographic straitjacket

    Russia's demographic trends have unambiguously negative implications
    for Russian development and security. The ramifications are manifold
    and far-reaching, some of them complex--but the basic outlines of the
    more important considerations can be briefly and simply adduced.

    Russia's lingering health and mortality crisis promises to be a brake
    on rapid economic development. In the modern era, the wealth of
    nations is represented, increasingly, in human rather than natural
    resources--and the richer the country, the more pronounced the
    tendency for "human capital" to overshadow or replace physical capital
    in the production process. Human health figures importantly in the
    overall composition of human capital, and thus the correspondence
    between human health and economic productivity has been fairly robust.
    In recent years, to judge by U.N. and World Bank data, an additional
    year of male life expectancy at birth has been associated with an
    increment of GNP per capita of about 8 percent.

    The relationship between health and economic productivity, to be sure,
    is multidimensional and simultaneous--improved wealth also makes for
    better health, and does so through a variety of avenues. But it is
    difficult to see how Russia can expect, in some imagined future, to
    maintain a western standard of living if its work force suffers from a
    third-world schedule of survival--or worse.

    Skeptics might argue that health does not seem to be constraining
    Russia's economic progress today--recorded growth rates, after all,
    have been high for the past several years. Perhaps poor health will
    not overly constrain Russian economic development in the years ahead,
    since Russia can earn large dividends from the exploitation and sale
    of its abundant natural resources. But Russia's dependence upon
    extractive industries only emphasizes just how limited the role of
    "human capital" is in Russia's current international trade profile.

    Russia's poor health prospects, furthermore, stand to influence its
    economic potential far into the future. According to year 2000
    survival schedules, for example, a 20-year-old Russian youth had only
    a 46 percent chance of reaching age 65 (compared with a 79 percent
    chance for an American counterpart). That discrepancy will surely
    affect the cost-benefit calculus of investments in education and job
    training--and not to the benefit of Russia's younger generation or its
    overall economic outlook.

    In the short run, the collapse of Russian fertility may have little
    practical (as opposed to psychological) import for daily life or
    affairs of state. If, however, extreme subreplacement fertility
    persists, current and continued childbearing patterns would directly
    shape the Russian future. In some nontrivial respects, it could
    materially limit Russian national options. In the decades immediately
    ahead, for example, Russia looks set to contend with a sharp fall-off
    in the nation's youth population. Between 1975 and 2000, for example,
    the number of young men aged 15 to 24 ranged between 10 million and 13
    million--but by 2025, in current UNPD projections, the total will be
    down to barely 6 million. Those figures would imply a 45 percent
    decrease between 2000 and 2025 in the size of this pivotal population
    group--as compared with a projected 15 percent decline in Russia's
    overall population.

    The military implications of the envisioned disproportionate shrinkage
    of the age group from which the Russian army draws its manpower are
    obvious enough. But there would also be serious economic and social
    reverberations. With fewer young people rising to replace older
    retirees, the question of improving (or perhaps maintaining) the
    average level of skills and qualifications in the economically active
    population would become that much more pressing. And since younger
    people the world over tend to be disposed toward, and associated with,
    innovation and entrepreneurial risk-taking, a declining younger
    population could have intangible, but real, consequences.

    In a world of still-growing populations and generally improving health
    conditions, Russia would seem to face an uphill struggle. Between 2000
    and 2025, by UNPD medium variant projections, Russia's share of total
    global population is envisioned as shrinking by a third, from 2.4
    percent to 1.6 percent. Over the same period, improvements in Russia's
    life expectancy are expected to under-perform the global average
    somewhat. Simply to maintain its share of world output, Russia's per
    capita economic growth would have to exceed the world's average by 1.6
    points a year for the quarter century under consideration to
    compensate for relative population decline. To some important extent,
    a country's relative economic potential limits its international
    political influence and its international security. Russia's
    demographic prospects thus establish an obvious challenge for the
    nation over the coming generation. Can it avoid, through compensatory
    economic policies and foreign policy stratagems, the geopolitical
    marginalization to which demographic trends alone would seem to
    consign it?

                         The politics of depopulation

    Russia's political leaders are by no means incognizant of the
    demographic vise gripping their nation. The country's politicians and
    policy makers talk about the nation's population constantly. However,
    Moscow has done almost nothing worth mentioning to reverse the
    demographic catastrophe that has been unfolding on Russian soil over
    the past decade.

    To the extent that Russian policy makers have concerned themselves
    with the country's negative natural increase problem, they have
    focused almost entirely upon the birth rate--and how to raise it. Not
    surprisingly, this pro-natalist impulse has foundered on the shoals of
    finance. In plain terms, serious pro-natalism is an expensive
    business, especially when the potential parents-to-be are educated,
    urbanized women accustomed to careers with paid recompense. To induce
    a serious and sustained increase in childbearing, a government under
    such circumstances must be prepared to get into the business of hiring
    women to be mothers--and this is a proposition that could make the
    funding of a national pension system look like pin money by
    comparison. Consequently, Russia's government has concentrated most of
    its pro-natalist efforts on attempting to "talk the birth rate
    up"--and as a century of experience with such official chatter in
    Western countries will attest, that gambit is almost always utterly
    ineffectual.

    In 2003, the Russian government began experimenting with another
    variant of "pro-natalism on the cheap": a quiet attempt to restrict
    the previously unconditional availability of abortion on demand. There
    are, of course, ethical reasons for opposition to the promiscuous
    destruction of fetuses. But from a strictly demographic standpoint,
    the dividends derived from a slight and gradual tightening of the
    rules on pregnancy termination are distinctly limited.

    Reducing the number of abortions, after all, does not mechanistically
    increase birth totals. If it did, there should have been a baby-boom
    in post-Communist Russia. (Remember: Russia had about three million
    fewer abortions in 2002 than in 1987--but also about a million fewer
    births.) To the extent that Russia's tentative steps toward the
    regulation of abortion may be seen as a factor boosting the nation's
    fertility, the effect would largely be felt through the eventual
    enhancement of fecundity--which is to say, fewer Russian women would
    be rendered involuntarily sterile through such procedures in the years
    ahead. But in the greater scheme of things, that could hardly be
    described as much of a stimulus.

    While Russian policy circles trained their attention on a literally
    fruitless and largely misdirected effort to revitalize the birth rate,
    they treated the country's catastrophic mortality conditions--upon
    which sustained interventions would have yielded some predictable
    results--with an insouciance verging on indifference. Indeed, Russian
    authorities have adopted a remarkably laissez-faire posture toward the
    calamitous conditions that currently lead to the "excess mortality" of
    something like 400,000 of their citizens each year.

    Russia's devastating cardiovascular epidemic and its carnage from
    violent death might not be immediately controlled or completely
    prevented, but their cost could be at least somewhat contained through
    carefully tailored public policies. Yet government policy makers have
    shown no interest in pursuing such options.

                             Crisis in democracy

    Moscow's feckless approach to its ongoing national health emergency
    would be regarded as a scandal in most foreign quarters. But to
    Western eyes it also constitutes something of a mystery: How is it
    possible that such a manifestly inadequate health regimen is tolerated
    in a still somewhat open and pluralistic political system? The
    proximate explanation for this puzzle is that, until now, no great
    political pressure has been brought to bear for correction or
    adjustment of the government's course--and the absence of such
    articulated pressures reflects in turn a lack of perceived political
    concern by the public at large. Russia may have already lost the
    equivalent of its casualties in two, or more, World War I's through
    premature mortality since 1992. But as yet there has been almost no
    public outcry about this peacetime outrage, and none of the dozens of
    competitive parties in Russia's new electoral environment have seen
    fit to champion the promotion of the nation's health as its own
    political cause. This is more than a health crisis. It constitutes
    nothing less than a fundamental test for Russia's troubled fledgling
    democracy.

    This essay is based on the author's "The Russian Federation at the
    Dawn of the Twenty-First Century," NBR Analysis 15, no. 2 and is
    published with permission of the National Bureau of Asian Research
    Copyright of The Public Interest, Issue #158 (Winter 2005), National
    Affairs, Inc.

    Nicholas Eberstadt is the Henry Wendt Scholar in Political Economy at
    the American Enterprise Institute, and is a member of the Publication
    Committee of The Public Interest.


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  1 18:36:25 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 13:36:25 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Prospect (UK): Mother tongue
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502011333280.11285@panix1.panix.com>

Mother tongue
http://prospectmagazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=6608
    [No. 106 / Jan 2005]
    [33]January 2005 | 106 ? [34]Cover story ? [35]Mother tongue
    What does the fashion for books about the state of the English
    language tell us? People care about their language because it forms
    part of their identity, and part of the resistance to changes in
    English is a resistance to change itself. But correct usage is not an
    elite affectation; it is a badge of competence

Richard Jenkyns

    Richard Jenkyns is professor of the classical tradition at the
    University of Oxford, and author of "Westminster Abbey"
    When you had finished reading your October Prospect, were you purple
    with rage? One contributor, writing about Gordon Brown, described him
    as an "heir apparent" who might find that someone else inherited after
    all. But an heir apparent must necessarily succeed; the term the
    writer should have used was "heir presumptive." A second contributor
    discussed why parliament is "like it is"; that should have been "as it
    is," or so we used to be taught at school. A third contributor wrote
    about the norms of something being "flaunted," when he meant
    "flouted." So it seems that even Britain's intelligent conversation is
    being conducted by people what haven't been learned to talk proper.
    Fetch me my green ink bottle: I have an article to write.
    Why do people get so agitated about linguistic misuses and even about
    changes in the language? Is English in a bad state? Are things getting
    worse? These questions have been made topical by Lynne Truss's
    bestselling Eats, Shoots & Leaves and by the spate of books (and a
    television show) on similar themes by authors hoping to benefit from
    her success. The subject of John Humphrys's stocking-filler, Lost for
    Words, is indicated by its subtitle, The Mangling and Manipulating of
    the English Language. Gobbledygook, by Don Watson, an Australian
    journalist, is a more serious piece of work; again, the subtitle
    explains its theme: How Clich?s, Sludge and Management-speak are
    Strangling our Public Language. Vivian Cook's Accomodating Brocolli in
    the Cemetary, produced by Profile, Truss's publisher (and mine), is
    somewhat different. The subtitle - Or Why Can't Anybody Spell? - may
    suggest that it is another "why oh why" book. In fact, it is a
    collection of linguistic facts and oddities assembled by a professor
    who loves words in both their spoken and written form. It is
    first-rate bedtime browsing and will surely find a place in many of
    Britain's most cultivated loos.
    There is probably little mystery about Truss's success. She is a
    talented journalist, with a gift for the perky phrase; the book was
    skilfully packaged; and like other fads, it just caught on. Reviewers
    in this country seem to have been almost all favourable, but on the
    other side of the Atlantic the book received a withering dismissal
    from Louis Menand in the New Yorker. Menand is a very clever man, and
    hiring him to deal with Truss is like sending for Red Adair to put out
    the bonfire at the bottom of the garden. He began by observing that
    Truss's first punctuation mistake comes in her dedication and found
    many more errors and inconsistencies, as well as poor argument.
    Some people have taken Truss seriously, but she herself, I think, does
    not. Her subtitle, The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, is
    mischievous, since in fact she sensibly takes a fairly relaxed view.
    Her long diatribe against misplaced apostrophes is a comic rant, to be
    enjoyed as such, and no more. The interesting issue is not the book
    itself but the public response to it. Reading these books and other
    articles, and listening to discussion on the broadcast media, I am
    struck by how widespread is the sense that we are being hoodwinked.
    "They" - politicians, academics, captains of industry, management
    consultants, bureaucrats - are misusing the English language as a way
    of deceiving us.
    The idea that language can be manipulated to disguise the truth, and
    even to control and limit thought, is, of course, one of the themes of
    George Orwell's 1984. Orwell also explored the topic in his famous
    essay "Politics and the English language," written in 1946. He took
    five specimens of recent writing to illustrate "various of the mental
    vices from which we now suffer." The first is a clumsy and contorted
    sentence by Harold Laski containing so many double negatives that he
    seems to have ended up saying the opposite of what he meant to say.
    The second is from another once celebrated intellectual, Lancelot
    Hogben, whose vices are dying metaphor, pomposity and facetiousness
    ("we cannot play ducks and drakes with a native battery of idioms
    which prescribes egregious collocations of vocables"). The third, from
    an American essay on psychology, is a typical piece of academic prose.
    The fourth is taken from a ranting communist pamphlet. The last is
    from a letter published in Tribune, in which rant, pomposity and
    facetiousness are majestically combined.
    Orwell found certain faults common to all of these passages -
    ugliness, staleness of imagery and lack of precision: "The writer
    either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says
    something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words
    mean anything or not. This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence
    is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and
    especially of any kind of political writing."
    Has anything changed in the last 60 years? The most obvious difference
    is in political language. People still distrust the politicians - at a
    guess, they distrust them more now than they did then - but the rant
    that Orwell attacked now seems quaint and dated. For him, too much
    heat was the danger; now the enemies of clarity and honesty are
    euphemism, waffle and evasion. Perhaps the most depressing part of
    Orwell's essay, when we read it now, is his sample of academic
    writing, for prolix and obscure though it is, one's first reaction is
    to wonder what the fuss is about: it is so much better than a great
    deal of today's professorial prose. The public suspects that much
    academic production is fraudulent, and they are partly right. Since
    one of Orwell's targets was imprecision of thought, it is interesting
    to observe how frequently the word "precisely" is found in a certain
    type of academic prose, almost always used where "imprecisely" would
    be more accurate. You can diagnose weak thought from dead language as
    you can diagnose firedamp from a dead canary, and "precisely" is a
    dead adverb. It is an example of what Orwell called a meaningless
    word, an upmarket version of "literally," as in: "He literally wiped
    the floor with his opponent." In other terms, it is a bad faith word -
    a symptom of bluster, vagueness or vacuity.
    In Orwell's fashion, Humphrys hauls in a couple of public
    intellectuals for questioning. Their offences are of unequal gravity.
    One is the sociologist Frank Furedi: the passages cited by Humphrys
    are indeed ineptly written, but at least Furedi is trying to say
    something serious. The other culprit is Susan Greenfield, in this case
    from a popular book. Here are the passages from Greenfield that
    Humphrys quotes:
    "These doom-laden imaginings need a pinch of salt. Setting aside the
    obvious precaution of not volunteering for a brain implant, even if
    the opportunity for psychokinesis was too valuable to pass over the
    direct implanting of thoughts would still not necessarily be
    feasible."
    "At last, at the turn of the century, IT has finally matured into
    adjectives such as 'cheap' and 'easy to use,' with the tsunami of
    applications and knock-on implications it has for our lives."
    It may seem ghoulish to linger at the scene of these verbal pile-ups,
    but an accident investigation is called for. The first of these
    passages begins with an ugly mix of metaphors and proceeds to a
    sentence that is barely literate. "Setting" is a dangling participle
    (not easily interpreted, though one realises with a shudder that this
    part of the sentence is meant to be humorous); "was" should be "were,"
    and a comma is needed after "over." In the clause beginning "even if,"
    I suspect that the word "not" has dropped out after "too valuable,"
    but the sentence is so inarticulate that it is hard to be sure.
    How can an educated person write so badly? The second extract may
    supply the answer. The meaning towards which Greenfield is groping is
    probably this: "IT is now so cheap and easy to use that it is having a
    big effect on our lives." What on earth does "matured into adjectives
    such as" mean? Is she trying to say something about use of language?
    Probably not: the likelihood is that "has matured into adjectives such
    as" is Greenfieldian for "has become." "Tsunami" is
    pseudo-sophistication, a sort of gimcrack brightness, like those
    people who say "smorgasbord" for "variety." Insofar as the word makes
    any sense at all, that sense is wrong: the writer does not mean to say
    that the effect of home computers on our lives has been sudden,
    violent and destructive.
    We might wonder why she has found it so difficult to say something so
    simple. But that surely is the answer: it is because the proposition
    is so simple that the expression is so muddled. If it had been put
    straightforwardly, we would have seen at once that it was hardly worth
    making. We all know that cheap computers have made a difference. But
    they have not made that much difference: "tsunami" is, among other
    things, a factitious attempt to create a bit of drama. One of the
    reasons that this is bad prose is that it is dishonest prose: in each
    of these passages the writer is trying to hide the fact that she has
    very little to say.
    That was an extreme case; here is something much more ordinary. I read
    this the other day in an interview with a well-known figure, talking
    about industry: "You will never deliver a successful bottom line on a
    sustainable basis unless you have a vibrant organisational dynamic." I
    understand the first part of this; it means, "You will not make a
    profit." But what about the second part? It might mean, "unless your
    staff are happy in their jobs." Or it might mean something quite
    different: "unless your people argue vigorously with one another." Or
    it may be meant as a statement of the obvious: "unless your firm is
    well run." It is impossible to know. "Vibrant," by the way, is another
    of those bad faith words - a sure indicator of unconscious
    insincerity.
    As it happens, the speaker of these words is an administrator of
    outstanding force and clarity, and he was merely using the common
    currency of our day. Some people talk like this of their own accord.
    When I praised my university's computer service to an eminent American
    scientist, he agreed that it was "a truly consumer-oriented facility."
    But there are also political pressures to make us talk like this. For
    instance, universities are now expected to produce mission statements.
    That ought to be easy: "We teach, study and write, and try to do these
    things as well as we can." But of course such plain, frank words will
    not do, and we are driven to swathe simple meaning in the language of
    bureaucracy. I am unsure why the language of management, Don Watson's
    main target, is so deplorable, but it is a serious matter, as it clogs
    the working of schools, hospitals and other public and private
    businesses.
    In the academic world, it may be easier to detect the forces which
    discourage good, plain English. Modern societies have created large
    salaried intelligentsias, which are required to keep publishing. Some
    subject matter is essentially difficult: philosophy, for example, must
    often be done at a high level of abstraction. But the aim ought always
    to be to make difficult matters as simple as the subject allows, and
    the conditions of modern academic life tempt people to do the
    opposite. History is an almost limitless field, and my impression is
    that historians usually write well. But the study of popular culture
    easily tends to statement of the obvious, and its practitioners
    naturally want to disguise that fact. The English literature industry
    is so big that in many areas there is not enough material to go
    around, and here the temptation is to claim that even the most
    perspicuous authors need the professionals to interpret them. It is
    like the plumber telling you that it will cost a grand to fix that
    leaky tap.
    As for politics, all governments reasonably stress their successes and
    palliate their failures, but many people seem to feel that the present
    government is more widely and systematically dishonest with fact and
    language than any of its predecessors. In my view, this suspicion is
    justified. To take a small example, Labour has for many years
    deliberately confused the important distinction between spending and
    investment by avoiding the former word: Gordon Brown would invest in a
    packet of Polo mints. Tony Blair himself is one of the two most
    interesting users of English in politics today. Humphrys refers to a
    couple of notorious habits: his tendency to change his accent to fit
    his audience, and his use of sentences without verbs when he wants to
    empty his language of determinate meaning. His 1999 conference speech
    on the "forces of conservatism" - incidentally, in its demonising of
    opponents and its aspiration to make the Labour party the political
    arm of the British people, perhaps the most fascistic speech ever made
    by a mainstream British politician - exploited the fact that in spoken
    English, "conservatism" and "Conservatism" are indistinguishable. In
    his most recent conference speech, he said, "I can apologise" (for the
    equivocations over Iraq), and the newspapers next morning reported
    both that he had apologised and that he had not. Perhaps that was too
    clever by half, but at least it enabled him to utter the cathartic
    word "apologise" (and to avoid the plain word "sorry" - apologies are
    what we send when we cannot attend a committee meeting). Later, in the
    House of Commons, he declared that he took responsibility for the
    security services. This sounded bold, but was actually a way of
    acknowledging formal responsibility while denying real responsibility.
    The long Latinate word "responsibility," like "apologise," was
    helpful. The five-letter words which would have got to the heart of
    the matter were "sorry," "fault" and "blame."
    The use of smear and sneer words to block open-minded thought has
    declined since Orwell's time (except for "racist" and perhaps the
    pejorative use of "politically correct"). But in other respects the
    situation is no better, and in many ways worse. Much of the current
    fuss over language, however, is about something different from
    Orwell's concern, although it is related. Take the examples in my very
    first paragraph. In none of these cases is the meaning in any doubt;
    if they are objectionable, it is for other reasons. There is a feeling
    around which might express itself like this: "Everything's going to
    the dogs. They aren't taught grammar in schools, they can't spell...
    and don't you hate the way people say 'ballpark figure' and 'at this
    moment in time.'"
    People care about their language because it forms part of their
    identity. Consider Blair's chameleon shifts of accent. Mass
    immigration has reminded us about the importance of accent: a person
    who talks with a native accent is "one of us," whatever his skin
    colour, while a person with a foreign accent, however well respected,
    remains a foreigner. On the whole, this is good news, for it suggests
    that shared habits of speech can help a diverse society to hold
    together. People's sense of local and national identity is often based
    on things that were familiar when they were young: policemen in tall
    helmets, Routemaster buses, roast beef for Sunday lunch. People feel
    like that about language, and part of the resistance to changes in
    English is a resistance to change itself. It is also significant that,
    as Humphrys notes, Americanisms are especially resented. Once the
    change is complete, however, no one notices. Who now sympathises with
    the don who, on being told by a visitor that he wanted to contact her,
    replied: "I am delighted that you have arrived in Oxford. The verb 'To
    contact' has not."?
    One of the examples in my first paragraph represents language in
    transition. The use of "like" as a conjunction is now general even in
    educated speech, and it may soon become accepted in written English
    too. It grates on me, but it may not grate on the next generation. In
    the case of manifest language errors, the rule should be simple:
    resist as long as you can, but once the battle is lost, surrender. It
    is still worth trying to keep "media" and "data" as plural words, but
    it would be silly to say, "Her stamina are remarkable."
    One of the lessons of books like Lost for Words is that everyone has
    his own b?te noire (one of mine is b?te noir; one of Orwell's was the
    use of pretentious foreign phrases). One of Humphrys's is the plural
    in, for example, "the caller withheld their number." "Aargh!" he says
    (not all his comments are very sophisticated). But "their" is what we
    have always said in ordinary speech. True, we used to be taught to
    avoid this in writing, but if people think that so-called inclusive
    language is important, it is surely better than the ugly and obtrusive
    "his or her." Humphrys also hates redundancies like "safe haven" and
    "future prospect," but although these are faults, they are pretty
    minor ones. What would he make of Webster?
    I am acquainted with sad misery
    As the tanned galley-slave is with his oar.
    No doubt something lingers here of the original meaning of "sad,"
    which was "persistent," but the dull repetition in "sad misery"
    movingly expresses the monotonous continuance of the Duchess of
    Malfi's sorrows. In our ordinary discourse, a little redundancy may
    help to make meaning clear.
    Nor should we be automatically hostile to padding, as both Orwell and
    Humphrys are. In the 16th century, Cranmer gave the liturgy rhythm and
    dignity, in a language much less polysyllabic than Latin, by
    repetitions, often yoking together an Anglo-Saxon and a classically
    derived word: "Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we,
    worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may
    obtain... perfect remission and forgiveness." Clich?s such as "at the
    end of the day" and "at this moment in time" have become trite with
    use, but in origin they were virtuous: they grow out of an instinct to
    give language shape and flow.
    There are several misunderstandings about clich?. There are clich?s of
    thought; I used one in my first paragraph, when I referred to the myth
    that angry letters to the press are written in green ink. These are
    like family jokes; they are part of the national conversation, and are
    not to be regretted. Some clich?s are modestly useful, like "tip of
    the iceberg." Many are metaphors, and of these, some are plain bad,
    while others were once fresh but have become stale with time, such as
    "sick as a parrot." But "over the moon," though now horribly
    hackneyed, was once rather a charming phrase, with a pleasing touch of
    the surreal; and there was, I suppose, an allusion to the cow jumping
    over the moon in the nursery rhyme.
    The nature of grammar, too, is often misunderstood. When Ernie Wise
    talked about "the play what I wrote," he was using a grammar, but it
    was not the grammar of educated English. No native English-speaker
    would say "the play whom I wrote," a mistake which a foreigner
    learning the language might well make. That would indeed be contrary
    to English grammar. Another fact which often confuses people is that
    grammars include irregularities. Humphrys frets over the form "aren't
    I," before coming to the sensible conclusion that it is all right. But
    there was never a problem to start with. "Aren't I" is the correct
    form in modern English; it is simply an irregularity.
    We need to distinguish ugly language from ungrammatical language:
    plenty of language is ugly but grammatically correct. And we also need
    to distinguish between the grammar of informal speech ("aren't I"),
    non-standard grammar ("what I wrote"), and incorrect grammar ("whom I
    wrote"). There is a story of a German spy who was caught because his
    English was "too correct." If he was caught because the natives'
    speech was muddled and slovenly, he was unlucky; but if he was
    speaking like a book, he deserved his capture. Spoken English is
    different from written English - a point which Humphrys makes well -
    and the foreigner who has not learned this has not fully mastered the
    language.
    Some people stress the importance of grammar, in the sense of educated
    speech and writing; others, in reaction, deny that it matters, and may
    even claim that it is an elite conspiracy to keep the proles in their
    place. A similar reaction insists that the English language is in good
    health, and that there is no need to be concerned about it. This was
    the claim made by Jean Aitchison at the time of her Reith lectures in
    1996, but she seemed to have no criteria for distinguishing good
    language from bad. It is certainly wrong to suppose that languages
    cannot improve or deteriorate, or to deny that different languages
    have particular strengths and weaknesses. Among the disadvantages of
    English, for example, are the comparatively inflexible word order, the
    use of "s" both for the genitive case and for the plural and a general
    excess of sibilance, the inability to distinguish the singular and
    plural of the second person, and the awkwardness of having to use "it"
    for what the French distinguish as il and ce. The strength of English
    is the variety of its registers. The base of our language is Germanic,
    but it has been overlaid in three stages by words of Latin derivation:
    those that arrived in Anglo-Saxon times, those that came from French
    after 1066, and the abstract vocabulary that entered from the
    Renaissance onwards. We have cases of two words derived from the same
    Latin original, such as "frail" and "fragile," or "ransom" and
    "redemption." Good prose can exploit this range of register. We can
    use short, plain words or sesquipedalian polysyllables; we may want to
    use both.
    We should learn educated English, as we should learn to spell, if only
    because it is a certificate of competence. Mistakes like "should of"
    or "flaunt" for "flout" are literally childish: they are the result of
    people picking up language by imitation, as children do, and
    misunderstanding what they have heard. We should flaunt the rules of
    grammar, not flout them, if only to show that we know what we are up
    to. But there is a nobler reason for knowing the rules, and that is
    that it enables one to speak more variously and effectively. Language
    does more than inform: there are occasions when it should be sonorous,
    poetic, dignified or inspiring; and at times it needs to be blunt and
    coarse. I said earlier that Tony Blair was one of the two most
    interesting users of English in present politics; the other is Chris
    Patten. He speaks and writes with force and elegance; he quoted
    Shakespeare after losing his seat, but he also understands the value
    of a drop into the demotic ("gobsmacked"). You cannot drop into the
    demotic, however, unless you have a height to drop from.
    Patten's case may suggest that there is a practical advantage to good
    English. Hardly anyone knows whether he did a good job or not in
    Brussels, but he has acquired the reputation of a wise statesman, and
    that surely owes much to his way with words. On the other hand, Blair
    has been immensely successful in electoral politics, and Patten has
    not, so maybe the price of good language is respect without power. But
    there are grounds for being cautiously hopeful. I suspect that behind
    the fuss about grammar, spelling and clich? there lies a larger
    uneasiness. The feeling is abroad that government and society are
    hostile to high culture, or at least uneasy with it; that anything
    demanding has to be simplified or smoothed out ("accessibility" is the
    weasel word here); that no serious matter can now be treated
    seriously, the malaise summed up in the phrase "dumbing down."
    Humphrys's heart is in the right place, but his book, alas, is itself
    an example of dumbing down, for it is written in a relentlessly
    chirpy, folksy prose, as though he were trying to jolly along a class
    of 14 year olds suffering from attention deficit. Popularisation need
    not and should not be patronising. Think of Kenneth Clark's
    Civilisation: Clark was superbly patrician, but the reverse of
    patronising, for he treated us as people who would want to hear a
    serious argument, elegantly made. Civilisation was popular, and
    something of the same kind could be popular again now, for there is in
    the land a hunger to be more serious. The hungry sheep look up, and it
    is time for them to be fed; why, there might even be money in it. End
    of the article

From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  1 18:37:12 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 13:37:12 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] WP: Of Mice, Men and In-Between
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502011336270.11285@panix1.panix.com>

Of Mice, Men and In-Between
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A63731-2004Nov19?language=printer

    Scientists Debate Blending Of Human, Animal Forms

    By Rick Weiss
    Washington Post Staff Writer
    Saturday, November 20, 2004; Page A01

    In Minnesota, pigs are being born with human blood in their veins.

    In Nevada, there are sheep whose livers and hearts are largely human.

    In California, mice peer from their cages with human brain cells
    firing inside their skulls.

    These are not outcasts from "The Island of Dr. Moreau," the 1896 novel
    by H.G. Wells in which a rogue doctor develops creatures that are part
    animal and part human. They are real creations of real scientists,
    stretching the boundaries of stem cell research.

    Biologists call these hybrid animals chimeras, after the mythical
    Greek creature with a lion's head, a goat's body and a serpent's tail.
    They are the products of experiments in which human stem cells were
    added to developing animal fetuses.

    Chimeras are allowing scientists to watch, for the first time, how
    nascent human cells and organs mature and interact -- not in the cold
    isolation of laboratory dishes but inside the bodies of living
    creatures. Some are already revealing deep secrets of human biology
    and pointing the way toward new medical treatments.

    But with no federal guidelines in place, an awkward question hovers
    above the work: How human must a chimera be before more stringent
    research rules should kick in?

    The National Academy of Sciences, which advises the federal
    government, has been studying the issue and hopes to make
    recommendations by February. Yet the range of opinions it has received
    so far suggests that reaching consensus may be difficult.

    During one recent meeting, scientists disagreed on such basic issues
    as whether it would be unethical for a human embryo to begin its
    development in an animal's womb, and whether a mouse would be better
    or worse off with a brain made of human neurons.

    "This is an area where we really need to come to a reasonable
    consensus," said James Battey, chairman of the National Institutes of
    Health's Stem Cell Task Force. "We need to establish some kind of
    guidelines as to what the scientific community ought to do and ought
    not to do."
    Beyond Twins and Moms

    Chimeras (ki-MER-ahs) -- meaning mixtures of two or more individuals
    in a single body -- are not inherently unnatural. Most twins carry at
    least a few cells from the sibling with whom they shared a womb, and
    most mothers carry in their blood at least a few cells from each child
    they have born.

    Recipients of organ transplants are also chimeras, as are the many
    people whose defective heart valves have been replaced with those from
    pigs or cows. And scientists for years have added human genes to
    bacteria and even to farm animals -- feats of genetic engineering that
    allow those critters to make human proteins such as insulin for use as
    medicines.

    "Chimeras are not as strange and alien as at first blush they seem,"
    said Henry Greely, a law professor and ethicist at Stanford University
    who has reviewed proposals to create human-mouse chimeras there.

    But chimerism becomes a more sensitive topic when it involves growing
    entire human organs inside animals. And it becomes especially
    sensitive when it deals in brain cells, the building blocks of the
    organ credited with making humans human.

    In experiments like those, Greely told the academy last month, "there
    is a nontrivial risk of conferring some significant aspects of
    humanity" on the animal.

    Greely and his colleagues did not conclude that such experiments
    should never be done. Indeed, he and many other philosophers have been
    wrestling with the question of why so many people believe it is wrong
    to breach the species barrier.

    Does the repugnance reflect an understanding of an important natural
    law? Or is it just another cultural bias, like the once widespread
    rejection of interracial marriage?

    Many turn to the Bible's repeated invocation that animals should
    multiply "after their kind" as evidence that such experiments are
    wrong. Others, however, have concluded that the core problem is not
    necessarily the creation of chimeras but rather the way they are
    likely to be treated.

    Imagine, said Robert Streiffer, a professor of philosophy and
    bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, a human-chimpanzee chimera
    endowed with speech and an enhanced potential to learn -- what some
    have called a "humanzee."

    "There's a knee-jerk reaction that enhancing the moral status of an
    animal is bad," Streiffer said. "But if you did it, and you gave it
    the protections it deserves, how could the animal complain?"

    Unfortunately, said Harvard political philosopher Michael J. Sandel,
    speaking last fall at a meeting of the President's Council on
    Bioethics, such protections are unlikely.

    "Chances are we would make them perform menial jobs or dangerous
    jobs," Sandel said. "That would be an objection."
    A Research Breakthrough

    The potential power of chimeras as research tools became clear about a
    decade ago in a series of dramatic experiments by Evan Balaban, now at
    McGill University in Montreal. Balaban took small sections of brain
    from developing quails and transplanted them into the developing
    brains of chickens.

    The resulting chickens exhibited vocal trills and head bobs unique to
    quails, proving that the transplanted parts of the brain contained the
    neural circuitry for quail calls. It also offered astonishing proof
    that complex behaviors could be transferred across species.

    No one has proposed similar experiments between, say, humans and apes.
    But the discovery of human embryonic stem cells in 1998 allowed
    researchers to envision related experiments that might reveal a lot
    about how embryos grow.

    The cells, found in 5-day-old human embryos, multiply prolifically and
    -- unlike adult cells -- have the potential to turn into any of the
    body's 200 or so cell types.

    Scientists hope to cultivate them in laboratory dishes and grow
    replacement tissues for patients. But with those applications years
    away, the cells are gaining in popularity for basic research.

    The most radical experiment, still not conducted, would be to inject
    human stem cells into an animal embryo and then transfer that chimeric
    embryo into an animal's womb. Scientists suspect the proliferating
    human cells would spread throughout the animal embryo as it matured
    into a fetus and integrate themselves into every organ.

    Such "humanized" animals could have countless uses. They would almost
    certainly provide better ways to test a new drug's efficacy and
    toxicity, for example, than the ordinary mice typically used today.

    But few scientists are eager to do that experiment. The risk, they
    say, is that some human cells will find their way to the developing
    testes or ovaries, where they might grow into human sperm and eggs. If
    two such chimeras -- say, mice -- were to mate, a human embryo might
    form, trapped in a mouse.

    Not everyone agrees that this would be a terrible result.

    "What would be so dreadful?" asked Ann McLaren, a renowned
    developmental biologist at the University of Cambridge in England.
    After all, she said, no human embryo could develop successfully in a
    mouse womb. It would simply die, she told the academy. No harm done.

    But others disagree -- if only out of fear of a public backlash.

    "Certainly you'd get a negative response from people to have a human
    embryo trying to grow in the wrong place," said Cynthia B. Cohen, a
    senior research fellow at Georgetown University's Kennedy Institute of
    Ethics and a member of Canada's Stem Cell Oversight Committee, which
    supported a ban on such experiments there.
    How Human?

    But what about experiments in which scientists add human stem cells
    not to an animal embryo but to an animal fetus, which has already made
    its eggs and sperm? Then the only question is how human a creature one
    dares to make.

    In one ongoing set of experiments, Jeffrey L. Platt at the Mayo Clinic
    in Rochester, Minn., has created human-pig chimeras by adding
    human-blood-forming stem cells to pig fetuses. The resulting pigs have
    both pig and human blood in their vessels. And it's not just pig blood
    cells being swept along with human blood cells; some of the cells
    themselves have merged, creating hybrids.

    It is important to have learned that human and pig cells can fuse,
    Platt said, because he and others have been considering transplanting
    modified pig organs into people and have been wondering if that might
    pose a risk of pig viruses getting into patient's cells. Now
    scientists know the risk is real, he said, because the viruses may
    gain access when the two cells fuse.

    In other experiments led by Esmail Zanjani, chairman of animal
    biotechnology at the University of Nevada at Reno, scientists have
    been adding human stem cells to sheep fetuses. The team now has sheep
    whose livers are up to 80 percent human -- and make all the compounds
    human livers make.

    Zanjani's goal is to make the humanized livers available to people who
    need transplants. The sheep portions will be rejected by the immune
    system, he predicted, while the human part will take root.

    "I don't see why anyone would raise objections to our work," Zanjani
    said in an interview.
    Immunity Advantages

    Perhaps the most ambitious efforts to make use of chimeras come from
    Irving Weissman, director of Stanford University's Institute of
    Cancer/Stem Cell Biology and Medicine. Weissman helped make the first
    mouse with a nearly complete human immune system -- an animal that has
    proved invaluable for tests of new drugs against the AIDS virus, which
    does not infect conventional mice.

    More recently his team injected human neural stem cells into mouse
    fetuses, creating mice whose brains are about 1 percent human. By
    dissecting the mice at various stages, the researchers were able to
    see how the added brain cells moved about as they multiplied and made
    connections with mouse cells.

    Already, he said, they have learned things they "never would have
    learned had there been a bioethical ban."

    Now he wants to add human brain stem cells that have the defects that
    cause Parkinson's disease, Lou Gehrig's disease and other brain
    ailments -- and study how those cells make connections.

    Scientists suspect that these diseases, though they manifest
    themselves in adulthood, begin when something goes wrong early in
    development. If those errors can be found, researchers would have a
    much better chance of designing useful drugs, Weissman said. And those
    drugs could be tested in the chimeras in ways not possible in
    patients.

    Now Weissman says he is thinking about making chimeric mice whose
    brains are 100 percent human. He proposes keeping tabs on the mice as
    they develop. If the brains look as if they are taking on a distinctly
    human architecture -- a development that could hint at a glimmer of
    humanness -- they could be killed, he said. If they look as if they
    are organizing themselves in a mouse brain architecture, they could be
    used for research.

    So far this is just a "thought experiment," Weissman said, but he
    asked the university's ethics group for an opinion anyway.

    "Everyone said the mice would be useful," he said. "But no one was
    sure if it should be done."


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  1 18:38:16 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 13:38:16 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Paul Krugman: Confusions about Social Security
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502011337450.11285@panix1.panix.com>

Paul Krugman: Confusions about Social Security
Woodrow Wilson Schoo, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544

The Economists' Voice
Volume 2, Issue 1 2005 Article 1
A Special Issue on Social Security
http://www.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1048&context=ev
converted from PDF with
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/access_onlinetools.html

Summary

There is a lot of confusion in the debate over Social Security privatization, 
much of it deliberate. This essay discusses the meaning of the trust fund, 
which privatizers declare either real or fictional at their convenience; the 
likely rate of return on private accounts, which has been greatly overstated; 
and the (ir)relevance of putative reductions in far future liabilities.

KEYWORDS: Social Security, public finance

Introduction

Since the Bush administration has put Social Security privatization at the top 
of the agenda, I'll be writing a lot about the subject in my New York Times 
column over the next few months. But it's hard to do the subject justice in a 
series of 700- word snippets. So I thought it might be helpful to lay out the 
situation as I see it in an integrated piece. There are three main points of 
confusion in the Social Security debate (confusion that is deliberately 
created, for the most part, but never mind that for now). These are:

* The meaning of the trust fund: in order to create a sense of crisis, 
proponents of privatization consider the trust fund either real or fictional, 
depending on what is convenient

* The rate of return that can be expected on private accounts: privatizers 
claim that there is a huge free lunch from the creation of these accounts, a 
free lunch that is based on very dubious claims about future stock returns

* How to think about implicit liabilities in the far future: privatizers brush 
aside the huge negative fiscal consequences of their plans in the short run, 
claiming that reductions in promised payments many decades in the future are an 
adequate offset

Without further ado, let me address each confusion in turn.

The Trust Fund Social Security is a government program supported by a dedicated 
tax, like highway maintenance. Now you can say that assigning a particular tax 
to a particular program is merely a fiction, but in fact such assignments have 
both legal and political force. If Ronald Reagan had said, back in the 1980s, 
"Let's increase a regressive tax that falls mainly on the working class, while 
cutting taxes that fall mainly on much richer people," he would have faced a 
political firestorm. But because the increase in the regressive payroll tax was 
recommended by the Greenspan Commission to support Social Security, it was 
politically in a different box - you might even call it a lockbox - from 
Reagan's tax cuts.

The purpose of that tax increase was to maintain the dedicated tax system into 
the future, by having Social Security's assigned tax take in more money than 
the system paid out while the baby boomers were still working, then use the 
trust fund built up by those surpluses to pay future bills. Viewed in its own 
terms, that strategy was highly successful.

The date at which the trust fund will run out, according to Social Security 
Administration projections, has receded steadily into the future: 10 years ago 
it was 2029, now it's 2042. As Kevin Drum, Brad DeLong, and others have pointed 
out, the SSA estimates are very conservative, and quite moderate projections of 
economic growth push the exhaustion date into the indefinite future.

But the privatizers won't take yes for an answer when it comes to the 
sustainability of Social Security. Their answer to the pretty good numbers is 
to say that the trust fund is meaningless, because it's invested in U.S. 
government bonds. They aren't really saying that government bonds are 
worthless; their point is that the whole notion of a separate budget for Social 
Security is a fiction. And if that's true, the idea that one part of the 
government can have a positive trust fund while the government as a whole is in 
debt does become strange.

But there are two problems with their position. The lesser problem is that if 
you say that there is no link between the payroll tax and future Social 
Security benefits - which is what denying the reality of the trust fund amounts 
to - then Greenspan and company pulled a fast one back in the 1980s: they sold 
a regressive tax switch, raising taxes on workers while cutting them on the 
wealthy, on false pretenses. More broadly, we're breaking a major promise if we 
now, after 20 years of high payroll taxes to pay for Social Security's future, 
declare that it was all a little joke on the public.

The bigger problem for those who want to see a crisis in Social Security's 
future is this: if Social Security is just part of the federal budget, with no 
budget or trust fund of its own, then, well, it's just part of the federal 
budget: there can't be a Social Security crisis. All you can have is a general 
budget crisis. Rising Social Security benefit payments might be one reason for 
that crisis, but it's hard to make the case that it will be central.

But those who insist that we face a Social Security crisis want to have it both 
ways. Having invoked the concept of a unified budget to reject the existence of 
a trust fund, they refuse to accept the implications of that unified budget 
going forward. Instead, having changed the rules to make the trust fund 
meaningless, they want to change the rules back around 15 years from now: 
today, when the payroll tax takes in more revenue than SS benefits, they say 
that's meaningless, but when - in 2018 or later - benefits start to exceed the 
payroll tax, why, that's a crisis. Huh?

I don't know why this contradiction is so hard to understand, except to echo 
Upton Sinclair: it's hard to get a man to understand something when his salary 
(or, in the current situation, his membership in the political club) depends on 
his not understanding it. But let me try this one more time, by asking the 
following: What happens in 2018 or whenever, when benefits payments exceed 
payroll tax revenues?

The answer, very clearly, is nothing.

The Social Security system won't be in trouble: it will, in fact, still have a 
growing trust fund, because of the interest that the trust earns on its 
accumulated surplus. The only way Social Security gets in trouble is if 
Congress votes not to honor U.S. government bonds held by Social Security. 
That's not going to happen. So legally, mechanically, 2018 has no meaning.

Now it's true that rising benefit costs will be a drag on the federal budget. 
So will rising Medicare costs. So will the ongoing drain from tax cuts. So will 
whatever wars we get into. I can't find a story under which Social Security 
payments, as opposed to other things, become a crucial budgetary problem in 
2018.

What we really have is a looming crisis in the General Fund. Social Security, 
with its own dedicated tax, has been run responsibly; the rest of the 
government has not. So why are we talking about a Social Security crisis?

It's interesting to ask what would have happened if the General Fund actually 
had been run responsibly - which is to say, if Social Security surpluses had 
been kept in a "lockbox", and the General Fund had been balanced on average.

In that case, the accumulating trust fund would have been a very real 
contribution to the government as a whole's ability to pay future benefits.

As long as Social Security surpluses were being invested in government bonds, 
they would have reduced the government's debt to the public, and hence its 
interest bill.

We would, it's true, eventually have reached a point at which there was no more 
debt to buy, that is, a point at which the government's debt to the public had 
been more or less paid off. At that point, it would have been necessary to 
invest the growing trust fund in private-sector assets. This would have raised 
some management issues: to protect the investments from political influence, 
the trust fund would have had to be placed in a broad index. But the point is 
that the trust fund would have continued to make a real contribution to the 
government's ability to pay future benefits.

And if we are now much less optimistic about the government's ability to honor 
future obligations than we were four years ago, when Alan Greenspan urged 
Congress to cut taxes to avoid excessive surpluses, it's not because Social 
Security's finances have deteriorated - they have actually improved (the 
projected exhaustion date of the trust fund has moved back 5 years since that 
testimony.) It's because the General Fund has plunged into huge deficit, with 
Bush's tax cuts the biggest single cause.

I'm not a Pollyanna; I think that we may well be facing a fiscal crisis. But 
it's deeply misleading, and in fact an evasion of the real issues, to call it a 
Social Security crisis.

Rates of Return on Private Accounts

Privatizers believe that privatization can improve the government's long-term 
finances without requiring any sacrifice by anyone - no new taxes, no net 
benefit cuts (guaranteed benefits will be cut, but people will make it up with 
the returns on their accounts.) How is this possible?

The answer is that they assume that stocks, which will make up part of those 
private accounts, will yield a much higher return than bonds, with minimal 
longterm risk.

Now it's true that in the past stocks have yielded a very good return, around 7 
percent in real terms - more than enough to compensate for additional risk. But 
a weird thing has happened in the debate: proposals by erstwhile serious 
economists such as Martin Feldstein appear to be based on the assertion that 
it's a sort of economic law that stocks will always yield a much higher rate of 
return than bonds. They seem to treat that 7 percent rate of return as if it 
were a natural constant, like the speed of light.

What ordinary economics tells us is just the opposite: if there is a natural 
law here, it's that easy returns get competed away, and there's no such thing 
as a free lunch. If, as Jeremy Siegel tells us, stocks have yielded a high rate 
of return with relatively little risk for long-run investors, that doesn't tell 
us that they will always do so in the future. It tells us that in the past 
stocks were underpriced. And we can expect the market to correct that.

In fact, a major correction has already taken place. Historically, the 
priceearnings ratio averaged about 14. Now, it's about 20. Siegel tells us that 
the real rate of return tends to be equal to the inverse of the price-earnings 
ratio, which makes a lot of sense.1 More generally, if people are paying more 
for an asset, the rate of return is lower. So now that a typical price- 
earnings ratio is 20, a good estimate of the real rate of return on stocks in 
the future is 5 percent, not 7 percent.

[1 For those who want to know: suppose that the economy is in steady-state 
growth, with both the rental rate on capital and Tobin's q constant. Then the 
rate of return on stocks is equal to the earnings-price ratio. Obviously that's 
an oversimplification, but it looks pretty good as a rule of thumb.]

Here's another way to arrive at the same result. Suppose that dividends are 3 
percent of stock prices, and that the economy grows at 3 percent (enough, by 
the way, to make the trust fund more or less perpetual.) Not all of that 3 
percent growth accrues to existing firms; the Dow of today is a very different 
set of firms than the Dow of 50 years ago. So at best, 3 percent economic 
growth is 2 percent growth for the set of existing firms; add to dividend 
yield, and we've got 5 percent again.

That's still not bad, you may say. But now let's do the arithmetic of private 
accounts.

These accounts won't be 100 percent in stocks; more like 60 percent. With a 2 
percent real rate on bonds, we're down to 3.8 percent.

Then there are management fees. In Britain, they're about 1.1 percent. So now 
we're down to 2.7 percent on personal accounts - barely above the implicit 
return on Social Security right now, but with lots of added risk. Except for 
Wall Street firms collecting fees, this is a formula to make everyone worse 
off.

Privatizers say that they'll keep fees very low by restricting choice to a few 
index funds. Two points.

First, I don't believe it. In the December 21 New York Times story on the 
subject, there was a crucial giveaway: "At first, individuals would be offered 
a limited range of investment vehicles, mostly low-cost indexed funds. After a 
time, account holders would be given the option to upgrade to actively managed 
funds, which would invest in a more diverse range of assets with higher risk 
and potentially larger fees." (My emphasis.)

At first? Hmm. So the low-fee thing wouldn't be a permanent commitment. Within 
months, not years, the agitation to allow "choice" would begin. And the British 
experience shows that this would quickly lead to substantial dissipation on 
management fees.

Second point: if you're requiring that private accounts be invested in index 
funds chosen by government officials, what's the point of calling them private 
accounts? We're back where we were above, with the trust fund investing in the 
market via an index.

Now I know that the privatizers have one more trick up their sleeve: they claim 
that because these are called private accounts, the mass of account holders 
will rise up and cry foul if the government tries to politicize investments. 
Just like large numbers of small stockholders police governance problems at 
corporations, right? (That's a joke, by the way.)

If we are going to invest Social Security funds in stocks, keeping those 
investments as part of a government-run trust fund protects against a much 
clearer political economy danger than politicization of investments: the risk 
that Wall Street lobbyists will turn this into a giant fee-generating scheme.

To sum up: claims that stocks will always yield high, low-risk returns are just 
bad economics. And tens of millions of small private accounts are a bad way to 
take advantage of whatever the stock market does have to offer. There is no 
free lunch, and certainly not from private accounts.

The Distant Future

The distant future plays a strangely large role in the current discussion. To 
convince us of the direness of our plight, privatizers invoke the vast combined 
infinite-horizon unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare. Their 
answer to that supposed danger is to borrow trillions of dollars to pay for 
private accounts, which supposedly will solve the problem through the magic of 
high stock returns (a supposition I've just debunked.) And all that borrowing 
will be harmless, say the privatizers, because the long-run budget position of 
the federal government won't be affected: payments 30, 40, 50 years from now 
will be reduced, and in present value terms that will offset the borrowing over 
the nearer term.

I'm all for looking ahead. But most of this is just wrong-headed, on multiple 
levels.

Let me start with the easiest piece: why the distant future of Medicare is 
something we really should ignore. And bear in mind that most of those huge 
numbers you hear about implicit liabilities come from Medicare, not Social 
Security; more to the point, they mostly come from projected increases in 
medical costs, not demography.

Now the main reason medical costs keep rising is that the range of things 
medicine can do keeps increasing. In the last few years my father and 
mother-inlaw have both had life-saving and life-enhancing medical procedures 
that didn't exist a decade or two ago; it's procedures like those that account 
for the rising cost of Medicare.

Long-run projections assume, perhaps correctly, that this trend will continue. 
In 2100 Medicare may be paying for rejuvenation techniques or prosthetic brain 
replacements, and that will cost a lot of money.

But does it make any sense to worry now about how to pay for all that? 
Intergenerational responsibility is a fine thing, but I can't see why the cost 
of medical treatments that have not yet been invented, applied to people who 
have not yet been born, should play any role in shaping today's policy.

Social Security's distant future isn't quite as speculative, but it's still 
pretty uncertain. What do you think the world will look like in 2105? My guess 
is that by then the computers will be smarter than we are, and we can let them 
deal with things; but the truth is that we haven't the faintest idea. I doubt 
that anyone really believes that it's important to look beyond the traditional 
75-year window. It has only become fashionable lately because it's a way to 
make the situation look more dire.

Now let's return slightly more to the world outside science fiction, and ask 
the question: can we really count purported savings several decades out as an 
offset to huge borrowing today?

The answer should be a clear no, for one simple reason: a bond issue is a true 
commitment to repay, while a purported change in future benefits is just a 
suggestion to whoever is running the country decades from now.

If the Bush plan cuts guaranteed benefits 30 years out, what does that mean? 
Maybe benefits will actually be cut on schedule, but then again maybe they 
won't - remember, the over-65 voting bloc will be even bigger then than it is 
now. Or maybe, under budgetary pressure, benefits would have been cut 
regardless of what Bush does now, in which case his plan doesn't really save 
money in the out years.

Financial markets, we can be sure, will pay very little attention to 
projections about how today's policies will affect the budget 30 years ahead. 
In fact, we've just had a demonstration of how little attention they will pay: 
the prescription drug plan.

As has been widely noted, last year's prescription drug law, if it really goes 
into effect as promised, worsens the long-run federal budget by much more than 
the entire accounting deficit of Social Security. If markets really looked far 
ahead, the passage of that law should have caused a sharp rise in interest 
rates, maybe even a crisis of confidence in federal solvency. In fact, everyone 
pretty much ignored the thing - just as they'll ignore the putative future 
savings in the Bush plan.

What markets will pay attention to, just as they did in Argentina, is the surge 
in good old-fashioned debt.

Privatization is a solution in search of a problem

As I've described it, the case for privatization is a mix of strange and 
inconsistent budget doctrines, bad economics, dubious political economy, and 
science fiction. What's wrong with these people?

The answer is definitely not that they are stupid. In fact, the case made by 
the privatizers is fiendishly ingenious in its Jesuitical logic, its 
persuasiveness to the unprepared mind.

But many of the people supporting privatization have to know better. Why, then, 
don't they say so? Because Social Security privatization is a solution in 
search of a problem. The right has always disliked Social Security; it has 
always been looking for some reason to dismantle it. Now, with a window of 
opportunity created by the public's rally-around-the-flag response after 9/11, 
the Republican leadership is making a full-court press for privatization, using 
any arguments at hand.

There are both crude and subtle reasons why economists who know better don't 
take a stand against the illogic of many of the privatizers' positions. The 
crude reason is that a conservative economist who doesn't support every twist 
and turn of the push for privatization faces political exile. Any hint of 
intellectual unease would, for example, kill the chances of anyone hoping to be 
appointed as Greenspan's successor. The subtle reason is that many economists 
hold the defensible position that a pay-as-you-go system is bad for savings and 
long-run growth. And they hope that a bad privatization plan may nonetheless be 
the start of a reform that eventually creates a better system.

But those hopes are surely misplaced. So far, everyone - and I mean everyone - 
who has signed on to Bush administration plans in the hope that they can be 
converted into something better has ended up used, abused, and discarded. It 
happened to John DiIulio, it happened to Colin Powell, it happened to Greg 
Mankiw, and it's a safe prediction that those who think they can turn the Bush 
drive to dismantle Social Security into something good will suffer the same 
fate.

Paul Krugman won the John Bates Clark medal in 1991--awarded every second year 
to a single economist--for his work on imperfect competition and international 
trade. He is now a Professor of Economics and International Affairs at 
Princeton University, and a regular op-ed columnist for the New York Times. 
Ph.D. MIT 1977

Letters Commenting on this piece or others may be submitted at 
http://www.bepress.com/cgi/submit.cgi?context=ev


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  1 18:47:51 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 13:47:51 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Index on Censorship: D D Guttenplan: How Many Jews
	Does It Take...?
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502011338570.11285@panix1.panix.com>

How Many Jews Does It Take...? : Should freedom of speech stop at 
Holocaust denial?  By D D Guttenplan
http://www.indexonline.org/en/news/articles/2005/1/britain-holocaust-rememberance.shtml
This article will appear in issue 2/05 of Index on Censorship:
Forgive or Forget.

    As the world commemorates the 60th anniversary of the liberation of
    the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz as Holocaust Memorial Day, there are
    still those who for their own reasons, deny the testimony of history.
    D D Guttenplan, author of The Holocaust on Trial: History, Justice and
    the David Irving Libel Case asks: should freedom of speech stop at
    Holocaust denial? 
-----------
    The ironies of history are seldom subtle. Thus Charles Clarke's
    announcement, on the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day, that the
    government will seek to end the centuries-long right of habeas corpus
    and that henceforth mere suspicion of certain terrorist activities may
    result in detention.
    Listening to the Prime Minister's plea that we retain a sense of
    proportion, and that the new measures will only affect "a handful of
    people" (though the newspaper accounts suggested that coverage would
    extend to animal rights activists and Northern Irish militants as well
    as suspected al-Qaeda cells) one could hardly help recalling Martin
    Niemoller's auto-indictment: `First, they came for the Communists...".
    So I may perhaps be excused for pointing out that the conflict at the
    centre of proposals to outlaw Holocaust Denial in Britain -- between
    freedom of speech and freedom from a form of racist harassment -- has
    its own history. In 1949 the United States Supreme Court had to decide
    whether the city of Chicago acted rightly in fining Arthur
    Terminiello, a Roman Catholic priest, $100 for breaching the peace by
    making a speech attacking "atheistic, communistic Jewish or Zionist
    Jews".
    The record doesn't show whether Terminiello's career as a Jew-baiter
    extended to Holocaust denial, but his case is relevant to the current
    debate even without such obvious cues. Robert Jackson, one of the
    judges who heard Terminiello's appeal, had been chief US prosecutor at
    Nuremberg. Weimar Germany's failure to defend its constitutional order
    was still fresh in his mind when Jackson warned his colleagues "if the
    court does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical
    wisdom, it will convert the Constitutional Bill of Rights into a
    suicide pact".
    Not everyone who favours making Holocaust Denial a crime in Britain
    advances a rational argument for doing so. When Tony Blair said in
    1997 that there was "a very strong case" for a law against Holocaust
    denial he never went into specifics -- an omission which looks prudent
    now that his government has apparently lost its enthusiasm. Still,
    while it is unfashionable to say so, I believe there are at least two
    strong arguments in favor of such a law, and that both arguments
    deserve to be taken seriously.
    The first argument is that Holocaust denial is a form of racial abuse
    directed not just at Jews but at a particularly vulnerable subset of
    Jews. As someone who spent more time than I liked reading the works of
    Robert Faurisson, Arthur Butz and David Irving I can attest that this
    is the case.
    For all their pseudo-scholarly decoration, the deniers' devotion to
    historical argument is on a par with Terminiello's contribution to
    theological disputation. To fail to acknowledge the pain felt by
    Holocaust survivors at the negation of their own experience -- or to
    treat such pain as a particularly Jewish problem which need not
    trouble anyone else -- is to deny our common humanity.
    Which in many cases is precisely the abuser's aim--not to lure the
    rest of us into joining in, but simply to further isolate the victims
    by our indifference.
    And as a general proposition Jackson was right. Free societies do have
    not only a right but an obligation to defend themselves. As
    individuals we are free to emulate Voltaire's willingness "to give my
    life to make it possible" for someone whose views we detest to
    continue to express them. But we do not have the right to impose such
    self-abnegation on our fellow citizens.
    Jackson's fellow justices needed no reminder of where Jew-baiting
    could lead. Yet by a 5-4 majority the court overturned Terminiello's
    conviction, and though I think they were right to do so, the thinness
    of the margin also seems appropriate. This is not a question where
    certainty is warranted on either side.
    In Britain and the United States we regard Free Speech as sacred.
    Americans venerate the First Amendment, while Britons cite Milton, who
    in Areopagitica said true Liberty only exists "when free born men /
    Having to advise the public may speak free". Holocaust denial is
    currently a crime in Austria, France, Germany, Israel, Belgium,
    Poland, Lithuania and Switzerland. Do the citizens of those countries
    value freedom less than we do? Or might other factors be involved?
    Robert Kahn, author of Holocaust Denial and the Law, points to a
    "fault time" separating the "common law countries" of the US, Britain,
    and former British colonies from the "civil law countries of
    continental Europe". In civil law countries the law is generally more
    prescriptive. Also under the civil law regime the judge acts more as
    an inquisitor, gathering and presenting evidence as well as
    interpreting it.
    Unlike the Anglo-American adversarial system, where fairness is the
    primary attribute of justice, and the judge functions as a referee,
    trials under the continental system aim at arriving at the truth.
    This divergence has a number of consequences.
    One of them was on view when David Irving, a British author, sued
    Deborah Lipsadt, an American academic. Irving claimed that since the
    Holocaust never happened, it was libellous to call him a Holocaust
    denier. As the claimant under British law Irving was able to force
    Lipstadt to prove him wrong by in effect proving the historical
    actuality of the Holocaust. This put an enormous additional burden on
    Mr Justice Charles Gray, who in presiding over the trial had to
    constantly attend to the claims of truth as well as justice.
    Continental judges also have much greater latitude in taking "judicial
    notice" -- ie in declaring that certain facts are well-established and
    need not be proven anew. The result is a system where, by habit if not
    by aptitude, the courts are more comfortable in simply pronouncing on
    questions of historical fact.
    Ultimately, though, it is the difference in historical experience that
    ought to constrain our attitude to other countries. In Germany and
    Austria Holocaust denial is not "mere" Jew-baiting but also a channel
    for Nazi resurgence much like the Hitler salute and the display of the
    swastika, which are also banned.
    The case for a ban in Israel should also be obvious, if not beyond
    argument. Similarly, countries where the experience of occupation and
    the shame of collaboration still rankle ought to be able to make their
    own decisions. Blasphemy is still illegal in this country, and though
    Americans are theoretically free to do all sorts of things no American
    these days can afford to be smug about anyone else's liberty. Nor,
    after Bosnia and Rwanda, can we pretend that free speech is an
    absolute value. Sticks and stones may break bones, but name-calling
    can clear a path for genocide.
    Where should we set the balance in Britain? My own view is that the
    existing laws against incitement to racial hatred are sufficient.
    Making a special case for Holocaust denial might be justified if
    British Jews were in jeopardy, or if there were a fascist movement in
    this country, fueled by Holocaust denial, which posed a genuine threat
    to democracy. Happily we are far from such dangers, and if we take the
    Prime Minister at his word and retain our sense of proportion we ought
    to recognise that we have far more to lose from even such a tiny
    erosion of our liberties.
    In 1949 the radical journalist I F Stone described himself as "exactly
    what Terminiello in his harangues meant by an 'atheistic, communistic,
    zionistic Jew'. I would not demean myself or my people by denying him
    the right to say it." Stone's denunciation of judges "who would have
    permitted some measure of suppression in my protection" as "not men
    whose championship I would care to have" could have been written of
    any number of recent Home Secretaries.
    In rejecting Justice Jackson's analogy between Weimar Germany and
    post-war America Stone proved a better historian as well as a more
    robust libertarian. As an American Jew resident in twenty-first
    century Britain it seems to me that free speech is still worth the
    risk.
    D D Guttenplan is the author of The Holocaust on Trial: History,
    Justice and the David Irving Libel Case. London correspondent for The
    Nation, he is currently writing a biography of I F Stone.



From shovland at mindspring.com  Tue Feb  1 19:09:37 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 11:09:37 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] No missiles or submarines needed
Message-ID: <01C5084E.857907A0.shovland@mindspring.com>

Any one of those uninspected cargo containers
could take a nuke anywhere in the world.

If we need to make war to halt proliferation, Korea,
Pakistan, India, and Israel are the most obvious
targets.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net




From shovland at mindspring.com  Tue Feb  1 19:18:56 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 11:18:56 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Kerrey on Social Security
Message-ID: <01C5084F.D25AC5D0.shovland@mindspring.com>

If it is true that Social Security money would
pump up the market, then the market would
also go down when the money is withdrawn
to finance retirement expenditures.

The market is not magic, and there is no
free lunch.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
Sent:	Tuesday, February 01, 2005 6:00 AM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	[Paleopsych] Kerrey on Social Security

No, not John Kerry, the smart Kerrey.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110006234
Pride and Prejudice
"Hell no, we won't go" is the wrong liberal approach on Social Security 
reform.

BY BOB KERREY
Tuesday, February 1, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

The late Pat Moynihan used to joke when I asked him why liberals were so 
reluctant to consider changing Social Security so that it guaranteed 
wealth as well as income: "It's because they worry that wealth will turn 
Democrats into Republicans." Leaving aside that possible correlation, it 
will be a shame if liberal voices, values and ideas are not brought into 
the debate initiated by President Bush's Social Security reform 
proposal. To make certain the reforms are done correctly liberal 
thinking is urgently needed.

There is no doubt that Social Security and Medicare are two of 
liberalism's most enduring and popular triumphs. And there is no doubt 
that a vocal and influential minority remains true to its strong 
conservative belief that the Social Security Act of 1935 and the 1965 
amendments to this act, which created Medicare and Medicaid, represent 
socialistic and dangerous interferences with the marketplace. However, 
liberals are wrong to fear that President Bush's proposal represents a 
threat to Social Security.

I sincerely hope they do not merely defend their proudest achievement. I 
hope they see that President Bush is giving them an opportunity to 
finally do something about the rich getting richer and the poor getting 
poorer.

First of all, fears that Social Security will be destroyed are 
exaggerated. Across all generations and within both major parties, 
Social Security and Medicare are seen as a vital part of American life. 
They represent a powerful intergenerational contract between younger 
Americans in the work force who agree to be taxed on behalf of older, 
eligible Americans. What makes the contract work is that the expectation 
of those in the work force is that when they pass the age of 
eligibility, successive generations of workers will not object to the 
taxes that must be imposed on them to cover the costs of their income 
and health benefits.

Secondly, President Bush's fears of a bankrupt Social Security and his 
rhetoric of the program being in financial crisis are also exaggerated. 
Relatively small changes in taxes and/or benefits would restore the 
promise to all living beneficiaries--those eligible today and those 
eligible in the future. Unlike the situation that existed in 1983, when 
Congress and the president acted to avoid a financial crisis, today's 
financial problems are relatively small.

On the other hand, there are two problems with Social Security that are 
serious enough to be called a crisis. The first is that in eight years 
the income from a 12.4% payroll tax will be insufficient to pay the old 
age, survivor and disability benefits owed at that time. From that point 
on, Social Security will begin to redeem some of the hundreds of 
billions of dollars of Treasury bonds it has "accumulated in the trust 
fund" in order to issue monthly checks to beneficiaries.

Though these bonds are far from "worthless," as some critics allege, the 
picture of them "accumulating in a trust fund" is not accurate either. 
That is because, in order to convert these bonds into cash, the U.S. 
Treasury will use the cash from individual and corporate income taxes. 
While some income taxes are currently used to pay Social Security 
benefits, the dollar amounts do not pose a serious budgetary challenge. 
In eight years that will change. Coupled with the cost of Medicare and 
Medicaid, the annual benefit demands of Social Security will put real 
pressure on Congress to cut spending on defense and nondefense 
appropriations.

It is at this point in time that the demographic and monetary demands of 
the baby boom generation will become painfully apparent. The 
disinvestment in public infrastructure caused by the growth in Medicare 
and Medicaid will become even worse than it is today. And the nature of 
this crisis will be considerably more daunting than that faced squarely 
by Congress and the president in 1983. Liberals, who have silently 
watched the share of state and federal spending apportioned to the 
elderly grow at the expense of education, training, child care and 
research, will be appalled to discover how much their silence has cost them.

The second crisis is the one for which liberals are even more urgently 
needed. This crisis is the shockingly low rates of savings and pitifully 
inadequate amount of preparation being made by American households for 
their old age. If liberals were to join this debate and insist upon 
provisions that would lead to dramatic reductions of the numbers of poor 
elderly, the outcome could be a dramatically enhanced quality of life 
for all, reduced dependency upon welfare in old age, and downward 
pressure on the social costs of growing old.

If liberals joined this debate they would insist that the guaranteed 
transfer payment of Social Security remain intact. With the evidence 
that trade, technology and immigration are putting downward pressure on 
unskilled wages, they might even be able to succeed in changing the 
current benefit formula so that more than 50% of the first $900 of 
income was replaced. Perhaps they could even convince their Republican 
colleagues to eliminate penalties that affect stay-at-home women.

Liberals would fight to make certain that contributions to private 
accounts were progressive in order to benefit lower-wage workers. They 
might even argue that accounts be opened at birth, thus giving Americans 
the longest possible time to accumulate wealth. No doubt they would 
insist that investment options be carefully regulated to keep 
administrative costs and risks as low as possible. And since liberals 
oftentimes understand the good that markets can do even more than some 
of their conservative colleagues, they could see the wisdom of changing 
the tax code so that no income taxes were levied on income that went 
into these savings accounts. All of these would practically guarantee a 
muscular market response that would give future Americans larger amounts 
of insured non-employment income to add to the $800 per month on average 
they receive from Social Security.

None of this will happen if liberals merely shout "hell no, we won't 
go." The best they can hope for with that strategy is to prevent reform 
from happening. They should feel no pride of accomplishment if that is 
the result.

Mr. Kerrey, a Democratic former senator from Nebraska, is the president 
of New School University, in New York City.

_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


From shovland at mindspring.com  Wed Feb  2 14:25:15 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 06:25:15 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Where are the Iraq exit polls?
Message-ID: <01C508EF.F57E7AC0.shovland@mindspring.com>

Isn't it suspicious that no one was asked on the way out?

What if the exit polls said one thing and the vote count
said another?  Very embarrassing...

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net




From n.j.c.bannan at reading.ac.uk  Wed Feb  2 15:10:08 2005
From: n.j.c.bannan at reading.ac.uk (Nicholas Bannan)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 15:10:08 -0000
Subject: [Paleopsych] Where are the Iraq exit polls?
References: <01C508EF.F57E7AC0.shovland@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <019001c50939$48d2fd60$6882e186@.rdg.ac.uk>

Exit poll operative at the Iraqi elections sounds to me like one of those
jokes we used to coin as children in the category Most Dangerous Job In The
World.  I think the guys could be forgiven for not buying into this aspect
of journalism-led Western practice.  Is there any evidence that exit polls
ever validate the due process?  I would estimate that they are as likely to
distort it.


Nicholas


----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Hovland" <shovland at mindspring.com>
To: "paleopsych at paleopsych. org (E-mail)" <paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2005 2:25 PM
Subject: [Paleopsych] Where are the Iraq exit polls?


> Isn't it suspicious that no one was asked on the way out?
>
> What if the exit polls said one thing and the vote count
> said another?  Very embarrassing...
>
> Steve Hovland
> www.stevehovland.net
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>



From anonymous_animus at yahoo.com  Wed Feb  2 19:18:36 2005
From: anonymous_animus at yahoo.com (Michael Christopher)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 11:18:36 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] deceptive marketing
In-Reply-To: <200502021912.j12JClC25922@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <20050202191836.22312.qmail@web30801.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

The influence of deceptive marketing grows in the GOP
(those familiar with Newt's GOPAC memo and other PR
strategies won't be too surprised):

NO SHAME
by Sheldon Rampton
Thanks to PR Watch forums contributor "El Gringo" for
calling our attention to a really atrocious example of
dishonest propaganda. The graphic at right is by Linda
Eddy, an artist for the website,
IowaPresidentialWatch.com. Owned by Roger Hughes,
chairman of the Republican Party in Hamilton County,
Iowa, the website spent the recent U.S. presidential
election calling Democratic candidate John Kerry a
habitual liar and comparing him to Nazi propagandist
Joseph Goebbels - which is awfully ironic in light of
its own promotion of a big lie. 
The image you see here might lead you to believe that
the child in the picture has been made "glad" and
secure thanks to the U.S. troop presence in Iraq. As
"El Gringo" discovered, however, Lindy Eddy doctored
the photograph. The original 
photo, taken by a journalist, depicted a young girl
who had just received bullet wounds during a firefight
in which her mother was killed and her father was
wounded. Eddy doctored the photo by erasing the little
girl's own face (which carries the listless expression
you would expect from an injured child) and replacing
it 
with someone else's face to make her look positively
radiant and adoring.

http://www.prwatch.org/node/3220



=====
My blog:
http://shallowreflections.blogspot.com/

Link to my website, including art, flash poetry and fledgling CafePress store (t-shirts, bumperstickers etc): http://www.soulaquarium.net

We are stardust, we are golden, We are billion year old carbon, 
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden. - Joni Mitchell

"We don't fear the unknown. We fear how the unknown might cause us to re-evaluate the known." - Unknown


	
		
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. 
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail


From shovland at mindspring.com  Wed Feb  2 20:21:10 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 12:21:10 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] deceptive marketing
Message-ID: <01C50921.AE62F9E0.shovland@mindspring.com>

I wonder why some people think I'm a cynic?  :-)

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Michael Christopher [SMTP:anonymous_animus at yahoo.com]
Sent:	Wednesday, February 02, 2005 11:19 AM
To:	paleopsych at paleopsych.org
Subject:	[Paleopsych] deceptive marketing

The influence of deceptive marketing grows in the GOP
(those familiar with Newt's GOPAC memo and other PR
strategies won't be too surprised):

NO SHAME
by Sheldon Rampton
Thanks to PR Watch forums contributor "El Gringo" for
calling our attention to a really atrocious example of
dishonest propaganda. The graphic at right is by Linda
Eddy, an artist for the website,
IowaPresidentialWatch.com. Owned by Roger Hughes,
chairman of the Republican Party in Hamilton County,
Iowa, the website spent the recent U.S. presidential
election calling Democratic candidate John Kerry a
habitual liar and comparing him to Nazi propagandist
Joseph Goebbels - which is awfully ironic in light of
its own promotion of a big lie. 
The image you see here might lead you to believe that
the child in the picture has been made "glad" and
secure thanks to the U.S. troop presence in Iraq. As
"El Gringo" discovered, however, Lindy Eddy doctored
the photograph. The original 
photo, taken by a journalist, depicted a young girl
who had just received bullet wounds during a firefight
in which her mother was killed and her father was
wounded. Eddy doctored the photo by erasing the little
girl's own face (which carries the listless expression
you would expect from an injured child) and replacing
it 
with someone else's face to make her look positively
radiant and adoring.

http://www.prwatch.org/node/3220



=====
My blog:
http://shallowreflections.blogspot.com/

Link to my website, including art, flash poetry and fledgling CafePress store (t-shirts, bumperstickers etc): http://www.soulaquarium.net

We are stardust, we are golden, We are billion year old carbon, 
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden. - Joni Mitchell

"We don't fear the unknown. We fear how the unknown might cause us to re-evaluate the known." - Unknown


	
		
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. 
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


From checker at panix.com  Wed Feb  2 21:36:41 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 16:36:41 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Meme 039: Ayn Rand Centennial: Patch Still Needed
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502021628450.9423@panix1.panix.com>

Meme 039: Ayn Rand Centennial: Patch Still Needed
sent 2005.2.2

Atlas Shrugged was the book that influenced me more than any other. I read 
it, at the suggestion of my best friend back home in Colorado, during the 
Summer between my second and third year in college, that is in 1964, when 
I was 19. He said, read it a hundred pages a week and you'll be finished 
by the end of the Summer. At first I thought it was a caricature, and was 
three or four weeks into the reading before I got caught up in it. I 
finished it quickly.

I had gotten bored with the graduate math courses I had been taking ever 
since I arrived at the University of Virginia. The beginning graduate 
level courses were very good, but the later ones struck me as pointless 
piling up of abstractions. My professors told me that even they lacked 
intuitive understanding of their research work but nevertheless could 
crank out papers.

So Atlas Shrugged gave me a new direction in life. Most of the books she 
recommended reading were in economics. At it happened, U.Va. had one of the 
few free-market graduate economics schools in the world. I convinced James 
Buchanan and Gordon Tullock on the economics faculty there I could do the 
work, even though I had had no courses, so I switched majors.

However, there was a fight between the "conservative" economics faculty 
and the Dean of the Graduate School, who was a mediocre political science 
scholar and a liberal. He was not only envious of Tullock's outstanding 
scholarship but resented the incursion of economics into his turf of 
political science. He used his power to block Tullock's promotion to a 
full professor. Tullock left U.Va. as a result. Next year, Buchanan 
threatened to leave if Tullock were not brought back. He wasn't and he 
left, too.

I was associated with the Buchanan-Tullock group and was too naive 
then--and am probably too naive today--to play dissertation politics. I 
was told, "Mr. Forman, if you give us a dissertation, we will give you a 
Ph.D.", in other words, no assistance. I went to work for the federal 
government temporarily in 1969 and am still there! First for the Civil 
Aeronautics Board, where I came out for deregulation much too early, like 
the day I arrived. My first boss, Sam Brown, agreed with me, and he gave 
me my only promotion. His section was abolished after his research 
questioned the merits of some of the CAB's actions. The Board was 
abolished at the end of 1984, and I've worked at the U.S. Department of 
Education ever since. I would keep only that part of it that generates 
information, which is a public good, or about 1% of it. This attitude, 
plus the fact that I have worked in policy units and am too hard of 
hearing to play the policy game even if I were cynically bent on doing so, 
has kept me stuck at a low level. I am not sure which is the more 
important factor.

Back to the story, I had pretty much forgotten about Ayn Rand by the end 
of 1984, but I started corresponding with Buchanan about another matter, 
namely the philosophy of Mario Bunge, who was writing an eight-volume 
Treatise on Basic Philosophy, designed to show what the world is to actual 
scientists by clarifying and systematizing their implicit assumptions. 
Bunge is as Aristotelian as Ayn Rand and far more knowledgeable about 
science. I told Buchanan that Bunge's "systemism" had the key to 
reconciling the conflicts between individualism and collectivism. Having 
moved from Virginia Tech to George Mason, he invited me to write a 
dissertation under him at GMU, which I did. I got my Ph.D. in 1985, no 
promotion at work, but an enormous personal satisfaction at having 
finished a dissertation at last, and under so distinguished an economist.

There was only part of a chapter on Ayn Rand in the dissertation, which I 
expanded into a full chapter in my book, _The Metaphysics of Liberty_ 
(Dordrecht, Holland: Kluwer Academic, 1989). The book is on my website,
http://www.panix.com/~checker (don't forget the tilde).

I lost interest again in Ayn Rand, until I got my first home connection to 
the Net in early 1995 and spent a great deal of time arguing about 
Objectivism. On June 7 I sent forth the essay right below. There were a 
couple of feeble replies and then silence. The need for a patch remains.

It took me a few more years to become a Recovered Objectivist, which is to 
say, just rather bored with the controversies. There are several essays of 
mine pertaining to Objectivism on my site.

I follow my essay with a bunch of items on the centenary that I found 
from Google News.

I do not regret the years I spent wrapped up in Ayn Rand, nor anything 
about my life, really, and most esp. not the other path down the road of 
biology and human group differences. I might have been more productive of 
ideas had I not spent so much time chasing down so many byways. I don't 
think, bar a major upgrade in the quality of our species, that the grand 
hopes of a final vision promised by the Enlightenment are going to 
materialize. I've become a thoroughgoing post-modernist in this respect, 
and a transhumanist is urging the upgrading.

The quest is as important as the vision, anyhow. My autobiography is 
mostly what I read, readings that I have been sharing with you on my 
lists, not any partial conclusions that never seem to settle down to 
anything I can write up. Nietzsche and Peirce had the same problems, not 
in not writing at all (Wittgenstein stopped after one dissertation and one 
article) though on a higher level.

Thank you, Ayn Rand, for your leading me in the path of righteousness for 
your name's sake. Wrong metaphor.

PATCH NEEDED FOR "THE OBJECTIVIST ETHICS"
by Frank Forman

Summary
       I have restudied Ayn Rand's key essay,
"The Objectivist Ethics," very closely, but I
find a hole in her argument, a gap in her
reasoning. She passes from the indisputable
fact that dead men make no choices to an
entire system of egoist ethics. In what
follows, I am going to outline her argument.
I shall be arguing that she moves from
survival as the supreme aim to happiness.
This move requires a patch to cover the hole
in her argument, and that patch I denominate
the Objectivist psychology, which is at
bottom a theory of virtue. But all this is so
far mostly implicit. If there are other
writings of hers that can provide a fully
satisfying patch to cover the hole, or if any
readers can provide the patch on their own,
we certainly want to hear it. I'm using _The
Virtue of Selfishness_ for pagination.

Some Concepts
       **Morality** (here equated with ethics)
is "a code of values to guide man's choices
and actions--the choices and actions that
determine the purpose and the course of his
life" (p. 13, the first page of the essay,
which ends on p. 35).

       So, she defines a word, "morality," in
terms of other words, "code," "value,"
"guide," "choice," "action," "determine,"
"purpose," "course," and "life." Most of the
words are not likely to give any trouble, at
least not here and at least not now. We can
argue how comprehensive this code should be,
where the principles leave off, and where one
just goes ahead and makes cost-benefit
estimates or just acts on one's tastes. We
can also argue over the various meanings of
"determine." But for now, only "value" and
"purpose" are apt to give problems. I am not
trying to maximize quibbling, rather to
isolate a hole in an argument interpreted as
best as I can.

       **Value** "is that which one acts to
gain and/or keep" (p. 15). This definition
has been quoted many times by Ayn Rand's fans
and/or critics. She does not specify the
scope of values or which levels they cover:
first level desires like tastes, second level
desires that are more considered and deal
with longer-range achievements, and what may
be top-level values having to do with the
overarching purpose of one's life. Again,
"purpose" is a word that will be causing
trouble. In any case, "value" here is simply
a matter of what one does in fact act "to
gain and/or keep."

Life or Death
       She goes on: "The concept 'value' is not
a primary; it presupposes an answer to the
question: of value to _whom_ and for _what_?
It presupposes an entity capable of acting to
achieve a goal in the face of an alternative.
Where no alternative exists, no goals and
values are possible" (p. 15). Well, yes, but
the definition seems clear enough: the value
is that which *one* *acts* to gain and/or
keep. There is an actor and the value is what
that actor acts to gain and/or keep. What she
means by a "*primary* concept" is not clear.
But I don't want to quibble; nor will I
quibble that a new concept, "goal," has been
introduced.

       Then she, speaking through John Galt,
tells us that "there is only one fundamental
alternative in the universe: existence or
nonexistence--and it pertains to a single
class of entities: to living organisms. The
existence of inanimate matter is
unconditional, the existence of life is not:
it depends on a specific course of action.
Matter is indestructible, it changes its
forms, but it cannot cease to exist. It is
only a living organism that faces a constant
alternative: the issue of life or death. Life
is a process of self-sustaining and self-
generated action...." (p. 15). Diamonds, of
course, are entities and can cease to exist
by being heated to a certain temperature,
even though the elemental carbon continues,
but diamonds cannot act. So perhaps she means
values are to be attributed only to entities
that can act. On the next page, however, she
speaks of her famous hypothetical
"indestructible robot" (p. 16), which (she
says) can have no values (cannot act to gain
and/or keep anything), since it does not face
the "one fundamental alternative in the
universe: existence or nonexistence." The
term "fundamental" has been introduced
without definition, so I cannot be certain
whether she is mistaken about there being
"only one fundamental alternative in the
universe." My own view is that indestructible
robots violate the laws of physics, but they
are at least logical possibilities and they
could indeed have values.

Life or Reproduction
       I make these points only because her
next paragraph introduces something that is
contrary to what we know about biology: "On
the _physical_ level, the functions of all
living organisms...are actions generated by
the organism itself and directed toward a
single goal: the maintenance of the
organism's _life_" (p. 16). We know from
biology (Miss Rand was not up to date) that
*reproduction* is every bit as much the goal
of organisms, if not more so, as the
maintenance of life. True enough, the
organism must remain alive long enough to get
the sperm or eggs out (sometimes it dies
before birth of its offspring is actually
achieved), but the goal of continuing to live
can be, and often is, overridden by the goal
of reproducing. Self = two children = four
grandchildren = ... is the governing
equation, since the self is going to die
anyway. Organisms, often, will go on living
after the birth of their children, but the
end is to serve getting one's offspring to
the point of _their_ reproduction, not to
keep oneself alive. Once Mom and Pop have
outlived their usefulness, they die; indeed,
they are genetically programmed to die, or so
at least claim most biologists. So the
"fundamental alternative" is not life but
reproduction.

       Now this view of biology, known as the
"selfish gene" view, is not without its
critics. The older view, which was Darwin's,
was that the individual organism is the
fundamental and only unit of selection. Now
the consensus view is that individual genes
are the sole units. But then there are those
claiming that units larger than the
individual, even entire species and higher
taxa, can also be units of evolution. This
gives rise to the difficulties of what is
called group selection: there must be a
genetic disposition to what biologists call
"altruism," meaning a willingness to
sacrifice one's life for the good of some
group larger than the carrier's of one's own
genes. But this means that those organisms
with such a disposition will be bred out of
the population. Group selection can arise in
very limited circumstances, nevertheless, but
such circumstances are quite rare, or so goes
the consensus opinion. I mention all this,
since the question of units of selection has
never been satisfactorily conceptualized. I
should also state that the biological world
is rife with cases of apparent "altruism,"
and accounting for them is regarded by many
biologists, including E.O. Wilson, as the
central issue of sociobiology. A great deal
of apparent "altruism" can indeed be
explained away: how big the residual of
unexplained instances is, I do not know. I
have not browsed sci.bio.evolution enough to
check on any debates there. Objectivism will
certainly have to be developed much further,
or be replaced with a scientific metaphysics
of the sort Mario Bunge has developed, or
merged with it, to tackle this extremely
important and difficult issue.

A Truism
       Ayn Rand continues: "An _ultimate_ [not
_fundamental_, but this seems to be no big
change] value is the final goal or end to
which all lesser goals are the means--and it
sets the standard by which all lesser goals
are _evaluated_. An organism's life is its
_standard of value_: that which furthers its
life is the _good_, that which threatens it
is the _evil_.... the fact that living
entities exist and function necessitates the
existence of values [recall: that which one
acts to gain and/or keep] and of an ultimate
value which for any given living entity is it
own life. Thus the validation of value
judgments is to be achieved by reference to
the facts of reality. The fact that a living
entity _is_, determines what it _ought_ to
do. So much for the issue of the relation
between "_is_" and "_ought_" (p. 17).

       Forget for now the problems biologists
have with life, not reproduction, being the
*fundamental* (or *ultimate*) value. What she
is saying, and *all* that she is saying, is
that in order for an organism to act to gain
and/or keep anything at all, it must stay
alive, that *enough* of its actions must be
such as to succeed at keeping alive. In other
words, though this is a conclusion she did
not draw, the organism might act to gain
and/or keep any number of things^, but it has
to value staying alive and moreover its
actions must in fact succeed in its staying
alive.
       ^[What constitutes "things" is
unspecified: Ayn Rand just says "that
which."]

       This seems like an utterly harmless
truism. Living things are *constrained* in
the sorts of action they can undertake, but
how constrained is the question. An ethics,
at all worthy of the name, can get out of
this seemingly harmless truism *only* if the
constraints are really vigorous. The task for
ethics is to formulate just what these
constraints are. Ayn Rand does not go into
the full details of what living things must
do to get an adequate amount of food, but she
does state that plants do so automatically.^ 
Animals (the higher ones, at any rate) also
need consciousness, of at least the
sensational variety, to go hunt for their
food, and animals higher yet need to operate
on the perceptual level. But men have to
operate on the _conceptual_ level as well, at
least sometimes and perhaps a great deal of
the time, if they are to stay alive.
Moreover, making concepts is voluntary (p.
20). She never explains why, since she was
largely uninterested in biology, but she
could have read a statement of V.C. Wynne-
Edwards: "Compliance with the social code can
be made obligatory and automatic, and it
probably is so in almost all animals that
possess social homeostatic systems at all. In
at least some of the mammals, on the
contrary, the individual has been released
from this rigid compulsion, probably because
a certain amount of intelligent individual
enterprise has proved advantageous to the
group."^^
       ^[So do certain lowly animals like
sponges, but I won't quibble.]
       ^^[V.C. Wynne-Edwards, "Intergroup
Selection in the Evolution of Social
Systems," _Nature_ 200: 623-26 (1963)). This
was available before the paperback edition of
_The Virtue of Selfishness_, though no one
should blame Ayn Rand for not knowing the
article.]

       Now if Ayn Rand can quote John Galt, I
can quote me: "Such an explanation invokes
group selection and is bound to be
controversial. An alternative explanation
might be that a) thinking requires work (uses
up costly brain chemicals) and b) free-will
circuity allows the animal (or maybe just
certain humans) to choose both whether to
think and what to think about. Far less brain
hardware, in other words, may be required by
taking the free will route"^
       ^[Frank Forman, _The Metaphysics of
Liberty_ (Dordrecht, Holland: Kluwer
Academic, 1989), p. 155).]

       But now what do we have? Only that, to
survive, each individual man must engage in a
certain amount of conceptualizing. There is
much more to be done before we arrive at the
Objectivist ethics as we know it. Ayn Rand
goes on in the next few pages to discuss what
concepts are ("mental integrations of two or
more perceptual concretes" (p. 20)), what
reason is ("the faculty that perceives,
identifies and integrates the material
provided by the senses" (p. 20)), and what
thinking is (the process of reasoning)  and
requires ("a state of full, focused
awareness" (p. 20)). She redefines
consciousness "in the sense of the word
applicable to man" to mean the (voluntary)
focusing of his mind. She adds, "the choice
'to be conscious or not' is the choice of
life or death" (p. 21).

The Hole in the Argument
       What has happened is that there is an
elision between *some* focusing as being
necessary to any man's survival and "a state
of full, focused awareness." ****It is this
elision that constitutes the major hole in
the Objectivist ethics and needs to be
patched up****. She adds that "a process of
thought...is not infallible" (peculiar
grammar here) and that man "has to discover
how to tell what is true or false and how to
correct his own errors; he has to discover
how to validate his concepts, his
conclusions, his knowledge; he has to
discover the rules of thought, _the laws of
logic_, to direct his thinking" (pp. 20-21).
How man survived the hundreds of thousands of
years before he did all these things is not
addressed. Again, there is an elision between
the minimum necessary and virtuous
aspirations.

       Here is a potential patch: "If some men
do not choose to think [at what depth?], but
survive by imitating and repeating, like
trained animals, the routine of sounds and
motions they learned from others, it still
remains true that their survival is made
possible only by those who did choose to
think and discover the motions they are
repeating. [This is true of nearly all the
thinkers, too.] The survival of such mental
parasites depends on blind chance; their
unfocused minds are unable to know _whom_ to
imitate, _whose_ motions it is safe to
follow. _They_ are the men who march into the
abyss, trailing after any destroyer who
promises them to assume the responsibility of
being conscious" (p. 23).

       Or, you'd better think for yourself,
lest you be at the mercy of others. But Ayn
Rand, as in many other cases, dichotomizes a
continuum: you'd better think and focus to
the hilt, or you're a mental parasite and
your survival depends on blind chance. She
adds presently, "The men who attempt to
survive, not by means of reason, but by means
of force, are attempting to survive by the
method of animals,...by rejecting reason and
counting on productive _men_ to serve as
their prey. Such looters may achieve their
goals for the range of a moment at the price
of destruction: the destruction of their
victims and their own. As evidence, I offer
you any criminal or any dictatorship" (pp.
23-24). (Note that the last sentence here and
the last sentence of the previous paragraph
leave the individual and discuss social
consequences.)

       Same problem. The hole in her argument,
the gap in her reasoning, is still there:
this "moment" may very well last an entire
lifetime, and it is only a *claim* that if
"man is to succeed at the task of survival,
if his actions are not to be aimed at his own
destruction, man has to choose his course,
his goals, his values in the context and
terms of a lifetime" (p. 24). And she
switches from survival to "man's survival
_qua_ man," as opposed to "the momentary
physical survival of a mindless brute,
waiting for another brute to crush his skull"
(p. 24). She adds that a man "_can_ turn
himself into [such] a subhuman creature and
he _can_ turn his life into a brief span of
agony.... But he _cannot_ succeed, as a
subhuman, in achieving anything but the
subhuman--as the ugly horror of the
antirational periods of mankind's history can
demonstrate" (pp. 24-25). By again dragging
in social consequences of the actions of
individuals, she has conflated the individual
man with collectivities of them. This, from a
prophet of egoism!

       The hole is still there, but there are
ten more pages to go in this essay, as well
as in other essays by her and by others like
Nathaniel Branden and Leonard Peikoff. And
the readers here might supply the patch with
their own arguments and evidence. The patch
so far is the claim that hoping that others
will take up the slack if you default on your
thinking is risky. She presents no evidence
that the risk is all that great. Her policy
is what economists would call extreme "risk
aversion": take no chances that others will
pick up the slack. But she does not justify
this policy.

The Objectivist Virtues
       But there is another way to cover the
hole. The patch in the Objectivist ethics is
quite implicit in the rest of the essay,
which mingles more stuff about the
requirements of survival with talk about
virtue and happiness. Exercising my brain may
not have all that much effect on my life
span, after a certain minimal point, but
doing so may nevertheless make me better off
in some sense. Mental exercise is on all
fours with physical exercise: it is self-
recommending and you may need specific
advice, which you may or may not carry out.
So let Ayn Rand stop being our moral
*physicist* and become our moral *physician*.
The patch between the two I denominate the
*Objectivist* *psychology*.

       "_Value_ is that which one acts to gain
and/or keep--_virtue_ is the act by which one
gains and/or keeps it. The three cardinal
values of the Objectivist ethics--the three
values which, together, are the means to and
the realization of one's ultimate value,
one's own life--are: Reason, Purpose, Self-
Esteem, with their three corresponding
virtues: Rationality, Productiveness, Pride.
       "Productive work is the central
_purpose_ [not virtue] of a rational man's
life, the central value [not life itself
anymore] that integrates and determines the
hierarchy of all his other values. Reason is
the source, the precondition of his
productive work--pride is the result.
       "Rationality is man's basic virtue, the
source of all his other virtues," and it
means "the recognition and acceptance of
reason as one's only source of knowledge,
one's only judge of values and one's only
guide to action.^ It means one's total
commitment to a state of full, conscious
awareness, to the maintenance of a full
mental focus in all issues, in all choices,
in all of one's waking hours...." (p. 25).
       ^[Can we trust others very much at all?
Should be all become our own physicians, if
life is the standard of value?]

Ayn Rand, the Moral Physician
       This is Ayn Rand the moral *physician*,
not the moral *physicist*, talking.^ It ought
to be the job of physicians get their
patients actively involved with their own
health, rather than just to manage their
diseases, to aspire and not just do the
minimum.^^ Ayn Rand fits this to a T, and
that, I submit, is what her philosophy and
her ethics most especially is all about. Her
novels are aspirational. She said she was a
novelist first. We ought to take her
seriously on this.
       ^[Or should it be moral meta-physicist,
with a thesis about life being the standard
of value? It was Nathaniel Branden who went
on to being a moral *coach*, with his various
Institutes. Anyhow, the term metaphysicist
should be reserved for Mario Bunge.]
       ^^[Here I go using the O-word ("ought"),
but never mind.]

       Now watch what happens: Rationality
comprises several subvirtues, among them
independence, integrity, honesty, and
justice. Regards the latter, "one must never
seek or grant the unearned or undeserved,
neither in matter nor in spirit" (p. 26).
Fine, but two new concepts, unearned and
undeserved, have appeared out of nowhere in
an essay that purports to give a foundation
for ethics. You and I have a pre-
philosophical understanding of what these two
words mean. We have gone to Ayn Rand the
moral *physician* for advice on how to live,
not Ayn Rand the moral *physicist* for
elucidation of ideas.^^
       ^^[There's similar stuff about the
virtues of productiveness and pride that
follows in this part of "The Objectivist
Ethics," which I do not need to cite.]

       And what does this moral physician
promise us? Happiness. "The basic _social_
principle of the Objectivist ethics is that
just as life is an end in itself, so every
living human being is an end in himself, not
the means to the ends or the welfare of
others--and, therefore, that man must live
for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself
to others nor sacrificing others to himself.
To live for his own sake means that _the
achievement of his own happiness is man's
highest moral purpose_" (p. 27).

       The *physicist* said life was the
fundamental purpose; the *physician* holds
out happiness. Here's her justification for
the switch: "In psychological terms, the
issue of man's survival does not confront his
consciousness as an issue of 'life or death,'
but as an issue of 'happiness or suffering.'
Happiness is the successful state of life,
suffering is the warning signal of failure,
or death. Just as the pleasure-pain mechanism
of man's body is an automatic indicator of
his body's welfare or injury, a barometer of
its basic alternative--so the emotional
mechanism of man's consciousness is geared to
perform the same function, as a barometer
that registers the same alternative by means
of two basic emotions: joy or suffering" (p.
25).^
       ^[As is the case with thought being
volitional, she does not recognize the
importance of neurological or evolutionary
evidence to verify this harmonious fit.
Humans have emotions because the animals we
evolved from do, but why animals should
burden their brains with an emotional circuit
instead of just straightaway doing the right
thing as far as survival and reproduction go
is a good question, since adding extra
circuits has a cost in calories. I tried to
get some answers on some other newsgroups but
without success.]

Cognitive Basis of Emotions
       What Ayn Rand does claim is that the
emotions, in order to pay off in the coin of
happiness, must be programmed correctly. And
that calls for reason, since man is born
without innate ideas.^ Full happiness cannot
be obtained unless one thinks to the hilt and
thereby ensures that one's values are
rational. "If he chooses irrational values,
he switches his emotional mechanism from the
role of his guardian to the role of his
destroyer. The irrational is the impossible;
it is that which contradicts the facts of
reality; facts cannot be altered by a wish,
but they _can_ destroy the wisher. If a man
desires and pursue contradictions--if he
wants to have his cake and eat it, too--he
disintegrates his consciousness; he turns his
inner life into a civil war of blind forces
engaged in dark, incoherent, pointless,
meaningless conflicts (which, incidentally,
is the state of most people today)" (p. 28).
(What were things like in Russia, then, I
ask.)
       ^[She is wrong here. Men are afraid of
snakes even in countries like Madagascar
where there are no poisonous snakes. This
fear is an emotional reaction by the mind and
therefore, on her own theory of the
cognition-emotion link, a piece of innate
knowledge about snakes and their dangers.]

       Something very wrong has happened. An
obsessive desire (as opposed to some idle
daydreaming) for something one is aware is
impossible will surely cause emotional
problems. But we all pursue goals that turn
out not to be feasible, that contradict "the
facts of reality." Ayn Rand almost seems to
be imagining a mind^ that has direct access
to the truth and will punish emotionally
those who do things contrary to this truth.
What an incredible machine! Of course, she
would deny any such thing; in this very
essay, she stated that men are fallible. But,
nevertheless, that's what she said. I will
leave it to others to specify what she should
have said, to figure out what she meant by
irrational values. We will still need to know
how to choose rational values among the
myriad available ones, the only limitation
being that they support life.
       ^[She rarely uses the word brain and
almost always says "rational being" instead
of "rational animal." Methinks her thought is
towards the end of the spiritual pole on the
spiritual-materialist continuum, even while
she officially rejects the mind-body
dichotomy.]

       The message from Ayn Rand, the moral
*physician*, however, is clear enough: be
ambitious; set up long term goals that are
plausible; get to work; be productive; do
things yourself; don't mooch; don't loot;
don't swindle. Take pride in your
achievements. Above all, be independent.

       Sounds like good advice to me, but
independence comes to me naturally. I think
it's in my genes. It gets me into trouble,
endlessly, but I keep my self-respect and my
sanity. I never did care for all those
altruists who thought other people came
before me. Indeed, when I first read _Atlas
Shrugged_ in 1964, for the first few hundred
pages, I thought the book was a modernist
satire on these people. But that her advice
is for everyone, I do not know. Yes, a lot of
people would be happier if they were more
daring and independent. That they should all
be as independent as Ayn Rand is just a claim
of one moral physician and one great
novelist.

Interpersonal Ethics
       The rest of the essay moves away from
the individual's code for his own life to
what most people regard as morality, namely
rules for dealing with other people. There is
more dichotomizing, which is superb
exhortation but bad metaphysics. There is her
famous metaphysical claim that "the
_rational_ interests of men do not clash--
there is no conflict of interests among men
who do not desire the unearned [that word
again!], who do not make sacrifices nor
accept them, who deal with one another as
_traders_, giving value for value" (p. 31).
She concludes her essay with political
philosophy. The word "right" appears out of
nowhere four lines from the bottom on page
32, but then she said she had presented the
political theory of Objectivism "in full
detail in Atlas Shrugged_" (p. 33).

       I don't think she did; in fact, I know
she didn't. If there is what the
metaphysicians among philosophers call
"preestablished harmony" among the interests
of rational men, this needs to be
demonstrated. _Atlas Shrugged_ did not do the
job, nor did a later essay, "The 'Conflicts'
of Men's Interests."

       Whatever the holes, Ayn Rand, to her
great credit, focused on what is generally
called not "ethical egoism" but "metaethical
egoism," or the doctrine that any system of
morals must be justified to the individual.
The problem, "Why be moral?", goes back at
least to Socrates, who gave the same answer
Ayn Rand did, namely that it's good for your
character. Otherwise, a system of morality is
something anyone can draw up however he
chooses and it will remain an idle set of
rules.

       Ayn Rand knew better. She tried to
ground her system on the necessity of keeping
alive. Alas, not very much can be deduced
from that. But that was Ayn Rand the moral
physicist. Ayn Rand the moral physician had a
system that was far, far more comprehensive.
But it rests upon an implicit Objectivist
psychology. Until that psychology is
presented, elucidated, and defended (which
will involve more neurology, evolutionary
biology, and more just plain empirical
drudgery than she ever realized), the
Objectivist ethics has holes. They need to be
patched. And in the attempts to make the
patches, the ethics may be get altered quite
a bit, but it may also be able to answer many
questions it now cannot.

1995 June 7/First Version

---------------------

The New York Times > Books > Critic's Notebook: Considering the Last Romantic, Ayn Rand, at 100
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/02/books/02rand.html?ei=5070&en=086506d4db45b0c0&ex=1108011600&pagewanted=print&position=
5.2.2

     CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

     By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN

     What did Ayn Rand want?

     Today is the centennial of her birth, and while newsletters and Web
     sites devoted to her continue to proliferate, and while little about
     her private life or public influence remains unplumbed, it is still
     easier to understand what she didn't want than what she did. Her scorn
     was unmistakable in her two novel-manifestos, "The Fountainhead"
     (1943), about a brilliant architect who stands proud against
     collective tastes and egalitarian sentimentality, and "Atlas Shrugged"
     (1957), about brilliant industrialists who stand proud against
     government bureaucrats and socialized mediocrity. It is still
     possible, more than 20 years after her death, to find readers choosing
     sides: those who see her as a subtle philosopher pitted against those
     who see her as a pulp novelist with pretensions.

     She divided her world - and her characters - in similarly stark
     fashion into what she wanted and what she didn't want. Here is what
     she didn't want: Ellsworth M. Toohey, "second-handers," Wesley Mouch,
     looters, relativists, collectivists, altruists. Here is what she did
     want: Howard Roark, John Galt, individualism, selfishness, capitalism,
     creation.

     But her villains have the best names, the most memorable quirks, the
     whiniest or most insinuating voices. At times, Rand even grants them a
     bit of compassion. Toohey, the Mephistophelean architecture critic in
     "The Fountainhead," could be her finest creation. And when she argued
     against collectivism, her cynicism had some foundation in experience:
     she was born in czarist Russia in 1905, witnessed the revolutions of
     1917 from her St. Petersburg apartment and managed to get to the
     United States in 1926. Her sharpest satire can be found in some of her
     caricatures of collectivity.

     But the good guys are another story. Are "Fountainhead's" Roark and
     "Atlas's" Galt really plausible heroes, with their stolid ritualistic
     proclamations and their unwavering self-regard? Did Rand really
     believe that the world should be run by such creators while
     second-handers (ordinary workers like most of us) humbly deferred?

     These are not abstract questions. Fifteen million copies of her books
     have been sold. "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" still sell
     130,000 to 150,000 copies a year. In 1999, Rand even made it onto a
     United States postage stamp. Her moral justifications of capitalism
     shaped the thinking of the young Alan Greenspan (now Federal Reserve
     Chairman) and other conservative acolytes. She declared it permissible
     to proclaim "I want" and to act to fulfill that demand. But the
     question remains, what did she really want?

     Certainly not what we have now. Many of the battles she engaged in
     rage on today. There are still debates about the free market,
     movements lobbying for collectivism and state power, and
     confrontations between doctrines of self-reliance and doctrines of
     self-sacrifice. But the world Rand actually wanted her heroes to build
     now seems far from revolutionary; it can even seem somewhat quaint, an
     almost retro fantasy. It was a Romantic utopia, in which the tensions
     of democratic life are not resolved but avoided.

     Consider, for example, works of art created by her heroes: Roark's
     Stoddard Temple in "The Fountainhead" or Richard Halley's Fifth
     Concerto in "Atlas Shrugged."

     Rand reportedly had Frank Lloyd Wright in mind when creating Roark;
     Warner Brothers tried negotiating with Wright (who admired "The
     Fountainhead") to create the designs that Gary Cooper's Roark would
     build in the film version. But Rand's descriptions of the temple
     hardly bring Wright to mind. She describes it as a small building of
     gray limestone "scaled to human height." It is a "joyous place," open
     to the world of nature and the city's skyscrapers in the distance. At
     its far end stands a statue of a naked woman, the novel's heroine,
     whom Roark loves. The temple, Rand makes clear, is a kind of
     anti-cathedral, devoted not to a god but to the spirit of man. It may
     even be a temple that Roark dedicated to himself, or perhaps, to his
     Self.

     The same spirit is heard in Halley's Fifth Concerto in "Atlas
     Shrugged." It too is a joyous celebration, a "symphony of triumph"
     whose sounds embody the essence of "upward motion," creating a
     "sunburst of sound," promising the "freedom of release." It is "the
     song of an immense deliverance," with a "clear, clear, complex melody
     at a time when no one wrote melody any more."

     If you love these joyous works, the novels unconvincingly assure us,
     your worth is certified. If you are left cold by them, then you belong
     with the looters who try to bring down Roark and drive Halley into
     exile. The two works are depicted as revolutionary in their threats
     and promise. The two creators reject their social surroundings and are
     rejected in turn. Rand's novels have similar aspirations. They too are
     meant to be monuments to man's spirit, promising his deliverance. They
     too suffered from rejection (12 publishers turned down "The
     Fountainhead" before it was published). And for Rand, their reception
     divided the world into acolytes (her inner circle had a cultic aura)
     and enemies.

     But these novels and the art described in them are actually far from
     revolutionary. They draw on the Romantic myth of the misunderstood
     artist and derive more properly from the mid-19th century than from
     the mid-20th. The statue in the Stoddard Temple can seem like a relic
     of kitschy Romanticism; Halley's waves of climaxing melody sound as if
     they are a throwback to Wagner; and Rand's novels can read like
     Romantic melodramas (one of her favorite novelists was Victor Hugo).

     This is Rand's utopian art: programmatic neo-Romanticism. Rand was not
     looking forward, but backward; in this, she shares certain tastes with
     Socialist Realism. Of course, the Romantic style fits Rand's theme,
     for mid-19th century Romanticism often celebrated the human spirit,
     dramatizing conflicts between the striving individual and the
     surrounding world. But those works were revolutionary because they
     challenged remnants of an aristocratic world; their notes of triumph
     ushered in a democratic age. Rand wanted instead the restoration of a
     pre-democratic age.

     Or more accurately, she was torn about it, and her novels and ideas
     reflect that ambivalence, a position that is far from unique in
     contemplating art in a democratic culture. Democracy, for Rand, always
     seems to verge on being Soviet: a culture of collectivity dominated by
     a supposed doctrine of equality. It stifles her heroes and motivates
     her villains. She referred to Toohey as "the genius of modern
     democracy in its worst meaning."

     She might have wanted to be the "genius of modern democracy" in its
     best meaning, leading humanity into a brave new world. In a new brief
     biography, "Ayn Rand" (Overlook Press), Jeff Britting, an archivist at
     the Ayn Rand Institute with access to her papers, shows how deeply she
     was attached to popular tastes. As a precocious child in Russia, she
     wrote action adventures and was enraptured by silent-film melodrama.
     She came to the United States to begin a career in the film business.
     Late in life she was an avid viewer of television's "Perry Mason" and
     "Charlie's Angels."

     But she could never convincingly reconcile elite achievement with
     democratic culture, which is why she so often seems antidemocratic.
     She wanted heroes who could straddle that divide. And she created
     heroes who could presumably be celebrated for their elite achievements
     within democratic society: the entrepreneur heroes like the
     industrialists of "Atlas Shrugged," or the artist hero in "The
     Fountainhead" cut from American folklore, as self-reliant as Paul
     Bunyan. Rand famously said: "This is the motive and purpose of my
     writing: the projection of an ideal man."

     But ultimately, these men find their ideals only in isolated rejection
     of democratic society, as cardboard reincarnations of the Romantic
     hero. Perhaps Rand really believed democracy was hopeless and wanted a
     government ruled by such men. Perhaps she never really cared about
     working any of this out. Or perhaps, in the end, she really didn't
     know what she wanted. At any rate, the failure to reconcile democratic
     culture and high achievement has not been hers alone: it is one reason
     readers are still choosing sides.

OPA News Release, 10/2001 New fellowship for study of objectivism 
established at The University of Texas at Austin
http://www.utexas.edu/opa/news/01newsreleases/nr_200110/nr_fellowship011016.html

     October 16, 2001

     Contact:
     Robin Gerrow, 232-2145

     spacer [1]latest news
     from UT

     Office of Public Affairs
     P O Box Z
     Austin, Texas
     78713-7509

     (512) 471-3151
     FAX (512) 471-5812

     AUSTIN, Texas--The Anthem Foundation for Objectivist Scholarship has
     established a $300,000 fellowship within the Department of Philosophy
     at The University of Texas at Austin to promote the study of Ayn
     Rand's philosophy of objectivism.

     Funds from the fellowship will be used to educate objectivist doctoral
     students and help them in securing teaching positions, as well as
     promote the production and dissemination of scholarly works on
     objectivism.

     "Academic interest in Ayn Rand's philosophy has been growing, and we
     are honored to be supporting the Philosophy Department's investment in
     this new field of scholarship," said John McCaskey, president of the
     Anthem Foundation.

     To date, the fellowship has sponsored a graduate student, and has
     assisted Tara Smith, university associate professor of philosophy, in
     producing two papers, "The Metaphysical Case for Honesty" and "Money
     Can Buy Happiness." Future projects to be funded by the fellowship
     will include the appointment of visiting faculty and the development
     of distance-learning options.

     The Anthem Foundation for Objectivist Scholarship is a non-profit
     organization that sponsors teaching, writing and research on Ayn
     Rand's philosophy of objectivism through fellowships at universities
     and colleges at both the graduate and undergraduate level. Schools
     interested in such fellowships should contact [2]McCaskey.

References

     2. mailto:mccaskey at stanford.edu
---------------
The Objectivism Store -- The Literary Art of Ayn Rand
http://www.objectivismstore.com/p-277-the-literary-art-of-ayn-rand.aspx

     The Literary Art of Ayn Rand
     by William Thomas

     The Literary Art of Ayn Rand focuses on Rand as a writer: the
     brilliantly distinctive stylist, the master of aphorism and symbol,
     the apostle of essentialistic characterization, the rigorous
     integrator who insisted that all elements in a work serve a single
     theme, and the igenious plotter who took pride in constructing her
     magnum opus as a "stunt" novel of mystery and misdirection.

     Now in one volume, nine essays by six authors shed new light on the
     depth and complexity behind Rand's inspiring and entertaining writing.
     The contributors include:

     Kirsti Minsaas: "Structural Integration in The Fountainhead and Atlas
     Shrugged"
        "The Visual Power of Ayn Rand's Fiction"
        "The Stylization of Mind in Ayn Rand's Fiction."

     Susan McCloskey: "Odysseus, Jesus, and Dagny: Ayn Rand's Conception of
     the Hero"
        "Work and Love in The Fountainhead"

     Mimi Reisel Gladstein: "Breakthroughs in Ayn Rand Literary Criticism"

     Nathaniel Branden: "The Literary Method of Ayn Rand"

     David Kelley: "The Code of the Creator"

     Stephen Cox: "The Literary Achievement of The Fountainhead"
       _________________________________________________________________

     The Literary Art of Ayn Rand
     SKU: OPP-OA043
     In Stock: Yes
     Price: $14.95
-----------
Education | A growing concern
http://education.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4315554-108234,00.html

     Mainstream academic interest in the Russian-born novelist-philosopher
     Ayn Rand continues to grow around the world, writes David Cohen
     Friday December 7, 2001

     The recent news that the philosophy department at one of America's
     leading public universities has established a $300,000 fellowship in
     honour of Ayn Rand offered another reminder - if one were needed - of
     the growing academic dimension to the international following enjoyed
     by this rather odd Russian-born novelist-philosopher.

     The fellowship, sponsored by the Anthem Foundation for Objectivist
     Scholarship, has been established at the University of Texas at Austin
     and will promote the study of Rand's philosophy of objectivism. The
     funding will be used to educate objectivist doctoral students and help
     them secure teaching positions. It will also promote the production
     and dissemination of scholarly works on the late author's
     anarcho-capitalist ideas.

     Rand, a self-styled high empress of the libertarian right, who died in
     1982 has long enjoyed wide popularity outside academe. Her coterie
     extends beyond the 30m (and counting, at a pace of several hundred
     thousand a year) readers who have purchased her books to include such
     pop stars as Simon Le Bon and the tennis player Billie Jean King,
     along with an array of trade union bosses, economists and political
     insiders on both sides of the Atlantic.

     Probably her most influential disciple is the Federal Reserve
     chairman, Alan Greenspan, who has said of his old friend: "She taught
     me that capitalism is not only practical and efficient but also
     moral."

     Educators have until now largely been absent from the roll-call,
     though, perhaps not surprisingly given the scorn Rand seemed to
     reserve for universities and their faculties, which she often viewed
     as being intellectually corrupt.

     Two long-standing exceptions to this general rule have been
     American-based academic organisations: the Ayn Rand Institute, based
     in California, and the Objectivist Center, in New York, both of which
     have produced an impressive amount of material related to her work
     over the years, particularly a recently published book, The Contested
     Legacy of Ayn Rand, written by David Kelley, a Princeton-trained
     philosopher.

     Those groups are largely in-house affairs, however, catering more to
     Rand's popular following than to academe, while at times also being
     riven by such ill-feeling over what constitutes the true Ayn Rand
     message that the former group refuses communication with the latter.

     Over the past two years, however, a rash of new scholarly books from
     more mainstream academic sources have appeared on aspects of Rand's
     aesthetics, moral philosophy, and relevance to such scholarly
     disciplines as women's studies and the sciences. After years of
     neglect, in the view of her supporters, her work is finally appearing
     in a number of general philosophy encyclopaedias and university
     textbooks as well.

     The latest issue of a relatively new scholarly publication, the
     Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, contains papers written by a dozen or
     more international academics from prestigious universities, including
     professors from Britain and continental Europe.

     Elsewhere on international campuses, if a quick web search is any
     guide, the list of new student groups from across the world dedicated
     to Rand's ideas appears to be getting even lengthier than the
     jumbo-sized neoliberal orations sprinkled throughout her novels and
     non-fiction. Similar groups now exist in Australia, Canada, Israel,
     the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and the US.

     Ayn Rand never looked the type of person to gather such devotion. A
     diminutive Russian Jew, she was born Alissa Rosenbaum, in St
     Petersburg in 1905, the daughter of bourgeois parents.

     She loathed socialism, particularly as she experienced it during her
     own years as a student at the University of Leningrad, and emigrated
     to the US when she was 21, changing her name en route to Rand, after
     the typewriter she brought with her to the New World.

     She headed to Hollywood and worked as a movie extra and screenwriter,
     before moving to New York for a succession of jobs for motion picture
     companies.

     In 1943 she published The Fountainhead, the best-seller about an
     idealistic architect who blows up his construction project when he
     finds its design has been tampered with by yobbish bureaucrats.
     Fourteen years later came Atlas Shrugged, a 1,084-page epic about a
     future decade in which big government and trade unions strangle
     individualism, leading to a strike by the "men of the mind" and the
     collapse of future society.

     These novels, like her later non-fictional writings, came underpinned
     by objectivism, the author's world-view prizing the "virtue" of
     selfishness and its corollary, laissez faire capitalism.

     At a sales conference Rand was once asked to systematically define
     this philosophy while standing on one foot. This she did, defining it
     thus: metaphysics - reality; epistemology - reason; ethics - rational
     self-interest; politics - capitalism.

     Such gestures pretty much defined her style to the end, and her
     extremely black and white view of life in general. "In this universe
     everything, everybody, is either all good or all bad, without any of
     those intermediate shades which, in life, complicate reality and
     perplex the eye that seeks to probe it truly," the critic Whittaker
     Chambers once noted in a brilliantly corrosive review published many
     years ago in the conservative American magazine National Review
     magazine.

     "This kind of simplifying pattern, of course, gives charm to most
     primitive storytelling. And, in fact, the somewhat ferro-concrete
     fairytale the author pours here is, basically, the old one known as:
     The War between the Children of Light and the Children of Darkness. In
     modern dress, it is a class war. Both sides to it are caricatures."

     A generation on, the accusation of caricature remains, even at a time
     when Rand's intellectual reputation appears to be on an upward
     cultural trend elsewhere.

     Heading the school of Randian naysayers is Jeff Walker, author of The
     Ayn Rand Cult and a sceptic of the deepest dye.

     Mr Walker, a Canadian writer, compares Rand to a cult leader, while
     battering her followers claims about her originality, literary talent
     and morality. The book contains startling anecdotes drawn from within
     Rand's inner circle, including descriptions of non-smokers being
     ostracised from the chain-smoking guru's social gatherings during her
     lifetime (she later died of lung cancer), and a bizarre love triangle
     involving Rand and a younger husband and wife team she at one time
     designated as her intellectual heirs.

     As for the scholarly value of Rand's work, Mr Walker might just as
     well have adapted Edward Gibbon's famous view of Thomas Aquinas - her
     better ideas tend to be borrowed; the words, alas, are entirely her
     own. He writes that objectivism's greatest intellectual appeal remains
     with keen minded yet sadly impressionable youths or else platitudinous
     dullards with a taste for the cult life.

     In the end, Mr Walker's recently published book may be even more
     hysterical than the movement he seeks to disparage. What's probably
     most significant about it, in 2001, is that any student or professor
     with an interest in debating the kinds of issues it raises can now
     find haven for the debate in a growing number of institutions of
     higher learning.
-----------

The Ayn Rand Institute: Clarification of ARI's Position on Government Help 
to Tsunami Victims
http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?JServSessionIdr011=nhuj43n1y2.app7a&page=NewsArticle&id=10728&news_iv_ctrl=1021&printer_friendly=1
                            Friday, January 7, 2005

     On December 30, 2004, the Ayn Rand Institute released as a letter to
     the editor and as an op-ed a piece that condemned the U.S.
     government's use of taxpayers' money to help victims of the recent
     tsunami ("U.S. Should Not Help Tsunami Victims"). That piece was
     inappropriate and did not accurately convey the Institute's position.
     We would like to clarify our position.

     Obviously, the tsunami, with the thousands of innocent victims left in
     its wake, is a horrible disaster. The first concern of survivors and
     of those trying to help them is to provide basic necessities and then
     to begin rebuilding. The American public's predictably generous
     response to assist these efforts is motivated by goodwill toward their
     fellow man. In the face of the enormous and undeserved suffering,
     American individuals and corporations have donated millions of dollars
     in aid; they have done so by and large not out of some sense of
     altruistic duty but in the name of the potential value that another
     human being represents. This benevolence, which we share, is not the
     same thing as altruism.

     The ugly hand of altruism--the moral view that need entitles a person
     to the values of others, whose corresponding duty is to sacrifice
     their values for that person's sake--did show itself in the petulant
     demands of U.N. and other officials that "stingy" countries must give
     more. On their view, the U.S. has no right to the wealth it has
     produced, because it has produced it; the helpless victims of the
     tsunami have a right to that wealth, because they desperately need it.
     This perverse view is not an expression of goodwill toward man. In
     generously providing aid, the U.S. government should repudiate all
     such altruistic demands and refuse to associate with the organizations
     that make them.

     In a fully free, fully capitalist society--a society toward which ARI
     works--the government would not have the power to tax citizens and
     redistribute their wealth for the purpose of charity, domestic or
     foreign. The government would be restricted to one fundamental
     function: to protect the citizens' individual rights to life, liberty,
     property and the pursuit of happiness. To accomplish this, the
     government would need only a police force and a military to protect
     citizens from aggressors, and a legal system to adjudicate disputes
     among citizens who allege that their rights have been infringed.
     Charity would be left to private individuals and organizations, as it
     was successfully left in 19th century America (in even a
     semi-capitalist system, there is no shortage of wealth or of
     benevolence, as the public's response to the tsunami illustrates).

     But of all the ways in which our government today fails to uphold
     individual rights, providing (through compulsory taxation) short-term,
     emergency relief to foreign victims of a natural disaster is among the
     most innocuous. It was therefore inappropriate to single out for
     condemnation the government's offer of assistance. True, it would be
     preferable to use the aid money for a legitimate function of
     government, such as to purchase needed military equipment and armor
     for our soldiers in Iraq, who are being asked to risk their lives to
     defend our freedom. It is likely, moreover, that the increase in aid
     offered by our government in the days after the disaster stemmed not
     from benevolence but from surrender to the altruists' corrupt demand
     that the U.S. had not sacrificed enough. Nevertheless, thousands of
     the government's actions are more damaging to our rights. Far worse,
     for instance, would have been to pour the aid money into government
     programs and agencies whose very purpose is to violate individual
     rights, such as into the antitrust division of the Justice Department,
     which persecutes successful businesses for out-competing other
     companies on a free market. If one wants to fight the government's
     growing encroachment on individual rights, such are the areas on which
     to focus, not emergency relief.

     The crucial issue in the battle for a free society is to restrict the
     government to its only legitimate purpose: the protection of
     individual rights. (The issue of compulsory taxation, the focus of the
     original piece, is a derivative; it pertains to the appropriate means
     by which a proper government would finance its activities, and is the
     last issue to address in establishing a free society. For elaboration,
     see Ayn Rand's article "Government Financing in a Free Society" in
---------------
The evolution of Ayn Rand -- The Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20050201-094832-2692r

     By Steve Chapman
     Published February 2, 2005
       _________________________________________________________________

     Has Ayn Rand gone mainstream? The radical champion of individualism
     and capitalism, who died in 1982, is no longer an exotic taste. Her
     image has adorned a U.S. postage stamp. Her ideas have been detected
     in a new mass-market animated comedy film, "The Incredibles."
         And today on the 100th anniversary of her birth, there will be a
     Rand commemoration at the Library of Congress -- an odd site for a
     ceremony honoring a fierce anti-statist.
         In her day, Miss Rand was at odds with almost every prevailing
     American social attitude. She infuriated liberals by preaching
     economic laissez-faire and lionizing titans of business. She appalled
     conservatives by rejecting religion in any form while celebrating, she
     said, "sexual enjoyment as an end in itself."
         But her novels found countless readers. "The Fountainhead,"
     published in 1943, and "Atlas Shrugged," which followed in 1957, are
     still in print. In 1991, when the Book of the Month Club polled
     Americans asking what book had most influenced their lives, "Atlas
     Shrugged" finished second only to the Bible. In all, Miss Rand's books
     have sold some 22 million copies and continue selling more than half a
     million a year.
         Miss Rand emerged in the aftermath of the Great Depression, the
     New Deal and World War II -- which were taken as proving the
     obsolescence of the free market, that prosperity required an
     all-intrusive government, and that national success demanded
     subordination of the individual to collective purposes. After the
     traumas of the 1930s and '40s, America was intent on building a
     well-ordered welfare state by compromise and consensus.
         In that setting, Ayn Rand resembled the female athlete in Apple
     Computer's 1984 Super Bowl commercial, who sprinted into a mass
     assembly of oppressed drones to hurl a sledgehammer at the Big Brother
     orating from a giant TV screen -- smashing it and bathing the audience
     in dazzling light.
         Miss Rand, a Russian immigrant, saw herself harking back to the
     Enlightenment values of reason, limited government and personal
     liberty that fueled the American Revolution. "The United States," she
     declared, "was the first moral society in history."
         Her novels were derided by critics, who saw them as interminable
     philosophical diatribes disguised as melodrama. What she regarded as
     thoroughgoing consistency struck many readers as overbearing
     dogmatism. Her political ideas attracted only a fringe following.
     Outside a tiny band of true believers, few people counted themselves
     as disciples of Ayn Rand.
         But many people absorbed much of her thinking and incorporated it
     into their worldviews. Public figures as diverse as Hillary Clinton,
     Clarence Thomas and Cal Ripken have cited her influence, on top of
     millions of other unfamous people.
         In time, her work bore fruit. By the mid-1970s, wage-and-price
     controls had wrecked the economy, in perfect accord with Miss Rand's
     predictions. Her view of capitalism not as a necessary evil but a
     moral good helped turn public opinion toward free markets, opening the
     way for the Reagan Revolution.
         Her celebration of individual joy also echoed in the leftist
     counterculture of the 1960s, which rebelled against the sterile
     conformity of the Eisenhower era. However, Ayn Rand had no use for the
     irresponsible hedonism that spawned the saying, "If it feels good, do
     it." That was a perversion of her insight that pleasure is not cause
     for guilt. You can hear Miss Rand even in Bruce Springsteen: "It ain't
     no sin to be glad you're alive."
         That's just one illustration of how her influence went beyond
     economics and political theory. In her eyes, there was no greater good
     than each person's integrity and self-fulfillment. One of her essay
     collections had the surprising title, "The Virtue of Selfishness."
         Looking back, it's hard to recapture how jarring that phrase was a
     generation ago, when altruism and self-sacrifice were seen as the
     central elements of an exemplary life. Today, Americans take it for
     granted that they are entitled to live for their own happiness,
     without apology.
         It may seem curious to honor a writer who merely defended free
     markets, preached the superiority of reason over blind faith and
     extolled the American ideal of the pursuit of happiness. David Kelley,
     head of the Rand-oriented Objectivist Center, jokes that he's reminded
     of the theatergoer who complained that "Hamlet" was full of cliches.
     Miss Rand's beliefs have been so widely disseminated and absorbed that
     we have forgotten where they originated.
         The truth is that for all she did, they are no longer her ideas.
     To a large extent, they are ours.

         Steve Chapman is a nationally syndicated columnist.
-------------
The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Entertainment
http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/Entertainment/Books/03SceneBOOK06020205.htm

     Rand's philosophy, influence still hold weight
     Cox News Service
     Last update: February 02, 2005

     ATLANTA -- Fay Stephenson's old copy of "Atlas Shrugged" was turned
     into soggy mush when her basement flooded and ruined a bunch of stored
     books. Bill Fallin keeps his copy of the novel in his desk and
     re-reads sections occasionally. Ron Mahre read "The Fountainhead" when
     he was in college and now plans to give his battered original copy to
     his 17-year-old daughter Bethany.

     Like a first rock concert or a first slow dance, some people never
     forget their first encounter with Ayn Rand, the passionate,
     controversial author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead,"
     creator of the philosophy called objectivism, patron saint of
     libertarians (both capital "L" and small "l") and galvanizer of
     several generations of intellectually inclined teenagers.

     "I think at that age you're still sort of forming who you are and who
     you will become," said Stephenson, 49, a former marketing executive,
     recalling her own teenage infatuation with "Atlas Shrugged" while in
     high school in New York. There was something rebellious and utopian
     about Rand's harsh but romantic critique of society, she said, that
     appeals strongly to young people.

     Today is Rand's centenary -- the 100th anniversary of her birth -- to
     be marked with a conference at the Library of Congress in Washington
     sponsored by The Objectivist Center, and a private party in Atlanta
     Saturday for the Georgia Objectivists. A new illustrated biography,
     "Ayn Rand," by Jeffrey Britting in the Overlook Illustrated Lives
     series will be released, and the new issue of Reason magazine devotes
     its cover story to re-assessing Rand.

     Ayn (rhymes with "fine") Rand was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and
     immigrated to the United States in 1926. She was an extra in movies,
     including Cecil B. DeMille's "King of Kings," but soon made a name for
     herself as a writer. The most widely read of her many books are "The
     Fountainhead," her 1943 novel about an architect with a rigid code of
     honor, and "Atlas Shurgged," a 1,000-plus page 1957 novel about the
     greatest achievers of the world going on strike. Huge, overblown,
     romantic, it's packed with lengthy speeches on philosophy and spawned
     the catchphrase "Who is John Galt?" (the novel's mysterious hero).

     Rand died in 1982, but her books continue to sell well -- "Atlas"
     alone sells more than 150,000 copies a year, with overall sales past
     5.5 million, according to the Ayn Rand Institute. In a 1991 Library of
     Congress public opinon poll, it was cited as the second most
     influential book ever -- after the Bible.

     Rand was "a cult figure with plenty of worshippers and plenty of
     desecrators," contributing editor Cathy Young writes in Reason, noting
     that she offered her millions of readers "a bold, ardent vision of
     defiance, struggle, creative achievement, joy and romantic love."

     Yet Rand's intense celebration of the individual, rationalism and
     capitalism remains, for many readers, "a way station on a journey to
     some wider outlook," Young writes.

     Which is another way of saying that many people go through an "Ayn
     Rand phase."

     "You initially get sucked in by the pulpiness of her novels," said
     Merridith Kristoffersen, 34, a trainer for a real estate company, who
     read "Atlas" and "Fountainhead" in high school in Florida. "They're
     kind of racy and lavish, but she's sending a message that's more
     weighty than just pulp."

     While still a fan of the novels, Kristofferson said Rand's philosophy
     of unfettered capitalism wouldn't work in today's society.

     Jean Crabbe, a stay-at-home mother of three, was so into Rand's novels
     in high school that she wrote her senior term paper on Rand -- "The
     Fountainhead of Objectivism," she titled it. "Imagine remembering that
     after all these years and forgetting so much else," she laughs.

     She remembers arguing with friends in the early '70s over which was
     the greater novel -- "Atlas Shrugged" or "Lord of the Rings."

     "And I have to say now in looking back, maybe they were right," Crabbe
     said. "Maybe 'Lord of the Rings' was better."

     Better or not, "Lord" hasn't influenced public policy as much as
     "Atlas." Rand's promotion of laissez-faire capitalism free of all
     government regulations made her a fountainhead for many economists and
     conservative thinkers. Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan,
     no less, wrote a letter to the editor of The New York Times in 1957,
     responding to the paper's negative review of "Atlas Shrugged" and
     calling it "a celebration of life and happiness." Greenspan has called
     Rand "clearly a major contribution to my intellectual development."

     Like Greenspan's, some love affairs with Rand last a lifetime and are
     not a "phase." Bill Fallin, 74, read "Atlas Shugged" more than 30
     years ago, when he was on the verge of bankruptcy. The book's message
     inspired him to turn his business life around, and he went on to be
     president of three companies.

     "I've guided a lot of people toward that book," Fallin said. "I've
     probably recommended it to 200 or 300 people over the years."

     Like many fans, Fallin agrees with only some of Rand's philosophy.
     Rand was an atheist, but Fallin, like others, says he has no problem
     being a Christian and also being inspired by Rand's message.

     During her life, however, Rand would not have stood for such
     disagreement among her acolytes. Although she preached individualism
     as the highest value, she demanded that her close followers agree with
     her every pronouncement or face banishment from her inner circle.

     "I was overwhelmed when I first read her," Crabbe said. "It seemed
     like she had the answers and had it all figured out. When you're that
     age, that's the way you look at the world. It's either/or, with no
     in-betweens. Now I understand that that's just not realistic."

     OBJECTIVISM'S MAIN POINTS

     -- Reality exists as an absolute -- facts are facts, independent of
     feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.

     -- Reason is man's only means of perceiving reality, and his only
     source of knowledge. (A corollary: Faith in God is not a part of
     reason, and therefore not a part of objectivism.)

     -- Every man is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others.
     He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others
     nor sacrificing others to himself.

     -- The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism.
     The government should act only as a policeman that protects man's
     rights; it uses physical force only against those who initiate its
     use, such as criminals or foreign invaders.

     -- Condensed from the Web site of the Ayn Rand Institute
     [51](www.aynrand.org)
--------------
Ayn Rand at 100
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3661&print=Y

     February 2, 2005

     by David Boaz

     David Boaz is executive vice president of the Cato Institute, author
     of [1]Libertarianism: A Primer (Free Press, 1998), and editor of
     [2]The Libertarian Reader (Free Press, 1998), which includes a lengthy
     interview with Ayn Rand by Alvin Toffler.

     Interest in the bestselling novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand continues to
     grow, 20 years after her death and 60 years after she first hit the
     bestseller lists with The Fountainhead. Rand was born February 2,
     1905, in St. Petersburg, Russia.

     In the dark year of 1943, in the depths of World War II and the
     Holocaust, when the United States was allied with one totalitarian
     power to defeat another, three remarkable women published books that
     gave birth to the modern libertarian movement. Rose Wilder Lane, the
     daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder, who had written Little House on the
     Prairie and other stories of American rugged individualism, published
     a passionate historical essay called The Discovery of Freedom.
     Novelist and literary critic Isabel Paterson produced The God of the
     Machine, which defended individualism as the source of progress in the
     world.

     The other great book of 1943 was The Fountainhead, a powerful novel
     about architecture and integrity by Ayn Rand. The book's individualist
     theme did not fit with the spirit of the age, and reviewers savaged
     it. But the book found its intended readers. Sales started slowly,
     then built and built. It was still on the New York Times bestseller
     list two full years later. Hundreds of thousands of people read it in
     the 1940s, millions eventually, and many of them were inspired to seek
     more information about Ayn Rand's ideas.

     Rand went on to write an even more successful novel, Atlas Shrugged,
     in 1957, and to found an association of people who shared her
     philosophy, which she called Objectivism. Although her political
     philosophy was libertarian, not all libertarians shared her views on
     metaphysics, ethics, and religion. Others were put off by the
     starkness of her presentation and by her cult following.

     Like Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek, Rand demonstrates the
     importance of immigration not just to America but to American
     libertarianism. Mises had fled his native Austria right before the
     Nazis confiscated his library, Rand fled the Communists who came to
     power in her native Russia. When a heckler asked her at a public
     speech, "Why should we care what a foreigner thinks?", she replied
     with her usual fire, "I chose to be an American. What did you ever do,
     except for having been born?"

     George Gilder called Atlas Shrugged the most important novel of ideas
     since War and Peace. Writing in the Washington Post, he explained her
     impact on the world of ideas and especially the world of capitalist
     ideas: Rand flung her gigantic books into the teeth of an
     intelligentsia still intoxicated by state power, during an era when
     even Dwight Eisenhower maintained tax rates of 90 percent and
     confessed his inability to answer Nikita Khrushchev's assertion that
     capitalism was immoral because it was based on greed.

     Rands books first appeared when no one seemed to support freedom and
     capitalism, and when even capitalisms greatest defenders emphasized
     its utility, not its morality. It was often said at the time that
     socialism is a good idea in theory, but human beings just arent good
     enough for socialism. Ayn Rand insisted that socialism is not good
     enough for human beings.

     Her books attracted millions of readers because they presented a
     passionate philosophical case for individual rights and capitalism,
     and did so through the medium of the vivid, cant-put-it-down novel.
     The people who read Rand and got the point didnt just become aware of
     costs and benefits, incentives and trade-offs. They became passionate
     advocates of liberty.

     Rand was an anomaly in the 1940s and 1950s, an advocate of reason and
     individualism in time of big government and conformity. But she was a
     shaper of the 1960s, the age of do your own thing and youth rebellion;
     the 1970s, pejoratively described as the Me Decade but perhaps better
     understood as an age of skepticism about institutions and a turn
     toward self-improvement and personal happiness; and the 1980s, the
     decade of tax cuts and entrepreneurship.

     Throughout those decades her books continued to sell -- 22 million
     copies over the years, and they still move off the shelves. According
     to Penguin/Putnam, publisher of her books, sales of Atlas Shrugged
     exceeded 140,000 copies in 2002, up 10 percent from the previous year.
     Combined sales of all four of her novels in paperback exceeded 374,000
     copies. That level was higher than any year since Rands death in 1982.
     Add in purchases of hardcovers, book club editions, and Rands
     nonfiction works, and readers are buying 500,000 copies of her books
     per year.

     College students, professors, businessmen, Alan Greenspan, the rock
     group Rush, and the top economic adviser to Russian president Vladimir
     Putin all proclaim themselves fans of Ayn Rand. Both The Fountainhead
     and Atlas Shrugged appear on Barnes and Nobles list of the top 50
     classic bestsellers, and screenwriters are working on movie scripts
     for both. In a survey of Book of the Month Club readers for the
     Library of Congress, Atlas Shrugged came in second to the Bible as the
     most influential book for Americans today.

     Recently Rand has been the subject of profiles in USA Today, the
     Washington Post, the New Yorker, and C-SPANs American Writers series.
     Her name has turned up in novels by Tobias Wolff and William F.
     Buckley, Jr.; in stories about Playboys 50th anniversary; in Playbill,
     the theater magazine; in newspaper profiles of her friend Mickey
     Spillane; in a Showtime movie, The Passion of Ayn Rand, starring Helen
     Mirren; and in a documentary, Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life, that was
     nominated for an Academy Award in 1997. She even appeared on a
     first-class stamp as part of the Postal Services Literary Arts series.
     A quotation from Rand greets visitors to the American pavilion at Walt
     Disney Worlds Epcot Center.

     Few writers are more popular or more controversial than Ayn Rand.
     Despite the enormous commercial success of her books, and the major
     influence shes had on American culture, reviewers and other
     intellectuals have generally been hostile. Theyve dismissed her
     support for individualism and capitalism, ridiculed her purple prose,
     and mocked her black-and-white morality. None of which seems to have
     dissuaded her millions of readers.

     Although she did not like to acknowledge debts to other thinkers,
     Rands work rests squarely within the libertarian tradition, with roots
     going back to Aristotle, Aquinas, Locke, Jefferson, Paine, Bastiat,
     Spencer, Mill, and Mises. She infused her novels with the ideas of
     individualism, liberty, and limited government in ways that often
     changed the lives of her readers. The cultural values she championed
     -- reason, science, individualism, achievement, and happiness -- are
     spreading across the world.

References

     1. http://www.catostore.org/index.asp?fa=ProductDetails&method=cats&scid=14&pid=1441021
     2. http://www.catostore.org/index.asp?fa=ProductDetails&method=cats&scid=14&pid=144978
-----------------
Reason: Rand-O-Rama: Ayn Rand's long shelf life in American culture 
http://www.reason.com/0503/fe.rand.shtml
March 2005

     This is the only novel of ideas written by an American woman that I
     can recall.Nothing she has to say is said in a second-rate fashion.
     You have to think of The Magic Mountainwhen you think of The
     Fountainhead. Lorine Pruette, The New York Times Book Review (1943)


     From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from
     painful necessity, commanding: To the gas chambersgo!.A tornado might
     feel this way, or Carrie [sic] Nation. Whittaker Chambers, National
     Review (1957)


     Atlas Shrugged is a celebration of life and happiness. Justice is
     unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and
     rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently
     avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should. [The New York
     Times reviewer] suspiciously wonders about a person who sustains such
     a mood through the writing of 1,168 pages and some fourteen years of
     work. This reader wonders about a person who finds unrelenting justice
     personally disturbing. Alan Greenspan, future chairman of the Federal
     Reserve, responding to a negative review of Atlas Shrugged, in The New
     York Times (1957)


     Its all great, Hef! Exceptdo you really think our readers will dig a
     nude fold-out of Ayn Rand? Hefner and His Pals, a comic strip in Mad
     magazine (1967)


     Like most of my contemporaries, I first read The Fountainhead when I
     was 18 years old. I loved it. I too missed the point. I thought it was
     a book about a strong-willed architect...and his love life.I
     deliberately skipped over all the passages about egoism and altruism.
     And I spent the next year hoping I would meet a gaunt, orange-haired
     architect who would rape me. Or failing that, an architect who would
     rape me. Or failing that, an architect. I am certain that The
     Fountainhead did a great deal more for architects than Architectural
     Forum ever dreamed. Nora Ephron, The New York Times Book Review (1968)


     He spent several days deciding on the artifacts [that would be found
     with his dead body]....He would be found lying on his back, on his
     bed, with a copy of Ayn Rands The Fountainhead (which would prove he
     had been a misunderstood superman rejected by the masses and so, in a
     sense, murdered by his scorn) and an unfinished letter to Exxon
     protesting the cancellation of his gas credit card. Philip K. Dick, A
     Scanner Darkly (1977)


     With acknowledgement to the genius of Ayn Rand liner notes to the Rush
     album 2112 (1976)


     JENNIFER GREY: You cant just leave [the girl you impregnated].

     MAX CANTOR: I could blow a summer hauling toasted bagels just to bail
     out some little chick who probably balled every guy in the place.Some
     people count, and some people dont. [pulls The Fountainhead from his
     pocket] Read it. I think its a book youll enjoy. But be sure you
     return itI have notes in the margin. Dirty Dancing, 1987


     Lots of girls fell in love with Definitism because of the erotic power
     of the books. No one wanted to admit how important the sex was, but
     lets face itthe books were very erotic. There were all these intrigues
     going on, all these little girls wanting to satisfy their sexual
     cravings. Mary Gaitskill, Two Girls, Fat and Thin (1991)


     MARGE: Maggielikes a bottle of warm milk before nap time.

     MS. SINCLAIR: A bottle? Mrs. Simpson, do you know what a babys saying
     when she reaches for a bottle?

     MARGE: Ba Ba?

     MS. SINCLAIR: Shes  saying I am a leech! Our aim here is to develop
     the bottle within.

     MARGE: That sounds awfully harsh. conversation between Marge and the
     proprietor of the Ayn Rand School for Tots, The Simpsons (1992)


     LOUIS: I could have you arrested you.creep. Theyd think I put you in
     jail for beating me up.

     JOE: I never hit anyone before, I

     LOUIS: But itd really be for those decisions. It was like a sex scene
     in an Ayn Rand novel, huh?

     JOE: I hurt you! Im sorry, Louis. I never hit anyone before, I

     from Angels in America, by Tony Kushner, conversation between lovers
     (1992)


     Yes, at first I was happy to be learning how to read. It seemed
     exciting and magical, but then I read this: Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn
     Rand. I read every last word of this garbage, and because of this
     piece of shit, I am never reading again. police officer Barbrady,
     South Park (1998)


     However completely you think you preside over your own schedule, there
     are inflexibilities there. Inflexibilities which not even one of Ayn
     Rands heroes could do very much about. William F. Buckley Jr., Miles
     Gone By: A Literary Autobiography  (2004)


     Unlikeany other Marvel [Comics] author, [Spider-Man co-creator Steve]
     Ditko received plotting credit as early as Amazing Spider-Man #25
     (1965), an unprecedented concession that was most likely the result of
     Ditkos contemporaneous discovery of Ayn Rands Objectivism, with its
     hatred of creative dilution and unearned rewards. Andrew Hultkrans in
     Give Our Regards to the Atom Smashers!: Writers on Comics (2004)


     The Incrediblessuggests a thorough, feverish immersion in both the
     history of American comic books and the philosophy of Ayn
     Rand.Luckily, though, [writer and director Brad] Birds disdain for
     mediocrity is not simply ventriloquized through his characters, but is
     manifest in his meticulous, fiercely coherent approach to animation.
     A.O. Scott, The New York Times (2004)
-----------

Reason: Ayn Rand at 100: Loved, hated, and always controversial, the 
best-selling author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged is more 
relevant than ever.
http://www.reason.com/0503/fe.cy.ayn.shtml
March 2005

     [20]Cathy Young

     A hundred years after her birth and nearly 25 years after her death,
     Ayn Rand remains a fascinating and enigmatic presence. She has been
     mainstreamed enough to have been honored by a U.S. Postal Service
     stamp in 1999 and to have been featured on C-SPANs American Writers
     series in 2002. Her novels figure prominently in readers lists of the
     20th centurys greatest books. Notably, in a 1991 survey of more than
     2,000 Book-of-the-Month Club members about books that made a
     difference in their lives, Rands magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, came in
     secondalbeit a very distant secondto the Bible. Rand, a devout
     atheist, might have seen that as an insult rather than an honor.

     Yet in many ways Rand remains an outlier and an oddity on the cultural
     scene, a cult figure with plenty of worshippers and plenty of
     desecrators. No other modern author has had such extravagant claims of
     greatness made on her behalf: Followers of her philosophy,
     Objectivism, regard her as the greatest thinker to have graced this
     earth since Aristotle and the greatest writer of all time. Mainstream
     intellectuals tend to dismiss her as a writer of glorified pulp
     fiction and a pseudo-philosophical quack with an appeal for
     impressionable teens. Politically, too, Rand is an outsider: Liberals
     shrink from her defiant pro-capitalist stance, conservatives from her
     militant atheism, and conservatives and liberals alike from her
     individualism. Libertarianism, the movement most closely connected to
     Rands ideas, is less an offspring than a rebel stepchild. In her
     insistence that political philosophy must be based on a proper
     epistemology, she rejected the libertarian movement, which embraced a
     wide variety of reasons for advocating free markets and free minds, as
     among her enemies.

     In recent years, at last, some analysis of Rand has appeared that is
     neither uncritical adulation nor unrelenting bashing. Some of it has
     come from unorthodox neo-Objectivists, such as the feminist scholar
     Mimi Gladstein or the political philosopher Chris Matthew Sciabarra.
     (The two edited the 1999 book Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand,
     and Sciabarra wrote 1996s controversial Ayn Rand: The Russian
     Radical.) The five-year-old Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, co-founded by
     Sciabarra, often features essays by mainstream intellectuals that
     treat Rands legacy in a non-hagiographic way. Two controversial books
     about Rand the person remain a good place to start for an
     understanding, but not adulatory, look at her life and work: The
     Passion of Ayn Rand (1986) by Barbara Branden, no doubt the first-ever
     sympathetic biography whose subject slept with the biographers
     husband, and Judgment Day: My Years With Ayn Rand (1989) by Nathaniel
     Branden, the husband in question.

     In 1962, when they were still among the faithful, the Brandens
     co-wrote a book called Who Is Ayn Rand? More than 40 years later, the
     question still stands.

     The Appeal of Ayn Rand

     Reading Rands philosophy can be an exhilarating, head-turning
     experience; it was for me when I first picked up her nonfiction
     manifesto For the New Intellectual at the age of 19, two years after
     coming to the United States from the Soviet Union. (Rand herself was
     an American immigrant from the Soviet Union, leaving her family behind
     to move here in 1926.) Rands rejection of the moral code that condemns
     selfishness as the ultimate evil and holds up self-sacrifice as the
     ultimate good is a radical challenge to received wisdom, an invitation
     to a startlingly new way to see the world. While Rand was hardly the
     first philosopher to advocate an ethos of individualism, reason, and
     self-interest, no one formulated it as accessibly or persuasively as
     she didor as passionately. In Rands hands, the virtue of selfishness
     was not a dry, abstract rationalist construct with a bloodless
     economic man at its center. It became a bold, ardent vision of
     defiance, struggle, creative achievement, joy, and romantic love. That
     vibrancy, more than anything else, accounts for her extraordinary
     appeal.

     Politically, Rand wanted to provide liberal capitalism with a moral
     foundation, to take on the prevalent notion that communism was a noble
     if unworkable idea while the free market was a necessary evil best
     suited to flawed human nature. In this she succeeded brilliantly (even
     if the notion that socialism failed because it has never been properly
     tried is still alive and well among the intelligentsia). Her arguments
     against compassionate redistributionand persecutionof wealth have lost
     none of their power in the decades after they were made.

     Yet there is a reason Objectivism remains, for most people, a way
     station on a journey to some wider outlook. Even Nathaniel Branden,
     who still espouses most Objectivist tenets, has been severely critical
     of Rands judgmental and contemptuous attitude toward all emotions she
     deemed irrational, her tendency to glorify
     emotional repression, and her lukewarm support even for voluntary,
     non-self-sacrificing mutual aid.

     The Limits of Ayn Rand

     Perhaps Rands biggest error was the totalism of her philosophy. Having
     rightly concluded that the values of the free market were moral, she
     went on to make the sweeping assertion that those values were the only
     moral ones, and that all human relations must be based on the
     principles of trade. Yet there is nothing unreasonable and nothing
     anti-market or anti-individualist to the belief that individualistic
     and market-based values need something to complement them.

     The Victorians emphasized the importance of charity and viewed family
     and community as havens in a heartless world. This value system had
     its serious drawbacksfrom preachy sentimentalism to fairly rigid
     gender roles, with women virtually excluded from economic and
     intellectual endeavors and relegated to the complementary sphere of
     love, care giving, and charity. But at least the Victorians recognized
     the need for a balance and variety of virtues.

     Politically, too, Rands insistence on de-emphasizing, or even
     denigrating, family, community, and private charity is not a
     particularly clever tactic for capitalisms defenders. These are the
     very institutions that can be expected, in the absence of a massive
     welfare state, to meet those human needs that people prove unable to
     satisfy through the market. Rand did claim to be in favor of
     benevolence, in contrast to altruism; but it would be fruitless to
     look for providers of private charitable aid among her good guys,
     except for those who lend a helping hand to a friend. When charity is
     mentioned in Rands fiction, it is nearly always in a negative context.
     In The Fountainhead, the chorus of second-handers eager to condemn her
     heroic, individualist architect protagonist, Howard Roark, include the
     society woman dressing for a charity bazaar who uses charity as an
     excuse to flaunt her virtue; in Atlas Shrugged, a club providing
     shelter to needy young women is mocked for offering help to unworthy
     sufferers such as drinkers, dope users, and unwed mothers-to-be.

     Family fares even worse in Rands universe. The virtual absence of
     children in her work has been noted by many critics, starting with
     Whittaker Chambers in his infamous roasting of Atlas Shrugged in
     National Review. Actually, John Galts private utopia in Atlas features
     a nameless young woman who makes it her career to raise rational
     children; but this brief passage comes across as little more than a
     pro forma nod to motherhood. In her 1964 Playboy interview Rand flatly
     declared that it was immoral to place family ties and friendship above
     productive work; in her fiction, family life is depicted as a
     stifling, soul-killing, mainly feminine swamp.

     Its noteworthy that in The Fountainhead, the heroesRoark, newspaper
     magnate Gail Wynand, and Roarks troubled lover, Dominique Franconhave
     all grown up motherless, while the arch-villain, critic Ellsworth
     Toohey, spent his childhood as his mothers pet and the worthless Peter
     Keating, who relies on Roark to do his architecture work, has a
     grotesque caricature of a selfless, smothering, tyrannical mother. The
     only Randian heroic couple to actually reproduce is the hero of Anthem
     and his girlfriend, who is pregnant at the end of the dystopian
     science fiction novelette; but they have the excuse of needing to
     breed a new race of free men, since the world around them has
     regressed to post-apocalyptic primitivism and slavery.

     In its pure form, Rands philosophy would work very well indeed if
     human beings were never helpless and dependent through no fault of
     their own. Thus, its hardly surprising that so many people become
     infatuated with Objectivism as teenagers and grow out of it later,
     when concerns of family, children, and old agetheir own and their
     familiesmake that fantasy seem more and more impossible.

     The Darkness in Ayn Rand

     In the heyday of the Objectivist movement, Rand used to brush off
     charges that her ?bermensch heroes were unrealistic by pointing to
     herself and the Brandens, at one point shouting during a debate, Am I
     impossible? In fact, what is revealed of Rand in the Brandens
     biographies dramatically illustrates the gap between ideology and
     reality in her own life. In the Randiverse, a man whose beloved left
     him for another would manfully accept her rational decisionmay the
     best ?bermensch win!and remain friends with her and her new partner.
     In real life, Rands rational affair with Branden, whom she fantasized
     as a Galt or Roark come alive, caused devastation all around, to
     themselves as much as to their spouses. Rands unshakable belief in the
     power of the human mind led her to refuse to recognize the mental
     deterioration of her husband, Frank OConnor, and she tormented him
     with exercises in psycho-epistemology. When she herself was diagnosed
     with cancer, she refused to disclose her illness publicly, evidently
     because she believed, according to Barbara Branden, that cancer was
     the result of philosophical and psychological errors.

     Rands detractors often brand her a fascist. She is not, of course; but
     does her work have overtones of a totalitarian or dictatorial
     mentality? This charge irks even ambivalent Rand admirers, such as
     Nathaniel Branden, who fully recognize the dogmatism and intolerance
     in the Objectivist movement. They point out that Rand decisively
     rejects the use of force except in self-defense. True; but as Branden
     has observed on the topic of emotional repression, it would be wise to
     pay attention not just to what Rand says but to what she doesin this
     case, in her novels. Near the end of Atlas Shrugged, when the heroes
     go to rescue John Galt from the baddies, female railroad magnate Dagny
     Taggart calmly and quite unnecessarily shoots a guard who cant decide
     whether to let her in or not. The man, you see, wanted to exist
     without the responsibility of consciousnessobviously a capital crime.

     Still more troubling is an earlier passage in Atlas in which
     bureaucratic incompetence and arrogance lead to a terrible train
     wreck. Many would say, Rand wryly notes, that the people who died in
     the accident were not guilty or responsible for the thing that
     happened to them. Then, in a series of brief portraits, Rand endeavors
     to show that the passengers were guilty indeed: All of them had
     benefited from evil government programs, promoted evil political or
     philosophical ideas, or both. Rand does not advocate their murder, of
     course (though she sympathetically depicts a trainmaster who chooses
     not to avert the disaster, partly in revenge against the regulators);
     but she does suggest that they had it coming. In Atlas and the
     nonfiction essays she turned to in her final decades, political and
     ideological debates are treated as wars with no innocent bystanders,
     and the dehumanization of the enemy reaches levels reminiscent of
     communist or fascist propaganda.

     One inevitable consequence of this attitude toward most other human
     beings is, to quote the title of a George Orwell essay, the prevention
     of literature. There can be no question that Rand was a highly
     talented writer with a great gift for plot, description, and yes,
     characterization. The Fountainhead is a brilliant book, and so is
     Rands often underappreciated first novel, We the Living, a richly
     textured, passionate, moving story of life in post-revolutionary
     Russia.

     But in these novels Rands philosophy has not yet petrified into dogma.
     Even the larger-than-life romantic heroes have recognizable human
     emotions. (Rands detractors often claim that Roark is a robotically
     unfeeling superman, but consider this passage, when Dominique tells
     him of her marriage to Peter Keating: It would have been easy, if she
     had seen a man distorting his mouth to bite off sound, closing his
     fists and twisting them in defense against himself. But it was not
     easy, because she did not see him doing this, yet knew that this was
     being done, without the relief of a physical gesture.) Rands moral
     scale in The Fountainhead still allows for shades of gray. The
     power-seeking Gail Wynand is a tragic figure whom Roark loves despite
     the error of his ways; Dominiques father, Guy Francon, is basically a
     good guy despite exemplifying none of the Randian virtues; even the
     despicable Peter Keating merits some sympathy, and his failed romance
     with his true love, Katie, has some dignity and poignancy.

     But in Atlas Shrugged, Rands final novel, the ideologue crushes the
     writer almost completely. While a few characters show occasional
     glimpses of humanity, most of the heroes are abstractions of
     greatness, while the villains are subhuman vermin. The story
     suffocates under endless speechifying and analysis in which each point
     is flogged to death and each un-Randian idea is reduced to a straw man
     the heroes can easily beat down and shred. In this effort, all life
     and beauty are drained from Rands prose style, and we are treated to
     passages like this one, when industrialist Hank Reardens wife tries to
     hurt him by telling him she has slept with a man he despises: There,
     he thought, was the final abortion of the creed of collective
     interdependence, the creed of non-identity, non-property, non-fact:
     the belief that the moral stature of one is at the mercy of the action
     of another.

     The Paradox of Ayn Rand

     For all her flaws, Rand remains a towering figure on the last centurys
     cultural landscape. She arose in an era of competing totalitarian
     ideologies and declared that communism and Nazism were not opposites
     but evil twins, and that their true opposite was freedom. In an era
     when collectivism was seen as the way of the future, she
     unapologetically asserted the worth of the individual and his right to
     exist for himself, and declared the spiritual dimension of material
     achievement. In an age of existential doubt, she offered a celebration
     of creativity, of the human mind, of the joy of life on this earth.
     (The Fountainhead has a glorious passage in which a young man who is
     starting to despair of finding beauty or purpose in life is moved and
     inspired by the sight of Roarks just-finished construction project.)
     Atlas Shrugged, clunky and extremist though it is, contains some
     brilliant and powerful pro-capitalist polemicssuch as Francisco
     DAnconias speech on the meaning of money and the tale of one factorys
     disastrous experiment in implementing the slogan, From each according
     to his ability, to each according to his need.

     Rand zealots, and even moderate fans such as the Brandens, are often
     prone to credit her with almost single-handedly rolling back the tide
     of socialist ideology in the 20th century. Thats quite an
     exaggeration, as is the notion that her philosophy sprang whole from
     her mind like Athena from the skull of Zeus. Still, Rand was the most
     successful and widely read popularizer of the ideas of individual
     liberty and the free market of her day. In the 21st century, as we
     face Islamist terrorism abroad and when public discourse at home often
     seems dominated by religious conservatism on the right and politically
     correct pieties on the left, Rands message of reason and liberty, if
     its stripped of its odder features, could be a rallying point for what
     the neo-Objectivist philosopher David Kelley, who runs the Objectivist
     Center, calls Enlightenment-based values.

     From yet another perspective, Rand can be seen as a great eccentric
     thinker and writer whose work is less about a practical guide to real
     life than about a unique, individual, stylized vision, a romantic
     vision that transforms and transcends real life. Rands philosophy
     admitted no contradictions or paradoxes in reality; but reality is
     full of apparently irreconcilable truths. The truth of what Rand said
     about the heroic human spirit and individual self-determination does
     not negate the truth that human beings often find themselves at the
     mercy of circumstances beyond their control and dependent on others
     through no fault of theirs. The truth of the self-sufficient soul
     coexists with the truth of the vital importance of human connections.

     Rand herself was a creature of paradox. She was a prophet of freedom
     and individualism who tolerated no disobedience or independent thought
     in her acolytes, a rationalist who refused to debate her views. She
     was an atheist whose worship of Man led her to see the human mind as a
     godlike entity, impervious to the failings of the body or to
     environmental influences. (Nathaniel Branden reports that she even
     disliked the idea of evolution.) She was a strong woman who created
     independent heroines yet saw sexual submission as the essence of
     femininity and argued that no healthy woman would want to be president
     of the United States because it would put her above all men.

     This is perhaps how Rand is best appreciated: as a figure of great
     achievement and great contradictions, a visionary whose vision is one
     among many, whose truths are important but by no means exclusive.
     Rand, it is safe to say, would have regarded such appreciation as far
     worse than outright rejection. But thats just another paradox of
     life.
     -------------------------------------

     Contributing Editor Cathy Young is a columnist for the Boston Globe.

References

    20. mailto:CathyYoung63 at aol.com
---------------
Reason: Editor's Note: Rand Redux
http://www.reason.com/0503/ed.ng.editors.shtml
March 2005

     Rand Redux

     Reason does Ayn Rand on her 100th birthday

     Nick Gillespie

     Let me admit up front that I'm no great fan of this month's cover
     girl, Ayn Rand, whose 100th birthday falls on February 2 and whose
     legacy we analyze on page 22. It's a doubly embarrassing admission:
     Not only is Rand one of the most important figures in the libertarian
     movement of which reason is a part, but this magazine's name is an
     homage to her philosophy, Objectivism, which ascribes a key role to
     rationality. When a Boston University student named Lanny Friedlander
     started reason back in 1968 as a mimeographed call to arms--well,
     let's just say he very much grokked the Russian-born writer.

     You'd never catch me writing a letter of complaint like the one former
     Rand acolyte and current Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan
     sent to The New York Times in 1957 after the paper blasted Atlas
     Shrugged. Just what was wrong with a novel in which "parasites who
     persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should?"
     huffed the man who decades later would popularize the term "irrational
     exuberance." I'm more simpatico with Officer Barbrady, the illiterate
     cop on South Park who declared, "At first I was happy to be learning
     to read...but then I read...Atlas Shrugged... because of this, I am
     never reading again."

     Yet as Contributing Editor Cathy Young shows in her brilliant essay
     about "Ayn Rand at 100," Rand continues not merely to draw our
     attention but to command it. A century after her birth and more than a
     decade after her death, Rand remains one of the best-selling and most
     widely influential figures in American thought and culture. As we
     document in "Rand-O-Rama," she casts a long shadow, not simply
     providing punch lines for South Park but infusing such recent movie
     hits as The Incredibles with what a Times reviewer called "a disdain
     for mediocrity." She is even getting newfound respect from academics.

     What's the secret of Rand's cultural staying power? At her best, notes
     Young, Rand provided "liberal capitalism with a moral foundation."
     That's no small feat in a world that, even after the fall of Nazism,
     communism, and other collectivist ideologies, still looks with
     suspicion on economic self-interest. Rand also celebrated the
     individual in a mass age, creating a series of memorable, compelling
     characters who embodied or emboldened the aspirations of millions in a
     time of often stultifying conformity, bureaucracy, and routinization.

     But as important to Rand's hold on the public imagination is the great
     gulf between her fictional heroes and the often tawdry, disheartening
     details of her own biography, especially the cult-like obedience she
     demanded of her inner circle. In the gap between Rand's soaring ideals
     and her lived reality, we see in particularly strong relief both the
     creative power of individual desire and its vast capacity for
     intolerance and delusion. In a world in which more people have more
     control over their lives than ever before, that's something to always
     be pondering.

     --Nick Gillespie
--------------
ESR | January 31, 2005 | The appeal of Ayn Rand
http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0205/0205aynrand.htm

     The appeal of Ayn Rand

     By Onkar Ghate
     web posted January 31, 2005

     Ayn Rand February 2 marks the hundredth anniversary of the birth of
     one of America's most controversial and inspiring writers, Ayn Rand.

     She continues to be wildly popular among the young: some 14,000 high
     school students per year submit entries to essay contests on her
     novels and, in the past two years alone, high school teachers have
     requested over 130,000 copies of Anthem and The Fountainhead to use in
     their classrooms. They know that students respond to her stories and
     heroes as to few other books.

     It remains, however, all too common for a young person to be told that
     his interest in Ayn Rand is a stage he will soon grow out of. "It's
     fine to believe in that now," the refrain goes, "but wait until you're
     older. You'll discover that life is not like that."

     But when one actually considers the essence of what Rand teaches, the
     accusation that her philosophy is childish over-simplification stands
     as condemnation not of her ideas but of the adult world from which the
     accusation stems.

     The key to Rand's popularity is that she appeals to the idealism of
     youth. She wrote in 1969: "There is a fundamental conviction which
     some people never acquire, some hold only in their youth, and a few
     hold to the end of their days--the conviction that ideas matter." The
     nature of this conviction? "That ideas matter means that knowledge
     matters, that truth matters, that one's mind matters. And the radiance
     of that certainty, in the process of growing up, is the best aspect of
     youth."

     To sustain this youthful conviction throughout life, Rand argues, one
     must achieve a radical independence of mind. Independence does not
     mean doing whatever one feels like doing but rather forging one's
     convictions and choosing one's actions rationally, logically,
     scientifically. It is refusal to surrender one's ideas or values to
     the "public interest," as liberals demand, or to the "glory of God,"
     as conservatives demand. It is refusal to grant obedience to any
     authority, human or divine. The independent mind rejects faith,
     secular or supernatural, and embraces reason as an absolute. "The
     noblest act you have ever performed," declares the hero of Rand's last
     novel, Atlas Shrugged, "is the act of your mind in the process of
     grasping that two and two make four." She meant it.

     The conviction that ideas matter represents a profound dedication to
     self. It requires that one regard one's own reasoning mind as
     competent to judge good and evil. And it requires that one pursue
     knowledge because one sees that correct ideas are indispensable to
     achieving the irreplaceable value of one's own life and happiness. "To
     take ideas seriously," Rand states, "means that you intend to live by,
     to practice, any idea you accept as true," that you recognize "that
     truth and knowledge are of crucial, personal, selfish importance to
     you and to your own life."

     Her approach here is the opposite of the view that ideals transcend
     this world, one's interests and human comprehension--that idealism is,
     in the words of the religious exhortation to America's youth in Bush's
     inaugural address, "to serve in a cause larger than your wants, larger
     than yourself."

     The advice Rand offers the young? Think, reason, logically consider
     matters of truth and morality. And then, because your own life and
     happiness depend on it, pursue unwaveringly the true and the good. On
     this approach, the moral and the practical unite. On this approach,
     there exists no temptation to think that life on earth requires
     compromise, the halfway, the middle of the road. "In any compromise
     between food and poison," she writes, "it is only death that can win.
     In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can
     profit."

     In a world where our President (as well as the religious warriors
     we're battling against in the Middle East) equates idealism with
     otherworldliness, faith, and sacrifice of self, and where commentators
     otherwise sympathetic to his message lament that it leaves no room for
     worldly compromises, since, as Peggy Noonan puts it, "perfection in
     the life of man on earth" is impossible--Ayn Rand stands alone. She
     argues that perfection is possible to man the rational animal. Hold
     your own life as your highest value, follow reason, submit to no
     authority, create a life of productive achievement and joy--enact
     these demanding values and virtues, Rand teaches, and an ideal world,
     here on earth, is "real, it's possible--it's yours."

     Does an adult world that dismisses this philosophy as "simplistic" not
     convict itself?

     The centenary of Rand's birth is an appropriate time to recognize the
     thinker who was courageous enough to take on that world and challenge
     its rampant skepticism, eager cynicism, and unyielding demand for
     compromise, the thinker who portrayed and explained--at the most
     fundamental level--the heroic in man. [esr.jpg]

     Onkar Ghate, Ph.D. in philosophy, is a senior fellow at the [2]Ayn
     Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif. The Institute promotes the ideas of
     Ayn Rand--best-selling author of [3]Atlas Shrugged and [4]The
     Fountainhead and originator of the philosophy she called
     "Objectivism."
-----------
Ayn Rand's Contribution to the Cause of Freedom   - Mises Institute
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?control=1738&id=77
     Wednesday, February 02, 2005

                Ayn Rand's Contribution to the Cause of Freedom

                              by Roderick T. Long

                           [Posted February 2, 2005]

     Today marks the centenary of Ayn Rand's birth. Born Alisa Rosenbaum in
       St. Petersburg, Russia, on February 2nd, 1905, Rand would go on to
      become one of the 20th century's foremost voices for human freedom.

      After living through the Russian Revolution, and the economic chaos
     and political repression that came in its wake--events she would later
      dramatize in her novel [14]We the Living--Rand fled the Soviet Union
       for the United States in 1926 to begin her career as screenwriter,
     playwright, and novelist. Dividing her time between Hollywood and New
     York, the fiercely anticommunist Rand began to develop a philosophy of
      ethical and political individualism, and to make the acquaintance of
        such leaders of the libertarian "Old Right" as John Flynn, Henry
       Hazlitt, Rose Wilder Lane, H.L. Mencken, Isabel Paterson, Leonard
       Read, and a fellow refugee from European totalitarianism, Austrian
                          economist Ludwig von Mises.

     Rand's chief popular success came from [15]The Fountainhead (1943) and
     [16]Atlas Shrugged (1957), two epic philosophical novels on the model
      of Dostoyevksy that quickly established her as one of the century's
       most controversial authors. The enthusiastic audience these works
      brought her enabled Rand to build a politico-philosophical movement
        based on the system of thought she would call "Objectivism," and
       Rand's attention accordingly turned thereafter to nonfiction; she
        would devote the remainder of her career to editing a series of
     Objectivist periodicals and to penning philosophical essays, political
                      commentary, and cultural criticism.

     Rand always stressed the importance of placing political arguments in
           a wider philosophical context, insisting that she was "not
         primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism," and "not
                primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason."

     Rand's influence on the libertarian movement is incalculable; despite
      her own frequent antipathy toward that movement and even toward the
       word "libertarian," Rand played a crucial role in helping both to
     create new advocates of laissez-faire and to radicalize existing ones;
          Rand encouraged libertarians to view their standpoint as an
     alternative to, rather than a branch of, conservatism, and to base the
       case for liberty on moral principle and not on pragmatic economic
        benefits alone. Rand's influence on popular culture is likewise
     enormous; an oft-cited Library of Congress survey of "most influential
             books" placed Atlas Shrugged second only to the Bible.

        Rand owed much of her success to the power and directness of her
       writing style. She was a master at what one of my colleagues calls
      reductio ad claritatem, "reduction to clarity"-- i.e., the method of
     refuting a position by stating it clearly--as when she wrote that "if
     some men are entitled by right to the products of the work of others,
       it means that those others are deprived of rights and condemned to
     slave labor," or when she summarized the view that human perception is
       unreliable because limited by the nature of our sensory organs as:
        "man is blind, because he has eyes--deaf, because he has ears."

        Upon the publication of Atlas Shrugged, Mises [17]wrote to Rand
     praising both her "masterful construction of the plot" and her "cogent
     analysis of the evils that plague our society"; in another context he
         called her "the most courageous man in America." Rand in turn
       enthusiastically promoted Mises's writings in her periodicals, and
     declared that her ideal curriculum would be "Aristotle in philosophy,
     von Mises in economics, Montessori in education, Hugo in literature."
                  Rand's biographer Barbara Branden notes that

       beginning in the late fifties and continuing for more than ten
       years, Ayn began a concerted campaign to have [Mises's ] work read
       and appreciated: she published reviews, she cited him in articles
       and in public speeches [and] recommended him to admirers of her
       philosophy. A number of economists have said that it was largely as
       a result of Ayn's efforts that the work of Von Mises began to reach
       its potential audience. ([18]The Passion of Ayn Rand, p. 188.)

     A brief intellectual association with Mises's student Murray Rothbard
      was less successful, beginning in mutual appreciation but dissolving
      over ideological and personal differences--though Rand and Rothbard
         would nonetheless share the honor of being drummed out of the
      "respectable" Right by a statist-minded conservative establishment.
       (The forthcoming Spring 2005 issue of the [19]Journal of Ayn Rand
      Studies is devoted to an exploration of the connections between Rand
      and the Austrian School, and includes contributions from a number of
                            contemporary Austrians.)

     Because Rand called big business a "persecuted minority" and dismissed
       the military-industrial complex as "a myth or worse," she is often
       taken as a na?ve apologist for the corporatist ?lite; but she also
      condemned the "type of businessmen who sought special advantages by
         government action" as the "actual war profiteers of all mixed
        economies"; and it's easy to forget that most of the businessmen
               characters in Rand's novels are statist villains.

     As [20]Chris Sciabarra reminds us, Rand likewise grasped the symbiotic
       relationship between militarism abroad and neo-fascist politics at
     home; in an era when many of her followers are enthusiastic supporters
       of American military intervention overseas, it's worth remembering
      that Rand herself opposed U.S. involvement in World War I, World War
                            II, Korea, and Vietnam.

        Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Rand's philosophy--her
      rejection of altruism and her embrace of ethical egoism--is also one
        of the most misunderstood. Despite her sometimes [21]misleading
      rhetoric about "the virtue of selfishness," the point of her egoism
     was not to advocate the pursuit of one's own interests at the expense
        of others', but rather to reject the entire conflictual model of
      interests according to which "the happiness of one man necessitates
        the injury of another," in favor of an older, more Aristotelean
          conception of self-interest as excellent human functioning.

       It was on such Aristotelean grounds that she rejected not only the
       subordination of one's own interests to those of others (and it is
      this, rather than mere benevolence, that she labeled "altruism") but
      also the subordination of others' interests to one's own (which she
       labeled "selfishness without a self"). For Rand, the Aristotelean
        recognition of properly understood human interests as rationally
          harmonious was the essential foundation for a free society.

      Discussion of Rand since her death in 1982 has often focused on her
      dogmatic tone and personal eccentricities--traits sometimes imitated
     by her followers, and effectively satirized by Rothbard in his one-act
       play [22]Mozart Was a Red. But as David Kelley argues in his book
           [23]The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand, Rand's intellectual
     contribution, like anyone else's, can and should be disentangled from
                        the vagaries of her personality.

      In an era when libertarianism and Aristoteleanism were unfashionable
      enough separately, Rand had the audacity to defend their systematic
         fusion, and identified Enlightenment liberalism's roots in the
       Thomistic recovery of Aristotle at a time when this connection was
     less widely recognized than it is today. (Though Rand's followers have
     sometimes intemperately proclaimed her the greatest philosopher of all
     time, Rand always firmly insisted that Aristotle was the greatest and
          that Thomas Aquinas was the second greatest--her own atheism
     notwithstanding.) Whether her specific versions of libertarianism and
       Aristoteleanism, and the specific terms on which she attempted to
      unite them, were ultimately the [24]most philosophically defensible
     ones is perhaps less important than the example she set in making the
                                    attempt.

        In the decades since Rand first began constructing her maverick
     philosophical system, the philosophical mainstream has moved in Rand's
      direction. Professional philosophers are far more likely today than
       they were in the 1960s to agree with Rand about the directness of
       sense-perception, the relation between meaning and reference, the
        incompatibility of utilitarianism with individual rights, or the
          prospects for a neo-Aristotelean ethical theory (or indeed a
      neo-Aristotelean philosophical approach generally); and many of the
     dichotomies she rejected--between empiricism and rationalism, analytic
       and synthetic statements, dualism and materialism, nominalism and
        conceptual realism, fact and value, liberalism and an ethics of
                 virtue--have fallen into increasing disfavor.

       These developments are largely independent of Rand's own influence
      (and, ironically, stem in part from the recent resurgence of Rand's
      philosophical nemesis Immanuel Kant--who, despite Rand's impassioned
     denunciations, is actually her ally on most of these points), but they
      are not entirely so; I can testify, from two decades' experience in
       the profession, that the number of academic philosophers who will
        privately admit having been decisively influenced by Rand is far
         greater than the number who can be found citing her in print.

     It's a mistake, though, to think that the validation of Rand's legacy
     depends on academic approval. Human progress is often driven by people
     either outside or on the margins of the academic establishment, as for
     example the philosophes of the 18th century or the Austrian revival of
      the 20th. Whether or not the academy understands or acknowledges her
     achievements, Rand's inspiring vision of the grandeur of human reason
             and human liberty has made its mark on modern thought.

      Still, for what it's worth, scholarly recognition of Rand's work is
     currently at an [25]all-time high. The days when nearly all discussion
      of Rand was either slavishly adulatory or sneeringly dismissive seem
     to be passing, and the new century is likely to see a just assessment
     of Rand's place in the history of philosophy and the cause of liberty.

                           Happy Birthday, Ayn Rand.
                         _____________________________

     Roderick T. Long ([26]email) is senior fellow of the Mises Institute,
      professor of philosophy at Auburn University, and the new editor of
     the Journal of Libertarian Studies. See his [27]website. Subscribe to
           the [28]Journal today. Post your comments on the [29]blog.

References

    14. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0451187849
    15. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0451191153
    16. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0451191145
    17. http://www.mises.org/etexts/misesatlas.pdf
    18. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/038524388X
    19. http://aynrandstudies.com/
    20. http://www.solohq.com/Articles/Sciabarra/Understanding_the_Global_Crisis__Reclaiming_Rands_Radical_Legacy.shtml
    21. http://praxeology.net/unblog11-02.htm#ego
    22. http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/mozart.html
    23. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0765808633
    24. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1577240456
    25. http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/9929.html
    26. mailto:rlong at mises.org
    27. http://praxeology.net/
    28. http://www.mises.org/store/product1.asp?SID=2&Product_ID=122
-------------
Chicago Tribune: Rereading 'Atlas' on Ayn Rand's 100th
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/arts/chi-0501300446jan30,1,2299567,print.story?coll=chi-leisurearts-hed&ctrack=3&cset=true
      LITERATURE
     By Julia Keller
     Tribune cultural critic
     January 30, 2005
     There it sits, a thick rectangle whose soft sides -- it's made of
     paper, after all, ordinary paper -- belie the harsh astringency
     within.
     You sense the need to keep an eye on it. You can't just leave it there
     on a corner of your desktop as if it were an ordinary book, letting it
     cool its heels amid the messy papers and dried-up pens and the
     dark-chocolate wafer of your laptop.
     No telling what it might do, this paperback copy of "Atlas Shrugged"
     (1957) by Ayn Rand, all 1,069 pages of it. No telling what impact it
     might have on the desk's detritus or the rest of the room.
     It's like a radiation leak: You can't see the danger, but you know
     it's there.
     Rand, of course, would adore the notion that the novel she began
     writing six decades ago, right after she'd wrapped up "The
     Fountainhead" (1943), still is regarded as perilous and possibly even
     lethal -- lethal, that is, to complacency and lazy thinking and easy
     goals.
     Wednesday marks the 100th anniversary of Rand's birth in St.
     Petersburg, Russia. She died in 1982 -- at least in the narrow
     physical sense. Measured across the historical timeline of ideas,
     however, Ayn Rand ("Ayn" rhymes with "fine," although it's often
     mispronounced "Ann") remains vibrantly alive. The philosophy she
     created and espoused in novels, plays and nonfiction treatises still
     enthralls and disgusts, still intrigues and outrages -- there's no
     middle ground -- a whole new generation.
     Known as Objectivism, its message of rationality, self-reliance and
     unrestrained capitalism, and its rejection of altruism or empathy, is
     perhaps best summarized by the title of one of Rand's non-fiction
     works: "The Virtues of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism" (1964).
     "Her impact is large and goes well beyond the world of literature,"
     declares Mimi Gladstein, chair of the department of theater, dance and
     film at the University of Texas at El Paso, who has written two books
     and co-written a third about Rand's work. "I do think she's being
     taken more seriously now."
     Objectivism is always lighting fires under people's backsides -- it's
     the wisest thing in the history of the world, it's the dumbest bunch
     of malarkey on the planet -- but our concern here is not the
     philosophy but the chief vessel in which Rand chose to serve it up:
     her novels.
     And most especially "Atlas Shrugged," the purest, longest, loudest
     statement of her beliefs, the preposterously romantic tale of railroad
     magnate Dagny Taggart and the mysterious John Galt.
     This much, at least, is irrefutable: "Atlas Shrugged" grabs hold of
     you and shakes you up and challenges everything you thought you
     believed about the world, about God, about good and evil. That's why
     it can't be exiled to a corner of your desk, where its slightly
     curled-back cover looks, in the right light, like a tiny sneer of
     reproach: How dare you not be reading me now, this minute. How dare
     you.
     Rand's fiction has been critically scorned in some quarters, her
     philosophy reviled, but her influence is undeniable.
     Did somebody say "influence"? Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal
     Reserve Board, counts himself among her devoted flock. Rand's books,
     vastly popular in her lifetime, continue to sell at a nifty clip: More
     than 5.5 million copies of "Atlas Shrugged" have been snapped up since
     its initial publication, and in the last few years, sales have
     averaged about 150,000 copies annually, reports Richard E. Ralston,
     publishing manager for the Ayn Rand Institute. "The Fountainhead" has
     sold more than 6 million copies, with annual sales currently topping
     130,000, he adds.
     Wooden characters
     Clearly, then, Rand knew what she was doing when she created
     dreadfully wooden characters to represent her philosophical and
     economic ideas, when she put long, impossibly windy speeches in the
     mouths of those characters.
     Because for all that, for all the technical flaws that even moderately
     attentive readers could red-pencil in their sleep, for all the
     narrative rules Rand breaks -- the novel just won't leave you alone.
     Of how many books can that be said?
     Read at the right moment in one's life -- usually in late adolescence,
     when the world seems like a tangled mess of hypocrisy and confusion,
     and you hate your parents and especially that stupid assistant
     principal who is seriously on your case -- "Atlas Shrugged" is a
     tonic, a dream, a throat-scalding draft of pure, radiant clarity. You
     feel as if you've been walking upside down for most of your life,
     seeing things the wrong way, and now -- now -- suddenly you're
     right-side up again and everything starts to make sense. Turns out it
     was the world that was upside down, not you.
     But here's the funny thing: Re-reading Rand as an adult in 2005 is not
     what you thought it would be. It's not a "Oh, wow, what a chump I
     was!" feeling. In fact, the ideas from "Atlas Shrugged" you thought
     you had outgrown don't seem all that outlandish, after all. The themes
     you abandoned as hopelessly naive and almost comically operatic -- all
     those fist-shaking tirades about human destiny, all those "Greed is
     good!" screeds that predate Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" by three
     decades -- somehow start making a bit of sense again, in a world
     upended by religious fanaticism and a nation crippled by soaring
     government deficits.
     Flaws and all, "Atlas Shrugged" still is a powerful novel, a sweeping
     epic that either pulls you into its sphere or scares the bejesus out
     of you, or maybe both.
     That's how it all struck Michael Paxton back in the early 1970s, when,
     as a kid coming of age in upstate New York, he discovered Rand's
     novels.
     "I was very lost about my direction in life, about what life meant,"
     says Paxton, now a writer and film producer in L.A. "One day I decided
     to go into a bookstore and find a book that would make sense to me."
     He found "We the Living" (1936) and worked his way through the rest of
     the Rand canon.
     Paxton's 1998 documentary, "Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life," nominated for
     an Academy Award for best documentary, tells the dramatic story of
     Rand's life: her birth to a middle-class Russian family as Alice
     Rosenbaum, just before the Russian Revolution; her escape to America
     as an eager 21-year-old, aspiring screenwriter; her success as a
     playwright, novelist and essayist, as the fierceness and originality
     of her philosophical ideas began to captivate the public.
     First popular novel
     Her novel "The Fountainhead," the story of brilliant, headstrong
     architect Howard Roark, who was played by Gary Cooper in the 1949
     film, was her first great popular success.
     Rand lived intensely, eager to defend her ideas, and she lived
     passionately. She had a close inner circle of admirers, within which
     allegiances shifted and dramatic renunciations and reconciliations
     were routine.
     But to those who weren't swept away, Rand's conviction that
     self-interest is a more efficient and plausible motivation than
     traditional Judeo-Christian ethics was just too shocking even to
     contemplate.
     "She's so maligned," Paxton says. "People think she's a fascist --
     and, of course, she's the opposite of that."
     Gladstein believes that Rand's reputation among literary critics --
     she's rarely, if ever, included on lists of the 20th Century's
     greatest authors -- has suffered because of her popularity. "In
     academe, there are people with certain ideas about `haute' literature.
     If it's too popular, it can't be taken seriously. They forget the fact
     that Shakespeare was popular too."
     None of her books has ever gone out of print, Ralston says. And
     Penguin recently reissued "The Fountainhead," "Atlas Shrugged" and
     "Anthem" (1938) in special paperback editions to commemorate the
     centenary.
     That is the version of "Atlas Shrugged" that simmers on my desk, an
     intimidating-looking white volume with a stark cover design: blue
     sculpture of Atlas holding up the world; simple, blunt typography.
     This novel is all business.
     But the book's dialogue -- oh, heavens, that dialogue! That stilted,
     florid, totally inauthentic dialogue, the kind that would be laughable
     in any other context but that somehow, when dangling between the
     pincers of Rand's big ideas, simply works. You believe it.
     You believe that Dagny's lover, Henry Reardon, would actually rise
     from the bed upon which they had just made love for the first time and
     say, I wanted you as one wants a whore -- for the same reason and
     purpose. . . . You're as vile an animal as I am. I should loathe my
     discovering it. I don't.
     Uh, OK. But somehow it holds up, this faintly absurd novel in which a
     bevy of business types follows the dictates of John Galt right off the
     edge of the world. Somehow, it works.
     The novel is worth reading, worth re-reading. Be careful, though; it's
     dense with powerful ideas and has a mind of its own. So whatever you
     do, don't leave "Atlas Shrugged" home alone.
-------------
Now let us praise free minds (Metro Times Detroit)
http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=7267
by [23]Jack Lessenberry
5.2.2

      They promise you answers and a blueprint for living your life, if you
                                             promise not to think too much.

     Last week I gave a talk on what I called "The Myth of the Liberal
     Media" to a pleasingly large and well-informed group called Pointes
     for Peace, in (surprise) Grosse Pointe Woods. I told them there are
     mainly two kinds of media in this nation today -- the "mainstream
     media," which are about as liberal as corporate America in general,
     and virulently ideological right-wing media.

     What could honestly be called the "liberal media" consists, pretty
     much (apart from a few cranks like me), of a handful of columnists
     like Molly Ivins, Jim Hightower, Paul Krugman, and -- did I mention
     Molly Ivins?

     All of this was hardly news to anyone paying attention to what Eric
     Alterman and Ben Bagdikian have been saying for years. This country
     and its press have shifted dramatically to the right in the last
     quarter-century, and my craft will pay for this folly for years.

     Being in the Grosse Pointes, I imagined I'd get challenged by people
     who think there's really a vast conspiracy of New York intellectuals
     who want to force gay marriage, partial-birth abortions and
     fluoridated water on us all. There was none of that. But something did
     happen that astonished me to the point of speechlessness. An
     attractive, if a bit steely, dark-haired woman on the sidelines raised
     her hand and, after ranting on that Bush and Kerry were equally bad,
     proclaimed that the only hope for salvation, or mankind, or something,
     was Chairman Bob Avakian's Revolutionary Communist Party.

     Had I been prepared, I might have allowed myself a frisson of
     nostalgia, and spoken to her in her own artificial language. "Sorry,
     comrade, but an objective analysis of current conditions demonstrates
     that the time is not right for the mass uprising, and that what's now
     needed is a popular front."

     Part of me wanted to sing the "Internationale" off-key in French, just
     to watch her swoon with desire, or nausea. But instead, I merely stood
     there like a geek staring at a two-headed calf until my colleague Dick
     Wright said, "I think we are all pretty bourgeois here," and brought
     down the house.

     Later, a sweetly grandmotherish lady, who said she was a revolutionary
     communist too, tried to sell me Avakian's autobiography, From Ike to
     Mao. I was barely mature enough not to say, "Hold the mayo."

     We tend to think of commies as harmless anachronisms now, which they
     mostly are. But back in the day -- the 1960s, say -- we tended to
     regard fundamentalist religious movements the same way. Not now. Both
     the Marxist-Leninists and the dogmatic Christians are very much alike
     in that they promise you answers and a blueprint for living your life,
     if you promise not to think too much, and keep your mouth shut if you
     do.

     That promise has proven devastatingly seductive for most men at most
     times. Ayn Rand offers another system with all the answers, and so
     does Osama bin Laden, and so do various others of what George Orwell
     used to call "all the smelly little orthodoxies that are now
     contending for our souls." What all these systems do is take parts of
     the truth and construct a brilliantly woven little system and
     substitute it for reality.

     Ayn Rand has a lot to say that's worthwhile about the heroic struggle
     of the individual. There's much that even an intelligent atheist can
     recognize as true and compelling in most religious dogma. Marxism is a
     brilliant critique of the sins of capitalism, especially capitalism as
     it existed during the Industrial Revolution. And most of our
     multinational corporations today seem to be misbehaving as though
     following a script written by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. That may well be
     sparking a mini-revival of revolutionary communist movements.

     But the Glorious Worldwide Great Proletarian Revolution isn't coming,
     comrades. Unfortunately all these systems, when in power, eventually
     bump against annoying reality, which they try to overlook first, then
     suppress by killing anyone who points out the man behind the curtain,
     before they finally crash.

     And none of them rewards the person who points out, however gently,
     that the system has flaws, or even worse, tries to think for himself.
     Those who question are seen as heretics, savagely turned on, and true
     believers are taught to hate them more than they do their ideology's
     natural enemies. Orwell, my personal hero, was a writer of
     uncompromising honesty, a socialist who nevertheless was hated, in his
     day, by many on the left because he pointed out the flaws of his
     allies as well as his foes. He was attacked especially for noting that
     Soviet communism had evolved into just another form of murderous
     totalitarian dictatorship, something he lampooned brilliantly in his
     masterpieces Animal Farm and 1984.

     Locally, I have a couple heroes who fit this mold, both of whom,
     ironically, are religious, rather than political figures. The first is
     Bishop Tom Gumbleton, best known perhaps for trying to raise our
     consciousness about the conditions in places such as Haiti and Iraq
     and El Salvador.

     These are all countries in wretched shape, and in most of them our
     nation has managed to make things worse. He's tried to help them when
     he could, and tried to be a tug on our conscience too. He's no
     opportunistic, cynical politician with a clerical collar; he deeply
     believes in God.

     But he also believes in speaking truth to power, whether that power
     wears a Haitian general's uniform, works in the White House or sits in
     the Vatican. He was among the first to demand the Roman Catholic
     Church he loves come clean on the sex scandals of a few years ago.

     As a young man studying in Rome, Gumbleton was inspired by the
     excitement of renewal and the heady intellectual ferment of the
     Vatican II conferences, which tried to redefine the church's role in
     the modern world.

     This set his path for life; he came away believing that his church
     ought to dedicate itself to transforming this world into as close an
     imitation of the kingdom of heaven as possible. He was made a bishop
     in 1968. The leadership of his church is far more reactionary today.
     Last week, he turned 75, and bishops are traditionally supposed to
     offer their resignations then.

     Bishop Tom, who looks and acts two decades younger, has no desire to
     stop doing what he's doing, and more than one member of his parish
     (St. Leo's) has told me they'll protest if the church tries to take
     him from them. The irony, of course, is that the pope is a decade
     older and in appalling shape. Yet nobody would dare whisper that he
     step aside.

     My other hero is the Rev. Harry Cook, rector of St. Andrew's Episcopal
     Church in Clawson. In a lecture this week at the University of
     Colorado, he plans to tell the students that he fears "religion may be
     the death of us all."

     He means the kind of religion that actually caused a GOP politician to
     say that denuding the forests is all right because "when the last tree
     is felled, Jesus will come again." Cook proclaims himself a "secular
     agnostic humanist," for which he has taken some heat. I think he
     deserves more admiration than the pope. What's so moral about being
     good if you know you'll get paradise as a reward?

     What's far nobler, I think, is to try and follow Christian principles
     even if you have no idea what comes after this life, and grappling
     with the awesome challenge of trying to figure out each unique
     situation. These are two different, but very inspiring men, and
     Detroit is lucky to have them.
----------------
Boston Globe/ Opinion / Letters / Plenty of reasons Rand was wrong
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2005/02/01/plenty_of_reasons_rand_was_wrong?mode=PF
5.2.1

     SOMEONE NEEDS to point out to Edward Hudgins ("Still a voice of
     reason," op ed Jan. 29) and other resurgent misty-eyed,
     laissez-faire-lovin', neo-conservatives that their heroine Ayn Rand
     was much more a science fiction writer than a true, insightful
     philosopher or economist.

     History is riddled with the consequences of unregulated, unbalanced,
     money-driven societies where power and wealth become concentrated in
     the top few bricks of what is essentially a very large pyramid scheme.
     Oftentimes Rand's rugged, ambitious individuals of high achievement
     might be seen to prefigure some of history's worst criminals.

     In this country, they were robber barons like Jim Fisk and Joy Gould,
     who along with other "successful businessmen" propagated the first
     financial "Black Friday" out of sheer, unmitigated greed devoid of any
     sense of conscience or concern for others.

     One does not have to look very hard these days to see similar traits
     in current "achievers" that the history-ignorant like Hudgins admire
     so much.

     BERNIE CONNEELY
     Somerville
-----------
A Strangely Important Figure
http://www.nysun.com/pf.php?id=8235
5.1.26

     BY ANDREW STUTTAFORD

     To call Ayn Rand, the high priestess of the human will, a mere force
     of nature would to her have been an insult as well as a cliche. But
     how else to describe this extraordinary, maddening, and indestructible
     individual? Born a century ago this year into the flourishing
     bourgeoisie of glittering, doomed St. Petersburg, Alisa Zinovyevna
     Rosenbaum was to triumph over revolution, civil war, Lenin's
     dictatorship, an impoverished immigrant existence, and bad reviews in
     the New York Times to become a strangely important figure in the
     history of American ideas.

     Even the smaller details of Rand's life come with the sort of epic
     implausibility found in - oh, an Ayn Rand novel. On her first day of
     looking for work in Hollywood, who gives her a lift in his car? Cecil
     B. DeMille. Of course he does. Frank Lloyd Wright designs a house for
     her. Years later, when she's famous, the sage of selfishness,
     ensconced in her Murray Hill eyrie, a young fellow by the name of Alan
     Greenspan becomes a member of the slightly creepy set that sits at the
     great woman's feet. Apparently he went on to achieve some prominence
     in later life.

     To Rand, none of this would really have mattered (well, the fame was
     nice). To her, an intensely Russian intellectual despite everything,
     it was ideas that counted. They were everything. When, after nearly 50
     years, her beloved long-lost youngest sister, Nora, made it over from
     the USSR, they promptly fell out - over politics, naturally. Poor Nora
     was on her way within six weeks, back to the doubtless more easygoing
     embrace of Leonid Brezhnev.

     Scarred by her Soviet experiences, Rand was a woman on a mission. She
     couldn't stop: not for her sister, not for anyone. She had plenty to
     say, and she said it - again, and again, and again. She wrote, she
     lectured, she hectored, she harangued. Words flowed, how they flowed,
     too much sometimes, too insistent often, but infinitely preferable to
     the silence of the Soviet Union that she had left behind.

     And somehow her work has endured in the country she made her own. Her
     creed of ego and laissez-faire, and the reception it won, was one of
     the more interesting - and encouraging - cultural phenomena of
     mid-20th-century America. It has persisted, lasting longer, even, than
     the vast, daunting paragraphs that mark her prose style. Just over a
     decade ago, "Atlas Shrugged" (1957) was voted Americans' most
     influential novel in a joint poll conducted by the Book-of-the-Month
     club and the Library of Congress.

     Hers is a remarkable story, and I find it curious that one of the only
     publications being brought out to commemorate the 100th-birthday girl
     - besides new printings of the novels by Plume - is Jeff Britting's
     new, very very brief account (Overlook Duckworth, 144 pages, $19.95).
     The latest in the series of Overlook Illustrated Lives, it's too short
     to do Rand much justice; any reader already familiar with Rand's life
     won't learn much.

     Biographies in this series are intended as overviews rather than
     something more comprehensive. The author is an archivist at the Ayn
     Rand institute, the associate producer of an Oscar-nominated
     documentary about Rand, and obviously a keeper of the flame. Thus Mr.
     Britting has little to say about the romantic entanglements, more
     Peyton Place than Galt's Gulch, that devastated Rand's circle in later
     years.

     Most notably, Rand had an affair with her chosen intellectual heir,
     Nathaniel Brandon. While both Rand's husband and the wife of the
     intellectual heir agreed (sort of) to this arrangement, it added
     further emotional complications to what was, given Rand's prominence,
     a surprisingly hermetic, claustrophobic little world, one best
     described in "The Passion of Ayn Rand" (Bantam Dell) - the compelling,
     and sympathetic, biography of Rand written by, yes, the intellectual
     heir's ex-wife.

     As I said, Peyton Place.

     Closed, neurotic environments filled with true believers are the
     hallmark of a cult, and there's a good case to be made that that's
     exactly what Rand was running. Take a look at the way in which she
     treated her acolytes: angry excommunications, overbearing diktats,
     dramatic interventions, and, disappointing in one who preached
     self-determination, rather too much fuhrer prinzip.

     The cult-or-not controversy goes unmentioned in Mr. Britting's book.
     What a reader will find, particularly in the excellent selection of
     illustrations, is a real sense of how Rand's life related to her
     novels. One glance at her Hollywood-handsome husband, and the rugged
     succession of steely supermen who dominate her fiction make more sense
     ("All my heroes will always be reflections of Frank").

     Rand herself, alas, was no beauty; her glorious heroines, ridiculously
     gorgeous, impossibly named, remarkably lithe, are less the template
     for - as some allege - a sinister eugenic agenda than the stuff of
     Ayn's randy dreams garnished with a dollop of Art Deco kitsch. The
     first, extraordinarily violent, coupling in "The Fountainhead" of
     Howard Roark with Dominique Francon is not a general prescription for
     the relationship between the sexes but merely Rand's own erotic
     fantasy ("wishful thinking," she once announced, to the cheers of a
     delighted crowd).

     Likewise, her sometimes-overwrought style is no more than - well,
     judge this sentence from "Atlas Shrugged" for yourself: "She looked at
     the lone straight shaft of the Taggart Building rising in the distance
     - and then she thought she understood: these people hated Jim because
     they envied him." Call Dr. Freud.

     If sex in Rand's fiction can be savage, so is argument. Her sagas deal
     in moral absolutes, her protagonists are the whitest of knights or the
     blackest of villains, caricatures of good or evil lacking the shadings
     of gray that make literature, and life, so interesting. Yet "Atlas
     Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead," at least, have a wild, lunatic verve
     that sweeps all before them. Like Busby Berkeley, the Chrysler
     Building, or a Caddy with fins, they are aesthetic disasters, very
     American aesthetic disasters, which somehow emerge as something rather
     grand.

     There is plenty in Rand to make a modern reader queasy, though you
     would not know so from Mr. Britting's worshipful text. For example,
     there is something to the claim that like so many of the
     intellectuals, left or right, of her time she succumbed to the cruder
     forms of social Darwinism. For a woman who worshiped man, Rand did not
     always seem that fond of mankind.

     But the accusation by Whittaker Chambers in National Review that there
     was a whiff of the gas chamber about her writings is wrong. Rand lived
     in an era of stark ideological choices; to argue in muted, reasonable
     tones was to lose the debate. As a graduate of Lenin's Russia, she
     knew that the stakes were high, and how effective good propaganda
     could be.

     Rand's nonfiction may have a greater claim to intellectual
     respectability, but it was the lurid, occasionally harsh, simplicities
     of her novels that would deliver her message to the mass audience she
     believed was out there. She was right. Her key insight was to realize
     that there was an appetite among Americans for a moral case for
     capitalism. In a restless age that believed in the Big Answer, neither
     historical tradition nor utilitarian notions of efficiency would
     suffice. Ayn Rand gave Americans that case, perhaps not the best case,
     but a case, and she knew how to sell it.

     The establishment always disapproved. Critics sneered. Academics
     jeered. The publishers Macmillan turned down "Anthem" (1938), saying
     that Rand, a refugee from the Soviet Union, "did not understand
     socialism." Oh, but she did, and so did those millions of Americans
     who bought her books, books that played their part in ensuring that
     the dull orthodoxies of collectivism never prevailed here.

     The last image in Mr. Britting's biography is of an exultant Rand
     speaking at a conference in New Orleans in 1981, the final public
     appearance of this magnificent, brilliant oddball. Her hosts tried to
     lure her there with the promise of payment in gold coins and travel in
     a private rail car.

     Needless to say, she accepted.

       Mr. Stuttaford is a contributing editor of National Review Online.
-------------
Fountain Headache 
http://www.ocweekly.com/printme.php?&eid=60355
OC Logo 
January 21 - 27, 2005
     Ayn Rand Institute tries to twist tsunami disaster
     by Nick Schou

     You may know Ayn Rand for her lugubrious, stultifying novels The
     Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and her book of essays (with co-author
     Nathaniel Branden) The Virtue of Selfishness, which promulgated her
     "Objectivist" philosophy of personal greed as social progress. But you
     may not know the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI), which was established in
     Irvine in 1985. The groups website, www.aynrand.org, says ARI was
     formed to spearhead a "cultural renaissance that will reverse the
     anti-reason, anti-capitalist trends in todays culture."

     But since the end of the Cold War and the concurrent demise of the
     global-communist conspiracy, ARI and its Randian followers have been
     struggling for a new bugaboo to replace socialism as the chief enemy
     of "reason, rational self-interest, individual rights and free-market
     capitalism." Since 9/11, not surprisingly, ARI has directed most of
     its wrath against "Islamo-fascism."

     But now, ARI has found an even more dangerous force in the world: poor
     people who die in great numbers during extreme weather events.

     On Dec. 30, ARI sent out an unsolicited opinion piece on the Indian
     Ocean tsunami which killed more than 250,000 people in Indonesia,
     Thailand, Sri Lanka and India four days earlier. Entitled "U.S. Should
     Not Help Tsunami Victims," the article stated that while private
     citizens had every right to donate cash, government-financed aid
     amounted to theft.

     Later, ARI used the tsunami to attack another enemy:
     environmentalists. It said nature-lovers were "dead wrong" in their
     claims that technology causes environmental problems. "Far from being
     the cause of such tragedies, science, technology and industry provide
     the only means of safeguarding human lives against natural disasters,"
     ARI argued. The release went on to state that "relatively undeveloped
     Caribbean islands . . . suffer far worse devastation and loss of life
     from the same hurricanes that hammer Florida year after year" because
     the U.S. enjoys "the use of satellites, radar and communication
     technology" to "warn people well in advance of danger."

     Apparently, the Randians arent above issuing an apology when theyre
     wrong. On Jan. 7, ARI issued a follow-up press release entitled
     "Clarification of ARIs Position on Government Help to Tsunami
     Victims."

     ARI called its previous release "inappropriate" and said it "did not
     accurately convey the Institutes position." What is ARIs actual
     position? "The ugly hand of altruismthe moral view that need entitles
     a person to the values of others, whose corresponding duty is to
     sacrifice their values for that persons sakedid show itself in the
     petulant demands of U.N. and other officials that stingy countries
     must give more."

     Somewherethat would be her fountainhead-shaped graveAyn Rand groaned,
     not at her followers stunning lack of taste, but at their cowardly
     compromise.

     Yet theres nothing altruistic about U.S. government aid to tsunami
     victims. As exemplified by Colin Powells high-profile tour of the
     devastationnot to mention the constant footage of U.S. soldiers
     distributing food and watera major benefit of our assistance is
     positive public relations for an America widely viewed as preoccupied
     with blowing shit up in Iraq.

     Also implied in ARIs attack on the victims of the recent tsunami is
     the notion that hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved
     if only those nations had invested in the same type of early-warning
     system as the U.S. But as many as 160,000 Indonesiansby far the lions
     share of the victimsdied in the tsunami within mere minutes of the
     waves formation. Because many of those people lived in remote villages
     so close to the massive earthquakes epicenter, its unclear whether a
     warning system would have done much good. Secondly, at least some of
     the Indonesians who did survive lived in technology-free societies
     with an oral tradition that taught them to run for the hills when the
     ocean recedes.

     But theres an even more fundamental problem with ARIs position,
     especially if you take Ayn Rand and her pro-free market philosophy
     seriously. The U.S.-run Pacific Tsunami Warning Centerlike the
     National Earthquake Information Center and the National Oceanographic
     Service, which warns against hurricanesisnt a product of free-market
     capitalism. In fact, it was created through taxpayer-funded government
     interventionwhat ARI would call theft. So if you want to blame
     something for the most destructive wall of water in recent memory,
     dont blame nature. Blame capitalist Indonesia, Thailand, India, and
     Sri Lanka for failing to follow the socialist example of the
     capitalist U.S.A. by investing in a taxpayer-funded tsunami warning
     system.
----------
Ayn Rand Introduced Me to Libertarianism
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0502a.asp
     by [17]Jacob G. Hornberger, February 2, 2005

     My very first exposure to libertarianism was provided by Ayn Rand,
     whose 100th birthday is being celebrated today.

     One afternoon in the fall of 1974, I was sitting around watching
     television. At the time, I was temporarily working as a waiter in
     Dallas, having just completed three months of infantry school in
     Georgia to fulfill my Army Reserves active-duty commitment, before
     returning to finish law school in Austin the following semester. An
     afternoon movie quickly engrossed me, becoming my first exposure to
     libertarianism -- The Fountainhead, starring Gary Cooper and Patricia
     Neal. The credits stated that the movie was based on Ayn Rand's novel
     by that name and so I ran out at once, bought it, and read it. Howard
     Roark and Dominique Francon quickly became my heroes!

     A few years later, I was rummaging through the Laredo public library
     for something to read and I discovered four volumes of a series of
     books entitled Essays on Liberty, which had been published by The
     Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) in Irvington, New York.
     Reading those uncompromising essays caused the seed that Rand had
     planted a few years before to burst forth into what has become a
     lifelong love of libertarianism. Soon after that, I discovered Atlas
     Shrugged, which I've read three times (okay, skimming through Galt's
     speech the third time around!), along with The Virtue of Selfishness,
     Anthem, We the Living, the Objectivist journal, and most of Rand's
     other work.

     It was Ayn Rand and FEE's founder Leonard Read who [18]changed the
     course of my life. The reason: Both of them emphasized the fundamental
     importance of moral principles in political and economic analysis.
     When it came to moral principles, Rand and Read did not deal in shades
     of gray but rather in black and white. It is morally wrong to take
     what doesn't belong to you. It is morally wrong to coercively
     interfere with the peaceful choices that people make in their lives.
     It is morally right that people be free to make whatever choices they
     wish so long as their conduct is peaceful, even if -- or especially if
     -- their choices are considered irresponsible or immoral.

     In the intellectual arena, that means the unfettered right to write,
     read, or watch whatever you want without governmental interference. In
     the economic arena, it means the unfettered right to pursue any
     business or occupation without governmental permission or
     interference, to engage in mutually beneficial trades with anyone else
     anywhere in the world, to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth, and
     to do whatever you want with your own money -- spend, save, hoard,
     invest, or donate it.

     Thus, when it comes to morality, there was only one real choice for
     structuring a political order -- libertarianism, where people are free
     to live their lives the way the choose, so long as their conduct is
     peaceful, and where government's primary role is protecting the
     exercise of such choices by punishing violent, anti-social people who
     would interfere with them through such actions as murder, assault,
     stealing, burglary, trespass, rape, and fraud.

     Fortunately, God has created a consistent universe, one in which
     freedom produces prosperity and harmony and nurtures the values that
     most of us hold dear, such as compassion, love of one's neighbors, and
     honoring one's parents. But it was not the utilitarian case that
     attracted me to libertarianism. It was the moral case for freedom
     presented by Ayn Rand, most eloquently in Atlas Shrugged, and Leonard
     Read.

     Therefore, the main reason that I've never been attracted to so-called
     reform plans whose purpose is to reform, not repeal, socialist
     programs such as Social Security and public (i.e., government)
     schooling is that such plans, by their very nature, implicitly call
     for the continuation of an immoral act. As Rand and Read both
     emphasized, the right approach to an immoral action is to call for its
     end, not its reform.

     One of the highlights of my life occurred in 1990 when, in response to
     my September 1990 Freedom Daily essay, "[19]Letting Go of Socialism,"
     which criticized public-school vouchers (and Social Security reform
     plans), Milton Friedman leveled a criticism against me in a public
     speech that was later reprinted in Liberty magazine. His criticism was
     that my position was too uncompromising, comparing it to the
     uncompromising positions of Ayn Rand and Ludwig von Mises. It was one
     of the greatest compliments I've ever received -- and from a Nobel
     Laureate to boot!

     Another highlight in my life was watching Rand deliver her last public
     speech in 1981 at Jim Blanchard's National Committee for Monetary
     Reform (NCMR) annual conference in New Orleans. She died soon after
     that, on March 6, 1982.

     As I wrote in "Letting Go of Socialism" some 15 years ago, "People
     everywhere are letting go of the socialist nightmare. But they are
     looking through a glass darkly with respect to what should be the
     alternative. It shall be the Americans, I am firmly convinced, who
     will yet let go of socialism, once and for all, and lead the world to
     the highest reaches of freedom ever dreamed of by man!"

     When that day comes, it will be Ayn Rand who will have played a major
     role in the restoration of American liberty.

     Mr. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom
     Foundation. Send him [20]email.

References

    17. http://www.fff.org/aboutUs/bios/jgh.asp
    18. http://www.libertyhaven.com/thinkers/leonarderead/leonardmylife.html
    19. http://www.fff.org/freedom/0990a.asp
    20. mailto:jhornberger at fff.org
-----------
On the Centenary of America's Radical for Capitalism
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0502b.asp
     by [17]Sheldon Richman, February 2, 2005

     February 2 is the centenary of the birth of Ayn Rand, the novelist who
     inspired tens of millions of readers with her philosophical action
     stories celebrating reason, individualism, and freedom under
     capitalism. Her death in 1982 did not stanch interest in her work
     either as an artist or as a philosopher. On the contrary, that work
     has never been taken more seriously, and books about her intellectual
     and artistic contributions continue to pour forth.

     What accounts for this growing interest? In her bestsellers [18]The
     Fountainhead
     and [19]Atlas Shrugged, Rand captured the essence of America's
     original identity. On the surface that may seem ironic. She was born
     in Russia and was a young woman when the Bolsheviks began to turn that
     place into a charnel house. She was fortunate to find refuge in the
     United States. But there is nothing ironic in the story. It is
     unsurprising that a refugee from brutal "humanitarian" totalitarianism
     would appreciate individual freedom as no native-born American could.
     She never had the luxury of taking liberty for granted. My favorite
     story about her comes from the 1940s, when someone in an audience
     pointed out that she was foreign-born. "That's right," she said. "I
     chose to become an American. What did you do besides being born?"

     Rand knew better than to mistake the trappings of "democracy" for
     actual freedom. One is not really free if the elected officeholders
     have the power to interfere with the lives of innocent people. Voting
     is preferable to violence, but how people get into office is not as
     important as what they can do once they get there. (Most of the
     commentaries on the Iraqi election have not understood that.)

     Rand realized that freedom, if it is to last, requires a rock-solid
     foundation. Just any foundation, or none at all, won't do. She
     grounded the case for freedom in the conditions required by the nature
     of man, who needs to live by reason in this world open to his
     understanding. According to Rand, for persons to be truly human they
     have to be free to think, to act on their own judgment, and to
     transform the physical world, that is, to engage in productive work.
     Each person has the moral authority to make the most of his life. He
     needs no one's permission. These principles -- rights -- regarding
     life, liberty, and property form the basis of a peaceful society in
     which people cooperate through the division of labor. Since all people
     have these rights, force and fraud are illegitimate. They rob men and
     women of their humanity.

     Rand's great achievement was to give capitalism a moral justification.
     Too often advocates of free markets emphasized the efficiency of
     markets and abandoned morality to the socialists. Rand passionately
     declared that capitalism isn't only efficient; it is also good because
     it is the only social arrangement in which each individual is free to
     pursue his happiness -- "exist for his own sake" -- without being made
     a beast of burden forced to serve others. Benevolent generosity is one
     thing; duty-bound self-sacrifice is quite another. Under capitalism
     the pursuit of rational self-interest and the attendant innovation
     produce a cornucopia of goods and services that benefit everyone. But
     as socialism's history shows, the cart can't be placed before the
     horse. The "common good" that arises out of rational individuals'
     making the most of their lives cannot be achieved directly.

     Another of Rand's achievements follows from this. Going back to the
     ancient Greeks, production and trade have been seen as degraded
     activities, inferior to nonmaterial concerns. Rand finally gave the
     producer his moral due, showing that the passion, genius, and
     creativity entailed by the production of material goods is like the
     passion, genius, and creativity entailed by the production of
     "spiritual" goods, such as works of art. This outlook was a
     consequence of Rand's rejection of the mind-body dichotomy and her
     embrace of man's life on earth as something lofty.

     Considering the squalor in which men lived before capitalism, and the
     wretched condition of today's remaining socialist countries, Rand, the
     American radical for capitalism, was surely right.

     Sheldon Richman is senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation,
     author of Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State, and
     editor of [20]The Freeman magazine. Send him [21]email.

References

    17. http://www.fff.org/aboutUs/bios/sxr.asp
    18. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0451191153/thefutureoffreed/103-4475146-3986250
    19. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0525934189/thefutureoffreed/103-4475146-3986250
    20. http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?sec=iolmisc
    21. mailto:sheldon at sheldonrichman.com
-----------
Neglected Fortieth Anniversary (October 1997)
http://www.fff.org/comment/ed1097a.asp
     by [14]Sheldon Richman, January 1997

     A remarkable event occurred 40 years ago this month. Not the launching
     of Sputnik, which in retrospect, considering the collapse of the
     Soviet Union, had much less significance than people suspected at the
     time. Ironically, the event I am thinking of involved a woman who
     understood from the beginning that the Soviet Union was a fraud,
     economically, morally, and in all other respects.

     The woman was Ayn Rand, who died in 1982, and the event was the
     publication of her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged , a grand novel that
     has sold more than five million copies, continues to sell very well
     today, and has had a deep impact on readers around the world. An
     indication of that impact came in a 1991 survey by the Library of
     Congress and the Book-of-the-Month Club, which asked 2,000 members to
     name a book that "made a difference" in their lives. Atlas Shrugged
     placed second behind the Bible.

     What kind of book could strike such a chord in readers? Rand's novel
     is big in many ways. It is more than a thousand pages long; but more
     important, it covers a wide range of personal, political, and economic
     issues. In fact, it presents a full philosophy of life, from the
     nature of man and reality to the nature of knowledge, from a doctrine
     of good and evil to the morality of a free society, from a theory of
     money and trade to a theory of art. That all of this is integrated
     into an action thriller makes the book all the more remarkable.

     Its many aspects are as relevant today as they were four decades ago.
     Two seem particularly worth mentioning now. One of Rand's lasting
     achievements in Atlas Shrugged was to set out a moral case for the
     economic system we call capitalism. Rand often called it "laissez
     faire capitalism" to emphasize that she meant the complete separation
     of state and economy. She condemned the "mixed economy," that
     contradictory brew of freedom and government control that has gripped
     the United States for much of its history. For Rand, capitalism was
     not merely the best system for producing material goods. (Today,
     unlike 40 years ago, hardly anyone disputes that.) Capitalism, Rand
     believed, was the only moral system, the only one suited to man's
     nature as a rational, creative being. The free-market economy lets
     people produce, trade with willing buyers without interference, and
     keep the fruits of their effort. It is the system that recognizes each
     person's right to the pursuit of happiness, to use Thomas Jefferson's
     radical phrase from the Declaration of Independence.

     Rand, who escaped Bolshevik Russia as a young woman, spent a lifetime
     trying to show Americans, of all people, how much a break with the
     past Jeffersonian America was. Until 1776, no political document had
     ever affirmed the right of the individual to live by his own judgment
     and for his own sake. That revolutionary philosophy produced the
     freest, most prosperous, most benevolent society the world has ever
     seen. Unfortunately, the country soon forgot its revolutionary
     origins. Rand's book is a ringing reminder of that heritage and a
     proclamation that the free market embodies the highest human virtues.

     As Hank Rearden, an industrialist in Atlas Shrugged , says, "I work
     for nothing but my own profit -- which I make by selling a product
     they need to men who are willing and able to buy it.... I have made my
     money by my own effort, in free exchange and through the voluntary
     consent of every man I dealt with."

     There is a related point that shines through every page of Atlas
     Shrugged . Since life requires the production of values, men and women
     in business are heroes. They are often treated as villains, yet their
     ability and dedication make life possible and increasingly better.
     That point is at the very core of the novel. What, the book asks,
     would happen if the people of productive ability quit? Atlas Shrugged
     is a vindication and celebration of those unsung heroes who need never
     again be embarrassed by their profits.

     The manifest failure of socialism and communism as economic systems
     has led to a renewed respect for capitalism. But it is a grudging,
     half-hearted respect. The economic appreciation of capitalism has not
     yet been matched by a moral appreciation of the system that leaves
     people free to make the most of their lives, to translate their
     ability into achievement, to keep and enjoy the rewards for their
     effort, and, as an inevitable byproduct, to lift the living standards
     of everyone.

     Sheldon Richman is senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation,
     editor of The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty (The Foundation for Economic
     Education), and author of Separating School & State: How to Liberate
     America's Families (1995) and Your Money or Your Life: Why We Must
     Abolish the Income Tax (1998).

References

    14. http://www.fff.org/aboutUs/bios/sxr.
-----------
Of Course, It All Began with Ayn Rand
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0502c.asp
     by [17]Bart Frazier, February 2, 2005

     Like so many others, Ayn Rand has heavily influenced the paths that I
     have chosen in my life. And like most everyone else, it began with
     [18]Atlas Shrugged.

     I was nineteen when someone gave me a worn, pocket-sized edition of
     Atlas Shrugged. Unlike so many others my age at the time, I was not
     what some people might call a lost individual. I certainly felt no
     need to "find myself." I was a proud leftist.

     I paid little attention to politics, current events, or philosophical
     debate then. I wasn't dumb and I liked to read, but I enjoyed novels
     and literature and found political science, economics, and their ilk a
     bore. When it was handed to me, all I knew of Atlas Shrugged was that
     it was a work of fiction that several people had told me was a great
     read.

     And it was.

     It was radically different from the novels I was accustomed to
     reading, and the heroes were unlike the protagonists popular with
     people my age at the time. You simply could not understand life if you
     had not read Catcher in the Rye, and seen it through the blue-colored
     glasses of miserable Holden Caulfield. If you were not familiar with
     Death of a Salesman, the pointlessness of life itself could not be
     conveyed to you through pathetic Willy Loman.

     The list of my favorites at the time is long. The over-indulgent
     characters of Hemingway. The morally vacuous characters of Fitzgerald
     and the all-out assault on business of Salinger's. The portrayal of
     our putrid human nature by Orwell, Steinbeck, and Huxley. Don't get me
     wrong -- these are great books and I still love them for the great
     works they are. But they are not inspiring and they always draw the
     picture of a person that the reader would never want to emulate.

     Not so with Atlas Shrugged.

     John Galt, Dagney Taggart, Hank Rearden, Francisco d'Anconia -- these
     were characters like none that I had ever encountered in a novel. They
     were people that a reader could aspire to be, they celebrated life,
     and they were heroes in the truest sense. They were honest and
     honorable. They believed in principle instead of pragmatism. And
     without my realizing it until the end of the book, they had me
     cheering against the government.

     At the time, if I had been told that Atlas Shrugged was a novel about
     the evil of the state, I would have declined to read it. But because
     it was an exciting read with an intricate plot and a mysterious
     protagonist, I couldn't put the book down and ended up cheering
     against the government along the way. Many libertarians forget how
     radical an idea this is to most people even today.

     Most people conflate the government with society. Whatever the
     government does is for society's benefit. Government officials always
     act with our benefit in mind, not their own. Our government is more
     than a protector of rights; it is the embodiment of the country
     itself. If you criticize the government or its actions, you are not a
     true patriot; you are un-American. As Archie Bunker would say, "My
     government, right or wrong!"

     The beauty of Atlas Shrugged is that it makes the case against
     government in a solid yet entertaining way. I flew through the book --
     couldn't put it down. When I finished, I suddenly felt that there was
     more to this whole government thing. Maybe there was another viewpoint
     about government that I wasn't aware of. Was it possible that my
     representatives, my representatives, were not looking out for my best
     interest? Had Ayn Rand written anything else? ([19]She had, by the
     way.)

     Atlas Shrugged opened up paths that I had never considered before.
     Jefferson, Madison, Washington -- these were names that I equated with
     irrelevance, not irreverence. Wasn't Thoreau just a crazy old hermit?
     Who on earth is Lysander Spooner? This stuff pertains to economics?

     But the biggest question I had was, "Am I the only person who thinks
     like this?" My answer came not long after finishing Atlas Shrugged. I
     was driving past the capitol building in Tallahassee, Florida, where a
     small demonstration was going on. And among the many placards that
     people were waiving at the capitol steps was a sign that read, "Where
     is John Galt?" I knew then that I was not alone because I had just
     found out that for someone else, it had all begun with Ayn Rand.

     Bart Frazier is program director at The Future of Freedom Foundation.
     Send him [20]email.

References

    17. http://www.fff.org/aboutUs/bios/bxf.asp
    18. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0525934189/thefutureoffreed/103-4475146-3986250
    19. http://www.ayn-rand.com/ayn-rand-biblio.asp
    20. mailto:bfrazier at fff.org
--------
Philadelphia Inquirer | 01/30/2005 | Assessing Rand at centenary
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/10758015.htm
     By Carlin Romano
     Inquirer Book Critic

     'I am haunted by a quotation from Friedrich Nietzsche," Ayn Rand once
     told a Time magazine reporter, explaining her withdrawal from punditry
     on passing events to focus on writing philosophy. "It is not my
     function to be a flyswatter."

     No problem there. Even her enemies never accused the controversial
     novelist (The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged) and champion of
     individualism, rational self-interest and atheism of thinking small.

     "I did not want, intend or expect to be the only philosophical
     defender of man's rights in the country of man's rights," she declared
     with typical grandiosity when she closed down her regular newsletter
     in 1976. "But if I am, I am."

     OK, ditch the flyswatter. As the centenary of her birth arrives
     Wednesday, accompanied by special events around the country and a new
     illustrated biography - Ayn Rand by Jeff Britting (Overlook, $19.95) -
     what image does fit her today?

     Prophet? Steamroller? Esteemed yet occasionally embarrassing great
     aunt?

     We now live in a country where the administration in power vigorously
     embraces some, if not all, of Rand's once iconoclastic ideas about
     human freedom. A country whose Federal Reserve Board chairman, Alan
     Greenspan, once sat at her feet as part of the 1950s circle of
     admirers she sardonically called her "Collective."

     "Ayn Rand was instrumental in significantly broadening the scope of my
     thinking," Greenspan told Rand biographer Barbara Branden for her life
     of the author, The Passion of Ayn Rand (1986), "and was clearly a
     major contributor to my intellectual development, for which I remain
     profoundly grateful to this day."

     Rand's healthy profile in Washington today might be deduced from one
     of the centenary's main events, a symposium on her work Wednesday
     morning in the Members of Congress Room at the Library of Congress'
     Jefferson Building.

     Sponsored by the Objectivist Center in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., one of the
     two major keepers of the Rand flame, its speakers will include Reps.
     Ed Royce (R., Calif.) and Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), and Howard Dickman,
     assistant chairman of programs at the National Endowment for the
     Humanities.

     The other home of Rand studies, the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine,
     Calif. (self-described as the "authoritative" arbiter of matters
     Randian because Rand anointed it to carry on her legacy), will host a
     reception Wednesday evening at which biographer Britting, the
     institute's archivist, and others will talk about Rand and present an
     exhibition on her.

     "One of the great urban myths," says Britting, "is the notion that Ayn
     Rand was a dictator of people's tastes."

     He sees her as a "generous" and "fiery" philosopher devoted to
     argument, dialogue, and explanation of her ideas, whose greatest
     legacy remains her "ability to dramatize ideas." He admits that
     "vigorous debates about details and specifics of her philosophy"
     continue.

     No one, however, now doubts that she pulled off a major, enduring
     American career as both novelist and thinker, and that her influence
     and popularity have persisted among readers since her death in 1982.

     Born Alisa Rosenbaum into a Jewish family in St. Petersburg, Russia -
     her father was a successful pharmacist and her mother a highly
     intellectual and opinionated homemaker - Rand emigrated alone to
     America at 21. Her experience of Russia's forced conversion to
     communism forever colored her beliefs. To pursue her ambition to be a
     great writer, she devised her nom de plume by taking "Ayn" from a
     Finnish writer she'd never read and "Rand" from her typewriter.

     A lucky encounter with director Cecil B. DeMille drew her into
     Hollywood life: jobs as a scriptwriter, marriage to actor Frank
     O'Connor in 1929, and early success as a playwright with The Night of
     January 16.

     Following two short novels, We the Living (1936) and Anthem (1938),
     The Fountainhead (1943) made Rand famous. In it, protagonist Howard
     Roark illustrated her belief that the model of ethical life is the
     "hero" - a rational, self-interested, totally independent person.
     Partly based on architect Frank Lloyd Wright, Roark despised
     mediocrity and compromise. The 1949 film version starring Gary Cooper
     only bolstered Rand's status as poster-woman for American
     individualism in a cultural world still largely inclined to the left.

     Her other major novel, Atlas Shrugged (1957), only enhanced that
     image. More schematic than The Fountainhead, it offered another ideal
     hero - self-assured John Galt - who projected "the virtue of
     selfishness" and rejection of self-sacrifice at the core of her
     philosophy, which she came to call Objectivism. It so impressed a
     young Southern businessman named Ted Turner that he bought cryptic
     billboard signs across the South asking, "Who is John Galt?"

     One complication for Rand's reputation over the years became the sharp
     schisms among her followers over matters of doctrine - a good source
     is Canadian journalist Jeff Walker's The Ayn Rand Cult (Open Court) -
     and her unconventional lifestyle. For a thinker who exalted "reason"
     as the sole guide to life, Rand radiated volatile emotion.

     In the 1950s, for instance, she conducted a torrid affair with the
     first young man whom she designated as her "intellectual heir,"
     Nathaniel Branden, winning the grudging consent of her husband and
     Branden's wife, Barbara (later her biographer). She also began to cut
     off acolytes - including, eventually, Branden - when she fell out with
     them. A 1990s Showtime movie, based on Branden's bio, depicted Rand -
     supporters say unfairly - as histrionic and neurotic.

     All of that hasn't changed, you might say, the tale of the tape. A
     1991 survey by the Library of Congress found Atlas Shrugged to be the
     American novel most influential on readers' lives. Her books have sold
     more than 30 million copies around the world and sell hundred of
     thousands every year in the United States.

     Even studies in academe - the sector of America most resistent to Rand
     in her lifetime - are increasing. Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical by
     Chris Matthew Sciabarra (Penn State, 1995) argued that Russian
     ideology influenced Rand more than previously understood. What Art Is:
     The Aesthetic Theory of Ayn Rand by Louis Torres and Michelle Kamhi
     (Open Court, 2000), thoroughly explored her philosophy of art. The
     most recent multivolume encyclopedia of philosophy, from Routledge,
     included an entry on her.

     According to Branden's biography, Rand liked to be called "Fluff" by
     O'Connor, her beloved husband of 50 years. Given how her career turned
     out, no one would dare try that now. At her funeral, a 6-foot-high
     dollar sign marked the coffin. Conversion rates aside, she's still in
     the money.
       _________________________________________________________________

     Contact book critic Carlin Romano at 215-854-5615 or
     [77]cromano at phillynews.com.

From checker at panix.com  Wed Feb  2 21:41:18 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 16:41:18 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Iraq: 30 January election review
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502021639530.9423@panix1.panix.com>

Iraq: 30 January election review
http://www.indexonline.org/en/news/iraq-30-january-election-review.shtml
Index on Censorship

    On 30 January Iraqis voted for parties contesting seats in the Iraqi
    National Assembly, a 275-seat parliament called to serve as a
    transitional body until elections for a fully fledged assembly under a
    new constitution are held in December 2005.
    There were no voting districts - just a single country-wide election.
    This option was supported by the UN - advisors to the process -
    because it was thought easier to organise than drawing up electoral
    districts based on Iraq's cultures and ethnicities, though they did
    endorse a separate ballot for provincial councils in Iraq's 18
    regional governorates.
    In Iraq's Kurdish region, there was a third ballot for the Kurdish
    National Parliament, with special arrangements for the disputed
    northern city of Kirkuk. Expatriates in 14 countries were allowed to
    vote in the parliamentary polls only. On election day a reported 5,232
    polling centres opened throughout Iraq's 18 governorates. The first
    provisional results are due to be announced by 10 February by the
    Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI), established by the
    U.S.-run Coalition Provisional Authority in May 2004.
    All Iraqis born on or before 31 December 1986 were eligible to vote,
    provided they could prove their citizenship. Iraq has no current
    official census, so voters were registered through ration cards used
    during the sanctions year for the UN oil-for-food programme, which
    began in 1996. There were roughly 7,700 candidates running for the 275
    National Assembly seats and 11,300 for seats on the 18 regional
    legislatures, but Iraqis did not vote for individuals or specific
    parties in the traditional sense. Instead they picked from one of 111
    "lists" of combined party groups and factions certified by the IECI.
    The parties picked the order in which their candidates' names appeared
    on their own lists. This was important as seats were allocated to
    lists in proportion to the percentage of votes the list collected on
    election day - first names first - so the higher up the list, the
    higher the chance the candidate would get a seat. Every third
    candidate in the order on the list had to be a woman.
    Most of the campaigners called on supporters to vote for the number of
    the list, rather than the name. On the day voters ticked off their
    choice of list from a ballot paper with the name, number, and
    identifying logos of the 111 lists. A lottery determined the order in
    which list names appeared on the ballot.
    Once convened the newly elected National Assembly must then elect an
    Iraqi president and two deputies - a trio making up a Presidency
    Council that will represent Iraq abroad and oversee the running of the
    country. The Presidency Council will be responsible for naming the
    prime minister and for approving ministerial appointments.
    The National Assembly will immediately be tasked to draft a permanent
    Iraqi constitution by 15 August. The constitution should be ratified
    by the Iraqi people in a general referendum by 15 October. If it fails
    to do this, it can extend the process for another six months. If a
    constitution is not ratified by then, its mandate will expire, and
    fresh elections will be held for a new assembly that will start the
    process again.
    But If the constitution is ratified according to schedule in October,
    Iraqis will elect a permanent government no later than 15 December.
    That government should assume office by 31 December.
    The role of the Electoral Commission
    The elections are organised by the Independent Electoral Commission of
    Iraq (IECI), established by the US-run Coalition Provisional Authority
    in May 2004. The Commission is run by a nine-member Board of
    Commissioners, which includes seven voting members who are Iraqi
    citizens, and two non-voting members.
    The two non-voting members are the chief electoral officer, an Iraqi,
    and the Colombian UN expert Carlos Valenzuela, a veteran of 13
    previous UN election missions. The UN selected the IECI membership
    from 1,878 applications short-listed to 25. The Iraqi Commission
    members were sent on a three week training course in Mexico by the UN.
    Thirty other U.N. election specialists provided technical expertise to
    a staff of about 6,000 Iraqi election clerks and monitors. These teams
    faced severe violence, including a 19 December ambush in central
    Baghdad, in which three were killed. The US army reported that
    virtually every election worker in Nineveh province, which includes
    predominantly Arab Sunni Mosul, quit before the election because of
    security fears.
    There were other resignations reported in several other cities, though
    the Commission frequently disputed or dismissed reports, or claimed
    that the staff who had resigned had been promptly replaced. Overseas
    voting was supervised by the International Organisation for Migration,
    though only 21 percent of the 1.2 million eligible expatriates
    registered to vote despite the IOM's intensive efforts.
    Voting papers were printed in Switzerland to avoid counterfeiting and
    centres established in each of the 18 provinces to collate results
    before sending them on to Baghdad.
    The better than expected turnout and the relatively limited scale of
    the threatened insurgent assault on the process reflected well on the
    IECI. Its performance was not without its critics among both Iraqi &
    international media. IECI spokesman Farid Ayar was reported to be in
    dispute with the commission membership in the days before the vote,
    while on the day his delivery of interim turnout results to the media
    was confusing - some said unintentionally misleading.
    The process itself did not appear flawless. Some polling stations in
    the so-called `hot areas' did not open when insufficient numbers of
    election workers turned up to run them. On the day Ayar said that
    voters in these areas could vote at other stations, without saying
    where or how they could be reached with regional travel so heavily
    restricted.
    Like the turnout the commission's tally of polling stations that
    opened as planned on 30 January seemed over-estimated, given the flow
    of media reports from the field, including Samarra, the oil refinery
    town of Beiji and Baghdad's mainly Iraqi Sunni district of Azamiyah,
    and ravaged al-Fallujah where no voting at all was said to have taken
    place.
    There was no independent monitoring body to confirm or support the
    validation of interim results from the commission. The UN, having
    helped organise the election, had made it clear in advance that it
    would not be involved in observing it, and Carlos Valenzuela, its lead
    official at the Commission distanced himself and the world body from
    the IECI's early statements on turnout and totals.
    A hastily organised independent monitoring group of foreign election
    experts remained in Amman, Jordan, its members unable to get security
    clearance to move its operations into Iraq. Instead the
    specially-founded International Mission for Iraqi Elections (IMIE)
    plans to `audit' and `assess' the data from Iraqi observers and
    evaluate the process after the event. The IECI itself, with UN
    support, had trained several thousand Iraqi election observers, and
    briefed thousands more from the parties, but their true effectiveness
    has yet to be independently assessed.
    In its preliminary statements, the IMIE team in Jordan said it had
    identified "several strong points regarding today's election,
    including the extent and quality of (the IECI's) election planning and
    organisation, and its independence." But it added that "areas
    recommended for further development include transparency regarding
    financial contributions and expenditures, improvements to the voter
    registration process, and reviewing the criteria for candidate
    eligibility".
    Registration of candidates, parties and voters
    Any Iraqi who is at least 30 years old, has a high-school diploma and
    was not a high-ranking member of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party or
    responsible for atrocities under Hussein's regime was allowed to run
    for office. Lower ranking members of the Ba'ath Party who have
    renounced their affiliation may run. Current serving members of the
    Iraqi armed services were barred from standing.
    Under the 30 January system, which like all else in the current voting
    process, is open to review and may be changed by the National Assembly
    during 2005 ahead of the next vote, candidates may run as independents
    or on a list. A list is defined as a political party, an association
    or a group of people with a common political agenda - such as women's
    or human rights groups - that submits candidates.
    Individuals can also apply and, if certified, they can run alone or
    form a coalition with other certified political entities.
    Names must appear in rank order on the party lists and every third
    candidate in order must be a woman. Seats were allocated through a
    system of proportional representation, with seats allocated
    proportionate to the percentage of the vote given to each of the 111
    lists. The actual names of the 7,471 candidates on the 111 lists were
    kept secret up until two days before the poll to protect them against
    insurgent attack.
    Iraqis born on or before 31 December 1986 were eligible to vote,
    provided they can prove their citizenship. Iraq has no official
    census, so voters were registered through ration cards used for the UN
    oil-for-food programme, which began in 1996. Those voters who did not
    have ration cards were allowed to vote if they produced two official
    papers, such as citizenship certificates, identity cards, passports,
    or military service documents. Where the security situation permitted
    the process went smoothly, despite some problems with the registration
    of would be voters born in 1986.
    Registration was allowed right up to election day on 30 January in the
    violence-plagued governorates of al-Anbar and Nineveh, where Mosul is
    located. But in many areas insurgents made verification of the voter
    lists virtually impossible. Iraq's interim president Ghazi al-Yawar
    conceded before the vote that there were areas where not one voter
    registration sheet had been handed out.
    Some 200,000 refugees who fled the November 2004 US assault on
    al-Fallujah also faced severe practical difficulties registering and
    voting, beyond the physical threat posed by insurgents. Even in the
    relatively peaceful northern governorates, Human Rights Watch reported
    up to 90 percent of the voter registration forms in Arbil province had
    mistakes that needed correction and that up to 70,000 people in the
    area might lose their right to vote as a result.
    The development of a more rigidly operated registration list, possibly
    as part of a nationwide census, will be a priority for the Iraqi
    government in 2005. This will be a politically contentious task,
    especially in disputed areas such as Kirkuk, and among minorities -
    Assyrian Christians, and Turkomans in particular - who do not believe
    their political presence should be measured only by their numbers.
    Iraq has a population of more than 25 million people, but it is a
    young country - 40 percent of the population are under the age of 14,
    twice the percentage recorded in the United Kingdom & United States.
    That left just 15.5 million Iraqis eligible to vote, with 1.2 million
    of them living outside the country.
    Overseas voting was supervised by the International Organisation for
    Migration, though only 281,000 of the 1.2 million eligible expatriates
    registered to vote and of them just over two-thirds actually cast a
    ballot, despite intensive efforts by the IOM. Future overseas
    registration and voting will probably be managed by Iraqi embassies
    abroad, as is the case with other nations.
    Main Party Lists - 30 January 2005
    United Iraqi List
    o Iraqi National Congress (secular) - leader Ahmad Chalabi
    o Islamic Action Organisation (Shi'ite Islamist) - leader Ibrahim
    al-Matiri
    o Islamic Dawa Party in Iraq (Shi'ite Islamist) - leader Iraqi Vice
    President Ibrahim Jaafari
    o Islamic Dawa Party Iraq Organisation (Shi'ite Islamist) - leader
    Abdul Karim Anizi
    o Islamic Virtue Party (Shi'ite Islamist) - leader Nadim Issa Jabiri
    o Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Shi'ite Islamist) -
    leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim
    o Turkmen Islamic Union (Turkmen) - leader Abbas Hassan al-Bayati
    o Also includes nine other Shi'ite and Turkmen parties and prominent
    Saddam-era dissenter Hussain al-Shahristani
    Iraqi List
    o Iraqi National Accord (secular) - leader Prime Minister Iyad Allawi
    o With five other secular parties and one individual
    Kurdistan Alliance List
    o Kurdistan Democratic Party (Kurdish) - leader Massoud Barzani
    o Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (Kurdish) - leader Jalal Talabani
    o With nine other Kurdish parties
    Patriotic Rafidain Party
    o Assyrian Democratic Movement (Christian) - leader Yonadim Kanna
    o Chaldean National Council (Christian)
    People's Union
    o Iraqi Communist Party (secular) - leader Hamid Majid Moussa
    o With one additional individual candidate
    Main Single Party Lists
    o Constitutional Monarchy (secular) - leader al-Sharif Ali Bin Hussein
    o Independent Democratic Movement (secular) - leader Adnan Pachachi
    o Iraqi Islamic Party (Sunni Islamist) - leader Mohsen Abdul Hamid
    o Iraqi National Gathering (secular) - leader Hussein al-Jibouri
    o Iraqis (secular) - leader Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawar
    o Reconciliation and Liberation Bloc (secular) - leader Mishaan
    Jibouri
    Electoral boundaries
    There were no voting districts for the National Assembly vote - just a
    single country-wide election. This controversial plan was endorsed by
    the UN because it was thought easier to organise than drawing up
    electoral districts based on Iraq's cultures and ethnicities. But the
    system, not uncommon in Europe and Asia, has its problems. A key part
    of building representative parliaments and governments is building a
    sense of confidence that both are accountable to their constituents.
    Iraq's 30 January system weakens that confidence.
    Under the 30 January system politicians are more accountable to their
    party leaders than to Iraqi voters. The party leader can `punish' MPs
    who put local interests ahead of party interests by pushing them down
    the order of names in the party list. That way they will be less
    likely to retain their seat in the next election. Party leaders can
    also use the list system to promote individuals - including some with
    Ba'athist era records or hardcore agendas - who would never win
    popular votes in a straight vote for individually named candidates.
    Generally, the use of nationwide party lists elsewhere in the Middle
    East has tended to bolster religious, ethnic and sectarian parties
    there. The agenda is fixed on the national not local level. And under
    the 30 January system, because the National Assembly elections are not
    tied to districts, there will be towns that have no local citizens in
    the Iraqi Assembly and other towns with scores of them.
    The new National Assembly will be looking closely at the effectiveness
    of the separate ballot for provincial councils in Iraq's 18
    governorates held on 30 January and the regional ballot for the
    Kurdish National Parliament as options when it comes to decide on how
    local the next elections will be.
    But again, provincial level elections tend to favour tribal identities
    or the wishes of locally powerful clergy. In Jordan they found that by
    dividing election areas into smaller voting districts changed the
    political agenda and the Muslim Brotherhood vote by half. In other
    countries the local focus has strengthened the hand of parties such as
    Hezbollah where they have turned to active community-level activism.
    Voters in single-member districts tend to focus on local issues, such
    as schools, health provision, electricity, and policing - and in Iraq
    the polls are clear that it is these issues that are the priority.
    Finally one of many factors driving the pre- 30 January calls for an
    Iraqi Sunni election boycott was the understanding that under the
    agreed system, that 20 percent of the Assembly seats would be the best
    they could expect in any circumstance. In a vote based purely on
    national identities, this would inevitably be seen a defeat. But in a
    vote based on local factors, sectarian matters would be less essential
    to the voters' choice.
    NB: Up to mid-January, Kurdish political parties threatened to boycott
    elections in Kirkuk, alleging that Kurdish residents of Kirkuk who had
    been expelled from the area during Saddam Hussein's `Arabisation'
    programme in the 1980s and 1990s were forbidden to vote in the
    provincial election. On 14 January the IECI ruled that displaced Kurds
    from the area - up to 100,000 people - could vote in Kirkuk for the
    al-Tamin provincial government locally. Arab and Turkmen leaders in
    Kirkuk condemned the decision, complaining that the decision gave the
    Kurds leadership of the al-Tamin local government throughout 2005,
    when Kirkuk's territorial status in Iraq is scheduled to be
    determined.
    How the media managed

      "We feel defeated and we are frustrated... We fear that we will be
      branded as the spies and collaborators of the occupation. There are
      many whom we fear: The Board of Muslim Clerics, the foreign
      Jihadis, Muqtada al-Sadr, Zarqawi's people, and finally Saddam's
      henchmen." Ali Hasan, Institute for War and Peace Reporting.

    The Iraqi media entered the start of the election campaign period on
    15 December working on what media rights groups had already dubbed the
    world's most dangerous assignment. Nearly 40 journalists and media
    workers, most of them Iraqis, were killed in the line of duty in 2004.
    Journalists are no longer seen as impartial observers - by either
    side. Reporters were beaten, threatened, detained without cause,
    kidnapped for criminal and political reasons and killed, sometimes
    deliberately, all to often carelessly by trigger-happy troops. And
    afterwards it was often impossible for reporters to discover the true
    circumstances of their colleagues' deaths - whether deliberate or
    accidental - let alone see the perpetrators brought to justice.
    This encouraged a climate of impunity, where perpetrators could expect
    to escape serious consequences for their acts. Conflicting messages
    were sent out by the US authorities - on the one hand advocating a
    free media, while on the other, closing down newspapers and detaining
    accredited journalists. The handover to an interim Iraqi government
    had not improved matters, as the new authorities had learnt bad
    lessons from their predecessors.
    "We face different dangers now and there is no law to protect
    journalists in Iraq," Hussein Muhammad al-Ajil of al-Mada newspaper
    told Iranian-American journalist Borzou Daragahi. "There are threats
    from three sides: the Americans might shoot you if they're ambushed;
    the Iraqi security forces might stop you or beat you if they suspect
    you're with the resistance; and the resistance might kill you if they
    think you're a spy."
    The danger increased in the run up to the election. On 12 September
    2004 al-Arabiya journalist Mazen Tumeisi died in an US helicopter
    attack. He was the eighth al-Arabiya staffer to die since March 2003,
    and one of three killed by the US army in circumstances that have yet
    to be fully explained..
    Al-Arabiya reporter Abdel Kader al-Saadi was detained by US troops
    despite being clearly identified as a journalist and in circumstances
    that gave rise to allegations of deliberate intimidation. His station
    has also received numerous threats from claimed supporters of the
    Jordanian insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, demanding that it
    support the "jihad" against the US occupation and Iraqi government.
    The insurgents and the country's criminals have also struck.
    Al-Sharqiyya television reporter Likaa Abdelrazzak was killed in the
    street in Baghdad on Oct. 27, Sada Wasit newspaper reporter Raad
    Beriaej al-Azzawi was kidnapped in November, one among many. Another
    Iraqi journalist reporting on police patrols in the town of Allawi was
    caught by the insurgents. They took his notes and tapes and told him
    to get out of town.
    Daragahi also reported that one journalist at al-Mada was threatened
    with death after he wrote about alleged corruption in an Iraqi
    government ministry and had to flee the country. Al-Mada newspaper was
    also targeted by rockets.
    Western journalists, largely trapped in their hotels, relied on Iraqi
    reporters (stringers) to get information they couldn't, and as the
    target profile of western journalists increased, so did the threat to
    Iraqis working with them. A leaflet circulated in al-Fallujah offered
    money to anyone giving information about Iraqi journalists,
    translators and drivers working with foreign media.
    All the Iraqi media faced similar threats, plus the attentions of an
    interim authority that has sought in the past to impose its views on
    the media and ordering it not to attach `patriotic descriptions' to
    the insurgents and criminals," and asked the media to "set aside space
    in news coverage to make the position of the Iraqi government, which
    expresses the aspirations of most Iraqis, clear," or face the
    consequences.
    Yet with most election hopefuls unable to get out and campaign on the
    streets, names of candidates kept secret until shortly before the
    election, and the vote itself judged on national issues, not local
    agendas, the Iraqi media became the main player in the campaign.
    The view is that they performed better than expected. "Sunni groups
    opposed to participating in the election regularly espouse their views
    in supporting newspapers and are often quoted in what would be
    considered the popular press, owned by independent or pro-election
    party newspapers," noted Kathleen Ridolfo of Radio Free Europe before
    the election. "Sunni groups that will participate in the elections
    despite some hesitancy over the issue have also made their platforms
    known."
    Reports and commentaries in the print media did not shy from
    discussions about the role that Islam will play in a future Iraqi
    state with a Shi'ite majority, the possible withdrawal of
    multinational forces, the Kurdish issue and the coming constitution.
    Newspapers have covered the activities of the Election Commission.
    As for television, said Ridolfo, Allawi - "whether by virtue of being
    prime minister or by intention -- has dominated the airwaves". A new
    feature for Iraqis was the use of sleekly-produced TV adverts to
    persuade people to vote and close to election day, to try and persuade
    Iraqi Sunnis to defy boycott calls. Chat shows on Iraqi radio made a
    dramatic impact. Party supporters filled streets with campaign
    posters, replaced as soon as they were ripped down by rivals with new
    ones.
    A variety of alternative promotional techniques emerged: the Iraqi
    Hezbollah published a calendar with its campaign message, another
    party distributed video CDs with party messages interspersed with
    comedy clips.
    The role of election observers
    The United Nations said from the outset that it would encourage the
    electoral commission to ask for international observers for the
    election, though the world body, having helped organise the poll,
    would not be involved in observing it. About 7,000 representatives of
    Iraqi political parties and nongovernmental organisations have
    registered to observe voting, and each list has the right to have
    members present while votes are counted.
    International monitoring of the 30 January elections in Iraq was
    heavily restricted. The United Nations said from the outset that it
    would encourage the electoral commission to ask for international
    observers for the election, though the U.N., having helped organise
    the poll, would not be involved in observing it. A group of two dozen
    experts brought together by the specially-founded International
    Mission for Iraqi Elections (IMIE) did its work from over the border
    in Amman, Jordan.
    The high profile of some of the figures concerned their national
    governments, all senior election officials from countries ranging from
    Albania to Yemen under team leader, Elections Canada chief Jean-Pierre
    Kingsley. In the end their home governments barred them from crossing
    the border into Iraq. Observer team members argued that not crossing
    the border made their job impossible, but others said that trying to
    cover the election under strict security restrictions would give an
    inaccurate impression that the vote had been properly observed and
    validated.
    In the end Kingsley's team opted for a limited mission, `auditing' and
    `assessing' the data from Iraqi observers and evaluate the process
    after the event. Their lection day studies focussed on the following
    areas:
    o legal framework
    o voter registration
    o electoral preparations
    o voter information and education
    o equitable access to media
    o out-of-country registration and voting
    o pre-polling complaint procedures
    o certification of political parties, coalitions and candidates
    o polling
    o vote counting and compilation of results
    o post-election complaints
    Some 6,000 volunteer Iraqi monitors from some 150 Iraqi organisations
    were trained by a UN sponsored programme to act as independent
    observers, registered with the Election Commission while there were a
    reported 23,000 registered observers from different political parties
    who stood by to watch the process in action. But this is an unusual
    methodology. Normally foreign observers are heavily in attendance at
    this kind of vote. The European Union declined an invitation from Iraq
    to send observers while the Carter Center, which has monitored more
    than 50 elections overseas, also decided not to send observers. The 9
    January Palestinian elections drew 800 official observers, led by
    former US president Jimmy Carter and two former European prime
    ministers. Even the October 2004 Afghanistan polls, where the threats
    to foreign observers was well stated in advance, drew more than 100
    foreign observers.
    "An election is "free" when it reflects the full expression of the
    political will of the people concerned. Freedom in this sense involves
    the ability to participate in the political process without
    intimidation, coercion, discrimination, or the abridgment of the
    rights to associate with others, to assemble, and to receive or impart
    information. The "fairness" of an election refers to the right to vote
    on the basis of equality, non-discrimination, and universality. No
    portion of the electorate should be arbitrarily disqualified, or have
    their votes given extra weight."
    Human Rights Watch
    Measures of support: Guestimates & opinion polls
    Numbers - and predictions of numbers - were the all important issue
    during the 30 January election. For the US-led forces in Iraq, the
    actual turnout of voters in the face of the threat of violence was
    used as a measure of the insurgents' weakness, for example. But the
    major numbers debate spun around the calls for an Iraqi Sunni boycott
    before the vote.
    The decision to base the 30 January elections on a national slate of
    party lists was logical, but it left Iraqi Sunnis in a quandary. The
    national slate system could leave them with only no more than 20
    percent of the representation in the National Assembly if they voted
    as Sunnis, but what would it give them if they voted as Iraqis?
    As it became clear that the closer the number of Iraqi Sunni voters
    got to 20 percent of the total votes cast, the more the new government
    would be able claim legitimacy, the issue of the Iraqi Sunni turnout
    on election day took on major significance.
    Pre-vote polls by foreign organisations focused heavily on this issue.
    A poll by the US International Republican Institute from early January
    projected that 65 percent of Iraqis were `likely' to vote, and 20
    percent `very likely'. The difference between the first and the second
    number was in the people's perceptions of threat, and the appeal of
    the very diverse arguments for a boycott.
    It was here that the Iraqi media played a key role. The threat of
    violence deterred extensive studies by opinion pollsters, and exit
    polling on the day. Security rules requiring pollsters to stand about
    700 yards away from polling stations - outside the security cordons -
    inhibited them from carrying out exit polls. Though neither are wholly
    reliable guides to the real level of voter opinion, without them the
    Iraqi media was given extra responsibility to accurately represent the
    situation before and during the vote.
    The media is always tasked to provide the information that the people
    need to make informed decisions, but here it was also backing up
    decisions on physical safety. The tone of the coverage as well as the
    facts reported played as much of a role in this. In addition there
    were non-sectarian party lists with Iraqi Sunni involvement trying to
    appeal to voters in the four predominantly Iraqi Sunni provinces where
    the threat of violence was high and campaigning was largely
    impossible.
    The local media - and to an extent, the Arab satellite TV networks -
    was one of their few means of reaching voters in these areas, and its
    effectiveness in doing so may have been the Iraqi media's greatest
    test in the run up to 30 January.
    Security
    Security was set predictably high for the election, with major
    restrictions on movements around election day. Iraq's land borders
    were closed from January 29-31; only pilgrims returning from the Hajj
    in Saudi Arabia were allowed to enter the country. Travel between
    Iraq's provinces was allowed only by special permits, and most
    civilian travel of all kinds barred on election day to obstruct car
    bombers. The ban on car travel made it difficult for some voters to
    reach the polls, especially if they have moved from the neighbourhood
    where they are registered.
    The media were required to get special accreditation and coverage from
    the polling stations was strictly regulated. A reported 100,000 Iraqi
    police and 60,000 Iraqi National Guardsmen were deployed to protect
    the stations, backed up by 150,000 US and 10,000 British soldiers.
    Radio Free Europe reported that an unsigned directive posted to a
    jihadist website in early January advised militants in Iraq to
    "prevent the continuation of participation by any members of the
    election committees through persuasion, threats, kidnapping, and other
    methods."
    It continued: "Make sure that once they agree to withdraw from the
    election committee, their withdrawal is not announced except during
    the critical and narrow time frame (so that) the government cannot
    replace them with other (workers).... This will make it extremely
    difficult to find trained people to manage the elections in such a
    short period of time."
    In the week before the election, the government announced the arrest
    of several senior aides to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, suggesting it was
    making inroads against the group that had sworn to turn polling day
    into a bloodbath. However, Reuters reported some government officials
    had cast doubt on the importance of the arrests, suggesting the
    announcements were designed to build confidence in security
    arrangements.
    Rohan Jayasekera is an associate editor at Index on Censorship and is
    currently directing Index's programmes of monitoring, publishing,
    training and advocacy in Iraq.
    Journalists & media workers killed in Iraq during 2004
    1. Duraid Isa Mohammed, producer and translator, CNN - 27 January 2004
    2. Yasser Khatab, driver, CNN - 27 January 2004
    3. Haymin Mohamed Salih, Qulan TV - 01 February 2004
    4. Ayoub Mohamed, Kurdistan TV - 01 February 2004
    5. Gharib Mohamed Salih, Kurdistan TV - 01 February 2004
    6. Semko Karim Mohyideen, freelance - 01 February 2004
    7. Abdel Sattar Abdel Karim, al-Ta'akhi - 01 February 2004
    8. Safir Nader, Qulan TV - 01 February 2004
    9. Ali Al-Khatib, Al-Arabiya - 18 March 2004
    10. Ali Abdel Aziz, Al-Arabiya - 18 March 2004
    11. Nadia Nasrat, Diyala Television - 18 March 2004
    12. Majid Rachid, technician, Diyala Television - 18 March 2004
    13. Mohamad Ahmad, security agent, Diyala Television - 18 March 2004
    14. Bourhan Mohammad al-Louhaybi, ABC News - 26 March 2004
    15. Omar Hashim Kamal, translator, Time - 26 March 2004
    16. Assad Kadhim, Al-Iraqiya TV - 19 April 2004
    17. Hussein Saleh, driver, Al-Iraquiya TV - 29 April 2004
    18. Mounir Bouamrane, TVP - 07 May 2004
    19. Waldemar Milewicz, TVP - 07 May 2004
    20. Rachid Hamid Wali, cameraman assistant, Al-Jazira - 21 May 2004
    21. Unknown, translator - 25 May 2004
    22. Kotaro Ogawa, Nikkan Gendai - 27 May 2004
    23. Shinsuke Hashida, Nikkan Gendai - 27 May 2004
    24. Unknown, translator - 27 May 2004
    25. Mahmoud Ismael Daood, bodyguard, Al-Sabah al-Jadid - 29 May 2004
    26. Samia Abdeljabar, driver, Al-Sabah al-Jadid - 29 May 2004
    27. Sahar Saad Eddine Nouami, Al-Hayat Al-Gadida - 03 June 2004
    28. Mahmoud Hamid Abbas, ZDF - 15 August 2004
    29. Hossam Ali, freelance. - 15 August 2004
    30. Jamal Tawfiq Salmane, Gazeta Wyborcza - 25 August 2004
    31. Enzo Baldoni, Diario della settimana - 26 August 2004
    32. Mazen al-Tomaizi, Al-Arabiya - 12 September 2004
    33. Ahmad Jassem, Nivive television - 07 October 2004
    34. Dina Mohamad Hassan, Al Hurriya Television - 14 October 2004
    35. Karam Hussein, European Pressphoto Agency - 14 October 2004
    36. Liqaa Abdul-Razzaq, Al-Sharqiya - 27 October 2004
    37. Dhia Najim, Reuters - 01 November 2004
    Reporters sans Fronti?res
    30.01.2005

From checker at panix.com  Wed Feb  2 21:42:48 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 16:42:48 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Index on Censorship: United States: Taboo subjects on
	campus
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502021641210.9423@panix1.panix.com>

United States: Taboo subjects on campus
http://www.indexonline.org/en/news/articles/2005/1/united-states-taboo-subjects-on-campus.shtml
Index on Censorship

    How free is campus speech?

     Furore over Harvard president's views raise wider issues. By Sara B.
                           Miller & Amanda Paulson

    Harvard University president Lawrence Summers says his comment that
    innate differences between the sexes may partly account for male
    dominance in science and maths - was intended to provoke discussion.
    Instead they have ended up raising an even larger question: Have
    universities become so steeped in sensitivities that certain topics
    can't be openly discussed? Sara B. Miller & Amanda Paulson discuss.
    In the weeks since Harvard University president Lawrence Summers
    suggested that innate differences between the sexes may partly account
    for male dominance in science and math, the ensuing frenzy of
    discussion has become a kind of national Rorschach test.
    Editorialists excoriate his sexism or applaud his candour. The
    National Organization for Women has called for his resignation.
    Academics are poring over studies that deal with nature, nurture and
    gender differences.
    Dr. Summers's comments - which he said were intended to provoke
    discussion about why women were underrepresented in top science posts
    - have ended up raising an even larger question: Have universities
    become so steeped in sensitivities that certain topics can't be openly
    discussed?
    Historically, ivory towers have been society's bulwarks of free
    intellectual exploration. But critics say that role is jeopardized on
    issues ranging from gender and race to religion and the politics of
    the Middle East.
    "I could give example after example where speech that is considered
    offensive by any particular group that has a disproportionate amount
    of power on the campus is subject to censorship and repression," says
    David French, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in
    Education, a civil liberties organization that works on college
    campuses. "It gives the most sensitive person the veto power on debate
    and discussion."
    Many disagree with that assessment. But the Summers flap has revived a
    longstanding debate on the subject - often waged along ideological
    lines over whether campuses are hostile to those with conservative
    ideas.
    At Columbia University, for example, a different sort of controversy
    has been brewing about what can and can't be said. In this case, it's
    not an authority figure who's ruffled feathers, but students. The
    tensions came to a head this fall when a documentary, Columbia
    Unbecoming, filmed Jewish students alleging that pro-Palestinian
    professors, particularly from the school's department of Middle East
    and Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC), were intimidating them.
    In the film, one student who had served in the Israeli Army says a
    professor asked him how many Palestinians he had killed when he stood
    up to ask a question.
    The charges have angered both students and professors, with both sides
    waving the banner of academic freedom. Columbia President Lee
    Bollinger has formed an ad hoc faculty committee to investigate the
    student complaints, while one professor in MEALAC has likened the
    situation to a "witch hunt."
    While teachers say they feel threatened (one has cancelled his most
    controversial course), the students say theirs is the speech that's
    being suppressed - and that the pro-Palestinian professors have
    crossed a line into unacceptable territory. "I don't think I can go
    before class and say something blatantly racist," says Ariel Beery, a
    Columbia senior who appears in the documentary. "Creating a collegial
    environment in order to work together is what a university is about."
    Others have more sympathy for the professors. The controversy "raises
    concerns that political disagreement is being conflated with
    intimidation and harassment," says Donna Lieberman, executive director
    of the New York Civil Liberties Union, who calls the student attacks a
    throwback to the McCarthy era. The fact that the students have so
    publicly denounced the professors and administration, she says, shows
    that students are "quite empowered" to express opinions.
    The controversies at Harvard and Columbia are, of course, quite
    different in terms of both the complaints and who's making them. But
    both touch on the question of whether academia is increasingly
    unfriendly to vigorous debate.
    Summers's repeated apologies, in particular, angered many op-ed
    columnists who felt they were evidence of academic orthodoxy being
    enforced.
    "It would be interesting to know what would have happened if Larry
    Summers, after the controversy first emerged, had called a press
    conference and said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, this is what the
    university is all about,' and stopped there. I think he would have
    been a national hero," says Charles Murray, a scholar at the American
    Enterprise Institute. Mr. Murray caused a similar storm a decade ago
    when he co-wrote The Bell Curve, suggesting that there might be innate
    differences among races regarding intelligence.
    That idea of inequality, he says, is still one of the biggest taboos.
    "There's just a part of the dogma in the university that centres on
    equality as a good in and of itself, not just equality of outcome, but
    equality of the raw material. It's something we didn't really
    anticipate when we wrote The Bell Curve."
    Evalyn Gates, a cosmologist at the University of Chicago, sees it
    differently. It's the not that the idea of studying innate differences
    is so offensive, she says, referring to the Summers's remarks. Rather
    it's that other, larger reasons exist for women's poor representation
    in scientific fields - documented gender bias both early on and within
    academia, and a culture that makes it hard to balance family life and
    work. Biological nature, she says, is "a red herring" compared to
    these issues of nurture.
    In addition, there's the issue of who's making the comments. "If some
    researcher at a conference says he wants to study this possibility [of
    gender difference], that's fine," Dr. Gates says. "But the fact that
    the president of Harvard has said it I think has done damage."
    The charge that universities are intolerant of ideas that clash with
    the accepted line of thinking has been around at least since the
    1960s, and gained traction during the culture wars of the 1980s and
    '90s. Usually the complaints come from conservatives who consider
    academia too liberal.
    One recent flash point involves bake sales at which items cost
    different amounts based on a student's race, used to protest
    affirmative-action policies, which several universities have banned.
    Another hot topic is religion. A question du jour: Do universities
    have the right to refuse to allow religious clubs to require that
    members hold certain beliefs?
    But demanding free speech, some academics point out, cuts both ways.
    "On the one hand, professors should be free to pursue whatever lines
    of inquiry they think academically sound," says Jonathan Knight,
    director of the American Association of University Professors'
    programme on academic freedom and tenure. "But they had best be
    prepared to deal with the criticism, no matter how acid."
    At Harvard, Summers has faced such criticism numerous times since he
    took the helm in 2001. He's angered some with remarks ranging from a
    rebuke of a celebrated black professor to praise of patriotism - a
    style that some call candour, and other see as evidence that he's
    insufficiently aware of the power of his words.
    At the recent conference, for instance, he only suggested that gender
    difference be studied as a possible reason for women's absence in the
    sciences. "But the headlines say, 'Harvard president says men are
    better at science than women,'" says Gates, the University of Chicago
    professor. "That kind of phrase repeated over and over, especially
    when it reinforces an underlying concept people have already, can be
    extremely damaging."
    This article first appeared in the [12]Christian Science Monitor. It
    is republished with permission.
    29.01.2005


From checker at panix.com  Wed Feb  2 21:43:36 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 16:43:36 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] BH: False Memory Creation Recorded
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502021642500.9423@panix1.panix.com>

False Memory Creation Recorded
http://www.betterhumans.com/Print/index.aspx?ArticleID=2005-02-01-3

Brain imaging reveals biology of faulty eyewitness accounts

    Betterhumans Staff
    2/1/2005 1:11 PM

    Brain imaging has provided insight into faulty eyewitness accounts.

    Research has shown that people's memories of complex events can be
    altered by misleading information provided after the event has
    occurred.

    Using noninvasive brain imaging methods, Yoko Akado and [8]Craig Stark
    of [9]Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland have now looked
    deeper into this process by examining how the brain encodes
    misinformation when creating a false memory.

    Misleading slide show

    For the study, participants were first shown a slide show of a man
    stealing a woman's wallet and then hiding behind a door.

    They were then shown a slightly different slide show and told it was
    the same sequence.

    Two days later, participants took a memory test in which they were
    asked to recall details of the slide show and which of the two
    presentations contained the information.

    Predicting misinformation

    Stark and Akado found that participants' brain activity predicted
    whether their memories would be accurate or false.

    For memories falsely associated with the first slide show when viewing
    the second, the researchers found that there was weaker activity in
    particular brain areas such as the prefrontal cortex.

    The researchers suggest that activity in the prefrontal cortex is
    linked with encoding memory context.

    Weak activity during the misinformation phase therefore suggests that
    the details of the second experience were poorly placed in context and
    as a result more easily confused.

    The research is reported in the journal [10]Learning & Memory.

References

    8. http://neuroscience.jhu.edu/peopledetail.asp?ID=320
    9. http://www.jhu.edu/
   10. http://www.learnmem.org/


From checker at panix.com  Wed Feb  2 21:50:17 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 16:50:17 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: Really?: The Claim: Shoveling Snow Can Set Off a
	Heart Attack
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502021650050.9423@panix1.panix.com>

The New York Times > Health > Really?: The Claim: Shoveling Snow Can
Set Off a Heart Attack
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/01/health/01real.html
5.2.1

    REALLY?

The Claim: Shoveling Snow Can Set Off a Heart Attack

    By ANAHAD O'CONNOR

    T HE FACTS As Americans dig their way out of the blizzard that
    blanketed parts of the Northeast last month, reports of people
    suffering heart attacks, snow shovel in hand, have surfaced. Many
    people do not take the risk seriously. But the claim that clearing
    snow is so strenuous that it can be deadly is no exaggeration, experts
    say.

    Just being out in the cold raises blood pressure. Add to that the fact
    that shoveling is a tension-inducing isometric exercise, like weight
    lifting, and that it is often performed by older, otherwise sedentary
    men, and it is no surprise that the activity is linked to heart
    attacks, said Dr. Jacob I. Haft at the University of Medicine and
    Dentistry of New Jersey.

    In a small study published in The New England Journal of Medicine in
    1996, Dr. Haft found that most heart attacks from shoveling resulted
    from trauma to coronary arteries, rupturing plaques that disrupt blood
    flow.

    Most victims have no history of heart disease. In some cases, up to a
    quarter of those afflicted are women, a 1999 study by the National
    Center for Environmental Health found.

    When shoveling must be done, it is best to do it early, when the snow
    is lighter, and in short stints, not all at once. Any exercise that
    involves the upper extremities puts added stress on the cardiovascular
    system, Dr. Haft said, so be cautious.

    THE BOTTOM LINE Clearing snow is a common trigger of heart attacks,
    particularly in people with no previous history of cardiovascular
    disease.


From checker at panix.com  Wed Feb  2 21:52:11 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 16:52:11 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Fearing Violence,
 Hamilton College Cancels Speech by Professor Who
 Called 9/11 Victims 'Little Eichmanns'
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502021644400.9423@panix1.panix.com>

Fearing Violence, Hamilton College Cancels Speech by Professor Who Called
9/11 Victims 'Little Eichmanns'
News bulletin from the Chronicle of Higher Education, 5.2.2
http://chronicle.com/prm/daily/2005/02/2005020206n.htm

[NYT writeup appended.]

    by [45]By SCOTT SMALLWOOD

    Citing what it called "credible threats of violence," Hamilton College
    has canceled a speech planned for Thursday by a professor who has
    called those who died in the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center
    "little Eichmanns."

    A storm of controversy has centered on the Clinton, N.Y., college in
    recent days as many people, including families of September 11
    victims, protested the planned speech by Ward Churchill, a professor
    of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

    Shortly after the attacks, he wrote that those killed were not
    innocent civilians but a "technocratic corps at the very heart of
    America's global financial empire." He went on to compare them to
    Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi official in charge of sending millions of
    Jews to concentration camps.

    Mr. Churchill was originally invited to speak at Hamilton by the
    Kirkland Project for the Study of Gender, Society, and Culture. Nancy
    Rabinowitz, a professor of comparative literature and the project
    director, had invited him to speak on American Indian issues, but
    after other professors and relatives of September 11 victims
    complained, she says, administrators asked her to change the topic.
    The event, retitled "Limits of Dissent," became about the controversy
    itself.

    As the calls to cancel the event increased, Joan Hinde Stewart,
    Hamilton's president, at first said the college would defend free
    speech by allowing it to go forward. But on Tuesday, she announced
    that holding the event, which had been expanded to a panel discussion,
    would be too dangerous.

    "We have done our best to protect what we hold most dear, the right to
    speak, think, and study freely," she said in a written statement. "But
    there is a higher responsibility that this institution carries, and
    that is the safety and security of our students, faculty, staff, and
    the community in which we live."

    Before the cancellation, the college had taken the unusual step of
    posting on its Web site hundreds of the very negative e-mail messages
    it had received about inviting Mr. Churchill to speak. Critics
    included prospective students who said they now would not attend
    Hamilton, parents disturbed by what they called "hate speech," and
    many television viewers who heard about the controversy on The
    O'Reilly Factor. One wrote: "I am sure the KKK and Nazi promoters
    would not be invited to speak at Hamilton. ... This is not a question
    of free speech. Mr. Churchill can say whatever he wants. ... It is a
    question of decency and respect. Obviously Hamilton has neither."

    Why this particular event blew up into such a firestorm remains
    unclear. Mr. Churchill is a regular speaker on issues of indigenous
    cultures on campuses across the country. He spoke last month at Miami
    University in Ohio, and about a year ago he spoke not far from
    Hamilton at Syracuse University. Those appearances did not generate
    such reaction.

    Ms. Rabinowitz suggested the Hamilton event may have grabbed media
    attention because the victims' families got involved and because the
    college had just recently been in the news for hiring Susan Rosenberg,
    a former radical leftist who spent 16 years in federal prison.

    Ms. Rabinowitz said she was saddened by the president's decision to
    cancel the event. "I don't sit in her shoes," she said. "I wasn't in
    the room when they were talking about it." But the decision will chill
    free speech, she said: "Not just that it's canceled because of the
    threats, but it will make you rethink other events."

    In Colorado, meanwhile, Gov. Bill Owens on Tuesday called for Mr.
    Churchill to resign from the faculty. The professor had already
    announced on Monday that he was stepping down as chairman of the
    ethnic-studies department but that he would remain as a faculty
    member. In addition, the University of Colorado's Board of Regents
    plans to hold a special meeting on Thursday to discuss Mr. Churchill.

    Attempts to reach Mr. Churchill were unsuccessful. Ms. Rabinowitz said
    that the professor was disappointed that the Hamilton event had been
    canceled and that he and his wife, who was also scheduled to speak,
    had been prepared to attend the discussion despite receiving death
    threats.

    In a written statement released on Monday, Mr. Churchill said the
    analysis of his comments had been "grossly inaccurate." He said he was
    not defending the September 11 attacks, "but simply pointing out that
    if U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction
    abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is
    returned."

    He also said that the best way to avoid another such attack is for
    American citizens to force the U.S. government to comply with the rule
    of law. "The lesson of Nuremburg is that this is not only our right,
    but our obligation," he said. "To the extent we shirk this
    responsibility, we, like the 'good Germans' of the 1930s and 40s, are
    complicit in its actions and have no legitimate basis for complaint
    when we suffer the consequences."
      _________________________________________________________________

    Background article from The Chronicle:
      * [61]Former Radical Withdraws From Hamilton College Post (1/7/2005)

References

   45. mailto:scott.smallwood at chronicle.com
   61. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i18/18a00701.htm

E-mail me if you have problems getting the referenced articles.
-----------
College Cancels Speech by Professor Who Disparaged 9/11 Attack Victims
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/02/education/02hamilton.html?ei=5070&en=f2dad76faf777b82&ex=1108011600&pagewanted=print&position=
New York Times, 5.2.2

    By PATRICK D. HEALY

    CLINTON, N.Y., Feb. 1 - Over the last five days, tiny Hamilton
    College in upstate New York has been barraged with more than 6,000
    e-mail messages full of fury, some threatening violence. Some donors
    have canceled pledges to an ambitious capital campaign. And
    prospective students have withdrawn applications or refused to enroll.

    Then, on Monday night, a caller to the college threatened to bring a
    gun to campus.

    Stunned and frightened, Hamilton leaders sought to end the turmoil on
    Tuesday by canceling the event that set it off: a planned speech by a
    Colorado professor who was invited to talk about American Indian
    activism but whose earlier essay on the Sept. 11 attacks fueled the
    criticism and threats. The professor, Ward Churchill of the University
    of Colorado, Boulder, wrote disparagingly of the victims inside the
    twin towers and referred to them at one point as "little Eichmanns," a
    reference to Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Holocaust.

    The speech, scheduled for Thursday night, was canceled for security
    reasons, Hamilton officials said. Mr. Churchill said he and his wife
    had received more than 100 death threats, and other warnings of
    violence mentioned Hamilton officials, including the president, Joan
    Hinde Stewart. Yet the uproar also adds a twist to decades of battles
    over free speech on campus, showing the powerful emotional resonance
    of Sept. 11.

    In a telephone interview on Tuesday night, Mr. Churchill called the
    threats against Hamilton College "American terrorism." He urged those
    making the threats to "take a look in the mirror."

    Matt House, a freshman studying government, said, "We have
    controversial speakers on campus all the time, but I think everyone's
    so upset because it's only been three years since 9/11 and this is
    striking New York too close to home."

    "In this case, 9/11 trumps free speech, I guess," added Brian J.
    Farnkoff, a senior majoring in public policy. "In the end, free speech
    couldn't happen at Hamilton."

    In recent days, Gov. George E. Pataki said he was appalled at Mr.
    Churchill's remarks and at Hamilton for inviting him, and a Fox News
    host, Bill O'Reilly, repeatedly urged viewers to e-mail the college in
    protest. Ms. Stewart, the president, as well as the professors who
    invited Mr. Churchill, said they did not know about his essay before
    asking him to campus. She denounced his comments in December, but said
    rescinding the invitation would harm First Amendment principles.

    "His remarks about the victims of 9/11 are repellent, but our reaction
    to 'repellent' is how we test the right to free speech," Ms. Stewart
    said in an interview on Tuesday shortly before addressing the turn of
    events with the Hamilton faculty, who gave her a standing ovation.

    "We did our best to protect the principles and the values that we
    believe in - the right to speak, to study, to teach freely - but the
    point came that I simply felt that this threat was too large for us to
    handle," said Ms. Stewart, who was told by campus security that even
    additional police officers could not ensure safety.

    Hamilton, a campus of 1,750 students, has always had a reputation for
    accepting divergent voices. In November, the same program that invited
    this speaker - the Kirkland Project for the Study of Gender, Society
    and Culture - hired Susan Rosenberg, a former member of the Weather
    Underground, after her release from prison on explosives charges. She
    later withdrew in the face of protest.

    On another end of the political spectrum, the scholar Elizabeth
    Fox-Genovese equated abortion to murder during her talk to a packed,
    polite campus auditorium last Thursday. According to The Spectator,
    the weekly student newspaper, she also said that empowering humans to
    choose who lives and who dies "opens the road to the Holocaust."

    Mr. Churchill - who had planned to give his remarks Thursday in a flak
    jacket with two bodyguards in tow - was originally scheduled to speak
    by himself, but Ms. Stewart and others added three people to the panel
    and changed its focus to free speech. One of those added was Mr.
    Churchill's wife, who is also a scholar. The Churchills were to be
    paid $3,500, but volunteered this week to forgo the money because of
    the complaints.

    In his original essay, Mr. Churchill wrote that the thousands killed
    at the World Trade Center had played a role in American sanctions on
    Iraq that "translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling
    distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants."

    "If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of
    visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little
    Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd
    really be interested in hearing about it," he wrote.

    The bulk of the outraged e-mail messages began arriving last weekend,
    after Mr. O'Reilly of Fox had urged viewers to contact Hamilton.

    "If you allow this vile individual to speak you forever label yourself
    as the Auschwitz of American colleges," stated one e-mail message
    among nearly 400 that Hamilton posted on its Web site to show the
    reaction to Mr. Churchill.

    "Would he feel the same way about his own wife or child if they worked
    in the W.T.C. and were lost because they went to work that day," wrote
    the spouse of a rescue-operations captain who was killed. "He should
    be banned on the grounds of slandering the victims of such a brutal
    terrorist attack."

    Ms. Stewart said she alone received 6,000 messages, describing them as
    "ranging from angry to profane, obscene, violent," and asserted that
    Hamilton's actions had been mischaracterized by many of the writers,
    as well as by Mr. O'Reilly.

    Controversial speakers are nothing new to academic institutions: For
    years, Leonard Jeffries of the City University of New York would
    create a stir on campus and elsewhere with provocative remarks, and a
    Columbia University faculty panel is now investigating remarks by some
    pro-Palestinian professors that offended some Jewish students.

    In 2002, hundreds of Harvard students protested when a graduating
    senior was chosen to deliver a commencement speech entitled, "The
    American Jihad." The student, Zayed Yasin, who received a death
    threat, said his speech was a defense of the meaning of jihad as a
    nonviolent struggle to do right. After negotiations with a
    representative of Harvard's Jewish community, Mr. Yasin changed the
    title to "Of Faith and Citizenship," and delivered his remarks under
    tight security.

    Later in 2002, Harvard College's English Department canceled a campus
    reading by a poet who had once referred in verse to the Israeli Army
    as a "Zionist SS." and had criticized American-born Jewish settlers.
    As at Hamilton, professors at Harvard said they had not known about
    the remarks of the poet, Tom Paulin, before inviting him.

    As Hamilton was trying to contain the outrage on Tuesday, political
    and university officials in Colorado were criticizing Mr. Churchill.

    Gov. Bill Owens, a Republican, called on him to resign from the
    university, while Representative Mark Udall, a Democrat, said in a
    statement that the professor was "factually inaccurate" about the
    terrorist attacks and owed the families of victims an apology. Mr.
    Churchill gave up his chairmanship of the ethnic studies department
    this week, and a spokeswoman said that the university's governing
    body, the nine-member Board of Regents, would meet Thursday to discuss
    his future.

    Kirk Johnson and Michelle York contributed reporting for this article.


From checker at panix.com  Wed Feb  2 21:56:09 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 16:56:09 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] CHE: (Lamar) Congress Should Not Impose Cost Controls
 on Colleges, Senate Republican Says
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502021652310.9423@panix1.panix.com>

Congress Should Not Impose Cost Controls on Colleges, Senate Republican Says
News bulletin from the Chronicle of Higher Education, 5.2.2
http://chronicle.com/prm/daily/2005/02/2005020202n.htm

[Hooray for Lamar. I've long thought him the best Presidential candidate 
whose changes of getting elected were greater than minuscule. Note esp. 
what he said about Larry Summers.]

    [45]By KELLY FIELD
    Washington

    In a far-ranging speech delivered on Tuesday, Sen. Lamar Alexander, a
    Tennessee Republican and former U.S. secretary of education, spoke out
    against price controls and political correctness on college campuses.

    "The idea of price controls from Washington for colleges and
    universities is a bad idea," Senator Alexander said at the annual
    meeting of the National Association of Independent Colleges and
    Universities. "It's a bad idea because what has made our system of
    higher education superior is autonomy and choice."

    The association, known as Naicu, strongly opposes price controls and
    last year lobbied against legislation proposed by Rep. Howard P.
    (Buck) McKeon, a California Republican, that would have punished
    colleges for large tuition increases ([62]The Chronicle, October 17,
    2003). Mr. McKeon withdrew that bill in March -- citing efforts by
    colleges to curb costs -- but later included provisions establishing
    institutional reporting requirements in another bill proposed as part
    of Congress's work to renew the Higher Education Act.

    Under that bill, which House Republicans are expected to reintroduce
    soon, colleges that increased their tuition and other costs of
    attendance by more than twice the rate of inflation for three
    consecutive years would be required to provide the government with an
    explanation of the jumps. In addition, the colleges would have to
    outline the steps that they planned to take to slow the rate of the
    increase.

    If colleges failed to comply with that plan for two years, the
    institutions would be placed on a government watch list and would have
    to provide the department with a detailed accounting of all of their
    costs and expenditures, which would be made public. In addition, the
    Education Department's inspector general would be allowed to audit
    those colleges "to determine the cause of the institution[s']
    failure," the bill states.

    While Mr. Alexander supported colleges on price controls, he chastised
    them for their double-talk on diversity, suggesting that some colleges
    have become intolerant of unpopular views. As evidence, he cited
    recent attacks on the president of Harvard University, Lawrence
    Summers, for his comments on women in math and science. Mr. Summers
    was vilified by some academics for suggesting that one reason fewer
    women make it to the top in mathematics and science may be because of
    innate differences of ability from men.

    Colleges and universities "get a little obnoxious sometimes in their
    self-righteousness," said Mr. Alexander. "Institutions that preach
    diversity and then don't allow diverse questions to be asked are not
    doing a very good job of what I think colleges and universities ought
    to do."

    Meanwhile, Mr. Alexander urged colleges to combat the view "that every
    time we increase Pell grants, tuition increases." That theory was
    advanced by a recent report by the Cato Institute, a conservative
    think tank, that concluded that increased student aid has driven up
    college tuition by increasing enrollment. The report recommended
    phasing out federal assistance to higher education over a 12-year
    period.

    Finally, Mr. Alexander vowed to work with his colleagues to reduce
    delays in processing visa applications for foreign students and
    scholars.

    "We're going do our best in Congress over the next year," he said, "to
    try to put a focus on whatever the federal government can do to make
    it easier for foreign students and researchers to come here."
      _________________________________________________________________

    Background articles from The Chronicle:
      * [63]Harvard's President Wonders Aloud About Women in Science and
        Math (1/28/2005)
      * [64]Report Blames Federal Student Aid for Rising Tuition and Urges
        Elimination of Aid Programs (1/26/2005)
      * [65]Public Colleges See a 10% Rise in Tuition for 2004-5
        (10/29/2004)
      * [66]College Groups Displeased With Higher-Education Legislation
        (6/11/2004)
      * [67]Plan to Punish Big Increases in Tuition Is Dropped (3/12/2004)
      * [68]A House Divided Over Tuition-Control Bill (1/23/2004)
      * [69]High Stakes on Tuition: Colleges Must Control It or Face Stiff
        Penalties, Key Congressman Says (5/2/2003)

References

   45. mailto:Kelly.Field at chronicle.com
   63. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i21/21a01201.htm
   64. http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/01/2005012602n.htm
   65. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i10/10a00101.htm
   66. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v50/i40/40a01901.htm
   67. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v50/i27/27a00101.htm
   68. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v50/i20/20a02702.htm
   69. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v49/i34/34a02901.htm

E-mail me if you have problems getting the referenced articles.


From checker at panix.com  Wed Feb  2 21:57:08 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 16:57:08 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Nature: Profile: Margaret Atwood
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502021656190.9423@panix1.panix.com>

Profile: Margaret Atwood
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050131/pf/nbt0205-163_pf.html

    Nature Biotechnology
    Published online: 31 January 2005; | doi:10.1038/nbt0205-163

Profile: Margaret Atwood

    Sabine Lou?t

    Dublin
    Imagine a world in which biotech could satiate every human desire and
    correct every human imperfection. Margaret Atwood's latest novel
    paints a picture and it's not all that rosy.


    "It is not biotech that's dangerous," claims Margaret Atwood, her
    sparkly blue eyes betraying the intensity of her conviction. "It is
    people's fears and desires." Her latest book, Oryx and Crake, paints a
    grim picture of the future in which a genetically engineered virus has
    devastated the world, leaving behind a nightmarish wasteland where
    insects proliferate and chimeric animals run amok.
    Atwood, a Canadian author with more than 30 books of fiction, short
    stories, poetry and literary critiques to her credit, has created a
    chilling vision. Even the precatastrophic world in Oryx and Crake is
    bleak--fixated on physical perfection and longevity, with economic and
    intellectual disparities reminiscent of our own. Biotech is the tool
    of the elite, who live in tightly protected compounds. Everyone else
    remains on the outside.
    Despite the negative tone of her book, Atwood stresses she is not
    antibiotech. "Biotech is not dangerous," [it is] neutral," she says.
    Only its uses "can be evil," she adds, especially once business
    interests kick in. By writing the book--part of a long dystopian
    tradition in fiction, including Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's
    1984--Atwood wants to warn her readers by presenting "a blueprint of
    what you don't want to happen."
    According to John Durant, professor of public understanding of science
    at Imperial College, London, similar to other popular media, Atwood's
    book provides "a thermometer...showing what's going on in public
    opinion." At the same time, he adds, it shapes and reinforces the
    public's opinion about biotech. Indeed, Atwood hopes her readers "may
    at least become aware of the problems facing them" in a society that
    has come to rely heavily on biotech and that "they may then give some
    thought to what they are going to do about those kinds of problems."
     "It is not biotech that's dangerous," claims Margaret Atwood, "It is
    people's fears and desires."
    One of the key themes of the novel is the corrupting influence of
    commerce on science. When business interests dominate "you enter a
    skewed universe where science can no longer operate as science,"
    Atwood says. The book takes this to extremes. For example, biotech
    company HelthWyzer puts "hostile bioforms" into vitamin pills while at
    the same time marketing antidotes. "The best diseases, from a business
    point of view," the author writes with irony, "would be those that
    cause a lingering illness."
    Some see Atwood's book as a bellwether for public concerns about the
    impact of biotech on society. According to Evelyn Fox Keller,
    professor of history and philosophy of science at the Massachusetts
    Institute of Technology in Cambridge, many of these fears result from
    the tendency of scientists to hype the importance of genes in
    determining who we are. "If the public has been persuaded that this is
    the case, no wonder they are alarmed." It does not matter whether that
    anxiety is misplaced.
    Atwood grew up among biologists; the "boys at the lab" mentioned in
    the novel's acknowledgments are the students and postdocs who worked
    with her father at a forest-insect research station in Northern
    Quebec. What's more, her brother, Harold, is a professor of physiology
    and zoology at the University of Toronto. The genesis of Oryx and
    Crake comes from her lifelong observance of, and interest, in science.
    Several of the ideas in the book are drawn directly from her childhood
    in Canada and later stays in the United States, Europe and elsewhere.
    During her time in Australia, for example, she became acquainted with
    the ecological havoc wrought by colonial introduction of nonindigenous
    species, such as pigs. In Oryx and Crake, Australian pigs translate
    into transgenic oddities called 'pigoons'--animals engineered to
    provide transplant organs, rather like those that have come from
    Cambridge, UK-based biotech company Immutran, now part of Novartis in
    Basel. These pigoons run wild after escaping the highly secluded
    laboratories where they were created. They have not only humanized
    organs but also human neocortex tissue, enabling them to compete with
    wild relatives and with humans in the struggle for survival following
    the pandemic.
     According to Atwood, when business interests dominate "you enter a
    skewed universe where science can no longer operate as science."
    When pressed for present-day concerns in science ethics that prompted
    her book, Atwood says she feels particularly strongly about the loss
    of independence of scientists, citing the suppression of negative data
    by corporate sponsors. "If you get results that are contrary to what
    you want to market, the temptation to suppress those results is very
    strong," she says. Such competing interests are becoming increasingly
    common as governments across the world encourage more and more
    scientists to become involved in commercial enterprises.
    Atwood describes her book as speculative, rather than science,
    fiction. Joan Leach, editor of the academic journal Social
    Epistemology and a lecturer in science communication at the University
    of Queensland, in Brisbane, Australia, agrees. "It's a kind of
    cultural critique," she explains. How far should society allow biotech
    to be exploited on the basis of commercial imperatives? And what are
    the moral and ethical responsibilities to limit the application of
    biotech? In her book, Atwood describes the 'ChickieNob,' a type of
    genetically enhanced chicken with a dozen wings on two legs. With such
    creations, the book's hero wonders "has [some line] been crossed, some
    boundary transgressed? How much is too much, how far is too far?"
    The lack of oversight for biotech applications is a key problem for
    biotech today, according to Atwood. She believes an independent
    watchdog is needed to provide guidance. It would be somewhat like a
    "restaurant reviewer," she says, forcing scientists to "tell the
    truth" and rejecting biotech applications that might be ethically
    dubious or morally distasteful. She also suggests that new legislation
    should be introduced to protect whistleblowers who wish to come
    forward and reveal corruption or conflicts in corporate-sponsored
    research.
    Biotechnology "is the biggest toy box in the world that we've now
    opened," Atwood says. The question is should those toys come with more
    health warnings?

From checker at panix.com  Wed Feb  2 21:58:13 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 16:58:13 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Reuters: Half of Bankruptcies in U.S. Due to Medical
	Bills 
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502021657160.9423@panix1.panix.com>

Half of Bankruptcies in U.S. Due to Medical Bills
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=571&u=/nm/20050202/hl_nm/healt
h_bankruptcy_dc&printer=1
Wed Feb 2, 4:28 AM ET

[Thanks to James Hughes for this.]

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Half of all U.S. bankruptcies are caused by
soaring medical bills and most people sent into debt by illness are
middle-class workers with health insurance, researchers said on
Wednesday.

The study, published in the journal Health Affairs, estimated that
medical bankruptcies affect about 2 million Americans every year, if
both debtors and their dependents, including about 700,000 children, are
counted.

"Our study is frightening. Unless you're Bill Gates (news - web sites)
you're just one serious illness away from bankruptcy," said Dr. David
Himmelstein, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical
School (news - web sites) who led the study.

"Most of the medically bankrupt were average Americans who happened to
get sick. Health insurance offered little protection."

The researchers got the permission of bankruptcy judges in California,
Illinois, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas to survey 931 people who
filed for bankruptcy.

"About half cited medical causes, which indicates that 1.9 to 2.2
million Americans (filers plus dependents) experienced medical
bankruptcy," they wrote.

"Among those whose illnesses led to bankruptcy, out-of-pocket costs
averaged $11,854 since the start of illness; 75.7 percent had insurance
at the onset of illness."

The average bankrupt person surveyed had spent $13,460 on co-payments,
deductibles and uncovered services if they had private insurance. People
with no insurance spent an average of $10,893 for such out-of-pocket
expenses.

"Even middle-class insured families often fall prey to financial
catastrophe when sick," the researchers wrote.

Bankruptcy specialists said the numbers seemed sound.

"From 1982 to 1989, I reviewed every bankruptcy petition filed in South
Carolina, and during that period I came to the conclusion that there
were two major causes of bankruptcy: medical bills and divorce," said
George Cauthen, a lawyer at Columbia-based law firm Nelson Mullins Riley
& Scarborough LLP.

"Each accounted, roughly, for about a third of all individual filings in
South Carolina."

He said fewer than 1 percent of all bankruptcy filings were due to
credit card debt. "That truly is a myth," Cauthen said in a telephone
interview.

Cauthen said he was not surprised to hear that so many of the bankrupt
people in the study were middle-class.

"Usually people who have something to protect file bankruptcy," he said.
"The truly indigent -- people that we see on the street -- there is no
relief that we can give them."

Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a Harvard associate professor and physician who
advocates for universal health coverage, said the study supported
demands for health reform.

"Covering the uninsured isn't enough. We must also upgrade and guarantee
continuous coverage for those who have insurance," Woolhandler said in a
statement.

She said many employers and politicians were pressing for what she
called "stripped-down plans so riddled with co-payments, deductibles and
exclusions that serious illness leads straight to bankruptcy."


From checker at panix.com  Wed Feb  2 22:00:47 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 17:00:47 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] CHE: Geology Course Gives Students a Down-to-Earth
 Understanding of Sherlock Holmes's Worke
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502021659230.9423@panix1.panix.com>

Geology Course Gives Students a Down-to-Earth Understanding of Sherlock 
Holmes's Worke
The Chronicle of Higher Education, 5.1.7
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i18/18a02202.htm

    SYLLABUS

    By DANIEL ENGBER
    In the Sherlock Holmes tale A Study in Scarlet, Dr. Watson jots down a
    list of Holmes's various areas of expertise. The sixth item on the
    list: "knowledge of geology -- practical, but limited."
    Students at Smith College who take Lawrence D. Meinert's class on the
    fictional detective, "Sherlock Holmes and the Scientific Method," can
    add some geology to their own lists of proficiencies. Mr. Meinert, a
    geologist specializing in the detection of gold deposits, hopes that
    his first-year seminar can serve as both a writing workshop and an
    introductory science course.
    "This is my subversive effort to get everyone to think about
    scientific reasoning," he explains. "When a student says, 'You tricked
    us. I learned some science,' that obviously makes me quite thrilled."
    As part of the course, students read a number of Sherlock Holmes
    stories and discuss how the detective uses the scientific method to
    solve mysteries. By making observations, gathering evidence, and then
    proposing a testable hypothesis, "Sherlock uses scientific reasoning
    in a romantic and entertaining fashion," says Mr. Meinert. Some
    stories, like "The Blue Carbuncle," involve minerals or gems as
    central plot elements.
    The Hound of the Baskervilles takes place on the moors, amid a variety
    of interesting geological features. In one writing exercise, students
    develop what Mr. Meinert calls "a geologic augmentation" of that
    story, taking its central plot and tying in the geology of the
    setting.
    Other exercises build toward a final paper, for which members of the
    class devise their own mysteries starring Sherlock Holmes. The story
    must illustrate the use of the scientific method to solve a mystery,
    and must incorporate a geologic phenomenon as a central plot element.
    Mr. Meinert asks each student to read his or her assignment out loud,
    which "has an amazing effect," he says. "The effect of my grading, or
    of their internal motivation, doesn't hold a candle to the
    mortification of reading your own work aloud in front of your peers."
    Reading list:
    Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Volumes I and II, by
    Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Bantam Classics, 1986); Understanding Earth,
    by Frank Press, Raymond Siever, John Grotzinger, and Tom Jordan (W.H.
    Freeman & Company, 2003).
    Assignments:
    In addition to writing an original Holmes story, each student writes a
    short paper on dinosaurs. They go on several field trips throughout
    the semester, including a behind-the-scenes tour of a jewelry store
    and visits to dinosaur footprints, a local cemetery, and a quarry.


From checker at panix.com  Wed Feb  2 22:01:36 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 17:01:36 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] CHE: Don Quixote at 400: Still Conquering Hearts
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502021700490.9423@panix1.panix.com>

Don Quixote at 400: Still Conquering Hearts
The Chronicle of Higher Education, 5.1.7
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i18/18b01101.htm

    By ILAN STAVANS

    The Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance is turning 400. By some
    accounts, the first part of Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes's
    masterpiece, was available in Valladolid by Christmas Eve 1604,
    although Madrid didn't get copies until January 1605. Thus came to
    life the "ingenious gentleman" who, ill equipped with antiquated armor
    "stained with rust and covered with mildew," with an improvised
    helmet, atop an ancient nag "with more cracks than his master's pate,"
    went out into a decaying world where there were plenty of "evils to
    undo, wrongs to right, injustices to correct, abuses to ameliorate,
    and offenses to rectify."
    Cervantes catches a glimpse of the down-and-out hidalgo at around 50,
    the prime of one's life by today's standards but a synonym of
    decrepitude during what was considered Spain's "Golden Age," an
    appellation Cervantes complicates. The protagonist, we are told, is
    weathered, his flesh scrawny, and his face gaunt. We know nothing of
    his childhood and adolescence and only a modicum about his affairs,
    including that too little sleep and too many chivalry novels have
    addled his brain.
    Almost 1,000 pages later, Don Quixote (or Alonso Quixada or Quexada,
    some names Cervantes gives to the hidalgo) lies on his deathbed.
    Finally, well into the second book, issued in 1615, Don Quixote dies
    -- but only after an impostor, Alonso Fern?ndez de Avellaneda,
    impatient that Cervantes kept procrastinating, brought out an
    unofficial second part that pushed the author to complete his work.
    Cervantes may also have been sensing that his own demise, which came
    in April 1616, was close.
    About to die the exemplary death, Don Quixote is nevertheless consumed
    by the grief of countless defeats and frustrated in his impossible
    mission to see his beloved Dulcinea of Toboso. Is he wiser?
    Disenchanted? Does he die of melancholia? The limits of age?
    "Don Quixote's end," we are told, "came after he had received all the
    sacraments and had execrated books of chivalry with many effective
    words. The scribe happened to be present, and he said he had never
    read in any book of chivalry of a knight errant dying in his bed in so
    tranquil and Christian a manner as Don Quixote, who, surrounded by the
    sympathy and tears of those present, gave up the ghost, I mean to say,
    he died."
    Don Quixote might be dead, but his ever-ambiguous ghost lives on. His
    admirers -- and, in unequal measure, detractors -- are legion. Operas,
    musicals, theatrical and film adaptations, as well as fictional
    recreations keep piling up: Laurence Sterne was inspired by Don
    Quixote's misadventures when writing Tristram Shandy; Gustave Flaubert
    paid homage to him in Madame Bovary, as did Fyodor Dostoyevsky in The
    Idiot. Isaac Bashevis Singer's "Gimpel the Fool" can be read as a
    reimagining of the knight's simplicity. And so on.
    Then there are the multilayered interpretations of Don Quixote's
    pursuit. Anybody that is somebody has put forth an opinion, from
    Miguel de Unamuno, Jos? Ortega y Gasset, Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo,
    and Am?rico Castro, to name a handful of Iberians first, to Samuel
    Johnson, Denis Diderot, Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Lionel Trilling, and
    Vladimir Nabokov. Over the years, Don Quixote has been a template of
    the times: The 18th century believed the knight to be a lunatic, lost
    to reason; the Victorians approached him as a romantic dreamer,
    trapped, just like artists and prophets, in his own fantasy; the
    modernists applauded his quest for an inner language; the
    postmodernists adore his dislocated identity. Psychiatrists have seen
    him as a case study in schizophrenia. Communists have turned him into
    a victim of market forces. Intellectual historians have portrayed him
    as a portent of Spain's decline into intellectual obscurantism.
    Some scholars call Don Quixote the first modern novel, a bildungsroman
    that traces the arch of its protagonist's life and the inner
    transformation to which it gives room. In the spirit of Erasmus of
    Rotterdam's In Praise of Folly, parody reinforces the divide between
    the life of the mind and the strictures of society. Others stress the
    novel's irony, the multiple voices and blurring of fiction and reality
    -- the latter an aspect that Gabriel Garc&iacutea M?rquez would pay
    tribute to in One Hundred Years of Solitude. Don Quixote is one of the
    first characters to comment on his own readers ("for me alone was Don
    Quixote born," Cervantes writes in the second book, in response to the
    publication of the sham version); he is caught at the turning point of
    the Enlightenment, between the secular and the religious, reason and
    belief. Detractors argue that Cervantes is a careless stylist and a
    clumsy plot-builder, pointing out the fractured nature of the novel,
    the endless repetitions.
    No doubt all that would have come as a surprise to Cervantes himself,
    a tax collector with a tarnished reputation, a soldier whose old
    battleground glories and often pathetic dreams of literary success
    kept him alive. He envied Lope de Vega, the dramaturge of 1,000
    comedias, and was looked down upon by the snobbish literary figures of
    his day. In short, Cervantes was an outcast. Indeed, in spite of all
    the hoopla, he remains one in Spain, perhaps because Spaniards today
    still don't know what to make of him. In Madrid the house of de Vega
    has been turned into a museum; the one nearby where Cervantes wrote
    has been sold time and again, commemorated by a miserable plaque.
    One wonders: Would Don Quixote pass the test and be published in New
    York today? I frankly doubt it. It would be deemed what editors call
    "a trouble manuscript": too long, the story line problematic, the plot
    stuffed with too many adventures that do too little to advance the
    narrative and too many characters whose fate the reader gets attached
    to but who suddenly disappear. And that awkward conceit of a character
    finding a book about himself! The style! Those careless sentences that
    twist and turn!
    The first part of Cervantes's manuscript was sent (possibly under the
    title of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha) to the Counsel
    of Castilla for permission to print it. It then went to the
    Inquisitorial censors for approval. Around August 1604, Cervantes
    tried in vain to enlist a celebrity to compose a poem eulogizing his
    protagonist, as it was the custom of the time to include such praise
    at the outset of a novel. He failed, his narrative considered too
    lowbrow, and composed his own poems.
    For all that, the first part of the novel was successful early on. The
    initial printing of some 1,800 copies was quickly insufficient, and
    new editions were issued (including one in English in 1612). By the
    time the second part was released in 1615, Don Quixote was a best
    seller. The parodic quality of the novel, the way it pokes fun at
    erudition and paints love as the only redemption for the heart,
    enchanted readers. As did Cervantes's digressions on his country's
    delusions of grandeur.
    In my personal library, I have some 80 different versions, including
    ones produced for children, as well as translations into Yiddish,
    Korean, Urdu, and part of the novel that I translated into Spanglish.
    I guess my collection is proof of my passion. I can't think of a book
    that better illustrates the tension between private and public life,
    one that speaks louder to the power of the imagination in such an
    ingenious, unsettling fashion. If ever I wanted to live my life like a
    literary character, it would be as Cervantes's sublime creation.
    As the forerunner of antiheroes and superheroes, Don Quixote, with his
    flawed aspirations, may not subdue giants or imaginary enemies like
    the Knight of the Wood, but he continues to conquer hearts, precisely
    because he is so ridiculous, inhabiting a universe of his own
    concoction. He is the ultimate symbol of freedom, a self-made man
    championing his beliefs against all odds. His is also a story about
    reaching beyond one's own confinements, a lesson on how to turn
    poverty and the imagination into assets, and a romance that reaches
    beyond class and faith.
    Some authors are so influential that their names have been turned into
    adjectives: Dantean, Proustian, Hemingway-esque. But how many literary
    characters have undergone a similar fate? "Quixotic," "quixotism," and
    "quixotry," according to the Oxford English Dictionary, are all
    related to "Quixote," "an enthusiastic visionary person like Don
    Quixote, inspired by lofty and chivalrous but false or unrealizable
    ideals."
    To be an underdog, to be a fool content with one's delusions, is that
    what modernity is about? Or is it the impulse to pursue those
    delusions into action? Undoubtedly we will continue asking ourselves
    those questions as the enthusiastic visionary starts his fifth
    century, still as vibrant and mischievous, as resourceful and
    controversial as ever.

    Ilan Stavans is a professor of Latin American and Latino culture at
    Amherst College. His next book, The Schocken Book of Modern Sephardic
    Literature, will be published this month. Dictionary Days: A Defining
    Passion will be published by Graywolf Press in April.

From checker at panix.com  Wed Feb  2 22:03:50 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 17:03:50 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] CHE: Anthropologists, Few in Number,
	Revisit a 1919 Debate
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502021701430.9423@panix1.panix.com>

Anthropologists, Few in Number, Revisit a 1919 Debate
The Chronicle of Higher Education, 5.1.7
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i18/18a02901.htm

    By DAVID GLENN
    Atlanta

    At a sparsely attended annual convention here last month, members of
    the American Anthropological Association took steps to right an
    85-year-old wrong done to a pioneer in the field and a founder of the
    association. In a unanimous (but nonbinding) vote, scholars voted to
    rescind the organization's 1919 censure of Franz Boas.
    The censure occurred in the aftermath of World War I, when Boas
    angered many of his peers by making sharp-tongued criticisms of
    anthropologists who had covertly served as wartime U.S. spies in Latin
    America. Boas was then a professor at Columbia University and probably
    the country's best-known scholarly anthropologist. He had been among
    the association's founders, in 1902.
    In late 1919, Boas published a letter in The Nation in which he
    announced that he had learned that "a number of men who follow science
    as their profession, men whom I refuse to designate any longer as
    scientists, have prostituted science by using it as a cover for their
    activities as spies." Boas's letter did not name names, but among the
    small circle of American anthropologists it was clear that he was
    referring to an espionage ring organized in 1917 by Sylvanus G.
    Morley, a leading scholar of the Maya who was then affiliated with
    Harvard University's Peabody Museum. The ring's primary task was to
    search for reputed German submarine bases in Mexico and Central
    America.
    Two weeks later, the association's governing council voted, 20 to 10,
    to censure Boas, declaring his letter un-American.
    Now the association would like to make posthumous amends. Scholars at
    December's conference approved a resolution that removes the censure
    and affirms that it is "immoral for scientists to use their
    professional identity as cover for governmental spying activities."
    "This is an issue that has to be revived from generation to
    generation," said Leni M. Silverstein, one of the resolution's
    authors, in a telephone interview. Ms. Silverstein, a visiting scholar
    at Northwestern University, pointed out that similar debates arose
    during the Vietnam War and are likely to arise again in relation to
    the conflicts in Iraq and Central Asia.
    Not everyone agrees with the recision. In a letter that will appear in
    a forthcoming issue of Anthropology News, David L. Browman, a
    professor of archaeology at Washington University in St. Louis,
    suggests that Boas acted dishonorably in 1919. Among other things, Mr.
    Browman writes, Boas appears to have manipulated the espionage debate
    in an effort to win money and resources from the National Research
    Council for his department at Columbia.
    The business meeting at the convention lacked a quorum, so the vote to
    renounce the censure was only advisory. It is likely that the
    association's executive board will put the question to the entire
    membership in a mail ballot next year. The resolution is expected to
    win by a comfortable margin.
    Southern Exposure
    The anthropology conference, which had originally been scheduled for
    San Francisco in mid-November, drew only a fraction of its usual
    attendance.
    Less than four weeks before the conference was to have been held, the
    organization voted to relocate and reschedule the meeting because of a
    labor dispute at San Francisco's major hotels.
    The decision was controversial. Some scholars have argued that the
    association should have gone ahead with the San Francisco meeting, and
    others have said that the association could have shown more solidarity
    with the San Francisco hotel workers by completely breaking its
    contract with the Hilton Hotels Corporation. (The move to Atlanta was
    the result of a complex negotiation with Hilton, in which the
    association avoided any financial penalties.)
    Many people at the conference, however, said the move to Atlanta was
    the least bad option under the circumstances.
    More than 6,000 people had been expected to attend the San Francisco
    meeting, but fewer than 800 were on hand in Atlanta. The association's
    president, Elizabeth M. Brumfiel, said that low attendance was
    expected to cost the organization between $385,000 and $500,000.
    In the original San Francisco program, 25 panels had been announced
    for Friday afternoon at 1:45 -- the heart of the conference schedule.
    In Atlanta at that time, only six panels actually took place, with a
    combined audience of fewer than 100 people.
    At the meeting, the association's executive board unanimously approved
    a resolution requiring that, beginning in 2010, all association
    conferences must be held in unionized hotels. That resolution, too,
    will probably be brought to the entire membership in a mail ballot.


From checker at panix.com  Wed Feb  2 22:05:04 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 17:05:04 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Slate: You Must Remember This: Are there
 memory-enhancement products that work?
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502021704080.9423@panix1.panix.com>

You Must Remember This: Are there memory-enhancement products that work?
http://slate.msn.com/id/2111758/
By Sue Halpern
Posted Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2005, at 5:34 AM PT

Tell someone you've been spending your days checking out
memory-enhancement products and chances are they'll say something like
"That's interesting"-long pause-"What did you say you were working on?"
The prospect of memory loss makes people so uncomfortable they
invariably make stupid jokes about it, then chuckle as if those jokes
were actually funny. "Sorry, ha ha, I'm having a senior moment." "Oops,
it must be early onset Alzheimer's!"

Statistically speaking, unless you live till about 90, the chances of
getting Alzheimer's disease or a related dementia is fairly low. Still,
the brain gets less agile as we age, and for many people mental tasks
that once seemed mindless, like remembering names and recalling words,
become noticeably more difficult. Even minor memory lapses can generate
big anxieties. So, the possibility that some thing-a vitamin, a
supplement, a set of cognitive exercises, a biofeedback machine-will
make us sharper, more focused, smarter, less forgetful, is desperately
appealing.

At least it is for me as I progress farther into my 40s, misplacing my
keys and swearing I've never had conversations that others claim to
recall with perfect clarity. And what does the word "synecdoche" mean
anyway? I used to know.

There are currently numerous products that promise stunning gains in IQ
and remarkable increases in memory and the number will only increase as
the population ages. But do any of them actually work? While my first
inclination was to focus on over-the-counter pharmaceuticals like
periwinkle extract and colloidal gold because they required no
investment of time or mental effort, a quick survey of a defunct FDA Web
site (resurrected on The Memory Hole) detailing the harm that had
befallen people who blindly swallowed supplements assuming that because
they were "natural" they were safe, as well as a recent article in the
Lancet demonstrating that no supplement has yet proved to enhance
memory, convinced me to stay away from things I'd have to put in my
mouth.

Instead, I decided to stick with products that might "grow my brain" by
laying down additional neural pathways (which typically happens when you
learn something new), and those that claimed they would change my
brain-wave patterns, making my brain more receptive to remembering.
These included compact disc recordings of certain kinds of engineered
sounds intended to unite left- and right-brain hemispheres; optical
stimulation machines that shoot a Morse code of white light at the
eyelids; software-based mental exercise gyms; and books outlining memory
programs. I started with 10 products-chosen because I had read about
them in best-selling books about memory loss or on those books' Web
sites, or that I had found through internet searches-jettisoned
three(two because they were far too complicated and the third because it
was just too dopey), and stuck with eight, which I used over a period of
two months.

One problem, though, was finding a reasonable research methodology. As a
lone individual, I could not conduct random, double-blind,
placebo-controlled trials. And memory, in any case, is elusive-hard to
get a bead on, let alone to measure. That you remember to pick up the
dry cleaning on Monday but fail to come home with a quart of milk on
Tuesday says little about the condition of your memory. (The
neurologist's rule of thumb: Don't worry if you misplace the car keys,
worry if you don't know what the keys are for.)

Still, I needed a way, however crude, of seeing if my memory was getting
sharper, so I signed up for an Internet-based memory testing site called
MemCheck ($69.95 per year; $9.95 per month). Intended primarily for
people with serious concerns about memory loss, such as Alzheimer's or
something called Mild Cognitive Impairment, MemCheck offers subscribers
two mental screening options. The first is an extensive battery of tests
that examines psychomotor processing speed, executive function (defined
on the site as planning, organization, and mental quickness), and
short-term memory; it takes about half an hour to complete. The second,
MemWatch, is an abridged version of the first. It tests short-term
memory and processing speed in less than 10 minutes.

After testing myself with MemCheck and finding out that my executive
functioning was excellent and my short-term memory was just OK, I took
the MemWatch test, which gave me a baseline score against which I could
compare my results in subsequent testings, after using the various
memory-enhancing programs and products. I assumed, much like a weakling
entering a gym to lift weights in order to build muscle, that if any of
these products worked as advertised, I'd be adding axons and dendrites
to my brain that would create neural pathways that would necessarily
raise my score. And the fact is, over two months, my score did go up, a
full 40 points. Whether this gain is actually meaningful in a practical
sort of way is not precisely relevant. What is relevant is that in
mid-September I was an 85 and by mid-November I was, consistently, a
126. Something happened.

It's possible that I simply got better at taking the test. It's also
possible that I got better at taking the test because new neural
pathways were laid down each time I took it. On the other hand, maybe my
improvement was a direct result of the neural pathways that had been
stimulated by one or more of the products I was using. Overall, I felt
sharper, more articulate, less forgetful, quicker. I could go to the
supermarket without a written list and bring home the 17 items I'd set
out to buy (due to a new strategy I'd learned). For the first time in
years I beat my husband at pingpong (quicker reflexes). I returned my
library books on time (because I could actually recall when they were
due). True, I forgot to feed the dog one morning, but these things
happen.

Though I would like to point to a single product to account for these
changes, I can't. They complemented each other. Some taught strategy,
some toned reflexes, some claimed to be integrating my brain in
subliminal ways. Some were a bust. Some were fun. A couple really seemed
to help.

I created a rating system with four components, each of which I graded
on a scale of -10 to +10: Efficacy (did the product have an effect on my
MemWatch score, 0 being "not at all," 5 being "I once saw my score go up
after using it" and 10 being "I saw my score go up pretty
consistently"); Difficulty (how hard was the program to operate and
implement, both in terms of setting it up and sticking to it, 0 being
"easy" and -10 being "oy"); Irritation (how annoying was it to use, -10
being extremely and 0 being not); and Fun (was the product fun to use, 0
being "zero" and 10 being "bring it on"). I then separated the products
into four categories-Aural; Books; Software; and Optical. My top pick in
each category is listed first.

AURAL
Rembrance CD ($19.95). Rembrance is a CD of electronic music composed by
J.S. Epperson using "hemi-sync" "brain-entrainment" technology developed
in the 1950s by a sound engineer named Robert Monroe. By sending sounds
of one frequency to the right ear and sounds of another frequency to the
left ear, a third sound is apparently made by the brain itself as
integrates both left and right hemispheres, trying to make sense of the
information it's receiving. The name given to this third sound is
binaural beat. According to Monroe and his disciples, the binaural beat
can be manipulated to induce or "entrain" the brain into a variety of
different states, from deep relaxation to high alertness. This
particular CD is intended to lead the brain into a more focused state,
where it is most receptive to remembering. While it didn't do that for
me, its pleasant monotony was effective in shutting out distractions.
Its creators say that it works best when listened to through headphones.
Scores: Efficacy=2; Difficulty=0; Irritation=-1; Fun=4. Overall
score=+5.

Brain Enhancement CD (Transparent Corporation, $19.95). This is another
method of using sound to trigger particular brainwave patterns that
correspond to more focused and attentive states that are "typically
exhibited by incredibly intelligent, overachieving individuals." The
program uses various white and off-white noises like traffic and
repetitious industrial machinery, neither of which is exactly pleasing
to the ear. One time (out of many) I popped this in the CD drive of my
computer before taking the MemWatch test and was surprised to see my
score climb by five points. I took the test again and the increase held.
Still, I moved to Vermont to get away from freeways and factories. At
least Brain Enhancement emits no pollution. Efficacy=6; Difficulty=0;
Irritation=-2; Fun=1. Overall score=+5

BOOKS
The Memory Pack by Andi Bell (Carlton Books, $29.95). Andi Bell won the
1998 World Memory Championships by memorizing, among other things, the
order of an entire deck of cards in 34.03 seconds. He's got that kind of
mind and so, he claims, can you-if you practice the many tricks he
shares in the cheesy picture book that comes in the Memory Pack box.
Also included are a bean bag imprinted with an image of a bee-he
suggests you leave it in a conspicuous place if there's something in
particular you need to remember and when you see the beanbag it will jog
your brain and make you think of that thing-a set of cards labeled with
people's faces and names to help teach name recognition; and a memory
board game, the rules of which I'm still trying to learn. Bell's
idiosyncratic method for remembering long sequences of numbers by
assigning images to every number up to 99 (zero is a hoop; nine is a
cat; and 99 is Einstein, because the element Einsteinium has the atomic
number 99) and so on, all of which must be memorized, requires more work
than anyone but a competitive memorizer like Bell would be willing to
take on. Still, he does offer a number of practical, how-to methods for
remembering shopping lists and names and appointments, and they work.
Efficacy=8; Difficulty=-5; Irritation=-2; Fun=5. Overall score=+6.

The Einstein Factor by Win Wenger and Richard Poe (Audio Version,
$89.95; paperback version, $15). I was suckered into buying this audio
book by its claims that I'd become more focused, remember more, and
raise my IQ score about 40 points-all while shuttling my daughter to and
from school. While none of that happened (except the driving), I came to
appreciate the authors' belief that each of us has a genius buried in
our unconscious waiting to emerge through a kind of lucid dreaming
(called "image streaming") as a way of recovering memories to spark
creativity. (Thus the "portable memory bank" included with The Einstein
Factor is nothing more than a blank notebook.) But memories, or stored
remnants of the past, are not the same as memory, the physiological
function that must precede it. So, while the book encouraged me to
listen to the little voice within, it did nothing to boost my MemWatch
score or keep me from leaving the Einstein Factor in the car when I
meant to bring it into the house. Efficacy=0, Difficulty=0,
Irritation=0; Fun=3. Overall score=+3.

SOFTWARE
My Brain Trainer (The site currently offers a free two-week trial
membership but usually charges a nominal fee). If My Brain Trainer,
which is billed as "the world's first virtual mental gymnasium" were a
real gym, it would have plush towels and state-of-the art elliptical
machines. Instead, it has appealing graphics and 14 challenging
exercises that stretch different parts of your mind. Want to work on
your psychomotor reflexes? How about improving your short-term memory or
hand-eye coordination? If you're like me, you'll find yourself doing
some exercises because you are good at them, and others because you
think you should be better at them, just like at the real gym. I never
managed to improve my psychomotor skills, but I progressed steadily on a
short-term memory test that required me to remember random strings of
letters until I was consistently doing much better than almost everyone
else. I knew this because MBT allows each user to measure herself
against herself, her age group, all users, and the top performer. It's
competitive; it's addictive; and, because it trains some of the same
skills as MemWatch tests, it's effective in raising MemWatch scores.
Think of it as Pilates for the mind, but more fun. Efficacy=8;
Annoyance=0; Difficulty=0; Fun=5. Overall score=+13

Brain Builder ($7.95 month, $49.45 year). Brain Builder started as a
stand-alone piece of software, and for those who want something
portable, Brain Builder 3.0 ($49.95) is still available. The online
version, however, is more powerful because it has an interactive
component that allows users to keep track of their progress, a built-in
personal trainer, an online diary function, and a random number
generator that ensures no exercise is like another. The main premise
behind Brain Builder is that memory will improve as one's ability to
increase one's sequential processing-remembering longer and longer lists
of numbers and letters-improves. As its creators write: "Better
sequential processing enables us to take in more of what there is to see
and hear." Processing speed, its creators say, is also crucial to a fit
working memory, so Brain Builder measures both how much you remember and
how fast you can recall it. Oddly, Brain Builder's strength is also its
weakness-it is relentless, a boot camp for brains, quick to flash
"penalty" when you've made a mistake, and replete with anxiety-producing
music meant as "encouragement" that makes you so stressed out, you don't
remember why you thought this was a good idea in the first place.
Efficacy=8;Difficulty=0;Irritation=-3; Fun=3. Overall score=+8

OPTICAL STIMULATION
Mind Spa (A/V Stim Company, $149). Mind Spa is a little machine with big
ambitions: to put its user into various brain states (meditative,
creative, receptive, attentive) using a combination of flashing white
lights delivered through a pair of specially designed glasses and
pulsing sounds that come from headphones, both of which are attached to
an easy-to-operate, cassette-sized unit. There are 12 programs (with
more available on the A/V Stim Web site), each keyed to a different
brainwave speed-from the quiet alphas of No. 3 to the high betas of No.
9. The idea here, as with simple aural brain entrainment, is that the
sound and light will, over time, encourage new pathways in the brain.
(Mind Spa's creator, psychologist Dr. Ruth Olmstead, has recently
published research that seems to show that this kind of stimulation is
effective in controlling ADD.) While it feels silly to sit at one's desk
listening to weird throbbing sounds while wearing goofy glass
light-emitting glasses, it can be surprisingly relaxing. I often fell
asleep-then woke up and saw my MemWatch score inch up. One caveat:
Optical stimulation machines have been known to induce seizures in
people with epilepsy and those with undiagnosed seizure disorders.
Efficacy= 8; Irritation=0; Difficulty=0; Fun=4. Overall score=+12

Shortly after I concluded my "experiment," I spent some time with real
scientists who study the aging brain. I told them about my "work," and
how my MemWatch scores kept on going up. They were skeptical. Not
skeptical that I was doing better-this they attributed to the fact that
my test-taking skills were improving-but skeptical that memory decline
could be staved off by increasing the number of random letters one can
recall, listening to hemi-syncing music, or slipping on light-emitting
glasses. But one of them, a neuropsychologist who specializes in looking
at why people who are mentally and physically engaged throughout their
lives seem to resist dementia most successfully, was less dismissive.

"Look," he said, "We don't really know. Why not do these things-they
can't hurt."

Sue Halpern is the author of the new novel The Book of Hard Things, as
well as two previous books of nonfiction. She lives in the mountains
above Lake Champlain.


From checker at panix.com  Wed Feb  2 22:05:56 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 17:05:56 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: Longing to Lose, at a Great Cost
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502021705140.9423@panix1.panix.com>

Longing to Lose, at a Great Cost
New York Times, 5.1.4
By GINA KOLATA

How desperate are overweight people to shed their extra
pounds?

Desperate enough that they are willing to risk death. And
so desperate that they value losing weight as much as
severely depressed patients value relief from their
illness, a new survey has found.

The survey, by Dr. Christina C. Wee, an internist at
Harvard Medical School and her colleagues, involved 366
patients who were part of a large medical practice based at
Harvard's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. A third of
the participants were overweight and 27 percent were obese.


The researchers asked people to imagine a treatment that
would guarantee them an effortless weight loss of varying
amounts. For each amount, they were asked, would they be
willing to accept a risk of death to achieve it? If so, how
much of a risk of death?

The fatter the person, the more he or she would risk death
to lose weight. And the more weight the patient imagined he
could lose, the greater the risk he would take to achieve
it.

Nineteen percent of overweight and 33 percent of obese
people would risk death for even a modest 10 percent weight
loss. In contrast, 4 percent of normal weight people would
risk death to lose 10 percent of their weight.

Many of the overweight and obese participants also said
they would give up some of their remaining years of life if
they could live those years weighing slightly less.
Thirty-one percent of obese patients and 8.3 percent of
overweight patients said they would trade up to 5 percent
of their remaining lives to be 10 percent thinner.

The survey was published in the December issue of The
Journal of General Internal Medicine.

Dr. Wee said doctors did not always appreciate how
desperately many people longed to be thin.

She said she was taken aback by the findings because
patients in the study also reported that it would take a
lot more than a 10 percent weight loss for them to reach
their dream weights. Yet it seemed that almost any weight
loss, even 10 percent, was something they longed for.

"That was very surprising to me," Dr. Wee said in a
telephone interview.

In fact, obesity researchers say, it takes only a modest
weight loss - 5 to 10 percent - to improve health.

Dr. Wee said she advised patients to make small changes
that they could stick to. Although she is not overweight,
she said she recently switched from regular sodas to diet
ones and effortlessly lost five pounds.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/04/health/04fatb.html


From checker at panix.com  Wed Feb  2 22:06:37 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 17:06:37 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Transhumanism: 2000 Years in the Making
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502021705580.9423@panix1.panix.com>

Transhumanism: 2000 Years in the Making
http://www.thecbc.org/redesigned/research_display.php?id=189
by David Pauls, CBC board of directors

Examination of the underlying philosophy to remake the human person 
exhibits qualities that are as old as the Greeks. Disdain for the body, 
the quest for hidden knowledgce, and the goal to lead others to a higher 
plane of existence all smack of ancient Gnosticism, an idea that goes back 
nearly two millennia. Students of New Testament history will recognize 
Gnosticism as an early opponent of the newfound church, fought by the 
early Church Fathers into the second and third century.

The Gnostic impulse is first characterized by its disdain for the physical 
body and the general restraints of time and place. Since the temporal was 
thought to be evil and unredeemed, the Gnostics developed a profound 
dualistic schism between the body and the mind, which was spiritual and 
potentially immortal. The body, being bad, was eschewed while the mind was 
exalted. This led to two poles of behavior regarding the physical. One 
pole was asceticism with its denial of creature comfort. Material pleasure 
and comfort was disdained due to the undeserving nature of the body. The 
other pole was radical libertinism, with an anything goes attitude 
regarding the attainment of physical pleasure. Why worry about the body 
and behavior if it was degenerate anyway?

The second primary distinction regards redemption via attainment of secret 
knowledge, or gnosis. This knowledge was potentially available to only a 
few gifted select people who were endowed with the desire and capacity to 
attain and use this hidden wisdom. It was only through careful, diligent 
study that release from the bonds of material existence. Once attained, a 
person would be able to transcend the bounds of time, nature and history, 
reaching a plane of spiritual existence.

With the Transhumanist movement, one sees the Gnostic strain reasserting 
itself in the quest to transcend the degenerate body. The body is held in 
disdain. Advocates for enhancement technology exhibit disdain for the 
current status of the physical body. There is an abhorrence of the 
limitations that nature has placed upon the species. The insufficiencies 
of height, strength, vision, hearing, longevity and cognition are 
roadblocks to happiness and perpetual fulfillment. Nature has gotten the 
human race this far, but the inherent limits of existence are hurdles to 
be leapt.

Like the earlier Gnostics, knowledge and insight are the keys to overcome 
the deficiencies of the physical. With the accumulation of research in 
genetic engineering, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and neural 
network interfacing, man will be able to overwhelm the frailty and 
deficiency inherent in the human condition and transform that which was 
weak into strength. The ability to repair, replace or enhance the various 
biological systems in the body allows one to overcome the limits of 
finitude. A logical outcome of this is the prospect of a multitiered view 
of humanity. If strong advocates of transhumanism have their wish, a new 
species of Techno sapien will emerge. The vast majority of the population, 
living in an ignorant and confused state, will be led by the chosen few to 
a new utopian existence or left behind to wallow in their naivet?. The 
capability to move the mind into the machine will mark the attainment of 
the final goal of the Gnostics, that of overcoming the body completely, 
living in a psychic Nirvana with the constraints of nature, time and 
history left behind.

The old is trotted out as the new, dressed in software, DNA, and 
nanomachines. An ancient proverb from Solomon says, "What has been will be 
again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under 
the sun". His quote is as relevant today as it was two and a half 
millennia ago.

From checker at panix.com  Wed Feb  2 22:09:33 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 17:09:33 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] BH: (Rushton) Social Responsibility in the Genes
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502021708310.9423@panix1.panix.com>

Social Responsibility in the Genes
http://www.betterhumans.com/Print/index.aspx?ArticleID=2005-01-06-1

Twin study suggests that DNA accounts for more than 40% of difference in
such behaviors as charitable giving

    Betterhumans Staff
    1/6/2005 1:10 PM

    Genes may account for more than 40% of such charitable behavior as the
    massive outpouring of donations following the recent South Asian
    tsunamis.

    A study comparing the social responsibility of identical and
    non-identical twins showed that genes account for 42% of individual
    differences in attitudes while common environment accounts for 23% and
    other factors account for the remainder.

    Conducted by Canadian researcher [8]J. Philippe Rushton of the
    [9]University of Western Ontario, the study also found that genes have
    a stronger influence on males than females (50% to 40%) while home
    upbringing has a stronger influence on females (40% to 0%), suggesting
    that parents may more closely watch the behavior of daughters than of
    sons.

    The study involved 322 pairs of twins. Of these, 174 were identical
    pairs and 148 were non-identical. If traits are more similar among
    identical pairs, it suggests a stronger genetic contribution because
    they share all their genes while non-identical twins share only half.

    Subjects answered 22 questions such as, "I am a person people can
    count on" and, "Cheating on income tax is as bad as stealing" using a
    scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Answers are
    known to predict such behavior as voting and volunteering. Answers
    were compared to determine patterns of relationships amongst the
    twins.

    Most previous studies on the genetics of social behavior have looked
    at antisocial behavior. The new study reinforces earlier work by
    Rushton and colleagues showing that genes contribute to about half the
    variance of self-reported altruism, empathy, nurturance and
    aggression.

    The research is reported in the [10]Proceedings of the Royal Society:
    Biological Sciences ([11]read abstract).

References

    8. http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/psychology/faculty/rushton_bio.htm
    9. http://www.uwo.ca/
   10. http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/proc_bio_homepage.shtml
   11. http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/proc_bio_content/abstracts/rushton.html


From checker at panix.com  Wed Feb  2 22:12:29 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 17:12:29 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYTDBR: Promethean Ambitions: Alchemy and the Quest to
	Perfect Nature
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502021710110.9423@panix1.panix.com>

Promethean Ambitions: Alchemy and the Quest to Perfect Nature
New York Times Daily Book Review, by 4.8.2 [picked up by the International 
Herald Tribune maybe later. Note date.]
http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?file=532091.html

    Promethean Ambitions: Alchemy and the Quest to Perfect Nature
    Reviewed by Edward Rothstein NYT
    Monday, August 02, 2004
    Nonfiction. By William R. Newman. 333 pages. $30. University of
    Chicago Press.

    Among the secrets revealed in this unusual history of alchemy is
    Leonardo da Vinci's recipe for making artificial pearls "as large as
    you wish" - take a small genuine pearl, dissolve it in lemon juice,
    dry the paste into a power, mix it with egg white, let it harden, then
    grind and polish.
    A less appealing recipe might be one the philosopher John Locke
    proposed for creating a toad or a serpent by using a duck or a goose:
    Boil the bird without salt, place it between two platters, seal them
    against the air with a mixture of earth, salt, sand and tarter, and
    let the dish sit in a warm place for two or three weeks. Locke wrote
    that after breaking the seal, he had "found sometimes all Serpents a
    foot long sometimes all Toads large and black" - a description that
    suggests he had the temerity to try this more than once.
    And why not? Over the course of a millennium, the annals of alchemy
    tell of all manner of generation, transmutation and transfiguration.
    None of it ever produced pure gold, but it did yield inks and metals
    and perfumes and pigments, worms and rodents and putrid flesh, and, of
    course, principles and theories and controversies, along with
    accusations of witchcraft and heresy and hubris.
    Alchemy was once broadly dismissed as a form of primitive,
    prescientific belief - like Aristotle's conviction that lice were
    spontaneously generated from flesh, or claims that human life was
    created in the forms of homunculi.
    But in the last few decades, alchemy emerged out of the condescending
    and eclipsing shadows cast by modern science. In the 1970s, one of its
    most radical champions, the philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend,
    baldly suggested that there was very little to distinguish between
    alchemy and science: The techniques were similar, and so was the
    accuracy of the results.
    Even more temperate interpreters of science, though, have been
    changing their ideas about alchemy. Historians now treat the
    enterprise less as a na?ve activity supplanted by science than as an
    intellectual discipline out of which science gradually evolved. In
    "Promethean Ambitions," William R. Newman, who teaches the history and
    philosophy of science at Indiana University, goes even further.
    For him, alchemy, from its ancient origins as a servant to the
    decorative arts to its 17th-century transmutation into modern
    chemistry, provided the crucible in which many contemporary ideas
    about nature and artifice were first examined.
    Today, he writes, "we live in the era of 'Frankenfoods,' cloning, in
    vitro fertilization, synthetic polymers, Artificial Intelligence, and
    computer generated 'Artificial Life,'" an era in which Pope John Paul
    II has warned of the "Promethean ambitions" of biomedical science, and
    the President's Council on Bioethics has studied Hawthorne's
    alchemical story, "The Birth-Mark."
    But Newman argues that most current debates about boundaries between
    nature and artifice, or boundaries between proper and improper
    scientific exploration, echo debates that run through the history of
    alchemy. Critics of alchemy argued that the natural world could not be
    replicated or improved and that such goals should not be pursued.
    Advocates found porous boundaries between nature and artifice that
    could be explored and tested.
    In Newman's view, this tension between nature and artifice is
    fundamental. Alchemy is primarily an art of transmutation: One metal
    is turned into another, one living creature erupts out of the
    substance of another. Alchemy is concerned with the character of that
    change. It thus pays attention to categories, differences and
    boundaries. If one substance is changed into another, does it change
    its essence or only some of its properties? Is nature being revealed
    or overturned?
    Of course, much of the change that alchemists believed was taking
    place we now know to be illusion - the goose doesn't turn into
    serpents, nor is mercury transformed into gold. That is why much
    alchemy really is quaintly prescientific. But Newman's probings also
    break down the categories in which alchemy itself is usually placed,
    transforming its character.
    He shows, for example, that alchemy actually shared many of its goals
    with the visual arts in the Renaissance. Both enterprises tried to
    replicate or improve on nature. A number of Renaissance artists,
    including Leonardo and the French pottery maker Bernard Palissy, even
    used alchemical techniques to improve colors, glazes and pigments.
    But artists also considered themselves alchemists' rivals and objected
    to their claims of superior accomplishment. Palissy, for example,
    argued that beautiful shells are made by the "most malformed fish that
    could be found in the sea" but could not be replicated by the
    alchemist. Palissy said that he, on the other hand, could create
    animals, "sculpted and enameled so close to nature that other natural
    lizards and serpents will often come to admire them."
    As an art, Newman shows, alchemy was an attempt to construct and
    create objects; it experimented with them. In fact, Newman argues, the
    methods and ideas of modern science evolved out of alchemical
    research. Newman even finds references to alchemy in Darwin's theory
    of evolution, in which animal species are transformed (metaphorically
    speaking) by the alchemical pressures of the environment.
    There is more information gathered by Newman than the casual reader
    can easily absorb, including difficult analyses of philosophical and
    religious arguments taking place over centuries in Latin, Greek and
    Arabic. But Newman, a clear and graceful writer, keeps his goal in
    view. He is an initiate - tapping, testing and transmuting - until
    something different, still called alchemy, gradually takes shape.

From checker at panix.com  Wed Feb  2 22:15:32 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 17:15:32 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Technology Review: Technology and Happiness
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502021712380.9423@panix1.panix.com>

Technology and Happiness
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/01/issue/surowiecki0105.asp?p=0
By James Surowiecki January 2005

    In the 20th century, Americans, Europeans, and
    East Asians enjoyed material and technological advances that were
    unimaginable in previous eras. In the United States, for instance,
    gross domestic product per capita tripled from 1950 to 2000. Life
    expectancy soared. The benefits of capitalism spread more widely among
    the population. The boom in productivity after World War II made goods
    better and cheaper at the same time. Things that were once luxuries,
    such as jet travel and long-distance phone calls, became necessities.
    And even though Americans seemed to work extraordinarily hard (at
    least compared to Europeans), their avid pursuit of entertainment
    turned media and leisure into multibillion-dollar industries.

    By most standards, then, youd have to say that Americans are better
    off now than they were in the middle of the last century. Oddly,
    though, if you ask Americans how happy they are, you find that theyre
    no happier than they were in 1946 (which is when formal surveys of
    happiness started). In fact, the percentage of people who say theyre
    very happy has fallen slightly since the early 1970seven though the
    income of people born in 1940 has increased, on average, 116 percent
    over the course of their working lives. Nor is this a uniquely
    American phenomenon: you can find similar data for most developed
    countries. Perhaps the most striking example of progress having little
    impact on what economists call peoples sense of subjective well-being
    is Japan. Between 1960 and the late 1980s, Japans economy was utterly
    transformed, as the nation went from a low-cost supplier of cheap
    manufactured goods to what is perhaps the worlds most technologically
    sophisticated society. Over that stretch, the countrys GDP quintupled.
    And yet by the late 1980s, the Japanese said they were no happier than
    they had been in 1960.

    Even more strikingly, life seems worse for a significant minority of
    citizens in the rich world. Since the 1950s, reports of major
    depression have increased tenfold, and while much of that increase
    undoubtedly represents a new willingness to diagnose mental illness,
    theres a general consensus among mental-health experts that it also
    reflects a real development. People are more anxious, trust government
    and business less, and get divorced more often. In the 1960s Tom Wolfe
    confounded those who fretted about the gloominess of American life by
    insisting that Americans were in the midst of a happiness explosion.
    Forty years later, plenty of people would disagree.

    There is, though, one group of Americans that is imperturbably sunny:
    the Amish. Their depression rates are negligibly low relative to the
    rest of societys. Their happiness levels are consistently high. The
    Pennsylvania Amish, when asked how much they agree with the statement
    You are satisfied with your life (using a scale of 1 to 10), turn out
    to be as happy as the members of the Forbes 400. The Amish, though, do
    without most of what we think of as modern technology. They dont rely
    on the automobile, dont need the Internet, and seem to prefer
    stability and permanence to the heady growth that propels innovation
    and the U.S. economy. The comparison is a little facile (the Amish
    have a lot of other characteristics that make people cheerful,
    including strong community ties, stable families, and religious
    faith). But it suggests an interesting question: is it possible that
    technology, instead of liberating us, is holding us back? Is
    technological progress merely a treadmill, and if so, would we be
    happier if we stepped off of it?

    Can we trust people to know what makes them happy?

    The relationship between happiness and technology has been a perennial
    subject for social critics and philosophers since the advent of the
    Industrial [surowiecki20105.jpg] Revolution. But its been left largely
    unexamined by economists and social scientists. The attention that
    they have paid to the subject of happiness has involved the more
    capacious relationship between broad material prosperity and
    well-being. Gregg Easterbrooks book The Progress Paradox grappled with
    this question directly. The economists Bruno Frey and Alois Stutzer
    published an academic survey of the subject in Happiness and Economics
    in 2001. But the truly groundbreaking work on the relationship between
    prosperity and well-being was done by the economist Richard Easterlin,
    who in 1974 wrote a famous paper entitled Does Economic Growth Improve
    the Human Lot? Easterlin showed that when it came to developed
    countries, there was no real correlation between a nations income
    level and its citizens happiness. Money, Easterlin argued, could not
    buy happinessat least not after a certain point. Easterlin showed that
    though poverty was strongly correlated with misery, once a country was
    solidly middle-class, getting wealthier didnt seem to make its
    citizens any happier.

    Easterlins work did not get much attention when it was first
    published, but its implications were profound. By suggesting that
    there was no direct link between wealth and well-being, Easterlin was
    challenging some basic assumptions of mainstream economics. Most
    economists begin with the idea that people act in their own
    self-interest most of the time, and that they usually understand that
    self-interest pretty well. The choices people make, therefore, must be
    better than the alternatives (or else people would make other
    choices). By this argument, wealth is a good thing because it
    increases peoples options and gives them more freedom to pursue
    whatever it is they want to pursue. For classical economists, it was
    almost tautological to say that the wealthier people are, the happier
    they are, too.

    Easterlins relatively simple study suggested that if what people said
    about themselves was to be believed, you could give people more
    choices and more wealth and not have much of an impact on their sense
    of well-being. Well-being is actually the central idea of economics,
    says Alan Krueger, an economist at Princeton University. But weve
    never really tried to measure it. Weve used proxies, and weve said, If
    were richer, and we have more options, we must be better off. But we
    havent tried to find out if thats really true.

    One response to this, of course, is to say that you cant really trust
    what people say about themselves in surveys, no matter how well
    executed. Pay attention to what people do, and youll get a real sense
    of what they want. On this view, worrying about whether people say
    they are happy with the choices they make is nonsense. Of course they
    are. If people spend a lot of money and time buying and using personal
    computers and wireless phones and personal digital assistants, then
    these gadgets must make them happy.

    There is an inherent logic to this argument, and it has the great
    virtue of not asking economists to decipher peoples motives. But in
    the last decade or more, deciphering peoples motives (or at least
    their behavior) is something more economists have become interested in
    doing, and to great effect. Behavioral economists have moved away from
    assumptions about individuals perfect rationality in order to develop
    what they think of as a more realistic model of economic behavior.
    Theyve explored the idea, hardly radical outside economics but pretty
    radical inside it, that people might sometimes make mistakes, and that
    their decisions (whether individual or collective) could actually make
    them unhappy. For instance, behavioral economists have shown that
    peoples preferences are what is sometimes called time-inconsistent. We
    would like to save in the long term, but in the short term wed rather
    spend. Just as strikingly, behavioral economists have shown that human
    beings arent very good at anticipating their own desires. Daniel
    Kahneman of Princeton University, who won the Nobel Prize in economics
    in 2002, demonstrated that students, when asked to eat a bowl of their
    favorite ice cream eight days in a row, had a poor sense of whether
    they would or would not enjoy the experience.

    Considering how many decisions about new technologies are based on
    little or no concrete evidence and involve guessing about the future,
    it seems plausible that people can get stuck with technologies that
    dont make them happy but that are hard to get rid of. Plausible, but
    not certain: as well see, when it comes to the vexed relationship
    between technology and happiness, certainty is not an easy thing to
    come by.

    The question of technology: net loss or net gain?

    In trying to decipher how technology affects well-being, then, its
    worth paying attention to a few things. First, there have been few
    rigorous studies of the specific relationship between technological
    change and how people feel about their own lives. So the question Does
    more (or better) technology make people happy? is irreducibly
    speculative. Second, there is something inherently unstable about
    peoples accounts of their own states of mind. Forget peoples
    uncertainty about what will make them happy in the future; can we even
    trust that people know what makes them happy now?

    Most seriously, thinking about technology is hard because people adapt
    so quickly to the technologies that are available to them. If you had
    asked someone in 1870 whether she would be happier if she had a
    personal vehicle that would give her the freedom to travel hundreds of
    miles a day, in whatever direction she chose, at relatively little
    cost; the opportunity to fly across the ocean in a few hours; and the
    ability to speak to people who were thousands of miles away in real
    time for a few cents a minute, chances are very good that she would
    have said, yes, it would make her a lot happier. But today, its the
    rare person who gets excited about cars, planes, and telephones. We
    recognize their utility, but theyre also sources of frustration and
    stress. On balance, most people would say theyd rather have cars and
    telephones than not, butand this is what makes thinking about
    happiness so hardits not clear they really make us happier.

    This seems to be close to a universal phenomenon. In fact, one of
    happiness scholars most important insights is that people adapt very
    quickly to good news. Take lottery winners. One famous study showed
    that although winners were very, very happy when they won, their
    euphoria quickly evaporated, and after a while their moods and sense
    of well-being were indistinguishable from what they had been before
    the victory. Psychologists even have a word for the phenomenon:
    hedonic adaptation.

    So, too, with technology: no matter how dramatic a new innovation is,
    no matter how much easier it makes our lives, it is very easy to take
    it for granted. You can see this principle at work in the world of
    technology every day, as things that once seemed miraculous soon
    become mundane and, worse, frustrating when they dont work perfectly.
    Its hard, it turns out, to keep in mind what things were like before
    the new technology came along. Thats why broadband users should
    occasionally use dial-up: it makes them appreciate just what a
    difference a high-speed connection really does make.

    Does our fast absorption of technological progress mean, then, that
    technology makes no difference? No. It just makes the question of
    technologys impact, for good and ill, more complicated. Lets start
    with the downside. There are certain ways in which technology makes
    life obviously worse. Telemarketing, traffic jams, and identity theft
    all come to mind. These are all phenomena that make people consciously
    unhappy. But for the most part, modern critiques of technology have
    focused not so much on specific, bad technologies as on what Heidegger
    called the question of technologythat is, the impact of technology on
    our humanity.

    Those critiques have staked out two apparently opposed positions,
    which nonetheless share a common skepticism about peoples ability to
    use technology to their own ends. The first position, which one can
    see in the work of the French critic Jacques Ellul or, more oddly, in
    the novels of Philip K. Dick, is that technological progress is
    leading to an ever more rigid, controlled, soulless society, in which
    its easier for people to be manipulated and monitored. The second
    position, which has been well articulated in books like Neil Postmans
    Amusing Ourselves to Death and Robert Putnams Bowling Alone, is that
    technology is central to the increasing privatization of experience,
    which in turn is creating a fragmented, chaotic society, in which
    traditional relationships are harder to sustain, community is
    increasingly an illusion, and peoples relationships to each other,
    mediated as they often are by machines, grow increasingly tenuous.

    Theres obviously something to both arguments. Privacy has become
    increasingly fragile in a world of linked databases. In many
    workplaces, technologies like keystroke monitoring and full recordings
    of phone calls make it easier to watch workers. The notion that
    technology disrupts relationships and fractures community gained
    mainstream prominence as an attack on television, but in recent years
    it has also become central to the critique of the Internet. In Bowling
    Alone, Putnam suggests that TV is a chief culprit in the gradual
    isolation of Americans from each other and the erosion of the social
    capital that makes societies run smoothly. Similarly, the deleterious
    effects of the Internet, which supposedly further isolates people from
    what critics always call the real world, were pointed to early on in a
    famous study of 169 Pittsburgh residents, Internet Paradox: A Social
    Technology That Reduces Social Involvement and Psychological
    Well-Being? According to the study, published in the September 1998
    issue of American Psychologist, instead of allowing them to connect
    with a much wider set of potential friends and exposing them to
    information they might otherwise never have come across, the Internet
    instead made people more depressed and lonely than they would
    otherwise have been.

    This broad criticism of technologys impact on relationships is an
    interesting one and is especially relevant to the question of
    happiness, because one of the few things we can say for certain is
    that the more friends and close relationships people have, the happier
    they tend to be. But the evidence that the Internet or even television
    fundamentally erodes relationships as opposed to changing them is not
    especially convincing. For instance, when the authors of that 1998
    study revisited the question a few years later, using a slightly
    different methodology, they arrived at the opposite conclusion,
    finding that the Net had a slightly beneficial impact on peoples
    sociability, connections with others, and sense of well-being.

    Obviously, a technology as wide-ranging and ubiquitous as the Net will
    have myriad, immeasurable effects. But the Internet is essentially a
    communications technology, one that, like the telephone, allows people
    to expand their affective and informational networks. The Net is
    hardly the ideal public sphere, where all discussions are rational and
    everyone agrees on a definition of the common good. But it is a public
    sphere, and one that crucially functions without gatekeepers.

    The dominant critiques of technology have, then, something exaggerated
    about them. But one way in which technology, as a rule, does make
    people less happy is in its relentless generation of newness. One of
    the key insights of happiness studies is that people have a very hard
    time being content with what they have, at least when they know that
    others have more. Today, technological change is so rapid that when
    you buy something, you do so knowing that in a few months theres going
    to be a better, faster version of the product, and that youre going to
    be stuck with the old one. Someone else, in other words, has it
    better. Its as if disappointment were built into acquisition from the
    very beginning (unless youre buying a 70-inch plasma screen, in which
    case you should be fine for at least a couple of years). Theres no way
    to circumvent this drooping of the spirit, which creates
    dissatisfaction in the heart of the modern consumer.


    Technology ? la carte: bad food, but bigger portions
    Daily stress, a nagging sense of disappointment, fear that the
    government knows a lot more about you than you would like it to: if
    these are some of the ways in which technology reduces peoples sense
    of well-being, how (if at all) does it increase their happiness? This
    is terrain that is ordinarily left to the cyberoptimists and trans-
    humanists, who believe that technology should be celebrated for the
    way it remakes and improves our bodies and  minds. But setting flights
    of fancy aside, there is some intriguingly suggestive work about how
    certain new technologies make people not just objectively better off
    but also happier.

    In the marketplace, for instance, the Internet has made consumers
    happier not so much by cutting prices as by expanding the enormous
    array of choices available to them in a manageable way. In the
    happiness stakes, expanding consumers options is really a double-edged
    sword: consumers do have a preference for variety and novelty, and the
    more choices you have, the better the chance that youll find the thing
    you really want. But too much choice can actually paralyze people,
    leaving them, paradoxically, worse off.

    A well-known experiment conducted by Professors Mark Lepper and Sheena
    Iyengar (at Stanford and Columbia, respectively) illustrates the
    point: they set up two tables in a supermarket, one with 24 jars of
    jam and the other with six, and offered discount coupons to anyone who
    stopped to sample the jams. Of the people who stopped at the 24-jam
    table, only 3 percent went on to buy jam, while 30 percent of the
    people who stopped at the six-jam table did. More choices often make
    people frustrated because they have no reasonable way to navigate
    through them. What the Internet offers, at least in a nascent form, is
    a host of mechanismscollaborative filtering, shopbots, consumer-rating
    sitesthat give people the tools to make informed choices relatively
    quickly and easily, reducing paralysis and making them happier. The
    important point here is that among the infinite choices that the
    Internet offers, one is the option of less choice.

    Technology has also radically changed the nature of work, or at least
    some peoples work. This matters because the workplace is central to
    peoples sense of well-being and is more important to them than
    anything, including family. Studies show that nothingnot even
    divorcemakes people more unhappy than unemployment. For much of the
    19th and 20th centuries, technologys impact on the workplace was
    ambiguous at best. While the mechanization of agriculture allowed
    people to escape the farm, it often propelled them straight into heavy
    industrial labor, which was well paying but often miserable.
    Technology increased the productivity of workers, but it also
    diminished their autonomy: superiors controlled more of the details of
    their working days. Even the office work of the postwar period
    exemplified by the endless rows of desks in Billy Wilders The
    Apartment was deeply bureaucratic and controlled. But recently, the
    rise of the networked society, and the advent of knowledge-based
    businesses, means that workplaces have become less formal and more
    open, even while remaining efficient and productive. Already, as Arlie
    Hochschild points out in The Time Bind, a significant percentage of
    Americans find the atmosphere at work more congenial than the one at
    home. As the number of knowledge workers grows, and as companies
    strive to keep them happy, well-being should increase.

    The most important impact of technology on peoples sense of
    well-being, though, is in the field of health care. Before the
    Industrial Revolution, two out of every three Europeans died before
    the age of 30. Today, life expectancy for women in Western Europe is
    almost 80 years, and it continues to increase. The point is obvious,
    but important to note: the vast majority of people are happy to be
    alive, and the more time they get on earth, the better off they feel
    theyll be. (Remember, the point about prosperity and happiness is not
    that prosperity makes people unhappy; its that it doesnt necessarily
    make them happier.) Now, the picture is a little more complicated than
    this. Living a few extra years as a geriatric may not be ideal. But
    until very recently, life for the vast majority of people was (in
    Hobbess formulation) nasty, brutish, and short. Technology has changed
    that, at least for people in the rich world. As much as we should
    worry about the rising cost of health care and the problem of the
    uninsured, its also worth remembering how valuable for our spirits as
    well as our bodies are the benefits that medical technology and
    pharmaceuticals have brought us.

    On a deeper level, what the technological improvement of our health
    and our longevity underscores is a paradox of any discussion of
    happiness on a national or a global level: even though people may not
    be happier, even though they are wealthier and possess more
    technology, theyre still as hungry as ever for more time. Its like
    that old Woody Allen joke: the food may not be so great, but we want
    the portions to be as big as possible.

    Technology may only improve the taste of the meals slightly, but it
    makes them a lot bigger, and for most of us, that has the promise of
    something like happiness.

                                                                 NOTEBOOK

                  [21]Thieves take brain remote control [Simson Garfinkel]
           The BBC has an interesting story about a poor woman who had the
        remote-control device for her brian implant stolen.The woman has a
                                            brain implant that provides...

                     [22]Interview with Straton Sclavos [Simson Garfinkel]
         C|Net has a nice interview with Straton Sclavos, CEO of VeriSign,
    examining whether or not terrorists could attack us with a combination
                                                       cyber attack and...

                                 [23]Get Ready for Podcasting [Wade Roush]
    You heard it here first: the technology word of the year for 2005 will
       be "podcasting." Definitions vary (which is typical for a brand new
                                                    phenomenon) but the...

                                     [24]Bloggers of the Year [Wade Roush]
       PC Magazine recently announced its People of the Year, and they are
          Evan Williams, Meg Hourihan, and Paul Bausch, the co-creators of
                                              Blogger, and Ben and Mena...

                         [25]The Tsunami and Global Warming [David Appell]
      A meme is starting to develop, that environmentalists and others are
     linking the recent tsunami to global warming. Chinese meteorologists,
                                                    Richard Dawkins and...
                                                     [26]> Read more posts
                                                          Related Stories:

References

   21. http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/blog.asp?blogID=1700
   22. http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/blog.asp?blogID=1699
   23. http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/blog.asp?blogID=1698
   24. http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/blog.asp?blogID=1697
   25. http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/blog.asp?blogID=1696
   26. http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/index.asp

From checker at panix.com  Wed Feb  2 22:18:09 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 17:18:09 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Sailer: Tom Wolfe: Clear Eye For The Different Human 
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502021715570.9423@panix1.panix.com>

Tom Wolfe: Clear Eye For The Different Human 
http://vdare.com/sailer/050102_wolfe.htm
5.1.2
    [12]Steve Sailer Archive

Tom Wolfe--Clear Eye For The Different Human

    By [15]Steve Sailer

    With the 1979 publication of [16]The Right Stuff, a brilliant
    non-fiction account of the men involved in the [17]Mercury program,
    [18]Tom Wolfe completed a titanic decade and a half in which he
    revolutionized American journalism.

    He then set off to become the greatest satirical-realist novelist in
    the English language since his idol, [19]Evelyn Waugh. With his third
    novel, [20]I Am Charlotte Simmons, he has attained that goal.

    It's the story of a brilliant hillbilly virgin's first half year at
    Dupont U. (primarily [21]Duke U., where Wolfe's daughter [22]Alexandra
    graduated in 2002) and the three seniors she attracts--Hoyt, the
    [23]George W. Bush-like alcoholic frat boy; Adam, the nice but dorky
    intellectual; and JoJo, the only white starter on the NCAA champion
    basketball team.

    I like to think that, in discussing human differences frankly, Wolfe
    violates many of the same taboos that I do. For example, I frequently
    defend sensible athletes like [24]Larry Bird, Paul Hornung, [25]Dusty
    Baker or the late [26]Reggie White from politically-correct
    sportswriters who want to lynch them for telling the truth about the
    link between [27]racial differences in physique and sport success. And
    in his latest book, Wolfe parodies the [28]tired spin on an ESPN talk
    show where:

    "... four poorly postured middle-aged white sportswriters sat slouched
    in little, low-backed, smack-red fiberglass swivel chairs
    panel-discussing the 'sensitive' matter of the way black players
    dominated basketball. 'Look,' the well-known columnist Maury Feldtree
    was saying, his chin resting on a pasha's cushion of jowls, `just
    think about it for a second. Race, ethnicity, all that--that's just a
    symptom of something else. There's been whole cycles of different
    minorities using sports as a way out of the ghetto.'"

    But Wolfe makes clear the obvious reason: Even the best white players,
    such as the 6'-10" 250 pound JoJo, generally are inferior in
    musculature to the best black players--such as the freshman power
    forward Vernon Congers, with "his mighty pecs, delts, traps, and
    lats," who is threatening to take his job.

    Wolfe has been noticing racial differences in muscularity at least
    since [29]Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers back in 1970. There he noted
    that white poverty program bureaucrats feared the hard-muscled black
    protestors, but were less afraid of the Mexicans and not at all scared
    of the Chinese.

    The Samoans, however, left them dumbfounded:

    "Have you ever by any chance seen professional football players in
    person, like on the street? The thing you notice is not just that
    they're big but that they are so big, it's weird... From the ears
    down, the big yoyos are just one solid welded hulk, the size of an oil
    burner... Well, that will give you some idea of the Samoans, because
    they're bigger. The average Samoan makes [30]Bubba Smith of the Colts
    look like a shrimp. They start out at about 300 pounds and from there
    they just get wider."

    Although there were no Samoans in the National Football League when
    Wolfe wrote this, today there are dozens.

    "A [31]Samoan boy, according to estimates, is 40 times more likely to
    make it to the NFL than a boy from the mainland," writes [32]Greg
    Garber.

    As in his 1998 [33]Atlanta-based novel [34]A Man in Full, Wolfe's new
    book drives the conventionally-minded crazy by ignoring his
    characters' facial features in favor of the visible markers of their
    muscle to fat ratios. He rightly sees that these indicate the hormones
    driving their behavior.

    Indeed, Wolfe's book is so "hormono-centric" (as he puts it) that I
    can guesstimate the body fat percentages of all his new novel's
    characters.

    Using PBS fitness expert Covert Bailey's [35]table of recommendations
    for his clients, I'd say that lovely Charlotte is 22% body fat, while
    her snobbish and nearly-anorexic roommate Beverly is 16%. Exploited
    Adam is 21%, handsome Hoyt with his six-pack abs is 11%, jacked-up
    JoJo 9%, and virile Vernon 5%.

    Similarly, one of Wolfe's most important but least popular themes is
    masculinity.

    In [36]his previous novel, Tom Wolfe describes how a high IQ corporate
    staffer, known as The Wiz, views his lower IQ boss, [37]Charlie
    Croker, real estate developer, good old boy, and ex-football star
    "with a back like a Jersey Bull:"

    "The Wiz looked upon [Croker] as an aging, uneducated, and out-of-date
    country boy who had somehow, nonetheless, managed to create a large,
    and, until recently, wildly successful corporation. That the country
    boy, with half his brainpower, should be the lord of the corporation
    and that [the Wiz] should be his vassal was an anomaly, a perversity
    of fate. . . . Or part of him felt that way. The other part of him was
    in awe, in unconscious awe, of something the old boy had and he
    didn't: namely, the power to charm men and the manic drive to bend
    their wills into saying yes to projects they didn't want, didn't need,
    and never thought about before... And that thing was manhood. It was
    as simple as that."

    During my long corporate career, I repeatedly witnessed exactly the
    same phenomenon--but putting it so baldly in words leaves most people
    uncomfortable.

    Wolfe particularly doesn't [38]win any friends among male reviewers by
    pointing out that intellectuals, like Charlotte Simmons' Adam, tend to
    be less masculine than jocks like Jo-Jo, who, through sheer sense of
    alpha-male entitlement, forces his tutor (Adam) to stay up all night
    ghostwriting his history class reports.

    [39]Adam Kirsch in the neocon [40]N.Y. Sun was so unhinged by this
    that he threatened Wolfe with the [41]neutron bomb of
    accusations--anti-Semitism--although Wolfe's wife, the mother of his
    three children, is Jewish. (Kirsch got so many of the book's details
    wrong that it's hard to tell if he read it or just skimmed, looking
    for the naughty bits.)

    ([42]Here's another perfect example of a male reviewer--Theo Tait of
    the London Review of Books--criticizing Charlotte Simmons for
    everything that's true about it.)

    Likewise, Wolfe's message to young women--including, presumably, his
    daughters--that the [43]tighter rein they keep on their [44]sexual
    favors, the more power they have over men--has vastly annoyed the many
    women who don't want to be reminded about how they've [45]messed up
    their lives by[46] ignoring such advice.

    What's most striking about Wolfe's version of Duke U. is how, after 35
    years of institutionalized feminism, student sexuality hasn't
    progressed into an egalitarian utopia. Instead, it has regressed to
    something that a caveman would understand--a Hobbesian sexual
    marketplace where muscles are the measure of the man.

    This is exactly why I ended my 1997 article "[47]Is Love Colorblind?"
    like this:

    "When, in the names of freedom and feminism, young women listen less
    to the hard-earned wisdom of older women about how to pick Mr. Right,
    they listen even more to their hormones. This allows cruder measures
    of a man's worth--like the size of his muscles--to return to
    prominence. The result is not a feminist utopia, but a society in
    which genetically gifted guys can more easily get away with acting
    like Mr. Wrong."

    Wolfe has been ahead of his time for his entire career. Indeed, the
    reputation of his first novel, [48]The Bonfire of the Vanities, has
    suffered because its [49]plot is now often thought of as a pastiche of
    stories ripped from the headlines about Al Sharpton's [50]Tawana
    Brawley hoax, the arrest of the bond king [51]Michael Milken, the
    [52]Crown Heights anti-Semitic pogrom, the [53]Rodney King riots, and
    the [54]O.J. Simpson case.

    But Bonfire appeared in 1987 ... before all those events it seemingly
    reflects.

    America's most distinguished jurist-intellectual, Richard A. Posner,
    has admitted this in his book [55]Overcoming Law:

    "When I first read The Bonfire of the Vanities ... it just didn't
    strike me as the sort of book that has anything interesting to say
    about the law or any other institution.... I now consider that
    estimate of the book ungenerous and unperceptive. The Bonfire of the
    Vanities has turned out to be a book that I think about a lot, in part
    because it describes with such vividness what Wolfe with prophetic
    insight (the sort of thing we attribute to [56]Kafka) identified as
    emerging problems of the American legal system... American legal
    justice today seems often to be found at a bizarre intersection of
    race, money, and violence, an intersection nowhere better depicted
    than in The Bonfire of the Vanities even thought the book was written
    before the intersection had come into view."

    Moreover, "[57]Law & Order," perhaps the most successful franchise in
    television history, was clearly influenced by Bonfire. Lennie Briscoe,
    the late [58]Jerry Orbach's wonderfully [59]sardonic detective, could
    have come straight from its pages.

    But producer Dick Wolf drained the irony from Tom Wolfe's portrayal of
    New York City prosecutors. Bored and depressed by an endless stream of
    [60]black and brown lawbreakers, they torture the law to snag a Great
    White Defendant. In contrast, on "Law & Order," the [61]abusive
    prosecutors who concoct [62]patently nonsensical legal theories to
    justify arresting the [63]Park Avenue rich are the heroes.

    Although Wolfe resembles Waugh in his conservatism, they differ in
    important ways. [64]Waugh was a jealous, cantankerous snob who said
    that his Roman Catholic faith was the only thing that kept his
    behavior even marginally tolerable. Except when at his writing desk,
    Wolfe is a gracious man, perhaps the last of the old-fashioned
    Virginia gentlemen. He doesn't seem to feel any personal need for
    religion, but strongly [65]approves of it in others.

    Waugh used the most elegant English prose imaginable to limn the
    tawdriness of modern life. In contrast, Wolfe modeled his prose style
    on his subject: the sloppy, vulgar, and exciting America of the
    booming second half of the 20th Century. His sentences tended to be
    flat and functional, but studded with brilliant phrases. For example,
    "Radical Chic," "The Me Decade," and "The Right Stuff" have all become
    part of the language.

    Over the years, Wolfe's verbal inventiveness faded. But he improved as
    a copy-editor of his own prose, reaching a peak in A Man in Full,
    which features numerous showstopping set pieces. The chapter "In the
    Breeding Barn," a detailed description of the astonishing process by
    which thoroughbred racehorses are mated, is the most overwhelming
    thing he's ever written. (By nature a prim and private man, Wolfe's
    discomfort with writing about sex paradoxically makes his descriptions
    of its power so memorable.)

    But the quality of Wolfe's writing collapsed over the last 100 pages
    of A Man in Full--perhaps due to his open-heart surgery and his
    subsequent clinical [66]depression. This left me wondering whether
    he'd be able to recover at an age when most people are retired.

    Fortunately, in Charlotte Simmons, his prose style is back to a
    serviceable level. And his glee over finding this great topic--student
    life in a modern university--that nobody important had touched in
    decades is palpable.

    Additionally, making his main character a teenage girl solves one of
    Wolfe's old problems: his fascination with fashion and decorating is
    hugely important to his books, but in the manly men he normally writes
    about, it always seemed a little, ahem, [67]gay. Like many artistic
    geniuses, Wolfe's personality encompasses a wider range of the
    masculine to feminine continuum than is common among us mortals. Back
    in the 1960s, Wolfe wrote some brilliant essays about fashionable
    young women. But then he researched his [68]tremendous account of Navy
    pilots in combat over [69]North Vietnam,  "The Truest Sport: Jousting
    with Sam and Charlie," and became obsessed with male physical courage
    (which led to The Right Stuff and much else). He seemed to lose most
    of his ability to write about women--leading to the underdeveloped
    female characters in his first two novels.

    But his Charlotte is a painfully accurate depiction of a how young
    woman typically feels: i.e., acutely self-conscious. Wolfe has become
    the Beethoven of embarrassment. He orchestrates thunderous climaxes of
    social mortification every few pages.

    Although some have called I am Charlotte Simmons a can't-put-it-down
    book, personally, I had to put it down every 15 minutes or so. I felt
    so bad for the young characters as they heartbreakingly learn how the
    world works.

    Wolfe has been accused of lacking sympathy for his creations. But his
    empathy is infinite.

    As with Waugh, who was mostly dismissed as a dyspeptic middlebrow
    entertainer until after his death, it will likely be several decades
    before Wolfe's greatness as a novelist is uncontroversial.

    Maybe that will be when we are also allowed to be honest about the
    reality of human differences.

    [Steve Sailer [[70]email him], is founder of the Human Biodiversity
    Institute and [71]movie critic for [72]The American Conservative. His
    website [73]www.iSteve.com features site-exclusive commentaries.]

References

   12. http://vdare.com/sailer/index.htm
   15. http://vdare.com/sailer/index.htm
   16. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553381350/vdare/103-5102193-4946247
   17. http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/history/mercury/mercury-overview.htm
   18. http://www.tomwolfe.com/home.html
   19. http://www.doubtinghall.com/
   20. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374281580/vdare/103-5102193-4946247
   21. http://www.duke.edu/
   22. http://www.observer.com/pages/story.asp?ID=4619
   23. http://www.vdare.com/sailer/bush_thinking.htm
   24. http://www.vdare.com/sailer/lynch_mob.htm
   25. http://www.vdare.com/sailer/dusty.htm
   26. http://www.isteve.com/04DecB.htm#reggieist
   27. http://www.isteve.com/mjelegy.htm
   28. http://www.vdare.com/misc/entine_boston_marathon.htm
   29. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0374520720/vdare
   30. http://www.bubbascasino.com/bubbasmith.php
   31. http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ws.html#People
   32. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=1387626&type=story
   33. http://www.vdare.com/sailer/olympic_moral.htm
   34. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0553580930/vdare/103-5102193-4946247
   35. http://www.isteve.com/IsLoveColorblind.htm
   36. http://web.archive.org/web/20000815061102/www.commentarymagazine.com/9902/books.html
   37. http://www.tomwolfe.com/ManinFull-excerpt.html
   38. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n01/tait01_.html
   39. http://www.beatrice.com/archives/000885.html
   40. http://www.nysun.com/article/3824
   41. http://www.vdare.com/gottfried/foer.htm
   42. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n01/tait01_.html
   43. http://www.vdare.com/malkin/abstinence.htm
   44. http://www.vdare.com/malkin/washingtonienne.htm
   45. http://www.vdare.com/malkin/madonna.htm
   46. http://www.hillsdale.edu/imprimis/2001/march/default.htm
   47. http://www.isteve.com/IsLoveColorblind.htm
   48. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553275976/vdare
   49. http://www.vdare.com/pb/central_park.htm
   50. http://www.issues-views.com/index.php/sect/5000/article/2100
   51. http://www.mikemilken.com/biography.taf?page=controversy
   52. http://www.ex-iwp.org/docs/1993/Crown%20Heights%20Riot%20Aftermath.htm
   53. http://capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1576
   54. http://www.crimelibrary.com/classics4/oj/
   55. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0674649265/vdare
   56. http://www.kafka.org/
   57. http://www.nbc.com/Law_&_Order/about/index.html
   58. http://www.isteve.com/04DecB.htm#orbach1
   59. http://users.aol.com/dwalheim/lawandorder/briscoe.html
   60. http://www.vdare.com/pb/taylor_review.htm
   61. http://www.vdare.com/roberts/injustice2.htm
   62. http://www.vdare.com/pb/death_of_due_process.htm
   63. http://www.vdare.com/roberts/martha.htm
   64. http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9305/articles/weigel.html
   65. http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/11/12/1100227565721.html?from=storylhs&oneclick=true
   66. http://www.thedesertsun.com/news/stories2004/entertainment/20041107003229.shtml
   67. http://www.vdare.com/sailer/gay_gene.htm
   68. http://www.victorianweb.org/genre/ej/4a5.html
   69. http://www.vdare.com/pb/bright_shining_lie.htm
   70. mailto:steveslr at aol.com
   71. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/iSteve-movies/
   72. http://www.amconmag.com/
   73. http://www.isteve.com/
   74. https://www.cfau.org/asp/donate.asp


From shovland at mindspring.com  Wed Feb  2 23:35:33 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 15:35:33 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] BH: False Memory Creation Recorded
Message-ID: <01C5093C.D6216E10.shovland@mindspring.com>

That must be why so many people remember
Saddam piloting one of the airplanes that hit
the WTC :-)

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Premise Checker [SMTP:checker at panix.com]
Sent:	Wednesday, February 02, 2005 1:44 PM
To:	paleopsych at paleopsych.org; Human Biodiversity
Subject:	[Paleopsych] BH: False Memory Creation Recorded

False Memory Creation Recorded
http://www.betterhumans.com/Print/index.aspx?ArticleID=2005-02-01-3

Brain imaging reveals biology of faulty eyewitness accounts

    Betterhumans Staff
    2/1/2005 1:11 PM

    Brain imaging has provided insight into faulty eyewitness accounts.

    Research has shown that people's memories of complex events can be
    altered by misleading information provided after the event has
    occurred.

    Using noninvasive brain imaging methods, Yoko Akado and [8]Craig Stark
    of [9]Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland have now looked
    deeper into this process by examining how the brain encodes
    misinformation when creating a false memory.

    Misleading slide show

    For the study, participants were first shown a slide show of a man
    stealing a woman's wallet and then hiding behind a door.

    They were then shown a slightly different slide show and told it was
    the same sequence.

    Two days later, participants took a memory test in which they were
    asked to recall details of the slide show and which of the two
    presentations contained the information.

    Predicting misinformation

    Stark and Akado found that participants' brain activity predicted
    whether their memories would be accurate or false.

    For memories falsely associated with the first slide show when viewing
    the second, the researchers found that there was weaker activity in
    particular brain areas such as the prefrontal cortex.

    The researchers suggest that activity in the prefrontal cortex is
    linked with encoding memory context.

    Weak activity during the misinformation phase therefore suggests that
    the details of the second experience were poorly placed in context and
    as a result more easily confused.

    The research is reported in the journal [10]Learning & Memory.

References

    8. http://neuroscience.jhu.edu/peopledetail.asp?ID=320
    9. http://www.jhu.edu/
   10. http://www.learnmem.org/
_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


From christian.rauh at uconn.edu  Thu Feb  3 15:20:12 2005
From: christian.rauh at uconn.edu (Christian Rauh)
Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2005 10:20:12 -0500
Subject: [Paleopsych] A superpower on life support
In-Reply-To: <01C507FB.A4058CA0.shovland@mindspring.com>
References: <01C507FB.A4058CA0.shovland@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <4202412C.70303@uconn.edu>

Steve,

FYI, Brasil has always issued its bonds in US dollars, this year it is 
issuing 20% of them (at least) in Euros. And private export contracts 
have been moving to Euros too since the middle of last year.

The problem with the Zero Sum game here is that the US will probably 
stick the gun to the face of its comercial partners before going to the 
same level of negotiation. As a pre-emptive measure, of course.

Christian

Steve Hovland wrote:
> In recent years the US has been styling itself as 
> the last remaining superpower, able to dictate
> the establishment of a Pax Americana without
> significant opposition.
> 
> If you look at our finances, you see a different
> picture.
> 
> The USSR crumbled because they could no
> longer afford the Cold War game.
> 
> We are about to crumble because we can no
> longer pay cash to finance our activities.
> 
> Most of our prosperity is financed by a mountain
> of debt that now threatens the economy of the
> entire planet.
> 
> In their foolish greed our largest corporations
> have exported vast amounts of capital to India
> or China, who now have trade surpluses while
> we have trade deficits that compound our
> budget deficits.  This is a zero sum game.
> 
> The day will come when the world recognizes
> that we have spent all of the gold that we found
> at the end of our continental rainbow a mere
> 200 years ago.
> 
> When that day comes they will no longer buy
> Dollar bonds, but Euro bonds.  Indeed, the last
> straw with Saddam Hussein was that he started
> to price his oil in Euro's.
> 
> When that day comes we will find that India,
> China, Japan, and Europe will be our equal 
> partners because we won't be in any position
> to refuse their demands.
> 
> When that day comes we will no longer be
> a psychotic Gulliver stomping on all who dare
> to oppose us.  We will be one among equals
> living in a more benign equilibrium with the
> planet.
> 
> 
> Steve Hovland
> www.stevehovland.net
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych

-- 

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over,
their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight,
restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in
the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the
horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt......
If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience
till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where
principles are at stake.

         - Thomas Jefferson, from a letter he sent in 1798 after
                             the passage of the Sedition Act

_____________________________________________________________________
?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????


From checker at panix.com  Thu Feb  3 18:37:37 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 13:37:37 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] WP: What's Behind It: A Bit Of Social Engineering In
	Disguise
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502031328000.15747@panix1.panix.com>

What's Behind It: A Bit Of Social Engineering In Disguise
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28191-2005Jan22?language=printer

[This is the best article I've read on Social Security. There is no CRISIS 
as such. Retirement age will simply get pushed upward to make ends meet. 
Robert Fogel, in _The Fourth Great Awakening_, calculated that half of the 
actuarial value of Social Security has already been taken away through 
increases in the retirement age.

[My understanding is that private investment generates returns of 7-8 
percent per year in real terms, before taxes, over the long haul. (My 
Federal pension gets 6-7% *after* taxes (my own calculations), making it 
much better. Only certain state and local governments can beat this.) 
Social Security returns much less, but I've never understood why, except 
the all-purpose explanation of government incompetence.

[I agree with the article about the social engineering, but it's a tad bit 
disingenuous: all government action has some social engineering 
consequences. Likewise, a Hayekian decision to call of the bureaucrats is 
itself an example of rationalistic planning. Or meta-planning.]

    Sunday, January 23, 2005; Page B02

    For Republicans, Social Security reform could be the kind of
    donnybrook that health care reform was for Democrats in 1994. The
    magnitude of the political risk is staggering. On Capitol Hill, many
    Republicans wonder if they are being led off a cliff. What does
    President Bush think he's doing?

    Well, he says, there's a Social Security crisis. "The crisis is now,"
    Bush said in December. But he must know this isn't true. Economically
    speaking, stabilizing Social Security's long-term finances is a task
    of only middling difficulty and importance. It requires no fundamental
    change in the program and need not be tackled right away. As for
    private Social Security accounts, they are -- again, economically
    speaking -- a solution in search of a problem.

    No, what Bush and the Republicans are focused on is not the economy,
    stupid. It is conservative social engineering on the grandest possible
    scale.

    When people talk about Social Security reform, they usually mean
    reforms, plural. They're usually linking two changes that are
    conceptually and mechanically distinct. Reform No. 1 would reduce the
    growth of benefits -- or raise payroll taxes -- to bring the program
    into long-term fiscal balance. Reform No. 2 would structurally revamp
    the program by creating private accounts: A portion of your Social
    Security payroll tax would go into an investment account with your
    name on it instead of going to the U.S. Treasury to finance the
    benefits of current retirees, as now happens.

    Congress can adopt one idea, both ideas or neither. Either, by itself,
    is politically difficult; doing both -- simultaneously cutting and
    restructuring the program -- is audacious. Yet that is what Bush seems
    likely to propose. Why take the chance? On close examination, the
    economic payoffs are unimpressive. The moral and political dividends
    are potentially another matter.

    Earlier this month, a White House aide named Peter H. Wehner, director
    of strategic initiatives, sent selected conservatives a memo making
    the case for changing Social Security. "We consider our Social
    Security reform not simply an economic challenge, but a moral goal and
    a moral good," he wrote. "If we succeed in reforming Social Security,
    it will rank as one of the most significant conservative governing
    achievements ever."

    The emphasis was revealing. The memo said little about long-term
    growth and other economic effects. It stressed moving "away from
    dependency on government and toward giving greater power and
    responsibility to individuals." At the libertarian Cato Institute,
    Michael Tanner, the director of a Project on Social Security Choice
    and a long-time proponent of privatization, makes the same case.
    "We're changing fundamentally the relationship of people to their
    government," he says. It would be "the biggest shift since the New
    Deal."

    Bingo. Once you cancel the zeros on both sides of the equation,
    neither creating private Social Security accounts nor ratcheting down
    the growth of future benefits would constitute an economic watershed.
    Republicans frame Social Security reform as a dollars-and-cents issue,
    but what they really hope to change is not the American economy but
    the American psyche.

    Conservatives used to speak derisively of liberal social engineering.
    Yet the attempt to create private Social Security accounts is
    essentially conservative social counter-engineering. Government should
    help provide for unforeseeable contingencies: tsunamis, unemployment,
    open-heart surgery. But if there is one event in all of life that is
    wholly foreseeable, it is the advent of old age. Why, then, shouldn't
    people save for their own vretirements, instead of relying on welfare
    from the government -- which is what Social Security, as currently
    constituted, really is?

    Tanner argues that people who own assets see their place in society in
    a new light. Private accounts, he says, would encourage a culture of
    saving and personal responsibility; they would discourage political
    class warfare; they may, he argues, improve work habits and even
    reduce crime and other social pathologies. Create private Social
    Security accounts, and millions of low-income Americans will be
    stockholders and bondholders. GOP activists look at the way portfolio
    investors vote and salivate at the prospect of millions more of them.

    Many conservatives believe that moral values played a key role in
    Bush's reelection. It may seem odd, then, that Bush's boldest
    post-election priority is not abortion or gay marriage or schools but
    Social Security. The key to the paradox is that Social Security reform
    is not, at bottom, an economic issue with moral overtones. It is a
    values issue with economic overtones.

    By Jonathan Rauch, a senior writer for National Journal magazine, in
    which a longer version of this article appeared.


From checker at panix.com  Thu Feb  3 18:38:55 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 13:38:55 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Dowd: Inherit the Windbags
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502031338080.15747@panix1.panix.com>

Inherit the Windbags
Liberties column by Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, 5.2.3

    WASHINGTON

    Do male nipples prove evolution?

    Not at all, according to a Web site for a planned Creation Museum
    devoted to showing that the Bible is literally true.

    Nipples may be biologically de trop for men, an "expert" on the site
    notes, but that doesn't mean they resulted from natural selection.
    They could just as well be a decorating feature of the Creator's (like
    a hood ornament). Who are we to question His designs, since we cannot
    presume to comprehend His mind?

    The virtual tour of the museum, to be built in rural Kentucky, says
    its exhibits will explain many such mysteries, like the claim that T.
    rex lurked around Adam and Eve - "That's the terror that Adam's sin
    unleashed!" - and how "Noah and his family survive 371 days alone on
    an animal-filled boat" ("a real 'Survivor' story").

    The philosophy of the Creation Museum, part of the "Answers in
    Genesis" ministry, is summed up this way: "The imprint of the Creator
    is all around us. And the Bible's clear - heaven and earth in six
    24-hour days, earth before sun, birds before lizards. Other surprises
    are just around the corner. Adam and apes share the same birthday. The
    first man walked with dinosaurs and named them all! God's Word is
    true, or evolution is true. No millions of years. There's no room for
    compromise."

    Personally, I've decided to stop evolving. No point, really. Evolution
    is so 20th century.

    As with Iraq, President Bush has applied his doctrine of pre-emption
    on evolution, cutting it off before it can pose a threat to our
    well-being.

    Ever since he observed during his 2000 campaign that "on the issue of
    evolution, the verdict is still out on how God created the earth," Mr.
    Bush has been reeling backward as fast as he can toward the Garden of
    Eden, which, if creationists are to be believed, was really "Jurassic
    Park."

    Seeing the powerful role of evangelicals in getting Mr. Bush
    re-elected, teachers across the country are quietly ignoring
    evolution, even when the subject is in their curriculums.

    Many teachers take the hint on evolution even without overt pressure,
    Cornelia Dean wrote this week in Science Times: "Teachers themselves
    avoid the topic, fearing protests."

    On eBay, you can even find replicas of the stickers that a Georgia
    county put on science textbooks to warn that evolution is "a theory,
    not a fact." Talk about sticker shock.

    So much for the Tree of Knowledge. Mr. Bush gives us the Ficus of
    Faith.

    I knew the president, Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich wanted to wipe out
    the psychedelic "if it feels good do it" post-Vietnam 60's and go back
    to the black-and-white 50's - a meaner "Happy Days."

    They wanted to yank us back in a time machine to a place before
    Vietnam was lost, free love was found, Roe v. Wade was enacted; they
    could roll back science to smother stem cells' promise. (Since it was
    reported last week that all human embryonic lines approved for
    federally financed research are tainted with a foreign molecule from
    mice, the administration can't even feign an interest in scientific
    progress. Who'd a-thunk that science's great hope would turn out to be
    Arnold Schwarzenegger?)

    I misunderestimated this ambitious president. His social engineering
    schemes in the Middle East and America are breathtakingly brazen.

    He doesn't just want to dismantle the 60's. He wants to dismantle the
    whole century - from the Scopes trial to Social Security. He can shred
    one of the greatest achievements of the New Deal and then go after
    other big safety-net Democratic programs, reversing the prevailing
    philosophy of many decades that our tax and social welfare systems
    should equalize the distribution of wealth, just a little bit. Barry
    Goldwater wouldn't have had the brass to take a jackhammer to that
    edifice.

    The White House seems to think Social Security was corrupt from the
    moment it was enacted in 1935. It wants to replace it with private
    accounts that will fatten the wallets of stockbrokers and put the
    savings of Americans who didn't inherit vast fortunes at risk.

    Mr. Bush and his crew not only want to scrap the New Deal. By
    weakening environmental and safety protections and trying to flatten
    the progressive income tax, they're trying to eradicate not just one
    Roosevelt but two, going after the progressive legacy of Theodore.

    With their brutal assault on history and their sanctimonious manner,
    they give a whole new meaning to Teddy's philosophy of the presidency.
    Bully pulpit, indeed.

    E-mail: liberties at nytimes.com


From checker at panix.com  Thu Feb  3 18:39:43 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 13:39:43 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: Relations With Germany Are Broken Off
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502031339010.15747@panix1.panix.com>

Relations With Germany Are Broken Off
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0203.html

[I'm sorry for the delay in forwarding this.

     This event took place on February 3, 1917, and was reported in the The
     New York Times the following day.

Relations With Germany Are Broken Off
     _________________________________________________________________
     _________________________________________________________________

     Break With Austria Too
     _________________________________________________________________

     Notice of Her Blockade Arrives as President is Speaking
     _________________________________________________________________

     EXPECTS NEUTRAL SUPPORT
     _________________________________________________________________

     President Expresses Belief That They Will Follow America's Course
     _________________________________________________________________

     STILL HOPES AGAINST WAR
     _________________________________________________________________

     Mr. Wilson Unable to Believe That Germany Means to Carry Out Threat
     _________________________________________________________________

Special to The New York Times

     RELATED HEADLINES

          American Ship Housatonic Sunk, Crew Safe: First Sinking Reported:
        London Hears No Warning Was Given Housatonic Off Scilly Islands: 25
        Americans on Board: Armed British Steamer Picks Up the Officers and
           Crew of the Vessel: News Stirs in Washington: But if U-Boat Took
                   Precautions Attack Will Not Be Adequate Cause for Action

     Militia Called Out: State Forces Ready Today: Mobilization of Land and
      Naval Units Starts at Once: Guards Doubled at Forts: Police Posted on
     Bridges and Home Defense League Ordered to Prepare for Duty: Governors
     Island Busy: Corporation Employes to Protect Plants -- Germans Meeting
                                                              Places Listed

       German Ships Seized: Teuton Ships Are Seized: Federal Officials Take
        Over Vessels Held in Our Ports: Dispossess Appam's Crew: Two German
     Auxiliary Cruisers Also Are Among Those Now in Custody: Liner Had Been
     Crippled: Kronprinzessin Cecile is Found Useless -- Austrian Ship Here
                                                                is Damaged.

                                         Text of President Wilson's Address

      Bernstorff Was Not Surprised: But on Receiving Passports Did Not Hide
          His Concern Over Failure of His Efforts: Has No Safe Conduct Yet:
       Details of Arrangements for His Departure Not Settled -- His Wife an
                                                                   American

          The St. Louis Held; May Mount Guns: Convoy or Six Rapid-Firers to
       Protect American Liner on Voyage to Europe: Sailing Tomorrow Likely:
           Adriatic Leaves for the War Zone With 44 Passengers -- Others to
                                                                     Depart

            Attempt to Scuttle Destroyer Jacob Jones At Philadelphia; Petty
                                                       Officer Put In Irons

     W ashington, Feb. 3 -- Diplomatic relations between Germany and the
     United States were severed today. It was President Wilson's answer to
     the German notice that any merchant vessel which entered prescribed
     areas would be sunk without warning. Count von Bernstorff, the
     Kaiser's Ambassador, has received his passports, in other words, he
     has been dismissed by this Government. James W. Gerard, the American
     Ambassador at Berlin, has been ordered to return home with his staff.

     President Wilson made the sensational answer in a momentous address
     delivered before the two houses of Congress assembled in joint session
     this afternoon. Congress appears to be unanimous in a determination to
     stand by the President in whatever measures he takes. Party lines have
     been obliterated in the general desire to support the Administration
     in dealing with a critical situation that most observers expect to
     result in the entrance of the United States into the European
     conflict.

     War has not been declared. The President in his address said: "we do
     not desire any hostile conflict with the German Government." But
     preparations for war are being made. Many yards have been closed to
     the public. For the present private shipbuilding concerns and other
     plants engaged in Government work will take their own precautionary
     measures. Private ship builders have offered to place their
     establishments under the control of the Government, and a provision
     authorizing the Secretary of the Navy to do this will be offered by
     the Naval Committee in the House on Monday.

     German merchant ships at American ports are being closely guarded, and
     some have been seized. Our war vessels are said to have received
     precautionary orders. Army arsenals have been told to guard against
     danger. Public buildings here and elsewhere are being guarded also.

     Break With Austria, Too

     Diplomatic relations with Austria-Hungary are to be severed also. This
     was made certain by the receipt by the State Department today of a
     note from the Vienna Government containing notice of adherence to the
     German submarine blockade policy. President Wilson did not know this
     when he went to the Capitol. Count Tarnowski von Tarnow, the newly
     accredited Ambassador of Austria-Hungary, who had reached the United
     States on Thursday, went to the State Department today to arrange for
     his formal presentation to President Wilson. Word was brought to him
     that Secretary Lansing would be unable to receive him. Hardly had the
     Ambassador gone when the department received a cable message from
     Frederic C. Penfield, giving the text of the Austro-Hungarian
     adherence to the German war zone order. As Count Tarnowski has not
     been formally received by this Government he may not be dismissed in
     the same way as Count von Bernstorff was, but he will be invited to
     leave the country, with the members of his suite and embassy staff.
     Ambassador Penfield and his embassy staff will be ordered home. If war
     results it will be war with Austria-Hungary and Turkey as well, and
     possibly with Bulgaria.

     Demands Release of Americans

     Taking it for granted that war is inevitable, speculation is being
     indulged in here as to how soon the clash will come. That it will come
     soon is a general opinion tonight. A German submarine is reported to
     have sunk the American freight steamer Housatonic. Word came
     officially today that Germany was holding as prisoners of war
     sixty-odd American citizens taken from merchant ships by a German
     raider. This Government has demanded their release immediately. If
     Germany refuses - and this is expected- the President may ask Congress
     to authorize him to take measures of reprisal. He will certainly do so
     if Germany does not spare American merchantman entering the forbidden
     areas. An important aspect of the situation to which little attention
     has been attracted is that President Wilson hopes that other neutral
     nations will join the United States in blacklisting Germany in
     proclaiming that Government unworthy of association with other nations
     in the great world family. The President, as his intention is
     understood, wants Germany "sent to Coventry," not to be spoken to
     until she has shown herself worthy of recognition again.

     The United States stands ready to champion the integrity of neutral
     rights. Whether this will be done single-handed or with the
     cooperation of other neutral nations is not known. An exchange of
     views between the United States and the Foreign Offices of South
     America and Europe is expected to be in progress by Monday. In Spain's
     recent reply to President Wilson's note to the belligerent nations
     that country's willingness to participate in any concert of neutrals
     was indicated. Other European neutrals are known to be ready to arrive
     at an understanding with American Government.

     The President gave a hint of this intention in the address he
     delivered to Congress today. After he had indicated that he might find
     it necessary later on that "authority be given to me to use any means
     that may be necessary for the protection of our seamen and our people
     to the prosecution of their peaceful and legitimate errands on the
     high seas," the President said, "I take it for granted that all
     neutral nations will take the same course."

     Bernstorff Promptly Notified

     The note of dismissal handed to Count von Bernstorff was practically a
     paraphrase of the President's address to Congress. It was signed by
     Robert Lansing, Secretary of State, and was given to the German
     Ambassador personally by Lester H. Woolsey, an assistant solicitor of
     the State Department who does most of the confidential legal work for
     Secretary Lansing. Mr. Woolsey went to the German Embassy in
     Massachusetts Avenue at exactly 2 o'clock and was received immediately
     by Count von Bernstorff. Mr. Woolsey's arrival at the embassy was
     timed to correspond to the moment when President Wilson appeared in
     the hall of the House of Representatives to inform Congress that
     diplomatic relations with Germany had been severed. With the note
     handed to the German Ambassador by Mr. Woolsey were the passports
     guaranteeing Count von Bernstorff safe conduct out of the United
     States. When and how he will depart and where he will go are questions
     to be determined. Count von Bernstorff is still at the embassy.

     The concluding paragraph of the note of dismissal to Count von
     Bernstorff gives in brief form the action taken by this Government
     today, which breaks officially for the first time in history the
     friendly relations existing between Germany or any German State and
     the United States. That paragraph reads:

     "The President has, therefore, directed me to announce to your
     Excellency that all diplomatic relations between the United States and
     the German Empire are severed, and that the American Ambassador at
     Berlin will be immediately withdrawn, and in accordance with such
     announcement to deliver to your Excellency your passports." And the
     Secretary of State, whose language was scrupulously courteous
     throughout his communication, had "the honor to be, your Excellency's
     obedient servant, Robert Lansing."

     Precautions at Capital

     Washington is calm outwardly, but under the surface, the excitement is
     intense. Having recovered from its first shock of realization that the
     break with Germany which might mean war had come at last, Washington
     began to discuss the situation and arrived at the conclusion that a
     break was the only possible outcome of the German notice that ruthless
     methods of submarine warfare were to be resumed. This of course,
     applies to Washington generally. Official Washington showed a bit of
     excitement as the day wore along. It was impossible not to come under
     the spell of the air of activity in the Government Departments where
     the wheels were humming in a way suggestive of the period of the war
     with Spain.

     Persons who have been in the habit of passing regularly in and out of
     Government buildings were stopped at the entrances and told that they
     could not enter unless they furnished evidence that they were
     Government employes attending engagements with officials. The great
     host of clerks who make their homeward way nightly through the White
     House grounds were politely told by policemen that the grounds were
     closed to the public for an indefinite period. The gates leading to
     the footways were closed., and while the gates of the entrances to the
     driveways were open they were guarded by policemen.

     Suffragists bearing banners inquiring of President Wilson how long
     women must wait for liberty and what the President would do for
     suffrage kept up their vigil at the White House gates. It was bitterly
     could, but the women stood their watches cheerfully. The part of the
     White House grounds closed today has never been closed except for the
     brief periods of ceremonial occasions.

     Joseph P. Tumulty, Secretary to the President, said the grounds had
     been closed merely out of excess of caution. He thought it well to
     take that action in a time likely to lead to great popular excitement.

     Decision Reached at Night

     President Wilson's decision to break with Germany at once was
     apparently reached in the still watches of the night. When he left the
     Capitol yesterday evening after consulting with sixteen Senators, he
     did not indicate what course he intended to follow in dealing with the
     German Government. All that was known was that the new submarine
     policy of Germany made a break inevitable. But when it was to come was
     problematical. The President had been advised by some of his conferees
     to break at once. Others had thought he should wait for an actual
     sinking of a merchantman without warning by a German submarine. Some -
     but they were few - suggested that another diplomatic note should be
     sent to Germany before a severance of relations. Which of these
     courses the President would be inclined to follow he did not indicate
     when he left the Capitol.

     It was about 10:30 o'clock this morning that the President sent for
     secretary Lansing and told him that he had determined that diplomatic
     relations with Germany should be broken at once. He then arranged for
     addressing Congress at 2 o'clock. Secretary Lansing went back to the
     State Department, to make the necessary arrangements for dismissing
     Ambassador von Bernstorff and recalling Ambassador Gerard.

     The scene when President Wilson appeared at the House at 2 o'clock was
     dramatic. Reports had been in circulation that the President had
     ordered a break with Germany, but comparatively few persons in that
     large audience were certain as to what attitude the President had
     decided to adopt. Floor and galleries were packed and jammed when the
     President entered the chamber. He got a cordial reception. In the
     thirty minutes that he stood at the rostrum facing that breathless,
     eager gathering of men and women, only twice did his hearers become
     really demonstrative. He had received a round of hand clapping and a
     cheer or two when he appeared. The audience listened attentively to
     the President's words as he read from little printed pages.

     Draws Volleys of Cheers

     The President had sketched the steps the Government had taken to bring
     Germany to a realization of her responsibility to other nations in the
     conduct of submarine warfare. It was near the close of the address
     when the crowd broke into applause over his declaration that he had
     directed that all diplomatic relations between Germany and the United
     States should be severed. A moment later there was another outbreak of
     approval when he said that he refused to believe that the German
     Government intended to do in fact what it had given warning of
     intention to do, but this applause was not very marked. When near the
     very end of the address, the President said he would come before
     Congress again to ask authority to protect Americans on the seas if
     Germany carried out her threats, the audience burst into spontaneous
     cheering.

     On the whole the businesslike and direct character of the address
     brought general commendation from those who heard it and a careful
     canvass of opinion among Senators and Representatives showed that
     party lines were obliterated in the patriotic desire to prove to the
     President that the nation's legislators stood behind him in the most
     important action he has undertaken in his Presidential term.


From checker at panix.com  Thu Feb  3 18:40:43 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 13:40:43 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: U.N. Aims to Cut Poverty in Half as Experts
 Wonder How to Measure It
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502031339590.15747@panix1.panix.com>

The New York Times > Business > World Business > Economic Scene: U.N.
Aims to Cut Poverty in Half as Experts Wonder How to Measure It
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/03/business/worldbusiness/03scenes.html
5.2.3

    ECONOMIC SCENE

    By ALAN B. KRUEGER

    ONE of the United Nations' top goals is to cut in half the proportion
    of people living in extreme poverty by 2015, compared with 1990. The
    World Bank is responsible for keeping track. Accurately monitoring
    poverty is essential for knowing whether the goal is achieved and
    whether antipoverty strategies are working.

    But measuring poverty is difficult for a particular country, let alone
    the world. The movie star Angelina Jolie challenged celebrities at the
    World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week to know
    "absolutely what they're talking about" when it comes to poverty, yet
    even experts would have trouble meeting her standard. Knowing the
    extent of the rise or fall of worldwide poverty is difficult because
    poverty is not easy to define or measure.

    First, establishing a poverty line - or level of consumption below
    which one is considered impoverished - involves an element of
    arbitrariness. For many poor families, not having enough money amounts
    to not having enough food. But there is no particular threshold level
    of income or expenditures above which people automatically become
    fully functioning, nourished members of society.

    "Poverty lines are as much political as scientific constructions,"
    said Angus Deaton, a Princeton economist and expert on economic
    development. In such places as different as the United States and
    India, the poverty line was initially set with reference to minimum
    standards of food consumption. Yet over time, Professor Deaton noted,
    the poverty lines in both countries were adjusted to keep pace with
    overall price inflation, not the price of food or the share of food in
    the average family's budget. Despite straying from its original
    conception, the poverty line survived because of its political and
    administrative usefulness.

    The U.N. has set the line for extreme poverty at living on less than
    $1 a day. This threshold has obvious rhetorical appeal and surely
    qualifies as extreme poverty by any standard in developed countries;
    it is also not far off the poverty line used by many of the poorest
    countries themselves.

    Once an international poverty line is set, it must be converted to
    local currencies. This is trickier than it sounds. Currency exchange
    rates are inappropriate because most of the items that the poor
    consume are not traded on world markets. Living expenses are much
    lower in rural India than in New York, but this fact is not fully
    captured if prices are converted with currency exchange rates.

    To convert the $1 poverty line into foreign currencies, the World Bank
    uses indexes of "purchasing power parity." Simply put, these indexes
    reflect the cost of buying a standard bundle of goods in each country.

    Although it is desirable to use purchasing indexes, they are not
    available for all countries and are skewed toward representing the
    purchases of the wealthiest households, not the poorest, when they are
    available. Another problem is that the bundle of goods that poor
    families actually buy varies from country to country because of
    differences in tastes and availability.

    Thus, the $1 poverty line is best viewed as an approximation.

    Once the poverty line is set in local currency, the consumption of a
    representative sample of households must be compared with the line to
    determine the percent of people getting by on less than $1 a day.
    (Each household's consumption is spread equally among its members,
    another leap of faith.)

    Again, this is harder than it sounds. The World Bank typically relies
    on whatever government surveys that countries routinely produce.

    But there is no uniform standard in the way countries collect and
    process their data, which is important because the poverty rate is
    sensitive to how consumption is measured.

    Consider India, home to 33 percent of the world's poor - or 20
    percent, depending on how the data are collected.

    India was a pioneer in social surveys and has one of the best
    government statistical agencies in the world. Still, uncertainty
    shrouds the level of poverty in India. In one experiment, India's
    national survey organization asked half of the households it surveyed
    to report their spending on certain items over a 30-day period and
    half over a seven-day period. Households reported 30 percent higher
    food consumption per day in the shorter interval, enough to cut the
    poverty rate in half. It is not certain which measure is more
    accurate, although follow-up work points toward the longer interval.

    Perhaps the best one can hope for is consistency of measurement within
    countries to detect changes in poverty over time. But continuing past
    practices can prolong the use of misleading poverty counts that are
    not comparable across countries. Clearly, there is a need for Latin
    American countries, which usually measure poverty by income rather
    than consumption, to collect reliable household consumption data
    because consumption is a better measure of living standards.

    The herculean measurement problems aside, careful research by Shaohua
    Chen and Martin Ravallion of the World Bank indicates that much
    progress has been made toward the goal of halving poverty in China and
    India. But, they found, little progress has occurred in Latin America
    and Africa, and the former Soviet states are slipping into deeper
    poverty. Because China and India accounted for 60 percent of the
    world's poor in 1990, the goal of halving poverty may be achieved a
    decade from now, even while many regions see no progress.

    Despite the progress in China and India, 18 percent of the world's
    population still somehow survives on less than $1 a day.

    The United Nations has recently held a number of brainstorming
    sessions to gather proposals for the secretary general's report to the
    General Assembly on achieving the development goals, which will be
    delivered next month.

    An essential prerequisite is to improve poverty statistics and ensure
    their integrity.

    Although the process of setting a poverty line is necessarily
    political, the task of measuring poverty should be insulated from
    political influences. The World Bank, however, is an inherently
    political institution.

    Yet no other international body currently has the expertise or
    resources to monitor worldwide poverty, so it is important for the
    next president of the World Bank to value and protect the impartiality
    of the statistical and research staff. The U.N. could also help by
    working with statistical agencies around the world to develop uniform
    standards for poverty surveys and then to ensure that their data are
    adequately documented and publicly archived. To this end, the U.N.
    could restart its Household Survey Capability Program, which supported
    statistical offices in developing countries in the 1980's.

    This may not be a cause that celebrities are ready to line up for, but
    improving poverty data will put the world in a better position to
    monitor progress and evaluate poverty reduction strategies by the time
    the poverty line is moved up to $2 a day.

    Alan B. Krueger is the Bendheim professor of economics and public
    affairs at Princeton University. E-mail: akrueger at princeton.edu


From checker at panix.com  Thu Feb  3 18:43:26 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 13:43:26 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: Sharing and Apart, as a Life Ebbs (5 Letters
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502031341030.15747@panix1.panix.com>

The New York Times > Opinion > Sharing and Apart,
as a Life Ebbs (5 Letters)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/03/opinion/l03aging.html
5.3.3

    To the Editor:

    In "Under One Roof, Aging Together Yet Alone" (front page, Jan. 30),
    the underlying sadness was evident. While money may afford assisted
    living residents a nice, comfortable atmosphere with everything they
    could possibly want, the question that kept coming to my mind was,
    Where are their children, and why are they not taking care of their
    parents?

    We have such vision for the rest of the world in terms of
    democratizing it and making it like us. And yet we often overlook that
    we would do well to learn from other countries that honor their
    responsibility in taking care of their parents.

    Sara Salvania
    Provo, Utah, Jan. 30, 2005

    To the Editor:

    Cranky in an assisted living facility, residents wonder why they
    aren't as happy as those depicted in the glossy brochures.
    Realistically, one wonders how they could possibly emulate those
    smiling couples. Old, often alone without a partner, removed from what
    has been familiar, the possibility of money running out, a limited
    life. Who wouldn't turn into a first-class curmudgeon?

    Has a secret been exposed? The myth that this stage of life is one of
    contentment is questionable. Assisted living facilities are necessary,
    and they serve a much-needed purpose as we live longer.

    Should this be in my future down the road, I will simply endure. But
    save me from Bingo games, and hope I am able to make the best of it.
    What other options are there?

    Mary Ramniceanu
    New York, Jan. 31, 2005

    To the Editor:

    "Humbled by the loss of control and fearful of the future." This
    phrase from "Under One Roof, Aging Together Yet Alone," made me think
    of Oregon and its Death With Dignity Act, which was enacted in 1997.
    Since then, more people have chosen to avail themselves of the act
    because of their fear of loss of control than for any other reason,
    including pain.

    If loss of control is one of our greatest fears (I am 74), why is it
    only Oregon that allows those who wish to choose the time and manner
    of their deaths to do so? When will those of us who live elsewhere
    gain that advantage?

    Betsy Carpenter
    Portola Valley, Calif., Jan. 30, 2005

    To the Editor:

    I discovered last July that I had cancer, went through chemo and
    radiation and still have cancer. I'm going to die, and I know and
    accept it. But I'm much happier than the people I read about in the
    article. I was divorced and met a widow some eight years ago, and we
    decided to share our lives together.

    We each lived alone and finally wondered why. Now that cancer has
    entered the scene, nothing has changed because of the great woman I am
    with, who doesn't want me to leave home and go anywhere. And I don't
    want to leave. We will share our lives to the end.

    Families who are considering placing a loved one in one of these
    assisted living communities might do better to find an organization
    that places a man and a woman together to share what income they have,
    staying at home and being happy. It's not a project that can be
    attempted and completed overnight, but it would benefit everybody.

    There are plenty of people living alone who would like to share their
    lives with someone. All it would take would be for someone to start an
    organization that could accomplish this task.

    My lady went through open-heart surgery, and I cared for her during
    her yearlong recovery. Now she is doing the same for me until my end
    comes. It's called love.

    Jerry Babb
    Oakland, Me., Jan. 30, 2005

    To the Editor:

    Having to leave assisted living to go to a nursing home points out a
    sad, irrational fact of the American health care system. What sense
    does it make to move a person from an appropriate, less expensive
    setting - assisted living - to an inappropriate, much more expensive
    nursing home? It makes no sense at all.

    This parallels another irrationality in our health care system.
    Insurance companies and government health financing agencies will pay
    tens of thousands of dollars for psychiatric hospitalization, but
    severely limit money for cost-effective outpatient psychotherapy,
    despite well-documented research showing that outpatient treatment
    will prevent the much greater expenditure of hospitalization.

    The gold standard for health care is providing services in the least
    restrictive setting. The practice of inappropriately shunting people
    into hospitals and nursing homes grossly violates this standard.

    In my years of practice as a psychologist, I have not been able to
    figure out the reason for these truly irrational practices. The best I
    have been able to come up with is that hospitals and nursing homes
    have better lobbyists and deeper pockets for political contributions.
    They certainly - because of the wastrel ways of the government and
    insurance companies - have more money to spend.

    Ira Rosofsky
    New Haven, Jan. 31, 2005
    The writer is a psychologist who provides services to nursing homes
    and assisted living centers.


From checker at panix.com  Thu Feb  3 19:59:56 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 14:59:56 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Jerusalem Report: (Slezkine) Some of My Best Friends
	Are Mercurians
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502031459390.3527@panix1.panix.com>

Some of My Best Friends Are Mercurians http://jrep.com/Info/10thAnniversary/ 
Noah Efron The Jerusalem Report

Twenty-five years ago, I met an old American expatriate in Moscow. I was a 
college kid, sent by the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry to bring prayer 
books and blue jeans (to be sold or bartered) to Jews denied emigration visas 
for Israel.

In 10 days, I met dozens of these refuseniks, but the man I'll call Josef stood 
out. His parents had lived in Flatbush, my grandparents' old neighborhood. They 
had followed news of the Russian Revolution with excitement, Josef told me, and 
by the time he was 5 years old, in 1920, America to them had become a soulless 
Babylon, where money and trivial comforts were all that mattered. To raise a 
boy there, his parents felt, was to sentence him to the life of a petty 
shopkeeper. But to raise a boy in revolutionary Russia, that was to give him a 
future with meaning and honor.

Eventually Josef's parents sold their books and furniture, and boarded a 
steamer bound for Libau, in Latvia. From there, they made their way to Moscow, 
where they took up residence in a tiny third-floor apartment they shared with 
two other families. It was there, 60 years later, that he gratefully accepted 
the Levis I brought, and told me tearfully, in Brooklyn-accented English, that 
his well-meaning parents had thrown away his life before it had ever begun.

I took this personally. Josef was born 12 years before my father, just a few 
blocks over, and it seemed a mere accident that it was his parents, and not my 
father's, who quit America for the revolution. It could, after all, have been 
me in a dismal Moscow flat, pathetically taking jeans from some rich, 
self-important American kid. And it was personal in another way as well.

My grandparents had come to America from eastern Europe before the revolution, 
and while I was thankful that I had avoided Soviet life, I did not find the 
results of their decision altogether satisfactory. In fact, I too had come to 
see America as soulless and materialistic, banal and debauched. Which is why I, 
too, had decided to quit America. I would finish college as I promised my 
mother and father, but then I would move to Israel to join a desert kibbutz. 
There I planned to become a wholly different man. I would be ruddy and sinewy; 
my hands would be rough. I'd farm. I'd serve in the army. I would stop reading 
the New York Review of Books.  (The diploma that cost my parents $150,000 would 
hang in the bathroom.) I would be earnest and "authentic."

And so it came to pass that three years after I'd met Josef, I was a kibbutznik 
on an army transit nervously accompanying my infantry unit into Sidon, Lebanon. 
A Jew reinventing himself is by now so familiar a notion that it is easy to 
overlook the oddity of the expatriate's story, and my own. The experience of 
Jews in the 20th century was one of grand movements, in both senses of the 
word. Millions of Jews moved from one place to another, often liquidating 
possessions, crossing seas, shattering families, learning new languages, and 
acquiring new passports (and, of course, in wartime Europe, riding the rails to 
their deaths). And, in the same period, millions of Jews joined movements - 
communist, socialist, bundist, Zionist and more, in every imaginable 
combination. Many of my heroes growing up - Rosa Luxembourg, Samuel Gompers, 
Leon Trotsky, Albert Einstein, David Ben-Gurion - were movement Jews in both 
senses.

Each ended up an ocean away from where he or she began. And each tried to 
remake the world he or she lived in, along the lines of some creed or ideology. 
Why were Jews in the 20th century such visible peripatetics, such visible 
radicals and, in particular, such visible peripatetic radicals? Pick any 
standard you wish, and Western Jews have excelled by it;  first in Europe 
before the rise of the Nazis, and then in the United States, and then (though 
less so) in Israel. Why?

These are huge questions, of course. Over the years a great number of answers 
have been given: Jews succeed because they're so damn smart (as Raphael Patai 
suggested); because generations of Talmudic casuistry sharpened minds and 
encouraged Jews to question tradition and authority (as Warner Sombart 
suggested); because the long history of pariahdom forced upon Jews by 
unaccepting surroundings gave them a kind of detached wisdom (as Thorsten 
Veblen suggested); or, because their late emancipation left them with fewer 
restraints of "conservative and traditional thinking," allowing them to ignore 
or attack existing institutions (as Nathan Glazer suggested). A few of these 
explanations probably have no validity at all; but even the ones that have 
something to them are dwarfed by the most recent effort to make sense of this 
history, Yuri Slezkine's eccentric and brilliant "The Jewish Century."

Slezkine, a Russian ?migr? history professor at Berkeley, who learned to his 
surprise at age 11 that his father's mother was Jewish, begins by challenging 
the "Jews, God & History" dogma drilled ceaselessly into the mind of every kid 
who ever attended Hebrew school, the dogma that Jewish history is unique 
because Jews are unique.  "There was nothing particularly unusual about the 
social and economic position of the Jews in medieval and early Modern Europe," 
Slezkine writes.  Jews belong to a class of ethnic tribes (along with gypsies, 
Armenians, Nestorians, overseas Chinese, East African Indians and many more) 
who, for centuries and throughout the world, have assumed certain occupations 
and dispatched them in a certain way.

Slezkine calls these tribes "mercurian," after Mercury, "the god of all those 
who did not herd animals, till the soil, or live by the sword": messengers, 
craftsmen, merchants, healers and other intermediaries. Mercurians set down 
their stakes among "apollonians," after Apollo, the god of agriculture and 
livestock. Apollonian societies are dominated by farmers, along with soldiers 
and priests. There was a symbiosis between mercurians and their apollonian 
hosts, but it was an uneasy one. Mercurians were also susceptible to the charge 
that they were disloyal parasites who compensate for their weakness (they do no 
physical labor) with scheming craftiness.

Though apollonian societies needed mercurians for their goods and services, 
they also disparaged and despised them, expressing their disdain in "sporadic 
grassroots pogroms. and periodic confiscations, conversions, expulsions, and 
executions." This pattern has repeated itself, Slezkine writes, over centuries 
and continents. Much of what we rather parochially think of as "anti-Semitism," 
then, is only a private instance of the far more general phenomenon of 
anti-mercurianism.

But this is only the beginning. In recent generations, the West has quickly, if 
fitfully, abandoned its apollonian heritage. In Europe and America, fewer and 
fewer people spend their days on farms, in churches or barracks. Populations 
have steadily seeped from countryside to city or suburb. Most citizens now work 
in professions and service industries. In other words, the West has quickly 
become mercurian. Pick at random a Russian or German or Virginian on the 
street, and it is far more likely that he earns his living in a manner similar 
to my (Jewish) great-grandfather than to his own (say, Protestant) 
great-grandfather; he is more likely to work in Walmart than he is to drive a 
tractor.

In that sense, the past century has been the mercurian century and, since Jews 
have long been the most visible, literate and successful mercurians in the 
West, the Jewish century. This, in and of itself, partly explains recent Jewish 
economic and cultural success, because success in the newly mercurian West 
demands precisely the sorts of skills that Jews have honed for many 
generations. Essentially, Jews excelled in the 20th century because they had 
the home-field advantage.

But Slezkine's story gets more complicated still. Pastoral, romantic 
apollonianism was never completely extinguished. It retained a powerful appeal 
among people dismayed by the rootless and restless rationality of modern life. 
Nazism was, to some degree, a revolt against mercurianism, a fact that may shed 
some light on the passion with which Nazis exterminated Jews (and Roma-gypsies 
and others). But there were benign rejections of mercurianism as well, one of 
the most successful being agrarian and labor Zionism. Jews themselves could be 
found among the most strident critics of their own mercurian past. The Jewish 
century saw the first great revolt against Jewish mercurianism.

Having set out this grand scheme of modern Western history, Slezkine devotes 
the largest portion of his book to describing the three great migrations of 
20th-century Jews, from the Russian Pale to three very different "paradises." 
The first was to the United States, the most mercurian of all societies. The 
second was to Palestine, to establish an apollonian, organic Jewish peasant 
society. And the third was to Moscow and Leningrad, after a revolution that 
promised to dissolve the age-old dichotomy between the apollonian and 
mercurian.

It is not surprising that, being a Russian historian, Slezkine devotes most of 
his effort to the fascinating, untold story of Jewish migration from the Pale 
to the revolution, and their extraordinary success when they arrived. We all 
tend to see the history of Soviet Jews through the prism of their last 
generation as a disaffected and persecuted minority. Slezkine describes the 
stunning integration of Jews in the early Soviet bureaucracy and government, 
and the influence they achieved in science, academia, arts, administration, 
army and police, as well as the sincerity of their commitment to the revolution 
(and to Pushkin).

"The Jewish Century" is history on a majestic scale.  It explains the great 
successes of Jews in the liberal West (as well as why Jews tended toward some 
professions and not others). It explains the radical recoil of many Jews 
against liberal modernity, in favor of more romantic movements. It explains 
modern anti-Semitism, and especially the great resonance of romantic 
anti-Semitism, including Nazism. It explains the central place of Jews in the 
Soviet Union, and also the eventual deterioration of both their position and 
their commitment to the state and its revolution, in the century's second half.

And it explains all these things in a way that is fresh, compelling and 
frequently startling. Of course, like any theory that explains so much, it is 
schematic, relying perhaps too much on archetypes. There is much complexity 
that Slezkine overlooks, as when he presents American Jews as wholeheartedly 
liberal mercurians and Israelis as unmitigated apollonians, thereby ignoring, 
say, the American Jewish back-to-the-land agriculturalist movement (now 
forgotten, but dynamic in the first third of the 20th century) and the 
unrepentantly bourgeois Tel Aviv Jews.  In fact, of the three great Jewish 
experiments of the 20th century - the liberal United States, Zionist/statist 
Israel and Communist Soviet Union - Slezkine explores only the last in 
satisfying detail (a reasonable choice, since this is the only one of the three 
that has never been well explored in the past).

Still, the schematic nature of Slezkine's analysis is an unavoidable cost of 
writing on such a capacious scale, and it's a price well worth paying. The 
clarity of analysis is extraordinary, and the relatively simple conceptual 
tools Slezkine provides are unexpectedly powerful. After reading Darwin for the 
first time, Thomas Henry Huxley registered shock that so clear and simple an 
explanation could explain so much, and that it had been overlooked for so long. 
I could be Slezkine's Huxley.

It's now 22 years since I moved to Israel to remake myself as an apollonian, 
and I find myself a fat university professor in a room lined with books, 
waiting for the next issue of the New York Review to arrive. The Soviet Union 
is gone, of course, and the great-grandchildren of Jewish revolutionaries are 
mostly trying to make a living in Brooklyn and Bat Yam. We are all mercurians 
now, but as Slezkine has shown, it may be that my personal failure to remold 
myself ultimately owes to the Jews' great success remolding the world we all 
live in.

Noah Efron is a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and 
teaches history & philosophy of science at Bar-Ilan University. His book "Real 
Jews" was published by Basic Books in 2003.

The Jewish Century / by Yuri Slezkine. Princeton University Press: 438 pp.: 
$29.95

http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:Xa46nSgH5QEJ:jrep.com/Books/Article-0.html+Jerusalem+Report+slezkine&hl=en&client=firefox-a

From checker at panix.com  Thu Feb  3 20:00:21 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 15:00:21 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Z: Churchill Replies by Ward Churchill
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502031500010.3527@panix1.panix.com>

Churchill Replies by Ward Churchill
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=1&ItemID=7160
5.2.2

In the last few days there has been widespread and grossly inaccurate 
media coverage concerning my analysis of the September 11, 2001 attacks on 
the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, coverage that has resulted in 
defamation of my character and threats against my life. What I actually 
said has been lost, indeed turned into the opposite of itself, and I hope 
the following facts will be reported at least to the same extent that the 
fabrications have been.

* The piece circulating on the internet was developed into a book, On the 
Justice of Roosting Chickens. Most of the book is a detailed chronology of 
U.S. military interventions since 1776 and U.S. violations of 
international law since World War II. My point is that we cannot allow the 
U.S. government, acting in our name, to engage in massive violations of 
international law and fundamental human rights and not expect to reap the 
consequences.

* I am not a "defender"of the September 11 attacks, but simply pointing 
out that if U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction 
abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is 
returned. I have never said that people "should" engage in armed attacks 
on the United States, but that such attacks are a natural and unavoidable 
consequence of unlawful U.S. policy. As Martin Luther King, quoting Robert 
F. Kennedy, said, "Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent 
change inevitable."

* This is not to say that I advocate violence; as a U.S. soldier in 
Vietnam I witnessed and participated in more violence than I ever wish to 
see. What I am saying is that if we want an end to violence, especially 
that perpetrated against civilians, we must take the responsibility for 
halting the slaughter perpetrated by the United States around the world. 
My feelings are reflected in Dr. King's April 1967 Riverside speech, 
where, when asked about the wave of urban rebellions in U.S. cities, he 
said, "I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the 
oppressed . . . without having first spoken clearly to the greatest 
purveyor of violence in the world today - my own government."

* In 1996 Madeleine Albright, then Ambassador to the UN and soon to be 
U.S. Secretary of State, did not dispute that 500,000 Iraqi children had 
died as a result of economic sanctions, but stated on national television 
that "we" had decided it was "worth the cost." I mourn the victims of the 
September 11 attacks, just as I mourn the deaths of those Iraqi children, 
the more than 3 million people killed in the war in Indochina, those who 
died in the U.S. invasions of Grenada, Panama and elsewhere in Central 
America, the victims of the transatlantic slave trade, and the indigenous 
peoples still subjected to genocidal policies. If we respond with callous 
disregard to the deaths of others, we can only expect equal callousness to 
American deaths.

* Finally, I have never characterized all the September 11 victims as 
"Nazis." What I said was that the "technocrats of empire" working in the 
World Trade Center were the equivalent of "little Eichmanns." Adolf 
Eichmann was not charged with direct killing but with ensuring the smooth 
running of the infrastructure that enabled the Nazi genocide. Similarly, 
German industrialists were legitimately targeted by the Allies.

* It is not disputed that the Pentagon was a military target, or that a 
CIA office was situated in the World Trade Center. Following the logic by 
which U.S. Defense Department spokespersons have consistently sought to 
justify target selection in places like Baghdad, this placement of an 
element of the American "command and control infrastructure" in an 
ostensibly civilian facility converted the Trade Center itself into a 
"legitimate" target. Again following U.S. military doctrine, as announced 
in briefing after briefing, those who did not work for the CIA but were 
nonetheless killed in the attack amounted to no more than "collateral 
damage." If the U.S. public is prepared to accept these "standards" when 
the are routinely applied to other people, they should be not be surprised 
when the same standards are applied to them.

* It should be emphasized that I applied the "little Eichmanns" 
characterization only to those described as "technicians." Thus, it was 
obviously not directed to the children, janitors, food service workers, 
firemen and random passers-by killed in the 9-1-1 attack. According to 
Pentagon logic, were simply part of the collateral damage. Ugly? Yes. 
Hurtful? Yes. And that's my point. It's no less ugly, painful or 
dehumanizing a description when applied to Iraqis, Palestinians, or anyone 
else. If we ourselves do not want to be treated in this fashion, we must 
refuse to allow others to be similarly devalued and dehumanized in our 
name.

* The bottom line of my argument is that the best and perhaps only way to 
prevent 9-1-1-style attacks on the U.S. is for American citizens to compel 
their government to comply with the rule of law. The lesson of Nuremberg 
is that this is not only our right, but our obligation. To the extent we 
shirk this responsibility, we, like the "Good Germans" of the 1930s and 
'40s, are complicit in its actions and have no legitimate basis for 
complaint when we suffer the consequences. This, of course, includes me, 
personally, as well as my family, no less than anyone else.

* These points are clearly stated and documented in my book, On the 
Justice of Roosting Chickens, which recently won Honorary Mention for the 
Gustavus Myer Human Rights Award. for best writing on human rights. Some 
people will, of course, disagree with my analysis, but it presents 
questions that must be addressed in academic and public debate if we are 
to find a real solution to the violence that pervades today's world. The 
gross distortions of what I actually said can only be viewed as an attempt 
to distract the public from the real issues at hand and to further stifle 
freedom of speech and academic debate in this country.

Ward Churchill
Boulder, Colorado
January 31, 2005


From checker at panix.com  Thu Feb  3 20:02:36 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 15:02:36 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Bookforum: Editorial on Copyright
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502031501050.3527@panix1.panix.com>

BOOKFORUM | feb/mar 2005
http://bookforum.com/boynton.html

    Who owns the words you're reading right now? if you're holding a copy
    of Bookforum in your hands, the law permits you to lend or sell it to
    whomever you like. If you're reading this article on the Internet, you
    are allowed to link to it, but are prohibited from duplicating it on
    your web site or chat room without permission. You are free to make
    copies of it for teaching purposes, but aren't allowed to sell those
    copies to your students without permission. A critic who misrepresents
    my ideas or uses some of my words to attack me in an article of his
    own is well within his rights to do so. But were I to fashion these
    pages into a work of collage art and sell it, my customer would be
    breaking the law if he altered it. Furthermore, were I to set these
    words to music, I'd receive royalties when it was played on the radio;
    the band performing it, however, would get nothing. In the end, the
    copyright to these words belongs to me, and I've given Bookforum the
    right to publish them. But even my ownership is limited. Unlike a
    house, which I may pass on to my heirs (and they to theirs), my
    copyright will expire seventy years after my death, and these words
    will enter the public domain, where anyone is free to use them. But
    those doodles you're drawing in the margins of this page? Have no
    fear: They belong entirely to you.

    While it was once believed that Marxism would overhaul notions of
    ownership, the combination of capitalism and the Internet has
    transformed our ideas of property to an extent far beyond the dreams
    of even the most fervent revolutionary. Which is not to say that
    anything resembling a collectivist utopia has come to pass. Quite the
    opposite. In fact, the laws regulating property--and intellectual
    property, in particular--have never before been so complex, onerous,
    and rigid.

    Copyright protection has been growing in fits and starts since the
    early days of the Republic. In 1790, a copyright lasted for fourteen
    years and could be renewed once before the work entered the public
    domain. Between 1831 and 1909, the maximum term was increased from
    twenty-eight to fifty-six years. It was extended several more times
    during the twentieth century until 1998, when the Sonny Bono Copyright
    Term Extension Act added twenty additional years (to both existing and
    future intellectual property), increasing copyright protection to
    seventy years after the death of an author.

    Some of the most significant changes in intellectual property law took
    place in the Copyright Act of 1976, after which it was no longer
    required to register one's work in order to protect it. Anything
    "fixed in a tangible medium"--e-mail messages, those doodles in the
    margins of this magazine--automatically became copyrighted. Recent
    laws--like the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which increased
    protection of copyrighted material on the Internet, and the Sonny Bono
    Act--have elevated intellectual property's status to such a degree
    that many courts and corporations often treat it in virtually the same
    way as they do physical property.

    This is a category mistake, and one explicitly forbidden according to
    Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, which gives Congress the
    authority to "promote the progress of science and useful arts, by
    securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive
    right to their respective writings and discoveries.'' Unlike Europe,
    whose laws center on the "moral rights" of the author to control his
    creation, American copyright law has always had the strictly
    utilitarian goal of providing just enough incentive for someone to
    create. Copyright is a bargain: The government grants a limited right
    to profit from your intellectual property in exchange for your
    agreement to give the public limited access to it during that period
    (such as the "fair use" right of a teacher to make class copies of an
    essay), and, eventually, for it to lapse into the public domain.

    But as copyright terms lengthened and intellectual property became a
    larger part of American industry, the logic of incentive has been
    overshadowed by the logic of reward, the thinking being that if my
    work continues to have value, why shouldn't I profit from it for as
    long as I want? "In our tradition, intellectual property is an
    instrument. It sets the groundwork for a richly creative society but
    remains subservient to the value of creativity," writes Stanford law
    professor Lawrence Lessig in his most recent book, Free Culture: How
    Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control
    Creativity. "Yet the current debate has this turned around. We have
    become so concerned with protecting the instrument that we are losing
    sight of the value."

    But if we have fallen into what New York University communications
    professor Siva Vaidhyanathan calls "the property-talk trap," it has
    had the unintended effect of mobilizing citizens by demonstrating the
    stake we all have in the debate over how intellectual property should
    be considered. Once an arcane part of the American legal system,
    intellectual property law is now at the center of major disputes in
    the arts, sciences, and politics. People are increasingly aware of the
    role intellectual property plays in their everyday lives; they bump up
    against it every time they discover they can't print a passage from an
    e-book or transfer a song from their computer to their iPod. These
    days, it is not uncommon to hear people casually conversing about
    legal concepts like "fair use" and the "first sale doctrine."

    Much of this awareness results from the well-publicized lawsuits the
    Recording Industry Association of America has brought against music
    downloaders. This is unfortunate, because it has created the
    impression that those in favor of liberalizing copyright law condone
    the theft of intellectual property. Leaving aside questions about the
    appropriate legal remedies for, and the economic implications of,
    downloading, taking copyrighted material for which one has not paid is
    simply illegal. The fact that illegal downloading is a mass phenomenon
    indicates that our intellectual property laws aren't working in much
    the same way that the speakeasies of the '20s and '30s pointed out the
    irrationality of Prohibition. Neither downloading nor drinking,
    however, made the activities more legal.

    It is in more common--and only marginally illegal--pursuits that
    ordinary citizens are realizing they have a legitimate stake in the
    debate over the scope of copyright law. As the price of digital video
    cameras and editing software plummets, the number of people who sync
    home movies to music, splice together clips from favorite television
    shows, and even produce documentaries has soared. TiVo and other
    digital video recorders have made it possible to trade programs over
    the broadband Internet connections that are finding their way into
    homes across the country. Young fathers are practically required to
    transplant images of their newborns into great works of art by way of
    Photoshop.

    In December 2004, Google announced "Google Print," a project to bring
    millions of easily searchable, digitized books to the Internet. The
    project, which has already begun and may take a decade to complete,
    will further heighten awareness of our vexed relationship to
    intellectual property. After digitizing the entire holdings of
    Stanford and the University of Michigan libraries (as well as sections
    of the libraries of Harvard, Oxford and the New York Public Library),
    Google Print will search the texts of these books--although one will
    only be able to read the entire text of those works whose copyright
    has lapsed and are therefore in the public domain. As for copyrighted
    titles, one will be able to search their text for names and key
    phrases but won't be allowed to read the books themselves (a function
    like Amazon's helpful, but similarly limited, "Search inside this
    book" service). Instead, one will be directed to a library or
    bookstore where the book can be located.

    As amazing an effort as Google Print is (creating nothing less than a
    virtual "universal library of knowledge"), its logical goal--giving
    readers full access to the entire contents of that library--will be
    undercut by our intellectual property laws. It is an inherently
    unstable situation, and it is only a matter of time before someone
    (Amazon? Random House?) develops software to link this vast cache of
    literature to a convenient print-on-demand service (for which the
    hardware already exists). When it becomes possible to hold an
    inexpensive, physical copy of one of Google's digitized titles in
    one's hands--but only if it was first published prior to 1923 and is
    therefore in the public domain--people will begin to understand the
    implications of having something so obviously beneficial (universal
    access to universal knowledge) tethered to laws from another era.
    Google Print may be the Trojan Horse of the copyright wars.

                                    * * *

    While a range of copyright-infringing technologies has been changing
    the way we interact with our culture, critics of excessive copyright
    protection have been forging a coalition to demand that the law be
    brought more in line with the capabilities of these technologies. The
    challenge is considerable. Individual intellectual property rights are
    often in conflict with one another, and the only groups with a common
    interest in the direction of such laws are those corporations who want
    to lock up culture in perpetuity (or "forever minus a day," as former
    Motion Picture Association of America head Jack Valenti once
    suggested). Even following the twists and turns of the debate is
    difficult, since negotiations are seldom held in public. "This
    cultural war is almost invisible," writes David Bollier in Brand Name
    Bullies: The Quest to Own and Control Culture. "It is happening
    quietly and incrementally--in rulings by distant courts, in hearing
    rooms on Capital Hill and obscure federal agencies, in the digital
    code that Hollywood and record labels surreptitiously implant into
    DVDs and CDs."

    One of the most suggestive responses to this dilemma has come from
    Duke University law professor James Boyle, who, in his landmark book
    Shamans, Software and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the
    Information Society (1996), diagnosed the problem succinctly. "What we
    have right now is an exponentially expanding intellectual land grab, a
    land grab that is not only bad but dumb, about which the progressive
    community is largely silent, the center overly sanguine, and the right
    wing short-sighted." Boyle's subsequent work is an extended plea that
    we value the public domain. "Our art, our culture, our science depend
    on this public domain every bit as much as they depend on intellectual
    property,'' he writes.

    Boyle is one of the founders of "digital environmentalism," the
    movement that is fashioning a new understanding of what the public
    domain--the "commons," as Boyle and others have called it--might be.
    The great achievement of the environmental movement, from which Boyle
    draws inspiration, was its ability to convince a swath of the
    population--consumers and industrialists alike--that they all had a
    stake in this thing called "the environment," rather than just the
    small patch of land where they lived. Similarly, digital
    environmentalists are raising our awareness of the intellectual "land"
    to which people ought to feel entitled.

    Digital environmentalism is a two-pronged movement, with one group
    raising the awareness of the cultural stakes of intellectual property
    among everyday citizens, and the other pressing for legislative and
    legal change. The difference between the two is one of emphasis, with
    each participating in the battles of the other. Neither are anarchists
    or utopians; rather, both perceive of themselves as conservatives in
    the traditional sense of the term. "The point is not that copyright
    and trademark law needs to be overthrown," writes Bollier. "It is that
    its original goals need to be restored. Individual creators need to be
    empowered more than ever. The volume and free flow of information and
    creativity need to be protected. The public's rights of access and use
    must be honored. We must strike a new balance of private and public
    interests that takes account of the special dynamics of the Internet
    and digital technology."

    For those in the legal camp, the central event of recent years was
    Eldred v. Ashcroft, the 2002 Supreme Court case that challenged the
    constitutionality of the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.
    Appearing before the court, Lessig argued that perpetually extending
    the term of copyright violated the Constitution's stipulation that
    copyright exist for only "a limited time.'' The court rejected
    Lessig's position by a vote of seven to two, holding that while the
    extension was perhaps unwise on policy grounds, it was still within
    Congress's constitutional authority. A second legal challenge, which
    Lessig brought in 2004, went nowhere.

    Developments on the legislative front have been, if anything, more
    discouraging. Laws that strengthen copyright and increase penalties
    for infringement are introduced, and reintroduced, in Congress every
    year. In 2004, the Induce Act, a bill so broadly drawn that it would
    have held manufacturers of TiVo and iPods legally responsible if their
    customers used them for infringing copyright, died in committee, but
    it is only a matter of time before a similar piece of legislation
    passes.

    The cultural prong of digital environmentalism has had somewhat more
    success. Represented by writers like Bollier, Vaidhyanathan
    (Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How
    It Threatens Creativity and The Anarchist in the Library: How the
    Clash Between Freedom and Control is Hacking the Real World and
    Crashing the System), Kembrew McLeod (Freedom of Expression:
    Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity), and
    others, they all advocate the path of activism and resistance. Working
    within existing law, they propose that artists and authors
    aggressively exercise their intellectual property rights in the face
    of threats and legal challenges from overbearing copyright holders.
    Bollier, for one, perceives the work of digital environmentalists as
    benefiting from the momentum generated by legal challenges like
    Lessig's. "Acts of civil disobedience against the antisocial,
    personally intrusive claims of copyright law have only grown since the
    Eldred ruling, in part because of it," he writes.

    Their premise is that, like a muscle, intellectual rights grow
    stronger only when exercised. "For the most part, we don't need any
    new legislation. Fair use is a great solution, but for it to have any
    real impact on our culture we need to vigorously and confidently
    (though not carelessly) employ this legal doctrine in daily life,"
    writes McLeod. The problem, they contend, is less the laws than the
    lawyers. Lawyers representing copyright holders encourage their
    clients to limit access to their intellectual property as much as
    possible. "The lawyers tell us 'You may gaze upon and buy the products
    of American culture,'" Bollier writes in Brand Name Bullies. "'But
    don't be so na?ve as to think that you can actually use them for your
    own purposes. We own them.'" And the lawyers representing creators
    (artists, writers, and filmmakers, for example) who want access to
    copyrighted material for their work have decided that the transaction
    cost of boldly exercising fair-use rights is simply too high. Their
    primary goal is to avoid confrontation, even when they know that the
    outcome--should the case come to court--would favor their clients. The
    strategy of the cultural digital environmentalists is twofold. First,
    they challenge the lawyers at cultural institutions, whether they are
    book publishers, Internet providers, or movie distributors. Second,
    they spread the word about how poorly the current intellectual
    property system balances the rights of individuals and society.

    This tactic has given birth to the genre of the "copyright horror
    story." These are tales of intellectual property laws run amok: The
    artist who receives a cease-and-desist letter from the Vatican for
    using an image from the Sistine Chapel in a collage titled "The
    Sistine Bowl-Off." The company that was sued for devising software to
    teach tricks to a robot dog. McDonald's claim to own phrases like
    "Play and fun for everyone" and "Hey, it could happen." An Adobe
    e-book of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland that bears a warning
    forbidding one to read it aloud.

    In telling such stories, digital-environmentalist writers are trying
    to do for intellectual property what muckrakers like Lincoln Steffens
    did for corrupt governments and Eric Schlosser did for fast food: Go
    behind the curtain to reveal how something we take for granted--in
    this case, the cultural commons--really works. "We, as citizens, own
    these commons. They include resources that we have paid for as
    taxpayers and resources that we have inherited from previous
    generations," Bollier writes in his previous book, Silent Theft: The
    Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth. "They are not just an inventory
    of marketable assets, but social institutions and cultural traditions
    that define us as Americans and enliven us as human beings."

    Some copyright horror stories read like science fiction, depicting
    life in an anticommons in which everything is owned: letters of the
    alphabet, familiar phrases, and popular songs like "God Bless America"
    and "Happy Birthday" (which won't enter the public domain until 2030).
    And like the best science fiction, these stories pose a serious
    question: To what extent do we already live in such a place? Is our
    world an intellectual property version of The Matrix where, despite
    the illusion of freedom, we are little more than digital
    sharecroppers, licensers of a culture we mistakenly assume is ours?

    The science-fiction metaphor helps explain a tension central to the
    intellectual property wars. We do, in a sense, live in the space
    between two competing realities: According to the letter of the law,
    intellectual property is well protected, but legitimate access to it
    (by artists, parodists, critics) is guaranteed. In practice, however,
    our rights to access are ambiguously drawn and, as a result,
    prohibitively expensive to exercise. The difference in views between
    the commons and the anticommons is one of perspective. Can an artist
    who spends a fortune in legal fees successfully defending his
    legitimate fair use of a copyrighted image really be said to have won?
    "Fuck fair use," Lessig is fond of saying. "Fair use in America simply
    means the right to hire a lawyer to defend your right to create."

                                    * * *

    The line between science fiction and reality is often difficult to
    discern, as exhibited by the case of the college student who received
    trademark #2,127,381 for the phrase "freedom of expression."
    Fortunately, the student was Kembrew McLeod, who applied for it in
    order to make a point. McLeod, now professor of communication studies
    at the University of Iowa, is no stranger to using media pranks to
    exploit the absurdities of the system. In fact, he even once sold his
    soul in a glass jar on eBay.

    McLeod may be the most optimistic of the digital environmentalists.
    "We can fight back and win, especially because many recent court
    decisions have upheld free-speech rights in the age of intellectual
    property," he writes. Getting people to exercise those rights is
    another issue. "The problem is that many individuals and companies
    either don't know this or don't want to take a risk." McLeod's and
    Bollier's books are full of inspirational stories of those who have
    taken such risks and successfully faced down the corporations who have
    improperly used their copyrights, such as artist Tom Forsythe (creator
    of "Food Chain Barbie"), who was awarded $1.8 million in legal fees
    after Mattel pursued an "unreasonable and frivolous" suit against him.
    In September 2003, a group of Swarthmore College students posted on
    the Internet damning copies of internal memos written by employees of
    Diebold, the largest producer of electronic voting machines. The memos
    detailed various security flaws in Diebold's machines, and it wasn't
    long before the students received cease-and-desist letters demanding
    that they remove the memos from their websites. Although Diebold
    withdrew its legal threats in the wake of bad publicity, the students
    sued the company for falsely accusing them of copyright infringement.
    On September 30, 2004, a judge agreed that Diebold had deliberately
    misrepresented its copyright claims and awarded the students legal
    fees and damages. This past summer, director Robert Greenwald made
    "fair use" of a substantial amount of Fox News footage in order to
    document its conservative bias in his documentary Outfoxed: Rupert
    Murdoch's War on Journalism. Fox grumbled about the movie but never
    sued Greenwald for copyright infringement. In 2004, underground
    hip-hop artist DJ Danger Mouse edited together the vocals from Jay-Z's
    Black Album with selections of the Beatles' White Album to produce The
    Grey Album. Despite a flurry of cease-and-desist letters from
    EMI/Capitol (which owns the copyright to The White Album), over 170
    websites continued to host The Grey Album in support of DJ Danger
    Mouse's right to create. It went on to become one of the most
    frequently downloaded independent albums of all time. The Boston Globe
    called it "the most creatively captivating" album of the year.

    If anything, Bollier's "bullies" and McLeod's "bozos" are their own
    worst enemies. "As we look back twenty years from now, Mattel and
    other businesses like Fox News may ironically be remembered as some of
    the greatest promoters of fair use," writes McLeod. "Virtually every
    time these companies try to step on freedom of expression? in court
    they end up expanding the parameters of fair use in case law, and they
    also intensify the backlash against this kind of behavior."

    Recent stirrings in legal theory may give some comfort to the activist
    wing of digital environmentalism. Taking for granted the fact that the
    problem is less the letter of intellectual property law than the
    spirit in which it is interpreted, Richard Posner, a federal appeals
    judge and prolific legal theorist, and others have suggested some ways
    to remedy this problem.

    Foremost among them is the doctrine of "copyright misuse." In his
    California Law Review article "Fair Use and Statutory Reform in the
    Wake of Eldred," Posner argues that it is more valuable, and feasible,
    to strengthen fair-use practices than to lobby for new copyright laws.
    The problem with the current system, according to Posner, is that
    copyright owners systematically make improperly broad claims to their
    rights. The book, DVD, or baseball-game broadcast that comes with a
    notice stating that no part of the work may be copied without
    permission is, in fact, in violation of the doctrine of fair use (for
    which one doesn't need permission). Posner argues that when a
    copyright holder affixes a warning on copies of his work that "grossly
    and intentionally exaggerates the copyright holder's substantive or
    remedial rights, to the prejudice of publishers of public-domain
    works, the case for invoking the doctrine of copyright misuse" has
    been made.

    The copyright misuse doctrine is attractive for a number of reasons.
    It is a flexible approach to protecting the public-policy goals
    underlying copyright law (promoting "the progress of science and
    useful arts") without having to pass new laws every time a technical
    innovation--radio, movies, television, copy machines, VCR, the
    Internet--creates a new set of challenges for copyright holders. And
    it is especially valuable to users of copyright because it is "one of
    the only copyright-limiting doctrines that arise from actions taken by
    the copyright holder," writes Kathryn Judge in her Stanford Law Review
    article "Rethinking Copyright Misuse." Aside from the possibility of
    being sued, the primary problem for those who want to make fair use of
    copyrighted material is the uncertainty of their position; while the
    law seems to support them, their backers and/or insurers may deem the
    cost of exercising their rights excessive. The doctrine of copyright
    misuse might provide a mechanism for a creator to address that
    uncertainty. For example, employing the principle of copyright misuse,
    an artist who believes he has a legitimate right to make fair use of a
    copyrighted work can proactively challenge a copyright holder who he
    believes is protecting his work more broadly than required by
    copyright law. While such a maneuver wouldn't necessarily guarantee
    that the artist will prevail (he might of course be wrong), copyright
    misuse is one way the claims of the copyright holder might be tested
    without enduring an expensive lawsuit.

    Copyright misuse isn't as satisfying as a Supreme Court victory or the
    passing of a new set of intellectual property laws. And it isn't clear
    that it is robust enough to protect fair use in the way that Posner
    and others want it to. But perhaps by bolstering the practices of
    everyday people it will help reclaim a familiar cultural landscape.
    Because in the end, the goal of digital environmentalism is quite
    modest: a world in which, as McLeod writes, the digital future looks
    "a lot like the analog past."


    Robert S. Boynton is director of New York University's magazine
    journalism program. His new book, The New New Journalism:
    Conversations with America's Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft,
    is being published this month by Vintage.


    FREE CULTURE: HOW BIG MEDIA USES TECHNOLOGY AND THE LAW TO LOCK DOWN
    CULTURE AND CONTROL CREATIVITY BY LAWRENCE LESSIG. NEW YORK: PENGUIN.
    345 PAGES. $25. [17]BUY NOW

    BRAND NAME BULLIES: THE QUEST TO OWN AND CONTROL CULTURE BY DAVID
    BOLLIER. HOBOKEN, NJ: WILEY. 320 PAGES. $25. [18]BUY NOW

    SHAMANS, SOFTWARE, AND SPLEENS: LAW AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE
    INFORMATION SOCIETY BY JAMES BOYLE. CAMBRIDGE, MA: HARVARD UNIVERSITY
    PRESS. 288 PAGES. $20. [19]BUY NOW

    FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION?: OVERZEALOUS COPYRIGHT BOZOS AND OTHER ENEMIES
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References

    7. http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/partner?partner_id=28130&amp;cgi=product&amp;isbn=1594200068
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   10. http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/partner?partner_id=28130&amp;cgi=product&amp;isbn=0385513259
   11. http://bookforum.com/boynton.html#top
   12. http://bookforum.com/archive.html
   13. http://www.artforum.com/
   14. http://bookforum.com/contact.html
   15. http://bookforum.com/subscribe.html
   16. http://bookforum.com/advertise.html
   17. http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/partner?partner_id=28130&amp;cgi=product&amp;isbn=1594200068
   18. http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/partner?partner_id=28130&amp;cgi=product&amp;isbn=0471679275
   19. http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/partner?partner_id=28130&amp;cgi=product&amp;isbn=0674805232
   20. http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/partner?partner_id=28130&amp;cgi=product&amp;isbn=0385513259

From checker at panix.com  Thu Feb  3 20:04:15 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 15:04:15 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Freeman Dyson: The Darwinian Interlude
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502031502530.3527@panix1.panix.com>

The Darwinian Interlude
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/03/issue/magaphone.asp?p=0
5.3

    Freeman Dyson is professor emeritus of physics at the Institute for
    Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ. His research has focused on the
    internal physics of stars, subatomic-particle beams, and the origin of
    life.

    Carl Woese published a provocative and illuminating article, A New
    Biology for a New Century, in the June 2004 issue of Microbiology and
    Molecular Biology Reviews. His main theme is the obsolescence of
    reductionist biology as it has been practiced for the last hundred
    years, and the need for a new biology based on communities and
    ecosystems rather than on genes and molecules. He also raises another
    profoundly important question: when did Darwinian evolution begin? By
    Darwinian evolution he means evolution as Darwin himself understood
    it, based on the intense competition for survival among
    noninterbreeding species. He presents evidence that Darwinian
    evolution did not go back to the beginning of life. In early times,
    the process that he calls horizontal gene transfer, the sharing of
    genes between unrelated species, was prevalent. It becomes more
    prevalent the further back you go in time. Carl Woese is the worlds
    greatest expert in the field of microbial taxonomy. Whatever he
    writes, even in a speculative vein, is to be taken seriously.

    Woese is postulating a golden age of pre-Darwinian life, during which
    horizontal gene transfer was universal and separate species did not
    exist. Life was then a community of cells of various kinds, sharing
    their genetic information so that clever chemical tricks and catalytic
    processes invented by one creature could be inherited by all of them.
    Evolution was a communal affair, the whole community advancing in
    metabolic and reproductive efficiency as the genes of the most
    efficient cells were shared. But then, one evil day, a cell resembling
    a primitive bacterium happened to find itself one jump ahead of its
    neighbors in efficiency. That cell separated itself from the community
    and refused to share. Its offspring became the first species. With its
    superior efficiency, it continued to prosper and to evolve separately.
    Some millions of years later, another cell separated itself from the
    community and became another species. And so it went on, until all
    life was divided into species.

    The basic biochemical machinery of life evolved rapidly during the few
    hundred million years that preceded the Darwinian era and changed very
    little in the following two billion years of microbial evolution.
    Darwinian evolution is slow because individual species, once
    established, evolve very little. Darwinian evolution requires  species
    to become extinct so that new species can replace them. Three
    innovations helped to speed up the pace of evolution in the later
    stages of the Darwinian era. The first was sex, which is a form of
    horizontal gene transfer within species. The second innovation was
    multicellular organization, which opened up a whole new world of form
    and function. The third was brains, which opened a new world of
    co?rdinated sensation and action, culminating in the evolution of eyes
    and hands. All through the Darwinian era, occasional mass extinctions
    helped to open opportunities for new evolutionary ventures.

    Now, after some three billion years, the Darwinian era is over. The
    epoch of species competition came to an end about 10 thousand years
    ago when a single species, Homo sapiens, began to dominate and
    reorganize the biosphere. Since that time, cultural evolution has
    replaced biological evolution as the driving force of change. Cultural
    evolution is not Darwinian. Cultures spread by horizontal transfer of
    ideas more than by genetic inheritance. Cultural evolution is running
    a thousand times faster than Darwinian evolution, taking us into a new
    era of cultural interdependence that we call globalization. And now,
    in the last 30 years, Homo sapiens has revived the ancient
    pre-Darwinian practice of horizontal gene transfer, moving genes
    easily from microbes to plants and animals, blurring the boundaries
    between species. We are moving rapidly into the post-Darwinian era,
    when species will no longer exist, and the evolution of life will
    again be communal.

    In the post-Darwinian era, biotechnology will be domesticated. There
    will be do-it-yourself kits for gardeners, who will use gene transfer
    to breed new varieties of roses and orchids. Also, biotech games for
    children, played with real eggs and seeds rather than with images on a
    screen. Genetic engineering, once it gets into the hands of the
    general public, will give us an explosion of biodiversity. Designing
    genomes will be a new art form, as creative as painting or sculpture.
    Few of the new creations will be masterpieces, but all will bring joy
    to their creators and diversity to our fauna and flora.

From checker at panix.com  Thu Feb  3 20:05:30 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 15:05:30 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Guardian: Sex and the single robot
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502031504400.3527@panix1.panix.com>

Sex and the single robot
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5117562-111400,00.html

    Jonathan Watts, East Asia correspondent
    Wednesday February 2, 2005

    Scientists have made them walk and talk. There are even robots that
    can run. But a South Korean professor is poised to take their
    development several steps further, and give cybersex new meaning.

    Kim Jong-Hwan, the director of the ITRC-Intelligent Robot Research
    Centre, has developed a series of artificial chromosomes that, he
    says, will allow robots to feel lusty, and could eventually lead to
    them reproducing. He says the software, which will be installed in a
    robot within the next three months, will give the machines the ability
    to feel, reason and desire.

    Kim, a leading authority on technology and ethics of robotics, said:
    "Christians may not like it, but we must consider this the origin of
    an artificial species. Until now, most researchers in this field have
    focused only on the functionality of the machines, but we think in
    terms of the essence of the creatures." That "essence" is a computer
    code, which determines a robot's propensity to "feel" happy, sad,
    angry, sleepy, hungry or afraid. Kim says this software is modelled on
    human DNA, though equivalent to a single strand of genetic code rather
    than the complex double helix of a real chromosome.

    Kim said: "Robots will have their own personalities and emotion and -
    as films like I Robot warn - that could be very dangerous for
    humanity. If we can provide a robot with good - soft - chromosomes,
    they may not be such a threat."

    Although he admits his ideas sound fantastic, Kim is no crank. In the
    mid-1990s, the professor launched the robot football world cup, which
    has since become one of the most popular means for robotics
    researchers to measure their progress against competitors from around
    the world.


From checker at panix.com  Thu Feb  3 20:07:08 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 15:07:08 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] (no subject)
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502031506190.3527@panix1.panix.com>

An Unsettled Forecast for Global Warming
The Chronicle of Higher Education, 5.1.7
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i18/18b01201.htm

    THE NATURAL WORLD

    By MALCOLM G. SCULLY

    Climate science, Doug Macdougall writes, "is notoriously difficult,
    because there are so many interconnected variables at work that cause
    and effect are often impossible to discern with confidence."
    Those variables, which Macdougall discusses in Frozen Earth: The Once
    and Future Story of Ice Ages, published recently by the University of
    California Press, have bedeviled the debate over global warming from
    the beginning.
    Complexity breeds uncertainty, and uncertainty can lead to confusion
    in the general public and to deliberate obfuscation on the part of
    those who fear that any action to stem global warming would upset the
    economic status quo or their narrow self-interest. So while
    environmental activists and many climate scientists warn that the
    status won't be quo much longer without bold steps to curb the
    emission of greenhouse gases, skeptics try to sow doubts about the
    need to respond at all.
    In that charged political climate, Macdougall, a professor of earth
    sciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University
    of California at San Diego, offers a sober look at what we have
    learned about climate change and what we still need to learn. His book
    comes as more and more scientific studies and journalistic accounts
    document changes that already seem to be taking place. The focus of
    those reports has shifted from the global phenomenon to the impacts
    that warming may have on particular places, habitats, and lifestyles.
    In November a panel of 300 scientists from eight countries released
    the results of a comprehensive, four-year study of the impact of
    warming on the Arctic region. The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment
    concluded that the region was undergoing "some of the most rapid and
    severe climate change on earth." The assessment showed that 386,100
    square miles of sea ice -- about 8 percent of the total in the Arctic
    -- had been lost in the last 30 years and that winter temperatures in
    Alaska and western Canada had risen by from 5 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit
    since the middle of the last century.
    "These changes in the Arctic provide an early indication of the
    environmental and societal significance of global warming," the
    assessment said.
    While the changes may be most extensive in the Arctic, they appear to
    be worldwide. Glaciers are shrinking in the Himalayas, the Rockies,
    and, as Mark Lynas, a writer and activist, describes -- in High Tide:
    The Truth About Our Climate Crisis, published last summer by Picador
    -- in the Peruvian Andes.
    He reports that glaciers in Peru's Cordillera Central lost a third of
    their volume from 1970 to 1997 and "will disappear altogether in just
    a few decades unless global temperatures stop rising." That could have
    disastrous consequences for the people of Lima, Peru's capital, who
    depend on the R?mac River for their drinking water. Once the glaciers
    are gone, he says, the R?mac, "which through the late twentieth
    century has been temporarily charged with additional meltwater from
    the rapidly retreating ice fields, will suddenly -- and disastrously
    -- dry up for half the year."
    "It's difficult to imagine quite how a massive Third World city might
    cope with a crisis on this scale," Lynas writes. "With no water supply
    for six months every year, life will quickly become impossible. Where
    will the residents go? There is no spare land in the mountains, and
    few could survive in the jungle. Whilst the rich could pay for fresh
    water to be trucked in, the poor -- the massive majority of Lima's
    population, who already have difficulty accessing reliable water
    supplies -- will be forced to move or die."
    Last summer the BBC reported on the findings of Scottish scientists
    who found that on the Shetland and Orkney Islands hundreds of
    thousands of seabirds had failed to breed this year. The most likely
    cause, they said, was rising seawater temperatures that had led to the
    disappearance from waters around the islands of the sand eel, a small
    fish that has been a key part of the food chain for the seabirds. The
    scientists speculated that the plankton on which the sand-eel larvae
    feed are moving northward to avoid the warmer seawater temperatures.
    In October two environmental groups Results for America and Clean
    Air-Cool Planet -- held a briefing for reporters in which they warned,
    "Global warming already is starting to change New England's climate,
    endangering fall colors from hardwood forest maples and other trees.
    Over the next 100 years, the emerging climate-change trend could wipe
    out all or most of the autumnal foliage for which the region is best
    known and upon which its tourism economy is heavily dependent."
    At the briefing, Barrett N. Rock, a professor of natural resources at
    the University of New Hampshire, reported, "Just 40 or 50 years ago,
    New England and New York produced about 80 percent of the world's
    maple syrup, compared to 20 percent in Canada. Now the ratio has been
    reversed as the optimal maple-sugar growing and tapping conditions
    have shifted north."
    At another briefing in October, held at the Center for Health and the
    Global Environment at the Harvard Medical School, James J. McCarthy, a
    biological oceanographer at Harvard University, said that "global
    warming may well be causing bigger and more powerful hurricanes.
    Warmer seas fuel the large storms forming over the Atlantic and
    Pacific, and greater evaporation generates heavy downpours." McCarthy,
    the lead author of one section of the Intergovernmental Panel on
    Climate Change's Third Assessment Report, issued in 2001, added, "With
    warmer, saltier tropical seas, the IPCC has projected larger storms,
    heavier rainfalls, and higher peak winds."
    And a study conducted by 19 scientists of the effects of climate
    change on California found that warming could, among other things,
    have a devastating impact on the state's wineries because it would
    lead to poorer-quality grapes. The study, which was published in the
    online version of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
    in August, also indicated that the snow pack in the Sierra Nevada
    could be reduced by 70 to 90 percent.
    Complicating the debate further, some computer models show that there
    will be winners and losers as global warming continues, and that -- at
    least in the short term -- the winners will be in the developed world.
    A study of the impacts of warming on agriculture by two scientists at
    Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
    suggests that climate change will economically benefit countries in
    temperate areas but damage crops in countries closer to the Equator.
    "The 'winners,' ironically, are the developed countries that have done
    the most to produce these warming trends," says Robert Mendelsohn, a
    professor of forest policy who led the study.
    For many scientists and environmentalists, such evidence amounts to a
    compelling case that human-induced warming is producing or will
    produce significant disruptions in our way of life. Even so, as
    Macdougall points out in Frozen Earth, we still don't understand
    exactly what is going on. "There is no such thing as average weather,"
    he notes. "Weather is what we experience daily, and it can be
    misleading, because we are impressed most by the extremes."
    To try to understand how the climate, as opposed to the weather, is
    changing, he looks at large changes on a longer time scale than the
    last few decades, pointing out that we are still in an ice age that
    reached its peak 20,000 years ago. At the moment, he says, we "are in
    the midst of the maximum warmth of an interglacial period." More
    important, he notes, "A hallmark of Ice Age climate change, at least
    when viewed from the perspective of its impact on human societies, is
    abruptness. With little or no warning, there have been drastic shifts
    in temperature, storminess, and precipitation, both regionally and
    globally."
    Rapid climate shifts seem to take place when a threshold has been
    crossed, he adds, and some external process has to trigger that
    crossing. Recently, computer simulations have suggested that a change
    in ocean circulation may be one such trigger.
    "In particular," Macdougall writes, "changes in the way ocean
    circulation occurs in the North Atlantic Ocean have been implicated in
    some of the large and abrupt temperature changes observed in the
    Greenland ice-core data over the past few tens of thousands of years."
    He points to evidence from the distant past that large infusions of
    fresh water into the North Atlantic have affected ocean circulation
    and brought on prolonged cold periods in the Northern Hemisphere. If
    today's warming continues, melting glaciers in the Arctic could
    provide such an infusion. That prospect has caused some scientists to
    predict that global warming could lead to something akin to the
    "Little Ice Age," the period from the 14th to the 19th centuries when
    Europe and North America experienced extended periods of unusual cold.
    While the mechanisms that lead to abrupt climate change remain
    mysterious, he says, we have "several good examples of past
    civilizations collapsing as a result" of it -- from the Akkadians
    4,200 years ago in Mesopotamia to the Maya 1,100 years ago in Central
    America.
    "Modern societies," he adds, "for the most part are better equipped to
    deal with such surprises than were those of even a hundred years ago,
    but are not entirely immune. Just-in-time logistics systems and highly
    concentrated and specialized agriculture are as likely to be disrupted
    by abrupt climate change as some earlier technologies." Even now, he
    says, energy grids have trouble dealing with heat waves and cold
    snaps.
    So, while Macdougall warns against reading too much into short-term
    changes in the weather, his analysis of the long term remains
    unsettling. We cannot predict, "even in a general way," he says, "what
    may happen to the climate system as a result of human influences. A
    great, unintended experiment in 'climate forcing' is under way as we
    add more and more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Whether or not
    we shall reach one of those thresholds that seem to separate different
    climate modes, and what will happen if we do, is still unknown."

    Malcolm G. Scully is The Chronicle's editor at large.

From checker at panix.com  Thu Feb  3 20:08:17 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 15:08:17 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] CHE: Fundamentalism and Free Will (Letters)
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502031507100.3527@panix1.panix.com>

Fundamentalism and Free Will (Letters)
The Chronicle of Higher Education, 5.1.7
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i18/18a06304.htm

    To the Editor:
    As a person who has been intimately involved for over a decade in the
    evangelical debate over the foreknowledge of God, I read [3]"Can God
    See the Future?" (The Chronicle, November 26) with great interest. I
    count as good friends both John E. Sanders and Bruce A. Ware, the two
    theologians featured in the article, on opposite sides. I grieve over
    this inquisition within the evangelical academy and hope that those
    who would expel open theists will achieve a broader vision of the
    evangelical tent.
    The article mistakenly refers to open theists and their supporters as
    "liberals" within evangelicalism. That is not the case. In fact, the
    open theists interpret the Bible more literally than do their critics.
    They derive their conclusions about God's foreknowledge from Scripture
    and not from modern movements such as process philosophy and theology.
    Furthermore, contrary to what the article implied, evangelicalism has
    always included believers in free will; Calvinism is not normative for
    evangelical theology. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist
    tradition (which strongly emphasizes free will), was just as
    evangelical as his contemporary Jonathan Edwards, a Calvinist who
    regarded God as the all-determining reality and who denied freedom of
    will.
    What this controversy reveals is that in spite of its own best
    intentions and efforts, evangelicalism has not fully emerged from its
    fundamentalist roots. The furor over open theism is a product of
    latent fundamentalist habits of the mind that continue to plague many
    evangelical organizations and institutions.
    Roger E. Olson
    Professor of Theology
    Baylor University
    Waco, Tex.


From checker at panix.com  Thu Feb  3 20:09:54 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 15:09:54 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Corante: Many-to-Many: Fukuyama's Penguin
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502031508200.3527@panix1.panix.com>

Many-to-Many: Fukuyama's Penguin
http://www.corante.com/many/archives/2005/01/06/fukuyamas_penguin.php
5.1.6

    I have this pet theory, rather grand, and falls into the category of
    [18]what you believe is true even though you cannot prove it. That
    open source will realize the end of history.

    In 1989 Francis Fukuyama wrote the celebrated and controversial book,
    The End of History, which posited that the collapse of the Soviet
    Union was a Hegelian triumph of liberal democracy as the last
    remaining form of government and political philosophy. Fukuyama went
    on to explore issues of social capital and tyhmos, "desire for
    recognition" that drives free-market economics. His critics were
    manifold, particularly those on the wrong side of history. Marxist
    criticism centered less on liberal politics than liberal economics --
    particularly market failure. The classic debate over the role of
    government centers on what economists call market failure: when the
    market fails to provide social goods.

    Similar to how Doc says the demand side is supplying itself, with open
    source and open content social goods are produced through peer
    production. Let's explore one aspect that is less about code and more
    about social dynamics triumphing over economics, [19]language. For a
    small country like [20]Rwanda, a localized version of Office would
    never be supplied, so they do it themselves. Some vendors are [21]open
    sourcing their localization in recognition of unevenly distributed
    demand. While more research is required, some patterns emerge with
    stories behind them when comparing language support by markets and
    peers:
    Rank [22]World Population [23]Internet Population [24]Web Content
    [25]Wikipedia [26]LISA.org
    1 Chinese (Mandarin) English English English French
    2 Spanish Chinese Japanese German German
    3 English Spanish German Japanese Spanish
    4 Bengali Japanese Chinese French Japanese
    5 Hindi German French Swedish Italian
    6 Portugese French Spanish Polish Chinese
    7 Russian Korean Russian Dutch Portuguese
    8 Japanese Italian Portuguese Spanish Swedish
    9 German Portuguese Korean Italian Dutch
    10 Chinese (wu) Dutch Other Portuguese Korean

    World population and internet population are gauges of demand. Web
    content is supplied by both markets and peers. Wikipedia is produced
    by peers, although the stories behind the community distort the
    current outcome. LISA.org (Localization Industry Standards
    Association) is a measure of market production for localization.

    Wikipedia isn't a perfect gauge of peer supply when markets fail,
    because it is a community with rich stories of how it evolves. Perhaps
    over time and at greater scales the rise of the Swedish version would
    be a signal of bottom-up fulfillment, but today it may very well be
    preferential attachment spawned by early adoption and there is also a
    high level of market-based translation effort. The Polish exception
    may well be the same, but there is an interesting story here.

    Wikipedia has had [27]two forks in its history, both by language based
    communities when commercialization was a potential threat. The
    [28]Polish fork was resolved and re-integrated. This explains why
    Spanish Wikipedia is low in its ranking relative to online population:
    [29]Enciclopedia Libre Universal is a Spanish language wiki website,
    running at the University of Sevilla in Spain. It was started in
    January 2002 as a fork from the Spanish branch of WikiPedia,
    EsWikiPedia, apparently after a misunderstanding about WikiPedia
    founder Jimmy Wales' intentions to use advertising as a means to raise
    funding for the project. At the fork, the EsWikiPedia contained some
    2000 articles and was among the biggest handful of non-English
    Wikipedias. After the fork, Enciclopedia Libre has grown faster than
    any non-English Wikipedia branch, and is believed to be the world's
    3rd BiggestWiki (as of July 2002).

    [30]Arle Lommel from [31]LISA was kind enough to gather this data for
    me (perhaps a benefit of Socialtext's membership), and also provide
    some analysis which I encouraged to share openly. Beyond the tabled
    measures of translation in volume, he provides analysis of strategic
    languages that are off the chart:
    In contrast are "strategic" languages, i.e., those that represent new
    market areas with a potential for new revenue streams. In this view,
    China seems to be the number one language at present (I write this
    based on a number of LISA presentations and the general "buzz" in the
    industry).

    While we don't have any hard data at present on strategic language
    (for obvious reasons, companies tend to keep strategic information
    quite close), if we look at those countries where U.S. and European
    businesses are trying to establish a foot-hold for consumer-oriented
    products and see new large markets (and where the market can be
    accessed easily with a single language), you will have a picture of
    the strategic languages. I suspect that the list would look something
    like the following:

    1. Chinese
    2. Japanese
    3. Spanish (for U.S.-based companies that see Latin America as a
    market)
    While India is rising in importance, it isn't a major localization
    target yet because (1) it is fairly well served with English, at least
    for the most affluent sectors, and (2) for those not served by
    English, the picture is of immense linguistic fragmentation, with
    hundreds of languages that could be considered part of the
    localization picture.

    One generalization is that Wikipedia lags behind all others in Chinese
    translation because its relatively centralized and censorable.

    I had coffee with Hong Kong University Researcher Andrew Lih today and
    I will pass on some of his research on regional language use in
    Wikipedia in an update later. But he made a significant point that
    second languages are a primary determinant of development in
    wikipedia. For example, users in India and the Philippines have such a
    high rate of English as a second language that their own languages
    have yet to develop within Wikipedia.

    But I would end with this thought of the Polish exception. A polish
    online encyclopedia at the scale of the wikipedia version would not
    have been developed with market and contractual signals alone. Social
    signals are driving this production and producing a social good. The
    story behind it is an exceptional community, but an exception that
    could very well become the norm as we march towards the End of
    History.
    Posted by Ross at 12:52 PM
      Comments and Trackbacks

    The example of Rwanda is telling.

    Rwanda was included in Jared Diamond's recent book, Collapse. He
    connected the genocide in Rwanda with growing hunger and plummeting
    living conditions driven by environmental degradation.

    Open software creates great new abundance, but does not help if people
    don't have enough to eat.

    Food and environmental problems are social problems. Wikis, social
    software and other modern communication technology like telephones can
    help somewhat, but the big problems are human problems about making
    decisions.

    Rich countries like the US conduct in aquifer mining in dry areas, and
    large scale agriculture practices that strip soil fertility. We need
    more than wikis to make decisions that will foster abundance in the
    long term.
    Posted by [32]Adina Levin on January 6, 2005 06:00 PM | [33]Permalink
    to Comment

    "In 1989 Francis Fukuyama wrote the celebrated and controversial book,
    The End of History, which posited that the collapse of the Soviet
    Union was a Hegelian triumph of liberal democracy as the last
    remaining form of government and political philosophy."

    I think what he was saying was a little more subtle than that. He used
    not history, but History, in the sense of competing worldviews.
    Liberal democracy won insofar as nobody really can argue that there is
    a better system out there.
    Posted by [34]praktike on January 6, 2005 07:02 PM | [35]Permalink to
    Comment

    Yes, its just the end of a philosophical debate, the sky isn't
    falling.
    Posted by [36]Ross Mayfield on January 6, 2005 10:41 PM |
    [37]Permalink to Comment
    Many Too Many
    Excerpt: Over at Many-2-Many we have a fascinating post, called
    Fukuyama's Penguin, speculating on why Chinese isn't
    better-represented in online contributions. This got me to singing:
    Many too many have stood where I stand Many more will stand here too,
    Why...
    [38]Read the rest...
    Trackback from Moore's Lore, Jan 7, 2005 10:17 AM

References

   18. http://www.edge.org/q2005/q05_print.html
   19. http://ross.typepad.com/blog/2004/11/the_speed_of_la.html
   20. http://news.com.com/Se+habla+open+source/2100-7344_3-5159179.html
   21. http://www.lisa.org/archive_domain/newsletters/2004/4.2/redlers.html
   22. http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm
   23. http://www.glreach.com/globstats/
   24. http://global-reach.biz/globstats/refs.php3
   25. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Multilingual_statistics
   26. http://www.lisa.org/blogs/index.php?id=2
   27. http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?WikiPediaIsNotTypical
   28. http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/intlwiki-l/2002-March/000302.html
   29. http://enciclopedia.us.es/
   30. http://www.lisa.org/blogs/index.php?id=2
   31. http://www.lisa.org/
   32. http://www.alevin.com/weblog
   33. http://www.corante.com/many/archives/2005/01/06/fukuyamas_penguin.php#17194
   34. http://www.liberalsagainstterrorism.com/
   35. http://www.corante.com/many/archives/2005/01/06/fukuyamas_penguin.php#17198
   36. http://ross.typepad.com/
   37. http://www.corante.com/many/archives/2005/01/06/fukuyamas_penguin.php#17206
   38. http://www.corante.com/mooreslore/archives/032122.html


From checker at panix.com  Thu Feb  3 20:11:18 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 15:11:18 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] 
	Toronto Star: National Web library do-able, affordable, visionary
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502031510010.3527@panix1.panix.com>

National Web library do-able, affordable, visionary

------ Forwarded Message
From: Michael Geist <mgeist at pobox.com>
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 01:56:55 -0500
To: <dave at farber.net>
Subject: Can a country digitize everything it has ever written?

Dave,

Of possible interest to IP -- my weekly Toronto Star Law Bytes column
returns with a new year's resolution -- Canada should become the
first country in the world to to create a comprehensive national
digital library. The library, which would be fully accessible online,
would contain a digitally scanned copy of every book, government
report, and legal decision ever published in Canada. The column
argues that the most significant barriers to a national digital
library do not arise from fiscal challenges but rather from two
potential copyright reforms -- an extended licensing system and an
extension on the term of copyright -- currently winding their way
through the system.

Column, posted below, is online at
http://geistvirtuallibrary.notlong.com

Best,

MG

National Web library do-able, affordable, visionary

Michael Geist
Toronto Star

In the mid-1990s, Ottawa established a bold new vision for the
Internet in Canada. The centrepiece was a commitment to establish
national Internet access from coast to coast to coast, supported by a
program that would enable the country to quickly become the first in
the world to connect every single school, no matter how small or
large, to the Internet. Not only did Canada meet its goal, but it
completed the program ahead of schedule.

As we enter the middle of this decade, the time has come for Industry
Minister David Emerson and his colleagues to articulate a new
future-oriented vision for the Canadian Internet.

   While the last decade centred on access to the Internet, the
dominant issue this decade is focused on access to the content on the
Internet. To address that issue, the federal government should again
think big.

   One opportunity is to greatly expand the National Library of
Canada's digital efforts by becoming the first country in the world
to create a comprehensive national digital library.

   The library, which would be fully accessible online, would contain a
digitally scanned copy of every book, government report, and legal
decision ever published in Canada.

A national digital library would provide unparalleled access to
Canadian content in English and French along with aboriginal and
heritage languages such as Yiddish and Ukrainian. The library would
serve as a focal point for the Internet in Canada, providing an
invaluable resource to the education system and ensuring that access
to knowledge is available to everyone, regardless of economic status
or geographic location.

  From a cultural perspective, the library would establish an
exceptional vehicle for promoting Canadian creativity to the world,
leading to greater awareness of Canadian literature, science, and
history.

   By extending the library to government documents and court
decisions, it would help meet the broader societal goal of providing
all Canadians with open access to their laws and government policies.
Moreover, since the government holds the copyright associated with
its own reports and legal decisions, it is able to grant complete,
unrestricted access to all such materials immediately alongside the
approximately 100,000 Canadian books that are already part of the
public domain.

Creating virtual libraries to complement the world's great physical
libraries is already underway. Project Gutenberg, an all-volunteer
initiative, has succeeded in bringing thousands of public domain
texts to the Web.

Last summer, the British Library unveiled an ambitious plan to
digitize and freely post on the Internet thousands of historical
newspapers that are now in the public domain. That plan will bring
more than one million pages of history to the Internet, including
work from a young Charles Dickens.

Last month Google announced that it had reached agreement with
several of the world's leading research libraries, including ones at
Harvard, Stanford, Michigan, Oxford, and the New York Public Library,
to scan more than 15 million books into its search archive.

   Once the Google project is completed, the general public will enjoy
complete, full-text access to thousands of books that are now part of
the public domain because the term of copyright associated with those
books has expired.

   For books that remain subject to copyright, Google will still scan a
copy of the book, but will only grant the general public more modest
access to its content, providing users with smaller excerpts of the
work - a policy that is consistent with principles of fair use under
copyright law.

   The Google project epitomizes the essence of the copyright balance.
The public will benefit from unrestricted access to works in the
public domain along with more limited access to other work, all
without the need to seek any prior permission.

   Authors will still enjoy copyright protection in their work and will
frequently find that greater access leads to increased commercial
success.

While digitally scanning more than 10 million Canadian books and
documents is a daunting task, the Google project illustrates that it
is financially feasible. Reports suggest that it will cost Google
approximately $10 to scan each book.

   Assuming similar costs for a Canadian project and a five-year
timeline, the $20 million annual price tag represents a fraction of
the total governmental commitment toward Canadian culture and
Internet development.

In fact, the most significant barriers to a national digital library
do not arise from fiscal challenges but rather from two potential
copyright reforms currently winding their way through the system.

   First, the federal government is contemplating reversing the
decade-old policy of avoiding Internet licensing by creating a new
licensing system for Internet content that would create new
restrictions to accessing online content.

   By proposing a very narrow definition of what can be accessed
without compensation, the plan would effectively force millions of
Canadian students to pay for access to content that is otherwise
publicly available.

   Despite opposition from the education community, the proposal is
marching forward, constituting a significant setback to the goal of
encouraging Internet use in Canada.

   Given the Supreme Court of Canada's recent commitment to copyright
balance and robust user rights, it is clear that for most uses no
license is needed to provide schools with appropriate access to
online content such as a potential national digital library. With
this in mind, this proposal should be quickly scrapped.

Second, the Canadian Heritage Minister Liza Frulla's Copyright Policy
Branch recently announced that this year it plans to launch a public
consultation on a proposal to extend the term of copyright in Canada
from its current 50 years after the death of the author to at least
70 years after death (authors enjoy exclusive copyright in their work
from the moment of creation until 50 years after they die).

   Extending the copyright term would deal a serious blow to a national
digital library because it would instantly remove thousands of works
from the public domain. Although the U.S. and European Union have
extended their copyright terms by an additional 20 years, the vast
majority of the world's population lives in countries that have not.

   Those countries have recognized that an extension is unsupportable
from a policy perspective. It will not foster further creative
activity, it is not required under international intellectual
property law, and it effectively constitutes a massive transfer of
wealth from the public to the heirs of a select group of copyright
holders.

   Given the economic and societal dangers associated with a copyright
term extension, even moving forward with a consultation constitutes
an embarrassing case of putting the interests of a select few ahead
of the public interest.

A new year is traditionally a time for bold, new resolutions. As
Parliamentarians return to Ottawa, they should be encouraged to seize
the opportunity to establish a national vision for the Internet that
will again propel Canada into a global leadership position.

   Supported by appropriate copyright policies, a national digital
library comprised of every Canadian book ever published would provide
an exceptional resource for Canadians at home as well as
advantageously promote the export of Canadian culture abroad.
-- 
**********************************************************************
Professor Michael A. Geist
Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law
University of Ottawa Law School, Common Law Section
57 Louis Pasteur St., Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 6N5
Tel: 613-562-5800, x3319     Fax: 613-562-5124
mgeist at pobox.com              http://www.michaelgeist.ca


From checker at panix.com  Thu Feb  3 20:12:48 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 15:12:48 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Ecnomist: (Posner) American intellectuals: The new
	phrenology
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502031511210.3527@panix1.panix.com>

American intellectuals: The new phrenology 
http://www.economist.com/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=975532
2.2.7 (note date)

    Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline.
    By Richard A. Posner.
    Harvard University Press; 448 pages; $29.95 and ?20.50

    "I'M NOT a donkey, and I don't have a field." So scoffed Max Weber, a
    great German social thinker, when a faculty non-entity criticised him
    for writing outside his discipline. The academic division of labour
    has come on apace since Weber's day (he died in 1920), and hardly a
    year has passed when someone from the cultural-decline crowd did not
    decry the narrowing of scholarship and bemoan what they took for its
    consequence: the death of the free-ranging intellectual.

    This concern is not foolish. Who does not wish that the worlds and
    sub-worlds of science, public affairs and humanities could better talk
    to one another? Who does not applaud those valuable souls who can move
    between these worlds with even a hint of grace or plausibility?

    Richard Posner, an American federal-appeals judge, law professor and
    prolific author, puts a new spin on these old anxieties. The trouble
    with the (mainly American) intellectuals that preoccupy him is not, in
    his view, that they are dying, but that they are not any good.

    He starts off by ruling out what most of us would take as archetypal
    intellectuals: scientists who explain science to lay people (eg,
    Steven Weinberg), philosophers with an influential vision of society
    (eg, John Rawls or Robert Nozick) and literary intellectuals of high
    Bohemia (eg, Susan Sontag). No, his public intellectuals are really
    pundits: people who opine about issues of the day on television or in
    newspaper columns. On the theory that if it's real it must be
    countable, he ranks what he calls the top 100 on the basis of
    scholarly citations, media mentions and web hits.

    Though some of his pundits (such as Henry Kissinger) have escaped from
    government, most are moonlighters from universities or think-tanks. As
    scholars, he tells us, they know much about little; as media
    egg-heads, they must talk about almost anything. Naturally, they fall
    on their faces: their stock-in-trade is prediction and some of their
    forecasts (he doesn't say what proportion) turn out to be wrong.

    There are, he adds, too many of them. The supply of commentators
    outruns demand, and the quality of comment is therefore falling. To
    improve things, he suggests that public intellectuals should pay more
    attention to social (particularly economic) realities, spare us their
    value judgments and post their columns on university websites (where
    colleagues will supposedly spot and correct their errors).

    What are we to make of this extraordinary construction, with its
    artificial-vanilla-flavour assumptions? Mr Posner was a founder of the
    law-and-economics movement, an influential view of law which, crudely,
    recommends economic efficiency as the test of fair allocation. Yet
    since writing a law-and-economics textbook he has wandered ever
    farther afield.

    Like Mr Posner himself, "Public Intellectuals" is both brilliant and
    maddening. His knowledge and interests are wide. He is, in a sense, a
    classic intellectual. His topic, the health of public debate, matters.
    A dry, factual take on America's commentariat is--or would have
    been--welcome. But he is here too partisan, too hurried and too driven
    by the conclusions he wants to reach. In the end, the only
    intellectuals he does not scorn, you feel, are those who share his
    reductive and utilitarian outlook. Being a serious intellectual is
    harder than it looks. That is Mr Posner's point. But need he have
    illustrated it with this book?

From checker at panix.com  Thu Feb  3 20:13:40 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 15:13:40 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: Is It Dutch? Japanese? Why Not Ask the Rat?
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502031512590.3527@panix1.panix.com>

Is It Dutch? Japanese? Why Not Ask the Rat?
NYT January 11, 2005
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR

If you talk to a rat, you will not get an answer. But a
team of Spanish neuroscientists has shown that a
well-trained rat may be able to determine what language you
are speaking.

Every language has distinctive rhythms and intonations, and
awareness of them is an important step in acquiring
language. Only humans can learn to speak, but it has been
demonstrated that tamarin monkeys, like newborn human
infants, can distinguish the unique rhythms of a language
even though meaning escapes them.

In other words, they know when someone is speaking their
language, even though they have no idea what is being said.
Researchers have theorized that this ability extends to
other mammals as well, but until now no nonprimate has ever
demonstrated the capacity.

In the new study, led by Juan Toro, a doctoral candidate at
the University of Barcelona, researchers found that rats
trained in either Dutch or Japanese appeared able to
distinguish the two languages. The rats were trained by
having them listen to synthesized sentences in the
languages. Dutch and Japanese were chosen because of their
vastly different rhythms. The sentences had no semantic
content, but were intended to reproduce the rhythms of the
language without using any real words.

This simplified form of language, when spoken in a
synthesized voice, leaves only rhythm as a cue, eliminating
complicating factors like semantic content or the quality
of the voice of a particular speaker.

For the Dutch group, the rats were rewarded with food only
when they pressed a lever after hearing Dutch sentences.
The Japanese group was rewarded only after hearing Japanese
sentences. Eventually, both groups learned to press the
lever only when hearing a sentence in their own languages.

Next, the rats listened to four synthesized sentences in
the language they had not learned. When the Dutch mice were
presented with Japanese sentences, they showed no
recognition; when the Japanese mice were presented with
Dutch, they were similarly baffled. But when presented with
a sentence in their own languages, even a sentence they had
never heard before, the rats recognized the characteristic
rhythm and pressed the lever correctly.

The researchers said the rats appeared to have generalized
some of the rules of their language and, at least in this
limited way, were able to understand an entirely new
sentence, a distinctive mark of language acquisition. When
the researchers played the same sentences with the tape
running backward, the rats were unable to understand what
language was being spoken - exactly what happens with
tamarins and human infants.

Rats, of course, have limitations. They had considerably
more difficulty in telling one language from another when
listening to normal speech, especially when uttered by
different speakers, the researchers found. The multiplicity
of cues in ordinary conversation - intonation, the
speaker's sex, pitch and so on - utterly confused them.

Human infants have some difficulty with different voices,
too, but they quickly overcome it, learning to recognize
their own language no matter who is talking and however
varied the pitch and intonation. "What these results
suggest," Mr. Toro said in an e-mail interview, "is that we
share with other animals the ability to perceive some
regularities, such as rhythm, in the speech signal. This is
interesting because several studies with human infants have
shown that these regularities may open the door to language
acquisition."

Does this mean rats and monkeys have the potential to
understand human speech? No, said Mr. Toro. But he added,
"Even though human language is special and does not seem to
have parallels in the communicative systems of other
species, some basic abilities we use for acquiring it may
be present in other animals."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/11/health/11anim.html


From checker at panix.com  Thu Feb  3 20:14:34 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 15:14:34 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] BH: Anti-sleeping Pill Might Cut Cocaine Habit
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502031513430.3527@panix1.panix.com>

Anti-sleeping Pill Might Cut Cocaine Habit
http://www.betterhumans.com/Print/index.aspx?ArticleID=2005-01-10-7

    Betterhumans Staff
    1/10/2005 8:00 PM

    Treatment option? A new study has found that the narcolepsy drug
    modafinil helps people overcome cocaine addiction

    A wake-promoting agent could find a new use as one of the few drugs
    able to treat cocaine dependence.

    According to American researchers at the [8]University of Pennsylvania
    School of Medicine, despite years of research there are still no
    approved drugs for treating [9]cocaine addiction. The wake-promoting
    drug [10]modafinil ([11]Provigil), however, which is approved for
    treating [12]narcolepsy, has attracted attention for its ability to
    blunt cocaine-induced euphoria.

    [13]Charles Dackis of the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues
    have now reported a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial that found
    modafinil promoted cocaine abstinence in treatment-seeking
    outpatients. "If confirmed by further investigation, this could be the
    breakthrough we have been waiting for," says Dackis.

    Achieving abstinence

    Conducted between 2002 and 2003, the study involved 62
    cocaine-dependent people aged 25 to 63 who were free of significant
    health conditions. Thirty participants received a single 400 mg dose
    of modafinil in the morning while 32 were giving matching placebo
    tablets. Treatment continued for eight weeks along with twice-weekly
    cognitive behavioral therapy.

    The researchers measured the treatment's primary effectiveness by
    cocaine abstinence based on urine toxicity testing. They also measured
    secondary effects such as the drug's impact on cravings and adverse
    events.

    Over the eight-week study, people treated with modafinil provided more
    cocaine-negative urine samples than those on placebo and were more
    likely to achieve abstinence. The researchers also found no adverse
    effects in those receiving modafinil, and no participant failed to
    complete the study due to side-effects.

    Three larger studies examining modafinil for cocaine dependence are
    underway.
    The research is reported in the journal [14]Neuropsychopharmacology
    ([15]read abstract).

References

    8. http://www.med.upenn.edu/
    9. http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocaine
   10. http://www.modafinil.com/
   11. http://www.provigil.com/
   12. http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcolepsy
   13. http://www.pennhealth.com/Wagform/MainPage.aspx?config=provider&P=PP&ID=980
   14. http://www.nature.com/npp/
   15. http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/npp/journal/v30/n1/abs/1300600a.html


From checker at panix.com  Thu Feb  3 20:16:10 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 15:16:10 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Michio Kaku: Could a hole in space save man from
	extinction?
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502031514440.3527@panix1.panix.com>

Could a hole in space save man from extinction?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2005/01/05/ecrspace05.xml&sSheet=/connected/2005/01/05/ixconnrite.html
    (Filed: 05/01/2005)

    In the next decade, powerful satellites will help us to understand
    life, the fate of our universe and the 'theory of everything', says
    Michio Kaku

    The great 19th-century biologist Thomas Huxley once wrote that the
    "question of all questions for humanity... is that of the
    determination of man's place in Nature and his relation to the
    Cosmos".

      Other earthlings: In 2014 the Planet Finder will begin hunting for
                          small, Earth-like planets

    We might soon be able to provide the answer to this huge riddle as a
    battery of instruments - including satellites, gravity wave detectors
    and laser devices - not only begins to give us startling insights into
    our place in the cosmos, but also forces us to confront the birth and
    final death of the universe - and even the possible existence of
    parallel universes.

    In the next decade, powerful new satellites will find evidence of
    Earth-like twins orbiting other stars.

    So far, our instruments are so crude that we can only detect about 130
    giant, Jupiter-sized planets, which are probably devoid of life. In
    2006, the Kepler satellite will be launched with a mission to analyse
    100,000 stars for large planets.

    But in 2014, the Terrestrial Planet Finder will begin to hunt for
    small, Earth-like planets in 500 star systems with a telescope
    designed to screen out the mother stars, whose light otherwise
    overwhelms the faint radiation from any nearby planets.

    If these efforts pay off, people will have an existential shock,
    knowing that, when gazing at these twins in the night sky, there might
    be someone looking back. The thought of detecting intelligence in the
    universe is exhilarating to most scientists.

    However, as science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke once cautioned:
    "There may be intelligent life in space or not. Either thought is
    frightening."

    Cosmology, our understanding of the universe, might be revolutionised
    when the Lisa (Laser Interferometry Space Antenna) is launched in
    2011.

    It will orbit the Sun at the same distance as the Earth, but trailing
    us by 30 million miles. Consisting of three satellites linked by laser
    beams, it will form a huge triangle of laser light about three million
    miles on each side.

    If a gravity wave from space hits this triangle, it will cause a tiny
    distortion in the laser beams, which will be detectable by its
    instruments. (Lisa will detect optical distortions one hundredth the
    size of an atom.)

    Lisa should be able to detect cosmic explosions nine billion light
    years from Earth, which cut across much of the visible universe, as
    well as colliding black holes and even the shock waves emitted a
    trillionth of a second after the Big Bang, which are still circulating
    around the universe.

    Hence it might be capable of resolving the most perplexing and
    stubborn question facing cosmology: what happened before the instant
    of Genesis?

    In the various pre-Big Bang theories that have been proposed, each
    predicts a different type of shock wave of gravity emitted once the
    explosion takes place.


    Lisa, by analysing the precise frequencies and wave-like patterns of
    the gravity waves emitted at the instant of the Big Bang, should be
    able to distinguish between them and prove or disprove the theories.

    So far, the leading theory is called "inflation" and postulates an
    unbelievably fast, turbo-charged expansion of the early universe after
    the Big Bang of creation.

    However, if the inflation process happened once, it can happen again.
    The latest version of this is called "chaotic inflation", in which big
    bangs can happen randomly.

    Like soap bubbles that split and sprout other soap bubbles, universes
    can bud and create new "baby universes". In this picture, big bangs
    are happening all the time, even as you read this article.

    But to understand what caused inflation, physicists have to reach for
    a theory that can incorporate both gravity and all known forms of
    radiation - the so-called "theory of everything".

    The only candidate for this is called string theory, or M-theory, in
    which universes can float in 11-dimensional hyperspace in a
    "multiverse" of universes.

    Imagine two parallel sheets of paper; ants on one sheet would be
    invisible to ants on the other, yet they are separated by a few
    inches. Similarly, if a parallel universe hovered a millimetre from
    ours in another dimension, it would be invisible.

    As fantastic as these theories are, Lisa might be able to prove or
    disprove them because each of them leaves behind a different
    "fingerprint" or pattern of gravity waves when the Big Bang occurs.

    Ominously, satellites are also giving us a glimpse into the ultimate
    fate of the universe. Philosophers have wondered if the universe will
    die in fire or ice. The data overwhelmingly favour the Big Freeze
    rather than a Big Crunch.

    The universe, in fact, is not slowing down, but accelerating,
    careering out of control in runaway mode. A mysterious form of energy,
    dubbed "dark energy", is acting like an anti-gravity force that is
    pushing the galaxies apart, causing the universe to accelerate
    uncontrollably and eventually blowing it apart.

                Michio Kaku: professor of theoretical physics

    In the distant future, billions to trillions of years from now, the
    stars will exhaust their nuclear fuel, the oceans will freeze, the
    universe will turn dark and temperatures will plunge to almost zero.
    It appears inevitable that all intelligent life will perish when the
    universe itself freezes over.

    This possibility of "unyielding despair" was explored by the
    mathematician Bertrand Russell, who wrote, in one of the most
    depressing passages in the English language, that "no fire, no
    heroism, no intensity of thought or feeling, can preserve a life
    beyond the grave... all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all
    the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are
    destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system; and the
    whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath
    the debris of a universe in ruins..."

    Today, we believe that space arks might one day preserve life after
    the death of the Sun in five billion years. But can you build a space
    ark to escape the death of the universe itself?

    The only possible way to avoid the death of the universe is to leave.
    Perhaps civilisations billions of years ahead of ours will harness
    enough energy to punch a hole in space and escape, in a
    hyper-dimensional space ark, to a new universe.

    Although it seems far-fetched, even preposterous, physicists have
    seriously considered this possibility using the known laws of physics.
    Einstein's equations, for example, allow for the possibility of
    "Einstein-Rosen bridges" connecting two parallel universes. (Imagine
    two horizontal parallel sheets of paper connected by a thin vertical
    tube.)

    The energy necessary to create such a "wormhole" connecting two
    universes is truly immense - the Planck energy, or 1019 billion
    electron volts (a quadrillion times the energy of our largest atom
    smasher).

    In desperation, an advanced civilisation might create huge banks of
    laser beams and atom smashers to create the unbelievably intense
    temperatures, energy and densities necessary to open up holes in space
    and leave the universe.

    Calculations show that these gigantic machines must be the size of
    star systems, but this might be possible for civilisations billions of
    years ahead of ours. Unfortunately, some preliminary calculations show
    that the wormhole might only be microscopic in size. If so, an
    advanced civilisation might resort to shooting molecular-sized robots,
    called "nanobots", through the wormhole.

    Once on the other side, these nanobots would then create huge DNA
    factories to grow clones and replicas of their creators. Since they
    would contain the entire database of their civilisation, they would
    use this to resurrect it in another universe.

    Although the physical bodies of these individuals will die when the
    universe freezes over, their genetic twins will live on, so that their
    civilisation, like a Phoenix, may flourish again.

    As incredible as these scenarios are, they are consistent with the
    known laws of physics and biology.

    So, when contemplating the question raised by Huxley in 1863, our true
    role in the universe might be to spread the precious germ of
    intelligent life throughout it and, one day, to spread the seed of
    life by leaving a dying universe for a warmer one.

    Michio Kaku is professor of theoretical physics at the City University
    of New York. This article is adapted from his forthcoming book,
    Parallel Worlds (Penguin Books), which is published on February 3. To
    order for ?16.99 + ?2.25 p&p, please call Telegraph Books Direct on
    0870 155 7222.

    Dr Kaku will be on tour in Britain at the end of the month: Mon Jan
    31, 7.30pm, the ICA event at the London Planetarium, with Prof John
    Barrow, tel: ICA Box Office 020 7930 3647 Tues Feb 1, 8pm, Borders
    Bookshop, Cambridge, tel: 01223 306188 Wed Feb 2, 7pm, the Royal
    Institution, London, tel: 020 7409 2992 Thurs Feb 3, 6pm ThinkTank,
    Birmingham Science Museum, tel: 0121 202 2222

    External links
    [22]NASA - Terrestrial Planet Finder
    [23]Terrestrial Planet Finder
    [24]Michio Kaku

References

   22. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/exit.jhtml;sessionid=NRI1L0W1QAVBXQFIQMFCM54AVCBQYJVC?exit=http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/TPF/tpf_index.html
   23. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/exit.jhtml;sessionid=NRI1L0W1QAVBXQFIQMFCM54AVCBQYJVC?exit=http://www.terrestrial-planet-finder.com/
   24. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/exit.jhtml;sessionid=NRI1L0W1QAVBXQFIQMFCM54AVCBQYJVC?exit=http://www.mkaku.org

From checker at panix.com  Thu Feb  3 20:18:29 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 15:18:29 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Engineering Evolution: The Alchemy of Eugenics |
	Phillip D. Collins
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502031516140.3527@panix1.panix.com>

Engineering Evolution: The Alchemy of Eugenics | Phillip D. Collins
http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/Commentary/Evolution.htm

    - by Phillip D. Collins, Jan. 10th, 2005

    In the dark past of human civilization, the ruling class controlled
    humanity largely through religious institutions and mysticism.
    However, the turn of the century witnessed the epistemic
    transformation of the elite's religious power structure into a
    "scientific dictatorship." The history and background of this
    "scientific dictatorship" is a conspiracy, created and micro-managed
    through the historical tide of Darwinism, which has its foundations in
    Freemasonry. In this article, we shall examine the evolutionary
    alchemy of eugenics, from Margaret Sanger's Planned Parenthood to
    William Sims Bainbridge's Transhumanism.

The Alchemical Transformation of Man

    A common misnomer that has been circulated by academia's anointed
    historians is that the alchemists of antiquity were attempting to
    transform lead into gold. In truth, this was a fiction promulgated by
    the alchemists themselves to conceal their ultimate objectives . .
    .the transformation of man into a god. Among one of the various occult
    organizations that aspired to complete this alchemical mission was
    Freemasonry. Providing a summation of Masonry's supreme goal, Masonic
    scholar W.L. Wilmshurst writes:

      "This - the evolution of man into superman [emphasis - ADDED] - was
      always the purpose of the ancient Mysteries, and the real purpose
      of modern Masonry is, not the social and charitable purposes to
      which so much attention is paid, but the expediting of the
      spiritual evolution of those who aspire to perfect their own nature
      and transform it into a more god-like quality. And this is a
      definite science, a royal art, which it is possible for each of us
      to put into practice; whilst to join the Craft for any other
      purpose than to study and pursue this science is to misunderstand
      its meaning." (Wilmshurst, p. 47, 1980)

    According to this alchemical mandate, humanity is a gradually
    developing deity requiring scientific assistance in its evolution. In
    Mystic Masonry, 32nd degree Mason J.D. Buck reiterates this theme of
    man as a progressively apotheosizing organism: "Humanity, 'in-toto',
    then, is the only Personal God" (Buck, p. 136, 1990). Of course, the
    concept of evolution would later be disseminated on the popular level
    as Darwinism and become the veritable cornerstone of contemporary
    science.

    Before its popularization, evolutionary theory was the intellectual
    property of Masonry. Freemason Erasmus Darwin, Charles' grandfather,
    "originated almost every important idea that has since appeared in
    evolutionary theory" (Darlington, p. 62, 1959). It is hardly a
    coincidence that many of Charles Darwin's chief promoters were
    Freemasons, not the least of which being T.H. Huxley. It is even less
    of a coincidence that Charles Darwin's cousin, Sir Francis Galton,
    would become one of the early expediters of Masonry's alchemical
    agenda.

Eugenics: Alchemically Engineered Apotheosis

    Sir Francis Galton could be considered an early evolutionary
    alchemist. His own cousin's theory of evolution was one of his chief
    inspirations. In Memories of My Life, Galton wrote:

      "The publication in 1859 of the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
      made a marked epoch in my own mental development, as it did in that
      of human thought generally. Its effect was to demolish a multitude
      of dogmatic barriers by a single stroke, and to arouse a spirit of
      rebellion against all ancient authorities whose positive and
      unauthenticated statements were contradicted by modern science."
      (Galton, Memories of My Life, p. 287)

    Viewing evolutionary theory in conjunction with the alchemical mandate
    for man's consciously engineered apotheosis, one inevitably recognizes
    a belief system that exhibits all of the characteristics of a
    religion. This revelation is most clearly illustrated by Galton's
    statements in Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development:

      "The chief result of these Inquiries has been to elicit the
      religious significance of the doctrine of evolution. It suggests an
      alteration in our mental attitude, and imposes a new moral duty.
      The new mental attitude is one of a greater sense of moral freedom,
      responsibility, and opportunity; the new duty which is supposed to
      be exercised concurrently with, and not in opposition to the old
      ones upon which the social fabric depends, is an endeavor to
      further evolution, especially that of the human race." (Galton,
      Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development, p. 337, 1883)

    That Galton recognized the "religious significance of evolution" is no
    accident. Throughout the years, this Masonically inspired religion of
    emergent deities has resurfaced under various appellations. Wagar
    enumerates its numerous manifestations:

      "Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century thought teems with
      time-bound emergent deities. Scores of thinkers preached some sort
      of faith in what is potential in time, in place of the traditional
      Christian and mystical faith in a power outside of time. Hegel's
      Weltgeist, Comte's Humanite, Spencer's organismic humanity
      inevitably improving itself by the laws of evolution, Nietzsche's
      doctrine of superhumanity, the conception of a finite God given
      currency by J.S. Mill, Hastings Rashdall, and William James, the
      vitalism of Bergson and Shaw, the emergent evolutionism of Samuel
      Alexander and Lloyd Morgan, the theories of divine immanence in the
      liberal movement in Protestant theology, and du Nouy's telefinalism
      - all are exhibits in evidence of the influence chiefly of
      evolutionary thinking, both before and after Darwin, in Western
      intellectual history. The faith of progress itself - especially the
      idea of progress as built into the evolutionary scheme of things -
      is in every way the psychological equivalent of religion." (Wagar,
      pp. 106 - 7, 1961)

    This emergent deity, Man (spelled with a capitalized M to denote his
    purported divinity), would be fully enthroned through the efforts of
    alchemists themselves. Galton would reintroduce the concept of alchemy
    under the appellation of eugenics, a term derived from Greek for "well
    born." The basic precepts of eugenics were delineated in Galton's
    Hereditary Genius, a racist polemic advocating a system of selective
    breeding for the purposes of providing "more suitable races or strains
    of blood a better chance of prevailing over the less suitable"
    (Galton, Hereditary Genius, p. 24, 1869). According to Galton, society
    should be eugenically regimented. The framework of such a society
    would be a caste system where status was assigned according to genetic
    superiority. In an article in the January 1873 edition of Fraser's
    Magazine, Galton stated:

      "I do not see why any insolence of caste should prevent the gifted
      class, when they had the power, from treating their [lower caste]
      compatriots with all kindness, as long as they maintained celibacy.
      But if these continued to procreate children, inferior in moral,
      intellectual, and physical qualities, it is easy to believe that
      the time may come when such persons would be considered as enemies
      to the State, and to have forfeited all claims to kindness." (qutd.
      in Chase, pp. 100, 1977)

    Galton hoped that such societal regimentation would promote
    "eugenically sound" breeding amongst the citizenry. Summarizing
    Galton's objectives, Allan Chase explains: "What Galton was talking
    about here was the power to breed people as we breed pigs" (Chase, p.
    101, 1977). Of course, as George Orwell opined in Animal Farm, some
    pigs are more equal than others. According to Galton's cousin and
    racialist progenitor, Charles Darwin, the pigs of higher stock were
    the Anglo-Saxons. This becomes evident in Darwinian Josiah Strong's
    manifesto, America's Destiny. Quoting Darwin, Strong wrote:

      "'At the present day,' says Mr. Darwin, 'civilized nations are
      everywhere supplanting barbarous nations, excepting, where the
      climate opposes a deadly barrier; and they succeed mainly, though
      exclusively, through their arts, which are the products of the
      intellect.' He continues: 'Whether the extinction of inferior races
      before the advancing Anglo-Saxon seems to the reader sad or
      otherwise, it certainly appears probable...Is there room for
      reasonable doubt that this race, unless devitalized by alcohol and
      tobacco, is destined to dispossess many weaker races, assimilate
      others, and mold the remainder, until, in a very true and important
      sense, it has Anglo-Saxonized mankind?'." (Strong, pp. 165 - 80,
      1885)

    Of course, it comes as no real surprise that such thinking underpinned
    the racialist policies of Nazi Germany, which was a scientific
    dictatorship edified by Darwinian evolution. It comes as even less a
    surprise that Leonard Darwin, son of Charles, was vice-president of
    both the 1912 and 1921 International Eugenics Congresses. The first of
    these two meetings was the outgrowth of a 1911 gathering of the
    International Society for Racial Hygiene, a predominantly German
    organization. That Germany would see the full enactment of eugenical
    policies is hardly a coincidence.

Planned Parenthood: The Racist Legacy of Margaret Sanger

    Although the Nazis' eugenical Holocaust of WWII constituted an
    enormous public relations disaster for proponents of eugenics, the
    movement would later resurface under the banner of population control
    and radical environmentalism. Researchers Tarpley and Chaitkin
    document this transmogrification:

      "The population control or zero population growth movement, which
      grew rapidly in the late 1960s thanks to free media exposure and
      foundation grants for a stream of pseudoscientific propaganda about
      the alleged 'population bomb' and the 'limits to growth,' was a
      continuation of the old prewar, protofascist eugenics movement,
      which had been forced to go into temporary eclipse when the world
      recoiled in horror at the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the
      name of eugenics. By mid-1960s, the same old crackpot eugenicists
      had resurrected themselves as the population-control and
      environmentalist movement. Planned Parenthood was a perfect example
      of the transmogrification. Now, instead of demanding the
      sterilization of the inferior races, the newly packaged eugenicists
      talked about the population bomb, giving the poor 'equal access' to
      birth control, and 'freedom of choice'." (Tarpley & Chaitkin, p.
      203, 1992)

    Indeed, Planned Parenthood successfully carried the banner of eugenics
    into the post-WWII era. Planned Parenthood was founded by Margaret
    Sanger, a virulently racist woman who touted the slogan: "Birth
    Control: to create a race of thoroughbreds." Her manifesto, entitled
    The Pivot of Civilization, thoroughly delineates the mission of
    Planned Parenthood and its allied organizations in the eugenics
    movement. In this treatise, which featured an introduction written by
    Freemason and Fabian socialist H.G. Wells, Sanger reveals the true
    motives underpinning the promotion of birth control:

      "Birth Control, which has been criticized as negative and
      destructive, is really the greatest and most truly eugenic method,
      and its adoption as part of the program of Eugenics would
      immediately give a concrete and realistic power to that science...
      as the most constructive and necessary of the means to racial
      health." (Sanger, The Pivot of Civilization, p. 189, 1922)

    Sanger believed that society's tolerance of "morons," "human weeds,"
    and the "feeble-minded' was encouraging dysgenics. To remedy this
    purported genetic threat, Sanger unabashedly promoted the
    implementation of authoritarian measures:

      "The emergency problem of segregation and sterilization must be
      faced immediately. Every feeble-minded girl or woman of the
      hereditary type, especially of the moron class, should be
      segregated during the reproductive period.... we prefer the policy
      of immediate sterilization, of making sure that parenthood is
      absolutely prohibited to the feeble-minded." (Sanger, The Pivot of
      Civilization, pp. 101 - 102, 1922)

    Understand, these are the words of a so-called "proponent of
    reproductive rights." Moreover, Sanger desired to see the
    establishment of a gulag system within America for the internment of
    the "feeble-minded." In an issue of Birth Control Review, she wrote:

      "To apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation
      to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted... to
      apportion farm lands and homesteads for these segregated persons
      where they would be taught to work under competent instructors for
      the period of their entire lives.... " (Sanger, "Plan of Peace,"
      Birth Control Review, pp. 107-8, 1932)

    Although Sanger's gulag system was not formally enacted in the United
    States, her vision saw horrible fulfillment in Nazi Germany. It comes
    as little surprise that Planned Parenthood's board of directors
    included Nazi supporters such as Dr. Lothrop Stoddard, author of a
    racist tract entitled The Rising Tide of Color Against White
    Supremacy. In fact, Birth Control Review acted as a conduit for the
    dissemination of Nazi propaganda in America. In April of 1933, Dr.
    Ernst Rudin, Hitler's director of genetic sterilization and a founder
    of the Nazi Society for Racial Hygiene, published an article in Birth
    Control Review. Entitled "Eugenic Sterilization: An Urgent Need," the
    article presented the following appeal:

      "The danger to the community of the unsegregated feeble-minded
      woman is more evident. Most dangerous are the middle and high
      grades living at large who, despite the fact that their defect is
      not easily recognizable, should nevertheless be prevented from
      procreation.... In my view we should act without delay." (Rudin,
      "Eugenic Sterilization: An Urgent Need," Birth Control Review, pp.
      102-4, 1933)

    Of course, in Rudin's native country, the "feeble-minded" did not
    remain "unsegregrated" for very long. The same year that Sanger's
    publication printed Rudin's article, Ernst collaborated with Heinrich
    Himmler on Germany's 1933 sterilization law. This genocidal edict
    stipulated the sterilization of all Jews and "colored" German
    children. Eventually, the "undesirables" were collected, segregated,
    and systematically murdered. The final result of the Nazi eugenics
    program was the Holocaust, which claimed six million lives.

    Yet, how many people would have been segregated for orderly disposal
    according to Sanger's vision? Upon examination of army statistics,
    Sanger concluded that:

      "...nearly half - 47.3 per cent - of the population had the
      mentality of twelve-year-old children or less - in other words that
      they are morons." (Sanger, The Pivot of Civilization, p. 263, 1922)

    Sanger expressed dismal hopes for a vast segment of the population,
    declaring that: "only 13,500,000 will ever show superior intelligence"
    (Sanger, The Pivot of Civilization, p. 264, 1922). Thus, only a meager
    13.5% of the population would be permitted to procreate. The rest
    would be segregated for orderly disposal. Evidently, Sanger's
    holocaust would have even dwarfed Hitler's Final Solution.

    In typical Darwinian fashion, Sanger showed little mercy towards the
    weak. In fact, Margaret expressed a distinct aversion towards the
    poor. Chapter Five of her book is entitled "The Cruelty of Charity."
    Reiterating Malthus' proposal to "disclaim the right of the poor to
    support," she wrote:

      "Organized charity itself is....the surest sign that our
      civilization has bred, is breeding and is perpetuating constantly
      increasing numbers of defectives, delinquents and dependents."
      (Sanger, The Pivot of Civilization, p. 108, 1922)

    Sanger particularly loathed:

      "...a special type of philanthropy or benevolence,....which strikes
      me as being more insidiously injurious than any other.... to supply
      gratis medical and nursing facilities to slum mothers." (Sanger,
      The Pivot of Civilization, p. 114, 1922)

    According to Margaret, such an investment of time, effort, resources,
    and love represented the height of futility:

      ".... we are paying for and even submitting to the dictates of an
      ever increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who
      never should have been born at all....." (Sanger, The Pivot of
      Civilization, p. 187, 1922)

    Planned Parenthood retains an active role in the scientific
    dictatorship's project of eugenical regimentation today. Despite
    revelations of Nazi atrocities constituted a public relations disaster
    for the organization, Planned Parenthood survived and continues to
    tangibly enact Sanger's vision. In fact, so-called "conservative,
    pro-life, pro-family, Christian" President George Bush Sr. pledged his
    whole-hearted support to the group. Researchers Tarpley and Chaitkin
    explain:

      "Although Planned Parenthood was forced, during the fascist era and
      immediately thereafter, to tone down Sanger's racist rhetoric from
      'race betterment' to 'family planning' for the benefit of the poor
      and racial minorities, the organization's basic goal of curbing the
      population growth rate among 'undesirables' never really changed.
      Bush publicly asserted that he agreed '1,000 percent' with Planned
      Parenthood." (Tarpley & Chaitkin, p. 195, 1992)

Transhumanism: Techno-Eugenics and the End of Humanity

    Today, Galton's agenda of biological totalitarianism has resurfaced as
    the World Transhumanist Association. However, equipped with
    nanotechnology and genetic engineering, this movement presents a
    technologically augmented form of eugenics. Richard Hayes, executive
    director of the Center for Genetics and Society, elaborates:

      "Last June at Yale University, the World Transhumanist Association
      held its first national conference. The Transhumanists have
      chapters in more than 20 countries and advocate the breeding of
      'genetically enriched' forms of 'post-human' beings. Other
      advocates of the new techno-eugenics, such as Princeton University
      professor Lee Silver, predict that by the end of this century, 'All
      aspects of the economy, the media, the entertainment industry, and
      the knowledge industry [will be] controlled by members of the
      GenRich class... Naturals [will] work as low-paid service providers
      or as laborers...'" (Hayes, 2004)

    Here is the vision of the Transhumanist movement... Huxley's Brave New
    World where the new class distinction is genetic. Yet, just how long
    shall the GenRich class tolerate the existence of its biological
    subordinates? Hayes continues:

      "What happens then? Here's Dr. Richard Lynn, emeritus professor at
      the University of Ulster, who, like Silver, supports human genetic
      modification: 'What is called for here is not genocide, the killing
      off of the population of incompetent cultures. But we do need to
      think realistically in terms of the 'phasing out' of such
      peoples....Evolutionary progress means the extinction of the less
      competent'." (Hayes, 2004)

    This is a frightening proposition indeed. C. Christopher Hook
    delineates the philosophy underpinning Transhumanism:

      That we are biological creatures is simply our current status,
      transhumanists believe, but it is not necessary for defining who we
      are or who we should be. Bart Kosko, a professor of electrical
      engineering at the University of Southern California, puts it more
      bluntly in his book Heaven in a Chip (2002): "Biology is not
      destiny. It was never more than tendency. It was just nature's
      first quick and dirty way to compute with meat. Chips are destiny."

      British roboticist Kevin Warwick put it this way: "I was born
      human. But this was an accident of fate-a condition merely of time
      and place." This sounds startingly reminiscent of what nihilist
      Frederick Nietzsche wrote in Thus Spake Zarathustra: "I teach you
      the overman. Man is something to be overcome" (Hook, 2004).

    Like Nietzsche's overman, the roboman of Warwick and Kosko represents
    yet another incarnation of Adam Weishaupt's "inner Areopagites: man
    made perfect as a god-without-God" (Billington, p. 97, 1980).

    A central feature of Darwinism has been the belief in great
    extinctions. That belief remains firmly embedded within the crusade of
    the Transhumanist movement. Hook elaborates:

      "Katherine Hayles, a professor of English at the University of
      California, Los Angeles, says in How We Became Posthuman (1999)
      that 'in the posthuman, there are no essential differences, or
      absolute demarcations, between bodily existence and computer
      simulation, cybernetic mechanism and biological organism, robot
      technology and human goals.' She concludes her book with a warning:
      'Humans can either go gently into that good night, joining the
      dinosaurs as a species that once ruled the earth but is now
      obsolete, or hang on for a while longer by becoming machines
      themselves. In either case ... the age of the human is drawing to a
      close'." (Hook, 2004)

    According to the Darwinian doctrine of the Transhumanist movement,
    mankind is the next species slated for extinction. How does the
    GenRich class intend to regulate the rest of the "dysgenics" until
    their ultimate extinction? Transhumanist ideologue and Deputy Director
    of the National Science Foundation's Division of Information and
    Intelligent Systems William Sims Bainbridge provides the answer:

      "Techniques such as genetic engineering, psychoactive drugs and
      electronic control of the brain make possible a transformation of
      the species into docile, fully-obedient, 'safe' organisms."
      (Bainbridge, 1982)

    In other words, the pharmacological totalitarianism of Aldous Huxley's
    Brave New World. Chemically numbed and anesthetized, the "dysgenics"
    will resign themselves to extinction in the posthuman era. Meanwhile,
    the eugenical alchemists of the elite continue to write the final
    chapter of the evolutionary script and they have left no room for
    humanity in the last pages.

Sources Cited

      * Bainbridge, William Sims, "[11] Religions for a Galactic
        Civilization," excerpted from Science Fiction and Space Futures,
        edited by Eugene M. Emme. San Diego: American Astronautical
        Society, pages 187-201, 1982.
      * Billington, James H, Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the
        Revolutionary Faith, Basic Books, Inc., New York, 1980.
      * Chase, Allan, The Legacy of Malthus, Knopf: distributed by Random
        House, 1977.
      * Darlington, "The Origin of Darwinism," Scientific American, May
        1959
      * Galton, Francis, Hereditary Genius, Macmillan, London, 1869.
      * Galton, Francis, Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development,
        New York, MacMillan and Co., 1883.
      * Hayes, Richard, "[12]Selective Science," February 12, 2004.
      * Hook, C. Christopher, "[13]The Techno Sapiens Are Coming," January
        2004.
      * Huxley, Thomas, Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays, New York:
        Appleton, 1896.
      * Rudin, Ernst, "Eugenic Sterilization: An Urgent Need," Birth
        Control Review, Volume XVII, Number 4, April 1933.
      * Sagan, Carl, Cosmos, Random House, New York, 1980.
      * Sanger, Margaret, The Pivot of Civilization, Brentano's Press, NY,
        1922.
      * Sanger, Margaret, "Plan for Peace," Birth Control Review, Volume
        XVI, Number 4, April 1932.
      * Strong, Josiah, Our Country, New York, 1885.
      * Tarpley, Webster & Anton Chaitkin, [14]George Bush: The
        Unauthorized Biography, Executive Intelligence Review, Washington
        D.C., 1992.
      * Wagar, W. Warren, H.G. Wells and the World State, Yale University
        Press, New Haven, 1961.
      * Wilmshurst, W.L., The Meaning of Masonry, Gramercy Books, New York
        1980.
      _________________________________________________________________

    About the Author

    Phillip D. Collins acted as the editor for The Hidden Face of
    Terrorism. He has an Associate of Arts and Science. Currently, he is
    studying for a bachelor's degree in Communications at Wright State
    University. During the course of his seven-year college career,
    Phillip has studied philosophy, religion, and classic literature. He
    co-authored the book, The Ascendancy of the Scientific Dictatorship:
    An Examination of Epistemic Autocracy, From the 19th to the 21st
    Century, is [15]available online here.
    CSS printer friendly enabled
    mail to a friend [16]Send this to a friend

    "The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in
    the major media."
    William Colby (Former CIA Director)

    "Language is a field of battle, the media is the artillery, and
    vocabulary is the ammunition. The NWO has taken the field by storm,
    and is proceeding with coordinated attacks on several fronts, using
    all the latest high-tech vocabulary ammunition. They've laid a bed of
    land mines that cripple us when we try to stand on them: 'liberalism',
    conservatism', prosperity', 'democracy'."
    Richard Moore, Doublespeak

    "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our
    liberties than standing armies."
    Thomas Jefferson

    "I have the greatest admiration for your propaganda. Propaganda in the
    West is carried out by experts who have had the best training in the
    world -- in the field of advertizing -- and have mastered the
    techniques with exceptional proficiency ... Yours are subtle and
    persuasive; ours are crude and obvious ... I think that the
    fundamental difference between our worlds, with respect to propaganda,
    is quite simple. You tend to believe yours ... and we tend to
    disbelieve ours."
    Soviet correspondent based five years in the U.S.

    "In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea
    that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine
    and the like would fit the bill ... All these dangers are caused by
    human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and
    behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity
    itself."
    Alexander King, Bertrand Schneider - founder and secretary,
    respectively, of the Club of Rome - The First Global Revolution,
    pp.104-105

    "The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge
    to rule."
    Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956), American editor, critic

    "This Act (the Federal Reserve Act, Dec. 23rd 1913) establishes the
    most gigantic trust on earth. When the President (Woodrow Wilson)
    signs the Bill, the invisible government of the Monetary Power will be
    legalised... The worst legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated by
    this banking and currency Bill."
    Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr.

    "All propaganda has to be popular and has to adapt its spiritual level
    to the perception of the least intelligent of those towards whom it
    intends to direct itself."
    Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"), Vol. I

    "Christianity is our foe. If animal rights is to succeed, we must
    destroy the Judeo-Christian religious tradition."
    Peter Singer (father of the animal rights movement), The Deweese
    Report, November 1998

    "The owners and managers of the press determine which person, which
    facts, which version of the facts, and which ideas shall reach the
    public."
    Commission On Freedom Of The Press

References

   11. http://web.archive.org/web/20030219105541/http://users.erols.com/bainbri/dl/relgal.htm
   12. http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9937/view/print
   13. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/001/1.36.html
   14. http://www.tarpley.net/bushb.htm
   15. http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?&isbn=0-595-31164-4
   16. http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/sendToFriend.php
   17. http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/Commentary/Evolution.htm#header
   18. http://www.xdevdesign.com/


From checker at panix.com  Thu Feb  3 20:20:00 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 15:20:00 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Telegraph: In the beginning . . . Adam walked with
	dinosaurs
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502031518380.3527@panix1.panix.com>

In the beginning . . . Adam walked with dinosaurs
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/01/02/weden02.xml&pos=portal_puff3
                            Wednesday 12 January 2005

    By James Langton in New York
    (Filed: 02/01/2005)

    With its towering dinosaurs and a model of the Grand Canyon, America's
    newest tourist attraction might look like the ideal destination for
    fans of the film Jurassic Park.

    The new multi-million-dollar Museum of Creation, which will open this
    spring in Kentucky, will, however, be aimed not at film buffs, but at
    the growing ranks of fundamentalist Christians in the United States.

    It aims to promote the view that man was created in his present shape
    by God, as the Bible states, rather than by a Darwinian process of
    evolution, as scientists insist.

    The centrepiece of the museum is a series of huge model dinosaurs,
    built by the former head of design at Universal Studios, which are
    portrayed as existing alongside man, contrary to received scientific
    opinion that they lived millions of years apart.

    Other exhibits include images of Adam and Eve, a model of Noah's Ark
    and a planetarium demonstrating how God made the Earth in six days.

    The museum, which has cost a mighty $25 million (?13 million) will be
    the world's first significant natural history collection devoted to
    creationist theory. It has been set up by Ken Ham, an Australian
    evangelist, who runs Answers in Genesis, one of America's most
    prominent creationist organisations. He said that his aim was to use
    tourism, and the theme park's striking exhibits, to convert more
    people to the view that the world and its creatures, including
    dinosaurs, were created by God 6,000 years ago.

    "We want people to be confronted by the dinosaurs," said Mr Ham. "It's
    going to be a first class experience. Visitors are going to be hit by
    the professionalism of this place. It is not going to be done in an
    amateurish way. We are making a statement."

    The museum's main building was completed recently, and work on the
    entrance exhibit starts this week. The first phase of the museum,
    which lies on a 47-acre site 10 miles from Cincinatti on the border of
    Kentucky and Ohio, will open in the spring.

    Market research companies hired by the museum are predicting at least
    300,000 visitors in the first year, who will pay $10 (?5.80) each.

    Among the projects still to be finished is a reconstruction of the
    Grand Canyon, purportedly formed by the swirling waters of the Great
    Flood - where visitors will "gape" at the bones of dinosaurs that
    "hint of a terrible catastrophe", according to the museum's publicity.

    Mr Ham is particularly proud of a planned reconstruction of the
    interior of Noah's Ark. "You will hear the water lapping, feel the Ark
    rocking and perhaps even hear people outside screaming," he said.

    More controversial exhibits deal with diseases and famine, which are
    portrayed not as random disasters, but as the result of mankind's sin.
    Mr Ham's Answers in Genesis movement blames the 1999 massacre at
    Columbine High School in Colorado, in which two teenagers killed 12
    classmates and a teacher before killing themselves, on evolutionist
    teaching, claiming that the perpetrators believed in Darwin's survival
    of the fittest.

    Other exhibits in the museum will blame homosexuals for Aids. In a
    "Bible Authority Room" visitors are warned: "Everyone who rejects his
    history - including six-day creation and Noah's flood - is `wilfully'
    ignorant.''

    Elsewhere, animated figures will be used to recreate the Garden of
    Eden, while in another room, visitors will see a tyrannosaurus rex
    pursuing Adam and Eve after their fall from grace. "That's the real
    terror that Adam's sin unleashed," visitors will be warned.

    A display showing ancient Babylon will deal with the Tower of Babel
    and "unravel the origin of so-called races'', while the final section
    will show the life of Christ, as an animated angel proclaims the
    coming of the Saviour and a 3D depiction of the crucifixion.

    In keeping with modern museum trends, there will also be a cafe with a
    terrace to "breathe in the fresh air of God's creation'', and a shop
    "crammed'' with creationist souvenirs, including T-shirts and books
    such as A is for Adam and Dinky Dinosaur: Creation Days.

    The museum's opening will reinforce the burgeoning creationist
    movement and evangelical Christianity in the US, which gained further
    strength with the re-election of President Bush in November.

    Followers of creationism have been pushing for their theories to be
    reintegrated into American schoolroom teaching ever since the
    celebrated 1925 "Scopes Monkey Trial", when US courts upheld the right
    of a teacher to use textbooks that included evolutionary theory.

    In 1987, the US Supreme Court reinforced that position by banning the
    teaching of creationism in public schools on the grounds of laws that
    separate state and Church.

    Since then, however, many schools - particularly in America's
    religious Deep South - have got around the ban by teaching the theory
    of "intelligent design", which claims that evolutionary ideas alone
    still leave large gaps in understanding.

    "Since President Bush's re-election we have been getting more
    membership applications than we can handle,'' said Mr Ham, who expects
    not just the devout, but also the curious, to flock through the
    turnstiles. "The evolutionary elite will be getting a wake-up call."

    External links
    [25]Answers in Genesis

References

   25. http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/exit.jhtml;sessionid=JHA23TWQH3SNBQFIQMGCM54AVCBQUJVC?exit=http://www.answersingenesis.org/

From checker at panix.com  Fri Feb  4 14:37:18 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 09:37:18 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: Harvard Seeks to Advance Opportunities for Women
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502040936320.10866@panix2.panix.com>

The New York Times > National > Harvard Seeks to Advance Opportunities
for Women
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/04/national/04harvard.html
5.2.4

    By SAM DILLON and SARA RIMER

    Moving to counter widespread criticism of his comments last month on
    women's science capabilities, the president of Harvard University
    announced initiatives yesterday to improve the status of women on the
    faculty, including a commitment to create a senior administrative
    position to strengthen recruiting.

    The president, Lawrence H. Summers, appointed two task forces, one on
    women in the faculty and one on women in science and engineering, and
    charged them with developing recommendations on how to recruit,
    support and promote women more effectively.

    The committees are to complete their work by May 1 so the university
    can act on their recommendations by the fall term.

    In an interview, Dr. Summers declined to say how many new women the
    university might hire as professors in the short term, or how much the
    initiatives would cost. But in a public statement announcing the
    measures, he said, "It is time for Harvard to step up and affirm in
    strong and concrete terms its commitment to the advancement and
    support of women pursuing academic careers."

    Dr. Summers's actions yesterday echoed his handling of the outcry that
    followed his dispute in 2001 with Cornel West, a prominent member of
    the African-American studies department. At that time, Dr. Summers
    publicly affirmed his commitment to affirmative action, and Harvard
    subsequently created several new positions in that department.

    Barbara Grosz, the dean of science at Harvard's Radcliffe Institute
    for Advanced Study, who has long been active on women's issues at
    Harvard, was named to head the task force on women in science and
    engineering. She said she had accepted the leadership post only after
    receiving assurances "that our recommendations were going to be taken
    seriously."

    "There is now an opportunity that didn't exist before," Professor
    Grosz said, "and I am willing to put effort into grabbing that
    opportunity and doing what I can to see that the changes at Harvard
    get made."

    The chairwoman of the other task force, on faculty women, is Evelynn
    Hammonds, a professor of history of science and of African and
    African-American studies.

    Altogether, Dr. Summers named 27 professors and senior administrators
    - 22 women and 5 men - to participate in the two task forces.

    Dr. Summers's announcement came as his remarks suggesting that innate
    sex differences might explain the scarcity of women in math and
    science careers continued to stir international media coverage and
    controversy.

    Scientists, feminists and hundreds of members of his own faculty have
    criticized Dr. Summers as seeming to ignore years of research showing
    that societal and cultural obstacles, including discrimination at
    universities, are the most significant impairment to women's
    advancement in academic math and science careers.

    A smaller number of people, including some prominent conservatives,
    have praised Dr. Summers for what they call his defiance of political
    correctness. Dr. Summers has apologized repeatedly for his remarks,
    which were made on Jan. 14 at an academic conference in Cambridge and
    were intended to be off the record. He has said his remarks were
    misconstrued, but has declined to release a tape recording of them.

    Harvard's announcement yesterday referred only obliquely to the
    outpouring of criticism. "Recent public discussion about women and
    science has brought renewed attention to longstanding issues
    concerning the representation of women in the faculty," it said.

    Prominent female professors in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences have
    been expressing concerns since June over the decline in offers of
    tenured professorships to women during Dr. Summers's tenure.

    While Dr. Summers said publicly that he would take steps to remedy the
    decline, many of the female professors have said they are skeptical of
    his commitment. At an October meeting, some 50 female professors
    presented Dr. Summers and William Kirby, the dean of the Faculty of
    Arts and Sciences, with proposals to improve the number and status of
    women on the faculty, including the appointment of a dean of faculty
    diversity for Arts and Sciences.

    Dr. Summers and Dean Kirby rejected the proposal for the new dean,
    saying they thought they could help female faculty members better
    through existing associate deans.

    "The task force on women faculty will be charged with making
    recommendations for a series of specific institutional measures -
    including the creation of a new, senior position at the center of the
    university - to strengthen the recruitment, support and advancement of
    outstanding women faculty," yesterday's university statement said.


From checker at panix.com  Fri Feb  4 14:39:15 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 09:39:15 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Tom Wolfe: Several Reviews and Interviews
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502040937570.10866@panix2.panix.com>

Tom Wolfe: Several Reviews and Interviews

Time Magazine
November 8, 2004

I am Still Tom Wolfe; At 73, the man in the white suit is back with a new novel 
about sex and power on campus

by Lev Grossman

???In 1952 a promising young pitching prospect out of Washington and Lee 
University showed up for a tryout with the New York Giants (the baseball 
Giants, that is--they hadn't yet decamped for San Francisco). The prospect made 
a decent showing: three innings, three men on base, no runs scored. Good 
screwball, nice sinker, not much heat. "If somebody had offered me a Class D 
professional contract," says the prospect--whose name was Tom Wolfe--many 
decades later, "I would have gladly put off writing for a couple of decades."

???But the Giants cut Wolfe after two days, and he became a giant of another 
kind. Wolfe is one of the greatest literary stylists and social observers of 
our much observed postmodern era. With books like The Right Stuff and The 
Bonfire of the Vanities, he has built a towering reputation both as a 
journalist and as a novelist, scoring both literary acclaim and commercial 
success in the process. He has hung out with Black Panthers and astronauts. He 
has feuded with John Updike, Norman Mailer and John Irving simultaneously.

???Now, in his new novel, I Am Charlotte Simmons (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; 676 
pages), Wolfe has set himself the challenge of chronicling youthful hedonism on 
a college campus. But at 73, can Wolfe party with the frat boys? Or has America 
finally outrun its most tireless chronicler?

???In uptown Manhattan, perched on a sofa in his sumptuous apartment, with its 
housekeeper and its blue baby grand and its views of Central Park, Wolfe in 
person is a sharp contrast to his personality on the page. His prose bristles 
with italics and exclamation points and repetitions--repetitions!--for 
emphasis, but Wolfe himself speaks softly, slowly and a little hoarsely, with 
the ruins of a long-ago Virginia accent. He has always been dapper, but now he 
is a dapper old man. His appearance is not so much wolfish as avian: his frame 
is slight, his nose hooked and beaky, his mischievous smile a little 
snaggle-toothed. His hair is midlength and floppy, a la David Spade. He still 
wears his trademark white suit, accessorized with some kind of high-gloss 
old-timey shoes, but it hangs a little loose on him. When he reads small print 
he dons a pair of white-framed glasses.

???Wolfe's previous novel, A Man in Full, published in 1998, took him 11 long 
years to finish, and when he was finally through, he wasted no time looking 
around for fresh territory. He likes to portray himself as a literary 
opportunist: in his 1989 manifesto "Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast," he 
scolded American novelists for writing minimalist, self-conscious little books 
when there's so much rich, strange, documentary material out there. "They don't 
want to see the world," he has said, "they want to suck their thumbs." After A 
Man in Full, it occurred to Wolfe, who had a daughter at Duke, that the lives 
of college students were a trove of good stuff--there is, he points out, no 
really great novel about campus life from the student's point of view. "The 
whole business of the co-ed dorm fascinated me. What does go on? Because all 
these children assure their parents, 'It's just the way it was when you were in 
college.'"

???It was thus that, in his eighth decade, Tom Wolfe swapped his white suit for 
a less conspicuous blue blazer and set out on a tour of college campuses in 
search of Charlotte Simmons. "I went to fraternity parties," he recalls. "Very 
few of the students had any idea who I was. I was so old, and I always wore a 
necktie--I must have seemed somewhat odd to them." He trekked from Stanford to 
Ann Arbor, from Chapel Hill to the University of Florida in Gainesville. "The 
most valuable things were having people tell you about things like sex. I 
didn't see any," he adds hastily. What he did see was a kind of boot camp where 
teenagers are initiated into the social matrices of sex and power against the 
autumnal backdrop of what Wolfe describes as "the gradual--maybe not so 
gradual--disappearance of conventional morality."

???So who, exactly, is Charlotte Simmons? Wolfe's heroine is a freshman at 
prestigious, fictional Dupont University in Philadelphia. They don't come much 
fresher than Charlotte. A native of tiny, remote Sparta, N.C., the brilliant, 
virginal Charlotte arrives at Dupont full of dewy ambition, expecting to live 
"a life of the mind." Instead, she encounters charming, predatory frat boys 
like the handsome Hoyt Thorpe; jock demigods like basketball star Jojo 
Johanssen; and icy prep-school snobs like her roommate, the bitchy Groton grad 
Beverly. Instead of an ivory tower, she finds a status-obsessed, intellectually 
bankrupt sexual romper room. Will she hold to her ideals or be dragged down 
into the beer-soaked mud?

???I Am Charlotte Simmons isn't like Wolfe's other novels. For one thing, he 
sticks largely to one setting, the Dupont campus--he's not doing his 
city-hopping, class-transcending billion-footed-beast act, which is impressive 
but gave his earlier books a certain overstuffed lumpiness. Charlotte Simmons 
adheres more to the Aristotelian unities--time, place and action--and thus 
hangs together more neatly. It's a much more personal novel than the earlier 
ones. Not unlike Wolfe, Charlotte is a permanent outsider, a lonely observer. 
Wolfe's books are usually more about setting than character, but Charlotte's 
delicately drawn highs and lows give the book an unexpectedly tender heart. "I 
went through a bout of depression myself," he says, "and that's why I felt I 
knew exactly how she would feel. As I look back on it, there's a lot of me in 
Charlotte."

???No one can read Charlotte Simmons without picking nits. There was a time 
when Wolfe was a pioneer, reporting back to straight America from the exotic 
island of radical youth culture in books like The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test 
and Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, but nowadays American culture 
and youth culture are basically the same thing, and it's Wolfe who looks a 
little behind the times. He leans heavily on catchphrases from such movies as 
Swingers ("You're money, baby") to give his dialogue a contemporary vibe. There 
are missteps: What self- respecting black hoopster would say of a Caucasian 
opponent, however stalwart, "That white boy's got heart"? And are college kids 
really still into 90210 and Animal House? They certainly don't have 
PlayStation3s, as such a machine does not, at press time, exist.  Sometimes 
Wolfe has the air of a benevolent, fastidious Martian, as when he expends 
several sentences explaining the nature and function of what we humans call a 
StairMaster.

???But these nits, once picked, should be discarded and forgotten. What remains 
is a rich, wise, absorbing and irresistible novel. Wolfe does things with 
words--exhilarating, intoxicating, impossible things--that no other writer can 
do. Take this example, from the second page of the book, in which frat boy Hoyt 
stares at himself in the mirror, dead drunk: "A gale was blowing in his head. 
He liked it. He bared his teeth.  He had never seen them quite this way before. 
So even! So white! They vibrated from perfection. And his square jaw ... that 
chin with the perfect cleft in it ... his thick, thatchy light brown hair ... 
those brilliant hazel eyes ... his! Right there in the mirror--him!" To read it 
is to feel both the dizzy joy of intoxication and the impending hangover, not 
through anything Wolfe tells us but from the altered, manic rhythms of the 
prose alone.

???Wolfe does not thunder in I Am Charlotte Simmons. He allows us to be as 
shocked or as blase as we want to be about the anonymous campus couplings he 
describes. "In my mind, it's just what's there," he says.  "I must say, I pride 
myself on the fact that I don't think anybody can find a political agenda, a 
moral agenda. I insist that I am objective." Up to a point, that is--he'll bend 
the truth for the sake of a good line. "I had a groupie at the end deliver what 
I thought was a quite cogent remark," he recalls. "'Every girl wants to f___ a 
star. Every girl.' My daughter said, 'Nobody talks like that, Dad.'" This time 
his grin is a little lupine. "But I left it in."

???I Am Charlotte Simmons will get attention for the smutty scenes, of which 
there are a generous but judicious number (he considered and then omitted a 
scene involving what he nicely terms, in his courtly Virginia accent, a "gang 
bang"). But Wolfe's interest is not prurient. His real subject is the nature of 
identity, of the individual soul (Charlotte's in particular), and whether or 
not it can survive uncorrupted in the acid storm of sex and alcohol and power 
and peer pressure into which we ritually plunge our young in the name of higher 
education. The answer he arrives at is not simple. Some get their comeuppance 
in Charlotte Simmons, and some are redeemed, but Charlotte's fate is a 
surprise, and not everybody will find it a pleasant one. Wolfe may be getting 
old, but he 's not getting soft.

???A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS

???For every era, there's a Tom Wolfe book that grabs its essence and splatters
it on the page. Here's a decade-by-decade history lesson, Wolfe-style

???'60s
???THE ELECTRIC KOOL-AID ACID TEST
???Take the ultimate psychedelic road trip on Ken Kesey's magic bus

???'70s
???THE RIGHT STUFF
???Wolfe's inside look at test pilots and NASA astronauts is also a celebration
of American optimism

???'80s
???THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES
???The quintessential warts-and-all portrait of New York City in the decade of
greed

???'90s
???A MAN IN FULL
???Irrational exuberance overtakes a high-flying Atlanta real estate magnate.
Bad things follow

???"I WENT TO FRATERNITY PARTIES. I WAS SO OLD, AND I ALWAYS WORE A NECKTIE--I
MUST HAVE SEEMED SOMEWHAT ODD TO THEM. "

???--TOM WOLFE
--------------
Time Out
November 17, 2004
THE CAT IN THE HAT; INTERVIEW Tom Wolfe
By Gaby Wood

??? The research for his third novel, 'I Am Charlotte Simmons', took dandy 
provocateur Tom Wolfe on a tour of America's college campuses.What did he find? 
Lots of sex and not nearly enough hats.

??? I'm the last of the great hat wearers, ' says Tom Wolfe as he takes my 
coat. I have just entered the novelist's sumptuously decorated apartment on 
Manhattan 's Upper East Side, a place where almost every wall has some image of 
a hat on it. ' I remember when you used to go to the races and everyone was 
wearing hats. Nowit's either baseball caps worn backwards, or nothing!' Today 
Wolfe is wearing what, presumably, he always wears around the house: a 
signature cream-coloured suit, with a wide, almost corset-like waistband built 
into the trousers, over a high-necked, cream and brown striped shirt and dark 
brown tie. Fanning out of his breast pocket is a cream silk hankie bordered 
with infinitesimal brown piping. His shoes, custom made to look like they have 
spats sewn into them, are cream and brown, as are his breathtakingly delicate 
socks silk, with tiny embroidered polka dots.

??? He ushers me into the lounge. Late afternoon sunlight streams in through 
white slatted shutters and on to a grand piano. There is a lavish, leisurely 
feel to it all, a metropolitan home with an overtone of Old South gentility.

??? Wolfe's long-awaited third novel, 'I Am Charlotte Simmons', is like 
'American Pie' meets Zola's 'L'Assomoir'.

??? Charlotte, a wide-eyed, small-town virgin from the South, arrives at the 
fictional university of Dupont, and finds that academia is the least of her 
worries when there are co-ed dorms, promiscuous roommates, beefy basketball 
players and frat boys to deal with. Wolfe describes the sex as if he's 
addressing a convention of surgeons: there are references to the 'ilial crest' 
and 'pectoral sheath', to 'otorhinolaryngological caverns'. Why did such a 
distinguished chronicler of the times a man now in his mid-seventies want 
toturn his attention to undergraduates?

??? 'When I was still working on "A Man in Full", ' Wolfe explains, 'which took 
me forever, I was so discouraged by that book that I said, "I'm going to drop 
it." I'd been hearing stories about college life, and nobody was writing about 
it.' He didn't drop the book, but when it was finished he started going across 
the country, visiting campuses 'starting at Stanford and working my way east'.

??? He would hang around for a couple of weeks at a time, going to parties and 
getting a feel for the language.

??? He felt, inevitably, old and 'stupendously overdressed'. 'For the most part 
theyreally didn't know what to make of me. At the fraternity parties I'm sure 
they found it very odd that someone my age was there at all, and they knew I 
was too old to be from the Drug Enforcement Administration. But I always wear a 
necktie,so it would have been ridiculous for me to try to fit in.' Aside from 
the six years he devoted to working on 'Charlotte Simmons', Wolfe spent almost 
a decade at university himself first at Washington and Lee, and then as a 
doctoral student at Yale in the mid-'50s. The biggest difference between then 
and now, hesays, is sexual. 'Nobody in anybody's administration is going to 
say, "Don't do it." They'll say, "Don't harass a girl" if you're a male, and 
they'll say, "Use condoms", but that's quite different from saying, "You 
shouldn't be doing this! And you girls you shouldn't just give them your body 
just because they want it!" And I found this puts a pressure on all 
undergraduates. At a university with 5,500 students, like Princeton, that's 
5,500 beds that anyone can go to.' Wolfe's two children Alexandra and Thomas 
were both at university while he was conducting his research and read and 
commented on the manuscript. Though Wolfe concedes he is a 'very old-fashioned' 
parent, he insists he's not easily shocked as a reporter. 'When I'm trying to 
report on something, whether it's fiction or non-fiction, I really cease caring 
about what people are doing. When "The Bonfire of the Vanities" came out and 
people started saying, "What a bleak picture of New York", I was totally 
surprised. Because to me these were, in the literal sense of the word, awesome 
people they created awe and wonder.' Reviews of Wolfe's novel are divided some 
wonder why no one had thought of this subject sooner, others can't see what's 
new. There is the question of what an old man is doing in a young girl's skin, 
and the question of quite how different this scene is from what went on in the 
'60s, a decade of which Wolfe himself gave many seminal accounts. 'Well, you 
know, so much began in the '60s, ' he sighs when I ask as if to say, 
self-parodically perhaps, it's a shame they ever happened.

??? Wolfe has made a professional point of being an outsider.

??? The son of an agronomist, he grew up in Richmond, Virginia, and became a 
liberalas an undergraduate, because the politics at his university were very 
conservative. 'Then I got to Yale and everybody was on the left, and I couldn't 
stand all this lockstep thinking.' When he'd finished his PhD, he got a job on 
aMassachusetts newspaper, then on the New York Herald Tribune , where he wrote 
such a scathing attack on the New Yorker magazine that even JD Salinger, the 
notoriously reclusive author of 'Catcher in the Rye', came out of hiding to 
condemn it. During the newspaper strike of 1962, he took on a job for Esquire 
magazine a piece about stock car racing that was to become 'The Kandy-Kolored 
Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby'. Legend has it that, about to miss his 
deadline, he sent in 49 pages of breathless notes; the editor had planned to 
getanother writer to put them into shape, but when he saw them he ran them as 
they were, and 'the New Journalism' was born. It was a genre in which Wolfe 
famously coined the terms 'radical chic' and 'the Me decade', and successfully 
offended the artistic, literary and political establishments.

??? Wolfe says now that 'at first the piece was just an exercise, but I will 
confessthat by the time I'd gotten about ten pages into it I thought: This 
really isn'tso bad, and by the end I was even beginning to think in a literary 
way about it'.

??? It was also on this early assignment that he realised undercover reporting 
was not for him. 'I quickly found out it was madness, because if you're trying 
to fit in, you can't ask certain very basic questions, ' he explains. 'People 
were always using this term, the "overhead cam". I had no idea what an overhead 
cam was, and if you're pretending to fit in, you can't ask. So now I use the 
man from Mars approach: I don't know a thing about what you're doing, but I'm 
reallyinterested. For me, that seems to work.' Hence the cream suits. In case 
you thought he had ever got truly down and dirty with the counterculture, Wolfe 
tells a story about helping author and psychedelic pioneer Ken Kesey to move a 
sculpture. The sculpture was covered in wet paint, and Wolfe got some of it on 
his jacket. He went 'berserk', grabbing a bottle of turpentine and pouring it 
over his shoulder.

??? Kesey said, 'If you mess around with this shit, some of it's going to rub 
off onyou.' But how much of it really has? Wolfe recommends to me, in passing, 
the work of a neurologist he likes a man famous, he says, for standing in a 
bullring wearing a white smock. Much is always made of Wolfe's dandyism, but is 
his dress sense something other than that, a way of indicating that he is an 
observer, a social scientist? Is the cream suit the flbneur's equivalent of a 
lab coat?

??? You might wonder why the man who gave non-fiction an energy fiction had 
long lost would want to write novels at all.

??? Wolfe says he was sensitive to the insinuation that 'New Journalism was 
just a complicated form of writer's block'.

??? Something of a late bloomer (he was 32 when he wrote his first article, 48 
when he married his wife, Sheila Berger), Wolfe was in his fifties by the time 
he thought: 'I didn't want to end my career and look back and say, gee I wonder 
what would have happened if ' 'Bonfire of the Vanities' came out in 1987, and 
sold millions of copies. 'A Man in Full' took 11 years to write, and did 
likewise. And now there is 'Charlotte Simmons'.

??? He still thinks the novel is dying, a thesis he has embraced, much to the 
rage of the men he calls his 'three stooges' Norman Mailer, John Updike and 
John Irving since he wrote an essay on the subject in 1989. Though thanks to 
younger realist writers, he says, things are looking up. Wolfe particularly 
admires Richard Price (author of 'Clockers') and Jonathan Franzen ('The 
Corrections'), and thinks the thriller writer Carl Hiaasen has great literary 
potential.

??? 'No one, ' he once said, 'has ever been injured in a literary fistfight in 
New York.' Perhaps this was because, by the time he and the three heavyweights 
came to blows, the worst, for Wolfe, had already passed. In 1996, he underwent 
a quintuple heart bypass operation. There followed a period of intense activity 
( 'hypomania', he now sees), then a spell of depression. Never one to faff 
about with Freud, Wolfe had some drugs prescribed and was soon able to finish 
his book.

??? 'Psychoanalysis, ' he informs me, 'was put out of business by Lithium, a 
very simple dr it's not even a drug at all, it's an element!'

??? On the way out, Wolfe shows me his study. His desk looks all Louis Quinze 
on thesurface, but is in fact more madcap than that. Wolfe, who still uses a 
typewriter, has nevertheless designed a whole electrical system to ensure no 
wires are visible anywhere. His electric pencil sharpener, his ship's clock, 
histape recorder and his radio (taken from an old Cadillac) are all built in 
and within arm's reach. Books are neatly stacked; papers are arranged in 
cream-coloured files and labelled in red calligraphy.

??? All over one wall are drawings referring to or depicting him. There is a 
New Yorker cartoon ('I'm afraid Tom Wolfe and I have differing views of New 
York, ' a wealthy woman says to her shopping companion while hailing a cab), a 
David Levine caricature from the New York Review of Books , and Wolfe's 
favourite, a mention in an original Marvel comic strip featuring Dr Strange 
('Tom! Tom Wolfe! ' Dr Strange cries out. 'I haven't seen you since you were 
just a Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby!') all of them testaments 
to hiseccentricity and fame. I ask him how he feels about mortality. 'I don't 
think much of it, ' he laughs. 'Immortality now that would be good stuff.' 'I 
Am Charlotte Simmons' is out now, published by Cape. See John O'Connell's 
review inBooks, p77.

??? TOM WOLFE WHAT YOU NEED TO READ

??? 'The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby' (1965)

??? Wolfe's first collection. 'There Goes (Varoom!Varoom! ) That Kandy Kolored 
(Thphhhhhh! ) Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (Rahghhh! ) Around the Bend 
(Brummmmmmmmmmm . . . . )' is the only essay you'll ever need to read about 
customised stock cars.

??? 'The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test' (1968)

??? In which Wolfe embraces the fugitive world of scholar, athlete and novelist 
Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, who trekked across the US in a 
multicoloured buswreaking psychedelic havoc.

??? The title refers to their beverage of choice: KoolAid laced with LSD.

??? 'Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers' (1970)

??? 'Radical Chic', which gave the world the expression, describes a gathering 
of hip young things at Leonard Bernstein's Park Avenue duplex in honour of the 
militant Black Panther Party.

??? The limits of liberalism is also the subject of 'MauMauing '.

??? 'The Right Stuff' (1979)

??? The US space programme, rapturously mythologised. The selection of the 
Mercury astronauts in 1959 divided the flying community. Wolfe puts you right 
there , sothat you know how it feels to be sitting in a tin can, far above the 
world.

??? 'From Bauhaus to Our House' (1981)

??? Hilarious rant about modern architecture, specifically its failure to evoke 
the might of America's economic power: 'Every child goes to school in a 
building that looks like a duplicatingmachine replacement-parts wholesale 
distribution warehouse.'

??? 'A Man In Full' (1998)

??? Long-awaited second novel that melds broadcanvas portraiture with 
set-pieces like the quail hunt at hero Charlie Croker's 29,000-acre plantation. 
Indifferently received by critics but there's nothing more compelling than a 
failed masterpiece.

??? AND ONE TO AVOID

??? 'The Bonfire of the Vanities' (1987)

??? Having decided that all modern novels were rubbish, Wolfe had a bash at 
writing one himself in full-on Dickensian social realist mode. The result is a 
yuppy morality tale that, although technically accomplished, hasn't dated well.

??? John O'Connell
----------
Slate Magazine November 17, 2004, Wednesday Correction Appended

I Am Charlotte Simmons
by Virginia Heffernan and Stephen Metcalf

???The Three Hopeless Flaws of I Am Charlotte Simmons By 11/17/2004 12:56:18 PM

???Virginia! We meet again! There is so much to say about Tom Wolfe, I Am 
Charlotte Simmons, and the university life this new novel purports to depict, 
that I'll skip all introductory coughing and dive right in. I Am Charlotte 
Simmons is a sprawling anatomy of undergraduate life that centers on four main 
characters: the implausibly naive character of the book's title, and the three 
male students who, with varying intentions, attempt to woo her: Hoyt Thorpe, a 
smirking, born-on-third-base frat boy in the George Bush mold; Jojo Johansenn, 
a hulking power forward for the school's NCAA championship basketball team; and 
Adam Gellin, a vengeful nerd who writes for the school newspaper. This is an 
eminently foolish book, by an old man for whom the life of the young has become 
a grotesque but tantalizing rumor. It is overdrawn, overlong, underconsidered, 
and filled with at least one forehead-slapping ay caramba per page. (That adds 
up to 676, by the way. This is the predictable doorstop, perfectly timed for 
seasonal gifting.) At one point I wrote in its margins, The stupidity here may 
actually be boundless. And yet... and yet... I kinda liked I Am Charlotte 
Simmons, ripe for the pyre as it is. I'm glad we have three days here, to help 
discover how this unsacred monster, with its raft of insecurities and no social 
graces to speak of, holds some inexplicable power to... well, not charm, 
exactly. Transfix?

???Going in, there's one thing you can say about Tom Wolfe: At least he's no 
worse than Tom Wolfe. About Wolfe's preposterous claims regarding the novel as 
a genre, I'll have more to say in the next couple of days. But his disdain for 
the overly literary is a real boon to his reviewers. The prose rates a perfect 
10 for ease of use; and so, long as this book is, you glide right through it 
without a hitch. Wolfe will occasionally flash the Nabokovian smile "the 
shrubbery at Wolfe's made-up Dupont University is euonymus, its cafeteria 
bathroom emits an egestive funk "but mostly he writes in a fat novel, 
book-of-the-month style, totally uninfected by modernity (much less 
post-modernity), and readily adaptable to its every soft-core need: Instead his 
tongue veered off to the side and worked its way down the gulley from her 
illial crest down to where her panties began. And finally "and most important 
"in its unrelenting drive to leave nothing unsaid, I Am Charlotte Simmons 
relieves its reader of all the burdens of the imagination: He amounted to a 
male low in the masculine pecking order, Wolfe describes an athletic department 
tutor, who is angry, deserves to be angry, is dying to show anger, but doesn't 
dare do so in the face of two alpha males, both of them physically intimidating 
as well as famous on the Dupont campus.

???OK, even in praising it, I can't hide my overwhelming dislike for this novel 
"it's put me in an egestive funk "so time to lay out its most obvious 
deficiencies. Three related and unaccountable choices inform the structure and 
substance of I Am Charlotte Simmons. The first is the wholly incredible nature 
of Wolfe's Dupont University. Wolfe is unequivocal: Dupont is an institution 
mentionable in the same breath only with Harvard. And yet, in Wolfe's 
depiction, it's more like a land grant school crossed with the Thunderdome. The 
jock subculture exists nearly everywhere (I went to Wesleyan, of cafeteria 
pot-smoking and Womynist House fame, and I'm here to tell you: Jock subculture 
is everywhere) but Wolfe portrays it as the single, utterly dominant fact of 
campus life and virtually the sole medium for sorting out the status pecking 
order of the young. Hopeless Structural Flaw No. 1, then, is that Wolfe has 
somehow run together Harvard with N.C. State, thus producing a complete 
chimera.

???By his own telling out on the promotion circuit, to research I Am Charlotte 
Simmons Wolfe toured several American campuses, talking to undergraduates about 
their experiences. This leads to Hopeless Structural Flaw No. 2. For on his 
journey through the groves of academe, Wolfe appears to have collected every 
bit of sexual folklore, no matter how hand-me-down, and bought into it hook, 
line, and sinker. Dupont is a place where women on a nightly basis cake on 
makeup and crawl, in an abject drunken stupor, up to lacrosse players, begging 
them for psychic validation in the form of brutally commitment-free sex. For 
the credulous Wolfe, even Ivy League college life seems to be one endless 
cloacal flow, filled only with beer bongs, body-sculpting, and animal rutting.

???And this leads, finally, to Hopeless Structural Flaw No. 3. By imagining 
college life as so debased, Wolfe must then imagine his heroine as 
correspondingly pure. Charlotte Simmons is a little mountain girl, a modern-day 
Walton, who has known in her life only hard study, dutiful but dirt poor 
parents, and the simple mountain ways of North Carolina. (And the novel hasn't 
seen such a tediously guarded virginity since Richardson's Pamela.) Well, 
that's it for starters, Virginia. We'll be revisiting each of these as we go, I 
suspect. I'll finish with a question and one last observation. First the 
question: What did you make of all the abs, delts, pecs, and various slabs of 
muscle, loving descriptions of which are larded "excuse the mixed metaphor 
"into virtually every chapter?

???And here is the observation: Dutiful Tom Wolfe, the little naiad in his 
white suit and his notebook, trucking off to university after university to do 
his research. Compare this to the genesis of the greatest academic satire ever 
written, the category killer known as Lucky Jim. In 1948, Philip Larkin's old 
college chum Kingsley Amis visited him at the University College at Leicester, 
where the young Larkin had recently been appointed librarian. As Amis recalled 
his visit to the Senior Common Room years later, [I] looked around a couple of 
times and said to myself: 'Christ, somebody ought to do something with this.' 
Not that it was awful "well, only a bit; it was strange, and sort of developed, 
a whole mode of existence no one had got onto, like the SS in 1940, say. I 
[decided I] would do something with it. That was it: a turn of the head in the 
Common Room; a few sniggering letters to and from Larkin. But between their 
four eyes they managed to nail the enterprise, and for all time. But of course, 
as Wolfe would remind us, it was six eyes: Larkin was a myopic, bespectacled, 
spectral geek, a weakling who devoted a lifetime to his own self-pity. And 
besides, what do you think that pays, librarian?

???Steve

???The Wolfe in Rut By 11/17/2004 3:51:23 PM

???Hi, Stephen! Steve-O! Steve-man! The Night of the Skull Fuck! Hillbilly 
Beaver! Huh!

???Damn, I am already violating my vow not to channel the enchanting voice of 
Wolfe's frat guys or any of his bozo characters. But you gotta love those 
particular bonebrains (hey, hey, U.Va.) and also this book is date-raping me.

???I agree there's much to say. In regular Slate pundity sentences, even. But 
do we have to be the ones to say it? My first response to finishing the book 
has actually been to savor the silence, since I'm worn out, having been shouted 
down by that loudmouth Wolfe and his twerpy T.A.s "Jojo, Hoyt, Adam, and yes 
Charlotte, our Maiden No More. Can't you and I, fresh from the 676-page 
exhortation to "what?  "face facts?, now relish a quiet duller world, the one 
between Wolfe productions, free of ruttingruttingrutting and fake Ebonics and 
typographical stunts like::::::STATIC::::: and the grinding of the mons pubis?

???And, with that, my second response: to get to the task of exchanging glances 
with everyone who's lugging this unmistakable $28.95 hardcover around that 
says, OK, hi, what is it with 'mons pubis' and 'cleft in the rear declivity' 
and 'winking navels'? Why does Wolfe introduce these wack expressions as though 
they 're fresh wit and he hasn't used them a half-dozen times on the facing 
page?

???I am trying to come up with a glance that can convey this.

???Finally, my third response is to go to you, Steve, and concede first that, 
all right, the shouting is style, but what about those glitches? This book is 
made of glitches! Strange mistakes that speak of cognitive irregularities in 
the maker, to say nothing of an absent editor. I'm not complaining so much as 
brooding. How do they happen?

???Consider:

???Charlotte looked at the pair with a sinking heart. Crissy and Nicole. On top 
of everything else, they were both "ey girls. All the cool girls at Dupont, the 
ones who were with it, were "ey girls "Beverly, Courtney, Wheatley, Kingsley, 
Tinsley, Avery, and now Crissy. Of course, there was Nicole...and Erica...but 
thinking of Erica made her sink still farther "

???What in hell? I'm sure you see, but I'll spell it out: First, neither Crissy 
or Nicole are -ey girls, if "ey girls have names that end in ey. Second, Nicole 
is Nicole, so why is she an exception to a list that includes Nicole?

???I guess this could seem like a trivial thing, and maybe it's manly to just 
slop out your prose and leave small-minded fault-finding to the typing pool. 
But, when they recur, slips like this one "which are now common in literary 
fiction in our post-book-editor world "addle the critical mind, since they 
suggest very badly wrought urns. It's especially stupefying when evidence of 
carelessness capsizes one of Wolfe's pedantic passages, as above; just as he's 
coining phrases and codifying distinctions most aggressively, he falls off the 
dais "and we can't trust him. If I had more stamina for deconstruction, I'd try 
in fact to prove that this passage is the very heart of the matter, the proof 
that Wolfe's social taxonomies, which are this book's sine qua non, are lazy 
lies. Moreover, this other me would argue that the text's mischief is to 
disclose, over and over, the fraudulence of those taxonomies.

???But why bother, really? Shouts, lies, mistakes "who cares? I Am Charlotte 
Simmons is, as you say, marvelously easy sledding; it's thoroughly disarming, a 
breeze to read, even thrilling. Yeah, there's a devil's deal in it, but once 
you make that deal "stop counting the gaffes, stop tracing out The stupidity 
here may actually be boundless in the margins "this novel's got the enzyme that 
makes you crave it. Don't you think? It's really working the whole Tom Wolfe 
soothsayer thing, present in the Geertz-like thick descriptions of things like 
moving in to a freshman dorm; parents' fearful interaction with your roommate 
and her parents; the boring and sexual atmosphere of a dormitory Common Room 
late at night; uncomfortable hours spent with bland, unlikable freshman 
friends; the fudging of facts and tone involved in letters home; the drudgery 
and ecstasy of fraternity parties; the appearance of a shared hotel bathroom on 
a college road trip

???Wolfe reminds me of John Edward of Crossing Over. From a few data points 
"derived in this case from his fact-finding college tour "he supplies 
connective material and nuance until he seems, as I live and breathe, to be 
talking to the dead. You may know just how he does this "gets a page of Cosmo 
Girl or the liner notes to a Ben Harper CD and spins it into what seems like a 
narrative miracle amid novels by Iowa-trained senior citizens who never leave 
their Tidewater farmhouses. But even as I fought to keep my head clear I found 
myself thinking, on the brink of tears, How does he know this about my college 
life? It was just like this! (True, I don't really know how John Edward does 
it, either.)

???I also admire the way some of Wolfe's warhorse effects undergird the nouveau 
speech act he's evidently interested in here: the Affirmation. I'm not sure, in 
other words, that "as you say "postmodernism, or its tricks, have passed Wolfe 
by. When he gets into free-indirect discourse, which is pervasive "later I may 
remember this as a book narrated by Charlotte Simmons, but of course it's in 
the third person, with Wolfe visiting several consciousnesses very closely 
"Wolfe leans on a telling locution. He'll write, But he, Jojo, Jojo Johannsen, 
of whom they all chanted 'go go, Jojo,' could not be seen doing this! or But 
he, Hoyt, was the chevalier! or He, Adam, Destiny's Adam Gellin, promised 
himself that vengeance was his! Wolfe doubles and triples the names "pronoun 
and proper noun and epithet and etc.  "reminding us with his boozy, emphatic, 
redundant loops that so much of what passes for mental life is just the 
repetition of one's name. Virginia, OK, you can do this. Or, rather, I am 
Charlotte Simmons. I like this title.

???I'm sounding awfully close, I realize, to Samuel Richardson's female 
groupies, who raved that he knew their lady-hearts better than they themselves 
did. Who knows who, of the aged monster novelists "Bellow, Roth, Updike, 
whoever "will win, in the end, in the final final Rapture? (Someone has to, 
though; is that an article of faith with you, too?) For now I'm with Wolfe.

???Wahoowa,

???Virginia

???P.S.: Let's admit you also went to U.Va. As I did. And also "your question. 
This is a dialogue. The traps, lats, delts "yes, there are many references to 
them. Personal trainers of America should pay Wolfe for his description of 
Charlotte's very clinical way to arousal: running her fingers over his 
wonderful abs and lingering in the crevices between the units. But what 
doyoumean by calling attention to Wolfe's salaciousness about the college guys? 
The cover's got I Am Charlotte Simmons in curly letters right over Tom Wolfe's 
initials. Seems like drag to me. I take it for a big, gay book. Not you?

???Tom Wolfe's Complicity in the Culture of Machismo By 11/18/2004 12:38:12 PM

???Virginia! Ginny! G and T! I was hoping you'd bring up (Wahooo-Wah) our time 
together at UVA, where you were an undergrad, I a grad student, and both of us 
were in thrall to the great Richard Rorty. (Did you note the complete absence 
of the campus maitrepenseur in Wolfe's supposed taxonomy? Wolfe must truly hate 
intellectuals. His one humanities professor here is a quivering under-mensch 
named Quat.) I started out saying I kinda liked this book, then proceeded to 
offer it up to the poleax, so let me revise and extend my remarks. First of 
all, all of us, hipster, doofus, hipster-doofus, we're all going to converge on 
one personality type in the end, the incredulous fuddy-duddy for whom the young 
appear as savages. And so yes, Heff, I think this is a drag show, in which 
Wolfe dresses up as the improbably spotless Charlotte, the better to make his 
own censorious way through Gomorrah; and in doing so, he speaks for the Active 
Liver in all of us. Second, I agree, he gets something dismayingly right here. 
By presenting a vision so loveless and unchastened by adult perspective, I Am 
Charlotte Simmons brings you back, uncannily, to what it feels like to be 
young: overwhelmed, self-pitying, somehow both painfully anonymous and sticking 
out like a sore thumb. The question I still can't puzzle out is: Are these 
genuine virtues, or only more flaws in what amounts to an egregious mistake of 
a novel? Or, put another way: Isn't it Wolfe here who is being shallow?

???It strikes me there are three possible defenses of I Am Charlotte Simmons. 
The first we can dispense with quickly enough: It is not funny, therefore it is 
not a satire. The second is that it is a fair piece of reportage from the front 
lines. And yet Wolfe, whose eye for social distinctions is purported "by Wolfe, 
at least "to be so keen, gets so much so baldly wrong. You would not believe 
how important sports are here! Charlotte writes home to her parents. Wrong! 
Charlotte went to a rural high school, where sports stars are treated as 
demigods. Her parents would readily understand the mentality. Wolfe has 
Charlotte's roommate, Beverly, a skeletal boarding school graduate and a 
four-alarm bitch, be conversant in pop culture, while Walton-mountain Charlotte 
is a near pop culture illiterate. Wrong! The principal medium of assimilation 
in America now is television, which is universal among the young. No one 
doesn't plug in and master its basic argot "with one possible exception: the 
children of the very privileged, who get tucked away in Groton for four years, 
to develop some silly argot of their own. (I know: true confession "I'm married 
to a Charlotte Simmons and was sent to prep school.) Also, Wolfe has virtually 
zero comprehension of the mechanics of the reverse snobbery now so common in 
the ranks of the upper meritocracy, going so far as to claim Charlotte envies 
Beverly for being wellborn, a locution straight out of Thackeray.

???OK, I'm reaching for the poleax again. I'll set it aside and admit that 
once, while at UVA, a frat boy exiting Daddy's sports car turned to me and 
said, What are you looking at, whereupon I promptly shrank into my cardigan. I 
sympathize with a certain horror, and a certain fascination, for the culture of 
machismo, and increasingly machisma, among the young. But what struck me about 
this 'roided up book, so imposingly large without being dense or powerful, was 
how complicit in this culture Wolfe makes himself. I was reminded of a passage 
in Balzac, one of the social realists Wolfe makes such a great show of 
admiring, where he describes a certain Celestin Crevel. Crevel suffers from 
retrospective envy, Balzac tells us and then adds: No one knows how much 
obvious bad taste this retrospective envy accounts for; and we cannot tell how 
many wildly foolish actions are due to the secret rivalries that drive men to 
mirror the type that they have set up as an ideal, to consume their energies in 
making themselves a moonshine reflection of someone else.

???Now, we know exactly how Balzac feels about this silly Crevel, whose weak 
personality has been left to forever wriggle upon his nail. You will say: But 
Wolfe is a modern novelist, whose own attitude can't be so plainly injected 
into the narrative. But Wolfe everywhere injects himself into his narrative. 
When weakling Adam demands that Charlotte snap out of her depression, she 
abruptly stopped crying and stared up at Adam with her mouth slightly open and 
her tearful eyes shining with respect bordering oddly on pleasure, as women 
sometimes do when a man claims the high ground and rebukes them. Later, in a 
similar situation: [T]here was also, unbeknownst to either of them consciously, 
a woman's thrill!  "that's the word for it!  "her delicious thrill!  "when a 
man expands his chest and drapes it with the sash of righteousness and 
takescommand upon the Heights of Abraham. Here, Heffster, I think we can start 
to make sense of all the abs, pecs, delts, lats. For everywhere in this book, 
Wolfe combines his powerful distaste for the decadence he has encountered, with 
an enormous respect for the animal quest for sexual dominance, which he 
believes is the transcendental fact of human existence. This is why the book is 
so strangely incoherent, while being so strangely compelling: Wolfe has found 
among the young habits he finds genuinely repulsive, but they are attached to 
an honest, almost Nietzschean, acknowledgment of the inner workings of status. 
Wolfe may be appalled by booze, crunking, and bling bling, but he has an awed 
(and entirely sexist and entirely homoerotic) respect for the animal powers of 
young men.

???Heffster "in my big, gay heart, I know Wolfe cannot prevail in his quest for 
the laurel, against Bellow, Roth, Updike. Tomorrow I will unveil my pet theory! 
In the meantime: You think he will?? I can't wait to hear you spin this one!

???Soul and the American Imagination By 11/18/2004 4:09:16 PM

???Steve! Ma tre Steve! The Stevedore!  "

???On reading that you're married to a Charlotte Simmons, something perhaps 
ludicrous occurred to me: Do you think it's possible that Charlotte has a shot 
at joining the real top sorority, the literary answer to the University of 
Virginia's Thursday Club, that triple-elite girls' drinking club comprised of 
sorority all-stars from the top three, Kappa, Theta, and Tri-Delt? You know the 
analog clique I mean "the one with Scarlett O'Hara, Becky Sharp, and Blanche 
Dubois?

???Is Charlotte, in other words, a character hearty enough to survive being 
abstracted from her natural habitat, Wolfe's indifferent prose, and turned into 
a figure in movies, metaphors, television, conversational idiom "exploitation 
in other media? (That which every virgin fears and seeks?)

???I ask not out of concern for the Charlotte Simmons movie (Scarlett 
Johansson? Lindsay Lohan?), but because somewhere, maybe 10 years ago, I came 
across a winning essay arguing that Henry James' characters' shortcoming is 
that they cannot break out of his symbolic order and live freely in our 
imaginations; they 're like helpless preemies and unviable without James' thick 
prose to keep them breathing (and even then, they're hyperventilating). It's 
true you rarely think, That guy is such a Lambert Strether. The argument was 
further made "as I recall it "that something about Margaret Mitchell's visual, 
anticerebral style was bracing to her characters, toughening them up, and 
allowing them to form real edges. Thus they could be lifted out. And resold. 
But what is good for characters "the repetition of their names, the physical 
descriptions, the tedious shorings up of what each one means (male low on the 
masculine pecking order, etc.) "may not be good for an author's reputation. 
James gets to be first-rate because his characters are subordinated to his 
style. Wolfe gets pushed around by critics because he lets his characters take 
center stage, and thus seems weak.

???I love it, and you're right, that entropy will work on the cafeteria tables, 
too "that old age often just is the convergence of cool people and losers, 
brought together in mutual bewilderment over where the time has gone. Getting 
the most out of life, as I see it, may require resistance to this dangerous 
cool-mixing, and for that reason I will now confess that some part of me looks 
forward to starting all over again, with cliques and status and infighting, at 
an old folks' home one day I hope to go down loftily snubbing someone for the 
wrong jeans or at least being snubbed.

???But it's time to admit that we, we with our unsullied and merely mimetic 
relationship to the stuff of this embarrassing and likable novel, are not the 
only ones talking about it. The reviewers are out in force, and most of them 
are wrong. A recent Times op-ed about I Am Charlotte Simmons makes much of 
Charlotte 's moral abandonment at a university where, among other affronts, 
Professor Victor Ransome Starling (the sublime neuroscience dude, with the 
Nobel Prize; is he not our ma tre penseur?) can use the word soul only in 
quotation marks.

???I disagree with the many bad reviews the book has gotten, because I consider 
this book a glorious beating, but at this defense of it I really gnash my 
teeth. Granting that the Starling soul moment is significant in Wolfe's novel 
"and it isn't, since what's actually significant about Starling is that he's 
religious, anti-atheist, and sympathetic even to Charlotte's wholesale critique 
of Darwin; Starling also dwells on Darwin's piety as well as his own faith in 
the self, which at my much more conservative college I was taught was a 
construct, Q.E.D. "I wonder where the moral utopia is in which soul is used 
straight. Sports writing? Jewel songs? As you and I know from graduate school, 
intellectuals perpetually rediscover the soul "a recent MLA panel on the 
subject was packed "and, furthermore, chastise themselves for their detachment 
from it. This reformation is, in fact, among everyone's favorites, in the 
academy and out: it 's like a musical in which the lovers are witty at the top, 
and then come to Believe in Love and cast off those mean, defensive quotation 
marks.

???That moral operation, the stripping of quotation marks, which is regularly 
foisted on us, is mighty pretty "but it's shallow, and it's meant only to be 
repeated and repeated. Who wants to hear the story after the damn musical? Or, 
to bring it back around, the denuded soul is very cute "but who wants it? Are 
the neocon men of letters, the ones who keep foisting the soul on us, prepared, 
for real, to entertain real questions about the soul "about immortal life and 
beatitude and purgatory and how we recognize our friends in the hereafter and 
what happens to the body and are we points of light or whatever?

???No. That stuff is creepy. Let's face it: No one wants to hear a Charlotte 
Simmons yammer on for one minute after she's remembered Jesus died for our 
sins; they just want to see her get the irony raped out of her.

???Superficially, in fact, the soul issue reminds me of Wolfe's annoying and 
commonplace tic, when rendering dialect, of phoneticizing haphazardly. Take 
everybuddy, which one of Charlotte's dad's Sparta cronies says, near the 
beginning of the book. Why spell it that way? Everybody says everybuddy! In 
fact, everybuddy is spelled everybody. Likewise, children of America, no matter 
what the neo-soulful people try to tell you, nobody uses soul without some kind 
of quotation marks. (Even if they're there to reprove you for even thinking 
quotation marks.) Not even in good, wholesome places like Sparta or the exurbs 
or the places where they know that Kerry was faking his faith. Soul takes 
quotation marks! Get it right!

???Whew,Virginia

???For Wolfe, Life Is All About Status By 11/19/2004 5:16:45 PM

???Heffenator,

???It pains me to bring my half of this dialogue to a close; it's been such a 
pleasure. I love your distinction between the stuff we sense that Scarlett O 
'Hara and Becky Sharp are made of and the stuff "the indifferent literary prose 
"that made them. But methinks you may have lighted a Candle in the Wind here: 
Poor Charlotte will likely never break free of her creator. I see her holy 
innocence, but where is her unholy desire? She has none of the vinegar (or 
melancholy) it takes to become even a schlock icon. As to Henry James, he made 
it a fair fight only once, with Isabel Archer; she battles for her dignity 
against James' ulterior, and not so ulterior, purposes as much as against 
Gilbert Osmond, so I'd place her near your trio, if not exactly among them. (As 
for literary antecedents for Charlotte, the final one I come up with is the 
Lady from Milton's Comus: thou unblemish't form of Chastity. Zzzzzzz.) And by 
the by, that'll be me, Virginia, wearing the crappy jeans in the Phase II 
cafeteria of the Sunset Park Leisure Care Facility "so watch it.

???In all sincerity, here is what I like about Wolfe and this goofy novel. Too 
often we extrapolate a set of qualities common to the people who still read 
literary fiction, then hold them as expectations when reading fiction itself. 
As a result, a lot of awful work "overwritten, overfelt, mincing, and 
oppressively fine "gets lazily tabbed literature. By being so unapologetically 
middlebrow, Tom Wolfe isn't middlebrow. (He's may not be great, but at least 
he's not giving usShopgirl.) Were it left at that, one could respectfully keep 
one's Ginsu sheathed. But Wolfe has never been content to leave it at that. The 
best piece on how jealously Wolfe argues for his own pre-eminence is still Jim 
Windolf's, and I can't pretend to improve on it. But in promoting this latest 
novel, Wolfe has been repeating his old saw, about how every human 
consideration is finally a status consideration; and he has picked up a 
high-profile defender in David Brooks. Now, it's Brooks' job, as the Likable 
Conservative, to put a friendly face on the indefensible; and in this column he 
almost succeeds in transferring responsibility for Wolfe's awful novel onto its 
reviewers. So it's worth explaining why, in addition to being sprawling and 
fun, I Am Charlotte Simmons is also hateful and small, and in precisely those 
ways that will deprive Wolfe of the literary reputation he so craves.

???Wolfe chose the contemporary American university as the setting for I Am 
Charlotte Simmons, but the roiling Orgasmatron he lays before the reader will 
be familiar to precisely no one. What is a real university in the actual 21st 
century actually like? It's a research institution; an intergenerational 
transfer station for high culture; a talent sorting mechanism, and thus a 
gateway to the professions; and a (give or take) four-year holding pen for the 
children of the bourgeoisie. Of these, Wolfe chose to highlight the last, add 
some elements of the first, and suppress to near-invisibility two and three. In 
sum, Wolfe punched up to phantasmagorical heights everything about a university 
related to status, crudely understood, while burying everything about a 
university that has to do with prestige. Why? As Wolfe sees it, status is real: 
It's rooted in biology and the primitive quest for sexual privilege. Prestige, 
meanwhile, is artificial, a conspiracy of the overrefined whose only real power 
is the power to shame and exclude. Wolfe has devoted entire swaths of his 
career to pointing out how the world of prestige is fraudulent: that modern art 
is a scam, that The New Yorker is the product of tiny mummies, and that the 
literary novel has become weak, pale, tabescent.

???Those who would praise Wolfe for being horrified by the bestial reversion of 
the young fail to see how much of a relief this reversion is to Wolfe. After 
all, it takes a mammoth effort of willful suppression to depict, over the 
course of nearly 700 pages, life at a prestigious university as one entirely 
devoid of warmth, friendship, love, belonging, self-mastery, or meaningful 
accomplishment "or, for that matter, pleasure of any kind detached from the 
brute mastery of others. What terrifies Wolfe most, then, isn't debauchery; 
it's cultural snobbery of the sort that routinely assigns Tom Wolfe to the 
second or third tier of literary talents. This has become so pathological with 
Wolfe that he seems to perceive any social arrangement that allows for 
self-refinement or aesthetic contemplation not merely as a fraud but as an 
offense against human nature. (Don't believe me? Read I Am Charlotte Simmons, 
in which there are two kinds of men: cowards and overlords.) The temptation in 
American life is always to give in to this bleak idea, of an endless death 
struggle for status, because the basis for American life is Hobbesian 
individualism. But the basis for a university, and any culture in which 
meaningful value judgments are still possible, isn't Hobbesian; it's 
Lawrentian: Men are free when they belong to a living, organic, believing 
community, active in fulfilling some unfulfilled, perhaps unrealized purpose. 
Surely that purpose can't be driving an Escalade or living at 820 Fifth Ave.

???Wolfe, though, in his own person is self-refuting. He himself, in his need 
for the laurel, for lasting critical esteem, proves that people's desires are 
wildly variable and idiosyncratic. He has no end to money and status, and yet 
his craving for something more has proven incorrigible. What an interesting 
character for a novel! Pity: If only he had learned to navel-gaze a little 
better. As it is, his work is news that won't stay news.

???An utter delight, Virginia. Be well!Steve

???I [Heart] Charlotte By 11/19/2004 10:41:49 PM

???Steve,

???I know you hear me, but the headline writers, as well as the charmers at the 
Fray, seem to misunderstand me, and now's my only chance to set the record 
straight

???So here goes: I like this novel. I like it now, having read it, having 
talked about it, and having read about it. And I'll keep on liking it. I'll 
never stop liking it. The people who like it are right. The people who dislike 
it are wrong. To which I am obliged to add: You are wrong.

???Charlotte is not an allegorical figment out of Comus. She's a vain, redneck 
distance-runner with a kindly and despotic mountain mother and a jalopy Kaypro 
computer that her father and brothers fixed up for her because she's also an 
intellectual, and intellectuals need computers. Have you ever seen a Kaypro? I 
remember light gray-blue casing, the false impression of portability, and a 
strange shape; it was as though you had to look down a tunnel, as if into a 
stereopticon, to see the green figures on the deep-space black background. Any 
undergraduate at a Harvard-like university who is writing papers now on a 
Kaypro, especially one rigged by her kinfolk, has a story to tell. That's a 
story we'd do well "and here I'll risk the David Brooks line, or the Tom Wolfe 
one "to listen to.

???(Glimpse a Kaypro here.)

???Charlotte is not Chastity. She loses her virginity at 18, which sounds 
fairly average to me "not devastating either way "and she falls apart, while 
she does, not because she then embodies Sullied Chastity, but for the 
worthwhile reasons that college girls usually fall apart: because a guy isn't 
calling her and because she's let down her mother.

???Dupont University is not a Gomorrah. It is, rather, a place of learning, 
with "it must be said "intriguing course offerings. (Wolfe heroically rejects 
the long tradition of tedious David Lodge-style parodic course titles, creating 
instead Nineteenth-Century Poetry: The Courtly, the Pastoral, and the Symbolist 
and The Renaissance and the Rise of Nationalism, with which he makes a point 
worth acknowledging: Wolfe still believes in college.)

???Dupont does not "miracle!  "conform to the popular and now 20-year-old clich 
of a university of passionless PC slackers who are morally dead because sex is 
no longer the terrifying centerpiece of existence, the way it was for Allan 
Bloom and Philip Roth and the other men who came of age before early puberty 
and coeducation and the ultimately very peaceable disbanding of the American 
branch of the cult of female virginity. Wolfe came of age back then, too, and 
he's no doubt been amused and even appalled to hear his twentysomething 
daughter's accounts "the book is dedicated to his children* "of how times have 
changed.

???But, unlike those other big daddies, Wolfe evidently really listened to 
those girls when he invented Dupont, wresting from them and his other sources 
details about bulimic roommates, cell phone use on campus, computer centers, 
eye makeup, Diesel jeans, new college cuisine, the Kaypro

???Something about the idea of Tom Wolfe doing all that research is endearing; 
it constitutes the sweetness of the book. Though scorned for being middlebrow, 
Wolfe is among America's few monster novelists to have gotten a Ph.D. (in 
American Studies at Yale), which, if it doesn't give him professore status, as 
it might in Italy, at least it means he deputized himself to greater minds 
before officially putting pen to paper.

???Why do I find this book so monumentally moving, like a paper by an ingenious 
and strange undergraduate? Put it this way: Wolfe invented a rapper named 
Doctor Dis. Doctor Dis! And then he wrote songs for him!

???Let's imagine this. Having listened to Nas or Jay-Z on the kids' 
recommendation, Tom Wolfe had a daughter help him make out the lyrics. Then he 
sat down at his own desk, blank page and rhyming dictionary before him, and 
"forgoing yet another chance to write to his strengths (none of his old 
subjects are shoehorned into this book, which is also commendable) "he tapped 
out the meter to a rap. And produced a cop-killing anthem with enjammed rhymes 
and internal rhymes!

???Is Jojo's transformation not credible? Are Hoyt's and Jojo's and Beverly's 
overwrought family stories abandoned? Do a half-dozen first-act guns not go 
off? Are paragraphs here sloppily composed? Are some of the coinages silly? Is 
the melodrama melodrama? Are there one thousand departures from verisimilitude?

???Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But there are also 1,001 times where the 
truth is rendered conscientiously, with bravado and lightness. And I did laugh 
reading this book, and I read it greedily and happily, and my eyes were opened, 
and I remember the characters.

???I read your entries greedily and happily, too, however! I like your style 
and being right isn't everything. This has been truly high times.

???Yours,Virginia

CORRECTION:
An earlier version of this piece misstated that Wolfe has two daughters. He, in
fact, has a son and a daughter. Return to the corrected sentence.
-----------
People
November 29, 2004

Old School:At 73, Tom Wolfe goes back to college. The result? Call it Keg Party 
of the Vanities
by Kyle Smith

???The man who gave us The Right Stuff and The Bonfire of the Vanities and even 
popularized the phrase "good ol' boy" rarely wears anything but a dazzling 
tailor-made white suit. But that changed when author Tom Wolfe fell into a deep 
depression a few months after his 1996 heart-bypass surgery. "It is so hard to 
get across to anyone who has never been depressed what it's like," Wolfe says. 
"You feel that you yourself are worthless. I would start dressing in the 
drabbest clothes. [I thought], 'You don't deserve all these trick clothes. You 
don't deserve to act charming.'" So what did he wear in his darkest hour? "I 
have a couple of brown suits that I consider subdued. Of course these clothes 
were all custom-made. My wife probably didn't even notice."

???Now Wolfe, 73, is back to his usual resplendence and his customary place 
atop bestseller lists with his latest novel, I Am Charlotte Simmons, an 
alternately hilarious and hair-raising look at a prestigious fictional college 
where everyone majors in sex and booze. "Isn't that amazing?" says his friend 
Jann Wenner, the Rolling Stone publisher who has been printing his work for 
more than 30 years. "I mean, this guy's in his 70s, right? And he's just 
produced one of the most authentic works about young people ever written. This 
is what it is like." But don't take Wenner's word for it. Says Dave Fleming, 
26, who met Wolfe when Fleming was a frat brother at the University of North 
Carolina, Chapel Hill--one of more than a dozen campuses Wolfe visited--and 
chaperoned him around the party scene: "He nailed it pretty good." How does he 
do it? "There's a lot of mojo in that white suit," Wenner theorizes. "There's 
something about it that makes you feel good and welcome him in. I mean, how 
kooky can you get?"

???Kooky or not, Wolfe rarely reveals much of himself, but I Am Charlotte 
Simmons may be his most personal work yet. The title character, a brilliant but 
poor girl from the mountains of North Carolina who becomes a social outcast at 
college, spirals into a depression that Wolfe describes as much like his own. 
"The thing that's so true is the only time she's at peace with herself is when 
she's riding the bus," he says.  "Because there's nothing she can do about her 
troubles on the bus, there's no one to confront her." When Wolfe battled 
depression for four months eight years ago, he says, "I was only happy in 
transit." (Medication helped set him on his feet.) But Wolfe says he also 
poured some of his other traits into Charlotte. "I shouldn't tell you this 
about myself, but she's first of all an egotist of a sort you wouldn't 
necessarily notice," he says. "The big question at the end of the book is, did 
she really want to have a life of the mind or did she simply want to be a 
star?" Adds the man who tried out as a pitcher with the then-New York Giants in 
1952: "The only thing that saved me from a very poor career as a professional 
baseball player is the fact that I wasn't good enough."

???He passed along both his athletic genes and his writerly ones. Ensconced in 
Manhattan with his wife, Sheila, 61, a graphic design consultant for Harper's 
magazine, Wolfe has a son, Tommy, 19, a sophomore member of Trinity College's 
champion squash team, and a daughter, Alexandra, 24, a reporter for The Wall 
Street Journal. Neither of them helped with the book, though, except to correct 
some of his slang. If the drunken campus bedhopping he writes about may alarm 
parents, Wolfe doesn't worry about his own kids. "Maybe I'm kidding myself," he 
says, "but I really do trust them 100 percent."

???They might think twice before according him the same privilege. While doing 
his research, Wolfe was once forced to flee a frat party at the University of 
Michigan at 3 a.m.: "All the lights came on and an officer of the fraternity 
came rushing through saying, 'Everybody out! They're coming!' I suddenly had a 
picture of a guy 70 years old running out to escape the law. I never did find 
out what they were frightened about."

???Writing about youth is bound to win Wolfe new fans, although some will be 
buying the wrong books. At one sorority party, remembers another former UNC 
student, Frances Hankins, 25, "this boy went up to him and started talking 
about Look Homeward, Angel, thinking it was Thomas Wolfe"-- who did indeed 
write that classic but died in 1938. More important is Wolfe's ability to 
inspire. "The thing that I got out of Tom is to look into things and try to 
find the truth," says Fleming, the former fraternity brother. "That's what gets 
you excited about life."

???By Kyle Smith

??"I suddenly had a picture of a guy 70 years old running out to escape the 
law."
---------------
Bonfire knight
http://books.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5051821-99930,00.html

    The Observer profile

    America's foremost satirist is sallying forth once more to slay the
    dragon of his nation's social schizophrenia and hypocrisies. Expect
    the trumpets to blow, and the swords to be sharpened
    Tim Adams
    Sunday October 31, 2004

    New novels by Tom Wolfe are not merely published; rather, they arrive
    in town like stretch limos at the heart of a traffic-stopping
    motorcade, klaxons blaring, heralded by outriders on Harleys in
    reflective shades, their embargoed content already the subject of
    speculation, adulation and protest. The million-plus copies of his
    latest, third, full-length work of fiction, I Am Charlotte Simmons,
    will scream into print worldwide with just such a gridlocking fanfare
    in a fortnight's time.

    From the two clues to its concerns so far - chapters excerpted in
    Rolling Stone magazine and Men's Journal - it appears to be business
    as usual for America's satiriser-in-chief. Wolfe wants to locate his
    nation's most pumped-up pulse at any given moment, and strap his
    stylistic tourniquet on to feel its pressure. He works in decades.
    Following his inspired journalistic chronicles of Sixties Acid Tests,
    and his coining of Seventies Me Culture, his novels have attempted to
    put their exclamatory imprimatur on successive eras. What Bonfire of
    the Vanities did for the Eighties and Wall Street, A Man in Full
    attempted for the corrupt corporate billionaires of the Nineties
    Enron-economy.

    I am Charlotte Simmons takes this zeitgeist-roadshow to the mythical
    Dupont university in California, breeding ground for the masters of
    the twenty-first century universe. Wolfe has never lost his hunger for
    the new new thing. The dapper hack who hung out with California's
    elite surfers to write The Pump House Gang, almost 40 years ago, still
    at 73 wants to know exactly what fuels young America. Thus we will see
    him inveigling his unmissable authorial presence into fraternity
    houses and sorority parties to come back with the news from the front.

    You could see this novel simply as the author fulfilling an old
    promise. Wolfe spent nearly all of his twenties doing a doctorate in
    American studies at Yale. At the time, academia did not seem to offer
    enough of real life for him, and he took a job as a reporter in
    Springfield, Massachusetts. Though he never really stopped doing
    American studies, he told himself that one day he would go back to
    college to work, but never has until now.

    Wolfe's real subject has always been class, that great taboo of
    egalitarian America, what he once called its statuspheres. His
    interest is in elites, the glamour and sordidness and comedy of power.
    This has been a lifelong obsession. At the age of nine he embarked on
    a biography of Napoleon and a life of Mozart written as a comic strip.
    'The reason I liked them was because they were - like me - both
    small,' he admitted, looking back.

    I once asked Ken Kesey, hero of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, what
    it was like to have Tom Wolfe write you into myth. 'What you have to
    understand,' Kesey said, 'is that Tom Wolfe was never really writing
    about me, his writing has always mostly been concerned with itself.'
    Rarely can a writer's style have so enjoyed the red carpet as Wolfe's.
    Each of his sentences looks like a seductive cheerleader for its
    author. And he is not shy about revealing his motivation. 'If most
    writers are honest with themselves, this is the difference they want
    to make: before they were not noticed, now they are.'

    Such statements are guaranteed to enrage the higher-minded of Wolfe's
    peers. One of the things that will no doubt accompany his new novel is
    another incendiary round in the literary firestorm that followed the
    publication of the first two. No one else can wind up their fellow
    Great American Novelists with such ease.

    For John Updike, writing in the New Yorker, Wolfe's A Man in Full 'was
    not even literature in a modest aspirant form'. Norman Mailer,
    meanwhile, in an even more comprehensive kicking, compared reading
    Wolfe to being 'seduced by a 300lb woman. Once she gets on top it's
    all over. Fall in love or be asphyxiated'. (Mailer left the reader in
    no doubt that he was among those gasping for breath.) John Irving was
    more succinct, saying Wolfe simply 'could not fucking write'.

    Wolfe responded to these attacks in kind by saying that his critics -
    The Three Stooges he called them - were envious because they had
    'wasted their careers by not engaging in the life around them'. He
    pointed also to an initial American print run of 1.2 million copies
    for A Man in Full, a figure they could dream of (and just stopped
    short of mentioning his $7.5m advance).

    One of the things Wolfe believes annoys his critics most is that he
    has never wanted to be one of them. Despite a lavish uptown apartment
    in Manhattan and his summers in the Hamptons, and his wife, a Jewish
    New Yorker, who was once art director of Harper's magazine, Wolfe
    still prides himself on being an outsider in what he calls
    Cultureberg.

    His father was an agronomist in the Shenandoah mountains. His
    grandfather was a Confederate officer in the Civil War. Wolfe never
    wanted to lose any of his southernness. He made sure he would not be
    seduced by literary New York early on in his career in an essay
    viciously satirising its bible, William Shawn's New Yorker magazine,
    as a home for the living dead. His famous white suit has been one
    shorthand way of asserting this southern separateness. He uses his
    uniform as a goad, and it works.

    When Wolfe's first book came out, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine Flake
    Streamline Baby, this cultural Mason-Dixon line was already beginning
    to be drawn. Writing in the New York Review of Books the eminent
    conservative critic Dwight Macdonald derided Wolfe's work as
    'para-journalism'. The main charge the critic laid against Wolfe then,
    in 1965, was that of transience. 'I don't think Wolfe will be read
    with pleasure or at all years from now, and perhaps not even next
    year... the subjects will prove of ephemeral interest and the style
    will not wear well because its eccentricities, while novel, are
    monotonous; those italics, dots, exclamation points, and expressions
    like Santa Barranza!... they will not last.'

    That they did last, that Wolfe's first-person style has been the
    single most influential voice in all journalism since, had a lot to do
    with the fact that he was among the first to realise that the clues to
    modern culture were not necessarily to be found in its politics but in
    its fashions, in its transience. In his subsequent fascination with
    the surface of things, in his love-hate for celebrity and the products
    of American dreams, the scourge of modern art has proved to have had
    more in common than he would acknowledge with Andy Warhol, that other
    dandy outsider in the big city.

    Like Warhol, though a stylistic radical, Wolfe has always been very
    much a conservative by temperament. 'You never realise how much of
    your background is sewn into the lining of your clothes,' he says. As
    a boy in Richmond, Virginia, he would kneel by his bedside each night,
    close his eyes, place his hands together and solemnly thank the Lord
    for making him an American.

    He has never forgotten that. While most liberal readers might have
    seen Bonfire of the Vanities as a vicious satire on the excesses of
    the Wall Street bull markets, to Wolfe himself it seems the comedy was
    more complicated. 'My original idea was to say, "Look at these people!
    Look at the way they live! Look at what they do! Isn't it just
    amazing!"' He could have savage fun observing the greed unleashed by
    Reaganomics, the great haemorrhaging of cash, but he still believed
    Reagan to be 'one of our greatest Presidents ever'.

    Wolfe squares that contradiction by being kind of American right
    winger who enjoys the priapic power of capitalism, and who prefers to
    laugh at effects than to examine causes. His writing borrows the
    energy of the individuals shaped by the extremes of those forces (it
    is no coincidence that his most telling and pyrotechnic book, The
    Right Stuff, was about the astronauts at Nasa, vicariously
    rocket-fuelled).

    By the time he set about to writing novels, this desire to incorporate
    all of America's energy in his books became overwhelming. In 1995,
    almost eight years into his work on A Man in Full, he described how
    every day he watched the events which his book wanted to include
    overtaking him. As he did not use a computer, each rewrite meant
    retyping everything. He looked a little like a character in a very
    American fable, desperately trying to stay one step ahead of his own
    satire.

    The effort of this very nearly did for him. In 1996 Wolfe had a heart
    attack at the gym and a quintuple by-pass, brought on, he believes, by
    the hubris of staring at a blank page each day and trying to make it
    reflect America. One of the effects of this brush with death, Wolfe
    said, was to break the thread he had always felt to his youth. It made
    him feel vulnerable, pervious, but he responded not with doubt but
    with redoubled ambition. And for this alone, as even Norman Mailer has
    conceded, 'one has to applaud his moxie'.

    As a result, the style that once looked like a wonderful cocksure show
    of plumage these days reads more like a rage against the dying of the
    light. Like Anthony Burgess, pressed into frantic action by a
    realisation of mortality, Wolfe, eight years on from heart surgery,
    seems only to want to go faster. The 750 pages of A Man in Full will
    thus be followed by the 680 pages of I am Charlotte Simmons.

    If his preview chapters about college jocks are anything to go by, his
    writing has rarely been more charged, more Wolfeian. Like the
    musculature of the basketball stars it describes, it is 'steroidal,
    ripped', all the time showboating with similes, hotdogging with
    vernacular, slam-dunking exclamations. If sentences could be on
    something then Wolfe's would never have been out of the mandatory
    doping lab. There is, however, no Viagra for prose. So you marvel that
    he is still keeping it up.

    Thomas Kennerly Wolfe
    DoB: 2 March 1931

    Education: Washington and Lee University; Yale University (PhD, 1957)

    Publications: The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby; The
    Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test; The Right Stuff; Bonfire of the Vanities;
    A Man in Full ...

From checker at panix.com  Fri Feb  4 14:40:43 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 09:40:43 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] New Scientist: 'Zero intelligence' trading closely
 mimics stock market
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502040939240.10866@panix2.panix.com>

'Zero intelligence' trading closely mimics stock market
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6948&print=true
      * 11:59 01 February 2005
      * Katharine Davis

    A model that assumes stock market traders have zero intelligence has
    been found to mimic the behaviour of the London Stock Exchange very
    closely.

    However, the surprising result does not mean traders are actually just
    buying and selling at random, say researchers. Instead, it suggests
    that the movement of markets depend less on the strategic behaviour of
    traders and more on the structure and constraints of the trading
    system itself.

    The research, led by J Doyne Farmer and his colleagues at the Santa Fe
    Institute, New Mexico, US, say the finding could be used to identify
    ways to lower volatility in the stock markets and reduce transaction
    costs, both of which would benefit small investors and perhaps bigger
    investors too.

    A spokesperson for the London Stock Exchange says: "It's an
    interesting bit of work that mirrors things we're looking at
    ourselves."

    Most models of financial markets start with the assumption that
    traders act rationally and have access to all the information they
    need. The models are then tweaked to take into account that these
    assumptions are not always entirely true.

    But Farmer and his colleagues took a different approach. "We begin
    with random agents," he says. "The model was idealised, but
    nonetheless we still thought it might match some of the properties of
    real markets."

Buying and selling

    In the model, agents with zero intelligence place random orders to buy
    and sell stocks at a given price. If an order to sell is lower than
    the highest buy price in the system, the transaction will take place
    and the order will be removed - a market order. If the sell order is
    higher than the highest buy price, it will stay in the system until a
    matching buy order is found - a limit order. For example, if the
    highest order to buy a stock is $10, limit orders to sell will be
    above $10 and market orders to sell will be below $10.

    The team used the model to examine two important characteristics of
    financial markets. These were the spread - the price difference
    between the best buy and sell limit orders - and the price diffusion
    rate - a standard measure of risk that looks at how quickly the price
    changes and by how much.

    The model was tested against London Stock Exchange data on 11 real
    stocks collected over 21 months - 6 million buy and sell orders. It
    predicted 96% of the spread variance and 76% of the variance in the
    price diffusion rate. The model also showed that increasing the number
    of market orders increased price volatility because there are then
    fewer limit orders to match up with each other.

Incentives and charges

    The observation could be useful in the real financial markets. "If it
    is considered socially desirable to lower volatility, this can be done
    by giving incentives for people who place limit orders, and charging
    the people who place market orders," Farmer says.

    Some amount of volatility is important, because prices should reflect
    any new information, but many observers believe there is more
    volatility than there should be. "On one day the prices of US stock
    dropped 20% on no apparent news," says Farmer. "High volatility makes
    people jittery and sours the investment climate." It also creates a
    high spread, which can make it more expensive to trade in shares.

    The London Stock Exchange already has a charging structure in place
    that encourages limit orders. "Limit orders are a good way for smaller
    investors to trade on the order book," says a spokesperson.

    Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
    (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0409157102)

Related Articles

      * [12]Virtual brokers forecast real stocks
      * 25 September 2004
      * [13]It's the economy, stupid
      * 10 April 2004
      * [14]Will physics crack the market?
      * 07 December 2002

Weblinks

      * [15]J Doyne Farmer, Santa Fe Institute
      * [16]London Stock Exchange
      * [17]Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

References

   12. http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18324662.100
   13. http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18224425.200
   14. http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg17623721.100
   15. http://www.santafe.edu/~jdf/
   16. http://www.londonstockexchange.com/en-gb/
   17. http://www.pnas.org/


From checker at panix.com  Fri Feb  4 14:41:36 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 09:41:36 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: The Waiter You Stiffed Has Not Forgotten
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502040940480.10866@panix2.panix.com>

The New York Times > Dining & Wine > The Waiter You Stiffed Has Not Forgotten
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/02/dining/02wait.html
5.2.2

    By JULIA MOSKIN

    WHAT evil lurks in the hearts of waiters? Now you can find out. But
    can you stomach the results?

    An anonymous New York waiter wrote online recently: "In my fantasy, I
    become Darth Vader the next time a customer asks about the wines by
    the glass, then says, 'Merlot! Waiter, haven't you seen the movie
    "Sideways"?' Then I will slice off his head with my light saber."

    Grievances, including friction between kitchen and dining room staff,
    rapacious management and near-universal bitterness over tipping, are
    being revealed with gusto on the Internet by restaurant staff members.
    As a customer, to read Web sites like [1]www.bitterwaitress.com,
    [2]www.waiterrant.blogspot.com and [3]www.webfoodpros.com is to wonder
    nervously, "Could they be talking about me?"

    Each month, [4]www.stainedapron.com publishes a new extreme example of
    customer obnoxiousness. (One forum is titled "Keep Your Brats at
    Home!") On [5]bitterwaitress.com, the most popular page is an
    annotated database of people who give bad tips (defined on the site as
    "any gratuity under 17 percent for service which one's peers would
    judge as adequate or better"). Anyone can add a name to the database,
    along with the location, restaurant, amount of the check, amount of
    the tip and any details, most of which cannot be printed in a family
    newspaper. (A disclaimer reads: "We are not responsible for
    submissions. Uh-uh, no way, not in the least.") There are almost 700
    entries.

    "That stuff is childish," said Timothy Banning, a California chef who
    often posts to [6]www.ontherail.com, a San Francisco-based site for
    chefs. "And it makes the industry look bad."

    But most servers say that letting off steam helps them do the job.
    "It's so important for us to have a place to vent," said Becky
    Donohue, who waits on tables at Mickey Mantle's in Midtown and writes
    occasional posts at [7]www.girlcomic.net. "It's amazing that more
    waiters don't kill people," she said.

    Many in the industry protest that the rage-filled, often incoherent
    blogs and posts don't represent the feelings of most restaurant staff
    members, And so far only a small slice of the industry is active
    online. "Unlike a lot of people, chefs and waiters don't have computer
    access at work, or enough time to fool around on the Net," said Bryce
    Lindholm, a Seattle chef and manager who participates in a Yahoo
    discussion group for restaurant employees.

    But the result of these forums, say Mr. Banning, Mr. Lindholm and
    others, is that the symbolic wall between the kitchen and the dining
    room - the wall that prevents customers from knowing what is done and
    said by waiters and cooks - is coming down. And how do they loathe us,
    the customers? Now we can count the ways.

    "I don't think civilians really have any idea how the staff really
    feels: namely, that they just can't wait to turn the table, get their
    tip and see the back of you," Mr. Lindholm said. "Let's be honest."

    Referring to restaurant customers as civilians is common, and
    indicative of the siege mentality that longtime cooks and severs tend
    to adopt. "I'd say waiting tables is one of the most stressful jobs
    you can have, short of being a firefighter or an inner-city police
    officer," said Bruce Griffin Henderson, a singer-songwriter who did 10
    years as a waiter in New York. "You have no control over anything, but
    you are responsible for everything. You are always being squeezed by
    three immutable forces: the customer, the kitchen and the management."

    But recent interviews revealed some fresh irritants for the more than
    eight million Americans who worked in restaurants in 2002 (the most
    recent year for which figures are available according to the United
    States Department of Labor). Waiters must now enforce bans on smoking,
    drinking by minors and cellphone use, and are enduring an influx of
    Euro-rich tourists who, restaurant staff members say, often pretend
    not to understand American tipping practices.

    Chefs say they are being driven mad by an ever-changing spectrum of
    diets, allergies and food issues. Gillian Clark, the chef at Colorado
    Kitchen in Washington, contributed thousands of words to a forum at
    [8]www.washingtonpost.com on the subject of customers who demand
    changes to the menu. "I explain to them that they are in my
    restaurant," she wrote, "and they must have the flounder the way I
    make it."

    Ms. Clark is relatively tolerant of customers with genuine health
    problems, but many bloggers reserve their most towering rages for
    customers with real or imagined dietary restrictions. Last year a
    server at a Sizzler steakhouse in Norco, Calif., was arrested after a
    fight with Atkins-dieting customers over whether vegetables could be
    substituted for potatoes. Participants in online forums reacted with
    understanding, though the consensus was that Jonathan Voeltner, the
    server, had gone too far in following the customers and covering their
    house with maple syrup, flour and instant mashed potatoes. "Use the
    forum, dude!" one poster urged. "Blow off the steam here."

    According to [9]www.waitersworld.com, one Washington restaurant
    customer recently insisted that the restaurant's $10 minimum should be
    waived for him, because gastric bypass surgery had rendered him unable
    to swallow more than a few mouthfuls at one sitting. "So why are you
    in a restaurant?" wrote one cook. "WHY WHY WHY?"

    These writers are immoderate in their rages, but they do not
    discriminate. They harbor contempt for tourists, New Yorkers,
    Southerners, Jews, Christians, women, men, blacks, whites, American
    Indians. Fat people. Thin people. "My greatest dream is to keep a
    party of doctors waiting for 45 minutes," Mr. Lindholm said. "They are
    arrogant as customers, and besides, they keep me waiting in their
    offices. Let them wait in my restaurant."

    Serious complaints about sexism, racism, drug use, hazing and
    management are common, but the servers' greatest source of rage is, of
    course, tipping. "It's the only job where your hourly wage is totally
    dependent on how random people feel about you," Ms. Donohue said. "How
    many times have you gotten bad service at Kinko's? Do you get to dock
    their pay?"

    The vengefulness of the posts, and the recurrence of anecdotes that
    involve adding foreign fluids to customers' food, from breast milk to
    laxatives, is enough to turn anyone who dares to enter a restaurant
    into a nervous, toadying wreck. Jesse Elizondo, a waiter who has
    worked in New York restaurants for 10 years, says that's because
    customers generally forget how vulnerable they are to the good will of
    servers. "I can never understand why anyone would be even the
    slightest bit rude to someone who is about to touch your food," he
    said.

    Mr. Elizondo said he discovered the forums after a bad night at work
    on Restaurant Row, when he went home and typed "waiter" and "revenge"
    into an Internet search engine. He is amazed by the challenges that
    customers bring into the dining room, he said, adding: "The cellphones
    are a big problem for us. And you wouldn't believe how many people
    think they can bring their own liquor, or keep their big plastic water
    bottle on the table. I try to assume that people just don't know any
    better, but sometimes it's impossible, especially with the Europeans
    who act so sophisticated when it's time to order the wine but so
    ignorant when it's time to tip the waiter."

    Online venting has become a vigorous art form for many servers,
    especially those who are waiting on tables to finance careers as
    writers or performers. "Where else can you observe human nature at its
    worst, night after night?" Ms. Donohue, a comedian, said. "The whole
    system seems to invite bad behavior."

    Rima Maamari worked her way through college at a Toronto steakhouse,
    and said that she never intended to write about waitressing when she
    joined a blogging circle for writers. But, she said, "everyone was so
    interested in reading about the stuff going on behind a waiter's poker
    face" that her reports from the front became her only subject. "People
    feel very strongly about this stuff, and not only waiters," she said.
    "I got a lot of bitter e-mails from people about how they shouldn't
    have to tip for bad service." One customer, an ex-waiter, wrote on
    www.bitterwaitress.com, "You people should QUIT WHINING or get another
    job."

    Aline Steiner, a customer who was working online at the East Village
    cafe Teany last week, said she had visited some of these sites,
    including [10]www.shamelessrestaurants.com, a controversial New
    York-based site where employees post anonymously with complaints about
    their employers.

    "I think that as long as it's anonymous, there is no validity, and no
    harm done," she said. "But if they really want things to change, all
    of these issues are going to have to come out somehow. People want to
    be aware of how their vegetables are grown, how their chickens are
    killed. They should be aware of how restaurants work."


From checker at panix.com  Fri Feb  4 14:42:47 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 09:42:47 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: Not Just for Emergencies Anymore
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502040941410.10866@panix2.panix.com>

The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > Not Just for Emergencies Anymore
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/03/technology/circuits/03elde.html
5.2.3

    By JEFFREY SELINGO

    LONG after cellphones became an annoyance in movie theaters and
    restaurants, the incessant ringing turned up at an unexpected place:
    the Holiday Park Senior Center in Wheaton, Md., near Washington.

    It started about a year ago, when musical performances and lectures
    began to be interrupted regularly. The problem got so bad that the 600
    people who come daily for various programs had to be reminded to turn
    off their phones.

    "Some doctor would be talking about a disease and a cellphone would
    start ringing," said Phil Smakula, a supervisor for the county's
    programs for the elderly and the center's former director. "Most of
    the time they weren't exactly urgent calls. They were making plans to
    go to the movies or have dinner with a neighbor."

    The cellphone, once viewed by older people solely as a device for use
    in emergencies, is becoming an everyday convenience. Encouraged by
    inexpensive calling plans, older Americans are using cellphones to
    call their grandchildren at college, or to set up a bridge game at
    their retirement community.

    "I resisted getting a cellphone for quite a while," said Millie
    Salwen, 78, who bought one two years ago when she lived in Manhattan
    and found it increasingly difficult to find a pay phone near Bryant
    Park, where she worked as a volunteer. "Now, I can't live without it."
    After a move to Lasell Village, a retirement community near Boston,
    Ms. Salwen continues to use the cellphone a few times a week. "It
    doesn't intimidate me anymore," she said.

    Half of Americans ages 65 to 74 own mobile phones, according to the
    Yankee Group, a technology research firm, as do 30 percent of those 75
    to 84. Four years ago, the firm estimates, only 15 percent of people
    over 65 were wireless customers. And older users are increasingly
    attracted to cellphones for general use, not merely safety, the firm
    says.

    The increase in cellphone use among older Americans is coming despite,
    not because of, the wireless industry. Carriers make little effort to
    appeal to older customers, directing most of their marketing efforts
    to younger people who are more likely to use (and pay for) extra
    features like text messaging and voice mail. Indeed, older consumers
    often complain that all those features - accessible on ever-smaller
    phones with tiny keys - leave them confused.

    AARP, the advocacy and lobbying group for older Americans, says
    cellphone service is the benefit most requested by its 35 million
    members. In response to complaints about poor service and hard-to-use
    phones, the organization is testing a program that will provide
    members with discounted calling plans and handsets from several
    carriers as well as materials about how to operate the devices.

    Linda Barrabee, a senior wireless analyst for the Yankee Group, said
    no carrier had taken the lead in marketing its services to older
    Americans, even though older customers represent one of the last
    remaining segments of the population where there is potential for
    subscriber growth. Nearly 80 percent of people 19 to 65 already own a
    cellphone.

    In some ways, Ms. Larrabee said, older people are the more attractive
    customers, because they tend to be loyal to brands, use fewer minutes
    and require less time with customer service.

    None of the cellphone carriers make public their subscriber base by
    age group. But Mary Nell Westbrook, a spokeswoman for [1]Sprint PCS,
    called the elderly market "a very narrow segment." The company does
    not aim its advertising at older people, she said, because they tend
    to become customers through family calling plans, which come with
    several handsets and a bundle of free minutes for one price.
    [2]Sprint, Ms. Westbrook added, "targets youth and baby boomers, who
    are obvious users."

    [3]Verizon officials, too, say older people are mainly customers
    through family plans. Sometimes that "family" is simply a group of
    seniors. For example, Jeffrey Nelson, a spokesman for Verizon, said
    that his 67-year-old mother is on a family plan with a 71-year-old
    friend.

    Most older people with mobile phones still carry them mainly for
    security purposes. Some have handsets, given away by local police
    departments, that work only to call 911.

    Others, like Thelma Leskowitz, have restricted calling plans that
    charge for every minute used.

    Mrs. Leskowitz, 79, who lives in Framingham, Mass., said she makes
    calls more frequently these days than when her son bought her the
    cellphone five years ago.

    "I never used it when I first got it," she said. Now, although she
    does not describe herself as an everyday user, she makes a call if she
    needs "to reach someone quickly," even if she's in the car, where she
    normally leaves her phone.

    "But I pull over," she quickly added. "I do not drive and talk."

    Mrs. Leskowitz said she would probably use her phone more often if she
    could find a cheap calling plan and better understand how the phone
    works. She recalled accidentally hanging up on her daughter-in-law
    once because she pressed the wrong button. "They're not the easiest
    things to figure out," she said.

    Plenty of other older customers agree. Myrtle Clark, 67, of New
    Braunfels, Tex., said that when she got her [4]Nokia phone a year ago
    the instruction manual included directions for several different
    models. "It wasn't helpful," Ms. Clark said. "It took me a day just to
    figure out what model I bought."

    Even frequent users say a mobile phone's keypad and screen are too
    small for older people, especially those who have poor eyesight or
    arthritis. Many older cellphone owners often learn only enough about
    the phone to make and receive calls, and rarely, if ever, use features
    like the phone book or text messaging.

    And do not even get them started on voice mail. Flossie Berger, 77, of
    Longboat Key, Fla., said she gave up on checking her voice mail soon
    after she got her mobile phone two years ago. "I would always forget
    the numbers to dial, and then I'd forget my password," she said. "Now
    people know not to leave a message."

    When Mrs. Berger visited New York recently, her granddaughter used her
    phone's calculator to figure out the tip at a restaurant. "She said I
    should learn how to use that, but I have no interest," Mrs. Berger
    said. "To me, it's just a phone."

    But to manufacturers and carriers, the handset has become much more
    than a phone. The trend now is to pack as many features as possible
    into a device that is getting smaller. In turn, the phones are
    becoming more complicated to use.

    Patricia Moore, a noted industrial designer and gerontologist,
    describes the design of cellphones as abysmal. For one thing, she
    said, every one works differently.

    To illustrate her point, when Dr. Moore gives a presentation she often
    asks her audience to turn on their cellphones and pass them to a
    neighboring person to make a call. "They have this frozen moment," she
    said. "They are looking for a prompt that is familiar to them, not one
    that is familiar to the manufacturer."

    Technology message boards at AARP's Web site ([5]www.aarp.org) and
    other sites for seniors are filled with complaints about cellphone
    service and the devices themselves. Many users want to know why
    manufacturers have not copied handsets sold in Asia that are easier to
    see and hear. (For example, the NS 1000, a basic cellphone with large
    keys manufactured by LG Electronics, is only available in Korea.)

    Such phones, though, are not likely to show up soon in the United
    States. Curtis Wick, director of the test and technical support
    engineering group for LG USA, said manufacturers in Asia usually sell
    handsets that are more advanced than those in the United States
    because users there were willing to sacrifice quality for the latest
    technology, and often bought their handsets directly from the
    manufacturer.

    By comparison, Mr. Wick said, American consumers want "all the bugs
    worked out first" and purchase their phones through carriers, who
    dictate the features they want in the handsets.

    "We don't get a lot of requests to make products that are easier for
    the elderly to use," he said.

    Eventually, Ms. Barrabee of the Yankee Group said, manufacturers will
    have to start paying attention to this demographic as today's baby
    boomers move into retirement. "They will have the same issues that
    seniors have now, and they will demand changes as longtime customers,"
    she said.

    But it is unclear whether cellphone use among older people would
    become more widespread if a special handset were offered. Like some
    younger users, many older cellphone customers blame the technology for
    the loss of civility in public life.

    "People speak on these things everywhere and anywhere as if they're in
    a private phone booth," Mrs. Leskowitz said. "I cannot bear these
    public conversations."

    Carrying a cellphone regularly can also require a change in habits.
    When Mrs. Berger first got her cellphone, she often left it at home.

    "Little good it would do me, sitting at home, if I had an emergency,"
    she said. But she has become used to bringing it with her. "I'm hooked
    on it," she said. "It makes me feel young."


From checker at panix.com  Fri Feb  4 14:43:44 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 09:43:44 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: Regimens: Cause, Effect and Vegetables
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502040943040.10866@panix2.panix.com>

Vital Signs: Regimens: Cause, Effect and Vegetables
NYT January 11, 2005
By JOHN O'NEIL

Many large-scale epidemiological studies have found that
vegetarians are less likely than meat eaters to have high
blood pressure. But moving from that observation to proof
of cause and effect can be difficult, because the findings
may reflect an unknown third factor - for example, a
tendency of vegetarians to do other healthy things as well.


An article in the January issue of the journal Nutrition
Reviews examined a number of studies that found ways around
that difficulty, in some cases by comparing two groups who
led similar lives except for diet. One set of researchers,
for instance, turned to monks. Trappists are strict
vegetarians, and Benedictines are not, and blood pressure,
they found, was lower in Trappist monasteries.

Other researchers compared Seventh-day Adventists, who
avoid alcohol, nicotine, caffeine and meat, with Mormons,
who shun those substances except meat. The researchers
found that fewer Adventists had hypertension and that the
gap widened with age.

Other researchers have tried to settle the question
experimentally, by assigning meat-eating subjects to
vegetarian or omnivorous diets, according to the new
article, whose lead author was Dr. Susan E. Berkow of the
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

One such study, of people with normal blood pressure, found
that six weeks without meat led to an average drop of 5
points in systolic pressure, the upper number, and a
2-or-3-point drop in diastolic pressure.

In a yearlong study of mild hypertension, the blood
pressure of people on a vegetarian diet dropped compared
with those still eating meat, even though three-quarters of
the vegetarian group stopped taking medication for high
blood pressure.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/11/health/11regi.html


From checker at panix.com  Fri Feb  4 14:44:40 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 09:44:40 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Pixelmatic (au): Will life be worth living in 2000 AD?
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502040943470.10866@panix2.panix.com>

http://www.pixelmatic.com.au/2000/
Will life be worth living in 2000 AD?
July 22, 1961, Weekend Magazine

What sort of life will you be living 39 years from now? Scientists have 
looked into the future and they can tell you.

It looks as if everything will be so easy that people will probably die 
from sheer boredom.

You will be whisked around in monorail vehicles at 200 miles an hour and 
you will think nothing of taking a fortnight's holiday in outer space.

Your house will probably have air walls, and a floating roof, adjustable 
to the angle of the sun.

Doors will open automatically, and clothing will be put away by remote 
control. The heating and cooling systems will be built into the furniture 
and rugs.

You'll have a home control room - an electronics centre, where messages 
will be recorded when you're away from home. This will play back when you 
return, and also give you up-to-the minute world news, and transcribe your 
latest mail.

You'll have wall-to-wall global TV, an indoor swimming pool, TV-telephones 
and room-to-room TV. Press a button and you can change the d?cor of a 
room.

The status symbol of the year 2000 will be the home computer help, which 
will help mother tend the children, cook the meals and issue reminders of 
appointments.

Cooking will be in solar ovens with microwave controls. Garbage will be 
refrigerated, and pressed into fertiliser pellets.

Food won't be very different from 1961, but there will be a few new dishes 
- instant bread, sugar made from sawdust, foodless foods (minus 
nutritional properties), juice powders and synthetic tea and cocoa. Energy 
will come in tablet form.

At work, Dad will operate on a 24 hour week. The office will be 
air-conditioned with stimulating scents and extra oxygen - to give a 
physical and psychological lift.

Mail and newspapers will be reproduced instantly anywhere in the world by 
facsimile.

There will be machines doing the work of clerks, shorthand writers and 
translators. Machines will "talk" to each other.

It will be the age of press-button transportation. Rocket belts will 
increase a man's stride to 30 feet, and bus-type helicopters will travel 
along crowded air skyways. There will be moving plastic-covered pavements, 
individual hoppicopters, and 200 m.p.h. monorail trains operating in all 
large cities.

The family car will be soundless, vibrationless and self-propelled 
thermostatically. The engine will be smaller than a typewriter. Cars will 
travel overland on an 18 inch air cushion.

Railways will have one central dispatcher, who will control a whole 
nation's traffic. Jet trains will be guided by electronic brains.

In commercial transportation, there will be travel at 1000 m.p.h. at a 
penny a mile. Hypersonic passenger planes, using solid fuels, will reach 
any part of the world in an hour.

By the year 2020, five per cent of the world's population will have 
emigrated into space. Many will have visited the moon and beyond.

Our children will learn from TV, recorders and teaching machines. They 
will get pills to make them learn faster. We shall be healthier, too. 
There will be no common colds, cancer, tooth decay or mental illness.

Medically induced growth of amputated limbs will be possible. Rejuvenation 
will be in the middle stages of research, and people will live, healthily, 
to 85 or 100.

There's a lot more besides to make H.G. Wells and George Orwell sound like 
they're getting left behind.

And this isn't science fiction. It's science fact - futuristic ideas, 
conceived by imaginative young men, whose crazy-sounding schemes have got 
the nod from the scientists.

It's the way they think the world will live in the next century - if 
there's any world left!

From checker at panix.com  Fri Feb  4 14:45:49 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 09:45:49 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: Chess Players Give 'Check' a New Meaning
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502040944440.10866@panix2.panix.com>

Chess Players Give 'Check' a New Meaning
NYT January 13, 2005
By DYLAN LOEB McCLAIN

JAY BONIN, an international chess master who lives in New
York, is one of the busiest players in the country. He
takes part in face-to-face tournament matches every week
and also regularly participates in games of speed chess at
chessclub.com, the Internet Chess Club. He estimated that
he has played more than 20,000 games online in the last
three or four years.

Mr. Bonin is much more active than most elite players, but
he is doing what most serious players have long thought is
necessary: playing frequently to stay in peak form. Now,
however, because of the widespread availability of
databases of games and the growing strength of chess
software, such activity may actually be making it easier to
beat him.

Mr. Bonin said that he recently lost a tournament game to a
weaker player who had not competed in years, but who had
sprung a surprise move on him in one of Mr. Bonin's
favorite openings.

"The line he played reeked of preparation," he said.

The
problem for elite players is that while practice is
important, so too is study and preparation - knowing the
best moves and knowing what opponents like to play.

There are many ways to play a chess game, particularly in
the opening sequences, and some players may have studied
the first 15 or 20 moves of their favorite openings, like
the Kings Indian defense, the Ruy Lopez or hundreds of
others that are known by shorthand names.

Game databases, many of which are online, give players
information about what opening strategies their opponents
use. And rapidly improving chess computer programs can
analyze games and make suggestions about what to play. In
many cases, electronic game collections are replacing books
as chess players' primary source of information.

Using computers and databases during tournament matches is
not allowed, and most players say that cheating is rare.
But using such systems to help prepare has become
ubiquitous.

Gregory Shahade, an international master, said he has used
databases, partly because everyone else does, too. Mr.
Shahade said that he did not think that he had ever lost a
game because an opponent prepared a special opening, but
that he felt computers and databases have made chess more
predictable and probably less fun. "It seems there is less
creativity now," he said.

Garry Kasparov, a former world champion and still the
world's top ranked player, agreed that electronic aids may
have stifled creativity, at least in the openings.

It certainly has made things more difficult for the more
innovative players. Before people started using databases,
a player who came up with a new move in an opening might be
able to use it several times before enough people found out
about it to start preparing for it. Now innovations are
known almost as soon as they are played. "The profit maybe
is very small," Mr. Kasparov said. "You can only use it one
game."

Mr. Kasparov himself may be most responsible for the
widespread adoption of electronic aids by chess players.

Andr? Schulz, editor of Chessbase (chessbase.com), an
online database and news site based in Hamburg, Germany,
said that Mr. Kasparov met one of the company's founders,
Matthias Wullenweber, in 1985, when Mr. Kasparov was
preparing for his second world championship match against
Anatoly Karpov. With suggestions from Mr. Kasparov, Mr.
Wullenweber created a program that would allow someone to
search a database of games based on different
specifications, like player names, positions and opening
names.

Mr. Kasparov was enthusiastic about the resulting program
and when Mr. Wullenweber started selling it, Mr. Kasparov
gave it an endorsement sure to catch the attention of other
players. "It's the greatest development for chess since the
invention of the printing press," Mr. Kasparov said.

Chessbase.com, which now has more than three million games,
is updated every week. Mr. Schulz said that many of the new
games are supplied by tournament directors who collect them
from the players. Most of the games are in the public
domain, so there is no cost to acquire them. The games are
entered using notation that has a designation for each
piece and each square.

Many games are from elite players - including some played
hundreds of years ago - but there are also a great many
games from average players. That way, Mr. Schulz said, it
is possible to look up games played by your next opponent.

Mr. Schulz, who is about master strength, plays in a
league in Hamburg and knew who his likely opponent was
going to be in a match Monday. Although his opponent was
ranked lower than him, Mr. Schulz found some of his
opponent's games to see what he usually plays. Their game
ended in a draw.

Mr. Schulz said that in this match and others, having
access to archived games was useful. "I have a better
feeling now than if I come to the board cold," he said,
adding that he was not worried that opponents probably
prepare for him in the same way.

Not all players are so unconcerned.

For the last three
years, Mr. Shahade has organized a tournament, the New York
Masters, every Tuesday night at the Marshall Chess Club in
the West Village in Lower Manhattan. One game from each
round can be seen live on the Internet Chess Club. Mr.
Shahade said one prominent player, whom he did not
identify, had complained because he did not want people
seeing what he plays.

The Internet Chess Club, which is based in Pittsburgh,
archives all of the games from top players who play at the
site, which is one reason so many people know what Mr.
Bonin plays. Hal Bogner, a consultant to the site, said
players can preserve anonymity if they log on as a guest.
Although no one knows how often that happens, Nigel Short,
a British grandmaster, wrote in an article several years
ago that he was certain that a guest he played at the site
was the former world champion Bobby Fischer.

While databases have changed preparation, chess programs
may be changing how people play.

Alexander Shabalov, 37, a grandmaster, said he had noticed
that players ages 15 to 25 play differently than older
players because they have spent so much time going up
against computers. Because computers are so good at
tactics, younger players are more tactical, Mr. Shabalov
said, and more willing to take risks.

"They will take a pawn or a piece if they don't see the
refutation," Mr. Shabalov said. "When I was younger, I
assumed that stronger opponents knew what they were doing
and I wouldn't do that. The computers make them bolder.
They defend better."

Not all strong players believe that electronic aids are
equalizers.

Jaan Ehlvest, 42, an Estonian grandmaster, said that better
players are more able to take advantage of the abundant
information provided by computers and databases because
they have the expertise to identify the ideas that are
worth pursuing. For lesser players, he said, computers can
actually slow development because they cannnot separate the
good ideas from the bad.

Mr. Ehlvest added that in any case he did not believe that
computers made people better than they otherwise would be.
Instead, they can help them reach their potential sooner.

"Now you see 14-year-old grandmasters because they
accumulate information much faster than in my day," he
said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/13/technology/circuits/13ches.html

From checker at panix.com  Fri Feb  4 14:46:34 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 09:46:34 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: When Dinosaurs Ruled, a Mammal Ate (a Little) One
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502040945530.10866@panix2.panix.com>

When Dinosaurs Ruled, a Mammal Ate (a Little) One
NYT January 13, 2005
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD

[You may already have heard about this.]

In the time of dinosaurs, mammals were the meek that had
yet to inherit the earth. They were small creatures, many
no bigger than mice, and essentially nocturnal, feeding
mainly on insects and cowering in holes and underbrush from
the terrible tread of the reptilian lords of the land.

Two newly discovered fossils show that this lowly image of
early mammals, long the reigning view of science, did not
do them justice. A few of these animals were as large as a
dog and spunky enough to devour dinosaurs, at least
juvenile dinosaurs.

The 130-million-year-old fossils, announced yesterday by
Chinese paleontologists, challenge conventional thinking
and lead to a new and more diverse perception of mammal
life in the Mesozoic era, 280 million to 65 million years
ago.

In interviews and a report being published today in the
journal Nature, the researchers described finding the skull
and most of the bones of what they say is the largest
mammal known to live in the age of dinosaurs. The animal's
skull was half again the length of the next largest mammal
of the period. The entire body probably weighed 30 pounds
and stretched more than three feet, longer than a good-size
basset hound's.

>From the same fossil beds in northern China, the
paleontologists also uncovered the remains of a related
species about 15 inches long, the size of an opossum, and
made a striking observation. The mammal's last meal had
been a juvenile dinosaur. Its limbs, fingers and teeth were
lodged within the mammal's rib cage where its stomach had
been.

The dog-size animal has been named Repenomamus giganticus.
The smaller one is a specimen of Repenomamus robustus.

"Our discoveries," the scientists wrote in the journal
report, "constitute the first direct evidence that some of
these mammals were carnivorous and fed on small
vertebrates, including young dinosaurs, and also show that
Mesozoic mammals had a much greater range of body sizes
than previously known."

The scientists further concluded that "Mesozoic mammals
occupied diverse niches and that some large mammals
probably competed with dinosaurs for food and territory."

Dr. Anne Weil, a paleontologist at Duke University who was
not involved in the research, agreed that the fossils were
a fascinating discovery and certain to shake up the field
of early mammal studies.

In an accompanying article in Nature, Dr. Weil said, "These
latest finds should trigger another avalanche of questions
and speculation."

She and other paleontologists said several recent
discoveries had yielded clues suggesting that some species
were at least as large as robustus and might have been as
large as giganticus. But the new fossil skeletons are more
complete and definitive, they said.

Dr. Jin Meng, a paleontologist at the American Museum of
Natural History in Manhattan and a member of the discovery
team, said that any Mesozoic mammal remains were rare and
that these were "giving us a drastically new picture" of
many of the animals of the age of dinosaurs.

Standing in the museum laboratory with the carefully
cleaned bones of the mammal that ate the little dinosaur,
Dr. Meng said, "Now we have to see how common was the
phenomenon of these larger, carnivorous species."

But in one respect, he added, the general pattern of
Mesozoic life remained unchanged: although other large
early specimens may be found, most of the mammals were
still small and no match for the dominant reptiles.
Primitive mammals presumably had little chance to evolve in
stature because the dinosaurs and other reptiles were
stronger, lived longer and moved faster than the mammals in
the competition for food and favorable habitats.

Only with the extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago
could the mammals begin to assert themselves and flourish
in size and diversity, evolving into lions and tigers and
bears and, in time, humans who are curious about life when
the world was younger.

The two skeletons were collected in 2003 by farmers at the
abundant fossil deposits in Liaoning Province in China,
where many dinosaurs and a sprinkling of their mammalian
contemporaries have been uncovered in recent years. The
fossils caught the eye of visiting scientists, who bought
them and took them to the Institute of Vertebrate
Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing for detailed
examination.

Yaoming Hu, a researcher at the institute and a graduate
student the City University of New York, is the lead author
of the journal report of the discovery. The co-authors are
Dr. Meng, Mr. Hu's dissertation adviser; and Dr. Yuanqing
Wang and Chuankui Li, both of the Beijing institute.

An artist's rendering of the two species, giganticus and
robustus, showed animals with low-slung bodies with short
legs and long tails, as suggested by the fossils. They are
covered in dark, short-haired fur, for which there is no
direct evidence; if the animals were primarily nocturnal,
it is assumed that evolution would have favored those with
dark fur for concealment.

The researchers said giganticus, though it resembled no
animal living today and has no living descendants, was
somewhat comparable to a Tasmanian devil, a squat,
carnivorous marsupial living on the Australian island of
Tasmania. Analysis of the giganticus teeth indicated that
the specimen was an adult. Its combined head and body was
60 percent longer than that of its robustus cousin.

The well-preserved remains of giganticus are at the
paleontology institute in Beijing. A full-scale replica is
being prepared for a new dinosaur exhibition at the
American museum, opening in May.

Geological dating of sediments in the fossil beds showed
that both species lived at approximately the same time,
about 130 million years ago. The animals that were
fossilized in the region probably died in volcanic
eruptions.

The first fossils of robustus were excavated in 2000, when
it was recognized as the largest known Mesozoic mammal
represented by substantially complete remains. Dr. Wang was
one of the discoverers. The specimen was assigned the genus
Repenomamus, combining words for reptiles and mammals to
reflect the animal's reptile-mammal attributes.

The big surprise about the new robustus fossils being
reported now was not revealed until researchers had a close
look in the Beijing laboratory. Mr. Hu pointed to the
skeleton, in the American museum lab, and showed the patch
of small bones in the rib cage. They were the tiny limbs,
fingers and teeth of a juvenile psittacosaur, a two-legged
herbivorous dinosaur common in the Chinese fossil beds.

The baby dinosaur, Mr. Hu said, was only five inches long,
a third the size of the animal that ate it. An adult
psittacosaur was often six feet tall. Judging by the
mammal's teeth and jaws, it did not chew its food, but
swallowed the dinosaur in chunks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/13/science/13mammal.html


From checker at panix.com  Fri Feb  4 14:47:32 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 09:47:32 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] BH: Genetic Engineering through Diet
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502040946370.10866@panix2.panix.com>

Genetic Engineering through Diet
http://www.betterhumans.com/Print/index.aspx?ArticleID=2005-01-14-5

Nutrients that affect genes in the womb may affect children's health later
in life, and now researchers are working to learn which foods might do what

    By Liz Brown
    Betterhumans Staff
    1/14/2005 6:39 PM

    Eating for two: Researchers are studying embryonic stem cells to learn
    how nutrients may affect gene activity to influence children's health

    Everyone knows an expectant mom needs to eat well. But diet could be
    even more important to a baby's development than previously thought,
    as nutrients that affect genes in the womb may influence children's
    health later in life. And now researchers are working to learn which
    foods might do what.

    In 2003, American researchers at [8]Duke University in Durham, North
    Carolina proved that [9]diet could influence coat color and disease
    susceptibility in unborn mice. However, toying with diets of human
    mothers and their unborn children is out of the question.

    So scientists funded by the UK's [10]Biotechnology and Biological
    Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) are testing the phenomenon using
    human embryonic stem cells.

    DNA tagging

    With embryonic stem cells, the researchers, from the [11]University of
    Nottingham in the UK, observe a process called [12]methylation.

    Methylation is one way the body controls which genes are activated in
    certain tissues by tagging DNA with chemical groups called methyl
    groups. As a baby grows and develops, methylation keeps order in gene
    activity.

    What a pregnant woman eats could alter the course of this process.

    "Specific nutrients in a mother's diet may alter methylation at
    critical stages of development and change the trajectory of how
    particular organs in the fetus develop," says [13]Lorraine Young, lead
    author of the study. "While this may have no impact on normal
    functioning of the baby, in adulthood lifetime environmental pressures
    may have more adverse effects and predispose adult disease."

    This could explain instances where a group of people is exposed to
    [14]carcinogens but only some develop cancer, while others aren't
    affected.

    Studying stem cells

    To study this phenomenon, Young and colleagues take human embryonic
    stem cells from five-day-old embryos donated by couples undergoing
    infertility treatment. The researchers then differentiate the cells
    into different tissues affected by common adult diseases and observe
    changes in the methylation process when these tissues are treated with
    various nutrients such as [15]vitamin B12, [16]amino acids and
    [17]folic acid.

    [18]Randy Jirtle, one of the researchers who led the study of
    methylation in mice at Duke, believes that using human stem cells will
    provide greater insight into the process. "The epigenome of humans and
    mice are vastly different so it is very difficult to extrapolate
    specific findings between species," he says.

    Jirtle also points to further applications of this technology in
    tissue repair. "Such studies may also allow for the
    transdifferentiation of somatic human cells to be used in tissue
    repair without having to do therapeutic cloning."

    Far-reaching implications

    Most importantly though, finding the nutrient mix that's most
    beneficial for the stem cells could determine what the best conditions
    would be for children conceived using in vitro fertilization. "We need
    to do this type of research to optimize the in vitro conditions used
    for in vitro fertilization because the techniques presently used
    increase the incidence of developmental disorders resulting from
    genomic imprinting defects," adds Jirtle.

    Indeed, the implications of this research could be far-reaching and
    eventually prevent adult diseases in many people. "If we can identify
    specific nutrients and critical levels in the diet that may alter
    fetal development and predispose adult disease, health policies will
    ultimately be developed which advise women of the safest diets for the
    healthy future of their unborn children. In the long term, this may
    reduce the number of adults who contract major diseases," says Young.

    However, she warns that they are still several years away from
    gathering enough evidence to lay out specific diet recommendations. In
    the meantime, pregnant women concerned about their diet should consult
    their doctor or a registered dietician for advice.

References

    8. http://www.duke.edu/
    9. http://www.betterhumans.com/News/news.aspx?articleID=2003-08-05-2
   10. http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/
   11. http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/
   12. http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylation
   13. http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/human-development/staff/Young.htm
   14. http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinogen
   15. http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12
   16. http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amino_acids
   17. http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folic_acid
   18. http://www.dukemednews.duke.edu/experts/detail.php?id=298


From checker at panix.com  Fri Feb  4 14:52:06 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 09:52:06 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] ODNB: Samuel Beckett
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502040951410.10866@panix2.panix.com>

Beckett, Samuel Barclay (1906-1989), author
by James Knowlson
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004
James Knowlson, 'Beckett, Samuel Barclay (1906-1989)', Oxford

Beckett, Samuel Barclay (1906-1989), author , was born on 13 April 1906 at
Cooldrinagh, Kerrymount Avenue, Foxrock, co. Dublin, the second of two
children of William Frank Beckett (1871-1933), a quantity surveyor, and
his wife, Maria, known as May (1871-1950), daughter of Samuel Roe, a
miller of Newbridge in co. Kildare, and his wife, Annie. He was descended
from middle-class, solidly protestant, Anglo-Irish stock. William Beckett
was an affectionate father and a charming, clubbable, 'absolutely
non-intellectual' man, as his son described him (Knowlson, 10), who left
his case of Dickens and encyclopaedias unopened. The fiercely independent,
strong-willed Beckett had a much more difficult relationship with his
protective, equally strong-willed mother, whose 'savage loving' at times
overwhelmed him. On the whole he grew up happily in prosperous Foxrock, a
village close enough to Dublin for businessmen to commute by train, but
rural enough for Beckett to take himself off into the countryside to
wander or read alone. He was a fearless, adventurous boy, later an
intrepid motorcyclist and an excellent sportsman.

Early years and education

After attending a small kindergarten school run by Miss Ida and Miss
Pauline Elsner in nearby Stillorgan, Beckett went to private schools,
first Earlsfort House in Dublin, then Portora Royal School in Enniskillen,
co. Fermanagh, where his elder brother, Frank, was already a boarder. He
entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1923 and read French and Italian in
the modern European literature course. It is often forgotten that he also
studied English literature for two years with the Shakespeare scholar
Professor Wilbraham Fitzjohn Trench. In 1927 he obtained a first-class
degree with a gold medal, doing outstandingly well in French, under his
true mentor at Trinity College, Professor Thomas Brown Rudmose-Brown, who
inspired Beckett's love of Ronsard, Sc?ve, Petrarch, and Racine, as well
as introducing him to a wide range of modern French poets. Beckett also
took Italian classes from a private tutor, Bianca Esposito, who took him
through Dante's Divina commedia. Dante's great poem was a constant source
of fascination and a great inspiration to him. While he was at Trinity
College, he had his first experience of love in the person of a
scintillating, brilliant young woman, Ethna MacCarthy, also a pupil of
Rudmose-Brown. Although he adored her and she inspired two of his most
beautiful poems, 'Alba' and 'Yoke of liberty', she did not reciprocate his
love-though they remained friends for the rest of her life. After
graduating he taught French for two terms at Campbell College, Belfast, an
experience which he disliked intensely. To his parents' horror he then had
a serious love affair with his first cousin, Ruth Margaret (Peggy)
Sinclair.

In November 1928 Beckett took up a post as lecteur d'anglais (teaching
assistant in English) in Paris at the distinguished ?cole Normale
Sup?rieure in the rue d'Ulm. He became friendly in the capital with the
self-exiled Irish writer James Joyce. Beckett was strongly influenced by
the force of Joyce's personality, by the range of his culture, and by his
total dedication to his art. Joyce's example inspired him to write. But,
although aware from an early stage that he needed to discover his own
distinctive voice, he found it extremely difficult at first to escape from
Joyce's stylistic influence: 'I vow I will get over J. J. ere I die.
Yessir', he wrote in 1931 to Samuel Putnam.

Early writings

While living in Paris Beckett wrote (and saw published) a prize-winning
poem about Descartes called Whoroscope (1930). He also published his first
two critical essays, one (guided in his reading by Joyce) on early
sections of what was to become Finnegans Wake, entitled 'Dante . Bruno.
Vico . Joyce' (transition , 1929), the other a brilliant, precocious study
of Proust, published in 1931. He returned to Dublin in autumn 1930 to take
up a lectureship in French at Trinity College, where he lectured on
Racine, Moli?re, the Romantic poets, Balzac, Stendhal, Flaubert, Proust,
Gide, and Bergson. He was, however, pathologically shy and detested the
self-exposure that lecturing involved. Always a stern auto-critic, he also
regarded this activity as 'teaching others what he did not know himself'.
So he resigned his appointment after only four terms and set out instead
to become a writer, translator, and literary journalist.

After a short stay with Peggy Sinclair's family in Kassel early in 1932,
Beckett returned to live in Paris, where, installed for six months in the
Trianon Palace Hotel, he wrote the major part of a novel entitled Dream of
Fair to Middling Women , begun in Dublin a year earlier. He failed to get
the book published at the time, however, and it appeared posthumously in
1992. It is a clever, probably much too clever, linguistic extravaganza,
full of reworked literary quotations. But it overturns most of the
conventions of traditional fiction and is a remarkable bravura performance
for so young a man. Because of a clamp-down on foreigners, Beckett found
that he had to leave Paris and, desperately short of money, he returned
home via London to a family situation where he found himself in constant
conflict with his concerned but dominant mother.

Just two months after the death of Peggy Sinclair from tuberculosis,
Beckett's father died on 26 June 1933, leaving him feeling guilty and
depressed-primarily at having let down his father by resigning from his
academic post. He was suffering from panic and a racing heart, which had
disturbed him in a milder form ever since his student days; his troubles
were diagnosed as likely to be mental in origin, and he was forced to go
to England to seek psychological help in London (psychoanalysis was not
permitted in Dublin at the time). He underwent psychotherapy for almost
two years with Wilfred Rupert Bion at the Tavistock Clinic. During this
period, Beckett also read books on psychology and psychoanalysis by Freud,
Stekel, Adler, Jones, and Rank. He several times visited the Bethlem Royal
Hospital, where an old Portora schoolfriend worked as a doctor. Beckett's
own experience of psychotherapy and his enduring interest in
schizophrenia, obsessional neuroses, and other forms of mental disturbance
had a deep impact on his later prose fiction and plays. Although he had
turned his back earlier on an academic career, he remained a scholar at
heart, reading widely in the mid-1930s on philosophy, literature, and
science; most of his philosophy notes have been preserved. From this date
on, his writings had a strong philosophical infrastructure.

In 1934 Beckett published More Pricks than Kicks , a collection of ten
witty and satirical short stories about an Irish intellectual called
Belacqua Shuah, borrowing the name of Belacqua from Dante's indolent
figure in the Purgatorio. He had also used the name in Dream of Fair to
Middling Women and recycled some of the abandoned Dream material in More
Pricks than Kicks. In 1935 he assembled the best of his erudite but highly
personal poems into a slim volume entitled Echo's Bones and other
Precipitates. He also tried to create a name for himself in literary
circles by contributing poems and book reviews to The Spectator, The
Bookman, and The Criterion. But both the poems and the reviews tended to
be learned and obscure, and he had scant success.

During his stay in London for psychotherapy Beckett began a novel, set in
London and Dublin, called Murphy . Completed by June 1936, this was turned
down by dozens of publishers and was not published until 1938. An
intellectual, comic novel of ideas, Murphy is probably one of Beckett's
least experimental works. Yet it still deals with some of his most
persistent themes: the uneasy relationship of mind and body and the desire
to escape from the 'big blooming buzzing confusion' (Beckett, Murphy, 245)
of a world of ambition, aspiration, and will, to seek out instead a state
of quietistic peace.

In 1936-7, dogged by ill health, Beckett toured Nazi Germany, indulging
his passionate interest in painting and sculpture. On returning home he
became involved in a celebrated court case when he acted as chief witness
for his uncle, Harry Sinclair, who had been libelled by Oliver St John
Gogarty. While standing up for his uncle's good name, he was publicly
humiliated as the 'bawd and blasphemer from Paris'. After a blazing row
with his mother he left Ireland to settle down finally in Paris, where on
5 January 1938 he was stabbed by a pimp. When his assailant met Beckett in
court, he told him that he did not know why he had done it. Beckett had
been in a coma for a few hours and, although the knife had narrowly missed
his heart, he was seriously ill for some time.

Before and after the stabbing Beckett had a number of affairs. One was
with the American art collector and heiress Peggy Guggenheim, who admitted
that she was 'entirely obsessed for over a year by the strange creature,
Samuel Beckett' (P. Guggenheim, Out of this Century , 1980, 167); they had
a turbulent sexual relationship which evolved into a strange friendship.
Another was with the Frenchwoman Suzanne Georgette Anna
Deschevaux-Dumesnil (1901-1989), an accomplished pianist. He had met
Suzanne some ten years before, and when she learned of his stabbing from a
newspaper she visited him several times in hospital. They were soon living
together at 6 rue des Favorites but did not marry until 1961.

Although Beckett described the period just before the outbreak of the
Second World War as a 'period of lostness, drifting around, seeing a few
friends-a period of apathy and lethargy' (Knowlson, 295), he was evolving
specifically as a French writer. In 1938-9 he wrote some poems in French
and translated Murphy with the help of a friend, Alfred P?ron, who had
been the French lecteur during Beckett's final year as a student.

After the fall of France in June 1940 P?ron introduced Beckett, supposedly
neutral as an Irishman, to a British-controlled Special Operations
Executive (SOE) resistance cell, Gloria SMH. Beckett worked as a liaison
officer and translator, receiving and passing on messages from various
agents, first to a photographer for microfilming, then to a courier to be
taken over the line into the unoccupied zone. But the cell was
infiltrated, and in August 1942 its members were betrayed by a French
priest, Robert Alesch, who was working for the German Abwehr. Many members
of the group were arrested and deported to concentration camps but,
forewarned by P?ron's wife, Beckett and Suzanne managed to escape with
hours to spare. After spending several weeks on the run, they lived out
the rest of the war in the little village of Roussillon in the Vaucluse,
where Beckett wrote his extraordinary novel Watt, partly as a stylistic
exercise and partly in order to stay sane in a place where he was cut off
from most intellectual pursuits. Written in English, it was a daring
linguistic experiment and, because of its strange subject matter as well
as its manner, was not published until 1953. After the war he was
decorated with the medals of the Croix de Guerre and the m?daille de la
Reconnaissance Fran?aise. Characteristically, he told nobody about these
decorations-not even his closest friends.

A frenzy of writing

After the war Beckett returned to Ireland to see his mother, but in order
to obtain permission to return to France to join Suzanne he volunteered to
work as an interpreter and storekeeper at the Irish Red Cross hospital in
the Normandy town of St-L?, which had been devastated by allied bombing
and shelling after the D-day landings. He returned to Paris to endure the
most poverty-stricken years of his life. At this time he engaged in a
remarkable 'frenzy of writing' in French, while Suzanne worked at
dressmaking and gave music lessons in an attempt to make ends meet.

The war had a lasting effect on Beckett's personal philosophy and his
writing. Many aspects of his later works were born out of his experiences
of uncertainty, disorientation, danger, deprivation, and exile. While
visiting his mother in Foxrock he also had a 'revelation' which marked
something of a turning point in how he approached his writing: 'Molloy and
the others came to me the day I became aware of my own folly. Only then
did I begin to write the things I feel' (Graver and Federman, 217). He
recognized earlier that he had to divorce himself from Joyce's stylistic
influence. Now he realized that he had to follow a radically different
path from Joyce, who believed that knowledge was a creative way of
understanding and controlling the world. Beckett's 'own way was in
impoverishment, in lack of knowledge and in taking away, in subtracting
rather than adding' (Knowlson, 352). Light, knowledge, understanding, and
success were replaced by darkness, impotence, ignorance, and failure.
Beckett also realized that he needed to draw on the turmoil and
uncertainty of his own inner consciousness rather than on the external,
'real' world; contradictions would be allowed greater freedom; the
imagination would be given the scope to construct alternative worlds. To
express this vision Beckett rejected some of the techniques that he had
followed earlier. Writing in French allowed him to achieve a greater
simplicity and objectivity. His prose was no longer full of the densely
layered quotations and erudite allusions of his English prose of the
1930s.

Beckett's first novel in French, Mercier et Camier was finished in 1946.
He regarded it later as an apprentice work and was unwilling to have it
published until 1970. It was, however, something of a sourcebook for his
later writing and allowed him to experiment with dialogue, preparing him
for his excursions into drama. At the beginning of 1947 he wrote his first
full-length play in French, Eleutheria -the title being a Greek word for
freedom. He was very insistent throughout his life that this should be
neither published nor performed, perhaps because it contained certain
autobiographical features or had some flaws in its construction. As a
result the play was published only after his death.

Beckett's financial situation and his health were precarious immediately
after the war. But he wrote frenetically and in French. He completed the
novel trilogy Molloy (1951), Malone meurt (Malone Dies) (1951), and
L'innommable (The Unnamable) (1953), on which, with his play En attendant
Godot (Waiting for Godot ), so much of his reputation as an innovator and
a master stylist in French and English rests. For, unusually, Beckett
himself translated most of his prose texts and his plays from one language
into the other, working in both directions and re-creating the work each
time in the other language. The novels and novellas of the post-war years
showed how much the revelation in his mother's house had affected his
writing. Characters blend into each other; clues followed, as if in a
detective novel, lead nowhere; radical uncertainties about the world and
the self predominate; philosophical, psychological, literary, or artistic
motifs are no longer used allusively but are integrated into the structure
of the work. Suzanne carried the original French manuscripts of the novels
around a variety of publishers and, after dozens of refusals, a young
publisher, J?r?me Lindon, at the ?ditions de Minuit finally accepted them.

Waiting for Godot was first written in French between October 1948 and
January 1949. Beckett's theatrical imagery for this play is stark and
minimalist. Two tramp-clowns, Estragon and Vladimir, wait for someone
called Godot to come. They hope that his visit will 'save' them. In the
meantime they fill in 'the terrible silence that is waiting to flood into
this play like water into a sinking ship' (Beckett) with banter and
repeated actions. Two other passers-by (Pozzo and Lucky) arrive to provide
a distraction (and display a view of life as a series of purposeless
movements). After the visitors have left, a boy messenger comes to inform
them that Mr Godot will not come today, but will certainly come tomorrow.
The same pattern is repeated with significant variations in the second
act: Lucky has become mute; Pozzo has gone blind. But a boy messenger
returns to convey the same message about Mr Godot. Such apparent
simplicity disguises some profound themes: life's brevity and its pain;
the human need for something to confer meaning on a mysterious existence;
in its absence, a compensatory need for friendship to protect and sustain,
yet fail to satisfy; a Cartesian concern with the uneasy interplay of mind
and body; and, above all, a radical uncertainty which characterizes every
aspect of the two friends' lives. Man is seen, in Beckett's own words, as
a 'non-know-er, a non-can-er'. The French actor-director Roger Blin, again
contacted by Suzanne, then by Lindon, eventually managed to raise enough
money to put on En attendant Godot at the tiny Th??tre de Babylone in
Paris in January 1953. The extraordinary success of this first production
in French was responsible for Beckett's rise to worldwide fame, as the
play rapidly became an object of intense international interest and
controversy. The first production of Beckett's own English translation,
directed by Peter Hall, was staged at the Arts Theatre Club in London in
August 1955. Kenneth Tynan's and Harold Hobson's reviews made it into an
intellectual hit which has since been regarded as having transformed the
British stage.

Later work

With money left to him by his mother Beckett had a small country house
built near Ussy-sur-Marne outside Paris. For the first time in his adult
life he also found himself comfortably off owing to the success of Waiting
for Godot . In 1954 he lost his brother to cancer. He was with Frank until
the end in what was one of the most devastating experiences of his life.
Soon after this, however, he felt the return of his creative energy and
wrote a first draft of Fin de partie (Endgame), a play profoundly marked
by his brother's death. It was premiered in French in London on 3 April
1957.

In 1956, at the request of the BBC, Beckett wrote a radio play, All that
Fall . It drew on memories of his protestant childhood and his later
abandoned faith. While writing the play Beckett was plunged into a state
of depression, but the play itself is full of wit and vitality. He was
further shattered by news that Ethna MacCarthy, married by then to one of
his closest friends, A. J. Leventhal, was dying of cancer. But memories of
her, combined with a number of related themes-a gnostic contrast of light
and dark; the relationship with one's former self; an exploration of
similarity and difference in human life-inspired his short play Krapp's
Last Tape . At about this time he began a long-term relationship with
Barbara Bray, a script editor at the BBC, with whom he remained on very
close terms for the rest of his life, while never leaving his wife,
Suzanne. He received an honorary degree of DLitt from Trinity College,
Dublin, in 1959.

Beckett started writing the play Happy Days (1961) in October 1960 and it
opened on 1 November 1962. As in all Beckett's plays, philosophical
concerns take the form of striking theatrical images. In this play a woman
is buried up to her waist in act I and up to her neck in act II: 'a new
stage metaphor for the old human condition-burial in a dying earth,
exposure under a ruthless sun' (Cohn, The Comic Gamut), as the sands of
time literally engulf her. Krapp's Last Tape and Play tend to 'destabilize
and disperse' (Lawley) individual identity in plays which are built on a
clever use of monologue. Yet we respond first at a human level to the
physical, the concrete, and the visual. Only then do we move to the
philosophical significance of the images, actions, or words.

Beckett felt that, because of its very physical, corporeal nature, theatre
inevitably involved compromise. In his post-war prose fiction he was less
restricted in exploring his deepest concerns. He was freer to explore and
attempt to express being, which for him was chaotic, formless, enigmatic,
and mysterious. Language is form and form represents an obstacle to
capturing being. Form is a sign of strength, whereas Beckett was seeking
what he once referred to as a 'syntax of weakness'. So breaking down the
traditional forms of fictional and theatrical structure and language
became an essential element in a bold attempt to express such formless
being. The novel trilogy, and Comment c'est (How It Is ) (1961) in
particular, deal with issues of consciousness and the self. For to talk of
the self one must objectify that self, hence create a self which is
different from the one doing the observing or the describing. This results
in a constantly receding series of observers or storytellers, voices or
listeners.

On 25 March 1961 Beckett secretly married Suzanne Deschevaux-Dumesnil in
Folkestone. He wanted Suzanne to inherit the rights to works whose
publication she had tirelessly arranged. But he continued to see Barbara
Bray, who had moved to live in Paris. His next play, Play (1964), parodied
the conventional responses of a man and two women involved in an emotional
triangle.

In the mid-1960s Beckett's theatre commitments became very taxing. From
that time on he directed his own plays both for the stage and for
television. Chiefly he directed at the Schiller-Theater in Berlin and in
the studios of S?ddeutscher Rundfunk in Stuttgart, but also in Paris and
London. In his own productions he refined his plays in the light of
theatrical practicalities, introducing many small cuts and changes to his
texts. Beckett's own theatrical notebooks prove that he was an excellent
choreographer, with a talent for what he described as 'form in movement'.
He also worked in New York on a film, entitled Film (1965), starring
Buster Keaton and directed by his American director friend Alan Schneider;
and on a play for television, Eh Joe (1967). While receiving treatment for
what turned out to be a benign tumour in the roof of his mouth, he wrote a
short play in English, Come and Go (1967), in which three women comment on
their illnesses or imminent deaths.

During this same period Beckett wrote a number of spare, minimalist prose
texts in French. Imagination morte imaginez (Imagination Dead Imagine)
(1965) is set in a white rotunda in which two figures exist like embryos
waiting for birth or extinction. In Le d?peupleur (The Lost Ones) (1971) a
larger cylinder is inhabited by 200 people who live out a strictly
regulated Dantesque existence. Bing (Ping in English) (1966) features a
single figure in a small white cube. These works come very close to being
formalist constructs, creating alternative worlds. Yet the texts are
powerful as well as enigmatic and, in spite of all appearances, they do
draw from and reflect on the 'real' world. What remains of consciousness
in a world where all is reduced? How can the imagination persist when it
seems already to have died? Such 'residua' are attempts to continue
expressing in a world of receding possibilities where one of the major
restrictions is an acute awareness of the inadequacy of language to
express.

Beckett's plays of the 1970s come much closer to basic human concerns: in
Not I (1973), a Mouth high in the darkness spews out words in an
unstoppable stream-the theatrical equivalent of a Munch-like scream of
despair; in Footfalls (1976) we are confronted by an image of distress and
loss in the person of May, literally 'revolving it all in her poor mind',
as she paces across the stage; in That Time (1976) the discontinuity of
self, yet persistence of a basic consciousness, is revealed in a verbal
kaleidoscope of images from different periods of the narrator's life. The
central visual image, often inspired by particular paintings of the old
masters (Giorgione, Rembrandt, Antonello, D?rer), is crucial to the
dramatic effect. Yet Beckett combines words and visual images in a highly
innovative way, as he explores what is essential to theatre for it still
to remain theatre.

In the early 1980s Beckett produced for a Beckett conference in Ohio a
play called Ohio Impromptu (1981), which, with its two almost identical,
gowned figures sitting at a table, resembles a Rembrandt or a Terborch
painting. He also wrote the beautiful short play Rockaby (1981), in which
a woman dressed in black is rocked backwards and forwards in a chair to
the rhythm of her recorded voice. Her recorded words take the form of a
poem. From time to time the live figure repeats the line 'Time she stopped'
in synchronicity with the recording. Billie Whitelaw, one of Beckett's
favourite actresses, played the woman in its first production.

Last years

In 1980 Company , a highly original prose text, first written in English,
was published. Although there are autobiographical reminiscences,
especially from Beckett's childhood, it is in no sense a conventional
autobiography, for the text revolves around some of his most basic themes:
solitude, loneliness, the unreliability of memory, uncertainties to do
with both the self and the other. Another woman in black is recalled by
the narrator of the prose piece Mal vu mal dit (Ill Seen Ill Said ),
written in French and published in 1981. Surrounded by twelve shadowy
figures, the woman is drawn to a stone that resembles a white tombstone.
Then, this time in English, and partly inspired by Edgar's speech in King
Lear, 'The worst is not so long as one can say, This is the worst', he
wrote another quite extraordinary prose piece, Worstward Ho (1983), about
the will to 'fail better'. Though concerned with the failure of language,
it achieves a chilling vibrancy in its stark prose. Stirrings Still (1988)
was Beckett's last prose text, although his final piece of writing was a
poem, Comment dire (What is the Word) (1989), written after he had
regained consciousness in a hospital following a fall.

As a young man Beckett was shy, taciturn, and self-absorbed. In later life
he became far more genial and was noted for his kindness and his
generosity towards others. Although witty, warm, and friendly with close
friends, he was never gregarious and hated invasions of his privacy. He
refused to be interviewed or to have any part in promoting his books. His
physical appearance was very striking: he was 6 feet tall, with a face
like an Aztec eagle, piercing blue eyes, large ears, and spiky hair.

Beckett's interests were highly intellectual. He read widely in English,
French, Italian, and German literature. In his late twenties and early
thirties he read a lot of philosophy: the pre-Socratics, Plato, Descartes,
and the occasionalists, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Kant. His interest in the
painting of the old masters and in sculpture remained with him throughout
his life and he was a friend of many modern painters, in particular Bram
and Geer van Velde, Henri Hayden, and Avigdor Arikha. He owned paintings
by all these artists. He was a good pianist, who loved Haydn, Schubert,
Beethoven, Chopin, and Mozart and attended concerts and recitals with his
wife, who was also an excellent pianist. He did not generally like opera,
but he did go to see several ballets in the 1930s. Music and painting were
probably among the most important influences on Beckett's own writing, and
his late work for the stage appears sometimes closer to painting or
sculpture than it does to traditional theatre.

In his political views Beckett was broadly left-wing and
anti-establishment, although not a communist. He felt a natural sympathy
for the underdog, the victim, the down-and-out, and the prisoner. He never
allowed his art, however, to become part of any political agenda, although
he wrote one play, Catastrophe , in 1982 for the Czech dissident writer
V?clav Havel, then under house arrest, who later became president of
Czechoslovakia. He was a firm supporter of human rights movements
throughout the world and a fierce opponent of all forms of censorship and
repression.

Beckett's health, which had so often been precarious, began to decline
seriously in 1986 with the onset of respiratory troubles soon diagnosed as
emphysema. In the following year, being deprived of oxygen, he had several
falls, and in the summer of 1988, after falling badly, he went to live in
a modest nursing home, called Le Tiers Temps (the Third Age). He was taken
ill again on 6 December and died in the H?pital St Anne in Paris of
respiratory failure on 22 December 1989. After a small private funeral he
was buried with his wife, who had died fewer than six months before, in
the cemetery of Montparnasse, Paris, on 26 December.

Beckett changed the entire face of post-war theatre and also inspired many
modern painters and video or installation artists. His prose, too, was
immensely influential. He is often described as a pessimist or nihilist,
and it would be wrong to understate the sombre nature of his dark vision.
Yet such categorizations are wholly inadequate. They ignore the persistent
need of the characters in his fiction and his drama to go resolutely,
stoically on. They also ignore the humour which is a major feature of what
might be called his early and middle periods. Beckett was awarded the
Nobel prize for literature in 1969: 'For his writing which-in new forms
for the novel and drama-in the destitution of modern man acquires its
elevation' (citation). And it is easy to ignore a positive, almost
cathartic effect that may be gained from laughing at the worst that life
can throw at you or from merely enduring it in a brave, perhaps even an
uplifting way.

JAMES KNOWLSON

Sources

personal knowledge (2004) ? private information (2004) [heirs, family, and
friends] ? L. Harvey, notes of interviews, 1960?69, Dartmouth College,
Baker Library ? J. Knowlson, Damned to fame: the life of Samuel Beckett
(1996) ? S. Beckett, More pricks than kicks (1934) ? S. Beckett, Murphy
(1938) ? S. Beckett, Molloy, Malone dies, The unnamable (1959) ? S.
Beckett, Collected shorter plays (1984) ? S. Beckett, Collected shorter
prose, 1945-1980 (1988) ? citation for the Nobel prize for literature,
1969, Nobel Foundation ? R. Federman and J. Fletcher, Samuel Beckett: his
works and his critics (1970) ? L. Graver and R. Federman, Samuel Beckett:
the critical heritage (1979) ? J. Knowlson and J. Pilling, Frescoes of the
skull: the recent prose and drama of Samuel Beckett (1979) ? R. Cohn, The
comic gamut (1962) ? R. Cohn, Just play: Beckett's theater (1980) ? P.
Chabert, ed., Revue d'Esth?tique (1986) [special Beckett issue] ? L. E.
Harvey, Samuel Beckett: poet and critic (1970) ? H. Kenner, Samuel
Beckett: a critical study (1968) ? C. Lake, ed., No symbols where none
intended (1984) ? P. Lawley, 'From Krapp's last tape to Play', The
Cambridge companion to Beckett, ed. J. Pilling (1994) ? C. Locatelli,
Unwording the world: Samuel Beckett's prose texts after the Nobel prize
(1990) ? J. Pilling, Beckett before 'Godot': the formative years,
1929-1946 (1997) ? P. J. Murphy, Reconstructing Beckett: language for
being in Samuel Beckett's fiction (1990) ? E. Brater, Beyond minimalism:
Beckett's late style in the theater (1987) ? S. E. Gontarski, The intent
of undoing in Samuel Beckett's dramatic texts (1985)

Archives

BBC WAC ? Boston College, Massachusetts, John J. Burns Library ? Harvard
U., Houghton L., corresp., literary MSS, and papers ? Indiana University,
Bloomington, Lilly Library ? Institut des M?moires de l'?dition
Contemporaine, Paris ? Princeton University Library, New Jersey ? Syracuse
University, New York ? TCD, ephemeral material ? U. Reading L., letters
and literary MSS; further papers ? Washington University, St Louis,
Missouri, letters, literary MSS and papers |  Harvard U., Houghton L.,
letters to Miss Willard ? TCD, letters to Bettina Jonic ? TCD, letters to
Thomas MacGreevy ? TCD, corresp. with Alan Simpson relating to the Pike
Theatre productions of his plays ? TCD, corresp. with Percy Arland Ussher
? TCD, letters to Herbert Martin Oliver White ? University of British
Columbia, corresp. with Laure Riese

Likenesses

P. Joyce, photograph, 1949, NPG ? photographs, 1950-1986, Hult. Arch. ? H.
Hayden, pen-and-ink drawing, 1957 (Samuel Beckett), priv. coll. ? H.
Cartier-Bresson, photograph, 1964, NPG [see illus.] ? A. Arikha, brush and
India ink on paper, 1967 (Samuel Beckett leaning), priv. coll. ?
pen-and-ink drawing, 1967, priv. coll. ? portrait, 1969, priv. coll. ?
brush and sumi ink drawing, 1970, Centre Pompidou, Paris ? etching, 1971,
priv. coll. ? graphite drawing, 1971, NPG ? portrait, 1971, priv. coll. ?
silverpoint drawing, 1971, priv. coll. ? silverpoint drawing, 1975, priv.
coll. ? J. Brown, photograph, 1976, NPG ? graphite drawing, 1976, priv.
coll. ? J. Baner, photograph, 1978, NPG ? L. le Brocquy, oils, 1979 ? T.
Philips, lithograph, 1984, priv. coll. ? T. Philips, lithograph, 1984, NPG
? B. O'Toole, pastel drawing, 1989, U. Reading L., department of archives
and manuscripts ? L. le Brocquy, oils, 1992 ? M. Abbott, pastel drawing,
2000, U. Reading L., department of archives and manuscripts ? S.
O'Sullivan, charcoal drawing (Portrait of Samuel Beckett), priv. coll.

From checker at panix.com  Fri Feb  4 14:55:22 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 09:55:22 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] CHE: Should a Mentor Be a Friend?
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502040954091.10866@panix2.panix.com>

Should a Mentor Be a Friend?
The Chronicle of Higher Education, 5.1.21
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i20/20c00201.htm

    FIRST PERSON

    A tenured professor fears that he is too emotionally invested in his
    relationship with a young colleague

    By FRANK MIDLER

    I am trying very hard not to screw up a relationship that feels like
    the most substantial and professionally important of my career to this
    point. That relationship also feels like one of the most satisfying
    personal connections I have made in the past several years, and I find
    myself not knowing how to be a mentor and a friend at the same time.
    The literature on serving as a mentor to junior colleagues is
    extensive, and departments and universities use a number of official
    means to encourage professional guidance for new faculty members.
    Official programs can help, but even when done well, they aren't
    enough.
    And so new assistant professors, searching for the key to professional
    success, often make informal appeals to slightly older colleagues. Or
    newcomers turn to the distance-education form of mentoring, consulting
    columns like this one and Web sources on academic careers. And of
    course, the new faculty member can always turn to his or her
    dissertation director for advice, but those of us who have experienced
    the natural, if disappointing, postgraduate lapse of intimacy with our
    advisers know that it's not a good idea to go to that well too often.
    Having recently received tenure -- and having participated on a search
    committee in my department last year -- I am in a good position to be
    a mentor for at least one of my new junior colleagues. I am
    professionally secure, still ambitious, and still myself interested in
    negotiating our various institutional structures.
    And since my own experience as a new assistant professor benefited
    more than I can say from the guidance of two recently tenured
    colleagues, I have felt all along that helping new faculty members
    adjust to the campus and to the larger pressures of academic life was
    a duty that came along with tenure.
    My career as teacher, scholar, and administrator is a direct result of
    the care that my two mentors took to introduce me to faculty life.
    Their efforts ranged from the formal (introducing me to important
    colleagues and administrators, putting me in touch with relevant
    librarians, reading my scholarly work, observing my teaching,
    providing advice on publication venues, writing letters of
    recommendation for fellowships) to the informal (mostly involving long
    conversations facilitated by substances like coffee, beer, and
    tobacco).
    I have moved on to another job, but my two mentors are now cherished
    friends and professional collaborators. I miss their daily presence in
    my life. I wouldn't be successful -- I wouldn't even be tenured
    -- without the time, care, and love they offered me, and I'm proud to
    think of myself as their prot?g? even if they would (probably)
    pooh-pooh the extent of their contribution.
    Wishing to emulate my own mentors, I have become a mentor, but I find
    myself stumbling badly and I fear that I won't be able to help my new
    colleague.
    I have no sinister motives, but unfortunately our relationship has
    been complicated by the friendly affection I feel for her. Wanting her
    to like me as a friend, I find myself violating the structure of a
    good mentoring relationship. Instead of presenting a consistent,
    strong, and confident manner, I find myself lapsing into confession
    and gossip -- two of the fatal Cleopatras of any professional
    relationship.
    My new colleague is fresh out of graduate school. We had chosen Karen
    over a number of highly experienced and well-published assistant
    professors at other institutions. We weren't the only ones interested
    in her, and I attribute some of her decision to accept our offer to a
    flurry of e-mail messages I sent to her last spring explaining some of
    the great things for junior faculty members at our university and
    extolling the high quality of life in Midwestern college towns.
    At the same time, I committed myself to spending the time and energy
    to help her gain full access to the resources of our university. Even
    though our fields are not identical, they're close enough for us to
    talk about scholarship. I resolved to do for my new colleague what my
    own mentors had done for me. Although I knew my time this year would
    be threatened by administrative duties, I would be on the campus daily
    and therefore would be available to provide advice and listen to
    concerns.
    A kink emerged in my grand scheme when I took an immediate liking to
    Karen and her husband, Bill. They had been here a mere two weeks when
    my wife and I decided they would be our best friends in town. Even
    when our conversation focused on professional issues, it felt fully
    personal. And when our families got together, I forgot that there was
    anything institutional about our relationship.
    I desperately wanted Karen and Bill to like us as much as we liked
    them, and at the same time I felt a pit growing in my stomach as I
    contemplated a time -- three or four years down the line, maybe
    -- when the two East Coasters would ride early scholarly success to
    another university, probably in a "blue" state.
    Trying not to think too deeply about it, I went on a charm offensive.
    Unfortunately, my self-perceived "charm" became immediately
    "offensive." I told Karen all about myself. And the more I felt myself
    overreaching, the more I pulled out everything in my arsenal: Within a
    month, my new colleague knew more about me than any colleague should
    be obliged to know.
    Even worse, I told her what I think -- what I really think -- about
    many of our colleagues in the department.
    I answered her e-mail messages immediately, ignoring more important
    communications from students and editors, and I practically brimmed
    over with enthusiasm when she ducked her head into my office.
    I'm sure that some of my efforts have been useful: Karen hasn't
    hesitated to ask me about how our institution works, and I have been
    able to steer her toward reliable administrators as well as inform her
    of the written and unwritten rules of teaching here.
    But I turned our relationship upside down, too. Karen and Bill have a
    son a year older than ours, and I began to go to her for child-rearing
    advice, putting myself in the role of prot?g? to her parental mentor.
    My wife looked on with sympathy, registering the disappointment on my
    face when I would learn that Karen and Bill were spending Friday night
    with some of her fellow first-year assistant professors and their
    partners rather than with us. I think you get the picture: I was
    pathetic.
    I knew all along that my behavior was wrong. The prot?g? owes the
    mentor nothing in a personal sense. Furthermore, it is crucial for the
    life of a department that all new faculty members develop independent
    lives in town and across campus. I didn't really mean to interfere,
    but my own insecurities -- and perhaps my envy of her youth, her fresh
    intelligence, and the long, unpredictably open future she will have as
    scholar and teacher -- drove me to butt in when I should have made
    myself back off.
    A few weeks ago, I took them a small housewarming gift. Karen and Bill
    met us in the doorway. "We wanted to talk to both of you," Bill said,
    going on to deliver a bombshell.
    When I got home, I said to my wife, "Karen and Bill wanted to talk to
    us. They have some news. Guess."
    "They're leaving!" she said, in a horrified tone. I had been hoping
    that would be my wife's response, since it revealed I was not the only
    one besotted with our new friends.
    "Nope," I said, "Karen's pregnant."
    The joy I feel for my new colleague is a bit too much. I really do
    believe this is a good time in her career for her to have a second
    child, as she'll be able to spend a solid stretch of years doing the
    work required to get tenure without further interruption and with a
    steady (if action-packed) home situation. I also feel good that I can
    help her negotiate our university's byzantine procedures for dealing
    with parental leave. But it's neither morally right nor
    psychologically healthy for me to be as emotionally invested in our
    relationship as I am.
    I can't help myself! Despite repeated promises to reform my behavior,
    I continue to provide way too much information, compounding the
    problem by delivering extensive apologies after dropping especially
    juicy bits of inappropriate opinion. "It's OK," Karen said to me
    wearily over lunch last week. "I figure that's just Frank."
    Becoming a truly good mentor will require me to divest myself of
    emotion -- or at least to separate friendship from the dispassionate
    role of a mentor. A good mentor should talk little and listen lots,
    providing an example of professionalism while dispensing useful
    information. I'm not sure I could be accused of malpractice, but
    neither have I done the job properly.

    Frank Midler is the pseudonym of a newly tenured associate professor
    at a large Midwestern research university. He writes an occasional
    column on life as a newly tenured faculty member. For an archive of
    his previous columns, see
    [3]http://chronicle.com/jobs/archive/firstperson/midler.htm

References

    3. http://chronicle.com/jobs/archive/firstperson/midler.htm

E-mail me if you have problems getting the referenced articles.

From checker at panix.com  Fri Feb  4 14:56:17 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 09:56:17 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] CHE: Castro Out of Context
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502040955280.10866@panix2.panix.com>

Castro Out of Context
The Chronicle of Higher Education, 5.1.21
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i20/20b01501.htm

    TELEVISION

    By LOUIS A. P?REZ JR.

    No foreign head of state has defied U.S. efforts at regime change
    longer than Fidel Castro. Since 1959 he has survived an armed
    invasion, repeated assassination attempts, years of political
    isolation, and decades of economic sanctions. Forty-six years later,
    Castro is alive, if not so well, 90 miles away, still in power, still
    defying the United States.
    Survival under such circumstances is tantamount to at least one kind
    of success, and success draws a crowd. Americans have displayed a
    curious ambivalence toward Castro, not necessarily disagreeing with
    their government's stance toward Cuba but nonetheless fascinated by
    the man who has so confounded 10 American presidents.
    That fascination has transformed Castro into a veritable cottage
    industry. Castro biographies -- by academics, journalists, and at
    least one psychiatrist -- have become almost an American literary
    genre. Then there is Fidel in fiction: an "unauthorized
    autobiography," a play, and such fantasy titles as Fidel Castro
    Assassinated and A Bullet for Fidel. In the marketplace, that most
    remorseless measure of public interest, Castro sells.
    He has also achieved something of an iconic status in myriad news
    interviews, documentaries, and docudramas, among them Saul Landau's
    Fidel (1969) and, with Dan Rather for CBS, Castro, Cuba, and the U.S.
    (1974). Rather interviewed Castro again in 1996 for CBS's The Last
    Revolutionary. The cigared one has been featured in Marita Lorenz's
    film Dear Fidel, Estela Bravo's Fidel, a CNN interview with Ted
    Turner, a docudrama for Showtime, a 10-part series on Univisi?n
    featuring Castro's home movies, an Oliver Stone documentary for HBO,
    and on and on. Never mind his portrayal by Jack Palance, Joe Mantegna,
    Anthony LaPaglia, and others in overheated comic or melodramatic
    turns.
    In 1993 The Miami Herald ranked Castro as the second "most
    influential" person in South Florida history, preceded only by the
    Florida tourism developer Henry Flagler. It is fitting, then, that PBS
    should include Castro within the scope of the American Experience
    series, although I hope it's not too radical to suggest that he's more
    integral to the Cuban experience.
    Castro is a political Rorschach test. All Castro documentaries presume
    to inform, but they mostly inform on their own sympathetic or hostile
    political views. It could hardly be otherwise. He is not a man about
    whom one is likely to be neutral.
    PBS's Fidel Castro is true to type. It pulls no punches, setting the
    tone in the first 15 minutes as it describes Castro's youth and
    university years.
    He is "the hick" (el guajiro), an outsider, illegitimate, unruly, and
    disruptive at the school from which he is said to have been expelled;
    a boy whose "reckless behavior" earned him the name of "the crazy one"
    (el loco); a "ferocious son" alleged to have threatened to burn his
    parents' house down; a combination of "genius and juvenile delinquent"
    who showed "signs of brilliance and then behaved like a hoodlum,"
    influenced by fascist priests, and incapable of empathy for the normal
    needs of ordinary people. He is implicated in two murders during his
    university years and characterized by his ex-brother-in-law as a
    paranoid psychopath who might just as soon throw his wife out of a
    10-story window as buy her a mink coat.
    That perspective, reinforced by interviews with exiles and defectors,
    shapes the narrative arc of the documentary, which was written,
    produced, and directed by Cuban-born Adriana Bosch. She draws on the
    memories of Castro's boyhood friends and estranged family members,
    allies turned adversaries, former government officials and political
    prisoners. These are not disinterested voices, of course, but together
    they serve the film well, bearing witness to disappointment and
    disaffection.
    The historical Castro is infinitely more elusive, however. More than
    half of the program attempts, with only partial success, to explain
    how the first six decades of the Cuban republic (founded in 1902) set
    the stage for Castro's political ascent. The documentary chronicles
    decades of public immorality and official malfeasance, particularly
    under Gen. Gerardo Machado y Morales and Fulgencio Batista; the
    deepening popular revulsion with the prevailing order; and the
    subsequent rebellion and, ultimately, revolution, including student
    protests and labor strikes in the 1930s and urban warfare and rural
    insurgency in the 1950s. But the film is loath to concede to Castro
    anything more than secondary significance in that process. His motives
    are questioned, his importance minimized. Castro is acknowledged as
    historical agent but denied historical agency.
    His role, as presented here, is self-serving and suspect, a function
    of vanity ("glory and fame" are what the young Fidel is said to have
    coveted) and opportunism. ("Without money," recalls one interviewee,
    "his marriage on the rocks, no work, he doesn't know what to do. ...
    He says 'I have to deliver a blow. I have to make a revolution.'")
    Castro's stature, we are told, does not result from his bold,
    practically suicidal 1953 attack on the Moncada barracks to dislodge
    Batista's dictatorship, but from the "published photographs of the
    mutilated bodies of Cuba's youth [that] repulsed the nation and made a
    hero of [him]." The reporter Herbert Matthews and The New York Times
    "launched the legend of Fidel Castro." The Castro-led rural insurgency
    was not as important as the urban resistance, the program suggests,
    for while "Fidel played up his war for an American television
    audience, a much larger war was being waged in Cuba's cities."
    One could certainly make a case for any one of those propositions. But
    to advance all of them on flimsy evidence is to advance a cause.
    Surely Castro must receive some credit for organizing the 26th of July
    Movement, for raising money, for directing the insurgency, and for
    summoning a nation to rise against the U.S.-backed dictator.
    Once Castro is in power, however, the documentary overcompensates,
    investing him with full, not to say superhuman, agency, but of a
    mischievous and malevolent kind, fueled by unrestrained ambition and
    unimpeded purpose. Nation, government, and people are subsumed into
    one man; politics and policy are personalized. The Cuban revolution,
    we are told, was "from the very first moments ... a one-man show." The
    dominant story line settles into a recurring motif: "Castro would
    drive two million Cubans into exile"; "Castro fans the flames of Cuban
    nationalism"; "Castro opened Cuba to foreign investors"; "Castro
    exported discontent"; "Castro's doctors and teachers were serving as
    far away as Yemen"; "Castro's troops were fighting in Angola and
    Ethiopia"; the Cubans in Grenada were "Castro's men"; the Sandinista
    triumph in Nicaragua was "Castro's victory"; the Sandinistas were
    "Castro's allies."
    Those are breathtaking assertions, of course, and must be received
    with reservation. To attribute reach of that magnitude to Castro alone
    is unduly facile. It is, more accurately, a measure of the fear and
    loathing in which Castro is held by his detractors. Worse still, such
    claims serve to dismiss the efforts of countless numbers of the other
    men and women who -- with ill will or good intentions -- played an
    important part in outcomes that are here attributed to one man. Many
    tens of thousands of men and women, not just Castro, mobilized to
    defend the island during the Bay of Pigs invasion, in 1961. Similarly,
    the Sandinista triumph over Somoza was a Nicaraguan achievement, not
    Castro's, one born by the heroic sacrifice and selfless struggle of
    the Nicaraguan people.
    The new revolutionary government in 1959 immediately mobilized to do
    something about historic grievances, especially chronic unemployment
    and the high cost of living. Reform could not have been undertaken
    without challenging the historically privileged place the United
    States occupied in Cuba. The Cuban determination to advance the
    primacy of national interests led inevitably to confrontation with the
    United States. It is, of course, no surprise that the United States
    responded with all the means at its disposal to defend its interests.
    At that point, Cuban actions, U.S. reactions, and Cuban counteractions
    become very complex, climaxing in the rupture of U.S.-Cuba relations
    and the establishment of Cuban-Soviet ties. The film accurately
    details the island's economic hardships during the 1990s, in the
    aftermath of the Soviet collapse, but is silent on the issue of the
    U.S. response. The documentary fails to mention the Torricelli Act
    (1992) and the Helms-Burton Act (1996), both of which contributed to
    making hard times in Cuba even harder. That omission invites the
    inference that Cubans were operating in a vacuum. U.S. policy has
    consequences: It is designed to. But those consequences are often not
    the ones intended or desired.
    Biography is difficult because it is contingent and contextual,
    fashioned out of creative engagement with multiple historical realms.
    Castro is actor but he is also acted upon, shaping history but also
    shaped by it. A two-hour documentary could at least give a sense of
    that by alluding to those circumstances. Castro is a member of the
    second-born generation of the republic, the men and women formed with
    the knowledge of the obstacles posed by the United States to Cuban
    self-determination, first from 1898 to 1902 and later in the 1930s. It
    is impossible to understand the character of the Cuban revolution and
    Castro's role in it without an awareness of that history.
    The program's emphasis, in service to its harsh judgment, is the
    filmmaker's prerogative. There are many versions of Castro. The Estela
    Bravo documentary, for example, relies on sympathetic first-person
    reminiscences to advance a very different point of view. Nelson
    Mandela praises Cuba's contributions to African liberation struggles,
    the writers Gabriel Garc&iacutea M?rquez and Alice Walker reflect on
    the achievements of the Cuban revolution, and a host of interviewees
    speak well of the Cuban leader.
    The PBS program is as much a document of the present as it is a
    documentary about the past. Precisely because it is so much an
    artifact of Cuban angst, the film is a moving representation of one
    historical perspective. It speaks to dashed hopes and broken hearts,
    of a nation that envisioned the possibility of a better future and
    mobilized on its behalf, only to be pulled by the ideological undertow
    of the East-West conflict during the cold war.
    Castro's vision, as well as his failures, can be explained only by the
    historical crosscurrents, material circumstances, moral systems, and
    transaction and transmission of power. So it is not without irony that
    a documentary that seeks to keep a critical distance from its subject
    is, in the end, drawn inexorably under that subject's sway.
    "Ultimately," Bosch explains in a news release, "the film is a
    cautionary tale. It is the tragic story of a nation who saw a Messiah
    in just a man."
    The Cuban people, the film tells us, "turned their good will, their
    faith, and their judgment to Fidel Castro," and he cast "a spell over"
    them. The film ends with a solemn lament of the consequences when "an
    entire nation placed its hopes in just one man."
    And so it is that the filmmakers also succumb to the spell of Fidel
    Castro. To attribute to Castro alone -- just one man -- the power to
    have shaped the destiny of so many people is to elevate him to the
    level of the gods. He would be pleased.

    Louis A. P?rez Jr. is a professor of history at the University of
    North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The most recent of his many books about
    Cuba is On Becoming Cuban: Identity, Nationality, and Culture
    (University of North Carolina Press, 1999). His next book, To Die in
    Cuba: Suicide and Society, will be published by the University of
    North Carolina Press this spring.

From checker at panix.com  Fri Feb  4 14:57:21 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 09:57:21 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Economist: The economics of happiness: Can't buy it?
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502040956200.10866@panix2.panix.com>

The economics of happiness: Can't buy it?
http://www.economist.com/printedition/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=3555887
5.1.14

    Happiness: Lessons from a New Science.
    By Richard Layard.
    The Penguin Press; 272 pages; $25.95.
    To be published in Britain by Penguin/Allen Lane in March

    FOR the past half-century, those lucky enough to have been born in a
    rich country have had every prospect of growing richer. On average,
    incomes in Britain, America and Japan, adjusted for inflation, have
    easily doubled over that time. On top of this come the benefits of
    longer lives of better quality, thanks to advances in medicine and to
    a plethora of consumer goodies making living easier and more
    enjoyable. You might, even, expect folk to be a great deal happier
    today than in the 1950s.

    You would be wrong, according to many surveys taken in rich countries.
    These tend to show that, once a country has lifted itself out of
    poverty, further rises in income seem not to create a meaningful rise
    in the proportion of people who count themselves as happy. Since the
    1950s, for example, the proportion of Americans who tell pollsters
    that they are "very happy" has stayed constant at around 30%, while
    the proportion who say that they are "not very happy" has barely
    fallen. Explaining this paradox, and offering suggestions for
    increasing the supply of happiness, is the aim of a new book by
    Richard Layard, a professor of economics at the London School of
    Economics and a Labour peer.

    Lord Layard devotes a good portion of the book to a summary of what is
    known about how to be happy. Much of it will appear self-evident:
    cultivate friendships, be involved in a community, try for a good
    marriage. But his big idea is controversial. It is that a zero-sum
    game of competition for money and status has gripped rich societies,
    and that this rat race is a big source of unhappiness. Put simply, one
    person's pay rise is another person's psychic loss. To make that loss
    worse, says the author, there are only so many top rungs on the ladder
    of status--and as a peer of the realm, Lord Layard should know.

    He is among a growing group of economists who are dissatisfied with
    the way that the dominant neoclassical school of economics gauges
    well-being. When they try to divine human desires and happiness,
    mainstream economists look much more at what people do rather than at
    what they say. If, perhaps, you choose to work 90-hour weeks and skimp
    on leisure time, it follows that work is what makes you happy--or at
    least happier than taking extra time for leisure: otherwise you would
    not be doing it. Your actions, in other words, are said to reveal your
    "true" preferences, even if you tell a researcher that you would
    rather be spending more time with your children (what is known as your
    "stated" preference).

    To counter such Panglossian logic, Lord Layard draws upon the findings
    of behavioural economists, who make use of the insights and techniques
    of psychologists. These are more inclined to give credence to people's
    stated desires and feelings. Among many things, the behaviourists have
    found that it is relative, not absolute wealth, that matters most to
    people. Mr Layard cites as evidence a study in which Harvard
    University students claimed to prefer earning $50,000 a year when
    their peers are on only $25,000 to a world in which they earn $100,000
    while their peers get more than double that amount. The survey sample
    is anything but representative, but you get the point.

    So, Lord Layard's thinking goes, by spending 90 hours a week in the
    office, you may be improving your own income, but you are also causing
    other people to feel less satisfied with theirs. They may be
    encouraged to work longer themselves just to keep up, taking from the
    time that gets devoted to family and community.

    It is, the author argues, something similar to environmental
    pollution, where one person's action (or a company's) makes others
    worse off. Fortunately, he notes, economists have already figured out
    how to deal with such externalities: tax them so that the polluter
    internalises the cost of his actions. And so, near the top of Lord
    Layard's list for improving human happiness, comes the following
    recommendation: much higher rates of income tax to tame the rat race.

    The author singles out income inequality as a psychic wound uniquely
    worthy of state intervention. But if raising the level of happiness is
    to be the chief aim of government policy, as he argues it should,
    where then is the call to make divorce harder, given the pain that he
    says broken homes inflict on children? Further, where is his desire to
    compel the worship of a higher being, also on his list as a source of
    happiness? Thankfully, both are absent, but he never mentions the
    obvious reason for why they are: namely, that most people value
    freedom as a greater good than enforced happiness. The pursuit of
    happiness, Lord Layard's book will convince most people, is a private
    matter.


From checker at panix.com  Fri Feb  4 14:58:12 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 09:58:12 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Guardian: In thrall to ratdom
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502040957230.10866@panix2.panix.com>

In thrall to ratdom
http://books.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5097600-110738,00.html

    Robert Sullivan spent a year on the trail of the common rat. But does
    he have enough content for an entire book, asks Christopher Priest
    Christopher Priest
    Saturday January 8, 2005

    Rats: A Year with New York's Most Unwanted Inhabitants
    by Robert Sullivan
    243pp, Granta, ?12

    A few years ago the BBC wildlife department broadcast a documentary
    about the common rat: rattus rattus (black rat) or rattus norvegicus
    (brown, or Norway rat). The intention was avowedly to study the animal
    as wildlife, as if rats were the same kind of entity as meerkats or
    penguins or sea cucumbers or chipmunks. The programme contained the
    usual breathtaking close-up shots we are now so used to in TV wildlife
    films: habitat, feeding, mating, reproduction, rearing the young, and
    so on.

    The trouble was that this time the programme was about rats. In spite
    of one's valiant efforts to try to see the rodents as ordinary animals
    with, so to speak, a point of view, it remained inescapable that a
    rat's habitat is in drains, cellars and burrows, his food is our
    leftovers, and he and his mate's reproduction is, well, fast and
    furious. When you remember their verminous habits with droppings and
    urine, the obnoxious way they regurgitate stuff they can't digest but
    eat anyway, such as pieces of your dustbin liner, and their uninvited
    presence in every street in every town in the country, trying to think
    of them as a mammal with a rightful place in the evolutionary scheme
    of things becomes impossible. Miniature hamsters or koalas they are
    not. Even David Attenborough's commentary contained, as I recall,
    several audible shudders.

    Clearly rats represent more to us than their state of being just
    another animal. In short, they have for humans a symbolic or
    metaphorical life, a representative existence from which we may draw
    morals, awful warnings and some particularly hateful, if now
    over-familiar, terms of abuse.

    Robert Sullivan obviously shares this ambivalence, as do
    (interestingly) most of the vermin exterminators he comes across in
    his researches. Sullivan lives in New York City, a place where legend
    has it that there is one rat for every human being. Although he makes
    a good attempt to debunk this myth, it's obvious that the thrill this
    fear arouses is an unspoken constant in every New Yorker's life.
    Beneath the streets, in sewers and basements, another kind of
    city-dweller lives and swarms. In British towns and cities, they say
    you are never more than 15 feet away from the nearest rat, which
    actually doesn't bear thinking about if you fear and detest the
    animals, as most of us do.

    Sullivan says that he claimed no special interest in rats in the past,
    but one day stumbled across a painting of some of them by John James
    Audubon. The inspirational quality of this sent him on a quest to find
    out more about both Audubon and rats, and in turn this led to a new
    interest in the ubiquitous rodents. In the modern tradition of
    American literary journalism, the next stage clearly had to be a book
    on the subject, and this is it.

    Sullivan located an alley in lower Manhattan, not so far from Brooklyn
    Bridge, Wall Street and the World Trade Center. Edens Alley,
    connecting to Ryders Alley, runs between the backs of several
    businesses: a Chinese restaurant, a vitamin and health-supplement
    store, an Irish bar and restaurant, an apartment block with a souvenir
    shop on the ground floor, a gourmet supermarket, and several more
    anony mous buildings. When Sullivan first found Edens Alley it was
    littered with food waste, garbage, the smell of urine and many
    significant tennis ball-sized holes in the ground, paving stones and
    walls. There was also a single tree: an ailanthus, the tree of heaven,
    a deciduous city tree that will take root almost anywhere. Even where
    the ground is riddled with rat holes.

    Sullivan began to make regular nocturnal visits to Edens Alley. He
    took night-vision lenses, a camp stool and a thermos flask. His
    agenda: "I went to the rat-filled alley to see the life of a rat in
    the city, to describe its habits and its habitat, to know a little
    about the place where it makes its home and its relationship to the
    very nearby people. To know the rat is to know its habitat, and to
    know the habitat of the rat is to know the city." The symbolic nature
    of ratdom is therefore intrinsic to his researches, since his interest
    is clearly not purely ethological. Whatever he observes should contain
    some kind of meaning for the larger world.

    We are right to be fearful of rats, because they are verminous. They
    urinate and defecate in places where we keep food and clothes. They go
    out when it's dark. They swarm. They gnaw through electric mains
    cables and gas-pipes, usually with disastrous consequences for
    themselves, but if they do it beneath your house they put your
    property and life at risk. As many as a quarter of all fires of
    unknown origin are thought to be caused by rats. The teeth of a brown
    rat are stronger, harder, than aluminium, copper, lead and iron. (They
    also grow prodigiously: a rat's incisors grow five inches every year,
    so they don't worry too much about chipping and breaking their teeth.)

    Rats are known carriers of diseases that kill mankind: bubonic plague,
    famously, but also typhus, rabies, trichinosis, tularaemia and the
    horrific leptospirosis. They carry bacteria, mites, fleas, lice and
    ticks.

    They have sex-lives at which some of us can only marvel. "If you are
    in New York while you are reading this sentence," Sullivan says, "or
    even in any other major city... then you are in proximity to two or
    more rats having sex." Male rats can mate with 20 females in a few
    hours; the gestation period is just three weeks; the average litter is
    up to 20 pups.

    So fear and dislike of rats are rational, and as a result human beings
    deliberately cause the deaths of rats in their hundreds and thousands.
    Sullivan, to his credit, overcame much of this to be able to spend his
    long evenings in Edens Alley, although his investigations fell short
    of actually clambering down into the drains or underground passages.

    At intervals in the book, he cuts away from the rats themselves to
    divert into stories of the lives of various Americans who had some
    connection with the world of rats. In most cases the connections are
    tenuous to say the least: an organiser of a rent strike, a leader of
    sanitation workers, a revolutionary fighter against the British. After
    the first of these diversions, the reader realises what Sullivan
    himself presumably realised, that watching rats eat garbage does not,
    after all, provide enough material for an entire book. His encounters
    with exterminators, trappers and sanitation men are hardly more
    enlightening, as without exception they are businesslike rather than
    inspirational.

    You can't help feeling that Sullivan has missed experiencing the true
    rat horror: infestation of one's home. From personal experience I can
    say that there are few moments more disgusting than when you find the
    new holes in the floor, the teeth marks in bread, chocolate and cereal
    boxes, and the penetrating smell of rodent urine.

    However, this is an interesting book, not without unconscious humour.
    The self-portrait of Sullivan shivering night after night in his
    alley, with his camp stool, binoculars and anorak, watching the rats
    swarming over plastic bags full of uneaten noodles, is at least
    different.

    Christopher Priest's The Separation is published by Gollancz.

From checker at panix.com  Fri Feb  4 14:59:06 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 09:59:06 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Reason: John Locke Lite: The strange philosophy of a
	left libertarian
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502040958180.10866@panix2.panix.com>

John Locke Lite: The strange philosophy of a left libertarian 
http://www.reason.com/0501/cr.tp.john.shtml
5.1                  [dotclear.gif]

    [6]Tom G. Palmer

    [7]Libertarianism Without Inequality, by Michael Otsuka, Oxford:
    Oxford University Press, 180 pages, $39.95

    People fight about love and lucre. They also fight about labels. A
    little tussle is under way right now among academic political
    theorists over the label libertarian.

    Advocates of massive redistribution who seek to make every property
    title subject to expropriation have decided they want to be known as
    libertarians. Since its hard to appropriate a label outright, theyre
    willing to share it: They have taken to calling themselves left
    libertarians, to distinguish themselves from right libertarians. One
    of them, Philippe van Parijs, uses the term real libertarianism,
    because he feels real liberty is about doing whatever you want to do,
    which means you have a right to be comfortably supported by others,
    even if you are able-bodied but refuse to produce anything and instead
    spend all your time surfing and hanging out.

    The central goal of these left libertarians is to show that one can
    maintain a core commitment to what John Locke termed property in ones
    personand thus can call oneself a libertarianand yet support a state
    that is empowered to redistribute property on an ongoing basis in
    accordance with some formula of fairness or justice.

    The latest attempt to capture the libertarian label for a radically
    egalitarian redistributive state is Michael Otsukas Libertarianism
    Without Inequality, a collection of essays that try to reconcile
    individual freedom, egalitarian redistribution, and consensual
    government. (The middle section, which seems to have been added to pad
    out an otherwise very thin book, attempts to defend some rather
    implausible claims about criminal justice and the right to
    self-defense. Since theyre not particularly relevant to the issue of
    left libertarianism, Ill set them aside.) The work is an attempt to
    say something interesting by exploring the authors hunches and
    intuitions. It fails.

    Otsuka, a reader in philosophy at University College London, was a
    student of the analytical Marxist philosopher G.A. Cohen, who holds
    forth at Oxford University and to whom Otsuka dedicates the book as
    his teacher, mentor, comrade, friend. Cohen gained some fame for a
    series of attacks on Robert Nozicks defense of free market capitalism
    collected in his book Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Inequalitythat
    simultaneously demonstrated Cohens flair for bizarre examples and his
    weak grasp of economics and bargaining theory.

    Otsuka attempts to show that the radically egalitarian redistribution
    he favors is intuitively plausible if you share his intuitions (which
    many people will not); that he is entitled to call himself a Lockean
    after he has reformulated Lockes ideas sufficiently that they have
    been fully cleansed of the regressive ideological commitments of
    Lockes (and more recent) times; and that as a Lockean he is committed
    to fully consensual government, so long as a nonconsensual
    super-government is around to make sure that nothing bad happens.

    Otsuka complains that even many of Lockes more moderate or
    left-leaning interpreters have not yet provided a sufficiently
    egalitarian reconstruction of his political philosophy. In other
    words, Locke wouldnt agree with Otsuka, but once Otsuka has cleansed
    Lockes ideas and made them sufficiently egalitarian, Otsuka can call
    himself a Lockean.

    Otsuka seeks to reconcile libertarian self-ownership with what he
    calls a welfarist specification of the egalitarian proviso. That
    proviso requires that all the unowned stuff in the world be so divided
    that each person (take a deep breath) would be able (by producing,
    consuming, or trading) to better herself to the same degree as you,
    where betterment is to be measured in terms of welfare understood as
    the satisfaction of the self-interested preferences that the
    individual would have after ideal deliberation while thinking clearly
    with full pertinent information regarding those preferences.

    Able-bodied persons would get only a little, while the disabled would
    get more, and those with very expensive tastes and little ability
    would get the most, since they would need the most to satisfy their
    preferences. (Of course, somebody would have to measure all those
    abilities and work out how each persons ideal deliberation would
    proceed, but solving such problems for every human being should be a
    pretty easy task for any reasonably qualified college professor.)

    This scheme is Otsukas response to Lockes proviso governing the
    appropriation of unowned resources. In his Second Treatise of Civil
    Government, Locke said an appropriator would have to ensure there was
    enough, and as good left to meet the objection that appropriation
    might be any prejudice to any other Man. In Anarchy, State, and
    Utopia, Robert Nozick adopts a formulation similar to Lockes,
    specifying that you may acquire previously unowned resources if and
    only if you make nobody worse off than she would have been in a state
    of nature in which no land is privately held. Otsuka asserts that the
    alternative proviso he proposes is convincing and fair, although he
    offers no reason that anyone else should find it either convincing or
    fair. He seems unaware of Lockes arguments for why appropriation of
    unowned resources meets Lockes proviso.

    According to Locke, he who appropriates land to himself by his labour,
    does not lessen but increase the common stock of mankind. For the
    provisions serving to the support of humane life, produced by one acre
    of enclosed and cultivated land, are (to speak much within compasse)
    ten times more, than those, which are yielded by an acre of Land, of
    an equal richnesse, lyeing waste in common. And therefor he, that
    incloses Land and has a greater plenty of the conveniencys of life
    from ten acres, than he could have from an hundred left to Nature, may
    truly be said, to give ninety acres to Mankind.

    The only way to satisfy Lockes proviso is to create exclusive property
    rights, for the simple reason that people produce more when they can
    reap the rewards, which ensures that there is more for all and thus
    that appropriation is not harmful to others. Both Locke and Nozick
    rely on the historical evidence that property is more conducive to
    wealth production, which makes everyone better off. It seems never to
    have occurred to Otsuka that there was a reason they wrote what they
    wrote; its just a matter of being intuitive, plausible, fair, etc. Why
    bother with history, evidence, or reasons when you can consult your
    intuitions and leave it at that?

    The result of Otsukas appeal to his own intuitions is an assignment of
    property that would have to be changed every time its value changed
    (which happens constantly in a dynamic market) and every time the
    population of the world changed (which happens many times a minute).
    Also, no property could be inherited, as that would be unfair. Otsuka,
    like the other left libertarians, fails to distinguish between wealth
    and value, which are economic concepts, and property, which is a legal
    concept. Legal institutions can reassign property titles, but if
    property is constantly, chaotically, and unpredictably reassigned, its
    not property at all; it has no legal security.

    If the way we know about changes in wealth and value is through
    changes in prices, and prices are generated by exchange of secure
    property titles, then eliminating the security of property would mean
    there would be no way to know how wealth or value had changed. The
    solution to the problem of maintaining the kind of equality Otsuka
    seeks would entail eliminating the very means by which the solution
    could be reached. The entire enterprise is not merely impractical; it
    is self-defeating.

    Libertarianism Without Inequality is a good example of the dead end so
    much contemporary political philosophy has reached. Rather than being
    informed by history, jurisprudence, economics, psychology, sociology,
    anthropology, or even a close knowledge of classic texts, it posits
    outlandish examples as the central tests of all theories. Thus Otsuka
    explains self-ownership and the right to the fruits of our labor by
    asking us to imagine a highly artificial society of two strangers,
    each of whom will freeze to death unless clothed. Unfortunately, the
    only source of material for clothing is human hair, which can be woven
    into clothing. One of the two is hirsute and capable of weaving,
    whereas the other is bald and incapable of weaving. Otsuka concludes
    that to force the hairy one to weave his own hair into (presumably
    rather uncomfortable) garments for the bald one merely to achieve an
    egalitarian outcome would be a violation of the hairy ones rights.
    That kind of philosophizing provides little or no useful guidance in
    the world in which we live.

    After affirming that full libertarianism is achieved when you can sell
    your body hair to other people but the state (or someone) assigns you
    your property in everything else and adjusts your shares on what, for
    consistencys sake, would have to be at least a minute-by-minute basis,
    Otsuka goes on to show that the kind of government he has in mind
    would be radically voluntary. It would be like Nozick, man! Only
    better!

    Otsuka spills a lot of pixels discussing such staples of the theory of
    political legitimacy as the difference between express consent and
    tacit consent and whether residence constitutes consent. His approach
    reads like a parody of libertarianism, according to which people might
    give their consent to live in radically unequal, feudal, slavish
    conditions, meaning that libertarianism (as Otsuka understands it)
    would lead to truly disturbing forms of oppression. But that would be
    cool, as far as Otsuka is concerned, because they would be chosen.

    Otsuka brings up exit rights only to dismiss them as uninteresting. He
    never tries to apply the theory of consent to interesting real-world
    examples, such as condominium associations, gated communities, and
    religious cloisters that have rules governing pet size, loud music,
    religious observances, and so forth. (I consented to governance by my
    condo association when I bought my condo. People who like large pets
    would not have consented and so wouldnt live in my condo building. But
    no one can put me to death if I play my music too loudly or invite my
    boyfriend over for the night.) None of that for Otsuka. Instead, in
    Otsukas world, people would freely choose to be governed by feudal
    lords with powers of life and death over them.

    After a tedious and unhelpful treatment of consent, Otsuka gives the
    game away. Remember that all that free choice has to be fair to
    everyone else, so your property would be constantly readjusted to
    reflect the claims of others, as demanded by Otsukas proviso. That
    means there would have to be constant readjustment of property claims
    among people subject to different governments. There would also have
    to be some adjudication of conflicts among the governments. Otsuka
    therefore imagines a fluid confederation of political societies and
    monities [a monity is a political society of one] that is regulated by
    an interpolitical governing body. He explains:

    It would be necessary for this governing body to possess limited
    powers which encompass the overseeing of the drawing of the boundaries
    that demarcate these societies and monities and the settling of
    disputes that might arise among these parties. While the legitimate
    authority of the governments of the various societies would be based
    upon consent, the legitimate authority of this governing body would
    not necessarily be so based. Given the disorder and chaos which would
    ensue in the absence of such a governing body, all individuals would
    legitimately be subject to its authorityeven those who do not consent
    to it. Hence, the ideal of political societies as voluntary
    associations would need to be underpinned by involuntary governance at
    the interpolitical level.

    In other words, Otsuka solves the problems his theory of political
    legitimacy throws up by positing a nonconsensual government that would
    rule over the consensual ones. That body would exercise power
    legitimately because without it there would be disorder and chaos. But
    legitimacy is supposed to be a solution to the problem of who has the
    authority to exercise power, a problem that Otsuka simply waves away
    in a footnote.

    In that note, Otsuka concedes that, given this interpolitical
    governing body, what I have just called the governments of what I have
    just called [political] societies would not retain complete monopolies
    on the powers to legislate and punish. Therefore, given my definitions
    at the beginning of this chapter, we do not, strictly speaking, have
    governments and political societies here. Still, he says, they are
    close enough to be called that.

    Libertarianism Without Inequality is kind of like a serious book, but
    not really close enough to be called that.
    -------------------------------------

    Tom G. Palmer is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute..

References

    6. http://tomgpalmer.com/
    7. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0199243956/ref=nosim/reasonmagazineA/


From checker at panix.com  Fri Feb  4 15:01:30 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 10:01:30 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] In These Times: Ratio Nation
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502040959170.10866@panix2.panix.com>

Ratio Nation -- In These Times
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1796/
5.1.3

By Curtis White

[14]Against the Machine: The Hidden Luddite Tradition in Literature,
Art, and Individual Lives
By Nicols Fox
Shearwater Books ? $30.00

[15]Freethinkers : A History of American Secularism
By Susan Jacoby
Metropolitan Books ? $27.50

    While rereading the poetry of William Blake recently, I realized very
    little had changed between the 18th century and today. Of course, the
    media would like us to believe that the zeitgeist spins madly,
    producing "eras" as if they were products being readied for the next
    marketing season (which is exactly what they are). The media doesn't
    want you clinging to any antique notion of "who we are" any more than
    the auto industry wants you to cling to your 1990 Civic. And so we
    have the Sixties, the Me Generation, Reagan's Yuppies and Gen X. The
    Cold War, the War Against Terror, the Clash of Civilizations and
    Globalization. This approach to understanding national identity and
    history is as dizzying and malevolent as that possessed girl's
    spinning head in The Exorcist.

    What no one wants us to imagine is that the fundamentals of identity
    have not changed dramatically in 250 years. And it could be that even
    that estimate accelerates the matter. For William Butler Yeats,
    meaningful historical epochs last 2,000 years. We've only just
    recently emerged from the second, "Christian," era.

    For poets like Blake and Yeats, history is a long, grinding affair.
    Change is almost imperceptible. Reading Blake revealed that however
    much the details have changed, the big picture is much as it was in
    1783 when Blake published his first book of poetry. The three
    principal ideological elements in Blake's time were the
    backward-looking forces of Christianity, the Enlightenment advocates
    of Reason and Experience, and the revolutionary practitioners of the
    Imagination: In short, Christians, rationalists and poets.

    Without question, the dominant ideology since 1783 has been the
    rationalist. For Blake, the "manacles" of industrialization were
    "mind-forged" by what he called Ratio--the tendency to divide the
    world from the self, the human from the natural, the inside from the
    outside and the outside itself into ever finer degrees of manipulable
    parts.

    In spite of its domination, Ratio has always felt it necessary to
    continue its criticism of religion, or "superstition," and obliged to
    defend itself from the criticisms of its post-Enlightenment sibling,
    the Imagination. Ratio's debate with these two competing tendencies
    has been taken up in great detail and energy in two recent books, both
    of which share at least one virtue: They understand that our problems
    are essentially the problems that confronted William Blake.

    Susan Jacoby's Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism is a
    useful tonic for a moment in which religious fundamentalism seems to
    own all political leverage. Conservative politicians kowtow to the
    evangelists, and even the most liberal candidates must carefully
    nuance their positions so as not to appear insensitive to
    fundamentalism's primary concerns with "values": orthodox piety,
    school prayer, abortion and gay marriage.

    Jacoby's useful response to this slowly evolving national disgrace is
    to show that the present culture wars over value (our red state/blue
    state standoff) is not a recent development and is not merely the
    consequence of a cultural backlash over the aberrant '60s. Our culture
    war is, rather, a disagreement, an enmity, that is fundamental to our
    national character. The deistic freethinking and respect for Reason
    typical of figures like Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson was from the
    very first in conflict with the assumptions of evangelicals. Jacoby
    reminds us in revealing detail how this tension between the
    Enlightenment's reverence for Reason and Protestantism's confidence in
    revelation have played out in national controversies from the
    abolition movement to the teaching of evolution to women's suffrage
    and the civil rights movement.

    On the other hand, Nicols Fox's Against the Machine: The Hidden
    Luddite Tradition in Literature, Art, and Individual Lives attacks the
    smug assumptions of Reason from the perspective of Blake's
    Imagination. For Fox, too, the present conflicts over the role of
    reason, science, technology, and the mechanization of the human and
    natural worlds is an old story, one she tells with great energy and
    knowledge. For Fox, the digitalization of the world is only the latest
    version of the problem first confronted by the Luddites: the end of
    the world of human creativity and the beginning of the world as human
    machine. Her survey of the opposition provided by the Luddites,
    Romantic poets like Blake and Percy Bysshe Shelley, early critics like
    Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle, and John Ruskin, and the utopian
    efforts of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement is
    fascinating and inspiring.

    Useful though these two books are for reminding us how little the
    media's chatter about change really gets to the enduring essentials,
    there is an interesting paradox in them. The books themselves--their
    form, their rhetoric, their approach to argument, their assumptions
    about what they can expect of their readers--are an acknowledgment of
    the continuing domination of Blake's Ratio. As much as I admire Fox's
    book, I wouldn't call it a work of the imagination.

    Fox articulates what's wrong with utilitarianism: It separates
    "individuals not only from nature but from their own natures--from the
    creative, imaginative, and spiritual aspects of human existence." And
    yet my feeling is that Fox's book, and certainly Jacoby's, is finally
    utilitarian. They are books of popular history and social commentary
    written by professional journalists. The prose, the approach to
    structure and argument are very familiar, are industry standard, if
    you will. Fox admires Ruskin for writing books in which "Divisions
    between topics are artificial constructs; one thought naturally leads
    to another, and it may or may not be the topic he began with. The
    reader must follow and put aside impatience for the pleasure of
    digression."

    Well and good, but this is not a description of Fox's book, though
    it's no fault of her own. If she had written a rambling meditation
    full of quirky genius and digression, she would have been violating
    her own disciplinary training and she would probably never have found
    a publisher.

    Innocent though Fox may be, I think this irony cuts deep. Her thematic
    critique of Ratio is in a form that Ratio tolerates because it tends
    implicitly to confirm its own reign. Unfortunately, the Ruskins of the
    present are mostly unpublishable if not, as critics like to say,
    "unreadable." For these critics, digression is "self-indulgent." Works
    in Ruskin's spirit fail the rationalist test of clarity, of perfect
    transparence. This test, let it be known, is finally only about
    ideology. History and criticism written by journalists in a
    journalistic mode is unwittingly utilitarian in that it, too, seeks
    "the greatest good for the greatest number." In matters of art and
    intellect this is only a brush stroke away from "dumbing down."
    ("There is no audience for this stuff!" say the nice people in
    marketing. The nice people in editorial then go slinking off full of
    contrition.) In such subtle yet fatal ways we lend comfort to those we
    call enemy.

    Reader Comments

    What a great piece!  Does White not wake every day thanking a divinity
    of some kind for his wonderful powers of ratiocination?  Ah, what a
    golden intellect!  I wish I had more friends like Curtis White.  If I
    did, I would invite them over often to discuss myriad things over good
    food and wine.  Curtis, if you're reading this, will you come over?
    I'm starving.  I await your response, and in the meantime, I look
    forward to your next article in Harper's
    Posted by Daniel Luke on January 3, 2005 at 10:03 PM

    It reminds me one thing, that to be contemporary means to be
    old-fashoined. Thanks.
    Posted by Ivan Shevnin on January 7, 2005 at 2:42 PM

    How great to find Curtis White on this site! One year ago I found "The
    Middle Mind," a rather controversial book that appeared to me to be
    one of the key social critiques of our American society. He seems to
    me to be a mixture of Theodor Adorno and H. L. Mencken, with a bit
    more poetry added to leaven the prose. WEheter you agree with him or
    not, he does set fire to our brains. His critiques of American films
    (Private Ryan in the book) are outstanding and highly recommendable.
    Also, his critique of critique. There is an article he wrote called
    Whatever, Dude, that is pricelss (find it on the web).

    I, for one, equivocate Imagination with Hope, and Hope with the
    all-pervading Hunger of our existence on this planet, and White
    supplies that hope by "keeping the conversation going." And
    paradoxically, he does that by taking very strong positions on all
    sorts of topics. White is balm for the intelloect and the soul.
    Posted by Talleyrand on January 9, 2005 at 5:20 PM

    This article is really fascinating and mostly true.
    I wonder though if the final point about utilitarian
    (journalistic) writing is viable.  Does writing that has utility and
    accessibility automatically become "utilitarian" in the ironic way
    that Mr. White describes?  The idea of a division between utilitarian
    writing and that which is more creative (or artistic?) is itself a
    product of a relatively modern society under the sway of "Ratio."
    After all, the earliest writers in ancient cultures did not make such
    distinctions, and much of their most creative and beautiful work
    possessed a high level of utility as well.
    Posted by Eric B on January 10, 2005 at 7:02 AM

    In the reply section to Curtis White review of Ratio Nation, a reply
    by Talleyrand(1/9) contained the following statement:
    "I, for one, equivocate Imagination with Hope" this doesn't make sense
    to me, nor does it agree with the tone of the rest of the paragraph. I
    believe it should read: "I,for one,EQUILIBRATE Imagination with Hope"

    Equivocate means to avoid making an explicit statement.
    Equilibrate means to bring into equilibrium.
    Posted by al pedant on January 10, 2005 at 9:27 AM

    The comments about White suggest raging hormones. Is this a cyber
    site?
    Posted by tJp on January 10, 2005 at 9:29 AM

    Thanks pedant! Not equilibrate either, equate (Middle of the night
    after a day of heavy work, sorry)... but hope and hunger are
    related,...

    tJp.. Not hormones... hunger for someone with a standpoint that goes
    beyond the traditional leftwing rightwing duality without falling into
    the gap between the two, where there is no real opinion, and
    everything is the same, be it Beethoven, or Elvis. That is precisely
    what White calls the Middle Mind in his book. "What the Middle Mind
    does best is flatten distinctions," he writes. "It turns culture into
    mush." White makes us use our brains again, and that is very pleasant.
    That's what a brain is for.
    Posted by Talleyrand on January 10, 2005 at 10:41 AM

    I was astounded by the opening sentences of this article. Our present
    age is unprecedented, and our reality like nothing ever known to
    mankind before. The present generation of human beings has developed
    techniques of human reproduction which may seriously undermine the
    human condition. The rush to the post- human in the biotechnical realm
    takes many different forms and forces us to ask what is really
    essential to our humanity. The power of self- destruction given to
    mankind today is now being extended to states and groups that are
    wholly irresponsible. I could go and on with a long list of `
    transformations' mankind has gone through in the past century alone
    which make our situation so unprecedented, difficult and in my
    opinion, more threatening than challenging. Blake's Industrial
    nightmares are innocence itself before the kinds of Doom and Disaster
    we remakers of ourselves and our environment may bring about.
    Posted by Shalom Freedman on January 12, 2005 at 5:48 AM

    I think there have always been thos three classes of persons, more or
    less. Each person or type of person just learns to accomodate
    themselves to the domnant way of thinking of their time.
    Unfortunately, there are always fewer poets than there should be.....
    Posted by a bard on January 12, 2005 at 11:07 AM

Author Bio

    Curtis White is a novelist and social critic. His most recent books
    are The Middle Mind and America's Magic Mountain.

    [28]View other articles by this author

References

   13. http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/member/gateway/
   14. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1559638605/inthesetimes-20/ref=nosim/
   15. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805074422/inthesetimes-20/ref=nosim/
   28. http://www.inthesetimes.com/site?ACT=15&result_path=archives/searchresults&fetch_posts_by=Curtis+White

From checker at panix.com  Fri Feb  4 15:02:49 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 10:02:49 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Telegraph: (Eco) Joyfully surfing the waves of
	confusion
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502041001330.10866@panix2.panix.com>

Joyfully surfing the waves of confusion
http://www.arts.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2005/01/02/boeco02.xml&sSheet=/arts/2005/01/02/bomain.html

    (Filed: 09/01/2005)

    Joanna Kavenna reviews On Literature by Umberto Eco

    Umberto Eco has been called an "intellectual bon viveur", who wines
    and dines his readers with choice titbits from the last few millennia.
    He is usually charismatic and often conspiratorial. His writings are
    an elegant patchwork of tales from European literature, allusions to
    esoteric texts and personal anecdotes. A man of robust intellect and
    genuine erudition, he is at times charmingly sketchy and seems to have
    gleaned half his material from the internet. He doesn't quite part the
    sea of confusion in his writings; he rather surfs the waves,
    performing spectacular turns to an audience of deconstructionist beach
    bums and sunbathing postmodernists.

    This collection of essays presents some of the highs and lows of Eco's
    writing over the last few decades. Chapter headings include: "The
    Mists of the Valois", "On Symbolism" and "Les Semaphores sous la
    Pluie". If those don't set your pulse racing, there's an elegant
    reading of Dante's Paradiso, a tribute to Borges, some clever talk of
    James Joyce and a lucid essay on irony. There's a reading of The
    Communist Manifesto as a work of "genuinely poetic capacity", and a
    discussion of Oscar Wilde's aphorisms in which he is jovially accused
    of lacking philosophical depth. There's a fine piece of autobiography
    in which Eco reveals some of his writing rituals and superstitions.

    A few familiar themes surface. References to alchemical texts are
    strewn through the book. Dante is much-praised. Eco allows himself
    another crack at the question of a perfect language - the subject of
    previous works such as Mouse or Rat? Translation as Negotiation and
    The Search for the Perfect Language. Dante's dream, writes Eco, was to
    restore "an Edenic language that was at the same time both natural and
    universal... to help the `modern' poet heal the post-Babel wound".
    Joyce, argues Eco, was also busy with this enterprise, though readers
    who found that Finnegans Wake gave them a migraine will question Eco's
    claim that Joyce really wanted to "restore the conditions of a perfect
    language through his own personal literary invention".

    This debate about a perfect language leads to a central concern of
    Eco's writing: the illusory nature of certainty and orthodox truth. In
    an essay in this collection called "The Power of Falsehood", Eco
    questions certainty of any kind: "Since in the course of history many
    have acted in the belief of something that someone else did not
    believe in, we are obliged to admit that for each of us, in different
    measure, History has been largely a Theatre of Illusions." After
    bringing on Columbus, Dante, Erik the Red, Ptolemy, Macrobius, Roger
    Bacon and the Rosicrucians, Eco concludes plainly enough: "Deep down,
    the first duty of the Community is to be on the alert in order to be
    able to rewrite the encyclopaedia every day." Any "truth" may be
    another illusion of science, or religion, or myth.

    This is all coherent enough, and perfectly postmodern, but then Eco
    turns to his own branch of academic theory, semiotics. In "On Style",
    he argues for semiotic criticism as "the only true form of criticism".
    "Semiotics," he adds, is "the model for all criticism." He ends by
    entreating the beleaguered ranks of semioticians "to remain faithful
    to our origins... without giving in to any blackmail, to humiliate
    those who are our inferiors". This all jars somewhat with Eco's
    remarks about truth. Is he saying that all truths are potential
    untruths apart from the undeniable truth of a semiotic reading? Or is
    he saying that only a semiotic reading can alert us to the truth which
    is the impossibility of certain truth? Or is he saying that semiotics
    is the only true form of criticism because it exposes as untrue all
    other forms of criticism?

    It remains unclear. But Eco's unyielding devotion to semiotics seems
    strange. Irrespective of whether it is a good idea or not, it is a
    theory that causes even elegant writers such as Eco to start filling
    their sentences with shabby old forms of convolution, words which once
    suggested newness but which have been thrown around in academia for
    ages now: "intertextuality", "metanarrative", "discourse" and,
    inevitably, "signifier" and "signified". Eco is too stylish, too
    ecumenical, for such an exclusive commitment to a single theoretical
    system. He is at his best, I think, when he drops the
    theory-mongering, when he slips out of the corset of jargon and allows
    himself to be a good-time intellectual again. It is then that he
    really sparkles, and this collection supplies plenty of instances of
    Eco in his most glitzy mode.

    [34]24 October 2004: Martin Gayford reviews On Beauty ed by Umberto
    Eco

References

   34. http://www.arts.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml;sessionid=KDRRSKNJ3BPDHQFIQMGCM54AVCBQUJVC?xml=/arts/2004/10/24/boeco24.xml


From shovland at mindspring.com  Fri Feb  4 20:25:00 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 12:25:00 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Fax du jour
Message-ID: <01C50AB4.8BE66390.shovland@mindspring.com>




Social Security


 



2006 Election



From checker at panix.com  Sat Feb  5 10:47:00 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 05:47:00 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] WETA-FM Alert
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502050534550.10866@panix2.panix.com>

This is the first alert I've ever sent out. I realize that the economics 
of broadcasting is driving the proposed format change from classical 
(which played no classical music during "rush" hour) to all news, as 
though another all-news station were needed. I suspect that the licensing 
regulations distort the economics here. In any case, greater exposure to 
the Occident's and the world's finest artistic product is sorely needed. 
Thanks to Antony Ody for bringing this to our attention.

I should also thank Allen Mackler, the former scheduling manager of 
WETA-FM, friend, and record collector, now a booster of Sherlock Holmes 
scholarship and member of the Baker St. Irregulars, for his regular 
program on WETA-FM, "Collectors' Hour," of classical 78s, spliced in with 
his informative as well as witty commentary. I am not sure if any such 
program survives on this continent today.

--Frank

-------------------

The NSO Director of Artistic planning has put a letter together protesting 
WETA's forthcoming format change from classical to all-news. If you agree, 
please add your name to the bottom and pass it along to anyone else you think 
would be willing to sign this.

Thanks,

Jennifer

--

Jennifer Faircloth
jfaircloth at att.net

Please read the letter below and sign and pass on. Thank you.

Rosa Lamoreaux

-----Original Message-----

From: Bader, C [mailto:CUBader at Kennedy-Center.org]
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2005 11:51 AM
To: ulibader at verizon.net; info at weta.org
Subject: closing of classical radio station WETA, Washington

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

As some of you may have seen in today's Washington Post, WETA, Washington's 
radio station for NPR news and classical music is preparing to change program 
to a news-only station.

As much as news is necessary, MUSIC and the ARTS are too.

You may consider classical music entertainment or joy, a sophisticated
hobby or a science on the side or maybe your profession.

Music is history and future, a voice, education and a way of expression,
which has survived many hundred years; it is part of our life and an
essential part of our society and a pillar of the quality of life in our
city, the Nation's Capitol.

Would we just watch passively the closing of the National Gallery?

Maybe we need to talk more about music but "closing" the classical music
radio station in the Nation's Capitol is a tragedy and a catastrophe for
the Arts.

Please join me in the maybe last attempt to avoid this programming
change.

Please join me in saving WETA classical radio programming.

We need your help urgently.

I have written to WETA below and I would like you to sign and send this
email on to your friends.

Please forward this email to everyone you know who may want to join this
cause and have them sign below.

IF YOU ARE NUMBER 50), 100), 150), 200), etc , please email this letter
to ulibader at verizon.net and to info at weta.org.

Thank you very much for your help!

ULI BADER
Director of Artistic Planning
National Symphony Orchestra

-------------------

Dear Board of Directors of WETA:

I am the Director of Artistic Planning for the National Symphony
Orchestra at the John F. Kennedy Center and I consider the program
change of WETA FM to news-only and the cancellation of classical music
on your station a tragedy and a catastrophe for music and the arts. We
have truly enough news channels and your step is going into the wrong
direction. I know about financial restrictions but there must be more
creative ways to solve this problem. Closing is not one of them.
Where do you send your children to school? Do you consider a fine
education essential?

Is it important for you or to your children to know who Mozart, Brahms
and Mahler is, maybe even Gershwin, Copland, Philip Glass, or John
Adams? And how they sound? What about VanGogh, Picasso, Rothko?

If so - and I am certain that your answer is yes - who is left providing
this information to a wide audience on the radio.

We at the National Symphony Orchestra do everything we can to further
the understanding of music and we are investigating new ways to improve
the situation - our communication to and with our audiences - but
closing classical music (?), that is truly the wrong way to go.

I am launching a campaign to raise our voice against this step and I
hope that you will consider this public voice seriously.

With kind regards,

C. Ulrich Bader
Director of Artistic Planning
National Symphony Orchestra
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
cubader at kennedy-center.org
ulibader at verizon.net
202-416-8135

1) C. Ulrich Bader, Washington, DC
2) Kim Witman, Vienna VA
3) Martha Woods, Hyattsville, MD
4) Rosa Lamoreaux, Washington, DC
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)
10)
11)

C. Ulrich Bader
Director of Artistic Planning
National Symphony Orchestra
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE KENNEDY CENTER HAS A NEW PO BOX ADDRESS. ALSO,
PLEASE DO NOT SEND CDs OR OTHER MATERIAL VIA REGULAR MAIL TO THE STREET
ADDRESS. THANKS.

street address: (for UPS and FedEx mailing only!)
2700 F Street, NW
Washington, DC 20566-0001
phone: 202-416-8100

mailing address: (for regular mail only / no packages!)
P.O. Box 101510
Arlington, VA 22210

-------------------------

WETA Considers Switch to All-News From Classical
By Paul Farhi
Washington Post, 5.2.2

WETA-FM, the Arlington public radio station that has been an outpost of
classical music programming for more than a generation, is considering
scrapping the sounds of Bach, Beethoven and Mozart for an all-news and
talk format, people at the station say.

Although WETA officials say they have not finalized their plans, the
station's management intends to present a proposal to overhaul daily
programming to the board of directors next week. The station has called
its employees to a mandatory meeting the day after the Feb. 10 board
meeting.

If the board approves the changes, the classical music heard on WETA since
1970 would be largely replaced by month's end. Station management is
considering keeping its Saturday broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera, but
such staples as its Thursday night New York Philharmonic concerts would
end.

A programming switch at WETA would be the second for a venerable
Washington area radio station this year. Last month the longtime
alternative-rock outlet WHFS-FM (99.1) abruptly adopted a Spanish music
format.

If WETA (90.9) changes format, it would be following other public radio
stations around the country that have dropped classical for news. The
primary influence has been money: News programming tends to keep public
radio listeners tuned in longer, and as a result, attracts more donation
pledges. Listener donations typically account for half or more of a public
station's annual operating budget.

But the drift toward news in public radio has not been without
controversy. People in public radio have debated for years whether
programming decisions designed to build larger audiences blur the
distinction between public and commercial broadcasting. One faction argues
that public radio should remain true to its roots and provide important,
if less than broadly popular, alternative cultural programming such as
jazz, classical, bluegrass and blues music. Another side counters that
fiscal pressures, including dwindling government support, makes
audience-building a priority.

Dan DeVany, WETA's vice president and general manager, said in an
interview yesterday that his station faced "a dilemma." With the audience
for classical music in decline, he said, "we have to ask ourselves if we
are truly fulfilling our public service mission."

He declined to provide specific ratings figures, but DeVany noted that
WETA's audience is "quite low, lower than it's been in several years. It's
a trend we've been witnessing over time. I'm not pleased with where we're
at." He added, "I'm not sure we're performing a public service the way we
are, given the size of this station and the size of our potential
audience."

He said financial support for the station has remained steady, "but we're
getting money from fewer people."

At the same time, he added, "what public radio does well, what defines
us," is news programming from National Public Radio.

Classical music programming dominates WETA's daytime and evening schedule,
but the station has gradually moved toward more news. It received
thousands of letters of protest when it dropped its morning classical show
in 1999 to begin broadcasts of NPR's "Morning Edition." The protests were
driven in part by the fact that WETA was duplicating a program that could
already be heard on Washington public station WAMU-FM (88.5).

Adding more news and talk would make WETA sound even more like WAMU, which
features NPR programming and talk shows hosted by Diane Rehm and Kojo
Nnamdi. If WETA drops its classical format, it would leave WGMS-FM
(103.3), which airs commercials, as the only station in Washington that
plays classical music.

Some WETA sources said this week that a move away from classical was
signaled in early January, when the station hired a new program director,
Maxie C. Jackson III. Jackson, the former acting general manager of public
station WEAA-FM in Baltimore, came to WETA with a reputation for
developing news and talk programs, particularly shows aimed at African
American audiences. He has little background in classical music.

Jackson has been a prominent member of the African American Public Radio
Consortium, which created the now-defunct "Tavis Smiley Show" and the new
"News & Notes With Ed Gordon," both syndicated by NPR.

In an interview earlier this week, Jackson said, "I haven't considered
anything new. I'm new to the facility and am still in the process of
understanding the system around here. So it's a bit early to consider
changes. . . . I've told the staff that by no means am I here to turn the
ship upside down."

Asked about potential changes yesterday, Jackson said, "I'd rather stick
with what Dan said. Dan is able to articulate what's happening at the
station."


From checker at panix.com  Sat Feb  5 10:49:04 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 05:49:04 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Theodore Dalrymple: The Frivolity of Evil
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502050547450.10866@panix2.panix.com>

City Journal Autumn 2004 | The Frivolity of Evil by Theodore Dalrymple
http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_4_oh_to_be.html

    Oh, to be in  E ngland

    The Frivolity of Evil
    Theodore Dalrymple

    When prisoners are released from prison, they often say that they have
    paid their debt to society. This is absurd, of course: crime is not a
    matter of double-entry bookkeeping. You cannot pay a debt by having
    caused even greater expense, nor can you pay in advance for a bank
    robbery by offering to serve a prison sentence before you commit it.
    Perhaps, metaphorically speaking, the slate is wiped clean once a
    prisoner is released from prison, but the debt is not paid off.

    It would be just as absurd for me to say, on my imminent retirement
    after 14 years of my hospital and prison work, that I have paid my
    debt to society. I had the choice to do something more pleasing if I
    had wished, and I was paid, if not munificently, at least adequately.
    I chose the disagreeable neighborhood in which I practiced because,
    medically speaking, the poor are more interesting, at least to me,
    than the rich: their pathology is more florid, their need for
    attention greater. Their dilemmas, if cruder, seem to me more
    compelling, nearer to the fundamentals of human existence. No doubt I
    also felt my services would be more valuable there: in other words,
    that I had some kind of duty to perform. Perhaps for that reason, like
    the prisoner on his release, I feel I have paid my debt to society.
    Certainly, the work has taken a toll on me, and it is time to do
    something else. Someone else can do battle with the metastasizing
    social pathology of Great Britain, while I lead a life aesthetically
    more pleasing to me.

    My work has caused me to become perhaps unhealthily preoccupied with
    the problem of evil. Why do people commit evil? What conditions allow
    it to flourish? How is it best prevented and, when necessary,
    suppressed? Each time I listen to a patient recounting the cruelty to
    which he or she has been subjected, or has committed (and I have
    listened to several such patients every day for 14 years), these
    questions revolve endlessly in my mind.

    No doubt my previous experiences fostered my preoccupation with this
    problem. My mother was a refugee from Nazi Germany, and though she
    spoke very little of her life before she came to Britain, the mere
    fact that there was much of which she did not speak gave evil a
    ghostly presence in our household.

    Later, I spent several years touring the world, often in places where
    atrocity had recently been, or still was being, committed. In Central
    America, I witnessed civil war fought between guerrilla groups intent
    on imposing totalitarian tyranny on their societies, opposed by armies
    that didn't scruple to resort to massacre. In Equatorial Guinea, the
    current dictator was the nephew and henchman of the last dictator, who
    had killed or driven into exile a third of the population, executing
    every last person who wore glasses or possessed a page of printed
    matter for being a disaffected or potentially disaffected
    intellectual. In Liberia, I visited a church in which more than 600
    people had taken refuge and been slaughtered, possibly by the
    president himself (soon to be videotaped being tortured to death). The
    outlines of the bodies were still visible on the dried blood on the
    floor, and the long mound of the mass grave began only a few yards
    from the entrance. In North Korea I saw the acme of tyranny, millions
    of people in terrorized, abject obeisance to a personality cult whose
    object, the Great Leader Kim Il Sung, made the Sun King look like the
    personification of modesty.

    Still, all these were political evils, which my own country had
    entirely escaped. I optimistically supposed that, in the absence of
    the worst political deformations, widespread evil was impossible. I
    soon discovered my error. Of course, nothing that I was to see in a
    British slum approached the scale or depth of what I had witnessed
    elsewhere. Beating a woman from motives of jealousy, locking her in a
    closet, breaking her arms deliberately, terrible though it may be, is
    not the same, by a long way, as mass murder. More than enough of the
    constitutional, traditional, institutional, and social restraints on
    large-scale political evil still existed in Britain to prevent
    anything like what I had witnessed elsewhere.

    Yet the scale of a man's evil is not entirely to be measured by its
    practical consequences. Men commit evil within the scope available to
    them. Some evil geniuses, of course, devote their lives to increasing
    that scope as widely as possible, but no such character has yet arisen
    in Britain, and most evildoers merely make the most of their
    opportunities. They do what they can get away with.

    In any case, the extent of the evil that I found, though far more
    modest than the disasters of modern history, is nonetheless
    impressive. From the vantage point of one six-bedded hospital ward, I
    have met at least 5,000 perpetrators of the kind of violence I have
    just described and 5,000 victims of it: nearly 1 percent of the
    population of my city--or a higher percentage, if one considers the
    age-specificity of the behavior. And when you take the life histories
    of these people, as I have, you soon realize that their existence is
    as saturated with arbitrary violence as that of the inhabitants of
    many a dictatorship. Instead of one dictator, though, there are
    thousands, each the absolute ruler of his own little sphere, his power
    circumscribed by the proximity of another such as he.

    Violent conflict, not confined to the home and hearth, spills out onto
    the streets. Moreover, I discovered that British cities such as my own
    even had torture chambers: run not by the government, as in
    dictatorships, but by those representatives of slum enterprise, the
    drug dealers. Young men and women in debt to drug dealers are
    kidnapped, taken to the torture chambers, tied to beds, and beaten or
    whipped. Of compunction there is none--only a residual fear of the
    consequences of going too far.

    Perhaps the most alarming feature of this low-level but endemic evil,
    the one that brings it close to the conception of original sin, is
    that it is unforced and spontaneous. No one requires people to commit
    it. In the worst dictatorships, some of the evil ordinary men and
    women do they do out of fear of not committing it. There, goodness
    requires heroism. In the Soviet Union in the 1930s, for example, a man
    who failed to report a political joke to the authorities was himself
    guilty of an offense that could lead to deportation or death. But in
    modern Britain, no such conditions exist: the government does not
    require citizens to behave as I have described and punish them if they
    do not. The evil is freely chosen.

    Not that the government is blameless in the matter--far from it.
    Intellectuals propounded the idea that man should be freed from the
    shackles of social convention and self-control, and the government,
    without any demand from below, enacted laws that promoted unrestrained
    behavior and created a welfare system that protected people from some
    of its economic consequences. When the barriers to evil are brought
    down, it flourishes; and never again will I be tempted to believe in
    the fundamental goodness of man, or that evil is something exceptional
    or alien to human nature.

    Of course, my personal experience is just that--personal experience.
    Admittedly, I have looked out at the social world of my city and my
    country from a peculiar and possibly unrepresentative vantage point,
    from a prison and from a hospital ward where practically all the
    patients have tried to kill themselves, or at least made suicidal
    gestures. But it is not small or slight personal experience, and each
    of my thousands, even scores of thousands, of cases has given me a
    window into the world in which that person lives.

    And when my mother asks me whether I am not in danger of letting my
    personal experience embitter me or cause me to look at the world
    through bile-colored spectacles, I ask her why she thinks that she, in
    common with all old people in Britain today, feels the need to be
    indoors by sundown or face the consequences, and why this should be
    the case in a country that within living memory was law-abiding and
    safe? Did she not herself tell me that, as a young woman during the
    blackouts in the Blitz, she felt perfectly safe, at least from the
    depredations of her fellow citizens, walking home in the pitch dark,
    and that it never occurred to her that she might be the victim of a
    crime, whereas nowadays she has only to put her nose out of her door
    at dusk for her to think of nothing else? Is it not true that her
    purse has been stolen twice in the last two years, in broad daylight,
    and is it not true that statistics--however manipulated by governments
    to put the best possible gloss upon them--bear out the accuracy of the
    conclusions that I have drawn from my personal experience? In 1921,
    the year of my mother's birth, there was one crime recorded for every
    370 inhabitants of England and Wales; 80 years later, it was one for
    every ten inhabitants. There has been a 12-fold increase since 1941
    and an even greater increase in crimes of violence. So while personal
    experience is hardly a complete guide to social reality, the
    historical data certainly back up my impressions.

    A single case can be illuminating, especially when it is statistically
    banal--in other words, not at all exceptional. Yesterday, for example,
    a 21-year-old woman consulted me, claiming to be depressed. She had
    swallowed an overdose of her antidepressants and then called an
    ambulance.

    There is something to be said here about the word "depression," which
    has almost entirely eliminated the word and even the concept of
    unhappiness from modern life. Of the thousands of patients I have
    seen, only two or three have ever claimed to be unhappy: all the rest
    have said that they were depressed. This semantic shift is deeply
    significant, for it implies that dissatisfaction with life is itself
    pathological, a medical condition, which it is the responsibility of
    the doctor to alleviate by medical means. Everyone has a right to
    health; depression is unhealthy; therefore everyone has a right to be
    happy (the opposite of being depressed). This idea in turn implies
    that one's state of mind, or one's mood, is or should be independent
    of the way that one lives one's life, a belief that must deprive human
    existence of all meaning, radically disconnecting reward from conduct.

    A ridiculous pas de deux between doctor and patient ensues: the
    patient pretends to be ill, and the doctor pretends to cure him. In
    the process, the patient is willfully blinded to the conduct that
    inevitably causes his misery in the first place. I have therefore come
    to see that one of the most important tasks of the doctor today is the
    disavowal of his own power and responsibility. The patient's notion
    that he is ill stands in the way of his understanding of the
    situation, without which moral change cannot take place. The doctor
    who pretends to treat is an obstacle to this change, blinding rather
    than enlightening.

    My patient already had had three children by three different men, by
    no means unusual among my patients, or indeed in the country as a
    whole. The father of her first child had been violent, and she had
    left him; the second died in an accident while driving a stolen car;
    the third, with whom she had been living, had demanded that she should
    leave his apartment because, a week after their child was born, he
    decided that he no longer wished to live with her. (The discovery of
    incompatibility a week after the birth of a child is now so common as
    to be statistically normal.) She had nowhere to go, no one to fall
    back on, and the hospital was a temporary sanctuary from her woes. She
    hoped that we would fix her up with some accommodation.

    She could not return to her mother, because of conflict with her
    "stepfather," or her mother's latest boyfriend, who, in fact, was only
    nine years older than she and seven years younger than her mother.
    This compression of the generations is also now a common pattern and
    is seldom a recipe for happiness. (It goes without saying that her own
    father had disappeared at her birth, and she had never seen him
    since.) The latest boyfriend in this kind of m?nage either wants the
    daughter around to abuse her sexually or else wants her out of the
    house as being a nuisance and an unnecessary expense. This boyfriend
    wanted her out of the house, and set about creating an atmosphere
    certain to make her leave as soon as possible.

    The father of her first child had, of course, recognized her
    vulnerability. A girl of 16 living on her own is easy prey. He beat
    her from the first, being drunken, possessive, and jealous, as well as
    flagrantly unfaithful. She thought that a child would make him more
    responsible--sober him up and calm him down. It had the reverse
    effect. She left him.

    The father of her second child was a career criminal, already
    imprisoned several times. A drug addict who took whatever drugs he
    could get, he died under the influence. She had known all about his
    past before she had his child.

    The father of her third child was much older than she. It was he who
    suggested that they have a child--in fact he demanded it as a
    condition of staying with her. He had five children already by three
    different women, none of whom he supported in any way whatever.

    The conditions for the perpetuation of evil were now complete. She was
    a young woman who would not want to remain alone, without a man, for
    very long; but with three children already, she would attract
    precisely the kind of man, like the father of her first child--of whom
    there are now many--looking for vulnerable, exploitable women. More
    than likely, at least one of them (for there would undoubtedly be a
    succession of them) would abuse her children sexually, physically, or
    both.

    She was, of course, a victim of her mother's behavior at a time when
    she had little control over her destiny. Her mother had thought that
    her own sexual liaison was more important than the welfare of her
    child, a common way of thinking in today's welfare Britain. That same
    day, for example, I was consulted by a young woman whose mother's
    consort had raped her many times between the ages of eight and 15,
    with her mother's full knowledge. Her mother had allowed this solely
    so that her relationship with her consort might continue. It could
    happen that my patient will one day do the same thing.

    My patient was not just a victim of her mother, however: she had
    knowingly borne children of men of whom no good could be expected. She
    knew perfectly well the consequences and the meaning of what she was
    doing, as her reaction to something that I said to her--and say to
    hundreds of women patients in a similar situation--proved: next time
    you are thinking of going out with a man, bring him to me for my
    inspection, and I'll tell you if you can go out with him.

    This never fails to make the most wretched, the most "depressed" of
    women smile broadly or laugh heartily. They know exactly what I mean,
    and I need not spell it out further. They know that I mean that most
    of the men they have chosen have their evil written all over them,
    sometimes quite literally in the form of tattoos, saying "FUCK OFF" or
    "MAD DOG." And they understand that if I can spot the evil instantly,
    because they know what I would look for, so can they--and therefore
    they are in large part responsible for their own downfall at the hands
    of evil men.

    Moreover, they are aware that I believe that it is both foolish and
    wicked to have children by men without having considered even for a
    second or a fraction of a second whether the men have any qualities
    that might make them good fathers. Mistakes are possible, of course: a
    man may turn out not to be as expected. But not even to consider the
    question is to act as irresponsibly as it is possible for a human
    being to act. It is knowingly to increase the sum of evil in the
    world, and sooner or later the summation of small evils leads to the
    triumph of evil itself.

    My patient did not start out with the intention of abetting, much less
    of committing, evil. And yet her refusal to take seriously and act
    upon the signs that she saw and the knowledge that she had was not the
    consequence of blindness and ignorance. It was utterly willful. She
    knew from her own experience, and that of many people around her, that
    her choices, based on the pleasure or the desire of the moment, would
    lead to the misery and suffering not only of herself,
    but--especially--of her own children.

    This truly is not so much the banality as the frivolity of evil: the
    elevation of passing pleasure for oneself over the long-term misery of
    others to whom one owes a duty. What better phrase than the frivolity
    of evil describes the conduct of a mother who turns her own
    14-year-old child out of doors because her latest boyfriend does not
    want him or her in the house? And what better phrase describes the
    attitude of those intellectuals who see in this conduct nothing but an
    extension of human freedom and choice, another thread in life's rich
    tapestry?

    The men in these situations also know perfectly well the meaning and
    consequences of what they are doing. The same day that I saw the
    patient I have just described, a man aged 25 came into our ward, in
    need of an operation to remove foil-wrapped packets of cocaine that he
    had swallowed in order to evade being caught by the police in
    possession of them. (Had a packet burst, he would have died
    immediately.) As it happened, he had just left his latest
    girlfriend--one week after she had given birth to their child. They
    weren't getting along, he said; he needed his space. Of the child, he
    thought not for an instant.

    I asked him whether he had any other children.

    "Four," he replied.

    "How many mothers?"

    "Three."

    "Do you see any of your children?"

    He shook his head. It is supposedly the duty of the doctor not to pass
    judgment on how his patients have elected to live, but I think I may
    have raised my eyebrows slightly. At any rate, the patient caught a
    whiff of my disapproval.

    "I know," he said. "I know. Don't tell me."

    These words were a complete confession of guilt. I have had hundreds
    of conversations with men who have abandoned their children in this
    fashion, and they all know perfectly well what the consequences are
    for the mother and, more important, for the children. They all know
    that they are condemning their children to lives of brutality,
    poverty, abuse, and hopelessness. They tell me so themselves. And yet
    they do it over and over again, to such an extent that I should guess
    that nearly a quarter of British children are now brought up this way.

    The result is a rising tide of neglect, cruelty, sadism, and joyous
    malignity that staggers and appalls me. I am more horrified after 14
    years than the day I started.

    Where does this evil come from? There is obviously something flawed in
    the heart of man that he should wish to behave in this depraved
    fashion--the legacy of original sin, to speak metaphorically. But if,
    not so long ago, such conduct was much less widespread than it is now
    (in a time of much lesser prosperity, be it remembered by those who
    think that poverty explains everything), then something more is needed
    to explain it.

    A necessary, though not sufficient, condition is the welfare state,
    which makes it possible, and sometimes advantageous, to behave like
    this. Just as the IMF is the bank of last resort, encouraging
    commercial banks to make unwise loans to countries that they know the
    IMF will bail out, so the state is the parent of last resort--or, more
    often than not, of first resort. The state, guided by the apparently
    generous and humane philosophy that no child, whatever its origins,
    should suffer deprivation, gives assistance to any child, or rather
    the mother of any child, once it has come into being. In matters of
    public housing, it is actually advantageous for a mother to put
    herself at a disadvantage, to be a single mother, without support from
    the fathers of the children and dependent on the state for income. She
    is then a priority; she won't pay local taxes, rent, or utility bills.

    As for the men, the state absolves them of all responsibility for
    their children. The state is now father to the child. The biological
    father is therefore free to use whatever income he has as pocket
    money, for entertainment and little treats. He is thereby reduced to
    the status of a child, though a spoiled child with the physical
    capabilities of a man: petulant, demanding, querulous, self-centered,
    and violent if he doesn't get his own way. The violence escalates and
    becomes a habit. A spoiled brat becomes an evil tyrant.

    But if the welfare state is a necessary condition for the spread of
    evil, it is not sufficient. After all, the British welfare state is
    neither the most extensive nor the most generous in the world, and yet
    our rates of social pathology--public drunkenness, drug-taking,
    teenage pregnancy, venereal disease, hooliganism, criminality--are the
    highest in the world. Something more was necessary to produce this
    result.

    Here we enter the realm of culture and ideas. For it is necessary not
    only to believe that it is economically feasible to behave in the
    irresponsible and egotistical fashion that I have described, but also
    to believe that it is morally permissible to do so. And this idea has
    been peddled by the intellectual elite in Britain for many years, more
    assiduously than anywhere else, to the extent that it is now taken for
    granted. There has been a long march not only through the institutions
    but through the minds of the young. When young people want to praise
    themselves, they describe themselves as "nonjudgmental." For them, the
    highest form of morality is amorality.

    There has been an unholy alliance between those on the Left, who
    believe that man is endowed with rights but no duties, and
    libertarians on the Right, who believe that consumer choice is the
    answer to all social questions, an idea eagerly adopted by the Left in
    precisely those areas where it does not apply. Thus people have a
    right to bring forth children any way they like, and the children, of
    course, have the right not to be deprived of anything, at least
    anything material. How men and women associate and have children is
    merely a matter of consumer choice, of no more moral consequence than
    the choice between dark and milk chocolate, and the state must not
    discriminate among different forms of association and child rearing,
    even if such non-discrimination has the same effect as British and
    French neutrality during the Spanish Civil War.

    The consequences to the children and to society do not enter into the
    matter: for in any case it is the function of the state to ameliorate
    by redistributive taxation the material effects of individual
    irresponsibility, and to ameliorate the emotional, educational, and
    spiritual effects by an army of social workers, psychologists,
    educators, counselors, and the like, who have themselves come to form
    a powerful vested interest of dependence on the government.

    So while my patients know in their hearts that what they are doing is
    wrong, and worse than wrong, they are encouraged nevertheless to do it
    by the strong belief that they have the right to do it, because
    everything is merely a matter of choice. Almost no one in Britain ever
    publicly challenges this belief. Nor has any politician the courage to
    demand a withdrawal of the public subsidy that allows the intensifying
    evil I have seen over the past 14 years--violence, rape, intimidation,
    cruelty, drug addiction, neglect--to flourish so exuberantly. With 40
    percent of children in Britain born out of wedlock, and the proportion
    still rising, and with divorce the norm rather than the exception,
    there soon will be no electoral constituency for reversal. It is
    already deemed to be electoral suicide to advocate it by those who, in
    their hearts, know that such a reversal is necessary.

    I am not sure they are right. They lack courage. My only cause for
    optimism during the past 14 years has been the fact that my patients,
    with a few exceptions, can be brought to see the truth of what I say:
    that they are not depressed; they are unhappy--and they are unhappy
    because they have chosen to live in a way that they ought not to live,
    and in which it is impossible to be happy. Without exception, they say
    that they would not want their children to live as they have lived.
    But the social, economic, and ideological pressures--and, above all,
    the parental example--make it likely that their children's choices
    will be as bad as theirs.

    Ultimately, the moral cowardice of the intellectual and political
    elites is responsible for the continuing social disaster that has
    overtaken Britain, a disaster whose full social and economic
    consequences have yet to be seen. A sharp economic downturn would
    expose how far the policies of successive governments, all in the
    direction of libertinism, have atomized British society, so that all
    social solidarity within families and communities, so protective in
    times of hardship, has been destroyed. The elites cannot even
    acknowledge what has happened, however obvious it is, for to do so
    would be to admit their past responsibility for it, and that would
    make them feel bad. Better that millions should live in wretchedness
    and squalor than that they should feel bad about themselves--another
    aspect of the frivolity of evil. Moreover, if members of the elite
    acknowledged the social disaster brought about by their ideological
    libertinism, they might feel called upon to place restraints upon
    their own behavior, for you cannot long demand of others what you balk
    at doing yourself.

    There are pleasures, no doubt, to be had in crying in the wilderness,
    in being a man who thinks he has seen further and more keenly than
    others, but they grow fewer with time. The wilderness has lost its
    charms for me.

    I'm leaving--I hope for good.

From checker at panix.com  Sat Feb  5 10:50:17 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 05:50:17 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Physics Today: God's Rays Physics Today
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502050549080.10866@panix2.panix.com>

Articles - God's Rays Physics Today - Physics Today January 2005
http://www.physicstoday.org/servlet/PrintPT
http://www.aip.org/pt/vol-58/iss-1/p32.html
Published: January 2005

    The physicist's quest for understanding is not the only way to raise
    the level of our existence and give our lives meaning.

    [1]Bryce DeWitt

    Editor's Note: Bryce DeWitt wrote this personal essay for Physics
    Today before he died on 23 September 2004. With it, Physics Today
    begins its celebration of the World Year of Physics 2005.

    A vacant lot sprinkled with puncture vines spread westward, and the
    Sun was setting over the coast ranges. It must have been near the end
    of school for I was already walking barefoot, something that my
    father, the local country doctor, looked on with disfavor. There were
    clouds in the west, left over from a late spring rain, and the sun was
    sending shafts of golden rays earthward. "God's rays," said my
    companion, aged six, and we kneeled in obeisance until they
    disappeared.

    Beauty we took for granted, and we responded accordingly. Our vacant
    lot was in a small village on the east side of the San Joaquin valley
    [in central California]. The puncture vines were hazards to bare feet,
    as they were to our bicycle tires, and we had to give attention to
    both as we crossed over. In 1930 there were many vacant lots. This one
    was close to where we parted ways, he to his home down the street and
    I to my maternal grandparents' farm down a country road.

    Even though my grandparents were terribly pious, it was always a treat
    for me to visit them at the farm. Before sitting down to supper, we
    had to kneel, with our elbows on the chair seat, and listen to
    Grandfather give a long prayer. This was repeated after supper. In
    addition, Grandfather read a chapter or two from the King James Bible.
    He was working his way straight through the volume, chapter by
    chapter, book by book. (He had already gone through it twice before,
    although how he made it through the book of Numbers, I have never
    understood.) I remember absorbing nothing from these readings. What I
    got came from Grandmother, who plied me lovingly with Bible stories:
    The young Samuel and Eli, the high priest. The sword of the Lord and
    of Gideon. Daniel, Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego (the original
    wholesome-food cranks). Moses and Pharaoh's daughter. . . .
    Grandmother also sang to me many religious hymns. What I got of
    Protestantism I got mainly from her. And I got it in a particularly
    evangelical form.

    Grandfather was a failure as a farmer. For example, the farm had no
    electricity, and to my delight, we had to use coal-oil lamps inside.
    What he had always wanted to be was an astronomer. He built amateur
    telescopes, the lens of one of which is in the Harvard College
    Observatory to this day. His family was too poor to send him to
    university. But his heart was in science. Naturally Grandmother
    hounded him to his deathbed, trying to make him give up believing in
    Darwinian evolution. In later years she and I too had our arguments.
    For example, according to her the world was made in 4004 BC. Counting
    forward 6000 years from that date and taking into account the fact
    that there was no year 0, that would bring us to 1997 AD, sometime in
    the summer according to Grandmother. Armageddon would then begin and
    would last for 3? years. In 2001 AD, the "Son of man" would come "in
    the clouds of heaven with power and great glory," and the seventh
    millennium would be the great one. Grandmother always said that
    although she would be dead by then, I should live to see it. I
    confessed that it would be delightful to see such a phenomenon in the
    sky (I was already planning to become a physicist), but I pointed out
    to her that Jesus said, "Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not
    the angels of heaven." She would merely hang her head a bit.

    It is amazing to me that when I tell this story today, I get quite a
    few responses to the effect that Grandmother just had her dates wrong.
    How depressing.

    After the evening Bible reading, I was sent to bed with a big old
    alarm clock having a luminous dial. I loved to hold its face close to
    mine in the dark and watch the scintillations produced every time a
    radium nucleus decayed. It was better than a Teddy bear.

    A few years later I was old enough (around 10) to go to Daily Vacation
    Bible School. It was organized by two energetic ministers in town, and
    even though it occurred during the summer vacation I was happy to go
    to it because it was fun, and it only lasted for about three weeks. It
    was held in the junior high school building, which had facilities such
    as a woodworking shop, a basketball court, and a baseball diamond. But
    the most exciting facility for me was the auditorium, where we had
    competitions. These were of two sorts. First, the student body was
    divided into teams, and once a week each team was asked to recite
    aloud the Bible verses they had memorized during the preceding week.
    Points were given for the number of verses memorized. Only the number
    mattered, not their length, so we quickly discovered where the
    shortest verses in the Bible were to be found.

    The second competition involved speed. The two ministers had somehow
    acquired a supply of Bibles, which they passed out to the youngsters.
    One of them would call out a verse--for example Proverbs 4:7--and the
    first youngster to locate it and read it out was the winner. Since the
    Bibles were from a cheap edition and had no page tabs to help in the
    search, we had to learn the names of all the books in the Bible--in
    proper order. As a result we effortlessly acquired a command of all
    those great lines in the Bible that, up until the middle of the 20th
    century, could be assumed by English authors to be part of a common
    European cultural heritage. Nowadays, when I am reading a 19th- or
    early 20th-century novel, I find myself wondering how many readers
    catch the biblical allusions. Since Shakespeare is still taught in our
    schools, I imagine that his lines do not go unnoticed. But what a pity
    it is to have lost the ability to make use of such great lines as

      * Gird up now thy loins like a man.
      * Where wast thou . . . when the morning stars sang together?
      * Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained
        strength.
      * The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth
        his handiwork.
      * Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.
      * They that wait upon the Lord . . . shall mount up with wings as
        eagles.
      * We hanged our harps upon the willows.
      * Cast thy bread upon the waters.
      * Their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel.
      * Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his
        savour, wherewith shall it be salted?
      * For all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.
      * For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face.
      * Though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and
        have not charity, I am nothing.

    And on and on.

Amateur theologians

    I have never felt a conflict between my sensitivity to the King James
    Bible and my beliefs as a physicist. I am a theoretical physicist, and
    it is common knowledge that theoretical physicists often start out as
    amateur theologians. They want to understand the whole of reality, and
    they begin by studying cosmology--the obvious starting point. Nowhere
    does a physicist's religious or philosophical preferences (one should
    really say prejudices) show up more clearly than in his approach to
    cosmology. In the early days of the so-called steady-state theory of
    the universe, everyone knew (though no one ever said so in print) that
    the model was motivated by antireligious sentiment. When evidence for
    the Big Bang began to accumulate, the steady-state theory nearly
    collapsed (a mutilated version of it has been kept alive) and the
    Vatican became ecstatic. Independent of the early history of the
    universe, there remains the question of its topology. Some
    cosmologists are convinced that the total volume of the universe must
    be finite, others that it must be infinite--in both cases without a
    shred of physical evidence. Usually these beliefs stem from a feeling
    that the structure of the universe should be describable in a neat
    compact form.

    Once again I can only say, "How depressing." Albert Einstein said,
    "The Lord God is subtle but He is not malicious." I like to turn this
    around by saying, "The Lord God is not malicious, but He is subtle." I
    have never believed that reality could turn out to be fixed by an
    unimaginative initial condition. Fortunately, some cosmologists have
    lately begun to consider models in which the "initial conditions" are
    aleatoric and hence far from simple. They even envisage infinite
    numbers of simultaneous universes, as well as possible behaviors
    before the Big Bang. For some reason, however, all their proposals
    ignore one of the most obvious.

    At the time of Isaac Newton, the formalism of classical mechanics
    (laws of motion, gravitational forces, and the like) was regarded as
    providing a direct representation of reality. The formalism of quantum
    mechanics, on the other hand, has almost never been regarded as
    providing a direct representation of reality. Physicists seem to be
    scared by it. Those few who do envisage a direct connection between
    formalism and reality are, for some reason, more often from Europe
    than America.

    The Europeans are braver than the Americans, because if one accepts
    the view that formalism and reality are isomorphic, then in the
    quantum theory one is obliged to accept a stupendous number of
    simultaneous realities, namely, all the possible outcomes of quantum
    measurements as well as all the possible "classical" worlds that
    emerge spontaneously from the wavefunction of the universe through the
    phenomenon of decoherence. The notion of a wavefunction for the whole
    universe is not ridiculous. Cosmologists who worry about quantum
    effects in the early universe (for example, in galaxy formation) use
    it all the time.

    Among those who deal with such heady intellectual problems, use of the
    word "God" is not uncommon. It is used in some of the popularizations
    that physicists have written, which attempt to convey to the general
    reader some of the glory of physics, particularly cosmology. I am
    occasionally tempted to try writing such a book myself, but I know
    that it would be terribly one-sided. I know some physics, but there is
    much more to "reality" than physics, and of that I am largely
    ignorant. So I wind up instead writing a physics treatise for
    specialists!

    The trouble with writing a popularization is that one has to be
    absolutely honest. There is a photograph taken from one of the early
    interplanetary probes, looking back toward Earth. Earth appears as a
    tiny blue sphere surrounded by an immensity of blackness. It is a
    photograph that makes tears flow. There is no sharper visual statement
    of the loneliness of our planet. Earth is an insignificant speck in a
    vast and overwhelmingly hostile universe. There is nothing to suggest
    that human beings have a special role to play in this universe. Steven
    Weinberg is
    absolutely right when he says, "The more the universe is
    comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless."^1

Lifting human life

    So where does that leave the amateur theologian, the young and eager
    theoretical physicist? Weinberg says, "The effort to understand the
    universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little
    above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy."
    It surely does that. But are there no other bright spots? For not
    everyone is a theoretical physicist.

    Many years ago I had a postdoctoral assistant named Heinz Pagels, a
    very nice young man and very bright. Unfortunately he died in a
    mountain accident before he could display his full potential. He left
    a wife, Elaine, whom I have met only once, years ago, but who has
    meant a lot to me through her writings. She is a religious historian
    specializing in the first three centuries of the Christian era and in
    particular in the so-called Gnostic Gospels, several manuscripts of
    which were discovered in a cave in Egypt in the middle of the 20th
    century.

    The period before 300 AD is a very difficult one to write about; the
    evidence is so fragmentary. The historian has to present every scrap
    of speculation about this period that has been put forward by dozens
    of other historians, and then answer those with whom she disagrees.
    Nevertheless, after all preliminaries have been cleared away, one
    message comes through loud and clear. Many Jesus cults arose around
    the Mediterranean basin in those years. Some believed that Jesus was
    divine, others that he was just a man. Some had their own gospels,
    with stories and sayings of Jesus. Some had their own
    bishops--intellectual types who couldn't resist trying to propose
    frameworks for belief. But the cults themselves typically arose among
    the lowest social strata (slaves, beggars, convicts) who were coming
    into contact, for the first time, with a "religion" very different
    from those they already knew about. This new religion touched such a
    deep chord in them that many were willing to oppose the authorities on
    its behalf even if that opposition meant death. And all these
    developments took place before Constantine co-opted the political
    power inherent in the new religion by setting up the Council of Nicaea
    in 325 AD.

    What was the new element in this new religion that had such an
    overwhelming impact? In a word, love. That is the key word, for
    believers and nonbelievers alike, that raises our existence above the
    level of farce. And it needs no religious framework whatever to exert
    its power.
                         ____________________________

    Bryce DeWitt was the Jane and Roland Blumberg Professor Emeritus in
    Physics at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of
    numerous books, most recently The Global Approach to Quantum Field
    Theory (Oxford U. Press, 2003).
                         ____________________________

Reference

    1. Steven Weinberg, The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the
    Origin of the Universe, Basic Books, New York (1977).

From checker at panix.com  Sat Feb  5 10:52:17 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 05:52:17 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Jim Holt: Measure for Measure: The strange science of
	Francis Galton.
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502050550200.10866@panix2.panix.com>

Jim Holt: Measure for Measure: The strange science of Francis Galton.
The New Yorker: The Critics: Books
http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/
January 17, 2005 | [13]home
    Issue of 2005-01-24 and 31
    Posted 2005-01-17

    In the eighteen-eighties, residents of cities across Britain might
    have noticed an aged, bald, bewhiskered gentleman sedulously eying
    every girl he passed on the street while manipulating something in his
    pocket. What they were seeing was not lechery in action but science.
    Concealed in the man's pocket was a device he called a "pricker,"
    which consisted of a needle mounted on a thimble and a cross-shaped
    piece of paper. By pricking holes in different parts of the paper, he
    could surreptitiously record his rating of a female passerby's
    appearance, on a scale ranging from attractive to repellent. After
    many months of wielding his pricker and tallying the results, he drew
    a "beauty map" of the British Isles. London proved the epicenter of
    beauty, Aberdeen of its opposite.

    Such research was entirely congenial to Francis Galton, a man who took
    as his motto "Whenever you can, count." Galton was one of the great
    Victorian innovators. He explored unknown regions of Africa. He
    pioneered the fields of weather forecasting and fingerprinting. He
    discovered statistical rules that revolutionized the methodology of
    science. Yet today he is most often remembered for an achievement that
    puts him in a decidedly sinister light: he was the father of eugenics,
    the science, or pseudoscience, of "improving" the human race by
    selective breeding.

    A new biography, "Extreme Measures: The Dark Visions and Bright Ideas
    of Francis Galton" (Bloomsbury; $24.95), casts the man's sinister
    aspect right in the title. The author, Martin Brookes, is a former
    evolutionary biologist who worked at University College London's
    Galton Laboratory (which, before a sanitizing name change in 1965, was
    the Galton Laboratory of National Eugenics). Brookes is clearly
    impressed by the exuberance of Galton's curiosity and the range of his
    achievement. Still, he cannot help finding Galton a little dotty, a
    man gripped by an obsession with counting and measuring that made him
    "one of the Victorian era's chief exponents of the scientific folly."
    If Brookes is right, Galton was led astray not merely by Victorian
    prejudice but by a failure to understand the very statistical ideas
    that he had conceived.

    Born in 1822 into a wealthy and distinguished Quaker family--his
    maternal grandfather was Erasmus Darwin, a revered physician and
    botanist who wrote poetry about the sex lives of plants--Galton
    enjoyed a pampered upbringing. As a child, he revelled in his own
    precocity: "I am four years old and can read any English book. I can
    say all the Latin Substantives and Adjectives and active verbs besides
    52 lines of Latin poetry. I can cast up any sum in addition and
    multiply by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10. I can also say the pence table. I
    read French a little and I know the Clock." When Galton was sixteen,
    his father decided that he should pursue a medical career, as his
    grandfather had. He was sent to train in a hospital, but was put off
    by the screams of unanesthetized patients on the operating table.
    Seeking guidance from his cousin Charles Darwin, who had just returned
    from his voyage on the H.M.S. Beagle, Galton was advised to "read
    Mathematics like a house on fire." So he enrolled at Cambridge, where,
    despite his invention of a "gumption-reviver machine" that dripped
    water on his head, he promptly suffered a breakdown from overwork.

    This pattern of frantic intellectual activity followed by nervous
    collapse continued throughout Galton's life. His need to earn a
    living, though, ended when he was twenty-two, with the death of his
    father. Now in possession of a handsome inheritance, he took up a life
    of sporting hedonism. In 1845, he went on a hippo-shooting expedition
    down the Nile, then trekked by camel across the Nubian Desert. He
    taught himself Arabic and apparently caught a venereal disease from a
    prostitute--which, his biographer speculates, may account for a
    noticeable cooling in the young man's ardor for women.

    The world still contained vast uncharted areas, and exploring them
    seemed an apt vocation to this rich Victorian bachelor. In 1850,
    Galton sailed to southern Africa and ventured into parts of the
    interior never before seen by a white man. Before setting out, he
    purchased a theatrical crown in Drury Lane which he planned to place
    "on the head of the greatest or most distant potentate I should meet
    with." The story of his thousand-mile journey through the bush is
    grippingly told in this biography. Improvising survival tactics as he
    went along, he contended with searing heat, scarce water, tribal
    warfare, marauding lions, shattered axles, dodgy guides, and native
    helpers whose conflicting dietary superstitions made it impossible to
    settle on a commonly agreeable meal from the caravan's mobile larder
    of sheep and oxen. He became adept in the use of the sextant, at one
    point using it to measure from afar the curves of an especially buxom
    native woman--"Venus among Hottentots." The climax of the journey was
    his encounter with King Nangoro, a tribal ruler locally reputed to be
    "the fattest man in the world." Nangoro was fascinated by the
    Englishman's white skin and straight hair, and moderately pleased when
    the tacky stage crown was placed on his head. But when the King
    dispatched his niece, smeared in butter and red ochre, to his guest's
    tent to serve as a wife for the night, Galton, wearing his one clean
    suit of white linen, found the naked princess "as capable of leaving a
    mark on anything she touched as a well-inked printer's roller . . . so
    I had her ejected with scant ceremony."

    Galton's feats made him famous: on his return to England, the
    thirty-year-old explorer was celebrated in the newspapers and awarded
    a gold medal by the Royal Geographical Society. After writing a
    best-selling book on how to survive in the African bush, he decided
    that he had had enough of the adventurer's life. He married a rather
    plain woman from an intellectually illustrious family, with whom he
    never succeeded in having children, and settled down in South
    Kensington to a life of scientific dilettantism. His true m?tier, he
    had always felt, was measurement. In pursuit of it, he conducted
    elaborate experiments in the science of tea-making, deriving equations
    for brewing the perfect cup. Eventually, his interest hit on something
    that was actually important: the weather. Meteorology could barely be
    called a science in those days; the forecasting efforts of the British
    government's first chief weatherman met with such ridicule that he
    ended up slitting his throat. Taking the initiative, Galton solicited
    reports of conditions all over Europe and then created the prototype
    of the modern weather map. He also discovered a weather pattern that
    he called the "anti-cyclone"--better known today as the high-pressure
    system.

    Galton might have puttered along for the rest of his life as a minor
    gentleman scientist had it not been for a dramatic event: the
    publication of Darwin's "On the Origin of Species," in 1859. Reading
    his cousin's book, Galton was filled with a sense of clarity and
    purpose. One thing in it struck him with special force: to illustrate
    how natural selection shaped species, Darwin cited the breeding of
    domesticated plants and animals by farmers to produce better strains.
    Perhaps, Galton concluded, human evolution could be guided in the same
    way. But where Darwin had thought mainly about the evolution of
    physical features, like wings and eyes, Galton applied the same
    hereditary logic to mental attributes, like talent and virtue."If a
    twentieth part of the cost and pains were spent in measures for the
    improvement of the human race that is spent on the improvements of the
    breed of horses and cattle, what a galaxy of genius might we not
    create!" he wrote in an 1864 magazine article, his opening eugenics
    salvo. It was two decades later that he coined the word "eugenics,"
    from the Greek for "wellborn."

    Galton also originated the phrase "nature versus nurture," which still
    reverberates in debates today. (It was probably suggested by
    Shakespeare's "The Tempest," in which Prospero laments that his slave
    Caliban is "A devil, a born devil, on whose nature / Nurture can never
    stick.") At Cambridge, Galton had noticed that the top students had
    relatives who had also excelled there; surely, he reasoned, such
    family success was not a matter of chance. His hunch was strengthened
    during his travels, which gave him a vivid sense of what he called
    "the mental peculiarities of different races." Galton made an honest
    effort to justify his belief in nature over nurture with hard
    evidence. In his 1869 book "Hereditary Genius," he assembled long
    lists of "eminent" men--judges, poets, scientists, even oarsmen and
    wrestlers--to show that excellence ran in families. To counter the
    objection that social advantages rather than biology might be behind
    this, he used the adopted sons of Popes as a kind of control group.
    His case elicited skeptical reviews, but it impressed Darwin. "You
    have made a convert of an opponent in one sense," he wrote to Galton,
    "for I have always maintained that, excepting fools, men did not
    differ much in intellect, only in zeal and hard work." Yet Galton's
    labors had hardly begun. If his eugenic utopia was to be a practical
    possibility, he needed to know more about how heredity worked. His
    belief in eugenics thus led him to try to discover the laws of
    inheritance. And that, in turn, led him to statistics.

    Statistics at that time was a dreary welter of population numbers,
    trade figures, and the like. It was devoid of mathematical interest,
    save for a single concept: the bell curve. The bell curve was first
    observed when eighteenth-century astronomers noticed that the errors
    in their measurements of the positions of planets and other heavenly
    bodies tended to cluster symmetrically around the true value. A graph
    of the errors had the shape of a bell. In the early nineteenth
    century, a Belgian astronomer named Adolph Quetelet observed that this
    "law of error" also applied to many human phenomena. Gathering
    information on the chest sizes of more than five thousand Scottish
    soldiers, for example, Quetelet found that the data traced a
    bell-shaped curve centered on the average chest size, about forty
    inches.

    As a matter of mathematics, the bell curve is guaranteed to arise
    whenever some variable (like human height) is determined by lots of
    little causes (like genes, health, and diet) operating more or less
    independently. For Quetelet, the bell curve represented accidental
    deviations from an ideal he called l'homme moyen--the average man.
    When Galton stumbled upon Quetelet's work, however, he exultantly saw
    the bell curve in a new light: what it described was not accidents to
    be overlooked but differences that revealed the variability on which
    evolution depended. His quest for the laws that governed how these
    differences were transmitted from one generation to the next led to
    what Brookes justly calls "two of Galton's greatest gifts to science":
    regression and correlation.

    Although Galton was more interested in the inheritance of mental
    abilities, he knew that they would be hard to measure. So he focussed
    on physical traits, like height. The only rule of heredity known at
    the time was the vague "Like begets like." Tall parents tend to have
    tall children, while short parents tend to have short children. But
    individual cases were unpredictable. Hoping to find some larger
    pattern, in 1884 Galton set up an "anthropometric laboratory" in
    London. Drawn by his fame, thousands of people streamed in and
    submitted to measurement of their height, weight, reaction time,
    pulling strength, color perception, and so on. Among the visitors was
    William Gladstone, the Prime Minister. "Mr. Gladstone was amusingly
    insistent about the size of his head . . . but after all it was not so
    very large in circumference," noted Galton, who took pride in his own
    massive bald dome.

    After obtaining height data from two hundred and five pairs of parents
    and nine hundred and twenty-eight of their adult children, Galton
    plotted the points on a graph, with the parents' heights represented
    on one axis and the children's on the other. He then pencilled a
    straight line though the cloud of points to capture the trend it
    represented. The slope of this line turned out to be two-thirds. What
    this meant was that exceptionally tall (or short) parents had children
    who, on average, were only two-thirds as exceptional as they were. In
    other words, when it came to height children tended to be less
    exceptional than their parents. The same, he had noticed years
    earlier, seemed to be true in the case of "eminence": the children of
    J. S. Bach, for example, may have been more musically distinguished
    than average, but they were less distinguished than their father.
    Galton called this phenomenon "regression toward mediocrity."
    Regression analysis furnished a way of predicting one thing (a child's
    height) from another (its parents') when the two things were fuzzily
    related. Galton went on to develop a measure of the strength of such
    fuzzy relationships, one that could be applied even when the things
    related were different in kind--like rainfall and crop yield. He
    called this more general technique "correlation."

    The result was a major conceptual breakthrough. Until then, science
    had pretty much been limited to deterministic laws of cause and
    effect--which are hard to find in the biological world, where multiple
    causes often blend together in a messy way. Thanks to Galton,
    statistical laws gained respectability in science. His discovery of
    regression toward mediocrity--or regression to the mean, as it is now
    called--has resonated even more widely. Yet, as straightforward as it
    seems, the idea has been a snare even for the sophisticated. The
    common misconception is that it implies convergence over time. If very
    tall parents tend to have somewhat shorter children, and very short
    parents tend to have somewhat taller children, doesn't that mean that
    eventually everyone should be the same height? No, because regression
    works backward as well as forward in time: very tall children tend to
    have somewhat shorter parents, and very short children tend to have
    somewhat taller parents. The key to understanding this seeming paradox
    is that regression to the mean arises when enduring factors (which
    might be called "skill") mix causally with transient factors (which
    might be called "luck"). Take the case of sports, where regression to
    the mean is often mistaken for choking or slumping. Major-league
    baseball players who managed to bat better than .300 last season did
    so through a combination of skill and luck. Some of them are truly
    great players who had a so-so year, but the majority are merely good
    players who had a lucky year. There is no reason that the latter group
    should be equally lucky this year; that is why around eighty per cent
    of them will see their batting average decline.

    To mistake regression for a real force that causes talent or quality
    to dissipate over time, as so many have, is to commit what has been
    called "Galton's fallacy." In 1933, a Northwestern University
    professor named Horace Secrist produced a book-length example of the
    fallacy in "The Triumph of Mediocrity in Business," in which he argued
    that, since highly profitable firms tend to become less profitable,
    and highly unprofitable ones tend to become less unprofitable, all
    firms will soon be mediocre. A few decades ago, the Israeli Air Force
    came to the conclusion that blame must be more effective than praise
    in motivating pilots, since poorly performing pilots who were
    criticized subsequently made better landings, whereas high performers
    who were praised made worse ones. (It is a sobering thought that we
    might generally tend to overrate censure and underrate praise because
    of the regression fallacy.) More recently, an editorialist for the
    Times erroneously argued that the regression effect alone would insure
    that racial differences in I.Q. would disappear over time.

    Did Galton himself commit Galton's fallacy? Brookes insists that he
    did. "Galton completely misread his results on regression," he argues,
    and wrongly believed that human heights tended "to become more average
    with each generation." Even worse, Brookes claims, Galton's
    muddleheadedness about regression led him to reject the Darwinian view
    of evolution, and to adopt a more extreme and unsavory version of
    eugenics. Suppose regression really did act as a sort of gravity,
    always pulling individuals back toward the average. Then it would seem
    to follow that evolution could not take place through a gradual series
    of small changes, as Darwin envisaged. It would require large,
    discontinuous changes that are somehow immune from regression to the
    mean. Such leaps, Galton thought, would result in the appearance of
    strikingly novel organisms, or "sports of nature," that would shift
    the entire bell curve of ability. And if eugenics was to have any
    chance of success, it would have to work the same way as evolution. In
    other words, these sports of nature would have to be enlisted to
    create a new breed. Only then could regression be overcome and
    progress be made.

    In telling this story, Brookes makes his subject out to be more
    confused than he actually was. It took Galton nearly two decades to
    work out the subtleties of regression, an achievement that, according
    to Stephen M. Stigler, a statistician at the University of Chicago,
    "should rank with the greatest individual events in the history of
    science--at a level with William Harvey's discovery of the circulation
    of blood and with Isaac Newton's of the separation of light." By 1889,
    when Galton published his most influential book, "Natural
    Inheritance," his grasp of it was nearly complete. He knew that
    regression had nothing special to do with life or heredity. He knew
    that it was independent of the passage of time. Regression to the mean
    held even between brothers, he observed; exceptionally tall men tend
    to have brothers who are somewhat less tall. In fact, as Galton was
    able to show by a neat geometric argument, regression is a matter of
    pure mathematics, not an empirical force. Lest there be any doubt, he
    disguised the case of hereditary height as a problem in mechanics and
    sent it to a mathematician at Cambridge, who, to Galton's delight,
    confirmed his finding.

    Even as he laid the foundations for the statistical study of human
    heredity, Galton continued to pursue many other intellectual
    interests, some important, some merely eccentric. He invented a pair
    of submarine spectacles that permitted him to read while submerged in
    his bath, and stirred up controversy by using statistics to
    investigate the efficacy of prayer. (Petitions to God, he concluded,
    were powerless to protect people from sickness.) Prompted by a
    near-approach of the planet Mars to Earth, he devised a celestial
    signalling system to permit communication with Martians. More
    usefully, he put the nascent practice of fingerprinting on a rigorous
    basis by classifying patterns and proving that no two fingerprints
    were exactly the same--a great step forward for Victorian police work.

    Galton remained restlessly active through the turn of the century. In
    1900, eugenics received a big boost in prestige when Gregor Mendel's
    work on heredity in peas came to light. Suddenly, hereditary
    determinism was the scientific fashion. Although Galton was now
    plagued by deafness and asthma (which he treated by smoking hashish),
    he gave a major address on eugenics in 1904. "What nature does
    blindly, slowly, and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly, and
    kindly," he declared. An international eugenics movement was springing
    up, and Galton was hailed as its hero. In 1909, he was honored with a
    knighthood. Two years later, at the age of eighty-eight, he died.

    In his long career, Galton didn't come close to proving the central
    axiom of eugenics: that, when it comes to talent and virtue, nature
    dominates nurture. Yet he never doubted its truth, and many scientists
    came to share his conviction. Darwin himself, in "The Descent of Man,"
    wrote, "We now know, through the admirable labours of Mr. Galton, that
    genius . . . tends to be inherited." Given this axiom, there are two
    ways of putting eugenics into practice: "positive" eugenics, which
    means getting superior people to breed more; and "negative" eugenics,
    which means getting inferior ones to breed less. For the most part,
    Galton was a positive eugenicist. He stressed the importance of early
    marriage and high fertility among the genetic ?lite, fantasizing about
    lavish state-funded weddings in Westminster Abbey with the Queen
    giving away the bride as an incentive. Always hostile to religion, he
    railed against the Catholic Church for imposing celibacy on some of
    its most gifted representatives over the centuries. He hoped that
    spreading the insights of eugenics would make the gifted aware of
    their responsibility to procreate for the good of the human race. But
    Galton did not believe that eugenics could be entirely an affair of
    moral suasion. Worried by evidence that the poor in industrial Britain
    were breeding disproportionately, he urged that charity be redirected
    from them and toward the "desirables." To prevent "the free
    propagation of the stock of those who are seriously afflicted by
    lunacy, feeble-mindedness, habitual criminality, and pauperism," he
    urged "stern compulsion," which might take the form of marriage
    restrictions or even sterilization.

    Galton's proposals were benign compared with those of famous
    contemporaries who rallied to his cause. H. G. Wells, for instance,
    declared, "It is in the sterilisation of failures, and not in the
    selection of successes for breeding, that the possibility of an
    improvement of the human stock lies." Although Galton was a
    conservative, his creed caught on with progressive figures like Harold
    Laski, John Maynard Keynes, George Bernard Shaw, and Sidney and
    Beatrice Webb. In the United States, New York disciples founded the
    Galton Society, which met regularly at the American Museum of Natural
    History, and popularizers helped the rest of the country become
    eugenics-minded. "How long are we Americans to be so careful for the
    pedigree of our pigs and chickens and cattle--and then leave the
    ancestry of our children to chance or to `blind' sentiment?" asked a
    placard at an exposition in Philadelphia. Four years before Galton's
    death, the Indiana legislature passed the first state sterilization
    law, "to prevent the procreation of confirmed criminals, idiots,
    imbeciles, and rapists." Most of the other states soon followed. In
    all, there were some sixty thousand court-ordered sterilizations of
    Americans who were judged to be eugenically unfit.

    It was in Germany that eugenics took its most horrific form. Galton's
    creed had aimed at the uplift of humanity as a whole; although he
    shared the prejudices that were common in the Victorian era, the
    concept of race did not play much of a role in his theorizing. German
    eugenics, by contrast, quickly morphed into Rassenhygiene--race
    hygiene. Under Hitler, nearly four hundred thousand people with
    putatively hereditary conditions like feeblemindedness, alcoholism,
    and schizophrenia were forcibly sterilized. In time, many were simply
    murdered.

    The Nazi experiment provoked a revulsion against eugenics that
    effectively ended the movement. Geneticists dismissed eugenics as a
    pseudoscience, both for its exaggeration of the extent to which
    intelligence and personality were fixed by heredity and for its
    na?vet? about the complex and mysterious ways in which many genes
    could interact to determine human traits. In 1966, the British
    geneticist Lionel Penrose observed that "our knowledge of human genes
    and their action is still so slight that it is presumptuous and
    foolish to lay down positive principles for human breeding."

    Since then, science has learned much more about the human genome, and
    advances in biotechnology have granted us a say in the genetic makeup
    of our offspring. Prenatal testing, for example, can warn parents that
    their unborn child has a genetic condition like Down syndrome or
    Tay-Sachs disease, presenting them with the agonizing option of
    aborting it. The technique of "embryo selection" affords still greater
    control. Several embryos are created in vitro from the sperm and the
    eggs of the parents; these embryos are genetically tested, and the one
    with the best characteristics is implanted in the mother's womb. Both
    of these techniques can be subsumed under "negative" eugenics, since
    the genes screened against are those associated with diseases or,
    potentially, with other conditions that the parents might regard as
    undesirable, such as low I.Q., obesity, same-sex preference, or
    baldness.

    There is a more radical eugenic possibility on the horizon, one beyond
    anything Galton envisaged. It would involve shaping the heredity of
    our descendants by tinkering directly with the genetic material in the
    cells from which they germinate. This technique, called "germline
    therapy," has already been used with several species of mammals, and
    its proponents argue that it is only a matter of time before human
    beings can avail themselves of it. The usual justification for
    germline therapy is its potential for eliminating genetic disorders
    and diseases. Yet it also has the potential to be used for
    "enhancement." If, for example, researchers identified genes linked
    with intelligence or athletic ability, germline therapy could give
    parents the option of souping up their children in these respects.

    Galtonian eugenics was wrong because it was based on faulty science
    and carried out by coercion. But Galton's goal, to breed the barbarism
    out of humanity, was not immoral. The new eugenics, by contrast, is
    based on a relatively sound (if still largely incomplete) science, and
    is not coercive; decisions about the genetic endowment of children
    would be left up to their parents. It is the goal of the new eugenics
    that is morally cloudy. If its technologies are used to shape the
    genetic endowment of children according to the desires--and financial
    means--of their parents, the outcome could be a "GenRich" class of
    people who are smarter, healthier, and handsomer than the underclass
    of "Naturals." The ideal of individual enhancement, rather than
    species uplift, is in stark contrast to the Galtonian vision.

    "The improvement of our stock seems to me one of the highest objects
    that we can reasonably attempt," Galton declared in his 1904 address
    on the aims of eugenics. "We are ignorant of the ultimate destinies of
    humanity, but feel perfectly sure that it is as noble a work to raise
    its level . . . as it would be disgraceful to abase it." Martin
    Brookes may be right to dismiss this as a "blathering sermon," but it
    possesses a certain rectitude when set beside the new eugenicists'
    talk of a "posthuman" future of designer babies. Galton, at least, had
    the excuse of historical innocence.

From checker at panix.com  Sat Feb  5 10:54:38 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 05:54:38 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Slate: Navel Gazing - Why even feminists are obsessed
 with fat. By Laura Kipnis
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502050552201.10866@panix2.panix.com>

Navel Gazing - Why even feminists are obsessed with fat. By Laura Kipnis
http://slate.msn.com/id/2111753
    Posted Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2005, at 5:35 AM PT

    America's obsession with fat is increasingly colonizing the cultural
    imagination, and not just on sadistic reality-TV diet shows like The
    Biggest Loser. There's also been a lot of fat on the New York stage
    lately. Neil LaBute's devastating new play, Fat Pig, offers thwarted
    love between a fat woman and a thin man with really mean friends; in
    The Good Body, Eve Ensler's one-woman show, the audience is treated to
    the self-loathing feminist equivalent of a money shot: Ensler yanks
    her blouse up and waistband down, and there in all its naked shame is
    her dirty little secret, a small pot belly. Ensler and LaBute couldn't
    be more different in sensibility, except that for both, fat spells
    abjection. For anyone in quest of another angle, a new collection of
    essays, [22]Fat: The Anthropology of an Obsession, edited by Don
    Kulick and Anne Meneley, takes on the same terrain from a
    cross-cultural perspective, providing a welcome departure from both
    fat-as-sideshow or Ensler-style navel gazing.

    Can you be a fat female and also an object of desire? This is the
    question posed in different ways by both new plays. It's no surprise
    that for LaBute's characters, the answer is a brutal "No." But Ensler,
    a self-declared radical feminist, works herself into intellectual
    knots trying to come to terms with her own bodily obsessions. (For
    her, it's more about feeling fat than being fat.) The therapeutic mode
    doesn't make for gripping theater; here it also makes for a lot of
    wheel-spinning, particularly because there's a hard truth that Ensler
    can't bring herself to acknowledge about women's situations today,
    including her own: There's simply an irreconcilable contradiction
    between feminism and femininity, two largely incompatible strategies
    women have adopted over the years to try to level the playing field
    with men.

    The reason they're incompatible is simple. Femininity is a system that
    tries to secure advantages for women, primarily by enhancing their
    sexual attractiveness to men. It also shores up masculinity through
    displays of feminine helplessness or deference. But femininity depends
    on a sense of female inadequacy to perpetuate itself. Completely
    successful femininity can never be entirely attained, which is
    precisely why women engage in so much laboring, agonizing, and
    self-loathing, because whatever you do, there's always that straggly
    inch-long chin hair or pot belly or just the inexorable march of time.
    (Even the dewiest ing?nue is a Norma Desmond waiting to happen.)

    Feminism, on the other hand, is dedicated to abolishing the myth of
    female inadequacy. It strives to smash beauty norms, it demands female
    equality in all spheres, it rejects sexual market value as the measure
    of female worth. Or that was the plan. Yet for all feminism's social
    achievements, what it never managed to accomplish was the eradication
    of the heterosexual beauty culture, meaning the time-consuming and
    expensive potions and procedures--the pedicures, highlights, wax jobs
    on sensitive areas, "aesthetic surgery," and so on. For some reason,
    the majority of women simply would not give up the pursuit of
    beautification, even those armed with feminist theory. (And even those
    clearly destined to fail.)

    Why is this women's continuing plight? (Even minus financial
    imperatives, as women increasingly achieve economic independence from
    men.) Ensler trots out the usual suspects: unrealistic media images,
    capitalism, mothers. She also spent six years globe-trotting to 40
    countries to interview other women on the subject. Lo and behold,
    everywhere she went, she found foreign counterparts of herself, women
    who loathe some part of their bodies. Much of the play consists of
    Ensler impersonating this Olympic village of self-abnegating women.

    One problem with this brand of global feminism is how closely it
    resembles narcissism on a global scale: Women everywhere mirror me.
    Instead, Ensler should have interviewed a few anthropologists since
    according to Kulick and Meneley's Fat, bodily attributes like pot
    bellies actually have entirely different cross-cultural meanings. Fat
    connotes very different things in different cultures or in subcultures
    like fat activism, gay male chubby-chasers, and hip hop. Fat may be a
    worldwide phenomenon--and increasingly so--but not everyone is
    neurotic about it, or they're not neurotic in the same way.

    Take the chapter by anthropologist [25]Rebecca Popenoe, based on her
    fieldwork among desert Arabs in Niger. This is a society with no media
    influences or beauty industries, where women strive to be as fat as
    possible. Girls are force-fed to achieve this ideal; stretch marks are
    regarded as beautiful. Yet somehow this beauty norm doesn't create the
    same sense of anguish that afflicts Western women striving for
    thinness, leading Popenoe to suggest that it's the Western obsession
    with individualism and achievement that bears the blame--not media
    images, not a top-down backlash against feminism, as Naomi Wolf's The
    Beauty Myth has it. In Niger, failing to achieve the prevailing beauty
    standard isn't a personal failure; it just means someone has bewitched
    you, or you have a thin constitution.

    But reading Popenoe won't reassure anyone seeking an exit route from
    female body anxieties. Where the Nigerois fatties and the
    dieting-obsessed Ensler find common ground is that all are striving
    for sexual attractiveness in the context of heterosexuality. The
    Nigerois women fatten themselves to be more desirable to Nigerois men.
    Women here may pant, "I'm doing it for myself" while strapped to their
    treadmills, but the fact is that the beauty culture is a heterosexual
    institution, and to the extent that women participate in its rituals,
    they, too, are propping up a heterosexual society and its norms. The
    problem for a feminist is that historically speaking such norms have
    worked out far less advantageously for women than for men.

    The disadvantages can take rather subtle forms, though, as The Good
    Body itself unwittingly demonstrates, once a recurring character known
    as "My Partner" is introduced. As described by Ensler--rather
    reverently--this is the perfect man. He cooks, he adores her stomach,
    and he's so enlightened that when they get in a fight while on
    vacation (she accuses him of calling her fat), he tells her he can't
    compete with her stomach and leaves. In other words, the Partner's
    dramatic function is to articulate the feminist position--which he
    does far more adequately than Ensler herself, turning The Good Body
    into a feminist play that somehow props up the most traditional of
    sexual positions: man on top.

    If even feminist theater ends up reinforcing masculine prowess,
    perhaps it's because heterosexuality requires asymmetry between the
    sexes. Heterosexuality always was the Achilles heel of feminism
    because the asymmetries involved usually took the form of adequacy for
    one sex, inadequacy for the other. And so things seem to remain: You
    may hear a lot of tough talk about empowerment and independence in
    women's culture today, except you hear it from women shopping for
    baby-doll outfits or getting Brazilian bikini waxes and double-D cup
    breast implants. ("I'm doing it for myself.")

    Of course, masculinity has always been afflicted with its own bodily
    anxieties; it just compensates for them differently (or
    overcompensates). Check out Viagra sales if in doubt. Or those
    penis-extender spam ads. Only feminism-for-dummies defines body
    pathologies as a female franchise alone, especially since that just
    buttresses the illusion of masculine invulnerability all over
    again--traditional femininity via the back door.

    Will femininity continue to beat down the feminist challenge? It's
    been remarkably tenacious to date. Or will women keep trying to
    reconcile the two through conflicted enterprises such as empowerment
    plastic surgery and bestowing men with feminist prowess? If only
    internal gymnastics burned calories! Then we could all achieve flatter
    stomachs with far fewer hours at the gym.

    Laura Kipnis is a professor of media studies at Northwestern. Her last
    book was [26]Against Love: A Polemic.


    Remarks from the Fray:
    Using two solipsistic New York plays to help define the modern
    attitude toward fat women cannot be a helpful tool. For one thing
    "solipsistic New York play" is an oxymoron. For another, it's just too
    small a slice of our culture. What people feel and believe about each
    other, especially in male/female relationships, is far more complex
    and subtle than the kind of intellectual Kabuki of LaBute and Ensler.
    Worse, though is to stumble into this conclusion:
    There's simply an irreconcilable contradiction between feminism and
    femininity, two largely incompatible strategies women have adopted
    over the years to try to level the playing field with men.
    Well, no, there's not. Read some Gloria Steinem or Naomi Wolfe. The
    author's definition of femininity doesn't work with the author's
    definition of feminism. The rest of us needn't fall into that neurotic
    trap. You can too wear lipstick and be taken seriously in what you do.
    Just like men can wear ties, their own nonsensical cultural symbol of
    oppression.
    In fact the author herself attempts to demolish the entire existence
    of femininity by pointing out that people grow old. Well, yeah, they
    do. But that doesn't mean a woman (or a man, for that matter) can't
    still be feminine. The author conflates femininity with youth, beauty
    and artifice, when none are necessary components. Neither, I would
    argue, is weakness. Kipnis defines femininity in relationship to men.
    However there are millions of lesbians who would find that ridiculous.
    Heck, so would Van Morrison, who noted decades ago that all the girls
    go out/dressed up for each other.
    Kipnis's definition of feminism is equally shrill and monochromatic.
    If power means you must reject the notion of working to attract the
    opposite sex, what are all those middle aged male execs doing in my
    gym? And is Kipnis saying that fat women aren't feminine? Or that you
    have to be fat to be a feminist? Ensler, and Kipnis obsess on the body
    weight, the externals, without truly understanding the meaning of
    attraction. It's the person, ladies, not the meat wrapping...
    --Isonomist--

    I take exception to the assertion that femininity and feminism are
    mutually exclusive. While Kipnis' summary of feminism as an attempt to
    level the playing field between men and women is accurate, saying that
    femininity is its opposite--a system of power and control that works
    by maximizing gender differences--is too simplistic.
    Femininity has never been solely about women's helplessness and need
    for men. It is a sexist mindset that causes society to speak of
    traditionally "feminine" attributes pejoratively. What is inherently
    bad about nurturing, being more emotional, being peaceful and gentle,
    and other such traits except for their association with women? Our
    society values "masculine" traits such as aggressiveness and strength
    not because these are inherently better, but because it still values
    men more.
    Imagine a society of only heterosexual women (don't worry about
    propagation for the moment). Sure, some of the flirtatious behaviors
    might be gone, the feigned helplessness and eye-batting flattery...but
    that isn't femininity. A lot of the women in this society would still
    be gentle, loving, peaceful, etc (and, just as now, some would also be
    ambitious and competitive). The thing that Kipnis doesn't allow for is
    that women can be soft AND strong at the same time. We are not the
    caricatures movies like Spanglish and the Stepford Wives make us out
    to be. The smart ones among us know you can be equal to a man without
    becoming a man, and that sometimes gender roles can be separate AND
    equal.
    --Dandelioness

    I find myself inclined to agree with the more radical version of
    Kipnis' argument that femininity as norm is at odds with feminism as a
    political agenda. Part of the reason for this inclination on my part
    has to do with the fact that feminism today is often attacked in the
    name of returning to traditional sex/gender beliefs that never lost
    their dominance in the first place. People sometimes suggest that they
    are sympathetic to feminism but don't want to be extremist about it.
    They defend this hesitancy on the grounds of being reasonable, but
    often what really motivates their anxiety is not reasonableness but
    rather a need to protect ideals to which their desires (and ultimately
    their security) is wed. If it needs to be said, this can describe men
    and women.
    There is, however, a single nagging question that I have about
    Kipnis's piece: is it femininity per se that is the problem, or is it
    a masculinist culture in which femininity is persistently linked to
    weakness. Kipnis's argument seems to place too much of the blame on
    women, even on feminist women. Is it possible though to imagine a
    femininity that is independent of male privilege? Kipnis I suspect
    would say that the question is moot, because femininity has always
    only existed as inferiority. On a broad cultural level absolutely, but
    on a private level? What then of lesbian desire for the feminine? Is
    this only perversion?
    --rontiveros

References

   22. http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=Yf7Zi6v9J8&isbn=1585423866&itm=1
   25. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0415280966/ref=lpr_g_1/104-6711922-4547130?v=glance&s=books
   26. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375421890/qid=1063512445/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/102-6498786-7148962

From checker at panix.com  Sat Feb  5 10:57:10 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 05:57:10 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Guardian: (Tom Wolfe) 'The liberal elite hasn't got a
	clue'
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502050555550.10866@panix2.panix.com>

'The liberal elite hasn't got a clue'

As a member of the Manhattan intelligentsia, novelist Tom Wolfe seems a 
lonely defender of George Bush's conservative values. But, he tells Ed 
Vulliamy, he's bewildered by a sex-mad society and tired of being lectured 
to at dinner parties. So is he voting for Dubya tomorrow? He's not quite 
telling

Ed Vulliamy
Monday November 01 2004
The Guardian

Tom Wolfe casts his gaze across America at this election time, with eyes 
that change mood in a nanosecond, with a flicker. For the most part, they 
exude an amused elegance befitting the hallmark white suit and dandy-ish 
two-tone brogues. But then the look suddenly changes, to become 
scalpel-sharp, mischievous, seizing upon some detail. It is a 
metamorphosis which begins to explain, perhaps, how this softly-spoken, 
immaculately-mannered gentleman journalist from the South can write with 
such voracity about the grime and sediment which inhabits American society 
and the human soul.

Certainly the view is stirring from the place to which he retreats to 
write, and where we meet: his outrageously beautiful Manhattan apartment 
taking up the 14th floor of a block on the Upper East Side, with sweeping 
views over a Central Park drenched in autumnal sunshine. A grand piano 
sits in the corner, painted in what Wolfe calls "cocktail lounge navy 
blue". Shelves are stacked with books on 19th-century, modern and Dutch 
art. In what he calls his office, next to the sitting room, is a huge, 
handsome and ornate bureau on which sits handwriting instruments and two 
panama hats.

>From this desk, and the pen of arguably America's greatest current writer 
>- author of the 1987 epic Bonfire of the Vanities and much more besides - 
>there now comes a third major novel, I Am Charlotte Simmons, to be 
>published next week, on the other side of election day. Wolfe set out, 
>for the first time, to write the book on a computer, but gave up in 
>favour of his usual typewriter. "Then I jammed my finger badly," he says, 
>"and took up pen and paper. This may turn out to be the last book ever 
>written that way."

A new Tom Wolfe novel is always a literary event: where will he go next? 
The answer this time is an elite, imaginary Ivy League university, Dupont 
College, for a book about libido off the leash, and about the cult of what 
Wolfe calls "the bad comedy" of college sports - athletes taken on by 
centres of academic excellence for their bodies, not their brains.

The novel - researched, as usual, down to the last expletive - concerns a 
young world speaking "fuck patois", loaded with creatine and cocaine, 
numbed by PlayStation 3, and charged by alcohol, the "vile spleen" of rap 
and, above all, ubiquitous sex between the heirs and heiresses to 
privilege in America. Most intriguingly, in this week of all weeks in 
American history, the book affords a gateway towards explaining Wolfe's 
boldly delivered, tantalising, remark: "I have sympathy with what George 
Bush is trying to do, although obviously the excursion [into Iraq] is not 
going well."

Four years ago, Wolfe wrote an essay to mark the millennium called Hooking 
Up, about what he called "feverish emphasis on sex and sexiness". In a 
way, the new novel is a literary fruition of the essay. The excess and 
decadence at Dupont College are seen through the eyes of his heroine, 
Charlotte Simmons, who arrives a diligent virgin from the hills of North 
Carolina, on a full scholarship. She is initially intimidated and 
appalled, but eventually conquers her fear to partake, indeed to star, in 
the jock beanfeast.

"I personally would be shocked out of my pants if I was at college now," 
confides Wolfe, who spent four years trawling the campuses for raw 
material. The book, he says, is "about sex as it interacts with social 
status. And I have tried to make the sex un-erotic. I will have failed if 
anyone gets the least bit excited. So much of modern sex is un-erotic, if 
erotic means flight of fancy or romantic build-up. Sex now is so easy to 
consummate - it is a pressure that affects everybody, girls more than 
boys, I think."

As he notes, the America which votes tomorrow is a country riven over 
morality like never before. On the flip side of the culture of ubiquitous 
sex is that of puritan Christianity, as harnessed in no small part by 
Bush. "Yes, there is this puritanism," says Wolfe, "and I suppose we are 
talking here about what you might call the religious right. But I don't 
think these people are left or right, they are just religious, and if you 
are religious, you observe certain strictures on sexual activity - you are 
against the mainstream, morally speaking. And I do have sympathy with 
them, yes, though I am not religious. I am simply in awe of it all; the 
openness of sex. In the 60s they talked about a sexual revolution, but it 
has become a sexual carnival."

No writer has chronicled the full American curve over four decades quite 
like Wolfe. He has been at this, unswervingly, since 1965, when he 
published a curio about pop culture called The Kandy-Kolored 
Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby. His breakthrough came in 1968 with The 
Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, his chronicle of Ken Kesey's LSD-gobbling 
Merry Pranksters. "If I have been judged to be right wing," he says, "I 
think this is because of the things I have mocked. It started with Radical 
Chic &#91;published in 1970, about a fundraising party for the Black 
Panthers organised by Leonard Bernstein&#93;. I was denounced because 
people thought I had jeopardised all progressive causes. But my impulse 
was not political, it was simply the absurdity of the occasion. Then I 
wrote The Painted Word, about modern art, and was denounced as 
reactionary. In fact, it is just a history, although a rather loaded one. 
Then came The Right Stuff &#91;his account of America's first 
astronauts&#93;, after which my relative enthusiasm for Nasa was another 
sign of perfidy."

He is "proud", he says, "that I do not think any political motivation can 
be detected in my long books. My idol is Emile Zola. He was a man of the 
left, so people expected of him a kind of Les Miserables, in which the 
underdogs are always noble people. But he went out, and found a lot of 
ambitious, drunk, slothful and mean people out there. Zola simply could 
not - and was not interested in - telling a lie. You can call it honesty, 
or you can call it ego, but there it is. There is no motivation higher 
than being a good writer."

In his manifesto of 1973 on The New Journalism, Wolfe advocated a 
"journalistic or perhaps documentary novel". He re-invoked the idea four 
years ago by way of retort to a fusillade of criticism - an exchange which 
scandalised New York society - levelled against his last novel, A Man In 
Full, from no less than Norman Mailer, John Updike and John Irving. The 
new book is in itself a counter to that outburst.

Wolfe's lambent success in documenting ambition, drunkenness, sloth and 
meanness in his own country has taken him from his native Virginia to New 
York which he wrote about in Bonfire of the Vanities, pitching the 
super-rich "Masters of the Universe" in high finance against the real 
world of the Bronx. But even as the author of the quintessential New York 
novel, Wolfe feels estranged in the city, as he surveys America during the 
final days of the election campaign. Estranged not from the subjects of 
his scrutiny, the "Masters of the Universe", but rather from the liberal 
elite.

"Here is an example of the situation in America," he says: "Tina Brown 
wrote in her column that she was at a dinner where a group of media 
heavyweights were discussing, during dessert, what they could do to stop 
Bush. Then a waiter announces that he is from the suburbs, and will vote 
for Bush. And ... Tina's reaction is: 'How can we persuade these people 
not to vote for Bush?' I draw the opposite lesson: that Tina and her 
circle in the media do not have a clue about the rest of the United 
States. You are considered twisted and retarded if you support Bush in 
this election. I have never come across a candidate who is so reviled. 
Reagan was sniggered it, but this is personal, real hatred.

"Indeed, I was at a similar dinner, listening to the same conversation, 
and said: 'If all else fails, you can vote for Bush.' People looked at me 
as if I had just said: 'Oh, I forgot to tell you, I am a child molester.' 
I would vote for Bush if for no other reason than to be at the airport 
waving off all the people who say they are going to London if he wins 
again. Someone has got to stay behind."

Where does it come from, this endorsement of the most conservative 
administration within living memory? Of this president who champions the 
right and the rich, who has taken America into the mire of war, and seeks 
re-election tomorrow? Wolfe's eyes resume the expression of detached 
Southern elegance.

"I think support for Bush is about not wanting to be led by East-coast 
pretensions. It is about not wanting to be led by people who are forever 
trying to force their twisted sense of morality onto us, which is a 
non-morality. That is constantly done, and there is real resentment. 
Support for Bush is about resentment in the so-called 'red states' - a 
confusing term to Guardian readers, I agree - which here means, literally, 
middle America. I come from one of those states myself, Virginia. It's the 
same resentment, indeed, as that against your own newspaper when it sent 
emails targeting individuals in an American county." Wolfe laughs as he 
chastises. "No one cares to have outsiders or foreigners butting into 
their affairs. I'm sure that even many of those Iraqis who were cheering 
the fall of Saddam now object to our being there. As I said, I do not 
think the excursion is going well."

And John Kerry? "He is a man no one should worry about, because he has no 
beliefs at all. He is not going to introduce some manic radical plan, 
because he is poll-driven, and it is therefore impossible to know where or 
for what he stands."

As far as Wolfe is concerned, "the great changes in America came with the 
second world war, since which time I have not seen much shift in what 
Americans fundamentally believe. Apart from the fact that as recently as 
the 1970s, Nelson Rockefeller shocked people by leaving his wife of 30 
years, while now celebrities routinely have children outside marriage, the 
mayor of New York leaves his wife for his lover and no one blinks. But a 
large number of people have remained religious, and it is a divided 
country - do not forget that Al Gore nearly won the last election. The 
country is split right along party lines."

And there has been a complete climate change in the nation which elected 
Bill Clinton twice, to that which may confer the same honour on George 
Bush tomorrow. This, says Wolfe, began not with the election of Bush, but 
on the morning of September 11 2001.

None of us who were in New York that day will ever forget it, and Wolfe is 
no exception. "I was sitting in my office when someone called to tell me 
two light planes had collided with the World Trade Centre. I turned on my 
television, before long there was this procession of people of all kinds, 
walking up the street. What I remember most was the silence of that crowd; 
there was no sound.

"That day told us that here was a different kind of enemy. I honestly 
think that America and the Bush administration felt that something extreme 
had to be done. But I do not think that the Americans have become a 
warlike people; it is rare in American history to set about 
empire-building - acquiring territory and slaves. I've never met an 
American who wanted to build an empire. And while the invasion of 
Afghanistan was something that had to be done, I am stunned that Iraq was 
invaded."

Wolfe is by no means afraid to offend the political right - "I'm gratified 
if you find me to be hard on them too," he says. He also anticipates that 
"conservatives will not like this new novel because I refuse to take the 
impact of political correctness seriously - I think PC has probably had a 
good effect because it is now bad manners to use racial epithets."

So what is it about his liberal neighbours and fellow diners in his 
adoptive New York that Wolfe cannot abide? "I cannot stand the lock-step 
among everyone in my particular world. They all do the same thing, without 
variation. It gets so boring. There is something in me that particularly 
wants it registered that I am not one of them."

Parting cordially, it seems strange that such an effervescent maverick, 
such a jester at the court of all power - all vanity, indeed - should so 
wholeheartedly endorse the power machine behind George Bush. And so an 
obvious thought occurs: perhaps Wolfe is jester at the court of New York 
too. Would he really be happier away from New York, out on the plains, in 
the "red states" where everyone at dinner parties votes for Bush? Wolfe's 
eyes revert to that mischievous glint, and he allows himself a smile. "I 
do think," he admits, apparently speaking for himself, his country and his 
president, "that if you are not having a fight with somebody, then you are 
not sure whether you are alive when you wake up in the morning."


From checker at panix.com  Sat Feb  5 10:58:45 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 05:58:45 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Deaf Patients Sue Laurel Regional Hospital
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502050557150.10866@panix2.panix.com>

Deaf patients sue Laurel Regional 
01/13/05
By Steve Eifler 
http://news.mywebpal.com/news_tool_v2.cfm?pnpid=810&show=emailnews&newsid=602973

Seven deaf patients are suing Laurel Regional Hospital, claiming that it
failed to provide them effective means of communication in critical
medical situations.

The Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs and
the law firm of Sutherland, Asbill and Brennan LLP filed the civil
rights lawsuit Tuesday in U.S. District Court.

The plaintiffs say they were denied qualified sign language interpreter
services, despite their requests for such, according to a statement
issued by Sutherland, Asbill and Brennan. The plaintiffs allege that
they were instead provided with inadequate video interpreting, cryptic
notes or, most often, no communication at all, the statement said.

Laurel Regional spokeswoman Tracey Veihmeyer said she was not able to
comment on the lawsuit.

The suit alleges that the plaintiffs were unable to provide informed
consent to treatment, were denied the opportunity to participate in
their treatment and were denied the full benefit of the health-care
services provided by Laurel Regional, in violation of the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) and other laws, according to the statement.

Elaine Gardner, director of the Washington Lawyers' Committee Disability
Rights Project, said deaf patients should receive the same level of
effective communication provided for hearing patients. "The ADA is
clear: deaf patients have the right to understand, and be understood by,
their medical providers," she said in a written statement.

According to the lawsuit, one of the seven plaintiffs, Elizabeth
Gillespie of Laurel, went to Laurel Regional's emergency room on Nov. 1,
2003 to receive treatment for severe abdominal pain, nausea and
vomiting, among other symptoms.

Gillespie was required to wait hours, denied numerous requests for an
in-person interpreter, and was prepared for medical tests in a manner
that was humiliating, including having a male attendant snap her bra as
a means of communicating with her that it needed to be removed, the suit
alleges.

Plaintiffs in the suit also include Laurel residents David Irvine
(Gillespie's husband), Cary Barbin, Kathryn Hale and Xiomara Porras. The
sixth plaintiff is Brian Leffler, formerly of Laurel and now of
Virginia. The seventh plaintiff is Erin Whitney, formerly of College
Park and now of California.

Under the ADA, discrimination includes the failure to provide auxiliary
aids and services. The term "auxiliary aids and services" under the ADA
includes "qualified interpreters" who make "aurally delivered materials
available to individuals with hearing impairments," according to
Sutherland, Asbill and Brennan.

The lawsuit says Laurel Regional used video-remote interpreting for
communication, wherein a translator assists through video-conferencing
technology.

"This is not an indictment of video interpreting," Lewis Wiener, a
litigation partner with Sutherland, said in a written statement.

"Rather, the question is whether, based on the facts, Laurel Hospital's
use of video remote interpreting and its refusal to provide these
individuals with in-person interpreters meets the requirements of the
ADA," Wiener said in the statement. "In this case it clearly did not.
Laurel Hospital's failure to provide effective communication has
directly injured and continues to injure the plaintiffs."

Wiener has offered his legal services to the plaintiffs without charge.

The suit seeks an order requiring the hospital to provide deaf
individuals with effective means of communication, including qualified
sign-language interpreters and close-captioned televisions. The suit
also seeks compensatory and punitive damages and attorneys fees and
costs.

E-mail Steve Eifler at seifler at patuxent.com.







From checker at panix.com  Sat Feb  5 10:59:38 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 05:59:38 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] BH: Confirmed: Hallucinogen Fights Addiction
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502050558480.10866@panix2.panix.com>

Confirmed: Hallucinogen Fights Addiction
http://www.betterhumans.com/Print/index.aspx?ArticleID=2005-01-18-6

Ibogaine reduces alcohol consumption and increases addiction-fighting brain
protein

    Betterhumans Staff
    1/18/2005 7:40 PM

    Breaking the cycle: The hallucinogen ibogaine activates a brain
    protein that blocks increased alcohol craving and consumption
    following periods of abstinence

    A hallucinogen advocated as a potent anti-addiction drug has received
    support from research showing that it can block alcohol cravings in
    rodents by boosting an addiction-fighting brain protein.

    The drug, [8]ibogaine, is derived from a West African shrub called
    [9]Tabernanthe iboga. For years it has attracted attention for its
    ability to reverse withdrawal symptoms and cravings for alcohol and
    other addictive substances.

    Used outside the US to treat addiction, it is not approved in the
    country by the [10]Food and Drug Administration. Side-effects such as
    hallucinations, which made it a popular recreational drug in the
    1960s, have impeded clinical studies of its addiction-fighting
    capabilities.

    American researchers at the [11]University of California, San
    Francisco have now shown in mice and rats that the drug reduces
    alcohol consumption, and that it does so by increasing levels of the
    brain protein glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF). The
    researchers have also shown that GDNF alone decreases alcohol
    consumption.

    "By identifying the brain protein that ibogaine regulates to reduce
    alcohol consumption in rats, we have established a link between GDNF
    and reversal of addiction--knowledge of a molecular mechanism that
    should allow development of a new class of drugs to treat addiction
    without ibogaine's side-effects," says study coauthor [12]Dorit Ron.

    New treatments possible

    For their research, Ron and colleagues first gave rats alcohol until
    they became daily drinkers. They then withdrew alcohol for two weeks,
    which is known to greatly increase drinking when alcohol becomes
    available again.

    Administering ibogaine, however, significantly reduced the heightened
    craving and consumption. The drug was given by injection or directly
    into the brain. Rats receiving it drank less and were less likely to
    fall off the wagon and revert to their previous drinking habits.

    "The discovery that Ibogaine reduced binge drinking after a period of
    abstinence was an exciting finding for us because this is the type of
    behavior in alcoholics for which very few effective drugs exist," says
    study coauthor [13]Patricia Janak.

    The researchers also confirmed in a cell model that ibogaine
    stimulated GDNF activity. They then confirmed that this was
    responsible for the drug's anti-addiction effects by using a GDNF
    inhibitor in the rats. This blocked ibogaine's ability to decrease
    alcohol craving.

    "If we can alter the GDNF pathway, we may well have a new treatment
    against alcohol and drug addiction without the unwanted side-effects
    of Ibogaine," says Ron.

References

    8. http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibogaine
    9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iboga
   10. http://www.fda.gov/
   11. http://www.ucsf.edu/
   12. http://www.ucsf.edu/pibs/faculty/ron.html
   13. http://www.ucsf.edu/pibs/faculty/janak.html
   14. http://www.jneurosci.org/


From checker at panix.com  Sat Feb  5 11:00:15 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 06:00:15 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] David Steigerwald: Our New Cultural Determinism
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502050559460.10866@panix2.panix.com>

David Steigerwald: Our New Cultural Determinism
Society, 2005.1-2

First, the summary from the Chronicle of Higher Education (5.1.24):

The developed world has become infatuated with the idea of 
culture as the framework for understanding everything, says 
David Steigerwald, an associate professor of history at Ohio 
State University at Marion.

"Culture has become to our time what religion was to the early 
modern period and science to the Enlightenment," he writes.

We now have cultural politics, cultural citizenship, culture 
wars, and corporate cultures, he says. Fly fishermen and Elvis 
fans have their own cultures, as do drug addicts and people in 
recovery from addiction.

"We have oversold culture," he contends. "We have come to see it 
as far too powerful a thing. Stretching culture to encompass 
everything, using it as shorthand for complicated social 
developments, we have made the term meaningless, the fate of all 
overused words."

And focusing too much on culture can be dangerous, he argues, 
because it draws attention away from real sources of power, like 
wealth and the state.

"Had Mao labored under the cultural determinism of our time," he 
writes, "he would have said that power comes out of his ideas 
about the barrel of a gun."

--------------------------

Sometime in the last quarter century, without much notice or fanfare,
the developed world slipped from the Age of Materialism into the Age of
Culture. For at least 150 years, individual behavior, public
motivations, the whole infrastructure of the human enterprise was
understood, widely and basically, to be rooted in material interests.
Today, however, culture is the framework for understanding what moves
the world. Culture has become to our time what religion was to the early
modern period and science to the Enlightenment. Economic Man of the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has abdicated in favor of
Cultural Person, and the new regime has replaced class consciousness
with culture consciousness. The philosophical materialism that
underpinned a century of Marxism and evolved into economic determinism
has given way to a cultural determinism every bit as dogmatic as the old
hardcore communism. In the United States, if not throughout the
developed world, this cultural determinism has trickled down from the
intellectuals and now assumes the position of common sense. Culture is
the new catch-all, the court of first and last appeal, the basis of
public policy, the obligatory note, the place we all reside.

It is astonishing to contemplate the breadth and frequency of the appeal
to culture. It hardly takes a ready ear or wide reading to turn up
instances of culture's invocation. We're told that American politics
runs on the intensity of the "culture wars," because the legislative and
electoral life of the nation is consumed in "cultural politics."
Washington is awash in lobbyist money, yet the foot soldiers of the
culture wars are oblivious, concerned only with asserting their
"cultural identities." No wonder pundits and dispassionate scholars
alike have taken to analyzing something they call "political culture."

If current affairs of state have come to be regarded as essentially
cultural matters, so to have the great streams of history. The rise of
western power, according to the military historian Victor Davis Hanson,
was a matter not of political strength, technological genius, or
economic dynamism but of the "2,500-year tradition," running back to the
Greeks, of soldier democrats. This cultural tradition, he announces,
"explains not only why Western forces have overcome great odds to defeat
their adversaries but also their uncanny ability to project power well
beyond the shores of Europe and America. Numbers, location, food,
health, weather, religion-the usual factors that govern the success or
failure of wars-have ultimately done little to impede Western armies,
whose larger culture has allowed them to trump man and nature alike."
Hanson might sound a bit too much like a cheerleader for western
imperialism, but even the sharpest and wisest critics of the spread of
western power emphasized the culture in imperialism. It was as if they
wanted to claim that Joseph Conrad, not British weapons, had oppressed
Africa; the concept of "orientialism," not the French shackling of
workers to rubber trees, presumably subjugated Vietnam. In an
intellectual climate where imperialism is understood more as a function
of the culture of nation-states than of the political dynamics of
nation-building, citizenship itself is reconceived as "cultural
citizenship." Even so staid a discipline as diplomatic history now
appeals to culture, lest it fall into irrelevance.

That high-school and college students are now more likely to read Chinua
Achebe than Joseph Conrad must mean, by this reasoning, that imperialism
is done for. But then how to explain its reappearance in the Bush
administration's unabashed enthusiasm for conquest and domination?
Presumably Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and Mr. Wolfowitz are all products of a
"cowboy culture," as is often suggested. Or perhaps they are products of
"the culture of national security," which according to Peter J.
Katzenstein leads some foreign-policy "actors [to] respond to cultural
factors" as much as, and sometimes more let stand than material
interests-apparently it's not about the oil after all.

Nor is this cultural determinism a bizarre quality of the
intellectuals-an element in "the culture of academia," I'm tempted to
say. It has seeped out far and wide. Health-care workers now are
instructed to heed the cultures of their patients. Thus Madeleine
Leininger exhorts her readers to surrender the "lofty contempt for
people whose culture is different or seems strange" through
"transcultural nursing." Nursing "can no longer be...an activity based
solely upon knowledge of man's physical and emotional needs." Our
multicultural environment means that "understanding the culture of an
individual seeking health care is just as important...as is knowledge of
the physiological and psychological aspects of an individual's illness."
Nurses cannot be mere caretakers to the ill; they have to be
anthropologists as well. Healthy living itself constitutes a culture,
according to the professionals, a helpful thing to understand when, for
instance, treating drug addicts. Drug addiction, according to one
expert, is "a way of life, a means of organizing one's daily existence,
and a way of viewing people and events in the outside world." Addiction,
in short, is a culture by anthropological definition. Successful
treatment begins with identifying how deeply "enmeshed" the addict is in
this culture and then moving them into the "culture of recovery."

What once would have been considered human idiosyncrasy, a quirky habit,
an off-beat hobby, or just plain weirdness nowadays all lay claim to
institutionalization as "cultures"-not, mind you, as cultural ephemera
but as cultures in and of themselves. Fly fishing is no longer a
peaceful pastime; its advocates insist that it is a culture in its own
right. No doubt church bingo, city-park chess playing, and flea-market
shoppers all deserve similar elevation. The cultural-studies scholar
Erika Doss recently revealed her discovery of the not-so-lost world of
"Elvis Culture," whose inhabitants regard Elvis Presley with all the
reverence of a god; they make pilgrimages to Graceland and create
shrines to him in their home. The faithful battle the bad corporate
types who scurry to control Elvis' image, knowing that they can rely on
the "mystery and wonder" that is The Eternal Elvis to help them
frustrate the efforts to vulgarize his memory.

If Elvis fans can have a culture of their own, there is no reason why
bureaucracies or corporations cannot. Whenever a major merger is
announced, the stock analysts ponder the mix of "corporate cultures" as
if arranging a marriage. Since Tom Peters invoked the term to explain
why some firms succeed and some fail, it has been taken as a matter of
course among organizational theorists that corporations have cultures.
Corporations "have personalities too, just like individuals," intones
the author of a standard collegiate text on organizational behavior. It
is legitimate to speak of corporate cultures, according to another,
because individual firms have their distinct artifacts, symbols, values,
and rituals; corporate cultures "are shared, communicated through
symbols, and passed down from generation to generation of employers."
Once its culture is institutionalized, the corporation "acquires
immortality," because it presumably lives beyond its founders. Just look
at McDonald's, "the definitive example of a powerful and successful
organizational culture. ... It's not by chance that a McDonald's meal
tastes pretty much the same everywhere."

When the Federal Bureau of Investigation came under fire for a rash of
near-scandals in Spring 2001, Iowa Senator Charles Grassley, who chaired
a subcommittee that oversaw the FBI, chalked the problems of
mismanagement and investigative sloppiness up to the Bureau's "cowboy
culture." Grassley's comments conjured up images of John Wayne or Jimmy
Stewart. But Grassley had in mind "a kind of a culture that puts image,
public relations, and headlines ahead of the fundamentals of the FBI."
Presumably this "cowboy culture" is different from the "cowboy culture"
of Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. But then it is good to know that cultural
diversity thrives even among cowpokes and buckaroos.

We have oversold culture. We have come to see it as far too powerful a
thing. Stretching culture to encompass everything, using it as shorthand
for complicated social developments, we have made the term meaningless,
the fate of all overused words. The fundamental assumptions of our time
notwithstanding, culture is not the most powerful realm in human
affairs. Wealth and the capacity to exploit labor remain the fuel of
economic change; to these fall the privilege of setting the material
conditions of most people. Class conflict still revolves around the
struggle over just how powerful those forces are in daily life. The
state remains the seat of coercion and still enjoys the monopoly on
police powers. It still largely retains the focus of public loyalties,
even in those developed nations where patriotism long has been
considered vulgar. The state still sends out the military to push its
way against its enemies. To say that values and ideologies, which are
legitimately understood as cultural creations, are convoluted with the
economic and political realms is not incorrect, but it abstracts power
by investing it at a remove from its basic sources. Had Mao labored
under the cultural determinism of our time, he would have said that
power comes out of his ideas about the barrel of the gun.

It hardly needs to be said that the diversity movement and its
ideological companion, multiculturalism, are both creations of and
contributors to the inflation of culture. So too is cultural populism, a
less well-de-fined but nonetheless still influential sensibility.
According to this line of thought, which now provides the basic
assumptions of cultural history and American Studies and supplies the
foundational theories of Cultural Studies, individuals engage in a
constant process of culture making in a series of negotiations,
compromises, and subversions with the dominant culture that surrounds
them. The magic of "cultural agency" assumes that individuals receive
the cultural dictates of the powers that be but turn them to their own
interests. Cultural populism has its origins in two indirectly related
sources: the urban sociology of Americans such as Herbert Gans, and the
New Left Marxism of Stuart Hall and his colleagues in the Birmingham
School. These two sources share the conclusion that culture is made
through the engagement of the individual with the world around them.
Both Gans and Hall took as their nemeses the critics of mass culture,
particularly Dwight Macdonald, who held sway in Anglo-America in the
1950s. To the cultural populists, the mass-culture critics were utterly
wrong to think that mass-produced entertainment turned consumers into
"morons," to paraphrase Herbert Marcuse. Snobs like Macdonald were
denounced as disappointed ex-Marxists who had expected the working class
to share the same tastes as the intellectuals but who, having discovered
that the steel worker liked Jackie Gleason instead of Tolstoy, launched
their condescending barbs with all the venom of jilted lovers.
Working-class people, according to the populist line, were critical
consumers who deflected the stupefaction of Hollywood or television and
made meaning of their engagement and gave shape to their own distinct
world in the bargain. Once such claims were made on behalf of the
working class, they could be made as well about any group; so it wasn't
long before ethnic and racial minorities, gays, women, teenagers, the
"sub-alterns"-whatever group any given writer wanted to champion-were
similarly credited with this cultural agency and celebrated for having
created a culture of their own in spite of the conformist pressures of
the system.

Now deeply embedded in cultural studies of all sorts, populism rests on
several tenuous claims. It assumes that consumption, rather than
production, creates culture. As Herbert Gans wrote in his 1974 primer
Popular Culture and High Culture, "the critics of mass culture are
creator-oriented" while the new line of thought would be
"user-oriented." Gans's dry sociology has gotten hipped-up in Cultural
Studies scholars such as Andrew Ross, who has ridiculed mass-culture
theory as "a one-sided and inadequate account not only of the
contradictory power and significance of popular culture for its users
and consumers, but also of the complex process by which popular culture
actually creates political and social identities, by rearticulating
desires that have deep resonance in people's daily lives." Ross's
language is revealing-and typical-enough: "popular culture" apparently
has little to do with creation; it is to be "used and consumed." If
there is creative energy to be found, it goes not toward painstaking
craftsmanship but in choosing which of the presumably various
"identities" resonates most deeply with the consumers' "desires." In
this fashion, cultural populism reduces culture to consumer choice.

Almost invariably, cultural populists think of themselves as radicals
and cast the process of cultural agency as subversive. They seem willing
to concede that consumption cannot be revolutionary and content
themselves with the complacent conviction that by "rearticulating
desires" individuals stymie the imposition of prescribed gender roles,
bourgeois values, and mainstream expectations of various sorts. In the
logic of John Fiske, an ?migr? from the Birmingham School, because
"money is power in capitalism, then buying, particularly if the act is
voluntary, is an empowering moment for those whom the economic system
otherwise subordinates." Rather than tearing down the system as a whole,
the cultural populists believe that the autonomous consumption of
mass-produced commodities, regardless of their quality, undermines the
capacity of the ruling class to impose aesthetic standards on society as
a whole and therefore frustrates class domination. The populists abhor
taste, in other words; they do not oppose consumer capitalism. They want
things both ways. They need to believe that they are radical
intellectuals, and yet they like what capitalism sells. To swing this
they need a sufficiently flexible concept, so they reach for culture. In
their hands, reducing culture to consumer choice is the gimmick that
permits the comforting illusion of political struggle in the service of
being comfortable.

A similar point can be made about the diversity movement. Over the last
decade particularly, this broad movement insinuated itself into
practically every public institution and private organization in the
United States. It is safe to say that no large organization today is
without a "diversity plan." These plans, like the movement that has
pushed them, seek to widen access to the nation's institutional life for
members of minority groups. Fifty years ago, such an admirable
undertaking was known as racial integration. Having absorbed the
contemporary vanity that culture is what you want it to be, diversity
advocates insist that bureaucratic inclusion does not necessitate
cultural assimilation. The very pretense of cultural diversity assumes
that a person who has roots in a minority group can enter the full
thrust of a bureaucratized world without sacrificing those roots. Much
as the cultural populists mangle the culture concept so that they can be
radical and comfortable at the same time, so the diversity movement, and
its close partner, multiculturalism, permit the delusion that a person
can lead a life regulated within all the fixed parameters of
bureaucratic institutions and still retain their distinctiveness. Just
as the populists turn a willfully blind eye toward the economic system
that generates a mind-numbing array of homogenized plastic goods, so
multiculturalists ignore the well-known capacity of bureaucracies to
rule by standardization and the creation of uniform, homogenized
experience. Culture, in its debased form, allows them too to have it
both ways.

The hard question is why, when the end is basic justice, advocates of
racial integration need to hide themselves in the obscurity of
misconceived conceptions of culture. The answer closest to hand is that
multiculturalism is an argument for the expansion of bureaucracy, which
is of course in the self-interest of bureaucrats. In his illuminating
book The Diversity Machine, for example, Frederick Lynch notes that the
University of Michigan's diversity plan gave birth to more than a
hundred different programs. Once you accept the proposition that
cultural diversity and racial diversity are the same things and that
cultural diversity is a public good because it insures a rich experience
for all then there is no reason to end diversity programs. Given the
eagerness of university and corporate bureaucrats to take up the cause
of diversity, or when one takes note of the explosion of diversity
consultants who made a cottage industry of workshops that browbeat white
employees, it is hard not to think that diversity and bureaucratic
expansion are brothers under the skin.

But the matter runs deeper. Just as the cultural populists accept the
economic structure of contemporary society while lampooning aesthetic
standards as hidebound class domination, so multiculturalists reject the
assimilation ideal even as their purpose is to join the mainstream.
Though they strain for access to the institutional mainstream of
contemporary life, they claim, as does Elsie Cross, the matron of
diversity consultants, that the "dominant group" within American
corporations, presumably white men, "has set up and maintains the system
that discriminates and is the gatekeeper of access to power and equal
opportunity for people. Subordinated groups don't want to be invited
into or perpetuate the system, they want to change it so they can be
equal partners."

The underlying assumption beneath multiculturalism as a wing of social
thought and the diversity movement as its concrete public expression is
that culture is a permanent feature of groups, which in turn mostly
cohere by virtue of race and ethnicity. While many thoughtful people who
can fairly be called multiculturalists-Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the
historian David Hollinger, to name two obvious examples-deplore the
tendency to see culture as eternally fixed around one's origins, the
overriding tendency is to assume, as another prominent diversity
consultant, University of Michigan's Taylor Cox, writes in Creating the
Multicultural Organization in 2001, "that differences of social-cultural
identity such as gender, national origin, race and work specialization
represent real differences in culture." Culture, presumably, is
unchanging, and the upshot therefore is that no amount of bureaucratic
inclusion, no amount of immersion in the mainstream structures of
contemporary daily life shakes off the hold of ancestors.

In cultural populism, then, we have a conception of culture that is as
varied and flexible as individual choice, and in multiculturalism
culture becomes ineradicable. These conceptions are not mutually
exclusive antagonists. They are perfect complements. Advocates of both
lines of thought believe that culture is the creature of the ruling
class, that social, political, and economic power are all feeble unless
culture is shaped to justify class rule. The populists insist that
aesthetic standards are bourgeois weapons used to mark the boundaries
between classes and to define the proper from the vulgar.  Assimilation,
in multiculturalists' hands, is cultural imperialism. It is the process,
as political scientist Iris Young maintains, by which "culturally
imperialist groups project their own values, experience, and perspective
as normative and universal" and in so doing leave "the members of
[oppressed] groups...imprisoned in their bodies." To ignore good taste
or to reject assimilation, therefore, are forms of resistance to class
domination.

There is a certain grain of historical truth in these convictions. A
hundred years ago, the industrial-era bourgeoisie did seize on culture.
Among them, culture took on snob value; the boundaries of accepted taste
dictated behavior and marked off the properly refined from the
barbarians of the lower classes. And those lower classes were often
non-Anglo and non-white. So the demands for assimilation, the old
melting-pot ideal, reflected the bourgeoise's hatred for ways of life
different from its own, and of course it simply ruled out of society
those who wouldn't or couldn't melt, most obviously African-Americans.

But what makes for accurate history does not necessarily make for
accurate contemporary analysis. Today, culture is irrelevant to social
status. Economic and political elites no longer need to make cultural
demands of the lower classes, in part because all they need of those
lower classes is to have them buy the mass-pro-duced goods that make the
whole world turn these days. Far from insisting on the adoption of
class-bound standards of taste or defining subordinate groups out of
society entirely, today's rulers strive to pull everyone in as
consumers; everyone constitutes a niche market to be flattered by
appeals to contrived distinctions. No one can look across the vast
wasteland of mass-pro-duced entertainment otherwise known as "popular
culture" and seriously claim that there is a bourgeois agenda for
imposing standards of taste. And this is not because the manufacturers
of entertainment believe the lower classes to be irredeemably vulgar and
therefore cater to their bad taste. Rather it is because things of
beauty, objects that deserve aesthetic admiration, cannot be
mass-produced; standards of taste only get in the way of business. The
same principle applies to assimilation. It is in the direct interests of
the entertainment industries not to insist on a homogenized social type,
because doing so would limit their reach into all possible consumer
markets. If anything it is in their interests to flatter the sense of
group differences and keep them alive, precisely because doing so adds
to the persuasive appeal of their niche marketing.

It is almost as though the cultural populists and multiculturalists, far
from being radical opponents of the status quo, are in deep collusion
with it. When you put them together, you have a collection of people who
want it both ways: They want unobstructed access to all the goodies that
the present economic and political structure offers-the plastic gadgets,
the suburban houses, the gas-guzzling cars, the cable tv, the junk food,
the junk music, the junk entertainment, the safe jobs in bureaucratic
settings-and they still want to believe that they can either whip up
their own cultural safe zones or wrap themselves in the increasingly
remote cocoon of their ancestors, wishing away the all-too-obvious
deracination through the sheer insistence that they keep living "their
culture" even as they work for IBM or the University of Michigan. It is
as though the concrete reality of our lives no longer constitutes
culture. It is as though we ignore the fundamental ways we go about
arranging our human relationships, engage with the natural world, or
contemplate eternity.  The concept of culture we now swath ourselves in
is a cheap balm. It is no real cure for the fundamental ills that beset
us, no antidote for the very real emptiness of a consumer society that
expects us to secure our place in the larger human endeavor according to
what we buy today. Culture, as both the populists and the
multiculturalists have it, has become an enormous, generation wide
exercise in excusing away our complacency in the on-going debasement of
a decent human existence.

SUGGESTED FURTHER READING

Conklin, Wendy Conklin. 2001. "Clarifying the Work of Integration: An
Interview with Elsie Y. Cross," The Diversity Factor, 9 (Winter). 
Hanson, Victor Davis. 2001. Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the
Rise of Western Power. New York: Doubleday. 
Katzenstein, Peter J., ed. 1996. The Culture of National Security: Norms
and Identity in World Politics. New York: Columbia University Press. 
Leininger, Madeleine. 1967. "The Culture Concept and Its Relevance to
Nursing." Reprinted in Leininger, ed., Transcultural Nursing: Concepts,
Theories, and Practices (New York, 1978), 109-11. 
Ross, Andrew. 1989. No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture. New
York: Routledge. 
Young, Iris Marion. 1990. Justice and the Politics of Difference.
Princeton: Princeton University Press. 
David Steigerwald is associate professor of history and director of the
history major at Ohio State University's Marion campus.

This essay is drawn from Culture's Vanities: The Paradox of Cultural
Diversity in a Globalized World (Rowman & Littlefield).

From checker at panix.com  Sat Feb  5 11:01:29 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 06:01:29 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Peace Economics,
	Peace Science and Public Policy: new bepress journal
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502050600200.10866@panix2.panix.com>

-----Original Message-----
From: Aaron S. Edlin [mailto:mm-9312-984059 at bepress.com]
Sent: 2005 January 19, Wednesday 19:00
Subject: Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy: new bepress
journal

The Berkeley Electronic Press, in conjunction with editors Walter Isard,
Cornell University, and Johan Moyersoen, University of Oxford, is
pleased to announce publication of Peace Economics, Peace Science and
Public Policy (PEPS), located at http://www.bepress.com/peps/ .  To view
any of the articles in this peer-reviewed journal, simply click on the
links below.  Additional PEPS details follow at bottom of message.

Walter Isard and Jiyoun An (2004) "A Hierarchical Decision-Making Model
for Progress in Reducing Three Evils: Terrorism, Poverty and
Environmental Degradation", Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public
Policy: Vol. 10: No. 3, Article 1.
http://www.bepress.com/peps/vol10/iss3/1

Lisa J. Carlson and Raymond Dacey (2004) "Sequential Decision Analysis
of the Traditional Deterrence Game", Peace Economics, Peace Science and
Public Policy: Vol. 10: No. 3, Article 2.
http://www.bepress.com/peps/vol10/iss3/2

Urs Luterbacher (2004) "Conflict and Irrevocable Decisions", Peace
Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy: Vol. 10: No. 3, Article 3.
http://www.bepress.com/peps/vol10/iss3/3

Paul S. Han (2004) "Report on Critical Dimensions and Problems of the
North Korean Situation (1996-2004)", Peace Economics, Peace Science and
Public Policy: Vol. 10: No. 3, Article 4.
http://www.bepress.com/peps/vol10/iss3/4
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From checker at panix.com  Sat Feb  5 11:05:52 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 06:05:52 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Wikipedia: Surveillance
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502050604290.10866@panix2.panix.com>

Surveillance - Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance

    Surveillance is a process of close monitoring of [3]behaviour.
    [4]"Sur-Veillance" is French for to "watch from above". Note the all
    seeing "eye-in-the-sky" in this London Transport poster
    [5]Enlarge
    "Sur-Veillance" is French for to "watch from above". Note the all
    seeing "eye-in-the-sky" in this London Transport poster

    Although the word surveillance literally means (in French) "to watch
    from above" (i.e. a God's-eye view looking down from on-high) the term
    is often used for all forms of observation, not just visual
    observation.

    However, the all-seeing eye-in-the-sky is still an icon of
    surveillance in general.

    It is commonly used to describe observation from a distance by means
    of electronic equipment or other [6]technological means, for example:
      * [7]eavesdropping
      * [8]telephone tapping
      * [9]directional microphones
      * [10]communications interception
      * [11]covert listening devices or 'bugs'
      * [12]Minox subminiature cameras
      * [13]closed-circuit television
      * [14]electronic tagging
      * military [15]reconnaissance
      * [16]Reconnaissance aircraft, e.g. [17]Lockheed U-2
      * [18]Reconnaissance satellites
      * [19]"trusted" computing devices
      * Internet and [20]computer surveillance

    However, surveillance also includes simple, relatively low-technology
    methods such as [21]postal interception, watching from nearby
    buildings with binoculars or similar and visiting properties in
    disguise.

    The term can also be used to describe the monitoring of [22]diseases
    by [23]epidemiologists.
                                 Contents
    [24]1 Surveillance, counter-surveillance, inverse surveillance, and
    sousveillance
    [25]2 Impact of surveillance
    [26]3 Telephones and mobile telephones
    [27]4 Postal services
    [28]5 Surveillance devices - 'bugs'
    [29]6 Computer Surveillance
    [30]7 Photography
    [31]8 Closed circuit TV
    [32]9 Documentation trails
    [33]10 Data profiling
    [34]11 Identities
    [35]12 Human operatives and social engineering
    [36]13 Personal counter-surveillance
    [37]14 Natural surveillance
    [38]15 See also
    [39]16 References
    [40]17 External links
    [[41]edit]

Surveillance, counter-surveillance, inverse surveillance, and sousveillance

    [42]"Eye-in-the-sky" surveillance dome camera mounted atop a tall
    steel pole.
    [43]Enlarge
    "Eye-in-the-sky" surveillance dome camera mounted atop a tall steel
    pole.

    Surveillance is the art of watching over the activities of persons or
    groups from a position of higher authority. Surveillance may be covert
    (without their knowledge) or overt (perhaps with frequent reminders
    such as "we are watching over you"). Surveillance has been an
    intrinsic part of human history. [44]Sun Tzu's [45]The Art of War,
    written 2,500 years ago, discusses how spies should be used against a
    person's enemies. But modern electronic and computer technology have
    given surveillance a whole new means of operation. Surveillance can be
    automated using computers, and people leave extensive records that
    describe their activities.

    Counter surveillance is the practice of avoiding surveillance or
    making it difficult. Before computer networks, counter surveillance
    involved avoiding agents and communicating secretly. With recent
    development of the Internet and computer databases counter
    surveillance has grown. Now counter surveillance involves everything
    from knowing how to delete a file on a computer to avoiding becoming
    the target of direct advertising agencies.

    Inverse surveillance is the practice of reversalism on surveillance,
    e.g. citizens photographing police, shoppers photographing
    shopkeepers, and passengers photographing cab drivers who usually have
    surveillance cameras in their cabs. A well-known example is George
    Haliday's recording of the Rodney King beating. [46]Inverse
    surveillance attempts to subvert the Panoptic gaze of surveillance,
    and often attempts to subvert the secrecy of surveillance through
    making the inverse surveillance recordings widely available (in
    contrast to the usually secret surveillance tapes).

    Sousveillance (French for "to watch from below") further includes the
    recording of an activity by a participant in the activity, in addition
    to [47]inverse surveillance. Recent [48]sousveillance workshops such
    as Microsoft's [49]Continuous Archival and Recording of Personal
    Experience (http://research.microsoft.com/CARPE2004/) are evidence of
    a growing sousveillance industry including Microsoft (wearable
    cameras), Nokia, Hewlett Packard ("Casual Capture") and many others.
    [[50]edit]

Impact of surveillance

    [51]Image:Moving-camera.gif The greatest impact of computer-enabled
    surveillance is the large number of organisations involved in
    surveillance operations:
      * The state and security services still have the most powerful
        surveillance systems, because they are enabled under the law. But
        today levels of state surveillance have increased, and using
        computers they are now able to draw together many different
        information sources to produce profiles of persons or groups in
        society.

      * Many large corporations now use various form of 'passive'
        surveillance. This is primarily a means of monitoring the
        activities of staff and for controlling [52]public relations. But
        some large corporations actively use various forms of surveillance
        to monitor the activities of [53]activists and campaign groups who
        may impact their operations.

      * Many companies trade in information lawfully, buying and selling
        it from other companies or local government agencies who collect
        it. This data is usually bought by companies who wish to use it
        for [54]marketing or [55]advertising purposes.

      * Personal information is obtained by many small groups and
        individuals. Some of this is for harmless purposes, but
        increasingly sensitive personal information is being obtained for
        criminal purposes, such as [56]credit card and other types of
        [57]fraud.

    For those who are peacefully working to change society, surveillance
    presents a problem. Particularly after the [58]September 11th, 2001
    terrorist attacks, many states now view [59]political dissent as a
    problem, and have introduced new laws to strengthen their surveillance
    powers. Many states have also redefined their legal definition of
    terrorism to not only include violent acts, but also types of direct
    action [60]protest. Even where groups have [61]no involvement in
    violence, states and corporations may try to use information obtained
    about groups or individuals to discredit their work. As the scope of
    surveillance increases, it is important that groups and individuals
    manage their exposure to different types of surveillance to limit the
    damage it can do to them, or their work.

    Modern surveillance cannot be totally avoided. If the state uses all
    of their resources to investigate a person's activities, they will be
    able to do so. However, non-state groups may employ surveillance
    techniques against an organisation, and some precautions can reduce
    their success. Some states are also legally limited in how extensively
    they can conduct general surveillance of people they have no
    particular reason to suspect.

    Note: In all the forms of surveillance mentioned below, the issue of
    patterns is important. Although in isolation a single piece of
    communications data seems useless, when collected together with the
    communications data of other people it can disclose a lot of
    information about organisational relationships, work patterns,
    contacts and personal habits. The collection and processing of
    communications data is largely automated using computers. See also:
    [62]traffic analysis
    [[63]edit]

Telephones and mobile telephones

    The official and unofficial tapping of telephone lines is widespread.

    The contracts or licenses by which the state controls telephone
    companies means that they must provide access for tapping lines to the
    security services and the police.

    For mobile phones the major threat is the collection of communications
    data. This data not only includes information about the time and
    duration of the call, but also the geographical location where the
    call was made from and to whom. This data can be determined generally
    because the geographic communications cell that the call was made in
    is stored with the details of the call. But it is also possible to get
    greater resolution of a persons location by combining information from
    a number of cells surrounding the persons location.

    Mobile phones are, in surveillance terms, a major liability. This
    liability will only increase as the new third-generation (3G) phones
    are introduced. This is because the base stations will be located
    closer together.

    See the article [64]telephone tapping for more details.
    [[65]edit]

Postal services

    As more people use faxes and email the significance of the postal
    system is decreasing (this may not be the case in all countries,
    certainly the case with international communications, but probably not
    local). But interception of post is still very important to the
    security services.

    There is no easy way to know your post is being read. The machines
    used to sort and stamp letters often rip up items anyway, so damage is
    no certain indicator that your post is being read.

    The simplest counter-measure to stop your post being opened is to put
    sticky tape along each edge and the seams of the envelope, and then
    sign the tape with an indelible marker. That prevents all but the most
    expert tampering.

    People used to send floppy disks via the post. Today these files can
    go easily by email. But [66]CDs and [67]DVDs of data are still
    regularly sent by post. To ensure that this data is not open to
    reading by anyone, even if its just wrongly delivered, you should
    encrypt the data.
    [[68]edit]

Surveillance devices - 'bugs'

    Surveillance devices or 'bugs' are not really a communications medium,
    but they are a device that requires a communications channel. The idea
    of a 'bug' usually involves a radio transmitter, but there are many
    other options for carrying a signal; you can send radio frequencies
    through the main wiring of a building and pick them up outside, you
    can pick up the transmissions from a cordless phones, and you can pick
    up the data from poorly configured wireless computer networks or tune
    in to the radio emissions of a computer monitor.

    Bugs come in all shapes and sizes. The original purpose of bugs was to
    relay sound. Today the miniaturisation of electronics has progressed
    so far then even TV pictures can be broadcast via bugs that
    incorporate miniature video cameras (something made popular recently
    during TV coverage sports events, etc.). The cost of these devices has
    dramatically fallen.

    See the article on [69]bugging for more details.
    [[70]edit]

Computer Surveillance

    At the very basic level, computers are a surveillance target because
    you confide your secrets into them. Anyone who can and access or
    remove your computer can retrieve your information. If someone is able
    to install software on your system they can turn your computer into a
    surveillance device.

    Computers can be tapped by a number of methods, ranging from the
    installation of physical bugs, to the installation of surveillance
    software or remote interception of the radio transmissions generated
    by the normal operation of computers.

    See the article [71]computer surveillance for more details.
    [[72]edit]

Photography

    Photography is becoming more valuable as a means of surveillance. In
    recent years there has been a significant expansion in the level of
    stills and video photography carried out at public demonstrations in
    many countries. At the same time there have been advances in closed
    circuit television (CCTV) technology and computer image processing
    that enable digital images taken from cameras to be matched with
    images stored in a database.

    Photographs have long been collected as a form of evidence. But as
    protest and civil disobedience become an ever greater liability to
    governments and corporations, images are gathered not only as evidence
    for prosecution, but also as a source of intelligence information. The
    collection of photographs and video also has another important
    function - it scares people.
    [[73]edit]

Closed circuit TV

    Closed circuit TV (CCTV) - where the picture is viewed or recorded,
    but not broadcast - initially developed as a means of security for
    banks. Today it has developed to the point where it is simple and
    inexpensive enough to be used in home security systems, and for
    everyday surveillance.

    The widespread use of CCTV by the police and governments has developed
    over the last 10 years. In the UK, cities and towns across the country
    have installed large numbers of cameras linked to police authorities.
    The justification for the growth of CCTV in towns is that it deters
    crime - although there is still no clear evidence that CCTV reduces
    crime. The recent growth of CCTV in housing areas also raises serious
    issues about the extent to which CCTV is being used as a social
    control measure rather than simply a deterrent to crime.

    The development of CCTV in public areas, linked to computer databases
    of people's pictures and identity, presents a serious risk to civil
    liberties. Potentially you will not be able to meet anonymously in a
    public place. You will not be able to drive or walk anonymously around
    a city. Demonstrations or assemblies in public places could be
    affected as the state would be able to collate lists of those leading
    them, taking part, or even just talking with protesters in the street.

    See the article [74]CCTV for more details.
    [[75]edit]

Documentation trails

    Modern society creates huge amounts of data. Every time you use a bank
    machine, pay by credit card, use a phone card or make a call from home
    you clock up electronic records of transactions. In the past these
    would have been called 'paper trails'. But today many of these records
    are electronic. This information, if obtained by the state, or
    obtained through unofficial channels (sorting your rubbish/bribing
    those in charge of keeping the information) can also describe how you
    live and work.

    One of the greatest freedoms we have is to buy a book, or a newspaper,
    or to donate money to a cause, and do so with complete anonymity. When
    transactions are electronic, that anonymity is lost.

    Marketing and credit reporting agencies rival the state intelligence
    services for their collection of dossiers. Today a whole web of
    information is collected by marketing companies in order to sell you
    things, or determine how companies should run their marketing
    strategies. The details from a whole range of transactions, from
    credit agreements to the electoral register, are all purchased by
    market research companies to provide information on the habits of the
    public as potential customers.
    [[76]edit]

Data profiling

    Most of the information described above is generalised - it identifies
    trends from large quantities of data, and the role of the individual
    in that is very minor. Data profiling on the other hand is a process
    whereby someone seeks to get as much information about you as possible
    - personally - in order to assemble a picture of your specific life
    and habits.

    Data profiling is very important in intelligence operations and has
    many applications - from deciding whether a person is vulnerable to
    bribery, through to conducting profiling of suspects to decide where
    they can be apprehended. The state has powers to do this by issuing
    orders that banks, credit companies or even your employer supply data
    to them. But even corporations and [77]private investigators can
    assemble this information if they are well connected.

    Much personal information is not very well protected, because small
    amounts of information is not considered sensitive. But once this
    information is brought together it can describe in detail the actions,
    habits and preferences of the individual.

    Historically, much information has been protected by practical
    obscurity, the difficulty of aggregating or analyzing a large number
    of data points. This has lead to unexpected results as birth records,
    property tax rolls, and other records are brought online, where they
    can be easily collated by computer.
    [[78]edit]

Identities

    There are instances when we wish to hide our identity - to remain
    anonymous - for a whole range of reasons. To eliminate this will be a
    serious erosion of our civil liberties. This is possible as we move
    towards the development of 'electronic identities. There are two
    aspects to this:
      * the development of systems of credentials - where you carry a card
        or a document; and
      * the development of [79]biometrics - where you are recognised from
        your 'unique' biological characteristics.

    The development of identity systems is being pushed on two fronts:
      * The banking industry, who wish to find a more fool-proof system of
        verifying financial transactions than the possession of a plastic
        card or the use of a signature;
      * Law enforcement, who want a way of identifying individuals easily,
        even if they have no reason (i.e. evidence) to do so. (See
        [80]Stop and Search
        [81][1] (http://www.met.police.uk/stopandsearch/),
        [82][2] (http://www.blink.org.uk/pdescription.asp?key=1726&amp;grp
        =55&amp;cat=205))

    One of the simplest forms of identification is the carrying of
    credentials. Some countries have an identity card system to aid
    identification. Other documents, such as drivers licenses, library
    cards, bankers or credit cards are also used to verify identity. The
    problem with identity based on credentials is that the individual must
    carry them, and be identifiable, or face a legal penalty. This problem
    is compounded if the form of the identify card is 'machine-readable'
    (could you explain more) In this case it may create a document trail
    as it is used to verify transactions.

    As a means of combating the problem of people carrying or falsifying
    credentials, researchers are increasingly looking at biometrics -
    measuring biological or physical characteristics - as a way to
    determine identity. One of the oldest forms of biometrics is
    fingerprints. Every finger of every person (identical twins included)
    has a unique pattern, and these have been used for many years to help
    identify suspects in police enquiries. A finger/thumb print can be
    reduced to a brief numeric description, and such systems are being
    used in banks and secure areas to verify identity.

    A more recent development is DNA fingerprinting, which looks at some
    of the major markers in the body's DNA to produce a match. However,
    the match produced is less accurate than ordinary fingerprints because
    it only identifies people to a certain probability of matching.
    Further, identical twins have identical DNA, and so are
    indistinguishable by this method.

    Handwriting - primarily your signature - has been used for many years
    to determine identity. However other characteristics of the individual
    can also be used to check identity. Voice analysis has been used for
    some as a means to prove identity - but it is not suited to portable
    use because of the problems of storing a range of voice prints. But
    perhaps the two most viable portable systems, because identities can
    be reduced to a series of numeric data points rather than a detailed
    image or sound, are:
      * Iris recognition. Some banks are now using this method of
        security. The human iris has an almost unique pattern that can be
        reduced to a simple series of numeric descriptions. The iris
        reader matches the pattern of the iris to one stored and verifies
        the match.
      * Facial recognition. The configuration of the facial features can
        be used to accurately identify one individual from another. Again,
        the configuration can be reduced to a short numeric description.

    By combining some form of personal identifying feature, with a system
    of verification it is possible to do everything from buying food to
    travelling abroad. The important issue is how this information is
    managed in order to reduce the likelihood of tracking. If you were to
    combine a particular biometric system with new smart card technology
    to store the description, that system would be immune from tracking
    (unless the transaction produced a document/electronic trial). But if
    the identifying features are stored centrally, and a whole range of
    systems have access to those descriptions, it is possible that other
    uses could be made of the data; for example, using high resolution
    CCTV images with a databases of facial identities in order to identify
    people at random.
    [[83]edit]

Human operatives and social engineering

    The most invasive form of surveillance is the use of human operatives.
    This takes two forms:
      * The use of operatives to infiltrate an organisation; and
      * The use of social engineering techniques to obtain information.

    In groups dealing with issues that are directly contrary to government
    policy the issue of infiltration often arises. Also, where groups
    oppose large corporations, infiltration by agents of the corporation
    is also feared. As well as operatives, the police and security
    services may put pressure on certain members of an organisation to
    disclose the information they hold on other members.

    Running operatives is very expensive, and for the state the
    information recovered from operatives can be obtained from less
    problematic forms of surveillance. If discovered, it can also be a
    public relations disaster for the government or corporation involved.
    For these reasons, the use of operatives to infiltrate organisations
    is not as widespread as many believe. But infiltration is still very
    likely from other organisations who are motivated to discover and
    monitor the work of campaign groups. This may be for political or
    economic motivations. There are also many informal links between large
    corporations and police or security services, and the trading of
    information about groups and activists is part of this relationship.

    It is not possible to guard against the infiltration of an
    organisation without damaging the viability or effectiveness of the
    organisation. Worrying too much about infiltration within the
    organisation can breed mistrust and bad working relationships within
    an organisation. Rather like other forms of surveillance, the
    professional infiltration of operatives into and organisation is
    difficult to guard against.

    Another more likely scenario, especially when dealing with the media
    or corporate public relations, is social engineering. Social
    engineering is where someone phones you, interviews you, or just talks
    to you in the street and tries to make you believe they are someone
    else, or someone with an innocuous interest in you. But their real
    interest is to obtain some specific information that they believe you
    possess.

    You should develop clear procedures for handling enquiries about your
    work. For example, one day you get a phone call saying "hi, I'd really
    like to come on your demonstration against Company X, when is it?",
    or, "I'm calling for john, he's lost the password for the computer can
    you give it to me?". You have to guard against the disclosure of
    information in this way:

    Unless you have an extremely good reason to, you should never give any
    security-related information over the phone, and via the Internet you
    should encrypt security information.

    Social engineering is easily identified by asking a series a questions
    to see if a person is aware of facts or future plans that they should
    not have awareness of.

    Journalists for well known media organisation can be verified by
    phoning the editor of that organisation, but freelance or independent
    journalists should be treated with care - they could be working for
    anyone.

    There is of course a balance to be struck here. You need to be able to
    allow people a certain amount of access to your campaigns. But you
    also need to preserve the integrity of the groups of people most
    closely involved in the campaigns work. How you arrive at this balance
    is your own, difficult, problem to resolve. But however it is
    resolved, it must be agreed between all those involved in a particular
    issue in order that you have a consistent policy with all those
    involved.
    [[84]edit]

Personal counter-surveillance

    Counter-surveillance is reliant on good information security planning.
    Protecting information is the first stage of counter-surveillance. But
    counter surveillance must also be seen as a balancing of opposing
    objectives.

    If you are very good at restricting all information, that state or
    corporations will have problems monitoring you. However, you are also
    likely to become more isolated and secretive in the process.
    Therefore, like information security, counter surveillance requires an
    effort to protect those activities or information that are sensitive,
    whilst giving less emphasis to those activities that can be open to
    all.

    Information security is primarily based on protecting equipment with
    security procedures and barriers. Personal counter-surveillance is
    based on much the same process, but instead you provide security and
    barriers around your own personal habits. As humans we are creatures
    of habit. If we exhibit very predictable habits, this makes monitoring
    of our activities easier. But if on certain occasions we break our
    habits, it can also give away the fact that we are doing something at
    that time which is not part of our everyday work.

    The best way to begin thinking about avoiding surveillance is to think
    about breaking the regular patterns in your life. This masks regular
    activity, so making it harder to practice routine surveillance. But it
    also masks the times when you may undertake activities out of the
    ordinary.

    Breaking regular patterns does not mean going to bed at different
    times, or working different hours everyday. Instead it requires that
    any activities you wish to avoid being the subject of surveillance are
    integrated into the other events in your life - but not to the extent
    that they become predictable. If you change the route you take to work
    or to shop on a random basis, you make it more difficult to monitor
    your movements. If you build irregular appointments into activities
    that might involve surveillance, it creates a background 'noise' in
    the pattern of your activities that masks any change in your habits.

    Securing the information on your computer will help your overall
    security. If you have a portable computer you are presented with a
    whole new problem because you move that system outside of your
    ordinary systems of security and access barriers. Therefore special
    care should be taken with portable computers:
      * The system should be secured with a [85]BIOS password to prevent
        booting;
      * Use encryption of the hard disk, where possible, to prevent access
        to the contents of the hard disk if it is removed from the
        machine;
      * Ensure that your portable computer has different passwords than
        those used on your static equipment.

    Securing your information is fairly easy. But the main issue you will
    have to deal with when considering personal surveillance is how to
    carry out meetings, and networking with people, when you need to
    discuss sensitive issues.

    Primarily, when dealing with sensitive information, avoid generating
    any kind of documentation or opportunities for surveillance. Think
    about implementing the following as part of your work:
      * Travel -
           + If you are travelling to a sensitive meeting take a different
             route going there and coming back, and if possible do not use
             the same bus or station when going to or leaving the location
             you are travelling to. This lessens the likelihood that your
             destination will be identified.
           + If travelling on sensitive business, try to use [86]public
             transport. Using you own private cars will provide a
             traceable identity.
           + To avoid the CCTV systems in public places move with the
             crowd; don't rush, don't cut corners, and don't look around
             for CCTV cameras.
           + If you can build in other events/appointments as part of your
             journey, that will help provide an alternate motive for
             travelling to that area of a town or city.
           + Facial recognition systems work primarily on the
             configuration of facial features. To work they need to get a
             good view of the face. Looking at a slight angle towards the
             ground, and wearing a hat with a brim, helps fool the system.
           + If you travel using public transport, [87]roaming tickets are
             preferable to tickets for a specific journey - they give you
             more flexibility over the route, and they are more difficult
             to associate a route travelled with a particular ticket
             purchase.
           + If you have the time available and you can obtain a roaming
             ticket, build in some extra time to your journey and change
             trains to make it hard to piece together your journey from
             CCTV and surveillance sources.
           + If travelling in a town, avoid moving through the major
             shopping areas, or 'controlled environments' such as shopping
             centres. These have the highest level of CCTV coverage.
           + Always assume that public transport vehicles have CCTV
             installed - travelling during peak hours will help mask your
             presence.
           + To make following you in person or via CCTV more difficult do
             not wear distinctive clothes or carry distinctive objects -
             blend in.
           + Darkness aids anonymity, but is not a foolproof solution to
             the latest CCTV cameras which can see in the dark.

      * Mobile phones -
           + If in doubt, turn it off.
           + If travelling to a sensitive location, in an urban area do
             not use your phone within two or three miles of the location,
             or in rural areas do not use it within ten or fifteen miles
             of the location. This will prevent the creation of a trail
             that associates you with that location on that day.
           + If the location you are going to is nowhere near a route you
             regularly travel, turn off your phone before you start your
             journey there.
           + If you desperately need to mask your location, let someone
             else carry your phone around for the day - but this is only
             realistic if you take all precautions to prevent generating
             other document trails whilst you are moving around.

      * Payments -
           + If you are travelling to a sensitive location, don't pay by
             credit/debit card or take money from a cash machine.
           + If you need to spend cash when travelling to/working around a
             sensitive location, do not spend the notes taken directly
             from the cash machine (their sequential numbers may be
             logged). Keep a supply of notes received as change elsewhere
             and use those.
           + If you need to buy something when travelling to/working
             around a sensitive location, do not give any loyalty cards or
             personalised money off tokens as part of your purchases -
             they are traceable.

      * Communications -
           + If you need to make a sensitive phone call that must not be
             directly associated with you, do so from a public phone box.
             But beware, if you are associated with the person at the
             other end of the call, and the content of their calls (rather
             than just the data) is being monitored, your location at that
             date and time will be discovered.
           + If using public phone boxes, try to use them randomly across
             an area rather than the ones that are closest to you. Also,
             try to avoid phone boxes on direct transport routes to your
             home or place of work.
           + If you wish to send something sensitive through the post,
             wear gloves to prevent creating fingerprints when
             producing/packing the item, do not lick the envelope or
             stamps to prevent creating a DNA sample, and post it in a
             different location to where you normally post your letters
             (the further the better) using stamps bought on a different
             day.
           + If you need to send a sensitive fax, use a copy shop/bureau
             which has a self-service desk.
           + If you desperately need to keep in communication, buy a
             [88]pay-as-you-go mobile phone and only use it for a day or
             two whilst you are engaged in sensitive work.

      * Online -
           + Maintain a number of alternate personas on the Internet that
             give you access to web mail and other services should you
             ever need to use them.
           + If you need to use the Internet, use a [89]cybercafe, but
             make sure that you do not access your own Internet services
             from the cybercafe - use an alternate persona.
           + If you need to view material that you do not wish to be
             associated with as part of the server logs of your Internet
             service provider, use a cybercafe.
           + If you use cybercafes as part of your communications, try not
             to use the same one.
           + If you have a laptop computer, and you wish to mask your
             location, let someone you trust use it online whilst you are
             away on sensitive work.

      * Meetings -
           + When organising a private meeting, if you cannot send details
             to all involved in ways that will not be intercepted always
             try to agree on meeting in one location near to the meeting
             place. You can then direct people to the correct location as
             they arrive. By keeping the location of a private meeting
             limited, you lessen the likelihood of the location being
             surveilled.
           + If meeting in the home or building of another person or
             organisation do not make a phone call from their phone to a
             number that is identified with you, or from a public phone
             box near to that building.
           + If the people going to a private meeting are likely to have
             mobile phones, ask them to turn them off before travelling to
             the meeting place (if all the mobile phones of a groups of
             people are in the same cell at the same time on the same day,
             it can be assumed that you have had a meeting).
           + If you require a private meeting place, do not keep using the
             same one. Alternate it as much as possible. Also, if you meet
             in a public place, pick somewhere with a high level of
             background noise, and with as many obstacles or partitions
             around the point where you meet, to prevent your
             conversations being overheard.
           + If you must pay for something whilst having a meeting, use
             cash. Or, if you cannot, get one person to pay. In this way
             you will not generate paper trails linking you together.
           + Meeting in public spaces, streets, in parks, or on public
             transport is not a good idea - many of these areas are
             surveilled by CCTV. But bars, cafes and restaurants tend not
             have their CCTV systems linked to a central control room, and
             what CCTV systems are installed are concentrated around the
             till.

    All forms of technical counter surveillance is achieved through the
    use or implementation of Technical Surveillance Counter Measures or
    [90]TSCM. These measures apply equally for the worried individual as
    to the diligent corporation. Corporate Espionage is on the increase,
    and because of this it is an ever increasing threat in day to day life
    and business.
    [[91]edit]

Natural surveillance

    Natural surveillance is a term used in "Crime Prevention Through
    Environmental Practices"([92]CPTED) and "Defensible Space" models for
    crime prevention. These models rely on the ability to influence
    offender decisions preceding [93]criminal acts. [94]Research into
    criminal behavior demonstrates that the decision to offend or not to
    offend is more influenced by cues to the perceived risk of being
    caught than by cues to reward or ease of entry. Consistent with this
    research CPTED based strategies emphasise enhancing the perceived risk
    of detection and apprehension.

    Natural surveillance limits the opportunity for crime by taking steps
    to increase the perception that people can be seen. Natural
    surveillance occurs by designing the placement of physical features,
    activities and people in such a way as to maximize visibility and
    foster positive social interaction. Potential offenders feel increased
    scrutiny and limitations on their escape routes. Natural surveillance
    is typically free of cost however its effectiveness to deter crime
    varies with the individual offender.

    Jane Jacobs, North American editor, urban activist, [95]urban planning
    critic, and author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities
    ([96]1961), formulated the natural surveillance strategy based on her
    work in New York's Greenwich Village. Natural surveillance is
    naturally occurring. As people are moving around an area, they will be
    able to observe what is going on around them, provided the area is
    open and well lit. Supporting a diversity of uses within a [97]public
    space is highly effective. Other ways to promote natural surveillance
    include low landscaping, [98]street lights, street designs that
    encourage pedestrian use, removing hiding and lurking places, and
    placing high risk targets, such as expensive or display items, in
    plain view of legitimate users, such as near a receptionist or sales
    clerk.

    Included in the design are features that maximize visibility of
    people, parking areas and building entrances: doors and [99]windows
    that look out on to streets and parking areas, see-through barriers
    (glass brick walls, picket fences), [100]pedestrian-friendly
    [101]sidewalks and streets, and front porches. Designing nighttime
    lighting is particularly important: uniform high intensity "carpet"
    [102]lighting of large areas is discouraged, especially where lights
    glare into (and discourage) observers eyes. In its place is feature
    lighting that draws the observer's focus to access control points and
    potential hiding areas. Area lighting is still used, but light sources
    are typically placed lower to the ground, at a higher density, and
    with lower intensity and more controlled glare than the lighting it is
    designed to replace.

    Any [103]architectural design that enhances the chance that a
    potential offender will be, or might be, seen is a form of natural
    surveillance. Often, it is not just the fact that the offender might
    be seen that matters. It is that the offender "thinks" they will be
    seen that can help deter the opportunity for [104]crime.
    [[105]edit]

See also

      * [106]ECHELON,
      * [107]Espionage,
      * [108]Information Awareness Office
      * [109]Inverse surveillance
      * [110]Mass surveillance
      * [111]RFID
      * [112]Surveillance aircraft
      * [113]Secure computing
      * [114]Sousveillance
      * [115]The Transparent Society
      * [116]Treaty on Open Skies
      * [117]TSCM

    [[118]edit]

References

      * [119]David Brin (1998), The Transparent Society New York:
        Addison-Wesley: [120]ISBN 0-201-32802-X
      * [121]Simson Garfinkel, Database Nation; The Death of Privacy in
        the 21st Century. O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. [122]ISBN
        0-596-00105-3
      * Jacobs, Jane ([123]1961) The Death and Life of Great American
        Cities New York: Random House. [124]ISBN 0-679-60047-7

    [[125]edit]

External links

      * Much of the text of this article is taken from [126]"Living Under
        Surveillance" (http://secdocs.net/manual/lp-sec/scb7.html) written
        by Paul Mobbs for the Association for Progressive Communications,
        which is licensed under the [127]GFDL, and hence can be used in
        Wikipedia
      * [128]David Brin's web
        site (http://www.kithrup.com/brin/tschp1.html)
      * [129]Surveillance &
        Society (http://www.surveillance-and-society.org/) Free academic
        e-journal on surveillance. Includes resources
      * [130]International Workshop on Inverse
        Surveillance (http://wearcam.org/iwis/).

      * This page was last modified 00:24, 10 Jan 2005.

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   36. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance#Personal_counter-surveillance
   37. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance#Natural_surveillance
   38. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance#See_also
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   40. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance#External_links
   41. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Surveillance&action=edit&section=1
   42. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Eye-in-the-sky085.jpg
   43. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Eye-in-the-sky085.jpg
   44. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Tzu
   45. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_War
   46. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse_surveillance
   47. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse_surveillance
   48. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance
   49. http://research.microsoft.com/CARPE2004/
   50. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Surveillance&action=edit&section=2
   51. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Moving-camera.gif
   52. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_relations
   53. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activist
   54. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing
   55. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising
   56. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card
   57. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud
   58. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11th%2C_2001_terrorist_attacks
   59. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_dissent
   60. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protest
   61. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-violence
   62. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_analysis
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   64. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_tapping
   65. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Surveillance&action=edit&section=4
   66. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_disc
   67. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD
   68. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Surveillance&action=edit&section=5
   69. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugging
   70. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Surveillance&action=edit&section=6
   71. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_surveillance
   72. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Surveillance&action=edit&section=7
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   76. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Surveillance&action=edit&section=10
   77. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_investigator
   78. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Surveillance&action=edit&section=11
   79. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometrics
   80. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stop_and_Search&action=edit
   81. http://www.met.police.uk/stopandsearch/
   82. http://www.blink.org.uk/pdescription.asp?key=1726&grp=55&cat=205
   83. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Surveillance&action=edit&section=12
   84. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Surveillance&action=edit&section=13
   85. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS
   86. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_transport
   87. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Roaming_ticket&action=edit
   88. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pay-as-you-go&action=edit
   89. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybercafe
   90. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSCM
   91. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Surveillance&action=edit&section=14
   92. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPTED
   93. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal
   94. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research
   95. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_planning
   96. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961
   97. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_space
   98. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_lights
   99. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window
  100. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrian
  101. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidewalks
  102. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighting
  103. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architectural
  104. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime
  105. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Surveillance&action=edit&section=15
  106. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON
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  108. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Awareness_Office
  109. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse_surveillance
  110. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance
  111. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID
  112. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_aircraft
  113. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_computing
  114. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance
  115. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society
  116. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Open_Skies
  117. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSCM
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  119. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brin
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  121. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Simson_Garfinkel&action=edit
  122. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Booksources&isbn=0596001053
  123. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961
  124. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Booksources&isbn=0679600477
  125. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Surveillance&action=edit&section=17
  126. http://secdocs.net/manual/lp-sec/scb7.html
  127. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License
  128. http://www.kithrup.com/brin/tschp1.html
  129. http://www.surveillance-and-society.org/
  130. http://wearcam.org/iwis/


From checker at panix.com  Sat Feb  5 11:09:55 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 06:09:55 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: Roosevelt Asks Power to Reform Courts,
 Increasing the Supreme
 Bench to 15 Judges; Congress Startled, But Expected to Approve
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502050608280.10866@panix2.panix.com>

Roosevelt Asks Power to Reform Courts, Increasing the Supreme Bench to 15 
Judges; Congress Startled, But Expected to Approve

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0205.html

    This event took place on February 5, 1937, and was reported in the The
    New York Times the following day.

Roosevelt Asks Power to Reform Courts, Increasing the Supreme Bench to 15
Judges; Congress Startled, But Expected to Approve
    _________________________________________________________________
    _________________________________________________________________

    Surprise Message
    _________________________________________________________________

    Asks Authority to Name New Justices if Old Do Not Quit at 70
    _________________________________________________________________

    SEES NEED OF 'NEW BLOOD'
    _________________________________________________________________

    Constitutional Amendment and Statutory Judiciary Curb Would Be
    Side-Stepped
    _________________________________________________________________

    LOWER COURTS AFFECTED
    _________________________________________________________________

    Bench Would Be Expanded, Appeals Speeded and Defense Assured in
    Injunctions
    _________________________________________________________________

By Arthur Krock

Special to The New York Times

    RELATED HEADLINES

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     and House: Majority for Proposal: But Most Conservative Democrats Are
        Silent and Republicans Are Hostile: Speculation on Justices: Those
               Mentioned for New Places Include J. M. Landis, Richberg and
                                                               Frankfurter

                                                      President's Message

         Aim to Pack Court, Declares Hoover: Roosevelt Move Transcends Any
        Partisanship Question, Ex-President Holds: Widely Criticized Here:
       'Shameful Day' in Our History, Colby Asserts -- Justice Black Hails
                                                        'Greatest Advance'

         Stocks Drop Fast on Court Message: Sweeping Declines Stop a Rise,
        Making Market the Year's Second Largest: Brief Rallies Are Futile:
     List Closes Only Slightly Above Day's Lows -- Some Bankers Say Effect
                                                        Will Be Mitigated.

                          Supreme Court Keeps Up With Its Work, Say Aides

        Six on High Bench Eligible to Retire: They and Six Justices of the
          Circuit Courts Could Come Under Roosevelt Plan: 13 Other Jurists
      Listed: These Members of the Lower Courts Also Have Reached 70, With
                                                       10 Years of Service
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        After Court Issues Eviction Writs at Flint: Great Grandmother, 72,
                                                Joins Picket Line in Flint

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         Used for Ten Months After He Refused to Pay $3,000, He Says: Four
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                                                                 in Madrid

         West Virginian Saved After 8 Days in Mine; Had No Food, Forced to
                                                      Drink Sulphur Water

    W ashington, Feb. 5 -- The President suddenly, at noon today, cut
    through the tangle of proposals made by his Congressional leaders to
    "bring legislative and judicial action into closer harmony" with a
    broadaxe message to Congress recommending the passage of statutes to
    effect drastic Federal court reforms.

    The message- prepared in a small group and with deepest secrecy -- was
    accompanied by a letter from the Attorney General and by a bill drawn
    at the Department of Justice, which would permit an increase in the
    membership of the Supreme Court from nine to a maximum of fifteen if
    judges reaching the age of 70 declined to retire; add a total of not
    more than fifty judges to all classes of the Federal courts; send
    appeals from lower court decisions on constitutional questions, direct
    to the Supreme Court, and require that government attorneys be heard
    before any lower-court injunction issue against the enforcement of any
    act of Congress.

    Avoiding both the devices of constitutional amendment and statutory
    limitation of Supreme Court powers, which were favored by his usual
    spokesmen in Congress, the President endorsed an ingenious plan which
    will on passage give him the power to name six new justices of the
    Supreme Court.

    Power Left to the President

    Under the provisions of the bill drawn by the Department of Justice
    form Congress, if the six now sitting justices who are more than 70
    years of age to not resign, the President is empowered to name a new
    member for each justice in that category. These are the Chief Justice
    and Justices Brandeis, Van Devanter, Butler, McReynolds and
    Sutherland. Thus, after the passage of the bill, which is generally
    expected, the court will number anywhere from nine to fifteen
    justices.

    Although the message - an unusually long one for the President- was a
    general criticism of the effects upon government and private litigants
    of overburdened courts and superannuated judges, and stressed a
    general plea to Congress to make provision of a "a constant and
    systematic addition of younger blood" to "vitalize the courts,"
    Congress instantly recognized its outstanding feature and purpose.

    Although the message outlined basic defects in the administration of
    justice in the United States, and contained many reforms to which no
    exception will be taken, Congress quickly sensed that the President
    had hurdled the present majority of the Supreme Court on his way to
    the goal he outlined in his opening message of the session. This, as
    he stated it, is to find "means to adapt our legal forms and our
    judicial interpretation to the actual present needs of the largest
    progressive democracy in the modern world."

    Variety of Emotions Aroused

    That passage was the one which had brought the most cheers from the
    floors of Congress when the President uttered it. To achieve its aim
    was the object of all the proposed amendments and statutes which have
    heaped high in the Congressional hoppers since the opening of the
    session. When members of the Senate and the House became aware of the
    ingenious but effective manner in which the President planned to
    attain his objective without touching the Constitution or the powers
    of the court, they were torn by a variety of emotions.

    Senator Robinson, the majority leader in his branch, said the message
    was "in no sense a violent innovation" and that it would be
    "substantially favored." Speaker Bankhead said the proposal was based
    on "a sound principle of judicial reform." Senator Pope remarked that
    the President had "neatly finessed the Supreme Court," which, so far
    as the majority is concerned, is correct.

    Conservative Democrats, however, especially those in the Senate,
    gagged at the proposals affecting the Supreme Court. Many of them
    maintained prudent silence, waiting to see how the cat of public
    opinion will jump. But Senator Burke attacked a plan to "pack the
    court," and Senator Byrd said curtly that "orderly means" to amend the
    Constitution were provided in that instrument. There will be real
    opposition on the Democratic side, there seems to be no doubt that the
    Attorney General's bill, which was quickly referred to committees in
    the two branches, will be moved steadily to passage.

    Republicans Sharply Critical

    The Republicans were at first stunned; then they burst into violent
    criticism directed at the Supreme Court extensions. They accused the
    President of trying to wreck the judiciary. Senator Vandenberg said
    angrily that behind the "fine words" a fell intent was evident.
    Representative Snell said that the administration, "having already
    destroyed the economic stability of the country, apparently will not
    be content until it destroys the judicial stability." Senator Borah
    viewed much of the proposal with grave alarm. But these were few in
    contrast with the long lines of approving Democrats.

    The President's plan had a dramatic setting and one he obviously
    enjoyed to the full. Last night at a White House reception he
    teasingly said to several guests - newspaper men among them - that
    "there will be big news tomorrow" and laughingly rejected pleas to
    indicate what the news would be.

    The staff at the executive offices was assembled at 6:30 o'clock this
    morning to perform the requisite clerical labor. The Cabinet, with the
    Vice President, was summoned for 10 o'clock and held in session for an
    hour while the President read his message and the letter and bill
    prepared by the Attorney General. It is understood that the Cabinet
    expressed approval of the plan and admiration for the ingenuity of its
    process. Warm with gratulation, the President was then ready for his
    regular Friday audience with the newspaper correspondents.

    To them also he read all the documents and at one point in the reading
    - before the fact was obvious- looked up and said, "this applies
    equally to the Supreme Court."

    The thoughts of many of those who watched and heard him instantly
    reverted to a press conference after the unanimous nullification of
    the NRA by the Supreme Court. Then the President was in a different
    mood. Then he was frustrated and angry and spoke of "horse-and-buggy"
    decisions in the machine age. Today he was calm and confident, plainly
    reflecting his conviction that, since the Republicans made his future
    Supreme Court appointments and issue in the last campaign, he had a
    huge popular mandate for what he was doing to change conditions in a
    court where the New Deal has sustained nine major legal defeats.

    The President's message can be briefly summarized as follows:

    In line with recent recommendations to reorganize the government's
    administrative machinery, this plan is to permit the judiciary to
    function in tune with modern conditions. The President, alone being
    directed by the Constitution to advise Congress on the state of the
    Union, is carrying out that direction herewith, and is further
    animated by the fact that Congress is empowered by the Constitution to
    see that the Federal judiciary functions properly.

    That judiciary once more finds itself without sufficient personnel,
    although its quarters have been improved. It required over a hundred
    years to excuse the Supreme Court justices from "riding circuit."
    Congress has often changed the numbers and duties of judges; the
    Supreme Court's number has been altered five times. Today there are
    not enough judges to meet the needs of litigants. Additional judges
    are required, since court delay results in injustice. Lawsuits have
    been made a luxury available to the few, and unjust settlements have
    thereby been compelled.

    The Supreme Court is deeply burdened and in the last fiscal year it
    declined to hear 87 percent of the pleas presented by private
    litigants. Sheer necessity to keep up with its work forced that.

    The question of "aged or infirm judges," while delicate, must be met.
    Twenty-five lower court Federal judges, over 70 and eligible to retire
    on full pay, have not done so. "They seem to be tenacious of the
    appearance of adequacy" (a sly quotation from Charles Evans Hughes's
    book on the Supreme Court). This situation induced Attorneys General
    McReynolds and Gregory to propose, during the Wilson administrations,
    that when a circuit or district judge failed to retire at 70 an
    additional judge should be appointed in his court.

    The law of 1919, passed to cover this, merely authorized such an
    appointment on a Presidential finding that the judge over 70 was
    inefficient. No President should be asked to make such a finding.

    A judge's task calls for the use of full energies; modern complexities
    require a constant infusion of new blood in courts as everywhere else.
    To superannuated men facts become blurred, or they have lost the
    disposition to dig for them. This is recognized elsewhere in the
    government.

    It is therefore recommended that provision be made for additional
    judges in all courts, "without exception," where judges are sitting
    beyond the retirement age. It was not intended to create a "static
    judiciary."

    Suggests a Federal Court "Proctor"

    To relieve congestion in the lower courts, Congress should empower the
    Chief Justice of the United States to appoint a "proctor" to watch all
    the courts and calendars in the Federal system. On his information the
    Chief Justice should be authorized to send in judges where needed. A
    bill is attached to afford general relief. The method it proposes is
    not costly, and limits the number of new judges. No question of
    constitutional law is raised, and no compulsory retirement is
    proposed, since there are and have been many judges beyond 70 whose
    services represent great value to the government. However, the bill
    extends the voluntary retirement and pay provisions of lower court
    judges to the justices of the Supreme Court, for whom there now is no
    retirement provision.

    [There is, however, a law which provides that after ten years of
    service on the Supreme Court bench, and after reaching the age of 70,
    justices may resign and receive full pay for the remainder of their
    lives.]

    Conflicting decisions in lower courts call for remedial action. These
    have brought the entire administration of justice dangerously near to
    disrepute. Rights accorded to citizens in one Federal court district
    are denied to citizens in others. It takes from a year to three years
    before the Supreme Court can settle the conflicts, which robs the law
    of "its most indispensable element, equality."

    The conflicts and delays also produce uncertainty- for the government,
    and for private litigants- over too long periods. Finally, injunctions
    are too freely granted, sometimes without notice to the government. By
    postponing in various ways the effective dates of acts of Congress,
    the judiciary is assuming an additional function and is becoming more
    and more a "scattered, loosely organized and slowly operating third
    house of Congress."

    This state of affairs has come gradually.

    Calls for Notice Before Trial

    Other recommendations- that no constitutional cause be tried and
    judged in a lower court without ample notice to the Attorney General
    so that he may defend the law. That lower court decisions in
    constitutional cases shall go at once to the Supreme Court and take
    precedence there. These, with the provisions of the attached bill,
    will eliminate congestion, make the judiciary less static and more
    elastic, assist the Supreme Court and help to make litigants more
    nearly equal before the law.

    "If these measures achieve their aim," the President concluded, "we
    may be relieved of the necessity of considering any fundamental
    changes in the powers of the courts or the Constitution of our
    government - changes which involve consequences so far-reaching as to
    cause uncertainty as to the wisdom of such a course."

    Cumming's Letter the Background

    The Attorney General's letter furnished the background for the
    President's argument and recommendations and presented statistics of
    the law's delay. The bill, prepared in advance for Congress in true
    1933 style, is divided into five sections and makes the provisions
    heretofore recounted.

    While all of the legislative and executive personnel of the government
    and the press gallery buzzed all day with discussion of the President
    's imitation of Alexander the Great and the Gordian knot, the justices
    of the Supreme Court in public at any rate, maintained complete and
    dignified silence.

    It was noted that once more the magic number six finds favor in the
    President's mind. He used to talk of cutting the Cabinet down from ten
    to six. Then he approved the Brownlow committee's recommendation of
    six executives assistants "with a passion for anonymity." Today it is
    the Supreme Court which is to be increased by six if the bill passes,
    and the justices now over 70 years of age are all alive and refuse to
    resign.

    It was also noted that the President announced his plan a few days
    before arguments on the Wagner act begin in the Supreme Court and in a
    week when a judicial order- in Flint, Mich.- has been disregarded both
    by government and by the private parties to the controversy which
    produced this writ.


From checker at panix.com  Sat Feb  5 15:20:14 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 10:20:14 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: A Global Culture War Pits Protectionists Against
	Free Traders
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502051019120.10866@panix2.panix.com>

The New York Times > Arts > Essay: A Global Culture War Pits
Protectionists Against Free Traders
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/05/arts/05ridi.html
5.2.5

A Global Culture War Pits Protectionists Against Free Traders

    By ALAN RIDING

    PARIS, Feb. 4 - The idea of promoting cultural diversity around the
    world seems reasonable enough. It recognizes that everyone profits
    from the free flow of ideas, words and images. It encourages
    preservation of, say, indigenous traditions and minority languages. It
    treats the cultures of rich and poor countries as equal. And most
    topically, it offers an antidote to cultural homogeneity.

    Try turning this seemingly straightforward idea into an international
    treaty, though, and things soon become complicated. Since October
    2003, Unesco's 190 members have been working on what is provisionally
    called the Convention on the Protection of the Diversity of Cultural
    Contents and Artistic Expression. It is intended to be approved by
    consensus this fall, but don't count on it. There is still no
    agreement on its final name.

    But that is a minor issue compared with more fundamental differences.
    Led by France and Canada, a majority of countries are asserting the
    right of governments to safeguard, promote and even protect their
    cultures from outside competition. Opposing them, a smaller group led
    by the United States argues that cultural diversity can best flourish
    in the freedom of the globalized economy.

    A bid to break the deadlock is now under way at the Paris headquarters
    of Unesco, where delegates and experts are wrestling with hundreds of
    proposed amendments to the first draft. Yet the more they advance
    toward concrete definitions, some delegates say, the less likely they
    are to reach consensus.

    The reason is simple: Behind the idealistic screen of cultural
    diversity, weighty economic and political issues are at stake.

    The story began with the last global trade liberalization around a
    decade ago when France obtained what became known as the cultural
    exception, which effectively authorized the protection of culture.
    Now, France and Canada want to go further: by enshrining cultural
    diversity in a legally binding Unesco convention, they hope to shield
    culture from the free-trade rules of the Geneva-based World Trade
    Organization.

    Why France and Canada? Both view cultural independence as an essential
    part of their political identity. They have also long resisted the
    imperial reach of American popular culture, notably Hollywood, by
    using fiscal incentives, taxes, subsidies and quotas to protect their
    movie, music, publishing and other cultural industries. And under the
    kind of convention they favor, they would continue doing so without
    the risk of being challenged.

    So is this another example of anti-Americanism at work? The Motion
    Picture Association of America, Hollywood's main lobby, has long
    complained about the protection of the French film industry. But
    because of that help, France has Europe's only thriving movie
    industry: Hollywood accounts for about 65 percent of the French box
    office, compared with 90 percent elsewhere in Europe. Now Denmark,
    Germany, Britain and Spain are also looking to help their film
    businesses.

    Certainly, as the world's largest exporter of movies, television
    programs and other audio-visual products, the United States believes
    it will suffer from further restrictions on cultural exchanges. When
    the United States ended a 19-year boycott of Unesco in late 2003,
    however, plans for a convention were already advanced. Rather than
    announcing its return to the organization by being obstructionist, it
    decided to defend its position in negotiations.

    The first draft of the convention, presented by 15 cultural experts
    last summer, tried to please everyone by endorsing "the free flow of
    ideas by word and image" and by noting that cultural goods and
    services "must not be treated as ordinary merchandise or consumer
    goods." The battle was then joined in November when governments
    presented their responses, many of which are now proposed amendments
    to the draft.

    The American response was unambiguous. While supporting the principle
    of cultural diversity, it warned that "controlling cultural or
    artistic expressions is not consistent with respect for human rights
    or the free flow of information." It further noted, "Mounting trade
    barriers, including efforts to prevent the free flow of investment and
    knowledge, is not a valid way to promote cultural liberty or diversity
    since such measures reduce choices."

    Louise V. Oliver, the United States Ambassador to Unesco, explained:
    "We support 'protect' as in nurture, not 'protect' as in barriers.
    That said, 'protect' remains a highly loaded concept in this cultural
    diversity context and, for that reason, remains a sensitive issue. If
    the convention promotes cultural diversity, we are in favor. We're not
    in favor of anything that prevents the free and open exchange of
    cultures."

    Supporters of the convention focused instead on the word "freedom,"
    arguing that freedom of choice means availability of choice, which in
    turn requires active promotion - and protection - of cultural
    diversity. Canada suggested that the red-flag word "globalization" be
    described as a "challenge" rather than as a "threat." But it firmly
    reasserted its right to preserve and promote any cultural activity
    that it defined as domestic.

    The French position was backed by the European Commission, which
    negotiates on behalf of the 25-nation European Union on trade matters.
    Just as it supported the "cultural exception" a decade ago, the
    commission endorsed the view that trade disputes involving culture
    should in future be ruled by the Unesco convention, not the W.T.O.

    The battle lines are becoming clearer. France and Canada have the
    support of China and African countries as well as much of Latin
    America, although Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela want freedom to export
    their popular television soap operas. Support for the American free
    trade view comes from other countries with commercial interests to
    defend: Japan because of its animated-movie industry and India because
    of Bollywood, its film powerhouse.

    But inevitably, the spotlight is on the United States. "The American
    objective is to have no convention," a Latin American diplomat said,
    speaking on the condition of anonymity, "but if there is flexibility,
    it will have no choice but to accept it." French officials are less
    sanguine. They say that, by using amendments to forestall an agreement
    in the fall, Washington hopes that the entire debate will become
    muddied next year by negotiations in the next global trade round.

    "I expect the usual American approach," said Garry Neil, executive
    director of the International Network for Cultural Diversity, an
    Ottawa-based nongovernmental lobby. "They'll take a hard line, weaken
    the text as much as possible and then not sign it." Certainly, if the
    United States finds the final draft unacceptable, it can break the
    consensus tradition and demand a vote. And even if approved by
    consensus, the United States Senate would probably not ratify it.

    Does this matter?

    Probably not to France, Canada and a few other cultural nationalists.
    As long as a convention is adopted and goes into effect, they will
    claim ample authority to protect their culture. But a more interesting
    question is whether such a convention will help sustain cultural
    diversity in countries too poor to do so themselves. That, after all,
    was one of the proclaimed purposes of this entire exercise. At the
    moment, it risks being forgotten.


From checker at panix.com  Sat Feb  5 15:21:26 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 10:21:26 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: Ernst Mayr,
 Pioneer in Tracing Geography's Role in the Origin
 of Species, Dies at 100
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502051020180.10866@panix2.panix.com>

The New York Times > Obituaries > Ernst Mayr,
Pioneer in Tracing Geography's Role in the Origin of Species, Dies at 100
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/05/obituaries/05mayr.html
5.2.5

    By CAROL KAESUK YOON

    Dr. Ernst Mayr, the leading evolutionary biologist of the 20th
    century, died on Thursday in Bedford, Mass. He was 100.

    Dr. Mayr's death, in a retirement community where he had lived since
    1997, was announced by his family and Harvard, whose faculty he joined
    in 1953.

    He was known as an architect of the evolutionary or modern synthesis,
    an intellectual watershed when modern evolutionary biology was born.
    The synthesis, which was described by Dr. Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard
    as "one of the half-dozen major scientific achievements in our
    century," reconciled Darwin's theories of evolution with new findings
    in laboratory genetics and in fieldwork on animal populations and
    diversity.

    One of Dr. Mayr's most significant contributions was his persuasive
    argument for the role of geography in the origin of new species, an
    idea that has won virtually universal acceptance among evolutionary
    theorists. He also established a philosophy of biology and founded the
    field of the history of biology.

    "He was the Darwin of the 20th century, the defender of the faith,"
    said Dr. Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis, a historian of science at the
    University of Florida.

    In a career spanning nine decades, Dr. Mayr, a professor emeritus of
    zoology at Harvard, exerted a broad and powerful influence over the
    field of evolutionary biology. His most recent book, "What Makes
    Biology Unique?: Considerations on the Autonomy of a Scientific
    Discipline" (Cambridge University Press), was published in August, one
    month after his 100th birthday.

    Prolific, opinionated, provocative and dynamic, Dr. Mayr had been a
    major figure and intellectual leader since the 1940's. Setting much of
    the conceptual agenda for the field, he put the focus just where
    Charles Darwin first placed it, on the question of how new species
    originate.

    Though Dr. Mayr will be best remembered as a synthesizer and promoter
    of evolutionary ideas, he was also an accomplished ornithologist. In
    fact, it was with the sighting of a pair of unusual birds that Dr.
    Mayr's long career in biology began in 1923 at age 19.

    Dr. Mayr was born in Kempten, Germany, in 1904. While still a boy, he
    was instructed in natural history by his father, Otto, a judge. He
    quickly became a skilled birdwatcher and naturalist. Intending to
    become a medical doctor like others in his family, Dr. Mayr was about
    to leave for medical school when he spotted a pair of red-crested
    pochards, a species of duck that had not been seen in Europe for 77
    years.

    Though he took detailed notes, he could not get anyone to believe his
    sighting. Finally, he met Dr. Erwin Stresemann, then the leading
    German ornithologist, who was at the Berlin Zoological Museum and who
    recognized his talents and invited him to work at the museum during
    school holidays.

    After two years of medical studies at the University of Greifswald
    (chosen because it was in the most interesting German region for
    birdwatching), Dr. Mayr, like Darwin before him, opted for natural
    history. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Berlin in just 16
    months.

    Dr. Mayr went on to fulfill what he called "the greatest ambition of
    my youth," heading off to the tropics. In the South Pacific,
    principally New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, Dr. Mayr collected
    more than 3,000 birds from 1928 to 1930. (He had to live off the land,
    and every bird, after being skinned for study, went into the pot. As a
    result, he is said to have eaten more birds of paradise than any other
    modern biologist.)

    The South Seas experience, he once said, "had an impact on my thinking
    that cannot be exaggerated." For it was his detailed observations of
    the differences among geographically isolated populations that
    contributed to his conviction that geography played a crucial role in
    the origin of species.

    Though Darwin titled his book "The Origin of Species," little in the
    book, in fact, addresses the question of how new species arise. Dr.
    Mayr determined that when populations of a single species are
    separated from one another, they slowly accumulate differences until
    they can no longer interbreed. Dr. Mayr called this allopatric
    speciation and detailed his arguments in his seminal book "Systematics
    and the Origin of Species," published in 1942. Today allopatric
    speciation ("allo," from the Greek for "other," and "patric," from the
    Greek for "fatherland") is accepted as the most common way in which
    new species arise.

    "Organic diversity had at last received a convincing explanation," Dr.
    Jerry A. Coyne, an evolutionary biologist at the University of
    Chicago, wrote of Dr. Mayr's arguments. Dr. Coyne called the book "one
    of the greatest achievements of evolutionary biology."

    Similarly, the most commonly held view of what constitutes a species
    remains the one that Dr. Mayr promoted more than 50 years ago, known
    as the biological species concept. First explicitly defined by Dr.
    Theodosius Dobzhansky, it states that populations that can
    successfully interbreed are the same species and those that cannot are
    different species. While numerous other species concepts have been
    proposed and debated, this one continues to reign supreme.

    Dr. Mayr's focus on species, both their nature and their origins,
    appears to have derived from his experiences in the South Pacific.
    When he went to New Guinea, Dr. Mayr once explained in an interview
    with Omni magazine, there was a popular school of thinking known as
    the nominalist school of philosophy that held that species did not, in
    reality, exist. They were merely arbitrary categories, little more
    than names.

    "But I discovered that the very same aggregations or groupings of
    individuals that the trained zoologist called separate species were
    called species by the New Guinea natives," Dr. Mayr said. "I collected
    137 species of birds. The natives had 136 names for these birds - they
    confused only two of them. The coincidence of what Western scientists
    called species and what the natives called species was so total that I
    realized the species was a very real thing in nature."

    Dr. Mayr eventually became a living symbol of the beginnings of the
    modern field of evolution, one of the last survivors of the handful of
    biologists, including Dr. Dobzhansky and Dr. George Gaylord Simpson,
    known as the architects of the evolutionary or modern synthesis.

    In the evolutionary synthesis, neo-Darwinism took its place as today's
    dominant theory of evolution. Taking place between the 1920's and
    50's, the synthesis is recognized as a period of conceptual
    unification, a time of "mutual education," as Dr. Mayr once described
    it. Laboratory geneticists, studying mutations and population
    genetics, began merging their views of evolution with those of field
    scientists like Dr. Mayr who studied the diversity and origins of
    different species. New findings, in genetics as well as other fields,
    were reconciled with Darwin's theories of evolution. Competing
    theories, including Lamarckism (the idea that acquired characteristics
    can be inherited), were tossed aside, producing a much more unified
    view of evolution at work.

    Over his remarkably productive career, Dr. Mayr wrote or edited 20
    books and wrote more than 600 journal articles. After his official
    retirement in 1975, he published more than 200 of the articles, more
    than many scientists do in their entire careers. He received awards
    including the National Medal of Science, the Balzan Prize and the
    International Prize. He once noted that Nobel Prizes were not given in
    evolutionary biology, saying, "Darwin wouldn't have won it either."

    Dr. Mayr was an ardent promoter of the academic discipline of
    evolutionary biology, and perhaps its most energetic organizer,
    playing a critical role in founding the Society for the Study of
    Evolution in 1946, and serving as the first editor of its journal,
    Evolution, still the leading journal in the field.

    Meanwhile, his birds were never forgotten. As a collector,
    ornithologist and curator, first at the University of Berlin, then the
    American Museum of Natural History in the 1930's and 1940's, and
    finally at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard, Dr. Mayr made
    his mark.

    By the time he turned 90, in 1994, he had named more than 24 valid
    bird species, more than any other living ornithologist had at the
    time. He had named more than 400 subspecies and several new genuses of
    birds as well.

    Dr. Mayr also took a serious interest in organisms other than birds,
    publishing work on species delineations in plants, hybrids formed by
    snail species, courtship behavior in fruit flies and the evolution of
    human blood groups.

    Dr. Mayr may have taken the greatest pride in his theory of what he
    called peripatric speciation and genetic revolutions, an idea he
    called "perhaps the most original theory I have ever proposed." It was
    also his least successful.

    According to this controversial theory, new species can be produced
    when very small populations are cut off from the rest of the species.
    Unlike the more general theory of allopatric speciation, holding that
    isolated populations slowly accumulate differences until they can no
    longer interbreed, peripatric speciation posits that extremely small
    populations, isolated in unusual habitats, undergo what Dr. Mayr
    termed a "genetic revolution." Undergoing drastic changes in their
    genome, populations evolve quickly to become new species.

    Some scientists have said that this theory is unlikely, unsupported
    and untestable. Others have defended it as a proposal, saying that
    while the idea itself may not stand the test of time, it remains
    significant as one of the first explicit theoretical models of
    speciation and its genetic consequences.

    Dr. Gould also credited Dr. Mayr with sowing the seeds for the
    "flowering of modern macroevolutionary theory."

    While microevolutionary theory seeks to explain how species adapt to
    particular environments or how evolution among populations can give
    rise to new species, macroevolution theory encompasses a much bigger
    picture, examining how some species survive better than others and how
    likely or unlikely they are to give rise to other species. It was Dr.
    Mayr's concept of the species and its role in the evolutionary
    process, Dr. Gould said, that laid the foundations for many of the
    theories being tested by macroevolutionists today.

    In addition to his several lifetimes' worth of work in evolution, Dr.
    Mayr also fathered an entirely new field of study, creating almost
    singlehandedly the field of history and philosophy of biology as a
    distinct discipline, apart from the history of physics and chemistry,
    Dr. Smocovitis of the University of Florida said.

    As with modern evolutionary biology, Dr. Mayr nurtured the new
    discipline as organizer, mover and shaker. His own contributions
    include the defining book "The Growth of Biological Thought" (1982),
    as well as books on the philosophy of biology, Darwin and the
    evolutionary synthesis.

    Dr. Mayr is survived by two daughters, Christa Menzel of Simsbury,
    Conn., and Susanne Harrison of Bedford; five grandchildren; and 10
    great-grandchildren. His wife, Margarete Simon, died in 1990.

    Dr. Mayr, a strong believer in the Hegelian dialectic as a way of
    advancing understanding, was known for his definitive proclamations,
    which often inspired as many heated rebuttals as nods of vigorous
    agreement. With so long to consider the great pageant of the history
    of life, he seemed to have taken on every subject of interest in
    evolutionary biology, and his views are an unavoidable point at which
    to begin nearly any argument of substance.

    At the time of his 90th birthday, in 1994, when Dr. Mayr was as active
    and engaged in the field as ever, Dr. Douglas J. Futuyma, an
    evolutionary biologist at Stony Brook University, wrote, "No one will
    agree with all his positions, analyses, and opinions." But he added,
    "Anyone who has failed to read Mayr can hardly claim to be educated in
    evolutionary biology."


From checker at panix.com  Sat Feb  5 15:22:44 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 10:22:44 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYTBR: (Tom Wolfe) The Old College Try
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502051021290.10866@panix2.panix.com>

The New York Times > Books > Sunday Book Review > Essay: The Old College Try
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/06/books/review/06DONADIO.html
5.2.6

    By RACHEL DONADIO

    Tom Wolfe's latest best seller, ''I Am Charlotte Simmons,'' has been
    written off by critics from The Times Literary Supplement to USA
    Today.

    It's about a whip-smart ingenue from an Appalachian town called Sparta
    who wins a scholarship to prestigious Dupont University, where she
    contends with alcohol, sex and coed bathrooms, and loses her innocence
    in more ways than one. The novel's other types -- Wolfe doesn't have
    characters as much as ''big, vivid blots of typology,'' as the critic
    James Wood has written -- include Charlotte's snobby, anorexic
    prep-school roommate; a dumb white basketball player with glimmerings
    of intellectual curiosity and a Dupont-bought S.U.V.; a nerdy Jewish
    intellectual who aspires to a Rhodes scholarship and writes term
    papers for athletes; and a handsome, vicious, corrupt frat boy.
    There's also an aging progressive ''antiathlete'' professor who wears
    ill-fitting sweaters, and a Nobel laureate neuroscientist who's done
    research on cats in heat and is impressed by a paper Charlotte writes
    refuting Darwin.

    Reviewers have complained that ''I Am Charlotte Simmons'' fails as a
    novel, since Wolfe never breaks free of the bonds of reportage to soar
    to the imaginative heights good fiction demands; that at 676 pages
    it's too long; and that, come on, college students aren't as debauched
    and lost as all that, are they?

    Or are they?

    To get a sense of that, it's worth exploring how ''I Am Charlotte
    Simmons'' has been received at colleges, where it is selling briskly.
    The novel is at No. 8 on the Chronicle of Higher Education's campus
    best-seller list -- below Jon Stewart's ''America,'' ''The Bush
    Survival Guide,'' ''The Polar Express'' and ''He's Just Not That Into
    You.''

    Even some negative student reviews -- and there are many, including
    some by readers at Harvard, Duke, the University of Michigan and the
    University of Oklahoma -- have acknowledged a poignant accuracy in
    Wolfe's portrayal of contemporary campus life.

    ''It's sort of amazing what this 74-year-old dandy has managed to pick
    up,'' Eve Fairbanks, a Yale senior, writes in a rigorous essay in the
    forthcoming Yale Review of Books, an undergraduate publication.
    Fairbanks says she was ''fully prepared'' to hate the book, but
    ultimately she and her friends found it ''pretty dead-on.''

    For the most part, both on campus and off, the reviews have fallen
    along ideological lines, with conservatives relishing Wolfe's
    apocalyptic vision of moral decay and liberals decrying it. In a rave
    in the conservative weekly National Review, John Derbyshire wrote that
    under Dupont's ''cruel, oppressive cult of coolness, all point and
    purpose drains out of life, and a dull, solipsistic hedonism takes
    over.'' In Wolfe's ''depressing'' picture, he observed, ''the soul is
    of no importance or interest to these kids because their elders
    believe it does not exist.''

    In panning the book in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Elaine
    Showalter, a professor emerita at Princeton and a feminist scholar,
    called the book ''bitchy, status-seeking and dissecting'' and lamented
    that Wolfe ''totally misses the feminist revolution.'' Her
    pronouncement that ''it takes a writer as snobbish, superficial and
    insecure as Tom Wolfe (who got his own undergraduate degree from
    Washington and Lee University, where he played baseball) to write such
    puerile rubbish'' generated a few letters to the editor from readers
    who noted the irony of Showalter's dismissing Wolfe on those grounds
    while accusing him of snobbery.

    Likewise, ''I Am Charlotte Simmons'' is most popular with
    undergraduates who view it through a conservative lens. In The
    Chronicle, a daily newspaper at Duke (which is said to be a model for
    Dupont), Matt Gillum wrote, ''Judging from the hack reviews it
    inspired, Dr. Wolfe appears to have pinched the nipple of truth way
    too hard and got the liberals squealing.''

    The book ''successfully defines the intellectual and moral free fall
    of 21st-century academia,'' Benjamin Peisch wrote in The Bowdoin
    Orient, a weekly newspaper at Bowdoin College with no obvious
    political orientation. ''Best of all, he skewers modern academia.
    Intellectual conversation has been smothered by rampant debauchery and
    political correctness. Wild parties dominate the entire campus.
    Athletes are given a free pass for four years. Professors are
    handcuffed by campus politics.''

    In The Michigan Review, a conservative magazine at the University of
    Michigan, Matt Mulder wrote that ''I Am Charlotte Simmons''
    foreshadows a revolution in which ''we, the few, the young and the
    proudly conservative, have an opportunity to plant the seeds for
    student revolution.'' He said the book unearths ''what many of us have
    experienced for quite some time -- college life is characterized by an
    obsession with sex, political correctness and moral absence.''

    Others think Wolfe missed the mark. ''If Wolfe were to accurately
    depict college life, he would have to start from a radically different
    premise,'' an editorial in The Columbia Daily Spectator remarked.
    ''The same kids who can seem so fixated on status or sex actually have
    professional and intellectual goals.''

    In her review, Fairbanks says she was ''chastened'' by the way ''Wolfe
    considers college not as a pollutant that infects perfectly good
    people, but as a key player in the greater tragedy of human vanity.''
    With ''I Am Charlotte Simmons,'' ''we see Wolfe's real worldview, and
    it is bleak,'' she writes. ''In the face of Wolfe's black, black
    vision, what can we do but throw our own hands up in defeat? You got
    us, Tom. You got us good. . . . The parties, the alcohol, the vomit,
    our sheeplike adaptation to it all. Should we move to Sparta,
    instead?''

    Indeed, what is Wolfe recommending exactly? Avoid college? Become an
    evangelical, the tradition in which Charlotte was raised and then
    essentially abandons? That does seem to be an increasingly popular
    route. In a recent book, ''God on the Quad: How Religious Colleges and
    the Missionary Generation Are Changing America'' (St. Martin's), Naomi
    Schaefer Riley reports that the number of students enrolled in a
    consortium of more than 100 Christian liberal arts colleges rose 60
    percent between 1990 and 2002, while enrollment in secular colleges
    remained essentially flat. The schools Riley researched -- including
    the Mormon Brigham Young University, the fundamentalist Bob Jones
    University and the Orthodox Jewish Yeshiva University -- don't look at
    all like Dupont. There is little drinking, and students are expected
    to marry before having sex.

    Surely contemporary America offers a third way between, as it were,
    the missionary calling and the missionary position. If so, ''I Am
    Charlotte Simmons'' doesn't exactly offer one. In its obsession with
    innocence and experience, with rural na?vete and cosmopolitan moral
    pollution, with the clash between romantic idealism and the
    indignities of reality, the book is in many ways Wolfe's answer to
    ''Madame Bovary,'' which Charlotte is reading in a French class she
    later drops, after discovering it's aimed at athletes who, much to her
    horror, are reading the novel in translation. In the end, Charlotte
    falls for the guy who has all along been identified with Charles
    Bovary, the tragic heroine's husband. ''Madame Bovary, c'est moi,''
    Flaubert famously remarked. Is Wolfe saying, ''I am Charlotte
    Simmons''?

    Perhaps one key to Wolfe's bleak vision lies on the page in which he
    dedicates the book ''to my two collegians,'' his college-age daughter
    and son, and thanks them for vetting it for undergraduate patois and
    dorkiness. It's a charming dedication, and apparently heartfelt.
    Indeed, one gets the sense that coursing through this book is the fear
    and sadness of a father who has sent his children off into the world,
    into the brutal state of nature that is American campus life.

    This seems to resonate. ''I've heard more friends of mine lament the
    effect it's had on their parents,'' Fairbanks, the Yale senior,
    remarked in an e-mail message about the book. ''They complain that
    their parents now call and anxiously ask about how the frat party they
    went to last night was, which of their female roommates are anorexic
    and which of the male ones are sex offenders, and whether they like
    the newest release by 'Doctor Dis,' who they believe is a real rapper.
    . . . In this way, the book is a bit dangerous. I know my own mother's
    reading group, all moms of people my age, refuses to read the book
    because they 'don't want to know.' ''

    Rachel Donadio is an editor and writer at the Book Review.

From checker at panix.com  Sat Feb  5 15:26:31 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 10:26:31 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYTBR: Chronicle: Political Islam: Global Warning
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502051022470.10866@panix2.panix.com>

The New York Times > Books > Sunday Book Review > Chronicle: Political
Islam: Global Warning
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/06/books/review/06FELDMAN.html
5.2.6

By NOAH FELDMAN

GLOBALIZED ISLAM: The Search for a New Ummah.
By Olivier Roy.
Columbia University, $29.50.

THE WAR FOR MUSLIM MINDS: Islam and the West.
By Gilles Kepel.
Harvard University, $23.95.

UNHOLY ALLIANCE: Radical Islam and the American Left.
By David Horowitz.
Regnery, $27.95.

AT THE HEART OF TERROR: Islam, Jihadists, and America's War on Terrorism.
By Monte Palmer and Princess Palmer.
Rowman & Littlefield, $24.95.

PAKISTAN'S DRIFT INTO EXTREMISM: Allah, the Army, and America's War on Terror.
By Hassan Abbas.
M. E. Sharpe, cloth, $69.95; paper, $25.95.

    The globalization of Islam is nothing new. The Prophet Muhammad
    himself confronted Jews, Christians and pagans in his Arabian milieu
    -- and within a couple of generations, Islam, spread by conquest and
    conversion alike, came into fruitful contact with the legacies of
    Persian, Greek and Roman civilizations.

    Nevertheless, since 9/11, the pace of the engagement between global
    Islam and other, mostly Western, forces and ideas has quickened, and
    the stakes have grown. The latest round of books on Islam and the West
    attempts to make sense of this most recent and intense episode of
    global interaction and conflict. Mostly, these books reveal a powerful
    undercurrent of concern -- ripening into panic -- about the unintended
    consequences of civilizational encounters played out in an environment
    of violence. They offer diagnoses, but few prescriptions.

    In an influential pre-9/11 book, ''The Failure of Political Islam,''
    Olivier Roy, a French student of contemporary Islam, argued that
    utopian Islamic revolutions in Muslim countries failed during the
    1980's and 90's. Now, in ''Globalized Islam: The Search for a New
    Ummah,'' he pushes the point farther, suggesting that the important
    events in the world of Islam are taking place not in the regions we
    ordinarily think of as Islamic but in Europe. As Exhibit A, Roy points
    to today's global terrorists, who, he says, are overwhelmingly likely
    to have studied and lived in Europe (or occasionally the United
    States) and to have embraced radical Islamic ideas there, not in the
    Muslim countries where they were born.

    Indeed, he traces contemporary Islamic terrorism itself to the
    European terror of the Baader-Meinhof gang and other leftist movements
    of the 1960's and 70's. Global Islamic terror, for Roy, is not only
    born of the interaction between Islam and the West, but also reflects
    the aspiration of displaced Muslims living in Europe to create a
    transnational Islamic identity, forged in revolution.

    Roy is right to focus on the ways that both the techniques and
    ideologies of terror have crossed borders and grafted themselves onto
    an Islam that, in the past, was largely unfamiliar with them. (He
    points out, for instance, that suicide bombing was popularized not by
    Muslims, but by the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, and adopted by Al Qaeda
    only after it had been borrowed, to devastating effect, by Palestinian
    radicals as part of their intifada.) It is also true that the small
    number of Muslim terrorists who have committed acts of terror in
    Europe or the United States includes several who were radicalized in
    Europe. (As Roy notes, however, this was not true of the 15 Saudis who
    were the muscle, not the pilots, on 9/11.)

    Roy's Eurocentric focus and his impulse to link Islamic terror to
    Marxist-inspired radicalism obscure the extent to which satellite
    television and the Internet have spread Western ideas into the Islamic
    world. Utopian violence may arguably be on the decline in most
    majority Muslim countries (although Saudi Arabia is a notable
    exception, and the Iraqi insurgency includes its share of jihadis);
    but ideas from free speech to text messaging to brand-name consumerism
    are affecting the daily lives of larger and larger numbers of
    non-Western people, who remain fully comfortable with their own
    national as well as religious identities. Surely the future of global
    Islam is to be found where most Muslims live, and where today's
    ideologies of both radical and moderate Islamism are developed, even
    if they are adopted by ?migr?s abroad.

    If the United States seems missing from Roy's story at times, Gilles
    Kepel puts America's reaction to 9/11 front and center in ''The War
    for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West.'' Kepel's central thesis can be
    summed up simply: the United States is losing the war, and badly.
    Instead of encouraging resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
    the Bush administration has played directly into Al Qaeda's hands by
    invading Iraq. It failed to recognize that the war would further
    inflame the Muslim world, convincing more Muslims than ever before
    that the United States was their enemy. Now, Kepel says, Europe will
    inherit the whirlwind, in the form of growing Islamic extremism and
    terrorist acts like the Madrid bombings.

    Kepel and Roy are frequently mentioned in the same breath -- because
    of their French nationality and their tendency to publish books at the
    same time -- but their approaches are starkly different. Kepel, one
    senses, is addressing an American audience, in order to show us the
    error of our ways through an outsider's critical evaluation. One
    chapter is devoted to an analysis of the neoconservatives, and another
    of comparable length to what he considers ''the calamity of
    nation-building in Iraq.''

    But Kepel is best when on familiar ground, as when he analyzes the
    growing skill of European Muslim leaders like the controversial Tariq
    Ramadan, who defend religious freedom while demanding special
    recognition for their religious community as a distinct group within
    Europe. Kepel barely suppresses his frustration with this two-sided
    political strategy, or with the French government's willingness to
    play along by recognizing quasi-official clerical spokesmen for
    Muslims in France.

    Forbidding Muslim girls to wear headscarves in French schools while
    simultaneously trying to control French Muslims through officially
    recognized Islamic organizations gets matters exactly backward, as
    most Americans will easily see. Our constitutional combination of
    freedom to practice one's religion, coupled with the strong separation
    of church and state, has worked far better in accommodating religious
    diversity than anything Europe has yet dreamed up. The United States
    may be alienating Muslims worldwide with its foreign policy; but at
    home a new generation of Muslim-Americans is demonstrating the ability
    to criticize American policy while maintaining steadfast loyalty to
    the democratic values they share with other American citizens from
    different backgrounds.

    It would be nice if the extremes of the American right and left showed
    some of the same measured ability to argue against mistaken American
    policies without impugning the integrity of the other side; but
    perhaps this is asking too much of ideologues caught up in the past.
    David Horowitz is one such relic of traditional left-right struggles
    (and like many of the toughest grapplers, he has been on both sides).
    In ''Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left,'' this
    leftist-turned-conservative provocateur aims to discredit his old
    allies by arguing that the left is in bed with Osama bin Laden because
    of their shared anti-Americanism. He writes that ''self-described
    progressives'' have formed ''inexplicable alliances . . . with Arab
    fascists and Islamic fanatics in their war against America and the
    West.''

    Horowitz's book would be little more than a tiresome exercise in
    quote-gathering and guilt by association were it not for the fact,
    noted by Roy, that the Islamic extremists have indeed drunk from the
    well of old-fashioned Marxist anti-Americanism. Militant Islamists do
    in fact share some common themes and language with homegrown radicals,
    especially in their condemnations of American imperialism. What is
    interesting about this is not that it demonstrates some alliance
    between the old (once the new) left and Islamic terror, but that it
    shows how ideas lose their provenance as they travel across time. The
    worldwide critics of American empire today are no more likely to think
    of themselves as Marxists than the antiwar critics of the 1960's
    thought of themselves as belonging to the American anti-imperialist
    movements of 1900 or 1790.

    A more sensible and productive set of proposals for understanding
    Muslim extremism comes to us from two Americans who have considerable
    experience in the Middle East. An academic and a World Bank consultant
    respectively, Monte Palmer and Princess Palmer are particularly good
    at describing the Lebanese and Palestinian jihad movements. In ''At
    the Heart of Terror: Islam, Jihadists, and America's War on
    Terrorism,'' they analyze jihadi strategies with a nuanced common
    sense all too hard to come by in the sometimes sensationalist
    literature on the topic. They provide, for example, a detailed chapter
    on Israeli counterterrorism efforts that identifies both its successes
    (large numbers of suicide bombings thwarted) and its shortcomings (no
    significant reduction in Palestinians prepared to undertake terrorist
    acts).

    These authors pose an increasingly tough question for United States
    policy: Will we, can we ''accept rule by Islamic parties dedicated to
    the establishment of an Islamic state''? In Lebanon, for example,
    Hezbollah has made itself into a political party without abandoning
    its violent stance toward Israel or its willingness to use terror; in
    Palestine, Hamas may well follow a similar course. The Palmers call
    such groups ''radical-moderates.'' Unlike the Shiite Islamic democrats
    poised to take power in Iraq, or Turkey's thoroughly
    Islamic-democratic Justice and Development Party, Hezbollah has been
    prepared to pursue simultaneous strategies of violence and political
    participation.

    The Palmers opt for engagement with Hezbollah -- not because they
    trust them, but on the realist grounds that ''efforts to eliminate
    them will only increase terrorism and push the United States into a
    war with Islam.'' In fact, it may be possible to negotiate with the
    radical-moderates on the condition that they abandon any active
    involvement in terror. This approach would require us to distinguish
    true Islamic democrats, who reject violence as a mechanism of
    political change, from fellow travelers like Moktada al-Sadr, who
    haunt the edges of participatory politics. But, as the Palmers note,
    Muslim support for jihad against enemies perceived as oppressing
    Muslims is ubiquitous, even among moderate-moderates.

    Even more specific is an engaging, quirky book on terrorism's largest
    growth market: Pakistan. Hassan Abbas, the author of ''Pakistan's
    Drift Into Extremism: Allah, the Army, and America's War on Terror,''
    served in the Pakistani police in the still-wild North-West Frontier
    Province, and did stints in the governments of both Benazir Bhutto and
    Pervez Musharraf. He therefore has an insider's angle on the story of
    the gradual infiltration of Islamic ideology into the government over
    the last several decades.

    What's most significant about this book, however, is its insight into
    the Pakistan military's perspective on the country's politics and
    history. Each time we are introduced to a new character from the
    military, we hear the opinion of the officer class. And every officer
    has a precisely calibrated reputation: this one a drunkard, this one
    an honorable man, this one a brave soldier with a weakness for women.
    Increasingly, after the ruling general, Zia ul-Haq, died in an
    airplane crash in 1988, the newly promoted senior officers had
    reputations as Islamist sympathizers or activists. These reputations
    matter crucially for questions ranging from promotion to coup d'etat.
    For Abbas, the Pakistani Army is political Pakistan itself.

    The picture that emerges from the details of Pakistan's military
    politics is one of the transformation of a traditional,
    British-trained and British-inflected professional army into a more
    complex institution that both permeates politics and, in turn, falls
    under the influence of political movements like Islamism. This, too,
    is an instance of globalization -- the kind that comes after the
    empire has folded itself up and gone home.

    Noah Feldman, a professor at the New York University School of Law and
    fellow of the New America Foundation, is the author of ''What We Owe
    Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building.''

From checker at panix.com  Sat Feb  5 15:30:50 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 10:30:50 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYTBR: 'God's Politics': The Religious Left
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502051028351.10866@panix2.panix.com>

The New York Times > Books > Sunday Book Review > 'God's Politics': The
Religious Left
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/06/books/review/06LIZZA.html
5.2.6
[First chapter appended.]
By RYAN LIZZA

GOD'S POLITICS:
Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It.
by Jim Wallis.
384 pp. HarperSanFrancisco. $24.95.

    FROM abolition to woman suffrage to civil rights, the leaders of
    America's most successful liberal crusades have turned to the Bible to
    justify their causes. But the history of the religious left seems to
    stop in 1968, the endpoint of Martin Luther King's movement as well as
    the starting point of a decades-long trend by which Democrats have
    become the secular party and Republicans the religious party. After
    three bruising national elections that can at least partly be
    explained by the party's failure to connect with religious voters,
    Democrats are suddenly rediscovering their past.

    Their prophet is Jim Wallis, an evangelical Christian who has become
    almost synonymous with the religious left, a sort of Pat Robertson for
    liberals. Through Sojourners, the political magazine he edits, six
    previous books and countless columns and speaking appearances, he has
    become the leading voice urging Democrats to embrace a politics rooted
    in the Bible.

    In ''God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't
    Get It,'' Wallis has a simple message for Democrats: rather than
    challenging the right's piety, challenge the right's theology.
    ''Conventional wisdom suggests that the antidote to religious
    fundamentalism is more secularism,'' he says. ''But that is a very big
    mistake. The best response to bad religion is better religion, not
    secularism.''

    Many liberals admonish President Bush for his use of religious
    language. Wallis is one of the few on the left to question the
    accuracy of Bush's biblical allusions, which he maintains ''are too
    often either taken out of context or, worse yet, employed in ways
    quite different from their original meaning.'' And instead of
    attacking conservatives for bringing religion into the public square,
    Wallis attacks conservatives for reducing the Christian policy agenda
    to abortion and gay marriage. After all, the Bible has far more to say
    about poverty, economics and war than it does about the right's two
    favorite wedge issues.

    Wallis's politics are hardly ideal for all Democrats. The party has a
    religion problem and a national security problem. Wallis's instincts
    on terrorism -- despite his useful rejoinder to the moral relativism
    of those on the left who refuse to believe Al Qaeda is a greater
    threat to the world than American foreign policy -- are dovish, when
    the Democrats' trouble is that they aren't seen as hawkish enough. On
    social policy, he advises the party to de-emphasize abortion rights
    and gay marriage, show more tolerance toward those opposed to abortion
    and reach out to religious voters who are not on the right but are
    concerned about the general coarseness of American culture. On
    economics, he makes a biblically based argument for a more populist
    and anticorporate agenda. At a minimum, any Democrat running for
    election in a red state should read this book.

    And to liberals wary of any prescription that includes more religion
    in politics, and to those worried that his evangelical Christianity is
    not ecumenical, Wallis makes an important point rarely heard on the
    religious right. ''We bring faith into the public square when our
    moral convictions demand it,'' he writes. ''But to influence a
    democratic society, you must win the public debate about why the
    policies you advocate are better for the common good. That's the
    democratic discipline religion has to be under when it brings its
    faith to the public square.'' It is a reminder that Martin Luther King
    may have had a Bible in one hand, but he had the Constitution in the
    other.

    Ryan Lizza is a senior editor at The New Republic.

-------------
First Chapter: 'God's Politics'
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/06/books/chapters/0206-1st-wallis.html

    By JIM WALLIS

    Take Back the Faith

    Co-opted by the Right, Dismissed by the Left

    Many of us feel that our faith has been stolen, and it's time to take
    it back. In particular, an enormous public misrepresentation of
    Christianity has taken place. And because of an almost uniform media
    misperception, many people around the world now think Christian faith
    stands for political commitments that are almost the opposite of its
    true meaning. How did the faith of Jesus come to be known as pro-rich,
    pro-war, and only pro-American? What has happened here? And how do we
    get back to a historic, biblical, and genuinely evangelical faith
    rescued from its contemporary distortions? That rescue operation is
    even more crucial today, in the face of a deepening social crisis that
    cries out for more prophetic religion.

    Of course, nobody can steal your personal faith; that's between you
    and God. The problem is in the political arena, where strident voices
    claim to represent Christians when they clearly don't speak for most
    of us. It's time to take back our faith in the public square,
    especially in a time when a more authentic social witness is
    desperately needed.

    The religious and political Right gets the public meaning of religion
    mostly wrong - preferring to focus only on sexual and cultural issues
    while ignoring the weightier matters of justice. And the secular Left
    doesn't seem to get the meaning and promise of faith for politics at
    all-mistakenly dismissing spirituality as irrelevant to social change.
    I actually happen to be conservative on issues of personal
    responsibility, the sacredness of human life, the reality of evil in
    our world, and the critical importance of individual character,
    parenting, and strong "family values." But the popular presentations
    of religion in our time (especially in the media) almost completely
    ignore the biblical vision of social justice and, even worse, dismiss
    such concerns as merely "left wing."

    It is indeed time to take back our faith.

    Take back our faith from whom? To be honest, the confusion comes from
    many sources. From religious right-wingers who claim to know God's
    political views on every issue, then ignore the subjects that God
    seems to care the most about. From pedophile priests and cover-up
    bishops who destroy lives and shame the church. From television
    preachers whose extravagant lifestyles and crass fund-raising tactics
    embarrass more Christians than they know. From liberal secularists who
    want to banish faith from public life and deny spiritual values to the
    soul of politics. And even from liberal theologians whose cultural
    conformity and creedal modernity serve to erode the foundations of
    historic biblical faith. From New Age philosophers who want to make
    Jesus into a nonthreatening spiritual guru. And from politicians who
    love to say how religious they are but utterly fail to apply the
    values of faith to their public leadership and political policies.

    It's time to reassert and reclaim the gospel faith - especially in our
    public life. When we do, we discover that faith challenges the powers
    that be to do justice for the poor, instead of preaching a "prosperity
    gospel" and supporting politicians who further enrich the wealthy We
    remember that faith hates violence and tries to reduce it and exerts a
    fundamental presumption against war, instead of justifying it in God's
    name. We see that faith creates community from racial, class, and
    gender divisions and prefers international community over nationalist
    religion, and we see that "God bless America" is found nowhere in the
    Bible. And we are reminded that faith regards matters such as the
    sacredness of life and family bonds as so important that they should
    never be used as ideological symbols or mere political pawns in
    partisan warfare.

    The media like to say, "Oh, then you must be the religious Left?" No,
    not at all, and the very question is the problem. Just because a
    religious Right has fashioned itself for political power in one
    utterly predictable ideological guise does not mean that those who
    question this political seduction must be their opposite political
    counterpart. The best public contribution of religion is precisely not
    to be ideologically predictable or a loyal partisan. To always raise
    the moral issues of human rights, for example, will challenge both
    left and right-wing governments that put power above principles.
    Religious action is rooted in a much deeper place than "rights" - that
    place being the image of God in every human being.

    Similarly, when the poor are defended on moral or religious grounds,
    it is certainly not "class warfare," as the rich often charge, but
    rather a direct response to the overwhelming focus on the poor in the
    Scriptures, which claim they are regularly neglected, exploited, and
    oppressed by wealthy elites, political rulers, and indifferent
    affluent populations. Those Scriptures don't simply endorse the social
    programs of the liberals or the conservatives, but they make it clear
    that poverty is indeed a religious issue, and the failure of political
    leaders to help uplift the poor will be judged a moral failing.

    It is precisely because religion takes the problem of evil so
    seriously that it must always be suspicious of too much concentrated
    power - politically and economically - either in totalitarian regimes
    or in huge multinational corporations that now have more wealth and
    power than many governments. It is indeed our theology of evil that
    makes us strong proponents of both political and economic democracy -
    not because people are so good, but because they often are not and
    need clear safeguards and strong systems of checks and balances to
    avoid the dangerous accumulations of power and wealth.

    It's why we doubt the goodness of all superpowers and the
    righteousness of empires in any era, especially when their claims of
    inspiration and success invoke theology and the name of God. Given the
    human tendencies of military and political power for self-delusion and
    deception, is it any wonder that hardly a religious body in the world
    regards the ethics of unilateral and preemptive war as "just"?

    (Continues...)


From checker at panix.com  Sat Feb  5 15:41:59 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 10:41:59 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] TLS: Test tube suits
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502051040540.10866@panix2.panix.com>

Test tube suits
Weekly book reviews and literary analysis from the Times Literary Supplement
http://the-tls.co.uk/archive/story.aspx?story_id=2109742&window_type=print

    Michele Pridmore-Brown
    17 December 2004
    REPRODUCTION AND RESPONSIBILITY. The regulation of new
    biotechnologies. By Leon Kass, editor. 254pp. Washington, DC:
    President's Council on Bioethics. $45. - 0 7567 4166 1

    In the United States, the assisted fertility industry is largely
    market driven; the robust confluence of supply, demand and very rapid
    innovation makes for a thriving $4 billion-a-year business. The
    invisible hand of the market has rendered the embryo so fruitful that
    most in vitro babies have been born in the past four to five years,
    and at least 400,000 embryos are currently on ice. The proportion of
    deliveries per embryo transferred is around 25 per cent, which
    suggests that in vitro fertilization is more efficient than natural
    conception. One could argue, however, that the scientists whose
    innovations power the freewheeling American fertility market are a bit
    like the German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, who explained to
    the Americans from whom he was trying to get a job after the Second
    World War: "I send (the rockets) up, where they come down is not my
    business". Up to now, it has not been clear who is in charge of the
    long-term landing in the American fertility industry.

    The public does ask questions - but only when an embryo gets implanted
    in the wrong womb; or an inordinate number of triplets are born in a
    given region; or a sixty-year-old gives birth to cartoon fanfare; or
    contractual parents and gamete donors go to war in the courts; or
    other culturally jarring practices occur. After all, there is nothing
    like an ostensibly healthy baby to normalize a procedure and lull
    nay-sayers - and nothing like a live miracle gone awry to temporarily
    remind the public of the error rates, and of the moral values at
    stake.

    The fact is that, in America, no federal regulation of assisted
    reproductive practices and services exists - in contrast to the United
    Kingdom, Australia, Canada and most nations in the European Union.
    There is, for instance, nothing even remotely close to the UK's Human
    Fertilization and Embryology Authority. In part, this is because
    health care is itself privatized, geared to customer privacy and
    autonomy. But other reasons also account for why America has a harder
    time with regulation. For one thing, Americans are averse to
    government regulation in general; and they are committed to free
    enterprise and consumer sovereignty. Add to this mix the typical
    consumer in the infertility industry: a hard-working thirty-or
    forty-something professional who desperately wants her own child,
    preferably with her own rapidly senescent eggs, and who feels entitled
    to make reproductive decisions free of government intrusion. And then
    consider that creating viable embryos via IVF necessarily also entails
    creating a slew of spare embryos, "potential lives", that will never
    see the light of day - a boon for embryo researchers hoping to cure
    diseases but criminal from the point of view of pro-lifers. In short,
    regulation is hardly a winning cause for any American politician to
    take on.

    The bipartisan members of the President's Council on Bioethics,
    however, have rolled up their sleeves and done just that. In many
    ways, Reproduction and Responsibility is a watershed document. The
    Council has taken an issue that has so far been too hot to touch in
    the American context, and treated it not ideologically but
    pragmatically. The report examines in straightforward prose the
    abstruse details of biotechnology and public policy, and it makes the
    subject seem terribly urgent. According to the report, we have reached
    a dangerous intersection between three areas of scientific study and
    medical practice: reproductive technologies, embryo research and
    genetic testing. While each contributes tremendously to health,
    happiness and knowledge,certain cherished universal values, such as
    the health and safety of children, might be "imperiled" by the
    rapidity of progress. The report is not about legislating morality or
    deciding who should or should not receive IVF treatment. Rather, it is
    about managing the potential crises with eyes open. The report should
    be useful to policy makers and eventually to historians of technology
    and policy; but its greatest importance lies in the fact that it sets
    a precedent in the US for sustained scrutiny. It may also be useful
    beyond US borders because it so clearheadedly sets out the dilemmas -
    and competing interests at stake - in a field that, more than any
    other, is likely to have seismic consequences on twenty-first-century
    mores, and on how we think about kinship and the "making" of children.

    Throughout history, children have been born for reasons other than
    their own. The report implies, however, that precisely the
    intentionality of IVF-mediated procreation (and notably its proximity
    to manufacture) thrusts their interests on the table, so to speak.
    Indeed, just by virtue of an aspiring parent selecting certain gametes
    over others on the open market, or of a scientist selecting certain
    embryos (for gender, for "quality", for the absence or presence of
    certain genetic markers, to save a sibling), the intentionality of the
    procreative act is undeniably exacerbated. In other words, we can no
    longer ascribe the outcome of sperm-meets-egg, at least the
    lab-mediated variety, solely to fate or nature, or to divine
    providence. Responsibility therefore accrues to parents as well as to
    scientists and clinicians. The problem is that the science of IVF is
    often a process of trial and error. Thus far, success is marked by one
    thing:

    a live birth, presumably a win-win-win situation for fertility
    specialists, parents and embryo. Yet we now know that the children
    created may be harmed by the treatment used to conceive or preserve
    them, as suggested by recent studies showing a link, for instance,
    between freezing and abnormal gene expression. The laissez-faire
    approach has left this long-term perspective out of the picture - or
    arguably has assumed that the interests of future children are the
    same as those of the women (and scientists) who create them. While
    staying clear of any kind of pro-life argument, the report intrepidly
    argues that we have come to a historical juncture in which the
    interests of all partiesshould be separated. In particular, the
    interests of future children should be theorized as distinct from
    those of the women who bear them or contract for their coming into
    being.

    This is a politically loaded argument that could anger some feminists,
    though certainly not all. The report is very careful here. It does not
    call so much for constraining women's reproductive choices, but rather
    for systematic knowledge - regarding rates and risks, previous
    failures and successes, cross-clinic comparisons, etc - that would
    presumably lead to more informed decision making.

    The writers dwell on the irony of the fact that in an age of
    information, little data is available about such an important
    industry; indeed, the phrase "we lack knowledge" operates as a refrain
    throughout the text. Data, such as it exists, comes mostly from other
    countries, such as the UK and Australia. Perhaps no one has cared to
    know too much about, say, embryo disposal, or the commerce in gametes,
    or the details about possible risks. Regardless of the reasons, the
    committee's first policy prescription is a forceful commitment to
    remedying the situation - by way of federal funding for data
    collection, for long-term studies of IVF babies and of the women
    undergoing treatment; it also calls for "transparency" and
    availability of information to all parties; and it urges that
    penalties be imposed at the federal level for those doctors, clinics
    and labs that do not provide data.

    The second broad recommendation seems fairly obvious. The report urges
    further self- regulation on the part of professional organizations
    such as the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), the
    oversight board of the infertility industry.

    To its credit, the ASRM has already succeeded in getting its members
    to reduce the number of embryos transferred into a womb - though
    certainly not to UK levels.

    Despite this modest, albeit important success, the report notes a
    glaring failure.

    The history of IVF practices suggests a repeated failure to oversee
    progress "adequately". The rapid pace of innovation means that new
    techniques are constantly coming up the research pipeline. Older
    prospective mothers hardly have time to wait patiently for novel
    procedures or drugs to be tested on animals for safety; and clinics
    intent on improving their success rates do not have incentives to wait
    either - quite the contrary. It follows that new techniques move all
    too quickly from the research lab to clinical practice.
    Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) is one case in point. Two
    years after having been discovered by accident in 1992, ICSI was in
    widespread use; yet it was only in 1995 that the first ICSI procedure
    on mice was reported on. ICSI trumps nature by injecting a sperm
    directly into an egg and so removing its barrier against sperm; in
    short, sperm otherwise incapable of penetrating an egg are creating
    babies, and lots of them. Since the oldest ICSI baby is only twelve
    years old (the oldest IVF baby, Louise Brown, is twenty-six), we have
    no idea what the long-term effects are - though, as with other in
    vitro practices, recent evidence does point to an increased risk of
    certain rare disorders. Again, the report does not call for
    constraining "progress" per se, but rather for safety controls at the
    professional and federal level, and for systematic oversight.

    No one is likely to argue with either of the first two
    recommendations. It is the third and last set of recommendations that
    may be the most contentious from the point of view of researchers,
    though welcome for the public at large. The report advocates targeted
    legislative measures against what it calls certain "boundary-crossing"
    practices: namely reproductive cloning, the creation of chimeras
    (human/animal hybrids) and the creation of a child "by means other
    than the fusion of egg and sperm". These proposed bans are in line
    with those of several other countries; we do well to remember,
    however, that IVF babies were themselves once considered
    boundary-crossing. The term is hardly absolute - especially in an era
    of rapid change. It may well be that some of the practices now
    condemned, such as the fusion of two eggs, will be normalized with the
    appearance of a baby that looks healthy, especially as definitions of
    the family become more flexible in the US. We can only hope that, if
    this occurs, oversights will be in place so that any such
    ground-breaking baby is more than a shot in the dark.

    The report dismisses outright the threat of "designer babies", a
    concern of critics of genetic testing, who think it will lead to a
    race among the affluent to create superbabies with fast-twitch muscles
    and Einsteinian IQs. This particular threat, according to the report,
    is not worth addressing because it is so highly improbable given the
    complexity of gene interactions. This sounds reasonable enough, and
    one hopes it will calm, at least temporarily, a public worried about a
    runaway genetics technology.

    As for research and those 400,000 embryos suspended on ice in the US,
    the report is circumspect. Scientists are unlikely to be either
    dismayed or delighted. The report prohibits research on human embryos
    beyond ten to fourteen days. Notably, it does not condemn research
    before that time - though it does lapse into poetic language about the
    "never-before- enacted life" an embryo might lead. The report's
    refusal to pronounce on the moral status of the early embryo is its
    greatest strength. This silence allows it to attend to what can be
    pragmatically managed via policy - and it provides a template for
    future discussion across party lines. In short, the report adamantly
    refuses to be shipwrecked by the Roe vs Wade debate (ie, women's right
    to an abortion) that has, for decades now, troubled American politics.
    This is heartening, given that the views of the committee members -
    lawyers, doctors, scientists and various brands of ethicists - span
    the pro-life to pro-choice gamut. The leader of the committee, Leon
    Kass, is known for conservative, even occasionally Luddite thinking.
    Yet he has helped produce a document that does not tidily fit into any
    ideological camp, certainly not his own. It is he who best sums up the
    committee's accomplishment: "the report's major contribution is to
    show how a heterogeneous group of individuals, whose opinions range
    almost as widely as those of the American people, has agreed on the
    need to set some limits on some uses of some bio-technologies, in
    order to protect common values".

    One could also argue that their consensus demonstrates that creating
    life via technology is not just the flip-side of terminating life via
    technology: that in the difference lies the stuff of policy. In other
    words, creating life is about the future - and about a society that
    may have to bear the costs if IVF-mediated children in the long run
    require higher than average health care, or if certain stabilizing
    values are disconcertingly compromised by, say, unfettered innovation
    or the excessive commercialization of procreation. We might also do
    well to consider that, unlike rockets or other manufactured goods,
    children spawned in the American lab may well grow up to sue their
    makers.


From checker at panix.com  Sat Feb  5 15:43:21 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 10:43:21 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] LRC: Darkest Before the Dawn by Mike Rogers
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502051042090.10866@panix2.panix.com>

Darkest Before the Dawn by Mike Rogers
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rogers/rogers121.html

        "A lie told even ten-thousand times, never becomes the truth."

                                                       ~ Mikhail Gorbachev

    Fact: There was no armed insurrection by the Japanese against the U.S.
    occupation after World War II. Please read that sentence again: There
    was no armed insurrection by the Japanese against the U.S. occupation
    after World War II. Thanks, just had to get that off my chest.

    The American mass media has completely devolved into pure style over
    substance. It doesn't matter anymore if those who appear on American
    TV haven't the faintest idea of what they are talking about. What
    matters is that they look like they know what they are talking about.

    The claims, half-truths, and lies being made by those in the White
    House and Pentagon regarding Iraq can be excused - or rather can be
    expected. Everyone expects the President and his men to lie. Everyone
    already knows that George W. Bush and friends have a pathological
    problem with reality. When I see or hear supposed experts on American
    TV or radio making outrageous claims and lying about Japan that's
    where I really have a problem.

    I had always believed - and thought everyone else in the mass media
    did the same - that the primary duty of all broadcasters was to tell
    the truth. How na?ve I must have been.

    The most recent nonsense being spouted by the Prima Donna cast on your
    TV is the line:

      "The Iraqi insurgency will get worse before it gets better."

     This is usually followed by the rationalization - the blatant lie -
       that "Japan had an insurgency after World War II." There was no
           insurgency in Japan after World War II. Never happened.

    When the war ended, for the very first time the Japanese public heard
    the voice of their living God, Emperor Hirohito went on the radio. He
    told them:

      "Bear the unbearable."

    The Japanese did what Hirohito requested. There were no shootings, no
    car bombings, no explosions; the Japanese did not rise up against the
    U.S. occupation and revolt. There was no insurrection. Those who make
    this claim are either lying or they don't know their history.

    I suspect a bit of both.

    I have heard before Rush Limbaugh claiming that Japan and Germany had
    a post-war insurrection. I do not want to make any claims about
    Germany - a subject that I am not well versed in - but I do consider
    myself much more of an expert on Japan than Rush Limbaugh or just
    about any person on American TV or radio and I can tell you for a
    fact: No postwar insurrection in Japan.

      Which is it for Rush Limbaugh? [9]Is he shamelessly lying or is he
     just ignorant on Japan's history and knows that no one will call him
            on it? Well, Mr. Limbaugh, I'm calling you on it now.

    I have even heard Fox TV's Bill O'Reilly make the statement that
    "Postwar Iraqi is going better than Postwar Japan." With the
    insinuation that Japan's insurrection was worse than Iraq's.

    Which is it for Bill O'Reilly? Is he [10]lying again or is he just
    ignorant on Japan's history and knows that no one will call him on it?
    Well, Mr. O'Reilly, I'm calling you on it now.

    Today, for the third time in the last few months, I heard this blatant
    lie - sans challenge to its validity - being made on CNN as Larry King
    interviewed a guest during his coverage of the Presidential
    Inauguration. I'm sorry, I didn't catch the name of the young man who
    made this absurd assertion, but he was wrong. There was no insurgency
    in Japan after the war. To claim that there was is out-and-out
    fabrication.

    Which is it for CNN? Are they blatantly lying or are they just
    ignorant on Japan's history and knows that no one will call them?
    Well, CNN, I'm calling you on it now.

    I have searched for months through Japanese language documentation and
    haven't found one single piece of evidence that there ever was any
    political violence against the U.S. occupation in Japan after World
    War II. There absolutely was no postwar insurrection in Japan.

    Here are the facts from [11]USA Today:
    Iraq: 14-month occupation scheduled to end June 30 [2004]. Iraqis are
        to hold elections no later than Jan. 31, 2005, and write a
        constitution by the end of 2005. Occupation troops are attacked
        daily. There was no formal surrender by the former regime.
        Japan: Adopted a constitution 15 months after the war ended, and
        put it into effect in May 1947. There was no postwar insurgency.
        Japan formally surrendered and was much more badly damaged than
        Iraq after the war.
        Germany: Took three years to write a constitution and four years
        to hold elections. There was almost no postwar insurgency. Also
        badly damaged after the war and formally surrendered.

    So the question comes up, and I don't believe it is a minor one, "Will
    things continue to get worse before they get better?"

    Judging from the current state of American TV and radio and having to
    tolerate "experts" continually lying to the American public and not
    getting taken to task for it, I'd have to say that I agree:

    [rogers.jpg] "Things are going to get much worse before they get
    better."

    January 22, 2005

    Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [[12]send him mail] was born and raised in the
    USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He has worked as an independent
    writer, producer, and personality in the mass media for nearly 30
    years.

                     [13]Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

References

    9. http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/eibessential2/the_occupation_of_germany.guest.html
   10. http://blog.lewrockwell.com/lewrw/archives/007151.html
   11. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-06-24-iraq-transfer-occupation_x.htm
   12. mailto:mikeintokyo2004 at yahoo.com
   13. http://www.lewrockwell.com/rogers/rogers-arch.html

From checker at panix.com  Fri Feb  4 15:06:04 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 10:06:04 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] 
	Telegraph: (Eco) Beautiful people good, ugly people bad
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502041004140.10866@panix2.panix.com>

Beautiful people good, ugly people bad 
http://www.arts.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml;sessionid=KDRRSKNJ3BPDHQFIQMGCM54AVCBQUJVC?xml=/arts/2004/10/24/boeco24.xml
    (Filed: 24/10/2004)

    Martin Gayford reviews On Beauty ed by Umberto Eco.

    "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," John Keats declared. "That is all ye
    know on earth, and all ye need to know." Or rather, that is what the
    poet claimed the Grecian Urn said to mankind. No doubt he was right to
    be cautious. The truth about beauty is a deep and tangled question,
    and one the writer and novelist Umberto Eco gets into a right old
    muddle about in this lavish but deeply confusing book.

    It is described as "a history of a Western idea", but it is also an
    anthology. Each chapter consists of a series of rather brief remarks
    by Eco, followed by a series of extracts from texts, printed in small
    blue letters. Gathered around them are numerous glossy colour
    illustrations, mainly of paintings and sculptures - though the book
    claims also to take in "architecture, film, photography, the
    decorative arts, novels and poems". It is conceived for "a vast and
    diverse readership". Already one senses trouble.

    The result reads a little like the entries in that Monty Python
    competition to summarise Proust in 30 seconds. It is an attempt by a
    renowned professor of semiotics from Bologna to pr?cis the whole of
    Western culture in 438 pages, most of them taken up by colour
    photographs. Not surprisingly, the result is often more of a triumph
    of compression than clarity.

    Here he is on the same theme as the Grecian Urn: "Beauty was
    configured as a synonym for truth, within a deep rethinking of a
    traditional hendiadys. For Greek thinkers beauty coincided with truth
    because, in a certain sense, it was truth that produced Beauty;
    contrariwise, the Romantics held that it was Beauty that produced
    truth. Beauty does not participate in truth, but is its artifice. Far
    from shunning reality in the name of a pure Beauty, the Romantics
    thought in terms of a Beauty that produced greater truth and reality."
    It's as simple as that.

    Actually, Eco is quite often perfectly sensible; it's just that one
    needs to have some prior knowledge of the subject in order to
    understand him. The early Greeks were inclined to think that beautiful
    people were good and ugly people bad - still a common point of view,
    though likely to lead to disillusion. "The most beautiful is the most
    just," proclaimed the Delphic Oracle. Plato opined that beauty lay in
    harmony and proportion, and was best discerned by the mind, not the
    eye. In late antiquity and the Middle Ages, following the philosopher
    Plotinus and Abbott Suger of St Denis, many were of the opinion that
    light and colour emanated from the divine. Looking, therefore, at
    objects such as mosaics flashing in lamp-light, stained-glass windows
    and jewelled chalices might bring you closer to God. Peering at
    beautiful bodies, on the other hand, would be more likely to betray
    you into the clutches of the devil. Eco is at his best on the Middle
    Ages, on which he has written before.

    Eco's dash through art history becomes ever more breathless. After the
    Renaissance, the modern art world began to take shape with its endless
    metamorphoses of style and fashion. Eco finds himself dealing with
    melancholy beauty, Mannerist beauty, baroque beauty, the beauty of the
    ugly, the machine, the magazine, the abstract painting, the sublime -
    which was originally conceived as something different from beauty
    altogether, something like the universe or the nightmare containing an
    element of terror or awe. He includes the horrific beauty of Goya's
    painting of Saturn devouring one of his children. He wrestles
    unavailingly with the distinction between a beautiful object and a
    beautiful picture - which may depict something horrible. By the time
    he puffs into the 20th century he sounds distinctly weary.

    I doubt anyone will make much use of the anthology component of this
    volume (printed in unappetisingly minuscule type). None the less, it
    contains some enlightening things. It is interesting to discover that,
    in the 12th century, Hugh of Saint Victor thought "the colour green
    surpasses all others for Beauty and ravishes the souls of those who
    look upon it". It is equally useful to know Hugh of Fouilloy's
    opinions, delivered in a sermon, on female breasts: "Beautiful indeed
    are breasts that protrude but little and are moderately full...
    restrained, but not compressed, gently bound so they are not free to
    jounce about."

BOOK INFORMATION
Title:  On Beauty: a History of a Western Idea
Author: ed by Umberto Eco
Publisher: 438pp, Secker & Warburg, ?30
ISBN 0436205173

From checker at panix.com  Sat Feb  5 11:04:16 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 06:04:16 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Enterprise Security Today: FBI Ditches Carnivore,
	Turns to ISPs 
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502050601440.10866@panix2.panix.com>

Enterprise Security Today (Online Security): NewsFactor Network -
Security Products/Services - FBI Ditches Carnivore, Turns to ISPs
http://enterprise-security-today.newsfactor.com/secproser/story.xhtml?story_title=FBI-Abandons-Carnivore--Turns-to-ISPs&story_id=29831&category=secproser#story-start
By Elizabeth Millard
    January 19, 2005 10:59AM

    The Federal Bureau of Investiagtion has stopped using Carnivore, a
    controversial software program designed to read online communications
    between suspected spies, criminals and terrorists. The bureau instead
    is moving toward use of commercial software and ISPs for surveillance.

    The [44]Federal Bureau of Investigation has abandoned Carnivore, its
    home-grown Internet surveillance technology, in favor of commercial
    software, according to bureau oversight reports recently given to
    Congress.

    Carnivore, also known as DCS-1000, was first designed in 1998 to help
    the FBI read online communications between suspected spies, criminals,
    and terrorists. Although the cost of creating the system has not been
    disclosed, some estimates have put the price between US$6 million and
    $15 million.

    As disclosed in the report to Congress, the FBI actually used
    Carnivore very rarely. The Electronic Information Privacy Center
    (EPIC) noted that the agency did not use the system at all during
    fiscal years 2002 and 2003, preferring instead to partner with
    Internet Service Providers and use commercial software.

    Public Private Partnership

    Although the recent Congressional report does not include the complete
    history of Carnivore use, the FBI clearly has been moving toward using
    ISPs in preference to its own custom-built system for some time.

    "It's likely that most of the Internet traffic intercepted by the FBI
    has been done with the help of ISPs, and it seems to have been that
    way for years," Marcia Hofmann, EPIC's staff counsel and director of
    the open government project, told NewsFactor.

    Because Carnivore is basically a packet sniffer, finding similar tools
    in the commercial sector would not be a difficulty. But Hofmann doubts
    that the agency is doing very much of the surveillance alone with
    commercial software, without the assistance of ISPs.

    Hide and Seek

    The move from Carnivore toward ISPs does not mark a fundamental shift
    in how the FBI gathers its online information; it is merely getting it
    from a different source.

    But it does change the agency's requirements in terms of reporting and
    accountability, and that worries privacy [45]Latest News about privacy
    watchdog groups like EPIC.

    "When there's no requirement to report on what kind of cooperation
    it's getting from the private sector or what kind of software it's
    using, it's certainly more difficult to know what the FBI is doing,"
    Hofmann said.

    When the FBI was using Carnivore, it was required to report on the
    number and type of Internet wiretaps it initiated. But no such mandate
    is attached to its work with ISPs.

    "There's less transparency now," Hofmann added. "And that's a
    concern." [end-nfn.gif]

References

   44. http://www.fbi.gov/


From checker at panix.com  Sat Feb  5 15:34:27 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 10:34:27 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYTBR: 'An End to Suffering': Philosopher King
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502051031560.10866@panix2.panix.com>

The New York Times > Books > Sunday Book Review > 'An End to
Suffering': Philosopher King
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/06/books/review/06GOODHEA.html
5.2.6, first chapter appended

    By ADAM GOODHEART

AN END TO SUFFERING: The Buddha in the World.
By Pankaj Mishra.
422 pp. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $25.

    ONE night during the time I was reading this book, I had the odd
    experience of bumping unexpectedly into its author. At the lower
    Manhattan holiday party of a stylish magazine, I was briefly
    introduced to an owlish fellow with a Brahminical beard who smiled at
    me amid the din of a crowded sake bar. You occasionally hear of
    writers, especially when their books are of long incubation, coming to
    resemble their subjects, and my fleeting glimpse of Pankaj Mishra
    seems to offer uncanny proof of the phenomenon. For here, surely, was
    the young Siddhartha Gautama himself: a scholar-sophisticate, a
    personality both cosmopolitan and ascetic, at large and at home in the
    world.

    Such, at least, is the portrait Mishra draws of the sixth-century B.C.
    Indian princeling who would become known in his own lifetime as the
    Buddha, the enlightened one. Born in a small city on the dusty plain
    at the foot of the Himalayas, he came of age at a historical moment
    when city states and villages ruled by tribal elders were giving way
    to centralized kingdoms and empires, a transformation that brought
    with it chaotic social and cultural upheaval. Individual lives were
    suddenly subject to the whims of distant rulers; merchants, soldiers
    and itinerant preachers were all on the move. War and famine swept
    human truths, along with human lives, before them.

    The time was ripe, then, for a visionary who could explain -- and
    perhaps even cure -- some of the pain, frustration and sorrow he saw
    around him. By the time the Buddha died, at about the age of 80, he
    had preached to thousands, walked many miles across northern India,
    counseled kings and founded a civilization that would eclipse the
    great empires of his day, stretching eventually from Tibet to
    California.

    Mishra himself was born in 1969 to a displaced and dispossessed Hindu
    Brahmin family that had left its village near India's Nepalese border
    and migrated to the city. He grew up, he says, amid a society not
    unlike the one the Buddha had addressed two and a half millenniums
    earlier: one beset with dislocation and upheaval, where ''each person
    still had to bear in solitude the knowledge that the old props of
    caste and community were gone and that the awareness of being an
    individual brought both freedom and pain.''

    In 1992, fresh out of the university in Delhi, Mishra moved to a small
    Himalayan village to continue his education, to read and write and
    travel among the mountain towns and old colonial outposts. It was then
    that he began to research and write the book on Buddhism that he has
    only now completed. (In the interim, he published two other works, a
    novel and a travelogue.)

    ''An End to Suffering'' is part biography, part history, part travel
    book, part philosophic treatise. But perhaps it could best be
    described as a work of intellectual autobiography. I say
    ''intellectual'' rather than spiritual, let alone religious. Mishra is
    not a Buddhist -- he ''couldn't sit still'' long enough to meditate
    successfully -- and his story is not a narrative of conversion or a
    road map to inner peace, at least not in the expected sense. It is,
    rather, the tale of his attempts to delve into the legacy of one of
    the world's greatest philosophers.

    The Buddha, as Mishra describes him, was not a prophet -- not a
    religious figure but a secular one. Indeed, ''he had placed no value
    on prayer or belief in a deity; he had not spoken of creation,
    original sin or the last judgment.'' He likewise ignored the question
    of why sin and evil exist in the world, which has obsessed nearly
    every major religion. The Buddha's concern was purely practical: to
    relieve suffering, both material and existential. His precepts weren't
    couched as revelations from on high, delivered with the crash of
    thunder; instead they came as small quotidian insights: ''I well
    remember how once, when I was sitting in the shade of a jambu tree on
    a path between the fields. . . .''

    He was, in many senses, a modern man, maybe even the first modern man,
    because he put into words the anomie and angst that are the daily
    companions of billions of modern lives. (Perhaps it's appropriate that
    northern India, which was the birthplace of some of the world's first
    cities, should also have been a birthplace of individual identity.)
    Yet the Buddha also recognized that the only real peace could come
    from within. Despite the flickering, flamelike nature of the self, he
    found, at the center of its inconstant, all-consuming dance, something
    steady and true.

    Mishra, educated in the Western humanist tradition, first approached
    Buddhism through the medium of the Western scholars, archaeologists
    and explorers who ''discovered'' it in the early 19th century. He
    vividly evokes their slow realization that they were not dealing with
    a mythological figure -- in the 1820's, ''British scholars at the
    Asiatic Society in Calcutta still thought that the Buddha had been
    Egyptian or Ethiopian, or perhaps was another name for the Norse god
    Woden'' -- but a human being who had lived once upon a time in India,
    as real as Plato or Aristotle. Likewise, Mishra delights in finding
    echoes of Buddhist thought -- conscious or otherwise -- in the words
    of Western writers as disparate as David Hume (''The mind is a kind of
    theater'') and Oscar Wilde (''In this world there are only two
    tragedies, one of not getting what one wants, and the other of getting
    it'').

    In the final chapters of ''An End to Suffering,'' Mishra leaves his
    Himalayan village and goes down into the world -- first among the
    towns and cities of India, plagued with poverty, religious strife and
    social breakdown, and then to Europe and America. Arriving in London,
    the first Western city he has ever visited, he is overwhelmed by the
    sight of commuters pouring wordlessly out of an Underground station,
    ''looking neither left nor right, as if impelled by a great inner
    panic.'' Here, it seems, is a society aching for the Buddha's balm; it
    may be no coincidence that the sage's first lay followers, in the 6th
    century B.C., were members of India's rising commercial class.

    But Buddhism, Mishra recognizes, is ''not easily practiced in the
    modern world,'' where almost everything is ''predicated on the growth
    and multiplication of desire, exactly the thing that the Buddha had
    warned against.'' In the United States, particularly, ''as Alexis de
    Tocqueville had noticed in the early 1830's, individual self-interest
    was the very basis of the brand-new commercial and industrial society
    that Europeans had created in the seemingly unlimited spaces of the
    New World.'' And yet Buddhism has taken root and flowered here.
    Perhaps, Mishra suggests, it is beginning to play -- though still in a
    small way -- the role Tocqueville foresaw for religion in America, as
    a moderating influence on society's worst excesses and strains.

    Given the scope of its ambitions, ''An End to Suffering'' could easily
    have become a disorganized ramble. But Mishra's book is in the best
    tradition of Buddhism, both dispassionate and deeply engaged,
    complicated and simple, erudite and profoundly humane.

    Adam Goodheart is the C. V. Starr Scholar at Washington College in
    Chestertown, Md.
-----------
First Chapter: 'An End to Suffering'
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/06/books/chapters/0206-1st-mishra.html

    By PANKAJ MISHRA

    The days were shortening with intimations of winter when I returned
    from the inner Himalayas to Mashobra. When spring came, and the roads
    cleared, I began to travel to the Spiti and Pin valleys. There, in the
    lonely cold deserts, speckled wherever the snow melted into streams
    with green oases of pea and barley fields, and watched over by hilltop
    monasteries of sun-baked bricks, I saw many more images of the Buddha.
    I visited Tabo, and found the oldest monastery in the region still
    full of lamas, as jaunty in their maroon robes as the prayer flags
    fluttering from electric poles in the treeless expanses.

    I came to recognize the colourful murals and to understand somewhat
    the symbolism of the mystical circular diagrams (mandalas) on the wall
    hangings. I could spot from afar the distinctive shape of the gompas,
    or Buddhist monasteries; and although I felt excluded by the faith
    they expressed, about which I knew little then, I came to value them
    for their solitude and distance from the known world.

    I was intrigued, too, by the monks, their childlike simplicity,
    cheerfulness and serenity. I attributed these qualities to the plain
    and undemanding world the monks lived in, until I found out that some
    of them had travelled to, and spent time in, Europe and America. One
    of them had studied in a monastery near Lhasa for about twenty years;
    I was surprised to know that his subjects had been logic,
    epistemology, cosmology, psychology and ethics as expounded in
    Buddhist texts written in India as early as the second century AD.

    I began to write a travel essay, in which I tried to record my
    surprise at finding traces of Buddhism in these remote Himalayan
    valleys. I wrote about the other kind of Indian Buddhists I had met
    before: they were Dalits, low-caste Hindus, millions of whom had
    converted to Buddhism since the 1950s in an attempt to escape an
    oppressively caste-ridden Hinduism. I tried to describe how these
    politically active Buddhists, who did not appear to take much interest
    in spiritual matters, differed from the monks in the Himalayan
    monasteries.

    The small bookshop on the Mall in Simla was well stocked with books in
    English on Buddhism - in expectation, the owner told me, of the
    European and American tourists who came looking for writing on
    spiritual figures and themes, and often travelled from Simla to the
    hill town of Dharamshala, the home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan
    community in exile.

    One of the books I found there was an English translation of the
    Milindapanha (Questions of King Menander), which I had seen mentioned
    as a basic text of Buddhist philosophy in an essay by the Argentinian
    writer Jorge Luis Borges. King Menander was a Greek who reigned in
    north-west India, now Pakistan, in the first or second century BC. He
    is said to be among the rulers of the time who embraced, or was at
    least familiar with, Buddhism. The book, which was preserved in Ceylon
    for centuries, consists of Menander's conversations with an elderly
    Buddhist monk called Nagasena.

    Their dialogue on the individual self, which drew explicitly upon the
    Buddha's ideas, had particularly struck Borges. It begins with
    Menander asking Nagasena his name. Nagasena says that his name is
    'only a generally understood term, a practical designation. There is
    no question of a permanent individual implied in the use of the word.'

    Menander replies, 'If there is no permanent individuality, who gives
    you monks your robes and food, lodging and medicines? And who makes
    use of them? Who lives a life of righteousness, meditation and reaches
    Nirvana? Who destroys living beings, steals, fornicates, tells lies,
    or drinks spirits? ... If your fellow monks call you Nagasena, what
    then is Nagasena? Would you say that your hair is Nagasena? Or your
    nails, teeth, skin, or other parts of your body, or the outward form,
    or sensation, or perception, or the psychic constructions, or
    consciousness? Are any of these Nagasena? Are all these taken together
    Nagasena? Or, anything other than they?'

    Nagasena answers no to all of Menander's questions.

    Menander says, 'Then for all my asking I find no Nagasena. Nagasena is
    a mere sound! Surely what your reverence has said is false!'

    Nagasena now takes over the questioning. He asks Menander, 'Your
    Majesty, how did you come here - on foot, or in a vehicle?'

    Menander replies, 'In a chariot.'

    'Then tell me,' Nagasena asks, 'what is the chariot? Is the pole the
    chariot?'

    'No, your reverence,' Menander replies.

    'Or the axles, wheels, frame, reins, yoke, spokes, or goad?'

    Menander replies that none of these things is the chariot.

    'Then all these separate parts taken together are the chariot?'

    Menander again says no.

    'Then is the chariot something other than the separate parts?'

    'No, your reverence,' Menander says.

    'Then for all my asking, your Majesty,' Nagasena says, 'I can find no
    chariot. The chariot is a mere sound. What then is the chariot? Surely
    what your Majesty has said is false! There is no chariot!'

    Menander protests that what he had said was not false. 'It is on
    account of all these various components, the pole, axle, wheels and so
    on, that the vehicle is called a chariot. It's just a generally
    understood term, a practical designation.'

    'Well said, your Majesty!' Nagasena replies. 'You know what the word
    chariot means! And it's just the same with me. It's on account of the
    various components of my being that I am known by the generally
    understood term, the practical designation, Nagasena.'

    There were many such clear and simple exchanges in the book,
    illustrating the Buddhist view of individual identity as a construct,
    a composite of matter, form, perceptions, ideas, instincts and
    consciousness, but without an unchanging unity or integrity.

    'I think, therefore I am,' Descartes had said; and when I first came
    across these famous words as an undergraduate they expressed all that
    then seemed holy to me: individuality, the life of the mind. It was
    comforting to believe that the human mind was capable of acting
    rationally, logically and freely upon the inert outside world. I was
    attracted, too, by the idea of the authentic self, which I had picked
    up from the French existentialist philosophers, who for some reason
    were very popular in India. These descriptions of the self - as a
    discrete entity shaped through rational thought and act - helped
    offset the uncertainties (financial, emotional, sexual) that I lived
    with then.

    But the dialogue between the Greek king and the Buddhist monk seemed
    to refute intellectually the Cartesian I', by implying that one cannot
    speak of a separate self or mind thinking 'I think' inside the body,
    inasmuch as this self is nothing but a series of thoughts. It
    suggested that the `I' was not a stable and autonomous entity and
    indeed was no more than a convenient label for the provisional
    relations among its constantly changing physical and mental parts. It
    also matched better my experience: of finding incoherence where there
    was supposed to be a self, of being led on by stray thoughts, memories
    and moods, and thinking that nothing existed beyond that flux.

    I read other books. I learned quickly that although Buddhism often had
    the trappings of a formal religion - rituals and superstitions - in
    the countries where it existed, it was unlike other religions in that
    it was primarily a rigorous therapy and cure for duhkha, the Sanskrit
    term denoting pain, frustration and sorrow. The Buddha, which means
    'the enlightened one', was not God, or His emissary on earth, but the
    individual who had managed to liberate himself from ordinary human
    suffering, and then, out of compassion, had shared his insights with
    others. He had placed no value on prayer or belief in a deity; he had
    not spoken of creation, original sin or the last judgement.

    He had spoken instead of a suffering that was manmade and thus
    eradicable. He had confined himself to human beings living everyday
    lives with desire, attachment, pride, jealousy and hatred. He had
    analysed the workings of these emotions and asserted that they arise
    from a craving for and an attachment to a self that has no true
    existence. He had developed analytic and contemplative techniques
    which helped prove that neither the self nor the phenomenal world are
    solid, stable and discrete entities, and which attuned the human mind
    to 'things as they really are': interconnected and in a state of
    change.

    The Buddha was, broadly speaking, an empiricist who denied that there
    are any fixed substances underlying appearances; this is true as much
    for what one feels to be one's inner self or ego as for the outer
    world. He claimed that experience, rather than speculative
    metaphysics, holds the key to wisdom. He assumed that the quality of
    all human experience depends on the mind and so had been concerned
    with analysing and transforming the individual mind. To see that one
    was neither identical with one's thoughts as they arose continuously
    and discursively in one's mind, generating desire, anxiety, fear and
    guilt, nor indeed limited by them, was to be aware of the possibility
    of controlling them and of moving towards a new kind of spiritual and
    intellectual freedom.

    Clearly, the Buddha had been more of a trenchant thinker and
    psychologist than a religious figure. He, and later interpreters of
    his ideas, had investigated in detail the contents of human
    consciousness; they had located in it a quality of will which when
    strengthened through meditation can become an effective barrier
    against craving and suffering.

    But, reading the often very abstract and difficult Buddhist treatises
    on the mind, I often wondered why the Buddha, ostensibly the founder
    of a religion, had concerned himself with this kind of close and dry
    analysis of the inner world of experience; why had he not extended his
    analysis to the external world, tried to establish clear, distinct and
    certain foundations for knowledge, and founded, like Descartes, a
    tradition of scientific enquiry? Certainly Buddhism with its rational
    outlook was immune to the kind of conflict between religion and
    science that defined modern western philosophy.

    It seemed that the Buddha had had other priorities and that he had
    been concerned almost exclusively with the inescapable fact of
    suffering. But here, too, he seemed to differ radically from the
    intellectual fathers of the modern world, Rousseau, Hobbes and Marx.
    For he had presumed to offer a cure for human suffering that did not
    involve large-scale restructuring of state and society.

    Mr Sharma, whom I told about my growing interest in the Buddha,
    couldn't say much about this. He had taken to dropping in more often
    than before, and he appeared to have loosened up a bit. He told me
    more about his life. He had grown up in a village near Simla, among
    apple and pear orchards. He had spent no time at all on the plains; he
    spoke with something like pride of how his few visits there had proved
    to be ordeals. When he spoke of the Himalayas as a place of exile and
    refuge, when he told me about the nearby regions which the Pandava
    brothers in the Mahabharata had visited thousands of years ago, he
    seemed to be speaking not so much of the myths of the race - the idea
    of the Indian plains with their relentless heat and dust as a trap -
    as of his own life.

    He had never married; family life with its obligations was, he said,
    not for him. But he seemed not altogether at ease in his self-imposed
    solitude. I wondered if he sometimes resented it, and wished, like
    everyone else, that he could have had another, more active and
    fruitful life, far away from the small place where he had spent, and
    was now to end, his life.

    He seemed a bit puzzled by my interest in the Buddha. He said that
    Dalits, low-caste Hindus, who had converted to Buddhism thinking it to
    be something opposed to Hinduism, had dragged the Buddha's name
    through mud. For the Buddha was actually the tenth incarnation of the
    Hindu God Vishnu, and had emerged from the mouth of Brahma, and
    therefore was part of rather than opposed to the Hindu tradition.

    I told him that this was more myth than history. The Buddha may have
    emerged metaphorically from the mouth of Brahma, but the evidence
    collected by British scholars in the nineteenth century had proved
    that he had also been a flesh-and-blood being, a figure no less
    historical than Jesus and the Prophet Mohammed, and, furthermore, that
    he had lived and died not far from where we were. I also told Mr
    Sharma that I had been to the Buddha's birthplace in Nepal and seen
    the iron pillar erected there by Ashoka, the third-century BC Indian
    emperor.

    * * *

    The Buddha's birthplace is called Lumbini, and is just north of the
    vast Indian plain across which the great rivers of the subcontinent,
    the Ganges and the Yamuna, flow. The legends of the Buddha speak of it
    being close to the Himalayan foothills. This gives the place romance:
    tall mountains and waterfalls and pine forests as the backdrop to the
    Buddha's luxurious childhood.

    But when you finally get there - after a long, arduous journey within
    either India or Nepal - the high mountains to the north are no more
    than a rumour; at best, an added chill in the winter breezes, and a
    faint swelling on the horizon on clear spring days. The feeling of
    being exposed in the vast flat land never leaves you, especially in
    the summer when, after weeks of blistering heat, whirlwinds of fine
    dust and dry leaves scatter across the exhausted rice fields and the
    huddled villages of mud and straw.

    Occasionally, there are clusters of mango and tamarind trees and
    ponds: oases of shade and cool, where the physical world regains form
    and colour. The land that looks so parched grows quickly green after
    the first rains of the monsoons in late June or early July. Two months
    of monsoons impose an unruly lushness upon it. But the endless rain
    wearies; the prickly heat saps energy; and the rivers and streams
    often burst their banks, turning the earth into obdurate mud. It is
    only during the months from October to March that the weather stops
    being punitive. All day long a mellow light falls gently over the busy
    fields and the villages from a tenderly blue sky. The evenings are
    short, and the nights often chilly.

    In 1985, when I visited Lumbini, I was sixteen years old. I had just
    left home for the first time and was living as a student in Allahabad,
    one of the emerging urban centres of the Buddha's time and now a
    decaying old provincial city in the Gangetic plain. I travelled
    cheaply and very slowly, on trains pulled by steam engines and country
    buses and, once, on a ferry over a dangerously swollen muddy river,
    passing through the places that the Buddha as a young scion called
    Siddhartha had dreamed of visiting.

    Continues...


From shovland at mindspring.com  Sun Feb  6 03:02:44 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 19:02:44 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] A superpower on life support
Message-ID: <01C50BB5.473C7DE0.shovland@mindspring.com>

How many wars can we fight at once?

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Christian Rauh [SMTP:christian.rauh at uconn.edu]
Sent:	Thursday, February 03, 2005 7:20 AM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] A superpower on life support

Steve,

FYI, Brasil has always issued its bonds in US dollars, this year it is 
issuing 20% of them (at least) in Euros. And private export contracts 
have been moving to Euros too since the middle of last year.

The problem with the Zero Sum game here is that the US will probably 
stick the gun to the face of its comercial partners before going to the 
same level of negotiation. As a pre-emptive measure, of course.

Christian

Steve Hovland wrote:
> In recent years the US has been styling itself as 
> the last remaining superpower, able to dictate
> the establishment of a Pax Americana without
> significant opposition.
> 
> If you look at our finances, you see a different
> picture.
> 
> The USSR crumbled because they could no
> longer afford the Cold War game.
> 
> We are about to crumble because we can no
> longer pay cash to finance our activities.
> 
> Most of our prosperity is financed by a mountain
> of debt that now threatens the economy of the
> entire planet.
> 
> In their foolish greed our largest corporations
> have exported vast amounts of capital to India
> or China, who now have trade surpluses while
> we have trade deficits that compound our
> budget deficits.  This is a zero sum game.
> 
> The day will come when the world recognizes
> that we have spent all of the gold that we found
> at the end of our continental rainbow a mere
> 200 years ago.
> 
> When that day comes they will no longer buy
> Dollar bonds, but Euro bonds.  Indeed, the last
> straw with Saddam Hussein was that he started
> to price his oil in Euro's.
> 
> When that day comes we will find that India,
> China, Japan, and Europe will be our equal 
> partners because we won't be in any position
> to refuse their demands.
> 
> When that day comes we will no longer be
> a psychotic Gulliver stomping on all who dare
> to oppose us.  We will be one among equals
> living in a more benign equilibrium with the
> planet.
> 
> 
> Steve Hovland
> www.stevehovland.net
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych

-- 

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over,
their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight,
restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in
the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the
horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt......
If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience
till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where
principles are at stake.

         - Thomas Jefferson, from a letter he sent in 1798 after
                             the passage of the Sedition Act

_____________________________________________________________________
???????????????????????????????$o$???????????????????????????????????
_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


From checker at panix.com  Sun Feb  6 16:49:21 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 11:49:21 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Philosophy Now: Review of The President of Good and
 Evil by Peter Singer
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502061147570.26225@panix3.panix.com>

Review of The President of Good and Evil by Peter Singer
http://www.philosophynow.org/issue49/49oreilly.htm

    Scott O'Reilly reviews Peter Singer`s review of George W. Bush`s
    statements on ethics.

    Inquiring after the ethics of George W. Bush might seem to many like a
    Herculean task, and possibly doomed to failure, but worth a try
    anyway. Peter Singer, one of the world's best-known philosophers, has
    taken up this daunting challenge in his The President of Good and
    Evil: The Ethics of George W. Bush, and the result is a superbly
    instructive lesson on the strengths and limits of applying the methods
    of philosophy to current events.

    Immanuel Kant once wrote that "out of the crooked timber of humanity,
    no straight thing was ever made." The thought is worth bearing in mind
    as Singer attempts to apply the sharp edge of logic and sound
    reasoning against the sometimes-twisted reasoning proffered by Bush
    and his administration. As Plato recognized long ago, philosophers are
    rarely kings, and kings are rarely philosophers, hence it might be
    unreasonable from the outset to expect Bush's public utterances and
    policies to conform to any rational understanding or explanation.
    Perhaps Bush is simply a political animal, telling voters whatever
    they want to hear so long as it furthers his acquisition of power. In
    Bush's case we might call this the `Machiavelli from Mayberry'
    conjecture - a working assumption that Bush is a cynical operator with
    the cunning of a fox, and the strength and ferocity of a lion, but who
    attempts to pass himself off as a meek and humble lamb. Singer rejects
    this assumption, deciding to take Bush's pronouncements at face value,
    in effect asking if Bush's words and deeds stand up to philosophical
    scrutiny. In this, Singer is very much performing the role of a modern
    day Socrates, asking common sense questions, applying clear reasoning,
    and using his interlocutors own words as the standard by which they
    are judged. And like Socrates, Singer makes for a rather formidable
    gadfly.

    Singer examines the president's public statements and positions on all
    the key issues - tax cuts, environmental policy, stem cell research,
    and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - and he repeatedly uncovers
    glaring contradictions that would appear to undermine not only Bush's
    credibility, but also the coherence of Bush's stated policy
    objectives. For instance, he zeroes in on the administration's
    extraordinarily inconsistent - if not duplicitous - conduct
    surrounding the march to war against Iraq. As Singer notes, early in
    the Bush administration key figure such as Colin Powell and
    Condoleezza Rice went on record saying that Saddam had been disarmed
    and contained. Within months the administration had flip-flopped, with
    all the key figures pushing the position that Saddam had stockpiles of
    WMD that posed an imminent threat requiring a pre-emptive invasion.
    Singer demonstrates how the Bush administration prematurely pulled out
    U.N. weapons inspectors from Iraq and then failed to secure a second
    U.N. Security Council resolution that would explicitly authorize
    force. Failing to see the U.N. weapons inspection process through
    meant that the subsequent U.S. invasion of Iraq failed to meet the
    criteria for a Just War (according to which the use of force is only a
    last resort when all other means have failed). But it was also, as
    Singer points out, a violation of international law, the U.N. Charter,
    and the U.S. Constitution all at the same time. Ironically, Bush
    argued that in failing to provide a second resolution authorizing
    force the U.N was making itself irrelevant, blithely ignoring the fact
    that it was the Bush administration's unilateral actions that were
    undermining the U.N.

    In the end, the U.S. would fail to find Saddam's alleged WMD, but when
    confronted with this fact Bush reacted by accusing his critics of
    `historical revisionism.'

    The shifting rationales, contradictory pronouncements, and legal
    doubletalk convinced many observers that they had entered some
    Orwellian alternative universe where a ubiquitous Catch-22 clause is
    forever trumping the laws of logic and sound reasoning. If no engineer
    or architect could expect to ignore the principles of geometry and
    have their work hold up in the real world, how could the Bush
    administration so consistently disregard the standards of cogency in
    the pursuit of statecraft? Perhaps the answer is that they couldn't,
    and that the troubled occupation of Iraq serves as something of a
    reductio ad absurdumon the Bush administration's `faith-based' foreign
    policy.

    Singer takes the Bush administration to task for allowing ideology to
    trump empiricism and sound reasoning. In a particularly effective
    passage Singer cites a story by the 19th century English mathematician
    and philosopher William Clifford, which illustrates the perils of
    basing ones ethics or actions on belief. Clifford asks us to imagine a
    shipowner who knows his ship could do with a costly inspection and
    repairs, but sincerely believes that Providence will see the ship and
    its passengers through on a difficult voyage. Clifford argues that the
    shipowner's belief was not acquired "by honestly earning it in patient
    investigation, but by stifling his doubts." When the ship sinks its
    owner's guilt is not absolved by the sincerity of his faith; indeed he
    is culpable precisely for substituting belief in place of practical
    measures.

    Singer's point is hard to miss. Even if Bush was entirely sincere in
    his belief that Saddam possessed WMD, that in no way excuses a general
    pattern whereby the Bush administration ignored evidence that might
    contradict its preconceptions. Singer isn't the only philosopher who
    finds an ideological style of leadership troubling. Karl Popper argued
    that political and social progress arises not from adhering to
    timeless principles, unchallenged assumptions, or sacred scriptures,
    but from trial and error. This is a tremendously simple but powerful
    idea. It suggests that political truth isn't something a farsighted,
    ethically-infallible leader intuits from on high, but rather the hard
    won achievement of putting ideas and institutions to the test and
    seeing which ones hold up and serve the common good. Time and again,
    Singer argues, Bush eschews this trial and error approach,
    particularly in the case of stem cell research, and by ignoring
    scientific evidence in the case of Global Warming.

    Singer examines Bush's ethics from a number of points of view -
    Utilitarianism, a Judeo-Christian value system, and a Libertarian
    perspective - and in every case fails to find a consistent framework
    that would make sense of Bush's moral reasoning. Turning to psychology
    Singer speculates that Bush's sometimes-rigid adherence to the `letter
    of the law' (but not its spirit) indicates that the president is stuck
    at what Harvard psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg termed the Conventional
    Stage of morality, which he describes as, "an orientation toward
    authority, fixed rules, and the maintenance of social order." Kohlberg
    describes this as the level of moral development most often associated
    with 13 year olds. (The idea that the president of the United States
    has not yet graduated to the Post-conventional level of moral
    reasoning associated with Kantian-style universal principles is a
    troubling conjecture, but it might explain a lot).

    The conclusion Singer finds most plausible regarding George W. Bush's
    ethics may be the most disturbing. Singer notes that a high number of
    key Bush administration officials are disciples of a philosopher
    called Leo Strauss. Strauss, who taught at the University of Chicago
    until his death in 1973, argued that many of the great ancient
    philosophers, particularly the Greeks, wrote in a kind of code. Only a
    select intellectual elite were capable of absorbing the esoteric
    meaning latent in the texts, while the hoi polloi took everything at
    face value. The Straussians believe that the masses are simply not
    equipped to handle the often-grim truths that underlie political and
    world affairs (remember the old saying: there are two things you never
    want to see being made, sausages and legislation). But according to
    Singer the Straussians go even further, suggesting that sometimes the
    `aristocratic gentlemen' charged with governing a polity lack the
    sophistication to handle the truth. In such cases the elite advisors
    must be prepared to mislead not just the masses with noble lies, but
    also the leader. Singer points out that this might explain why Bush's
    false assertion that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium from Niger
    stayed in his State of the Union address while other agencies like the
    CIA and the State Department regarded it as untrue. It might also
    explain why Bush appeared on Polish television telling viewers that
    the U.S. had discovered mobile weapons labs in Iraq, a story disproven
    weeks before. However, the idea that Bush could claim in the presence
    of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan that "we gave him [Saddam] a
    chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in,"
    strikes Singer as almost too bizarre for belief - Bush had, after all,
    recalled the inspectors himself before their job was completed. Singer
    goes so far as to speculate that Bush was intoxicated, on drugs, or
    perhaps out of his mind when he uttered such obviously preposterous
    statements. But Singer quickly discounts such explanations, finding it
    far more plausible that the president may in fact be a patsy or a
    puppet - with the Machiavellians pulling the strings on the man from
    Mayberry.

    Emerson once wrote, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little
    minds." Great statesmen often exhibit tremendous contradiction in
    their personalities and their policies. But what happens when a given
    leader repeatedly utters statements that contradict their previous
    statement, as well as reality? A disciple of Machiavelli might argue
    that this is what leaders are often called to do for the public good.
    For instance, most of us would probably agree with Winston Churchill
    that, "occasionally the truth needs a bodyguard of lies." Singer,
    however, makes a persuasive case that with George W. Bush those
    supposedly guarding the truth have mugged it instead. If so, it is
    worth remembering another thought from Churchill: "A democratic people
    can face any adversity with fortitude, provided they believe their
    leaders are leveling with them, and not living in a fool's paradise."

    Scott O'Reilly is a contributor to The Great Thinkers A-Z (2004) and
    writes a monthly column of political humor for Compass Magazine .

    The President of Good and Evil: The Ethics of George W. Bushby Peter
    Singer, 2004 (Dutton, $25/Granta ?8.99 paperback) 1-86207-693-6. This
    book is at the Philosophy Now [22]Bookstore.

References

   22. http://www.philosophynow.org/bookstore.htm#1862076936

From checker at panix.com  Sun Feb  6 16:21:51 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 11:21:51 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: Inmate's Rising I.Q. Score Could Mean His Death
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502061120450.26225@panix3.panix.com>

The New York Times > National > Inmate's Rising I.Q. Score Could Mean His Death
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/06/national/06atkins.html
5.2.6

    By ADAM LIPTAK

    YORKTOWN, Va., Feb. 3 - Three years ago, in the case of a Virginia
    man named Daryl R. Atkins, the United States Supreme Court ruled that
    it was unconstitutional to execute the mentally retarded. But Mr.
    Atkins's recent test scores could eliminate him from that group.

    His scores have shot up, a defense expert said, thanks to the mental
    workout his participation in years of litigation gave him.

    The Supreme Court, which did not decide whether Mr. Atkins was
    retarded, noted that he scored 59 on an I.Q. test in 1998. The cutoff
    for retardation in Virginia is 70.

    A defense expert who retested Mr. Atkins last year found that his I.Q.
    was 74. In court here on Thursday, prosecutors said their expert's
    latest test yielded 76.

    Mr. Atkins, a slight, balding 27-year-old in an orange jumpsuit, sat
    slumped with his chin on his hand as lawyers argued about whether his
    intelligence was low enough to spare him from execution. In 1996, he
    and another man abducted Eric Nesbitt, 21, an airman from Langley Air
    Force Base, forced him to withdraw money from an A.T.M. and then shot
    him eight times, killing him.

    He will be one of the first death row inmates to have a jury trial on
    the question of whether he is retarded. The jury's decision will
    determine whether his life will be spared.

    Mr. Atkins's more recent scores should be discounted, a clinical
    psychologist who tested him in 1998 and 2004 said, because they are
    the result of "a forced march towards increased mental stimulation"
    provided by the case itself.

    "Oddly enough, because of his constant contact with the many lawyers
    that worked on his case," the psychologist, Dr. Evan S. Nelson, wrote
    in a report in November, "Mr. Atkins received more intellectual
    stimulation in prison than he did during his late adolescence and
    early adulthood. That included practicing his reading and writing
    skills, learning about abstract legal concepts and communicating with
    professionals."

    In helping put an end to the death penalty for the mentally retarded,
    then, Mr. Atkins could have ensured his own execution.

    Prosecutors say that Mr. Atkins has never been retarded and that the
    recent tests confirm it. "I don't see how a 76 is exculpatory and
    evidence of mental retardation," Eileen M. Addison, the commonwealth's
    attorney here, said in court on Thursday. "It needs to be under 70."

    Ms. Addison has said that Mr. Atkins's crime also proves that he is
    not retarded. In an interview last year, she said that his ability to
    load and work a gun, to recognize an A.T.M. card, to direct Mr.
    Nesbitt to withdraw money and to identify a remote area for the
    killing all proved that Mr. Atkins is not retarded.

    "I don't believe the truly mentally retarded commit these kinds of
    crimes," she said last year. She did not respond to recent messages
    seeking comment.

    There are several other reasons that Mr. Atkins's scores may have
    risen. I.Q. scores are rarely completely stable and can drift, though
    within a relatively narrow range, typically by five points up or down.
    Psychologists recognize that practice drives scores higher. And I.Q.'s
    tend to rise over time, by about three points a decade.

    Dr. Evans, the defense psychologist, concluded that "Mr. Atkins's
    'true' I.Q. is somewhere in the mid- to upper 60's."

    Dozens of mentally retarded people have been released from death row
    as a consequence of the Supreme Court's decision, under agreements and
    judicial findings. Others will face trials like Mr. Atkins's. David M.
    Gossett, a Washington lawyer who represents a death row inmate in a
    similar position in Georgia, said incarceration itself may also have a
    positive effect on the test scores.

    "Prisons are highly structured and safe environments," Mr. Gossett
    said. "They're sometimes good environments for the mentally retarded.
    These people are not vegetables. They can learn. These are people who
    can get better at taking tests."

    In old cases and new ones, courts across the country have been
    struggling to interpret the Supreme Court's decision. Seven states
    have passed new laws, according to the Death Penalty Information
    Center.

    They have adopted essentially the same definition of mental
    retardation, requiring defendants to prove three things: that their
    I.Q. is below 70 or 75, that they lack fundamental social and
    practical skills, and that both conditions existed before they turned
    18.

    Mr. Atkins was never tested as a youth, and so the jury will have to
    consider how to look back using his test scores as a young adult.

    The defense bears the burden of proving he is retarded, so the absence
    of scores from when he was young and the relatively high current test
    numbers may hurt his case.

    "I don't know what you have before age 18," Judge Prentis Smiley Jr.,
    of the York County Circuit Court here, told Mr. Atkins's lawyers on
    Thursday. "That's your problem."

    The judge described a clear standard. "The issues are bright lights
    and targeted with a bull's-eye," Judge Smiley said.

    Richard Burr, who represents Mr. Atkins along with Joseph A. Migliozzi
    Jr., disagreed.

    "For people real close to the edge, there is nothing easy about that,"
    Mr. Burr said. "There is going to be controverted evidence, subject to
    sharp disputes and disagreements."

    Jurors in Mr. Atkins's case, which will be tried this spring or
    summer, will probably hear from mental health experts, teachers,
    family members, classmates and, perhaps, victims of some of the 16
    other felonies that Mr. Atkins committed when he was 18 in what Dr.
    Nelson called a four-month crime spree. He dropped out of high school
    that year, his third attempt to pass the tenth grade.

    Virginia's handling of mental retardation in capital cases is
    relatively unusual. In new cases, juries in this state do not reach
    the question until after they have convicted the defendant. Many other
    states have a judge decide the issue before trial.

    Judge Smiley said he planned to tell jurors that Mr. Atkins was
    convicted and sentenced to death. He will also allow prosecutors to
    dismiss jurors who say they oppose the death penalty in all
    circumstances.

    Mr. Atkins's lawyers asked the Virginia Supreme Court to reverse those
    rulings. On Wednesday, that court declined to hear the case.

    "This proceeding has veered off the course of fairness," Mr. Burr told
    Judge Smiley on Thursday. "We want to have the opportunity to prove
    that Daryl Atkins is mentally retarded."

    Mr. Atkins nodded in agreement.


From checker at panix.com  Sun Feb  6 16:27:48 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 11:27:48 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] WP: Joel Kotkin: Rule, Suburbia
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502061126170.26225@panix3.panix.com>

Rule, Suburbia: The Verdict's In. We Love It There
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A364-2005Feb5?language=printer
5.2.6

[Splendid picture of three views of downtown Bethesda in the print 
edition.]

    The battle's over. For half a century, legions of planners, urbanists,
    environmentalists and big city editorialists have waged war against
    sprawl. Now it's time to call it a day and declare a victor.

    The winner is, yes, sprawl.

    The numbers are incontestable and the trends inexorable. Since 1950,
    more than 90 percent of metropolitan population growth in America has
    taken place in the suburbs. Today, roughly two out of three people in
    the nation's metro areas are suburban dwellers. "The burbs" have
    become the homeland of American success, with an increasing share of
    our national wealth and half the poverty of the urban core.

    We may continue to decry them and make fun of them, in cynical movies
    like "American Beauty" or on spoofy television shows like "Desperate
    Housewives." But we have embraced the suburbs and made them our home.

    For most of us, they represent both our present and our future. Over
    the next quarter century, according to a Brookings Institution study,
    the nation will add 50 percent to the current stock of houses, offices
    and shops, and the great majority of that new building will take place
    in lower-density locations, not traditional inner cities.

    Once we acknowledge this reality, we can turn to the task of making
    the best of it. The suburbs have given us -- in terms of space,
    quality of life, safety and privacy -- much more of what we call "the
    American Dream" than cities ever could. What they have failed to do,
    often miserably, is to live up to their promise of becoming
    self-contained, manageable communities that can both coexist amiably
    with the natural environment and offer a sense of identity. The
    prospect of a nation crisscrossed by ugly sprawl corridors like Lee
    Highway in Virginia or Interstate 10 between Los Angeles and San
    Bernardino may be too gruesome to contemplate.

    I'm the first to admit that most students at the architecture school
    where I teach -- like talented young people generally -- would rather
    work in the big city, designing cool lofts or arresting high-rise
    towers, museums and concert halls, than try to create something in the
    jumble of the suburban periphery. But the suburbs are where the
    action's going to be in the future. The great challenge of the 21st
    century -- not to mention the main economic opportunity -- lies in
    transforming suburban sprawl into something more efficient,
    interesting and humane.

    That's because, despite the ardent wishes of urban advocates, the
    suburbs are becoming ever more ubiquitous. Instead of clustering in
    large, crowded cities, Americans are building bigger and bigger houses
    -- twice the size of those in 1950 -- and doing so increasingly in
    low-density, low-cost regions such as Orlando, Fla., San
    Bernardino-Riverside, Calif., Phoenix and Las Vegas, where job growth
    has also been most robust.

    Many in the planning profession and others who bemoan the "cultural
    wasteland" of the suburbs will find it hard to swallow the reality
    that the suburbs rule. Others will hold on to the hope that higher oil
    prices will force more suburbanites back into dense urban cores. One
    city enthusiast, writer James Kunstler, declared on his Weblog last
    fall that it was time "to let the gloating begin." But I doubt that
    it's time for such new-urbanist glass-clinking. Suburbanization
    proceeded apace during the steep energy price rises of the 1970s; it
    has also accelerated in Europe and Japan, where energy prices are
    already sky-high.

    Traditional urban America isn't going to die. Instead, city living, as
    urban analyst Bill Fulton has put it, will likely become primarily a
    "niche lifestyle," preferred mostly by the young, the childless and
    the rich.

    But just as cities won't prosper if they don't cater to the niche
    resident, the suburbs need to evolve from a pale extension of the city
    into something more like a self-sustaining archipelago of villages.
    This concept has its roots in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
    when visionaries like writer H.G. Wells saw movement to the periphery
    -- what he called the "centrifugal possibilities" -- as a bold
    alternative to the horrors of the contemporary industrial city.

    This vision was widely embraced by both the right and the left.
    Friedrich Engels predicted that the overthrow of capitalism would lead
    to the end of the large mega-city and the dispersal of the industrial
    proletariat into the countryside, delivering the rural population from
    "isolation and stupor" while finally solving the working class's
    persistent housing crisis.

    For the conservative thinker Thomas Carlyle, the growth of the
    industrial city had undermined the traditional ties between workers,
    their families, communities and churches. Moving the working and
    middle classes to "villages" in the outlying regions of major cities
    could restore a more wholesome and intimate environment.

    Perhaps the most influential advocate of suburbia was British planner
    Ebenezer Howard. Horrified by the disorder, disease and crime of the
    Edwardian industrial metropolis, he advocated the creation of "garden
    cities" on the suburban periphery. These self-contained towns,
    surrounded by rural areas, would have their own employment base and
    neighborhoods of pleasant cottages. "Town and country must be
    married," Howard preached, "and out of this joyous union will spring a
    new hope, a new life, a new civilization."

    Howard's great vision remains a compelling one, and not only in
    America. Today, despite differing cultural patterns and political
    systems, virtually every major metropolitan area in the advanced world
    is suburbanizing, and usually rapidly. The urban centers of Tokyo,
    Sydney, London, Frankfurt and even that paragon of enforced
    centralization, Paris, are either losing population or barely holding
    steady as both jobs and people flee to the periphery.

    Yet the suburbs have largely failed in creating Howard's "new
    civilization." They lack a basic definition of what they are and the
    boundaries between them often seem vague at best. This is sprawl's
    most lamented and least admirable quality: It produces vast "slurbs"
    of undistinguished, unappealing space.

    And yet, build them and people come. It's amazing, given that suburbs
    often suffer from a deadening lack of things to do. And then there's
    the traffic. This remains their worst defining feature. In Los
    Angeles, where I live, the hours wasted in traffic have doubled since
    the early 1980s. Fleeing to the farther fringe, such as San
    Bernardino-Riverside, is no escape -- the traffic there is growing
    worse at an even faster pace. Suburbanites around the country, from
    greater Washington to greater Atlanta to the San Francisco Bay area,
    all register similar complaints.

    Ironically, this may prove the new imperative for suburbia's
    evolution. With transit to downtowns and other suburbs increasingly
    dicey, suburbs are being forced to supply an ever-wider array of basic
    needs, from cultural infrastructure to shopping and business services.
    They cannot lean as heavily on the central core, even if they wanted
    to. "In the San Fernando Valley, we have achieved our own kind of
    secession," attorney David Fleming, a leader of the suburban area's
    failed attempt to break away from Los Angeles, quipped to me recently.
    "It's called traffic."

    The digital revolution has also made it easier for suburbanites to
    bypass the city. The home-based workforce has grown 23 percent over
    the past decade, according to the U.S. Census. A lawyer working in
    Thousand Oaks, an often excruciating commute from downtown Los Angeles
    that can take as long as two hours, can now do his job without braving
    the freeway except to appear in court.

    The urbanization of suburbia -- the creation of a more sophisticated,
    self-sufficient community -- is already beginning. From the suburbs of
    Northern Virginia to the Los Angeles basin, cities are restoring the
    commercial cores of what had once been autonomous small towns. Often
    devastated by malls and big-box shopping centers, these downtowns once
    gave suburban towns a sense of distinctiveness -- something many now
    wish to recover. Other places are attempting to create whole new
    communities, with their own defined town centers complete with fine
    restaurants, smart shops and even nightclubs.

    Over the past decade, for example, Naperville, Ill., has grown from
    simply another Chicago suburb into a definable place, with a
    well-appointed old town center, a lovely riverside park and even some
    striking public architecture. It is filled with pedestrians from the
    surrounding area. "Our downtown is what keeps us together," says
    Christine Jeffries, a civic leader in the community of 138,000. "It
    gives us an identity."

    This new principle of village-building can also be seen in some newer
    developments, such as Valencia in Southern California. With a
    well-defined town center, paths for pedestrians and cyclists, a lake
    and a range of housing types, Valencia is closer to a traditional
    village environment than the prototypical sprawl suburb so common in
    the region. This model is being repeated in numerous other places,
    particularly fast-growing regions such as southwest Florida, suburban
    Atlanta and the outer reaches of Houston.

    With this new development has come a relatively new phenomenon, the
    construction of large-scale cultural and religious institutions in the
    periphery. The suburbs are now host to some of the nation's largest
    new cultural centers -- the Music Center at Strathmore that just
    opened in north Bethesda, the Cobb Galleria Centre outside Atlanta and
    the sparkling Orange County Performing Arts Center in Southern
    California -- as well as a plethora of smaller, community-based arts
    facilities. And, at a time when churches in the hearts of many major
    cities are closing, new churches, as well as synagogues, mosques and
    Hindu temples reflecting suburbia's growing ethnic diversity, are
    rising in the outer periphery.

    In the coming years, the opportunities to develop suburban identity
    will grow as baby boomers look to trade in their tract houses for
    something more walkable and compact. Some urban advocates see them
    headed for the major downtowns, but high prices, cramped conditions
    and distance from family and friends militate against a return to the
    city.

    Instead, many developers see suburban villages as ideal places for the
    swelling ranks of empty nesters. "They don't want to move to Florida
    and they want to stay close to the kids," says Jeff Lee, CEO of a
    prominent D.C. real estate, architecture and planning firm. "What they
    are looking for is a funky suburban development -- funky but safe."

    Village environments might also provide an affordable housing
    alternative for people who want to be in the suburbs, but can't yet
    swing the much-desired single-family house. It could also offer a
    congenial environment for singles and younger couples without
    children. According to the last census, the number of childless
    couples and singles grew more than twice as much in the suburbs as it
    did in the central cities over the last decade.

    This redefinition of suburbia into someplace more diverse, interesting
    and multifaceted represents one of the most revolutionary developments
    of our times. It provides us with an opportunity to stop complaining
    about sprawl and start learning how to make better the places that
    most of us have chosen as home.

    Author's e-mail: [3]jkotkin at pacbell.net

    Joel Kotkin, an Irvine Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation,
    teaches urban and suburban history at the Southern California
    Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles and is the author of "The
    City: A Global History," to be published by Modern Library in April.


From checker at panix.com  Sun Feb  6 17:06:19 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 12:06:19 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Reason: Among the Non-Believers: The tedium of
	dogmatic atheism. 
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502061205230.26225@panix3.panix.com>

Among the Non-Believers: The tedium of dogmatic atheism. 
http://www.reason.com/0501/cr.cl.among.shtml
5.1
by Chris Lehmann

    [7]The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, by
    Sam Harris, New York: Norton, 336 pages, $24.95

    For nearly as long as there have been villages, there have been
    village atheists, the hypervigilant debunkers who lovingly detail the
    many contradictions, fallacies, and absurdities that flow from belief
    in holy writ. As a strictly intellectual proposition, atheism would
    seem, on the face of things, to have wiped the floor with the
    believing opposition.

    Still, village atheists are as numerous, and as shrill, as theyve ever
    been, for the simple reason that the successive revolutions in thought
    that have furthered their causethe Enlightenment and Darwinismhave
    been popular busts. As the secular mind loses mass allegiance, it
    becomes skittish and reclusive, succumbing to the seductive fancy that
    its special brand of wisdom is too nuanced, too unblinkingly harsh for
    the weak-minded Christer, ultraorthodox scold, or wooly pagan.

    The faithful, meanwhile, take some understandable offense at this
    broad caricature of their mental capacity and ability to face lifes
    harder truths. So each side retreats to its corner, more convinced
    than ever that the other is trafficking in pure, self-infatuated
    delusion for the basest of reasons: Believers accuse skeptics and
    unbelievers of thoughtless hedonism and nihilism; the secular set
    accuses the believoisie of superstition and antiscientific
    senselessness.

    Still, the vast majority of people comfortably tolerate the huge
    paradoxes that so exercise the super-faithful and their
    no-less-righteous secular pursuers. Americans are, after all, heir to
    the greatest Enlightenment traditions in self-government and
    tolerance, while also forming one of the most religion-mad polities in
    the industrialized West.

    Polls regularly show that at least 90 percent of Americans believe in
    God; more than 80 percent agree that the deity is regularly performing
    miracles in todays world; more than 80 percent also believe in an
    afterlife and Heaven as an actual physical site for same. Even Jews,
    who traditionally have not had any scriptural basis for believing in
    an afterlife, have begun acquiring it as a sort of contact high. The
    General Social Survey conducted annually by the National Opinion
    Research Center at the University of Chicago found in the 1970s that a
    mere 19 percent of American Jews confessed a belief in the afterlife;
    in the 1990s, that proportion rose to an astonishing 56 percent.

    In The End of Faith, Sam Harris, a UCLA philosophy grad student, has
    seized on the all-too-real specter of Islamist terror as the occasion
    to revisit the village atheist waterfront, compulsively itemizing all
    the irrational, surly, atavistic features of faith. Never mind that,
    among the worlds one billion Islamic believers, the vast majority of
    clerics and lay Muslims renounce the politicized brand of Islamist
    dogma that extremists seek to inflict on Muslim and non-Muslim
    populations alike. Identifying all Islamic beliefs with extreme
    Islamist terror, as Harris does throughout the book, is a little like
    saying that the Maoist guerrillas of Perus Shining Path are cognate
    with the Democratic Leadership Council.

    Never mind, as well, that militantly atheist movements like Soviet and
    Khmer Rouge communismas well as volkish pagan ones like Nazism and
    Tutsi supremacystand behind some of the worst mass violence of the
    past century. Harris believes religious belief is the single greatest
    threat to the survival of the human species. Religious faith is not
    merely a maladaptive superstition, Harris writes; it is the common
    enemy for all reasonable people concerned with the preservation of the
    world as we know it. All extant religious traditions, to him, are
    without exception intellectually defunct and politically ruinous.

    Harris stoliddare one say dogmatic?failure to see anything in
    contemporary religion other than the exclusive, world-conquering
    fantasizing of monotheism at its worst keeps his book mired squarely
    in a painfully anachronistic atheists bill of indictments, cribbed in
    most particulars from the heyday of Enlightenment skepticism. Like
    Voltaire, Harris marvels that ardent believers actually worship words
    when they think they profess fealty to God: How can any person presume
    that [theism] is the way the universe works? Harris writes in typical
    sputtering indignation. Because it says so in our holy books. Then,
    zeroing in for the kill, he asks, How do we know our holy books are
    free from error? Because the books themselves say so.

    And even though the language from those books sounds occasionally
    sonorous or beguiling, fueling that oceanic longing for repose within
    the universe that religion is supposed to fulfill, we should not
    forget for an instant that these words have been used to justify mass
    murder: Words of wisdom and consolation and beauty abound in the pages
    of Shakespeare, Virgil, and Homer as well, and no one ever murdered
    strangers by the thousands because of the inspiration he found there.

    Actually, all three of those authors routinely celebrated all manner
    of grisly nonreligious state violence. And determined mass murderers
    can find a rationale for killing in any handy text that comes
    alongsay, The Rights of Man or Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung.
    But the larger, painfully obvious objection to this argument is a
    structural one: Reasoning backward under the impression that the
    destructive results of this or that piece of writing invalidates its
    purchase on our serious attention could make E=mc squared the most
    taboo phrase in the language.

    But Harris central message is the peril inherent in faith, especially
    in todays world. As he is fond of reiterating, Islamist terror means
    religious faith has crossed the line, become simply too dangerous to
    dally with. The September 11 attacks, for Harris, effectively refute
    all religious schemes of knowledge. Indeed, he launches The End of
    Faith with a sensational account of a hypothetical suicide bombing and
    segues promptly to the key object lesson: Why is it so
    easyyou-could-almost-bet-your-life-on-it easyto guess the [attackers]
    religion?

    And should this be too subtle an exercise, Harris concludes his litany
    of Enlightenment-era objections to medieval models of piety with this
    rhetorical wallop: All pretensions to theological knowledge should now
    be seen from the perspective of a man just beginning his day on the
    one hundredth floor of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001,
    only to find his meandering thoughtsof family and friends, of errands
    run and unrun, of coffee in need of sweetenerinexplicably interrupted
    by a choice of terrible starkness and simplicity: between being burned
    alive by jet fuel or leaping one thousand feet to the concrete below.
    Thus again are we instructed that the perpetrators of this most
    heinous act were men of faithperfect faith, as it turns outand this,
    it must finally be acknowledged, is a terrible thing to be.

    Yet Harris, who is otherwise so singularly obsessed with the
    single-bullet religious origins of every sort of human infamy, from
    forced castration to child labor, makes no mention here that suicide
    bombings were in fact originally the handiwork not of the Islamist
    faithful but of the Sri Lankan communist guerillas known as the Tamil
    Tigers. None of this, of course, is to downplay the grave and horrific
    nature of the Islamist terror threat; it is, however, to suggest that
    if this sort of historical causation is more complicated than Harris
    asserts it to be, so it might just be the case that faith is not
    always and everywhere so uncompromising a misuse of the power of our
    minds that it forms a perverse, cultural singularitya vanishing point
    beyond which rational discourse proves impossible.

    Nor is it the case, to take Harris emotional (and rather crassly
    manipulative) example of the hideously sacrificed World Trade Center
    worker, that 9/11 unambiguously demonstrates the pure irreducible
    lethality of religious belief. If those opinion polls are any reliable
    indication, most of the victims of the terrors that day proclaimed
    faith in warlike, atavistic deities too. As many as 800 of them were
    adherents of Islam, a religion that Harris flatly asserts is not
    compatible with civil society (rather a cold comfort, one supposes, as
    they too laid aside their early morning coffee to ponder their sudden
    mortal doom).

    How can it be that the 9/11 suicide bomber, whose spiritual principles
    and hateful political practices are denounced in the highest reaches
    of mainstream Islamic observance, is a man of perfect faith, and that
    the innocent victims of those attacks, Muslim, Jew, Christian, Jain,
    or Hindu, are automatically symbols of defiled secularism? Harris
    protracted 9/11 set piece isnt even a credible account of how the
    religious world was affected by the terror attacks (let alone
    responded to them); so much the less is it the hard and fast measure
    of all pretensions to theological knowledge.

    Its obvious, of course, that a certain derangement of Muslim dogma
    prompted these men into terrible action, but there are also, again,
    more complicated forces in play, involving (just for starters) the
    ruinous course of Israeli-Palestinian relations, the deeply
    antidemocratic and dissent-resistant political traditions of the
    Middle East, and a Saudi monarchy and gerontocracy propelling many
    middle-class young men to the religious fringe. None of these by
    itself is an explanation of any of the hijackers behavior, but neither
    is something that isin the actually existing real world, if not in
    Harris imaginationas broad and variegated as faith.

    Its necessary to insist upon this point in some detail because Harris,
    as it happens, is only getting warmed up with the 9/11 scaremongering.
    Hes ready to roll up his sleeves and endorse pre-emptive assaults on
    both individual bad believers and dangerous Islamist regimes by any
    means necessary. In a world-class show of this hurts me more than it
    hurts you disingenuousness, Harris makes it clear that the fault for
    this state of affairs resides entirely with the believers he thinks we
    may have to kill. Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even
    be ethical to kill people for believing them.

    This may seem an extraordinary claim, but it merely enunciates an
    ordinary fact about the world in which we live. Certain beliefs place
    their adherents beyond the reach of every peaceful means of
    persuasion, while inspiring them to commit acts of extraordinary
    violence against others. There is, in fact, no talking to some people.

    If we must, more in sorrow than in anger, expunge Islamist thought by
    offing its adherents one by one, so we must also gird ourselves for
    the big coming conflict with a nuclear-armed Islamic power, which
    prompts Harris to flights of hypothetical fancy worthy of Herman Kahn
    (if not Dr. Strangeloves Gen. Buck Turgidson). After all, Harris
    reasons, There is little possibility of our having a cold war with an
    Islamist regime armed with long-range nuclear weapons.Notions of
    martyrdom and jihad run roughshod over the logic that allowed the
    United States to pass half a century perched, more or less stably, on
    the brink of Armageddon.

    Cautioning further that we would never know the actual whereabouts of
    such lethal weaponry in the hands of a Paradise-addled Islamist power,
    Harris presses blithely on to the unthinkable: In such a situation,
    the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first
    strike of our own. He of course allows that this opening feint of
    pre-emptive war could trigger a genocidal crusade among the Islamic
    worlds nuke-wielding imams, but to paraphrase our Vietnam strategists,
    sometimes you have to destroy a planet in order to save it.

    In any event, it was the believers who started it. Calling this course
    of events perfectly insane, Harris once again didactically marvels at
    how our own pie-eyed tolerance of faith has brought us to this
    grimmest of all passes: I have just described a plausible scenario in
    which much of the worlds population could be annihilated on account of
    religious ideas that belong on the same shelf with Batman, the
    philosophers stone, and unicorns.

    Here again, Harris glides right by historical precedenta well-advised
    move for his argument, since the only power that has used nuclear
    weapons on civilian populations (up to and including the zealots in
    Pakistan and India who now belong to the nuclear club) is our own
    secular, Enlightenment-bred American republic, steeped in pragmatic
    self-regard far afield from faith-induced deliriums of jihad and
    martyrdom. And its war-ending rationale in 1945 was very much of a
    piece with the shoot-first reasoning of Harris current doomsday
    scenario. Presumably, it meant a great deal to the dignity of
    Hiroshima and Nagasakis incinerated citizens to reflect that they were
    being sacrificed not to mad faith, but to the prerogatives of a
    properly calculated nuclear assault, on the part of a Western power
    that was only rationally pursuing a marginal military advantage.

    It is a notorious hazard of the village atheists vocation to mimic
    many of the worst features of the dogma he obsessively denounces. That
    certainly is the case with The End of Faith. Harris wishes to convict
    religious belief of mulish literalism, while attacking its tenets in
    the most bluntly prosaic and anachronistic terms he can muster. Harris
    attacks the believing worlds maudlin wish fulfillments and faulty
    logicand winds up exploiting lurid imagined scenarios of the final
    moments of 9/11 victims as an argument-stilling tactic. Harris
    excoriates the religious worldviews foreshortened use of fact and
    evidence, and produces ahistorical, misleading summaries of the most
    basic features of Muslim belief, geopolitical conflict, and religious
    thinking generally.

    Most tellingly, The End of Faith derides the callow apocalyptic temper
    of the monotheistic traditions, while effectively seeking to bully
    readers into accepting nuclear Armageddon as a justified response to
    rampant fundamentalism. Lord knows theres plenty to criticize, and be
    alarmed by, in todays religious scene. But even if we posit with
    Harris that faith is itself the enemy, then it behooves any
    tough-minded strategist to know the enemy. And while Im far from a
    believer myself, Id also suggest that it behooves any village-atheist
    counselor of high-stakes nuclear conflict to ponder the Psalms of
    Pogo, in which it is written that we have met the enemy, and he is
    us.

    Chris Lehmann is features editor for New York magazine and author of
    Revolt of the Masscult (Prickly Paradigm Press).

References

    6. mailto:Chris_Lehmann at newyorkmag.com
    7. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0393035158/ref=nosim/reasonmagazineA/


From checker at panix.com  Sun Feb  6 16:22:41 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 11:22:41 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: New to Capitol Hill? 10 Tips to Avoid Ruin
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502061121530.26225@panix3.panix.com>

The New York Times > Fashion & Style > New to Capitol Hill? 10 Tips to 
Avoid Ruin
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/06/fashion/06rule.html
5.2.6

    By ELISABETH BUMILLER

    WASHINGTON

    THE start of every presidential term brings to Washington eager new
    cabinet officers and members of Congress who take the wrong elevators,
    get lost in the hallways and pop off to reporters. But such faux pas -
    Senator Ken Salazar, a freshman Democrat from Colorado, says he has
    not yet found the Senate dining room and is eating ham sandwiches in
    the public cafeteria - are hardly the worst of it.

    As everyone knows, Washington is shadowed by the specters of grand
    scandals past: Richard M. Nixon and Watergate, Oliver North and
    Iran-Contra, Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. More recently Bernard
    B. Kerik, President Bush's short-lived nominee for homeland security
    secretary, jettisoned himself for his troubles with a nanny and then
    turned out to have a Manhattan love nest, a serious no-no in
    Washington. Unlike New York, the nation's capital has always had a
    Puritan streak and remains a curious mix of raging ambition and
    Midwestern values.

    So now that the president's State of the Union address has signaled
    the official start of the year, here are 10 rules, culled from those
    who have learned the hard way, for avoiding social, political and
    legal disaster in Washington.

    1. Don't get up in the middle of dinner and announce that you have to
    run off to do "Larry King Live."

    Well-mannered Washingtonians tell hostesses that they will drop by
    before or after their appearances on nightly programs like Mr. King's.
    "You should tell your hostess ahead of time," said Sally Quinn, the
    Washington writer and hostess who is married to Benjamin C. Bradlee,
    former executive editor of The Washington Post, and the author of a
    book on entertaining. Otherwise, Ms. Quinn said, there will be a
    gaping hole at the dinner table. (Mr. King's interview show is on CNN
    at 9 p.m.) For dinner on big occasions like election night, guests can
    graze in the shows' green rooms, the lavishly catered holding areas
    that have evolved into the new Washington dinner parties.

    2. Don't use the expression "Do you know who I am?"

    The answer from the young woman looking for your lost ticket at the
    charity dinner check-in table may well be an embarrassing no. Also,
    the question is generally not effective, unless your goal is
    frightening her. "It doesn't make your ticket appear more quickly,"
    said Carolyn Peachey, a longtime Washington event planner who has
    heard the expression for decades.

    The only time Ms. Peachey has given a dispensation for the
    expression's use was last fall, when the music mogul Quincy Jones was
    prevented from entering a reception at the State Department. A plate
    in his head from brain surgery had set off the metal detector, Ms.
    Peachey said, and 20 minutes of talking to the guards made no
    difference. "Do you know who I am?" Mr. Jones finally asked. The guard
    replied yes, Ms. Peachey said, but insisted there was nothing to be
    done. Mr. Jones eventually got in through intervention from
    higher-ups.

    3. Don't withhold information from your lawyer.

    Former White House counsels, lawyers for white-collar criminals, and
    the city's highly paid damage controllers all agree: This is the
    premier mistake that otherwise intelligent people make in Washington.
    Cover-ups are often worse than the problems themselves.

    "What inevitably happens is that the facts dribble out, compounding
    the story, because reporters are not going to give up until they beat
    the competition and dig up something new," said Lanny J. Davis, a
    Washington lawyer brought in for White House damage control during the
    Clinton scandals and the author of "Truth to Tell: Tell it Early, Tell
    it All, Tell it Yourself."

    Fred F. Fielding, the White House counsel for Ronald Reagan, who
    vetted the current President Bush's cabinet nominees during the 2000
    transition, heartily agrees. Nominees have to be prepared, he said,
    honestly to answer the awful questions posed by White House lawyers:
    Have you ever had an affair? Or used drugs? A yes to either of those
    questions, Mr. Fielding added, was not necessarily a problem.

    "There's a difference between somebody having an affair years ago,
    before their first marriage broke up, and someone having an affair
    with someone he supervised," he said. As for drugs, "occasional drug
    use in college would not be a disqualifier."

    4. Don't change your hairstyle too often.

    "There is zero tolerance for coif inconsistency," said Mary Matalin, a
    longtime adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney and a former television
    talk show host who is, at the moment, a brunette. Over the years she
    has been blonde, light brown or, as she put it, "hijacked by
    hyper-highlights ranging from dull orange to bright white." In short,
    Ms. Matalin said, "You have to pick a color and stick with a color."

    5. Don't plan to announce your new nominee before a proper vetting.

    This applies more to presidents than to ordinary folk, but it is an
    important corollary of Rule No. 3. C. Boyden Gray, the White House
    counsel for the first President Bush, said that he was under constant
    pressure from the president and his staff rapidly to investigate the
    background of cabinet nominees so that Mr. Bush could fill jobs.

    "I was pounded, relentlessly, when I was counsel," Mr. Gray said. He
    recalled that in 1988, when President-elect Bush insisted on quickly
    announcing Carla A. Hills as the United States trade representative,
    Ms. Hills and Mr. Gray agreed that Ms. Hills's husband, Rod, would
    have to resign from a steel company board to avoid any conflict of
    interest with his wife's new job. The problem was that Mr. Hills was
    on a plane until 4 p.m., and the president wanted Ms. Hills announced
    at 2 p.m. But she refused to say publicly that her husband would
    resign from the steel board without asking him first.

    So Mr. Gray called the Federal Aviation Administration and got in
    touch with the commercial plane's pilot, who summoned Mr. Hills to the
    cockpit, where Mr. Hills gave his O.K. "I think it violated all kinds
    of F.A.A. rules," Mr. Gray said. "The point of the story is that these
    are very difficult issues, and you can't back down."

    6. Don't wear a beaded Armani to a Friday night dinner in Cleveland
    Park.

    The clean lines of Armani are highly desirable in Washington, and the
    first lady's white cashmere Oscar de la Renta wowed the town on
    Inaugural day. But even in a city as formal as the capital, be careful
    not to overdress. Andrea Mitchell, the NBC correspondent who is
    married to Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board,
    said she was reminded of that recently when she wore a black silk
    Armani pantsuit with a beaded top to dinner one Friday in Cleveland
    Park, an affluent, liberal enclave of faded Volvos in the city's
    northwest quadrant. Every other woman, she said, was in slacks and
    turtlenecks.

    What to do? "Laugh it off and realize that in Washington what you say
    and what you know is more important than what you wear," Ms. Mitchell
    said.

    7. Don't think it is your job to educate reporters.

    "You just bite your tongue on certain topics," said Ed Rollins, a
    veteran Republican strategist and the manager of Christie Whitman's
    successful campaign for governor of New Jersey in 1993. Mr. Rollins
    did not follow his own advice later that year, when he infamously
    boasted to reporters at a breakfast in Washington that Ms. Whitman's
    campaign had paid African-American ministers and Democratic workers
    $500,000 in "walking-around money" to suppress the black vote.

    This statement, immediately recanted, prompted a federal
    investigation, which found nothing illegal. But Mr. Rollins's words
    had brought the political establishment down on his head and tainted
    Ms. Whitman's victory.

    8. Don't believe your own spin.

    "I was guilty of that," said Mr. Davis, the Clinton defender. Mr.
    Davis said he first spun out the argument that there was nothing wrong
    with political donors attending coffees at the Clinton White House
    because no money was actually collected there. "I tried to believe it,
    because I was technically correct," Mr. Davis said. "But people were
    expected to give money before or after the event."

    9. Don't forget who your friends are.

    "The biggest mistake that people make is that they base their
    friendships on who is in power and who is not," Ms. Quinn said. "This
    is short-sighted, because very few people in Washington stay in power
    for a length of time. In the same vein, people will count people out
    once they lose power. This is always a huge mistake, because people
    are never out unless they're in the ground with a stake in the heart."

    10. Don't forget where you came from, and that integrity matters.

    "People think the values here will be different than the ones they
    left at home, and they're not," said Robert S. Strauss, a Washington
    sage who is the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee
    and a longtime Bush family friend. "It's the same damn thing that you
    have in Dallas or Los Angeles or Houston. People value loyalty here as
    much or more as they do anywhere else."

    If all else fails, Mr. Fielding has the surefire way to avoid social,
    political and legal ruin in Washington.

    "Move to Kansas," he said.


From checker at panix.com  Sun Feb  6 16:33:33 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 11:33:33 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] CHE: The Bachelorette in Academe
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502061132250.26225@panix3.panix.com>

The Bachelorette in Academe
The Chronicle of Higher Education, 5.1.28
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i21/21c00301.htm

    BALANCING ACT

    A Ph.D. in history finds that a rural, small-town campus is no place
    to be single

    By SARA M. BRADSHAW

    When I received the offer, everyone congratulated me. I had landed a
    tenure-track job, one of the old-fashioned kind, with a light teaching
    load and plenty of time for research. What more could a young
    historian want?
    Only one person voiced a concern. My adviser asked hesitantly, "Are
    you sure that a small town in a rural region is a good place for a
    single woman?"
    Eager to show that I was a dedicated historian, I quickly asserted
    that Rural Town in a rural state out West would be an OK place for me.
    Hadn't I moved to Madison, London, the Bay Area, and a whole host of
    other places by myself? And hadn't I been successful in finding
    relationships and carving out a social life in those areas? Why should
    Rural Town by any different?
    Even as I answered his question, I worried. As a scholar of
    18th-century British history, I knew that jobs in my field were few
    and far between. I was fortunate to receive any job offer at all.
    Still, I had serious doubts as I called to accept the position.
    That year, the buzz among graduate students was all about the
    difficulties of being part of a two-career academic couple, and the
    tensions caused when one partner became the "trailing spouse." Each
    time I told people about my new job, I was told how fortunate I was
    that I was single and did not have to worry about finding a job for a
    partner.
    No one thought to raise the issue of how difficult it would be for a
    single person to live in a rural town in a rural state that emphasizes
    "family values." And like many single people, I was too embarrassed to
    point out exactly how worried I was.
    I was not single by choice. I had always wanted to marry, and I had
    dated throughout college and graduate school; somehow I just had not
    found the right person. Moving to Rural Town would, I was pretty sure,
    make it even more difficult to find Mr. Right (or Professor Right).
    At the orientation for new faculty members that fall, I discovered
    with a sinking heart that, except for a new colleague in my own
    department who was gay, every one of the newly hired male faculty
    members was married.
    Still, I believed that I could make a life for myself. While I studied
    the 18th century, I lived in modern-day America: The Internet, cheap
    long-distance phone service, and air travel would help me build a
    life.
    That first year at Rural Town taught me the limits of technology. I
    was looking for someone with whom I could interact at the end of the
    day -- not a person I could e-mail in the nearest major city more than
    eight hours away. Telephone calls helped, but they could not replace
    an afternoon spent with a friend. Finally, airline tickets proved
    prohibitively expensive, and traveling anywhere meant changing planes
    multiple times and spending an entire day in airports.
    Technology had done little to transform Rural Town, too. It still
    lacked theaters, museums, interesting lectures on politics, walking
    tours, good cafes, and even good bookstores in which I could while
    away a lazy Saturday. In place of those, the town offered only an
    eerie silence. I couldn't even find a good nonacademic book group. I
    had never really understood how isolated certain parts of the country
    can be until I lived in one of them.
    When I was not in the classroom, the silence became deafening, and I
    became clinically depressed. I love to read and I love solitude, but
    like everyone, I need some social interaction.
    My colleagues, on the other hand, often worked at home, and when they
    came into the department, they shut their doors and hibernated. Having
    spouses and families at home, they had no need to create social
    relationships at work.
    By Year 3, I was desperate enough to give up my tenure-track job for a
    non-tenure-track one -- a two-year appointment as a visiting faculty
    member with a higher teaching load. The university was still in a
    small town, but the campus was only 40 miles from my hometown and just
    80 miles from a major metropolitan area.
    My situation, however, improved only marginally. True, I was now able
    to date, and I commuted nearly every weekend to the large city in
    order to do so. I was also able to spend time with my family. But my
    depression continued to deepen.
    At some point I began to realize that my problem was exacerbated by
    the culture of academe. In both of my jobs, I lived in quaint rural
    college towns with populations under 20,000. Everyone seemed to have
    partners or families, and those who didn't were students. The towns
    seemed to have no room for people like me who were neither students
    nor family members.
    Moreover, moving from a tenure-track job to a visiting one only made
    me more irrelevant on the campus. Academics often candidly admit that
    they don't bother getting to know visiting professors because the
    person will move on in a year or two. Two of my 12 colleagues never
    even bothered to introduce themselves during the two years in which I
    worked there.
    Gradually, I realized that the only solution to my problem was to
    leave academe. I couldn't wait around for a tenure-track job in a
    better location that might never materialize. Much as I loved history,
    I could not sacrifice my life for it. While my transition to the
    nonacademic world was difficult, I ultimately found a wonderful job in
    a city I love -- and yes, I found a job that enables me to practice
    history.
    Leaving has given me an opportunity to meet people -- among them, Mr.
    Right. My greatest revelation came, however, not when I met Mr. Right
    (that was a revelation of a different order) but rather when I met a
    woman in one of my three book groups (that's the good thing about a
    city -- you can belong to lots of book groups and none of the members
    will know that you are seeing others).
    Bright, funny, and well-read, Emily had dropped out of a Ph.D. program
    in history. She was single and working as a librarian. Tentatively I
    asked her, "But you are so bright and you have such a passion for
    history, why did you ever drop out of graduate school?"
    Her response: "Early on, I realized that academe has no office
    culture. I know office culture is always seen as a joke, but I
    realized that as a single person, I was going to need some interaction
    at work. Academe couldn't offer me that -- but a library could."
    It took me a while to mull that one over: Librarians are more socially
    outgoing than academics? Admittedly, there was a little envy on my
    part, too: If I was so smart, how come I hadn't figured out, as Emily
    had early on in her graduate career, that I wasn't going to be
    spending large chunks of my academic career sipping sherry with my
    colleagues while we discussed a range of issues?

    Sara M. Bradshaw is the pseudonym of a public historian who lives and
    works in a metropolitan area on the East Coast. For an archive of
    previous First Person columns, see
    [3]http://chronicle.com/jobs/archive/firstpersonarch.htm

References

    3. http://chronicle.com/jobs/archive/firstpersonarch.htm

E-mail me if you have problems getting the referenced articles.


From checker at panix.com  Sun Feb  6 17:03:38 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 12:03:38 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Ha'va'd Crimson: Pinker on Summers plus articles on
	sex differences
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502061157570.26225@panix3.panix.com>

Pinker on Summers plus articles on sex differences
http://www.thecrimson.com/printerfriendly.aspx?ref=505366

    Originally published on Wednesday, January 19, 2005 in the
    News section of The Harvard Crimson.

    PSYCHOANALYSIS Q-and-A: Steven Pinker
    By
    In an e-mail exchange with The Crimson yesterday, Johnstone Professor
    of Psychology Steven Pinker, who teaches the popular spring core class
    "The Human Mind," opined on the latest flap over President Summers'
    comments on women in science.

    CRIMSON: From what psychologists know, is there ample evidence to
    support the hypothesis that a difference in "innate ability" accounts
    for the under-representation of women on science faculties?

    PINKER: First, let's be clear what the hypothesis is--every one of
    Summers' critics has misunderstood it. The hypothesis is, first, that
    the statistical distributions of men's and women's quantitative and
    spatial abilities are not identical--that the average for men may be a
    bit higher than the average for women, and that the variance for men
    might be a bit higher than the variance for women (both implying that
    there would be a slightly higher proportion of men at the high end of
    the scale). It does not mean that all men are better at quantitative
    abilities than all women! That's why it would be immoral and illogical
    to discriminate against individual women even if it were shown that
    some of the statistidcal differences were innate.

    Second, the hypothesis is that differences in abilities might be one
    out of several factors that explain differences in the statistical
    representation of men and women in various professions. It does not
    mean that it is the only factor. Still, if it is one factor, we cannot
    reflexively assume that different statistical representation of men
    and women in science and engineering is itself proof of
    discrimination. Incidentally, another sign that we are dealing with a
    taboo is that when it comes to this issue, ordinarily intelligent
    scientists suddenly lose their ability to think quantitatively and
    warp statistical hypotheses into crude dichotomies.

    As far as the evidence is concerned, I'm not sure what "ample" means,
    but there is certainly enough evidence for the hypothesis to be taken
    seriously.

    For example, quantitative and spatial skills vary within a gender
    according to levels of sex hormones. And in samples of gifted students
    who are given every conceivable encouragement to excel in science and
    math, far more men than women expressed an interest in pursuing
    science and math.

    CRIMSON: Were President Summers' remarks within the pale of legitimate
    academic discourse?

    PINKER: Good grief, shouldn't everything be within the pale of
    legitimate academic discourse, as long as it is presented with some
    degree of rigor? That's the difference between a university and a
    madrassa.

    CRIMSON: Would it be normal to hear a similar set of hypotheses
    presented and considered at a conference of psychologists?

    PINKER: Some psychologists are still offended by such hypotheses, but
    yes, they could certainly be considered at most major conferences in
    scientific psychology.

    CRIMSON: Finally, did you personally find President Summers' remarks
    (or what you've heard/read of them) to be offensive?

    PINKER: Look, the truth cannot be offensive. Perhaps the hypothesis is
    wrong, but how would we ever find out whether it is wrong if it is
    "offensive" even to consider it? People who storm out of a meeting at
    the mention of a hypothesis, or declare it taboo or offensive without
    providing arguments or evidence, don't get the concept of a university
    or free inquiry.
-----------
Today at UCI: Press Releases: 
http://today.uci.edu/news/release_detail.asp?key=1261
University of California, Irvine

    Release
    Intelligence in men and women is a gray and white matter
    Men and women use different brain areas to achieve similar IQ results,
    UCI study finds
    Irvine, Calif. , January 20, 2005

    While there are essentially no disparities in general intelligence
    between the sexes, a UC Irvine study has found significant differences
    in brain areas where males and females manifest their intelligence.

    The study shows women having more white matter and men more gray
    matter related to intellectual skill, revealing that no single
    neuroanatomical structure determines general intelligence and that
    different types of brain designs are capable of producing equivalent
    intellectual performance.

    "These findings suggest that human evolution has created two different
    types of brains designed for equally intelligent behavior," said
    Richard Haier, professor of psychology in the Department of Pediatrics
    and longtime human intelligence researcher, who led the study with
    colleagues at UCI and the University of New Mexico. "In addition, by
    pinpointing these gender-based intelligence areas, the study has the
    potential to aid research on dementia and other cognitive-impairment
    diseases in the brain."

    Study results appear on the online version of NeuroImage.

    In general, men have approximately 6.5 times the amount of gray matter
    related to general intelligence than women, and women have nearly 10
    times the amount of white matter related to intelligence than men.
    Gray matter represents information processing centers in the brain,
    and white matter represents the networking of - or connections between
    - these processing centers.

    This, according to Rex Jung, a UNM neuropsychologist and co-author of
    the study, may help to explain why men tend to excel in tasks
    requiring more local processing (like mathematics), while women tend
    to excel at integrating and assimilating information from distributed
    gray-matter regions in the brain, such as required for language
    facility. These two very different neurological pathways and activity
    centers, however, result in equivalent overall performance on broad
    measures of cognitive ability, such as those found on intelligence
    tests.

    The study also identified regional differences with intelligence. For
    example, 84 percent of gray-matter regions and 86 percent of
    white-matter regions involved with intellectual performance in women
    were found in the brain's frontal lobes, compared to 45 percent and
    zero percent for males, respectively. The gray matter driving male
    intellectual performance is distributed throughout more of the brain.

    According to the researchers, this more centralized intelligence
    processing in women is consistent with clinical findings that frontal
    brain injuries can be more detrimental to cognitive performance in
    women than men. Studies such as these, Haier and Jung add, someday may
    help lead to earlier diagnoses of brain disorders in males and
    females, as well as more effective and precise treatment protocols to
    address damage to particular regions in the brain.

    For this study, UCI and UNM combined their respective neuroimaging
    technology and subject pools to study brain morphology with magnetic
    resonance imaging. MRI scanning and cognitive testing involved
    subjects at UCI and UNM. Using a technique called voxel-based
    morphometry, Haier and his UCI colleagues converted these MRI pictures
    into structural brain "maps" that correlated brain tissue volume with
    IQ.

    Dr. Michael T. Alkire and Kevin Head of UCI and Ronald A. Yeo of UNM
    participated in the study, which was supported in part by the National
    Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

    About the University of California, Irvine: The University of
    California, Irvine is a top-ranked public university dedicated to
    research, scholarship and community service. Founded in 1965, UCI is
    among the fastest-growing University of California campuses, with more
    than 24,000 undergraduate and graduate students and about 1,400
    faculty members. The second-largest employer in dynamic Orange County,
    UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $3 billion.

    [38]Frontal views of the human brain. Click on image for comparison
    with men's brains. Frontal views of the human brain. Click on image
    for comparison with men's brains.
    [39]Side views of the human brain. Click on image for comparison with
    women's brains. Side views of the human brain. Click on image for
    comparison with women's brains.
    Contact

    Tom Vasich
    (949) 824-6455

References

   37. http://today.uci.edu/news/release_detail.asp?key=1261#top
   38. javascript:openWin('image.asp?section=press_release%E2%84%91_name=050120Haier_fig1_lg.jpg')
   39. javascript:openWin('image.asp?section=press_release%E2%84%91_name=050120Haier_fig2_lg.jpg')
   40. mailto:tmvasich at uci.edu
------------
ScienceDirect - NeuroImage : 
The neuroanatomy of general intelligence: sex matters
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_aset=B-WA-A-W-B-MsSAYVW-UUA-AAUEUVUYZA-AAUZZWAZZA-YDWBBCAUV-B-U&_rdoc=1&_fmt=summary&_udi=B6WNP-4F8BF5H-1&_coverDate=01%2F16%2F2005&_cdi=6968&_orig=search&_st=13&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050264&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=1010281&md5=53c9e09352873e1138427193865946e5

    Rapid Communication

    The neuroanatomy of general intelligence: sex matters

    Richard J. Haier[23]^a^, [24]^Corresponding Author Contact Information
    ^, [25]^E-mail The Corresponding Author , Rex E. Jung[26]^b, Ronald A.
    Yeo[27]^c, Kevin Head[28]^a and Michael T. Alkire[29]^d
    ^aDepartment of Pediatrics, University of California, Med. Sci. I,
    B140, Irvine, CA 92697-5000, USA
    ^bDepartment of Neurology and MIND Institute, University of New
    Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA
    ^cDepartment of Psychology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM
    87131, USA
    ^dDepartment of Anesthesiology, University of California Irvine
    Medical Center, Bldg. 53, 104B, Orange, CA 92868-1350, USA
    Received 21 October 2004;  revised 4 November 2004;  accepted 9
    November 2004.  Available online 16 January 2005.

Abstract

    We examined the relationship between structural brain variation and
    general intelligence using voxel-based morphometric analysis of MRI
    data in men and women with equivalent IQ scores. Compared to men,
    women show more white matter and fewer gray matter areas related to
    intelligence. In men IQ/gray matter correlations are strongest in
    frontal and parietal lobes (BA 8, 9, 39, 40), whereas the strongest
    correlations in women are in the frontal lobe (BA10) along with
    Broca's area. Men and women apparently achieve similar IQ results with
    different brain regions, suggesting that there is no singular
    underlying neuroanatomical structure to general intelligence and that
    different types of brain designs may manifest equivalent intellectual
    performance.

    Keywords: Neuroanatomy; General intelligence; Sex

    [30]^Corresponding Author Contact Information Corresponding author.
    Fax: +1 949 854 1989.

    Note to users: The section "Articles in Press" contains peer reviewed
    and accepted articles to be published in this journal. When the final
    article is assigned to an issue of the journal, the "Article in Press"
    version will be removed from this section and will appear in the
    associated journal issue. Please be aware that "Articles in Press" do
    not have all bibliographic details available yet.
    There are two types of "Articles in Press":
      * Uncorrected proofs: these are articles that are not yet finalized
        and that will be corrected by the authors. Therefore the text
        could change before final publication. Uncorrected proofs may be
        temporarily unavailable for production reasons.
      * Corrected proofs: these are articles containing the authors'
        corrections. The content of the article will usually remain
        unchanged, and possible further corrections are fairly minor.
        Typically the only difference with the finally published article
        is that specific issue and page numbers have not yet been
        assigned.

References

   23. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_aset=B-WA-A-W-B-MsSAYVW-UUA-AAUEUVUYZA-AAUZZWAZZA-YDWBBCAUV-B-U&_rdoc=1&_fmt=summary&_udi=B6WNP-4F8BF5H-1&_coverDate=01%2F16%2F2005&_cdi=6968&_orig=search&_st=13&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050264&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=1010281&md5=53c9e09352873e1138427193865946e5#aff1
   24. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_aset=B-WA-A-W-B-MsSAYVW-UUA-AAUEUVUYZA-AAUZZWAZZA-YDWBBCAUV-B-U&_rdoc=1&_fmt=summary&_udi=B6WNP-4F8BF5H-1&_coverDate=01%2F16%2F2005&_cdi=6968&_orig=search&_st=13&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050264&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=1010281&md5=53c9e09352873e1138427193865946e5#cor1
   25. mailto:rjhaier at uci.edu
   26. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_aset=B-WA-A-W-B-MsSAYVW-UUA-AAUEUVUYZA-AAUZZWAZZA-YDWBBCAUV-B-U&_rdoc=1&_fmt=summary&_udi=B6WNP-4F8BF5H-1&_coverDate=01%2F16%2F2005&_cdi=6968&_orig=search&_st=13&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050264&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=1010281&md5=53c9e09352873e1138427193865946e5#aff2
   27. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_aset=B-WA-A-W-B-MsSAYVW-UUA-AAUEUVUYZA-AAUZZWAZZA-YDWBBCAUV-B-U&_rdoc=1&_fmt=summary&_udi=B6WNP-4F8BF5H-1&_coverDate=01%2F16%2F2005&_cdi=6968&_orig=search&_st=13&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050264&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=1010281&md5=53c9e09352873e1138427193865946e5#aff3
   28. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_aset=B-WA-A-W-B-MsSAYVW-UUA-AAUEUVUYZA-AAUZZWAZZA-YDWBBCAUV-B-U&_rdoc=1&_fmt=summary&_udi=B6WNP-4F8BF5H-1&_coverDate=01%2F16%2F2005&_cdi=6968&_orig=search&_st=13&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050264&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=1010281&md5=53c9e09352873e1138427193865946e5#aff1
   29. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_aset=B-WA-A-W-B-MsSAYVW-UUA-AAUEUVUYZA-AAUZZWAZZA-YDWBBCAUV-B-U&_rdoc=1&_fmt=summary&_udi=B6WNP-4F8BF5H-1&_coverDate=01%2F16%2F2005&_cdi=6968&_orig=search&_st=13&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050264&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=1010281&md5=53c9e09352873e1138427193865946e5#aff4
   30. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_aset=B-WA-A-W-B-MsSAYVW-UUA-AAUEUVUYZA-AAUZZWAZZA-YDWBBCAUV-B-U&_rdoc=1&_fmt=summary&_udi=B6WNP-4F8BF5H-1&_coverDate=01%2F16%2F2005&_cdi=6968&_orig=search&_st=13&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050264&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=1010281&md5=53c9e09352873e1138427193865946e5#bcor1
-----------

BBC NEWS | Health | Bad driving 'linked to hormones'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4202199.stm

    Car park
    Parked by a man or a woman?

    Spatial skills such as map reading and parking may be difficult for
    some women because they had too little testosterone in the womb.

    Some men have long held that women are deficient in these skills.

    Scientists from the University of Giessen, Germany, writing in the
    journal Intelligence found a lack of the hormone affects spatial
    ability.

    Low testosterone levels are also linked to shorter wedding ring
    fingers, they say.

    The research looked at the spatial, numerical and verbal skills of 40
    student volunteers.

    Men do seem to be better at spatial abilities, and women at verbal and
    emotional skills

    Dr Nick Neave, British Psychological Society

    Spatial skill is the ability to assess and orientate shapes and
    spaces. Map reading and parking are spatial skills which men often say
    women lack. Women tend to disagree.

    The researchers also looked at the length of the students' wedding and
    index fingers.

    In women, the two fingers are usually almost equal in length, as
    measured from the crease nearest the palm to the fingertip. In men,
    the ring finger tends to be much longer than the index.

    For one of the spatial tests, volunteers had to tell which of five
    drawings could not be rotated so it looked like the other four.

    The other test involved the ability to think in 3D by mentally
    "unfolding" a complex shape.

    Overall, men achieved higher scores in the tests than women.

    But women with the male pattern of finger length did better than those
    whose wedding finger was shorter.

    They also scored better on the numerical tests.

    Fertility

    Writing in Intelligence, the researchers, led by Dr Petra Kempel, said
    women who had 'male-like' finger length ratio patterns outperformed
    other women.

    They added that the differences seen within the group studied were
    "remarkable."

    However, the researchers accept that their study was limited because
    only one saliva sample was taken from each person, and no detailed
    account was taken of women's menstrual cycle, which can affect hormone
    balance.

    Other studies looking at finger length ratio have suggested that, in
    men a long ring finger and symmetrical hands are an indication of
    fertility, and that women are more likely to be fertile if they have a
    longer index finger.

    Another study controversially suggested that finger length ratio could
    also be linked to sexual orientation, with lesbian women having a
    greater difference in length between their ring finger and index
    finger than straight women do.

    Dr Nick Neave, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of
    Northumbria who specialises in spatial awareness and gender
    differences.

    He said: "Being exposed to testosterone early on does seem to affect
    the way the brain works.

    "It seems to push it to work in a more masculine way, with a stronger
    right hemisphere; the spatial hemisphere.

    "The extra testosterone also appears to cause the ring finger to be
    longer than the index."

    Bones contain testosterone receptors, and Dr Neave said the fourth
    finger appeared to be particularly receptive to levels of the hormone.

    Higher levels are linked the ring finger being longer than the index.

    Dr Neave, a member of the British Psychological Society, added: "The
    sexes do use different skills to find their way around. Men seem to be
    able to keep the route in their head without landmarks, whereas women
    do use them.

    "So men may be better at finding the car when its parked in a huge
    shopping centre car-park. It may also tap into driving and parking
    abilities."

    He added: "Men do seem to be better at spatial abilities, and women at
    verbal and emotional skills.

    "It may be a generalisation, but that does seem to be the case."

    But Dr David Gray of the Department of Philosophy at Harvard
    University, said: "Correlation between genetic features and skills may
    often have an environmental intermediary which determines performance
    at a given skill."

    He suggested skilled drivers may be those who are more practised at
    the activity. In addition, he said people with longer ring fingers may
    have dominating personalities and therefore do more driving.

    "This practice would make them better at these activities and would be
    correlated with a physical feature, but not caused by it."

    SEE ALSO:
    [45]Finger length heart attack clue
    22 Oct 01 |  Health
    [46]A finger on sexuality
    29 Mar 00 |  Sci/Tech
    RELATED INTERNET LINKS:
    [47]University of Giessen - in German
    [48]British Psychological Society

References

   45. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1613066.stm
   46. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/695142.stm
   47. http://www.uni-giessen.de/uni/
   48. http://www.bps.org.uk/


From anonymous_animus at yahoo.com  Sun Feb  6 18:42:45 2005
From: anonymous_animus at yahoo.com (Michael Christopher)
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 10:42:45 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] feminism
In-Reply-To: <200502061246.j16CkMC30972@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <20050206184245.52453.qmail@web30803.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Hey guys, is there any way we can post one or two
paragraphs of an article, with a link? If there's no
link available, it makes sense to post the whole
thing, but when there are a dozen long articles
posted, I have to skim through them all and probably
miss some good info along the way. 

>>Heterosexuality always was the Achilles heel of
feminism because the asymmetries involved usually took

the form of adequacy for one sex, inadequacy for the
other.<<

--The achilles' heel of feminism is that women tend to
be competitive for male attention and are sensitive to
the pecking order. For feminism to work, women must be
able to stand on their own, with or without male
approval, and it's as difficult for them as it is for
men who are very short or have feminine mannerisms to
get respect. Each gender has its outcasts, and any
"ism" that wants to get at the root of the problem
should champion the outcasts, on both sides. 

The association of feminism with homosxuality makes
sense in that strong women and homosexuals are both at
risk for outcast status, but it also becomes an easy
for anti-feminists to stereotype feminists without
listening to their diverse arguments. Probably the
label "feminism" has become such a hindrance that it
should be changed, and the easiest way I can think of
to do that would be to expand the concept to include
males who don't fit in. Society has become more and
more zealous in its "fitness" selection process, and
with plastic surgery for women and men using steroids
to overemphasize their masculinity, it's taking on a
fascist flavor that is extremely toxic for young
people. Girls are starving themselves and vomiting,
boys are threatening their health and falsifying their
personalities to become acceptable to the group.
Individuals in both genders need permission to stand
alone, apart from the selection process, and become
who they really are. As long as feminism concentrates
on women alone, there will be a polar response by
"masculinists" who feel threatened by women gaining
power and react by withdrawing into 50's stereotypes.
But if feminism joins a broader movement to champion
those thrown out of the societal sieve, it may
contribute enormous value to both men and woman caught
up in a game they don't want to play, which forces
their moves at every step under penalty of rejection
and humiliation. 

Michael

=====
My blog:
http://shallowreflections.blogspot.com/

Link to my website, including art, flash poetry and fledgling CafePress store (t-shirts, bumperstickers etc): http://www.soulaquarium.net

We are stardust, we are golden, We are billion year old carbon, 
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden. - Joni Mitchell

"It is a bad sign when the people of a country stop identifying themselves with the country and start identifying with a group. A racial group. Or a religion. Or a language. Anything, as long as it isn't the whole population." - R. A. Heinlein


		
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Do you Yahoo!? 
Yahoo! Mail - Easier than ever with enhanced search. Learn more.
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From shovland at mindspring.com  Sun Feb  6 17:06:28 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 09:06:28 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Guardian: (Tom Wolfe) 'The liberal elite hasn't got
	a	clue'
Message-ID: <01C50C2B.269ABF90.shovland@mindspring.com>

Quite true.

I think that a lot of us in the liberal rank-and-file are
totally turned off by the liberal elite.  That won't
make us into Neo-Cons.  It will make us into
revolutionaries, and Howard Dean is one of the
few who has a chance of leading us.

In my faxing to Congress I send the same abuse
to Republicans and Democrats :-)

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Premise Checker [SMTP:checker at panix.com]
Sent:	Saturday, February 05, 2005 2:57 AM
To:	paleopsych at paleopsych.org; Human Biodiversity
Subject:	[Paleopsych] Guardian: (Tom Wolfe) 'The liberal elite hasn't got 
a	clue'

'The liberal elite hasn't got a clue'

As a member of the Manhattan intelligentsia, novelist Tom Wolfe seems a
lonely defender of George Bush's conservative values. But, he tells Ed
Vulliamy, he's bewildered by a sex-mad society and tired of being lectured
to at dinner parties. So is he voting for Dubya tomorrow? He's not quite
telling

Ed Vulliamy
Monday November 01 2004
The Guardian

Tom Wolfe casts his gaze across America at this election time, with eyes
that change mood in a nanosecond, with a flicker. For the most part, they
exude an amused elegance befitting the hallmark white suit and dandy-ish
two-tone brogues. But then the look suddenly changes, to become
scalpel-sharp, mischievous, seizing upon some detail. It is a
metamorphosis which begins to explain, perhaps, how this softly-spoken,
immaculately-mannered gentleman journalist from the South can write with
such voracity about the grime and sediment which inhabits American society
and the human soul.

Certainly the view is stirring from the place to which he retreats to
write, and where we meet: his outrageously beautiful Manhattan apartment
taking up the 14th floor of a block on the Upper East Side, with sweeping
views over a Central Park drenched in autumnal sunshine. A grand piano
sits in the corner, painted in what Wolfe calls "cocktail lounge navy
blue". Shelves are stacked with books on 19th-century, modern and Dutch
art. In what he calls his office, next to the sitting room, is a huge,
handsome and ornate bureau on which sits handwriting instruments and two
panama hats.

>From this desk, and the pen of arguably America's greatest current writer
>- author of the 1987 epic Bonfire of the Vanities and much more besides -
>there now comes a third major novel, I Am Charlotte Simmons, to be
>published next week, on the other side of election day. Wolfe set out,
>for the first time, to write the book on a computer, but gave up in
>favour of his usual typewriter. "Then I jammed my finger badly," he says,
>"and took up pen and paper. This may turn out to be the last book ever
>written that way."

A new Tom Wolfe novel is always a literary event: where will he go next?
The answer this time is an elite, imaginary Ivy League university, Dupont
College, for a book about libido off the leash, and about the cult of what
Wolfe calls "the bad comedy" of college sports - athletes taken on by
centres of academic excellence for their bodies, not their brains.

The novel - researched, as usual, down to the last expletive - concerns a
young world speaking "fuck patois", loaded with creatine and cocaine,
numbed by PlayStation 3, and charged by alcohol, the "vile spleen" of rap
and, above all, ubiquitous sex between the heirs and heiresses to
privilege in America. Most intriguingly, in this week of all weeks in
American history, the book affords a gateway towards explaining Wolfe's
boldly delivered, tantalising, remark: "I have sympathy with what George
Bush is trying to do, although obviously the excursion [into Iraq] is not
going well."

Four years ago, Wolfe wrote an essay to mark the millennium called Hooking
Up, about what he called "feverish emphasis on sex and sexiness". In a
way, the new novel is a literary fruition of the essay. The excess and
decadence at Dupont College are seen through the eyes of his heroine,
Charlotte Simmons, who arrives a diligent virgin from the hills of North
Carolina, on a full scholarship. She is initially intimidated and
appalled, but eventually conquers her fear to partake, indeed to star, in
the jock beanfeast.

"I personally would be shocked out of my pants if I was at college now,"
confides Wolfe, who spent four years trawling the campuses for raw
material. The book, he says, is "about sex as it interacts with social
status. And I have tried to make the sex un-erotic. I will have failed if
anyone gets the least bit excited. So much of modern sex is un-erotic, if
erotic means flight of fancy or romantic build-up. Sex now is so easy to
consummate - it is a pressure that affects everybody, girls more than
boys, I think."

As he notes, the America which votes tomorrow is a country riven over
morality like never before. On the flip side of the culture of ubiquitous
sex is that of puritan Christianity, as harnessed in no small part by
Bush. "Yes, there is this puritanism," says Wolfe, "and I suppose we are
talking here about what you might call the religious right. But I don't
think these people are left or right, they are just religious, and if you
are religious, you observe certain strictures on sexual activity - you are
against the mainstream, morally speaking. And I do have sympathy with
them, yes, though I am not religious. I am simply in awe of it all; the
openness of sex. In the 60s they talked about a sexual revolution, but it
has become a sexual carnival."

No writer has chronicled the full American curve over four decades quite
like Wolfe. He has been at this, unswervingly, since 1965, when he
published a curio about pop culture called The Kandy-Kolored
Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby. His breakthrough came in 1968 with The
Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, his chronicle of Ken Kesey's LSD-gobbling
Merry Pranksters. "If I have been judged to be right wing," he says, "I
think this is because of the things I have mocked. It started with Radical
Chic &#91;published in 1970, about a fundraising party for the Black
Panthers organised by Leonard Bernstein&#93;. I was denounced because
people thought I had jeopardised all progressive causes. But my impulse
was not political, it was simply the absurdity of the occasion. Then I
wrote The Painted Word, about modern art, and was denounced as
reactionary. In fact, it is just a history, although a rather loaded one.
Then came The Right Stuff &#91;his account of America's first
astronauts&#93;, after which my relative enthusiasm for Nasa was another
sign of perfidy."

He is "proud", he says, "that I do not think any political motivation can
be detected in my long books. My idol is Emile Zola. He was a man of the
left, so people expected of him a kind of Les Miserables, in which the
underdogs are always noble people. But he went out, and found a lot of
ambitious, drunk, slothful and mean people out there. Zola simply could
not - and was not interested in - telling a lie. You can call it honesty,
or you can call it ego, but there it is. There is no motivation higher
than being a good writer."

In his manifesto of 1973 on The New Journalism, Wolfe advocated a
"journalistic or perhaps documentary novel". He re-invoked the idea four
years ago by way of retort to a fusillade of criticism - an exchange which
scandalised New York society - levelled against his last novel, A Man In
Full, from no less than Norman Mailer, John Updike and John Irving. The
new book is in itself a counter to that outburst.

Wolfe's lambent success in documenting ambition, drunkenness, sloth and
meanness in his own country has taken him from his native Virginia to New
York which he wrote about in Bonfire of the Vanities, pitching the
super-rich "Masters of the Universe" in high finance against the real
world of the Bronx. But even as the author of the quintessential New York
novel, Wolfe feels estranged in the city, as he surveys America during the
final days of the election campaign. Estranged not from the subjects of
his scrutiny, the "Masters of the Universe", but rather from the liberal
elite.

"Here is an example of the situation in America," he says: "Tina Brown
wrote in her column that she was at a dinner where a group of media
heavyweights were discussing, during dessert, what they could do to stop
Bush. Then a waiter announces that he is from the suburbs, and will vote
for Bush. And ... Tina's reaction is: 'How can we persuade these people
not to vote for Bush?' I draw the opposite lesson: that Tina and her
circle in the media do not have a clue about the rest of the United
States. You are considered twisted and retarded if you support Bush in
this election. I have never come across a candidate who is so reviled.
Reagan was sniggered it, but this is personal, real hatred.

"Indeed, I was at a similar dinner, listening to the same conversation,
and said: 'If all else fails, you can vote for Bush.' People looked at me
as if I had just said: 'Oh, I forgot to tell you, I am a child molester.'
I would vote for Bush if for no other reason than to be at the airport
waving off all the people who say they are going to London if he wins
again. Someone has got to stay behind."

Where does it come from, this endorsement of the most conservative
administration within living memory? Of this president who champions the
right and the rich, who has taken America into the mire of war, and seeks
re-election tomorrow? Wolfe's eyes resume the expression of detached
Southern elegance.

"I think support for Bush is about not wanting to be led by East-coast
pretensions. It is about not wanting to be led by people who are forever
trying to force their twisted sense of morality onto us, which is a
non-morality. That is constantly done, and there is real resentment.
Support for Bush is about resentment in the so-called 'red states' - a
confusing term to Guardian readers, I agree - which here means, literally,
middle America. I come from one of those states myself, Virginia. It's the
same resentment, indeed, as that against your own newspaper when it sent
emails targeting individuals in an American county." Wolfe laughs as he
chastises. "No one cares to have outsiders or foreigners butting into
their affairs. I'm sure that even many of those Iraqis who were cheering
the fall of Saddam now object to our being there. As I said, I do not
think the excursion is going well."

And John Kerry? "He is a man no one should worry about, because he has no
beliefs at all. He is not going to introduce some manic radical plan,
because he is poll-driven, and it is therefore impossible to know where or
for what he stands."

As far as Wolfe is concerned, "the great changes in America came with the
second world war, since which time I have not seen much shift in what
Americans fundamentally believe. Apart from the fact that as recently as
the 1970s, Nelson Rockefeller shocked people by leaving his wife of 30
years, while now celebrities routinely have children outside marriage, the
mayor of New York leaves his wife for his lover and no one blinks. But a
large number of people have remained religious, and it is a divided
country - do not forget that Al Gore nearly won the last election. The
country is split right along party lines."

And there has been a complete climate change in the nation which elected
Bill Clinton twice, to that which may confer the same honour on George
Bush tomorrow. This, says Wolfe, began not with the election of Bush, but
on the morning of September 11 2001.

None of us who were in New York that day will ever forget it, and Wolfe is
no exception. "I was sitting in my office when someone called to tell me
two light planes had collided with the World Trade Centre. I turned on my
television, before long there was this procession of people of all kinds,
walking up the street. What I remember most was the silence of that crowd;
there was no sound.

"That day told us that here was a different kind of enemy. I honestly
think that America and the Bush administration felt that something extreme
had to be done. But I do not think that the Americans have become a
warlike people; it is rare in American history to set about
empire-building - acquiring territory and slaves. I've never met an
American who wanted to build an empire. And while the invasion of
Afghanistan was something that had to be done, I am stunned that Iraq was
invaded."

Wolfe is by no means afraid to offend the political right - "I'm gratified
if you find me to be hard on them too," he says. He also anticipates that
"conservatives will not like this new novel because I refuse to take the
impact of political correctness seriously - I think PC has probably had a
good effect because it is now bad manners to use racial epithets."

So what is it about his liberal neighbours and fellow diners in his
adoptive New York that Wolfe cannot abide? "I cannot stand the lock-step
among everyone in my particular world. They all do the same thing, without
variation. It gets so boring. There is something in me that particularly
wants it registered that I am not one of them."

Parting cordially, it seems strange that such an effervescent maverick,
such a jester at the court of all power - all vanity, indeed - should so
wholeheartedly endorse the power machine behind George Bush. And so an
obvious thought occurs: perhaps Wolfe is jester at the court of New York
too. Would he really be happier away from New York, out on the plains, in
the "red states" where everyone at dinner parties votes for Bush? Wolfe's
eyes revert to that mischievous glint, and he allows himself a smile. "I
do think," he admits, apparently speaking for himself, his country and his
president, "that if you are not having a fight with somebody, then you are
not sure whether you are alive when you wake up in the morning."
_______________________________________________
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paleopsych at paleopsych.org
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From checker at panix.com  Sun Feb  6 17:08:16 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 12:08:16 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Nation: Beyond Good and Evil
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502061206510.26225@panix3.panix.com>

Beyond Good and Evil
http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050131&s=banville

    by JOHN BANVILLE

    Liquidation
    by Imre Kert?sz; Tim Wilkinson, trans.

    Fatelessness
    by Imre Kert?sz; Tim Wilkinson, trans.

    Kaddish for an Unborn Child
    by Imre Kert?sz; Tim Wilkinson, trans.

    [from the January 31, 2005 issue]

    Adorno said, as we all know, that writing poetry after Auschwitz is
    barbaric. This is not to say, as many imagine, that writing poetry
    after Auschwitz is to be forbidden, or is impossible. The word Adorno
    used, barbarisch, is worth pondering. Presumably he was applying it
    prescriptively to poets in the same way that he applied it to
    Stravinsky, whose music he reproached for what he saw as its murky
    neo-primitivism, as against Schoenberg's pure, clear-sighted
    modernity. Stravinsky, by fleeing to the prehistoric past of jungle
    rhythm and sacrificial dance, or, later in his career, by leading the
    Gadarene regression to an ersatz classicism--"Back to Bach!"--was in
    Adorno's opinion evading existentialist man's duty to confront his own
    times in all their complexity and atrociousness.

    Of course, poets, like Stravinsky, took not the slightest notice of
    Adorno's stricture. Indeed, one of the greatest of twentieth-century
    poets, Paul Celan, not only continued to write poetry after Auschwitz
    but wrote poetry about Auschwitz itself, if we take "Auschwitz," as
    Adorno evidently did, as not only the name of a specific and terrible
    place but as a collective term for all the camps, and for the
    Holocaust itself.

    In Liquidation, the latest novel by the Hungarian Nobel Prize winner
    Imre Kert?sz to be translated into English, one of the characters, the
    writer B., or Bee, who was born in the death camp,

      applied his whole talent to Auschwitz... he was a past master and
      exclusive artist of the Auschwitz mode of existence. He felt that
      he had been born illegally, had remained alive for no reason, and
      nothing could justify his existence unless he were to "decipher the
      code name Auschwitz."

    Early on in the book, Kingbitter, the narrator, if such he may be
    called, a translator and editor and a friend of Bee's, tells how as a
    student in the 1960s he chanced upon Thomas Mann's Doctor
    Faustus--Kingbitter, or Kert?sz, does not name the novel, but the
    references in the text identify it. In the course of the "adventures
    of the imagination" that the book took him on, Kingbitter tells us, he
    was struck in particular by the notion that "the Ninth Symphony had
    been withdrawn." (In Mann's novel his protagonist, the composer Adrian
    Leverk?hn, writes an apocalyptic cantata aimed at negating Beethoven's
    "Ode to Joy.") Later in Liquidation Bee echoes the notion, but in a
    more positive application, in the posthumous letter his ex-wife,
    Judit, receives from him after his suicide, instructing her to burn
    the manuscript of his final novel: "by virtue of the authority I have
    lived through and suffered for you, and for you alone, I revoke
    Auschwitz...." To this, however, Judit's present husband, the
    non-Jewish Adam, retorts: "No one can revoke Auschwitz, Judit. No one,
    and by virtue of no authority. Auschwitz is irrevocable."

    If this sequence seems complicated, it is only one strand of the
    vertiginously intricate web of cross-reference, echo and
    self-contradiction that Kert?sz weaves both within individual books
    and between one book and another. Torgny Lindgren, speaking at the
    Nobel Prize presentation in 2002, remarked how in Kert?sz's work "the
    separate parts appear to have grown together, with common root fibers
    or circulatory systems." The narrator of Kaddish for an Unborn Child,
    published thirteen years before Liquidation--and with an epigraph from
    Paul Celan's poem "Todesfuge"--also experienced Auschwitz, but as a
    boy or young man, not as a newborn child, as was the case with Bee.
    Internal evidence tends to suggest, however, that this narrator is
    none other than Bee himself, and that Kaddish is in fact the novel
    that Bee's wife Judit burned on his instructions.

    Where Kert?sz's work is concerned, the term "unreliable narrator" is
    wholly inadequate to denote the twists and turns, the evasions,
    turnabouts and sheer effrontery of the narrative voice. Still, we have
    been warned. The epigraph to Liquidation is from Beckett's novel
    Molloy: "Then I went back into the house and wrote, It is midnight.
    The rain is beating on the windows. It was not midnight. It was not
    raining." These, the closing lines of the book, are a devastating and
    characteristically Beckettian negation of all that has gone before--if
    it was not midnight, if it was not raining, then there is nothing to
    prevent us from recognizing that the whole thing is a fiction, which,
    of course, it is. Yet it would be a mistake to imagine that
    Liquidation, any more than Molloy, is the product of postmodernist
    game-playing. Kert?sz, like Beckett, is deadly serious--in the case of
    both writers that adjective is in no way figurative--and his work is a
    profound meditation on the great and enduring themes of love, death
    and the problem of evil, although for Kert?sz, as we shall see, it's
    not evil that is the problem but good.

    Kert?sz was born in 1929 into a Jewish family so deeply assimilated
    into Hungarian society that they did not even consider themselves to
    be Jews. The Nazis took a different view, of course, and in 1944 the
    young Imre was rounded up with thousands of others of his kind and
    sent first to Auschwitz and then on to Buchenwald, where he remained
    until the camp was liberated in 1945. After the war he worked as a
    journalist, playwright and translator. The awarding of the Nobel Prize
    in 2002 came largely as a surprise to what used to be called the West,
    since not many readers outside Hungary even knew his name, although
    two earlier novels recently reissued by Vintage--Fatelessness and
    Kaddish for an Unborn Child--were published under slightly different
    titles by Northwestern University Press in, respectively, 1992 and
    1997.

    Of the three Kert?sz novels translated into English, Fatelessness,
    first published in Hungary in 1975, is the most easily accessible. One
    might say that it is also the best, save that comparison between it
    and its two successors would be invidious. Liquidation and Kaddish
    are, for lack of a better word, experimental in form and, indeed, in
    content, while Fatelessness, based, closely one assumes, on the
    author's experience in the camps, is relatively straightforward. It
    tells the story of 14-year-old Georg Koves's abrupt apprehension by
    the police on the streets of Budapest and his transportation first to
    Auschwitz and then to the Buchenwald labor camp. Straightforward the
    book may be, but it is also an extraordinary and devastating testament
    to the banality of evil--the by now clich?d phrase of Hannah Arendt's
    is entirely apt here, for what gives the book much of its peculiar
    power is the plodding doggedness of Georg's effort to report
    accurately what happened to him, and to make sense of it.

    When he arrives at Buchenwald, a "small, mediocre, out-of-the-way, so
    to say rural concentration camp," Georg, who had unwittingly survived
    the selection process at Auschwitz by adding two years to his age, is
    asked by one of the long-term inmates how he "got mixed up in this
    here," and answers: "Simple: I was asked to get off the bus." It is
    Georg's tone of sweet reasonableness, his slowness to comprehend fully
    or to credit the true nature of what Bee in Liquidation calls the
    "corpse-mincing machine" into which he has been flung, that makes
    Fatelessness so harrowing. However baffling, cruel or tormenting the
    circumstances in which he finds himself, Georg is ever anxious to
    adduce the simplest, most rational and even most benign explanation
    for the behavior of those who have been set above him as his masters
    and tormentors. His attitude to anti-Semitism is entirely
    understanding. In the opening pages he visits the local baker to
    present the family's bread coupon:

      He did not bother returning my greeting as it is well known in the
      neighborhood that he could not abide Jews. That was also why the
      bread he pushed at me was a good half pound short. I have also
      heard it said this is how more leftovers from the ration stayed in
      his hands. Somehow, from his angry look and his deft sleight of
      hand, I suddenly understood why his train of thought would make it
      impossible to abide Jews, for otherwise he might have had the
      unpleasant feeling that he was cheating them.

    Nor is Georg's own attitude to "the Jews" without its ambiguities. On
    his arrival at Auschwitz there occurs one of the book's more appalling
    instances of black and bitter irony, when he catches his first glimpse
    of the inmates already there, "real convicts, in the striped duds of
    criminals, and with shaven skulls in round caps":

      Their faces did not exactly inspire confidence either: jug ears,
      prominent noses, sunken, beady eyes with a crafty gleam. Quite like
      Jews in every respect. I found them suspect and altogether
      foreign-looking. When they spotted us boys, I noticed, they became
      quite agitated. They immediately launched into a hurried, frantic
      whispering, which was when I made the surprising discovery that
      Jews evidently don't only speak Hebrew, as I had supposed up till
      now...

    The reason for their agitation, we learn, is that they know that Georg
    and the other boys of his age will automatically be sent to the gas
    chambers, unless they pretend to be 16, in which case they will be
    deemed fit for work and spared from extermination.

    The title of the book is explained, or at least accounted for, in a
    remark by another character in Liquidation, the philosopher Dr.
    Obl?th: "Man, when reduced to nothing, or in other words a survivor,
    is not tragic but comic, because he has no fate." When at last Georg
    arrives home, after his year at the heart of the whirlwind, he is
    regarded less as an object of compassion than of embarrassment, a
    reminder to those who survived of how little they did to prevent the
    terrible things that have happened and that are now being firmly
    thrust into the past. Even the radical journalist who strikes up a
    conversation with him is baffled by Georg's unwillingness, or
    inability, to fill the role of victim. When the journalist asks if he
    will collaborate in writing a series of articles describing to the
    world the "hell of the camps," he has "nothing at all to say about
    that as I was not acquainted with hell and couldn't even imagine what
    that was like." Pressed, he ventures that hell would be "'a place
    where it is impossible to become bored,' seeing as how that had been
    possible in the concentration camp, even in Auschwitz."

    Georg explains how time was a help, since each new enormity arrived as
    another step in a process: "Were it not for that sequencing in time,
    and were the entire knowledge to crash in upon a person on the spot,
    at one fell swoop, it might well be that neither one's brain nor one's
    heart would cope with it." This is something that the journalist, in
    turn, finds impossible to imagine. Georg is as accommodating as ever:
    "For my part, I could see that, and I even thought to myself: so, that
    must be why they prefer to talk about hell instead."

    Fatelessness is such a powerful and coolly horrifying work that, for
    all their fine qualities, its successors may seem hardly more than
    variations on a theme, making their refinements and discriminations in
    an area that is, in the Adornian sense, almost beyond contemplation;
    yet Liquidation and Kaddish are in their subtle ways just as troubling
    and profound as the earlier book. Kaddish in particular, a breathless,
    unrelenting monologue in the manner of Beckett or Thomas Bernhard,
    poses some large and deeply unsettling questions. The narrator tells
    of an incident in the camps when he was close to death and a man known
    as "Teacher" returned to him the food ration that he had inadvertently
    made off with. The gesture is literally fatal, since by keeping the
    extra ration Teacher might have saved himself, and without it the
    narrator would certainly have died. Teacher's selflessness brings the
    narrator to the conclusion that "what is truly irrational and
    genuinely inexplicable is not evil but, on the contrary, good," and to
    put forward a possibility that represents a glimmer of what, in the
    circumstances, one hesitates to call hope, the possibility that

      there exists a pure concept, untrammelled by any foreign matter,
      such as our body, our soul, our wild selves, a notion which lives
      as a uniform image in all our minds, yes, an idea whose--how shall
      I put this?--inviolability, safekeeping, or what you will, was for
      him, "Teacher," the sole genuine chance of staying alive, without
      which his chance of staying alive would have been no chance at all,
      simply because he did not wish, and what is more in all likelihood,
      was unable, to live without preserving this concept intact in its
      pure, untrammelled openness to scrutiny.

From checker at panix.com  Sun Feb  6 16:34:37 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 11:34:37 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] CHE: Panel Urges Government to Increase Spending on
 the Study of Cybersecurity
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502061133350.26225@panix3.panix.com>

Panel Urges Government to Increase Spending on the Study of Cybersecurity
The Chronicle of Higher Education, 5.1.28
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i21/21a03801.htm

    By ANDREA L. FOSTER

    Washington
    The federal government is not adequately supporting long-term research
    into protecting the nation's technology infrastructure from terrorist
    attacks, according to a report that a presidential advisory committee
    has approved.
    The report, from the President's Information Technology Advisory
    Committee, concludes that networks supporting the country's financial,
    utility, telecommunications, transportation, and defense systems are
    "highly vulnerable to terrorist and criminal attacks." The report
    recommends, among other things, that the federal government provide
    more money for research and that it encourage university students to
    study cybersecurity.
    The report is scheduled to be given to President Bush first and to be
    released to the public by early March. But the report's key findings
    and recommendations were made public this month in a presentation that
    the advisory committee's cybersecurity panel made to the full
    committee. The 24-member committee, which includes university and
    industry scientists, endorsed the cybersecurity panel's final draft.
    "We hope that by raising the issue and providing some of the
    documentary evidence that we have that people will take this seriously
    and attempt to address it in some meaningful way," said Eugene H.
    Spafford, a member of the subcommittee that prepared the report. He is
    a computer-science professor at Purdue University and executive
    director of the university's Center for Education and Research in
    Information Assurance and Security.
    In many ways the report echoes the views of the Computing Research
    Association, which in July told the cybersecurity panel that the
    government needed to spend more on cybersecurity research and
    development. The association represents computer scientists in academe
    and in industry.
    Looking to Others
    Federal agencies assume that other agencies will provide money and
    grants for research on cybersecurity, the new report says, but no
    agency is doing enough.
    The Department of Homeland Security, for example, assumes that
    industry and the National Science Foundation will provide support for
    cybersecurity research, according to the cybersecurity panel. And the
    Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency assumes that the science
    foundation will take up responsibility. The report recommends that the
    Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security provide
    more money for research on civilian cybersecurity.
    The report says that researchers are discouraged from applying for
    cybersecurity grants through the Defense Department agency because it
    is focused on providing money for short-term projects that can show
    results in 12 to 18 months. Also, the agency's programs are
    increasingly classified, excluding most colleges and universities from
    participation, the report states.
    The Cyber Trust, set up by the science foundation to provide grants
    for cybersecurity research, has supported only 8 percent of the
    proposals it has received, although a quarter of the proposals were
    worthy of support, the report states. It recommends that the science
    foundation's cybersecurity budget be increased by $90-million a year.
    The report observes that fewer than 250 faculty members in the United
    States are actively involved in cybersecurity research. The federal
    government should step up its recruitment of cybersecurity researchers
    and students so that the number of scientists in the field doubles by
    the end of the decade, the report says.
    Mr. Spafford said that universities are not paying enough attention to
    cybersecurity research, in part because the field "doesn't fit neatly
    within the traditional department." Besides computer engineering and
    computer science, he said, information security "touches on many other
    academic disciplines and draws from them," including management,
    philosophy, and political science.


From checker at panix.com  Sun Feb  6 16:31:04 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 11:31:04 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Salon: The ideas that conquered the world: The NeoCon
	Reader
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502061129290.26225@panix3.panix.com>

The ideas that conquered the world: The NeoCon Reader
http://www.salon.com/books/review/2005/02/04/neocon_reader/print.html

"The Neocon Reader" is must reading for liberal losers who want to get 
their mojo back.
By Ann Marlowe
5.2.4

Why should liberal readers dip into this sampling of the other side's 
ideology? To save themselves. Earnestly, to remind themselves of what it 
might be like to offer a coherent program again. Cynically, to figure out 
how the other guys did it. I'm more or less a neocon myself (more 
libertarian on economic and drug issues, more conservative on some 
cultural issues) so I find both the substance and the rhetoric of many of 
the articles here inspiring. But even those who don't might admire the 
imagination, forthrightness and clarity of most of the contributors.

If you're old enough to have followed politics in the '70s, you'll 
remember that liberals used to be the exciting ones. They were more 
open-minded, more imaginative and, well, sexier than conservatives. And 
one big reason Bush won in 2004 was that many of us who were ambivalent 
about the man and his politics -- I voted for Gore in 2000 -- found the 
Democrats and their candidate smugly self-righteous, prissy and joyless. 
Sure, red-staters can be smug, too, but it's as incongruous in liberals as 
it is in garage bands. My liberal friends asked how I could support the 
candidate of the Christian right, but Kerry came off as so plastic and 
corporate, so backpedaling and two-faced, that by election night I felt 
that wearing a Bush button was a punk rock gesture.

If not for Christian fundamentalists, after all, we probably wouldn't have 
punk rock. Or rap, Goth fashion, skateboarding and lots of recent art. 
Strong art comes from cultural ferment, from the clash of ideas, not from 
homogeneity. Liberals have failed to recognize that the "diversity" they 
so celebrate includes people who disagree with them -- churchgoers and 
mosque-goers, pro-lifers and hunters. And the life has gone out of 
liberalism as a result. One of the less well-known contributors to "The 
Neocon Reader," the Portuguese political theorist Jo?o Carlos Espada, 
notes that the most successful liberal regimes resulted from "a 
combination of and a tension between religion and philosophy." "A liberal 
order," Espada sagely notes, "will be the more successful the less it aims 
at total supremacy." Those who inveigh against "the religious right" don't 
consider how dull a country we would have if everyone actually did think 
like them. A purely blue-stated America would be kind of like Europe (but, 
alas, without the great food and shoes).

Which brings us to the annoying cult of the Continent. "Europe doesn't 
have Christian fundamentalists," my liberal friends sneer, but then Europe 
doesn't have much in the way of a living popular culture either. They 
import their music, fashion and dance forms either from us or various 
countries of color, oppression and religiosity. They imitate our 
streetwear, our body language and our movies, and they'd hardly have any 
artists at all if they didn't subsidize them. Take Berlin, vaunted as a 
new boho art capital. The whole city has about the same volume of cultural 
ferment and creativity as one square block of the East Village in the 
'80s. It's hard to even find a cool T-shirt there. I had no trouble at 
all, however, finding young people who were upset that the death penalty 
was applied in the Nuremberg trials. Not because they were Nazi 
sympathizers, but because they thought capital punishment was barbaric. 
And here I'd spent decades believing that the only problem with Nuremberg 
was that they didn't apply the death sentence to enough of the Nazis.

But this Rumsfeldian moral clarity is exactly what the left now hates and 
eschews, to the point where no one could figure out what Kerry's policy 
was on much of anything except getting elected. And when the left becomes 
mealy-mouthed, trimming its sails to catch the faintest hint of an 
electoral breeze, it loses its vaunted moral superiority. Listen to Irving 
Kristol, the former publisher of the National Interest and the Public 
Interest, supporting Social Security in 1993: "The conservative hostility 
to social security, derived from a traditional conservative fiscal 
monomania, leads to political impotence and a bankrupt social policy ... 
If the American people want to be generous to their elderly, even to the 
point of some extravagance, I think it is very nice of them ... [The 
elderly] do not have illegitimate children, they do not commit crimes, 
they do not riot in the streets." You may disagree with Kristol, but you 
know where the hell he stands and that he's sincere. A quote beloved of 
Christian fundamentalists comes to mind, the one from Revelations about 
God spewing those who are lukewarm out of his mouth. There is nothing 
lukewarm about neoconservatives, and this makes the Democrats hate them 
even more.

In fact, the main reason that neocons inspire so much venom, as British 
journalist Michael Gove explains in his contribution, is that they've 
stolen the left's thunder. "Because neoconservatism places human rights, 
democracy, and liberal principles at the heart of its foreign-policy 
vision, the left have become angered that they no longer have a monopoly 
on the rhetoric of values. The left cannot abide the twin reverses of 
losing sole possession of the moral high ground and being proved wrong in 
the realm of action." What is a liberal to do when a Republican president 
says, as ours did last week, "It is the policy of the United States to 
seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in 
every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our 
world?" (And what are liberals left to say when 8 million Iraqis risk 
their lives to show that they love liberty every bit as much as 
Americans?)

Well, if you're desperate to differentiate your position, you can try to 
paint reality so that tyranny looks a little better and democracy looks a 
little worse. In my view, this has been the strategy of the mainstream 
American press ever since 9/11. Does anyone else remember how in the fall 
of 2001 numerous mainstream papers, most notably the New York Times and 
Washington Post, were anxious to bring the hardships of Taliban 
sympathizers and jihadi prisoners to readers' attention? The lefty pundits 
hadn't been able to stop the war, and their early predictions of a 
quagmire and heavy American losses were quickly proven ludicrous. So they 
switched to looking for "human rights violations" under every rock in 
Afghanistan.

Which brings us to Iraq. Note that "The Neocon Reader" does not focus on 
Iraq. But those who oppose the war might profit by tracing its 
intellectual antecedents in this volume, as far back as Margaret 
Thatcher's 1996 speech proclaiming "the proliferation of weapons of mass 
destruction" to be "the single most awesome threat of modern times." Her 
examples of countries that have acquired them? "Iraq, Iran, Libya, and 
Syria." But Thatcher did not imagine the extent of neocon dominance just 
seven years later: "Given the intellectual climate in the West today, it 
is probably unrealistic to expect military intervention to remove the 
source of the threat, as for example against North Korea -- except perhaps 
when the offender invites us to do so by invading a small neighboring 
country. Even then, as we now know, our success in destroying Saddam's 
nuclear and chemical weapons capability was limited." Add to that 
Condoleezza Rice's October 2002 Manhattan Institute speech (notably 
blander and flabbier than Thatcher's), Tony Blair's April 1999 speech 
("Many of our problems have been caused by two dangerous and ruthless men 
-- Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic") and you have some of the key 
actors' thoughts. A war for oil? Readers can draw their own conclusions. 
And although no WMD have been found, politicians and pundits alike have to 
make choices under imperfect information. The neocons did the best they 
could with what they had.

In part because politics post-9/11 has mainly meant international 
politics, neoconservativism is largely perceived as a foreign policy 
doctrine. This was not always the case, and getting the full flavor of the 
movement requires understanding that it was born as much in the effort to 
make sense of the collapse of the inner cities in the '70s and '80s and in 
the original culture wars of the '60s. The two earliest articles in this 
anthology are about domestic policy: Irving Kristol's 1971 New York Times 
Magazine defense of censorship of pornography, and James Q. Wilson's 
now-legendary 1982 Atlantic Monthly essay on urban decay, "Broken 
Windows."

This last might be the exemplary piece here, both for its intellectual 
virtues and for its influence on government policy. Wilson's title refers 
to a theory that if a window in a building is broken and left unrepaired, 
all the windows in the building will soon be smashed, and his article is 
frequently credited with sparking the new approaches to urban order that 
led to the revival of New York under Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

What is not so often recalled from Wilson's article is that the novel idea 
of placing officers on foot patrol did not actually reduce the crime rate; 
it only reduced citizens' perception of the crime rate. But that was 
enough. That turned out to be what urban vitality was about. Wilson 
pointed out that in the mid-20th century, the public began to view the 
police not as the maintainers of public order they had historically been, 
but as crime fighters. The problem was that they weren't nearly as good at 
actually apprehending criminals as they had been, in earlier times, at 
creating the feeling of public safety that allowed neighborhoods of poor 
and working-class people to flourish. The two police functions were 
linked, just not in the way people now thought. It wasn't that 
fingerprinting more and more burglars reduced burglary; it was that 
"serious street crime flourishes in areas in which disorderly behavior 
goes unchecked." But the police had more or less stopped trying to punish 
or prevent such behavior; doing so was now suspected as unfair, racist, 
judgmental and so on. And the wish to prevent this, and to decriminalize 
"victimless crimes" (when was the last time you saw that phrase?), led to 
the collapse of whole neighborhoods.

Wilson's essay represents neocon thinking at its best -- not only 
innovative, but honest and practical. Wilson raises the inherent conflict 
between the desire to live in a place perceived as safe with the equally 
strong desire for fairness. How can we be sure that "the police do not 
become the agents of neighborhood bigotry"? He admits that he is "not 
confident that there is a satisfactory answer." He further suggests that 
the precise balance between individual rights and community strength can 
only emerge empirically and on a case-by-case basis. This is the second 
point: practicality. If something doesn't work, neocons think, try 
something else. (Old-line conservatives are sometimes inclined to go down 
in noble defeat instead.) If something works, continue doing it. And don't 
pretend you know more than that, if you don't.

"Broken Windows" is exemplary of neocon thought in another way, one 
honored recently as often as it is breached. That is the importance of 
perceptions. Here the Bush administration has fallen down badly. It 
doesn't matter if Iraqis are freer than they were under Saddam if they 
don't feel that way. It doesn't matter if the U.S. has upgraded a lot of 
the crumbling Iraqi infrastructure if the water and power still don't work 
well. The Bush administration has often been its own worst enemy in the 
matter of perceptions, even at the start of the war when Cheney could 
easily have avoided not only evil but also the appearance of evil, in the 
form of cronyism. Not to mention the inept handling of Abu Ghraib. Part of 
having respect for the electorate is having respect for perceptions and 
sensibilities. While I hope that Democrats will learn from neocons, and 
some day give us a presidential candidate so interesting and outspoken and 
creative that even I will think about voting for him, I hope still more 
strongly that Republicans won't forget why they're winning these days.

Ann Marlowe is the author of "How to Stop Time: Heroin from A to Z" and is 
working on a book about love and sex in America.

From checker at panix.com  Sun Feb  6 16:29:27 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 11:29:27 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Reuters: UN Treaty Writers Weigh Abortion Ban for
	Disabled
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502061128410.26225@panix3.panix.com>

UN Treaty Writers Weigh Abortion Ban for Disabled
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=594&u=/nm/20050204/hl_nm/right
s_disabilities_un_dc&printer=1
Fri Feb 4, 6:49 PM ET
By Irwin Arieff

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. diplomats drafting an international
treaty on the rights of the disabled debated a possible ban on the
abortion of fetuses with disabilities in an emotional negotiating
session that ended on Friday.

A working text of the convention would prohibit the termination of a
pregnancy in the case of a fetus with a disability in countries where
abortion was otherwise legal.

"It was a very emotional argument, and if you are a person with
disability and you are thinking that you might have been aborted because
of your disability, it becomes a very personal issue," said New Zealand
Ambassador Don MacKay.

Diplomats ended up deferring action on the ban because it was too hot a
topic, said MacKay, coordinator of the two-week session.

"This will be one of the hardest issues to resolve. but there are a lot
of really hard issues here," he said.

The convention, which drafters hope will come into effect in 2008, also
called on governments to provide financial support to the parents of
children born with disabilities.

It would require nations ratifying it to adopt laws prohibiting
discrimination on the basis of any form of disability, from the blind to
the mentally ill.

The United Nations (news - web sites) has been writing a treaty
establishing the rights of the world's 600 million disabled since 2001.

Ambassador Luis Gallegos of Ecuador, chairman of the drafting panel,
said he hoped it would be completed by the end of 2006 and ratified by
enough governments to take force in 2009 at the latest, alongside
landmark U.N. conventions protecting women's and children's rights.

He had previously estimated the drafting process would be completed by
late 2005.

Gallegos said the concept of disability and how to deal with it was
rapidly evolving. The current challenge was to ensure the rights of the
disabled and integrate them into society.

Not that long ago, people wearing glasses could neither fly a plane nor
drive a car, but now they can, he said.


From checker at panix.com  Sun Feb  6 16:32:21 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 11:32:21 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Oscar: Noble women
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502061131180.26225@panix3.panix.com>

Noble women
http://oscar.virginia.edu/x5604.xml

    By Robert Brickhouse (MFA, Creative Writing '91)
    Posted 1/20/05

    In the long quest for equal rights for women, generation after
    generation has lamented the supposed absence of stories celebrating
    womanhood in the past. Until recent decades, feminist scholars and
    others have assumed that accounts of female role models have been
    largely missing or found only as stereotypes of good, elegant
    behavior.

    But life stories of notable women, often showing them as daring
    leaders and innovators, have proved influential and flourished for
    centuries, according to a University literary scholar.

    English professor Alison Booth has analyzed hundreds of biographical
    collections about women in a newly published book and [2]online
    archive. Most of these forgotten collections were written by men who
    might appropriately be called the "lost ancestors" of today's women
    studies.

    As Booth shows in her book, "How to Make It as a Woman" (University of
    Chicago Press), beginning about 600 years ago, volumes collecting the
    life stories of exemplary women appeared in Europe and, with the help
    of expanding literacy and printing, gained phenomenal popularity
    towards the 19th century. Featuring heroines of war such as Joan of
    Arc and queens Elizabeth and Victoria, and honoring famous
    adventurers, reformers, writers and bold murderesses such as the
    biblical Judith, these widely read "group biographies" exerted
    enormous influence and furthered the progress of women's rights, Booth
    writes.

    At various times during the previous two centuries, readers of both
    sexes were absorbing the life stories of hundreds of interesting royal
    characters such as Catherine the Great of Russia, Marie Antoinette and
    Mary Queen of Scots, authors such as Charlotte Bronte and Elizabeth
    Barrett Browning, and leaders in science, religion, the arts and other
    fields. Readers today would recognize many of the most popular
    heroines of history, but also rediscover dozens of once-famous
    personalities, such as the blind Laura Bridgman, who has been replaced
    by Helen Keller in this sort of book, which is still frequently
    published.

    Booth traces the long history of the neglected genre beginning with
    Christine de Pizan's "The Book of the City of Ladies" in the 15th
    century, and focuses on the more than 900 all-female collections
    published in English during the genre's heyday between 1830 and 1940.

    With such titles as "Gift Book of Biography for Young Ladies,"
    "Heroines of Modern Progress" and "Portraits of Celebrated Women,"
    most were designed for entertainment and to instruct on praising
    famous women the same way that famous men have long been praised.

    In the 19th-century collections, "the obscure saintly woman drops out
    and the career woman comes in," Booth said. "They are a preparation
    for women's movement role models and young women modeled careers on
    them. They helped change expectations for women's roles."

    By the 20th century, books took a tone of advocacy, putting forth the
    political rights of groups. One chapter of "How to Make It as a Woman"
    focuses on the collected lives of African-American women such as
    Sojourner Truth and Ida B. Wells.

    These collections were intended not only to be reliable guides to
    female excellence but also as contributions to national history in
    England and America, Booth said.

    They are not as numerous as the many life stories of men throughout
    the centuries, but they were still important role models for young
    women, she said. "We have forgotten most of these books, and many of
    the women in them. They show there has always been a lot of
    recognition of women who broke the mold of good wife and mother. I
    like to ask how and why these records get lost, as much as what
    purposes they served in their time."

    Booth's annotated bibliography is [3]online at the U.Va. Electronic
    Text Center.

    She plans for the project to continue to grow and eventually include
    some of the original texts. Often still available in libraries today,
    many of the group biographies were lavishly illustrated and aimed at
    male and female readers. The bibliography lists 930 all-female
    biography collections published in the United States and Britain
    between 1830, when both book publishing and women's education began to
    gain strength, and 1940, when the modern publication boom brought
    countless stories of women's lives.

    Most of the 19th-century and early-20th-century books were written by
    men, often ministers writing to earn money, said Booth, an authority
    on British and American literature of the period. These authors and
    their hundreds of collections helped lay the foundation for today's
    women's studies, she noted. Some pioneering feminist writers,
    including Anna Jameson and Virginia Woolf, contributed to the
    development of the genre.

    Coming out at annual rates from 10 to 40 times per year, the
    biographical accounts took women seriously, recommended the importance
    of education and showed that women have played key roles in history.
    They also showed that there were many variations to strong womanhood.
    Often nationalistic in tone, "they are proud of their women. They are
    kind of boasting about `our' women," Booth said. Yet a few "exotic"
    women, such as Pocahontas, were included as well.

    Often given as school prizes or sold as coffee-table books, they told
    the lives of role models -- such as famous nurses Florence Nightingale
    and Clara Barton, who were not only pioneers of their profession but
    also great administrators, similar to the prison reformer Elizabeth
    Fry -- as proof that women could change public policy.

    The author of a study of Virginia Woolf and George Eliot and co-editor
    of "Norton Introduction to Literature," Booth teaches a course in
    biography and autobiography. She said these collections of women are
    more effective in breaking the stereotypes of "good" or "noble"
    womanhood because the biographies are presented as a group, showing
    variety and contrast among the names, images and stories. Her
    curiosity was sparked when she began to notice how widespread these
    short biographical collections are.

    She began to read them and "it was really a lot of fun. It was
    detective work. The books can be beautiful, and the stories are like
    great historical fiction." Searching first through online catalogues
    and then with visits to major libraries, she has now produced what is
    the first full interpretation of the genre.

    But her news shouldn't be surprising, she added, because written
    accounts of strong and famous women are found in societies all over
    the world. "As soon as you have a literate culture with a sense of its
    own history, you have a collection of exemplary women," she said.
      _________________________________________________________________

    Robert Brickhouse (MFA, Creative Writing '91) is a freelance writer in
    Charlottesville, formerly with the U.Va. Office of News Services.

References

    3. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/WomensBios/
    4. http://oscar.virginia.edu/x2751.xml


From checker at panix.com  Sun Feb  6 16:46:23 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 11:46:23 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Daily Kos: Framing Idea: Lies of the Bush
	Administration
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502061144340.26225@panix3.panix.com>

Framing Idea: Lies of the Bush Administration
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/28/231424/939

[Article by Jim Lobe appended.]

Who would have thought that a secular Jew, 1938 refugee from Germany, is
the inspiration for American fascism?? Read on.

by Subversive
Fri Jan 28th, 2005

I recently read that one of the most influential philosophers to the
neoconservative movement was a guy named Leo Strauss, and that one of the
key features of his philosophy was that he believed that those in charge,
who really know what is going on, need to lie to the masses for their own
good because only they know what is really best for everyone. ?Well, hey,
look at all the lies of the Bush Administration...

...Saddam has WMDs, Saddam has ties to al Quaeda, Social Security is in a
crisis, NCLB is working, etc., all repeated ad nauseam on Fox News and
via payola until the masses believe it "for their own good." ?This is
more than just putting one's best foot forward or exaggerating one's
better qualities and successes--this is part of a strategy based of lying
to the masses.?

Those of us on the left aren't really the ones being lied to because we
already know Bush is full of it and he doesn't really care what we think.
?But there are a great many on the right ("paleoconservatives") and in
the middle out there who have no idea that the neoconservatives consider
them to be the ignorant masses who deserve to be lied to for their own
good. Personally, I'd get really pissed off if I learned that someone who
I respected and believed in was just misleading me because they thought I
was just a stupid peon who didn't know what was good for himself. ?And I
think there just might be a way to help these people learn what is really
going on.

Hitting them over the head with it won't work because it is just too
polarizing. ?But maybe some of them could figure it out for themselves if
we just popularize the name of Leo Strauss a bit. Maybe we could do this
by reframing general references to Bush's lies, whenever and wherever
they occur in the media, as something such as "Straussian tactics." ?Let
people start speculating about the influence of Leo Strauss behind every
Bush lie, let them start paying even more attention to Bush's lies, and
perhaps encourage people do some simple research on Strauss for
themselves. ?We don't have to polarize people by accusing Bush of lying
everytime that he does so, perhaps we only need to publicly speculate
about the influence of founding neoconservative strategist, Leo Strauss,
and his many pupils.

Instead of calling a misleading statement by the Bush Administration a
"lie," speculate about the "Straussian tactics" behind the deception.

This is my first diary entry and this idea still needs some work, but
maybe someone reading this will have something interesting to add. ?Does
anyone have any idea how to put this idea more in the format of a
Lakoff-style frame??? I'd also be particularly interested in reading
comments from students of political philosophy and others who may already
be aware of Strauss' influence. ?For everyone else, here are some
weblinks to the neoconservative philosophy of Leo Strauss to get you
started:

http://www.alternet.org/story/15935 [see below]
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/49/articles/leo_strauss/noflash.html
http://tinyurl.com/68nt3 (Googlecache of antiwar.com)
http://www.sourcewatch.org/wiki.phtml?title=Leo_Strauss
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/031212.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Strauss

Leo Strauss' Philosophy of Deception

By Jim Lobe, AlterNet
Posted on May 19, 2003, Printed on January 29, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/15935/

What would you do if you wanted to topple Saddam Hussein, but your
intelligence agencies couldn't find the evidence to justify a war?

A follower of Leo Strauss may just hire the "right" kind of men to get
the job done - people with the intellect, acuity, and, if necessary, the
political commitment, polemical skills, and, above all, the imagination
to find the evidence that career intelligence officers could not detect.

The "right" man for Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, suggests
Seymour Hersh in his recent New Yorker article entitled 'Selective
Intelligence,' was Abram Shulsky, director of the Office of Special Plans
(OSP) - an agency created specifically to find the evidence of WMDs
and/or links with Al Qaeda, piece it together, and clinch the case for
the invasion of Iraq.

Like Wolfowitz, Shulsky is a student of an obscure German Jewish
political philosopher named Leo Strauss who arrived in the United States
in 1938. Strauss taught at several major universities, including
Wolfowitz and Shulsky's alma mater, the University of Chicago, before his
death in 1973.

Strauss is a popular figure among the neoconservatives. Adherents of his
ideas include prominent figures both within and outside the
administration. They include 'Weekly Standard' editor William Kristol;
his father and indeed the godfather of the neoconservative movement,
Irving Kristol; the new Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence,
Stephen Cambone, a number of senior fellows at the American Enterprise
Institute (AEI) (home to former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard
Perle and Lynne Cheney), and Gary Schmitt, the director of the
influential Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which is chaired
by Kristol the Younger.

Strauss' philosophy is hardly incidental to the strategy and mindset
adopted by these men - as is obvious in Shulsky's 1999 essay titled "Leo
Strauss and the World of Intelligence (By Which We Do Not Mean Nous)" (in
Greek philosophy the term nous denotes the highest form of rationality).
As Hersh notes in his article, Shulsky and his co-author Schmitt
"criticize America's intelligence community for its failure to appreciate
the duplicitous nature of the regimes it deals with, its susceptibility
to social-science notions of proof, and its inability to cope with
deliberate concealment." They argued that Strauss's idea of hidden
meaning, "alerts one to the possibility that political life may be
closely linked to deception. Indeed, it suggests that deception is the
norm in political life, and the hope, to say nothing of the expectation,
of establishing a politics that can dispense with it is the exception."

Rule One: Deception

It's hardly surprising then why Strauss is so popular in an
administration obsessed with secrecy, especially when it comes to matters
of foreign policy. Not only did Strauss have few qualms about using
deception in politics, he saw it as a necessity. While professing deep
respect for American democracy, Strauss believed that societies should be
hierarchical - divided between an elite who should lead, and the masses
who should follow. But unlike fellow elitists like Plato, he was less
concerned with the moral character of these leaders. According to Shadia
Drury, who teaches politics at the University of Calgary, Strauss
believed that "those who are fit to rule are those who realize there is
no morality and that there is only one natural right - the right of the
superior to rule over the inferior."

This dichotomy requires "perpetual deception" between the rulers and the
ruled, according to Drury. Robert Locke, another Strauss analyst says,
"The people are told what they need to know and no more." While the elite
few are capable of absorbing the absence of any moral truth, Strauss
thought, the masses could not cope. If exposed to the absence of absolute
truth, they would quickly fall into nihilism or anarchy, according to
Drury, author of 'Leo Strauss and the American Right' (St. Martin's
1999).

Second Principle: Power of Religion

According to Drury, Strauss had a "huge contempt" for secular democracy.
Nazism, he believed, was a nihilistic reaction to the irreligious and
liberal nature of the Weimar Republic. Among other neoconservatives,
Irving Kristol has long argued for a much greater role for religion in
the public sphere, even suggesting that the Founding Fathers of the
American Republic made a major mistake by insisting on the separation of
church and state. And why? Because Strauss viewed religion as absolutely
essential in order to impose moral law on the masses who otherwise would
be out of control.

At the same time, he stressed that religion was for the masses alone; the
rulers need not be bound by it. Indeed, it would be absurd if they were,
since the truths proclaimed by religion were "a pious fraud." As Ronald
Bailey, science correspondent for Reason magazine points out,
"Neoconservatives are pro-religion even though they themselves may not be
believers."

"Secular society in their view is the worst possible thing,'' Drury says,
because it leads to individualism, liberalism, and relativism, precisely
those traits that may promote dissent that in turn could dangerously
weaken society's ability to cope with external threats. Bailey argues
that it is this firm belief in the political utility of religion as an
"opiate of the masses" that helps explain why secular Jews like Kristol
in 'Commentary' magazine and other neoconservative journals have allied
themselves with the Christian Right and even taken on Darwin's theory of
evolution.

Third Principle: Aggressive Nationalism

Like Thomas Hobbes, Strauss believed that the inherently aggressive
nature of human beings could only be restrained by a powerful
nationalistic state. "Because mankind is intrinsically wicked, he has to
be governed," he once wrote. "Such governance can only be established,
however, when men are united - and they can only be united against other
people."

Not surprisingly, Strauss' attitude toward foreign policy was distinctly
Machiavellian. "Strauss thinks that a political order can be stable only
if it is united by an external threat," Drury wrote in her book.
"Following Machiavelli, he maintained that if no external threat exists
then one has to be manufactured (emphases added)."

"Perpetual war, not perpetual peace, is what Straussians believe in,"
says Drury. The idea easily translates into, in her words, an
"aggressive, belligerent foreign policy," of the kind that has been
advocated by neocon groups like PNAC and AEI scholars - not to mention
Wolfowitz and other administration hawks who have called for a world
order dominated by U.S. military power. Strauss' neoconservative students
see foreign policy as a means to fulfill a "national destiny" - as Irving
Kristol defined it already in 1983 - that goes far beyond the narrow
confines of a "myopic national security."

As to what a Straussian world order might look like, the analogy was best
captured by the philosopher himself in one of his - and student Allen
Bloom's - many allusions to Gulliver's Travels. In Drury's words, "When
Lilliput was on fire, Gulliver urinated over the city, including the
palace. In so doing, he saved all of Lilliput from catastrophe, but the
Lilliputians were outraged and appalled by such a show of disrespect."

The image encapsulates the neoconservative vision of the United States'
relationship with the rest of the world - as well as the relationship
between their relationship as a ruling elite with the masses. "They
really have no use for liberalism and democracy, but they're conquering
the world in the name of liberalism and democracy," Drury says.

From checker at panix.com  Sun Feb  6 16:37:48 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 11:37:48 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Open Center: Examining the Real Agenda of the
 Religious Far Right: A Two-Day Conference, April 29-30
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502061136220.26225@panix3.panix.com>

Examining the Real Agenda of the Religious Far Right: A Two-Day 
Conference,  April 29-30
http://www.opencenter.org/Trainings/Religious_Right_Agenda.html

Co-sponsored by the NY Open Center and CUNY Graduate Center Public
Programs

with Karen Armstrong, Joan Bokaer, Chip Berlet, Katherine Yurica, John
Sugg, Hugh Urban, Frederick Clarkson, Jeffrey Sharlet, Skipp Porteous &
Charles Strozier

"Until progressives come to understand what [fundamentalists] read,
hear, are told and deeply believe, we cannot understand American
politics, much less be effective."     - Joe Bageant

Most Americans outside the Bible Belt have little idea of the beliefs
held by millions of fundamentalist churchgoers. We have an almost total
lack of awareness of the rise of Dominionism and Christian
Reconstructionism, forms of theology that advocate a biblical vision of
God's kingdom on earth. Some fundamentalists also foresee events such as
The Rapture, the Times of Tribulation, Armageddon, and the Second Coming
of Christ as we enter The End Days.

This conference will give rigorous attention to the worldview of
Dominionism, its influence in contemporary political culture and its
agenda for America. While not all Christian fundamentalists are
Dominionists, Dominionism's influence is powerful and growing. Its
adherents play a significant role in secretive organizations such as The
Council on National Policy, which exerts a strong influence on the
strategy of the religious right

The 2004 election tells us that socially conscious citizens need to
awaken to the ambitions of this influential religious movement. What do
fundamentalist theologies advocate regarding theocracy, abortion and
homosexuality? What is the nature of the world order under God's law
that they anticipate? How do many fundamentalists interpret the role of
Israel? How does this affect U.S. policy? Why are so many
fundamentalists opposed to environmentalism and the UN? Why are millions
in America drawn to this form of belief, and how can we come to
understand them?

Join us for this important conference as America grapples with the
growing influence of fundamentalist religion and its political goals.
Clearly, something within this movement addresses the need for
spirituality and community in an America submerged under materialism and
consumerism. The time has arrived to take the ambitions and prophecies
of extreme Christian fundamentalism seriously, and to examine the
compatibility of these beliefs with democracy as we currently know it.
________________________________

Presentations include:
Fundamentalism: The Fear and the Rage - Karen Armstrong
The Rise of Dominionism in the U.S. Government - Joan Bokaer
Millennialist and Apocalyptic Influences on Dominionism - Chip Berlet
Learning about the Christian Right, and What in the World to Do -
Frederick Clarkson
The Real Hidden Religious Agenda: The Theocratic States of America -
John Sugg
Is an Unholy American Theocracy Here? - Katherine Yurica
On the Psychology and Theocracy of George W. Bush: Reflections in a
Culture of Fear - Charles Strozier
Christian Jihad - Skipp Porteous
Jesus Plus Nothing: Elite Fundamentalism, Pragmatic Dominionism - Jeff
Sharlet
Religion and Secrecy in the Bush Administration - Hugh Urban
________________________________

Registration Information:

Friday evening, April 29, 7:30-10pm
Saturday, April 30, 10am-5:30pm

05WEC58TZI Full Conference
Nonmembers $85/Members $75

05WEC58TAI Friday only
Nonmembers $22/Members $20

05WEC58TBI Saturday only
Nonmembers $75/Members $65

Limited scholarships are available
Supporting donations are welcomed!

http://web.gc.cuny.edu/cepp/


From checker at panix.com  Sun Feb  6 16:43:38 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 11:43:38 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Al-Jazeerah: KGB Chieftain finds Home at US Homeland
 Security By Mike Whitney  
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502061137510.26225@panix3.panix.com>

KGB Chieftain finds Home at US Homeland Security By Mike Whitney 
http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2005%20Opinion%20Editorials/January/22o/KGB%20Chieftain%20finds%20Home%20at%20US%20Homeland%20Security%20By%20Mike%20Whitney.htm
Opinion Editorials, January 2005

[I have not seen any confirmation of this.]

     By Mike Whitney
     Al-Jazeerah, January 22, 2005

"Security and liberty go hand-in-hand. Members of Congress, like too many 
Americans, don't understand that society with no constraints on its 
government cannot be secure. History proves that societies crumble when 
governments become more powerful than the people and private 
institutions."
-- Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas)

Why would Homeland Security hire former Stasi chief, Markus Wolfe and 
former head of the KGB, General Yevgeni Primakov?

Is this part of the Bush anti-terror strategy? After all, Wolfe is the man 
who is credited with building up the feared East German secret police that 
was responsible for the disappearance and deaths of thousands of citizens. 
And, Primakov's record is not any better. As skipper of the KGB he was 
driving force behind the machinery of state terror; a legacy that still 
has a chilling affect on many Russians.

Now, apparently, they've found a new place to hang their hats at Homeland 
Security. Or have they? Perhaps, the numerous stories on the internet are 
just fabrications intended to mislead independent research. That's 
certainly one possibility. But, consider this; for those who have followed 
the activities of the current administration (the torture, the deception, 
the death squads, the destruction of Falluja) stories like this are 
difficult to discount. As a matter of fact, the hiring of Primakov and 
Wolfe seems fairly consistent with the long-term goals of the Bush team.

We already know that there's a power struggle within the government from 
the number of top agents who have been jettisoned at the CIA. Why not 
develop a new Security apparatus under the auspices of a proven loyalist 
like Michael Chertoff? (the new appointee at Homeland Security.) That 
would require the expertise of a couple of old pros who can help-out with 
the basics and get the machinery of state repression clanking along?

The move is not unprecedented either. As Noam Chomsky points out in SS 
officer Klaus Barbie, "The Butcher of Lyon" was employed by the US Army 
after WW2 to "spy on the French". Col. Eugene Kolb of Army 
counterintelligence later admitted that Barbie's "skills were badly 
needed...His activities had been directed against the underground French 
Communist party and the resistance' who were targeted for repression by 
the American liberators". ("What Uncle Sam Really Wants") Other Nazi 
leaders were also used in counterintelligence operations in Italy. They 
were regarded as "specialists in anti-resistance activities."

Primakov has allegedly been hired to oversee the issuing of federal IDs. 
Now that the new Intelligence Reform Act has passed, (uniform) federal 
standards will be required for licenses within two years. All the citizens 
personal, credit and biometric history will be stored on one small 
document. No one will drive a car or get on a plane without one. Don't 
leave home without it, or else.

The new federal ID will be required in all financial transactions. Details 
will be electronically transferred to Office of Internal Security (which 
falls under the authority of Homeland Security) which will keep "threat 
files" on each citizen. Ultimately, the ID will be used as an "internal 
passport" (Primakov's words) so the government can keep tabs on the 
movements of every citizen; to keep us safe, of course. Sound Orwellian? 
This is what our "freedom loving" Congressmen and Senators overwhelmingly 
supported in the Intelligence Reform Act. Most of its provisions were 
written nearly a full year earlier as part of Patriot Act 2. It slipped by 
the media without a whimper of dissent. There's also plenty of "enhanced 
powers" for the President; like the ability to incarcerate suspects 
indefinitely without charges. But, then, George would never abuse that 
authority, would he?

Apparently, there's a Patriot Act 3 in the hopper, too. Investigative 
journalist Al Martin believes that this new addition will be intended to 
"establish the internal mechanism to coordinate, as an official function 
of state, a system of informants."

"System of informants"? The land of the free and the home of the snitches.

This must be where a man with Markus Wolfe's unique talents fits in. As 
Stasi king-pin he reportedly groomed an impressive network of moles, finks 
and stool-pigeons. His professional know-how will probably be soothing 
balm to the quick-learners at Homeland Security. It's bon voyage to the 
enemies of the State.

Of course, all of this could just be more paranoid, conspiratorial 
claptrap?

After sitting through 45 minutes of President Windy's delusional ramblings 
of "global liberation", that seems rather unlikely. Our national nightmare 
is grounded in some very real changes in the law, and we already know how 
far these people will go.

The political remedies to the Bush onslaught are diminishing by the day 
and the observations of Texas congressman Ron Paul are looking 
increasingly more prophetic. Paul said, "Those who believe a police-state 
can't happen here are poor students of history. Every government, 
democratic or not, is capable of tyranny. We must understand this if we 
hope to remain a free people."

--Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas) "It Can't Happen Here"

Thanks to Al Martins "Get Ready for the USSA" (United Soviet States of 
America) "Behind the scenes in the Beltway"



From checker at panix.com  Sun Feb  6 16:26:14 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 11:26:14 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT Mag. Letters: The Making of a Child Molester
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502061124420.26225@panix3.panix.com>

The New York Times > Magazine > Letters
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/06/magazine/06LETTERS.html
5.2.6

    Readers said Daniel Bergner's account of a cybermolester was as
    compelling as it was disturbing. Many shared the writer's reservations
    about the level of responsibility that the offender took for his acts;
    some were skeptical about a penalty -- therapy and probation -- that
    did not seem to fit the crime.
    _________________________________________________________________

    The Making of a Molester

    Daniel Bergner (Jan. 23) did an outstanding job of presenting the
    inner thoughts of a convicted child molester. I felt ambivalence and
    sadness toward Roy. After a great effort at rehabilitation, he seems
    to have no grasp of the enormity of his actions. Instead, he blames
    not only his victim but also her mother, the Internet, pornography,
    the media and society in general.

    What makes me most sad for Roy, and more important for his victim, is
    that he never owns up to the truth of what he did. He seems shocked
    and surprised to be a sexual predator convicted of his crime.

    Jennifer Liquori

    Your article suggests that pedophiles are "made": ordinary citizens
    transformed into predators by external actions as, with Roy, the
    comments of a spouse about her daughter reaching puberty. This is
    contrary to my 30 years' experience prosecuting child abusers.

    Neither comments nor the Internet "make" pedophiles. They exist among
    us, disguised as ordinary people, until they reveal themselves to be
    the criminals they really are. In other words, Roy wasn't made he was
    simply unmasked.

    Roy is not unlike the defendants arrested in undercover Internet
    stings conducted by my office: defendants with no prior criminal
    record who appeared to lead normal lives. Many admitted abusing
    children previously. And sex-offender probation didn't stop a
    42-year-old teacher from soliciting a minor a second time.

    If we fail to recognize that a pedophile always was and always will be
    a pedophile, we do so at our children's peril.

    Jeanine Pirro
    District Attorney, Westchester County
    White Plains, N.Y.

    I very much respect the therapeutic focus on learning appropriate
    social skills and learning how to stop negative behaviors by
    understanding and responding to triggers, but I see problems. Both Roy
    and his therapist are placed in a very difficult contractual
    situation. The therapist is responsible to the probation department.
    The patient (probationer) is very much aware of this arrangement. How
    can the therapist expect total honesty in treatment if the patient
    knows that the therapist reports to the probation officer and if
    whatever the patient says can be used to take away privileges
    including time on probation? This is a Catch-22.

    Cal Flachner
    New York

    If one of the key factors in these atrocities is the blurring between
    fiction and reality in the molester's mind, as Bergner suggests, then
    what better way to bring reality back, front and center (for both the
    reader and the molester), than to focus on the way real human lives
    are brutalized and permanently scarred?

    I am no therapist, but I believe that Patrick Liddle, the group's
    therapist, ought to spend less time having these men visualize "a
    field of tall grass" and confessing their fantasies and more time
    having them hear from the voices of those they have hurt.

    Eileen O'Brien
    Williamsburg, Va.

    While studies of deviant sexual-arousal patterns are interesting,
    arousal is only a small part of what makes a molester. What defines a
    healthy and mature person is not simply the ability to control what we
    think and feel, but to control what we do with what we think and feel.
    It is possible to have "socially inappropriate" feelings, and all of
    us do. It is the loss of awareness of, or worse, indifference to, the
    impact of our acts on others that makes us monsters.

    Barbara Zevin
    Roslyn, N.Y.

    Bergner establishes that inappropriate erotic thinking can manifest in
    many individuals, and then he asks why some cross "that clear line"
    and act on their thoughts. If you stand back from the content of the
    crime and look at the broader narrative of Roy's life, you see a
    remarkable absence of "clear lines" all around: like the early
    involvement with his victim's mother, who was the wife of his
    childhood friend; his employer's and co-workers' remarkable blindness
    to the character pathology despite adjudication and sentencing; his
    new wife's blindness to the significance of her own dissonance,
    despite saying, "I can't understand how he could write crap like that
    to a little girl." The run for the fence at the end of the story is
    the first evidence of any awareness of a clear line in many aspects of
    Roy's life.

    Denise Legacki Tompkins
    Naperville, Ill.

    I hope the low recidivism rates reported in the article will be
    interpreted cautiously. The recidivism rate will appear reassuringly
    low if the study doesn't take into account the molester's window of
    opportunity to commit another crime. Obviously, if a person is doing
    some serious jail time, he doesn't have the chance to commit more
    crimes, and this can skew the results.

    Mary Kennedy
    Wilmington, Del.

    The magazine is to be commended for publishing Bergner's article.
    Serious public discussion of this topic is virtually nonexistent.
    There was an attempt to treat this subject in the cinema as far back
    as 1961, and, given the era and circumstances, it was way ahead of its
    time. Readers might be interested in this British film, "The Mark,"
    starring Rod Steiger and Stuart Whitman. Steiger plays a psychiatrist
    and Whitman the part of a man released after serving a sentence in
    prison for intent to molest a child. The depiction is unflinching. The
    film offers no easy answer there is none. But it does offer hope.

    Conrad P. Rutkowski
    Spring Valley, N.Y.

[other letters omitted]


From checker at panix.com  Sun Feb  6 16:35:59 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 11:35:59 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: Cases: A Pill's Surprises,
	for Patient and Doctor Alike
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502061134560.26225@panix3.panix.com>

Cases: A Pill's Surprises, for Patient and Doctor Alike
NYT January 25, 2005
By RICHARD A. FRIEDMAN, M.D.

As a psychopharmacologist, I know that every patient
responds slightly differently to medication. But it wasn't
until I met Susan that I understood just how differently.

She'd come to see me because she was depressed, and I'd
successfully treated her with a course of Zoloft, a popular
antidepressant. But as often happens, Susan's desire for
sex had vanished along with her depressed mood.

"I kind of miss it, but I feel really bad for my husband,
who's getting very frustrated," she said.

The sexual side effects of antidepressants like Zoloft and
Prozac - the class of drugs known as selective serotonin
reuptake inhibitors, or S.S.R.I.'s - are well known. The
drugs frequently cause diminished libido, erectile
dysfunction in men, and delayed orgasm or an inability to
climax at all in women. The same flooding of the brain with
serotonin that alleviates depression leads to sexual
effects in many patients.

Early on, the rates of sexual side effects from S.S.R.I.'s
reported in the medical literature were quite low, in the
range of 10 percent to 20 percent. But clinicians knew
better. Most of their patients reported some sexual
effects, and it quickly became clear that the early reports
were wrong.

The reason for this error was simple. Early clinical trials
of the drugs did not look for sexual side effects; they
just recorded problems that patients spontaneously
reported. Because most patients are reluctant to bring up
any sexual side effects on their own, the researchers got
the false impression that these drugs had little effect on
sexuality. When the subjects were specifically asked about
sexual side effects, the rates rose to 40 percent to 50
percent.

Susan fell into that unlucky percentage, and she asked me
if anything could be done. There were three possible
approaches, I told her. She could stop the drug from time
to time, a strategy that might temporarily restore her sex
drive but could cause discontinuation symptoms; she could
lower the dose of the antidepressant, which might provoke a
relapse of depression; or we could try to counteract the
side effects with another medication.

A temporary escape didn't appeal to Susan, so we decided on
the third approach, an antidote. The question was, Which
one? Serotonin-blocking drugs like Periactin, an
antihistamine, treat sexual side effects, but they can also
undo the drugs' antidepressant effects. I decided to
prescribe Wellbutrin, a different class of antidepressant
that has shown some ability to counteract sexual
dysfunction caused by S.S.R.I.'s.

Little did I know.

Two weeks later, Susan called from her cellphone to say
that the antidote was working. While shopping, she said,
she spontaneously had an orgasm that had lasted on and off
for nearly two hours . She was more delighted than alarmed,
but I was stunned. I have had my share of therapeutic
surprises, but this was hard to believe.

Was this a medical emergency or unrepeatable fluke that
Susan needn't worry about? When I saw her the next day in
my office, she was calm and somewhat amused by my concern.
After all, since when is an orgasm a cause for alarm?

I was worried, though, that the addition of Wellbutrin had
set off an episode of mania, an effect that antidepressants
can have in up to 5 percent of patients. In that case, her
prolonged orgasm might be a symptom of hypersexuality,
common in mania. But Susan didn't seem either manic or
depressed.

It seems that for her, the Wellbutrin just had an extreme
sexually enhancing effect. Several colleagues told me about
patients of theirs who had experienced heightened sexual
desire on Wellbutrin, but none of the reports came close to
Susan's. That Wellbutrin can enhance sexual pleasure isn't
surprising: it increases the activity of dopamine, a key
neurotransmitter in the brain's reward pathway. In fact,
drugs of abuse, like cocaine, alcohol and opiates, release
dopamine in this circuit - and so does sex.

A year has passed without a recurrence of this surprising
side effect. But Susan is enjoying sex now - clearly more
than she did before she became depressed. Because this was
her first episode of major depression, the chance of a
recurrence was only about 50 percent, so I suggested
stopping the antidepressant. She liked that idea, but then
paused and asked, "Do I have to stop the Wellbutrin, too?"

We both laughed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/25/health/25case.html


From checker at panix.com  Mon Feb  7 20:31:11 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 15:31:11 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] American Psychological Society: Think Fast: Reaction
 Time and IQ May Predict Long Life
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502071515160.18365@panix2.panix.com>

Think Fast: Reaction Time and IQ May Predict Long Life
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/media/releases/2005/pr050202.cfm

[The report itself is at
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/pdf/ps/reaction_time.pdf .]

News Release, 5.2.2


    The ancient Greeks imagined three Fates - one spun the thread of life,
    the second measured its length, and the third snipped it off. Science
    has tried to provide more plausible (if less poetic) reasons for why
    some of us live longer than others. Now two researchers in Scotland
    have made a discovery even the Greeks couldn't have imagined: Reaction
    time may be a core indicator of long life.

    Ian Deary, University of Edinburgh, and Geoff Der, MRC Social and
    Public Health Sciences Unit, Glasgow, report on a study from the MRC
    Unit that measured both the IQs and the reaction times of middle-aged
    subjects. Both tests of mental ability were associated with life span,
    but reaction time was the stronger indicator.

    These findings, presented in the study "Reaction Time Explains IQ's
    Association with Death," will appear in the January 2005 issue of
    Psychological Science, a journal of the American Psychological
    Society.

    The new research builds on earlier studies showing that people with
    lower IQs tend to die at younger ages than those with higher IQs.
    Deary and Der, however, wanted to use a more fundamental measure of
    mental ability - which they define as efficiency in processing
    information. They thought IQ tests might relate to physical health
    because people with higher IQs typically are more likely to be in
    occupations with safer environments. Reaction time is moderately
    related to IQ, but is a simpler assessment of the brain's
    information-processing ability - one that doesn't bear so much on
    other, possibly confounding factors like knowledge, education, or
    background.

    To test their theory they examined data from the MRC Unit that, back
    in 1988, had 412 male and 486 female 54- to 58-year-olds living in
    west Scotland. The participants took both an IQ test measuring their
    verbal and numeric cognitive abilities and a reaction-time test that
    measured how quickly they pressed a button after seeing a number on a
    screen. The researchers also recorded the participants' gender,
    employment, education, and smoking status. Over the next 14 years, 185
    participants died, and Deary and Der compared their test results to
    see if the IQ or reaction-time responses predicted their mortality.

    The researchers learned that those with higher IQ scores lived longer,
    a result consistent with other studies. The study also showed that
    characteristics significantly related to death included male gender
    and smoking. But Deary and Der also found something new - faster
    reaction times seemed an even better predictor of long life than IQ.

    There are different ways the results could be interpreted. Slow
    reaction times could reflect a degeneration of the brain, which in
    turn could reflect degenerating physical health (an obvious possible
    cause of earlier mortality). But in another study the IQs of
    11-year-old subjects also were found to predict life span length, just
    as accurately as it did for the middle-aged participants in Deary and
    Der's 14-year study.

    Future studies of reaction times in younger-aged people may shed more
    light on the IQ-mortality connection.

    Professor Deary said, "It is only in the last few years that we have
    come to realize that IQ-type scores are related to mortality, even
    when the mental tests were taken decades before death. Now, several
    research teams have replicated this finding. What we need to do now is
    understand it. We and others are following up several possible
    explanations for this intriguing new association between intelligence
    and survival."

    For more information, contact Deary at [13]i.deary at ed.ac. A full copy
    of the article is available at the APS Media Center at
    [14]www.psychologicalscience.org/media.

    Psychological Science is ranked among the top 10 general psychology
    journals for impact by the Institute for Scientific Information. The
    American Psychological Society represents psychologists advocating
    science-based research in the public's interest.

References

   13. mailto:i.deary at ed.ac


From checker at panix.com  Mon Feb  7 20:32:37 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 15:32:37 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] TLS: Throw-away babies
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502071531200.18365@panix2.panix.com>

Throw-away babies
http://the-tls.co.uk/archive/story.aspx?story_id=2087590&window_type=print
    Frank Dikotter
    12 January 1996
    The growth of eugenic policies and practices in China

    The People's Republic of China recently passed eugenic legislation to
    prevent what are called "inferior births" from becoming a burden on
    the state and society. As Chen Muhua, Vice-President of the Standing
    Committee of the National People's Congress and President of the
    Women's Federation, declared: "Eugenics not only affects the success
    of the state and the prosperity of the race, but also the well-being
    of the people and social stability." Although such ideas have long
    been discredited in the West on both ethical and scientific grounds,
    eugenic laws in China have been implemented at the provincial level
    since 1988, while first drafts of the present national law were made
    some time ago. As a development which potentially endows medical
    authorities with the power to grant or deny life to millions of
    children, its medical, ethical and political implications deserve to
    be more closely scrutinized than has so far been the case.

    Whether or not all the allegations made by the Channel 4 programme
    Return to the Dying Room will stand up to closer scrutiny, it is
    beyond doubt that the increase over the past few years in the number
    of children suffering from minor accidents of birth who are abandoned
    is closely related to the spread of eugenic ideas in China.

    The control of the "quality" of births is thought in China to be as
    important as the control of "quantity": both have regularly been
    heralded as the twin goals in the regulation of reproduction since
    Deng Xiaoping came to power in 1978. The new eugenics law, which came
    into effect in June 1995, is not a random addition to the arsenal of
    regulations aimed at the control of the population's fertility, but an
    intrinsic part of population policies which has been in the making for
    over a decade.

    The term "eugenics", it should be emphasized from the outset, is not
    without its particular problems: there is generally no consensus as to
    what precisely constitutes "eugenics" or what characterizes its
    relation to contemporary genetics. Conflicting definitions of the term
    often reflect broader political positions, and its use in Europe
    generally expresses fears about direct government programmes. In
    China, the term used since the 1920s literally translates as "science
    for superior birth". In contrast to the West, China made no attempt
    after the Second World War to distinguish between "eugenics", a
    concept identified with Nazi policies, and "genetic counselling",
    meant to make medical information about reproductive health accessible
    to responsible individuals. A closer look at the recent legislation
    reveals both positive efforts to improve the accessibility of genetic
    counselling and worrying signs of official efforts to curb individual
    rights in the name of a genetic imperative.

    The 1995 law, renamed "Maternal and Infant Law" after protests against
    a preliminary draft entitled "Eugenics Law", supports the systematic
    "implementation of premarital medical checkups" in order to detect
    whether one of the couple suffers from "serious hereditary", ven-ereal
    or reproductive disorders as well as "relevant mental disorders" or
    "legal contagious diseases"; it suggests that those "deemed unsuitable
    for reproduction" should become celibate, or undergo sterilization or
    abortion in order to prevent "inferior births". The law explicitly
    points to voluntary sterilization and individual choice; the question
    is what importance will be given to "individual choice" in a regime
    that has never hesitated to imprison citizens who disagree with
    official policy, or to use military force to suppress dissent, as it
    demonstrated in Tiananmen Square in June 1989.

    In particular, one wonders what weight will be given to the
    "individual choice" of people defined as "mentally ill" and others
    deemed "unfit" by medical authorities and local cadres, and how these
    "choices" could be respected without the necessary legal framework. It
    is easy to slip from voluntary sterilization to compulsion, and one
    fundamental difference between genetic counselling and eugenics is
    precisely that the former informs families of potential risks; whereas
    the latter instructs them whether or not to bear children. The
    coercive implementation of birth-control programmes so far indicates
    that eugenic legislation will be carried out without any respect for
    couples' wishes.

    The second most troublesome aspect of Chinese eugenic legislation is
    that the right to reproduce, or even the right to exist, is determined
    by ill-defined and misguided ideas about "genetic fitness". There is a
    lack of a clear definition of what constitutes or should be
    considered, for instance, a "severe" handicap. Down's syndrome and
    hydrocephalia are often given as examples of "severe inherited
    diseases", but so are haemophilia, mucopolysaccharidosis or even
    diabetes; it has been suggested that foetuses which are found to be
    affected by any of these disorders by a DNA test after the first four
    months of pregnancy should be "instantly aborted".

    No definition is provided for the terms "mental retardation" and
    "mental illness", often referred to in official statements and eugenic
    legislation. There is a wide range of mental disabilities, many of
    which are only partially understood, and few forms of mental illness
    have been clearly demonstrated to have a genetic cause, yet political
    and medical authorities do not hesitate to prescribe sterilization for
    those judged to be "retarded".

    In 1988, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of
    Gansu Province passed the country's first law prohibiting mentally
    retarded people from having children. The law was directed at people
    whose condition was either inherited or a consequence of marriage
    between close relatives, and it decreed that they would not be allowed
    to marry until they had undergone sterilization surgery. Those who
    were married before the promulgation of the law would also be
    sterilized, and pregnant women diagnosed as suffering from mental
    retardation were required to have their pregnancies terminated. It
    remains to be established how many women have been forced to undergo
    sterilization or forced abortion in Gansu following this provincial
    law, but the crucial point is that the government has only recently
    started to recognize that a lack of iodine, rather than "defective"
    genes, is at the root of many mental-health problems in the
    countryside. This example indicates the human cost of the confusions
    which are frequently made in China between the dietary, environmental
    and genetic factors of population health.

    Such problems are compounded by a lack of discussion of the benign
    nature or relatively easy therapeutic treatment of some of the
    diseases that are represented as grave threats to social welfare. In
    general, both medical literature and official legislation rarely focus
    on specific cases in which the unique circumstances of individual
    cases need to be taken into account. Discussions about the ethical
    implications of eugenic laws, moreover, are hampered when such terms
    as "ethical" and "human" are viewed with suspicion in a socialist
    regime that dismisses such values as "bourgeois".

    Even in those rare cases of a demonstrable one-to-one correspondence
    between a gene and a defect, sterilization will not always reduce its
    incidence in the population. If an undesirable genetic trait is
    recessive or polygenic, sterilization is an entirely utopian measure,
    in particular since a person with such a hereditary disability is more
    often than not the offspring of normal parents. For example, to rid
    the "gene pool" in Britain of the recessive form of PKU, a metabolic
    disorder which can lead to mental deficiency, as Lionel Penrose
    calculated over half a century ago, 1 per cent of the British
    population would have to be sterilized. The absence of clear
    definitions of health and ill-health in eugenic legislation in China
    logically entails that every single individual's reproduction should
    be controlled, since all human beings are the bearer of some sort of
    "defective" gene.

    This indicates that the reasons for promoting such legislation may
    have more to do with politics than medicine, as it gives enormous
    power to local cadres and medical experts, a suspicion confirmed by
    the insertion of a clause in the 1995 law which notes that it is
    sufficient for a doctor merely to "suspect" a pregnant woman of foetal
    abnormality to recommend diagnostic tests and possibly the termination
    of pregnancy. Eugenic measures, furthermore, are constantly justified
    in the name of future generations. Abstractions like the "race",
    "future generations" and the "gene pool" are raised above the rights
    and needs of individuals and their families, just as claims about "the
    state", "the revolution" or "the party" have been used in the past in
    the political repression of population.

    How are these eugenic policies initiated? In the case of birth-control
    programmes, it has been suggested that hard-line policies generally
    emerged from a small group of high functionaries, while relaxations
    and accommodations were negotiated at local level by family-planning
    personnel and by specialists in research institutes. Similarly, it
    might be hypothesized that eugenic policies are resisted by the
    population at large.

    Li Peng, a high official who was also directly involved in the events
    in Tiananmen Square, is certainly one of the most open and active
    supporters of eugenics. ("Idiots breed idiots" is perhaps one of his
    most notorious public statements.) Many of the officials behind the
    promotion of eugenic legislation, in particular Peng Peiyun, head of
    the State Family Planning Committee, Chen Muhua, Chairperson of a
    Eugenics Symposium in 1989, and Chen Minzhang, the Minister of Public
    Health, all have close ties with Li Peng, confirming the impression
    that eugenic policies are supported by a small fraction of
    conservative party officials. It would be wrong, however, to suggest
    that these policies are being effectively opposed at grass-roots
    level; there is ample evidence to suggest that eugenics is supported
    by specialists and medical authorities throughout much of the country.

    As in Nazi Germany, the eugenic ideas of senior bureaucrats have found
    widespread support in research institutions and among population
    specialists, many of whom have been put into powerful positions of
    responsibility after decades of official ostracism before the reforms
    initiated by Deng Xiaoping. It would be equally misleading to think
    that research circles retain some independence from the government.
    The close relationship between research institutions and government in
    China is well known, while formal government control and informal
    personal networks contribute to the integration of research with
    government policy.

    Eugenic legislation, furthermore, thrives on social prejudice, in
    particular, folk models of inheritance which see disorders as running
    in family lines. The one-child family policy has effectively prepared
    the terrain for a better acceptance of eugenic legislation among large
    sectors of the urban population; many families which are allowed to
    have one child only are keen to avoid "defective" births themselves. A
    prolific medical discourse has responded to the general public's
    concern for healthy offspring, a virtuous child or even a genetically
    improved line of descent.

    Numerous pamphlets of scientific vulgarization thus dispense advice on
    the art of engendering a prodigy child, suggesting that the eugenic
    vision of the government is shared to a great extent by a population
    which is anxious to avoid "inferior births".

    The lack of any effort to establish guidelines on what constitutes a
    "birth defect" is compounded by social prejudice, in particular the
    cultural preference for a son; a female embryo might be considered a
    defect in itself. Although the government has issued a ban on tests to
    determine the sex of an embryo, it should not surprise us that the
    number of abandoned female children with minor defects, such as a
    harelip or a cleft palate both only require a minor surgical operation
    to be corrected has soared over the past few years. Tens of thousands
    of children are born with minor genetic illnesses every year, and many
    are abandoned by their parents.

    "Rabbit children", suffering from congenitally deformed mouths, and
    "whitoes", as children with albinism are called, are seen to be a
    burden on parents and on the state. Throw-away children, most of them
    girls, end up and die in crowded welfare centres and orphanages. Some
    lucky children are adopted by couples from Hong Kong, Singapore or
    Europe, but the majority remain patients for life. Serious birth
    defects are one of the most tragic and painful challenges any
    individual family can face, and all possible ethical considerations
    and medical options should be carefully considered and openly debated
    in order to reach some sort of consensus. The present eugenic
    legislation does not reflect any consensus; it is imposed by those who
    politically benefit from it.

    The argument that concern with human rights is a typically eurocentric
    activity, and that people in China find authoritarian policies
    relatively more tolerable, disregards the great diversity of cultural
    traditions in China. Some supporters of authoritarian approaches
    underline the sense of discipline which is thought to be inherent to
    "Confucian traditions". Even if one could find evidence for this in
    China's vast cultural heritage, it is not clear how that would compare
    to other cultures which have similarly emphasized the need for
    self-discipline, from Saint Augustine to the Protestant work ethic.
    Reproductive freedom is not the prerogative of a few privileged
    cultures, but an inalienable part of the individual rights which the
    government in China has consistently suppressed ever since it came to
    power in 1949.

    Coercive methods are only possible in non-democratic states, and the
    sterilization programmes used in India during the "emergency period"
    in the 1970s were over-whelmingly rejected when general elections were
    finally held. In China, too, the socialist regime knows that its
    policies would be directly attacked if democratic elections and legal
    freedom existed.

    Eugenics legislation is not only an important part of the population
    policies which have been actively pursued during the Deng Xiaoping
    era; it constitutes a fundamental aspect of a more general attempt to
    regulate the sexuality of each and every individual. Instead of
    distinguishing between individual sexual preferences, lines have been
    drawn between procreative and nonprocreative acts that are
    administered in the name of a higher entity, be it "the nation", "the
    state", or "future generations".

    Non-procreative forms of sexuality in particular pre-marital and
    extra-marital sex are not recognized as legitimate expressions of
    individual desire, but as psychologically disturbed and socially
    deviant acts that should be suppressed in the interest of the nation.
    Medical technologies have been mobilized in the official campaign
    against undisciplined sexuality in young people. It has been reported
    that extreme methods of "scientific control" have actually been used,
    including psychological and medical treatment for young people who are
    thought to suffer from "sexual hyperfunction" and "sexual addiction"
    (one article has recommended the regulation of the level of sex
    hormones for dangerous sex criminals and for sexually active young
    girls).

    The medical consequences of the government's efforts to restrict
    sexuality to a marital context have a direct impact on the
    population's health. To an even greater degree than in the West, for
    instance, HIV/AIDS is represented as a disease caused by sexual
    promiscuity instead of a virus which can potentially be contracted by
    every sexually active person. Until last month, unambiguous and clear
    statements about the protective value of condoms could not be found,
    and the human cost of the systematic campaign of misinformation
    carried out by medical institutions and government officials in China
    still remains to be estimated. Ignorance is already the main reason
    for the spread of sexually transmitted diseases in China. The
    regulation of sexuality in the name of the nation, rather than the
    control of disease for the sake of individual health, has thus been
    the ultimate objective of legal sanctions, social controls and medical
    norms in China ever since Deng Xiaoping came to power in 1978.

    Racial nationalism has also been on the increase in the post-Tiananmen
    era, from the representation of early hominids in China as the
    "ancestors" of the "yellow race" in palaeo-anthropology to the
    identification of the Han as the descendants of the Yellow Emperor in
    serological studies. A few publications in demography have even made
    claims about the "biological fitness" of the nation and herald the
    next century as an era to be dominated by "biological competition"
    between the "white race" and the "yellow race". The mastery of
    reproductive technologies and genetic engineering is seen to be
    crucial in the future battle of the genes, and the government has
    given much support to medical research in human genetics.

    A research team was even set up in November 1993 to isolate the
    quintessentially "Chinese genes" of the genetic code of human DNA. All
    aspects related to reproductive health, in other words, are linked to
    a nationalist agenda in which individuals are seen to be relatively
    insignificant elements of a greater collectivity.

    Whether the regulation of sexuality has replaced ideological control
    as the main tool of repression in the People's Republic is an
    important question which is open to debate. It is beyond question,
    however, that the signs of a drift towards an authoritarian form of
    government guided by biological imperatives have been accumulating in
    China for some time, and anybody with a serious interest in that
    country and its people should consider the implications of that drift
    carefully.

    Frank Dikoetter's book, Sex, Culture and Modernity in China: Medical
    science and the construction of sexual liberties in the early
    republican period, will be reviewed in a future issue of the TLS.


From checker at panix.com  Mon Feb  7 20:33:03 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 15:33:03 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: Hate Messages on Google Site Draw Concern
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502071511100.18365@panix2.panix.com>

The New York Times > Technology > Hate Messages on Google Site Draw Concern
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/07/technology/07orkut.html
5.2.7

    By GARY RIVLIN

    SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 6 - Over the last year, millions of Internet
    users have gravitated to Orkut, a Web site created and run by
    [1]Google that permits people, by invitation only, to join any of a
    long list of online communities.

    Communities have been created around a shared interest in photography,
    Miles Davis's music and travel to offbeat places. A small minority,
    however, advance a hatred for Jews, blacks or gays, including a "Death
    to the Jews" site and a site called "Death to Blacks."

    By now no one should be surprised that people use the Internet to
    spread repugnant views about race, religion or sexuality. But what is
    different about Orkut, online specialists say, is that the hate-filled
    dialogues are taking place inside a members-only social network site
    that - at least in theory - strictly forbids this kind of conduct in
    its user's agreement.

    The hatemongering is fast becoming an embarrassment for Google, the
    world's most popular search engine, particularly because the company
    has adopted "don't be evil" as its motto. The potential for tarnishing
    Google's gold-plated brand name also underscores the risks the company
    faces as it expands into new Internet businesses in which it has less
    experience.

    "Given the prestige and familiarity of Google, I think this is an
    important development, if not quite radically new," said Cass R.
    Sunstein, a professor of law at the University of Chicago and author
    of the book "[2]Republic.com," which concludes that the Internet
    inadvertently helps foster extreme viewpoints.

    For Google, the trouble on Orkut - which is still in beta, or test,
    form - could easily escalate. A prosecutor in Brazil, where the
    service is especially popular, has already initiated an investigation
    into some of the more virulent Orkut sites.

    For the moment, Google is not saying much about the issue. In response
    to a request for comment, a Google spokeswoman, Eileen Rodriguez,
    wrote in an e-mail message, "There are instances when [3]orkut.com
    members misuse the service, but it is a very small number compared to
    everyone who uses it. There is a certain amount of trust we have to
    place in our users." Google would not pinpoint the number of people
    signed up for Orkut, but characterized it as "millions."

    Orkut members are required to follow the company's "terms of service
    and community standards," Ms. Rodriguez wrote, which state that "an
    account cannot upload, transmit or contain material that is hateful or
    offensive based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender
    or sexual orientation."

    When users "don't follow these terms and we are made aware of an
    issue, we take the necessary steps, which may include removing the
    content," she said. Google would not say if it had ever taken such
    action.

    Internet law and custom generally exempt Internet service providers
    from responsibility for the behavior of their users. But when it comes
    to social networking sites like Orkut that invite users to seek out
    potential business contacts, dates or like-minded souls through links
    with friends and friends of friends, the responsibilities of the
    Internet host are more ambiguous.

    "When these new tools are introduced to the social world, the social
    norms, like manners and etiquette, and basic questions of who's
    responsible for what, get all scrambled," said Lee Rainie, director of
    the Pew Internet and American Life Project. "What we're seeing is the
    havoc that the Internet wreaked on plenty of business is now playing
    out in the social world."

    Despite the company's stated policies, Orkut users - who are allowed
    to participate only if invited by a current member - can join the
    2,300 people who already belong to an "I Hate Queens, Faggots and
    Gays" group, created in August by a Brazilian Orkut member. When
    setting up the community, the group's founder described it as a forum
    for Portuguese-speaking people to "show your indignation and make
    jokes" about a "type of person" who "is gaining in society." Because
    access to the Orkut site requires membership, general Internet users
    cannot stumble accidentally onto these groups.

    Orkut members can also sign up to join a myriad of communities
    dedicated to despising people of color, including one in English that
    advocates the founder's position of death to all black people.

    The founder of that group, Kiarash Poursaleh, who described himself in
    his profile as an 18-year-old living in Tehran, also listed "Mein
    Kampf" by Hitler as a favorite book, named "shooting" as his favorite
    sport and described his humor as "friendly." All members create a
    personal profile and can add their own communities to the Orkut site.

    Mr. Poursaleh has joined dozens of other English-language Orkut
    communities, including the "Adolf Hitler SS Army Fan Club" and an
    "anti-Jewry" community, as well as a group for fans of the television
    show "Friends."

    Mr. Poursaleh, who did not respond to an e-mail request for an
    interview, is also a member of "Anti-Arab Iranians," a community with
    the motto, "We Hate Arabs!!! Kill Them All!"

    Other social networking sites have confronted similar issues of
    hatemongering, but the problem is more pronounced at Orkut because the
    service encourages people to create and participate in online
    communities of like-minded individuals. Community groups help to
    distinguish Orkut from its competitors, like Friendster, the first
    widely popular social networking site.

    Tribe Networks is another social networking site that encourages users
    to create communities of shared interest. "Mainly we're reactive,
    rather than proactive, when it comes to these hate sites," said Mark
    J. Pincus, the chief executive of Tribe, based in San Francisco. "But
    we have a full-time staffer who looks for these kinds of things and
    deals with complaints when they come up."

    Plugging the word "hate" into the site's search engine delivered a
    listing of more than 200 "tribes," but they tended to be more humorous
    and offbeat. Users have created groups for those who hate "the
    n-word," online dating, dogs, ranch dressing or any of a random list
    of B-list celebrities (Ryan Seacrest, Brittany Murphy, Carrot Top).

    Though Orkut began life a year ago as a venue for Silicon Valley's
    digerati, now nearly two-thirds of registered users are from Brazil.
    Google said one explanation for this seemingly inexplicable phenomenon
    was that Brazilians are quick to adopt new technologies.

    In late January, Christiano Jorge Santos, a state prosecutor in S?o
    Paulo, began a criminal investigation of some of the hate communities
    hosted by Orkut. The impetus was the cyberassault of a 13-year-old
    black child who lives in S?o Paulo. Those behind a Portuguese language
    community called "Antiheroes" posted a copy of the child's picture at
    the site, without his knowledge, and then invited visitors to "unload
    all your fury on this poor, innocent little black kid. Click on him
    and get revenge."

    Such an action is clearly criminal under Brazilian law, Mr. Santos
    said. "That's racism, and in Brazil racism is a crime," he said.

    Under Brazilian law, it is a crime to practice, induce or incite
    discrimination or prejudice on the grounds of race, color, ethnicity,
    religion or national origin. If convicted, offenders could serve two
    to five years in prison, in addition to paying a sizable fine.

    "The U.S. is pretty unusual providing the broad protection we do to
    hate speech," said Professor Sunstein. In "South America, Europe -
    Google could have problems with many other jurisdictions."

    Mr. Santos, the author of a book on hate crimes in Brazil, is
    targeting "all the communities that use racist and discriminatory
    terms on the site [4]www.orkut.com," according to documents he filed
    in court. Because Brazilian law does not include discrimination based
    on sexuality in its criminal code, those behind sites like "I Hate
    Transvestites" would not face criminal charges.

    Among the Orkut groups that Mr. Santos has focused on is a "Death to
    Blacks" site, written in Portuguese. That group's founder, Alex Pazzo,
    also created the "Death to the Jews" group, also written in
    Portuguese. (Mr. Pazzo did not respond to an e-mail message, sent
    through the Orkut system, seeking comment.)

    It is also unlikely that Google could be held criminally responsible
    in a Brazilian court, Mr. Santos said, since he would have to prove
    that the company was intentionally complicit in disseminating racist
    materials. Nevertheless, Google could be sued for damages in a
    Brazilian civil court, he said, because of a lack of precautionary
    measures against racist crimes.

    Other Portuguese-language Orkut groups include "I Hate Argentines," "I
    Hate Transvestites" and "I Hate the Universal Church," which refers to
    the evangelical church popular among Brazil's poor. The majority of
    the Orkut hate sites seem to be written in Portuguese, but many are
    written in English as well.

    For instance, an English-language "Anti-Jews" site, created in
    November, lists Schenectady, N.Y., as its home base. The community
    logo is a caricature of a man with a Star of David tattooed on his
    forehead. The site was created by Timothy Schultz, an Orkut member who
    says in his profile that he was born in Germany but now lives in the
    United States. He describes his mother as "Persian," but assures those
    reading his Orkut profile that both parents are "Aryan."

    The group's mission statement declares that it matters not whether
    members are Christian, Muslim or Buddhist, "the fact is we are all
    angry about what they have done and what they are doing to human
    beings all around the world." While the group has only 98 members,
    they come from a variety of places around the globe, like Iran, Korea
    and Marblehead, Mass.

    In one of the oddities of an online universe in which software, not a
    human brain, is behind a service, Orkut lists a "Jesus Christ" site
    ("for people who love Jesus") as a "related community" to "Anti-Jews."

    At the Anti-Jews site, when a woman going by the screen name Wasay 666
    said that she was against the murder of Jews, several posters scoffed
    at her view.

    What concerns Professor Sunstein is that "if you get like-minded
    people together around a hatred of Jews, or blacks, or whatever, they
    end up being more hateful."

    Todd Benson contributed reporting from Brazil for this article.

From checker at panix.com  Mon Feb  7 20:36:13 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 15:36:13 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Psychology Today: Happy Hour
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502071533370.18365@panix2.panix.com>

Happy Hour
http://cms.psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=pto-20050119-000002.xml&print=1

[First the summary from The Chronicle of Higher Education.]

MAGAZINES & JOURNALS

A glance at the February issue of "Psychology Today":
Training our minds to be happy

Living in the present may be the key to happiness, says Carlin 
Flora, a staff writer at the magazine. "Our sense of well-being 
is intimately tied into our perception of time," she says.

Age also makes a difference, she says, citing research by a 
professor of psychology at Stanford University. The professor, 
Laura Carstensen, has found that younger people focus more on 
the negative, while older people release bad feelings faster and 
maintain good ones longer.

"Carstensen thinks this shift toward the positive occurs because 
as we age, we become aware, consciously or not, that time is 
running out," Ms. Flora writes. "The awareness of life's 
fragility turns our attention to the present moment, so we worry 
less."

Ms. Carstensen is also investigating how Buddhist meditation, 
which involves an intense focus on the present, may affect the 
brain.

Ms. Flora also cites research on that topic by Richard Davidson, 
a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin at 
Madison. Mr. Davidson's research, she says, shows that Buddhist 
monks who spent more than 10,000 hours meditating had 
significantly more activity in a part of the brain that is 
associated with positive emotions than they did in a similar 
part of the brain associated with negative emotions.

"The finding suggests," Ms. Flora says, "that if we train 
ourselves to become more mindful and slow down our sense of 
passing time, we can learn to monitor our moods and thoughts 
before they spiral downward. We can, in other words, make 
ourselves happier."

The article, "Happy Hour," is online at 
http://cms.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20050119-000002.html
_________________________________________________________________

    Happy Hour
    By: [4]Carlin Flora
    Summary: We search for happiness in eager anticipation and joyful
    memories, but we're better off paying attention to each moment as it
    passes.


    Jason Carpenter was one of those Red Sox fans--determined, passionate
    and absolutely convinced that a World Series win would be a
    life-changing event. The baseball team famously botched an easy win
    during the 1986 championships, and Carpenter, 13 at the time, broke
    down in sobs. Yet he never gave up on his dream: that the Red Sox
    would one day prove they deserved his unwavering devotion. "I imagined
    crying with happiness," he says. Last fall, Carpenter, now 31 and
    living in New York City, saw his dream come true when his team beat
    the Yankees--their blood rivals--in the league championships, after
    the biggest comeback in baseball history. Carpenter was over the moon.
    "I went nuts with 200 of my closest 'strangers,' all displaced Boston
    fans, partying in the streets deep in the heart of enemy territory
    until 4 a.m."

    With the next morning, though, came the darker side of triumph.
    Carpenter's elation had worn off. "I was wondering what to do with
    myself. I was depressed." Years of longing for a win had boiled down
    to a fleeting moment of bliss. What Carpenter had believed his whole
    life would make him happy actually happened--and then he
    faced...nothingness.

    The things we expect will bring us lasting joy rarely do. Whether it's
    losing 25 pounds, getting a major promotion or watching a troupe of
    perennial losers finally win the big one, long-anticipated events give
    us a swell of glee...and then we settle back into being just about as
    happy as we've always been. Most of us have a happiness "set point,"
    fixed by temperament and early life experience, which is very
    difficult to shift. Whether you win the lottery or wind up in a
    wheelchair, within a year or two you generally end up just about as
    happy (or unhappy) as you started out.

    Yet the quest for happiness isn't futile. Psychologists now believe
    that many of us can turn the well-being thermostat up or down a few
    notches by changing how we think about anticipation, memory and the
    present moment. Our sense of well-being is intimately tied into our
    perception of time. The problem is that we usually get it wrong.
    Memory tricks us--we don't remember our experiences properly, and that
    leaves us unable to accurately imagine the way we'll feel in the
    future. At the same time, expectations mislead us: We never learn to
    predict what will make us happy, or how to anticipate the impact of
    major life experiences.

    Focusing on the moment may help us understand how to be happy.
    Besides, we have a built-in tendency to grow more cheerful as we get
    older: Aging helps us ignore the negative and shift our attention
    toward the positive. Finding happiness isn't hopeless--it seems to be
    just a question of time.

    Youth is a downer, it turns out. Young people naturally pay more
    attention to the negative. Older people are faster than younger people
    to orient to smiling faces rather than scowling ones in
    advertisements, finds Linda Carstensen, a professor of psychology at
    Stanford who studies how age influences time perception and goals.
    Similarly, young people are quicker to pick up on negative stimuli.
    This youthful attention to the bad may be a necessary part of growing
    up--a cognitive mechanism that helps with survival. Since the young
    are focused on new (and therefore possibly dangerous) experiences and
    acquaintances, they may be more likely to put themselves in harm's
    way. "Young people need to take risks, and as such, they need to pay
    attention to the potentially negative, to recognize the lion or bear
    that is going to jump out at them," Carstensen explains. As we grow
    older, though, we are increasingly drawn to the familiar, like close
    friends and relatives. If given a chance to meet either their favorite
    author or a close friend for lunch, younger people chose the former,
    while older people preferred the latter.

    Carstensen's findings shatter the stereotype of seniors as a crabby
    bunch. When she spent one week frequently monitoring the moods of 184
    adults, aged 18 to 94, she saw that older people experienced highly
    positive emotional experiences for longer periods of time than younger
    people, and their highly negative emotional experiences subsided more
    quickly. In other research, she showed that their memories were in
    general more positive. The sunny habit of revising history may explain
    why seniors tend not to wallow in bad moods: Pleasant memories are
    always invading their thoughts, and these fond recollections may "wash
    away" anger or sadness. "There is no empirical evidence that older
    people are grouchy," she says, although personality studies have
    revealed that they do tend to care less about what other people think
    of them.

    Carstensen thinks this shift toward the positive occurs because as we
    age, we become aware, consciously or not, that time is running out.
    The awareness of life's fragility turns our attention to the present
    moment, so we worry less. The potential missteps and possible
    catastrophes that cloud a young person's vision of the future fade
    away. "If you think about the things you worry about ---getting a job,
    finding a mate or an apartment--they are almost always concerns about
    the future," she says. The gap between ambition and achievement, a
    major source of stress and unhappiness for young people, also narrows
    with age. As we get older, we either achieve our goals or replace them
    with more reachable aims.

    Older people's positivity bias can even boost their memories. The
    elderly generally do poorly on tests of short-term memory. But when
    Joseph Mikels, a post-doctoral fellow in psychology at Stanford and
    researcher in Carstensen's lab, showed them joyful scenes of babies
    and puppies, older adults demonstrated better visual memory than their
    younger counterparts. He theorizes that they are able to overcome
    their cognitive handicaps because they are highly motivated to
    remember images that match up with their personal goals of fostering
    warm relationships.

    These cheerful habits of mind can also be adopted by young people,
    especially when a chapter of life is coming to a close. Think of
    getting ready to move to a new city. Annoyances or grudges toward
    local friends recede; memories of good times flood your mind. Your
    awareness that your time with them is finite pushes the things you'll
    miss about them to the foreground, and the present moment comes more
    clearly into focus. Mikels says that conjuring this state of mind,
    simply by appreciating life's brevity, could help young people find
    the contentment that comes more naturally to their elders.

    Carstensen and her team are now studying Buddhist meditators, to see
    how their practice alters their perception of time. Her theory is that
    meditation may cultivate a mind-set similar to an old person's, since
    it shuts out thoughts of the past and the future in favor of the
    present. "The religion is centered around the fact that we could die
    at any moment," she says.

    Related research by psychologist Richard Davidson at the University of
    Wisconsin has in fact shown that meditation may change how the brain
    works. He measured brain activity in people who had finished eight
    weeks of meditation training and found significantly more activity in
    the left prefrontal cortex, a region associated with positive feelings
    and pursuit of goals. More recently, Davidson traveled to India to
    measure the brain activity of Buddhist monks who had each spent at
    least 10,000 hours in meditation. The activity in their left
    prefrontal cortex far exceeded that in their right prefrontal cortex,
    which is the brain's home for negative emotions and anxiety. Most of
    us don't have 10,000 free hours to devote to brain resculpturing. But
    the finding suggests that if we train ourselves to become more mindful
    and slow down our sense of passing time, we can learn to monitor our
    moods and thoughts before they spiral downward. We can, in other
    words, make ourselves happier.

    In the quest for happiness, most of us try to guess what the future
    might bring, then project our current selves--with all of our hopes,
    quirks and predilections--into that unknown. We use a fuzzy image of
    the future to make all kinds of decisions, whether it's what to make
    for dinner or whom to marry. Those predictions are essential to
    happiness--and they are almost always wrong, finds Daniel Gilbert,
    professor of psychology at Harvard. As a result, our efforts to
    improve our lives often fall flat.

    Working with Tim Wilson, professor of psychology at the University of
    Virginia, Gilbert has shown that we are remarkably bad at "affective
    forecasting," or predicting how we'll feel in the future. The good
    things are never as good as we imagine they'll be; the bad things are
    never as bad. We think of ourselves as both more fragile and more
    easily satisfied than we really are. We overestimate the impact of a
    good turn of event: We think that a fresh career or a new relationship
    will permanently change us, when all it does is provide a short-term
    mood boost. On the other hand, we are also much more resilient than we
    give ourselves credit for. Most of us do recover emotionally from
    life's traumas, whether it's the death of a close friend or a bitter
    divorce.

    "Memory is a flawed partner to anticipation," explains Gilbert. "If I
    ask you to remember a terrorist attack, you will instantly think of
    Sept. 11, not because it's a prototypical act of terrorism but because
    it's so unrepresentative." But if your memory provides you with the
    example of Sept. 11 as a representative for all terrorist attacks,
    you're very likely to mispredict how you'll feel in response to future
    attacks. You expect that you will feel the way you did after Sept. 11,
    yet because the vast majority of terrorist attacks are very small and
    involve the loss of relatively few lives, you would probably be a lot
    less upset and recover more quickly. The bright side to forecasting
    errors like this is that they expose our built-in psychological immune
    system, as Gilbert calls it, which ensures we will survive future
    horrors we can't predict.

    There are many other reasons why we have such trouble imagining how
    we'll feel in the future: We don't account for our own internal
    spin-room, the rationalization techniques we use to explain away bad
    situations. ("She wasn't right for me anyway.") We also tend to
    anticipate the most dramatic symbol of a future event. If it's a
    promotion, for example, we fantasize about the moment the boss breaks
    the news. What we forget is that life goes on after the congratulatory
    handshake--there will still be a job to do, a commute to endure and a
    family to raise.

    Even simple choices between concrete alternatives are plagued by
    forecasting errors, shows Christopher Hsee, an economist from the
    University of Chicago. As a result, we have a hard time picking the
    job, the house or the car that will make us happiest. That's because
    there is a big difference between the criteria we use to choose
    something and the criteria we use to evaluate it later. If, for
    example, you're hemming and hawing over whether to buy a
    top-of-the-line camera that is bulky and heavy or a second-best model
    that's easier to carry, the comparative difference in picture quality
    may steer you toward the unwieldy model. Once you get the fancy camera
    home, though, you no longer have the lesser-quality photo to compare
    it with. All you notice is that it's a hassle to lug around--and as a
    result you barely use it. A better strategy is to try to get a
    holistic impression of each experience or product you're
    contemplating, Hsee says. Just consider the first camera and imagine
    how it would be to use it, without immediately comparing it with the
    second.

    Gilbert has another solution to the prediction problem: asking other
    people for advice. "Grandmothers, rabbis and philosophers have been
    telling us for years that we shouldn't want shiny new things, but it's
    impossible not to," he says. "The important lesson is to learn how to
    predict more accurately what will give us lasting pleasure versus
    short-term pleasure, because there are things from the mundane to the
    transcendental that really do bring pleasure and happiness." His
    remedy is surrogation, or quite simply, asking people who have already
    done what you're considering doing how they liked it. "Most of the
    futures you're contemplating are someone else's memory," he says.
    While it helps to have a lot in common with a "surrogate," even a
    randomly chosen person can probably give you a better estimate of how
    much you would enjoy an experience than would your own impulses.

    Yet few people are willing to use this technique. To his dismay,
    Gilbert's research shows that people would rather close their eyes and
    imagine a vacation spot, or a new job, than ask someone what that
    holiday or that career was like for them. This is because although we
    are remarkably similar in our emotional reactions to events, we like
    to think of ourselves as unique, Gilbert says. We can correct our
    forecasting errors, but at a high cost to our self-image--we would
    rather be original than happy.

    Psychologist Daniel Kahneman grew up near the Bois de Bologne in
    Paris, and from time to time, his parents would take him on a trip to
    the woods. Young Danny, engrossed in some other activity, would scream
    bloody murder at the prospect of being interrupted. Yet once he got to
    the woods, he'd get so involved in his play that when it was time to
    go home, he'd cry again. For Kahneman, those fits of tears are proof
    that he was a happy child. "When you don't want to stop what you're
    doing, that's a happy condition," he says. "There is something sad
    about people who live their lives wanting to be elsewhere."

    Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2002 for his insights in
    irrationality and decision-making, but has since turned his attention
    to well-being. That has led him to study the value of time, "the
    ultimate finite resource." He's examining the difference between
    immediate and remembered experience and has zeroed in on the fact that
    our actual experience and our memories of life operate on separate
    tracks, and affect our happiness in completely distinct ways. Most
    psychologists who study happiness have focused on how we think of our
    lives in retrospect, but Kahneman believes that there's a lot to be
    learned from looking at "online" happiness--or how we feel in the
    moment.

    Because our memories are all we keep of our experiences, we have a
    built-in bias that favors memory over immediate experience. Our
    experiencing self, the part of us that registers events as they happen
    without anticipation or reflection, doesn't have much of a voice in
    influencing how happy we are with our lives, he says. Instead, memory
    dominates. Imagine you've thrown a marvelous party. You've spent hours
    reveling, but just as the night is winding down, two drunk guests get
    into a vicious argument. Even though your pleasure during the
    preceding hours was real, you will remember the event as a total
    disaster.

    That spoiled night is a clear example of the "evaluating self" at
    work, explains Kahneman. To create a narrative out of life's thousands
    of disconnected moments, our evaluating self focuses on the most
    intense moments and the final moments of an experience. That's the way
    we're built, but our tendency to rely mostly on memory to judge our
    well-being can lead us to make counterproductive decisions that
    undermine our own happiness.

    For instance, many parents believe they'd be happier if they spent
    more time with their children. But because spending more time together
    might not raise the intensity or change the concluding moments of the
    experience, it won't be reflected in rosier memories. "If you double
    the time that you spend with your children, it may have very little
    effect on what you will remember about that time," Kahneman says. If
    memory is all that matters, spending additional time with your
    children accomplishes nothing. Another example: You had a great time
    on summer vacation in Italy last year, so you consider going back. But
    since returning to the same place wouldn't give you many new memories
    to savor, your evaluating self might decide against it--even though
    your experiencing self would clearly enjoy the trip.

    "The point is that we shouldn't measure our lives on the quality of
    our memories alone," says Kahneman. He doesn't simply mean we should
    be more spontaneous--in fact, he points out that since time is our
    most valuable resource, we should pay careful attention to how we
    spend it. We need to vigilantly protect our time from the biases of
    our evaluating self by not relying on memory alone. Otherwise, we risk
    wasting it in ways that contradict our values and don't bring us
    happiness.

    Well-being is also a product of "focal time," or how we direct our
    attention. This is the key idea behind the different roles that
    pleasures and comforts have in creating happiness, a distinction
    originally posited by the late Stanford economist Tibor Scitovsky.
    Comforts are objects or experiences we tend to take for granted: a
    computer that doesn't crash, boots that don't leak or even a spouse
    who is supportive and warm. Pleasures, on the other hand, are stimuli
    that you focus your attention on: a good meal, a silky shirt, a
    boisterous evening with friends. The difference isn't intrinsic to the
    thing itself but rather lies in our attitude toward it: whether it
    captures our attention or recedes into the background.

    Our evaluating self misleads us by giving more weight to comforts,
    those things that make life easier, but that we become accustomed to.
    Our experiencing self, meanwhile, prefers pleasures--absorbing events
    or interactions that hold us captive. If you ask someone with a Lexus
    if she likes it, she'll probably say yes, since its high quality
    really does bring happiness. But that's only while she's thinking
    about it--and she probably doesn't think about it very often. "Suppose
    you are driving in your car with your spouse and you are quarreling,"
    Kahneman posits. "Are you better off if you're driving an Escort or a
    Lexus?" You're much too busy arguing to pay attention to the Lexus'
    smooth ride, so at that moment the quality of the car hardly matters.
    At the same time, something trivial that grabs your focus and
    interest, like getting flowers, will bring you happiness. If you got
    flowers every day, though, it would become routine, and neither garner
    your attention nor bring you much pleasure. Kahneman's point: Nothing
    is as important as it is when you're thinking about it.

    As he's explored the role of attention and moment-by-moment
    experiences in happiness, Kahneman has identified factors that have a
    powerful effect in determining immediate mood. When asked how they
    feel "in the moment," he's found that people report being happier when
    they are with friends than when they're with a spouse or child. It
    sounds counterintuitive, but it makes sense: When we're with friends,
    we're intensely engaged, whereas we don't pay as much focused
    attention to family--they recede into the background, since we see
    them all the time. Similarly, getting enough sleep is crucial,
    probably because it is difficult to be engaged with the things you
    enjoy when you are tired. And people under time pressure at work don't
    report much happiness, as they are unable to pay attention to anything
    other than their impending deadlines.

    Kahneman acknowledges the power of the well-being "setpoint," but he
    still thinks that we can influence our own happiness in small ways--by
    attending to the moment, and by choosing activities that engage rather
    than numb our minds. If we heed what does give us immediate pleasure,
    and if we are skeptical of our error-riddled memories and predictions,
    we can learn to spend our money, time and attention in ways that make
    us happier. If it's simply our nature to root for a cursed team or to
    chase a dream that, when realized, will never be as sweet as it is in
    our mind's eye, then we can try to appreciate the joy that comes in
    the striving. PT

    Publication: Psychology Today Magazine
    Publication Date: Jan/Feb 2005
    Last Revised: 19 Jan 2005


From checker at panix.com  Mon Feb  7 20:38:50 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 15:38:50 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: (Wolfe) Bush's Official Reading List,
	and a Racy Omission
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502071537440.18365@panix2.panix.com>

The New York Times > Washington > White House Letter: Bush's Official
Reading List, and a Racy Omission
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/07/politics/07letter.html
5.2.7

    WHITE HOUSE LETTER

Bush's Official Reading List, and a Racy Omission

    By ELISABETH BUMILLER

    WASHINGTON

    If you ask the White House what President Bush is reading these days,
    the press office will call back with the official list: "His
    Excellency: George Washington" by Joseph J. Ellis, "Alexander
    Hamilton" by Ron Chernow and, not least, the Bible.

    What the official list omits is Tom Wolfe's racy new beer- and
    sex-soaked novel, "I Am Charlotte Simmons." The president, a fan of
    Mr. Wolfe, has not only read the book but also is enthusiastically
    recommending it to friends.

    It is unclear exactly what Mr. Bush liked so much about the book,
    which is told from the point of view of Charlotte Simmons, a young
    woman from the God-fearing backwoods of North Carolina who is the
    first in her family to go to college. Charlotte, who is at first
    shocked by the booze and debauchery she encounters at Mr. Wolfe's
    Dupont University, modeled on Duke among others, eventually succumbs
    in a chapter-long deflowering scene at the hands of a drunken
    fraternity rat. Then she sinks into depression.

    Mr. Bush, who was the hard-drinking, hard-partying president of Delta
    Kappa Epsilon, the jock fraternity at Yale, is also the father of two
    partying daughters, Jenna and Barbara. Jenna graduated last year from
    the University of Texas and Barbara from Yale, and on neither campus
    is the milieu of Charlotte Simmons entirely foreign.

    Does Mr. Bush like the book because it is a journey back to his keg
    nights at Deke, or because it offers a glimpse into the world of his
    daughters' generation? Or does he like the writing? Or is it all of
    the above? The White House won't say. Scott McClellan, the White House
    press secretary, did not respond to phone calls or e-mail messages
    last week asking about Mr. Bush's interest in Mr. Wolfe's book.

    So perhaps Mr. Wolfe had some thoughts. In relatively short order he
    was located last Friday at a conference at his alma mater in
    Lexington, Va., Washington and Lee University. He was asked if he
    thought it unusual that a 58-year-old man, that is, the president, had
    so embraced his book.

    "Well, a 74-year-old man wrote it," Mr. Wolfe replied. He said he had
    no idea why Mr. Bush liked it. "I imagine he responded to the blinding
    talent," Mr. Wolfe added, chuckling, "but beyond that, I'm just not
    sure."

    Mr. Wolfe, who voted for Mr. Bush and was invited by the first lady to
    the White House last year to speak at a salute to the authors Eudora
    Welty, Flannery O'Connor and Truman Capote, said he had not talked to
    the president about his book. But he said that Mr. Bush's father once
    told him how much he liked "Bonfire of the Vanities," Mr. Wolfe's
    novel about New York City bond traders and racial politics during the
    excesses of the 1980's.

    Friends note that the current President Bush has read every one of Mr.
    Wolfe's books, including "A Man in Full," the behemoth about real
    estate and social change in Atlanta in the 1990's.

    Mr. Bush, who does his reading for pleasure on Air Force One, on
    weekends and before bed at night, has long said he prefers books to
    channel surfing, although he does watch television sports.

    "I'm reading, I think on a good night, maybe 20 to 30 pages," the
    president told Brian Lamb of C-Span in an interview at the White House
    last month. "I'm exercising quite hard these days, and I get up very
    early, and so the book has become somewhat of a sedative. I mean,
    maybe there are some other old guys like me who get into bed, open the
    book, 20 pages later you're out cold."

    Mr. Bush added that "in this job, there are some simple pleasures in
    life that really help you cope. One is Barney the dog, and the other
    is books. I mean, books are a great escape. Books are a way to get
    your mind on something else."

    Friends say that Mr. Bush, who like most modern American presidents is
    drawn to the biographies of those who governed before him, reads more
    nonfiction than fiction and tends toward history. "It turns out that
    the president better have seen the day that has gone in order to be
    able to help lead to the day that is coming," Mr. Bush told Mr. Lamb,
    paraphrasing the Texas writer and painter Tom Lea. "In other words,
    history really matters for the president."

    Mr. Bush noted that he liked the Hamilton biography because "it was a
    very interesting history of how hard it was to get democracy started."
    He also told Mr. Lamb that he reads the Bible daily every other year,
    and in the years in between he reads a daily devotional by Oswald
    Chambers, a Protestant minister of Scotland from a century ago.

    Mr. Bush told Mr. Lamb that "Oswald Chambers was one of the great
    Christian thinkers" and that "the easier it is to understand what he
    writes, I think, the more understanding of religion a person becomes."
    This year, the president said, he is once again making his way through
    the Bible.

    He did not utter a word to Mr. Lamb about "I Am Charlotte Simmons."


From checker at panix.com  Mon Feb  7 20:41:35 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 15:41:35 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502071540360.18365@panix2.panix.com>

U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote
New York Times, 1967.9.4
http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news3/nytviet.htm

    U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote:
    Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror

    by Peter Grose, Special to the New York Times (9/4/1967)

    WASHINGTON, Sept. 3-- United States officials were surprised and
    heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential
    election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.

    According to reports from Saigon, 83 per cent of the 5.85 million
    registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked
    reprisals threatened by the Vietcong.

    The size of the popular vote and the inability of the Vietcong to
    destroy the election machinery were the two salient facts in a
    preliminary assessment of the nation election based on the incomplete
    returns reaching here.

    Pending more detailed reports, neither the State Department nor the
    White House would comment on the balloting or the victory of the
    military candidates, Lieut. Gen. Nguyen Van Thieu, who was running for
    president, and Premier Nguyen Cao Ky, the candidate for vice
    president.

    A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in President
    Johnson's policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes
    in South Vietnam. The election was the culmination of a constitutional
    development that began in January, 1966, to which President Johnson
    gave his personal commitment when he met Premier Ky and General Thieu,
    the chief of state, in Honolulu in February.

    The purpose of the voting was to give legitimacy to the Saigon
    Government, which has been founded only on coups and power plays since
    November, 1963, when President Ngo Dinh Deim was overthrown by a
    military junta.

    Few members of that junta are still around, most having been ousted or
    exiled in subsequent shifts of power.

    Significance Not Diminished

    The fact that the backing of the electorate has gone to the generals
    who have been ruling South Vietnam for the last two years does not, in
    the Administration's view, diminish the significance of the
    constitutional step that has been taken.

    The hope here is that the new government will be able to maneuver with
    a confidence and legitimacy long lacking in South Vietnamese politics.
    That hope could have been dashed either by a small turnout, indicating
    widespread scorn or a lack of interest in constitutional development,
    or by the Vietcong's disruption of the balloting.

    American officials had hoped for an 80 per cent turnout. That was the
    figure in the election in September for the Constituent Assembly.
    Seventy-eight per cent of the registered voters went to the polls in
    elections for local officials last spring.

    Before the results of the presidential election started to come in,
    the American officials warned that the turnout might be less than 80
    per cent because the polling place would be open for two or three
    hours less than in the election a year ago. The turnout of 83 per cent
    was a welcome surprise. The turnout in the 1964 United States
    Presidential election was 62 per cent.

    Captured documents and interrogations indicated in the last week a
    serious concern among Vietcong leaders that a major effort would be
    required to render the election meaningless. This effort has not
    succeeded, judging from the reports from Saigon.


From checker at panix.com  Mon Feb  7 21:07:53 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 16:07:53 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] CHE: President Plans No Price Controls or Strict
 Accountability
 Rules for Colleges, New Education Secretary Says in Interview
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502071606050.18365@panix2.panix.com>

President Plans No Price Controls or Strict Accountability Rules for
Colleges, New Education Secretary Says in Interview
News bulletin from the Chronicle of Higher Education, 5.2.7
http://chronicle.com/prm/daily/2005/02/2005020701n.htm
By JEFFREY SELINGO
Washington

    The Bush administration has no plans to impose price controls on
    college tuition or to extend strict accountability measures to
    postsecondary institutions, the new U.S. secretary of education,
    Margaret Spellings, told The Chronicle in an exclusive interview on
    Friday.

    In a wide-ranging discussion at the end of her first official week on
    the job, Ms. Spellings also said that states and college governing
    boards, not the federal government, should be responsible for ensuring
    that campuses foster a variety of political and religious beliefs.

    The comments were the first extended remarks Ms. Spellings has made
    about higher-education issues beyond her confirmation hearing last
    month. As the president's domestic-policy adviser in his first term,
    Ms. Spellings was one of the chief architects of the No Child Left
    Behind Act, which in 2002 introduced nationwide standards and
    mandatory testing to elementary and secondary schools. Some college
    officials have feared that she would use the law as a template for
    similar measures in higher education ([63]The Chronicle, November 26,
    2004).

    But the secretary said on Friday that the administration's efforts in
    higher education over the next four years would focus mostly on
    providing better information to parents and students. As the parent of
    a high-school senior, the secretary said, she has experienced
    firsthand how difficult the college-search process can be for
    families.

    "It's a hard process to navigate ... where your kid ought to go to
    college," Ms. Spellings said. "I think we can do better."

    Without accessible and easy-to-use government sources of information
    about colleges and financial-aid options, the secretary said, families
    have come to "rely on, for right or wrong, the U.S. News & World
    Report, the Princeton Review, and some of these other sorts of
    rankings, which are fine and good, but I'm not sure there is an
    understanding about what all goes into that."

    While Ms. Spellings was not specific about the range of information
    that should be made available to the public, she said, as an example,
    that parents should be able to find out easily how long it will take
    their child to graduate from a particular institution, how much it
    will cost, and what are the chances their child will still be enrolled
    after two years.

    She did not give any details about how the administration would
    require colleges to provide such information or on how the government
    would disseminate what it collects to the public.

    "We're very early in this whole process," Ms. Spellings said. "The
    first thing you would want to do is start at the beginning and say
    what do you want to know that we don't know, what do we know. That's
    where we ought to start."

    Better information would particularly be helpful, she said, when it
    comes to tuition. Last year Rep. Howard P. (Buck) McKeon, the
    California Republican who heads the principal subcommittee on higher
    education in the U.S. House of Representatives, dropped a proposal
    that would have penalized colleges that raised their prices too high
    by preventing them from participating in some federal student-aid
    programs. Some Republicans and Democrats said his proposal would have
    amounted to price controls in higher education.

    Ms. Spellings said that in putting together its proposals for the
    reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, the federal law that
    governs most federal student aid programs, the administration
    "wouldn't start with price controls."

    "This is where information can play a real part," she said. "What are
    the costs, how fast are they escalating, what are the reasons."

    So far, Ms. Spellings said, she has been encouraged by the reaction of
    colleges to the administration's call for more and better information
    for families. "I think they want to be able to tell their story
    better," she said. "They are served when they can do that with real
    data and no anecdotes."

    When asked if college campuses have a liberal bias, Ms. Spellings
    said, "Some institutions do and some institutions don't." But she said
    the federal government should not get involved in policing professors'
    politics, even after incidents like the controversy at the University
    of Colorado at Boulder in which a faculty member compared the victims
    of the September 11 attacks to Nazis (see [64]a related article).

    "That's not something the federal government is going to get into,"
    she said. "It's a local-control thing. That's something for states and
    governing boards and academic faculties to see about. I hope they do
    worry about those things."

    More from the interview with Secretary Spellings will appear in next
    week's issue of The Chronicle.

      * [65]Republicans in U.S. House Introduce Bill to Renew Higher
        Education Act That Mirrors Last Year's (2/3/2005)
      * [66]Congress Should Not Impose Cost Controls on Colleges, Senate
        Republican Says (2/2/2005)
      * [67]Spellings Takes Office as Education Secretary; Stroup Says
        She'll Stay On in Top Higher-Education Post (2/1/2005)
      * [68]President's Choice for Education Secretary Wins Unanimous
        Approval From Senate Panel (1/14/2005)
      * [69]A New Face for Education in a Second Bush Term (11/26/2004)
      * [70]Worried on the Right and the Left (7/9/2004)
      * [71]Plan to Punish Big Increases in Tuition Is Dropped (3/12/2004)
      * [72]Will Congress Require Colleges to Grade Themselves? (4/4/2003)

References

   63. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i14/14a01901.htm
   64. http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/02/2005020709n.htm
   65. http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/02/2005020301n.htm
   66. http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/02/2005020202n.htm
   67. http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/02/2005020102n.htm
   68. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i19/19a02601.htm
   69. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i14/14a01901.htm
   70. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v50/i44/44a02101.htm
   71. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v50/i27/27a00101.htm
   72. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v49/i30/30a02701.htm


From checker at panix.com  Mon Feb  7 21:10:07 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 16:10:07 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] CHE: Publishing Groups Say Google's Library-Scanning
 Effort May Violate Copyright Laws
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502071608320.18365@panix2.panix.com>

Publishing Groups Say Google's Library-Scanning Effort May Violate Copyright
Laws
News bulletin from the Chronicle of Higher Education, 5.2.7
http://chronicle.com/prm/daily/2005/02/2005020703n.htm

By JEFFREY R. YOUNG

    Some publishing groups say that Google's ambitious project to scan
    millions of library volumes and make them searchable could run afoul
    of copyright laws, and that Google should get permission from
    publishers before proceeding.

    The project, announced in December, involves libraries at Harvard and
    Stanford Universities, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and
    the University of Oxford, in England, as well as the New York Public
    Library ([63]The Chronicle, December 14).

    Google said that it would begin by scanning works that are in the
    public domain and that the full texts of those books would be
    accessible online through its popular search engine.

    But the company also plans to scan copyrighted books in some of the
    libraries. The search engine will not give users the full texts of
    those volumes, but will provide up to three short excerpts, each
    consisting of only a few lines of text in which a search term appears.
    Google officials say that such limited use will not violate copyright
    law.

    But some publishing-industry officials say that even scanning a book
    and offering brief excerpts without the publishers' permission could
    violate copyright because scanning the book would represent a
    reproduction of the work, and the copying would have been done by a
    commercial entity rather than the library that purchased the book.

    Some officials also worry that some material that Google decides is in
    the public domain might not be, such as books that were published in
    many countries with copyright laws that are often different from those
    in the United States.

    Steve Langdon, a spokesman for Google, said in an e-mail interview
    that the company "respects the rights of copyright holders and the
    tremendous creative effort of authors, which is why we're only
    allowing users to view the full texts of books when they're in the
    public domain."

    "We will also show a few pages from a book when we have an agreement
    to do so from the publisher," he wrote. "Books that are still in
    copyright will show up in our search results, but users will only be
    able to view very small text snippets and/or bibliographic information
    until we get permission from the publisher to show full page views.

    "In every case Google's presentation of the works to the public will
    keep authors and publishers in mind and be well within the bounds of
    copyright law," he said.

    The concerns were first reported last week by the journal Nature in an
    article on its[64] Web site.

    Sally C.L. Morris, chief executive of the Association of Learned and
    Professional Society Publishers, said in an interview on Friday that
    she had contacted Google officials last week to raise the concern that
    Google's plans to scan some material might violate the rights of
    academic publishers. She said she had asked for more information about
    the company's plans.

    "They seem to be certain that what they're doing is OK under copyright
    law, but I can't understand how they think so," she said. "There are
    thousands and thousands of publishers, so I can see why they wouldn't
    want to" secure permission first. "But that doesn't mean there's not a
    legal requirement to do it."

    "It's a matter of legal principle," she said, noting that many
    publishers were likely to agree to Google's arrangement if approached.
    "But they haven't been asked, and so they haven't had the opportunity
    to say yes or no."

    Peter Givler, executive director of the Association of American
    University Presses, said his group also had concerns about the
    scanning project.

    "What is very murky here is the whole rights situation, and whether
    Google does or does not have the rights to digitize this material and
    make it available," Mr. Givler said.

    "In very general terms we are concerned," he said. "We'd just like
    more information from Google." He declined to comment further,
    referring additional queries to Allan Adler, vice president for legal
    and government affairs for the Association of American Publishers.

    In an interview, Mr. Adler was also reluctant to discuss the issue.
    "It's fair to say that the Google initiative with libraries is still
    being discussed within the association," he said. "In comparing notes
    there are still some questions that remain."

    Terry Hulbert, head of electronic development and strategy for the
    Institute of Physics, an international scholarly society based in
    England, said he also had questions about Google's plans. "There are
    things that need to be clarified," he added. "You need to get beneath
    the bonnet and look at this stuff in detail."

    The society has its own database that many libraries pay to use. "We
    have actually digitized all of the archived content back to 1874" for
    some journals, he said. "We've spent a lot of time and money doing
    that."

    Mr. Hulbert also said he worried that Google might be assuming U.S.
    copyright law can guide all of its digitizing decisions. "Lots of
    content that they're going to be digitizing at some of these U.S.
    libraries is covered under U.K. and E.U. protection," he said.
      _________________________________________________________________

    Background articles from The Chronicle:
      * [65]Google Will Digitize and Search Millions of Books From 5 Top
        Research Libraries (1/7/2005)
      * [66]Google's New Deals Promise to Realize a 60-Year-Old Vision
        (1/7/2005)
      * [67]Google Unveils a Search Engine Focused on Scholarly Materials
        (12/3/2004)

References

   63. http://chronicle.com/daily/2004/12/2004121401n.htm
   64. http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v433/n7025/full/433446a_fs.html
   65. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i18/18a03701.htm
   66. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i18/18a03801.htm
   67. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i15/15a03401.htm


From checker at panix.com  Mon Feb  7 21:11:40 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 16:11:40 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] CHE: High-School Graduates Are Poorly Prepared for
 Work or College, Survey Finds
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502071610180.18365@panix2.panix.com>

High-School Graduates Are Poorly Prepared for Work or College, Survey Finds
News bulletin from the Chronicle of Higher Education, 5.2.7
http://chronicle.com/prm/daily/2005/02/2005020704n.htm
By MICHELLE DIAMENT

    As many as 4 in 10 high-school graduates are not ready for the demands
    that they face after graduation, whether they are going to college or
    to work, according to survey findings scheduled for release today.

    Achieve Inc., a nonprofit organization created by state governors and
    business leaders that focuses on raising academic standards, surveyed
    recent high-school graduates, employers, and college instructors about
    the preparedness of young people entering college or the work force.
    The poll of 2,200 people was conducted in December and January.

    According to a report based on the survey, college instructors thought
    that the recent graduates' greatest deficiencies were in writing and
    mathematics. Students largely concurred, with 81 percent saying they
    approved of graduation tests in math and English.

    Many students who responded to the survey indicated that it was easy
    to slide by in high school, but said they would have worked harder if
    more had been asked of them, said Geoff Garin, one of the pollsters.
    In particular, students pointed to academic counseling and course
    requirements as areas to bolster.

    One of the governors involved in the organization is Gov. Bob Taft of
    Ohio. "This survey should be a real wake-up call to the governors
    around the country," said Mr. Taft, a Republican. "We're hearing a
    clear message from our graduates that we do them no favors if we set
    the bar for performance too low."

    Socioeconomic circumstances were not a decisive factor for success,
    Mr. Garin said. Rather a high level of expectation proved essential
    for graduates no matter what their goals, he said, because many of the
    same skills now are necessary for both work-bound students and those
    continuing their education.

    The full text of the report, "Rising to the Challenge: Are High-School
    Graduates Prepared for College and Work?," is available on Achieve's
    [63]Web site.
      _________________________________________________________________

    Background articles from The Chronicle:
      * [64]Undergraduates Study Much Less Than Professors Expect, Survey
        of Student 'Engagement' Says (11/15/2004)
      * [65]Core Curricula in High Schools Provide Inadequate Preparation
        for College Work, Report Says (10/15/2004)
      * [66]Report Being Sent to High Schools Outlines What College
        Freshmen Need to Know to Succeed (4/22/2003)
      * [67]High Schools Fail to Prepare Many Students for College,
        Stanford Study Says (3/5/2003)
      * [68]'Report Card' on States and Higher Education Finds Better
        Student Preparation, Mixed Opportunities (10/2/2002)
      * [69]Report Finds the Majority of U.S. Students Not Prepared for
        College (10/5/2001)

References

   63. http://www.achieve.org/
   64. http://chronicle.com/daily/2004/11/2004111501n.htm
   65. http://chronicle.com/daily/2004/10/2004101502n.htm
   66. http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/04/2003042201n.htm
   67. http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/03/2003030502n.htm
   68. http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/10/2002100205n.htm
   69. http://chronicle.com/daily/2001/10/2001100501n.htm

E-mail me if you have problems getting the referenced articles.


From checker at panix.com  Mon Feb  7 21:05:43 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 16:05:43 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Liberal Education: Beyond  Computer Literacy
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502071602200.18365@panix2.panix.com>

Beyond  Computer Literacy
http://www.aacu-edu.org/liberaleducation/le-fa04/le-fa04feature1.cfm
Liberal Education, Fall 2004

[First, the summary from the News bulletin from the Chronicle of Higher 
Education, 5.2.7:]

Computers and the Internet already play important roles in 
liberal education, but greater attention is needed to the 
educational outcomes of the technologies, argues Stephen 
Ehrmann, vice president of the Teaching, Learning, and 
Technology Group, a consulting organization that focuses on 
teaching with technology.

More and more of the goals of liberal education, such as 
analytical thinking and communication skills, require 
technological proficiency, Mr. Ehrmann writes. For example, 
students need to acquire skills in finding, retrieving, and 
analyzing information in a library, on the Internet, or 
elsewhere.

One way to gauge students' computer literacy is to require them 
to turn in electronic portfolios of their work, Mr. Ehrmann 
says. Portfolios could include Web projects, video recordings of 
oral presentations, and students' thoughts on how those tasks 
advanced their skills and learning, and the portfolios could 
even be made available to prospective employers, he says.

Electronic portfolios could also help faculties see how well 
students are meeting instructional goals, and that could guide 
curricular change, he suggests. "When portfolios are used in 
that way, the doorway to rapid, intentional evolution of liberal 
education opens," he writes.

Institutions that are already taking account of such changes and 
possibilities are the ones that will "redefine what it means to 
be an educated person in the 21st century," he argues.
_________________________________________________________________

Beyond Computer Literacy:
Implications of Technology for the Content of a College Education

    By Stephen Ehrmann

    Computers and the Internet already play several important roles in
    liberal education.
     1. Computer literacy and fluency: the ability of students to use
        computers and the Internet as tools for general purposes

     2. Effectiveness: the use of technology to foster faculty-student
        connections, student-student collaboration, active learning, and
        other practices that can improve outcomes

     3. Access: the use of technology to support programs and practices
        that are fully available to nontraditional learners who would
        otherwise be unable to enroll and excel

    All three of these applications are well established and growing. Now
    there's another application of technology to liberal education to
    consider:
     4. Content: Computers and the Internet, as they're used in the larger
        world, have implications for what all college students, by the
        time they graduate, should have learned from their majors as well
        as from general education requirements. These implications go far
        beyond computer literacy.

    What students should learn

    These changes in content, too, are already in motion, although they're
    at an earlier stage than the first three. A recent AAC&U report, Our
    Students' Best Work, specifies five key educational outcomes for
    liberal education (2004, 5-6).
     1. strong analytical, communication, quantitative, and information
        skills

     2. deep understanding of and hands-on experience with the inquiry
        practices of disciplines that explore the natural, social, and
        cultural realms

     3. ntercultural knowledge and collaborative problem-solving skills

     4. a proactive sense of responsibility for individual, civic, and
        social choices

     5. habits of mind that foster integrative thinking and the ability to
        transfer skills and knowledge from one setting to another

    For each of these five, computers and the Web are already beginning to
    affect faculty thinking about what all students should learn, and how.

    First outcome

    "Strong analytical, communication, quantitative, and information
    skills--achieved and demonstrated through learning in a range of
    fields, settings, and media, and through advanced studies in one or
    more areas of concentration"(AAC&U 2004, 5).

    Today there are important types of analytical thinking, communication,
    quantitative reasoning, and information skills that cannot be used, or
    learned, without technology. Let's look at just two: information
    literacy and the ability to create Web sites as a medium of academic
    expression.

    Information literacy is the set of skills needed to find, retrieve,
    analyze, and use information in a library, on the Web, or anywhere
    else. Virtually all majors require some form of information literacy,
    which almost always requires knowing how to use a maze of information
    on the Internet, as well as print resources. Information literacy,
    like writing across the curriculum, is learned via a series of
    assignments and feedback on those assignments that should occur
    frequently and throughout the student's course of study.

    Earlham College's Diana Punzo, associate professor of psychology,
    talks about how computers have changed the process of research in her
    discipline. "When I was a student, we didn't use computers. You had to
    spend hours thumbing through indices of the literature. Now the
    process is far more efficient and students can focus on the literature
    itself and the process of research." In course after course,
    psychology students at Earlham get briefings from librarians and do
    research on the literature. They learn, for example, the difference
    between using "racism" and "prejudice" as search terms. Faculty
    members coordinate their efforts informally, talking about these
    skills and other facets of the curriculum in biweekly departmental
    meetings.

    Over the years, students learn skills that are manifested and assessed
    in a senior year capstone experience. For psychology majors at
    Earlham, the capstone experience is a multipart project. In one piece
    of it, students are each given an article written for the general
    public (e.g., from a newspaper). They have to search and interpret the
    academic literature on the topic and then write an analysis of the
    article, also geared to the general public. In another part of this
    capstone, seniors do an experimental project and must search and
    analyze the relevant research literature. These capstone projects are
    each graded by a pair of faculty who examine, among many other things,
    the students' use of the literature.

    Student-created Web sites as a medium of academic expression: Imagine
    a course on nineteenth-century English literature or a course on the
    politics of urban neighborhoods. Multimedia projects offer several
    distinctive advantages for learning and assessment. Here are just a
    few:
      * Student authors of Web sites can include evidence such as
        pictures, audio recordings, video clips, databases, and live links
        to references. Providing the reader with direct access to the
        supporting evidence also puts more pressure on the student to
        explain why the evidence is being cited instead of just inserting
        a terse "Smith 1996" and moving on.
      * When creating a Web-based project, students can create an argument
        that operates on several levels: a summary form of the argument
        that links at several points to more detailed explanations, data,
        and responses to anticipated objections.
      * One of the most educationally important features of creating
        Web-based projects is the option of expanding the audience. The
        implications of this shift surprised the faculty and students who
        initially tried it. For example, in 1995 Bosnian peace talks began
        in Dayton, Ohio. Not far away, students in a journalism course at
        Miami University were asked to create a Web site with background
        on the conflict and the peace talks. Professor Linda Crider wrote
        later that students quickly received e-mail criticisms to their
        site from as far away as Bosnia. The students were shocked, but
        soon, Crider wrote, she was shocked more than they were because
        she had never seen students work that hard. Suddenly this
        assignment was real and they didn't want to be embarrassed in
        front of the world. Students today can create projects for use by
        other students (students who take the course in future semesters
        or students in the public schools, for example) or as parts of
        internships. Later in this article, we'll see some examples of
        such projects.

    As with their skills of writing or information literacy, students
    usually cannot learn how to use the Web as a medium for thought and
    communication in just a single course. The more courses that encourage
    or require students to create multimedia projects in addition to
    writing papers, the easier it becomes for each new faculty member to
    take advantage of, and further develop, this new and important skill.
    The University of Southern California's Institute of Multimedia
    Literacy is a leader in this area, providing faculty development and
    support across the institution. Starting in fall 2004, USC is offering
    a new honors program in multimedia scholarship to help lead the way in
    further development of undergraduate skills. Sixty students from
    twenty-five different departments have been admitted to this four-year
    program. Stanford is also taking steps to foster multimedia literacy
    across the curriculum: the university's new required second-year
    course in communications includes development of multimedia by
    students, along with writing and oral presentation.

    Second outcome

    "Deep understanding and hands-on experience with the inquiry practices
    of disciplines that explore the natural, social, and cultural
    realms--achieved and demonstrated through studies that build
    conceptual knowledge by engaging learners in concepts and modes of
    inquiry that are basic to the natural sciences, social sciences,
    humanities, and arts" (AAC&U 2004, 5).

    Professionals in almost every discipline now use technology-based
    tools to think in new ways. For example, statisticians explore data
    differently now, using new statistical procedures and displaying
    results graphically. Technology-based tools enable relative novices to
    ask meaningful questions of their own--literature students learning a
    bit about inquiry in biology, and vice versa. In addition to these
    "power tools for novices," technology is playing other roles in
    helping people from all fields learn skills of inquiry.

    In order to attract and educate students, science literacy programs
    often use active forms of learning. At West Point, for example, all
    students must learn math and science. In calculus courses, students
    are told that they have captured a number of perfectly serviceable
    cannons with plenty of ammunition. Unfortunately, however, the
    operations manuals are missing, so the students must experiment. They
    are allowed to measure the distance the ball travels when the cannon
    is fired at one particular angle.

    Working in teams with their laptop computers and using theory learned
    in physics and calculus, students must then deduce muzzle velocity.
    With that information and some more physics, they should be able to
    figure out the appropriate angle of elevation to hit any target so
    long as they know the target's distance and elevation. Each team gets
    a different target and only one shot. Visiting a calculus class at the
    right moment, one can see cheering students who've just hit a distant
    target with the first shot of their toy cannon. West Point uses a
    number of such games, often based on simulations, to help all students
    learn to think the way that scientists and engineers do.

    Physics and calculus are not the only realms of science literacy where
    technology can play a transformative role. BioQUEST creates, collects,
    and distributes realistic research simulations in biology. BioQUEST
    values the "Three P's":
     1. Problem posing: creating a research problem to do in the simulated
        world, such as a genetics experiment or a biochemical analysis

     2. Problem solving: carrying out the research and developing a
        conclusion based on the evidence

     3. Persuasion: persuading first a peer and then the instructor that
        the experimental evidence is sufficient to support the student's
        conclusion

    One nice feature of the BioQUEST software is that not even the
    instructor can "open" the simulation to find the right answer. The
    instructor, like the peers and the student investigator, must examine
    the chain of experiments and the resulting evidence in order to grade
    the student's work.

    Third outcome

    "Intercultural knowledge and collaborative problem-solving
    skills--achieved and demonstrated in a variety of collaborative
    contexts (classroom, community-based, international, and online) that
    prepare students both for democratic citizenship and for work" (AAC&U
    2004, 5).

    Imagine an undergraduate from suburbia reading a translation of
    Beowulf or studying a novel of Appalachia. How can the student develop
    a deeper understanding of another culture where familiar words may not
    have familiar meanings? How can the student express that understanding
    in a form that allows feedback? In two different courses Professor
    Patricia O'Connor of Georgetown University has asked her students to
    create Web sites that annotate text from their readings. Students link
    each selected word and phrase to illustrate commentary about their
    meaning in context; terms used in the commentary are themselves linked
    to other such commentaries, creating a web of description of that
    culture. Andrew Owen, one of O'Connor's students, analyzed a brief
    passage from River of Earth, a novel by James Still set in Appalachia.
    Dozens of phrases and terms such as "patriarchy," "God's green earth,"
    and "homeplace" were analyzed and illustrated with archival images.
    Owen's analysis, like the culture it depicts, has no beginning or
    end--each narrative annotation stands partly on its own, but it is
    interlinked with, and given further meaning by, several other such
    annotations.

    Technology is making more direct learning about other cultures
    possible, too. For example, "Raison d'Etre" is a project conducted
    jointly by the University of South Carolina, Lyc?e Paul H?roult, and
    Dickinson College. Students learning French in the United States
    interact regularly with students in France who are majoring in
    English. They correspond weekly, engage in regular chat sessions, and
    use Web cams as they talk about one another's cultures. The project
    won a 2003 National Award from the American Council of Education's
    AT&T Program on Technology as a Tool for Internationalization.

    Another ACE/AT&T national award-winner was Ball State University's
    Global Media Network. Thirteen institutions on five continents are
    members. The technology they share makes it possible to have highly
    interactive class meetings with faculty and students from pairs of
    institutions. Imagine a conference table with faculty and students
    from an American institution and a university in Korea seated around
    it and talking with one another. A major goal of the program is to
    provide initial international exposure to lower-division students in
    the university's core curriculum.

    These are just two examples of how technology can open gateways into
    other cultures from a distance. Technology can also make it easier,
    and more productive, to study abroad, as the next section describes.

    Fourth outcome

    "A proactive sense of responsibility for individual, civic, and social
    choices--achieved and demonstrated through forms of learning that
    connect knowledge, skills, values, and public action, and through
    reflection on students' own roles and responsibilities in social and
    civic contexts" (AAC&U 2004, 6).

    Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) has had for thirty years one of
    the most exciting programs in engineering education. For example, the
    Interactive Qualifying Project, typically done in the junior year,
    requires students to apply what they've learned in their majors to
    problems of social significance. Surprisingly, half of WPI's students
    go abroad to do this project these days. Technology seems to have a
    subtle but spectacular impact on the feasibility of study abroad. The
    Web allows students to define and prepare for their projects long
    before they and their faculty advisors travel to London, Thailand, or
    any of WPI's more than twenty other off-campus sites. And digital
    communications (including cell phones that WPI provides the students
    and faculty) make it easier for them to be so far from campus for
    seven or eight weeks while working on their projects.

    Last year, for example, seven student teams and two faculty advisors
    traveled to WPI's London site. One of those student teams, composed of
    students from several engineering programs, was assigned to respond to
    a request for help from the municipal government of the borough of
    Merton, a London suburb. A new census of the UK had just been done,
    and the planning unit wanted the students to prepare a display of the
    data relevant to the borough, perhaps a sixty-page book of the sort
    that had been created for the previous census, a decade earlier.

    Working with other students and with their faculty advisors in a
    preparatory course, two months before leaving for London, the students
    were guided into asking questions about this task. How was the book
    used in the last ten years? By whom? For what? This dialogue led the
    students and the borough to redefine the task: the four-student team
    would create a Web-based resource for mapping and analyzing census
    data. Professor Paul Davis, a mathematician who was one of the faculty
    supervisors of the London site and is dean of interdisciplinary and
    global studies at WPI, commented, "In terms of liberal education, this
    is a key step, where students are grappling with open-ended issues and
    trying to form a project they can do in the weeks they're on site.
    They identified the problem as helping policy makers visualize
    deprivation on maps of the borough."

    In London, the WPI students created a geographic information system
    that turned indices based on census data (such as number of toilets
    per resident in buildings) into maps. The maps helped planners
    identify a swath of poverty that crossed the boundary from Merton into
    a neighboring borough. In an "aha!" moment, the planners realized that
    they could collaborate with that borough in applying for funds to work
    on the problems, rather than competing with it for funds as they had
    in the past.

    Professor Davis commented, "The lesson we think the students carried
    away was that the technology, well used, could inform important social
    decisions. They also realized they hadn't solved the problem of
    deprivation or even answered all the possible questions. Instead they
    got a sense of technology's possibilities and limits, the complexity
    of social issues, and the political and social environment in which
    those problems exist. From our perspective those are all successes for
    liberal education."

    Fifth outcome

    "Habits of mind that foster integrative thinking and the ability to
    transfer skills and knowledge from one setting to another--achieved
    and demonstrated through advanced research and/or creative projects in
    which students take the primary responsibility for framing questions,
    carrying out an analysis, and producing work of substantial complexity
    and quality" (AAC&U 2004, 6).

    Many of the approaches to teaching described above have dealt with
    integrative thinking and the ability to apply what has been learned in
    one context to an unfamiliar problem or setting. This ability to think
    about your own thinking doesn't develop automatically while studying
    in traditional courses, as Professor Sharon Hamilton discovered in her
    teaching at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI).
    She and her colleagues asked students to reflect on their learning in
    relation to artifacts the students had uploaded on the electronic
    portfolios. Hamilton commented, "There were several top-notch writing
    students in the pilot, and I was eager to read their reflections." One
    student, who had uploaded a thoughtful analysis and synthesis of a
    group of novels of the South as an example of her ability, wrote,

      Reflection involves analysis and synthesis to come to a new
      understanding. In this paper, I analyzed six novels and synthesized
      their approaches to the role of women in the South. I learned a lot
      about different perceptions of women in the South from this
      critical thinking.

    "And that was...one of the top achieving students in the group!"
    Hamilton exclaimed. "It became evident to me that students require
    instruction and support for their reflective writing."

    Electronic portfolios

    IUPUI accelerated its work with electronic portfolios. Portfolios have
    been used for centuries in disciplines such as architecture and the
    arts. A portfolio is a thoughtfully organized collection of student
    work, usually including work other than, or in addition to,
    traditional academic papers. Portfolios also often include student
    reflections about how the project demonstrates their developing
    skills. These reflective statements are one way in which portfolio use
    is intended to deepen student learning. Alverno College in Milwaukee
    pioneered the use of portfolios in liberal education starting in the
    1970s, using them to chart student progress in developing competencies
    required of all students by graduation.

    Electronic portfolios store those projects, or recordings of them,
    plus reflections and feedback, on computers so that these records can
    easily be accessed online. For example, Web projects can be stored in
    portfolios, as can video recordings of student performances (oral
    presentations, participation in teams, dances). In contrast to paper
    portfolios, the online portfolio can organize the projects in several
    different ways: one "view" organized for an individual course, another
    view organizing the content to show progress toward goals of liberal
    education, another showing progress in the major, and yet another that
    might be used for employment or graduate school applications. The work
    can be used over a period of time by the student, by faculty, and, at
    some institutions, by people outside the institution (e.g., potential
    employers). This ability to revisit a project long after the project
    is completed is one of many distinctive values of electronic
    portfolios.

    Electronic portfolios offer an ideal infrastructure for the
    development of all the outcomes of liberal education described in this
    paper--doubly so because, as we've seen, a growing proportion of
    student work in all these areas is being done with computers and
    Internet resources.

    Bit by bit, putting it all together

    Electronic portfolios have at least one other kind of significance for
    changing the content of a college education: they can help faculty
    members, as a group, see what's going on and guide curricular change.
    In the past, college education has resembled an elephant designed by a
    committee of blind men, each faculty member teaching a course while
    knowing almost nothing about teaching and learning inside courses
    taught by other faculty. Electronic student portfolios can be used to
    change that.

    Some of the impacts of student portfolios are subtle. For example, at
    Alverno faculty need to designate "Key Performances" in each
    course--assignments, assessments, and projects that represent the most
    important goals for the course and, usually, for meeting requirements
    of the major and for graduation from the college. These Key
    Performances, including descriptions, criteria, student
    self-assessments, and faculty feedback, are visible to other faculty.
    Linda Ehley, associate professor of computer science at Alverno,
    reports that this ability to see, and be seen, provides a basis for
    both collaboration and faculty development.

    Other impacts of student portfolios on the ability to plan are more
    obvious and strategic. Clemson Provost Doris Helms comments that
    electronic portfolios have "freed us to think about general education
    as something other than a smorgasbord of courses." Clemson is using
    portfolios to collect student projects that are intended to
    demonstrate progress toward institutional educational goals.
    Portfolios used in this way require faculty to work together in
    describing the intellectual achievement represented by student work:
    first, to frame the goals, and then, to provide feedback to students
    about whether they've provided adequate evidence of progress toward
    meeting those goals for graduation. Provost Helms told me, "We'll not
    only assess student work but also use student portfolios for
    research--where are students learning what they're learning? For
    example, what are students learning while outside the classroom, in
    jobs, at home, and in extracurricular experiences? What kinds of
    learning should we foster, more intentionally, outside the course?" So
    the electronic portfolio can also provide data for scholarship of
    teaching and learning by the faculty working as a research team. Helms
    said that such a use of portfolios would not have been feasible at a
    large public institution such as Clemson without the online dimension.

    Three conditions are critical if student portfolios are to provide a
    tool for collaborative planning by faculty:
     1. Faculty need to collaborate in deciding what kinds of learning are
        to be charted by the portfolio.

     2. Faculty need to collaborate in assessing at least some aspects of
        student progress.

     3. Faculty need to use what they learn from assessment to consider
        whether and how to change the goals, the curriculum, their
        teaching, and assessment.

    When portfolios are used that way, the doorway to rapid, intentional
    evolution of liberal education opens.

    Concluding thoughts

    The changes in the content of a college education described above have
    several common elements.

    First, students use the technologies as a tool more often than as a
    "teacher": these uses of technology alter and enhance the role of the
    faculty member. The more powerful and widely used the technology, the
    more invisible it becomes to both students and faculty. They think
    with the technology rather than thinking about it. In fact, one reason
    that faculty are finding some of these changes relatively easy to make
    is that they themselves already use these technologies in their
    research and their lives outside the college.

    Second, technology widens the range of experiences and resources
    available to the student, which creates an even greater need to help
    students learn use such freedom, rather than floundering in it. More
    than ever, college needs to help students learn how to learn.

    Third, the curricular changes described in this article require a mix
    of bottom-up, incremental changes coming out of individual courses and
    top-down, strategic changes (e.g., portfolios) that come out of
    faculty and administrative leadership.

    Fourth, there is no magic level of technology that an institution
    needs before such changes can begin. I've seen examples of such
    changes in the content of education for almost a quarter century now,
    the earliest ones relying on Apple II computers. But the pace is
    accelerating, especially now that most students can use computers and
    the Internet as personal tools. What seems most important for each
    institution is that some level of technology be extremely reliable.
    When people no longer need to think consciously about their skills or
    worry overmuch about things breaking down, that particular technology
    achieves a certain invisibility. How many people still think of word
    processing as "technology?" Once that happens, faculty and students
    can think about advancing education instead of just about advancing
    technology. Institutional leadership comes from a thoughtful,
    committed coalition of faculty, administrators, students, and alumni,
    not from cutting edge technology.

    This is an extraordinarily exciting moment in the evolution of liberal
    education. This article has mentioned a number of institutions that
    are currently among the leaders in redefining the curriculum. The
    chances are excellent that, in five years, additional institutions
    will have leapfrogged forward, drawing international attention to
    their academic programs. Their fame will not come from having (for a
    brief moment) the newest of the new technologies. Instead, these
    institutions will attract attention and resources because they have
    helped redefine what it means to be an educated person in the
    twenty-first century.
      _________________________________________________________________

    Work Cited

    Board of Directors, Association of American Colleges and Universities
    (AAC&U). 2004. Our students' best work: A framework of accountability
    worthy of our mission. Washington, DC: Association of American
    Colleges and Universities. Also at
    www.aacu.org/publications/pdfs/StudentsBestReport.pdf.
      _________________________________________________________________

    Stephen C. Ehrmann is director of the Flashlight Program for the Study
    and Improvement of Educational Uses of Technology and vice president
    of The Teaching, Learning, and Technology Group.
      _________________________________________________________________

    To respond to this article, e-mail liberaled at aacu.org, with the
    author's name on the subject line.

From shovland at mindspring.com  Mon Feb  7 21:14:36 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 13:14:36 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Iraq Elections: A Curious Silence
Message-ID: <01C50D16.F9D2CAB0.shovland@mindspring.com>

Is it that they can't get the numbers?

Is it that they can't get the numbers they want?

The Sunnis stayed home.

The Kurds say there weren't enough ballots.

The Insurgents won't quit.

The Shia clerics think they have won.

The US wants Allawi.

A political Gordian knot if there ever was one.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net




From checker at panix.com  Mon Feb  7 22:21:37 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 17:21:37 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] CHE: In a Blink, Bush Becomes Reviewer in Chief
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502071720410.14224@panix2.panix.com>

In a Blink, Bush Becomes Reviewer in Chief
The Chronicle of Higher Education, 5.2.11
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i23/23b01401.htm

    CRITIC AT LARGE
    By CARLIN ROMANO

    Remember the Bush administration's rote response when identifiable
    flying objects such as Ron Suskind's The Price of Loyalty (about
    cabinet turncoat Paul O'Neill), Richard A. Clarke's Against All
    Enemies, and Justin A. Frank's Bush on the Couch threatened to smash
    into its daily message?

    "We don't do book reviews!" presidential spokesman Scott McLellan and
    others chanted over and over, until it became the administration's
    retort as mantra.

    So you might have thought that the big book news coming out of George
    W. Bush's flurry of second-inaugural interviews -- the boss's absolute
    flip-flop on that policy -- would please stalwarts of American
    literary culture, usually annoyed by all things Bush.

    Not quite.

    First, Bush told The Washington Times, "If you want a glimpse of how I
    think about foreign policy, read Natan Sharansky's book, The Case for
    Democracy." He added that the heartfelt meditation by Israel's
    minister for Jerusalem and diaspora affairs and former Soviet
    dissident and political prisoner, subtitled "The Power of Freedom to
    Overcome Tyranny and Terror," should go on the "recommended reading
    list" of America's "opinion leaders."

    Then, like a freelance book reviewer eager to maximize his critical
    clout, he intensified the blurb barrage, and his A-team followed suit.
    Sharansky's book, Bush told CNN, "summarizes how I feel. I would urge
    people to read it." Condoleezza Rice cited it in her confirmation
    hearings. Newsweek labeled it Bush's "manifesto" and reported that he
    recommends it constantly to visitors.

    Alas, Bush got no more credit for that among hostile book types than
    he received for marrying a librarian. It took only a political
    nanosecond for bloggers and anti-Bush forces to start complaining that
    the book reviewer in chief had simply found a tome, in the words of
    the BBC's Clare Murphy, that "mirrors his own views."

    When The New York Times -- no Bush favorite -- finally got its 40
    minutes with the president, Bush kept up the promotional campaign,
    confirming that synchronicity of views did have something to do with
    his rave.

    Bush told the Times that Sharansky's take on tyranny and terror
    -- that they must be fought through an expansion of freedom throughout
    the world -- is "part of my presidential DNA. I mean, it's what I
    think; it's a part of all policy." Elisabeth Bumiller, noting parallel
    passages in Sharansky's book and Bush's inaugural speech, dubbed (or
    Dubyaed) the situation "a circular pattern of admiration" (unlike, one
    presumes, the standard rave by one West Side author of another West
    Side author in The New York Times Book Review).

    What would you expect? GWB, as his inner circle refers to him in
    e-mails, can't win when it comes to reading -- even reading of short
    stuff.

    Two immortal solecisms from Bush's wisdom on the subject during the
    2000 campaign can be found among the "George W. Bushisms" gathered by
    Slate editor Jacob Weisberg in those next-to-the-register volumes that
    lead many to "misunderestimate" the president: "Reading is the basics
    for all learning," and, "One of the great things about books is
    sometimes there are some fantastic pictures."

    After Bush told Fox News anchor Brit Hume in a September 2003
    interview that he doesn't read newspapers, preferring to "glance at
    the headlines, just to get kind of a flavor," all hell broke loose.
    Washington graybeards remembered that Eisenhower read nine newspapers
    a day (according to his press secretary) and JFK tried the Evelyn Wood
    speed-reading technique to aid his news-junkie consumption.

    Sure enough, GWB's explanation only got him into deeper doo. Admitting
    he "rarely read the stories" in newspapers, he complained that "a lot
    of times there's opinions mixed in with news." Bush ventured that "the
    best way to get the news is from objective sources. And the most
    objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what's
    happening in the world." It's been that way, he owned up, since the
    beginning of his administration. The man gets his news from "people
    who probably read the news themselves." (LA Weekly, typical of print
    media angered by those remarks, expressed doubt about the reliability
    of "The Daily Condi.")

    Move on to books, and ridicule of the president seems part of the DNA
    of a certain slice of the chattering classes, arising from what John
    Podhoretz, in his book Bush Country, called "Crazy Liberal Idea #1:
    Bush is a Moron." Podhoretz writes that the idiot image of GWB
    remained so ingrained among many boys and girls on the bus in 2000
    (some nicknamed him "The English Patient") that even putative evidence
    of Bush's reading -- he lent his personal copy of Tim O'Brien's
    literary/political novel, In the Lake of the Woods, to New York Times
    reporter Frank Bruni -- drew skepticism.

    Podhoretz writes that in Bruni's own book, Ambling Into History, the
    author reports Bush's annoyance at the suggestion that his being a
    "devotee of books by and about Winston Churchill" was thought to be an
    attempt to charm tough-guy talk-show host Chris Matthews. "Do you
    think," Bruni reports Bush asking Matthews, "that I'd take time out of
    my life to research what the hell you like?"

    And dare one mention that the only time GWB couldn't stop reading a
    book in public -- when he kept at My Pet Goat after Andrew Card
    whispered the first breaking news of 9/11 in his ear -- he got
    attacked again, this time for not knowing when to put down a good
    read?

    The miracle is that GWB has not become antibook, with the threat to
    civil liberties that might entail. Put yourself in his shoes last
    year. As the campaign revved up, liberals started falling all over
    themselves to write a book, or pull together one from old columns, as
    if only they, Revere-like, could warn the American people about the
    president's stupidity and corruption.

    If he strolled into a Barnes & Noble, Bush could have picked from
    among scores of forgettable volumes spewing condescension, among them
    Ian Williams's Deserter, about Bush's "War on Military Families,"
    James Carroll's Crusade: Chronicles of an Unjust War, which noted how
    Bush "openly displayed his willful illiteracy," and William Turner's
    Mission Not Accomplished, which castigated Bush for "the shallowness
    of his life experience" and his insistence on making decisions from
    "gut instinct." Ye shall know these books by their indexes. Bush could
    have thumbed through a typical one -- say, the index of The Five
    Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq, by Christopher Scheer, Robert
    Scheer, and Lakshmi Chaudhry, and found himself segmented into
    "divisiveness of, 64," "inability to admit failure, 35, 173-74," and
    "lies and deception by, 9, 11-12, ..."

    Yet GWB perseveres. As his second term commences, he may not have
    metamorphosized into a polished states-man, diplomat, or speaker, but
    he now ranks among "our crowd" -- folks who like to read books, review
    them, push them. Instead of mocking Bush's reading, friend and foe
    alike -- particularly scholars and college professors avid for the
    smallest influence on world affairs -- should ask: What kind of book
    can sway this president? What kind of critic is he?

    And therein lies the most ironic rub of all: The reviewer in chief
    couldn't be more with it.

    Sharansky's autobiographical meditation on how his life forged his
    beliefs doesn't rely on textured argument, weighty historical and
    political detail, or ingenious syllogistic logic. It's primal,
    intuitive, and anecdotal -- argument lite. As he writes, "During my
    long journey through the world of evil, I had discovered three sources
    of power: the power of an individual's inner freedom, the power of a
    free society, and the power of the solidarity of the free world." His
    positions emerge from moral experience, sharpened by personal
    suffering. "Moral clarity," he remarks, "provides us with a place to
    stand."

    No wonder Bush loves it, even though Sharansky harshly criticizes the
    president's father -- GHWB -- for his so-called "Chicken Kiev" speech
    of 1991, in which 41 called on Ukrainians to avoid "suicidal
    nationalism."

    Bush isn't peering into The Case for Democracy and seeing precisely
    himself. Rather, both he and Sharansky practice "thin slicing." They
    understand the "power of thinking without thinking." That's right!
    Here's the beauty of this literary moment. That "circular pattern"
    Bumiller talks about needs to include the darling of Northeast
    literary media today, the sophisticated Manhattan intellectual telling
    one and all lately that, in the words of his blistering publicity
    machine, "judgments based on first impressions and the smallest bits
    of information" aren't "simple just because they're made quickly."

    Yes -- welcome political philosopher Natan Sharansky and book critic
    George W. Bush under a new prestigious aegis -- Type-A Blinkers. For
    in Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell
    -- savaged by Rich-ard A. Posner in The New Republic for shoddy
    reasoning, but protected by New Yorker fairy dust and lionized by
    almost everyone else -- says that's OK. Consider The Case for
    Democracy the first unifying "blink" book: directly praised by
    red-state types, indirectly praised by blue-state types.

    American elite literary media have met the enemy. Is he us? He's
    certainly the thinker Malcolm Gladwell says we all should be -- and
    maybe are.

    This could be the tipping point for GWB.

    Carlin Romano, critic at large for The Chronicle and literary critic
    of The Philadelphia Inquirer, is a fellow at the New York Institute
    for the Humanities at New York University.


From checker at panix.com  Mon Feb  7 22:31:00 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 17:31:00 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Boston Globe: Collection of essays highlights Hornby's
 love of reading, flair for writing 
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502071730010.14224@panix2.panix.com>

Collection of essays highlights Hornby's love of reading, flair for writing 
http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2005/01/19/collection_of_essays_highlights_hornbys_love_of_reading_flair_for_writing?mode=PF

    By Carol Iaciofano, Globe Correspondent  |  January 19, 2005

    The Polysyllabic Spree: A Hilarious and True Account of One Man's
    Struggle With the Monthly Tide of the Books He's Bought and the Books
    He's Been Meaning to Read, By Nick Hornby, Believer Books 230 pp., $14

    If you love to read, or like to read, or you're in that vast category
    of those wishing for more time to read, here is a book that will have
    you saying "yes" and "so true," or just have you smiling in knowing
    amusement at most pages. "The Polysyllabic Spree," (yes, it's a
    takeoff on "The Polyphonic Spree") is a collection of English writer
    Nick Hornby's recent "Stuff I've Been Reading" monthly columns for The
    Believer magazine, whose stated mission is to be an "amiable yet
    rigorous forum for writing about books."

    Fans of Hornby know him for books such as "About a Boy" and "High
    Fidelity" (and movies of the same names). Fans also know that being
    persistently amiable is not his style. Which, of course, makes his
    writing very entertaining.

    This is not a collection of book reviews, but a reading diary of sharp
    and thoughtful musings on literature that ultimately asks: Why do we
    read, anyway?

    Like many of us, Hornby buys a lot more books than he reads. The
    reasons are not mysterious. He's got a job, three kids, and a love of
    (English) football. He watches TV to unwind. In his first essay, he
    sets an unapologetic tone by dismissing any potential complaints that
    he spends too much on books. "I know that already," he says. "I
    certainly 'intend' to read all of them, more or less. My 'intentions'
    are good. Anyway, it's my money. And I'll bet you do it, too."

    Er, how did you know?

    But buying books is half the fun. For anyone who's ever browsed around
    a bookstore, reading Hornby's accounts of how one book led him to
    another, or how he discovered a new author nearly by accident, is like
    reconnecting with an erudite friend.

    Each essay is bannered by two lists: "Books Bought" and "Books Read."
    This gives the ensuing essay a personality before you start it. The
    "Books Read" list also includes notations of which ones are unfinished
    and which ones have been abandoned.

    One book Hornby couldn't make himself finish was Bob Woodward's "Bush
    at War." Hornby only read about a third of it before grumbling that
    "Woodward's tone was too matey and sympathetic for me." One passage
    did surprise him. He's amazed that the Secret Service needed to wake
    up President Bush at 11:08 on the night of Sept. 11, 2001.

    "Woken up! He didn't work late that night? And he wasn't too buzzy to
    get off to sleep?"

    Hornby reads all kinds of books -- from Robert Lowell's poems to
    Dennis Lehane's novels to helpful books on quitting smoking (which
    he's read again and again). Of Lehane's multilayered novels, Hornby
    admiringly writes "everything seems organic . . . almost nothing . . .
    seems contrived." These are the kinds of books that Hornby searches
    for, those that will make you "walk into a lamp-post" while reading
    them.

    But reading widely doesn't mean you've read everything. Hornby takes
    to task those literary critics who give away plots of classics in
    their essays, under the assumption that everyone has already read them
    ("I know the only thing brainy people do with their lives is reread
    great works of fiction, but surely even . . . Harold Bloom read before
    [he] reread.")

    Hornby has other frustrations, all voiced with droll acuity, all
    stemming from the love of the well-written word. He can dispatch a
    scholarly trend with a few short strokes. Take the current "obsession
    with austerity" in universities and writing workshops, designed to
    pare all writing down to bare bone.

    "Why not just jot the plot and a couple of themes down on the back of
    an envelope and leave it at that? The truth is, there's nothing very
    utilitarian about fiction or its creation, and I suspect that people
    are desperate to make it sound like manly, back-breaking labor because
    it's such a [cushy] thing to do in the first place."

    Not one to diagnose without offering a cure, Hornby has a useful
    antidote for another bookish dilemma: all the Really Big Biographies
    that frequently burden the bestseller lists. Under Hornby's rules,
    before writing a biography, you would apply to the "National Biography
    Office" for a permit that spells out "the number of pages you get." A
    biography would only edge toward a thousand pages for someone of
    Dickens's stature. In this framework, most current biographies would
    be about 200-300 pages shorter than the length at which they're
    published.

    This would also spare many of us the guilt of avoiding books we can't
    pick up with one hand.

    Chekhov's "A Life in Letters" is excerpted at the end of the book. The
    letters resonate as strongly today as they did when the great man
    wrote them. As Hornby says, "useful advice -- and tough love." Some of
    the same could be said for Hornby's writing and his love of books.


From checker at panix.com  Mon Feb  7 22:32:31 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 17:32:31 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] World Future Society: Top 10 Forecasts from Outlook
	2005
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502071731390.14224@panix2.panix.com>

Top 10 Forecasts from Outlook 2005
http://www.wfs.org/forecasts.htm

Each year since 1985, the editors of THE FUTURIST have selected the most
thought-provoking ideas and forecasts appearing in the magazine. Over
the years, Outlook has spotlighted the emergence of such epochal
developments as the Internet, virtual reality, and the end of the Cold
War.

Here are the editors' top 10 forecasts from Outlook 2005:

     1. Skills for tomorrow: In the future, even more emphasis will be
placed on skills that cannot be automated. These "hyper-human" skills
include caring, judgment, intuition, ethics, inspiration, friendliness,
and imagination. Instead of a "secretary," for instance, you might
become an "administrative response specialist" by developing your
situation-management and problem-anticipation skills. --Richard W.
Samson, "How to Succeed in the Hyper-Human Economy," Sep-Oct 2004, p. 40

     2. Skills for right now: Can you work in a team? Solve complex
problems? Communicate clearly in print and in person? These are skills
that employers are increasingly demanding, according to Syracuse
University public-affairs professor Bill Coplin, author of 10 things
Employers Want You to Learn in College. Among the skills that will help
keep workers marketable in the near term are self-motivation, time
management, strong oral and written communication, relationship
building, salesmanship, problem solving, information evaluation, and
leadership. --Futurist Update, Feb 2004

     3. Worm shortage ahead. Increasing worldwide demand for fish is
creating a shortage of worms to supply anglers and fish farmers. To
supplement dwindling fresh-worm supplies from local worm farmers,
exporters are developing new high-tech worm-storage methods such as
cryogenics. --Environment in Brief, Nov-Dec 2003, p. 7

     4. Winning the battle against the desert. For less than a dollar a
tree, Tunisia is planting 40 million trees a year to combat
desertification. The government-sponsored "green wall" project uses
military manpower to keep costs low; soldiers are also being deployed to
help nomads adapt to farming. Observers believe Tunisia's program could
serve as a model for its Saharan neighbors. --World Trends & Forecasts,
Government, May-June 2004, p. 6

     5. All-day eating. Rigid distinctions among breakfast, lunch, and
dinner--and of the times of day they occur--are fading as individuals
fit their dining habits around more flexible and fluid work and life
schedules. Restaurants accommodating these blurred dining habits will
offer a mix of big, little, and medium meals during all hours. --Art
Siemering, "Cooking Globally, Eating Whenever: The Future of Dining,"
May-June 2004, p. 52

     6. Coral reef loss may rival that of rain forests. Hurricanes,
disease, climate change, pollution, and overfishing are decimating the
coral life on many of the world's reef ecosystems. The loss of 80% of
Caribbean coral reef cover in the past three decades exceeds the rate of
tropical forest loss. Researchers now predict that, with global climate
change, coral reef ecosystems will se greater changes in the next 50
years than they have faced in the last half million years. --World
Trends & Forecasts, Environment, Jan-Feb 2004, p. 14

     7. The global wage gap is closing. Rapid income growth in China and
southern Asia is helping to narrow average income inequality worldwide.
This represents a turnaround over historic trends, according to Penn
State sociologiest Glenn Firebaugh. --World Trends & Forecasts,
Economics, Mar-Apr 2004, p. 7

     8. Children's aggressiveness may increase as they spend more time
with video games than television. Because gaming is more participatory
than watching TV, children exposed to violence in video and computer
games are more at risk of acting out on aggressive impulses. --World
Trends & Forecasts, Society, July-Aug 2004, p. 16

     9. Older workers could help expand the business day. A steadily
growing cadre of older workers could expand the productive working days
of businesses. Older people--whose numbers are rising rapidly--tend to
be early risers and at their sharpest in the morning. An early-riser
work shift of 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. could expand commerce in cities as
more businesses offer services for the early birds. --World Trends &
Forecasts, Economics, May-June 2004, p. 19

     10. Water "wars" could prevent the real kind. Working out their
conflicts over water may help countries and regions resolve other
conflicts. Cooperation among Israelis, Jordanians, and Palestinians on
water issues in the Jordan River basin, for instance, involves processes
of negotiation and decision making that could serve as a model of
collaboration, says one researcher. --World Trends & Forecasts,
Government, Mar-Apr 2004, p. 9

Outlook 2005, originally published in the November-December 2004 issue
of THE FUTURIST, is available as a special 12-page report for $4 ($3.60
for Society members), cat. no. R-2425.


From checker at panix.com  Mon Feb  7 22:35:10 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 17:35:10 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] New Republic: Posner on Gladwell's Blinkered
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502071732470.14224@panix2.panix.com>

Blinkered
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=IUusjQ2glE8WmawdDKV1hQ==
    by Richard A. Posner
    Post date 01.16.05 | Issue date 01.24.05

    Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
    By Malcolm Gladwell
    (Little, Brown, 277 pp., $25.95)

    T here are two types of thinking, to oversimplify grossly. We may call
    them intuitive and articulate. The first is the domain of hunches,
    snap judgments, emotional reactions, and first impressions--in short,
    instant responses to sensations. Obviously there is a cognitive
    process involved in such mental processes; one is responding to
    information. But there is no conscious thought, because there is no
    time for it. The second type of thinking is the domain of logic,
    deliberation, reasoned discussion, and scientific method. Here
    thinking is conscious: it occurs in words or sentences or symbols or
    concepts or formulas, and so it takes time. Articulate thinking is the
    model of rationality, while intuitive thinking is often seen as
    primitive, "emotional" in a derogatory sense, the only type of
    thinking of which animals are capable; and so it is articulate
    thinking that distinguishes human beings from the "lower" animals.

    When, many years ago, a judge confessed that his decisions were based
    largely on hunch, this caused a bit of a scandal; but there is
    increasing recognition that while judicial opinions, in which the
    judge explains his decision, are models of articulate thinking, the
    decision itself--the outcome, the winner--will often come to the judge
    in a flash. But finally the contrast between intuitive and articulate
    thinking is overdrawn: it ignores the fact that deliberative
    procedures can become unconscious simply by becoming habitual, without
    thereby being intuitive in the sense of pre-verbal or emotional; and
    that might be the case with judicial decisions, too.

    Malcolm Gladwell, a journalist, wishes to bring to a popular audience
    the results of recent research in psychology and related disciplines,
    such as neuroscience, which not only confirm the importance of
    intuitive cognition in human beings but also offer a qualified
    vindication of it. He argues that intuition is often superior to
    articulate thinking. It often misleads, to be sure; but with an
    awareness of the pitfalls we may be able to avoid them.

    As Exhibit A for the superiority of intuitive to articulate thinking,
    Gladwell offers the case of a purported ancient Greek statue that was
    offered to the Getty Museum for $10 million. Months of careful study
    by a geologist (to determine the age of the statue) and by the
    museum's lawyers (to trace the statue's provenance) convinced the
    museum that it was genuine. But when historians of ancient art looked
    at it, they experienced an "intuitive revulsion," and indeed it was
    eventually proved to be a fake.

    The example is actually a bad one for Gladwell's point, though it is a
    good illustration of the weakness of this book, which is a series of
    loosely connected anecdotes, rich in "human interest" particulars but
    poor in analysis. There is irony in the book's blizzard of anecdotal
    details. One of Gladwell's themes is that clear thinking can be
    overwhelmed by irrelevant information, but he revels in the
    irrelevant. An anecdote about food tasters begins: "One bright summer
    day, I had lunch with two women who run a company in New Jersey called
    Sensory Spectrum." The weather, the season, and the state are all
    irrelevant. And likewise that hospital chairman Brendan Reilly "is a
    tall man with a runner's slender build." Or that "inside, JFCOM [Joint
    Forces Command] looks like a very ordinary office building.... The
    business of JFCOM, however, is anything but ordinary." These are
    typical examples of Gladwell's style, which is bland and padded with
    clich?s.

    But back to the case of the Greek statue. It illustrates not the
    difference between intuitive thinking and articulate thinking, but
    different articulate methods of determining the authenticity of a work
    of art. One method is to trace the chain of title, ideally back to the
    artist himself (impossible in this case); another is to perform
    chemical tests on the material of the work; and a third is to compare
    the appearance of the work to that of works of art known to be
    authentic. The fact that the first two methods happened to take longer
    in the particular case of the Getty statue is happenstance. Had the
    seller produced a bill of sale from Phidias to Cleopatra, or the
    chemist noticed that the statue was made out of plastic rather than
    marble, the fake would have been detected in the blink of an eye.
    Conversely, had the statue looked more like authentic statues of its
    type, the art historians might have had to conduct a painstakingly
    detailed comparison of each feature of the work with the corresponding
    features of authentic works. Thus the speed with which the historians
    spotted this particular fake is irrelevant to Gladwell's thesis.
    Practice may not make perfect, but it enables an experienced person to
    arrive at conclusions more quickly than a neophyte. The expert's snap
    judgment is the result of a deliberative process made unconscious
    through habituation.

    As one moves from anecdote to anecdote, the reader of Blink quickly
    realizes, though its author does not, that a variety of interestingly
    different mental operations are being crammed unhelpfully into the
    "rapid cognition" pigeonhole. In one anecdote, Dr. Lee Goldman
    discovers that the most reliable quick way of determining whether a
    patient admitted to a hospital with chest pains is about to have a
    heart attack is by using an algorithm based on just four data: the
    results of the patient's electrocardiogram, the pain being unstable
    angina, the presence of fluid in the lungs, and systolic blood
    pressure below one hundred. There is no diagnostic gain, Goldman
    found, from also knowing whether the patient has the traditional risk
    factors for heart disease, such as being a smoker or suffering from
    diabetes. In fact, there is a diagnostic loss, because an admitting
    doctor who gave weight to these factors (which are indeed good
    long-term predictors of heart disease) would be unlikely to admit a
    patient who had none of the traditional risk factors but was predicted
    by the algorithm to be about to have a heart attack.


    T o illustrate where rapid cognition can go wrong, Gladwell introduces
    us to Bob Golomb, an auto salesman who attributes his success to the
    fact that "he tries never to judge anyone on the basis of his or her
    appearance." More unwitting irony here, for Gladwell himself is
    preoccupied with people's appearances. Think of Reilly, with his
    runner's build; or John Gottman, who claims to be able by listening to
    a married couple talk for fifteen minutes to determine with almost 90
    percent accuracy whether they will still be married in fifteen years,
    and whom Gladwell superfluously describes as "a middle-aged man with
    owl-like eyes, silvery hair, and a neatly trimmed beard. He is short
    and very charming...." And then there is "Klin, who bears a striking
    resemblance to the actor Martin Short, is half Israeli and half
    Brazilian, and he speaks with an understandably peculiar accent."
    Sheer clutter.

    Golomb, the successful auto salesman, is contrasted with the salesmen
    in a study in which black and white men and women, carefully selected
    to be similar in every aspect except race and sex, pretended to shop
    for cars. The blacks were quoted higher prices than the whites, and
    the women higher prices than the men. Gladwell interprets this to mean
    that the salesmen lost out on good deals by judging people on the
    basis of their appearance. But the study shows no such thing. The
    authors of the study did not say, and Gladwell does not show, and
    Golomb did not suggest, that auto salesmen are incorrect in believing
    that blacks and women are less experienced or assiduous or
    pertinacious car shoppers than white males and therefore can be
    induced to pay higher prices. The Golomb story contained no mention of
    race or sex. (Flemington, where Golomb works, is a small town in
    central New Jersey that is only 3 percent black.) And when he said he
    tries not to judge a person on the basis of the person's appearance,
    it seems that all he meant was that shabbily dressed and otherwise
    unprepossessing shoppers are often serious about buying a car. "Now,
    if you saw this man [a farmer], with his coveralls and his cow dung,
    you'd figure he was not a worthy customer. But in fact, as we say in
    the trade, he's all cashed up."

    It would not occur to Gladwell, a good liberal, that an auto
    salesman's discriminating on the basis of race or sex might be a
    rational form of the "rapid cognition" that he admires. If two groups
    happen to differ on average, even though there is considerable overlap
    between the groups, it may be sensible to ascribe the group's average
    characteristics to each member of the group, even though one knows
    that many members deviate from the average. An individual's
    characteristics may be difficult to determine in a brief encounter,
    and a salesman cannot afford to waste his time in a protracted one,
    and so he may quote a high price to every black shopper even though he
    knows that some blacks are just as shrewd and experienced car shoppers
    as the average white, or more so. Economists use the term "statistical
    discrimination" to describe this behavior. It is a better label than
    stereotyping for what is going on in the auto-dealer case, because it
    is more precise and lacks the distracting negative connotation of
    stereotype, defined by Gladwell as "a rigid and unyielding system."
    But is it? Think of how stereotypes of professional women, Asians, and
    homosexuals have changed in recent years. Statistical discrimination
    erodes as the average characteristics of different groups converge.

    Gladwell reports an experiment in which some students are told before
    a test to think about professors and other students are told to think
    about soccer hooligans, and the first group does better on the test.
    He thinks this result shows the fallacy of stereotypical thinking. The
    experimenter claimed it showed that people are so suggestible that
    they can be put in a frame of mind in which they feel smarter and
    therefore perform smarter. The claim is undermined by a literature of
    which Gladwell seems unaware, which finds that self-esteem is
    correlated negatively rather than positively with academic
    performance. Yet, true or false, the claim is unrelated to statistical
    discrimination, which is a matter of basing judgments on partial
    information.

    The average male CEO of a Fortune 500 company is significantly taller
    than the average American male, and Gladwell offers this as another
    example of stereotypical thinking. That is not very plausible; a CEO
    is selected only after a careful search to determine the candidate's
    individual characteristics. Gladwell ignores the possibility that tall
    men are disproportionately selected for leadership positions because
    of personality characteristics that are correlated with height,
    notably self-confidence and a sense of superiority perhaps derived
    from experiences in childhood, when tall boys lord it over short ones.
    Height might be a tiebreaker, but it would be unlikely to land the job
    for a candidate whom an elaborate search process revealed to be less
    qualified than a shorter candidate.


    G ladwell applauds the rule that a police officer who stops a car
    driven by someone thought to be armed should approach the seated
    driver from the rear on the driver's side but pause before he reaches
    the driver, so that he will be standing slightly behind where the
    driver is sitting. The driver, if he wants to shoot the officer, will
    have to twist around in his seat, and this will give the officer more
    time to react. Gladwell says that this rule is designed to prevent
    what he calls "temporary autism." This is one of many cutesy phrases
    and business-guru slogans in which this book abounds. Others include
    "mind-blindness," "listening with your eyes," "thin slicing"--which
    means basing a decision on a small amount of the available
    information--and the "Warren Harding error," which is thinking that
    someone who looks presidential must have the qualities of a good
    president.

    Autistic people treat people as inanimate objects rather than as
    thinking beings like themselves, and as a result they have trouble
    predicting behavior. Gladwell argues that a police officer who fears
    that his life is in danger will be unable to read the suspect's face
    and gestures for reliable clues to intentions (Gladwell calls this
    "mind reading") and is therefore likely to make a mistake; he is
    "mind-blinded," as if he were autistic. The rule gives him more time
    to decide what the suspect's intentions are. It seems a sensible rule,
    but the assessment of it gains nothing from a reference to autism.
    Obviously you are less likely to shoot a person in mistaken
    self-defense the more time you have in which to assess his
    intentions.

    Gladwell endorses a claim by the psychologist Paul Ekman that careful
    study of a person's face while he is speaking will reveal unerringly
    whether he is lying. Were this true, the implications would be
    revolutionary. The CIA could discard its lie detectors. Psychologists
    trained by Ekman could be hired to study videotapes of courtroom
    testimony and advise judges and jurors whom to believe and whom to
    convict of perjury. Ekman's "Facial Action Coding System" would
    dominate the trial process. Gladwell is completely credulous about
    Ekman's claims. Ekman told him that he studied Bill Clinton's facial
    expressions during the 1992 campaign and told his wife, "This is a guy
    who wants to be caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and have us
    love him for it anyway." This self-serving testimony is no evidence of
    anything. The natural follow-up question for Gladwell to have asked
    would have been whether, when Ekman saw the videotape of Clinton's
    deposition during the run-up to his impeachment, he realized that
    Clinton was lying. He didn't ask that question. Nor does he mention
    the flaws that critics have found in Ekman's work.

    As with Gladwell's other tales, the Ekman story is not actually about
    the strengths and the weaknesses of rapid cognition. It took Ekman
    years to construct his Facial Action Coding System, which Gladwell
    tells us fills a five-hundred-page binder. Now, it is perfectly true
    that we can often infer a person's feelings, intentions, and other
    mental dispositions from a glance at his face. But people are as
    skillful at concealing their feelings and intentions as they are at
    reading them in others--hence the need for the FACS, which is itself a
    product of articulate thinking.

    So Gladwell should not have been surprised by the results of an
    experiment to test alternative methods of discovering certain personal
    characteristics of college kids, such as emotional stability. One
    method was to ask the person's best friends; another was to ask
    strangers to peek inside the person's room. The latter method proved
    superior. People conceal as well as reveal themselves in their
    interactions with their friends. In arranging their rooms, they are
    less likely to be trying to make an impression, so the stranger will
    not be fooled by prior interactions with the person whose room it is.
    The better method happened to be the quicker one. But it wasn't better
    because it was quicker.


    R emember JFCOM? In 2002, it conducted a war game called "Millennium
    Challenge" in anticipation of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. As commander
    of the "Red Team" (the adversary in a war game), JFCOM chose a retired
    Marine general named Paul Van Riper. Oddly, Gladwell never mentions
    that Van Riper was a general. This omission, I think, is owed to
    Gladwell's practice of presenting everyone who gets the psychology
    right as an enemy of the establishment, and it is hard to think of a
    general in that light, though in fact Van Riper is something of a
    maverick.

    The Blue Team was equipped with an elaborate computerized
    decision-making tool called "Operational Net Assessment." Van Riper
    beat the Blue Team in the war game using low-tech, commonsense
    tactics: when the Blue Team knocked out the Red Team's electronic
    communications, for example, he used couriers on motorcycles to
    deliver messages. Was Van Riper's strategy a triumph of rapid
    cognition, as Gladwell portrays it? Operational Net Assessment was and
    is an experimental program for integrating military intelligence from
    all sources in order to dispel the "fog of war." The military is
    continuing to work on it. That Van Riper beat it two years ago is no
    more surprising than that chess champions easily beat the earliest
    chess-playing computers: today, in a triumph of articulate "thinking"
    over intuition, it is the computers that are the champs.

    Gladwell also discusses alternative approaches in dating. (The
    procession of his anecdotes here becomes dizzying.) One is to make a
    list of the characteristics one desires in a date and then go looking
    for possible dates that fit the characteristics. The other, which
    experiments reveal, plausibly, to be superior, is to date a variety of
    people until you find someone with whom you click. The distinction is
    not between articulate thinking and intuitive thinking, but between
    deduction and induction. If you have never dated, you will not have a
    good idea of what you are looking for. As you date, you will acquire a
    better idea, and eventually you will be able to construct a useful
    checklist of characteristics. So this is yet another little tale that
    doesn't fit the ostensible subject of his book. Gladwell does not
    discuss "love at first sight," which would be a good illustration of
    the unreliability of rapid cognition.

    In discussing racial discrimination, Gladwell distinguishes between
    "unconscious attitudes" and "conscious attitudes. That is what we
    choose to believe." But beliefs are not chosen. You might think it
    very nice to believe in the immortality of the soul, but you could not
    will yourself (at least if you are intellectually honest) to believe
    it. Elsewhere he remarks of someone that when he is excited "his eyes
    light up and open even wider." But eyes don't light up; it is only by
    opening them wider that one conveys a sense of excitement. The
    metaphor of eyes lighting up is harmless, but one is surprised to find
    it being used by a writer who is at pains to explain exactly how we
    read intentions in facial expressions--and it is not by observing
    ocular flashes.


    T his book also succumbs to the fallacy that people with good ideas
    must be good people. Everyone in the book who gets psychology right is
    not only or mainly a bright person, he is also a noble human being; so
    there is much emphasis, Kerry-like, on Van Riper's combat performance
    in the Vietnam War, without explicitly mentioning that he went on to
    become a lieutenant-general. Such pratfalls, together with the
    inaptness of the stories that constitute the entirety of the book,
    make me wonder how far Gladwell has actually delved into the
    literatures that bear on his subject, which is not a new one. These
    include a philosophical literature illustrated by the work of Michael
    Polanyi on tacit knowledge and on "know how" versus "know that"; a
    psychological literature on cognitive capabilities and distortions; a
    literature in both philosophy and psychology that explores the
    cognitive role of the emotions; a literature in evolutionary biology
    that relates some of these distortions to conditions in the "ancestral
    environment" (the environment in which the human brain reached
    approximately its current level of development); a psychiatric
    literature on autism and other cognitive disturbances; an economic
    literature on the costs of acquiring and absorbing information; a
    literature at the intersection of philosophy, statistics, and
    economics that explores the rationality of basing decisions on
    subjective estimates of probability (Bayes's Theorem); and a
    literature in neuroscience that relates cognitive and emotional states
    to specific parts of and neuronal activities in the brain.

    Taken together, these literatures demonstrate the importance of
    unconscious cognition, but their findings are obscured rather than
    elucidated by Gladwell's parade of poorly understood yarns. He wants
    to tell stories rather than to analyze a phenomenon. He tells them
    well enough, if you can stand the style. (Blink is written like a book
    intended for people who do not read books.) And there are interesting
    and even illuminating facts scattered here and there, such as the
    blindfold "sip" test that led Coca-Cola into the disastrous error of
    changing the formula for Coke so that it would taste more like Pepsi.
    As Gladwell explains, people do not decide what food or beverage to
    buy solely on the basis of taste, let alone taste in the artificial
    setting of a blindfold test; the taste of a food or a drink is
    influenced by its visual properties. So that was a case in which less
    information really was less, and not more. And of course he is right
    that we may drown in information, so that to know less about a
    situation may sometimes be to know more about it. It is a lesson he
    should have taken to heart.

    [31]Richard A. Posner is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals
    for the Seventh Circuit and a senior lecturer at the University of
    Chicago Law School.

References

   31. http://www.tnr.com/showBio.mhtml?pid=62

From checker at panix.com  Mon Feb  7 22:36:33 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 17:36:33 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Robert Conquest: Downloading Democracy
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502071735140.14224@panix2.panix.com>

Robert Conquest: Downloading Democracy
http://www.nationalinterest.org/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications::Article&mid=1ABA92EFCD8348688A4EBEB3D69D33EF&tier=4&id=235512C943E7401BA568C1A1CD5F24ED
Issue Date: Winter 2004/05, Posted On: 12/22/2004

    The common addiction to general words or concepts tends to produce
    mind blockers or reality distorters. As Clive James has put it,
    "verbal cleverness, unless its limitations are clearly and
    continuously seen by its possessors, is an unbeatable way of blurring
    reality until nothing can be seen at all."

    "Democracy" is high on the list of blur-begetters--not a weasel word
    so much as a huge rampaging Kodiak bear of a word. The conception is,
    of course, Greek. It was a matter of the free vote by the public
    (though confined to males and citizens). Pericles, praising the
    Athenian system, is especially proud of the fact that policies are
    argued about and debated before being put into action, thus, he says,
    "avoiding the worst thing in the world", which is to rush into action
    without considering the consequences. And, indeed, the Athenians did
    discuss and debate, often sensibly.

    Its faults are almost as obvious as its virtues. And examples are
    many--for instance, the sentencing of Socrates, who lost votes because
    of his politically incorrect speech in his own defense. Or the
    Athenian assembly voting for the death of all the adult males and the
    enslavement of all the women and children of Mytilene, then regretting
    the decision and sending a second boat to intercept, just in time, the
    boat carrying the order. Democracy had the even more grievous result
    of procuring the ruin of Athens, by voting for the disastrous and
    pointless expedition to Syracuse against the advice of the more
    sensible, on being bamboozled by the attractive promises of the
    destructive demagogue Alcibiades.

    Even in failure, the thought-fires it set off went on burning. But the
    views it posed did not really return to Europe and elsewhere until a
    quarter of a millennium ago. Thus it was not its example but its
    theory that hit the inexperienced thinkers of the European
    Enlightenment. Unfortunately, the inheritance was less about the
    Periclean need for debate than about the need to harness the people
    (to a succession of rulers). And though the broader forces of real
    consensual rule began to penetrate, from England and elsewhere (such
    as the early New England town meetings or those of Swiss rural
    cantons), they had to compete in the struggle for the vote with
    inexperienced populations and "philosophical" elites.

    The revival of the concept of democracy on the European continent saw
    this huge stress on the demos, the people. They could not in fact
    match the direct participation of the Athenian demos, but they could
    be "represented" by any revolutionary regime claiming to do so--often
    concerned, above all, to repress "enemies of the people." Also, the
    people, or those of military age, could be conscripted in bulk--the
    levZe en masse that long defeated more conventional armies. As the
    19th century continued, the people could be polled in plebiscites and
    thus democratically authenticated. Napoleon III, of course, relied on
    this, and it is clear that he actually had high majority support. In
    any case, the new orders, democratic or not, had to seek or claim
    authentication by the people, the masses, the population.

    Another aspect of premature "democracy" is the adulation of what used
    to be and might still be called "the city mob" (noted by Aristotle as
    ochlocracy). In France, of course, in the 1790s, a spate of ideologues
    turned to the Paris mob, in riot after riot, until the 18th Brumaire,
    Napoleon's coup of 1799. The ploy was that, as A. E. Housman put it, a
    capital city with far fewer inhabitants could decide the fate of the
    country's millions.

    That democracy is not the only, or inevitable, criterion of social
    progress is obvious. If free elections give power to a repression of
    consensuality, they are worse than useless. We will presumably not
    forget that Hitler came to power in 1933 by election, with mass and
    militant support. The communist coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948 was
    effected by constitutional intrigues backed by "mass demonstrations."
    We need hardly mention the "peoples' democracies" and the 90 percent
    votes they always received. As to later elections, a few years ago
    there was a fairly authentic one in Algeria. If its results had been
    honored, it would have replaced the established military rulers with
    an Islamist political order. This was something like the choice facing
    Pakistan in 2002. At any rate, it is not a matter on which the simple
    concepts of democracy and free elections provide us with clear
    criteria.

    "Democracy" is often given as the essential definition of Western
    political culture. At the same time, it is applied to other areas of
    the world in a formal and misleading way. So we are told to regard
    more or less uncritically the legitimacy of any regime in which a
    majority has thus won an election. But "democracy" did not develop or
    become viable in the West until quite a time after a law-and-liberty
    polity had emerged. Habeas corpus, the jury system and the rule of law
    were not products of "democracy", but of a long effort, from medieval
    times, to curb the power of the English executive. And democracy can
    only be seen in any positive or laudable sense if it emerges from and
    is an aspect of the law-and-liberty tradition.

    Institutions that differ in the United States and the United Kingdom
    have worked (though forms created in other countries that were
    theoretically much the same have often collapsed). That is to say, at
    least two formally different sets of institutions have generally
    flourished. It seems that the main thing they share is not so much the
    institutions as the habits of mind, which are far more crucial, and,
    above all, the acceptance of the traditional rules of the political
    game.

    More broadly, in the West it has been tradition that has been
    generally determinant of public policy. Habituation is more central to
    a viable constitution than any other factor. Even the Western
    "democracies" are not exactly models of societies generated by the
    word, the abstract idea. Still they, or some of them, roughly embody
    the concept, as we know it, and at least are basically consensual and
    plural--the product of at best a long evolution.

    The countries without at least a particle of that background or
    evolution cannot be expected to become instant democracies; and if
    they do not live up to it, they will unavoidably be, with their
    Western sponsors, denounced as failures. Democracy in any Western
    sense is not easily constructed or imposed. The experience of Haiti
    should be enough comment.

    What we can hope for and work for is the emergence, in former rogue or
    ideomaniac states, of a beginning, a minimum. The new orders must be
    non-militant, non-expansionist, non-fanatical. And that goes with, or
    tends to go with, some level of internal tolerance, of plural order,
    with some real prospect of settling into habit or tradition.

    Democracy cannot work without a fair level of political and social
    stability. This implies a certain amount of political apathy. Anything
    resembling fanaticism, a domination of the normal internal debate by
    "activists" is plainly to be deplored. And democracy must accept
    anomalies. As John Paul Jones, the American naval hero, sensibly put
    it in 1775, "True as may be the political principles for which we are
    now contending, . . . the ships themselves must be ruled under a
    system of absolute despotism." The navy, indeed, is an extreme case;
    no democratization in any real degree makes sense, any more than it
    does in, say, a university, at the other end of the spectrum.

    Democratization of undemocratizable institutions is sometimes
    doubtless the expression of a genuine utopian ideal, as when the
    Jacobins by these means destroyed the French navy. But more often it
    is (in the minds of the leading activists, at least) a conscious
    attempt to ruin the institutions in question, as when the Bolsheviks
    used the idea to destroy the old Russian army. When this, among other
    things, enabled them to take power themselves, they were the first to
    insist on a discipline even more vigorous.

    In its most important aspect, civic order is that which has created a
    strong state while still maintaining the principle of consensus that
    existed in primitive society. Such an aim involves the articulation of
    a complex political and social order. The strains cannot be eliminated
    but can be continually adjusted. Political civilization is thus not
    primarily a matter of the goodwill of leadership or of ideal
    constitutions. It is, above all, a matter of time in custom.

    All the major troubles we have had in the last half century have been
    caused by people who have let politics become a mania. The politician
    should be a servant and should play a limited role. For what our
    political culture has stood for (as against the principles of total
    theorists and abstractionists) is the view of society as a developing
    and broadening of established liberties and responsibilities, and the
    belief, founded on experience, that in political and social matters,
    long-term predictions, however exciting and visionary, seldom work
    out.

    Democracy is almost invariably criticized by revolutionaries for the
    blemishes found in any real example, as compared with the grand
    abstraction of the mere word. Real politics is full of what it would
    be charitable to call imperfections. And there are those who, often
    without knowing it, become apologists and finally accomplices of the
    closing of society. As Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist (No.
    1),

    "A dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of
    zeal for the rights of the people, than under the forbidding
    appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government.
    History will teach us, that the former has been found a much more
    certain road to the introduction of despotism, than the latter."

    But with a civic culture it is more clearly a matter of a basis on
    which improvements can be made. For a civic society is a society in
    which the various elements can express themselves politically, in
    which an articulation exists between those elements at the political
    level: not a perfect social order, which is in any case unobtainable,
    but a society that hears, considers and reforms grievances. It is not
    necessarily democratic, but it contains the possibility of democracy.

    We cannot predict. The near future teems with urgent problems, with as
    yet irresoluble balances of force and thought. The law-and-liberty
    cultures may flourish, and as yet unpromising regions may over a
    period bring not merely the forms but the habits of consensuality to
    their populations. Let us hope.

    Everywhere we always find the human urges to preserve at least a
    measure of personal autonomy, on the one hand, and to form communal
    relationships, on the other. It is the latter that tends to get out of
    hand. To form a national or other such grouping without forfeiting
    liberties and without generating venom against other such
    groupings--such is the problem before the world. To cope with it, we
    need careful thinking, balanced understanding, open yet unservile
    minds.

    And this is also why we still need to be careful about the signing of
    international treaties and the acceptance of international tribunals
    that appeal to a certain internationalist idealism, but one that needs
    to be carefully deployed. It is surely right to note that the
    acceptance of international obligations, and nowadays especially those
    affecting the policies, interests and traditional rights and powers of
    the states of established law and liberty, must be preceded by, at the
    least, negotiation that is careful, skeptical and unaffected by
    superficial generalities, however attractive at first sight.
    Permitting international bodies to intrude into the law-and-liberty
    countries also involves the institutionalization, on purely abstract
    grounds, of an as yet primitive apparat.

    A very important trouble with international arrangements of all types
    has also been that Western governments sign on to policies that have
    not been properly (or at all) argued or debated by their publics or
    legislatures. Thus these arrangements are a means of giving more power
    to their own executive branches and, of course, more power to the
    international bureaucracies and permanent staff.

    In particular, the UN, like the EU, approaches "human rights" on the
    basis of the general high-mindedness of the Continental Enlightenment.
    Declarations are made, agreements are reached. It is taken for granted
    that many states--about half the membership of the UN--will not in
    fact conform. And in the regions where liberty largely prevails, the
    signatories find their own countries denounced, often by their own
    citizens. The result is that under abstract human rights definitions,
    every state in the West that submits to treaties of the human rights
    sort lays itself open to aggressive litigation. As the late Raymond
    Aron, who spent so much of his life trying to educate the French
    intelligentsia, put it, "every known regime is blameworthy if one
    holds it to an abstract idea of equality over liberty."


From checker at panix.com  Mon Feb  7 22:43:50 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 17:43:50 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Wilson Q.: Higher Ed, Inc. by James B. Twitchell
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502071737480.14224@panix2.panix.com>

Higher Ed, Inc. by James B. Twitchell 
http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=105061

    In the early afternoon of December 2, 1964, Mario Savio took off his
    shoes and climbed onto the hood of a car. Savio was a junior majoring
    in philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, and he was
    upset that the administration of the university had arrested a handful
    of students and forbidden student groups to set up tables promoting
    various political and social causes. So he put himself upon the gears
    of the machine:

    If this is a firm, and if the Board of Regents are the board of
    directors, and if President Kerr in fact is the manager, then Ill tell
    you something: The faculty are a bunch of employees, and were the raw
    material! But were a bunch of raw material[s] that dont mean to have
    any process upon us, dont mean to be made into any product, dont mean
    to end up being bought by some clients of the university, be they the
    government, be they industry, be they organized labor, be they anyone!
    Were human beings!

    In the four decades since Savios expression of defiance, Higher Ed,
    Inc., has become a huge business indeed. And as is typical of
    absorbent capitalism, it does not deny its struggles so much as market
    them. Mario Savio died in 1996. To honor his activism and insight, the
    academic senate at Berkeley agreed to name a set of steps in Sproul
    Plaza, the site of many political speeches, the Savio Steps. In an
    interesting bit of corporate assimilation, Savio became a lasting part
    of his own observations: He himself got branded.

    Although Mario Savio didnt mention it, the success story of Higher Ed,
    Inc., is based foursquare on the very transformation that allowed him
    access to Berkeley. For each generation since World War II, the doors
    to higher education have opened wider. Unquestionably, university
    education is the key component in a meritocracy, the sine qua non of
    an open market. A university degree is the stamp that sayswhether its
    true or notthis kid is educated, qualified, smart. The more
    prestigious the university, in theory, the smarter the kid. And
    increased access to university life has succeeded beyond anyones
    wildest expectation. In fact, the current dilemma is the price of
    success. There are too many seats, too much supply, and not enough
    Marios. The boom is over. Now the marketing begins.

    Counting everything but its huge endowment holdings, Higher Ed, Inc.,
    is a $250 to $270 billion businessbigger than religion, much bigger
    than art. And though no one in the business will openly admit it,
    getting into college is a cinch. The problem, of course, is that too
    many students want to get into the same handful of nameplate colleges,
    making it seem that the entire market is tight. It most certainly is
    not. Heres the crucial statistic: There are about 2,500 four-year
    colleges in this country, and only about 100 of them refuse more
    applicants than they accept. Most schools accept 80 percent or more of
    those who apply. Its the rare student who cant get in somewhere.

    The explosive growth of Higher Ed, Inc., is evident in increasing
    enrollments, new construction, expanding statewide university systems,
    more federal monies, and changes in the professoriate. In the 1950
    census, for example, there were 190,000 faculty members. A decade
    later, shortly before Savio took to the hood of the car, there were
    281,000. In 1970, when I entered the ranks, there were 532,000, and in
    1998, the latest year for which figures are available from the U.S.
    Department of Education, some 1,074,000. And remember, what
    distinguishes the academic world is a lifetime hold on employment.
    About 70 percent of todays faculty have tenured or tenure-track jobs.
    Even ministers get furloughed. Museum directors get canned. But make
    it through the tenure process, and youre set forever.

    At the turn of the 20th century, one percent of high school graduates
    attended college; that figure is now close to 70 percent. This is an
    industry that produces a yearly revenue flow more than six times the
    revenue generated by the steel industry. Woe to the state without a
    special funding program (with the word merit in it) that assures
    middle-class kids who graduate in the upper half of their high school
    class a pass to State U. College has become what high school used to
    be, and thanks to grade inflation, its almost impossible to flunk out.

    If real estates motto is location, location, location, higher
    educations is enrollment, enrollment, enrollment. College enrollment
    hit a record level of 14.5 million in fall 1998, fell off slightly,
    and then reached a new high of 15.3 million in 2000. How did this
    happen, when the qualified applicant pool remained relatively stable?
    Despite decreases in the traditional college-age population during the
    1980s and early 1990s, total enrollment increased because of the high
    enrollment rate of students who previously had been excluded. What has
    really helped Higher Ed, Inc., is its ability to open up new markets.
    Although affirmative action was certainly part of court-mandated fair
    play, it was also a godsend. It insulated higher education from the
    market shocks suffered by other cultural institutions. In addition,
    universities have been able to extend their product line upward, into
    graduate and professional schools. Another growth market? Foreign
    students. No one talks about it much, but this market has been
    profoundly affected by 9/11. Foreign students have stopped coming.
    There are enough rabbits still in the python that universities havent
    been affected yet. But they will be.

    What makes this enrollment explosion interesting from a marketing
    point of view is that Savios observations (the faculty are a bunch of
    employees, and were the raw material) have been confirmed. What he
    didnt appreciate is that instead of eating up raw material and
    spitting it out, Higher Ed, Inc., has done something far more
    interesting. As it has grown, its content has been profoundly
    changeddumbed down, some would say. Theres a reason for that. At the
    undergraduate level, its now in the business of delivering consumer
    satisfaction.

    I teach at a large public university, the University of Florida. As I
    leave the campus to go home, I bike past massive new construction.
    Heres whats being built. On my distant left, the student union is
    doubling in size: food court, ballrooms, cineplex, bowling alley,
    three-story hotel, student legal services and bicycle repair (both
    free), career counseling, and all manner of stuff that used to belong
    in the mall, including a store half the size of a football field with
    a floor devoted to selling what is called spiritware (everything you
    can imagine with the school logo and mascot), an art gallery, video
    games, an optical store, a travel agency, a frame store, an outdoor
    outfitter, and a huge aquarium filled with only orange and blue (the
    school colors) fish. On a normal day some 20,000 patrons pass through
    the building. The student union is looking eerily like a department
    store. So is the university.

    On my immediate left, I pass the football stadium. One side of it is
    being torn apart to add a cluster of skyboxes. Skyboxes are a valuable
    resource, as they are almost pure profit. The state is not paying for
    them. The athletic department is. They will be rented mainly to
    corporations to allow their VIPs air-conditioned splendor high above
    the hoi polloi. The skyboxes have granite countertops, curved
    ceilings, and express elevators. In a skybox, you watch the football
    game on television. Better yet, the skyboxes allow whats forbidden to
    the groundlings: alcohol. How expensive are these splendid aeries?
    There are 347 padded 21-inch seats in the Bull Gator Deck. Theyll run
    you $14,000 a person, and you get only four games in the box. For the
    other four, youre in the stands. Dont worry about doing the math. The
    boxes are already sold out. I teach in a huge building that looks like
    the starship Enterprise. It houses classrooms and faculty offices and
    cost $10 million when it was built a few years ago. These skyboxes and
    some club seats are coming in at $50 million. Everyone agrees, the
    skyboxes are a good idea. Theyll make money. Better yet, theyll build
    the brand.

    Across from the football stadium, at the edge of the campus on my
    right, is the future of my institution. I pass an enormous new
    building with a vast atrium of aggressively wasted space. This
    building houses the headquarters of the University of Florida Foun-
    dation. The foundation funnels millions of dollars of private money
    the state will never know about into and through various parts of the
    university. I dont complain. No one does. Two decades ago, the
    foundation gave nothing to the English department; now, about a
    hundred grand a year comes our way. In front of the foundation, where
    a statue of some illustrious donor or beloved professor would stand at
    an elite school, is a bronze statue of the athletic departments
    trademarked mascots, Albert and Alberta Alligator.

    On this side of campus, enrollment, enrollment, enrollment is becoming
    endowment, endowment, endowment. Americans donate more money to higher
    education than to any other cause except religion. And Florida, with
    its millions of retirees looking for memorial opportunities, is a cash
    cow just waiting for the farmers gentle hands. The residents of
    Florida have almost no interest in funding education, especially not
    K-12 education, which really is in dire shape. But there are wads of
    money to fund bits and pieces of the campus in exchange for good
    feelings and occasional naming rights.

    American colleges and universities raise about $25 billion a year from
    private sources. Public universities are new to this game, but theyve
    learned that its where the action is. Private dollars now account for
    about 30 percent of the University of Illinois annual budget, about 20
    percent of Berkeleys, and about 10 percent of Floridas. In a sense,
    tuition-paying undergrads are now the loss leaders in the enterprise.
    What used to be the knowledge business has become the business of
    selling an experience, an affiliation, a commodity that can be
    manufactured, packaged, bought, and sold. Dont misunderstand. The
    intellectual work of universities is still going on and has never been
    stronger. Great creative acts still occur, and discoveries are made.
    But the experience of higher education, all the accessories, the
    amenities, the aura, has been commercialized, outsourced, franchised,
    branded. The professional manager has replaced the professor as the
    central figure in delivering the goods.

    From a branding point of view, what happens in the classroom is beside
    the point. I mean that literally. The old image of the classroom as
    fulfillment of the Socratic ideal is no longer even invoked. Higher
    Ed, Inc., is more like a sawmill. A few years ago, Harvard University
    started a small department called the Instructional Computing Group,
    which employs several people to videotape about 30 courses a semester.
    Although it was intended for students who unavoidably missed class, it
    soon became a way not to attend class. Any enrolled student could
    attend on the Web, fast-forwarding through all the dull parts. This is
    distance education from a dorm room, at an advertised $37,928 a year.

    Elite schools are no longer in the traditional education business.
    They are in the sponsored research and edutainment business. What they
    offer is just one more thing that you shop for, one more thing you
    consume, one more story you tell and are told. Its no accident that
    you hear students talking about how much the degree costs and how much
    its worth. Thats very much how the schools themselves talk as they
    look for new sources of research or developmental funding. In many
    schools theres even a period called shopping around, in which the
    student attends as many classes as possible looking for a fit, almost
    like channel surfing.

    So we do college as we do lunch or do shopping or do church. Thats
    because for most students in the upper-tier schools the real activity
    is getting in and then continuing on into the professional schools. No
    one cares whats taught in grades 1316. How many times have I heard my
    nonacademic friends complain that theres no coherence in the courses
    their kids are exposed to? Back in the 1950s, introductory courses
    used the same textbooks, not just intramurally but extramurally. So
    Introduction to Writing (freshman English) used the same half-dozen
    handbooks all across the country. No longer. The writing courses are a
    free-for-all. Ditto the upper-level courses. Here are some subjects my
    department covers in what used to be English 101, the vanilla
    composition course: attitudes toward marriage, business, bestsellers,
    carnivals, computer games, fashion, horror films, The Simpsons,
    homophobia, living arrangements, rap music, soap operas, Elvis,
    sports, theme parks, AIDS, play, and the ever-popular marginalization
    of this or that group.

    But cries that the classroom is being dumbed down or politicized miss
    the point. Hardly anyone in Higher Ed, Inc., cares about what is
    taught, because that is not our charge. We are not in the business of
    transmitting what E. D. Hirsch would call cultural literacy; nor are
    we in the business of teaching the difference between the right word
    and the almost right word, as Mark Twain might have thought important.
    Were in the business of creating a total environment, delivering an
    experience, gaining satisfied customers, and applying the smart stamp
    when they head for the exits. The classroom reflects this. Our real
    business is being transacted elsewhere on campus.

    The most far-reaching changes in postsecondary education are not seen
    on the playing fields or in the classroom or even in the admissions
    office. Theyre inside the administration, in an area murkily called
    development. If you dont believe it, enter the administration building
    of any school that enrolls more than 10,000 students (10 percent of
    campuses of that size or larger now account for a shade less than 50
    percent of all students) and ask for the university development
    office. Youll notice how, on this part of the campus, the carpets are
    thick, the wainscoting is polished, and the lights are dimmed. Often,
    the development office has a new name picked up from the corporate
    model. Sometimes its hidden inside Public Affairs, or, more commonly,
    Public Relations. My favorite: University Advancement. The driving
    force at my university is now the University of Florida Foundation.

    Development is both PR and fundraising, the intersection of getting
    the brand out and the contributions in, and daily it becomes more
    crucial. Thats because schools like mine have four basic revenue
    streams: student tuition, research funding, public (state) support,
    and private giving. The least important is tuition; the most
    prestigious is external research dollars; the most fickle is state
    support; and the most remunerative is what passes through the
    development office. Leaf through The Chronicle of Higher Education,
    the weekly journal of the industry, and youll see how much newsprint
    is devoted to the comings and goings of development. Consider where
    the development office is housed on most campuses, often right beside
    the presidents office, and note how many people it employs.

    At many schools, theres also a buried pipeline that connects the
    development office with the admissions office. Most academic
    administrators prefer that it be buried deep, but from time to time
    someone digs it up. In The Wall Street Journal for February 3, 2003,
    Daniel Golden reported on how the formal practice of giving preference
    to students whose parents are wealthycalled development admitshas
    profound implications not just for affirmative action but for the
    vaunted academic ideal of fair play.

    Remember the scene in the third season of The Sopranos when Carmella
    has a lunch meeting with the dean of Columbia Universitys
    undergraduate school? She thinks the lunch is about her daughter
    Meadow, but the dean wants a little development money. Carmella
    listens to his charming patter before being hit with the magic number
    of $50,000. She goes to Tony, who protests that the Ivy League is
    extorting them and says he wont give more than five gs. But the dean
    eventually gets his 50 gs; Tony, the consummate shakedown artist, has
    met his match.

    When enrollments began to escalate in the 1960s, what used to be a
    pyramid systemwith rich, selective schools at the top (read Ivy League
    and a handful of other elites) and then a gradation downward through
    increasing supply and deceasing rigor to junior and community college
    systems at the basebecame an hourglass lying on its side. Theres now a
    small bubble of excellent small schools on one side (Ivy League
    schools qualify as small) that are really indistinguishable, and, on
    the other, a big bubble of huge schools of varying quality. The most
    interesting branding is occurring on the small-bubble side, as premier
    schools vie for dominance, but the process is almost exactly the same,
    although less intense, for the big suppliers.

    Good schools have little interest in the bachelors degree. In fact,
    the better the school, the less important the terminal undergraduate
    degree. The job of the student is to get in, and the job of the elite
    school is to get the student out into graduate school. The schools
    certify students as worthy of further education, in law, medicine, the
    arts, or business.

    Premier schools have to separate their students from the rest of the
    pack by generating a story about how special they are. We have the
    smart ones, they say. Thats why they care little about such hot-button
    issues as grade inflation, teaching quality, student recommendations,
    or even the curriculum. Its not in their interest to tarnish the brand
    by drawing distinctions among their students. These schools
    essentially let the various testsLSAT, MCAT, GREmake the distinctions
    for them. And, if you notice, they never divulge how well their
    students do on those tests to the outside world. They have this
    information, but they keep it to themselves. Theyre not stupid; they
    have to protect the brand for incoming consumers because thats where
    they really compete.

    In one of the few candid assessments of the branding of Higher Ed,
    Inc., Robert L. Woodbury, former chancellor of the University of Maine
    system, noted the folly of the current institutional U.S. News and
    World Report rankings:

    When Consumer Reports rates and compares cars, it measures them on the
    basis of categories such as performance, safety, reliability, and
    value. It tries to measure outputsin short, what the car does. U.S.
    News mostly looks at inputs (money spent, class size, test scores of
    students, degrees held by faculty), rather than assessing what the
    college or university actually accomplishes for students over the
    lives of their enrollment. If Consumer Reports functioned like U.S.
    News, it would rank cars on the amount of steel and plastic used in
    their construction, the opinions of competing car dealers, the driving
    skills of customers, the percentage of managers and sales people with
    MBAs, and the sticker price on the vehicle (the higher, the better).

    The emphasis on inputs explains why the elite schools arent threatened
    by what others fear: the much-ballyhooed click universities, such as
    the University of Phoenix and Sylvan Learning Systems, Inc., because
    those schools generate no peer effects. So, too, theres no threat from
    corporate universities, such as those put together by Microsoft,
    Motorola, and Ford, or even from the Open University of England and
    The Learning Annex. The industrial schools have not yet made their
    presence felt, though they will. The upper tier on the small side of
    the hourglass is not threatened by learning at a distance or
    drive-through schools, because the elites are not as concerned with
    learning as they are with maintaining selectivity at the front door
    and safe passage to still-higher education at the back door.

    So whats it like at the upper end among the deluxe brand-name schools,
    where Harry Winston competes with Tiffany, where Louis Vuitton elbows
    Prada, where Lexus dukes it out with Mercedes? In a word, its brutal,
    an academic arms race.

    How did the competition become so intense? Until 1991, the Ivy League
    schools and the Massachusetts Institute of Tecnology met around a
    conference table each April to fix financial aid packages for students
    who had been admitted to more than one school. That year, after the
    Justice Department sued the schools, accusing them of antitrust
    violations, the universities agreed to stop the practice. As happened
    with Major League Baseball after television contracts made the teams
    rich, bidding pandemonium broke out. Finite number of players + almost
    infinite cash = market bubble. Heres the staggering result. Over the
    past three decades, tuition at the most select schools has increased
    fivefold, nearly double the rate of inflation. Yet precious few
    students pay the full fare. The war is fought over who gets in and how
    much theyre going to have to be paid to attend.

    The fact of the matter is that the cost of tuition has become
    unimportant in the Ivy League. Like grade inflation, its
    uncontrollableand hardly anyone in Higher Ed, Inc., really cares. As
    with other luxury providers, the higher the advertised price, the
    longer the line. The other nifty irony is that, among elite schools,
    the more the consumer pays for formal education (or at least is
    charged), the less of it he or she gets. The mandated class time
    necessary to qualify for a degree is often less at Stanford than at
    State U. As a general rule, the better the school, the shorter the
    week. At many good schools, the weekend starts on Thursday.

    Ask almost anyone in the education industry whats the most overrated
    brand and theyll tell you Harvard. Its one of the most timid and
    derivative schools in the country, yet it has been able to maintain a
    reputation as the ?ber-brand. Think of any important change in higher
    education, and you can bet (1) that it didnt originate at Harvard, and
    (2) that if its central to popular recognition, Harvard now owns it.
    Why is Harvard synonymous with the ne plus ultra? Not because of what
    comes out of the place but because of what goes in: namely, the best
    students, the most contributed money, and, especially, the deepest
    faith in the brand. Everyone knows that Harvard is the most selective
    university, with a refusal rate of almost 90 percent. But more
    important, the school is obscenely rich, with an endowment of almost
    $20 billion. Remember that number. Its key to the brand. The endowment
    is greater than the assets of the Dell computer company, the gross
    domestic product of Libya, the net worth of all but five of the Forbes
    400, or the holdings of every nonprofit in the world except the Roman
    Catholic Church.

    In a marketing sense, the value of the endowment is not monetary but
    psychological: Any place with that many zeros after the dollar sign
    has got to be good. The huge endowments of the nameplate schools force
    other schools, the second-tier schools, to spend themselves into
    penury. So your gift to Harvard does more harm than good to the
    general weal of Higher Ed, Inc. It does, however, maintain the Harvard
    brand.

    With the possible exception of Harvard, the best schools are about as
    interchangeable as the second-tier ones. All premier schools have
    essentially the same teaching staff, the same student amenities, the
    same library books, the same wondrous athletic facilities, the same
    carefully trimmed lawns, the same broadband connection lines in the
    dorms. Look at the websites for the most selective schools, and youll
    see almost exactly the same images irrespective of place, supposed
    mission, etc. True, they may attempt to slide in some
    attention-getting fact (If you use our library, you may notice our
    Gutenberg Bible, or The nuclear accelerator is buried beneath the
    butterfly collection), but by and large the websites are like the soap
    aisle at Safeway.

    If you really want evidence of the indistinguishability of the elites,
    consider the so-called viewbook, the newest marketing tool sent to
    prospective applicants. The viewbook is a glossy come-on, bigger than
    a prospectus and smaller than a catalog, that sets the brand. As with
    the websites, what you see in almost every view is a never-ending loop
    of smiling faces of diverse backgrounds, classrooms filled with eager
    beavers, endless falling leaves in a blue-sky autumn, lush pictures of
    lacrosse, squash, and rugby (because football, basketball, and
    baseball are part of the mass-supplier brands), and a collection of
    students whose interests are just like yours. From a branding point of
    view, the viewbook is additionally interesting because it illustrates
    how repeating a claim is the hallmark of undifferentiated producers.
    Heres what Nicolaus Mills, an American studies professor at Sarah
    Lawrence College, found a decade ago, just as the viewbook was
    starting to become standardized. Every school had the same sort of
    glossy photographs proving the same claim of diversity:

    Diversity is the hallmark of the Harvard/Radcliffe experience, the
    first sentence in the Harvard University register declares. Diversity
    is the virtual core of University life, the University of Michigan
    bulletin announces. Diversity is rooted deeply in the liberal arts
    tradition and is key to our educational philosophy, Connecticut
    College insists. Dukes 5,800 undergraduates come from regions which
    are truly diverse, the Duke University bulletin declares. Stanford
    values a class that is both ethnically and economically diverse, the
    Stanford University bulletin notes. Brown University says, When asked
    to describe the undergraduate life at The Collegeand particularly
    their first strongest impression of Brown as freshmenstudents
    consistently bring up the same topic: the diversity of the student
    body.

    In this kind of marketing, Higher Ed, Inc., is like the crowd in Monty
    Pythons Life of Brian. Graham Chapman as Brian, the man mistaken for
    the Messiah, exhorts a crowd of devotees: Dont follow me! Dont follow
    anyone! Think for yourselves! You are all individuals! To which the
    crowd replies in perfect unison, Yes, Master, we are all individuals.
    We are all individuals. We are all individuals.

    The elite schools have to produce an entering class thats not just the
    best and brightest they can gather, but one that will demonstrate an
    unbridgeable quality gap between themselves and other schools. They
    need this entering class because its precisely what they will sell to
    the next crop of consumers. Its the annuity that gives them financial
    security. In other words, what makes Higher Ed, Inc., unlike other
    American industries is that its consumer value is based almost
    entirely on who is consuming the product. At the point of admissions,
    the goal is not money. The goal is to publicize whos getting in. Thats
    the product. Who sits next to you in class generates value.

    So its to the advantage of a good school to exploit the appearance of
    customer merit, not customer need. But how to pay for this competitive
    largesse if tuition is not the income spigot? At four-year private
    colleges and universities, fully three-quarters of all undergraduates
    get aid of some sort. In fact, 44 percent of all dependent students, a
    technical term that refers to young, single undergraduates with annual
    family incomes of $100,000 or less, get aid. What elite schools lose
    on tuition they recover elsewhere. Take Williams College, for example.
    The average school spends about $11,000 a student and takes in $3,500
    in tuition and fees; Williams, a superbrand, spends about $75,000 per
    student and charges, after accounting for scholarships and other
    items, a net of $22,000. Why? Because Williams figures that to
    maintain its brand value, to protect its franchise, it can
    superdiscount fees and make up the difference with the cash thats to
    come in the future. In theory, if an elite school could get the right
    student body, it would be in its best interest to give the product
    away: no tuition in exchange for the very best students. (Thats a
    policy not without risk, as Williams found last year when Moodys
    lowered its credit rating because the college had dipped too deeply
    into endowment to fund its extraordinary incoming class.)

    How does the brand sensitivity of the elite institutions affect the
    quality of the educational experience for the rest of us? How
    dangerous is it that schools follow the corporate model of marketing?
    The prestige school has other money pots than tuition. Every two
    weeks, for example, Harvards endowment throws off enough cash to cover
    all undergraduate tuition. But what happens to schools below the
    privileged top tier? They, too, have to discount their sticker prices
    to maintain perceived value. So competition at the top essentially
    raises costs everywhere, though only some schools have pockets deep
    enough to afford the increase. The escalation in competitive amenities
    is especially acute in venues where a wannabe school is next to an
    elite one.

    Things get worse the further you move from the top. To get the
    students it needs to achieve a higher ranking in annual surveysand
    thereby draw better students, who boost external giving, which
    finances new projects, raises salaries, and increases the endowment
    needed for getting better students, wholl win the institution a higher
    national ranking, which . . . etc.the second-tier school must
    perpetually treat students as transient consumers.

    Really good schools have all those so-called competitive amenities,
    all those things that attract students but have nothing to do with
    their oft-stated lofty mission and often get little useOlympic-quality
    gyms, Broadway-style theaters, personal trainers, glitzy student
    unions with movie theaters, and endless playing fields, mostly
    covered with grass, not athletes. This marketing madness is now
    occurring among the mass-supplier institutions. So the University of
    Houston has a $53 million wellness center with a five-story climbing
    wall; Washington State University has the largest Jacuzzi on the West
    Coast (it holds 53 students); Ohio State University is building a $140
    million complex featuring batting cages, ropes courses, and the
    now-essential climbing wall; and the University of Southern Missis-
    sippi is planning a full-fledged water park. These schools, according
    to Moodys, are selling billions of dollars of bonds for construction
    that has nothing whatsoever to do with education. Its all about
    branding.

    The commercialization of higher education has had many salutary
    effects: wider access, the dismantling of discriminatory practices,
    increased breadth and sophistication in many fields of research, and
    an intense, often refreshing, concern about customer relations. But
    consider other consequences for a place such as the University of
    Florida, which is a typical mass-provider campus. To get the student
    body we need for a respectable spot in the national rankings, we
    essentially give the product away. We have no choice. Other states
    will take our best students if we dont. Ivy League monies come from
    endowment and have the promise of being replenished if the school
    retains its reputation. But state universities are heavily dependent
    on the largesse of state legislatures, and to keep the money coming
    they need to be able to boast about their ability to attract the
    states best and brightest. So about half of them have been sucked into
    simple-minded plans that are essentially a subvention of education for
    middle-class kids. Everyone admits that most of these kids would go to
    college anyway. But would they go to the state system? Who wants to
    find out the hard way?

    Mario Savio was right. Before all else, the modern university is a
    business selling a branded product. The Age of Money has reshaped the
    terrain of higher education, writes David Kirp, of the Goldman School
    of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. Gone,
    except in the rosy reminiscences of retired university presidents, is
    any commitment to maintaining a community of scholars, an intellectual
    city on a hill free to engage critically with the conventional wisdom
    of the day. The hoary call for a marketplace of ideas has turned into
    a double-entendre.

    Administrators and the professoriate have not just allowed this
    transformation of the academy, theyve willingly, often gleefully,
    collaborated in it. The results have not been all bad. But the fact is
    that weve gone from artisanal guild to department store, from
    gatekeeper to ticket taker, from page turner to video clicker. This
    commodification, selling out, commercialization,
    corporatizationwhatever you want to call itis what happens when
    marketing becomes an end, not a means.

    Universities are making money by lending their names to credit card
    companies, selling their alumni lists, offering their buildings for
    naming rights, and extending their campuses to include retirement
    communities and graveyards. Its past time for the participants in
    Higher Ed, Inc., to recall what Savio said years ago: The university
    is being industrialized not by outside forces but by internal ones.
    Rather like the child who, after murdering his parents, asks for
    leniency because hes an orphan, universities grown plump feeding at
    the commercial trough now complain that theyve been victimized by the
    market. This contention of victimization is, of course, a central part
    of the modern Higher Ed, Inc., brand. The next words youll hear will
    be Please give. We desperately need your support!

    James B. Twitchell is a professor of English and advertising at the
    University of Florida, Gainesville. He is the author of many books,
    including most recently Living It Up: Americas Love Affair with Luxury
    (2002). This essay is drawn from his forthcoming book Branded Nation,
    to be published by Simon & Schuster.

    Total messages: 11    |   Started: 01/29/2005
    The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and in no
    way represent the views or opinions of the Woodrow Wilson
    International Center for Scholars.

    Higher Ed, Inc.
    A vastly entertaining and amusing article. Is it accurate? Well, for
    the most part, what is stated has been readily observable for some
    years in our institutions of higher learning. The author clearly makes
    the point that all of what has developed is not necessarily to be
    deplored. As a fellow observer, I would comment that, in fact, most of
    what has developed is an improvement over my personal experience in
    obtaining degrees in the 1950s and 1960s. Does the good Professor
    protest too much? Probably.
    Pat West, D.Sc.
    Posted by: Pat West 01/29/2005

    Reaction
    Prof Twitchell's article was provoking and insightful in exposing the
    marketing process. I was hoping he'd say something about resultant
    academic standards. My prof friends say it's bad.
    Posted by: Bob Foley 01/29/2005

    censorship at Folk U.
    Mario Savio is also intimately associated with "academic freedom" as
    he is credited with initiating the Free Speech Movement. Freedom of
    speech, however, is rapidly dying on America's campuses. In no slight
    way, this is attributable to the "commodification" of higher ed, and
    the view of students as cusomers/consumers. No one with power or
    influence objects to a corporation's "right" to censor its employees,
    it being understood that the First Amendment does not extend to the
    so-called "private sector." But that fussy distinction is being
    obscured all across the land, as corporate values swamp academia.
    Professors and students alike are being gagged everywhere, lest
    potential shoppers be offended and thus alienated.
    My region of the country--what some designate as the Sixth Reich whose
    capital is Censornati, Ohio--has already experienced the first stage
    of brutal repression and silencing at the hands of federal judges who
    despise their oath to uphold the Constitution. Free speech, once the
    hallmark of higher education, must defer to the commercial exigencies
    of America's new order.
    Ohio gave us the Kent State massacre in 1971; now it gives us snazzy
    concentration camps.
    Ohio Hitlist!
    Posted by: John C. Bonnell 01/30/2005

    The learnint communitiy might survive
    After thirty years on the faculty of an elite private liberal arts
    college conscious of the insidious shift from learning community to
    consumerist enclave, I made an interesting transition. I retired ten
    years ago and joined the faculty at a remote branch campus of a
    two-year tribal college in the Southwest with none of the amenities
    that Professor Twitchell describes. Instead I found myself teaching
    ill-prepared students struggling to catch up to their more privileged
    off-reservation peers. For many that means learning to read and write,
    to do research at the most basic level, to overcome economic and
    cultural obstacles totally foreign to students in the mainstream.
    While I find the challenges sometimes daunting, I take renewed
    pleasure in the teaching I do. Students come to campus not expecting
    wellness centers, food courts or bookstores that resemble giant
    boutiques. Instead, they want to master the computer keyboard, to
    learn algebra, to grow comfortable with the printed page, to make up
    in whatever way possible for the substandard educations they recieved
    in their previous schooling. Under those circumstances the classroom
    becomes central to the enterprise. Now as I watch students learn how
    to formulate an idea and put it in writing or discover the structure
    underlying a sonnet, I regain the idealism that drew me to an academic
    career in the first place and feel like I am in a learning community
    once again.
    Posted by: Paul Zolbrod 01/30/2005

    I simply want to second Professor Zolbrod's comment. I too teach at a
    non-elite, non-flagship school, and my experience is nothing like Dr.
    Twitchell's. I saw something of that in my grad and undergrad careers,
    but the reality is that for many schools, the kind of luxury that
    Twitchell describes is a distant fantasy. Our freshman comp courses
    teach basic composition, and do not drift off into various themes,
    because many of our students still have not mastered the most basic
    writing skills. My field is history - while I would enjoy teaching
    more esoteric material, the reality is all but my upper division
    specialty courses must focus primarily on cultural literacy, because
    my students do not have it. In our debate about the strengths and
    weaknesses of higher, and grade school, education, we must be careful
    to recognize the diversity of these institutions. Twitchell describes
    an institution living on some high-sugar diet, but many of us work in
    a very different world, with very different challenges.
    Posted by: Theron Corse 01/30/2005

    Foreign phrases, misuse of
    The definite article in the phrase "the hoi polloi" is redundant. Hoi
    polloi means (more or less) the public; hoi = the, get it?
    Professors of English in my day knew at least basic Greek
    Tsk tsk
    Posted by: Bryna Kaye 01/30/2005

    [spacer.gif] hoi polloi
    hmm, well in its ancient context it doesn't so much mean public as
    much as it means the common citizen (heavy infantry) as compared to
    the aristocratic citizen (calvary). both of which were upper class to
    some regard to the metics, slaves, etc. in athens. of course, uses
    vary these days.
    Posted by: jeremy hunsinger 01/31/2005


    Is Education Worse?
    Twitchell repeats an assertion one often hears now: that Universities
    no longer focus on academic and intellectual development and primarily
    concern themselves with "branding," creating an "experience," treating
    students as "consumers," and obtaining money and prestige.
    My question: was the University so intellectually centered in the good
    old days? Did students get a better education? How can one measure
    such things?
    While I don't think students at the university where I teach are
    getting the best education possible, I also think it could be true
    that they are being taught by more knowledgeable and more productive
    faculty than in years past. I'd like to hear about an empirical,
    convincing study that says that education has worsened in our
    universities because of the trends Twitchell is analyzing.
    Posted by: AG 01/30/2005

    [spacer.gif] Results
    This is an interesting article. However, it seems to condemn higher
    education without making any claims about the quality of the education
    students are receiving. The author makes a short comment about
    colleges not revealing LSAT, GRE, and other graduate test scores. He
    fails to actually show that students scores on these standardized
    tests have drop. A proper analysis would use time-series data at
    individual schools. While Dr. Twitchell may argue that a corporate
    mentality should be removed from higher education as an evil in and of
    itself, he certainly fails to show that it has had any negative
    effects on the quality of educaiton.
    One other thing to keep in mind. While colleges may not release the
    LSAT, MCAT, and GRE scores of their students, the relative quality of
    a schools students can be determined by looking at the composition of
    classes at top graduate programs. For instance, if a college is able
    to send a large number of students on to Harvard Law, they are
    probably providing a high quality education. Prospective students are
    very much concerned with what the quality of education a school
    provides, as they will want to get into good graduate programs or find
    good jobs when they graduate. While schools may be concerned with
    marketing a college experience, they also must market their academic
    program. In a corporate environment their is no getting around the
    fact that results matter, and colleges are always going to be
    concerned with producing top talent, as that alone will attract the
    next class of students.
    Posted by: Matt 01/30/2005

    You think this is bad?
    From the point of view of someone who works in the proprietary
    education industry, as I do, Prof. Twitchell's concern is almost
    quaint. In my industry, the apparatus that he decribes has been fully
    distilled into pure marketing. There are pros and cons, of course, as
    Prof. Twitchell and most others recognize. What does this all mean?
    Does it merely reflect changing American attitudes toward education?
    How would the average American react to this trend?
    Posted by: RMS 01/30/2005


    Dumbing down teaching materials
    I am the lead author on an introductory economics textbook
    ("Microeconomics in Context" -- Houghton Mifflin, 2005)and have looked
    at a lot of other textbooks, teachers' manuals, and other teaching
    aids, along with the literature on teaching this subject. There are a
    lot of criticisms of economics courses, reflecting the sad reality
    confessed by one Economics Department Chair: "our students hate us." I
    believe that the reason most students are turned off by their first
    exposure to economics (only 5% will go on to major in the subject) is
    that, as presented in most college classes, it bears little relation
    to the complexity of the real world. Unfortunately, the conclusion
    drawn in most academic discussions of the problem is that the subject
    is too complex -- and the suggested remedy is to simplify further.
    "Just pick half a dozen facts about the economic system, and don't try
    to teach anything else." The teaching aids similarly spoon-feed and
    dumb down. These observations relate to the treatment of students as
    consumers -- and also to the way the printed media increasingly acts
    as if it would be wrong and unreasonable to ask people to think. Ask
    people to think about real things of real importance to themselves,
    and they may rise to the challenge. But the commercialization of
    education as well as of the press makes that challenge seem too risky.
    Posted by: Neva Goodwin 01/30/2005

                                                          Related Articles
                          [34]The Revenge of the Nerds by Steven Lagerfeld
                      [35]Schools and the g Factor by Linda S. Gottfredson

References

   34. http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=105057
   35. http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=105059

From checker at panix.com  Mon Feb  7 22:48:30 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 17:48:30 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Wilson Q.: The Revenge of the Nerds by Steven
	Lagerfeld 
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502071747030.14224@panix2.panix.com>

The Revenge of the Nerds by Steven Lagerfeld 
http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=105057

    When Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein published The Bell Curve:
    Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life 10 years ago, the
    book provoked a more violent response than any other in recent memory.
    Enough heated reviews and articles appeared to fill several
    anthologies. Yet the critics said very little about one of Murray and
    Herrnsteins central contentions: that a high-IQ cognitive elite is
    consolidating a dominant position atop American society.

    Maybe that silence is understandable, given that the two men made
    several far more incendiary argumentsabout IQ as a source of
    intractable forms of social and economic inequality, and about the
    differences in IQ between whites and blacks. Then, in 2002, Richard
    Florida published The Rise of the Creative Class. Florida, a professor
    of economic development at Carnegie Mellon University, came at the
    question from the opposite end of the political spectrum, barely
    breathing the word intelligence while asserting that creative
    professionalsin reality, smart peopleincreasingly dominate American
    society. Florida argued that cities seeking to revive their fortunes
    need to do everything possible to attract his liberal, tolerant
    cultural creatives. Again there was controversy, but again it wasnt
    about one of the books key arguments. To critics in the universities
    and the news media, the notion that people like themselves possess
    extraordinary mental powers must have seemed obvious.

    In fact, the evidence for this view is debatable. But one thing we do
    know conclusively: The smart people who mold opinion in this country
    think its true.

    Its not just the academic and media elite who worship smarts. In this
    nation of casually anti-intellectual pragmatists, where Thomas Edison
    once brushed off the accolades heaped upon him with the observation
    that genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, it
    has become fashionable to be smart. Our books and movies reveal a
    fascination with the intellectually gifted: Einstein in Love, A
    Beautiful Mind, Good Will Hunting. In the highly popular Matrix
    trilogy, the heroes are hypertalented computer geeks chosen for their
    extraordinary ability to manipulate technology. The geek and the wonk,
    once social outcasts, are now cultural heroes. If you cant be smart,
    you can at least look the part by donning a pair of thick-rimmed
    eyeglasses and a shirt with a long, pointy collar, buttoned all the
    way up. The annual announcement of the MacArthur Foundations genius
    grants (a name the foundation disavows) is greeted as eagerly as the
    Queens Honors List in Britain. We have smart cars, smart mobs, and
    smart growth. Thanks to Smarty Jones, even horses appear to be getting
    smart.

    It may seem implausible to speak of a cult of smarts in the age of
    Paris Hilton and 30-second political attack ads, when it appears that
    America is being relentlessly dumbed down. But dont blame dumb people
    for that. Dumbing down is the idea of film and television executives,
    political consultants, newspaper magnates, and other very intelligent
    people. Its a shrewd moneymaking strategy. It also reveals one of the
    problems of putting too much stock in pure brainpower: Smart people
    are uniquely capable of producing noxious ideas.

    The triumph of these canny operators points to the key reason why
    intelligence has achieved such high status: Its not so much that
    brains have risen in our esteem as that other qualities have declined.
    Intelligence has always been respected and rewarded, but in the past
    it existed in a larger world of shared values that were intensively
    cultivated by social institutions. The consensus that supported this
    system has largely dissolved, and many of the personal and
    institutional virtues it encouraged have been weakened. But theres at
    least one quality about whose goodness we still seem able to agree:
    raw intelligence. It now enjoys a status akin to virtue.

    Why havent intellectuals and nascent philosopher-kings benefited much
    from the new status dispensation? Because Americans prefer their
    smarts in the form of relatively narrow expertise, and all the better
    if ratified by a significant paycheck. Intellectuals and academics win
    time in the sun only when they can convey specialized knowledge about
    subjects such as the economy and the Middle East.

    There are other, more tangible reasons for the elevation of
    intelligence. The transformation of the economy since World War II,
    with the decline of farming and manufacturing and the rise of service
    industries and technology, has put a new premium on education,
    training, and the smarts needed to obtain them. (Ironically, the
    public schools are one of the few institutions that have not come to
    terms with this reality.) Along with economic transformation came
    social change. Beginning in the 1950s, doors that had once been closed
    to the talented were thrown open; the less-than-brilliant son of an
    alumnus was no longer guaranteed admission to Harvardor to the
    American elite. Many bright people have had opportunities they would
    not have had in the past.

    Yet the rising value we attach to smarts exceeds any increase in their
    actual importance. Americas postwar changes are of relatively recent
    vintage, and there are other forms of economic and social inequality
    that still play a role in determining who rises. At the very highest
    levels of society, moreover, its hard to know whether some new
    increment of IQ is really needed. Do todays political and corporate
    leaders need to be smarter than yesterdays? Is there any evidence that
    they are ?

    Nowhere is the trend toward the worship of smartsand both its positive
    and negative consequencesmore apparent than in the business world. The
    corporate titan as cultural hero pretty much vanished from the
    American scene in the 1960s, and when he reappeared a couple of
    decades later, he had shed his sober, Ike-like mien and gray flannel
    suit and become a dazzling, iconoclastic genius in a polo shirt.
    Instead of drearily working their way to the top, todays exalted
    executives travel a route more like something out of a Harry Potter
    novel. Initially, the wunderkind finds his way to one of our most
    elite universities, which still proves inadequate to contain his
    prodigious mental energies, as in the case of Harvard dropout Bill
    Gates and the two founders of Google, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who
    abandoned a Stanford Ph.D. program. Then he retreats to a holy site
    (often a Silicon Valley garage), where theres a period of mysterious
    wizardry involving smoke and flashes of light before our hero emerges
    with his Creation. More years of struggle follow, and then comes the
    magical ceremony that finally earns him the mantle of true genius: the
    initial public offering.

    Turn the pages of a Fortune magazine from 50 years ago and you will
    encounter an entirely different kind of business leader. It was the
    world of Organization Men and team players. The first line of a
    profile of construction magnate Steve Bechtel describes him as a man
    who works himself to the bone. He has some of the old-time
    construction mans swagger and knows how to exert a certain force on
    other men. He is surrounded by tough, well-schooled engineers and
    executives. Sam Mosher, the head of Signal Oil & Gas, has five hard
    years of farming behind him and works very hard and seriously. Of
    course these men were smart, but in 1954 that was not a fact
    Fortune thought worth emphasizing. Successful business leaders were
    hard working, seasoned by experience, a bit macho.

    Brains can produce wonderful things. They gave us Google and cracked
    the human genetic code. But we tend to forget that big brains also ran
    Enron, MCI, and scores of short-lived technology company skyrockets.
    (One account of the Enron debacle is called The Smartest Guys in the
    Room.) During the mid-1990s, investors sank a fortune into Long-Term
    Capital Management, the now-infamous hedge fund, trusting in the
    scintillating brains of its two economists, Myron Scholes of Stanford
    University and Robert C. Merton of Harvard University, who had done
    pioneering work on the modeling of stock-price movements. For a time,
    the firm was fabulously successful. In 1997, Scholes and Merton won
    the Nobel Prize in economics. A year later, when the Russian bond
    market collapsed, Long-Term Capital Management lost $2 billion in the
    space of weeks and teetered on the edge of a collapse which, thanks to
    its intricate deals with Wall Street institutions, threatened to wipe
    out billions more in assets and trigger a global financial crisis.
    Only the intervention of the Federal Reserve saved the day.

    How could high intellect go so wrong? asked Edward Tenner, the author
    of Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended
    Consequences (1996). Easy. Brilliance is dangerous. It tempts those
    who have it to pronouncements that outrun experience and even common
    sense.

    Still, the hot pursuit of business genius goes on. Its seen in Wall
    Streets continuing quest for the next big idea. Its seen in the
    incredible increase in the pay of corporate CEOs. In the early 1970s,
    CEOs earned 30 to 35 times as much as the average corporate employee.
    Today the multiple is about 300, or $150,000 per week. Thats a
    paycheck only a superhuman could deserve.

    It ought to be clear that high intelligence is no guarantee of good
    political leadership, yet we incessantly discuss the raw intelligence
    of our leaders as if it would determine the quality of their
    performance in office. Journalist Daniel Seligman, who gathered
    information on U.S. presidents IQs from their biographies, reports
    that John F. Kennedy scored 119on the upper end of the normal range on
    the IQ scalebefore he entered Choate Academy, while the young Richard
    Nixon recorded an impressive 143. How many people now wish the smarter
    man had won the election of 1960? Before they went on trial at
    Nuremberg, the Nazi war criminals were given IQ tests that turned up
    uniformly high levels of intelligence: Albert Speer had an IQ of 128,
    Hermann Goering 138. In fact, research suggests that JFKs relatively
    modest IQ was just about perfect for the presidency, or most other
    leadership positions. Above that level, a persons ideas and language
    may become too complex for a mass audience, according to Dean Keith
    Simonton, a psychologist at the University of California at Davis.
    Other traits matter more. Many empirical studies confirm the central
    prediction that an IQ near 119 is the prescription for leader success,
    Simonton writes in Greatness: Who Makes History and Why (1994).

    Yet the reigning assumption in the world of opinion makers is that
    high intelligence is a singular qualification for leadership.
    Political parties, which were once reasonably effective at vetting
    politicians on the basis of other qualities, such as their judgment,
    loyalty, and character, are no longer strong enough to do that job. We
    are left instead to rely on other, more limited standards.

    If there were any doubt that intellectual brilliance is not the sine
    qua non of effective leadership, the case of former president Ronald
    Reagan should have put an end to it. Amid the remarkable bipartisan
    outpouring of admiration for Reagan during the week surrounding his
    funeral, a few critics dredged up the failings of the Reagan yearsthe
    budget deficits, the rise in poverty, Iran-contrabut hardly anybody
    seemed to recall one of the most damning charges the cognitive elite
    lodged against him in his day: that he was a simpleton, slow, a man
    who needed to have the world reduced to 3x5 index cards, a movie
    actor. Even some of Reagans friends and supporters on the right had
    their doubts about his intellectual candlepower, writes biographer Lou
    Cannon in President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime (1991). (Cannon,
    who covered Reagan for many years as a reporter, doesnt share those
    doubts, and offers an interesting portrait of Reagans brand of
    nonanalytic intelligence.)

    Now Reagan is hailed for his vision, his decisiveness and
    determination, his modesty and civility, his self-deprecating sense of
    humor. Some of these are traits that cant be taught, but the
    othersalong with still more that arent ordinarily attached to the 40th
    presidentare qualities American society once recognized as virtues and
    labored to cultivate and reward. The virtues went by names such as
    loyalty, fairness, discipline, hard work, and balanced judgment, and
    they were learned in school, in church, at the university, and in the
    wider world.

    In higher education, for example, the goal once was to mold a
    well-rounded person, grounded in many areas of learning and closely
    acquainted with the ideas and forces that had shaped the past. The
    modern university aims, reasonably enough, to create well-rounded
    classes, with the proper complement of violinists, designated ethnic
    groups, and lacrosse players. But it leaves individual students to
    look for meaning and direction on their own, or to burrow into the
    increasingly narrow and specialized disciplines that dominate the
    campus. Survive by your wits, they are told.

    At some level, we all seem to recognize that a world in which only
    wits matter is impossible. Far from the heights of the American
    corporation, for example, the people who search for talent administer
    batteries of personality tests and pray for job candidates with
    emotional intelligencea useful quality, perhaps, but in the end nearly
    as morally neutral as brainpower.

    Intelligence researchers themselves often say that smarts are an
    overrated quality, but the conversation then quickly moves on. We
    agree emphatically. . . , Herrnstein and Murray write in The Bell
    Curve, that the concept of intelligence has taken on a much higher
    place in the pantheon of human virtues than it deserves. Men and women
    of high
    intelligence certainly deserve our admiration, but our greatest
    admiration ought to be reserved for those who combine whatever mental
    gifts they have with virtues such as humanity, prudence, and wisdom.
    Ironically, it was left to a genius, Albert Einstein, to say it best:
    We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of
    course, powerful muscles, but no personality.

    Steven Lagerfeld is editor of The Wilson Quarterly.

    Total messages: 1    |   Started: 01/31/2005
    The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and in no
    way represent the views or opinions of the Woodrow Wilson
    International Center for Scholars.

    Wither egalitarianism?
    It is interesting that it is 'intelligence', rather than, say,
    learnedness or education that is the focus of attention. There is
    something anti-egalitarian in this; anyone (given opportunities) can
    become educated; intelligence, especially of the 'genius' and
    'brillance' variety would seem to be pretty much innate, or is
    certainly viewed as such; if there is any doubt about the centrality
    of this latter value the tales above about Gates, Brin and Page should
    make this clear - schooling didn't make them; if anything, it stood in
    their way.
    Those qualities mentioned in Fortune magazine from fifty years ago,
    such as hard-work, experience, seriousness, and interestingly enough,
    being 'well-schooled', are different in the sense that they would seem
    to be more easily obtainable by someone who doesn't have them, than an
    innate quality like intelligence is. If you just aren't all that
    bright, there's not much that any amount of effort on your part or
    from others (such as increased spending on public education) is going
    to do for you. But anyone can work harder, gain experience, adopt a
    serious outlook, and, most tellingly, become well-schooled, (the
    smarts of yore) with enough opportunity, desire and determination.
    Does this mean that social mobility in North-America is
    half-acknowledged as being on the wane, and that it has become
    fashionable to celebrate qualties that would seem to embody its
    opposite?
    Posted by: Paul Taborsky 01/31/2005


From checker at panix.com  Mon Feb  7 22:51:29 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 17:51:29 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Wilson Q.: Schools and the g Factor by Linda S.
	Gottfredson
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502071748320.14224@panix2.panix.com>

Schools and the g Factor by Linda S. Gottfredson 
http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=105059

    In the world of the American public school, few subjects are more
    controversial than intelligence. If theres a tension in American
    society between the ideal of equality and the pursuit of meritocracy,
    that tension escalates into the equivalent of a migraine headache in
    the schools. Called upon to produce young people fully prepared for
    citizenship and ready to meet the competitive challenges of the modern
    economy, the schools are also seen, at the same time, as the nations
    last best hope to level the playing field and ensure equal opportunity
    for all. In no American institution is the egalitarian strain of the
    American creed stronger. And the very notion that school performance
    is strongly influenced by general intelligencea quality partly
    inbornseems to contradict this deeply held ideal of equality.

    During the past few decades, the word intelligence has been attached
    to an increasing number of different forms of competence and
    accomplishmentemotional intelligence, football intelligence, and so
    on. Researchers in the field, however, have largely abandoned the
    term, together with their old debates over what sorts of abilities
    should and should not be classified as part of intelligence. Helped by
    the advent of new technologies for researching the brain, they have
    increasingly turned their attention to a century-old concept of a
    single overarching mental power. They call it simply g, which is short
    for the general mental ability factor. The g factor is a universal and
    reliably measured distinction among humans in their ability to learn,
    reason, and solve problems. It corresponds to what most people mean
    when they describe some individuals as smarter than others, and its
    well measured by IQ (intelligence quotient) tests, which assess
    high-level mental skills such as the ability to draw inferences, see
    similarities and differences, and process complex information of
    virtually any kind. Understanding gs biological basis in the brain is
    the new frontier in intelligence research today.

    The g factor was discovered by the first mental testers, who found
    that people who scored well on one type of mental test tended to score
    well on all of them. Regardless of their contents (words, numbers,
    pictures, shapes), how they are administered (individually or in
    groups; orally, in writing, or pantomimed), or what theyre intended to
    measure (vocabulary, mathematical reasoning, spatial ability), all
    mental tests measure mostly the same thing. This common factor, g, can
    be distilled from scores on any broad set of cognitive tests, and it
    takes the same form among individuals of every age, race, sex, and
    nation yet studied. In other words, the g factor exists independently
    of schooling, paper-and-pencil tests, and culture.

    Though there has been intense controversy about IQ tests over the
    years, psychologists continue to see them as valid and useful gauges
    of student potential. No longer routinely administered to whole school
    populationsachievement tests are much better suited to tasks such as
    grouping students for instructionthey are widely used by school
    psychologists in individual assessments to determine, for example,
    whether a child who is having difficulties in school has a learning
    disability or some other problem. As a practical matter, all good
    standardized tests of IQ and achievement end up ranking students in
    much the same way because g is the major predictor of academic
    achievement.

    During the 1960s and 1970s, educators launched several ambitious
    efforts to raise the IQs of disadvantaged youngsters in experimental
    preschools. The results were discouraging: Even when it was possible
    to raise the IQs of young children, the gains never translated into
    comparable gains on achievement tests, and the IQ gains evaporated
    soon after children left the programs. The disappointing results
    helped fuel an attack by some researchers on the very idea of IQ and g
    and also contributed to the rapturous reception for the theory of
    multiple intelligences that emerged in the 1980s, notably in Howard
    Gardners Frames of Mind (1983). To replace the idea of general
    intelligence, Gardner, a developmental psychologist at Harvard
    Universitys Graduate School of Education, proposed seven coequal
    intelligences: linguistic, logical-mathematical, visual-spatial,
    musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal (he
    later added naturalist, to make eight).

    Gardners theory offers a useful reminder that there are many human
    abilities and forms of accomplishment, and it puts new labels on some
    of the most common of them. Thus, good athletes have
    bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, and self-help celebrities such as
    Oprah Winfrey have intrapersonal intelligence. Gardner takes the
    seemingly commonsensical notion that people meet the world in
    different ways and elevates it into a comforting accolade: Everybody
    is smart in some way.

    In the classroom, the theory seems to give teachers a new language to
    describe their perceptions of students and classroom life. Teacher
    guidebooks such as Teaching and Learning through Multiple
    Intelligences (1995) suggest using the eight intelligences as
    different entry points for leading students into a single lesson. To
    teach a unit about photosynthesis, for example, a teacher might have
    all students read a description of photosynthesis to provide an entry
    point for the linguistically intelligent, have the class compare
    plants grown with and without sufficient light to reach children with
    naturalist intelligence, engage the logical-mathematical students by
    asking the class to prepare a timeline for the steps of
    photosynthesis, require painting those steps to aid the
    visually-spatially inclined, have students role-play the characters in
    photosynthesis to help the bodily-kinesthetic childand so on, until
    all eight intelligences have been accommodated.

    Theres something very appealing about this scenario, but its unlikely
    that students kept so busy walking through multiple doorways will have
    much time to advance very far once they get through them. As one
    biology teacher told me recently, the multiple intelligence approach
    may allow students with special talents to express their understanding
    in ways that are personally gratifying, but science is inherently
    analytical, and understanding it ultimately requires the application
    of strong reasoning and analysis skillsperiod.

    However much we might wish that there were many distinct forms of
    mental ability, a century of research has found none as widely useful
    as g. Neither of the two major multiple intelligence theorists, Howard
    Gardner and Yale Universitys Robert Sternberg, disputes the existence
    of g, only its preeminence among mental abilities. There are, to be
    sure, many different human mental abilities, but they are neither
    independent of one another nor equally useful.

    The past 100 years of research has yielded a body of knowledge that
    virtually all those working in the field accept as valid, despite
    their various perspectives and the controversies surrounding this
    issue. Differences in IQ among young children can be traced in about
    equal parts to differences in their genes and their environment. (A
    special panel named by the American Psychological Association to
    summarize the state of knowledge on intelligence in 1995 noted that
    the lowest possible estimate of the genetic component is about 40
    percent.) Genetic differences become a bigger source of intelligence
    differences as children age. Behavior geneticists suspect the reason
    is that as they achieve more independence, children are more able to
    select and shape their environments, which then shape them. The power
    of genes can be seen in the fact that identical twins reared apart are
    more alike, after meeting in adulthood, in IQ, brain function,
    personality, and many other traits and behaviors than fraternal twins
    raised in the same home.

    Genes probably work their influence by shaping various metabolic,
    electrical, and structural features of the brain. For example, the
    brains of people with higher IQs tend to have a relatively lower rate
    of energy use (as measured by glucose metabolism) while solving
    problems, and quicker and more complex brain waves in response to
    simple perceptual stimuli such as lights and sounds. Researchers have
    long debated whether people with higher IQs have bigger brains, and
    the latest findings, based on studies with new brain-scan technology,
    show that they do. Distinctions in g, or general intelligence, are
    evidently as much a fact of nature as differences in height, blood
    pressure, and the like.

    A great deal of research also shows that g matters well beyond school.
    In Who Gets Ahead? (1979), sociologist Christopher Jencks and his
    colleagues reviewed many large studies and showed that an individuals
    IQ predicts his occupational level and income in adulthood (as well as
    years of schooling completed) better than his fathers education or
    occupation does. The influence of g varies in different realms of
    lifeschooling, work, parenthoodsimply because some are less
    cognitively demanding than others. Some life outcomes are also shaped
    more than others by such factors as ones noncognitive traits
    (ambition, extraversion) and decisions that others make about the
    individual (college admissions, hiring, pay raises). Yet the evidence
    of gs pervasive and lasting impact is well documented, especially when
    it comes to lifes more complex tasks. For example, personnel
    psychologists Frank Schmidt and John Hunter reviewed thousands of
    studies that were conducted over 85 years in many different companies,
    government agencies, and military settings, and that used everything
    from handwriting analysis to job tryouts to forecast job performance.
    Their meta-analyses of these data showed that mental tests predict
    on-the-job performance better than personality, integrity level,
    experience, and education. In the Journal of Personality and Social
    Psychology, I recently published a study showing that both IQ and
    adult functional literacy correlate in the same pattern with a wide
    variety of adult outcomes, including health and longevity (in part
    because maintaining ones health requires learning and adaptation), all
    regardless of social background. In that same journal, University of
    Edinburgh psychologist-physician Ian Deary and his colleagues reported
    on a study showing that each one-point increase in IQ when the study
    participants were 11 years old predicted a one percent decrease in
    mortality by age 50. If IQ is book smarts, it is clearly much more
    besides.

    Drawing a bead on exactly what g is and how it works remains a
    difficult task, but specialists in mental testing now commonly agree
    that g sits atop a hierarchy of mental abilities. Most of these
    researchers have adopted the three-level hierarchy developed by
    educational psychologist John B. Carroll in his monumental Human
    Cognitive Abilities (1993). After statistically extracting the common
    ability factors from more than 450 earlier studies in which multiple
    tests had been administered to the same individuals, Carroll
    classified all abilities into three levels.

    At the highest level, Stratum III, Carroll found evidence of only one
    ability: g. In Stratum II, he documented eight broad abilities
    involving language, reasoning, spatial visualization, auditory
    perception, memory, and cognitive speediness. Stratum I includes
    relatively specific mental abilities, such as memory span and reading
    comprehension.

    All Stratum II aptitudes are highly correlated with one another. A
    person with weak language ability, for example, is very unlikely to be
    strongly endowed with another Stratum II ability, such as spatial
    visualization. Tests of these abilities show that they are highly
    correlated both with one another and with g. All consist primarily of
    g plus a dose of some more specific ability. As Carroll puts it, the
    Stratum II abilities are all different flavors of g. Despite many
    attempts, nobody has ever succeeded in creating tests that measure
    these abilities without simultaneously measuring mostly g.

    Most IQ test batteries are composed of about a dozen subtests
    (involving, for example, vocabulary, sentence completion, number
    series, matrices, and similarities) of abilities near the Stratum I
    level. A persons scores on each are added together to produce an IQ
    score. But ones intuitive sense that the Stratum I abilities are the
    building blocks of intelligence is incorrect. The basic element at
    each level is g. A Stratum II ability is made up of g plus some more
    specialized ability. A Stratum I ability is produced by adding an even
    more specialized ability to this mix. Each lower stratum thus includes
    increasingly numerous and more complex amalgams of skills that are
    targeted to fewer and more specific kinds of tasks.

    Researchers have drawn quite a clear picture of human mental
    abilities. For instance, the technical manual for one widely used
    test, the Stanford-Binet IV, shows that the Stratum I ability
    vocabulary is about three parts g, plus two parts a special language
    facility that makes its entrance at the Stratum II level, plus one
    part a vocabulary-specific ability entering at Stratum I. Similarly,
    the Stratum I ability memory for sentences is roughly two parts g, one
    part each special verbal and memory abilities entering at Stratum II,
    and one part an ability specific to Stratum I.

    Carroll points out that four of Gardners intelligences (linguistic,
    logical-mathematical, spatial, and musical) correspond to four Stratum
    II abilities. They arent independent abilities, as Gardner asserts,
    but rather are linked to one another and to g. Three of Gardners four
    other intelligences fall largely outside the cognitive realm, while
    the fourth (naturalist) is too diffuse to analyze. Gardners
    intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligences seem to be matters
    mostly of personality, while his bodily-kinesthetic intelligence
    reflects mostly psychomotor strengths such as eye-hand coordination.
    These are useful qualities, to be sure, and they can help a person get
    by in the world, but they will not help that person apprehend the
    world. For that you need g.

    Because gifted children tend to have more jagged ability profiles than
    children of average or below-average intelligencethink of the classic
    math wiz who is not as dazzling in subjects such as history that
    depend on verbal reasoningGardner can allow educators to draw the
    inference that every child can be smart in some way. But the math wiz
    will still have relatively strong verbal skills. Where theres notable
    talent, theres always a high level of g. Gardner implicitly
    acknowledges this when he concedes that all the individuals he names
    as exemplars of his eight intelligences probably had IQs above 120
    (the 90th percentile). His eight domains of achievement may enrich our
    lives, but they do not represent independent faculties of mind or
    alternate pathways to mastering school curricula, jobs, or everyday
    tasks.

    Gardners theory has been protected from direct contradiction by his
    failure to develop any formal tests of his proposed intelligences. (He
    believes that assessments should be more holistic.) None of the
    assessments that schools currently use to identify students multiple
    intelligences would satisfy the standards for testing jointly
    promulgated by the three major professional organizations in the
    field. Mindy Kornhaber, a Gardner collaborator now at the University
    of Pennsylvania, evaluated three major methods for identifying gifted
    students in terms of multiple intelligences and concluded in In the
    Eyes of the Beholder (2004) that they are not technically strong
    enough to withstand modest scrutiny. Among other problems, some use
    checklists that seem to assess interests rather than abilities, and
    none have clear enough procedures for raters to agree on who is gifted
    or in what way.

    In the education textbooks used to instruct tomorrows teachers,
    however, one doesnt get any sense that ample evidence favors a single
    broadly useful intelligence rather than multiple independent ones.
    Textbooks written by educational psychologists tend to report the
    facts about IQ with reasonable accuracy, but they systematically
    minimize or muddy the measures relevance. For example, they will
    report that IQ tests predict academic achievement quite well, but then
    imply that this fact need not be taken seriously because, after all,
    thats precisely what IQ tests were first developed to do. IQ, they
    say, represents only a narrow academic ability, book smarts, and it
    matters little outside school. All of this is often topped off with
    the closing argument that IQ does not capture everything important
    about the human mind and soulas if intelligence researchers have ever
    said otherwise.

    The presentation of facts may be muddied but the larger message is
    clear: Multiple intelligence theories are the modern alternativethe
    antidoteto outmoded unitary, narrow, and exclusionary theories of
    ability. Textbooks create an aura of scientific superiority for the
    new theories by substituting their advocates certitude for evidence,
    and the absence of any pertinent research for readers to critique
    leaves the claims pristine. Take, for example, Laurence Steinbergs
    Adolescence (2002), a textbook assigned to future teachers at the
    University of Delawares School of Education, where I am on the
    faculty. Steinberg blithely asserts that even the best IQ tests used
    today measure only a very specific type of intelligence, and that
    there are ways of being equally intelligent as individuals who score
    high on IQ testsbut intelligent in a different way.

    Multiple intelligence theory gathers unto itself all good things.
    Commonly accepted pedagogical principles that have no necessary
    relation to multiple intelligence theorythat teachers should go beyond
    rote learning, appreciate students strengths and weaknesses, use
    different modes of presenting information, and believe that all
    students can learnare described as if they were the hallmarks of the
    multiple intelligence approach alone. The theorys proponents link
    harmful, distasteful, and patently false beliefs with IQfor example,
    that IQ is immutable, environments do not affect learning, some
    children cannot learn, and IQ is a measure of human worth. Readers are
    left with the impression that it is morally suspect to favor narrow
    views of intelligence, which are elitist, and segregate or privilege
    some students. For all their rhetoric about diversity, proponents of
    multiple intelligence betray a deep uneasiness with difference.

    The vogue for multiple intelligences is just one manifestation of an
    attack on ability grouping and curriculum tracking in the schools that
    has been underway for decades. Federal enthusiasm for programs for
    gifted children, for example, spiked after the Soviet launch of
    Sputnik in 1957, and then evaporated in the early 1960s. (Since that
    decade, scores by Americas highest-performing students have fallen on
    national tests such as the SAT and the Stanford Achievement Test.)
    Access to advanced placement courses and programs for the gifted is
    being opened up in the name of inclusion, and as a result, many
    programs are sacrificing their rigor and distinctive curricula.

    Grouping students by ability level in classes or in small groups
    within classes offers the promise of differentiating instruction to
    better fit diverse student-ability levels (though in reality that
    promise is seldom fulfilled). As recently as the 1980s, between 80 and
    90 percent of eighth and tenth graders were being taught in
    ability-homogeneous classrooms. Twenty-two percent of seventh graders
    were in homogeneous classes for all subjects, and 47 percent for some
    subjects. About 90 percent of elementary schools at the time were
    using within-class grouping for at least one subject, and 70 percent
    were using between-class grouping. Im aware of no more recent surveys,
    but observers agree that increasing numbers of schools are attempting
    to eliminate grouping and tracking and also to mainstream both gifted
    and special-education students into regular classrooms.

    The effects of this trend, so cavalierly endorsed by those who
    fantasize classrooms full of pluralistically smart students, are more
    candidly described in textbooks for teaching instructional strategies.
    The text we use at the University of Delaware, Looking in Classrooms
    (2003), declares that educators thinking has progressively moved away
    from policies of exclusion and homogeneous grouping toward an emphasis
    on the value of diversity, policies of inclusion, and practices that
    meet the needs of all students. But Looking in Classrooms is very
    clear about the realities teachers face. It paints a sobering portrait
    of the heterogeneous classes created by the demise of grouping,
    tracking, and special classes for disabled or gifted students. Its
    case example is a sixth-grade classroom with 26 students from varied
    racial and ethnic backgrounds and family configurations. Three of the
    students spoke little or no English, and one of them was legally
    blind. Among the 23 who could be validly tested, the grade equivalents
    for reading ranged along a breathtaking span from 2.3 to 10.5; two
    students were gifted. Such large disparities are common in
    heterogeneous junior-high classrooms. As Looking in Class-
    rooms describes it, the teachers solution for orchestrating
    appropriately different instruction of the same key ideas for her 26
    highly diverse students calls for an effort that is nothing short of
    heroic. Its as if teachers today must not only work in a one-room
    schoolhouse but also individualize instruction for all their charges
    so that all can master the same (trimmed down) curriculum in lockstep.

    Degrouping, which is meant to prevent the social distinctions that
    arise when students are segregated by ability level, can create even
    bigger distinctions. Placing the intellectually unequal in proximity
    forces students to observe their differences in capability more
    directly. It is hard to miss the fact that some students typically
    learn two to five times faster than others, or that some are reading
    difficult books while others struggle with simple ones. All teacher
    textbooks therefore emphasize, at least implicitly, that a teachers
    first concern in mixed-ability classrooms must be to ensure that
    students perceive each other as social equals.

    Looking in Classrooms reviews research on some of the familiar
    techniques for putting this into practice, such as cooperative
    learning and peer tutoring. These are strategies for having students
    interact across ability lines in ways that enhance the performance of
    low-ability students without stigmatizing them for their lesser
    achievement. Proponents cite experimental studies showing that these
    methods do indeed improve performance among low-achieving students,
    while somewhat enhancing, or at least not impairing, performance among
    more-able students. Only the fine print reveals that the experiments
    deal just with basic skills, not with higher levels of understanding.
    Like other textbooks, Looking in Classrooms mentions highly able
    students only when discussing how to lean on them for tutoring of
    their less-able classmates.

    In reality, these instructional strategies for mixed-ability classes
    preclude precisely what helps the more-able students most:
    accelerating their curriculum, allowing them to interact with their
    intellectual peers, and making them work hard. Accelerated and
    compacted curricula can double the speed at which highly able students
    advance, but such differential treatment is decried as elitist and
    exclusionary. As targeted instruction for gifted children is reduced
    in the public schools, their parents must increasingly rely on
    opportunities outside regular school settings. Summer programs for
    talented youngsters at universities, for example, are routinely able
    to advance the top one percent of 13-year-olds one full year in
    biology, chemistry, physics, Latin, or math in the space of only three
    weeks.

    Tracking and grouping persist in American schools despite the strong
    pressure for their elimination. Math and science teachers remain
    strong advocates of tracking, and many parents lobby hard for the
    programs they think their children need. Theres also significant
    pressure from above: College and university admissions offices want to
    be able to identify students who have taken demanding courses. And
    theres the inescapable reality that its very difficult to produce good
    results for any students when they are placed in heterogeneous
    classes. As James A. Kulik of the University of Michigan reported in
    the Handbook of Gifted Education (2003), On the basis of site visits,
    experts have concluded that untracking brings no guarantee of
    high-quality instruction for everyone but may instead lead all to a
    common level of educational mediocrity.

    Multiple intelligence theory is only the latest rationale for acting
    as if most children dont differ much in learning ability. An older
    approach, still widely embraced, is to accept IQ as a concept but act
    as if differences in IQ dont make much difference in the classroom.
    Education textbooks and journals in this vein speak only of
    exceptional versus regular students. So-called regular students are
    those who score between the upper threshold for mental retardation (IQ
    70) and the lower threshold for giftedness (IQ 130). That continuum
    includes 95 percent of students. A closer look at differences in
    intellectual functioning across the 60-point range illustrates how
    different educability actually is, even among the supposedly average.

    For example, individuals with IQs between 70 and 80 (but still above
    the threshold for mild retardation) require instruction that is highly
    structured, detailed, concrete, well sequenced, omits no intermediate
    steps, and links to what the individuals already know. They often need
    one-to-one supervision and hands-on practice to learn even simple
    procedures. As specialists in adult education explain, the material to
    be learned must be stripped of all nonessentials, including
    theoretical principles, and require only simple inferences. Any
    information, written or spoken, must be presented in small pieces with
    clear introductions and simple vocabulary. Because people with IQs
    below 80 (the 10th percentile) are difficult to train, federal law
    bars their induction into the military.

    Successively higher IQs are associated with better odds of learning
    readily from more demanding forms of instruction, learning more
    independently, and mastering increasingly abstract and multifaceted
    material. Individuals of average IQ (100) can master relatively large
    bodies of written and spoken knowledge and procedure, especially when
    it is presented to them in an organized manner that allows them
    practice and provides feedback. By IQ 120, individuals are more
    self-instructing and better able to develop and organize knowledge on
    their own. The complete instruction that is most helpful for low-g
    learners is dysfunctional for these high-g individuals. The latter
    easily fill in gaps in instruction on their own and benefit most from
    abstract, self-directed, incomplete instruction that allows them to
    assemble new knowledge and reassemble old knowledge in idiosyncratic
    ways. But such forms of instruction are dysfunctional for low-g
    learners, who are more likely to be confused than stimulated by its
    incompleteness, abstractness, and requirements for self-direction.

    As any teacher will attest, many other things besides g-level affect
    childrens learningillness, incentives, peer pressure,
    conscientiousness, parental support, familiarity with the language of
    instruction, and more. For these and other reasons, high g does not
    guarantee successor low g guarantee failure. Theres no question,
    however, that higher levels of g constitute a constant tailwind and
    lower levels a persistent headwind in cognitively demanding settings
    such as schools. Perhaps most important, g level affects what students
    are likely to learn with a reasonable expenditure of time and effort.
    Textbooks on instructional strategies rightly treat time as a precious
    commodity to be jealously guarded and wisely spent, and they note that
    slow students often need much more of it than others to learn the same
    material. Instruction must therefore be more tightly focused on what
    is most essential for them to learn.

    Although slow learners cannot be turned into fast learners, all
    students could learn much more than they now do. Students learn best
    and reap the most gratification for their efforts when instruction is
    targeted to their cognitive needs. Good targeting is all too rare,
    even in schools with ability grouping and curriculum tracking. As
    Looking in Classrooms laments, such adaptive instruction is regularly
    attacked as discriminatory because it means treating students
    differently. Its critics would rather give all students access to the
    high-status curricula and self-directed, constructivist learning
    activities that benefit bright students. But that path is far more
    likely to harm than to help these students, robbing them of the
    motivation to learn, depriving them of their full potential, and
    hampering their prospects in a world that increasingly requires (and
    rewards) well-educated people. Depriving faster learners of curricula
    that allow them to make the most of their abilities is likewise an
    injustice to them and to the society that stands to benefit from their
    eventual contributions. By denying the difficulties in accommodating
    intellectual difference, multiple intelligence theories may do little
    more than squander scarce learning time and significant opportunities
    for improvements in the quality of American schooling.

    The substantial heritability of intelligence has been a source of
    great controversyalbeit only outside the community of researchers who
    study the subject. But that element of heritability provides the very
    hope it is often said to obliterate. While it frustrates our efforts
    to raise IQ, it also greatly limits the harm that poor environments
    can do. Research roundly affirms what experience suggests: People with
    higher IQs have a remarkable ability to make their way out of even the
    most dire environments. This protection, along with the
    little-appreciated fact that the laws of genetics ensure that parents
    and children will tend to differ substantially in IQ, guarantees that
    talent will emerge from even the worst of environments, in turn
    ensuring considerable social mobility in any free society. Its not
    only the distribution of IQ that is helped by the laws of genetics.
    The mixture of genes from two parents creates traits in children that
    neither parent has. Heritability thus provides a very broad guarantee
    of difference and variety we would not have in a world where
    environment was all, a world that might leave humans free not only to
    create an egalitarian paradise but to forge the ultimate caste society
    of rich and poor.

    It has always been the task of Americas public schools to facilitate
    social mobility, and, historically, they have performed the job well.
    They should now turn their attention to optimizing the development of
    all children. For that to happen, well have to acknowledge that God or
    nature did not make us all equal intellectually. By embracing rather
    than rejecting the scientific knowledge about g, educators can develop
    curricula and classroom techniques that well serve the nations
    cognitively diverse students.

    Linda S. Gottfredson is a professor of education at the University of
    Delaware and an affiliated faculty member in its University Honors
    Program. She is the author of many articles on the role of
    intelligence differences in school, work, and everyday life, and the
    editor of several special journal issues on these topics, including an
    issue of Intelligence, Intelligence and Social Policy (1997).

[There were no comments posted to the Wilson Quarterly site.]


From checker at panix.com  Mon Feb  7 22:54:15 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 17:54:15 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Hoover: After Fidel by William Ratliff
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502071752290.14224@panix2.panix.com>

After Fidel by William Ratliff
http://www.hooverdigest.org/044/ratliff.html
Hoover Digest 2004 No. 4

    Once the islands aging caudillo is finally gone, what will become of
    Cuba? An assessment by William Ratliff.

    [17]William Ratliff is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution.

    The chorus began as soon as the Soviet Union fell: Fidel Castro Is
    History! The standard argument that the Cuban dictator could not long
    survive without the massive aid he had received for decades from
    Moscow was contained in a book entitled Castros Final Hour. Well over
    100,000 hours have passed since that book was published in 1992, and,
    with Fidel still raging on, analysts now usually couch their
    discussions of his eventual demise more modestly, in terms of Cubas
    post-Fidel transition (whenever it may come).

    Most American (including Cuban American) analysts look forward to a
    time when Cuba will have a democratic government and a vibrant market
    economy. But estimates vary considerably on how or when that goal will
    be reached.

    The best-known dissident on the island today, Oswaldo Paya Sardinas,
    has called for a step-by-step transition to greater popular
    representation beginning now. Paya outlined his ideas in his detailed
    Transitional Program, which was informally released in Cuba in
    December 2002. In March and April 2003 Castro responded to this and an
    increasingly active dissident movement with his most brutal wave of
    arrests and imprisonments in decades, demonstrating that obstacles to
    gradual reform remain formidable.

    In May 2004 the Bush administrations newly established Commission for
    Assistance to a Free Cuba published a program described as a
    proactive, integrated, and disciplined approach to undermine the
    survival strategies of the Castro regime and contribute to conditions
    that will help the Cuban people hasten the dictatorships end. In
    hundreds of pages, it laid out steps to that end, ranging from sharply
    curtailing Cuban American remittances and travel to Cuba to increased
    support for dissidents on the island. Some of the steps were being
    implemented by the end of the June.

    If there is an immediate move toward democracy after Fidel goes, as
    envisioned by some in the States, including many Cubans living abroad,
    then new Cuban leaders may draw some lessons from the experiences of
    post-Franco Spain and several Eastern European countries that have
    recently moved from authoritarian to democratic systems. I think it is
    more realistic to expect the island to remain for some time under some
    kind of authoritarian control, an expectation I share with many top
    scholars, intelligence analysts, and defectors.


    The Survivor Regime

    Assuming some version of authoritarian control in a post-Castro Cuba,
    there are several strategies Fidels survivors may adopt and the Bush
    administration hopes to thwart. The following is not a blueprint of
    what I would like to see happen in Cuba in the early years following
    Fidel Castros departure. Rather, it is an examination of what Cubas
    immediate post-Fidel government is most likely to do and what the
    consequences of its choices and policies may be. All such speculation
    is constrained by the fact that we do not know when Fidel will finally
    depart the scene, who will be in position to take power, or what
    domestic and international conditions the new leadership will inherit.
    What we can anticipate with some certainty is that Fidels successors
    will inherit a decrepit economy and a volatile society.

    The survival strategy discussed here is the possible Cuban adaptation
    of some of the ideas and experiences of the past quarter-century in
    China. In sharp contrast to Chinese leaders and analysts during the
    Maoist decades, the Chinese today do not recommend a Chinese model for
    Cuba or any other country. During Ra?l Castros visit to China in 1997
    then-premier Li Peng remarked that Chinas experience can only be taken
    as a reference as every socialist country has its own conditions. In
    the broadest of terms the Chinese model (or learning from China) might
    be defined as the promotion of primarily export-oriented, market-style
    domestic economic reforms by means of programs and institutions that
    are guided by a largely authoritarian government that continues to
    proclaim itself socialist.

    During the past 15 years, important members of the Cuban political,
    military, and business elite, including Fidel and Ra?l Castro and
    two-thirds of the members of the Communist Party Politburo, have
    visited China and remarked with great interest on the Chinese reform
    experience. A former high-level Cuban intelligence official, Domingo
    Amuchastegui, has said that after the younger Castros visit to China,
    Zhu Rongji, the chief architect of Chinas economic reforms, sent one
    of his chief aides to Cuba, at Ra?ls request, where he lectured
    hundreds of Cuban executives and leaders, causing a tremendous impact.

    Fidel Castro will leave Cuba in a terrible political and economic
    mess, just as Mao Zedong left China when he died in 1976, and Castros
    successors will be sorely taxed just to retain power. If post-Fidel
    governments are to remain authoritarian for some years, their
    political or military leaders, or both, will need to understand that
    although the Cuban people put up with abject poverty under Fidel, they
    will not long tolerate such conditions under any other leader. This
    poses a daunting challenge to future leaders because on the one hand
    they will have to undertake substantive reforms to simply retain
    power; on the other hand, the opening process itself may create so
    many demands that the new leadership will be overwhelmed. Still, in
    one form or another, authoritarianism has the edge over democracy for
    the immediate post-Fidel period.

    One might ask why reforms have not been launched already. The answer
    is that, although Fidel has visited China, he is far closer in his
    ideas and policies to Mao Zedong than to any Soviet leader, never mind
    any post-Mao Chinese leader. Castros alliance with the Soviet Union
    during the Cold War, and his often very strong criticism of China, was
    based almost entirely on his need for Soviet-bloc money, arms, and a
    nuclear shield during his conflict with the United States.

    Like Mao, Fidel cannot abandon his old ideas at the end of his life
    without admitting that his career was a terrible mistake. So just as
    Mao held on to his egalitarian socialism until the very end, Fidel
    remains steadfast and allows private initiative only periodically,
    when the economy is in a particularly disastrous condition. The most
    recent period of crisis was during the early 1990s, after the collapse
    of the Soviet bloc. Suddenly Cuba was left without the massive aid and
    credits that for decades had amounted to about 30 percent of the Cuban
    GNP. When the worst of a crisis passes, however, Castro usually begins
    again to harass, restrict, or outlaw private initiative, even in the
    black market, which is more difficult to control.

    At the same time, although Castro will never tolerate Chinese-style
    market reforms, he has provided theoretical grounds for such changes
    when he is gone, which is more than Mao ever did. One example is
    Castros attitude toward Deng Xiaoping. When Deng took power in the
    late 1970s, Castro called him a numbskull and a caricature of Hitler.
    But when Deng died in 1997, Castro referred to him as an illustrious
    son of the Chinese nation who had made a valiant contribution to the
    consolidation of socialism in China. Thus, although Castro will never
    undertake Dengs market-oriented reforms, future Cuban leaders can
    argue that Fidel accepted them as consolidating socialism in China, so
    why not in Cuba too?

    And Cubas post-Fidel leaders are likely to follow that lead. As
    Alcibiades Hidalgo, Ra?ls former top aide and a former U.N.
    ambassador, told me in 2003, the younger Castro has sympathized for
    many years with change in the Chinese style, that is, capitalism or
    something like it in the economy but a single party and repression of
    politics. Former intelligence official Amuchastegui added, Once Fidel
    Castro is out of the game, other areas of the Chinese experience
    [other than the role of the military] will most probably be
    implemented in Cuba rather quickly.

    Potential lessons from the Chinese experience include the following:

      o Cubans need to adopt a new way of thinking, different from both
      the egalitarianism of the Castro decades and the paternalism of the
      colonial centuries. Despite the proven business prowess of many
      Cuban Americans in Miami, this may be the most difficult lesson of
      all. Several Cuba specialists at the Chinese Academy of Social
      Sciences emphasize that first and foremost Cuban leaders and people
      need to jettison stifling egalitarianism and turn instead to
      promoting initiative, market productivity, and growth. They argue
      that when government policies encourage individuals and
      groupsdomestic and foreignwho wish to produce, the economy will
      expand, and living standards will rise for most Cubans, as they
      have for the majority of the Chinese. The fact that Chinese leaders
      and people have made this change so successfully, given their long
      traditional and Maoist history, might in itself be considered an
      inspiration to Cubans.

      One important aspect of this change in thinking relates to the
      overseas Cuban community. The overseas Chinese were critical to
      Chinas reform process in that they quickly returned to China, took
      advantage of the opportunities, and adapted to the limitations of
      the new system. Overseas Cubans, particularly in America, are
      numerous, and many are wealthy, highly skilled, and well connected.
      They could make a major contribution to development in Cuba even
      during a post-Fidel authoritarian period, should Cubans on the
      island and abroad decide to cooperate and commit themselves to
      economic policies that give all Cubans a chance to work and
      prosper. At present, most Cubans, wherever they are, do not seem
      disposed to such cooperation with a post-Fidel authoritarian
      regimeand current U.S. policy discourages it.

      o The model of a successful (so far), peaceful, and orderly
      succession of leaders within an authoritarian system was initiated
      by Deng and continued through Jiang Zemin to the current Hu Jintao.
      Deng, Jiang, and Hu have been largely successful, despite important
      continuing challenges, because their reforms have benefited a
      substantial majority of the people. Fidel has designated Ra?l as
      his successor, though the latter lacks charisma and may not live
      long enough to take power. Cuba does not seem to have an internal
      process for choosing future leaders even within the ruling
      bureaucracy, as was the case in China under Mao.

      o China achieved the longest period of double-digit economic growth
      of any major country in modern history by undertaking economic
      reforms that promoted (often by simply permitting) initiative,
      competition, and production among a suppressed but potentially
      highly creative people. These reforms ranged from the wholesale
      transformation of current institutions and practices to the
      encouragement of private shops and industries of all sizes. Many of
      the changes are enumerated by Carmelo Mesa-Lago in his Growing
      Economic and Social Disparities in Cuba (2002), published by the
      Cuba Transition Project, a program at the University of Miami that
      examines conditions in Cuba today and the many reform possibilities
      that lie ahead after Fidel Castro is gone. After reading Mesa-Lagos
      list of economic reforms, a prominent Chinese analyst noted that
      all of the economic recommendations are possible and desirable.
      But, he reiterated, the most important thing is not specific
      measures, but a changing of the traditional mentality among the
      people.

      o The Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) was for some years a
      major player in Chinese economic development. The Cuban
      Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) are already much involved in the
      Cuban economy, though not yet so broadly as the PLA was in the
      early 1990s. Because the FAR is the most relatively efficient and
      highly trained institution in Cuba, the prospects are that its role
      will expand in the foreseeable future. The negative qualities of
      the Chinese experience, ranging from corruption to loss of
      institutional focus, are also already evident in Cuba. In time,
      Cuba may want to examine how in recent years the Chinese have
      reduced the PLAs involvement in economic activities not related
      directly to the military sector.

      o One of the critical unanswerable questions today is what the
      Cuban military and police would do in the event of a major uprising
      against Fidel (which is unlikely) or his successor. Deng Xiaopings
      conviction that stability is essential for steady economic growth
      under authoritarian guidance was demonstrated by the Tiananmen
      repression of June 4, 1989, in Beijing and other cities. Fidel
      Castro approved of Dengs use of the military in that crisis, but it
      is unclear to what degree the Cuban police or military would follow
      the PLA example.


    Conclusion

    The types and timetables of reforms in Cuba are impossible to predict
    with certainty. Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. government has
    repeatedly tightened the embargo, the first two times (1992 and 1996)
    with the essential support of President Bill Clinton. Now, under
    George W. Bush, the executive branch is promoting a more integrated
    and proactive involvement in the hope of speeding up and molding
    changes in the country. If current U.S. efforts to strengthen Cuban
    civil society succeed, perhaps at least in the post-Fidel period the
    current silent majority of Cubans, who up to now have been united only
    in their determination not to rock the political boat, will be able to
    advance the cause of democracy and free markets. So far, however, the
    main consequence of the Bush administrations more activist approach
    seems to have been the retaliatory mass arrests of MarchApril 2003,
    which decapitated the democratic opposition on the island.

    If Cuban developments in the short and middle term follow trajectories
    at times observable on the island, they are likely to move slowly
    toward an open society. That movement is likely to be manifested first
    in economic reforms, as Cubas future leaders examine their obvious
    needs and apply ideas gleaned from the Chinese or Vietnamese
    authoritarian models. Such a movement would be positive, even if more
    gradual than quick democracy, both for the economic well-being of the
    Cuban people and for the islands step-by-step entry into the modern
    world.
      _________________________________________________________________

    A longer version of this essay was published in English and Spanish as
    Chinas Lessons for Cubas Transition? in the summer of 2004 by the Cuba
    Transition Project, Institute of Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, at
    the University of Miami.

References

   17. http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/bios/ratliff.htm

From paul.werbos at verizon.net  Mon Feb  7 23:05:20 2005
From: paul.werbos at verizon.net (Paul J. Werbos, Dr.)
Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 18:05:20 -0500
Subject: [Paleopsych] proposal re Iraq
In-Reply-To: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502061134560.26225@panix3.panix.com>
References: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502061134560.26225@panix3.panix.com>
Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.0.20050207174600.01df4aa0@incoming.verizon.net>

As I think about the psychological variables driving a lot of people..
driving what happens in Iraq and elsewhere.... and I think about
the recent discussion of Kennedy's proposal...

It would be in the common interest BOTH of the President AND of
the rest of the world if the Administration would introduce a bill
something like...


Iraqi Sovereignty Affirmation Act

Preamble

The President of the United States has announced that the US will
remove its troops from Iraq when and if the legitimate elected government 
of Iraq
asks them to leave. It is hoped that this will happen, and will be 
consistent with
domestic peace within Iraq, at the soonest possible time. This act is not 
intended to change
that policy, but rather to affirm it and give it force of law in concrete 
terms.
The purpose of doing so is to dispel any grounds for doubt or skepticism 
about the sincere
intention of the United States government to adhere to this policy.

(1) After the people of Iraq have ratified a new Constitution, and that 
Constitution comes
into effect, the executive branch of the United States is obligated to 
follow any decisions
made by the government of Iraq under its constitution to limit the levels 
of US troops.
More precisely, if the government of Iraq specifies a schedule of maximum 
permitted
US troops on the sovereign territory of Iraq, then the US executive branch 
is ordered to
obey that schedule, with one caveat. The caveat is that the President may
insist on up to six months prior notice of required troop reductions, if he 
deems that logistic
realities require such notice.

(2) Even before a new Constitution is ratified, the US executive branch is 
required to
give some respect to the
new representatives of the Iraqi people elected in January 2005. If at any time
  a properly constituted meeting of those representatives votes by a 2/3 
majority to impose
a schedule of maximum permissible troop levels, then the executive branch 
of the US is required to
obey that schedule, with two caveats. First, as in clause (1), the 
President may ask for up to
six months prior notice for troop reductions. Second, if a majority of 
those representatives
vote at any time to raise the allowable troop levels for any period of 
time, that modified schedule would
immediately go into effect (subject still to the six months notice 
requirement for actual reductions).

========

Of course, I can imagine folks who would like to add all kinds of extra 
permissions and fuzzy stuff
here -- but I think that such additions would be a VERY BAD idea. Clarity 
and simplicity is very important
for this kind of thing.
---

Whatever...

anyone know anyone who might be interested?

Best of luck to us all...

     Paul



From shovland at mindspring.com  Tue Feb  8 00:49:00 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 16:49:00 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] proposal re Iraq
Message-ID: <01C50D34.ED1A2020.shovland@mindspring.com>

I suspect that the insurgents won't be interested...

You may have heard that the Marines did not
make their recruiting quota last month.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Paul J. Werbos, Dr. [SMTP:paul.werbos at verizon.net]
Sent:	Monday, February 07, 2005 3:05 PM
To:	paleopsych at paleopsych.org
Subject:	[Paleopsych] proposal re Iraq

As I think about the psychological variables driving a lot of people..
driving what happens in Iraq and elsewhere.... and I think about
the recent discussion of Kennedy's proposal...

It would be in the common interest BOTH of the President AND of
the rest of the world if the Administration would introduce a bill
something like...


Iraqi Sovereignty Affirmation Act

Preamble

The President of the United States has announced that the US will
remove its troops from Iraq when and if the legitimate elected government 
of Iraq
asks them to leave. It is hoped that this will happen, and will be 
consistent with
domestic peace within Iraq, at the soonest possible time. This act is not 
intended to change
that policy, but rather to affirm it and give it force of law in concrete 
terms.
The purpose of doing so is to dispel any grounds for doubt or skepticism 
about the sincere
intention of the United States government to adhere to this policy.

(1) After the people of Iraq have ratified a new Constitution, and that 
Constitution comes
into effect, the executive branch of the United States is obligated to 
follow any decisions
made by the government of Iraq under its constitution to limit the levels 
of US troops.
More precisely, if the government of Iraq specifies a schedule of maximum 
permitted
US troops on the sovereign territory of Iraq, then the US executive branch 
is ordered to
obey that schedule, with one caveat. The caveat is that the President may
insist on up to six months prior notice of required troop reductions, if he 
deems that logistic
realities require such notice.

(2) Even before a new Constitution is ratified, the US executive branch is 
required to
give some respect to the
new representatives of the Iraqi people elected in January 2005. If at any time
  a properly constituted meeting of those representatives votes by a 2/3 
majority to impose
a schedule of maximum permissible troop levels, then the executive branch 
of the US is required to
obey that schedule, with two caveats. First, as in clause (1), the 
President may ask for up to
six months prior notice for troop reductions. Second, if a majority of 
those representatives
vote at any time to raise the allowable troop levels for any period of 
time, that modified schedule would
immediately go into effect (subject still to the six months notice 
requirement for actual reductions).

========

Of course, I can imagine folks who would like to add all kinds of extra 
permissions and fuzzy stuff
here -- but I think that such additions would be a VERY BAD idea. Clarity 
and simplicity is very important
for this kind of thing.
---

Whatever...

anyone know anyone who might be interested?

Best of luck to us all...

     Paul

_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


From shovland at mindspring.com  Tue Feb  8 10:08:40 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 02:08:40 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Islamic Theocracy in Iraq?
Message-ID: <01C50D83.1DED3950.shovland@mindspring.com>

Women as second class citizens.

Allied with Iran.

Is that why all this blood and money has been spent?

Who started this?

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net




From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  8 18:47:00 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 13:47:00 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: CHE: Publishing Groups Say Google's
 Library-Scanning Effort May Violate Copyright Laws
In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20050208090916.062b4568@mail.vicnet.net.au>
References: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502071608320.18365@panix2.panix.com>
	<6.2.0.14.2.20050208090916.062b4568@mail.vicnet.net.au>
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502081339480.16114@panix1.panix.com>

Frank Forman here:

I wrote up my own opinions on this issue a couple of years ago. I append 
it after your message. Basically, what's going on is rent-seeking, esp. 
the desire of the Disney Corporation to keep Mickey Mouse forever out of 
the public domain. Disney and Playboy are the two groups that send lawyers 
down on copyright violators faster than anyone else, those and cults like 
Scientologists and the various groups surrounding Dr. Leonard Peikoff, who 
inherited the copyrights to Ayn Rand's works.

It just occurred to me that changing the copyright law to a single term of 
20 years might force authors who wrote one profitable book to not rest on 
any expectation of continued royalties but keep on writing. Hard to say.

On 2005-02-08, James Guest opined [message unchanged below]:

> Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 09:26:13 +1100
> From: James Guest <jvcguest at vicnet.net.au>
> To: Premise Checker <checker at panix.com>, paleopsych at paleopsych.org,
>     Transhuman Tech <transhumantech at yahoogroups.com>, h-bd at yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: CHE: Publishing Groups Say Google's Library-Scanning  Effort May
>     Violate Copyright Laws
> 
> Frank and All
>
> My list memberships won't allow my reply to go to all your recipients so you 
> might like to pass it on selectively or generally.
>
> The recent Free Trade Agreement between the US and Australia brought the 
> absurdities of our copyright laws jarringly to my attention.  There is 
> clearly no public interest in giving original authors and adapters copyright 
> protection of 70 or more years after the author's death.  Patents, which 
> protect really important inventions that would not be produced without the 
> promise of patent protection (unlike many books, poems and musical products) 
> have nothing like that length of protection.
>
> So what should it be?  The minimum needed to make it worthwhile for 95-98 per 
> cent of what is produced to continue to be produced I suggest.  So why not 
> make it life plus 15 years or 25 or 30 years whichever is the longer?  In the 
> case of a corporation 25 years should be the rule.   There is no doubt that 
> the thriving business of buying up old copyrights is encouraged by very long 
> terms but, if there is a problem about the "it's not patentable so they won't 
> do research on it" analogue to cases in the area of medical science looking 
> at herbs  then some sort of special temporary protection could be provided 
> for, at a price payable to the state, while an adapter puts on his musical or 
> whatever.
>
> Why should we pay for 70 year old authors to have the means of providing for 
> their great-great-grandchildren?  It won't affect their productivity at all. 
> I am thinking of sponsoring a Master's thesis which might provided me with a 
> solid economic case on which to campaign about copyright.  So I should be 
> interested in any counter-arguments, statistics, points about the law, 
> psychology or economics of copyright.
>
> James Guest

COPYRIGHT, CONGRESS, DUE DILIGENCE, AND COASE
by Frank Forman
checker at panix.com

[I place this in the public domain, so use freely as you
see fit. I would like, however, suggestions about who to
send it to or where I might publish it. My main aim is
to get others to steal my ideas about a way of making
a compromise between academics and other scholars and
business interests.]

Congress should amend the copyright act to allow anyone
to reprint an old book if a decent effort to track down
the copyright holder turns up blank or to pay only a
nominal amount if the book hasn't been in print for a
long time. Once the book, or article, or sound
recording, or whatever, goes back into print in this
way, it should forever remain the public domain.

This should keep the big boys--Disney, Playboy, the big
publishers--reasonably happy, and all the little
people, like scholars, should be happy too. Article I,
Section 8, Clause 8 of the Constitution authorizes
Congress "To promote the Progress of Science and useful
Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and
Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective
Writings and Discoveries." You and I might naively
think that this means that a judicious balance will be
struck about just how long these limited times are, and
those of us with business calculators know that there
is very little difference between an annuity that pays
out for fifty, even twenty, years and one that pays out
forever. Copyrights should not last for very long,
twenty years being my somewhat educated guess.

But in a democracy (rule by rent-seeking pressure
groups), this judicious balance is not struck, and the
reason is that those who stand to gain, however
slightly, from long copyrights are concentrated, while
those who stand to benefit from shorter ones are
diffused. The only way to strike an actual balance is
to have experts rule or to change human nature so that
politicians follow an abstract public interest rather
than trying to get reelected. We've tried the both with
unhappy results.

I see no prospect that the big publishers are going to
start acting in the interests of scholars, but those
who would like to revive old, forgotten books are
getting organized. Politicians need their votes, too.
Hence, the compromise I have proposed. I can't work out
the details of what a decent effort (called "due
diligence" by regulators) to track down a copyright
holder would be, nor to specify what the other terms of
the compromise might mean. Spelling these out will be
the job, not so much for Congress as for the U.S.
Copyright Office, whose staff numbers over 400 but does
not include a single economist, so Marybeth Peters,
then and now the charming Register of Copyrights, told
me at a convention of the Association for Recorded
Sound Collections several years ago.

I *am* an economist, and I'm here to propose something
more than just a compromise. This takes us to the Coase
of my title, specifically to Ronald Coase and "The
Problem of Social Cost," which is the most widely cited
paper both in economics journals and in legal journals.
It came out in 1960 in a journal called, not very
surprisingly, the _Journal of Law *and* Economics_. It
is so well written that you do not need a single course
in either field to understand it. It is a pleasure to
read, too, and I recommend it. It has been reprinted in
a Coase anthology _The Firm, the Market, and the Law_.

Coase says, with the terribly important qualifier *in
the absence of transaction costs* (the whole point of
my writing here, but later), that it makes no
difference in behavior how property rights are drawn
up. Coase's famous illustration is the case of a
railroad scattering sparks along the tracks as it sped
through farmland, occasionally causing fires. Who's to
pay? If the railroad is liable, it can either pay for
the fires or put devices on its locomotives to prevent
the fires. Whether the fires are so rare that it
doesn't pay to install the devices is up to the folks
on the railroads to decide.

On the other hand, if the railroads are not liable and
if the safety devices are economical, then the farmers
should get together and pay the railroads to install
the devices. Coase's point is that the pure economics
of the situation, not where the liability lies, is all
that matters, though of course the railroads would
rather not be liable and the farmers wish they were.

The practical difficulties of protecting farms from
sparks, when there is no liability on the part of the
railroads, are immediately obvious: the farmers would
have to get organized so that they all paid and each
farmer didn't expect the other farmers to pay and not
he. In other words, what we economists call the
"transaction costs" involved in organizing the farmers
would be prohibitive. And so they often are, in finding
the copyright holders of a book that has long since
ceased to make anyone money but is still legally under
copyright protection. I know someone who wanted to put
Henry Veatch's _Intentional Logic_ up on her website.
It was copyrighted in 1952. She wanted to know if Yale
University Press had renewed its copyright, for
otherwise it would now be in the public domain. She
wrote the press, and they did not bother to reply. She
asked me to check at the Library of Congress. I hiked
up there, a mile or so up Capitol Hill on my lunch
hour, to a huge room in the Madison Building. It was
between Christmas and New Year's with hardly anyone
there, so I got immediate help and was taken over to
the correct bank of 3x5 file cabinets, which I could
never have found on my own, and shown what the markings
on those cards meant.

Anyone further afield would have had to pay the Library
of Congress to do the search, and you know that you
always have to pay for the minimum of an hour. It would
take the obligatory "six to eight weeks," too. As it
happened, Yale had sent in the forms and paid the fees
to get the copyright extended for the second term of
twenty-eight years. Apparently Yale did so for all its
books.

Most books did not get their copyrights renewed under
the old system of twenty-eight years plus twenty-eight
years renewable (it was fourteen plus fourteen in
1790), and this would still be true of most books
today.

Veatch's book was an easy case. Publishers go out of
business. Individual copyright owners die, oftentimes
without wills. Copyrights can be sold, with the Library
of Congress never finding out. All this can be
difficult to track down. And if Yale University Press
won't bother to answer a simple inquiry, you can bet on
the difficulties elsewhere.

Worse, and even if Yale did answer the inquiry, there
are a great many people in this world whose job it is
to say no. Or to charge you a minimum of $250 (like the
infamous Nieman-Marcus cookie recipe. Since the
Waldorf-Astoria hotel allegedly did the same thing in
the 1930s for its Red Velvet Cake, both stories are
likely bogus. Google nieman waldorf recipe). It was
just not worth it to her to pay out $250 for the
privilege of scanning in the book and putting it on her
site.

Apparently some people like this book. My friend did,
and one copy was recently offered on
http://www.bookfinder.com for $350. Personally, I'd
rather have the cookie recipe and $100 in change (one
old man's rant--the Veatch book to me--is another man's
freedom fighter). Not enough people thought the book
was worth even the cover price to keep it in print.
Yale, I am sure, has no intention of reprinting it.

The transaction costs for what is of little or no
economic value are too great. You have to find the
current copyright holder, who may not bother to
respond, or say no, or charge $250. The costs being too
great, the Coase theorem, which says it doesn't matter
who owns the copyright in the *absence* of these
transaction costs, does not hold. It does matter, and
it matters more than just the political transfer of a
rights from one pocket (the public with its stake in
having works enter the *public* domain) into another
(the publishers). It means that the "Progress of
Science and useful Arts" is being hampered and not
promoted, since books that would have are not getting a
second life.

What to do? Let anyone reprint an old book, old meaning
twenty years, provided he determines that the book is
no longer in print. If the book is younger than that
and not in print, he must conduct a "due diligence"
search to track down the current copyright owners. He
must ask the publisher, and the publisher must respond.
If the publisher has vanished, he must make a
"diligent" effort to find out who bought out the
publisher. He must not have to pay $200 to have someone
else do the search for him. If the book is younger than
twenty years and the copyright holder says no or wants
$250 and that's too much, it's just too bad. Our would-
be reprinter has to wait out the twenty years to see if
the book is still in print. And in print means selling
a certain number of copies, not just being printable on
demand for an outrageous sum. (We'd better get moving
here, before on-demand publishers start hiring
lobbyists.)

Finally, in the case of free-lance articles in
magazines and newspapers, I'd allow the editor to keep
the article on the website if he fails to track down
the author after a diligent search, after five years.
We've all got to keep moving. I might prefer that all
newspaper articles enter the public domain after ten
years, but that won't happen. Publishers are indeed too
organized, but they have transaction costs, too, and
should be allowed to keep free-lance articles on their
sites.

Lot's of controversy here: I myself don't want anyone
using the copyright laws to keep embarrassing things
out of the public domain. (I can't decide about J.D.
Salinger's letters.) Information does want to be free,
but it also has to be paid for, which is why there is a
copyright law in the first place. We all know how
organized publishers are, but academics and others are
getting organized too. The converse of the Coase
theorem--in the *presence* of heavy transaction costs,
it matters greatly how the copyrights are drawn up--
makes the case for letting low value books go back into
the public domain cheaply.

----------------------
Frank Forman is an economist at the U.S. Department of
Education, is speaking on his own, and is the author of
_The Metaphysics of Liberty_ (Dordrecht: Kluwer
Academic, 1989).


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  8 20:49:38 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 15:49:38 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Orhan Pamuk: Snow--Reviews and Interviews
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502081531340.16114@panix1.panix.com>

Orhan Pamuk's _Snow_ is nearly an ideal book for my project of abandoning 
reality as a source of knowledge of human nature and turning to fiction 
instead. Again, I thank Trish for enthusiastically recommending this book.

It's a beautifully written and moving novel, as the reviewers mostly all 
agree. The main theme of the novel is the protagonist's struggle to decide 
between the Western world, where he exiled to, and the increasingly 
religious Turkey of his upbringing.

But does it show vast differences in mentalities between Western and other 
processes of thought? I must say that it does not and that I'll have to 
read fiction from sources further removed from the West than Turkey.

Recommendations welcome!

There are about sixty reviews and interviews below. So this is a very long 
e-message. It documents how many times a book can get independently 
reviewed in the English speaking press. Some of these reviews got printed 
in several papers.

-----------------

Financial Times (London,England)

May 10, 2003 Saturday

To have and have not Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk tells Robert
Cottrell the west has pushed the world's poor towards envy and
nationalism

By ROBERT COTTRELL

    The view from the terrace offers a vision of earthly riches so sweeping 
and extravagant that if the Devil were trying again to tempt Christ after 
40 days in the wilderness, I would recommend his doing it in Istanbul. The 
city seethes and glitters for miles on all sides, its hills laden with 
palaces and mosques and gilded domes. Its lights dance, reflected on the 
dark waters of the Bosporus below. Hong Kong or San Francisco may be as 
picturesque, but neither can rival Istanbul for sheer drama. Here two 
continents begin and end. On the near side of the Bosporus lies Europe. On 
the far side lies Asia. And Turkey straddles the space between them, 
geographically, historically and intellectually.

    The terrace, not far from Taksim Square in the heart of the city, 
belongs to Orhan Pamuk, widely considered Turkey's greatest living 
novelist. The view is one great delight of this flat that he keeps for 
writing. The other is the mass of books lining the walls, thousands of 
them, roughly arranged by topics from Japanese fiction to French 
philosophy. I think for a moment that Pamuk has all my favourite books, 
then I realise he probably has everybody's favourite books.

    He is a tall man, a fit-looking 50, dressed casually in the American 
fashion, soft-spoken and courteous. His grandfather made a fortune early 
last century building railways for the Ataturk regime. His father, who 
died just a few months ago, spent the fortune living well, investing 
badly, and translating French poetry - a lifestyle choice that Pamuk 
clearly admires, even though it left him less rich than he might have 
been. John Updike, the American novelist, has compared him with Proust. 
The analogy is one that Pamuk himself also makes, a little wistfully, as 
we talk.

    Western readers know Pamuk best for My Name is Red, an intricate and 
seductive murder mystery set among 16th-century Ottoman miniaturist 
painters, which was published in English in 2001. The plot is a fine weave 
of theological disputes, court etiquette and miniaturist techniques, shot 
through with sex and violence. The critic Maureen Freely called the book 
"almost perfect... All it needs now is the Nobel prize".

    He is working on a book about Istanbul that will be part-memoir and 
part-meditation. He wants to test his own sense of the city, where he was 
born and grew up, against the Istanbul that others have remembered and 
imagined down the centuries. After that he has a novel planned, "about the 
idea of museums, collections, the attachment to objects and the loss of 
love".

    But if all this sounds a little abstract, a little bookish, there is 
another side to Pamuk, a political engagement. He made headlines in 1999, 
and risked prosecution, when he signed an international petition urging 
the Turkish government to give members of the country's Kurdish minority 
"constitutional guarantees" of their rights, and so rescue Turkey from the 
"shame" of past repressive policies. In the last five years, says Pamuk, 
he has become "more and more political". Attacks on his liberal views in 
the Turkish press have only made him "more angry and more involved", he 
says. "It is a son-of-a-bitch kind of anger and it turns out to be part of 
your life."

    An article of his which sticks in my mind is one he wrote in September 
2001 soon after the attack on the World Trade Center in New York. He 
describes meeting a neighbour on the street, an elderly man, who says to 
him: "Sir, have you seen, they have bombed America? They did the right 
thing!" Pamuk muses on what could prompt an old man in Istanbul to condone 
terror in New York, or a Palestinian to admire the Taliban, and he arrives 
at a formulation that does not quite blame the west, but which assigns it 
a contributory negligence. The basic problem, he says, is "not Islam, nor 
what is idiotically described as the clash between east and west, nor 
poverty itself. It is the feeling of impotence deriving from degradation, 
the failure to be understood, and the inability of such people to make 
their voices heard." The west has not tried enough "to understand the 
damned of the world".

    Pamuk, who professes no religion, has made his own bid since then to 
understand Islamic fundamentalism by writing a political novel about its 
place in provincial Turkey today. His aim, he says, was to "understand 
what a fundamentalist is, in his own terms. Not why he is so right, but 
why he is so angry." The subject is a highly sensitive one for Turkey, 
which has an overwhelmingly Muslim population, but has proclaimed itself a 
secular state since 1923. The government allows freedom of worship, but 
keeps a close eye on it through a Directorate of Religious Affairs, and 
clamps down smartly on what it regards as signs of fundamentalism - such 
as the wearing of headscarves by women, which is forbidden in official 
buildings.

    This latest novel, called Snow, has sold 140,000 copies at home since 
publication last year, and is now being translated into English. It made 
him enemies on two fronts. First were "the ultra- secularists, who were 
not pleased to see me going into the inner (thoughts) of religious 
fundamentalists," he says. "They did not want to see Islamists as human 
beings, they wanted to see them as fanatics, midway to barbarians." Then 
there were the Islamists, angered that he gave his religious characters an 
active sexual life. "They said, 'How can an Islamist, a true believer, 
have sex outside marriage?'" The Islamists, like Marxists before them, 
"wanted writers to portray an idealised version of people".

    Pamuk accepts cheerfully enough that he makes an easy target for 
critics. "I have my subscriptions to the TLS and The New Yorker," he says, 
"while other people are more limited here. My name is on the billboards. I 
am from the spoiled upper class. People are very resentful."

    But when it comes to the war in Iraq, at its height when we talk, Pamuk 
is very much in tune with the popular mood. He thought it a dangerous 
mistake, as did everybody else I met in Turkey, from a bus driver in 
Ankara to a professor of economics in Istanbul. They saw the war as a 
foolish adventure promoted by a wilful US president, a US government 
wanting Iraqi oil, and a US industrial sector hungry to profit from 
reconstructing the country once the war was over. Saddam may be a bad man, 
they say, but that did not give the US any right to depose him.

    So far, so familiar. The same sort of criticisms could be heard almost 
everywhere in the world at the time. But in Turkey they were voiced with a 
special anxiety. The country's border with Iraq made it a front-line state 
in the war, exposed to stray bombs and refugees. Ninety per cent of the 
public was appalled, according to Pamuk, when the Turkish government 
seemed ready to join the US war effort in exchange for a big enough 
package of US aid - many billions of dollars - which Turkey desperately 
needed. That plan was scuppered unexpectedly by the parliament in Ankara, 
which voted against letting US combat troops invade northern Iraq from 
Turkish soil.

    Pamuk compares the US intervention in Iraq to a strong person 
"slapping" or "insulting" a weak one: bad behaviour even when the strong 
person believes he has been provoked. The US can do such a thing, he says, 
partly because it believes Muslims are "lesser people, backward, stupid, 
lazy orientals who don't know about things, who torment women. You have 
the feeling that one American life is more important than thousands of 
these people. The justification of the war starts with these things."

    Reading my notes of the conversation later, I have to remind myself 
that Pamuk is an outspoken admirer of western values, western culture, 
western democracy. He welcomes globalisation, and Amazon.com cartons 
litter his floor. He believes the US is a highly successful social and 
economic model. What he objects to is the manner of exporting it. The US 
is becoming "fanatical" too, he believes. If the Americans would only 
"take all the money they have spent on this war, and spend it like Soros 
has done on civil societies in these countries, then in 10 years they 
would have wonderful results."

    He sees the divide widening between what he calls "this relentless 
civilisation of the west, superior in arts, science, education" on one 
side, and "85 per cent of the human race, with much lesser, 
disintegrating, unsuccessful civilisations" on the other. But he dismisses 
the idea that the divide is mainly a religious one, even between the US 
and Arab countries. "The Koran is a small part of it. It is not a text 
that makes this history, it is history itself: the people, the land, the 
climate, the geography. The fact that there is less democracy in the 
Middle East, that the Middle East is poor, these are things shaped not by 
the Koran but by layers of history and of interaction with the west."

    The real gulf, he says, is the material one, between wealth and 
poverty. The real question is why it should have become such an acute 
problem now. The answer he comes to is that global media have become so 
successful, so universal in projecting images of western wealth, that the 
picture is getting "impossible to accept, impossible to come to terms 
with" in poor countries. The poor have no comparable means of celebrating 
their own culture, their own way of life, which might otherwise give them 
solace.

    They are left only with "material envy", says Pamuk, "it is inevitable, 
they want the things the Americans have." So long as they lack those 
things, he feels, "the only consolation for such a time is nationalism, 
past glories, the enjoyment of this or that terrorist attack. They may 
know that ethically, morally, this is not right, but secretly they enjoy 
it."

    In an ideal world, I say, we might debate this, try to understand that 
envy of the east and moderate the stereotypes of the west. But in the case 
of Iraq, the rich part of the world believed the angry part of the world 
was posing a direct threat to it, and was acting to block that threat. Not 
so, says Pamuk. In Iraq it is "the rich part of the world making a direct, 
violent attack on the poor, disorganised part of the world". The west may 
or may not be right to worry about dangers from "ruthless dictators" in 
the Middle East, he says, but right now it is part of the west that is 
controlled by "a vulgar and brutal and not very sophisticated ruler, 
Bush."

    The other big Turkish worry about the war concerned the Kurds, whose 
communities straddle the borderlands between eastern Turkey and northern 
Iraq. The Turks feared the war might lead to a Kurdish state in northern 
Iraq, and with it a new spur to Kurdish separatism in eastern Turkey. Only 
four years have passed since the last wave of guerrilla warfare subsided 
with the arrest of the Kurdish separatist leader Abdullah Ocalan and the 
collapse of his movement, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or the PKK. The 
separatist campaign, and Turkey's brutal suppression of it, cost 30,000 
lives, most of them Kurdish. It cast a long shadow over civil liberties 
and human rights. It soured relations with the European Union so badly as 
to set back Turkey's hopes of joining the EU by at least a decade. Nobody 
in Turkey, liberal or conservative, wants to go back to those days.

    Alternatively, there is Pamuk's approach, which has the merit of 
simplicity. "Kurds in northern Iraq should have every right to decide for 
themselves what they want to do," he says, "and if they want to have a 
state that is their business." If Turkey fears a contagion of separatism 
among its own Kurds, it should treat them more kindly and so make them 
less restive. Besides, he adds, Turkey is a fragile country economically, 
and "the geopolitics of a fragile country should be: 'I am polite to my 
neighbours'."

    I imagine Pamuk (pictured below) is polite to his neighbours too, even 
when they applaud the knocking down of the World Trade Center. He loves 
Istanbul and everything in it. While researching his new book he has 
studied engravings of the city, and finds them full of "nationalistic and 
nostalgic sentiments", above all "the feeling of melancholy that comes 
from loss of empire". He feels an echo there "of the decay of my family, 
as it disintegrates from a big family with uncles and grandmothers to just 
the four of us, parents and children, moving from big house to apartment 
building, then on our different ways." The big house he knew as a baby was 
home to an extended family of 12 or 14 people. Now, after a recent 
divorce, he lives alone.

    We talk more about melancholy, and I begin to sense how he can admire 
the US so much, while criticising it so strongly. "Countries without much 
history, or without much sad history, are more naive," he says. "But in 
their naivety they are realists, they can see their problems easily. Here 
we have lots of melancholy which blurs the vision and which saps the 
energy to invent, to invest, to create."

    Robert Cottrell has recently completed a spell as the FT's Moscow 
bureau chief Orhan Pamuk's novels

    The White Castle

    The Black Book

    The New Life

    (all three published in Faber's Threebies series at oe12.99)

    My Name is Red (Faber oe7.99)

    Snow (will appear in the UK in January 2004)

LOAD-DATE: May 12, 2003
----------------
Turkish Daily News

April 15, 2004
TURKEY'S BEST-SELLING NOVELIST SPEAKS IN ANKARA

SINEM TASSEVEN

    ANKARA - Internationally renowned Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk said he 
was not uncomfortable with his sophisticated style becoming more 
accessible to the masses but said he was aware his true audience were few 
in number.

    Pamuk addressed students attending a conference at Ankara's Middle East 
Technical University (METU) on Wednesday, sharing the experiences, ironies 
and conflicts he has had over the past 31 years while building his career 
as a novelist.

    "I don't think it's a bad thing that a large number of people are 
buying my novels. This is not a loss. However, I also don't believe that I 
write for everyone. There are a number of people in Turkey who read books, 
and I am writing for them," said Pamuk.

    Upon a question of whether he wanted to be a popular novelist or a 
novelist with a limited but devoted audience base, Pamuk said, "These are 
not contradictory, because I have both."

    Having experienced the success of becoming a best-selling novelist in a 
country in which the book-reading public is extremely small, Pamuk has 
often been the target of criticism for the conduct of advertising 
campaigns for his books -- complete with his picture plastered on 
billboards in big cities -- a style to which traditional Turkish readers 
are unaccustomed.

    Still, he doesn't seem to be surprised by his every move causing 
controversy and questions in people's minds, especially since his 
perceptions of things going on around him, his political stance and his 
way of life -- which seem to belong nowhere and which appear to be unlike 
those of any other group of people -- are considered.

    Tragedy of novelists on world's periphery

    In response to a question posed at the conference, Pamuk said: "When an 
author in the West writes about the ordinary elements of life -- the pain, 
the sorrow, the happiness he sees around him, it is characterized as a 
story of humanity. But when an author from a country on the periphery does 
the same thing, he is perceived as having voiced ethnic problems. This is 
the tragedy of an author living on the periphery but who borrows knowledge 
and techniques accumulated by West."

    As to his discomfort in being perceived as voicing generalizations, 
Pamuk added: "However, it is also meaningless to display hostility towards 
the West because such an approach may turn into prejudice against the 
West, which is not a good thing."

    Who is Orhan Pamuk?

    Pamuk is by far the country's most prolific best-selling novelist, and 
his books have been translated into more than 20 languages. His first 
novel, "Cevdet Bey and His Sons," a dynastic saga of the Istanbul 
bourgeoisie, appeared in 1982 after an eight-year search for a publisher.

    His second novel, "The White Castle" (published in 1979 but translated 
in 1990), the story of a Turkish master and his European slave, is a 
perfect example of his melding of modern with traditional Eastern 
elements. By the end of the novel the two main characters are 
indistinguishable. One of them dies, but we are not quite sure which one.

    With his fourth novel, "The Black Book" (1990), a mystery that arrives 
at no obvious solution, Pamuk confirmed his international reputation.

    Pamuk's novel "My Name is Red," a detective story of sorts, a 
multi-layered tale of revenge and jealousy growing out of the Ottomans and 
the rise of the Christian West, also attracted the attention of many 
Western readers.

    His novels are rich with allusion to old Sufi stories and traditional 
Islamic tales as well as the tinsel of popular culture.

    His other books are "Secret Face, Silent House, New Life, Other Colors, 
Snow" and his latest, "Istanbul, Memoirs and the City."

    In an article that appeared in Time magazine, journalist Andrew Finkel 
wrote: "His work is a rejection of an intellectual tradition that aspired 
to be Western by forgetting about the past. 'If you try to repress 
memories, something always comes back,' Pamuk says. 'I'm what comes 
back'."

LOAD-DATE: April 20, 2004
-------------
The Irish Times

May 1, 2004

Lukewarm on the heels of the story
Snow By Orhan Pamuk, translated by Maureen Freely Faber, 436pp. ? 12.99

By EILEEN BATTERSBY

     Ka, a poet and political exile living in Frankfurt, returns to Turkey 
on a mission. He has a job, the investigation of a series of suicides 
taking place in Kars, an isolated city near the Armenian border. As he 
sits on the old bus taking him there, we are informed of the significance 
of the glamorous coat he is wearing.

    Right from the outset there is something slightly odd, almost 
half-hearted, about this novel. No one could appear less like a journalist 
hot on the heels of a suicide epidemic story. Ka's 12 years in Germany may 
have rendered him an exile, but Orhan Pamuk is not content to allow the 
reader to speculate. He steps right in and within a page is offering a 
rather thorough pen-portrait of a character he is presumably hoping will 
retain our interest for the next 435 pages. The real reason Ka has come to 
Turkey is to bury his mother. And oh yes, there is a girl. He was never 
involved with her, but now he knows he loves her.

    Snow is a novel in which there is a great deal of talking and not very 
much said. It is a disappointment not only because it comes from the Orhan 
Pamuk who wrote The White Castle (1979), which impressed on the appearance 
of its English translation in 1990, The Black Book (1990, English 
translation 1994) and The New Life (1993, 1997), but especially because it 
comes from the author of a flamboyantly rich 
picaresque-thriller-cum-art-history tour de force, My Name is Red (1998, 
2001), which won last year's Dublin International IMPAC Literary Award.

    Always a metaphysical, determinedly intellectual writer, with echoes of 
Calvino, Borges and Paul Auster, Pamuk is also a daring voice combing 
subversion as well as an awareness of Turkey's extraordinary culture and 
the ongoing East-West, or Oriental-European, tensions that frustrate, 
confuse and intrigue all who explore them. This novel Snow is consistently 
at odds with its ambitions and achievement.

    Apparently the source of much debate in Turkey, where it managed to 
outrage both Islamists and westernised Turks on its publication in 2002, 
it presents an unflattering, near-comic portrait of Kars as a place in 
which no one is all that sure of anything aside from the fact that several 
young girls have killed themselves. In tone, it is reminiscent of Kazuo 
Ishiguro's offbeat yarn The Unconsoled (1995). In common with that book it 
suffers from being very long, but whereas Ishiguro succeeded in making his 
novel's bizarre nature its ultimate strength, Pamuk's narrative merely 
emerges as longwinded and improvisational.

    For all the sideswipes at the confused politics of several of the 
characters who are presented as revolutionaries but are in fact fanatics 
and failed lovers mainly at war with themselves, Pamuk has here missed an 
opportunity to consider the internal cultural confusions of a country that 
is as much torn between its notions of Europe and its place within that 
Europe, as Europe itself is confused about where exactly Turkey fits.

    Snow is more than the title, it also describes a state of mind or, at 
least, the notion of perception as it exists within the book. Ka is a 
drifter whose politics are well overshadowed by his poetry and by his 
obsessional love for Ipek, a girl whose beauty is one of the major themes 
in the narrative. Once in Kars, Ka - whose name also means snow - begins 
writing poems with a frenzy akin to the way other people suffer panic 
attacks. The poems simply happen.

    At no time does it seem that he will be writing any news story. For a 
western reader, there is something very confusing about this novel in that 
Pamuk himself does not seem to have any opinion regarding the Kurds or 
anything else. Belief is throughout treated as a common cold, merely a 
nuisance but not all that important. Elsewhere there is a throwaway remark 
when Blue, a revolutionary of sorts, remarks to Ka: "Contrary to what our 
own Europe-admiring atheists assume, all European intellectuals take their 
religion, and their crosses, very seriously. But when our guys return to 
Turkey, they never mention this . . ."

    The same character later announces: "I refuse to be a European . . . 
I'm going to live out my own history and be no one but myself."

    Some of the stilted exchanges are funny, as are the sexual digressions, 
if only because the entire novel is so odd. There are also a couple of 
almost comic sequences, such as when one young would-be revolutionary 
wants to tell Ka ,the poet, about the science fiction novel he wants to 
write. Ka, a Woody Allen without the wit, a study in dozy ambivalence, 
never engages the reader because he does not exist beyond Ipek's beauty.

    One would wonder at Pamuk's intentions in this rambling, heavy-footed 
and slight-as-cake performance. He has populated Kars with a cast of 
misfits who spend their days watching television and the snow, who 
complain but will only undertake the craziest of projects, and who have 
somehow missed the point of both their country and their culture.

    Snow, written in a heavy prose not helped by the preening authorial 
intrusions, is not only lacking Pamuk's proven metaphysical intelligence 
and imagination, it is also without his sense of direction, or conviction.

    Eileen Battersby is Literary Correspondent of The Irish Times

LOAD-DATE: May 1, 2004
------------------
The Spectator

May 08, 2004

Rather cold Turkey;
BOOKS

John de Falbe


     SNOW by Orhan Pamuk Faber, GBP 16.99, pp. 436, ISBN 057121830X

     In 1919 my grandfather was in Kars, near what is now Turkey's 
north-eastern frontier, as part of a British occupation force connected 
with what might be regarded as the first oil war. Kars had recently been 
abandoned by the Russians after nearly a century (Pushkin stayed there) 
and was soon to be handed over to the Turks. Twenty years ago I happened 
to visit this dilapidated town myself; the colonial buildings still 
endowed it with pathetic grandeur.

     The Russians and Armenians who once lived here hover like shadows 
behind the modern Turks of Snow, and the prejudices and politics that 
bedevil the characters of this remarkable novel echo the forces that 
ejected their predecessors from the city.

     What was once a place of some sophistication is now as poor and 
backward as anywhere in Turkey - which is partly why Pamuk has chosen to 
set Snow here.

     Another reason is the town's name. The Turkish title is Kar, the 
Turkish for snow.

     During the three days of Snow's action Kars has been cut off from the 
outside world by heavy snowfalls. It won't give much away to say that the 
denouement occurs during what the Border City Gazette describes as 'an 
adaptation of a drama penned by Thomas Kyd . . .' If this doesn't make you 
want to read the book, then it might stir your curiosity to learn that the 
main performers are Sunay, a washed-up actor who staged a coup in a 
performance two days previously, and Kadife, a beautiful 16-year-old girl 
who is about to remove her headscarf before an audience that includes many 
politicised Muslims.

     The novel's main character is Ka, a poet who has returned from 
political exile in Germany to write a piece for an Istanbul newspaper 
about the spate of suicides by Kars girls. An innocent abroad, he is 
caught up in a bloody coup. He only wants to get back to Frankfurt with 
Kadife's sister but instead finds himself used as a gobetween by the 
Ataturk-loving Sunay, and Blue, a terrorist loved by Kadife.

     Regarded as an atheist by the Islamists and credulous by the secular 
group, his position is complicated by the fact that poems start crowding 
in on him. The title of his Kars collection is, of course, Snow.

     Pamuk uses the snow metaphor to dizzying effect (there is an echo, 
too, in Ka's name). Snow isolates people but also draws them together, it 
smothers and freezes them but it also reminds Ka of God, 'of the beauty 
and mystery of creation, of the essential joy that is life'.

     Snowflakes, like people, are unique.

     Pamuk is persuasive about Ka's religious sentiments, but he isn't in 
the business of offering solutions: he is persuasive from every direction, 
so that we feel sympathetic to Blue's contempt for the West's cult of the 
individual just as we despair at the confusions of political Islam.

     Snow has already been a bestseller in Turkey - given Pamuk's stature 
as a novelist and the novel's content it could hardly fail to be. But what 
makes it a brilliant novel is its artistry. Pamuk keeps so many balls in 
the air that you cannot separate the inquiry into the nature of religious 
belief from the examination of modern Turkey, the investigation of 
East-West relations, and the nature of art itself - and, by implication, 
life, for the stage(d) coup is certainly deadly, and art and life mimic 
one another with hideous, occasionally hilarious, persistence. All this 
rolled into a gripping political thriller.

LOAD-DATE: May 10, 2004
-----------------
The Guardian (London) - Final Edition

May 8, 2004

Saturday Review: Profile: Orhan Pamuk: Occidental hero: Orhan Pamuk: 
Occidental hero: Born in Istanbul to a wealthy family, he abandoned 
architecture studies to write his first book, but struggled to find a 
publisher. Now Turkey's best-selling novelist, his newly translated Snow 
depicts a military coup. His opposition to the Rushdie fatwa and support 
for the Kurds means he is seen by some as a political renegade, but he 
remains outspoken. Nicholas Wroe reports

Nicholas Wroe


     In 1994, billboards appeared all over Istanbul bearing the words: "I 
read a book one day and my whole life was changed." They formed part of an 
advertising campaign for Orhan Pamuk's novel of that year, The New Life , 
and the phrase was the book's opening line. The marketing of popular 
fiction in this way is nothing new -although it was innovative in Turkey 
at the time - but what made the approach so unusual was that Pamuk's 
writing would not be immediately recognisable as the stuff of mass-market 
campaigns.

     John Updike, praising The New Life , said Pamuk "in his dispassionate 
intelligence and arabesques of introspection suggests Proust". But Updike 
also noted that Pamuk was that most unusual of literary creatures, "both a 
best-selling author and an avant-garde writer". Pamuk's novels exuberantly 
embrace postmodernist narrative trickery and his work has been compared to 
Kafka, Borges, Calvino and Garcia Marquez. "I was as surprised as anyone 
about my sales," he says. "My first novel ( Cevdet Bey and His Sons, 1982) 
sold 2,000 copies in Turkey in the first year. The second ( The Quiet 
House, 1983) sold 8,000 copies, which was very good. But then the third 
book ( The White Castle, 1985) sold 16,000 and the fourth ( The Black 
Book, 1990) 32,000. So I was joking with friends that The New Life would 
sell 64,000 but it sold 164,000 copies in its first year." It was by some 
distance the fastest-selling novel in Turkish publishing history and the 
print run for his next novel, My Name is Red , in 1998, was the 
largest-ever in Turkey.

     The flat where Pamuk writes in Istanbul overlooks the Golden Horn and 
has views of the Topkapi Palace on one side and the suspension bridge that 
links Europe and Asia on the other. To the periodic accompaniment of a 
muezzin's call to prayer from the next-door mosque, he attempts to make 
sense of his unprecedented commercial success.

     "When I was first published, the Marxists and the conservatives and 
the political Islamists were all fighting against each other and fighting 
among themselves," he recalls. "So, because I was a newcomer they all kind 
of welcomed me, although a bit suspiciously. But it meant that I got all 
the prizes. And then a media boom began in Turkey and suddenly the 
interest in books was huge."

     While this helps to explain the demographics of his success, in 
artistic terms his work has tapped into the modern Turkish psyche at a 
most profound level. He acknowledges that a common theme in his books has 
been "cultural change; living in a westernised fashion in a country that 
is essentially not western". His work is full of reminiscences and he 
subtly engages with the past of his characters and their societies. An 
aggressive westernising agenda has been the dominant official force in 
Turkish life for more than a century, and Pamuk is a product of a ruling 
class that has benefited from this regime. But his work, like the world 
around him, is also marked by the legacy of a longer social, cultural and 
religious history.

     The novelist and journalist Maureen Freely was brought up in Istanbul 
as a contemporary of Pamuk's and knew his family. She is also the 
translator of his latest novel, Snow , which is published in the UK this 
month. "The rapidity of social change in Turkey has been amazing," she 
says. "And it has also been a source of considerable pain and confusion. 
Everything Orhan writes speaks to that and to the debates people are 
having inside themselves but they can't quite put into words."

     Freely adds that while his "modernist/postmodernist games involve 
using elements from opposing traditions that, when seen together, defy 
reason and make a 'grand narrative' impossible, they are perhaps less 
difficult for a modern Turkish reader to understand in that this is their 
daily experience - living in a part-eastern, part-western culture that 
changes rapidly - and there is never time to sit back and ask how it all 
adds up".

     Professor Jale Parla of Bilgi University in Istanbul has written 
extensively about Pamuk. She ascribes his success to his "rare gift of 
that genius that beguiles at the same time as it challenges. The paradox 
that he is a 'difficult' best-seller is a myth that is created by the 
intellectual community in Turkey who are aware of the complexity of his 
novels but miss their beguiling simplicity." (Parla also acknowledges that 
there are readers who see only the simplicity and "miss the beguiling".)

     In Turkey, the launch of a new Pamuk novel has more in common with the 
release of a Hollywood film than the publication of a book. There is media 
saturation and considerable cachet in being seen with his latest work. 
Although some snipe that he is probably more bought than read, a more 
serious criticism, usually from a left-nationalist perspective, is that he 
has sold out to a European audience, a view apparently given added 
credence when Pamuk was awarded the euros 100,000 Impac prize last year 
for My Name is Red

     "When my sales went up my welcome from the Turkish literary scene 
disappeared," he says. "And I haven't been given any prizes in Turkey 
since the age of 35. I started to get harsh and envious criticism and I 
now don't expect to get good reviews any more. For the last few books they 
haven't even criticised what I have written, instead they criticise the 
marketing campaign." It is difficult to overestimate his public profile. 
"If he puts one foot in front of the other it will get into the papers," 
says one friend. His outspoken stance on the broad human-rights agenda, 
which has included women's and Kurdish rights, democratic reforms as well 
as environmentalism, has made him a lightning conductor for criticism.

     Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the radical French student leader-turned Green 
European MP, first met Pamuk in 2001 on an official visit to Istanbul. He 
invited Pamuk on to his Swiss television show about books. Cohn-Bendit 
says Pamuk "was one of the intellectuals who made me understand the 
importance of Turkey joining the European Union. It is so important for 
democrats in that country. Orhan is not only one of the most important 
modern writers in Europe, he is one of the examples of the possible 
modernity of Turkey."

     But for all the contentious stances he has taken, Pamuk rarely deals 
with political issues head-on in his fiction, and he has even been 
criticised by his natural supporters, who claim the distancing effect of 
some of his postmodernist techniques has made his work too apolitical. 
However, Pamuk says the idea of writing a "Dostoyevskian political novel" 
was in his head while he was working on Snow . "In the late-70s I tried to 
write a political novel about people like me: upper-class or middle-class 
students who went with their families to summer houses but also played 
around with guns and Maoist texts and had fanciful ideas about throwing a 
bomb at the prime minister."

     However in 1980, when the army responded to a parliamentary logjam, a 
deteriorating economy and widespread political violence by staging a coup 
and formally taking over the running of a country much of which was 
already under martial law, it was impossible to publish such a book.

     Pamuk says that 18 years on the vogue for Marxism had passed, "and the 
interesting thing was political Islamists. I had lots of friends who 
secretly admired them. Many hard-core political Islamists learned a lot 
from Turkey's Marxist-Leninists because nationalism and anti-westernism 
are at the heart of both. It is a secret anthropological history how 
similar they are. So I decided to write another novel. I liked the idea of 
this town being cut off from the rest of Turkey by snow; and there is a 
military coup." Set in 1992, the novel is part love story, part political 
thriller and features a poet visiting a remote town in eastern Turkey 
under the pretext of a journalistic assignment. Pamuk used the same ruse 
to undertake his research and many of the details in the book reflect his 
own experiences in the town of Kars, including being picked up by the 
local police who were suspicious of his movements.

     All Pamuk's novels have included autobiographical strands, but in his 
most recent book, Istanbul - published in Turkey late last year and due 
out in the UK in 2005 - he explicitly mixes memoir with his thoughts about 
the city. One of the chapters is about "The Rich", the social group into 
which he was born. "My grandfather was a rich person and my father's 
generation had much money, which they wasted. My childhood was full of my 
grandmother crying because my father or uncles were selling this or that. 
The family wealth came from building railroads in the 1930s. They were 
instigating the new Turkish republic and were literally building the 
nation. By the time I was growing up, the wealth was going down, but they 
still had the instincts of rich people. Even though my grandfather's money 
had evaporated, our lifestyle didn't change. But there were signs that the 
money was going and there were always feuds. People blamed other people 
all the time."

     Pamuk was born in Istanbul in June 1952 and a description of the 
upper-class neighbourhood he grew up in can be found in the The Black Book 
. "I was meticulous and perhaps pompous; I wanted to be like James Joyce 
in getting every detail correct about which shops were there at the time. 
Before I was born my family had a large house, the ultimate Ottoman 
mansion, with the whole family in different parts of the building and lots 
of servants. But that disintegrated and they wanted to be western, so they 
built an apartment block for themselves where the main doors were locked 
but inside all the apartment doors were open, and I would walk between the 
apartments of my uncles and cousins and my grandmother. But as the money 
ran out they began to sell the apartments and my family eventually moved 
to a better one, but one they rented and didn't own." Pamuk has bought a 
flat in the original family block and lives there again.

     His father, who died last year, was a businessman and a "failed poet" 
- "perhaps typical of second-generation wealth". Like the father figure in 
My Name is Red , he would periodically disappear from home. "He looked 
down on the Turkish literary scene but thought of Paris as a cool place to 
be so that's where he went," says Pamuk. "He married early and had chil 
dren and I think he regretted that. He wanted to carry on with his youth."

     Pamuk's mother and elder brother, a professor of economics, still live 
in the city. There is tension between the brothers, says Pamuk, because in 
Istanbul he wrote about the beatings he received from his brother when 
they were children. "People thought that because I am an apparently 
successful, upper-class, happy person I wouldn't write about things like 
that. But it is in our culture and it was my right to write about it. And 
then the media latched on to it and it made headlines."

     Pamuk and his brother attended the American school in Istanbul where 
they were taught in English and Turkish. The school catered for a social 
elite and has produced several Turkish prime ministers, but most of its 
alumni run Turkish industry and academia. "That sort of education makes 
you too secular and too westernised to properly stay in touch with 
traditional voters," says Pamuk.

     Vedit Inal, now a lecturer in economics, was a school and college 
friend and remembers Pamuk as witty, a good student and a basketball 
player. "He hasn't changed much as a character. He was always able to look 
at things from an unusual angle. And at first he wanted to be a painter, 
not a writer."

     Pamuk says he went through childhood being told he had a talent for 
painting, but the family tradition in engineering meant "that only things 
like engineering and mathematics counted. Religion, for example, was 
something just for the poor. The only time I was taken to the mosque was 
by my maid, when she went there to chat to her friends. The ruling 
westernised elite thought religion was one of the reasons for our glorious 
Ottoman empire's decline. But from the 60s they also saw it had an immense 
political power. If you showed the voters you were religious you got more 
votes and since then the upper classes have been scared of the lower 
classes and urban Turkey has been more religious." The arts and humanities 
were similarly disregarded and his family was not enthusiastic about the 
idea of him becoming a professional painter. "But instead of sending me to 
be a civil engineer, they thought because I was an arty guy perhaps I 
should be an architect."

     When Pamuk went to university in Istanbul in 1970 it was a militant 
Marxist campus and he was on the left. "But although I was reading the 
literature of all these little Marxist factions, I never joined any, and I 
would go home and read Virginia Woolf. Although I had my sympathies, I 
saved my spirits by reading Woolf and Faulkner and Mann and Proust. I felt 
guilty but I also felt they were more interesting." Pamuk had been a 
prodigious reader of classic French, Russian and English fiction since 
childhood and after three years studying architecture, "suddenly announced 
that I wasn't going to go to school any more and I wasn't going to paint. 
I was going to write novels."

     Freely says several contemporaries were, like Pamuk, interestingly 
quirky thinkers. "But while they fell by the way side, he pushed on and 
found out who he really was through his writing. And it was difficult. For 
families from his class engineering was everything. Of course there were 
quite a few of us interested in artistic things, but there was a very 
strong feeling that anyone with skills should put them in service of the 
country. His family were not happy at all about what he was doing but that 
wouldn't mean they didn't support him. Your family is your social security 
over there."

     Pamuk says he received "pocket money" from his father until he was 32. 
"But even my father, who had translated Valery, said I should stay on and 
finish that stupid architecture school. Their attitude was that all the 
artists and intellectuals in the country were doomed because there was not 
much interest in what they had to offer. And they were all drunks. So I 
worked very hard to make myself a novelist and finish my first book. I 
didn't want anyone to say - even though secretly I was saying it to myself 
- that I left school for nothing and was wasting my life."

     Although a leftist himself he felt little sympathy with the 
socialist-sanctioned realism of Gorky or Steinbeck or some Turkish village 
novelists. "There were modernist poetry groups and magazines with which I 
sympathised but I didn't really develop any literary friendships in my 
20s. I was arrogant and I looked down a little on them and thought they 
were a bit simplistic. Because of that it was a problem to publish my 
first book." It took him four years to complete Cevdet Bey and His Sons - 
"a family saga that is really about my grandfather making his money" - and 
although it won a competition to be published, Pamuk eventually had to sue 
the publisher before it finally appeared in print three years later. 
"Getting published in England and America and in 35 languages was easy 
compared with first getting published in Turkey," he laughs.

     Throughout his time writing the novel, Pamuk had been enrolled in a 
journalism school just to put off his military service. But aged 30 in 
1982, he did his spell in the military, and when he came out he married 
Aylin Turegen, a historian of Russian descent. Their daughter, Ruya, was 
born in 1991. The couple divorced three years ago. Cevdet Bey was 
published the same year as his marriage, followed the next year by The 
Quiet House

     Parla sees Pamuk "as a very conscious inheritor of the novelistic 
tradition, both with regards to Turkey and the west. It is no coincidence 
that he started his writing in a very classical format, that of the 
bildungsroman, in Cevdet Bey, and moved gradually through the modernism of 
Sessiz Ev ( The Quiet House ) to the post-colonial and post-modern works 
exemplified by The White Castle , The Black Book , The New Life , and My 
Name Is Red ."

     After the 1985 publication of his third novel, The White Castle, about 
a 17th-century Christian slave and his Muslim master who swap identities, 
the Pamuks moved to New York for three years so Aylin could study for a 
PhD at Columbia. Pamuk attended the Iowa writing school and taught a 
Turkish language class, but mostly he occupied a small room above the 
Col-umbia library where he began work on The Black Book , the contemporary 
story of a lawyer searching Istanbul for his lost wife.

     "My cubicle was above three million books and I was very happy there," 
he says. "There was a good collection of Turkish books going back to the 
1930s and many of them had not even had the pages cut. No one had ever 
looked at them before me." The publisher Keith Goldsmith, now with Knopf 
in New York, was working for Carcanet, the British publisher. He was 
recommended Pamuk's work by a Turkish friend and through him The White 
Castle became Pamuk's first book translated into English.

     "Orhan was a very attractive character who was constantly 
chain-smoking, drinking coffee and speaking a mile a minute," says 
Goldsmith. "And it was plain that in his work, although it was cast in an 
historical period, he was addressing something of the essence of what was 
going on in the world today. He has obviously put his finger on something 
that relates to Turkey, but he has a resonance far beyond the place and 
the time he is apparently writing about. He is really a writer for the 
ages."

     The books now sell worldwide and Pamuk says the initial impact of this 
was to make him more conscious of his Turkishness. "I was surprised that 
the word Turk was used as a sort of synonym for my name. Instead of 
writing 'Pamuk says this or that' they wrote that 'this Turkish author 
said this or that'. It did upset me a little. If I write an essay about 
Proust or Hemingway I might occasionally write about the French or 
American author, but not all the time. It seems if you write fiction in 
that part of the world your nationality is not that important, but if you 
write fiction in this part of the world your nationality and, even worse, 
ethnicity are important. When an English writer writes about a love affair 
he writes about humanity's love affair, but when I write about a love 
affair I am only talking about a Turk's love affair."

     Pamuk says that as soon as he began to publish he realised he was 
expected to have an opinion on everything. "They would ask me what 
deodorants I used and I would answer them so I got a reputation for 
answering every question. For the first three or four years I didn't worry 
much about politics. The previous generation sneered at me as someone who 
became popular after a military coup. They implied my work was a product 
of that coup, which of course was not true. But although I was not in any 
party, I was still a leftist like them and as my fame grew, the new 
generation knew my opinions on things and especially on the Kurdish issue 
and on freedom of speech."

     He, and two other Turkish novelists, Yasar Kemal and Aziz Nesin, were 
the first writers from a Muslim country to speak out against the fatwa 
issued against Salman Rushdie. "Three days later President Rafsanjani 
answered back from Tehran complaining that Iran's neighbours were siding 
with Rushdie, who had insulted the Prophet. I was famous by then, but not 
that famous. No one knew my address, so I didn't worry too much."

     Following the success of The New Life, he agreed to sell a Kurdish 
newspaper on the streets after the bombing of its offices by, it was 
generally assumed, government agencies. Through much of the 80s and 90s, a 
civil war was fought in east and southeast Turkey between government 
forces and Kurdish rebels from the secessionist Kurdistan Workers Party 
(PKK). Pamuk recalls a "horrific atmosphere " at the time and says that 
when some "leftists and liberals and Kurds who were not ultra-nationalist 
tried to do something against the war and they wanted to use me, I said 
OK."

     The result was that he was called a "renegade" on the front page of a 
national newspaper, and sections of Turkish society and the state have 
never forgiven him.

     Pamuk began to write controversial articles for German newspapers and, 
in the late 90s, he signed a statement with other writers and 
intellectuals calling the government's Kurdish policy "a huge mistake". 
The government offered him an olive branch with the accolade of "state 
artist", but Pamuk refused it, saying that if he accepted, he couldn't 
"look in the face of people I care about".

     He now says the Kurds lost that war, which he thought "was bad for 
Turkey. There should have been concessions from both sides to reach a 
peace. That would have saved so much time and would have been much better 
for the country. I just hope that over time the Turks forget some of their 
Turkishness and Kurds forget some of their Kurdishness. And my dream of 
Europe is something that can do that. "

     "He has been courageous about human-rights issues," says Freely, "and 
has been very lucky not to have spent time in prison for his views. Any 
classmate of ours who was remotely interested in politics ended up in 
prison at some time or other. The fact that he can get away with saying 
things about the state because of his international reputation makes the 
obligation greater for him to do so when he can. And there is a sense that 
the human rights issue has to be addressed before they stand any chance of 
joining the European Union."

     Inal says that writers have an unusual mission in Turkey. "They are 
not just people working in their rooms. People ask them about social and 
political events and they have to respond. He has to give a provocative 
response so that people can look at things from different angles. 
Personally he is a loner and would prefer to be at home working and 
thinking about nothing more than writing. But he knows he also has a 
mission and he takes his social and political responsibilities seriously."

     "People say I must have had great self-confidence to continue for so 
long without being published," he says. "Perhaps that is true, but in fact 
I had burnt my boats and could not go back. I knew I had to reach that 
shore and this is how I have done it.

     "There are writers like Nabokov and Naipaul and Conrad who exchanged 
their civilisations and nations and even languages. It is a very cherished 
and fashionable idea in literature and so in a sense I am embarrassed that 
I have done none of this. I have lived virtually in the same street all my 
life and I currently live in the apartment block where I was brought up. 
But this is how it has to be for me and this is what I do. And look at my 
view. From here it is not so difficult to see the world."

     Snow is published by Faber & Faber at ?16.99. To order a copy for 
?14.99 plus p&p call Guardian book service on 0870 836 0875.

     Life at a glance

     Born: June 7, 1952, Istanbul.

     Education: Robert College, Istanbul; Istanbul Technical University;
Institute of Journalism at the Istanbul University.

     Family: 1982 married Aylin Turegen; divorced 2001(one daughter, 
Ruya,born 1991).

     Some books: 1982 Cevdet Bey ve Ogullari (Cevdet Bey and His Sons); '83 
Sessiz Ev (The Quiet House); '91 The White Castle; '95 The Black Book; '97 
The New Life; 2001 My Name is Red; '03 Istanbul (not yet translated); '04 
Snow.

     Prizes: 1983 Orhan Kemal Novel Prize; '84 Madarali Novel Prize; 2003 
Impac award.


    LOAD-DATE: May 8, 2004
----------------------
New Statesman

May 10, 2004

LENGTH: 675 words

Fiction - Veiled hatred; Snow Orhan Pamuk Faber & Faber, 436pp,
GBP12.99 ISBN 0571220657

Julian Evans

     The concept of the 'Turkish novel', like the Moroccan or the Egyptian 
novel, is one we accept without question, though it contains the germ of a 
controversy. The novel, as readers of Cervantes and Dickens understand it, 
is a European form with roots in the Renaissance, individualism and 
romanticism, and an awareness of its own fictitiousness. When it is used 
by a Turkish writer to dramatise the competing claims of European 
secularism and political Islam, the result, at least at the level of form, 
is a foregone conclusion - Europe and secularism win.

     Orhan Pamuk wrestles with this ambiguity on every page of his profound 
and frequently brilliant new novel. Set in the 1990s, Snow presents Turkey 
as a nation far more unsure of its identity, and far crueller on both 
sides of the secular-Islamic divide, than we imagine. Pamuk's device for 
arranging his material recalls the allegories of writers such as 
Durrenmatt and Boll. His hero is a poet named Ka who, returning to Turkey 
after 12 years in political exile in Frankfurt, attends his mother's 
funeral in Istanbul, then accepts a commission to write an article about 
the forthcoming elections in the distant city of Kars, near the Armenian 
border. There has been a spate of suicides by women in the city, and the 
foreign press, despite local obstruction, is starting to get interested. 
Kars is poor, on the road to nowhere. It clings to the remnants of a 
grander Russian past and is uneasily caught between the secular status quo 
and rising Islamist parties. The thickly falling snow blankets its poverty 
and, to the poet's eyes, 'casts a veil over hatred'. It also cuts the city 
off within a day of Ka's arrival.

     That phrase 'casts a veil over hatred' is indicative of Pamuk's style 
and the ambiguities it expresses. Hatred is veiled, but veiling it does 
not resolve it. The snow of the title becomes a potent metaphor, returning 
Ka to 'the happiness and purity he had once known as a child'; he 
remembers writing in a poem that 'it snows only once in our dreams'. Snow 
is beauty and it is obstacle. And blood is brightest - or blackest - 
against snow.

     All Pamuk's characters seek stability within Turkey's fragile, 
undetermined identity. Generally it eludes them. All are tormented by both 
inner and outer uncertainties. Pamuk recognises that politics and 
psychology are one; this is one of his 'hidden symmetries'. How can people 
be free if the state does not free them? How can the state be free if 
people do not allow diversity in the body politic?

     The conundrum is worked through with remarkable clarity. At a 
performance in the National Theatre, where Ka has performed his poem 
'Snow', a coup is mounted by freelance military elements and many pupils 
from the Islamic religious high school are killed. The soldiers' leader is 
Z Demirkol, an ex-communist whose participation provides another symmetry 
- the pardoned ex-communist becomes the protector of the secular state, 
while the passive poor and unemployed are won over to political Islam. The 
subsequent events - the brutal round-up of religious leaders and Islamist 
candidates, the negotiations for a truce, Ka's failed love affair - show 
violence and failure as the blizzard produced by illiberality and 
indecision.

     Pamuk's modesty as a writer, his refusal to write as if he knows what 
is happening, is one of his finest qualities. There are episodes in this 
novel - such as the con-versation in a coffee shop between the director of 
the education institute and his assassin about the state's banning of 
headscarves - that illuminate the confrontation between secular and 
extremist Islamic worlds better than any work of non- fiction I can think 
of.

     One of Ka's interlocutors, a theologian named Blue, complains that 
because the country has fallen under the spell of the west, it has 
forgotten its own stories. This may be true. But Pamuk shows decisively 
that the European novel (here superbly translated by Maureen Freely) 
remains a form, and a freedom, for which we have reason to be thankful.


    LOAD-DATE: May 6, 2004
----------------
The Independent

May 14, 2004

BOOKS: A COLD FRONT IN ANATOLIA

Paul Bailey

    Orhan Pamuk's novel is set in the winter of 1992 in the city of Kars in 
the north-eastern part of Turkey, not far from the borders of Armenia and 
Russia. Snow is falling heavily when Kerim Alakusoglu, who prefers to be 
known by his initials Ka, arrives by bus. He is a poet who has lived in 
Frankfurt for 12 years. He has returned to Turkey to attend his mother's 
funeral in Istanbul, where he was born and raised.

    A liberal journal, The Republican, commissions him to write an 
investigative piece about curious events in the remote city, and that is 
what Ka intends to do at the outset. A number of young women, fervent 
Islamists, have committed suicide rather than divest themselves of the 
headscarves that cover their hair.

    Ka, in his role of disinterested journalist, questions the girls' 
families and friends and visits the police, the editor of a newspaper, the 
Border City Gazette, and other dignitaries. The elegant overcoat he wears 
(purchased in Frankfurt) marks him out for many in Kars as a Westernised 
intellectual. For them, Westernisation is synonymous with atheism. They 
are not to know that during his brief stay among them he is trying to find 
a way back to God.

    The multi-layered story is told by Pamuk himself, with the assistance 
of the notes Ka kept in Kars. These have been retrieved from Ka's flat in 
Frankfurt, four years later. The principal theme is concerned with the 
burgeoning of Ka's love for the beautiful Ipek, a former classmate in 
Istanbul, who is separated from her husband Muhtar, another friend from 
Ka's student days.

    With this romantic obsession comes the reflowering of Ka's poetic 
talent, lying dormant for some time. In beleaguered Kars, he writes 19 
poems with a new-found ease and fluency. It's as if they are demanding 
that he set them down in his green notebook. We know that certain poets 
had these sudden bursts of creativity and Ka, in the midst of violence and 
murder, experiences the always surprising contentment that accompanies 
such fecundity.

    Snow is also an avowedly political work of fiction, of a kind still 
relatively rare in Britain. It finds voices for religious and other 
fanatics, for reactionaries and the occasional moderniser, and those who 
maintain that their arcane beliefs need not be challenged with reason. 
Chief among these disconcerting characters is a dashingly handsome 
terrorist who goes under the sobriquet Blue. He is probably the mastermind 
who instigated the assassination of a camp television host who cocked a 
snook too many at Muhammad.

    His conversations with Ka are teasing and menacing by turns, with Blue 
setting little linguistic traps for the poet. These scenes are very 
cunningly written. Blue is flamboyant in his crafty way, but outmatched in 
flamboyance by Sunay Zaim and his wife Funda Eser, a pair of strolling 
players who have performed in tiny towns across Anatolia, spreading the 
word of republicanism in sketches. They reminded me of Dario Fo and Franca 
Rame, who have been mocking Italian governments for more than three 
decades.

    In Snow, Sunay and Funda are responsible for a military coup, following 
a performance at the National Theatre that incites the fundamentalists in 
the audience to hurl abuse at the actors and to riot. Pamuk is aware that 
in certain cultures the theatre has to be subversive. Taking Brecht's 
theories into account, Sunay and Funda use skits on TV commercials and 
belly dancing to make people think, even as they are entertaining them.

    But it's the characterisation of Serdar, editor of the Border City 
Gazette, that best demon- strates Pamuk's penchant for serious 
playfulness. It is Serdar 's gift to provide crudely detailed descriptions 
of events before they happen. Serdar is the classic devious newsman, a 
fabricator of sensational headlines that just occasionally contain a 
scintilla of truth.

    Four epigraphs precede this complex and ambitious novel, two especially 
apropos. The first is from Robert Brown- ing's "Bishop Blougram's 
Apology": "Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things,/ The honest 
thief, the tender murderer,/ The superstitious atheist"; the second is 
from Stendhal's The Charterhouse of Parma: "Politics in a literary work 
are a pistol shot in the middle of a concert, a crude affair though one 
impossible to ignore. We are about to speak of ugly matters."

    That's precisely what Snow does, circuitously and cleverly. At its 
centre is the doomed romantic Ka, who has read the great poets and 
attempts to bring to his work some of their potent confusions. It's a 
novel full of orchestrated surprises and shocks, and perhaps too many 
overlong digressions. Pamuk has fared badly in the past with some English 
translations, but Maureen Freely has served him excellently here. Those 
readers who love, as I do, his previous novel My Name is Red, should be 
warned that Snow is radically different and contemporary. Pamuk is not in 
the business of offering his public more of the same, exotic thing.

    Paul Bailey's latest novel is Uncle Rudolf' (Fourth Estate)

LOAD-DATE: May 14, 2004
----------------
Sunday Times (London)

May 16, 2004, Sunday
White noise

Maggie Gee


     SNOW by Orhan Pamuk translated by Maureen Freely. Faber ?12.99 pp436

     Orhan Pamuk's novel Snow sold 100,000 copies in his native Turkey, 
partly because it managed to offend both the secular Turkish intellectuals 
and extremist "Islamists" it portrays. Reading it now in Maureen Freely's 
excellent translation, this ambitious, faintly frustrating book seemed to 
me, as an outsider, nine parts crowded farce and one part poetic lament. 
Perhaps it offended everybody by taking nobody seriously. It has one 
overriding message -men constantly deceive themselves and others. In 
Pamuk's satirised provincial Turkey the fiercest anti-Europeans have 
pictures of Venice on their walls, the strongest moralists are repressed 
lovers, and poets who meddle with politics get symbolically shot through 
one eye.

     Ka, a solitary, dreamy Turkish poet in exile, returns to the remote 
town of Kars just before snow makes the roads impassable. His visit is 
ostensibly to write an article explaining the epidemic of suicides among 
young Islamic "covered" women, but really he is here in search of a 
beautiful, recently divorced contemporary of his, Ipek. As a famous former 
son, Ka is co-opted by all his home town's countless factions, and acts as 
a passive foil for, among others, the police, the naive, touching students 
from the Islamic religious school and the seductively welcoming old local, 
Sheikh Saadettin Efendi, whose wily kindness makes Ka long to be 
"provincial too...forgotten in the most unknown corner of the universe".

     It is a vain wish, for almost as soon as Ka arrives he sees the local 
head teacher shot dead at point-blank range, and while the snow lasts, 
Kars becomes the site of a revolution. This becomes so exaggeratedly 
theatrical -the two main coups actually happen on stage, when guns waved 
by actors turn out to contain live ammunition -that Pamuk seems to be 
making the point that all political acts are so much posturing, although 
in the best pages in the book the tense dialogue between the head teacher 
and his murderer suggest otherwise. The laughing despair with which Pamuk 
for the most part sketches his characters' predicaments distances him from 
them and leaves the original questions about the inner life of the covered 
women largely unanswered. Ka is too self-conscious and self-obsessed a 
character to evoke much sympathy, and Ipek, Ka's beloved, remains 
elliptical, characterised primarily by her physical beauty.

     But then, as the title suggests, Ka, and behind him Pamuk, is actually 
in love with the quiet beauty of the snow that frames the human acts. 
Snow, "the silence of snow", snow in all kinds of light and at all 
different times of day, make Kars, and the non-human parts of this book, 
beautiful, a grave backdrop to the ant like kicking and struggling of the 
people. Pamuk is looking for "hidden symmetries" just as Ka, in the thick 
of the shootings and interrogations, is listening for "the only sound that 
could ever make him happy: the sound of his muse".

     The complexity of Pamuk's skilful structure reveals itself little by 
little.

     Halfway through the book we discover Ka is the former schoolfriend of 
Orhan Bey, the journalist who is supposedly writing the novel after Ka's 
death. Orhan Bey is in quest of a green notebook containing the sequence 
of poems built around the form of a six-pointed snowflake, which Ka wrote 
during his stay in Kars, and judged to be the best thing he had ever 
written. Their titles lend shape to the novel we are reading, but the 
notebook itself is never found. In a final Pamukian irony, the poems, 
ultimate focus of all the hero's efforts, melt like a silent snowflake as 
this big, noisy novel closes. q Available at the Sunday Times Books First 
price of ?10.39 plus ?2.25 p&p on 0870 165 8585

    LOAD-DATE: May 17, 2004
----------------
Time Out

May 19, 2004

The white stuff;
Books: Preview

Omer Ali


     Omer Ali talks to cultureclash chronicler Orhan Pamuk.

     An emigri Turkish poet known as Ka finds himself trapped in a town 
called Kars, on Turkey's north-eastern border with Armenia, first by a 
blizzard and then by avery Turkish coup: bloody, muddled, steeped in 
jumbled art and political theory,with military help and under the eye of 
the intelligence service.

     Ka's underlying motive for going to Kars is to woo an old flame and 
persuade herto return to Germany with him, but he finds himself embroiled 
in a fundamentalist affair, at odds with the precepts of a secular state.

     Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk has depicted the pressures on a country 
caught between East and West before, but seventh novel 'Snow', his fifth 
to be translated into English, is the first time he has tackled politics 
and religion so overtly. 'This is my thirtieth year of writing fiction, ' 
the 51-year-old explains on the phone from Istanbul. 'For the first 20 
years I neverthought of writing political anything because a previous 
generation of Turkish writers was so political and, frankly, I hated 
political fiction.' Since the mid-'90s he has become well known for 
campaigning on behalf of the Kurds and forfreedom of expression. 'I did so 
much of it that in the end I became notorious and found myself in 
politics. I decided that why don't I get this out of my chest do it once 
and for all. Of course, as a literary form the political novel was 
outmoded. First of all the question was not political but literary: how to 
make this old thing new again?' What about the possible repercussions? 
'Well, I don't want to exaggerate it, but before the book was published we 
were a bit worried about various reactions, including the government's, 
but we didn'thave any problem with the state. But there are two essential 
reactions, first from the conservative or you can even say fundamentalist 
political Islamist side, which was essentially, Islamists are not like 
that. For example, you have an Islamic militant in the book , who the 
reader knows is also a killer, who ishaving sex outside of marriage a 
proper Islamist wouldn't do that, which is party true and partly has 
nothing to do with what happens in life.

     'The other criticism comes from the more Jacobean side of the picture: 
they wereupset by the fact that I was interested in the problems of 
Turkey's Kurds, problems of freedom of expression in relation to political 
Islamists and Kurds, and worried about my critique of the army and Turkish 
bureaucracy and state. They were upset by the fact that I tried to 
understand why a fundamentalist actsin a certain way, how does he think? 
These are the questions any of you should ask, by the way.' As in Pamuk's 
impressive historical mystery 'My Name Is Red', a writer named Orhan works 
his way into 'Snow'. For Pamuk this solves problems of representation and 
honesty; like his creator, Ka is Westernised, from a middle-class Istanbul 
upbringing, and both visited Kars posing as journalists (Ka is there to 
investigate a suicide epidemic among young women, based on recent 
real-life events in south-eastern Turkey), where both were followed by the 
police. As Ka treads the streets from one assignation to another, you 
could create a map of Kars from Pamuk's description, including vignettes 
about its inhabitants. When a Kars youth is asked what he would tell 
Westerners if he was given the chance, the answer comes: 'We're not 
stupid! We 're just poor!' It is avery beautiful book; each chapter reads 
like a short story, an idea that catchesPamuk's imagination. 'I wish I 
could do that: a serialised novel, like nineteenthcentury authors like 
Dickens or Dostoyevsky. Then I wouldn't be worrying about the beauty of 
the whole project, which is a bit pretentious somehow, miraculously, it 
will take care of itself. Writing in instalments wouldsave my soul in a 
way.' And then there is the snow ('Snow' in Turkish is 'Kar'),which works 
its way into Ka's psyche and his poems, occurs at crucial moments of'My 
Name Is Red' and seems to enfold the new book like Ka's characteristic 
'charcoal-grey coat bought at Kaufhof'. ' Snow was one of the delights of 
childhood, as most children know. On the other hand it is also for me a 
very picturesque thing, which I don't want to abuse.

     Perhaps it is related to the fact that I wanted to be a painter and 
everything looks softer, miraculously beautiful, after it snows in my 
corner of the world.

     Since it is such an event it pulls people together; the feeling of 
community, feeling of family and solidarity is stronger after a lovely 
snow.'

     'Snow' is published by Faber at GBP 12.99.

LOAD-DATE: May 19, 2004
---------------
Financial Times (London, England)

May 22, 2004 Saturday

Cold realities Like "a pistol-shot in the middle of a concert",
politics are tackled head-on in this devastating parable

By ANGEL QUINTANA-GURRIA

    Snow

    by Orhan Pamuk

    translated by Maureen Freely

    Faber Pounds 16.99, 436 pages

    An urgent question seethes at the heart of Orhan Pamuk's latest novel: 
"Can the West endure any democracy achieved by enemies who in no way 
resemble them?" Judging by the Turkish author's devastating parable of 
political extremism, the answer is no.

    Snow is Pamuk's seventh novel, and the fifth to be translated into 
English. Its narrator is Orhan, familiar to readers of Pamuk's The Black 
Book. Orhan tells the story of his friend Ka, a poet returning to Turkey 
after 12 years of exile in Germany. For reasons both professional and 
personal, Ka travels to the remote town of Kars near Turkey's eastern 
border. He arrives on the eve of mayoral elections, sent by an Istanbul 
newspaper to investigate an "epidemic" of young women's suicides. 
Secretly, Ka is also hoping to find Ipek, a woman he knew in his youth and 
whose beauty he has cherished ever since.

    When heavy snowfall cuts off all routes to Kars, isolating the town for 
three days, Ka feels "as if he were in a place that the whole world had 
forgotten". As he goes about his journalistic business in this confined 
microcosm, he uncovers a hotbed of intolerance and radical politics 
fuelled on all sides by fear.

    He can draw no easy conclusions within a culture in which women kill 
themselves in defence of their religion, but are shunned by their 
relatives for committing sinful suicide. Although Ka is at ease among the 
town's secular elite, he discovers that his host's daughter - Ipek's 
sister - is leading a group of girls demanding the right to wear 
headscarves. Ipek's ex-husband, once a westernised poet who has since 
embraced political Islam, is the candidate most likely to succeed in the 
impending election.

    Nor are Ka's beliefs as unshakeable as he thinks: a declared atheist, 
he soon meets and sympathises with "the infamous Islamist terrorist" Blue. 
And yet he worries like many others "that the Westernised world he had 
known as a child in Istanbul was coming to an end". The spectre of Iran's 
ayatollahs looms large over the secularists' nightmare.

    "What's more important, a decree from Ankara or a decree from God?" 
asks a zealous Islamist. While Ka merely ponders the question, other 
characters are prepared to act on what they assume is the correct answer. 
Faced by the prospect of an Islamist victory at the polls, a theatrical 
troupe devoted to the modernising mission of Ataturk, founder of the 
Turkish Republic, takes advantage of Kars' isolation to stage a deadly 
coup, brazenly exposing the limits of the democratic principle that 
modernisers claim to embrace.

    In the discord that follows, Pamuk heeds all sides. Atheists are chided 
for relying on the army. Islamists are reminded that they can pray to 
their heart's content only because "godless" modernisers are running the 
country.

    A radical secularist expresses scorn for moderates like Ka, expecting 
democracy and human rights while "buttering up" Islamic fundamentalists.

    A self-proclaimed "communist, modernising, secular, democratic patriot" 
joins forces with Islamists and Nationalist Kurds to protest against the 
coup, but is soon persuaded that "the army is right to want to keep them 
out of politics. They're the dregs of society, the most wretched, muddled, 
brainless people in the city." Caught in the thick of events, Ka's only 
wish is to flee with Ipek.

    Upon meeting the narrator after the tale's tragic denouement, an 
acquaintance of Ka pleads: "If you write a book set in Kars and put me in 
it, I'd like to tell your readers not to believe anything you say about 
me... No one could understand us from so far away." This is the type of 
playfully self-referential twist that has garnered Pamuk well-deserved 
comparisons to Borges, Calvino and Kafka. One might add Auster, Saramago 
and Sebald to the list.

    As in The White Castle and My Name is Red, Pamuk elegantly dissects the 
recurrent quandary in Turkish history - look westwards, or inwards and 
backwards.

    If Snow is less subtle than its predecessors, if it is often didactic 
and occasionally strident, it is only because its subject matter is more 
immediate.

    Never one to flinch from the weighty issues of Turkey's past and 
present, Pamuk is here at his most political yet. And, as one of the 
book's epigraphs reminds us, "politics in a literary work are a 
pistol-shot in the middle of a concert... We are about to speak of very 
ugly matters."

LOAD-DATE: May 21, 2004
--------------
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)

May 22, 2004, Saturday

Alone in Turkey Tom Payne praises a brave novel that makes us question
our world

by Tom Payne

In 2001, an extraordinary book called My Name Is Red appeared in English. 
It's impossible to recommend it without sounding eccentric - you try 
urging a friend to read a Turkish novel, brimming with stories within 
stories and Koranic dialectic, about murderous miniaturists working in the 
court of Sultan Murat III in 1591. The novel is set around the 1,000th 
anniversary of Mohammed's journey from Mecca to Medina, when Islamic 
reformers were railing against artists in Istanbul. Its opening chapter is 
a monologue about a corpse, and the story takes in points of view from 
other perspectives: Satan says his piece, as does a horse, Death, a coin 
and the colour red.

    Its translation brought its author, Orhan Pamuk, greater fame in the 
West, and, for all the book's violence, it could almost be read for 
entertainment. The book showed Pamuk could do everything - jokes, horror, 
plot, structure, erudition, love.

    In Snow, Pamuk uses his powers to show us the critical dilemmas of 
modern Turkey. How European a country is it? How can it respond to 
fundamentalist Islam? And how can an artist deal with these issues?

    The novel is set in Kars, in the far east of Turkey, close to Armenia - 
the Turkish massacre of Armenians in 1908 remains in the characters' 
minds. For the three days of the story's main action, the town is cut off 
by snow, so, when a coup takes place, the world cannot intervene. The 
local paper, the Border City News, has a circulation of 320, and prints 
news before it happens. The residents watch TV constantly, even when 
there's nothing on, and most are paid to spy on one another. There is a 
high rate of suicide among the town's young women.

    Ka, a poet, wants to know why. Some say it's because the women are 
beaten at home; others say they are protesting because they can't wear 
headscarves in school. "Why did your daughter decide to uncover herself?" 
an Islamist asks Kars 's director of education, before shooting him. "Does 
she want to become a film star?" The Islamists don't know what to make of 
the suicides, since the Koran forbids the faithful to take their own 
lives.

    Throughout the book, Ka stops to write poetry (mostly taken from the 
dialogue around him). He asks a woman he loves, "Do you think it's 
beautiful?... What's beautiful about it?" As a writer, Ka is at odds with 
the intrigues and fear around him. He is often blissfully happy, and we 
learn that one poem's theme is "the poet's ability to shut off part of his 
mind even while the world is in turmoil. But this meant that a poet had no 
more connection to the present than a ghost did. Such was the price a poet 
had to pay for his art!"

    And yet the artists in the story are lethally relevant. When the coup 
comes, it comes on the stage of a theatre; even as members of the audience 
are being killed, people mistake the events for a fantastic illusion. For 
a while, Kars is run by an ageing actor who regrets that he's never played 
Ataturk. Even Ka, who is mistrusted for being too Western, becomes 
integral to the action.

    At one point, Ka reflects on the writers he's known who have been 
lynched by Islamists, and it's a reminder that writing Snow has been an 
act of bravery, too. It's an unexpected sort of bravery, though, because 
Pamuk has made great efforts to enter the Islamists' heads. The effect is 
like meeting the possessed anarchists in Dostoevsky - these alternative 
views of the world find full expression, and make us question our own.

    If Pamuk wrote about real situations and tried to find sympathy with 
true terrorists, more readers would be alarmed than already have been. But 
he tailors the terrorists to his requirements - the most seductive of 
them, Blue, hasn't killed anybody and dotes on puppies.

    The author's high artistry and fierce politics take our minds further 
into the age's crisis than any commentator could, and convince us of every 
character 's intensity, making Snow a vital book in both senses of the 
word. Orhan Pamuk is the sort of writer for whom the Nobel Prize was 
invented.

    Snow by Orhan Pamuk tr by Maureen Freely

    436pp, Faber & Faber, pounds 16.99

    T pounds 14.99 (plus pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 1557222

LOAD-DATE: May 22, 2004
---------------------

Independent on Sunday (London)

May 23, 2004, Sunday

BOOKS: HUNT THE LUSTY FUNDAMENTALIST;
  A FAST-MOVING TURKISH FARCE DELIGHTS STEPHEN O'SHEA WITH ITS

STEPHEN O'SHEA Snow on the shores of the Bosphorus near Turkey's Ortakoy
mosque MURAD SEZER/AP


     It comes as a surprise that political prescience should be yet another 
of the many gifts of Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk. Praised as a virtuoso 
of the postmodern highwire - in the company of Borges, Calvino and Eco - 
Pamuk has delivered intellectual delights without bothering his readers 
too much about the times in which they live. My Name is Red, the Impac 
winner depicting a 16th-century aesthetic feud among Ottoman miniaturists, 
was hailed as a work of idiosyncratic genius, as was The White Castle, 
which involves a Muslim master and a Christian slave switching identities. 
Now, with Snow, composed before 11 September 2001, Pamuk gives convincing 
proof that the solitary artist is a better bellwether than any televised 
think-tanker.

     Set in easternmost Anatolia in the 1990s, the novel deals with the 
present- day shouting-match between East and West - a subject that is 
second nature to any native of Istanbul like Pamuk. A meeting of Noises 
Off and The Clash of Civilisations, the work is a melancholy farce full of 
rabbit- out-of-a-hat plot twists that, despite its locale, looks uncannily 
like the magic lantern show of misfire, denial and pratfall that appears 
daily in our newspapers. How could Pamuk have foreseen this at his writing 
desk four years ago? Even the beatings and humiliations seem familiar.

     The show takes place during three eventful February days in Kars, a 
shivering has-been of a town hard by the border with Armenia. A snowstorm 
has cut off the place, prompting an itinerant theatrical troupe to stage a 
coup in the name of old-fashioned Kemalist secular values. Their leader, a 
thoughtful drunk whose fame rests in his resemblance to Ataturk, is 
concerned about militant Islamists and Kurdish separatists in Kars, as 
well as a rash of suicides among the city's pious headscarf-wearing girls. 
Enter Ka, a poet returned from exile in Germany, to report on the suicides 
for an article to appear in "Republic" (ie Cumhurriyet), a leading 
Istanbul newspaper read by Westernised "white Turks" like himself.

     What Ka finds, as the snow settles on streets lined with dilapidated 
Tsarist-era mansions, is a city of articulate rage. Angry at being poor, 
provincial and despised by the godless, the townsfolk confront Ka and 
disabuse him of his reflexive feelings of superiority, the most memorable 
harangues spouted by a youth with dreams of becoming "the world's first 
Islamist science-fiction writer". The Western newcomer, who has spent the 
past 20 years not writing poetry, masturbating, and collecting political 
refugee cheques in Frankfurt, is enchanted at finding himself stuck in a 
tendentious backwater straight out of Turgenev and Dostoevsky, to whom he 
refers liberally. Ka's muse returns and his libido revives.

     At his hotel, run by an old socialist with two beautiful daughters, 
the inevitable boulevardier complications arise, one of the love triangles 
pitting the atheist poet against a lusty fundamentalist. Ka goes out 
repeatedly to meet this hunted Islamist mastermind - who came to national 
attention over the murder of a game-show host - to negotiate matters 
political, sentimental, and, in the end, theatrical: whether one of the 
inn-keeper's daughters will remove her headscarf on stage. As the 
intrigues mount and become ever more deadly before the final betrayal, 
Pamuk gives us a florid wink by letting his characters take a break every 
afternoon to watch a Mexican soap opera on television.

     In Turkey, the novel was criticised for its use of caricatures. Not 
those of the foolish pasha of tired European travel writing, but the Turk- 
on-Turk variety: the spent leftist, the brainless policeman, the head- 
scarf passionaria, the miserable Anatolian. True, Pamuk trades on 
stereotypes. But the strength of Snow lies in its failings. The less 
believable the characters, the more true-to-life they appear. It is to 
Pamuk's credit that he saw this sad farce coming before the rest of us.

     Stephen O'Shea is the author of The Perfect Heresy' (Profile). His 
book on Islam and Christianity in the medieval Mediterranean world will 
appear next year

LOAD-DATE: May 23, 2004
-----------------------
The Jerusalem Post

May 28, 2004, Friday

The voice from Istanbul

Talya Halkin

HIGHLIGHT:

    As Turkey's leading novelist, Orhan Pamuk reluctantly straddles the 
divide between East and West. Box at end of text


     When the five-year-old Orhan Pamuk's parents went off on a 
reconciliation trip to Paris, he was sent to stay with an aunt who lived 
in another part of Istanbul. The aunt and her husband treated him nicely, 
and showed him a European picture of a wide-eyed child who resembled him.

     "This is you," they would say jokingly, pointing repeatedly at the 
picture of the little boy staring out from under a cap. It was during this 
period that he began entertaining the idea he would write about years 
later: Somewhere in the city, he came to believe, there lived another boy 
just like himself. When he was unhappy, he was convinced the other Orhan 
was undoubtedly having a better time. Walking through the streets, he 
would stare into unfamiliar houses, wondering whether any of them was 
where the other Orhan lived. Over the years, this imaginary twin became 
such an important part of his life he felt he could never leave the city 
without forsaking his double.

     "Except for three years spent in New York, I've lived on the same 
street and in the same family apartment building for the past 50 years," 
the 52-year-old Pamuk told me when I visited him earlier this month at the 
Istanbul apartment he uses as an office.

     Today, Pamuk is considered to be Turkey's leading novelist. His 
features, however, still reveal the timid, bookish child he once was, so 
that people familiar with his photographs are always surprised at how tall 
he is when they encounter him in person. His manner is at once boyish and 
imperious.

     Pamuk tells the story of his childhood double in the first chapter of 
his latest book, Istanbul, which was published in Turkey earlier this year 
and combines memories and essays about the city. And although he 
eventually relinquished his childhood fantasy of an identical counterpart, 
over the past two decades Pamuk has made the relationship between 
self-knowledge and knowledge of the other into the leitmotif of his work. 
One can only truly become oneself, his narratives insist, by becoming 
another - and this process of becoming takes place, more than anywhere 
else, through the act of telling stories.

     PAMUK'S SPACIOUS, book-lined office is directly above the Jihangir 
Mosque, situated on the hillside sloping down to the European bank of the 
Bosphorus. His secularly minded mother, who gave him the money for the 
apartment as a gift, deeply disapproved of his choice because of the 
minarets sticking up right in front of the building like two exclamation 
points after the word "religion."

     Foreign journalists, however, love to describe the view the minarets 
frame. Seagulls flutter picturesquely over the ferries and small yachts 
dot the water at the confluence of the Bosphorus, the Golden Horn, and the 
Sea of Marmara, separating the city's European coast from its Asian one. 
Like Pamuk himself, the view can symbolize, for those interested in such 
metaphors, a vision both reassuring and alluring, of the opposing East and 
West conjoined.

     Pamuk, however, is less than happy with this image. Sitting across 
from me on a low couch in a button-down shirt and dark cotton pants, his 
body arches forward like an oversize question mark.

     "What I've written about is not the clash of civilizations or the 
conflict between East and West," he told me. "I hate both the concept and 
the reality of a Muslim world clashing with the West. What I've been 
interested in writing about is what you would call in sociological terms 
'cultural change,' or in psychological, more personal terms 'problems of 
identity.'

     "Thirty years ago, this used to be only Turkey's problem. Now it has 
become the world's fashionable problem, and I don't like it when 
journalists turn to me because they want Islamic fundamentalism to be 
quickly explained to them by a mellow, civilized Turk like myself, who can 
understand the so-called 'primitives ' and act as a go- between."

     Pamuk, who defines himself as "a Western writer working in a 
semi-non-Western cultural climate," grew up in a secular, wealthy Istanbul 
home. He and his older brother, Shevket, attended the city's American 
school. Pamuk's father, who died last year, was the son of a successful 
industrialist who filled journals with existential quandaries and accounts 
of his Parisian love affairs, translated the modernist French poet Paul 
Valery into Turkish, and - together with Pamuk's uncle - squandered the 
family fortune. He also cultivated a good library, in which his son 
acquired what he describes as "an immense passion to devote my life to 
books and literature."

     His literary heroes include both Proust and Montaigne, both of whom he 
loves and identifies with for the same reason.

     "They were both," he explained to me, "wealthy men who didn't need to 
work and were surrounded by lots of books, which they could read and then 
come back and write. It's a tough position to develop in Turkey, because 
people here are so political and don't want to accept this way of life, 
which I eventually made them accept."

     As a result, Pamuk has accumulated a vast amount of literary 
knowledge.

     "You can tell from reading his books that he has almost literally 
locked himself up in a room all his life," Nuket Esen, a professor of 
modern Turkish literature at Bosphorus University, told me when I met her 
in a cafe around the corner from Pamuk's apartment.

     "He read and read and read, and all of a sudden he began writing and 
writing and writing."

     Pamuk's first novel, Cevdet Bey and His Sons, which he wrote when he 
was 26, was a traditional family novel. It took some time to get 
published, and finally appeared in 1982.

     "As soon as I finished it," Pamuk told me, flashing a smile, "I 
immediately felt it was old-fashioned."

     Over the next two years, he published two more books in quick 
succession, in each of them very consciously adapting a particular 
literary form. In The House of Silence, which appeared in 1983 and has not 
been translated into English, the narrative explodes into polyphony, as 
each chapter is recounted through the consciousness of a different 
protagonist. The novel, which unfolds against the political events of the 
late 1970s in Turkey, takes place in a dilapidated seaside house inhabited 
by an old woman, the dwarf who takes care of her, and the three 
grandchildren who come to visit. The history of the family, which 
parallels the history of modern Turkey, probes the vicissitudes of 
Westernization on both the personal and the collective level.

     Pamuk has a penchant for what literary critics call "intertextuality" 
- referring within his work not only to the texts of other writers, but to 
his own earlier novels. His third book, The White Castle, which was 
published in 1985, begins with a prologue written by an alcoholic 
historian who is one of the protagonists of The House of Silence. The bulk 
of the novel is a historical doppelganger story, in which East and West 
come face to face when an Italian student is overtaken at sea and sold as 
a slave to a Muslim scholar in 17th-century Istanbul (the two turn out to 
be spitting images of one another).

     IN 1982, Pamuk married Aylin Turegen, and the two set off for the 
United States, where Turegen would pursue her doctoral studies at Columbia 
University. Living in New York, he told me, was a welcome change from the 
Istanbul of the 1970s and 1980s, where "everything was very political. You 
had to immerse yourself in one of these local problems - fundamentalism, 
nationalism, militarism, communism. I identified with authors like James 
Joyce, moving from the margins of Western culture to its center, enjoying 
its cultural openness and wealth while still in the back of their minds 
worrying about the little world they left behind."

     Pamuk received a small study at the university's Butler Library, where 
he began writing parts of what would become The Black Book, apologizing 
profusely to the young lovers he stumbled upon as he made his way down the 
long hallway to continue writing at night. That was also the period when, 
having discovered Borges and Calvino, Pamuk found a way of looking back at 
the Islamic literary heritage from a postmodern, secular point of view, 
picking up literary tricks and at the same time becoming aware of the 
power of those texts. In doing so, he had broken completely with the 
realism and political themes of other Turkish novelists.

     The Black Book, which remains perhaps Pamuk's most dazzling literary 
achievement to date, was published in Turkey in 1990. It takes place over 
the course of one snowy week in Istanbul, when a young lawyer by the name 
of Galip discovers that his wife Ruya has disappeared and sets out on a 
quest to find her, which takes him through the city's streets and 
underground passages. When he begins to suspect that Ruya's disappearance 
is related to the sudden absence of her half-brother, the famed columnist 
Djelal, Galip begins impersonating the latter and writing his daily 
newspaper columns. His search for the two becomes a search for his own 
identity and for the identity of Istanbul, which remains forever 
mysterious.

     It was the Istanbul of The Black Book that I had wanted Pamuk to show 
me as we got out of a cab near Divan Yolu, once the main thoroughfare of 
the Byzantine and Ottoman city. We headed west into the booksellers' 
bazaar, then continued north through the gardens and arcade courtyard of 
the Suleymaniye Mosque, heading further west across Ataturk Boulevard and 
uphill into the narrow, winding streets of Fatih, one of the most 
religiously conservative neighborhoods in Istanbul, where women carefully 
cover themselves with head scarves or black chadors.

     These streets, with their dilapidated wooden houses, are where Pamuk 
would wander about when he was enrolled at the nearby School of Journalism 
to avoid the military draft. We stopped in at an old tiled shop for drinks 
made of fermented wheat. The silver glass holder from which Ataturk, 
founder of the Turkish republic, is said to have drunk was enshrined on 
the wall in a specially made reliquary.

     Pamuk, by his own definition, was a bookish, somewhat timid boy, who 
left his house only to occasionally go on long walks throughout the city.

     "In the late Sixties and Seventies," Pamuk told me as we scattered 
nuts onto the surface of our frothy, cinnamon- flavored drinks, "I walked 
endlessly in Istanbul. I was moody and angry, and my walks were these 
furious young man's 'one day I'm going to do something big' kind of 
walks."

     Like Galip, who is overcome at times by the strange sensation that the 
entire city is pervaded by a system of signs which speak to him alone, and 
which are embedded in the most banal of everyday objects - the titles of 
volumes at the booksellers' bazaar, neon street signs, bric-a-brac offered 
for sale at the street vendors' stalls - Pamuk would carefully comb 
secondhand stores and bookshops, and would return home with a host of 
acquired objects: Russian or old Ottoman coins, marbles, ashtrays, 
lighters, cigarette holders. Then he would carry them with him for a 
while, until they disappeared.

     Large parts of The Black Book are set in Nisantas, the modern 
residential neighborhood in which Pamuk grew up. Today, it has evolved 
into an upscale shopping district, in which fashion designers have 
replaced the old neighborhood merchants. The store once selling fresh eggs 
and dairy products is now a shoe store. The mansion garden that used to 
abut his school courtyard is now a small public park. Pamuk and his wife 
have been separated now for several years. Their daughter, who was born in 
1991, is called Ruya, after Galip's wife in The Black Book.

     The small shop owned by Aladin - a small, bespectacled man whom Pamuk 
has known since they were both children - is one of the few still points 
in this changing neighborhood. Aladin, who has never read any of Pamuk's 
books, is proud of his new status as a pilgrimage site to some of the 
writer's foreign fans.

     "Will you keep promoting me in your next book, sir?" he asked 
hopefully after The Black Book came out. In the center of the display 
window, standing back to back with a new translation of a Danielle Steel 
novel and just above a set of toy pistols, is a black-and-white picture of 
the smiling young Orhan on the cover of the only remaining copy of 
Istanbul.

     PAMUK IS a well-known media personality in Turkey, and people ranging 
from a hip passerby on his own street to the owner of a run-down shop 
bordering an abandoned church near the Golden Horn recognize him. 
Notwithstanding his high degree of intellectual sophistication, he is the 
first Turkish writer to become a best-seller in the Western sense.

     Andy Finkel, an American journalist based in Turkey who attended the 
same school as Pamuk, describes him as "nice and at the same time terribly 
controlled and disciplined, good at knowing what he wants to be and 
hanging on to that in a country where people do all they can to put you 
down."

     Those who dislike Pamuk seem to be bothered not only by the fanfare 
that surrounds the publication of his books, but also by the fact that in 
Turkey, respected novelists have always spent some time in prison - a 
not-insignificant point in some left-wing circles.

     According to Maureen Freely, the novelist and journalist who has just 
translated his most recent novel, Snow, into English, Pamuk's large 
following in Turkey is mostly made up of members of the younger 
generation. Nevertheless, she told me, when he appeared in London several 
years ago, "Everybody mentioned in Snow - the PKK, the secret police, the 
ambassadors, they were all there because they're obsessed with him. 
Looking at them, I realized what conflicting emotions he arouses in people 
- fascination, fear, mistrust."

     The Black Book was followed by The New Life, which appeared in 1994 
and continued the theme of searching out mystical shards of illumination 
in the everyday. In it, a young man infatuated with a book he reads 
abandons his life in Istanbul and embarks on a series of ghostly, 
disturbing bus trips between provincial towns.

     "What remains unchanged in all his books beginning with The White 
Castle," Jale Parla, a professor of modern Turkish literature at Istanbul 
Bigli University, told me, "is a mood of terrible isolation. The major 
characters all know something is wrong, but what they think is wrong is 
not really what's wrong. They are going around enveloped in this isolated 
capsule, finding ways out of it like a caterpillar poking through the 
cocoon. But they poke at the wrong points all the time. It's a very ironic 
quest, which is comic at times and tragicomic at others. It's the only 
continuity in the work of an author who is constantly experimenting with 
new forms of representation."

     While The New Life, like The Black Book, received rave reviews when it 
appeared in English, it was only with the publication of My Name is Red, 
which came out in English in 2001, that Pamuk became more widely known to 
American audiences.

     A historical novel set in the Ottoman court, it revolves around the 
murders of two of the Sultan's miniaturists and deals with the battle 
between Eastern and Western models of representation and the opposing 
worldviews they stood for.

     My Name is Red came out in the US in the first week of September 2001. 
In it, Pamuk had written about problems that he has been preoccupied with 
for many years, but in the wake of September 11, they suddenly seemed to 
take on a new relevance.

     "Today," Pamuk told me, leaning against his terrace balcony the day 
after we first met, "I am much more optimistic about the future of Turkey 
than I was several years ago. It is in the process of stabilizing, and I 
hope this stability continues and that other countries learn from Turkey's 
example that Islam and democracy aren't contradictory, and that you can 
develop civil society in an Islamic country. I don't want my part of the 
world fighting with West. I have my foot in both parts, and I want them to 
be at peace with one another because I want to survive."

     (BOX) The accidental dissident

     Snow, which has just appeared in England, is due out in the US this 
August. It is Pamuk's sixth novel, and the first one to make contemporary 
Turkish politics its direct subject. The year is 1992 when Ka, a Turkish 
poet and political exile, travels to the eastern city of Kars, on the 
Armenian border, to report on forthcoming municipal elections and a series 
of mysterious female suicides for an Istanbul newspaper. When a blizzard 
temporarily cuts off communication with the rest of the world, Ka finds 
himself caught in the midst of religious and political conspiracies that 
culminate in a military coup staged by a theatrical troupe.

     The snowed-in city becomes, in this political thriller, a microcosm of 
the entire country.

     Pamuk had previously refrained from writing on overtly political 
subjects because of what he perceives to be the destructive effect that 
political over-involvement has had on the previous generation of Turkish 
writers. After winning international recognition, however, he began 
signing petitions regarding the war against the Kurdish guerrillas and the 
Turkish state's violations of human rights and freedom of expression. He 
went on to write articles on these subjects for the foreign press, which 
were angrily discussed in Turkish newspapers, and within a decade became a 
political figure in spite of himself.

     "I finally decided to go ahead and write one political novel so I 
could get it off my chest," he told me. Like Ka, the protagonist of his 
novel, Pamuk arrived in Kars carrying a press card from a major Turkish 
newspaper, and used the pretext of researching an article to travel back 
and forth to Kars over a period of four years.

     "It snows so much there," he said, "and I love snow. But I also felt 
this depressing loneliness there, this kind of misery born from the 
horrifying absence of a future. There was a real epidemic of girls 
committing suicide at the time, but that happened in Batman, another 
Kurdish town 200 kilometers south of Kars that is a bastion of Turkish 
fundamentalism. It made the national and international news, and it's 
still a mystery to me why they committed suicide."

     MAUREEN FREELY, an American journalist and novelist who grew up in 
Istanbul and has known Pamuk since childhood, took it upon herself to 
translate Snow into English.

     "It's a kind of endgame, a three-day version of Turkish politics," she 
told me, speaking on the phone from her home in Bath, England.

     "It's all there - the succession of military coups and people pulled 
into prison and spewed out many years of torture later. And apart from a 
few people who keep the records, it's just denied and denied and denied."

     Freely was translating Snow when Chechen rebels took over the musical 
comedy theater in Moscow.

     "What I saw on tape was disturbingly close to what Pamuk had written 
about in his novel, with people marching on stage and nobody knowing what 
to make of them," she said.

     Although his novel pushes Turkish politics to a level of absurdity, 
Pamuk, according to Freely, wrote accurately about "a society held 
together by violence, in which the people in power have the ability to 
make people who have been violently treated collude with the violence and 
refrain from talking about it. In Pamuk's novel, that silence takes the 
form of the falling snow that is present throughout the book. By the time 
the book comes to an end, the city decides the coup has never taken 
place."

     It is no accident, according to Freely, that Pamuk set the novel in a 
formerly Armenian city, whose history can still only be written about in 
Turkey by way of insinuation.

     The day before I called her, Freely told me she had been speaking to a 
Turkish friend who said that Snow made her feel depressed and sad about 
her country.

     "Strangely," Freely said, "sitting and translating the book in Bath, 
England, I just wanted to travel to Kars. Despite my political concerns 
about Turkey, it appealed to me because of the human warmth that Pamuk 
evokes. There's this tiny detail at the end of the novel when it turns out 
that the Kurdish maid at the local hotel is still giving soup to the 
detective. They are simultaneously turning each other in and feeding each 
other - like a big, warm, treacherous family."

     Pamuk's international reputation has come to protect him against a 
government crackdown, but even so his publishers were somewhat worried 
when Snow was due to come out in Turkey. Pamuk is against militarism and 
fundamentalism of any kind. While Kemalists felt he was being too 
pro-Islam, Islamic groups were equally displeased with Pamuk's book.

     "It took my breath away to see how many types of people he chose to 
insult at once," Freely told me.

     "Yet although he examines how extremist groups on both poles of the 
political spectrum operate within a given power structure, he is most 
damning about his own generation of left-wing artists and radicals, who 
have come to very absurd nothings."

     "When I read it," Prof. Jale Parla of Istanbul Bigli University told 
me, "I thought 'this is it, he's in trouble.' The book was simply ignored 
by literary critics and intellectuals - perhaps because it is directed 
very straightforwardly against the military regime and its interference 
with democracy. Other novelists would still be interrogated for making 
half the comments that Pamuk made."

GRAPHIC: 5 photos: The iconoclast. 'Problems of identity used to be only 
Turkey 's problem; now they're the world's. 'Life in Istanbul. Personal 
history often parallels national history in Pamuk's work. Street scene. At 
a certain point, Pamuk broke with the realism and political themes of 
other Turkish novelists. Pamuk's view. He defines himself as 'a Western 
writer working in a semi-non -Western cultural climate.' A traditional 
neighborhood in Istanbul. 'I am much more optimistic about the future of 
Turkey than I was several years ago.' (Credit: Sinan Akyuz)

LOAD-DATE: June 9, 2004
----------------
The Times (London)

May 29, 2004, Saturday

What lies beneath

Bel Mooney


     SNOW. BY ORHAN PAMUK. Faber. ?16.99; 436pp. ISBN 0 571 21830 X. Pounds 
13.59 (p&p ?2.25). 0870 1608080

     Turkey's most acclaimed novelist begins Snow (translated by Maureen 
Freely) with four epigraphs, which are as four signposts at a crossroads, 
turned by a mischievous urchin, leaving the traveller unsure of the right 
direction.

     Their authors -Browning, Stendhal, Dostoevsky and Conrad -flag Orhan 
Pamuk's immersion in Western culture. And their meanings are 
kaleidoscopic, teasing us with simultaneous propositions invoking 
religion, politics, and anti democratic intellectual rigour, as well as 
the conflicts and contradictions that are inevitable when we look at other 
cultures with Western eyes.

     All these themes are played out -and with -in that ironic tragicomic 
style which puts Pamuk firmly at the centre of the postmodern European 
narrative which looks back to Sartre as well as Borges. Yet although his 
dispassionate intelligence cannot resist toying with reader and characters 
alike, this novel achieves a genuinely tragic dimension.

     In 1992 a poet known as Ka returns from political exile in Germany to 
visit his hometown on the Armenian border, ostensibly to report on the 
forthcoming municipal elections, and also the spate of female suicides 
among Muslim women who have over-enthusiastically embraced Islamicist 
fervour and chosen to cover their heads in defiance of the secular state. 
He is trapped in the rundown city by a blizzard, the snow of the title 
becoming a metaphor for spiritual loneliness as well as the blurring of 
the outlines of certainty, in life and in art.

     Later we learn that Ka will be murdered four years on, and that the 
narrator who embarks on a quest to establish the truth of what happened is 
none other than Pamuk.

     The writer has produced a novel of profound relevance to the present 
moment. The core debate between the forces of secularism and those of 
religious fanaticism within modern Turkey is conducted with subtle, 
painful insight into the human weakness that can underlie both impulses.


    LOAD-DATE: May 31, 2004
---------------------------
Irish Independent

May 29, 2004

NEW FROM THE IMPAC WINNER

    SnowBy Orhan Pamuk Translated by Maureen FreelyFaber & Faber, Euro 
25.08
Gerry Dukes

Orhan Pamuk came to international prominence when his novel My Name is Red 
won the IMPAC Award in 2003. The new novel Snow has proved to be 
controversial in his native Turkey (he currently lives in Istanbul) where 
it has sold over100,000 copies.

    A poet and political exile who prefers to be known as Ka, returns from 
Frankfurt toIstanbul after 12 years to attend his mother's funeral. He 
decides to extend his stay inTurkey by revisiting the city of Kars near 
the mountainous border with Armenia, a city he had not been to for 20 
years. He procures a valid press card and sets off on a three-dayjourney 
by bus. He arrives in Kars just ahead of road closures caused by 
blizzards. His ostensible reason for being there is to report on the 
"suicide epidemic" that has struckheadscarf-wearing young Muslim girls in 
the city and on the upcoming municipal electionsthat seem set to be won by 
Muslimists.

    Just after his arrival, as access to the city is blocked, a coup is 
carried out by a loose combine of soldiers, secret police and a theatre 
company. The object of the coup is,apparently, to block the political 
progress of the Muslimist factions - of which there arequite a few.

    In the midst of this turmoil, mayhem and generalised murderousness, Ka, 
a withdrawnpoet with a small reputation, finds love and confusion as well 
as 19 poems that 'come' to him like the ineluctable descent of snowflakes.

    Pamuk frames his narrative by inserting himself into the novel as he 
researches Ka's timein Kars, reconstructing the events by reference to the 
poet 's notebooks compiled after he had gone back to Germany where he 
struggled to order his 'inspired' poems into asemblance of coherence and 
meaningfulness. The green notebook in which he inscribed the poems 
disappeared after the poet's violent death in the streets of Frankfurt 
four years after his return. Thus, at a stroke, Pamuk absolves himself 
from providing textualevidence for the quality of Ka's experience which is 
merely claimed as disruptive and devastating.

    The novel has some virtues, particularly in its presentation of the 
ethnic and political fragmentation of contemporary Turkey.

    The casual disclosure of institutionalised snooping and spying by 
agencies running divergent agendas, the tacit acceptance of police 
brutality and mindlessness, contrive to underpin the stereotype of Turkey 
as a former 'frontline' state (to use a misleadingAmericanism) in dire 
need of reformation.

    Whatever about the virtues, the vices of the novel compromise its 
readability. At too many points too many characters deliver hectoring 
stump speeches that grate and impede and contribute little to the readers' 
understanding. At many points the novelist's histrionicsseem to slide into 
hysteria and his central character, the poet Ka, seems merely amouthpiece 
for ideological concerns that are, finally, extrinsic to the book.

    Gerry Dukes is MIC Research Fellow,

LOAD-DATE: May 29, 2004
----------------------
The Guardian (London) - Final Edition

May 29, 2004

Saturday Review: Fiction: Frozen assets: James Buchan enjoys a poet's 
vision of Anatolia, but misses the poetry: Snow by Orhan Pamuk, translated 
by Maureen Freely 436pp, Faber, ?16.99

James Buchan


     Orhan Pamuk's new novel is set in the early 1990s in Kars, a remote 
and dilapidated city in eastern Anatolia famed less for its mournful 
relics of Armenian civilisation and Russian imperial rule than for its 
spectacularly awful weather. Snow, " kar " in Turkish, falls incessantly 
on the treeless plains and the castle, river and boulevards of Kars, which 
the local scholars say takes its name from " karsu " (snow-water).

     In this novel, the city is cut off from the world and also, to an 
extent, from normal literary reality by three days of unremitting snow. 
Written, the reader is told, between 1999 and 2001, Snow deals with some 
of the large themes of Turkey and the Middle East: the conflict between a 
secular state and Islamic government, poverty, unemployment, the veil, the 
role of a modernising army, suicide and yet more suicide. Pamuk's master 
here is Dostoevsky, but amid the desperate students, cafes, small 
shopkeepers, gunshots and inky comedy are the trickeries familiar from 
modern continental fiction. The result is large and expansive, but, even 
at 436 pages, neither grand nor heavy.

     Pamuk's hero is a dried-up poet named Kerim Alakusoglu, conveniently 
abbreviated to Ka: Ka in kar in Kars. After many years in political exile 
in Frankfurt, Ka returns to Istanbul to attend his mother's funeral. He is 
then commissioned by an Istanbul newspaper to write an article about the 
municipal elections in Kars and investigate a succession of suicides by 
women and girls in the city. In his role as journalist, Ka trudges through 
the snow interviewing the families of the girls. He learns that they are 
committing suicide because of pressure by the college authorities to take 
off their headscarves in class. (Compulsory unveiling succeeds just as 
well as compulsory veiling, which is not very well.)

     It soon emerges that Ka is not greatly interested in headscarves but 
has come to fall in love with his old Istanbul schoolmate, Ipek, who has 
ended up in Kars and is separated from her husband. Meanwhile, his lyric 
gift returns to him with a force bordering on incontinence, and he is 
forever plunging into tea houses to get his latest poem down in a green 
notebook. Another narrator, called Orhan Pamuk, tells the story not from 
the notebook, which is lost or stolen, but from notes in Ka's handwriting 
that he finds four years later in the poet's flat in Frankfurt.

     The book is full of winning characters, from Ka himself to Blue, a 
handsome Islamist terrorist with the gift of the gab, an actor-manager and 
his wife who tour small Anatolian towns staging revolutionary plays and 
coups de main , and Serdar Bey, the local newspaper editor, who has a 
habit of writing up events and running them off his ancient presses before 
they occur. There are many fine scenes, including one where a hidden tape 
records the last conversation between a college professor in a bakery and 
his Islamist assassin.

     Yet there are literary judgments that some readers will question. The 
first is to omit Ka's poems. The green book has been lost or stolen and 
what remain are Ka's notes on how he came to write his 19 poems in Kars 
and how they might be arranged on the crystalline model of a snowflake. 
That is quite as dull as it sounds: really, in a book so expansive and 
light, the only dull passages. Incidentally, what verse there is in the 
book, copied from the wall of the tea-shop, is worth reading. One senses 
that Ka is a poet visiting Kars because the poet Pushkin visited Kars (on 
June 12 and 13 1829).

     Pamuk also decides to stage his two narrative climaxes as theatre. The 
first of these, in which soldiers fire live rounds into the audience from 
the stage of the National Theatre in Kars during a live television 
broadcast, is a fine job of writing and translating, but the effect is the 
same as with the descriptions of Ka's poems. The second literary layer 
makes the matters at issue both fainter and less persuasive. Pamuk likes 
to undermine and destabilise each character by introducing a degenerate 
counterpart: not merely Ka/Pamuk, but Ipek and her almost-as-beautiful 
sister Kadife, the two Islamist students Necib and Fazil, and so on.

     This playfulness or irony may be a response to a literary dilemma. To 
use a European literary form such as the novel in Turkey is, in an 
important sense, to ally oneself with European notions of individualism, 
liberty and democracy that even when they are upheld (rather than 
breached) are meaningless to traditional Muslims. Liberty in Islam is the 
liberty to be a Muslim, democracy likewise, individualism likewise.

     Pamuk knows that as well as anybody and dramatises it in a raucous 
scene in which a group of leftists, Kurds and Islamists gather in a hotel 
room to write a letter to the Frankfurter Rundschau. He also anticipates 
his critics by having Serdar Bey accuse Ka in the Border Gazette of being 
so "ashamed of being a Turk that you hide your true name behind the fake, 
foreign, counterfeit name of Ka". In fact, the best sentences in the book 
are those entirely without any playfulness, or indeed any artistry, such 
as this one, where Ka remembers the almost permanent state of military 
coup d'etat of his Istanbul childhood: "As a child he'd loved those 
martial days like holidays."

     A more serious challenge to novelists in Turkey, Iran and the Arab 
world is that the events of September 11, the Moscow theatre attack and 
Abu Ghraib are both more romantic and more desperate than even Dostoevsky 
could have dreamed up and written down.

     James Buchan is the author of A Good Place to Die , a novel set in 
modern Iran. To order Snow for ?14.99 plus p&p call Guardian book service 
on 0870 836 0875. Orhan Pamuk appears at the Guardian Hay Festival on 
Monday May 31. See www.hayfestival.com for details.

    LOAD-DATE: May 29, 2004
-----------------
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)

May 30, 2004, Sunday
A taste of Turkish despair

By DAVID ROBSON
Snow by Orhan Pamuk tr by Maureen Freely

    Faber, pounds 16.99, 436 pp pounds 14.99 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 
7222

    AT THE START of Snow, Orhan Pamuk quotes Stendhal: "Politics in a 
literary work are like a pistol-shot in a concert - crude but impossible 
to ignore." It is a maxim which his book neatly illustrates. Politics are 
everywhere in Snow and, most of the time, they are crude and 
two-dimensional. But the novel has proved impossible to ignore in Turkey, 
where it has infuriated Islamists and Westernised Turks alike. Pamuk has 
hitherto been an acquired taste in the West; but this sprawling, 
emotionally charged story, with its flashes of black comedy, could well 
secure him the readership he deserves.

    The year is 1992 and the setting is Kars, a snow-bound town on the 
Armenian border. Ka, the main character, is a poet and one-time political 
agitator. He has come to Kars for two reasons: to track down a former 
lover and to write an investigative newspaper article about a spate of 
suicides among young women in the town. The suicides seem unrelated, but 
Ka glimpses an emerging pattern. The women involved are Muslims and all, 
in one way or another, are victims of the increasingly fierce climate in 
which traditional Muslim values are being challenged and defended.

    The wearing of headscarves proves the catalyst. Ka, who has spent 10 
years living in Germany, knows where he stands on the issue, confessing 
that he "could never feel sexually attracted to a woman in a headscarf". 
Others are less flippant. The head of a college who has tried to ban 
pupils from wearing head scarves gets a bullet in the head. Then a stage 
revival of an old pre-war Turkish classic, My Fatherland or My Scarf, 
degenerates into open mutiny, with soldiers firing on crowds and 
revolution sweeping the town.

    To a Western reader, the logic of events will be as foreign as the 
cock-fights which seem to be the main after-dark entertainment in Kars. 
But in the excellent, sardonic Pamuk, they have a first-rate guide to the 
social tensions of provincial Turkey. The tempo of the narrative is quite 
slow: think of a leisurely stroll through a bazaar rather than a mad rush 
through Tesco's. But it retains its hold over the reader; and in the 
endless snow-storms swirling around the town, Pamuk has found an 
attractive metaphor for the muddle and obscurity in which political debate 
is so often wreathed.

LOAD-DATE: May 30, 2004
--------------------
The Observer

May 30, 2004

Review: BOOKS: FICTION: More than a winter's tale: In this complex,
affecting novel about a poet returning from exile to Turkey, Orhan Pamuk
illuminates the many voices in his native land

SARAH EMILY MIANO


     SNOW

     By Orhan Pamuk

     Faber ?16.99, pp436

     'EVERY LIFE is like a snowflake,' whose forms appear identical from 
afar, but are determined by any number of mysterious forces, making each 
one singular. This metaphor lies at the centre of Orhan Pamuk's profound 
new novel, Snow , a Dostoyevskian political thriller: 'How much can we 
ever know about love and pain in another's heart? How much can we hope to 
understand those who have suffered deeper anguish, greater deprivation and 
more crushing disappointments than we ourselves have known?'

     These questions haunt the poet Ka, who has returned to Istanbul in 
1992 for his mother's funeral, after living as an exile in Frankfurt for 
more than a decade. But the story begins as he travels to a Turkish border 
town called Kars on a journalistic assignment from the secularist 
newspaper the Republican , to cover the municipal elections and an 
apparent suicide epidemic among the Muslim women there. Ka is disheartened 
by the changes he has seen in Istanbul, and hopes to recapture his 
childhood farther afield, but with an ulterior motive: he has heard that a 
former classmate, the beautiful Ipek, has separated from her husband, and 
he wants to win her heart. This novel is as much about love as it is about 
politics.

     In Kars, a blizzard shuts down the roads; the city can only hint of 
the old days in 'sad postcard memories'- empty squares, decrepit Russian 
and Armenian buildings; it seems like 'the end of the world'. He stays at 
the Snow Palace Hotel where Ipek lives with her father and sister, and 
manages to weave his way into their lives with its compulsive TV-viewing, 
religious disagreements and political entanglements. As he investigates 
the suicides of the 'headscarf girls ' he has fascinating encounters with 
the women's families, the editor of the newspaper, the police and various 
politicos. The people are divided by loyalties to the Turkish state and 
the rising Islamist parties, by religion and atheism. Ka, like Pamuk 
himself, is from a middle-class family in Istanbul; and as an educated, 
westernised Turk, everyone considers him a non-believer; yet he sees God 
in both the snow and his own poems, which come to him on a cloud of divine 
inspiration.

     During a performance in the National Theatre, when Ka recites his 
first new poem in years, there is a military coup in which many pupils 
from the Islamic religious high school are killed. Some believe it is a 
stand against Kurdish nationalism and an attempt to keep the 'religious 
fanatics' from winning the elections. But two actors have a hand in the 
coup, and what begins as a staged event kicks off a terrible chain of 
events: the arrest and persecution of religious leaders and Islamist 
candidates, the murder of Kurds, the torture and intimidation of 
schoolboys. The citizens watch the action on their television screens, 
while Ka looks for happiness with Ipek, though it is always just beyond 
them.

     Pamuk's protagonist is a man of melancholy and secrets in a sea of 
other characters who are tossed about by uncertainties. An Islamist 
student warns Ka: 'I'd like you to tell your readers not to believe 
anything you say about me, anything you say about any of us. No one could 
understand us from so far away.' So the players in the story, including 
Ka, are cast in a shadow of indeterminacy - which makes the novel even 
more compelling. Still, Pamuk manages to give voice to everyone involved: 
reactionaries, terrorists, liberals, fundamentalists.

     A militant Islamist tells Ka that their people have been entranced by 
the West because 'we've forgotten our own stories'. Pamuk suggests that 
his country can only rediscover itself through storytelling. So he makes 
the call even as he answers it, with a political allegory that provides an 
historical vision of his society. The account takes the form of a 
meticulously constructed snowflake in which nothing is out of place, and 
where revelation and concealment occur in impeccable order.

     To order Snow for ?14.99, plus p&p, call the Observer Books Service on 
0870 836 0885


    LOAD-DATE: May 31, 2004
---------------------
Kirkus Reviews

June 1, 2004

SNOW

    Internationally acclaimed Turkish writer Pamuk (My Name is Red, 2001, 
etc) vividly embodies and painstakingly explores the collision of Western 
values with Islamic fundamentalism.

    An omniscient narrator, identified only on the penultimate page, tells 
the story of Kerim Alakusoglu, a 40-ish poet known as Ka who returns to 
Turkey from political exile in Germany. Ka travels to the remote 
provincial town of Kars in "the poorest, most overlooked corner of Turkey" 
near the Armenian border, where a seemingly endless snowfall persists, a 
rash of recent suicides by young women stirs political and ethnic 
debate--and Kee is reunited with his beautiful former schoolmate Ipek, now 
estranged from her husband. Pamuk distributes conflicting commitments to 
Muslim traditions and secular, Westernized concepts in such compellingly 
realized characters as Ipek's "radical" sister and sometime actress 
Kadife, her "terrorist" lover Blue, Ipek's unctuous husband Mukhtar (a 
mayoral candidate in Kars's upcoming municipal elections), brutal military 
police official Z. Demirkol, and National Theatre luminary Sunay Zaim, who 
appears to be staging his own martyrdom in an adaptation of Thomas Kyd's 
The Spanish Tragedy that will feature Kadife's onstage protest against 
Islam's suppression of women's rights. This richly detailed tale is in 
effect a dialectic made flesh by a thrilling plot ingeniously shaped to 
climax with the aforementioned theatrical production and to coincide with 
the narrator's revelations of Ka's last hours in Kars, which ironically 
consummate the flurry of poetic creativity released in him by his 
experiences there. The novel's meanings inhere memorably in the 
controlling title metaphor, which signifies cleansing, silence, sleep, 
obliteration, "the beauty and mystery of creation," and the organizing 
principles for Ka's late poems, the last of which he entitles "The Place 
Where the World Ends."

    An astonishingly complex, disturbing view of a world we owe it to 
ourselves to better understand.

Publication Date: 08/22/2004
Publisher: Knopf
Stage: Adult
ISBN: 0-375-40697-2
Price: $26.00
Author: Pamuk, Orhan

LOAD-DATE: May 28, 2004
-----------------
The Guardian (London) - Final Edition

June 1, 2004

G2 at Hay: The A4 challenge: The task was simple: come on to the G2 bus 
and fill a sheet of A4 paper. But how would the stars of Hay fare when 
confronted with a blank page? Here we publish the results : Orhan Pamuk

Orhan Pamuk

     From Istanbul

     From a very young age, I knew I was not alone: somewhere in the 
streets of Istanbul, in a house resembling ours, there lived another Orhan 
so much like me that he could pass for my twin, even my double. I cannot 
remember where I got this idea or how it came to me. It must have risen 
out of a web of rumours, misunderstandings, games and fears. But in one of 
my earliest memories, it is already clear how I've come to feel about my 
ghostly other.

     When I was five, I was sent for a short time to live in another house. 
At the end of one of their many stormy separations, my parents arranged to 
meet in Paris and it was decided that my older brother and I should stay 
behind in Istanbul, in separate houses. My brother remained in the heart 
of the family with our grandmother in the Pamuk Apartments, in Ni-anta. 
But they sent me to stay with my aunt in Cihangir. Hanging on the wall in 
this house, where I was treated with great kindness, there was a picture 
of a small child. Every once in a while, my aunt or uncle would point at 
the child inside the small white frame and smile, saying, "Look! That's 
you."

     The sweet, doe-eyed child in the picture did look a bit like me, it's 
true. He was even wearing the cap I wore sometimes when I went outside. 
But I still knew I was not the boy in the picture. (In fact, it was a 
kitsch reproduction of a "cute child" that someone had brought back from 
Europe.) Still, I could not help wondering - was this the Orhan who lived 
in that other house?

     Except that now I, too, was living in another house. It was almost as 
if I'd had to move here before I could meet my twin, but I was not at all 
happy to make his acquaintance. I wanted to go back to my real home in the 
Pamuk Apartments. Whenever they told me that I was the boy in the picture 
on the wall, I'd feel my mind unravelling; my ideas about myself, my 
picture, the picture that looked like me, the boy who looked like me, and 
the other house would get all mixed up and all I wanted was to be at home 
again, surrounded by my family. My wish came true and soon I returned to 
the Pamuk Apartments. But the ghost of that other Orhan in that other 
house somewhere in Istanbul never left me.

     Orhan Pamuk is the author of Snow and My Name is Red.

    LOAD-DATE: June 1, 2004
---------------------
Courier Mail (Queensland, Australia)

June 26, 2004 Saturday

Rejoice in a read for all seasons

Yaron Lifschitz

     ART, that most fragile of human endeavours, is under threat. Besieged 
by the asinine puerilities of reality television, undermined by the inane 
generalisations of politicians and prostituted in pursuit of celebrity, 
decent art is having a hard time.

     But every time I doubt the power of human expression to meaningfully 
grapple with just how complicated it is to be alive today; along comes a 
work of such truth and beauty that after encountering it, I sit stunned 
and thankful.

    Orhan Pamuk's novel, Snow, is one of these works. It isn't perfect and 
it isn 't especially easy. But it is magnificent.

    It is an old-style novel with more than a glance to Turgenev, 
Dostoevsky and Conrad. Its themes are impossibly large -- the dance of 
faith and doubt, the power of the human heart, the complex relationships 
between individual lives and history.

    The novel's central character, Ka, is a poet who returns from exile to 
an isolated border town in 1992. The town has suffered a spate of young 
women committing suicide and also is the home of an astonishingly 
beautiful former classmate of Ka's.

    It's snowing and soon the entire town is sealed off from the outside 
world. At a performance in the theatre, the stage is overtaken by 
revolutionaries who fire into the audience. This heralds the start of a 
short-lived coup.

    Over the next three days Ka will fall hopelessly in love, play intimate 
roles in people's lives and deaths and write poems which after many fallow 
years suddenly come to him.

    He will also talk. He will listen to all sides of politics and 
religion. He will hear opinions. He will watch as a meeting of 
counter-revolutionary leaders he has assembled degenerates into a farce of 
informers, conversation and opinions.

    He will hear a precis of an Islamic science-fiction novel and be 
touched by the confessions of a young student.

    The plot of Snow is, like many old-world novels, basically simple. But 
the issues, the reflections, the contradictions and insights extend far 
beyond the story of a poet in a snowbound and slightly crazy town.

    The story is set in Turkey. Many of the debates are about the rise of 
"political Islam" and its conflicts with Western "atheism" -- debates that 
are now of utmost importance.

    Apparently the novel inflamed both religious and non-religious Turks on 
its publication, and it is easy to see why. There is a merciless honesty 
in the way Pamuk portrays his characters. They are all highly articulate, 
they all get their say.

    Somehow the characters are simultaneously stereotypes (the inflamed 
student sublimating sexual passion into religious heat) and real people.

    Ka, listening to an argument, is silenced "because he agreed with 
everything both men said".

    There are no simple solutions. Is it poverty, ignorance, history or God 
that inspires belief? Is it pride or fear or depression that causes the 
suicides?

    In the swirl of talk, patterns emerge and refract. Every political 
question has a correlative of the heart and every emotional state is 
mirrored in the weather, the course of events and back in the talk.

    Characters become possessed by the souls of those they have lost 
(including the narrator), situations become metaphors for themselves and 
even the narrator injects himself into the story as a character.

     Somehow a small border town and a simple love story become totemic for 
the current political situation in Iraq and beyond, for the power of art, 
for the hope of, or in, humanity.

    Pamuk infuses his story with a startling literary playfulness. Ka finds 
himself in a town called Kars. Kar is a Turkish word for "snow". The 
narrator is Pamuk, an old friend of Ka's, who almost gets dragged into 
doubling Ka's life.

    There are at least two of everything and difference and sameness are 
locked into the dance of what Benjamin calls the primal erotic 
relationship between distance and closeness.

    Friends, brothers, rivals, ideological opponents and lovers are as 
individually intricate as snowflakes and as impossibly dense as a 
blizzard. This is Pamuk's brilliance -- his ability to break the novel as 
the child of 19th-century colonisers and remake it into an absolutely 
articulate medium for these troubled times.

    There are weaknesses. Ka is perhaps too passive, the character of Ipek 
(Ka's love interest) could be better drawn and the absence of the poems 
that Ka writes during the book leave the story a little unfinished.

    It is also a longish book. But there is a marvellous touch throughout. 
Humour and tragedy go hand in hand. The museum commemorating the Armenian 
genocide in Kars, for instance, confuses tourists because it commemorates 
the Turkish victims and the Armenian perpetrators.

     On the border of civilisations, snowed in, the grotesque and the 
ironic become, like everything else, hopelessly entangled.

    Snow is nothing short of a necessary novel for our times -- scary, 
prescient, and full of humanity.

     Snow, by Orhan Pamuk (Faber, $29.95)

     Yaron Lifschitz is artistic director of Circa
------------------
The New Leader

July 1, 2004

The poet and the terrorists; Snow; Book Review

Lorentzen, Christian

     Snow By Orhan Pamuk Translated by Maureen Freely Knopf. 448 pp. $
26.00.

     THE CITY OF KARS rests on a mile-high plateau at the edge of Turkey's 
mountainous northeastern frontier. A regional capital, it was a crucial 
stop on the silk road for much o fits tumultuous history. During a series 
of wars between the Ottoman and Russian empires in the late 19th century 
it changed hands, and after World War I it became part of a short-lived 
independent Armenian republic overtaken by the Bolsheviks. The arrival of 
Kemal Ataturk's Army then resulted in the bloody expulsion of most of its 
population, prompting the Bolsheviks to return it to Turkey as a goodwill 
gesture. For a time the number of the city's residents had dwindled to 
less than 10,000.

     Today's poor, provincial Kars, rich in architecture left by the 
various imperial powers, is the wintry setting of Orhan Pamuk's deftly 
layered new novel. Written between 1999 and the end of 2001, it tells the 
story of a showdown between Islamist and secular extremists vying for the 
city's soul.

     Kars is seen through the eyes of an outsider, Kerim Alakusoglu, known 
as Ka, a 37-year-old poet and former radical Leftist born in Istanbul who 
recently returned from more than a decade in Germany. His encounter with 
the city exposes his own crisis of isolation, artistic inactivity and 
spiritual lethargy. An Istanbul newspaper has sent him to investigate a 
string of suicides by young women that has coincided with the banning of 
headscarves at the local Institute of Education, but it is the presence of 
Ipek Yildiz, an unrequited love from his student days, that has really 
drawn him here. Snow is part political thriller, part love story, and its 
twin plots converge with an intricate, tragic symmetry.

     Pamuk, the author of six previous novels (four of them translated into 
English), graduated from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, lives in Istanbul and 
is by far Turkey's most renowned novelist. He has even attracted the 
notice of President George W. Bush, a statesman little known for his 
literary insights. Speaking before a NATO gathering in Istanbul this June, 
Bush hailed Pamuk for building a "bridge between cultures" and went on to 
quote the author: "What is important is not a clash of parties, 
civilizations, cultures, East and West ... [but to realize] that other 
peoples in other continents and civilizations [are] just like you."

     Although culture clash may not be "what is important," Pamuk's work is 
in fact pervaded by a doomed sense that it may be inevitable--a symptom of 
the human condition that makes each side "just like" the other. He has 
repeatedly explored the implications of Turkey's position at the East-West 
nexus, often setting his works in the Ottoman past, as in The White Castle 
(1990) and My Name is Red (2001). In the process, he has gained a 
reputation as a practitioner of magic realism. The only magic at play in 
his new and thoroughly contemporary book is Ka's poetry, recharged by his 
reunion with Ipek and a blizzard that has sealed Kars off from the rest of 
the country. The falling snow is a symbol whose value is in flux 
throughout the novel. At first it grants a sense of silence and purity, 
nudging the atheist toward an unfamiliar faith in God; later it comes to 
seem "tiring, irritating, terrorizing."

     The book's structure is a protracted reworking of Shakespearean drama, 
along precisely plotted slopes of civic upheaval, romance, betrayal, and 
revenge. The narrator, a friend of Ka's whose name happens to be the same 
as the author's, has painstakingly recreated a handful of days down to 
each conversation. Two theatrical performances that erupt in violence 
punctuate Ka's visit, and threaten to exacerbate the suffering in Kars.

     TELLING the story at a remove of four years, in the wake of his hero's 
assassination in Germany, Pamuk explains that he has reconstructed the 
events around the drafting of Ka's last, lost collection. The poems, in 
the manner of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Kubla Khan," are visions that 
seem to descend on Ka from an external source and must be transcribed 
immediately or lost.

     Tension mounts as Ka walks about Kars, interviewing people about the 
suicides, wooing Ipek, and stealing away into teahouses to jot down verses 
in his green notebook. The secularists he meets blame the burgeoning 
fundamentalist Prosperity Party--favored in the upcoming municipal 
elections--for turning innocent teenagers, including the suicide girls, 
against the policies of the state and their moderate parents. "This is the 
work" a journalist tells Ka, "of the international Islamist movement that 
wants to turn Turkey into another Iran. " On the other side, he meets a 
series of embittered, desperate men and a legion of hopeful, idealistic 
youth in their thrall. These Islamists have put up posters that read, 
"HUMAN BEINGS ARE GOD'S MASTERPIECES, AND SUICIDE IS BLASPHEMY"--but some 
of them are not above murder.

     Early on, Ka and Ipek witness the shooting of the director of the 
Institute of Education. Pamuk provides a transcript of the victim's 
conversation with his killer, one of several powerful, lengthy dialogues 
that lend the novel its philosophical heft. The validity of the assassin's 
outrage is clear. Yet just as subtly and deliberately rendered is the 
psychosis, born of poverty and nourished by religious fanaticism, that has 
driven him so far over the edge--or left him so vulnerable to 
manipulation--that he could take a stranger's life.

     The police set out to find the killer, hauling in Ka and another of 
his old friends, Muhtar, the Prosperity Party's candidate for mayor, who 
also happens to be Ipek's ex-husband. Ka and Muhtar had been romantic and 
literary rivals at the university in Istanbul, as well as cohorts in 
Leftist activism. Ka gained fame as a sort of Turkish T.S. Eliot, Muhtar 
got the girl. Muhtar seems a defeated man, divorced and unpublished (his 
pious poems, in "pure Turkish," are to Ka's ears laughably flat; one 
senses here that Pamuk may be satirizing some of his own rivals). Muhtar 
explains that his conversion was an escape from drunken despair. Watching 
the police torture him, Ka senses that his old nemesis is too ineffectual 
and insufficiently cruel to have orchestrated the crime.

     The real mastermind might be Sheikh Efendi, who holds court among the 
city's unemployed men and its youths, or Blue, a terrorist hiding in Kars 
who has taken as his mistress Ipek's sister, Kadife. A boy from the 
religious high school, Necip, is infatuated with her as well and enlists 
Ka to deliver a batch of love letters to her. Unlike many of the devout, 
who view Ka as an "oatmeal-hearted pseudo-European liberal," Necip 
approaches Ka with respect and curiosity. He asks Ka about atheism and 
writing, and confesses an aspiration to move to Istanbul and become the 
world's first Islamist science fiction writer. The innocence and naivete 
of the teenager lead Ka to confide to him that "The snow reminds me of 
God."

     The passage Ka reads from a draft of Necip's novel recycles the trope 
of the double prominent in many of Pamuk's works. It seems in part a 
self-parody. The boy is eager to embrace a Western phenomenon--science 
fiction--but determined to do so on his own terms. A critique frequently 
leveled at magic realists, especially those from outside the West, holds 
that they have appropriated the form of the novel without appreciation for 
its roots in the realism of Flaubert and James. They have instead produced 
epics based on native folklore or pop culture. Necip's ambitions point in 
that direction; Pamuk has reached further, by painting his characters 
lavishly and plucking from Shakespeare and the English poets, instead of 
relying on fantastic devices.

     Like magic realism and science fiction, in Pamuk's scheme Islamism is 
a form of escapism from the frustrations of economic hardship and 
isolation, but a destructive one. Blue, the most charismatic and sinister 
Islamist, hints that his anti-Western views stem from a few alienating 
years spent as an immigrant worker in Germany. He toys with that grand 
escapist idea, martyrdom.

     A few men in Kars would like nothing better than to serve Blue his 
martyrdom. Their unlikely leader is the vaudevillian Sunay Zaim, a rabid 
nationalist in league with renegade secret service agents. He is bent on 
stamping out political Islam in Kars, even if only for a few days. His 
acting career in ruins, Sunay is terminally iii and has a death wish of 
his own. During a staging of a little known 1930s Kemalist farce, My 
Fatherland or My Head Scarf, Sunay's henchmen turn their guns on the 
crowd. They co-opt the police, cancel the elections, and impose martial 
law. This coup, capped by another play-within-the-novel, Thomas Kyd's The 
Spanish Tragedy, an ur-Hamlet of sorts, is to be his swan song. And to 
secure his place in history, he intends to bring a few notorious Islamists 
down with him.

     THE POLITICAL maelstrom gives Ka the chance to play the level-headed 
hero in a town full of hotheads. But it is also a distraction from his 
burgeoning love affair with Ipek. Like her younger sister, Ipek possesses 
an arresting beauty that makes Ka sound as much the schoolboy as his new 
friend Necip. A marriage proposal springs from his mouth early in the 
novel, and she greets it, and his declarations of love, with skepticism. 
Ka's pursuit of her is a shedding of the ascetic cocoon of his Frankfurt 
exile. She embodies an idea of Turkey for him--Westernized yet retaining a 
provincial grace--and a last chance to seize happiness in life. She is 
more complex than she looks, however. Beneath her physical radiance lurk 
emotional scars and potent secrets. Their inevitable revelation propels 
the courtship down a calamitous course.

     Ka's notebooks reveal that after the journey to Kars he began the 
study of snow, "and one of his discoveries was this: Once a six-pronged 
snowflake crystallizes, it takes between eight and 10 minutes for it to 
fall through the sky, lose its original shape, and vanish; when with 
further inquiry, he discovered that the form of each snowflake is 
determined also by the temperature, the direction and strength of the 
wind, the altitude of the cloud, and any number of mysterious forces, Ka 
decided that snowflakes have much in common with people... Individual 
existences might look identical from afar, but to understand one's own 
eternally mysterious uniqueness one had only to plot the mysteries of his 
or her own snowflake"

     Ka's conclusions are born of poetic meditation on human problems. For 
all the talk of God and politics in this novel, its real concerns are the 
choices and chances that accumulate in an individual life. Pamuk has 
matured beyond the obsessive doubling of his earlier work; the poet Ka and 
the terrorist Blue stand at two extremes of a spectrum of sensitivity. The 
rest grope for meaning and act out their notions in moments of compassion 
and outbursts of cruelty.

     Pamuk has mined classical tragedy and the modern thriller to construct 
a somewhat outlandish plot, but these time-honed contrivances never crowd 
out his characters. Every voice is sounded out, each story told with 
candor, style and sympathy. Few novels these days are at once so spacious, 
contemplative and laden with intrigue. Pamuk's is a rare and powerful 
performance.

IAC-CREATE-DATE: September 13, 2004

LOAD-DATE: September 14, 2004
-----------------
Library Journal Reviews

July 15, 2004 Thursday

Snow

Marc Kloszewski
Pamuk, Orhan . Knopf. Aug. 2004. c.448p. ISBN 0-375-40697-2. $26. F

    Upon returning to his home in secular Turkey, a poet named Ka discovers 
two things that will change his life: Ipek, the girl he loved as a child, 
still lives in the city of Kars, and the community has been stunned by a 
rash of suicides of zealously religious girls who refused to remove their 
head scarves while in public. With an investigator's eye, Ka seeks out 
information about the tragedies from all sources, eventually leading to 
the man at the eye of the storm - "Blue," a charismatic Islamite who will 
not let the message that these girls carried be silenced. While in Kars, 
the normally reticent Ka dares to approach "happiness"; where once he 
suffered terrible writer's block, his poems now flow effortlessly, and his 
new-found love appears to love him back, but the figure of Blue and the 
deep waters in which Ka has immersed himself threaten his promising 
future. Like Pamuk's previous My Name Is Red, this story is thick with 
detail concerning the country's background; it does take some time to 
introduce all the characters. Once everyone is in place, however, the 
novel picks up and ultimately is a worthwhile read for those interested in 
a closer look at the hot topics of religion, its devout followers, and 
what arises from such passions. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 4/1/04.] - Marc 
Kloszewski, Indiana Free Lib., PA

LOAD-DATE: July 9, 2004
------------------
Publishers Weekly Reviews

July 19, 2004 Monday

SNOW
Orhan Pamuk, trans. from the Turkish by Maureen Freely. Knopf, $26
(448p) ISBN
0-375-40697-2

    A Turkish poet who spent 12 years as a political exile in Germany 
witnesses firsthand the clash between radical Islam and Western ideals in 
this enigmatically beautiful novel. Ka's reasons for visiting the small 
Turkish town of Kars are twofold: curiosity about the rash of suicides by 
young girls in the town and a hope to reconnect with "the beautiful Ipek," 
whom he knew as a youth. But Kars is a tangle of poverty-stricken 
families, Kurdish separatists, political Islamists (including Ipek's 
spirited sister Kadife) and Ka finds himself making compromises with all 
in a desperate play for his own happiness. Ka encounters government 
officials, idealistic students, leftist theater groups and the charismatic 
and perhaps terroristic Blue while trying to convince Ipek to return to 
Germany with him; each conversation pits warring ideologies against each 
other and against Ka's own weary melancholy. Pamuk himself becomes an 
important character, as he describes his attempts to piece together "what 
really happened" in the few days his friend Ka spent in Kars, during which 
snow cuts off the town from the rest of the world and a bloody coup from 
an unexpected source hurtles toward a startling climax. Pamuk's sometimes 
exhaustive conversations and descriptions create a stark picture of a 
too-little-known part of the world, where politics, religion and even 
happiness can seem alternately all-consuming and irrelevant. A detached 
tone and some dogmatic abstractions make for tough reading, but Ka's 
rediscovery of God and poetry in a desolate place makes the novel's 
sadness profound and moving. Agent, Andrew Wylie. (Aug.)

    Forecast: Pamuk's reputation - bigger outside the U.S. than in - 
enjoyed a boost with 2001's My Name Is Red. This timely, thoughtful and 
demanding book may see it grow further.

LOAD-DATE: July 22, 2004
------------------
The Guardian (London) - Final Edition

July 24, 2004

Saturday Review: Fiction: Into the darkness: The Impac winner, a grim tale 
of torture and deprivation is still a joy to read. By Maureen Freely: This 
Blinding Absence of Light by Tahar Ben Jelloun, translated by Linda 
Coverdale 195pp, New Press, ?14.99

Maureen Freely


     On July 10 1971, 1,000 Moroccan soldiers were herded into trucks and 
taken to the palace of Skhirat, where King Hassan II was celebrating his 
42nd birthday. Upon arrival, their commanding officers instructed them to 
find and kill him. Almost 100 guests lost their lives in the ensuing 
bloodbath, but the king survived. Those deemed responsible were dispatched 
to Kenitra, a prison known for its harsh conditions. However, most of 
those imprisoned were unwitting and unwilling participants in the coup and 
many had not fired a shot.

     On a sultry August night two years later, 58 of them were again herded 
into trucks and taken to the remote desert hellhole of Tazmamart; here 
they were thrown into underground cells 10ft long and 5ft wide, with 
ceilings so low they were unable to stand, and with just enough food and 
water to keep them lingering on the edge of death for years. Each tomb had 
an air vent and a tiny hole in the floor that served as the lavatory. They 
were crawling with cockroaches and scorpions the men could hear but not 
see. There was no medical attention, no exercise, and no light. The only 
time they were allowed out was to bury one of their friends.

     Thirteen years would pass before the outside world found out that 
Tazmamart existed. It would take another five years of international 
campaigning to shut it down. There were only 28 survivors. By 1991, most 
had lost up to a foot in height. Survivors were warned not to talk to the 
western press, but in Tahar Ben Jelloun the authorities have an enemy more 
formidable than 1,000 foreign journalists. Novelist, essayist, critic and 
poet, winner of the 1987 Prix Goncourt and the 1994 Prix Maghreb, Jelloun 
was born in Fez in 1944 and emigrated to France in 1961. This Blinding 
Absence of Light , for which he and his excellent translator have won this 
year's Impac prize, is based on the testimony of a former inmate of 
Tazmamart, and it defies any expectations you might have built up from the 
story above. It refuses the well-meaning but tired and ultimately 
dehumanising conventions of human rights horror journalism; it is not a 
political tract.

     Although it unmasks the liars, killers and torturers responsible for 
Tazmamart, it refuses to dwell on them. Although it is told in the first 
person, it is not an autobiography. Although it is technically a novel, it 
is a novel stripped, like its subject, of all life's comforts.

     What we're left with is Salim's voice, a voice all the more 
magnificent for being draped in darkness. Some have found echoes of 
Beckett in the lucid, pared-down prose, and certainly there is something 
Beckettian about his limited environment and studied hopelessness. But 
that he has renounced hope for a higher purpose is clear from the opening 
lines: "For a long time I searched for the black stone that cleanses the 
soul of death. When I say a long time, I think of a bottomless pit, a 
tunnel dug with my fingers, my teeth, in the stubborn hope of glimpsing, 
if only for a minute, one infinitely lingering minute, a ray of light, a 
spark that would imprint itself deep within my eye, that would stay 
protected in my entrails like a secret."

     This is the language of Islamic mysticism. Salim is not religious when 
he arrives in Tazmamart, but his situation is the real version of the 
spiritual hell that Islamic mystics describe in metaphor. He escapes from 
his torments by following in their footsteps, imagining his way as far 
into his mind as his slowly decaying body will allow. He knows his reverie 
is over when he can smell the stench.

     The narrative follows a winding and treacherous path: inspired 
solitary departures end in unspeakable degradation. Horrible deaths 
alternate with inspired collective efforts to stay alive. Karim becomes 
the talking clock to give a shape to their endless night. Ustad sings them 
verses from the Qur'an. One man recounts the plots of every film he's ever 
seen, another invents games to play with imaginary cards. But do not 
approach this book if you want your heart to be warmed. The most 
disturbing scene comes when Salim is released to an airy room with a 
comfortable bed. This is not a tribute to the human spirit, but one man's 
attempt to illuminate another man's truth.

     For there are two intelligences at play here - Salim's and the 
author's. The voice of Tazmamart is never imprisoned by its jail. It is 
free to travel anywhere, and it travels light. It makes revelations of 
grave importance, but never gravely. It is, despite its dark materials, a 
joy to read.

     Maureen Freely is the translator of Orhan Pamuk's Snow (Faber). To 
order This Blinding Absence of Light for ?12.99 plus p&p call Guardian 
book service on 0870 836 0875.

    LOAD-DATE: July 28, 2004
---------------
Vanity Fair

August 2004

under cover;
A powerful novel delves deep into the head-scarf furor.

megan o'grady

    The debate over Muslim women's right to wear head scarves has lately 
been making headlines in Europe, but it has raged for decades in Turkey, 
where scarves are banned from schools-despite the fact that the majority 
of women opt to wear them. Now the subject of a novel by Istanbul-based 
author Orhan Pamuk -whose 2002 thriller, My Name Is Red, won him an 
enthusiastic American audience-it's a hot wire to divisions within Turkish 
society. Snow (Knopf) is set in Turkey's wintry hinterland, in the 
aftermath of tragedy: a wave of suicides among teenage girls banished from 
the classroom for refusing to bare their heads. The deaths shatter the 
town's uneasy equilibrium: The education director is gunned down in a 
cafe; a military crackdown on Islamists ensues, and a journalist who 
witnessed the murder finds himself embroiled in the investigation. 
Astonishingly timely as the book is, it was a real-life suicide epidemic 
in southern Turkey in the early nineties that likely inspired Pamuk. A 
deft melding of political intrigue and philosophy, romance and noir, his 
tortuously plotted novel is forever confounding our expectations. Snow has 
angered religious and secular alike in Pamuk's own country, and will no 
doubt prove provocative this side of the Bosporus as well.

GRAPHIC: pop politics From George W. Bush's folksy musings on the war 
against terror to the surging popularity of American Idol, no pop-culture 
stone is left unturned in Sore Winners (Doubleday), John Powers's bitingly 
sharp analysis of the characters that define politics in post-9/11 
America. Powers infuses his examination of everything from the religious 
zeal of John Ashcroft to Martha Stewart's fall from grace with a clever, 
unabashedly liberal voice. He assuredly navigates the reader through both 
the major (Saddam's capture) and minor (Joe Millionaire) events that 
shaped our media-soaked culture over recent years, a time in which, Powers 
charges, Bush cast aside Clinton-era optimism and "offered a stark vision 
of life that possesses enormous visceral power."-sarah haight ; HEAD START 
A pro-Islamist protest in Istanbul, May 2003. ; Reuters. Still life: JEFF 
HARRIS.

LOAD-DATE: November 16, 2004
----------------
Harper's Magazine

August 1, 2004

New books; Book Review

Leonard, John

     On the next to last page of Orhan Pamuk's SNOW (Knopf, $ 26)--as if 
Nabokov and Rushdie had taken their circus act on the road, of Carlos 
Fuentes were Anatolian instead of Aztec, or Milan Kundera remembered how 
to laugh--a young student at a Turkish religious high school admonishes a 
novelist named "Orhan Pamuk": "If you write a book set in Kars and put me 
in it, I'd like to tell your readers not to believe anything you say about 
me, anything you say about any of us. No one could understand us from so 
far away."

     And yet, of course, it is this solemn boy, whose name is Fazil, and 
his best friend, Necip, who is shot to death before he can publish his 
science fictions, and the girls they love, who are suspended from school 
for refusing to remove their head scarves--it is these passionate, 
talkative, and pious young people, as pure of heart as they are 
self-righteous, who monopolize our attention. In the northern city of 
Kars, near the border with Armenia, God is real to them even if He is not 
to the secular intellectual and blocked poet Ka--the old friend Pamuk is 
supposed to be writing this book about--who has come by bus from Istanbul, 
in a blizzard, to investigate an epidemic of suicides.

     Yes, a poet named Ka in a city named Kars. And kar means "snow" in 
Turkish. But having just returned for his mother's funeral after twelve 
years of exile in Germany following the 1980 military coup, Ka is really 
looking for love, roots, meaning, and his muse. Snow is not only a silence 
inside, reminding him of God; it also makes him feel at home in the world. 
So what if these true-believing students accuse him of atheism? So what if 
the newspaper reports his behavior a day in advance, and a night at the 
theater turns into Marat/Sade, and the gorgeous Ipek won't go to Frankfurt 
with him? Suddenly, he is writing poems again. Indeed, poems seem to seize 
or occlude him, like embolisms or a fit. He must retire immediately to a 
teahouse. Meanwhile, prisoners are tortured in red and yellow rooms. A 
minister of education is assassinated by a fundamentalist nut. A terrorist 
fresh from Bosnia coaches disaffected students. The Party of God may win 
the municipal elections. And so when the snow cuts Kars off from the rest 
of the country, the army, the police, and a very Brechtian repertory 
theater troupe stage a coup, a parody of 1980, that gives a whole new 
meaning to politics as performance.

     When they aren't watching television, everyone in Snow is telling 
everyone else a story, as in The Arabian Nights or in "the way it seemed 
the heroes told their stories to the authors of the European novels." This 
is playful, postmodern Pamuk, the author of The White Castle and My Name 
Is Red, who nods in passing at Oedipus, Robespierre, Stendhal, Mallarme, 
Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Conrad. But in its sendup of romantic poetry, 
political theater, and the anthropological relationship between 
Marxism-Leninism and anti-Western nationalism, Snow is also written by the 
man who got into trouble for supporting the rights of Kurds and opposing 
Iran's fatwa on Rushdie. And now this third Pamuk, more serious about 
faith than about poetry, makes fun of intellectuals like himself even as 
he acknowledges the bull's-eye on his back. From the Golden Horn, with a 
wicked grin, the political novel makes a triumphant return.

     Such novels are what Maureen Howard has been writing all along--about 
love and work, class and violence, literature and womanhood; the lacework 
bog of Irish America, the Potemkin bohemias of delirious New York, the 
family secrets of sex and money, the botched experiments of marriage and 
children, art and history as magnetic compass points, writing and teaching 
as a calisthenics of moral intelligence. THE SILVER SCREEN (Viking, $ 
24.95) is the third in her projected quartet of fictions on a calendar 
grid. After the winter of discontent and expiation in A Lover's Almanac 
(1998), and the complicated Easter bunnies of redemption and renewal in 
Big As Life (2001), now this long hot summer in Hollywood, New England, 
and El Salvador. If you're still wondering who Artie's real father was, 
The Silver Screen will tell you. But you need never even have heard of 
Artie to enjoy this interrogation of the way we tell ourselves stories, 
mythologizing our ordinary laves, on big screens (Singin' in the Rain) and 
small ones (television documentaries), in books by Dante, Donne, and 
Chekhov, in photographs by Georgia O'Keeffe and Walker Evans, in testimony 
to federal agents and congressional committees, in Ovid and Goldilocks, in 
Augustine and Freud. And when we aren't making stories and excuses, we're 
making clocks and guns.

     Isabel Mahler quits her career in silent movies to return to Rhode 
Island to marry insurance salesman Tim Murphy and to mother Joe, their 
son, who becomes a Jesuit priest; Rita, their daughter, who becomes a 
physical therapist; and Gemma, the girl next door, who goes into the 
redwoods with Ansel Adams and comes out with a Barcelona retrospective of 
her photographs. "Bel" was Tinker Bell to these children, taking them on 
excursions to such "magic arcades and pavilions" as Mark Twain's house in 
Hartford and the Melville Museum in New Bedford. So when the music of the 
spheres turns out to be a Sousa march, do they blame her for having been 
too thrilling--Joe, because of his loss of faith after the murder of 
Archbishop Romero; Rita, because of the lovelessness that led her into the 
Witness Protection Program; Gemma, because of her feelings of fraudulence 
and her ridiculous kimono? "How were we caught? What, what is it has 
happened? What is it that has been happening that we are living the way we 
are? The children are no longer the way it seemed they might be."

     Some catechism. Throughout this brilliant novel, there is quite a lot 
of the Mexican Day of the Dead, of paper skeletons and sugared skulls. 
Gemma apostrophizes Bel's ghost: "I dad not want you to be over, like 
silent movies or the Keith Circuit, Like beauty, like instruction, like 
belief." But history, that myth-muncher, kills us all. The best we can 
hope for, after the strut and fret, may be this comfort: "We do not play 
to an empty house."

     Every one of Ward Just's fourteen novels has been political. But 
they've also been historical and anthropological, as we follow men, money, 
and power from Chicago east, like Theodore Dreiser. And romantic and 
mournful and abashed, as if Scott Fitzgerald went out on the town while 
has Dorian Gray rotted in an attic. And as quiet as they are disquieting, 
like the bullet-riddled skull in the study of the Freudian psychiatrist in 
AN UNFINISHED SEA SON (Houghton Mifflin, $ 24). If Just in has fiction 
often telescopes time--decades suggested in sinister ellipses, gnomic 
haikus, mordant witticisms--here he confines himself mostly to a single 
season. In the summer of 1954, nineteen-year-old Wilson Ravan loses two 
fathers, finds a vocation, falls in Love, and is almost fired from has job 
at a Chicago tabloid newspaper ("a carnival of love nests, revenge 
killings, slumlords, machine graft, and Communists deep in the apparatus 
of state and national government") because he arrives at work still 
wearing dancing shoes from a North Shore debutante ball the night before.

     I don't want to tell you who dies, or why, except that, as in Orhan 
Pamuk and Maureen Howard, history is the real killer. Wilson hasn't 
entered the University of Chicago yet, but he is as much a victim of the 
Bataan Death March, the Taft-Hartley Act, the House Committee on 
Un-American Activities, and the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons as 
any of the adults, I'd rather point to the frozen pond where has 
businessman-father pretends to play ice hockey on winter afternoons, as if 
he were back at college at Dartmouth; the herd of deer, moving at night 
across the golf course fairway; the jazzmen in the smoky Chicago dives 
winking at the white boys; the tabloid reporters poised at their 
typewriters, as if the machine "were a small animal or the skin of a woman 
... birds building nests one twig at a time"; Aurora, the girl whose voice 
has the timbre of an oboe; and surprisingly affecting cameo appearances by 
Adlai Stevenson and Marlon Brando.

     Somehow, more like Camus than Fitzgerald, these characters rise from 
depths to surface--from a hand of pinochle to the baby-blue helmets of the 
United Nations, from a brick through a window to Van Gogh's ear, from John 
O'Hara to Othello--with the defining gestures of shadow puppets, a kind of 
frozen Winter Palace theater from which we are lucky to escape alive. What 
is once again remarkable about this writer are the graceful figure-eights 
he skates around has bone-deep knowledge of the worst about us, our 
Calibans and Brothers Grimm.

IAC-CREATE-DATE: August 16, 2004

LOAD-DATE: August 17, 2004
---------------
The New York Times

August 10, 2004 Tuesday
Late Edition - Final

A Blizzard of Contradictions in Modern Turkey

By RICHARD EDER

    SNOW
By Orhan Pamuk
Translated by Maureen Freely. 426 pages. Alfred A. Knopf. $26.

     In his last novel, ''My Name is Red,'' the great and almost 
irresistibly beguiling Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk devised a breathtaking 
image for the schism in his country's soul between Westernization and the 
traditional values of Islam.

     Set in the 16th century, ''Red'' presents the schism as the incursion 
of Renaissance painting -- representational, three-dimensional and with an 
individualist vision -- into the sultan's court. There the flat, stylized 
and impersonal grace of the traditional miniaturists is upheld as a matter 
of religion; and Western perspective is abhorred, since, for instance, it 
could make a nearby dog bigger than a far-off mosque.

     The implications go way beyond art. In Mr. Pamuk's pyrotechnics of 
mystery, murders, eroticism and glittering colors, art is war and civil 
war among humanity's embattled religious and historical values.

     ''Snow,'' translated from Turkish by Maureen Freely, deals with the 
same schism but its setting is political. It is a novel of lesser scope 
than its grand and magical predecessor and more narrowly focused, although 
it is enriched by the author's same mesmerizing mixes: cruelty and farce, 
poetry and violence, and a voice whose timbres range from a storyteller's 
playfulness to the dark torment of an explorer, lost. All this finds 
voices through characters whose tactile immediacy fades imperceptibly into 
a fog of ambiguousness and contradiction.

     Often we don't know where we are, only to realize that this is exactly 
where we are: in Mr. Pamuk's vision of a Turkey unable to know itself. The 
fight has gone on too long and run too deep: a schism not of two distinct 
sides but of two sides existing within a single consciousness, one that is 
both the nation's and the author's. Educated abroad, trained in Western 
literature and culture, he is caught in the entwined roots of tradition 
and modernity, each choking the other.

     Culturally and politically Mr. Pamuk is a Westerner, but he is 
shattered to see his beliefs embodied in the methods used by the heirs of 
Kemal Ataturk who, grown dictatorial and often corrupt, have tried to 
force their secular code upon a vast Islam-bred rural and urban underclass 
(no turbans, fezzes or head scarves). In an epigraph he quotes 
Dostoyevsky's sardonic rendering of Russia's own modernizers: ''Well, 
then, eliminate the people, curtail them, force them to be silent. Because 
the European enlightenment is more important than people.''

     Ka, the protagonist of ''Snow,'' could not bear the consequences if 
the popular will turned out to be fundamentalist. He is not so much the 
author's alter ego as his emissary to the wilder, zanier shores of a 
dilemma that by now is more than his own and Turkey's. It shows itself 
these days in a number of countries, including the one where the United 
States has engaged itself so chaotically. Trying to democratize, that is, 
yet most likely unwilling to accept the likely failure that would follow 
an unlikely success.

     A blocked poet and onetime radical, Ka returns from Germany after 12 
years' exile to get back in touch with his country. A newspaper assignment 
takes him to a town near the Georgian border to investigate a rumor, 
mostly exaggerated, about a wave of schoolgirls who killed themselves when 
ordered to remove their head scarves.

     In his picaresque wanderings through the streets, symbolically blurred 
and isolated under a weeklong blizzard, he goes from one encounter to the 
next. Some are sinister, some alluring, some surreal. A dog, a 
charcoal-colored match for the German overcoat Ka proudly wears, persists 
in following him around as if to mock his Westernizing vanity. Each 
meeting is a dissonance, a clue to a puzzle he can't make out.

     He finds a vicious paramilitary killer who claims to be upholding Ka's 
own civilized values against the prospect of a Turkish Iran. There is an 
old Communist who tolerates a daughter's head scarf as a rebellion against 
the establishment, and a newspaper editor who publishes as past events 
those that are still to take place. And -- partly a magical-realist touch 
and partly an acid satire on the press -- publication seems to make them 
take place.

     Ka is moved to anguish by Necip, a young fundamentalist of surpassing 
sweetness who is afraid he will lose his faith (though he's killed before 
he can). He is chilled and infuriated by Blue, a lethal yet childlike 
underground activist.

     Most extravagantly, and it is the novel's garish, extended climax, he 
becomes involved with Sunay, a theater impresario and former leftist who 
now seems to work on behalf of the military ultras pledged to the secular 
Ataturk tradition. Sunay organizes a crude anti-Islamic vaudeville that 
incites a near-riot. This provides the excuse for the local army garrison 
to mount a minicoup and arrest, torture or kill Islamists and Kurds. 
Controlling it all, the impresario glories in having achieved a supreme 
work of art, one whose dramatic culmination will be his own death onstage.

     Art, its vanities and its detachment from consequences, is one of the 
author 's targets. But what marks Mr. Pamuk and his targets is that he 
stands alongside them to receive his own lethal arrows. And he does it 
with odd gaiety and compassion.

     Ka wanders through the town's murderous chaos receiving tidy 
inspiration and producing 19 poems of exactly 36 lines each. He is a fool 
of time, but his creator is tender and funny with his fools. Ka is doomed 
finally to betray, and so is the marvelous woman he has a besotted and 
arousingly depicted affair with; each in a different way is an innocent.

     Even the symbols get affectionate treatment. Cutting off the town, the 
blizzard may stand for the isolation from any universal truth or value; 
one that history seemingly requires by history while it conducts its 
contorted affairs. The snow, though, is of surpassing beauty and 
hauntingly rendered. For Mr. Pamuk beauty does not redeem the tragic 
horrors begotten by human passions and obstinate memory. Neither do the 
horrors diminish it.

LOAD-DATE: August 10, 2004
----------------------
The Economist

August 14, 2004
U.S. Edition

Problems of identity;
Turkish fiction


    New novels from two leading Turkish writers

    ORHAN PAMUK is the leading contemporary interpreter of Turkish society 
to the western world: his novels, now invariably translated into English, 
explore the dilemmas and divisions of a land that is both east and west, 
Islamist and secular, rich and poor, ancient and modern, and much more 
besides. Some of his earlier explorations of Turkish identity have been 
hard going, not eased by their translators. But his latest novel, "Kar" or 
"Snow", the first to be translated by Maureen Freely, an American raised 
in Istanbul, is one of his most accessible.

    Set in the 1990s in the bleak north-eastern city of Kars, the novel is 
an account of the tensions between Turkey's urban secularist elite and 
their long-derided (and vastly underestimated) Islamic-minded opponents. 
It is also a tragic love story, a thriller and, more broadly, a dark 
journey into familiar Pamuk territory: faith, identity, betrayal and 
solitude.

    The hero is a washed-out poet, Kerim Alakusoglu, who insists on calling 
himself Ka. After years as a political refugee in Frankfurt, he returns to 
Istanbul for his mother's funeral. Egged on by a university friend at the 
doggedly pro-secular Cumhuriyet ("Republic") newspaper he travels to Kars 
to write about the municipal elections there (which are sure to be won by 
an Islamist candidate).

    The plot unfolds over three days during which Kars is cut off from the 
rest of the world by an unremitting snowstorm (the book might have been 
titled "Ka in Kar in Kars"). In that time, there is a mini coup in which 
hundreds of Islamists and Kurds are rounded up, brutally tortured and 
killed. Ka sets out to investigate a rash of suicides by female students 
barred from attending local schools because they refuse to remove their 
headscarves-an inflammatory symbol, insist the secularists, of Islamic 
militancy.

    But is it? One of the achievements of "Snow" is to look beyond the 
tired arguments about why so many Turkish women cover their heads. In the 
case of Kadife, a central character, it is to gain the affection of a 
charismatic Islamist militant leader, not out of religious conviction.

    Readers looking for a less intense taste of Turkey can turn to "The 
Saint of Incipient Insanities", the first novel written in English by Elif 
Shafak, an established writer with award-winning Turkish novels under her 
belt, who has been attacked for reviving Ottoman words, for her 
fascination with religion, and now for "betraying" her motherland by 
writing in English. Ms Shafak has woven a tragi-comic tapestry of quirky 
and lovable 20-somethings struggling to find themselves in America.

    Omer, an agnostic Turk; Abed, a pious Muslim Moroccan; and Piyu, a 
guilt-wracked Catholic Spaniard, are housemates studying for various 
degrees at a Boston university. Omer falls in love with Zarpandit, an 
American with an inexplicable urge to kill herself. Through their 
conversations over dinner and their encounters in their one hard-pressed 
bathroom, the characters challenge each other's views on religion, 
politics, nationality and gender. Zarpandit, the American, feels the most 
alienated of all.

    Mr Pamuk was educated in English at an elite Istanbul private school; 
Ms Shafak was born in France and raised in Spain. Their books are as much 
a voyage of discovery for themselves as they are insiders' insights of 
Turkey. Both seek to shatter stereotypes. Unlike Mr Pamuk, though, Ms 
Shafak does it with ironic humour and warmth. In one of the funniest 
scenes in her latest book, Abed's newly arrived (and devoutly Muslim) 
mother offers "round platters of sugar skulls" and "trays of werewolf 
claws" to inebriated guests at a Halloween party. Ms Shafak is well set to 
challenge Mr Pamuk as Turkey's foremost contemporary novelist.

LOAD-DATE: August 13, 2004
-----------------------
The New York Times

August 15, 2004 Sunday

Orhan Pamuk: 'I Was Not A Political Person'

By Alexander Star.

    Alexander Star is the senior editor of The New York Times Magazine.


     ALEXANDER STAR: In your novel, Turkey is a somewhat surreal country, 
where secular nationalists and theocrats compete to impose what seem to be 
equally dubious ideas of how to force people to be free. Is this the 
Turkey you know?

     ORHAN PAMUK: Well, that gap between my character's consciousness and 
the country's poetic reality is perhaps the essential tension of my novel. 
I wanted to go and explore both worlds and write about them as they are -- 
the Westernized intellectual's worldview coming to terms with the poorest, 
most forgotten and perhaps most ignored part of the country. The most 
angry part, too.

      STAR: A key concern in ''Snow'' is the desire of many Muslim women to 
wear headscarves to school -- an issue that raises delicate questions 
about where you draw the line between, say, the tolerance of religion and 
the imposition of religion. The current Turkish government has, 
controversially, attempted to assist the graduates of religious schools. 
Do you feel that is a legitimate cause for them?

     PAMUK: Look, I'm a writer. I try to focus on these issues not from the 
point of view of a statesman but from the point of view of a person who 
tries to understand the pain and suffering of others. I don't think there 
is any set formula to solve these problems. Anyone who believes there is a 
simple solution to these problems is a fool -- and probably will soon end 
up being part of the problem. I think literature can approach these 
problems because you can go into more shady areas, areas where no one is 
right and no one has the right to say what is right. That's what makes 
writing novels interesting. It's what makes writing a political novel 
today interesting.

     STAR: And yet your novel expresses a lot of anxiety over whether it's 
possible to fully understand the misery and humiliation of people living 
in unfamiliar circumstances.

     PAMUK: Spiritually and morally, I am close to my central character. As 
he goes to the poorest sections of Turkish society, he falls into the 
traps of representation -- talking in the name of the others, for the most 
poor. He realizes these issues are problematic. In fact, they may 
sometimes end up being immoral: the problem of representing the poor, the 
unrepresented, even in literature, is morally dubious. So in this 
political novel, my little contribution -- if there is any, I have to be 
modest -- is to turn it around a bit and make the problem of 
representation a part of the fiction too.

     STAR: How did you come to write a political novel?

     PAMUK: I was not a political person when I began writing 20 years ago. 
The previous generation of Turkish authors were too political, morally too 
much involved. They were essentially writing what Nabokov would call 
social commentary. I used to believe, and still believe, that that kind of 
politics only damages your art. Twenty years ago, 25 years ago, I had a 
radical belief only in what Henry James would call the grand art of the 
novel. But later, as I began to get known both inside and outside of 
Turkey, people began to ask political questions and demand political 
commentaries. Which I did because I sincerely felt that the Turkish state 
was damaging democracy, human rights and the country. So I did things 
outside of my books.

     STAR: Such as?

     PAMUK: Write petitions, attend political meetings, but essentially 
make commentaries outside of my books. This made me a bit notorious, and I 
began to get involved in a sort of political war against the Turkish state 
and the establishment, which 10 years ago was more partial to 
nationalists. Anyway, I said to myself, Why don't I once write a political 
novel and get all of this off my chest?

     STAR: Did you have trouble publishing ''Snow'' in Turkey? How was it 
received by Islamists and others?

     PAMUK: Before the publication of the book I told my friends and my 
publisher that I was finishing an outspoken political novel. Shall we show 
this to lawyers? And they said, No, no, no, now that Turkey is hoping to 
get in touch with Europe and now that you're nationally -- internationally 
-- ''famous,'' you don't need to do that. O.K. And after some time I gave 
my publishers the book. Here is the book, I said. And a week later they 
called me and said they'd read the book, loved the book, but they wanted 
my permission to show it to a lawyer. They were worried that the public 
prosecutor might open a case, or confiscate the book before its 
publication. The first printing was 100,000 copies. They were essentially 
worried about the economic side of the thing. For example, they hid the 
book in a corner, so if it were confiscated, they could keep some copies 
for themselves. But none of these pessimistic things happened. In fact, 
the country seriously discussed the book. Half of the political Islamists 
and people who backed the army attacked me. On the other hand, I survived. 
Nothing happened to me. And in fact it worked the way I hoped it would. 
Some of those radical Islamists criticized the book with very simplistic 
ideas, such as ''You're trying to describe Islamists but you have to know 
that an Islamist would never have sex with a woman without getting 
married.'' On the other hand, more liberal Islamists were pleased that at 
least the harassment they had been exposed to by the Turkish Army is 
mentioned.

     STAR: When George Bush was in Istanbul recently for the NATO summit, 
he referred to you as a ''great writer'' who has helped bridge the divide 
between East and West. Citing your own statements about how people around 
the world are very much alike, he defended American efforts to help people 
in the Middle East enjoy their ''birthright of freedom.'' Did you think he 
understood what you meant?

     PAMUK: I think George Bush put a lot of distance between East and West 
with this war. He made the whole Islamic community unnecessarily angry 
with the United States, and in fact with the West. This will pave the way 
to lots of horrors and inflict cruel and unnecessary pain to lots of 
people. It will raise the tension between East and West. These are things 
I never hoped would happen. In my books I always looked for a sort of 
harmony between the so-called East and West. In short, what I wrote in my 
books for years was misquoted, and used as a sort of apology for what had 
been done. And what had been done was a cruel thing.

     STAR: Is the novel as a form something you think is alive and well in 
the Middle East or the non-Western world more broadly? Or do you feel 
you're doing something rather unusual?

     PAMUK: No, the art of the novel is well. It's surviving. It has lots 
of elasticity. I'm sure it will continue to live in the West, in the 
United States and Europe. But it will have a very strange and new future 
in countries like China and India, where now there is an unprecedented 
rise of the middle classes. Legitimizing the power of these new middle 
classes creates problems of identity both in China and in India. This 
involves their nationalism when they are faced with the distinct identity 
of Europe and the West, and their Occidentalism when they are faced with 
the resistance of their poor people. I think the new modern novel that 
will come from the East, from that part of the world, will again raise 
these tensions of East-West modernity and the slippery nature of these 
rising middle classes in China and India. And also in Turkey, of course.

     STAR: In ''Snow,'' the radical Islamist Blue remarks at one point that 
the best thing America's given the world is Red Marlboros. Would you agree 
with that?

     PAMUK: I used to smoke them a lot when I was young. We distribute our 
personal pleasures in our characters. That's one of the joys of writing 
fiction.

LOAD-DATE: August 15, 2004
-----------------
The New York Times

August 15, 2004 Sunday

Headscarves To Die For

By Margaret Atwood.

    Margaret Atwood's most recent book is ''Oryx and Crake,'' a novel.

    SNOW
By Orhan Pamuk.
Translated by Maureen Freely.
426 pp. Alfred A.
Knopf. $26.

      This seventh novel from the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk is not only an 
engrossing feat of tale-spinning, but essential reading for our times.

     In Turkey, Pamuk is the equivalent of rock star, guru, diagnostic 
specialist and political pundit: the Turkish public reads his novels as if 
taking its own pulse. He is also highly esteemed in Europe: his sixth 
novel, the lush and intriguing ''My Name Is Red,'' carried off the 2003 
Impac Dublin Literary Award, adding to his long list of prizes.

      He deserves to be better known in North America, and no doubt he will 
be, as his fictions turn on the conflict between the forces of 
''Westernization'' and those of the Islamists. Although it's set in the 
1990's and was begun before Sept. 11, ''Snow'' is eerily prescient, both 
in its analyses of fundamentalist attitudes and in the nature of the 
repression and rage and conspiracies and violence it depicts.

     Like Pamuk's other novels, ''Snow'' is an in-depth tour of the 
divided, hopeful, desolate, mystifying Turkish soul. It's the story of Ka, 
a gloomy but appealing poet who hasn't written anything in years. But Ka 
is not his own narrator: by the time of the telling he has been 
assassinated, and his tale is pieced together by an ''old friend'' of his 
who just happens to be named Orhan.

     As the novel opens, Ka has been in political exile in Frankfurt, but 
has returned to Istanbul after 12 years for his mother's funeral. He's 
making his way to Kars, an impoverished city in Anatolia, just as a severe 
snowstorm begins. (Kar is ''snow'' in Turkish, so we have already been 
given an envelope inside an envelope inside an envelope.) Ka claims to be 
a journalist interested in the recent murder of the city's mayor and the 
suicides of a number of young girls forced by their schools to remove 
their headscarves, but this is only one of his motives. He also wants to 
see Ipek, a beautiful woman he'd known as a student. Divorced from a 
onetime friend of Ka's turned Islamist politician, she lives in the shabby 
Snow Palace Hotel, where Ka is staying.

     Cut off from escape by the snow, Ka wanders through a decaying city 
haunted by its glorious former selves: there are architectural remnants of 
the once vast Ottoman Empire; the grand Armenian church stands empty, 
testifying to the massacre of its worshipers; there are ghosts of Russian 
rulers and their lavish celebrations, and pictures of Ataturk, founder of 
the Turkish Republic and instigator of a ruthless ''modernization'' 
campaign, which included -- not incidentally -- a ban on headscarves.

     Ka's pose as a journalist allows Pamuk to put on display a wide 
variety of opinions. Those not living in the shrunken remains of former 
empires may find it hard to imagine the mix of resentful entitlement (We 
ought to be powerful!), shame (What did we do wrong?), blame (Whose fault 
is it?) and anxiety about identity (Who are we really?) that takes up a 
great deal of headroom in such places, and thus in ''Snow.''

     Ka tries to find out more about the dead girls but encounters 
resistance: he 's from a bourgeois background in cosmopolitan Istanbul, 
he's been in exile in the West, he has a snazzy overcoat. Believers accuse 
him of atheism; the secular government doesn't want him writing about the 
suicides -- a blot on its reputation -- so he's dogged by police spies; 
common people are suspicious of him. He's present in a pastry shop when a 
tiny fundamentalist gunman murders the director of the institute that has 
expelled the headscarf girls. He gets mixed up with his beloved's former 
husband, the two of them are arrested and he witnesses the brutality of 
the secularist regime. He manages to duck his shadowers long enough to 
meet with an Islamist extremist in hiding, the persuasive Blue, said to be 
behind the director's murder. And so he goes, floundering from encounter 
to encounter.

     In ''Snow,'' translated by Maureen Freely, the line between playful 
farce and gruesome tragedy is very fine. For instance, the town's 
newspaper publisher, Serdar Bey, prints an article describing Ka's public 
performance of his poem '' Snow.'' When Ka protests that he hasn't written 
a poem called ''Snow'' and is not going to perform it in the theater, 
Serdar Bey replies: ''Don't be so sure. There are those who despise us for 
writing the news before it happens. . . . Quite a few things do happen 
only because we've written them up first. This is what modern journalism 
is all about.'' And sure enough, inspired by the love affair he begins 
with Ipek and happier than he's been in years, Ka begins to write poems, 
the first of them being ''Snow.'' Before you know it, there he is in the 
theater, but the evening also includes a ridiculous performance of an 
Ataturk-era play called ''My Fatherland or My Head Scarf.'' As the 
religious school teenagers jeer, the secularists decide to enforce their 
rule by firing rifles into the audience.

     The twists of fate, the plots that double back on themselves, the 
trickiness, the mysteries that recede as they're approached, the bleak 
cities, the night prowling, the sense of identity loss, the protagonist in 
exile -- these are vintage Pamuk, but they're also part of the modern 
literary landscape. A case could be made for a genre called the Male 
Labyrinth Novel, which would trace its ancestry through De Quincey and 
Dostoyevsky and Conrad, and would include Kafka, Borges, Garcia Marquez, 
DeLillo and Auster, with the Hammett-and-Chandler noir thriller thrown in 
for good measure. It's mostly men who write such novels and feature as 
their rootless heroes, and there's probably a simple reason for this: send 
a woman out alone on a rambling nocturnal quest and she's likely to end up 
a lot deader a lot sooner than a man would.

     Women -- except as idealized objects of desire -- have not been of 
notably central importance in Pamuk's previous novels, but ''Snow'' is a 
departure. There are two strong female characters, the emotionally 
battered Ipek and her sister, the stubborn actress Kadife. In addition, 
there's a chorus: the headscarf girls. Those scrapping for power on both 
sides use these dead girls as symbols, having put unbearable pressure on 
them while they were alive. Ka, however, sees them as suffering human 
beings. ''It wasn't the elements of poverty or helplessness that Ka found 
so shocking. Neither was it the constant beatings to which these girls 
were subjected, or the insensitivity of fathers who wouldn't even let them 
go outside, or the constant surveillance of jealous husbands. The thing 
that shocked and frightened Ka was the way these girls had killed 
themselves: abruptly, without ritual or warning, in the midst of their 
everyday routines.''

     Their suicides are like the other brutal events in the novel: sudden 
eruptions of violence thrown up by relentless underlying forces.

     The attitudes of men toward women drive the plot in ''Snow,'' but even 
more important are the attitudes of men toward one another. Ka is always 
worrying about whether other men respect or despise him, and that respect 
hinges not on material wealth but on what he is thought to believe. Since 
he himself isn't sure, he vacillates from one side to another. Shall he 
stick with the Western enlightenment? But he was miserable in Germany. 
Shall he return to the Muslim fold? But despite his drunken hand-kissing 
of a local religious leader, he can't fit in.

     If Ka were to run true to the form of Pamuk's previous novels, he 
might take refuge in stories. Stories, Pamuk has hinted, create the world 
we perceive: instead of ''I think, therefore I am,'' a Pamuk character 
might say, ''I am because I narrate.'' It's the Scheherazade position, in 
spades. But poor murdered Ka is no novelist: it's up to ''Orhan'' to act 
as his Horatio.

     ''Snow'' is the latest entry in Pamuk's longtime project: narrating 
his country into being. It's also the closest to realism. Kars is finely 
drawn, in all its touching squalor, but its inhabitants resist ''Orhan's'' 
novelizing of them. One of them asks him to tell the reader not to believe 
anything he says about them, because ''no one could understand us from so 
far away.'' This is a challenge to Pamuk and his considerable art, but it 
is also a challenge to us.

LOAD-DATE: August 15, 2004
---------------
The Miami Herald

August 15, 2004 Sunday F1LA EDITION

INTOTHE STORM;
A TURKISH POET RETURNS HOME TO FIND HIMSELF IMMERSED IN A COMPLICATED
MIX OF
POLITICS, RELIGION AND PASSION;
FICTION / SNOW

    SNOW.

    Orhan Pamuk. Knopf. 448 pages. $26.

    BY ANDREW FURMAN

    In a world ever more riven between East and West, Turkey -- located 
geographically and politically between the Middle East and Europe -- has 
emerged as a prominent player on the world scene. With its secular 
democratic government presiding over an Islamic majority, the country 
serves as a touchstone by which the world measures the pulse of these 
competing movements. All of which makes the ambitious political novel by 
Turkey's most prominent novelist a satisfying contribution to our 
otherwise low-cal summer literary menu.

    In the broadest sense, Snowrepresents a frontal assault on Stendhal's 
famous denunciation of political novels -- ''Politics in a literary work 
are a pistol-shot in the middle of a concert'' -- which serves as one of 
the book's epigrams. Orhan Pamuk succeeds admirably in engaging with 
political ideas and currents while simultaneously attending to the generic 
demands of the novel. The story revolves around Ka, an impassive Turkish 
poet living in exile in Frankfurt who returns home for his mother's 
funeral and confronts his home nation's percolating crises and his own 
personal demons.

    Pamuk constructs a somewhat clunky but effective plot apparatus. Ka, 
intrigued by a rash of suicides among Islamic girls forbidden to wear 
their head-scarves to school, accepts a journalistic assignment to the 
remote outpost of Kars to report on the phenomenon. He also hopes to woo 
Ipek, a woman of intoxicating beauty he remembers from his university 
days, who now lives in Kars in the Snow Palace Hotel.

    Kars clings to a tenuous existence by virtue of its processed cheese, 
but was once a prosperous mountain city along the trade route between the 
Russian and Ottoman empires. Pamuk evokes in lush detail the defunct 
Baltic buildings that remain -- the Armenian churches, Seljuk castles, and 
abandoned mansions -- while also describing the decidedly less opulent 
teahouses, dairy shops and shanties. Each building has its own story of 
the various empires and ideologies that have wrested over Turkey's soul, 
and rarely does a building along Ka's way escape the deft attention of our 
narrator (the identity of whom is one of the novel's minor mysteries).

    Almost immediately upon Ka's arrival, events conspire to transform him 
into an active participant in a pitched battle over the city. First, the 
director of the Institute for Education, the man responsible for barring 
head-covered girls from the classrooms, is assassinated by an Islamic 
extremist. Then, aided by a snowstorm that effectively isolates the city, 
a militaristic wing of the government stages a bloody coup to tamp down 
the surging popularity of the Islamic movement.

    Both sides seek out the enigmatic Ka for their own tactical purposes, 
which brings our hero in contact with an assortment of colorful 
characters. The handsome but crippled Blue, a radical political Islamist 
of mythic stature, is among the most memorable. A composite of any number 
of modern fundamentalist leaders, given his curiously familiar admixture 
of charisma, sexual charm and outward gentleness, he inveighs upon Ka not 
to write about the ''suicide girls,' ' for fear of the erroneous 
impression of Islam it would give the world. ''Girls who commit suicide 
are not even Muslims!'' he bewails.

    Ka's ambivalent allegiances and emotional vulnerability in the wake of 
his mother's death make him the perfect vehicle through which Pamuk can 
explore the competing lure of religious fundamentalism, secular 
nationalism and cosmopolitan intellectualism. And Pamuk trenchantly evokes 
the moral ambiguity of the timely scenario he constructs -- the head-scarf 
controversy currently rages in France -- rather than seeking to advance 
any illusory moral platitude. Various sides have their say in often 
disconcertingly convincing terms. The coup leader, Sunay, makes a credible 
case for secular militarism when he accosts Ka for the intellectual 
hypocrisies that allow violent fundamentalists like Blue to thrive. ''No 
one who's even slightly westernized can breathe free in this country 
unless they have a secular army protecting them,'' he argues, ''and no one 
needs this protection more than intellectuals who think they're better 
than everyone else and look down on other people. If it weren't for the 
army, the fanatics would be turning their rusty knives on the lot of 
them.''

    Yet, Ka (and Pamuk) recognize that the leveling force of western 
secularism can be every bit as oppressive as fundamentalist Islam. Hande, 
a minor character, speaks convincingly against the head-scarf edict: 
''Sometimes I can conjure up a girl walking into school with her hair 
flying all around her . . . I can even imagine the smell of the hallway 
and the clamminess of the air. Then I look through the pane of glass that 
separates the classroom from the hallway and I see that the girl is not me 
but someone else, and I start to cry. . . . What scares me is the thought 
of never being able to return to the person I am now, and even forgetting 
who that person is.''

    Sunay's identity as a stage actor turned military coup leader and the 
role that theater plays as the coup reaches its final bloody crescendo is 
the only aspect of the plot that strains credulity. However, the 
convergence of Sunay's theatrical and political ambitions advances one of 
the primary themes of the novel, which is Ka's effort to carve out a 
contemporary existence defined by authentic emotive and intellectual 
responses in a world rife with poseurs across the political and artistic 
spectrum. Ka had planned to embrace an apolitical life as an exiled poet. 
Yet such an existence proves sterile. He writes his best poetry while up 
to his neck in politics, while in the thrall of the lovely Ipek. The 
social realm, dangerous and duplicitous as it may be, Pamuk seems to 
suggest, cannot be excised from the realm of high art. One might as well 
try to remove politics from the novel.

    Andrew Furman is chair of the Department of English at Florida Atlantic 
University.

LOAD-DATE: August 15, 2004
------------------
Publishers Weekly

August 23, 2004

Outspoken Turk

by Wendy Smith

    At an early age, I decided that I would not write anything political," 
says Orhan Pamuk. This is a surprising comment, coming from an author well 
known in his native Turkey for his forthright condemnation of the death 
sentence issued against Salman Rushdie in 1989 and of the Turkish 
government's brutal repression of Kurdish separatists during the 1990s. 
It's especially surprising since his latest novel, Snow (Fiction 
Forecasts, July 19), published by Knopf this month, grapples with the 
politically charged subject of Islamic fundamentalism, telling the story 
of a poet visiting a remote town on Turkey's eastern border where there 
has been a rash of suicides among female students forbidden to wear head 
scarves in school.

    But it's also true that Pamuk is better known to readers of fiction for 
a series of novels that, while they often explore the tension between 
traditional Islamic values and the Westernizing policies of the modern 
Turkish state, are just as notable for their complex, modernist narrative 
structures and their concern with such existential matters as the nature 
of consciousness.
>From The
White Castle in 1990 through The Black Book and The New Life to My Name Is 
Red in 2001 (two earlier novels remain untranslated), English-speaking 
critics have noted the social and political backdrop of Pamuk's work, but 
have been more struck by its brilliant imagery and literary erudition.

    "Snow is my first deliberately political novel," the writer 
acknowledges by telephone from his home in Istanbul. "When I started 
writing fiction some 30 years ago, I had seen that the best authors of 
previous generations had destroyed their talent to serve a country, to get 
politically involved, or to make a moral command. But 20 years later, 
after I had established myself as an author both inside and outside 
Turkey, I was critical not only of the war the Turkish state waged against 
the Kurdish guerrillas, but also of its position on human rights and 
freedom of expression. I published some articles, most of them outside 
Turkey because I couldn't publish them at home then, and I began to get a 
bit notorious for making political comments outside my books. I said to 
myself, 'Why don't I once write a political novel and get it out of my 
system?' "

    Snow, however, is no didactic polemic. Pamuk allows the young women who 
choose to wear head scarves, and the fundamentalist men who incite them, 
to speak powerfully for themselves; they may not convince Ka, the poet, 
but he is moved by them. "One of the pleasures of writing this novel," 
Pamuk comments, "was to say to my Turkish readers and to my international 
audience, openly and a bit provocatively, but honestly, that what they 
call a terrorist is first of all a human being. Our secularists, who are 
always relying on the army and who are destroying Turkey's democracy, 
hated this book because here you have a deliberate attempt by a person who 
was never religious in his life to understand why someone ends up being 
what we or the Western world calls an Islamic fundamentalist terrorist. It 
is a challenge and a duty of literature to understand the passions of 
anyone, to try to enter the spirits of people, which various taboos forbid 
us to understand."

    It's clear from the writer's fervent tone that this last sentence forms 
a crucial portion of his artistic credo, but--characteristically--he does 
not leave it unchallenged in Snow. "How much can we ever know about the 
love and pain in another's heart?" asks a character called Orhan Pamuk 
(one of the novel 's many sly, postmodern touches), and his real-life 
namesake does not have a definitive answer. "In the 1950s and '60s, people 
hoped that they would understand everything by writing a political novel," 
he goes on. "Here I am saying, 'Well, I bowed my head in an attempt to 
understand the underdog, but there are limits. Beware the claims to 
understand all: it's a political mistake. ' I have joked in Turkey, and 
let me continue my joking here, that this is my first and last political 
novel; it should only be done once in life!"

    Pamuk's last book, a memoir of his youth entitled Istanbul, was 
published last year in Turkey. The writer is currently going over the 
English version with Maureen Freely (who also translated Snow); Knopf 
expects to release it in spring 2005. Pamuk is ruefully aware that 
"something is always lost in translation; it breaks one's heart so much. 
And most of the time it's not the translator's fault, it's the language's 
fault. I feel sometimes that I am trapped in Turkish, which is hard to 
translate." At least in English, which he speaks fluently, he can make 
adjustments with Freely: "When something is untranslatable, when we 
understand that this pure beauty, this little flower, will not pass and 
will be damaged in translation, we sometimes try to invent new things as a 
sort of consolation: not the original flower, but a new flower."

    PW wonders if the writer who has so frequently depicted conflict 
between Islam and the West in his fiction sees any hope for the resolution 
of this conflict in the real world, where it has assumed crisis 
proportions. "Not when the likes of Bush or the arrogant Turkish ruling 
elite try to solve the tensions between conservative Islam and modernity 
with bombs," he replies. "That is a dead end. But I am an optimistic 
person. I think that these guys who try to modernize or Europeanize or 
westernize the rest of the world by force, they will disappear. 
Globalization will continue, I see that as a positive thing, but 
peacefully, with mutual understanding among tribes and peoples and 
nations."

LOAD-DATE: August 26, 2004
------------------
The New York Sun

August 25, 2004 Wednesday

RECENT FICTION

By BENJAMIN LYTAL

    "Snow" (Alfred A. Knopf, 426 pages, $26) opens like a political novel, 
but its characters's disagreements eventually spin out a world of their 
own, fairly far away from CNN. The hardships of change, in and out of 
faith, are omnipresent. A blizzard blocks all the roads out of the Turkish 
border town of Kars, creating a perfect storm for Orhan Pamuk's themes. 
Like dancers in the round, the citizens of Kars debate every angle of 
social and religious controversy.

    Mr. Pamuk is regularly compared to Calvino or Borges; he has written 
several books about mysterious texts. But here his muster of characters - 
there is the paterfamilias ex-communist, the irresistible terrorist, the 
feminine dictator - and their sometimes spellbinding speeches remind me 
more of something like "Hard Times." And this novel of fatalism in 
politics is actually more about the difficulty in communicating meaning 
across borders than the difficulty in finding meaning.

    "Snow" is written in a casually reflexive prose of pillowy 
explanations. Ka, a poet exiled in Frankfurt, finds himself in Kars. He's 
officially writing an article about a suicide trend among girls who insist 
on wearing headscarves to school, but he readily admits that he's really 
there to find a Turkish wife: specifically, Ipek, a beauty from Ka's 
radical school days who is now separated from Muhtar, a former leftist 
rebel and poet who has turned to political Islam.

    Ka becomes lost in the new categories of secularism vs. Islam. He tries 
not to pick sides, and when pressed he insists that he only wants 
happiness, a new thing for him. But his happiness depends not only on 
Ipek, but on the feeling that he has found God - "the desolation and 
remoteness of the place hit him with such force that he felt God inside 
him." And this same inspiration gives Ka poems for the first time in four 
years.

    Ka's poems, which he pauses to write at regular intervals, seem for a 
while to be the guarantor of Mr. Pamuk's novel. As local turmoil distracts 
him from taking any definitive moral action, we learn from the narrator 
that Ka is stopping at regular intervals to write poems. These poems 
promise to make everything that happens in Kars, which is like a snake 
eating its own tail, matter. But that is not quite the case. "It isn't 
enough to be a poet," muses Ka, "that's why politics still casts such a 
shadow over our lives."

    As the narrator gradually reveals, the poems are lost, and the novel we 
are reading is a careful reconstruction of events based on Ka's diaries. 
We are left only with the title of the volume, "Snow," and the knowledge 
that staring off into the snow was Ka's great blank escape from whatever 
was happening around him.

LOAD-DATE: September 2, 2004
---------------------
National Post (f/k/a The Financial Post) (Canada)

August 28, 2004 Saturday

A bluffer's guide: Too busy to read the hot books? Here's a cheat sheet to 
help you talk about them like you have.

Dan Rowe, National Post

    SNOW

    by Orhan Pamuk

    - - -

    It's not surprising that Margaret Atwood began her New York Times 
review of Snow with this line: "This seventh novel from the Turkish writer 
Orhan Pamuk is not only an engrossing feat of tale-spinning, but essential 
reading for our times."

    Snow is, after all, a novel set in 1990s Turkey about, in a very basic 
way, the Islamic fundamentalist reaction to the policies of a secularist 
regime. Pamuk spins this tale through Ka, an exiled poet who returns to 
his snow-ridden, isolated Turkish home town of Kars, in part to report on 
the growing numbers of teenage girls who are committing suicide because 
they don't want to adhere to the state's ban on headscarves in school -- 
an essential subject matter if ever there was one.

    And topicality aside, Snow is just a fine piece of fiction. The winner 
of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2003 for My Name is Red, Pamuk 
handles this story deftly in two respects. His writing and plotting are 
tremendous. And his handling of the political issue of fundamentalism is 
better still. Despite her overwrought construction, Laurel Maury gets it 
right in her San Francisco Chronicle review: "Snow will make you feel the 
arguments surrounding fundamentalism as a situation of murky grays, where 
the only thing black is the night, and the only thing white is the snow."

    All Pamuk does is show both the Islamists and the secularists in his 
novel as having pangs of doubt. In the end, they are faithful to their 
cause, but not quite with the fervour and totality that many journalists 
and commentators would have us believe. This, then, is yet another example 
of where fiction is infinitely more truthful than the bromides and 
broadsides which make up the news and op-ed pages.

    Most of all, it is reassuring that Pamuk has taken up these serious, 
modern issues in Snow. Far too often, novelists in these parts -- 
musicians, actors, and other artists are guilty, too --seem to shy away 
from engaging in current events in such a straightforward and artful way. 
And when they do tackle big topics, it tends to be gimmicky.

    For the more daring writers like Pamuk, there is even more compelling 
territory to cover. "A more serious challenge to novelists in Turkey, Iran 
and the Arab world," writes James Buchan in The Guardian, "is that the 
events of September 11, the Moscow theatre attack and Abu Ghraib are both 
more romantic and more desperate than even Dostoevsky could have dreamed 
up and written down."

LOAD-DATE: August 28, 2004
---------------
The Gazette (Montreal)

August 28, 2004 Saturday

Pamuk describes modern Turkey, with all its tensions

ERIC ORMSBY, Freelance

    SNOW By Orhan Pamuk

    Translated by Maureen Freely

    Knopf, 428 pages, $38

    The Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk has what Wallace Stevens called "a 
mind of winter." His new novel brims with memorable characters but the 
principal personage of the book is the snow.

    Snow seals off the bleak city of Kars, in southeastern Turkey, where 
the action takes place; the snow is beautiful, for it hides both the 
depressing ugliness of a forsaken city and its convoluted past. But it 
also confers a kind of deathbed isolation on the city and its inhabitants; 
it may be a sign from God, as one of the characters exclaims, but it is a 
chill and estranging sign.

    As in Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, the snow allows Pamuk to cast 
events and characters into high relief. In so doing, Pamuk creates a 
swarming microcosm of contemporary Turkey, from old-guard Kemalists 
fiercely upholding secularism to teenage girls tormented over whether to 
don the hijab, to fiery yet furtive radical Islamists plotting a takeover 
and a return to the glory days of the Caliphate.

    Kerim Alakusoglu, who prefers to be called "Ka" for short, is a 
disaffected poet newly returned from self-imposed exile in Germany; on the 
pretext of investigating a rash of suicides by young girls, ostensibly 
over the wearing of the hijab, he travels on behalf of a staunchly 
secularist newspaper to Kars to interview the grieving families and 
unravel the mystery. In fact, he is hoping to kindle a romance with the 
beautiful and coquettish Ipek, an old flame who has recently divorced.

    Once in Kars, Ka finds himself stranded by the blizzard and embarks on 
a series of encounters through which Pamuk seeks to portray virtually 
every face of present-day Turkey: corrupt and shifty bureaucrats, 
militarists, teachers and actors, feminists veiled and unveiled, poets, 
firebrands, zealots and time-servers, slog or slip through the icy 
alleyways of the snowbound city of Kars.

    Pamuk is superb at evoking this miserable place, which at varying 
periods has been under the heel of the Ottomans, the Russians, the 
Armenians and even the British: "... the old decrepit Russian buildings 
with stovepipes sticking out of every window, the thousand-year-old 
Armenian church towering over the wood depots and the electric generators, 
the pack of dogs barking at every passerby from a 500-year-old stone 
bridge as snow fell into the half-frozen black waters of the river below."

    His portrayal of Ka, by contrast, is strangely shifting. The poet is at 
one moment a thoroughly worldly figure, conniving to get the evasive Ipek 
into his bed, and at another he is kissing the hands of the local saint 
and fawning on his favours. He is consistent only in his self-absorption, 
finding inspiration for his poems in the unlikeliest circumstances, during 
a police interrogation or a massacre at a crowded theatre. Given the 
narcissism of most poets, he becomes most believable only at such erratic 
moments. Part of the vagueness of this portrayal is due, I suspect, to 
Pamuk's desire to echo Kafka's novel The Castle. In that masterpiece, the 
snow is all-pervasive, too, and the protagonist is identified only as K. 
(pronounced "ka" in German). Like K., Ka finds himself increasingly 
entangled in inexplicable snafus amid inhospitable surroundings. There is 
something a bit schematic about all this, and it extends even to the 
choice of Kars as a location: the Turkish word for "snow" is kar. Only 
Pamuk's skill at realistic description and his sense of place keep the 
novel from collapsing under its own heaped-up drifts of symbolism.

    With its vowel harmony and intricate system of word-building, Turkish 
is the most musical of languages and the translator has succeeded 
admirably in suggesting its cadences to an English reader; the translation 
reads beautifully.

    Pamuk is a wonderful writer but, in my opinion, his new novel doesn't 
succeed entirely as fiction. Too many odd characters tend to pop up like 
unexpected rabbits out of a conjuror's hat, and too often, the characters 
appear to be mere mouthpieces for divergent views. As a glimpse of 
present-day Turkey, however, with all its terrific inner tensions and 
smothering conflicts, vividly encapsulated as though in a snowy Petri 
dish, Pamuk's novel will come as a startling revelation to many Western 
readers.

    Eric Ormsby is a Montreal poet and director of the Institute of
Islamic
Studies at McGill University.

LOAD-DATE: August 28, 2004
---------------
The Washington Post

August 29, 2004 Sunday
Final Edition

Winter's Tale

Reviewed by Ruth Franklin

    SNOW *

    By Orhan Pamuk. Translated from the Turkish by Maureen Freely

    Knopf. 426 pp. $26

      "Politics in a literary work are a pistol-shot in the middle of a 
concert, a crude affair though one impossible to ignore," Stendhal wrote. 
This line serves as one of the epigraphs to Snow, Orhan Pamuk's 
mysterious, moving and -- yes -- political new novel, which includes a 
scene where guns are shot into a theater audience. Firearms 
notwithstanding, there is nothing crude about Pamuk's subtle work. The 
author of seven previous novels, he has taken as his great subject the 
tensions between West and East, religious and secular, in his native 
Turkey. His most recent novel, My Name Is Red, was an ingenious, tightly 
crafted tale of murder among miniaturists -- artists who illuminate 
manuscripts -- in 16th-century Istanbul, for which he at last garnered 
much-deserved recognition in the United States.

     Snow, which takes place in the present day, may be Pamuk's most 
topical novel yet. Ka, a poet from Istanbul, has returned to his native 
country for a visit after 12 years in exile in Germany. When Snow begins, 
he is on a bus en route to Kars, a mountain city in the "poorest, most 
overlooked corner of Turkey," at the former border of the Ottoman and 
Russian empires. An old friend at an Istanbul newspaper has asked him to 
report on the impending municipal elections as well as an epidemic of 
suicide among teenage girls, the latest of whom is one of the "head-scarf 
girls," a group of young women who have been barred from the secular 
university for covering their hair. In hope of reuniting with Ipek, a 
beautiful former classmate who now lives in Kars, Ka agrees.

     Kars is a tightly wound knot of tension between secular and religious 
forces, and Ka's investigations lead him into encounters with all the 
major players, including the charismatic Blue, an "infamous Islamist 
terrorist" who is in hiding after issuing a death threat against a 
talk-show host who insulted the Prophet Muhammad; Necip, a pious student 
who hopes to become the world's first Islamist science-fiction writer; and 
Ipek's sister, Kadife, the leader of the head-scarf girls. These forces 
come to a head on Ka's first evening in Kars, when an acting troupe stages 
a classic play called "My Fatherland or My Head Scarf." At the play's 
climax, the heroine rips off her scarf and burns it, and the religious 
youths in attendance begin to riot. Soldiers storm the stage, opening fire 
and killing a number of the audience members.

     This is the briefest possible introduction to Snow's elaborate plot, 
which works its way by twists and turns through numerous digressions, 
dialogues and genres. Pamuk's work is reminiscent of the great 
storytelling classics -- The Thousand and One Nights, Boccaccio's 
Decameron or Jan Potocki's Manuscript Found in Saragossa, with their bawdy 
comedy, intricate design and mystical overtones. At times Ka plays the 
traditional role of the trickster: In one brilliant sequence, he 
negotiates a statement of unity between the city's Islamist, Kurdish and 
socialist leaders for the sole purpose of luring Ipek's father out of the 
hotel where they live, so that he can make love to her. Elsewhere he is 
compared to a dervish: During his few days in Kars, he regains his 
inspiration for the first time in four years, and poems come to him as if 
dictated by a higher power.

     The poems that Ka writes in Kars turn out to be governed by a "deep 
and mysterious underlying structure" similar to that of a snowflake, and 
the same is true of the novel itself. The deeper you read, the more the 
symmetries multiply. Nearly every character has a double, down to the 
narrator himself, who is eventually revealed to be a novelist friend of 
Ka's named Orhan, telling Ka's story after his death based on information 
gleaned from his notebooks. All these mirror images add up to create a 
dizzying effect, which is deepened by the snow that begins to fall on the 
first page of the novel and does not let up until nearly the end. 
Practically a character in its own right, it blankets the mean streets of 
Kars, shutting Ka and Ipek together in their hotel, casting its strange 
light in unexpected places and closing the roads to all traffic in or out, 
so that the city becomes a strange hothouse of nervous activity and 
revolutionary unrest.

     This disorientation is surely Pamuk's intention. But even after the 
novel has come to its wrenching conclusion, the atmospheric haze is 
difficult to dispel. Snow has none of the tautness of My Name Is Red; its 
action moves thickly, at times impenetrably. Clarity is not enhanced by a 
tone that at times jerks wildly from knowing sophistication to faux 
naivet?. This is a shock after the elegant control of My Name Is Red, and 
the non-Turkish-reading reviewer is inclined to blame the translator, who 
is new to Pamuk's work. Nevertheless, Pamuk's gift for the evocative image 
remains one of this novel's great pleasures: Long after I finished this 
book, in the blaze of the Washington summer, my thoughts kept returning to 
Ka and Ipek in the hotel room, looking out at the falling snow. *

    Ruth Franklin is assitant literary editor of the New Republic.

LOAD-DATE: August 29, 2004
----------------
The Baltimore Sun

August 29, 2004 Sunday FINAL Edition

A disorienting account of the Turkish dilemma;
Books

Alane Salierno Mason

SOURCE: Special to the Sun

    Snow, by Orhan Pamuk, Alfred A. Knopf, 432 pages, $26.

    Snow is not the first thing that comes to mind when most Westerners 
think of Turkey. Americans are most likely to have encountered only the 
country's Mediterranean coast, bikini-clad and by boat. So it is 
disorienting from the first to enter a novel set in a provincial eastern 
Turkish city in a heavy snowstorm -- only the first of the disorientations 
a reader should experience in Snow by Orhan Pamuk, hailed by one critic as 
"the sort of author for whom the Nobel Prize was invented."

    At the time of the publication of his first novels to be translated 
into English, Pamuk was described as "Turkey's foremost novelist." The 
author note in Snow describes him as "one of Europe's most prominent 
novelists." Herein lies the central dilemma of modern Turkey and of Snow, 
a highly literary fable of the struggle of an essentially European 
intellectual and social elite to understand, control or make peace with 
those elements of the country that are bitterly anti-European. Ka is a 
poet who has been living in exile in Germany for some 20 years. When he 
returns, the radicals are no longer socialists but Islamists, and he 
wavers between sympathy for their religious devotion -- as he begins 
himself to feel stirrings of belief in God -- and fear of their hostility 
to him and everything he represents as a secular, Westernized 
intellectual.

    The beautiful leading women in Snow are symbolic of the soul of a 
nation: Ipek, bareheaded, independent, generally modern in her attitudes, 
separated from an Islamist politician; and Kadife, the leader of a group 
of girls barred from school for wearing headscarves as a symbol of 
religious devotion -- or political protest, or personal independence. One 
of these "headscarf girls" has committed suicide, part of a wave of female 
suicides; and as with all symbols, the meaning of this most intensely 
individual and anti-social of all acts is up for grabs, and vulnerable to 
political manipulation.

    Snow reminds Ka of God and the book's narrator of the divine uniqueness 
of every individual. Yet as several characters point out, "individuality" 
is also a kind of idol used by the West to denigrate more communally 
minded philosophies. Snow -- by closing off all roads to the outside world 
-- provides cover for a military coup that turns from ludicrous theater to 
real violence aimed at preventing an Islamist democratic victory in the 
local elections. (The elite's sense of guilt that their freedoms are 
propped up by unsavory means is a strong theme here.) Snow also represents 
the timeless accumulation of historical events that has turned a vibrant, 
diverse city into a depressed backwater where everyone's goal is to be 
like everyone else.

    A single snowflake also provides the structure for the book of poems Ka 
writes in the course of the novel, and which then goes missing, making 
this a book about a missing book -- one of several postmodern sleights of 
hand that some readers will adore and others find irritating. The 
terrorist named Blue who is a media creation; the empty chamber of a gun 
that is actually full; politics as theater / theater as politics; pairings 
in which people are obsessed with other, more vibrant people, their 
"originals"; an unreliable narrator trying to piece a story together from 
other texts; the poems that don't exist and the Islamist sci-fi novel that 
is plotted but not written -- these elements make Snow a kind of 
brainteaser about authenticity and the nature of reality.

    The romance at the center of the book is not especially convincing as 
love story, yet it is potent as allegory when Ka discovers, to his 
heartbreak, that both sisters -- not only Kadife, whom he respects, but 
Ipek, whom he adores -- are secret lovers of Blue. If you're reading 
Pamuk's work as European literature, Snow is probably not the first of his 
books to read, but as a kind of postmodern journalism of modern Turkey -- 
a pained report from the psychological border between East and West -- it 
is highly worthwhile.

    Alane Salierno Mason is a senior editor at W.W. Norton & Co. and 
founding editor of www.wordswithout borders.org, an online magazine 
devoted to international literature.

LOAD-DATE: August 31, 2004
----------------
The New Yorker

August 30, 2004

ANATOLIAN ARABESQUES;
A modernist novel of contemporary Turkey.

JOHN UPDIKE

    Orhan Pamuk's new novel, "Snow" (translated from the Turkish by Maureen 
Freely; Knopf; $26), abounds with modernist tracer genes. Like Proust's 
"Remembrance of Things Past," it bares its inner gears of reconstituted 
memory and ends by promising its own composition. Its hero, a poet, goes 
by the name of Ka, a hard-to-miss allusion to Kafka's K., the hero of "The 
Castle." Its setting, the forlorn provincial city of Kars-though kar means 
"snow," Kars is an actual place, in Turkey's northeastern corner, near 
Armenia; it was destroyed by Tamerlane in 1386 and occupied by Russia off 
and on in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries-suggests, in four 
hectic days during which the city is snowbound, the mountainous, 
debate-prone microcosm of Thomas Mann's sanatorium in "The Magic 
Mountain," with a lethal whiff of Dostoyevsky's unnamed "our town" in "The 
Possessed." The airy spirit of postmodernism also haunts the shadows and 
spiral staircases of Pamuk's intricate narrative. Like Italo Calvino, 
Pamuk has a passion for pattern-making; he maps Kars as obsessively as 
Joyce did Dublin and marshals the nineteen poems that Ka writes there into 
the form of a diagrammatic snowflake. Not that "Snow" doesn't flow, with 
suspense at every dimpled vortex. Like Raymond Queneau, Pamuk is gifted 
with a light, absurdist touch, spinning out farcical plot developments to 
the point of implying that any plot, in this indifferent and chaotic 
universe, is farcical. He is attracted to the unreal reality, the false 
truth, of theatrical performance, and "Snow," in its political aspect, 
pivots on two nights of performance at the Kars National Theatre, in which 
illusion and reality are confoundingly entwined.

    The comedy of public events, where protest and proclamation rapidly age 
into melodramatic cliche, overlays certain tragic realities of 
contemporary Turkey: the poverty of opportunity that leads unemployed men 
to sit endlessly in teahouses watching television; the tension between the 
secularism established by Kemal Ataturk in the nineteen-twenties and the 
recent rise of political Islam; the burning issue of women's head scarves; 
the cultural divide between a Westernized elite and the theistic masses. 
In its geography, Turkey straddles Europe and Asia; its history includes a 
triumphant imperial episode under the Ottoman sultans and, after long 
decline, a secular, modernizing revolution under Ataturk. Tradition there 
wears not only the fez and the turban but the uniform of the 
Islam-resistant Army.

    Ka, a forty-two-year-old, unmarried Istanbul native who for twelve 
years has lived as a political exile in Germany, comes to Kars, which he 
briefly visited twenty years ago, in order to investigate and report on, 
for a friend's newspaper, a local epidemic of suicide among young women, 
and to look up a university classmate, the beautiful Ipek, who, he has 
learned, is separated from her husband, Muhtar. Muhtar, another old 
acquaintance, is running for mayor; this election is one of the threads 
that are all but buried in the subsequent days beneath a veritable 
blizzard of further complications and characters. The Anatolian venue, its 
deteriorating architecture poetically redolent of former Armenian and 
Russian inhabitants, is populated by Turks whose names have, to an 
American reader, a fairy-tale strangeness: Ipek, Kadife, Zahide, Sunay 
Zaim, Funda Eser, Guner Bener, Hakan Ozge, Mesut, Fazil, Necip, Teslime, 
Abdurraham Oz, Osman Nuri Colak, Tarkut Olcun, and (Ka's full name, which 
he suppresses) Kerim Alakusoglu.

    In his temporary role of journalist, Ka is given access to a succession 
of local viewpoints, ranging from that of the deputy governor (who tells 
him, "If unhappiness were a genuine reason for suicide, half the women in 
Turkey would be killing themselves") and the benign religious teacher 
Sheikh Saadettin Efendi to that of the outlaw terrorist Blue and Ipek's 
sister, the scarf-wearing Kadife, who in the end proposes that women 
commit suicide to show their pride: "The moment of suicide is the time 
when they understand best how lonely it is to be a woman, and what being a 
woman really means." Early in Ka's visit, Ipek tersely sums up the 
situation for him: "The men give themselves to religion, and the women 
kill themselves." When he asks why, she responds with "a look that told 
him he would get nowhere by pressing her for quick answers." But the 
question, in the course of more than four hundred pages, pales beside more 
vividly animated issues: Ka's revived ability to write poems; his tortuous 
campaign to persuade Ipek to marry him and join him in the marginal 
existence of an exiled Turkish poet in Frankfurt; his debates with several 
young students (Necip, Fazil) at the Kars religious high school over 
whether or not he and other Europeanized Turks are inevitably atheists; 
and, in the most farcical-tragical twist of plot, a violent Kemalist 
(pro-secular, anti-political-Islamist) coup in the snowbound municipality, 
engineered from the stage by the veteran itinerant actor Sunay Zaim.

    Ka, who on his first day in Kars witnesses the assassination of an 
education official who had forbidden head scarves, becomes increasingly 
involved in many-sided intrigues and shuttles back and forth like the hero 
of a thriller; but he is not believable as such, possessing, as he does, a 
preoccupying ear for the poems being dictated to him by a higher power and 
a constant concern with his own uncertainties. Does he believe in God or 
not? Is happiness worth having? He decides, after an ecstatic interlude 
with Ipek, that "the greatest happiness in life was to embrace a 
beautiful, intelligent girl and sit in a corner writing poetry." But even 
this unexceptional conclusion melts away under his doubts: he foresees 
that in Frankfurt a "crushing, soul-destroying pain would eat away at 
their happiness." And the handsome Blue, whose main terrorist activity 
seems to be seducing women, assures him, "People who seek only happiness 
never find it."

    Dithering, reflective Ka, the embodiment of Turkish ambivalence, is, we 
learn, a Gemini. He acquires a neartwin (this author has a weakness for 
near-twins, for men who interpenetrate each other, like the 
seventeenth-century Italian slave and his Muslim master in "The White 
Castle," or like Necip and Fazil in this novel) when "Orhan the novelist" 
takes on an increasingly voluble first-person voice and presence. Orhan, 
it turns out, has travelled to Kars to investigate the adventures of his 
friend Ka four years after they occurred. The narrative's subtext emerges 
as a sophisticated and esteemed writer's aporia-his bafflement-in the face 
of his nation's backwardness, superstition, and misery. What do Ka's inner 
states-the bliss of intermittent inspiration, the romantic dreams of 
erotic conquest, his intense nostalgia for a sheltered childhood, his 
flitting sense that Islam is correct and God does exist-have to do with 
the world's economic and political facts? His is the social class that 
left Islam to the servants and welcomed military coups, with their cozy 
curfews and radio-broadcast martial music. When Ka's friend and rival 
Muhtar is beaten by the police, "Ka imagined that Muhtar had found 
redemption in this beating; it might have released him from the guilt and 
spiritual agony he felt at the misery and stupidity of his country." The 
only lines that are quoted from Ka's nineteen suddenly inspired poems run:

    Even if your mother came down from heaven to take you into her arms, 
Even if your wicked father let her go without a beating for just one 
night, You'd still be penniless, your shit would still freeze, your soul 
would still wither, there is no hope! If you're unlucky enough to live in 
Kars, you might as well flush yourself down the toilet.

    The unlucky, however, protest: during a political meeting that 
pathetically, comically, endearingly struggles to frame a statement for 
the Frankfurter Rundschau, a passionate young Kurd cries, "We're not 
stupid, we're just poor!" He goes on, "When a Westerner meets someone from 
a poor country, he feels deep contempt. He assumes that the poor man's 
head must be full of all the nonsense that plunged his country into 
poverty and despair." The author himself, arriving at what he terms 
"perhaps . . . the heart of our story," asks:

    How much can we hope to understand those who have suffered deeper 
anguish, greater deprivation, and more crushing disappointments than we 
ourselves have known? Even if the world's rich and powerful were to put 
themselves in the shoes of the rest, how much would they really understand 
the wretched millions suffering around them? So it is when Orhan the 
novelist peers into the dark corners of his poet friend's difficult and 
painful life: How much can he really see?

    Thus the aesthetic and private passions so crucial to Ka double back, 
in a way, upon politics. Empathy knits a society together as well as 
enables works of imagination. But do the rich and powerful, having once 
imagined their way into the shoes of the less fortunate, change course and 
renounce all they have, as both Buddha and Jesus advised? And would it do 
enough good if they did? Is not conflict, between classes and nations 
both, often between groups that understand each other all too well? They 
compete for the same prize, the same land, the same control of resources. 
Pamuk's conscience-ridden and carefully wrought novel, tonic in its scope, 
candor, and humor, does not incite us, even in our imaginations, to 
overthrow existing conditions in Turkey. When the Kars coup occurs, the 
enthusiasm among unemployed youths leads to the dry authorial comment 
"They seemed to think that last night's events marked the beginning of a 
new age, in which immorality and unemployment would no longer be 
tolerated; it was as if they thought the army had stepped in expressly to 
find them jobs." Such realistic fatalism, and the poet's duty "to hear the 
hidden music that is the source of all art" and to believe that "life had 
a secret geometry," drains "Snow" 's ideological contests of blood. We 
could care less, but not much less. Ka has a drifting, ghostly presence 
that becomes exasperatingly mired in the role of negotiator, schemer, man 
of action; it wasn't clear, at least to this reader, what his decisive 
action, for which he suffers in the end, was. Nor is his love for Ipek, 
beautiful and wise as she is conjured to be, very involving. The lovers' 
exchanges have an enigmatic bleakness, traceable perhaps to Hemingway:

    "I learned everything they taught us about Islam, but then I forgot it. 
Now it's as if everything I know about Islam is from The Message-you know, 
that film starring Anthony Quinn." Ka smiled. "It was showing not long ago 
on the Turkish channel in Germany-but, for some strange reason, in German. 
You're here this evening, aren't you?" "Yes." "Because I want to read you 
my poem again," said Ka, as he put his notebook into his pocket. "Do you 
think it's beautiful?" "Yes, really, it's beautiful." "What's beautiful 
about it?" "I don't know, it's just beautiful," said Ipek. She opened the 
door to leave. Ka threw his arms around her and kissed her on the mouth.

    Maybe-though Maureen Freely's translation is fluent and lucid 
throughout-it reads better in Turkish. If at times "Snow" seems attenuated 
and opaque, we should not forget that in Turkey, insofar as it partakes of 
the Islamic world's present murderous war of censorious fanaticism versus 
free speech and truth-seeking, to write with honest complexity about such 
matters as head scarves and religious belief takes courage. Pamuk, 
relatively young as he is, at the age of fifty-two, qualifies as that 
country's most likely candidate for the Nobel Prize, and the 
near-assassination of Islam's last winner must cross his mind. To produce 
a major work so frankly troubled and provocatively bemused and, against 
the grain of the author's usual antiquarian bent, entirely contemporary in 
its setting and subjects, took the courage that art sometimes visits upon 
even its most detached practitioners.

LOAD-DATE: August 30, 2004
-----------------
Times-Picayune (New Orleans)

September 5, 2004 Sunday

Across the divide;
Religious debates bog down this promising European-style novel that
explores
Turkish history

By Kevin Rabalais, Contributing writer

    SNOW

    By Orhan Pamuk

    Translated from the Turkish by Maureen Freely

    Alfred A. Knopf, $26

    Every once in a while, a foreign writer appears -- seemingly from out 
of nowhere -- and catches the attention of the English-reading world. We 
often assume that this sudden arrival indicates a new voice in world 
literature, namely that the writer is young. Because of this, we find it 
difficult to imagine that he had been working for years in his own 
language.

    There was that "arrival" of Vladimir Nabokov, who after the 1955 
publication of "Lolita" suddenly became an international sensation, though 
he had been writing for more than three decades, mostly in his native 
Russian before turning to English to show us native speakers the true 
meaning of language skills. More recently, before he died of a heart 
attack while driving, critics forecast German writer W.G. Sebald as a 
future Nobel Prize winner. At the time, only two of his books had appeared 
in English translation.

    Orhan Pamuk, whose novel "My Name is Red" received the 2003 IMPAC 
Dublin Literary Award, is such a writer -- a critic's darling, if you 
will. Since the 1991 English translation of "The White Castle," Pamuk has 
been compared to everyone from Marcel Proust and Thomas Mann to Jorge Luis 
Borges. His novels are steeped in a highly European literary tradition and 
also flooded with Ottoman history and Islam, a unique combination.

    Pamuk's most recent novel, "Snow," a political and religious thriller 
set in his native Turkey, begins after Ka, a poet of some international 
renown, attends his mother's funeral in Istanbul. Though not involved in 
politics, Ka has spent the past 12 years in exile in Germany, where he 
fled after being tried for a political article he did not write. At least 
this is what the narrator, a childhood friend of Ka's who reconstructs the 
poet's story from various sources, tells us in the beginning.

    After the funeral, Ka travels by bus to Kars, a once-important city 
where he spent much of his childhood. "Being on the borders of two empires 
now defunct, the Ottoman and the Russian, the mountain city also benefited 
from the protection of the standing armies each power had in turn placed 
in Kars for that purpose." Much of Pamuk's work, and "Snow" in particular, 
resides in this type of in-betweenness, both cultural and religious.

    In Kars, Ka plans to use his press pass to cover the municipal 
elections and also write about "the head-scarf girls"  -- students who 
began committing suicide after they were barred from the classroom for 
refusing to remove their headscarves. Or, as one character says, girls 
barred "for flaunting this symbol of political Islam." Everything in Kars 
is political, and religion is politics. Those opposed to the banning fear 
that the girls will be turned into slaves of the West, while others claim 
that their removal allows equality and respect.

    The real reason for Ka's visit, however, is to see his former 
classmate, the beautiful Ipek, recently divorced. The two meet in a cafe. 
Over coffee, while reassembling the years they've been apart, they witness 
the attempted assassination of the director of the Institute of Education, 
the man who had initiated the ban.

    Afterwards, when snow forces the local government to close off the city 
from the rest of the world for three days, Ka finds himself descending 
into the terrorist organization responsible for the assassination attempt. 
The group's leader, Blue, believes that Ka is an agent of freedom returned 
from the Godless West to tempt the oppressed. What follows is part 
thriller, part political manifesto in the tradition of Dostoevsky's 
"Demons." Unfortunately, however, the ideas in "Snow"  -- particularly the 
long and numerous religious debates -- often seem to be Pamuk's primary 
concerns. Because of this, the characters frequently disappear behind the 
dialogues, falling short of our expectations for them as individuals in 
command of their actions.

    From the opening passage, a dreamlike tone quietly arises, giving the 
novel a detached voice. This is at times poetic but also logical in a 
narrative told from the point of view of someone who continually reminds 
us how he received his information and that he was not present during Ka's 
visit to Kars. But these detachments continuously call to question the 
authenticity of the narrator's perceptions. Combined with the long 
religious dialogues, this often makes for slippery reading.

    Pamuk, whose works have now been translated into more than 20 
languages, has attained rare status among literary writers. His highly 
praised intellectual novels have become international bestsellers. "Snow" 
will frustrate many simply because of its abundant references to a culture 
we know too little about. But the experience of reading Pamuk, who has 
indeed inherited from all the writers with whom he has been compared, is 
like nothing else in contemporary literature. That alone explains much of 
the fuss.

    . . . . . . .

    Kevin Rabalais is co-editor of "Novel Voices" (Writer's Digest
Books),
conversations with award-winning American novelists.

LOAD-DATE: September 5, 2004
----------------
The Denver Post

September 5, 2004 Sunday
FINAL EDITION

Clashes in the Middle East culture at issue In "Snow," Islamic beliefs

battle Western influences

John Freeman Special to The Denver Post

    Earlier this summer, the European court of Human Rights upheld the 
Turkish government's decision to ban head scarves in schools. It was a 
victory for the state but unlikely to put an end to controversy. One need 
only pick up Orhan Pamuk's mournful new novel, "Snow," to understand how 
divisive an issue this is in Turkey.

    Set between 1999 and 2001, Pamuk's tale revolves around the suicides of 
three teenage Muslim girls. Islamic clerics blame their deaths on the 
government because it punished the girls for wearing head scarves. 
Secularists argue that the girls were just depressed and did what 
teenagers sometimes do when engulfed by sadness.

    The truth, of course, lies somewhere in the middle, and that's what the 
novel 's hero, a Turkish poet named Ka, looks for when he travels by bus 
to the remote border village of Kars. His trip echoes a journey made in 
1829 by the Russian poet Pushkin, and as it turns out, Ka is an even less 
faithful reporter than his Russian counterpart. He is distracted by an 
unrequited crush he nurses for a woman he barely knows. As a former exile 
born to money in Istanbul, he is also desperately aware of his outsider 
status in this provincial town.

    Reading "Snow" can be a disjunctive experience, then, because the 
reader's attention and Ka's attentions are so often at odds with one 
another. While tensions ratchet upward toward a revolution, Ka drifts 
through town in a somnolent haze, dazzled by a heavy snowstorm. As the 
flakes drift down, muffling gunshots across town, cries for help, Ka 
wanders into tea rooms to jot down poems before they dissolve like 
snowflakes on his jacket sleeve. Maintaining distance, obviously, is his 
forte.

    As the novel progresses, however, Ka is forced out of the amniotic bath 
of his artistic remove. He witnesses an Islamic hit placed on a government 
minister. Knowing that he must maintain at least the pretense of 
journalism to remain in Kars, Ka interviews the families of the head-scarf 
girls, as they are called, the boys who became infatuated with them and 
the Islamic leaders inflamed by their deaths. With the help of a 
philosophical young boy, Ka visits a dashingly mysterious Islamic 
fundamentalist named Blue. Like many other characters in this book, Blue 
wants an Islamic Turkey, and he's willing to do what it takes to make that 
happen.

    Alternating between the snowstorm's hush and philosophical 
conversations that are reminiscent of Dostoyevsky's great novels, "Snow" 
proves a surprisingly gripping read. And a timely one, too, given France's 
ruling on head scarves and events in the Mideast. Pamuk has claimed in 
interviews he is not a political writer, but he will have difficulty 
defending that position with "Snow," which dramatizes many of the issues 
facing the Middle East today including the separation of church and state, 
poverty, the role of the military, women's freedoms, modernization and the 
influence of the West.

    Unfortunately, the book's compelling side drama of a writer struggling 
to remain apolitical is nearly occluded by all these sociological and 
political points of interest. It's a burden Pamuk, who won the IMPAC Prize 
for his novel "My Name is Red" labors under to a certain degree. To 
non-Turks, his books are first and foremost windows into Turkish culture. 
In time, it would be nice to have the pleasure of reading "Snow" not 
simply as the political novel it certainly is, but as a work of art.

    John Freeman is a writer in New York.
-----------------------
Snow

    By Orhan Pamuk; translated from the Turkish by Maureen Freely

    Knopf, 400 pages, $26

LOAD-DATE: September 7, 2004
------------------
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

September 5, 2004 Sunday Home Edition

East, West meld in acid 'Snow'

DIANE ROBERTS

SOURCE: For the Journal-Constitution

    FICTION REVIEW

    Snow. By Orhan Pamuk. Translated from the Turkish by Maureen Freely. 
Knopf. $26. 448 pages.

    The verdict: Turkish Alice down a rabbit hole.

    Nations, being arbitrary political constructs, have their 
contradictions and paradoxes. But few are more paradoxical than Turkey: 
the westernmost part of Asia, the easternmost part of Europe, where Roman 
emperors built churches that Ottoman emperors turned into mosques, a 
country of Muslims in whose 20th-century revolution women were ordered to 
take off, rather than put on, the veil.

    The work of the distinguished Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, winner of 
several international literary prizes, embodies the rich creative tension 
between the Occidental and the Oriental, the secular and the sacred, cable 
TV and the call of the muezzin. It's as if Franz Kafka, Milan Kundera, 
Naguib Mahfouz and Scheherazade all got together to collaborate.

    Ka is a not-very-productive poet from Istanbul, living in exile in 
Germany. He returns to Turkey for his mother's funeral, then decides to 
travel to the far-off border city of Kars, lately notorious as the place 
where a series of devout girls have committed suicide, supposedly because 
they were forbidden to wear head scarves in school.

    In addition, Kars is the home of Ka's old flame, Ipek. Ka cherishes 
romantic notions that he and Ipek might fall in love and get his creative 
juices flowing again. While he's at it, he figures he'll write something 
for the Istanbul newspapers about the "headscarf girls."

    But Kars, stuck in a corner of Turkey that has been controlled at 
different times by Armenians, Russians and Kurds, isn't merely on the 
border of disputed territories but on the border between past and present, 
the magical and the real.

    Once Ka checks into Kars' Snow Palace Hotel, he walks through the 
looking glass into a topsy-turvy world where strict Islamists watch 
Mexican TV soap operas, young men martyr themselves over a girl's hair and 
the local paper prints the news before it happens.

    Pamuk slyly and expertly plays with stereotypes --- the tortured poet, 
the Muslim militant, the mysterious woman --- in a setting that always 
threatens to topple over into the symbolic. No one is what he or she 
seems, at least during the great snow that keeps falling and cuts the city 
of Kars off from the 21st century itself.

    Pamuk himself is a character in the novel, relating the story of his 
friend Ka the way you would a long, off-the-wall fairy tale, narratively 
doubling back on himself with wry digressions and philosophical 
deconstructions of love, predestination and history.

    "Snow" is witty and, like the fiction of Kundera, Calvino or Borges, 
unapologetically intellectual.

    "Snow" is clever; it's acidly funny, too. Pamuk is an equal opportunity 
satirist, skewering the politics both of the westernized Turks and the 
Islamists. One of Ka's old friends, Ruhi, works "as a test subject in a 
study measuring the effectiveness of an advertising campaign for a new 
type of lamb pastrami pizza marketed to Turkish workers in the lowest 
income bracket." In the New Life Pastry Shop, a fundamentalist lectures 
the head of the Kars Institute of Education on women and the Quran before 
he shoots him:

    "As the American Black Muslim professor Marvin King has already noted, 
if the celebrated film star Elizabeth Taylor had spent the last twenty 
years covered, she would not have had to worry so much about being fat. 
She would not have ended up in a mental hospital. . . . Why are you 
laughing, sir?"

    Ka is on a quest. He wants to win the gorgeous but elusive Ipek, he 
wants to solve the mystery of the "headscarf girls" and penetrate the 
enigma that is Kars itself. Ka is also a Turkish Alice down a rabbit hole, 
where he learns to believe many more than six impossible things before 
breakfast. Such as that the difference between the Islamists and the 
secularists isn't always clear. And that language itself wields not mere 
aesthetic power but can act like a spell or a curse, directing the course 
of events. Kars doesn't simply veer between the magical and the real; it 
is, like Looking Glass Land, a place of inversions.

    The snow that keeps falling is at once natural and supernatural: It 
covers up the tracks of assassins and muffles the sound of gunfire, and it 
turns provincial Kars into an enchanted city where anything is possible. 
The Border City Gazette, the local daily, isn't just a small-town rag; it 
seems to predict, even shape, the news. Serdar, the 
owner-editor-publisher, runs a story that says Ka will give a public 
reading of a new poem, well before Ka even thinks of writing one. Later, 
the paper reports a murder before it happens. Time in Kars is out of 
joint. Or maybe it takes a different, nonlinear shape.

    "Snow" is in some ways more fable than novel. Ka, Ipek, the would-be 
revolutionary Blue are characters reported rather than felt: The reader 
remains at arm's length from all of them. But Pamuk keeps you engaged 
throughout the intricacies of his story. It is, as he points out himself, 
like a snowflake, more beautiful and complex the closer you look.

    Diane Roberts teaches English at the University of Alabama.

LOAD-DATE: September 5, 2004
----------------
Newsweek

September 6, 2004 U.S. Edition

An Empire Of Stories

By Malcolm Jones

HIGHLIGHT:
Turkey's tortured history inspires two fine novels

    Turkey is a novelist's dream, or perhaps a land dreamed by a novelist. 
A border country between Europe and the Middle East, it has for centuries 
been so many things to so many people--Christians, Muslims, Armenians, 
Greeks, Kurds and, of course, Turks--that it has become a place where 
fantasies and realities collide like tectonic plates. Everybody has a 
story, and, as two new novels set in Turkey demonstrate in their radically 
varying tales, every story is startlingly unique.

    In "Birds Without Wings," Louis de Bernieres tackles a piece of Turkish 
history with the same vigor that he used to sketch World War II Greece in 
"Corelli's Mandolin." But this is a darker book, with nothing like its 
predecessor's central love affair to soften its tragedy. Near the novel's 
beginning, de Bernieres introduces Philothei, his fictional village's most 
beautiful woman, about whom one character says she "reminded you of 
death," because to look upon her was to know that "everything decays away 
and is lost." Like Eskibahce, the village she inhabits, Philothei is 
notable for nothing but her beauty; both are doomed. By the end of "Birds 
Without Wings," Eskibahce has been decimated by World War I and its 
aftermath. What had been a patchwork paradise of ethnicities--Greeks, 
Turks and Armenians--is gone, sacrificed for modern Turkey, forged by the 
ruthless, charismatic Kemal Ataturk out of the ashes of the Ottoman 
Empire. The Greeks have been exiled, the Armenians slaughtered. Those who 
remain are too impoverished and war-weary to know what hit them.

    De Bernieres takes his cues from Tolstoy--his characters' stories are 
always played out against the scrim of history. The Turkish novelist Orhan 
Pamuk is more a Kafka man. "Snow" takes place in the 1990s in the 
far-eastern Turkish village of Kars. And while the story, packed with 
nationalists, socialists and militant Islamists, has a superficial 
currency, its reality is dreamlike. Snow falls for most of the novel, 
isolating the town, where a poet, called Ka, has come to investigate a 
series of suicides by teenage Muslim girls who refuse the secular 
government's order to remove their headscarves. Artistically blocked for 
years, Ka, a Westernized sophisticate, suddenly begins to write poetry 
again. He falls in love so deeply that he begins to betray 
everything--even his own scruples--to preserve his happiness. Because he 
believes in nothing beyond his own desire, he is marked for tragedy.

    De Bernieres is so inventive--celebratory but never sentimental--that 
he is the more beguiling of the two novelists. But Pamuk is the more 
profound. At the end of "Snow," a young man says to the narrator, "I'd 
like to tell your readers not to believe anything you say about me, 
anything you say about any of us. No one could understand us from so far 
away." By refusing to condescend to his characters--by just showing them, 
not explaining them--Pamuk endows even the most reprehensible figures with 
dignity. Like de Bernieres, Pamuk never generalizes. In their indelible 
novels, every tragedy wears a different face.

LOAD-DATE: August 31, 2004
----------------------
Detroit Free Press

September 12, 2004 Sunday 0 EDITION

Novel has action, insight, wit for serious reader

    Review by Charles Matthews

    Haunting and edgy, Orhan Pamuk's "Snow" is a novel by a writer who 
takes the novel seriously, as a vehicle for exploring ideas and examining 
the predicament of the world. It's a book with action and intrigue, witty 
insights and lively characters, but it's also a work with a moral and 
symbolic complexity that makes most contemporary fiction look thin and 
inconsequential.

    The protagonist is a poet known as Ka (the initials of his full name, 
which he dislikes), who has returned to Turkey after 12 years of exile in 
Germany. A friend who works for an Istanbul newspaper persuades Ka to 
write a story about the numerous suicides by teenage girls that have taken 
place in the remote city of Kars, in eastern Turkey near the border with 
Armenia. Ka accepts the assignment when he hears that an old girlfriend, 
Ipek, now lives in Kars.

    Ka winds up snowbound in Kars, which is the nexus of all manner of 
ethnic, religious and political tensions. The suicides, for example, seem 
to be provoked by the secular government's attempt to ban head-scarves -- 
Ka is told that the girls, devout Muslims, killed themselves in protest. 
But the Muslims issue their own denunciations of suicide as a sin, adding 
to the enigma that is Kars, which has an other-side-of-the-looking-glass 
quality to it.

    It's a place where the newspaper often goes to press with reports of 
events that haven't happened yet. (Ka reads a poem at a public meeting, 
even though he hadn't planned to and hadn't even written the poem, in part 
because the newspaper has already printed a story about the reading.) It's 
also a place where a theatrical production turns deadly because the rifles 
carried on stage contain live ammunition.

    Ka witnesses an assassination, interviews an Islamist terrorist, 
becomes the object of police suspicion and falls deeply in love with Ipek, 
all of which serves to bring him to life for the first time in many years: 
He begins writing poetry with a new fervor. (Cunningly, Pamuk never lets 
us read any of Ka's poems.)

    Fittingly, Ka's name echoes that of Kars, the city that vivifies him 
but also puts his life in jeopardy. Moreover, the Turkish word for snow is 
"kar" -- the book's original title, and no doubt one of the many nuances 
lost in translation. But the name also suggests Kafka's protagonist known 
as K. -- pronounced "ka" in German. And there is something Kafkaesque 
about Ka's experiences, even before he goes to Kars: Though "he had never 
been very much involved in politics," Ka had fled Turkey after the 
military coup of 1980, to avoid going to jail "for a hastily printed 
political article he had not even written." Politics has a way of 
swallowing up the uncommitted, and isolation turns places like Kars (and 
many others around the globe) into political vortices.

    "Snow" is the seventh book by a writer who evidently believes, like the 
great novelists of the 19th and early 20th centuries, that fiction can 
make a difference -- morally and politically. He even courts comparison to 
such writers, beginning his book with epigraphs from Conrad, Dostoyevsky 
and Stendhal, a daunting company to say the least. But he shares with them 
a vision of human beings shaped by external forces they can't control and 
by interior drives that they choose not to control. This is serious 
fiction for serious readers.

    CHARLES MATTHEWS writes for the San Jose Mercury News.

LOAD-DATE: September 12, 2004
------------------
Entertainment Weekly

September 17, 2004

Snow

Gilbert Cruz

    SNOW

    Orhan Pamuk Novel (Knopf, $ 26)

    Orhan Pamuk does not hold back. In his seventh novel, the Turkish 
author addresses Love, Religion, Politics, and many other big-letter 
themes as he dissects the ideologies that threaten his native land. Ka, a 
42-year-old poet who has not written in many years, returns to Turkey 
after years of political exile. Ostensibly there for his mother's funeral, 
Ka journeys to the border town of Kars to investigate a rash of suicides 
by Muslim girls banned from school for wearing their head scarves, while 
also planning to convince Ipek, an old crush, to run away with him. A 
proxy for Turkey itself, Ka is torn between Islam and atheism as he 
experiences a streak of poetic inspiration he attributes to God. Crammed 
with empathetic characters fervent in their beliefs, Snow abounds with 
political intrigue while remaining lushly tragic at heart. A-- --Gilbert 
Cruz


    GRAPHIC: COLOR PHOTO

LOAD-DATE: September 10, 2004
---------------------
The Weekend Australian

September 18, 2004 Saturday All-round Country Edition

BOOKS BEHIND THE NEWS

SOURCE: MATP

     Uneasy marriage of East and West

     TURKEY drew back from the brink of making adultery a crime, fearful it 
would jeopardise its chances of being admitted to the EU, whose members 
will decide that issue on October 6. The complexity of life in modern 
Turkey is the stuff of best-selling Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk's new 
novel, Snow. Christopher Hitchens, in The Atlantic Monthly noted Turkey is 
"physically and historically, the 'bridge' between East and West" and that 
with his previous novel, My Name is Red, Pamuk "himself became a kind of 
register of this position". The new book deals with the trials of Kerim 
Alakusoglu, who returns from Germany to live in Kars, on the 
Turkish-Armenian border, a place shaken by an epidemic of suicides by 
young girls distraught at not being allowed to wear the Muslim veil. 
Poverty is ever-present and other voices include Kurdish separatists, 
political Islamists and secularists. Pamuk said in Ankara's Turkish Daily 
News: "When an author in the West writes about the ordinary elements of 
life -- the pain, the sorrow, the happiness he sees around him, it is 
characterised as a story of humanity. But when an author from a country on 
the periphery does the same thing, he is perceived as having voiced ethnic 
problems."

     * Crescent and Star by Stephen Kinzer (Saint Martin's Press, $30). 
Acclaimed journalist's view.

     * The Emergence of Modern Turkey by Bernard Lewis (Oxford Uni Press, 
$65). By a respected academic.

LOAD-DATE: September 17, 2004

From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  8 21:19:47 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:19:47 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] WETA-FM Alert
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502081616040.16114@panix1.panix.com>

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 09:13:18 -0500
From: ronkean at juno.com
To: checker at panix.com
Cc: ronkean at juno.com
Subject: Re: WETA-FM Alert


On Sat, 5 Feb 2005 05:47:00 -0500 (EST) Premise Checker
<checker at panix.com> writes:

> This is the first alert I've ever sent out. I realize that the economics 
> of broadcasting is driving the proposed format change from classical 
> (which played no classical music during "rush" hour) to all news, as 
> though another all-news station were needed. I suspect that the 
> licensing regulations distort the economics here.

I agree that economic forces operate on both public broadcasters and
commercial broadcasters.  Broadcasting has been set up as a government
monopoly in that the government by law owns or controls the wavelength
spectrum in the first instance, and then the government doles out
broadcast licenses to broadcasters on a first-come first-served basis,
not by leasing to highest bidders.  The annual license fees are typically
far less than the economic value of those licenses to commercial
broadcasters.

The conventional wisdom holds that there is a shortage of broadcast
spectrum in areas of concentrated population, and indeed there are only
about 100 channels of AM broadcast spectrum, about 100 for FM, and a few
dozen for TV.  Signals carry about 50 miles (except for AM at night,
which can carry 500 miles), so each major city in effect has its own set
of channels, though cites which are less than 100 miles apart, e.g.
Baltimore and Washington, and Baltimore and Philadelphia, have to avoid
sharing channels to avoid interference.

The point I am getting at has to do with the controversy over satisfying
diverse tastes, such as a taste for classical music or for bluegrass
music.  Apparently advertising to bluegrass listeners is not profitable
enough that any commercial station in Washington can afford to play
bluegrass.  And we are seeing that even the one public non-profit FM
station which had been playing some bluegrass is not finding that
'profitable' enough to continue.  Since the licenses are already doled
out at a very low cost, the question is whether the lack of bluegrass can
be blamed on spectrum shortage, or more generally on the cost of
broadcasting in a larger sense.

WETA-TV stops broadcasting on channel 26 each night at about 2 AM.  Its
broadcasts continue for several hours on their parallel digital channel,
and on the cable feed.  Apparently, WETA-TV thinks that it's not worth
the cost of electricity to run the channel 26 analog transmitter after 2
AM.  Commercial TV stations, on the other hand, run their transmitters 24
hours per day, filling the wee hours with infomercials or with network
news which generally repeats the same stories over and over again hourly.

There is new technology coming which will greatly multiply the number of
available channels for TV and radio.  Satellite radio has appeared which
allows banks of channels to be heard nationally.  With a national
audience, would it be profitable to play bluegrass and classical music on
satellite radio?  But there is more coming - digital radio should be able
to multiply to number of channels in the AM and FM bands.  Digital radio
on cable (using the existing TV cable systems) should be able to provide
hundreds of channels.  Then there is the internet.   As far as I can
tell, the prognosis is good for accommodating diverse tastes in broadcast
content.

Ron Kean

[Ron later added that the Sirius satellite radio website has a full time 
bluegrass channel and XM seems to have a weekend bluegrass schedule. Of 
course, what I want is to be able to get any 78 rpm recording of classical 
music at any time. I think there are 100-200,000 of them but have never 
seen any good estimates.]

[I'm taking my annual Lenten break from forwarding articles again this 
year. It's a vice to spend so much time doing this. So I'll be off the air 
for forty days and forty nights from Ash Wednesday until Easter.]


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  8 21:21:22 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:21:22 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Guardian: Sex and the scientist
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502081620090.16114@panix1.panix.com>

Sex and the scientist
http://education.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5121225-111763,00.html
5.2.8

[I'm taking my annual Lenten break from forwarding articles again this 
year. It's a vice to spend so much time doing this. So I'll be off the air 
for forty days and forty nights from Ash Wednesday until Easter.]

    Susan Greenfield's grand passion is popularising science, so it's not
    surprising if she calls the president of Harvard a 'toerag' and
    appears in Hello! says John Crace

    John Crace

    Two things almost everyone knows about Susan Greenfield. She wears
    mini-skirts and she's a scientist. The problem for Greenfield is the
    order in which they are ranked, for her appearance often attracts
    bigger headlines than her work. There aren't that many women working
    in science in the first place, so when a woman scientist is as
    comfortable in the pages of Hello! as in a peer-reviewed journal, and
    has patented a look in designer rock-chick chic, then it's safe to
    assume that some kind of statement is being made.

    So first things first. Yes, she is wearing a mini-skirt, yes, she is
    concerned about whether she should put on some lipstick for the
    photographs and, yes, she is looking just great anyway. Greenfield
    maintains that her appearance is separate to her identity as a
    scientist. "The most important thing is that I should remain true to
    myself," is a frequent refrain in our conversation and she affects a
    battle-hardened je ne regrette rien attitude towards everything in her
    past.

    But you suspect it's not that straightforward. Greenfield is as savvy
    a media player as she is an academic, and you can't help feeling
    there's a conscious trade-off at work. If science is her passion, then
    popularising science is her grand passion and in a world that measures
    popularity by column inches, then pretty much anything goes. You can't
    fault the logic: you can't get your ideas across if nobody listens and
    if the easiest way to grab people's attention in the first place is on
    the strength of your appearance, then so be it. You might lose a few,
    you might look a prat now and again, but overall you'll be in profit.

    It's a formula that has served her well so far. Aside from the day
    jobs as Fullerian professor of physiology at the department of
    pharmacology at Oxford, and director of the Royal Institution, she's
    picked up the Michael Faraday Medal from the Royal Society, a CBE and
    life-peerage from the present government, has written a report on
    women in science for Patricia Hewitt, and happily trots the globe in
    the democratisation of science.

    Last summer she was in Adelaide as "speaker in residence" - the
    perfect job for someone who scarcely draws breath between sentences -
    and last month she was mixing it with the great and the good at the
    World Economic Forum in Davos. Apart from a round-robin email she
    received from the caring, sharing Sharon Stone, the biggest name she
    ran up against was Larry Summers, the president of Harvard, who was
    recently reported as saying that women were genetically incapable of
    good science.

    On the way up in the lift to her office, Greenfield laughingly
    described Summers as "that toerag", but she is rather more measured
    once the tape is running. Though the underlying sentiment remains the
    same. "I was chairing a meeting on 'Gender and the Brain'," she says,
    "and it was only natural that Summers's comments were discussed. A
    colleague of his apologised on his behalf and asked if I would like to
    meet him later that week.

    "We had a good conversation where he rather moderated the position he
    was reported to have taken. He admitted he was wrong to have spoken
    out on a subject on which he had no expertise, and I was able to point
    out that even if we could agree on what was meant by 'good at science'
    there was no gender-based, genetic bio-determinism involved. There are
    issues about why women are under-represented in science but these are
    best explained by socialising factors."

    This encounter epitomises the pay-off for Greenfield. No matter how
    good a scientist she may be, there was not a cat in hell's chance of
    her getting a one-to-one with Summers so quickly, unless she had the
    requisite public profile and the media clout. But it does have its
    professional downsides. Last week, Greenfield was accused of dumbing
    down science by selling the rights to the Royal Institution's
    Christmas lectures to Channel 5 rather than offering them back to the
    BBC.

    The tension between Greenfield and some of her peers has been going on
    for years and shows no sign of diminishing - not least because it's
    hard to fight a battle when your enemies refuse to identify
    themselves. Last year, two fellows were quoted as saying they would
    resign if Greenfield were elected to the Royal Society - just the
    latest in a long line of anonymous detractors.

    "It's hard to engage with it all," she admits, "because you're never
    quite sure who or what you're dealing with. Everyone is always quite
    nice to me in person and then I hear I'm being criticised behind my
    back, though the criticisms are always fairly vague. Rather than
    explaining why and where my science is weak, they restrict themselves
    to general value statements with no evidence to back them up."

    Just what Greenfield has done to upset so many people is hard to work
    out. Research on the brain and consciousness is generally regarded as
    rather left-field and does not attract large grants, so it can't be
    about the money. What's more, within the neuroscientific community,
    her views are fairly mainstream. There's no grand theory of
    consciousness, there's no grand design on creating artificial
    intelligence; just standard, uncontroversial scientific theory.

    "We don't even know what questions we ought to be asking about
    consciousness," she points out, "let alone understand how it may be
    composed. So how can you build artificial intelligence if you don't
    know what to leave in or leave out? My understanding is that there are
    degrees of consciousness: a rat is less conscious than a foetus is
    less conscious than an adult - and an adult may be more or less
    conscious at different times of the day. This hypothesis means that
    you have a route to better understanding consciousness by measuring
    the network assembly of neurons in the brain."

    Last month Greenfield won a ?1m research grant from the US-based John
    Templeton Foundation to head the Oxford Centre for Science of the Mind
    - a multi-disciplinary team of academics from pharmacology, human
    anatomy, physiology, neuroscience, theology and philosophy. It's
    ground-breaking stuff, as it's the first time that science and the
    humanities have combined in this way and it's no coincidence that
    Greenfield has been one of its architects. If you're looking to award
    a grant in an obscure area, who better to give it to than a respected
    academic with a high media profile: that way you're guaranteed a
    public return for your cash.

    It's equally in character that the centre's work has already been
    hyped out of all recognition, with lurid speculation about torturing
    religious zealots. Greenfield shrugs non-committally. "I'm used to the
    media getting things wrong," she says, "but I understand its agenda is
    to sell papers. The reality is rather more dull. Researchers will be
    applying a mildly uncomfortable chilli paste to volunteers to
    determine how people react to pain and what difference the power of
    belief might make."

    As with much of Greenfield's work on Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, the
    research is large part blue-skies, big picture with a touch of the
    short-term practical thrown in. "Within two years we might be able to
    give some answers to what a belief means in brain terms - and how it
    can affect your immune system, but the longer-term question of how
    beliefs can change a subjective state will certainly take a great deal
    longer."

    If, indeed, they are ever answered. Greenfield insists she only gets
    satisfaction from seeking answers to the big questions, but it's hard
    to resist the notion that there's something masochistic about working
    on problems to which you'll almost certainly never get a definite
    answer. People have spent thousands of years trying to make sense of
    consciousness and may well be not much further on several thousand
    years hence, and no one seriously believes a cure for Alzheimer's is
    anything but a distant dream.

    Greenfield's willingness to continually put her head above the media
    parapet also verges on the masochistic. For if the problem isn't her
    science, then you have to conclude it's personal. Is it because she's
    a woman? Or because she's successful? Or because she's just a little
    bit too loud for some academics' liking? Or some combination of the
    three?

    "I don't have the same scientific background as many of my peers," she
    says, "so perhaps my face doesn't quite fit. I studied classics at
    school, psychology as an undergraduate, and only switched to science
    as a postdoc. So there are huge gaps in my scientific training -
    [physics and chemistry are the two biggest casualties] - and I still
    have a great deal of sympathy with the media and politicians who like
    their science in black and white, rather than academics who prefer to
    restrict themselves to shades of grey. This doesn't mean you
    compromise the evidence: you just explain it clearly and simply."

    This isn't something that many scientists are good at doing, which is
    why Greenfield has made it her life's work. "Only last week I got a
    letter from a schoolgirl saying, 'girls like me need women like you',"
    she says. And as my hour comes to an end, someone from Canadian radio
    is waiting outside in the corridor. The science sales show never ends.

    The CV

    Name: Susan Greenfield

    Age: 54

    Job: Fullerian professor of physiology, professor of pharmacology,
    Oxford University; director, Royal Institution of Great Britain

    Other honours : Michael Faraday medal, 1998; honorary fellow of Royal
    College of Physicians, 1999; CBE, 2000; life peerage, 2001

    Publications: Journey to the Centre of the Mind, 1995; Private Life of
    the Brain, 2000; 100 Things To Do Before You Die, 2004

    Likes : Jo Malone bubble bath

    Dislikes : socks and sandals on men

    Separated : with one step-child

From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  8 21:22:39 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:22:39 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: Signs of Awareness Seen in Brain-Injured Patients
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502081621320.16114@panix1.panix.com>

The New York Times > Science > Signs of Awareness Seen in Brain-Injured Patients
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/08/science/08coma.html
5.2.8

    By BENEDICT CAREY

    Thousands of brain-damaged people who are treated as if they are
    almost completely unaware may in fact hear and register what is going
    on around them but be unable to respond, a new brain-imaging study
    suggests.

    The findings, if repeated in follow-up experiments, could have
    sweeping implications for how to care best for these patients. Some
    experts said the study, which appeared yesterday in the journal
    Neurology, could also have consequences for legal cases in which
    parties dispute the mental state of an unresponsive patient.

    The research showed that the brain-imaging technology, magnetic
    resonance imaging, can be a powerful tool to help doctors and family
    members determine whether a person has lost all awareness or is still
    somewhat mentally engaged, experts said.

    "This study gave me goose bumps, because it shows this possibility of
    this profound isolation, that these people are there, that they've
    been there all along, even though we've been treating them as if
    they're not," said Dr. Joseph Fins, chief of the medical ethics
    division of New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical
    Center. Dr. Fins was not involved in the study but collaborates with
    its authors on other projects.

    Other experts warned that the new research was more suggestive than
    conclusive, and that it did not mean that unresponsive people with
    brain damage were more likely to recover or that treatment was yet
    possible.

    But they said the study did open a window on a world that has been
    neglected by medical inquiry. "This is an extremely important work,
    for that reason alone," said Dr. James Bernat, a professor of
    neurology at Dartmouth.

    Dr. Bernat said findings from studies like these would be relevant to
    cases like that of Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman with brain damage
    who has been kept alive for years against her husband's wishes. In
    that case, which drew the attention of Gov. Jeb Bush and the
    Legislature, relatives of Ms. Schiavo disagreed about her condition,
    and a brain-imaging test - once it has been standardized - could help
    determine whether brain damage has extinguished awareness.

    The patients in question have significant brain damage. Three million
    to six million Americans live with the consequences of serious brain
    injuries, neurologists said. An estimated 100,000 to 300,000 of them
    are in what is called a minimally conscious state: they are bedridden,
    cannot communicate and are unable to feed or care for themselves, but
    they typically breathe on their own.

    They may occasionally react to instructions to blink their eyes or
    even reach for a glass, although such responses are unpredictable. By
    observing behavior in a bedside examination, neurologists can
    determine whether a person is minimally conscious or in a "persistent
    vegetative state" - without awareness, and almost certain not to
    recover.

    In the study, a team of neuroscientists in New York, New Jersey and
    Washington, D.C., used imaging technology to compare brain activity in
    two young men determined to be minimally conscious with that of seven
    healthy men and women. In a measure of overall brain activity, the two
    groups were vastly different: the two minimally conscious men showed
    less than half the activity of the others.

    But the researchers also recorded an audiotape for each of the nine
    subjects in which a relative or loved one reminisced, telling familiar
    stories and recalling shared experiences. In each of the brain-damaged
    patients, the sound of the voice prompted a pattern of brain activity
    similar to that of the healthy participants.

    "We assumed we would get some minimal response in these patients, but
    nothing like this," said Dr. Nicholas Schiff, an assistant professor
    of neurology and neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College in
    Manhattan and the study's lead author. The two men showed near-normal
    patterns in the language-processing areas of their brains, Dr. Schiff
    said, suggesting that some neural networks "could be perfectly
    preserved under some conditions."

    Although the number of patients studied was very small, the
    specificity and intricacy of the patterns made it all but impossible
    that the results were a fluke, said Dr. Joy Hirsch, director of the
    Functional MRI Research Center at Columbia University Medical Center
    and the study's senior author.

    One of the two minimally conscious men lay still in a brain-imaging
    machine while his sister recounted his toast at her wedding and
    recalled times playing together as children. Although his eyes were
    closed, the researchers found that visual areas of his brain were
    active, suggesting that he might have been producing images, Dr.
    Hirsch said.

    "We do not know for sure what is happening in this man's head, but if
    he were imagining things at the sound of his sister's voice, that
    would suggest some connection to emotion," Dr. Hirsch said.

    Since the study was completed, Dr. Hirsch said, the team has run the
    same kinds of tests on seven similar brain-injury patients, with
    similar results: the language processing networks in their brains
    display seemingly normal patterns upon their hearing the voice of a
    loved one. The government has provided financing for the team to
    conduct a larger study of mental activity in minimally conscious
    people.

    A better understanding of brain patterns in minimally conscious
    patients should also help cut down on misdiagnosis by doctors, Dr.
    Fins said. He said one study had found that as many as 30 percent of
    patients identified as being unaware, in a persistently vegetative
    state, were not. They were minimally conscious.

    Moreover, mental states can change over time, and some patients have
    almost completely recovered function after being thought vegetative.
    Brain imaging would be one way to track these changes, and even link
    them to efforts at treatment. Doctors have no cure for either a
    minimally conscious or persistently vegetative state.

    "The most consequential thing about this is that we have opened a
    door, we have found an objective voice for these patients, which tells
    us they have some cognitive ability in a way they cannot tell us
    themselves," Dr. Hirsch said. The patients are, she added, "more human
    than we imagined in the past, and it is unconscionable not to
    aggressively pursue research efforts to evaluate them and develop
    therapeutic techniques."


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  8 21:23:42 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:23:42 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: For the Worst of Us, the Diagnosis May Be 'Evil'
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502081622410.16114@panix1.panix.com>

The New York Times > Health > Mental Health & Behavior > For the Worst
of Us, the Diagnosis May Be 'Evil'
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/08/health/psychology/08evil.html
5.2.8

    By BENEDICT CAREY

    Predatory killers often do far more than commit murder. Some have
    lured their victims into homemade chambers for prolonged torture.
    Others have exotic tastes - for vivisection, sexual humiliation,
    burning. Many perform their grisly rituals as much for pleasure as for
    any other reason.

    Among themselves, a few forensic scientists have taken to thinking of
    these people as not merely disturbed but evil. Evil in that their
    deliberate, habitual savagery defies any psychological explanation or
    attempt at treatment.

    Most psychiatrists assiduously avoid the word evil, contending that
    its use would precipitate a dangerous slide from clinical to moral
    judgment that could put people on death row unnecessarily and obscure
    the understanding of violent criminals.

    Still, many career forensic examiners say their work forces them to
    reflect on the concept of evil, and some acknowledge they can find no
    other term for certain individuals they have evaluated.

    In an effort to standardize what makes a crime particularly heinous, a
    group at New York University has been developing what it calls a
    depravity scale, which rates the horror of an act by the sum of its
    grim details.

    And a prominent personality expert at Columbia University has
    published a 22-level hierarchy of evil behavior, derived from detailed
    biographies of more than 500 violent criminals.

    He is now working on a book urging the profession not to shrink from
    thinking in terms of evil when appraising certain offenders, even if
    the E-word cannot be used as part of an official examination or
    diagnosis.

    "We are talking about people who commit breathtaking acts, who do so
    repeatedly, who know what they're doing, and are doing it in
    peacetime" under no threat to themselves, said Dr. Michael Stone, the
    Columbia psychiatrist, who has examined several hundred killers at
    Mid-Hudson Psychiatric Center in New Hampton, N.Y., and others at
    Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens, where he consults and teaches.
    "We know from experience who these people are, and how they behave,"
    and it is time, he said, to give their behavior "the proper
    appellation."

    Western religious leaders, evolutionary theorists and psychological
    researchers agree that almost all human beings have the capacity to
    commit brutal acts, even when they are not directly threatened. In Dr.
    Stanley Milgram's famous electroshock experiments in the 1960's,
    participants delivered what they thought were punishing electric jolts
    to a fellow citizen, merely because they were encouraged to do so by
    an authority figure as part of a learning experiment.

    In the real world, the grim images coming out of Iraq -the beheadings
    by Iraqi insurgents and the Abu Ghraib tortures, complete with
    preening guards - suggest how much further people can go when they
    feel justified.

    In Nazi prisoner camps, as during purges in Kosovo and Cambodia,
    historians found that clerks, teachers, bureaucrats and other normally
    peaceable citizens committed some of the gruesome violence, apparently
    swept along in the kind of collective thoughtlessness that the
    philosopher Hannah Arendt described as the banality of evil.

    "Evil is endemic, it's constant, it is a potential in all of us. Just
    about everyone has committed evil acts," said Dr. Robert I. Simon, a
    clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown Medical School and the
    author of "Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream."

    Dr. Simon considers the notion of evil to be of no use to forensic
    psychiatry, in part because evil is ultimately in the eye of the
    beholder, shaped by political and cultural as well as religious
    values. The terrorists on Sept. 11 thought that they were serving God,
    he argues; those who kill people at abortion clinics also claim to be
    doing so. If the issue is history's most transcendent savages, on the
    other hand, most people agree that Hitler and Pol Pot would qualify.

    "When you start talking about evil, psychiatrists don't know anything
    more about it than anyone else," Dr. Simon said. "Our opinions might
    carry more weight, under the patina or authority of the profession,
    but the point is, you can call someone evil and so can I. So what?
    What does it add?"

    Dr. Stone argues that one possible benefit of including a
    consideration of evil may be a more clear-eyed appreciation of who
    should be removed from society and not allowed back. He is not an
    advocate of the death penalty, he said. And his interest in evil began
    long before President Bush began using the word to describe terrorists
    or hostile regimes.

    Dr. Stone's hierarchy of evil is topped by the names of many infamous
    criminals who were executed or locked up for good: Theodore R. Bundy,
    the former law school student convicted of killing two young women in
    Florida and linked to dozens of other killings in the 1970's; John
    Wayne Gacy of Illinois, the convicted killer who strangled more than
    30 boys and buried them under his house; and Ian Brady who, with his
    girlfriend, Myra Hindley, tortured and killed children in England in a
    rampage in the 1960's known as the moors murders.

    But another killer on the hierarchy is Albert Fentress, a former
    schoolteacher in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., examined by Dr. Stone, who killed
    and cannibalized a teenager, in 1979. Mr. Fentress petitioned to be
    released from a state mental hospital, and in 1999 a jury agreed that
    he was ready; he later withdrew the petition, when prosecutors
    announced that a new witness would testify against him.

    At a hearing in 2001, Dr. Stone argued against Mr. Fentress's release,
    and the idea that the killer might be considered ready to make his way
    back into society still makes the psychiatrist's eyes widen.

    Researchers have found that some people who commit violent crimes are
    much more likely than others to kill or maim again, and one way they
    measure this potential is with a structured examination called the
    psychopathy checklist.

    As part of an extensive, in-depth interview, a trained examiner rates
    the offender on a 20-item personality test. The items include glibness
    and superficial charm, grandiose self-worth, pathological lying,
    proneness to boredom and emotional vacuity. The subjects earn zero
    points if the description is not applicable, two points if it is
    highly applicable, and one if it is somewhat or sometimes true.

    The psychologist who devised the checklist, Dr. Robert Hare, a
    professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver,
    said that average total scores varied from below five in the general
    population to the low 20's in prison populations, to a range of 30 to
    40 - highly psychopathic - in predatory killers. In a series of
    studies, criminologists have found that people who score in the high
    range are two to four times as likely as other prisoners to commit
    another crime when released. More than 90 percent of the men and a few
    women at the top of Dr. Stone's hierarchy qualify as psychopaths.

    In recent years, neuroscientists have found evidence that psychopathy
    scores reflect physical differences in brain function. Last April,
    Canadian and American researchers reported in a brain-imaging study
    that psychopaths processed certain abstract words - grace, future,
    power, for example - differently from nonpsychopaths.

    In addition, preliminary findings from new imaging research have
    revealed apparent oddities in the way psychopaths mentally process
    certain photographs, like graphic depictions of accident scenes, said
    Dr. Kent Kiehl, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Yale,
    a lead author on both studies.

    No one knows how significant these differences are, or whether they
    are a result of genetic or social factors. Broken homes and childhood
    trauma are common among brutal killers; so is malignant narcissism, a
    personality type characterized not only by grandiosity but by
    fantasies of unlimited power and success, a deep sense of entitlement,
    and a need for excessive admiration.

    "There is a group we call lethal predators, who are psychopathic,
    sadistic, and sane, and people have said this is approaching a measure
    of evil, and with good reason," Dr. Hare said. "What I would say is
    that there are some people for whom evil acts - what we would consider
    evil acts - are no big deal. And I agree with Michael Stone that the
    circumstances and context are less important than who they are."

    Checklists, scales, and other psychological exams are not blood tests,
    however, and their use in support of a concept as loaded as evil could
    backfire, many psychiatrists say. Not all violent predators are
    psychopaths, for one thing, nor are most psychopaths violent
    criminals. And to suggest that psychopathy or some other profile is a
    reliable measure of evil, they say, would be irresponsible and
    ultimately jeopardize the credibility of the profession.

    In the 1980's and 1990's, a psychiatrist in Dallas earned the name Dr.
    Death by testifying in court, in a wide variety of cases, that he was
    certain that defendants would commit more crimes in the future -
    though often, he had not examined them. Many were sentenced to death.

    "I agree that some people cannot be rehabilitated, but the risk in
    using the word evil is that it may mean one thing to one psychiatrist,
    and something else to another, and then we're in trouble, " said Dr.
    Saul Faerstein, a forensic psychiatrist in Beverly Hills. "I don't
    know that we want psychiatrists as gatekeepers, making life-and-death
    judgments in some cases, based on a concept that is not medical."

    Even if it is used judiciously, other experts say, the concept of evil
    is powerful enough that it could obscure the mental troubles and
    intellectual quirks that motivate brutal killers, and sometimes allow
    them to avoid detection. Mr. Bundy, the serial killer, was reportedly
    very romantic, attentive and affectionate with his own girlfriends,
    while he referred to his victims as "cargo" and "damaged goods," Dr.
    Simon noted.

    Mr. Gacy, a gracious and successful businessman, reportedly created a
    clown figure to lift the spirits of ailing children. "He was a very
    normal, very functional guy in many respects," said Dr. Richard
    Rappaport, a forensic psychiatrist based in La Costa, Calif., who
    examined Mr. Gacy before his trial. Dr. Rappaport said he received
    holiday cards from Mr. Gacy every year before he was executed.

    "I think the main reason it's better to avoid the term evil, at least
    in the courtroom, is that for many it evokes a personalized Satan, the
    idea that there is supernatural causation for misconduct," said Dr.
    Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist in Newport Beach, Calif., who
    examined the convicted serial murderer Jeffrey Dahmer, as well as Lyle
    and Erik Menendez, who were convicted of murdering their parents in
    Beverly Hills.

    "This could only conceal a subtle important truth about many of these
    people, such as the high rate of personality disorders," Dr. Dietz
    said. He added: "The fact is that there aren't many in whom I couldn't
    find some redeeming attributes and some humanity. As far as we can
    tell, the causes of their behavior are biological, psychological and
    social, and do not so far demonstrably include the work of Lucifer."

    The doctors who argue that evil has a place in forensics are well
    aware of these risks, but say that in some cases they are worth
    taking. They say it is possible - necessary, in fact, to understand
    many predatory killers - to hold inside one's head many disparate
    dimensions: that the person in question may be narcissistic, perhaps
    abused by a parent, or even charming, affectionate and intelligent,
    but also in some sense evil. While the term may not be appropriate for
    use in a courtroom or a clinical diagnosis, they say, it is an element
    of human nature that should not be ignored.

    Dr. Angela Hegarty, director of psychiatry at Creedmoor who works with
    Dr. Stone, said she was skeptical of using the concept of evil but
    realized that in her work she found herself thinking and talking about
    it all the time. In 11 years as a forensic examiner, in this country
    and in Europe, she said, she counts four violent criminals who were so
    vicious, sadistic and selfish that no other word could describe them.

    One was a man who gruesomely murdered his own wife and young children
    and who showed more annoyance than remorse, more self-pity than
    concern for anyone else affected by the murders. On one occasion when
    Dr. Hegarty saw him, he was extremely upset - beside himself - because
    a staff attendant at the facility where he lived was late in arriving
    with a video, delaying the start of the movie. The man became abusive,
    she said: he insisted on punctuality.


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  8 21:26:58 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:26:58 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: When Is a Doctor Too Old? Or Too Young?
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502081626090.16114@panix1.panix.com>

The New York Times > Health > Essay: When Is a Doctor Too Old? Or Too Young?
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/08/health/08essa.html
5.2.8

    By ABIGAIL ZUGER, M.D.

    Look closely at the top of your doctor's head the next time you get a
    chance. Do those odd gray hairs worry you at all? Do they speak to you
    of wisdom and experience? Or do they remind you it may be time to
    leave the old fool for a source of more up-to-date care?

    In Britain, the National Health Service imposes draconian limitations
    on physicians wishing to work after age 65, and essentially forbids
    work after 70. The policy is clearly intended to guard the population
    from doddering idiots, but some may argue it squanders the best
    talents instead.

    We know all about dog-years and cat-years. No expert yet has come up
    with an estimate for doctor-years. How old do doctors really become,
    after 10 years in practice, or 50? Can we safely drag wrinkled,
    elderly frames around like tortoises, knowing that at work we are
    relatively immortal? Or should we retire while still chronologically
    young but, in doctor-years, obsolesced beyond repair?

    I once had two colleagues who graduated from medical school over 40
    years apart. The young one was fresh out of training, the old one
    heading for retirement. Watching the two of them at work was one of
    the best possible lessons in the passage of medical time.

    The old doctor had taken care of some patients for decades. The
    intermittent half-hours they spent together had coalesced over the
    years into tight, loyal partnerships.

    The young one had never taken care of a patient for more than a couple
    of years before saying goodbye and moving on.

    The old doctor had learned medicine from a set of principles that were
    almost antique, as the drugs and tests of successive decades were
    replaced by newer, better models.

    The young one was fully versed in the newest tests and drugs, and had
    only a passing acquaintance with the historic standbys.

    The old doctor, although reasonably conversant with computers, was a
    hesitant typist who preferred paper charts, prescriptions, textbooks
    and journals to computerized medical records and cyberliterature.

    The young doctor played the computer keyboard like an organist at a
    Wurlitzer. Doctor and patient often plumbed the Internet for
    information together. Patients could take home freshly printed data
    analyses to study for themselves.

    So which one of these doctors did the better job? As far as I was
    concerned, they were in a dead heat.

    The old doctor, warm and informal, loved many long-term patients
    deeply, sometimes to the extent of forgetting they were patients, not
    friends. Just as you might avoid mentioning a friend's weight problem,
    drinking habits or bad breath, delicate issues were sometimes let
    slide in a culpably unprofessional way.

    The young doctor never let anything slide. Still, the atmosphere in
    that office was formal and more than a little chilly. Nothing smoothes
    the rough edges of medical care like some mutual affection - a lesson
    the young doctor had yet to learn.

    The old doctor used tests and medications fluently - up to a point.
    Some of doctor's habits were admittedly outmoded. Still, the years had
    left behind a certain supple flexibility of practice: after witnessing
    enough changing fashions in medical care, a doctor generally learns
    that most "best practices" are evanescent.

    The young doctor chose tests and treatments based on the premise that
    there was a single right way to do things. That doctor had yet to
    learn that absolute trust in any drug or treatment is often a major
    mistake.

    The old doctor stored important details about patients in memory, and
    nowhere else. The doctor's hesitantly typed notes recording office
    visits were brief and old-fashioned - a few sentences at most,
    difficult for anyone else to interpret.

    The young doctor remembered little about each patient from visit to
    visit, but typed volumes, and was a big fan of medical software that
    supplies preformed phrases, sentences and paragraphs - the results of
    an entire physical exam, for instance - at the click of the mouse.
    Sometimes the mouse clicked just a little too quickly and erroneous
    information crept into the charts.

    Insurance reviewers occasionally confused the old doctor's terse notes
    with incompetence. Patients occasionally complained bitterly about the
    young doctor, deploring that habit of pounding the computer keyboard
    for the duration of their visit and never once looking them in the
    eye. Both doctors, learning of these misunderstandings, were mortified
    and furious. Colleagues who had to wade through charts belonging to
    either one just tore their hair.

    In some ways, the young pup was much too young for the work, and the
    old dog much too old. In other ways, each was just right, and would
    never be better.

    Does the practice of medicine have a natural life span? Every doctor,
    every patient (and every insurer) would probably answer differently.


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  8 21:29:32 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:29:32 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Atheism and children by Natalie Angier
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502081627290.16114@panix1.panix.com>

Atheism and children by Natalie Angier
Center for Inquiry Metro New York - Natalie Angier lecture
http://www.cfimetrony.org/natalie.html

[I'm taking my annual Lenten break from forwarding articles again this 
year. It's a vice to spend so much time doing this. So I'll be off the air 
for forty days and forty nights from Ash Wednesday until Easter.]

    Thank you, and it's an honor to be speaking here at the Ethical
    Culture Society, in what I understand to be the Ceremonial Hall.
    According to my beloved American Heritage Dictionary, ceremonial means
    "formal or ritual," and though I don't go in for terribly many
    rituals, I did start the holiday season with the ritual viewing of the
    atheist's favorite Christmas movie, "Coincidence on 34th Street."

    This is also the time of year, of course, when Jesus invariably screws
    up and commits some sort of felony. How else to explain why so many
    people seem to find him in jail?

    You see? This is what happens when they flush people like me out of
    our foxholes. And because I'm here to talk about raising healthy, 100
    percent guaranteed god free children, I will happily give full credit
    for the aforementioned remarks, and all that is to follow, to my
    eight-year-old daughter, Katherine. Yes, this is an atheist's idea of
    responsible parenting. Can you see the horns growing out of the top of
    my head? Actually, last night I was reading in the New England Journal
    of Medicine about a condition in which people grow these horn-like
    projections from the top of their head, benign tumors called
    cylindromas. And just to show you how ecumenical the condition can be,
    in some cases, the doctors wrote, the cylindromas may "coalesce to
    form a hat-like growth, giving rise to the term `turban tumor.'"

    But seriously. I'm here to talk about why my husband and I are raising
    our daughter as an atheist. The short, snappy answer is, We don't
    believe in god. The longer, self-exculpating answer that is the theme
    du noir is, We believe it is the right thing to do. First, let me talk
    a little bit about why I use the term atheist rather than a more
    pastel-inflected phrase like agnostic or secular humanist, or the
    latest offering, Bright. Now when it comes to any of the mainstream
    deities proposed to date, I am absolutely atheistic. I can understand
    the literary and metaphoric value of any number of characters from
    mythology and religion. During this last election, we all felt like
    Sisyphus, we pushed that boulder and pushed and pushed, and we were
    just about at the top of the mountain, well, you know the rest. Or
    maybe we were Prometheus, with the vulture forever pecking away at our
    liver, or Job, or the dry run for the Lazarus bit. Yet however
    legitimate it may be to view any of our religious books as we would
    the works of Shakespeare or Henry James , I don't take them seriously
    as descriptions of how the universe came to be or how any of us will
    re-be in some posthumous setting, or what god is or wants or whines
    about. So I am an unalloyed atheist by the standards of the mainstream
    sects.

    Nevertheless, what of the hugeness of the universe, and of the
    possibility that there are other universes beyond this one, or even
    that the universe in some sense desires to know itself, and that we
    are the I and the eyes of the universe? This idea has philosophical
    appeal, and it certainly offers me some inspiration, a belief that we
    have a moral imperative, if you will, to understand the universe to
    the furthest extent our brains can manage. I was moved recently by a
    letter I read in "Freethought Today," published by the Freedom from
    Religion Foundation. It was a response to some questions by a Navy
    ensign, from none other than Albert Einstein. "I have repeatedly said
    that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one,"
    Einstein wrote. But rather than be billed as a "professional atheist,"
    Einstein added, "I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the
    weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own
    being."

    So, yes, of course, humility in the face of cosmic grandeur is always
    warranted; but let us not forget that Einstein sought to the very end
    of his long life to honor that grandeur by seeking to understand it,
    bit by bit, with his weak little intellect. How much better, in my
    view, is that approach, of humility crossed with an unslakable
    curiosity to delve the majesties of nature; over the sort of hooey
    humility that we benighted and defeated "liberals" are supposed to be
    mastering, that preached by the evangelical superstar John Stott, who,
    according to David Brooks, does not believe that "truth is something
    humans are working toward. Instead, Truth has been revealed." As Stott
    writes:
    "It is because we love Jesus Christ [that] we are determined...to bear
    witness to his unique glory and absolute sufficiency. In Christ and in
    the biblical witness to Christ God's revelation is complete; to add
    any words of our own to his finished work is derogatory to Christ.''

    Just as Lewis Black said on "The Daily Show" about the proposal that
    gays should be barred from teaching, "Well, there goes the school
    play!" so with Stott we can bid the NSF, the NIH, MIT goodbye. Who
    needs Heisenberg's uncertainty or Einstein's relativity when we've got
    two ox, two mules and the nativity?

    Oy vey, these are values? These and a subway token won't get you on
    the subway.

    And so, to me, atheism means what it says - without god or gods,
    living your life without recourse to a large chiaroscuro of a supreme
    being to credit or to explain or to excuse. Now I'll be the proud
    mother and say that my daughter understands this. A couple of days
    ago, in preparation for this talk, I was interviewing her, asking her
    a few questions about how she viewed her heathen heritage. First I
    asked her if she believed in god. She crinkled up her nose at me like
    I had mentioned something distasteful, like spinach and liver, or
    kissing a boy, and said, No! I asked her if she was sorry she'd been
    raised as an atheist, and she said no, she liked it. I asked why.
    First, she said, you don't have to waste Sundays going to pray. Also
    I'd rather do things myself than have somebody else do them for me. If
    somebody gets sick, I wouldn't just pray to god he or she gets better,
    I would try to buy some medicine for them, to help them get better.

    Oh, I liked that answer. I couldn't help it. This sounded to me like,
    what do you call it, a value system. She also said that she likes to
    see things for herself before believing in them. If a friend told me,
    guess what, I've got a flying dog, I'd say, can I see it. Katherine
    said she has friends who claim they've seen god. One of her close
    friends told her she's seen bright lights in the middle of the night
    that she knows were signs from Jesus. So Katherine asked her if she
    could do a sleepover, to check out the light for herself. Oh, you'd
    never see it, her friend replied. Only people who believe in god can
    see it.

    As Richard Dawkins has said, "With religion, there's always an escape
    clause."

    Admittedly, Katherine is lucky. She lives in a very liberal community,
    Takoma Park, Maryland, which went 91.8% for Kerry; and a lot of other
    kids, she told me, share her views about god. A couple of times she's
    been told she's going to go to hell - or, as she phrased it, the
    opposite of heaven; she's remarkably curse-averse - but she says she
    doesn't care because she doesn't believe in either destination anyway.
    But in some places in the United States, it's extremely tough to be an
    atheist, even fatal. Last October, in Taylor, Michigan, a former Eagle
    Scout shot another man to death because, he said, the man was "evil;
    he was not a believer." We all know the sort of tolerance they teach
    in the Boy Scouts and Eagle Scouts of America, of course. No gays
    allowed - guess you don't expect them to be very good at pitching
    tents and tying knots, right? - and no atheists. They kicked out
    Darrell Lambert, a model scout if there ever was one, because he
    refused to say he believed in God, remember? At which point, I'm proud
    to say, my husband, who was a boy scout and an eagle scout and learned
    many skills as a scout and had earned many patches and badges, decided
    to send back his eagle scout medal to the Boy Scouts of America; and
    he wrote a beautiful essay about his decision for the Washington Post.
    The director of public affairs at the organization sent him an answer,
    saying, We accept your decision, but we hope that someday, you will
    come to be more open-minded in your views.

    So, what advice do I have for nonbelievers trying to raise their
    children in a rigidly religious, small town environment? Move.

    I kid you not. I went to high school in a small Michigan town, very
    religious, lots of baptists, also lots of drunk drivers, and believe
    me, they were the worst four years of my life. Move to a big city in
    just about any state, or move to a medium-sized city in a blue state,
    move to Takoma Park, or move to Canada if you can stay awake. Move to
    a university town. Because there are plenty of secularists out there,
    oh yes. Sure, we've been told repeatedly, we've been beaten
    practically comatose, with the notion that we live in an extremely
    religious country.

    We've all read the statistics on how people would elect as president a
    member of any other oppressed group - a woman, a Jew, a Muslim, even
    that very same gay person they'd rather not see in their schools and
    certainly not at the wedding altar - before they'd vote for an
    atheist. Anywhere from 90 to 95 percent of Americans say they believe
    in god. But how meaningful are these statistics? Are they any more
    reliable than the poll result I saw recently, apocryphal I hope, which
    showed that 55% of American Christians believed Noah to be a relative
    of Joan of Arc? As John Horgan pointed out in Sunday's New York Times,
    a Harvard University study has found that the number of Americans with
    no religious affiliation has grown sharply over the past 10 years, to
    as many as 39 million, twice the number of Muslims, Jews, Buddhists,
    Hindus and Episcopalians combined. Yes, the secularists are out there,
    but they tend to prefer large cities and other places with an active
    cultural and intellectual life. Which brings me to why I think raising
    a child as an atheist, or a committed secularist, is the right thing
    to do, and should be done without apology, indeed with pride.

    I'm a science writer. I'm fond of evidence, and I'm a serious devotee
    of the scientific method, and the entire scientific enterprise. Let me
    tell you, scientists as individuals can be as petty, insecure, vain,
    arrogant and opinionated as the rest of us. The myth of the noble,
    self-sacrificing scientist should never have been allowed to grow
    beyond the embryonic stem cell stage, and most scientists will tell
    you as much. But science as a discipline weeds out most of the bluster
    and blarmy, because it asks for proof. "One of the first things you
    learn in science," one Caltech biologist told me, "is that how you
    want it to be doesn't make any difference." This is a powerful
    principle, and a very good thing, even a beautiful thing. This is
    something we should embrace as the best part of ourselves, our
    willingness to see the world as it is, not as we're told it is, nor as
    our confectionary fantasies might wish it to be. Science is also
    extraordinarily unifying. You go to a great lab or to a scientific
    meeting, and you will see scientists from around the world, talking to
    each other and forming international collaborations. This is something
    we should be proud of, even if we ourselves are not scientists - that
    our species, our collective minds, our heads knocked together, are
    capable of making sense of the universe. So to me, this, more than
    anything, is what being an atheist means, an ongoing devotion to
    exploration, a giving of pride of place to evidence. And much to my
    dismay, religion often is at odds with the evidence-based portrait of
    reality that science has begun, yes, only just begun, fleshing out.
    The biggest example of this is in the ongoing debate over evolution.
    This is like Rasputin, or the character from the horror movie
    Halloween - it refuses to die. The statistics are appalling. This
    year, according to the Washington Post, some 40 states are dealing
    with new or ongoing challenges to the teaching of evolution in the
    schools. Four-fifths of our states. According to a recent CBS poll, 55
    percent of Americans believe that god created humans in their present
    form - and that includes, I'm sorry to say, 47 percent of Kerry
    voters. Only 13 percent of Americans say that humans evolved from
    ancestral species, no god involved. Only 13 percent. The evidence that
    humans evolved from prehominid primates, and they from earlier
    mammals, and so on back to the first cell on earth some 3.8 billion
    years ago is incontrovertible, is based on a Himalayan chain's worth
    of data. The evidence for divine intervention is, to date,
    non-existent. Yet here we have people talking about it as though they
    were discussing whether they prefer chocolate praline ice cream or
    rocky road, as though it were a matter of taste.

    To me, this borders on being, well, unethical. And to me, instilling
    in my daughter an appreciation for the difference between evidence and
    opinion is a critical part of childrearing. So when I tell my daughter
    why I'm an atheist, I explain it is because I see no evidence for a
    god, a divinity, a big bearded mega-king in the sky. And you know
    something - she gets that. She got it way back when, and I think once
    you get it, it's pretty hard to lose it. People sometimes say to me,
    jokingly or otherwise, just you wait. She's going to grow up and join
    a cult, be a moonie or a jew for jesus. But in fact the data argue
    against it. The overwhelming majority of people who join cults, more
    than three-quarters, were raised as one or another type of Christian,
    including Methodists, Episcopalians, Baptists, the works; and no
    greater percentage of atheists than in the general population. I'm
    sure Katherine will figure out a way to drive me nuts some day, but I
    don't think the Rahjneeshi route is it.

    Ah, but what of values, of learning the difference between right and
    wrong, good and bad? What about tradition, what about ritual, what
    about the holidays that children love so much? How will a child learn
    to be good without religious training? Well, damn. Do you really need
    formal religion to teach a child to be good, to be honest, to try not
    to hurt other people's feelings, to care about something other than
    yourself? These are all variants on the golden rule, and there is
    nothing more powerful, in my experience, than sitting down with your
    kid and saying, how would you feel if somebody did that to you? There
    is a growing body of scientific research that demonstrates we are by
    nature inclined to cooperate, to trust others, even strangers, to an
    extraordinary degree. Even strangers we can't see, over the internet,
    and even strangers that we'll never meet again. None of this owes
    anything to the ten commandments. Which of those commandments tell you
    to help a stranger who looks lost, or jump into a river to help saving
    a drowning kid, or donate blood, maybe even a kidney or a slice of
    liver? Sure, people also do terrible things, scam you, betray you,
    steal from you, on and on. But sheesh, Rush Limbaugh was and for all I
    know still is a junkie, and priests abuse choir boys, and on and on.

    I've talked to Katherine about the struggles we all go through, a
    desire to hurt others, to get revenge. She wrote a book report
    recently in which she talked about wanting to get revenge on people
    who do bad things to her, but that, alas, it's not always easy. And
    when I saw that, whoa, we had a mother of a conversation. About how
    the two most powerful human impulses are love and revenge, and how one
    is a great strength that we should nurture, and the other one is a
    natural feeling, and we all have it, but we must fight against it with
    everything we can muster. Because when we don't, we get wars, wars
    that can go on for years, for centuries, and we reviewed the story of
    Romeo and Juliet, which she loves, and that got to her, I think, that
    made it come alive.

    And as one who believes strongly in peace, I've taken her on march
    after march, before the Iraq war, during the republican convention. I
    had her miss her first day of third grade this year, so she could
    participate in a ceremony downtown, the reading of the names of people
    who have died in the Iraq war. She read the names of the children. I
    know I'm sounding pious here, and I'm sorry about that, but these are
    just some of the examples of things I've tried to do to make her a
    good person, to give her a sense of meaning larger than herself. And
    yes, we celebrate the holidays. We buy and decorate a Christmas tree,
    light the menorah, our house is encrusted with lights, including a big
    peace sign. I've told Katherine about how Christmas predates jesus,
    and how people have long felt the need, in the darkest, coldest time
    of the year, to battle the blackness with lights, music, family, the
    evergreen tree to symbolize life, and, oh, yes, presents. None of this
    seems like hypocrisy to me. It's common sense. It is magic, it is
    ours, and godness has nothing to do with it.

    I'd like to make one final point, an admission of the biggest
    challenge we faced when we decided to go the godfree route: what to
    talk about when you talk about death. For a while, Katherine was
    terrified about death. We'd be driving along in the car, and all of a
    sudden she'd start screaming in the back seat. What's wrong, what's
    wrong? We'd ask, thinking we had to pull over for a medical emergency.
    I've just been thinking about death! She'd cry. I don't want to just
    disappear! To die forever and that's all, that's the end. This
    happened a few times, each time, out of nowhere, she'd start to wail.
    We'd tell her whatever we could to comfort her, that she will live a
    long, long time, and that they're inventing new drugs that will, by
    the time she grows up, help her live even longer, a couple of hundred
    years, who knows; she'd live until she was pig-sick of it. And we'd
    tell her that nothing really disappears, it just changes form, and
    that she could become part of a dolphin, or an eagle, or a cheetah, a
    praying mantis. She'd have none of it. She knew she wouldn't be aware
    of her new incarnation. She knew she probably wouldn't remember her
    life as Katherine, and that loss of self she found impossibly sad. As
    do I, the loss of her, the loss of myself. As do all of us. Learning
    how to die is one of the greatest tasks of life, and it's one that
    most us never quite get the hang of, until we realize, whoops, not
    much of a trick here, is there. Not much of a choice, either.

    Still, I didn't go with the stories, of the angels, of the harps, the
    eternal reciting of that old Monty Python routine, o lord you are so
    big, so absolutely huge. We're all really impressed her, Lord, I can
    tell you that." And lately Katherine seems to have gotten past those
    terror jags. She hasn't had an outburst for the past year or two.

    I don't know the answer to fear of death, surprise surprise. But I
    find it interesting that religious people, who talk ceaselessly of
    finding in their religion a larger sense of purpose, a meaning greater
    than themselves, at the same time are the ones who insist their
    personal, copyrighted souls, presumably with their 70-odd years of
    memory intact, will survive in perpetuity. Maybe that's the real ethic
    of atheism. By confronting the inevitability of your personal
    expiration date, you know there is a meaning much grander than
    yourself. The river of life will go on, as it has for nearly 4 billion
    years on our planet, and who knows for how long and how abundantly on
    others. Matter is neither created nor destroyed, and we, as matter,
    will always matter, and the universe will forever be our home.


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  8 21:32:34 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:32:34 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Matthew Parris: Ignore the vanity of the Bushites,
 America's might is draining away
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502081631110.16114@panix1.panix.com>

Matthew Parris: Ignore the vanity of the Bushites, America's might is 
draining away
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1065-1451138,00.html
January 22, 2005

[I'm taking my annual Lenten break from forwarding articles again this 
year. It's a vice to spend so much time doing this. So I'll be off the air 
for forty days and forty nights from Ash Wednesday until Easter.]

    WHAT TIME is it for America? If the Boston Tea Party was first light
    and the Gettysburg Address dawn, where between the sunrise and sunset
    of empire is the United States now? To judge from his inauguration
    speech on Thursday, President Bush thinks it is about time for morning
    coffee: much to be proud of but big tasks -- maybe the proudest of all
    -- still ahead. To end tyranny on Earth is no small ambition.

    Gerard Baker, the US editor of The Times, ("Don't believe the
    doubters: America's decline and fall is a long way off yet") strikes a
    slightly more sanguine note. "A presidential inauguration is a chance
    for America to remind the world who is boss," he smiles, "to
    demonstrate that the United States is the inheritor not only of
    Greece's glory, but of Rome's reach" -- but Gerard would not himself
    go so far: he shares American anxieties about the rise of the Asian
    superpowers. He is confident, though, there are tremendous reserves of
    energy and potential still bubbling beneath the surface. "I would not
    bet on America's eclipse just yet," he concludes. For his America, I
    guess, it is around lunch. An afternoon's work is still ahead.

    I think it's about half past four. For America-2005-Iraq, think of
    Britain-1899-Boer War. Ever-heavier burdens are being loaded upon a
    nation whose economic legs are growing shaky, whose hegemony is being
    taunted and whose sense of world mission may be faltering.
    "Overcommitted?" is the whisper.

    Not that you would hear it in the din of drums and trumpets. More
    display is made in the spending of an inheritance than in its quiet
    accumulation, and the perfumed blossoms of July and August are
    heaviest after the nights have already begun to draw in. Like economic
    booms or summer solstices, empires have a habit of appearing at their
    most florid some time after their zenith has passed. Of the rise and
    fall of nations, history tends to find that the era of exuberance
    occurs when the underlying reasons for it are beginning to weaken.
    There is a time lag between success and swagger.

    "It was at Rome, on the 15th of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst
    the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefoot friars were singing
    vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline
    and fall of the city first started to my mind," wrote Edward Gibbon in
    his autobiography. It was at Miami airport, on August 17, 2004, as I
    stood musing for two hours in the aliens queue for fingerprints, while
    contradictory instructions were aimed at confused passengers by
    incompetent officials (and two security men started body-searching
    each other) that the idea that for America the rot was setting in
    first started to my mind.

    In more ways than were betrayed by the battle between Lycra and human
    flesh being waged across the massive bums of the women I saw, America
    2005 is overstretched. The neoconservative Right dreams about the
    prospect of a big new US military intervention in Iran, or perhaps
    Syria, but who stops to ask whether Washington has the troops for such
    an adventure? The aim would have to be regime change, and that needs
    ground forces. Simply "taking out" Iranian nuclear installations from
    the air would enrage and reinforce Iran's Islamist reactionaries, and
    scupper whatever pro-Western reformist movement there may be.

    The invasion would have to take place at the same time as maintaining
    the occupation of Iraq. This shows no signs of reducing its call on
    American forces, materiel or money. The Pentagon's efforts may even
    have to be stepped up after the Iraq election: this newspaper among
    many has called for unstinting and open-ended US commitment to Iraqi
    security. Whether or not you believed Tony Blair when he claimed that
    American Forces were in urgent need of help from our Black Watch
    Regiment before Christmas, you can see that as deaths mount and
    anarchy continues in Iraq, no US president can be thinking in terms of
    deploying troops away from that country for operations elsewhere.

    In 1995, 13.7 per cent of American troops were deployed abroad. Today
    it is some 27 per cent. America has more than 350,000 troops abroad.
    They are in (among other places) Ascension Island, Afghanistan,
    Bosnia, Diego Garcia, Djibouti, Egypt, Germany, Iraq, Italy, Japan,
    Kosovo and South Korea. In at least a handful of these places it is
    fair to say that the country in question would collapse without them.
    I am no military analyst, but it seems reasonable to observe that in
    pursuit of US foreign and military policy, US defence forces are being
    pushed fairly hard. It is fanciful for the Left to fear, or the Right
    to hope, that at the flick of a switch President Bush can create large
    new arenas of American military engagement.

    And, worryingly from the longer-term point of view, many of the more
    significant commitments among that list look like stalemates from the
    military point of view. No realistic president should see reason to
    hope that "mission accomplished" can soon be declared in the Balkans,
    Afghanistan or Iraq. America (and often Britain) is bogged down in
    such places.

    At the same time, I sense, America's need for brute force as a
    substitute for moral suasion may be increasing. Mr Bush said "freedom"
    27 times in his speech. John F. Kennedy could be more sparing with the
    word because the idea behind it shone so brightly for America then,
    and for the world. Across Africa in the past century, US foreign
    policy goals, which included the peaceful dissolution of the British
    Empire, were advanced without the firing of a shot -- or the
    expenditure of more than the few dollars needed to fund American
    propaganda. Arguments are cheap, and America had the best arguments,
    the best visions, and the best tunes.

    Deservedly or undeservedly, America has lost the tune. Just as
    happened for Britain during the Boer War, something has gone
    unaccountably off-key. We British won that South African war in the
    end by sheer, bloody force; and America will not be "defeated" in
    Iraq, or, I suppose, anywhere else. But as armaments are increasingly
    substituted for arguments, the strain grows. Eventually fatigue sets
    in.

    There is a notion, as beloved of the European Left as of the yee-hah
    Right, that America's pocket is bottomless, its Armed Forces
    countless, its weaponry infinite, and the only possible constraint
    upon its Government is the will of the people. Europeans speak as
    though for Washington cost is just not a consideration. This is not
    true of any empire or nation and has never been true of America; but
    it is less true today than at any time since the end of the Second
    World War.

    For the truth is that the US is in relentless relative decline as an
    economic power in the world. The years after the Second World War (the
    years of the Marshall Plan), when the economies of most of its
    competitors had been wrecked while its own was growing strongly --
    were the noontide of American muscle. The Cold War, because its
    central narrative was that of a mortal threat from a Soviet giant of
    equal power, diminished the appearance of American strength, but the
    narrative was false. The collapse of the rival giant has exaggerated
    America's apparent strength because it has so much more economic
    muscle than any single rival.

    But for many decades America's share of the world's economic output
    has been in decline. Think of a see-saw. America at one end is now
    easily outweighed by any substantial grouping at the other, and most
    of those powers are on friendly terms with each other. America's
    modesty in 1945 understated its muscle, just as Bushite vanity
    overstates it today. He has over-reached. His country is
    overstretched, losing economic momentum, losing world leadership, and
    losing the philosophical plot. America is running into the sand.


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  8 21:33:56 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:33:56 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Victor D. Hansen: Stories of Imperial Collapse are
	Getting Old
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502081632420.16114@panix1.panix.com>

VDH's Private Papers::Stories of Imperial Collapse are Getting Old
http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson012605.html

[I'm taking my annual Lenten break from forwarding articles again this 
year. It's a vice to spend so much time doing this. So I'll be off the air 
for forty days and forty nights from Ash Wednesday until Easter.]

    January 26, 2005
    Stories of Imperial Collapse Are Getting Old
    by Victor Davis Hanson
    New Criterion

    The [6]most recent doom-and-gloom forecast by Matthew Parris of the
    London Times would be hilarious if it were not so hackneyed. After
    all, Americans long ago have learned to grin any time a British
    intellectual talks about the upstart's foreordained imperial collapse.
    And as in the case of our own intelligentsia's gloominess, it is not
    hard to distinguish the usual prophets' pessimistic prognostications
    from their thinly-disguised hopes for American decline and fall.

    But this country is now in its third century and assurances that the
    United States is about through are getting old. In the early 20th
    century the rage was first Spengler and then Toynbee who warned us
    that our crass consumer capitalism would lead to inevitable spiritual
    decay. Next, the Hitlerians assured the Volk that the mongrel
    Americans could never set foot on German-occupied soil, so decadent
    were these Chicago mobsters and uncouth cowboys. Existentialism and
    pity for the empty man in the gray flannel suit were the rage of the
    1950s, as Americans, we were told, had become depressed and given up
    in the face of racial inequality, rapid suburbanization, and the
    spread of world-wide national liberationist movements.

    In the 1960s and 1970s we heard of the population bomb and all sorts
    of catastrophes in store for the United States and the world in
    general that had unwisely followed its profligate paradigm of
    consumption; yet despite Paul Ehrlich's strident doomsday scenario,
    the environment got cleaner and the people of the globe richer. And
    then came the historian Paul Kennedy, who, citing earlier Spanish and
    English implosions, "proved" that the United States had played itself
    out in the Cold War, ruining its economy to match the Soviet Union in
    a hopeless arms race-publishing his findings shortly before the
    Russian empire collapsed and the American economy took off (again).

    In the Carter `malaise years,' we were warned about the impending
    triumph of `Asian Values' and the supposed cultural superiority of
    Japan, Inc., which would shortly own most of whatever lazy and
    ignorant Americans sold them-before the great meltdown brought on by
    corruption, censorship, and ossified bureaucracies in Asia.

    Currently Jared Diamond is back with [7]Collapse, another grim tale
    from the desk of a Westwood professor, full of remonstrations about
    social inequality and resource depletion that we have come to expect
    from the rarified habitat in which tenured full professors thrive.

    All that disenchantment is the context in which Matthew Parris now
    warns us that our military is overstretched and our economy
    weak-despite the fact that our gross domestic product is larger than
    ever and the percentage of it devoted to military spending at historic
    lows, far below what was committed during WWII, Korea, or Vietnam. The
    American military took out Noriega, Milosevic, the Taliban, and Saddam
    with a minimum of effort, and what followed was far better for both
    the long-suffering victims and the world at large. The difficult
    postbellum reconstruction in Iraq is costly and heartbreaking, but so
    far after September 11 we have lost fewer troops in 3 years of
    fighting that we did in one day during the Bulge or at Normandy. While
    Parris decries our slow decline, the United States alone will soon
    have the world's only anti-ballistic missile system and the forward
    basing presence to preempt would-be nuclear rogue states before they
    imperil Americans. Europeans may brag of soft power, but in the scary
    world to come let us hope that they can bribe, beg, lecture, or
    appease Iranians, North Koreans, Chinese, and others to appreciate the
    realities of their postmodern world that has supposedly transcended
    violence and war.

    It is true that Americans are worried about high budget deficits,
    trade imbalances, a weak dollar, and national debt; but we are already
    at work to rectify these problems, convinced that the correctives are
    not depression and chaos, but rather a little sobriety and sacrifice
    in what has been a breakneck rise in the standard of living the last
    20 years, prosperity unmarked in the history of civilization. Better
    indicators of our health are low unemployment, low inflation, low
    interest rates, along with high worker productivity and innovation.
    Hollywood movies, New York books, Silicon Valley software and
    gadgetry, Pentagon arms, the English language, and popular culture
    show no signs of fading before French film, London publishing, Indian
    I-pods, Chinese aircraft carriers, the global preference for Mandarin
    or burquas for bare-navels and Levis.

    Parris cites the rise of other economies; but they, not us, have the
    real problems ahead. The EU does not assimilate very well its
    immigrants-in contrast, more come to the US every year than to all
    other countries combined. Enormous apartheid communities of Muslims,
    full of simmering resentment, reside outside Parris and in the
    Netherlands, Scandinavia, and Germany, not in Detroit and New York.
    European socialism is facing a demographic nightmare; and soon budget
    shortfalls to pay for its utopian agenda will be made worse once the
    United States begins to withdraw its 50-year subsidy of the
    continent's defense. History suggests that atheism and secularism are
    not indicators of strength but of apathy and aimlessness. The United
    States-not Europe, Russia, or China-- is a religious community, and,
    pace Michael Moore, without the fundamentalist extremism of the Middle
    East and reactionary Islam.

    China and India are the new tigers, but their rapid industrialization
    and urbanization have created enormous social and civic problems long
    ago dealt with by the United States. Each must soon confront
    environmentalism, unionism, minority rights, free expression,
    community activism, and social entitlements that are the wages of any
    citizenry that begins to taste leisure and affluence. China is fueled
    by industrious laborers who toil at cut-rate wages for 14 hours per
    day, but that will begin to moderate once an empowered citizenry
    worries about dirty air, back backs, inadequate housing, and poor
    health care. The infrastructure of generations-bridges, roads,
    airports, universities, power grids-are well established and being
    constantly improved in the United States, and so there is a reason why
    a European would prefer to drink the water, get his appendix out, or
    drive in San Francisco rather than in Bombay, Beijing, Istanbul-or
    Paris or Rome.

    Nowhere in the world is the rule of law as stable in the United
    States, which is the most transparent society on the globe and thus
    the most trusted for investors and entrepreneurs-no surprise given its
    hallowed Constitution and Bill of Rights. Parris notes the presence
    abroad of thousands of American troops, but does not ask whether any
    other country has, or will have, the air or sea lift capacity to
    project such power, force that allowed American ships and helicopters
    to save thousands after the tsunami when Europe's lone Charles de
    Gaulle was nowhere to be seen. China and India, for all their robust
    economies, have neither the ability to help victims of mass disasters
    nor citizenries wealthy or generous enough to give hundreds of
    millions to strangers abroad.

    All civilizations erode, but few citizenries are as sensitive to the
    signs of decay as Americans, who constantly innovate, experiment, and
    self-critique in a fashion unknown anywhere else. When we develop a
    class system based on British aristocratic breeding, accent, and
    social paralysis, or sink into a multicultural cauldron like the
    endemic violence of an India or Africa, or cease believing in either
    God or children like an Amsterdam or Brussels, or require the state
    coercion of a China to maintain harmony, or become a racialist state
    such as Japan, then it is time to worry.

    But we are not there yet by a long shot.

References

    6. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1065-1451138,00.html
    7. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0670033375/qid=1106575755


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  8 21:36:04 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:36:04 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Theodore Dalrymple: The Specters Haunting Dresden
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502081634450.16114@panix1.panix.com>

Theodore Dalrymple: The Specters Haunting Dresden
City Journal Winter 2005
http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_1_urbanities-dresden.html

    The foundations of Hitler's bunker were uncovered during the building
    frenzy in Berlin that followed the reunification of Germany. An
    anguished debate ensued about what to do with the site, for in Germany
    both memory and amnesia are dangerous, each with its moral hazards. To
    mark the bunker's site might turn it into a place of pilgrimage for
    neo-Nazis, resurgent in the East; not to mark it might be regarded as
    an attempt to deny the past. In the end, anonymous burial was deemed
    the better, which is to say the safer, option.

    Nowhere in the world (except, perhaps, in Israel or Russia) does
    history weigh as heavily, as palpably, upon ordinary people as in
    Germany. Sixty years after the end of the Second World War, the
    disaster of Nazism is still unmistak- ably and inescapably inscribed
    upon almost every town and cityscape, in whichever direction you look.
    The urban environment of Germany, whose towns and cities were once
    among the most beautiful in the world, second only to Italy's, is now
    a wasteland of functional yet discordant modern architecture, soulless
    and incapable of inspiring anything but a vague existential unease,
    with a sense of impermanence and unreality that mere prosperity can do
    nothing to dispel. Well-stocked shops do not supply meaning or
    purpose. Beauty, at least in its man-made form, has left the land for
    good; and such remnants of past glories as remain serve only as a
    constant, nagging reminder of what has been lost, destroyed, utterly
    and irretrievably smashed up.

    Nor are the comforts of victimhood available to the Germans as they
    survey the devastation of their homeland. Walking with the widow of a
    banker through the one small square in Frankfurt that has been
    restored to its medieval splendor, I remarked how beautiful a city
    Frankfurt must once have been, and how terrible it was that such
    beauty should have been lost forever.

    "We started it," she said. "We got what we deserved."

    But who was this "we" of whom she spoke? She was not of an age to have
    helped or even to have supported the Nazis, and therefore (if justice
    requires that each should get his desert) it was unjust that she
    should bear the guilty burden of the past. And Germans far younger
    than she still bear it. I went to dinner with a young businessman,
    born 20 years after the end of the war, who told me that the forestry
    company for which he worked, and which had interests in Britain, had
    decided that it needed a mission statement. A meeting ensued, and
    someone suggested Holz mit Stolz ("wood with pride"), whereupon a
    two-hour discussion erupted among the employees of the company as to
    whether pride in anything was permitted to the Germans, or whether it
    was the beginning of the slippery slope that led to . . . well,
    everyone knew where. The businessman found this all perfectly normal,
    part of being a contemporary German.

    Collective pride is denied the Germans because, if pride is taken in
    the achievements of one's national ancestors, it follows that shame
    for what they have done must also be accepted. And the shame of German
    history is greater than any cultural achievement, not because that
    achievement fails to balance the shame, but because it is more recent
    than any achievement, and furthermore was committed by a generation
    either still living or still existent well within living memory.

    The moral impossibility of patriotism worries Germans of conservative
    instinct or temperament. Upon what in their historical tradition can
    they safely look back as a guide or a help? One young German
    conservative historian I met took refuge in Anglophilia--his England,
    of course, being an England of the past. He needed a refuge, because
    Hitler and Nazism had besmirched everything in his own land. The
    historiography that sees in German history nothing but a prelude to
    Hitler and Nazism may be intellectually unjustified, the product of
    the historian's bogus authorial omniscience, but it has emo- tional
    and psychological force nonetheless, precisely because the willingness
    to take pride in the past implies a preparedness to accept the shame
    of it. Thus Bach and Beethoven can be celebrated, but not as Germans;
    otherwise they would be tainted. The young German historian worked for
    a publishing house with a history lasting almost four centuries, but
    its failure to go out of business during the 12 years of the Third
    Reich cast a shadow both forward and backward, like a spectral
    presence that haunts a great mansion.

    The impossibility of patriotism does not extinguish the need to
    belong, however. No man is, or can be, an island; everyone, no matter
    how egotistical, needs to belong to a collectivity larger than
    himself. A young German once said to me, "I don't feel German, I feel
    European." This sounded false to my ears: it had the same effect upon
    me as the squeal of chalk on a blackboard, and sent a shiver down my
    spine. One might as well say, "I don't feel human, I feel mammalian."
    We do not, and cannot, feel all that we are: so that while we who live
    in Europe are European, we don't feel European.

    In any case, can a German feel European unilaterally, without the
    Portuguese (for example) similarly and reciprocally feeling European
    rather than Portuguese? From my observations of the French, they still
    feel French, indeed quite strongly so. Nearly half a century after the
    Treaty of Rome, they can't be said to like the Germans; to think
    otherwise is to mistake a marriage of convenience for the passion of
    Romeo and Juliet.

    A common European identity therefore has to be forged deliberately and
    artificially; and one of the imperatives for attempting to do so is
    the need of Germans for an identity that is not German (the other,
    which dovetails neatly, is the French drive to recover world power).
    And since the Germans are very powerful in Europe, by weight of their
    economy, their need to escape from themselves by absorbing everyone
    into a new collective identity will sooner or later be perceived in
    the rest of Europe as the need to impose themselves-- as a return to
    their bad old habits. New identities can indeed be forged, but usually
    in the crucible of war or at least of social upheaval: not, in the
    context, an inviting prospect.

    On no city does history weigh heavier than on Dresden. It is 60 years
    in February 2005 since the bombing that forever changed the basis of
    the city's renown. Overnight, the Florence of the Elbe became a
    perpetual monument to destruction from the air, famed for its rubble
    and its corpses rather than its baroque architecture and its devotion
    to art. And then came communism.

    You meet people in Dresden who, until a few years ago, knew nothing
    but life under Hitler, Ulbricht, and Honecker. Truly the sins of their
    fathers were visited upon them, for they brought neither the Nazis nor
    the communists to power, and there was nothing they could do to escape
    them. For such people, the sudden change in 1990 was both liberation
    and burden. Avid to see a world that was previously forbidden them,
    they took immediate advantage of their new freedom to visit the
    farthest corners of the globe, the more exotic the better. But the
    liberation brought with it a heightened awareness of the man-made
    desert of their own pasts, seven-eighths of their lives, truly an
    expense of spirit in a waste of shame. Never was Joy's grape burst
    more decisively against veil'd Melancholy's palate fine.

    A decade and a half, and untold billions of deutsche marks and euros
    later, Dresden is still incompletely Westernized. Its unemployment
    rate is three times that of Germany as a whole, so high in fact that
    all the city dwellers I met believed the official figures to be
    manipulated downward, for propaganda purposes: it being inconceivable
    to them, as the result of long and incontrovertible experience, that
    any government would tell the truth about anything. And while some
    parts of the city have taken on the feverish vulgarity that for so
    many people in the modern world is the manifestation, prerequisite,
    and only meaning and value of freedom, others still have that
    disintegrating deadness peculiar to communism, where paint flakes and
    stucco crumbles, where stale smells always linger in stairwells, and
    electric light casts a yellowing gloom the color of cheap paper that
    has aged.

    Not all Dresden was bombed, of course; on the banks of the Elbe there
    are still the magnificent villas of the haute bourgeoisie. Some of
    them have been bought and restored by rich "Wessis," as the
    inhabitants of the former West Germany are still, not altogether
    affectionately, known; but others remain unrestored, uninhabited, and
    deteriorating, at night appearing unlit, like the set of a Gothic
    horror movie. One expects bats or vampires to emerge. For more than 40
    years, they were the homes of Dresden "workers of the brain" (to use
    communist terminology), but such was their dilapidation that,
    immediately after reunification, they were declared unfit for
    habitation according to the standards of the West, and their residents
    moved elsewhere.

    To the moral complications of a Nazi past were added those of a
    communist past, the greatest of which was an awareness of just how
    widespread the practice of denunciation had been. On some estimates, a
    sixth of the population of the former German Democratic Republic were
    Mitarbeiter--collaborators with the secret police, the Stasi--and had
    spied upon and denounced their neighbors, friends, relatives, and even
    spouses. Once the archives opened and people could read their security
    dossiers for themselves, they discovered in many cases that those to
    whom they had relayed their private thoughts had relayed them in turn
    to the Stasi, in return, practically, for nothing except the
    informer's satisfaction of being on the right side of the powerful.
    Those whom people had thought were their best friends turned out to be
    the very ones whose denunciation had resulted in their otherwise
    inexplicable failure to gain promotion in their work, sometimes for
    decades. Such discoveries were not conducive to a favorable or
    optimistic view of human nature or the trust upon which a secure
    social life is built. The GDR, founded on a political theory that made
    a fetish of human solidarity, turned everyone into an atom in the
    asocial ether.

    The destruction of Dresden on the night of February 13, 1945, by the
    Royal Air Force, and on the following two days by the U.S. Army
    Forces, necessitated the rebuilding of the city, with only a small
    area around the famous Zwinger restored to its former glory. Dresden
    had been all but destroyed once before, by the armies of Frederick the
    Great (if Frederick was enlightened, give me obscurantism); but at
    least he replaced the Renaissance city recorded in the canvases of
    Bellotto by a baroque one, not by a wilderness of totalitarian
    functionalism whose purpose was to stamp out all sense of
    individuality and to emphasize the omnipresent might of the state. The
    bombing of Dresden was a convenient pretext to do what communists (and
    some others) like to do in any case: the systematization of Bucharest
    during Ceausescu's rule, or the replacement of the medieval city of
    Ales, 25 miles from my house in France, by mass housing of hideous
    inhumanity on the orders of the communist city council, being but two
    cases in point.

    Despite this, the communists made use of the destruction of Dresden
    for propaganda purposes throughout the four decades of their rule. The
    church bells of the city tolled on every anniversary of the bombing,
    for the 20 minutes that it took the RAF to unload the explosives that
    created the firestorm that turned the Florence of the Elbe into a
    smoking ruin as archaeological as Pompeii. "See what the capitalist
    barbarians did," was the message, "and what they would do again if
    they had the chance and if we did not arm ourselves to the teeth."
    Needless to say, the rapine of the Red Army went strictly unmentioned.

    But the bombing caused some unease in Britain even at the time. Was it
    justified? The issue of the war, after all, was by then hardly in
    doubt; and, in any case, both the ethics and efficacy of bombing
    civilian areas had been questioned, not only by left-wing politicians
    and George Bell, bishop of Chichester, but by the air-force commanders
    themselves. A debate has simmered ever since, occasionally coming to a
    boil, as when a statue commemorating the head of the RAF's Bomber
    Command, Arthur Harris, was unveiled in London in 1992 or, more
    recently, when the Queen paid a state visit to Germany and failed to
    utter an apology for the bombing.

    I don't think any decent, civilized person can look at pictures of
    Dresden after the bombing without being overcome by a sense of shock.
    The jagged ruins of walls emerging from fields of rubble, as far as
    the eye can see or the camera record, are a testament, of a kind, to
    human ingenuity. Only the long development of science and knowledge
    could have achieved this. As for the funeral pyres of bodies, piled up
    with their legs and arms emerging from the mass, or the corpses of the
    people boiled alive in the fountains in which they had taken refuge .
    . . one averts not only one's eyes, but one's thoughts.

    Yet the idea sometimes propounded by those who seek to condemn the
    bombing as an atrocity equal to, and counterbalancing, Nazi
    atrocities--that Dresden was some kind of city of the innocents,
    concerned only with the arts and having nothing to do with the war
    effort, cut off from and morally superior to the rest of Nazi
    Germany--is clearly absurd. It is in the nature of totalitarian
    regimes that no such innocence should persist anywhere; and it
    certainly didn't in Dresden in 1945. For example, the Zeiss-Ikon
    optical group alone employed 10,000 workers (and some forced labor),
    all engaged--of course--in war work. Nor had Dresden's record been
    very different from the rest of Germany's. Its synagogue was burned
    down during the orchestrated Kristallnacht of November 1938; the
    Gauleiter of Saxony, who had his seat in Dresden, was the notoriously
    brutal and corrupt Martin Mutschmann. The bombing saved the life of at
    least one man, the famous diarist Victor Klemperer, one of the 197
    Jews still alive in the city (out of a former population of several
    thousand). He and the handful of remaining Jews had been marked down
    for deportation and death two days after the bombing; in the chaos
    after the bombing, he was able to escape and tear the yellow star from
    his coat.

    Eighteen years after the end of the war, in 1963, the pro-Nazi
    historian David Irving published his first book, The Destruction of
    Dresden. In those days, he was either less pro-Nazi than he later
    became or more circumspect--the memory of the war still being
    fresh--but it was probably not entirely a coincidence that he devoted
    his first attention to an event that Churchill suspected might be a
    blot on the British escutcheon. However, Irving--later a leading
    Holocaust denier, who lost a famous libel suit against a historian who
    exposed him as such--clearly accepted in 1963 that there had been a
    Nazi genocide against the Jews, and he ended his book with an
    admission that the bombing (which he called "the biggest single
    massacre in European history") was "carried out in the cause of
    bringing to their knees a people who, corrupted by Nazism, had
    committed the greatest crimes against humanity in recorded time."

    There were faint signs of Irving's later acceptance of the Nazi
    worldview in this book, though they probably went unnoticed at the
    time. Describing the state of medical services in Dresden after the
    bombing, he mentioned that "a vast euthanasia-hospital for mentally
    incurables" was transformed into a hospital for the wounded, without
    any remark upon the very concept of a "euthanasia-hospital for
    mentally incurables": an institution that by itself would be
    sufficient to negate one meaning of his ambiguous description of
    Dresden in a chapter heading as "The Virgin Target." (Did he mean that
    it had never yet been attacked, or that the city was an innocent
    virgin?)

    Of course, it would be absurd to pretend that the bombing of Dresden
    was conducted in order to put an end to the evil of its
    "euthanasia-hospital," however vast, or to rescue Victor Klemperer
    from certain death. Among other motives for bombing, no doubt, was the
    need to demonstrate to the advancing Russians the tremendous firepower
    of the West, despite its relative weakness in land armies.

    Irving's book was influential, however, precisely because he hid, or
    had not yet fully developed, his Nazi sympathies. It achieved its
    greatest influence through Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut's famous
    countercultural antiwar novel, published six years later, which makes
    grateful acknowledgment of Irving's book, whose inflated estimate of
    the death toll of the bombing it unquestioningly accepts. Vonnegut, an
    American soldier who was a prisoner of war in Dresden at the time of
    the bombing, having been captured during the land offensive in the
    west, writes of the war and the bombing itself as if it took place in
    no context, as if it were just an arbitrary and absurd quarrel between
    rivals, between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, with no internal content or
    moral meaning-- a quarrel that nevertheless resulted in one of the
    rivals cruelly and thoughtlessly destroying a beautiful city of the
    other.

    But Vonnegut, to whom it did not occur that his subject matter was
    uniquely unsuited to facetious, adolescent literary experimentation,
    was writing an antiwar tract in the form of a postmodern novel, not a
    historical reexamination of the bombing of Dresden or of Germany as a
    whole. The problem that has bedeviled any such re-examination is fear
    that sympathy for the victims, or regret that so much of aesthetic and
    cultural value was destroyed, might be taken as sympathy for Nazism
    itself. The difficulty of disentangling individual from collective
    responsibility for the evils perpetrated by the Nazi regime is
    unresolved even now, and perhaps is inherently unresolvable.

    True, Hitler was immensely popular; on the other hand, he never won a
    majority of the votes in anything that resembled a free election, and
    public enthusiasm in dictatorships cannot be taken entirely at face
    value (in his diaries, Klemperer himself veers between thinking that
    most Germans were Nazis and that the enthusiasm was bogus and more or
    less forced). The Germans entered into the spirit of violence and
    denunciation with a will, but on the other hand intimidation was
    everywhere. A witness to the burning of the Dresden synagogue on
    Kristallnacht who was overheard publicly to liken it to the worst
    times of the Middle Ages was seized by the Gestapo and taken away: an
    object lesson to all those who saw or learned about his fate. And
    those who say that Nazism was the inevitable consummation of German
    history, inherent in all that had gone before, must explain why so
    many German Jews (my grandfather among them, a major in the imperial
    German army during the Great War) were deeply and patriotically
    attached to both the country and its culture, and why so many of them
    were so blind for so long. Their lack of foresight is surely as
    eloquent as the historian's hindsight.

    By the end of the war, 600,000 Germans had been killed by the bombing
    campaign, and a third of the population rendered homeless. Yet when
    the war was over, none among the many millions affected could express
    his grief and despair openly, for to have done so would have rendered
    him open to the charge of Nazi sympathies. The East Germans could toll
    the bells for Dresden each anniversary of the bombing only because the
    government enforced the myth that all the Nazis originated from, and
    were now located in, West Germany. But normal, personal, unideological
    grief was not permitted.

    W. G. Sebald, an expatriate German author who lived in England, where
    he died in a car crash in 2001, pointed out a curious lacuna in German
    literature of memoirs or fictional accounts of the bombing and its
    aftereffects. Millions suffered terribly, yet there is hardly a memoir
    or a novel to record it. Anything other than silence about what they
    experienced would have seemed, and still would seem, indecent and
    highly suspect, an attempt to establish a moral equivalence between
    the victims and perpetrators of Nazism.

    Foreigners, such as the Swedish writer Stig Dagerman, could write
    about the sufferings of the Germans immediately after the war, but not
    the Germans themselves. Victor Gollancz, a British publisher of
    Polish-Jewish origin who could not be suspected in the slightest of
    Nazi sympathies and who had spent the entire 1930s publishing books
    warning the world of the Nazi peril, wrote and published a book in the
    immediate aftermath of the war called In Darkest Germany, in which he
    drew attention to the plight of the Germans living (and starving)
    among the ruins, which he observed on a visit there. To the charge
    that the Germans had brought it all on themselves and deserved no
    less, he replied with a three-word question: "And the children?" His
    book was furnished with many affecting pictures, perhaps the most
    poignant among them that of the comfortably attired Gollancz lifting
    the foot of a little German boy to demonstrate his pitiful footwear to
    the camera.

    But for several decades, it was impermissible for Germans to allude
    publicly to their own sufferings of the period, much of which must
    have been innocent, unless it be considered that all Germans were
    equally guilty ex officio, as it were. No doubt the impermissibility
    of publicly expressed complaint, and therefore of resentment, was a
    powerful stimulus of the Wirtschaftswunder, the economic miracle, into
    which the Germans in the West threw their potentially resentful
    energies after the war, for lack of anywhere else to direct them. But
    this left a legacy of deep emptiness that all the reflective Germans I
    have met seem to feel. Perhaps it explains also the German longing to
    travel, greater than that of any other nation I know.

    In the last few years, best-selling books have begun to appear in
    Germany to record the suffering of the Germans during and after the
    war. Is this dangerous self-pity an implicit national
    self-exculpation? Or is it a sign of health, that at last Germans can
    approach their own past unencumbered by the psychological complexes
    bequeathed to them by their parents and grandparents?

    As I walked through Dresden, I lamented the loss of an incomparable
    city, while thinking how difficult it must be to be a German, for whom
    neither memory nor amnesia can provide consolation.


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  8 21:37:31 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:37:31 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Simon Jenkins: A windmill I won't tilt at
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502081636090.16114@panix1.panix.com>

Simon Jenkins: A windmill I won't tilt at
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1059-1449680,00.html
January 21, 2005

[I'm taking my annual Lenten break from forwarding articles again this 
year. It's a vice to spend so much time doing this. So I'll be off the air 
for forty days and forty nights from Ash Wednesday until Easter.]

    It is the 400th anniversary of Don Quixote, a more important work than
    all of Einstein's theories

    A PICTURE of a battered warrior sits on my desk. I found it in a
    Bloomsbury print shop many years ago. He sits thin and sad on an ass,
    his helmet broken, his armour gone. He arrives home late at night to
    be greeted with joy and relief by his loving household. He has
    returned from knight errantry, to recover his reason and die. He is my
    icon.

    This month we celebrate two anniversaries. One is of Einstein's
    Special Theory of Relativity (1905), a great work of Western
    civilisation. The other is Cervantes's Don Quixote (1605), also a
    great work of Western civilisation. The first is greeted with BBC
    specials, colour supplements, postage stamps and a United Nations Year
    of Physics. The other, at least outside Spain, is being ignored. Which
    merits the bigger salute?

    I have no quarrel with Einstein. The mobsters of Big Science have
    declared him master of the Universe. His brain was measured and his
    shoes embalmed. Women wrote him letters wanting to have his babies.
    His thoughts are installed in Newton's temple and not found wanting.
    Einstein is cool.

    But if Einstein had not existed, physics would sooner or later have
    invented him. I am sure of that. His theory of relativity was an
    understanding of nature. It lay over the cosmic horizon, awaiting
    discovery by the first genius to pass its way. Einstein was its
    Columbus.

    Not so Miguel de Cervantes. He surveyed the landscape of post-medieval
    Europe and asked, but where is Man? He grasped at valour, love,
    loyalty, triumph and mortification and, like his contemporary,
    Shakespeare, compressed them in a human frame. He told a tale like no
    other man. If Cervantes had not existed, he could not have been
    invented. There would be a hole in the tapestry of Europe.

    Few English people read Don Quixote, probably because they think they
    know it already. We have heard of his fantasies and ordeals, of his
    poor horse and loyal squire, Sancho Panza, "not rich but
    well-flogged". We know of the tilting at windmills and ludicrous deeds
    to impress his yearning for the matchless Dulcinea del Toboso. The man
    is mad and not of our time.

    That is not the half of it. In 1605 there was also the publication of
    the full text of Hamlet. Quixote and Hamlet are often compared, though
    rarely by the chauvinist British. They share ghosts and demons,
    passion and honour, and they use plays within plays as metaphors. They
    both lead us over the bridge from the Middle Ages to introspection and
    the modern era. But Quixote is the more inventive, funnier, sadder,
    the loftier mind and the better conversationalist. His dialogues with
    Sancho, the knightly believer and the doubting servant, are among the
    most enchanting in literature.

    Cervantes lived his character. He fought the Turks at Lepanto in 1571,
    the culminating struggle of medieval Europe. He lost his left hand,
    was enslaved in Africa and imprisoned in Spain. His plays were
    failures. His life was a mess. Yet in just a few months of 1605 he
    wrote a book which soared beyond its time.

    The two parts of Don Quixote are as different as thesis and
    antithesis. The Don of the first part is the true fantasist, sated on
    fusty old texts. He sets out to re-enact the rules of chivalry, to
    defend justice and love in a sinful world. He battles with windmills,
    sheep and innkeepers' daughters. In his great essay on the Don, Carlos
    Fuentes talks of "art giving life to what history has killed".

    Part II breaks step with the past. The Don hears tell of his own
    exploits, indeed of his own book. Already he has chastised Sancho for
    thinking him unaware that Dulcinea is not a great beauty. He knows
    that she is a vulgar village girl, but she is the nobler for it. "Come
    Sancho," he cries, "it is enough for me to think her beautiful and
    virtuous . . . I paint her in my imagination as I desire her." A
    million Spanish women cheer. We are no longer sure who is poking fun
    at whom. Who are we to legislate between dream and reality? We are
    players and audience alike in the charade.

    Hence the Don leaps up from a puppet show and decapitates the model
    soldiers, to stop them arresting a lover and his princess as they
    escape to freedom. He then richly compensates the puppeteer for this
    "debt of honour". In the last chapter comes the final synthesis. The
    dying Quixote renounces the "dark shadows of ignorance" that came from
    reading "my detestable books on chivalry". He regrets only that he has
    no time to read "other books that can be a light to the soul".

    Don Quixote is supposedly the most popular novel in history. The Don
    was worshipped by Sterne, Goethe, Flaubert, Dostoevsky, Kafka and
    Melville. Two years ago his saga was voted the best novel of all time
    by the world's "hundred top writers".

    Millions have come to regard Quixote as a friend for life. Like
    Cervantes, they have slaved in the galleys at Lepanto and emerged with
    only their dreams to live for. Like Quixote they have hoped beyond
    hope and loved beyond love. All of us sometimes see windmills as
    giants, and giants as windmills. Everyone has a knight errant within
    them, guiding his lance and turning the most humble career into a
    noble crusade. Like Quixote we long to leap on life's stage, to warm
    Mimi's frozen hand or stay Othello's dagger. We imagine that frump in
    the Tube as the matchless Dulcinea, at least until Tottenham Court
    Road.

    Somehow I shall survive without Einstein. I can drive spaceship Earth
    without knowing the workings of the atom. But I cannot do without my
    icon. I raise my glass to the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance, Don
    Quixote of La Mancha, as he trots across the plain of life in search
    of self-fulfilment. He knew that reason would triumph, but he also
    knew that reason was not enough. Quixote's epitaph ran: "It was his
    great good fortune to live a madman and die sane." Amen to that.

    simon.jenkins at thetimes.co.uk


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  8 21:41:55 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:41:55 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Robert S. Byonton: Righting Copyright: Fair Use and
 "Digital Environmentalism"
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502081640290.16114@panix1.panix.com>

Robert S. Byonton: Righting Copyright: Fair Use and "Digital 
Environmentalism"
BOOKFORUM | feb/mar 2005
http://www.bookforum.com/boynton.html

    Who owns the words you're reading right now? if you're holding a copy
    of Bookforum in your hands, the law permits you to lend or sell it to
    whomever you like. If you're reading this article on the Internet, you
    are allowed to link to it, but are prohibited from duplicating it on
    your web site or chat room without permission. You are free to make
    copies of it for teaching purposes, but aren't allowed to sell those
    copies to your students without permission. A critic who misrepresents
    my ideas or uses some of my words to attack me in an article of his
    own is well within his rights to do so. But were I to fashion these
    pages into a work of collage art and sell it, my customer would be
    breaking the law if he altered it. Furthermore, were I to set these
    words to music, I'd receive royalties when it was played on the radio;
    the band performing it, however, would get nothing. In the end, the
    copyright to these words belongs to me, and I've given Bookforum the
    right to publish them. But even my ownership is limited. Unlike a
    house, which I may pass on to my heirs (and they to theirs), my
    copyright will expire seventy years after my death, and these words
    will enter the public domain, where anyone is free to use them. But
    those doodles you're drawing in the margins of this page? Have no
    fear: They belong entirely to you.

    While it was once believed that Marxism would overhaul notions of
    ownership, the combination of capitalism and the Internet has
    transformed our ideas of property to an extent far beyond the dreams
    of even the most fervent revolutionary. Which is not to say that
    anything resembling a collectivist utopia has come to pass. Quite the
    opposite. In fact, the laws regulating property--and intellectual
    property, in particular--have never before been so complex, onerous,
    and rigid.

    Copyright protection has been growing in fits and starts since the
    early days of the Republic. In 1790, a copyright lasted for fourteen
    years and could be renewed once before the work entered the public
    domain. Between 1831 and 1909, the maximum term was increased from
    twenty-eight to fifty-six years. It was extended several more times
    during the twentieth century until 1998, when the Sonny Bono Copyright
    Term Extension Act added twenty additional years (to both existing and
    future intellectual property), increasing copyright protection to
    seventy years after the death of an author.

    Some of the most significant changes in intellectual property law took
    place in the Copyright Act of 1976, after which it was no longer
    required to register one's work in order to protect it. Anything
    "fixed in a tangible medium"--e-mail messages, those doodles in the
    margins of this magazine--automatically became copyrighted. Recent
    laws--like the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which increased
    protection of copyrighted material on the Internet, and the Sonny Bono
    Act--have elevated intellectual property's status to such a degree
    that many courts and corporations often treat it in virtually the same
    way as they do physical property.

    This is a category mistake, and one explicitly forbidden according to
    Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, which gives Congress the
    authority to "promote the progress of science and useful arts, by
    securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive
    right to their respective writings and discoveries.'' Unlike Europe,
    whose laws center on the "moral rights" of the author to control his
    creation, American copyright law has always had the strictly
    utilitarian goal of providing just enough incentive for someone to
    create. Copyright is a bargain: The government grants a limited right
    to profit from your intellectual property in exchange for your
    agreement to give the public limited access to it during that period
    (such as the "fair use" right of a teacher to make class copies of an
    essay), and, eventually, for it to lapse into the public domain.

    But as copyright terms lengthened and intellectual property became a
    larger part of American industry, the logic of incentive has been
    overshadowed by the logic of reward, the thinking being that if my
    work continues to have value, why shouldn't I profit from it for as
    long as I want? "In our tradition, intellectual property is an
    instrument. It sets the groundwork for a richly creative society but
    remains subservient to the value of creativity," writes Stanford law
    professor Lawrence Lessig in his most recent book, Free Culture: How
    Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control
    Creativity. "Yet the current debate has this turned around. We have
    become so concerned with protecting the instrument that we are losing
    sight of the value."

    But if we have fallen into what New York University communications
    professor Siva Vaidhyanathan calls "the property-talk trap," it has
    had the unintended effect of mobilizing citizens by demonstrating the
    stake we all have in the debate over how intellectual property should
    be considered. Once an arcane part of the American legal system,
    intellectual property law is now at the center of major disputes in
    the arts, sciences, and politics. People are increasingly aware of the
    role intellectual property plays in their everyday lives; they bump up
    against it every time they discover they can't print a passage from an
    e-book or transfer a song from their computer to their iPod. These
    days, it is not uncommon to hear people casually conversing about
    legal concepts like "fair use" and the "first sale doctrine."

    Much of this awareness results from the well-publicized lawsuits the
    Recording Industry Association of America has brought against music
    downloaders. This is unfortunate, because it has created the
    impression that those in favor of liberalizing copyright law condone
    the theft of intellectual property. Leaving aside questions about the
    appropriate legal remedies for, and the economic implications of,
    downloading, taking copyrighted material for which one has not paid is
    simply illegal. The fact that illegal downloading is a mass phenomenon
    indicates that our intellectual property laws aren't working in much
    the same way that the speakeasies of the '20s and '30s pointed out the
    irrationality of Prohibition. Neither downloading nor drinking,
    however, made the activities more legal.

    It is in more common--and only marginally illegal--pursuits that
    ordinary citizens are realizing they have a legitimate stake in the
    debate over the scope of copyright law. As the price of digital video
    cameras and editing software plummets, the number of people who sync
    home movies to music, splice together clips from favorite television
    shows, and even produce documentaries has soared. TiVo and other
    digital video recorders have made it possible to trade programs over
    the broadband Internet connections that are finding their way into
    homes across the country. Young fathers are practically required to
    transplant images of their newborns into great works of art by way of
    Photoshop.

    In December 2004, Google announced "Google Print," a project to bring
    millions of easily searchable, digitized books to the Internet. The
    project, which has already begun and may take a decade to complete,
    will further heighten awareness of our vexed relationship to
    intellectual property. After digitizing the entire holdings of
    Stanford and the University of Michigan libraries (as well as sections
    of the libraries of Harvard, Oxford and the New York Public Library),
    Google Print will search the texts of these books--although one will
    only be able to read the entire text of those works whose copyright
    has lapsed and are therefore in the public domain. As for copyrighted
    titles, one will be able to search their text for names and key
    phrases but won't be allowed to read the books themselves (a function
    like Amazon's helpful, but similarly limited, "Search inside this
    book" service). Instead, one will be directed to a library or
    bookstore where the book can be located.

    As amazing an effort as Google Print is (creating nothing less than a
    virtual "universal library of knowledge"), its logical goal--giving
    readers full access to the entire contents of that library--will be
    undercut by our intellectual property laws. It is an inherently
    unstable situation, and it is only a matter of time before someone
    (Amazon? Random House?) develops software to link this vast cache of
    literature to a convenient print-on-demand service (for which the
    hardware already exists). When it becomes possible to hold an
    inexpensive, physical copy of one of Google's digitized titles in
    one's hands--but only if it was first published prior to 1923 and is
    therefore in the public domain--people will begin to understand the
    implications of having something so obviously beneficial (universal
    access to universal knowledge) tethered to laws from another era.
    Google Print may be the Trojan Horse of the copyright wars.

                                    * * *

    While a range of copyright-infringing technologies has been changing
    the way we interact with our culture, critics of excessive copyright
    protection have been forging a coalition to demand that the law be
    brought more in line with the capabilities of these technologies. The
    challenge is considerable. Individual intellectual property rights are
    often in conflict with one another, and the only groups with a common
    interest in the direction of such laws are those corporations who want
    to lock up culture in perpetuity (or "forever minus a day," as former
    Motion Picture Association of America head Jack Valenti once
    suggested). Even following the twists and turns of the debate is
    difficult, since negotiations are seldom held in public. "This
    cultural war is almost invisible," writes David Bollier in Brand Name
    Bullies: The Quest to Own and Control Culture. "It is happening
    quietly and incrementally--in rulings by distant courts, in hearing
    rooms on Capital Hill and obscure federal agencies, in the digital
    code that Hollywood and record labels surreptitiously implant into
    DVDs and CDs."

    One of the most suggestive responses to this dilemma has come from
    Duke University law professor James Boyle, who, in his landmark book
    Shamans, Software and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the
    Information Society (1996), diagnosed the problem succinctly. "What we
    have right now is an exponentially expanding intellectual land grab, a
    land grab that is not only bad but dumb, about which the progressive
    community is largely silent, the center overly sanguine, and the right
    wing short-sighted." Boyle's subsequent work is an extended plea that
    we value the public domain. "Our art, our culture, our science depend
    on this public domain every bit as much as they depend on intellectual
    property,'' he writes.

    Boyle is one of the founders of "digital environmentalism," the
    movement that is fashioning a new understanding of what the public
    domain--the "commons," as Boyle and others have called it--might be.
    The great achievement of the environmental movement, from which Boyle
    draws inspiration, was its ability to convince a swath of the
    population--consumers and industrialists alike--that they all had a
    stake in this thing called "the environment," rather than just the
    small patch of land where they lived. Similarly, digital
    environmentalists are raising our awareness of the intellectual "land"
    to which people ought to feel entitled.

    Digital environmentalism is a two-pronged movement, with one group
    raising the awareness of the cultural stakes of intellectual property
    among everyday citizens, and the other pressing for legislative and
    legal change. The difference between the two is one of emphasis, with
    each participating in the battles of the other. Neither are anarchists
    or utopians; rather, both perceive of themselves as conservatives in
    the traditional sense of the term. "The point is not that copyright
    and trademark law needs to be overthrown," writes Bollier. "It is that
    its original goals need to be restored. Individual creators need to be
    empowered more than ever. The volume and free flow of information and
    creativity need to be protected. The public's rights of access and use
    must be honored. We must strike a new balance of private and public
    interests that takes account of the special dynamics of the Internet
    and digital technology."

    For those in the legal camp, the central event of recent years was
    Eldred v. Ashcroft, the 2002 Supreme Court case that challenged the
    constitutionality of the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.
    Appearing before the court, Lessig argued that perpetually extending
    the term of copyright violated the Constitution's stipulation that
    copyright exist for only "a limited time.'' The court rejected
    Lessig's position by a vote of seven to two, holding that while the
    extension was perhaps unwise on policy grounds, it was still within
    Congress's constitutional authority. A second legal challenge, which
    Lessig brought in 2004, went nowhere.

    Developments on the legislative front have been, if anything, more
    discouraging. Laws that strengthen copyright and increase penalties
    for infringement are introduced, and reintroduced, in Congress every
    year. In 2004, the Induce Act, a bill so broadly drawn that it would
    have held manufacturers of TiVo and iPods legally responsible if their
    customers used them for infringing copyright, died in committee, but
    it is only a matter of time before a similar piece of legislation
    passes.

    The cultural prong of digital environmentalism has had somewhat more
    success. Represented by writers like Bollier, Vaidhyanathan
    (Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How
    It Threatens Creativity and The Anarchist in the Library: How the
    Clash Between Freedom and Control is Hacking the Real World and
    Crashing the System), Kembrew McLeod (Freedom of Expression:
    Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity), and
    others, they all advocate the path of activism and resistance. Working
    within existing law, they propose that artists and authors
    aggressively exercise their intellectual property rights in the face
    of threats and legal challenges from overbearing copyright holders.
    Bollier, for one, perceives the work of digital environmentalists as
    benefiting from the momentum generated by legal challenges like
    Lessig's. "Acts of civil disobedience against the antisocial,
    personally intrusive claims of copyright law have only grown since the
    Eldred ruling, in part because of it," he writes.

    Their premise is that, like a muscle, intellectual rights grow
    stronger only when exercised. "For the most part, we don't need any
    new legislation. Fair use is a great solution, but for it to have any
    real impact on our culture we need to vigorously and confidently
    (though not carelessly) employ this legal doctrine in daily life,"
    writes McLeod. The problem, they contend, is less the laws than the
    lawyers. Lawyers representing copyright holders encourage their
    clients to limit access to their intellectual property as much as
    possible. "The lawyers tell us 'You may gaze upon and buy the products
    of American culture,'" Bollier writes in Brand Name Bullies. "'But
    don't be so na?ve as to think that you can actually use them for your
    own purposes. We own them.'" And the lawyers representing creators
    (artists, writers, and filmmakers, for example) who want access to
    copyrighted material for their work have decided that the transaction
    cost of boldly exercising fair-use rights is simply too high. Their
    primary goal is to avoid confrontation, even when they know that the
    outcome--should the case come to court--would favor their clients. The
    strategy of the cultural digital environmentalists is twofold. First,
    they challenge the lawyers at cultural institutions, whether they are
    book publishers, Internet providers, or movie distributors. Second,
    they spread the word about how poorly the current intellectual
    property system balances the rights of individuals and society.

    This tactic has given birth to the genre of the "copyright horror
    story." These are tales of intellectual property laws run amok: The
    artist who receives a cease-and-desist letter from the Vatican for
    using an image from the Sistine Chapel in a collage titled "The
    Sistine Bowl-Off." The company that was sued for devising software to
    teach tricks to a robot dog. McDonald's claim to own phrases like
    "Play and fun for everyone" and "Hey, it could happen." An Adobe
    e-book of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland that bears a warning
    forbidding one to read it aloud.

    In telling such stories, digital-environmentalist writers are trying
    to do for intellectual property what muckrakers like Lincoln Steffens
    did for corrupt governments and Eric Schlosser did for fast food: Go
    behind the curtain to reveal how something we take for granted--in
    this case, the cultural commons--really works. "We, as citizens, own
    these commons. They include resources that we have paid for as
    taxpayers and resources that we have inherited from previous
    generations," Bollier writes in his previous book, Silent Theft: The
    Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth. "They are not just an inventory
    of marketable assets, but social institutions and cultural traditions
    that define us as Americans and enliven us as human beings."

    Some copyright horror stories read like science fiction, depicting
    life in an anticommons in which everything is owned: letters of the
    alphabet, familiar phrases, and popular songs like "God Bless America"
    and "Happy Birthday" (which won't enter the public domain until 2030).
    And like the best science fiction, these stories pose a serious
    question: To what extent do we already live in such a place? Is our
    world an intellectual property version of The Matrix where, despite
    the illusion of freedom, we are little more than digital
    sharecroppers, licensers of a culture we mistakenly assume is ours?

    The science-fiction metaphor helps explain a tension central to the
    intellectual property wars. We do, in a sense, live in the space
    between two competing realities: According to the letter of the law,
    intellectual property is well protected, but legitimate access to it
    (by artists, parodists, critics) is guaranteed. In practice, however,
    our rights to access are ambiguously drawn and, as a result,
    prohibitively expensive to exercise. The difference in views between
    the commons and the anticommons is one of perspective. Can an artist
    who spends a fortune in legal fees successfully defending his
    legitimate fair use of a copyrighted image really be said to have won?
    "Fuck fair use," Lessig is fond of saying. "Fair use in America simply
    means the right to hire a lawyer to defend your right to create."

                                    * * *

    The line between science fiction and reality is often difficult to
    discern, as exhibited by the case of the college student who received
    trademark #2,127,381 for the phrase "freedom of expression."
    Fortunately, the student was Kembrew McLeod, who applied for it in
    order to make a point. McLeod, now professor of communication studies
    at the University of Iowa, is no stranger to using media pranks to
    exploit the absurdities of the system. In fact, he even once sold his
    soul in a glass jar on eBay.

    McLeod may be the most optimistic of the digital environmentalists.
    "We can fight back and win, especially because many recent court
    decisions have upheld free-speech rights in the age of intellectual
    property," he writes. Getting people to exercise those rights is
    another issue. "The problem is that many individuals and companies
    either don't know this or don't want to take a risk." McLeod's and
    Bollier's books are full of inspirational stories of those who have
    taken such risks and successfully faced down the corporations who have
    improperly used their copyrights, such as artist Tom Forsythe (creator
    of "Food Chain Barbie"), who was awarded $1.8 million in legal fees
    after Mattel pursued an "unreasonable and frivolous" suit against him.
    In September 2003, a group of Swarthmore College students posted on
    the Internet damning copies of internal memos written by employees of
    Diebold, the largest producer of electronic voting machines. The memos
    detailed various security flaws in Diebold's machines, and it wasn't
    long before the students received cease-and-desist letters demanding
    that they remove the memos from their websites. Although Diebold
    withdrew its legal threats in the wake of bad publicity, the students
    sued the company for falsely accusing them of copyright infringement.
    On September 30, 2004, a judge agreed that Diebold had deliberately
    misrepresented its copyright claims and awarded the students legal
    fees and damages. This past summer, director Robert Greenwald made
    "fair use" of a substantial amount of Fox News footage in order to
    document its conservative bias in his documentary Outfoxed: Rupert
    Murdoch's War on Journalism. Fox grumbled about the movie but never
    sued Greenwald for copyright infringement. In 2004, underground
    hip-hop artist DJ Danger Mouse edited together the vocals from Jay-Z's
    Black Album with selections of the Beatles' White Album to produce The
    Grey Album. Despite a flurry of cease-and-desist letters from
    EMI/Capitol (which owns the copyright to The White Album), over 170
    websites continued to host The Grey Album in support of DJ Danger
    Mouse's right to create. It went on to become one of the most
    frequently downloaded independent albums of all time. The Boston Globe
    called it "the most creatively captivating" album of the year.

    If anything, Bollier's "bullies" and McLeod's "bozos" are their own
    worst enemies. "As we look back twenty years from now, Mattel and
    other businesses like Fox News may ironically be remembered as some of
    the greatest promoters of fair use," writes McLeod. "Virtually every
    time these companies try to step on freedom of expression? in court
    they end up expanding the parameters of fair use in case law, and they
    also intensify the backlash against this kind of behavior."

    Recent stirrings in legal theory may give some comfort to the activist
    wing of digital environmentalism. Taking for granted the fact that the
    problem is less the letter of intellectual property law than the
    spirit in which it is interpreted, Richard Posner, a federal appeals
    judge and prolific legal theorist, and others have suggested some ways
    to remedy this problem.

    Foremost among them is the doctrine of "copyright misuse." In his
    California Law Review article "Fair Use and Statutory Reform in the
    Wake of Eldred," Posner argues that it is more valuable, and feasible,
    to strengthen fair-use practices than to lobby for new copyright laws.
    The problem with the current system, according to Posner, is that
    copyright owners systematically make improperly broad claims to their
    rights. The book, DVD, or baseball-game broadcast that comes with a
    notice stating that no part of the work may be copied without
    permission is, in fact, in violation of the doctrine of fair use (for
    which one doesn't need permission). Posner argues that when a
    copyright holder affixes a warning on copies of his work that "grossly
    and intentionally exaggerates the copyright holder's substantive or
    remedial rights, to the prejudice of publishers of public-domain
    works, the case for invoking the doctrine of copyright misuse" has
    been made.

    The copyright misuse doctrine is attractive for a number of reasons.
    It is a flexible approach to protecting the public-policy goals
    underlying copyright law (promoting "the progress of science and
    useful arts") without having to pass new laws every time a technical
    innovation--radio, movies, television, copy machines, VCR, the
    Internet--creates a new set of challenges for copyright holders. And
    it is especially valuable to users of copyright because it is "one of
    the only copyright-limiting doctrines that arise from actions taken by
    the copyright holder," writes Kathryn Judge in her Stanford Law Review
    article "Rethinking Copyright Misuse." Aside from the possibility of
    being sued, the primary problem for those who want to make fair use of
    copyrighted material is the uncertainty of their position; while the
    law seems to support them, their backers and/or insurers may deem the
    cost of exercising their rights excessive. The doctrine of copyright
    misuse might provide a mechanism for a creator to address that
    uncertainty. For example, employing the principle of copyright misuse,
    an artist who believes he has a legitimate right to make fair use of a
    copyrighted work can proactively challenge a copyright holder who he
    believes is protecting his work more broadly than required by
    copyright law. While such a maneuver wouldn't necessarily guarantee
    that the artist will prevail (he might of course be wrong), copyright
    misuse is one way the claims of the copyright holder might be tested
    without enduring an expensive lawsuit.

    Copyright misuse isn't as satisfying as a Supreme Court victory or the
    passing of a new set of intellectual property laws. And it isn't clear
    that it is robust enough to protect fair use in the way that Posner
    and others want it to. But perhaps by bolstering the practices of
    everyday people it will help reclaim a familiar cultural landscape.
    Because in the end, the goal of digital environmentalism is quite
    modest: a world in which, as McLeod writes, the digital future looks
    "a lot like the analog past."

    Robert S. Boynton is director of New York University's magazine
    journalism program. His new book, The New New Journalism:
    Conversations with America's Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft,
    is being published this month by Vintage.


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From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  8 21:43:30 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:43:30 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Recapturing Kansas
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502081642230.16114@panix1.panix.com>

In These Times: Recapturing Kansas
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/print/recapturing_kansas/

                       By Emily Udell January 12, 2005

    How did conservatives win the heart of America?

    That is the question Tom Frank explores in his bestselling book What's
    the Matter with Kansas?, an incisive analysis of the Republican
    transformation of traditional economic populism into the Great
    Backlash. Frank's book, which has become a post-election touchstone
    for progressive pundits, looks beyond the red state/blue state
    paradigm to explain how the mirage of "moral values" issues ("God,
    guns and gays") has subverted public dialogue about economic issues
    and convinced working class Americans to vote against their economic
    self-interest.

    Frank--who is also the author of The Conquest of Cool and One Market
    Under God, founder and editor of the Chicago-based magazine The
    Baffler, and a contributing editor for Harper's--recently spoke with
    In These Times and its affiliated radio show "[3]Fire on the Prairie,"
    from his home in Washington, D.C.

    Can you give some historical background for what you call the "Great
    Backlash"?

    What I mean by that term is populist conservatism. It's this angry
    right-wing sensibility that speaks in--or pretends to speak in--the
    voice of the working class. It got its start, more or less, in 1968,
    with the candidacy of George Wallace. The issues that the Backlash has
    embraced have changed a lot over the years. In the early days it was
    pretty much racist. Today, you have the same angry, hard-done-by
    sensibility, but it's attached to different issues - the most famous
    being abortion, and, in this latest election, gay marriage.

    The Great Backlash has a way of thinking about the people vs. the
    elite, which is one of the classic hallmarks of populists. According
    to your standard populism--your left-wing variety--it's working people
    against owners, or blue collar against white collar. It's about social
    class. According to the Backlash, it's basically everybody against
    what they call the "liberal elite," who they generally identify by
    their tastes and fancy college educations. But it's an amorphous term,
    they'll apply it to anybody they feel like. It's not a solid
    sociological category. Nonetheless, it's extremely powerful. And
    conservatives throw this idea around all the time, basically
    unchallenged by liberals or by the left.

    Do you think the traditional values of the left have as much appeal as
    the cultural values of the right? And is there a motivation besides
    just winning for Democrats to adopt a real values stance? As you wrote
    in your book, where is the soft money in that?

    I think they definitely have as much appeal as the right-wing values.
    One of the most interesting things about the right-wing movement
    that's so powerful today is that is borrows--or steals, if you will
    --so much of its language and its blueprint from the old left. The
    stereotype of liberals as these high-hat blue bloods, these effete,
    devitalized weaklings is straight out of your proletarian literature
    of the '30s. Only back then it was a description of rich people.

    I think the values of the left still have power. But something has
    become apparent to me since I moved to Washington, D.C. [from
    Chicago]. There is this aversion, bordering on hatred, for the left,
    especially among Democrats. People who dominate discussions in
    Democratic circles despise the left, and there is no way in hell they
    are going to embrace the values of the left. You can try to explain to
    them how they need to do it for strategic purposes or in order to win
    elections, [but] it doesn't matter. The Democratic centrists got their
    way [in the 2004 presidential election], they got their candidate,
    they got their way on everything, and they still lost. And who gets
    the blame? It's going to be the left.

    Is there a danger that Democrats could manipulate the language of
    economic populism (like the conservatives manipulate the language of
    culture) but still pander to big business?

    You mean could they do this in a disingenuous fashion? Of course they
    could. But I don't think it would play very well. When you're talking
    about economic populism, you're talking about bread and butter issues.
    The Republicans have the advantage in that their populism is a matter
    of fantasy. And so their voters don't really care that they never gain
    any ground on their populist issues. Because they don't really expect
    to.

    If the labor movement had more traction in this country, then would
    the Democrats be more inclined to embrace traditional populist values?

    There's no question about that. The problem is that unions have been
    beaten pretty badly. There's always hope. Back in the '30s, the labor
    movement just came out of nowhere, and had its great organizing
    drives. And it did it more or less by itself, not with a lot of help
    from the Democratic Party. The funny thing was that when that
    happened, it was in the middle of a depression. ... ordinarily that's
    a very difficult time to be organizing people and they really captured
    this cultural position where it was very attractive to join a union.

    In your book you examine the debate over "authenticity"--do you
    propose to abolish this pursuit to identify the needs and values of
    the "real" American or to redefine what a "real" American is?

    I think we have to play the game of authenticity. The first step is
    recognizing that the conservatives have been doing it for a long time,
    and they've been doing it without any effective answer from our side.
    Authenticity is an incredibly powerful commodity in our day and age.
    There is this sort of culture of soft suburban liberals who are very
    into authenticity. But in their minds, authenticity is the stuff you
    read about in travel magazines, whereas Middle America is this
    horrible, plastic monstrosity that you're supposed to flee from. The
    Republicans have just reversed that. The Middle American in his Chevy
    going to McDonald's - that's authentic. They've captured this idea of
    all-American authenticity, and it has to be challenged. But you can't
    challenge it by saying American culture is hollow and conformist and
    stupid. That's not going to work.

    So you'd rather say something like the real American has two jobs and
    no healthcare?

    The Republicans are incredibly vulnerable in many ways. Both in terms
    of culture and their brand positioning, and in terms of the
    contradictions between what they say and what they do. Between this
    world of all-American, regular people that they imagine and the world
    that they give us, like you just said, where people have to work two
    jobs to stay afloat, [is a wide gap]. Hammer that contradiction.

    Unrestrained free-market capitalism is not the friend of average
    Americans. It's not the friend of tradition and of small town values.
    It's quite the opposite. It's the great destroyer. But where are you
    going to find somebody in American politics to make an argument like
    that?

    One of the things that you document in your book is how anti-abortion
    activists identify themselves with figures in the anti-slavery
    movement. And I read in another interview that you attended a party
    during Republican convention where people were putting Purple Heart
    band-aids on their clothes. You talk about how it would be really easy
    to poke holes in these various assertions that are made by
    conservatives. But if we can't even address these obvious
    contradictions....

    The Purple Heart band-aids--those were given out at a party sponsored
    by Grover Norquist's group Americans for Tax Reform. The idea being
    that if a liberal gets one, than a Purple Heart is a joke. Everybody
    at the party had these on, and they thought it was so funny. And the
    party was being held at the New York Yacht Club. You couldn't ask for
    a more perfect set piece for what Republicans are about--they were
    toasting tax cuts, making fun of Purple Heart winners, at the New York
    Yacht Club!

    In your epilogue you wrote, "Encouraging demographic self-recognition
    and self-expression through products is, similarly, the bread and
    butter not of leftist ideology but of consumerism." What kind of
    arguments specifically do Democrats and leftists have to make to
    distinguish their ideology from a consumer ideology so as not to be
    blamed for the crap that's out there in the media?

    That's a very hard question to answer. The problem comes when
    [populist conservatives] pin people's disgust with the culture around
    them on free-floating liberalism. And it just ain't so. Just before I
    got on the phone with you, I was reading that Clear Channel is in
    trouble with the FCC for some indecency infringement. Now Clear
    Channel is not a bunch of liberals! Fox is another [example]--run by
    conservative Rupert Murdoch, the same man that brings you Fox News.
    Fox is consistently the most offensive TV network, the one that's
    willing to stoop the lowest in search of the most outrageous program.
    Market values go hand in hand with that sort of thing.

    This argument is something that instinctively makes sense, and if you
    just made it you'd find it would resonate with people. But Democrats
    are very afraid to make arguments like that about the free market.
    They don't want people thinking that they're some kind of radicals.
    And also they don't want to lose the funding from the business
    community. And this year that was so critical to them, they almost
    raised as much as W.

    So how do Democrats make the argument?

    They just have to bite the bullet and try it. We've got to do
    something new. But they're not going to do anything unless they're
    pushed, unless there are forces on the ground making them do
    something. And it's our job to stir up those forces.

    Have you heard any stories from people who've said that they've given
    your book to conservative relatives or friends?

    I have gotten some amazing letters--especially from people in Kansas.
    I got one the other day from someone that I met when I was out there,
    and she said that her dad and her brother totally fit the description
    of backlash personality type. She said that they will, when they're
    sitting around the dinner table, say things like, "Someday liberal
    blood is going to have to be shed. That's the only way this is going
    to end."

    What's your next project?

    I think I'm going to write about what the Democrats have to do. Don't
    you think that's the thing?
    ______________________________________________________________________

    Emily Udell is the advertising director at In These Times.


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  8 21:46:02 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:46:02 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] New Humanist: Intellectual Treason
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502081644240.16114@panix1.panix.com>

Intellectual Treason
http://www.newhumanist.org.uk/printarticle.php?id=1217_0_34_0_C
5.1.7
by Meera Nanda

[I'm taking my annual Lenten break from forwarding articles again this 
year. It's a vice to spend so much time doing this. So I'll be off the air 
for forty days and forty nights from Ash Wednesday until Easter.]

    Meera Nanda uncovers an extraordinary coalition that is undermining
    science

    The second-term election victory of George Bush - and
    India's own experience with Hindu nationalist BJP rule, off and on,
    through the last decade - captures a dangerous moment in world
    history. We are witnessing the world's first and the world's largest
    liberal constitutional democracies, officially committed to
    secularism, slide toward religious nationalism. By voting out the BJP
    and its allies in the last election, the Indian voters have halted
    this slide, at least for now - a heartening development, compared to
    the virtual take-over of America by Christian evangelicals and
    fundamentalists.
    The question that interests me in this electoral route to faithbased
    governance is how this counterrevolution is actually accomplished, or
    to put it differently, how the spirit of secularism gets subverted,
    without any formal abrogation of secular laws. Unless we understand
    the ideological mechanism of this sacralisation of politics, we will
    not be able to combat the ongoing coups against secularism under
    nominally secular democracies.
    As a student of the history and philosophy of science, I have been
    watching with concern how modern science itself perhaps the single
    most powerful force for secularisation is being recoded as sacred,
    either as affirming the Bible or the Vedas, or as lower knowledge of
    dead matter, in need of spiritualisation. As an oldtime partisan of
    the Enlightenment and scientific temper, I have been watching with
    concern as my fellow intellectuals and activists, in the United States
    and India, who identify themselves with social justice,
    antiimperialism, womens rights and sustainable development, have
    themselves paved the way for reenchantment or resacralisation of
    science.
    Many of the Hindutva arguments for Vedic science find a resonance with
    the fashionable theories of alternative sciences and postcolonial
    studies. Indeed, it is difficult to avoid the impression that
    postmodernist and multiculturalist critics of modern science are
    rediscovering and restating many of the arguments Hindu nationalists
    have long used to assert the superior scientificity of Hindu sacred
    traditions.
    George Orwells doublethink bears an uncanny resemblance to the
    wellknown Hindu tendency to eclectically combine contradictory ideas
    by declaring them to be simply different paths or names of a shared
    enterprise, as is the case with the amorphous grabbag of Hindu myths,
    mysticism and philosophy, known as the Vedas.
    Recall how doublethink worked in 1984: Words came to mean their
    opposites: war meant peace, freedom was slavery, and ignorance
    strength. History was endlessly revised to make the present look like
    a confirmation of eternal, unchanging truths. Words, representations,
    facts ceased to mean what they appeared to be saying. Shorn of any
    definite and contestable meanings, words began to be used
    interchangeably, hybridised endlessly, without any fear of
    contradictions.
    Under BJP rule, superstitions started getting described as science.
    Hindu nationalists started invoking science in just about every speech
    and policy statement. But while they uttered the word science which in
    todays world is understood as modern science they meant astrology, or
    vastu, or Vedic creationism, or transcendental meditation or ancient
    humoral theory of disease taught by Ayuerveda. This was not just talk:
    state universities and colleges got big grants from the government to
    offer postgraduate degrees, including PhDs in astrology; research in
    vastu shastra, meditation, faithhealing, cowurine and priestcraft was
    promoted with substantial injections of public money. Nearly every
    important discovery of modern science was read back into Hindu sacred
    books: explosion of nuclear energy became the awesome appearance of
    God in the Bhagvat Gita; the indeterminacy at quantum level served as
    confirmation of Vedanta; atomic charges became equivalent to negative,
    positive and neutral gunas, or moral qualities; the reliance of
    experience and reason in science became the same thing as reliance on
    mystical experience, and so on. Contemporary theories of physics,
    evolution and biology were wilfully distorted to make it look as if
    all of modern science was converging to affirm the New Age,
    mindovermatter cosmology that follows from Vedantic monism. Evidence
    from fringe sciences was used to support all kinds of superstitions,
    from vastu, astrology, quantum healing to the latest theory of Vedic
    creationism. Science and Vedas were treated as homologues, as just
    different names of the same thing. Orwells Big Brother wouldve felt
    right at home!
    Another sign of doublespeak was this: On the one hand, the BJP and its
    allies presented themselves as great champions of science, as long as
    it could be absorbed into the Vedas, of course. On the other hand,
    they aggressively condemned the secular and naturalistic worldview of
    science the disenchantment of nature as reductionist, Western or even
    Semitic and therefore unHindu and unIndian. Science yes, and
    technology yes, but a rationalmaterialist critique of Vedic idealism
    no that became the mantra of Hindutva.
    Why this overeagerness to claim the support of science? There is a
    modernising impulse in all religions to make the supposedly timeless
    truths of theology acceptable to the modern minds raised on a
    scientific sensibility. Scientific creationism among Christian and
    Islamic fundamentalists is an example of this impulse. But while
    Christian fundamentalists in America indulge in creationism primarily
    to get past the constitutional requirement for a separation of church
    and state, in India it is motivated by ultranationalism, Hindu
    chauvinism and the nationalist urge to declare Hinduisms superiority
    as the religion of reason and natural law over Christianity and Islam,
    which are declared to be irrational and faithbased creeds.
    Contemporary Hindu nationalists are carrying on with the neoHindu
    tradition of proclaiming Hinduism as the universal religion of the
    future because of its superior holistic science (as compared to the
    reductionist science of the West.) Besides, it is easier to sell
    traditions and rituals, especially to urban, upwardly mobile men, if
    they have the blessings of Englishspeaking scientific gurus.
    Granted, this business of Vedic science had been going on before
    anyone had ever heard the word postmodern. But this Hindu nationalist
    appropriation of science has found new sources of intellectual
    respectability from the postmodernist, antiEnlightenment turn taken by
    intellectuals, most radically in American universities, but also in
    India.
    What do I mean by postmodernism and how did it play out
    in India? Postmodernism encompasses a wide variety of theoretical
    discourses, touching on everything from literature and history to
    architecture. What unites them is a suspicion of universal knowledge.
    Modern science, being the ideal type of such knowledge, naturally
    became a target of postmodernist critics. Sure, there were many
    critics of this universal science, including prominent scientists
    themselves before the advent of postmodernism, but their criticisms
    were leveled at the abuses of science, not at its logic.
    As disillusionment with the militaryindustrial complex grew in the
    West in the wake of the Vietnam war and civil rights struggles, the
    topdown model of development in India led to a radical critique of
    science, in which its claims to objectivity and universality were
    questioned. In India wellknown public intellectuals Ashis Nandy,
    Vandana Shiva, Shiv Vishvanathan, Claude Alvares and others condemned
    modern science as being innately barbaric, violent and even genocidal
    because of its reductionism and its imposition of western interests
    and values in collusion with westernised Indian elite. But the
    critique of science and technology that emerged out of the socalled
    Delhi school of science studies was not limited to uses or abuses of
    science: it questioned the content and methodology of science as we
    know it.
    No one can deny that there are alternative, culturedependent
    descriptions of nature: the world is full of a vast variety of such
    descriptions. Given this diversity, can we not say that modern science
    provides us a closer, a more approximate representation of nature
    which is more adequately supported by evidence and logic? Not so,
    according to its critics, because the standards of truth and falsity
    are also relative to the form of life of a culture. To quote two
    leading theorists of the social constructivist school: the labels true
    and false are simply different names for cultural preferences. The
    grand conclusion of this school of thought is that all ways of knowing
    are at par because all are culturally embedded attempts to understand
    brute reality. There is only one reality, different cultures approach
    it differently, each of which is rational in its own context. (If you
    replace culture with caste in this statement, you get the golden rule
    of Hinduism that all paths to truth are different only in name)
    Social constructivists do not deny that modern science has discovered
    some truths about nature that are universally valid Newtons law of
    gravity for example. But even these universals are seen as products of
    the JudeoChristian and masculine assumptions of Western cultures. To
    paraphrase Sandra Harding, one of the best known proponents of
    feminist standpoint epistemology, other cultures are capable of
    producing alternative universals of their own. Which cultures
    universals get universalised and which ones are consigned to the
    status of ethnosciences, is not decided by superior explanatory power,
    but by superior political power. Wellknown scholars including Andrew
    Ross and David Hess wrote books arguing that the line between accepted
    science and heterodox sciences of cultural minorities is an arbitrary
    construct reflecting cultural and ideological interests of those in
    power. Dipesh Chakrabarty, a subaltern historian, expressed the
    sentiment well when he wrote that reason is but a dialect backed by an
    army.
    Presenting India as source of alternative universals that could heal
    the reductionism of western science became the major preoccupation of
    Indian followers of science studies. Vandana Shiva wrote glowingly of
    Indian views of nondualism as superior to western reductionism. Ashis
    Nandy declared astrology to be the science of the poor and the
    nonwesternised masses in India.
    Prayers to smallpox goddesses, menstrual taboos, Hindu nature ethics
    which derive from orthodox ideas about prakriti or shakti, and even
    the varna order were defended as rational (even superior) solutions to
    the cultural and ecological crises of modernity.
    All this fitted in very well with western feminist and ecologists
    search for a kinder and gentler science. Prominent feminist theorists
    (led by Carolyn Merchant and Evelyn Keller) condemned the separation
    of the subject from the object as a sign of masculine and dualist
    JudeoChristian thinking. The history of modern science was rewritten
    to decry the progressive secularisation or disenchantment of nature as
    a source of oppression of nature and women. This naturally created an
    opening for eastern cultures, especially India, where such
    secularisation of nature is frowned upon by religious doctrines and
    cultural mores. In the recent literature on Hindu ecology, the most
    orthodox philosophies of Hinduism, including Advaita Vedanta, where
    vitalistic ideas of lifeforce (shakti, Brahman) are embodied in all
    species through the mechanism of karma and rebirth, began to be
    presented as more conducive to feminist and ecological politics. The
    deep investment of these philosophies in perpetuating superstitions
    and patriarchy in India was forgotten and forgiven.
    The critics went further: They argued that if, in the final analysis,
    all representations of nature are cultural constructions, then
    different cultures and subcultures should be permitted to construct
    their own representation of nature. To judge other cultures from the
    vantage point of modern science, as the Enlightenment tradition
    demanded, amounted to an act of epistemic violence against the other,
    as Gayatri Spivak called it. This became the foundation of what is
    called postcolonial theory, which argued that leading lights of the
    Indian Renaissance such as Nehru, Bankim Chandra and Ram Mohan Roy
    were mentally colonised because they were seeing India through western
    conceptual categories. Any change that challenged Indias unique
    cultural gestalt, as Nandy liked to call it, was to be resisted.
    All told, preservation of cultural meanings took priority over
    validity. Objectively false cosmology of the other was not to be
    challenged because it gave meaning to peoples lives. Any demand for
    selfcorrection of local knowledges was routinely decried as a
    rationalist witchhunt. The alternative to universalism was that of
    critical traditionalism or borderland epistemologies. Cultures should
    be encouraged to create an eclectic mix of different and even
    contradictory ways of knowing. One need not reject modern science
    altogether, but rather selectively absorb it into the Indian gestalt:
    Contradictions were not to be questioned and removed, but rather
    celebrated as expressions of difference.
    The picture of science that social constructivism offers is tailormade
    for the doublespeak of Vedic science. All the major conclusions of
    science studies culturally different but equally rational paths to
    truth, equation of universalism with colonialism and totalitarianism,
    penchant for eclecticism and hybridity, and the condemnation of
    disenchantment of nature end up restating the fundamental assumptions
    which the nationalist neoHindus have always used to assert the
    superior scientificity of Hindu metaphysics and mysticism. Postmodern
    prophets who promise us a kinder gentler science do indeed face
    backward to the spiritsoaked metaphysics of orthodox Hinduism, which
    has, in fact, inhibited the growth of reason, equality and freedom in
    India.
    While the Abrahamic religions are wary of epistemological
    relativism out of the fear of relativising the Word of God revealed in
    the Bible or the Koran, Brahminical Hinduism (and Hindu nationalism)
    thrives on a hierarchical relativism to evade all challenges to its
    idealistic metaphysics and mystical ways of knowing. Rather than
    accept the naturalistic and empirical theories of modern science as
    contradicting the Vedantic philosophy which they actually do Hindu
    nationalists simply declare modern science to be true only within its
    limited materialistic assumptions. They do not reject modern science
    (who can?) but merely treat it as one among the many different paths
    to the ultimate truth, which is known only to the Vedic Hinduism.
    By enshrining relativism as a source of empowerment of the weak,
    social constructivist theory has unintentionally provided intellectual
    respectability to the strategy of hierarchical inclusivism which is
    the timetested method of Hindu apologetics.
    Let me, very briefly, give some examples of this convergence between
    supposedly emancipatory postmodernist deconstruction of science and
    the clearly reactionary, chauvinistic doublespeak of Vedic science.
    For starters, take attempts to decolonise modern science: by viewing
    nature through local conceptual categories of women, nonwestern people
    and other cultural minorities, Hindu nationalists see themselves as a
    part and parcel of this postcolonial enterprise. They justify
    developing a science in accord with the Vedic cosmology as an attempt
    to decolonise the Hindu mind of western, Semiticmonotheistic
    influences. Indeed, scholaractivists sympathetic to the Hindu
    worldview, including Rajiv Malhotra and Koenard Elst routinely cite
    the writings of Ashis Nandy, Ronald Inden and even Gayatri Spivak as
    allies in a shared project of understanding India through Hindu
    categories.
    Like the postmodernist supporters of ethnosciences, they do not deny
    that modern science has discovered some truths about nature. But they
    declare them to be lowerlevel truths, because they merely deal with
    dead matter, shorn of consciousness. Notwithstanding all pious
    declarations of the death of the Newtonian world view of matter
    obeying mechanical laws, the fact is that any number of rigorous,
    doubleblind tests have failed to show any signs of disembodied
    consciousness or mindstuff in nature: matter obeying mindless laws of
    physics is all there is. But in the Vedic science discourse, the
    overwhelming evidence for adequacy of matter to explain the higher
    functions of mind and life are set aside as a result of knowledge
    filtration by westerntrained scientists. Take the example of the
    emerging theory of Vedic creationism (which updates the spiritual
    evolutionary theories of Sri Aurobindo and Swami Vivekananda). Its
    chief architects, Michael Cremo and Richard Thompson, claim that
    Darwinian evolutionary biologists and mainstream biologists, being
    products of the western ontological assumptions, have been
    systematically ignoring and hiding evidence that supports the theory
    of devolution of species from the Brahman through the mechanism of
    karma and rebirth. All knowledge, they claim, parroting social
    constructivism, is a product of interests and biases. On this account,
    Vedic creationism, explicitly grounded in Vedic cosmology is as
    plausible and defensible as Darwinism, grounded on the naturalistic
    and capitalist assumptions of the western scientists.
    Vedic creationism is only one example of decolonised science. More
    generally, Hindu nationalists routinely insist on the need to develop
    a science that is organically related to the innate nature, svabhava
    or chitti of India. Indias chitti, they insist, lies in holistic
    thought, in keeping matter and spirit, nature and god together (as
    compared to the Semitic mind which separates the two). Hindu
    nationalists have been using this purported holism of Hinduism as the
    cornerstone of their argument: any interpretation of modern science
    that fits in with this spiritcentered holism is declared to be valid
    Vedic science while naturalistic, mainstream interpretations are
    discarded as western. The overwhelming enthusiasm for Rupert
    Sheldrakes occult biology (which builds upon the failed vitalistic
    theories of Jagdish Chandra Bose) and the near unanimous recasting of
    quantum mechanics in mystical terms are examples of the kind of
    critical traditionalism and hybridity sanctioned by postmodernists.
    But it gets worse. As is well known, Hindu nationalists have been keen
    on proving that the landmass of India was the original homeland of the
    Aryans and therefore the cradle of all civilisation. Vedic Aryans, on
    this account, were the authors of all natural sciences which then
    spread to Greece, Sumeria, China and other major civilisations in
    antiquity. To substantiate these claims, all kinds of modern
    scientific discoveries are read back into the Rig Veda, the most
    ancient of all Vedas. But such boastful claims raise the question of
    methodology. How did our Vedic forebears figure out the speed of
    light, the distance between the sun and the earth and why did they
    code it into the shape and size of fire altars? Similar questions
    arise for the more general claims that are basic to Hindu metaphysics,
    namely that there is a higher realm of ultimate reality (Brahman) that
    cannot be assessed through sensory means. How did our Vedic forbears
    know it exists and that it actually determines the course of evolution
    of species, and makes the matter that we all are made of? How can you
    experience what is beyond all sensory knowledge? But even more
    important for the claims of scientificity of the Vedas, how do you
    test the empirical claims based upon that experience?
    Here one finds an incredibly brazen claim for relativism and the
    cultureboundedness of rationality. Because in Hinduism there are no
    distinctions between the spirit and matter, one can understand laws
    that regulate matter by studying the laws of the spirit. And the laws
    of spirit can be understood by turning inward, through yoga and
    meditation leading to mystical experiences. Supporters of this
    mysticismasscience argue that all science gains its coherence from
    within its own culturally sanctioned assumptions; modern science puts
    an artificial limit on knowledge as only that knowledge which can be
    accessible to senses. Within Hinduism however, it is as rational and
    scientific to take the nonsensory seeing that is mystical and other
    meditative practices as empirical evidence of the spiritual and
    natural realm. This purported scientificity of the spiritual realm, in
    turn, paves the way for declaring occult New Age practices like
    astrology, vastu, and quantum healing and even yagnas as scientific
    within the VedicHindu universe. This defence of parity (i.e. equal
    rationality) of the Vedic method of nonsensory, mystical knowing is
    fundamentally a social constructivist argument: it assumes that all
    sciences are valid for a given community that shares a fundamental
    metaphysics.
    Long ago, Julien Benda wrote in his La Trahison De Clercs, that when
    intellectuals betray their calling that is, when intellectuals begin
    to exalt the particular over the universal, the passions of the
    multitude over the moral good then there is nothing left to prevent a
    societys slide into tribalism and violence. Postmodernism represents a
    treason of the clerks which has given intellectual respectability to
    reactionary religiosity. With the best intentions of giving
    marginalised social groups especially if they were women and if they
    belonged to the nonwestern world the right to their own ways of
    knowing, western academics, in alliance with populist Third Worldist
    intellectuals, have succeeded in painting science and modernity as the
    enemy of the people. Rather than encourage and nurture a critical
    spirit toward inherited traditions, many of which are authoritarian
    and patriarchal, postmodernist intellectuals have waged a battle
    against science and against the spirit of the Enlightenment itself. As
    the case of Vedic science in the service of Hindu nationalism in India
    demonstrates, this misguided attack on the Enlightenment has only
    aided the growth of pseudoscience, superstitions and tribalism.


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  8 21:47:32 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:47:32 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Natl Geog: Animal-Human Hybrids Spark Controversy
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502081646100.16114@panix1.panix.com>

Animal-Human Hybrids Spark Controversy
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/01/0125_050125_chimeras.html
Maryann Mott
January 25, 2005

[I'm taking my annual Lenten break from forwarding articles again this 
year. It's a vice to spend so much time doing this. So I'll be off the air 
for forty days and forty nights from Ash Wednesday until Easter.]

    Scientists have begun blurring the line between human and animal by
    producing chimeras--a hybrid creature that's part human, part animal.

    Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical University in 2003
    successfully fused human cells with rabbit eggs. The embryos were
    reportedly the first human-animal chimeras successfully created. They
    were allowed to develop for several days in a laboratory dish before
    the scientists destroyed the embryos to harvest their stem cells.

    In Minnesota last year researchers at the Mayo Clinic created pigs
    with human blood flowing through their bodies.

    And at Stanford University in California an experiment might be done
    later this year to create mice with human brains.

    Scientists feel that, the more humanlike the animal, the better
    research model it makes for testing drugs or possibly growing "spare
    parts," such as livers, to transplant into humans.

    Watching how human cells mature and interact in a living creature may
    also lead to the discoveries of new medical treatments.

    But creating human-animal chimeras--named after a monster in Greek
    mythology that had a lion's head, goat's body, and serpent's tail--has
    raised troubling questions: What new subhuman combination should be
    produced and for what purpose? At what point would it be considered
    human? And what rights, if any, should it have?

    There are currently no U.S. federal laws that address these issues.

    Ethical Guidelines

    The National Academy of Sciences, which advises the U.S. government,
    has been studying the issue. In March it plans to present voluntary
    ethical guidelines for researchers.

    A chimera is a mixture of two or more species in one body. Not all are
    considered troubling, though.

    For example, faulty human heart valves are routinely replaced with
    ones taken from cows and pigs. The surgery--which makes the recipient
    a human-animal chimera--is widely accepted. And for years scientists
    have added human genes to bacteria and farm animals.

    What's caused the uproar is the mixing of human stem cells with
    embryonic animals to create new species.

    Biotechnology activist Jeremy Rifkin is opposed to crossing species
    boundaries, because he believes animals have the right to exist
    without being tampered with or crossed with another species.

    He concedes that these studies would lead to some medical
    breakthroughs. Still, they should not be done.

    "There are other ways to advance medicine and human health besides
    going out into the strange, brave new world of chimeric animals,"
    Rifkin said, adding that sophisticated computer models can substitute
    for experimentation on live animals.

    "One doesn't have to be religious or into animal rights to think this
    doesn't make sense," he continued. "It's the scientists who want to do
    this. They've now gone over the edge into the pathological domain."

    David Magnus, director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics at
    Stanford University, believes the real worry is whether or not
    chimeras will be put to uses that are problematic, risky, or
    dangerous.

    Human Born to Mice Parents?

    For example, an experiment that would raise concerns, he said, is
    genetically engineering mice to produce human sperm and eggs, then
    doing in vitro fertilization to produce a child whose parents are a
    pair of mice.

    "Most people would find that problematic," Magnus said, "but those
    uses are bizarre and not, to the best of my knowledge, anything that
    anybody is remotely contemplating. Most uses of chimeras are actually
    much more relevant to practical concerns."

    Last year Canada passed the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, which
    bans chimeras. Specifically, it prohibits transferring a nonhuman cell
    into a human embryo and putting human cells into a nonhuman embryo.

    Cynthia Cohen is a member of Canada's Stem Cell Oversight Committee,
    which oversees research protocols to ensure they are in accordance
    with the new guidelines.

    She believes a ban should also be put into place in the U.S.

    Creating chimeras, she said, by mixing human and animal gametes
    (sperms and eggs) or transferring reproductive cells, diminishes human
    dignity.

    "It would deny that there is something distinctive and valuable about
    human beings that ought to be honored and protected," said Cohen, who
    is also the senior research fellow at Georgetown University's Kennedy
    Institute of Ethics in Washington, D.C.

    But, she noted, the wording on such a ban needs to be developed
    carefully. It shouldn't outlaw ethical and legitimate
    experiments--such as transferring a limited number of adult human stem
    cells into animal embryos in order to learn how they proliferate and
    grow during the prenatal period.

    Irv Weissman, director of Stanford University's Institute of
    Cancer/Stem Cell Biology and Medicine in California, is against a ban
    in the United States.

    "Anybody who puts their own moral guidance in the way of this
    biomedical science, where they want to impose their will--not just be
    part of an argument--if that leads to a ban or moratorium. ... they
    are stopping research that would save human lives," he said.

    Mice With Human Brains

    Weissman has already created mice with brains that are about one
    percent human.

    Later this year he may conduct another experiment where the mice have
    100 percent human brains. This would be done, he said, by injecting
    human neurons into the brains of embryonic mice.

    Before being born, the mice would be killed and dissected to see if
    the architecture of a human brain had formed. If it did, he'd look for
    traces of human cognitive behavior.

    Weissman said he's not a mad scientist trying to create a human in an
    animal body. He hopes the experiment leads to a better understanding
    of how the brain works, which would be useful in treating diseases
    like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease.

    The test has not yet begun. Weissman is waiting to read the National
    Academy's report, due out in March.

    William Cheshire, associate professor of neurology at the Mayo
    Clinic's Jacksonville, Florida, branch, feels that combining human and
    animal neurons is problematic.

    "This is unexplored biologic territory," he said. "Whatever moral
    threshold of human neural development we might choose to set as the
    limit for such an experiment, there would be a considerable risk of
    exceeding that limit before it could be recognized."

    Cheshire supports research that combines human and animal cells to
    study cellular function. As an undergraduate he participated in
    research that fused human and mouse cells.

    But where he draws the ethical line is on research that would destroy
    a human embryo to obtain cells, or research that would create an
    organism that is partly human and partly animal.

    "We must be cautious not to violate the integrity of humanity or of
    animal life over which we have a stewardship responsibility," said
    Cheshire, a member of Christian Medical and Dental Associations.
    "Research projects that create human-animal chimeras risk disturbing
    fragile ecosystems, endanger health, and affront species integrity."

    Photograph: Chimera
    An ancient Etruscan statue of a chimera found in north-central Italy.
    The mythic beast had a lion's body, serpent's tail, and goat's head.
    Photograph by James P. Blair, copyright National Geographic Society


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  8 21:50:11 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:50:11 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Telegraph: Our tangled wartime web
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502081647510.16114@panix1.panix.com>

Our tangled wartime web
http://www.arts.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml;sessionid=35IIMNDIOOXRBQFIQMGCM5OAVCBQUJVC?xml=/arts/2004/12/19/bohol19.xml&sSheet=/arts/2004/12/19/bomain.html
Monday 31 January 2005

    Max Hastings reviews The Deceivers by Thaddeus Holt

    It is a curiosity of the 1939-45 conflict that, while the British
    produced few top-class field commanders and made lots of strategic
    mistakes, the machinery created by Churchill and his senior officers
    for directing the war effort was superior to that of any other nation.
    It was imaginative, flexible, kept all parties "in the picture", and
    gave full play to unusual people and ideas.

    Nowhere was this more conspicuous than in the exploitation of
    deception. From an early stage, British generals - notably Wavell -
    perceived the importance of misleading the enemy about allied
    capabilities and intentions.

    The first flowering of the deceivers' art took place in the desert.
    Its begetter was the brilliant maverick Colonel Dudley Clarke. A
    bachelor gunner officer born in the Ladysmith garrison during the 1899
    siege, Clarke conducted a guerilla campaign with the War Office, in
    support of his consequent claim to wear the South Africa medal.
    Malcolm Muggeridge described him as "a sharp little man with bright,
    quick eyes".

    Clarke's early military career was exotic, and included a spell as a
    pilot in the First World War, which caused him further to annoy the
    War Office by affecting RFC wings on his tunic. He can claim to have
    introduced the names of both the commandos and the Special Air Service
    to the British Army.

    In the desert under Wavell, he developed techniques for confusing the
    enemy about British plans, which influenced operational policy for the
    balance of the war. He was chiefly responsible for misleading the
    Germans about where Montgomery's main thrust would come at Alamein.

    The most notable hiccup in Clarke's career came at the end of 1941,
    when in an excess of enthusiasm he disguised himself as a woman and
    attempted to dally with German agents in Madrid, an exploit which
    ended with his arrest by the Spanish police, fury among the British
    intelligence services, and a request to Lord Gort, governor of
    Gibraltar, that he should interview the offender and establish that he
    was sane. This episode cost Clarke a reprimand from Auchinleck,
    Wavell's successor, but did no lasting harm to his career in the
    Mediterranean.

    Clarke is only the most notable of the characters portrayed by
    Thaddeus Holt in this meticulous, encyclopaedic history of wartime
    deception. Here also is Colonel John Bevan, the stockbroker who became
    head of the "London Controlling Section" which devised the vital
    deception plans for D-Day, who exploited his impeccable establishment
    connections to conduct a notably unconventional war. Here is
    Wing-Commander Dennis Wheatley, the popular novelist, who made himself
    an invaluable social emissary and documentary drafter for Bevan.

    Ewen Montague was a barrister in naval uniform who wrote the
    best-selling post-war book and film The Man Who Never Was about the
    LCS operation to deceive the Germans about the 1943 Sicilian invasion
    using false plans attached to a uniformed corpse which was then
    launched into the sea off Spain to be found by German sympathisers, as
    indeed it was. Holt describes Montague mercilessly as "self-satisfied,
    self-important and treacherous" - the last, because of his chronic
    disloyalty to Bevan.

    Peter Fleming, the celebrated gentleman travel-writer, followed Wavell
    to India to run Eastern deception operations, but these seldom came to
    much. Operations in that theatre were overwhelmingly dominated by the
    Americans, not much interested in deception. The Japanese high command
    paid little attention to its own intelligence service, staffed by
    officers so dense that they often failed to notice Fleming's
    laboriously planted documents and exotic stunts. Fleming emerges from
    Holt's account as an upmarket boy scout.

    Yet Fleming's words best identify a key element in deception, which
    lay at the heart of British success and relative American failure. "It
    is impossible, or at least highly dangerous, to attempt to tell a
    lie," he wrote, "until you know what the truth is."

    Success requires that the high command should tell the deceivers
    everything about its real intentions, as - for instance - MacArthur in
    the Pacific never would. It also demands the orchestration of false
    wireless traffic and captured enemy agent reports in the most subtle
    and sensitive fashion. American handling of "turned" agents was in the
    hands of the FBI. Its director, Edgar Hoover, was suited neither to
    subtlety nor to co-operation with other services.

    The British deceivers, by contrast, became the intimates of their
    masters. Bevan enjoyed ready access to Churchill and Alan Brooke.
    Dennis Wheatley wrote: "had Johnny Bevan asked the Chiefs of Staff for
    a couple of divisions to play with, they would have given them to him
    without argument".

    Thaddeus Holt, an Alabama lawyer who once served as a Deputy
    Under-Secretary of the US Army, has produced a masterly study. The
    author explains the nature of deception, which demands constant
    psychological study of "the customer" - the enemy's intelligence
    service. First it was necessary to provide the Germans with a much
    exaggerated view of Allied capabilities by creating fictitious
    formations and deployments; then to direct the enemy's attention to
    possible alternative targets for Allied forces. To succeed, it was not
    enough to make the enemy think wrongly. He must be provoked into
    acting wrongly, or rather rightly from the Allied viewpoint.

    Much sensational rubbish is written about wartime intelligence. Holt
    displays exemplary moderation and judgment. The Italians, oddly
    enough, possessed abler intelligence staffs than the other Axis
    powers. The Germans and Japanese were much readier to believe reports
    from "turned" agents run by MI5 and the "XX Committee" than
    information fed to them through false wireless traffic, to which much
    allied effort was devoted.

    It is seldom possible to assess the success of a given deception
    scheme conclusively, says the author, save for the most famous of all,
    "Fortitude", which kept the German 15th Army in the Pas de Calais for
    vital weeks after D-Day in Normandy. Yet unease about threats to the
    Balkans and Norway, diligently fostered by the deceivers, kept the
    Germans in constant uncertainty until late 1944, when the war's
    endgame became so obvious that strategic deception was no longer
    plausible.

    Holt does his best to show that American commanders overcame initial
    scepticism, and grew to recognise the importance of deception. In
    truth, however, deception was a British triumph, of which Thaddeus
    Holt has produced a worthy celebration.

    Max Hastings's latest book is 'Amageddon: The Battle for Germany
    1944-45' (Macmillan).

    BOOK INFORMATION
    The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War
    Thaddeus Holt
    Weidenfeld &amp; Nicolson, ?30, 1,148pp
    ISBN 0297848046

From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  8 21:56:38 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:56:38 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Law Notes -- Home Page
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502081650370.16114@panix1.panix.com>

Law Notes -- Home Page
http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/lawnotes/

[This is an excellent source of a literalist reading of American law.
[Exercise: Why is this sort of thing so often rudely dismissed? Do not say 
what is wrong with the views. I'm asking a different question.
[This is best viewed just by clicking on the URL.]


                           APPONO ASTOS

     "If you make yourselves sheep, the wolves will eat you." -- Benjamin
                                   Franklin

    Law Notes
    (Common Law Ramblings and other neat stuff
    relating to personal sovereignty. U.S. Flag
    [1]Play National Anthem
    [2]CD ERRORS
    [3]OVERVIEW
    [4]FOUNDATION
    [5]EXAMPLE
    [6]Jurisdiction
    [7]Procedure
    [8]Jury
    [9]Essays
    [10]Miscellaneous
    [11]Law Humor?

    [12]Other links
    [13]Challenge to Larry Becraft
    You never learned this
    in law school!
      _________________________________________________________________

    OVERVIEW

          If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of
          civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
                           Thomas Jefferson, 1816.

      This is a good place to start. You will find lots of good stuff in
      plain English that is not taught in law school. Warning: If you are
      an idealistic sort of person who tends to side with freedom for the
      people, then this site may be your government's worst nightmare,
      especially after you read about [15]jury duty, what the [16]legal
      difference is between being one of the people of the country and
      one of the citizens, and why we pledge allegiance to the
      [17]Republic instead of a democracy.

    FOUNDATION

      New to this site? Just start at the top and read everything in this
      section.
      Wise men are instructed by reason;
      Men of less understanding, by experience;
      The most ignorant, by necessity;
      The beasts by nature.
      Letters to Atticus[?], Cicero
      [19]Language and Dictionaries Which English language do you speak?
      [20]People or citizen? Which one are you?
      [21]Bill of Rights
           All rights are available to the People of the U.S.
           But only some rights are granted as privileges to Citizens of
           the U.S.
      [22]Sovereignty -- notes and case law
      [23]Republic vs. democracy -- Do you know the difference? The
      [24]Army knows!
      [25]California Admission to Union -- a Republic, not a democracy.
      [26]Court -- the substantive definition
      [27]Court of Record -- 4 1/2 substantive requirements to qualify
           Also, see [28]Nisi Prius Court -- a court of no record, by
           prior agreement
      [29]Court etiquette -- some unwritten rules
      [30]Habeas Corpus -- What it really is
      [31]Confirmatio Cartarum, Requires officials to accept Magna Carta
           as the common law
      [32]Magna Carta -- Foundation of liberty
      [33]Interpretation of Magna Carta and Confirmatio Cartarum

    JURISDICTION

      [35]Jurisdiction Some history and theory
      [36]Internal Revenue Code says the Internal Revenue Code is not
      law.
      [37]Who and What is the IRS? -- background info
      [38]California Vehicle Code Sec. 17460 -- Vehicle Code is a
      contract.
      [39]California Vehicle Code Sec. 15210 -- Vehicle code defers to
      federal definitions.
      Driver's License not needed to [40]travel privately, when not
      engaged in commerce
      [41]Resident -- by claiming you are a resident you enter interstate
      commerce jurisdiction
      [42]Nisi Prius Court -- a court of no record, by prior agreement

    PROCEDURE

      [44]Court Papers are letters to the court in a special "court"
      format.
      [45]Notice and Request -- Your first reaction to your adversary;
      points to include
      [46]Notice and Request -- Example
      [47]What do you do when you are in front of a judge?
      [48]Dismissal for Failure to State a Claim -- judge may not dismiss
      case
      [49]Petition for Discretionary Review -- A judge's advice about
      form
      [50]Elements of Strategy -- for conducting a court case
      [51]Press Release -- How to do a press release
      [52]Preserve error for appeal
      [53]The Forgotten Trial -- how to handle the penalty phase
      [54]The common law of access to governmental records -- F.O.I.A.
      failed? Try this.

    JURY

      [56]Handbook for Jurors--Must read before accepting jury duty.
      [57]Jury Nullification -- an "unreviewable and unreversible power"
      [58]Article -- The Intriguing Doctrine of Jury Nullification
      [59]Article -- A form of Civil Protest Grows in the Jury Rooms
      [60]Letter -- Why unanimity among twelve jurors?
      [61]Jury Tampering -- Educating jurors is not jury tampering.
      [62]Titles of Nobility -- A jury of peers, members of the peerage,
      would be one of these people
      [63]Jury Nullification -- Buy this book!
      [64]The trial of William Penn -- Landmark case confirmed the power
      of the jury and freedom of religion

    ESSAYS

      [66]Common law background from before 1176
      [67]Clinton should not be impeached because...
      [68]Declaration of Independence -- analysis of style
      [69]Origins of the Electoral College -- explanation and history
      [70]Electoral College -- Mathematical proof Electoral College
      prevents dictatorship
           "Those who cast the votes decide nothing;
           those who count the votes decide everything."
           Josef Stalin
      [71]The Greenwood Position -- Summary of the year 2000 presidential
      election
      [72]Trusts -- What are they. Suggested forms.
      [73]Dictionaries in Supreme Court decisions
      [74]Rules for changing a Republic into a Monarchy -- Written
      1792--compare with today
      [75]How to Write -- Improve your general writing ability
      [76]The Necessity and Usefullness of Laws -- Written 1708 by
      request of the grand jury
      [77]Petitions for discretionary review--suggestions from the judge
      who reviews the requests
      [78]No Treason, The Constitution of No Authority by Lysander
      Spooner
      [79]Texas Trial Lawyers Association -- a good source of essays
      [80]What is a Nazi? -- Letter written by one who was there. Compare
      with today

    MISCELLANEOUS

      [82]Constitution for the United States of America protects access
      to common law
      [83]Constitution of the United States of America, Analysis and
      Interpretation
           THE authoritative source of information from the government's
      point of view.
           Over 2000 pages of mostly honest information about our
      Constitution. (Common Law removed from index).
      [84]Limited Immunity -- for public officials
      Opinions about the Elian Gonzalez fiasco: 1. from the [85]People or
      2. from the [86]government [87]14 Federal Ethics -- for federal
      employees.
      [88]The trial of Jesus -- a 20th Century judge's critique
      [89]Man too smart for police force -- Does this reveal the real
      problem?
      [90]Act of Confederation--The original United States of America,
      before the present day Constitution
      [91]Northwest Ordinance, July 13, 1787
      [92]Words of Encouragement for those honorably in jail because they
      tried to exercise their rights.
      [93]Arsenic and the nobility
      [94]CIA discloses what it considers inconceivable
      [95]Government surveilance: An exciting new export
      Solon on social justice; and other [96]gems of wisdom
      [97]Wire taps? -- The paranoids were right: Yep, they're listening
      [98]Spy Interactive -- What's happening behind 2-way interactive TV
      [99]Black Programs -- It is now officially OK to lie to the public
      [100]General Smedley Butler -- He declined offer in 1932 for
      dictatorship of U.S.
      [101]Newstates of America -- Proposed new constitution for U.S.A.
      -- bye bye freedom

      [102]Cicero -- Power and Law are mutually contentious
      [103]Gun Control Books -- Gun control research resources
      [104]Columbine High School Massacre -- Victim's commentary
      [105]Death by government -- In the 20th century more people
      murdered by their own governments than killed by all other
      unnatural causes combined.
      [106]Lawyers -- Are they really needed? See this survey
      [107]Lawyers -- Opinion by H. L. Menchen
      [108]Attorney's License requirement and Oath of Office--No attorney
      fulfills this requirement.
      [109]13 Famous lawyers -- All but one never went to law school
      [110]Disciples' Destinies -- The prices they paid for their
      idealism.
      [111]Countries bombed -- by the U.S. since World War II
      Found? Could this be the REAL [112]Supreme Court of the United
      States?
      [113]Buffalo Hunting the way the government likes it

    LAW HUMOR?

      [114]Review of proposed Declaration of Independence" -- by
      Management Analyst to the British Crown
      [115]Response to Long Form Census -- Depends on what the definition
      of "is" is.
      [116]Bicycle Law: Worthy of Judicial Notice.
      [117]Judgment--before the ACLU was established
      [118]Fair Fee--for services rendered
      [119]How to be a blazing success as an interior decorator
      [120]Baked Chicken Recipe Risky, but good!

                                [121]Comments?

References

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   72. http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/lawnotes/trusts.htm
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   75. http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/misc/how2rite.htm
   76. http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/lawnotes/laws_nu.htm
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   99. http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/lawnotes/lieing.htm
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  101. http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/lawnotes/newstate.htm
  102. http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/lawnotes/cicero.htm
  103. http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/lawnotes/gunbooks.htm
  104. http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/lawnotes/columbine.htm
  105. http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/lawnotes/deathbygov.htm
  106. http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/lawnotes/ffflap.htm
  107. http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/lawnotes/lawyers-hlmenchen.htm
  108. http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/lawnotes/oath.htm
  109. http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/lawnotes/lawyers.htm
  110. http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/lawnotes/disciple.htm
  111. http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/lawnotes/usbomber.htm
  112. http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/lawnotes/court999.htm
  113. http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/lawnotes/buffhunt.htm
  114. http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/lawnotes/direview.htm
  115. http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/lawnotes/is.htm
  116. http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/lawnotes/bicycle.htm
  117. http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/lawnotes/judgment.htm
  118. http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/lawnotes/fairfee.htm
  119. http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/misc/irsdeco.htm
  120. http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/lawnotes/chickenrecipe.htm
  121. mailto:x at 1215.org


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  8 21:58:14 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:58:14 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Am. Psychologist: Genes, Race,
	and Psychology in the Genome Era
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502081657010.16114@panix1.panix.com>

Special Issue: Genes, Race, and Psychology in the Genome Era
(January, 2005). American Psychologist- the journal of the American
Psychological Association (APA)

[I'm taking my annual Lenten break from forwarding articles again this 
year. It's a vice to spend so much time doing this. So I'll be off the air 
for forty days and forty nights from Ash Wednesday until Easter.]

Authors Warn of Inaccuracies and Explore Thorny Issues Concerning the
Use and Measurement of Race in Health and Social Science Research As
More Is Learned about the Human Genome

The Gene-Environment Interaction is what must be studied; but should the
study of race be thrown out altogether?

Website - Highlights of each article summarized at:
http://www.apa.org/releases/race.html
<http://www.apa.org/releases/race.html>

PDF file - Introduction [4p.] at:
http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/amp6015.pdf
<http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/amp6015.pdf>

Press release: WASHINGTON - New and sophisticated methods for studying
the relationship between human genetic differences, the environment,
health and behavior, all made possible by the completion of the Human
Genome Project, have made traditional race-based measurements of human
differences obsolete, according to numerous authors writing in a special
issue of the American Psychologist devoted to Genes, Race, and
Psychology in the Genome Era.

"...In a series of articles, leading researchers discuss racial health
disparities and the controversial area of intelligence, while also
carefully outlining specific instances and ways in which researchers
should measure or use race. According to the authors, such research
requires a careful examination of both environmental and genetic
factors, as well as conceptually sound and methodologically rigorous
measures of race at a level not yet universal in all research

The special issue also looks at the construct of race in the 21st
century, as well as the historical use of the construct in science,
including issues of new genetic markers for race vs. self-reported race,
racial vs. ancestral identity, racial disparities, and the interaction
between genes and the environment. In separate articles, other authors
discuss the long-standing and controversial examination of race and
intelligence. The backdrop for each of the articles is the high
expectation that the completion of the Human Genome Project will lead to
dramatic advances in our understanding of health and behavior....."

                 January 2005 American Psychologist
             Lead Author and Contact Information

Genes, Race, and Psychology in the Genome Era: An Introduction Norman B.
Anderson and Kim J. Nickerson, American Psychological Association  Email
<mailto:public.affairs at apa.org>

Race and Ethnicity in the Genome Era: The Complexity of the Constructs
Vence L. Bonham, Esther Warshauer-Baker, and Francis S. Collins,
National Institutes of Health Email <mailto:bonhamv at mail.nih.gov>

Race as Biology Is Fiction, Racism as a Social Problem Is Real:
Anthropological and Historical Perspectives on the Social Construction
of Race Audrey Smedley, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Brian D.
Smedley, Institute of Medicine Email <mailto:asmedley at mail1.vcu.edu>

The Meaning of Race in Psychology and How to Change It: A Methodological
Perspective Janet E. Helms, Maryam Jernigan, and Jackquelyn Mascher,
Boston College
-  Email <mailto:helmsja at bc.edu>

In the Eye of the Storm: Race and Genomics Research and Practice Vivian
Ota Wang, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes
of Health and Stanley Sue, University of California, Davis -Email
<mailto:otawangv at mail.nih.gov>

Intelligence, Race, and Genetics
Robert J. Sternberg, Elena L. Grigorenko, and Kenneth K. Kidd, Yale
University  Email <mailto:Robert.Sternberg at yale.edu>

Under the Skin: On the Impartial Treatment of Genetic and Environmental
Hypotheses of Racial Differences David C. Rowe (Deceased), University of
Arizona. Dr. Joseph Rodgers made final revisions to this article. Email
<mailto:jrodgers at ou.edu>

Race and IQ: Molecular Genetics as Deus ex Machina Richard S. Cooper,
Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine Email
<mailto:rcooper at lumc.edu>

The Use of Race Variables in Genetic Studies of Complex Traits and the
Goal of Reducing Health Disparities: A Transdisciplinary Perspective
Alexandra E. Shields, Georgetown University, Michael Fortun, Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute, Evelynn M. Hammonds, Harvard University, Patricia
A. King, Georgetown University Law Center, Caryn Lerman, University of
Pennsylvania, Rayna Rapp, New York University, and Patrick F. Sullivan,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Email
<mailto:shieldsa at georgetown.edu>

Genes, Environment, and Race: Quantitative Genetic Approaches Keith E.
Whitfield and Gerald McClearn, Pennsylvania State University Email
<mailto:kew5 at psu.edu>

Race and Genetics: Controversies in Biomedical, Behavioral, and Forensic
Sciences Pilar Ossorio, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Troy Duster,
New York University  Email <mailto:pnossorio at wisc.edu>
Special Issue: Genes, Race, and Psychology in the Genome Era

(January, 2005). American Psychologist- the journal of the American
Psychological Association (APA)

Authors Warn of Inaccuracies and Explore Thorny Issues Concerning the
Use and Measurement of Race in Health and Social Science Research As
More Is Learned about the Human Genome

The Gene-Environment Interaction is what must be studied; but should the
study of race be thrown out altogether?

Website - Highlights of each article summarized at:
http://www.apa.org/releases/race.html
<http://www.apa.org/releases/race.html>

PDF file - Introduction [4p.] at:
http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/amp6015.pdf
<http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/amp6015.pdf>

Press release: WASHINGTON - New and sophisticated methods for studying
the relationship between human genetic differences, the environment,
health and behavior, all made possible by the completion of the Human
Genome Project, have made traditional race-based measurements of human
differences obsolete, according to numerous authors writing in a special
issue of the American Psychologist devoted to Genes, Race, and
Psychology in the Genome Era.

"...In a series of articles, leading researchers discuss racial health
disparities and the controversial area of intelligence, while also
carefully outlining specific instances and ways in which researchers
should measure or use race. According to the authors, such research
requires a careful examination of both environmental and genetic
factors, as well as conceptually sound and methodologically rigorous
measures of race at a level not yet universal in all research

The special issue also looks at the construct of race in the 21st
century, as well as the historical use of the construct in science,
including issues of new genetic markers for race vs. self-reported race,
racial vs. ancestral identity, racial disparities, and the interaction
between genes and the environment. In separate articles, other authors
discuss the long-standing and controversial examination of race and
intelligence. The backdrop for each of the articles is the high
expectation that the completion of the Human Genome Project will lead to
dramatic advances in our understanding of health and behavior....."

                 January 2005 American Psychologist
             Lead Author and Contact Information

Genes, Race, and Psychology in the Genome Era: An Introduction Norman B.
Anderson and Kim J. Nickerson, American Psychological Association  Email
<mailto:public.affairs at apa.org>

Race and Ethnicity in the Genome Era: The Complexity of the Constructs
Vence L. Bonham, Esther Warshauer-Baker, and Francis S. Collins,
National Institutes of Health Email <mailto:bonhamv at mail.nih.gov>

Race as Biology Is Fiction, Racism as a Social Problem Is Real:
Anthropological and Historical Perspectives on the Social Construction
of Race Audrey Smedley, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Brian D.
Smedley, Institute of Medicine Email <mailto:asmedley at mail1.vcu.edu>

The Meaning of Race in Psychology and How to Change It: A Methodological
Perspective Janet E. Helms, Maryam Jernigan, and Jackquelyn Mascher,
Boston College
-  Email <mailto:helmsja at bc.edu>

In the Eye of the Storm: Race and Genomics Research and Practice Vivian
Ota Wang, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes
of Health and Stanley Sue, University of California, Davis -Email
<mailto:otawangv at mail.nih.gov>

Intelligence, Race, and Genetics
Robert J. Sternberg, Elena L. Grigorenko, and Kenneth K. Kidd, Yale
University  Email <mailto:Robert.Sternberg at yale.edu>

Under the Skin: On the Impartial Treatment of Genetic and Environmental
Hypotheses of Racial Differences David C. Rowe (Deceased), University of
Arizona. Dr. Joseph Rodgers made final revisions to this article. Email
<mailto:jrodgers at ou.edu>

Race and IQ: Molecular Genetics as Deus ex Machina Richard S. Cooper,
Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine Email
<mailto:rcooper at lumc.edu>

The Use of Race Variables in Genetic Studies of Complex Traits and the
Goal of Reducing Health Disparities: A Transdisciplinary Perspective
Alexandra E. Shields, Georgetown University, Michael Fortun, Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute, Evelynn M. Hammonds, Harvard University, Patricia
A. King, Georgetown University Law Center, Caryn Lerman, University of
Pennsylvania, Rayna Rapp, New York University, and Patrick F. Sullivan,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Email
<mailto:shieldsa at georgetown.edu>

Genes, Environment, and Race: Quantitative Genetic Approaches Keith E.
Whitfield and Gerald McClearn, Pennsylvania State University Email
<mailto:kew5 at psu.edu>

Race and Genetics: Controversies in Biomedical, Behavioral, and Forensic
Sciences Pilar Ossorio, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Troy Duster,
New York University  Email <mailto:pnossorio at wisc.edu>


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  8 22:00:31 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 17:00:31 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Boston Globe: "Brain Fingerprints" May Offer Better
 Way to Detect Lying
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502081659080.16114@panix1.panix.com>

"Brain Fingerprints" May Offer Better Way to Detect Lying
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/07/0705_wirelies.html
    Patricia Wen
    The Boston Globe
    July 5, 2001

[Note date. What's the current situation?]

    Former CIA agent Aldrich Ames easily fooled lie-detector tests,
    concealing his work as a Russian spy. But could he have duped a "brain
    fingerprinting'' exam, which probes what people know by checking their
    electrical brain waves?

    Nanny Louise Woodward passed a polygraph, denying that she killed a
    Newton baby in her charge, though she was later convicted of the
    crime. Suppose she had put her head in a brain-scanning machine that
    measures deceit in blood flow patterns?

    Then there's John and Patsy Ramsey, who insist lie-detector tests
    clear them of any role in the death of their 6-year-old girl. But what
    would happen if a computerized video machine taped their facial
    expressions for signs of dishonesty?

    As polygraphs become increasingly controversial, sparking a cottage
    industry on how to "beat" the test, scientists are hunting for new
    high-tech ways of solving the most ancient of human dilemmas: How do
    you tell if someone is lying?

    "I believe it's only a matter of time before we have much better
    lie-detectors," said Stephen Kosslyn, a Harvard University psychology
    professor who is studying the brain scans of liars. "The science of
    this is only going to get better."

    Rather than measure signs of stress, such as blood pressure and heart
    rate, as polygraphs do, many of the new techniques try to get inside
    the brain itself.

    They measure things such as brain waves and cerebral blood flow, which
    people cannot control--at least not yet. And they're making headway: A
    judge even admitted some brain-testing results as evidence in an Iowa
    murder case last March while polygraph evidence is still inadmissible.

    Beyond the courtroom, intelligence agencies have been quick to
    recognize the value of a better truth-detector.

    The CIA, scandalized by discoveries of double-crossers within its
    ranks, is funding much of the lab work, along with science
    foundations.

    The FBI and other law-enforcement groups are hiring some of these
    scientists as consultants, and asking them to train staff in new
    techniques.

    Although these researchers are confident their technology may prove
    more accurate than today's polygraphs, they are quick to point out
    there will never be a magic box that discerns truth with 100 percent
    accuracy, and all these devices should be seen as supplements to
    old-fashioned gumshoe work.

    "There's no such thing as 100 percent certainty," said Paul Ekman, a
    psychology professor from the University of California who pioneered
    the study of deceit-detection through fleeting facial expressions.
    "That's why I'm not eager to see my work be used in criminal court
    cases."

    Advanced Lie-Detectors Within a Decade?

    Kosslyn of Harvard shares these concerns. "More advanced lie-detectors
    could be out within the next decade, but the big question is, how will
    they be used?" he said.

    Iowa-based neuroscientist Lawrence Farwell, however, is eager to see
    his "brain fingerprinting" work get into more courtrooms, convinced as
    he is that it has a near-perfect accuracy rate.

    His method focuses on a specific electrical brain wave, called a P300,
    which activates when a person sees a familiar object. The subject
    wears a headband of electrodes and faces a computer screen, which
    flashes photos.

    This technique provides a potential window into someone's past visual
    experience. If a person looks at random pictures of weapons, without
    activating a P300 wave, these objects are presumably unknown to him.
    But if the murder weapon is shown, and a P300 wave activates, then the
    person clearly has some experience with that weapon.

    "This technique is used to see if they have the information stored in
    their brain or not," said Farwell, a Harvard graduate who now runs
    Brain Wave Science in Fairfield, Iowa. "All of this relates indirectly
    to lie detection."

    Of course, for the P300 to be truly incriminating, the prosecutor
    would have to show that the tested person didn't see that murder
    weapon in some other innocent way, such as in media accounts or by
    being a bystander.

    His "brain fingerprinting" helmet of electrodes is currently available
    within the CIA, Farwell said, though he doesn't know if or how often
    it's used.

    However, Farwell knows some strategies for using P300 to detect moles.
    A US agent suspected of being a spy for Cuba, for instance, could be
    shown objects known only to Cuban undercover agents, something as
    simple as a job-related paper form or the "contact" person.

    Farwell's lie-detection technique won a modest legal victory this past
    March, when an Iowa judge ruled there was enough scientific basis to
    admit "brain fingerprinting" results as evidence in the case of Terry
    Harrington, a convicted murderer trying to win a new trial.

    Farwell showed that Harrington did not have a P300 wave when showed
    key parts of the crime scene, but did emit the P300 wave when shown
    scenes from his alibi, suggesting he was unfamiliar with the crime.

    After reviewing evidence from all sides, however, the judge did not
    grant a new trial, though Harrington is appealing.

    Harvard psychology professor Kosslyn also focuses on the brain in his
    study of deception, but he uses brain-scanning equipment to see what
    areas receive intense blood flow during questioning.

    While his work has not yet been completed, preliminary results show
    that different regions of the brain light up when people tell the
    truth or lie. Further, he believes different regions are activated
    depending on the type of lie.

    His data so far, he said, show the anterior cingulate, located near
    the front of the brain and associated with conflict resolution, is
    often activated during lies.

    When lies are spontaneous--making it up on the spot, as opposed to a
    fiction created over a period of time--the back part of the brain
    associated with visualization is also lit up.

    Kosslyn said he believes that is related to the fact that the
    spontaneous liar has to visualize whether quick fibs make sense or
    not.

    Focus on Smirks and Eye Flutters

    Beyond the brain, tiny alterations in facial expressions, from smirks
    to eye flutters, are the focus of work at the Salk Institute for
    Biological Studies in La Jolla, California.

    Piggy-backing on the work of psychologist Eckman, neuroscientist Terry
    Sejnowski is convinced that specific expressions suggest deception,
    though they are often imperceptible to the untrained eye. He is trying
    to link computers with video cameras, which would be able to record
    someone's face during testimony and see if it's truthful.

    Not everyone is thrilled about this new generation of lie-detectors.
    Mark Zaid is a Washington attorney representing 11 people who say they
    were unfairly rejected for federal law-enforcement jobs when they
    failed a mandatory polygraph.

    While some polygraph advocates put its accuracy rate at 90 percent,
    Zaid is among those who say the polygraph, in use since the 1920s, is
    hardly better than a coin-toss. He says future lie-detectors may be no
    different. "It's possible that new brainwave machines will say if
    someone is lying or not, but now, I don't buy it," he said.

    Yet, even a Massachusetts plaintiff in Zaid's case, who works in local
    law-enforcement, said he keeps an open mind that someday a better
    lie-detector will come along.

    This man, who asked to remain anonymous, said he feels today's
    polygraph is faulty and gave him a "false positive" when asked about
    past drug use. But he knows from his own job that the mere presence of
    a polygraph can be useful in questioning.

    Back in 1995, for instance, police had no evidence linking Susan Smith
    to the drowning of her two young sons. While she claimed the boys were
    abducted by a carjacker, she had three polygraphs showing signs of
    deception. Police kept the focus on her. Later, she admitted she let
    the car roll into a South Carolina pond, and the bodies of her two
    boys were found in the water.


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  8 22:02:17 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 17:02:17 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] CHE: Please Take My Advice
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502081701260.16114@panix1.panix.com>

Please Take My Advice
The Chronicle of Higher Education, 5.2.11
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i23/23a01401.htm

    5 books for professors who want to improve their teaching

    By THOMAS BARTLETT

    A perennial complaint about higher education -- repeated at
    conferences, in articles, and in university corridors across the
    country -- is that professors are not taught how to teach. As a
    result, many colleges in the last few years have pushed to prepare
    graduate students for leading a classroom. A number of recent books
    also offer teaching dos and don'ts. Here are five of the most notable:
      _________________________________________________________________

    Letters to a Teacher
    (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2004)

    Sam Pickering, a professor of English at the University of Connecticut
    and a prolific essayist who has written 17 books. He was the
    inspiration for Robin Williams's character in the movie Dead Poets
    Society.
      _________________________________________________________________

    Unlike most professors who write books about teaching, Sam Pickering
    doesn't like to give advice. He doesn't like to take advice, either.
    In fact, he is suspicious of the whole business of telling other
    people what to do. "For me to advise you would be arrogant," he writes
    in the introduction.

    So in lieu of exhortations, Mr. Pickering offers a series of warm and
    amusing reflections on the teaching life. Some of the funniest moments
    come when he is describing interactions with his students. He writes
    of how he once told a student that she needed to learn civility. "The
    girl looked puzzled. 'Civility?' she answered. 'What's that? I'm not
    an English major.'"

    Mr. Pickering's opinions on education are often surprising and
    willfully contrarian. "It is not important for everyone to write
    well," writes the English professor who teaches writing. "Writing
    poorly does not exclude a person from the pleasures of the bed -- or
    boardroom." As for core curricula, the professor could not care less.
    "One course does not a historian make," he writes. "If a child
    despises math, why must he take three math courses in college? On the
    other hand, if he loves math why not let him take all math courses?"

    When Mr. Pickering does break down and offer some advice, it is
    usually gentle and cloaked in humor. "Parents will say dreadful things
    to you," he writes. "Do not let them burrow under the skin and get
    into your bloodstream. If you have to respond, go into your office
    alone, shut the door, and quote Tennessee Williams, preferably a
    terse, ripe phrase, something like 'Screw you' or 'Kiss my ass.'
    Afterward open your door, chuckle, step into the hall, and smile like
    the sunrise."

    Mr. Pickering receives letters from professors all the time asking him
    to reveal his teaching secrets, as if there were a formula for
    classroom success that he's been keeping to himself all these years
    (he started teaching at Connecticut in the late 1970s). This book is
    sure to inspire more such letters despite the professor's reservations
    about his reputation as the Great Teacher. "I don't want to be a
    guru," says Mr. Pickering.

    Too late.
      _________________________________________________________________

    The Art of Teaching
    (Oxford University Press, 2004)

    Jay Parini, a professor of English at Middlebury College. He has
    written five books of poetry, six novels, and three biographies, and
    is a frequent contributor to The Chronicle Review.
      _________________________________________________________________

    Jay Parini has been teaching for three decades. And yet he still asks
    himself the same basic questions before each class. "Will I make
    sense? Will the students respond in sympathetic ways? Will I look and
    sound like an idiot? Is my face well shaved? Is my fly unzipped? Will
    I make it through 50 or 60 minutes without feeling like a complete
    idiot?"

    That's OK, he writes, because such questions indicate that he is
    "still trying to find the right way to present the material." In this
    collection of essays, Mr. Parini writes about finding your teaching
    voice, balancing teaching and personal life, and what to wear in the
    classroom. "As a college teacher, it pays to think of clothing as a
    rhetorical choice, and to dress accordingly," he writes.

    He wrote the book, he says, because he was concerned that there is not
    enough discussion about good teaching in higher education. "What I'm
    really shocked by is that young teachers coming out of graduate school
    have rarely given a second thought to teaching," says Mr. Parini. In
    one essay, he encourages young teachers to state their goals clearly
    at the beginning of a course: "Make sure that on your syllabus you let
    the students know exactly what is required of them: how many papers,
    how long, when they are due, and so forth." He also tells young
    teachers to "make your viewpoint known, to students and your
    colleagues. And don't be afraid to change your mind as needed."

    Mr. Parini thinks of teaching as performance art. He writes about the
    importance of selecting the right "mask" for the classroom. "Most of
    us are left to blunder our way toward a teaching voice that serves us,
    and our students, well," he writes. "Unconsciously, we adopt different
    masks, noticing (or failing to notice) their usefulness." Instead,
    according to the professor, the mask should be a conscious choice, one
    that complements the material being taught. For instance, as a young
    professor, Mr. Parini would pace the classroom "like a caged animal"
    and fling chalk at the blackboard. Eventually, he writes, he came to
    realize that that was not the right mask for him.

    Mr. Parini says he hopes The Art of Teaching will be useful to other
    teachers, but he doesn't have any illusions about having said
    everything there is to say on the subject. "I doubt that any book can
    teach you how to teach," he says. "What it should do is get you
    thinking about the important issues."
      _________________________________________________________________

    I'm the Teacher, You're the Student: A Semester in the University
    Classroom
    (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005)

    Patrick Allitt, a professor of history at Emory University. Mr. Allitt
    has written several books on religious history.
      _________________________________________________________________

    What Patrick Allitt has written is closer to an expos? than an advice
    book. I'm the Teacher, You're the Student is exactly what its subtitle
    suggests: an account of a university semester in the classroom. The
    book begins with Mr. Allitt preparing his course and ends with the
    grading of final exams. In between he worries about nearly everything,
    fretting about what -- if anything -- his students are learning and
    whether the sport coat he wears to class looks silly.

    Mr. Allitt, who leads teaching workshops at Emory, is not shy about
    criticizing his own teaching -- nor does he hesitate to let loose on
    lazy students. He quotes examples of poor student writing at length
    and then skewers them mercilessly. Some students confuse the economist
    John Kenneth Galbraith with the scientist Edward Teller; others can't
    tell the difference between novels and nonfiction books. And they
    write sentences like this: "Many did not survive the harsh journey
    west, but they still trekked on."

    While these examples always amuse, it is hard not to cringe slightly
    for the students whose writing is ridiculed. Mr. Allitt changed the
    names to protect the not-so-innocent but "all the examples are real"
    he wrote in an e-mail message. (When contacted by The Chronicle, Mr.
    Allitt was teaching aboard a cruise ship. A professor's life isn't so
    bad, eh?) "I find most writing on education rather boring, because of
    the high degree of abstraction many authors use," the professor says
    in his e-mail message. He wrote an account of daily academic life "in
    the hope that other teachers would find my experiences comparable to
    some of their own."

    For the nonteacher, the book offers some insight into the frustration
    that can overcome even the best professors. Mr. Allitt detests whining
    students (e.g., those who ask for deadlines to be extended or those
    who shamelessly grade-grub) and after he recounts several such
    episodes, it is easy to see why. Overly emotional students also annoy
    the professor. Throughout the book, tears are shed over seemingly
    trivial incidents. Each time Mr. Allitt follows the same procedure: He
    hands the weepy student a roll of toilet paper and waits quietly for
    the waterworks to subside.

    Despite his frustrations and complaints, it is obvious that Mr. Allitt
    cares about his students. By e-mail, he says he hoped to show that
    being a teacher "is a wonderful job but also a difficult one."
      _________________________________________________________________

    The Joy of Teaching: A Practical Guide for New College Instructors
    (University of North Carolina Press, 2005)

    Peter Filene, a professor of history at the University of North
    Carolina at Chapel Hill. Mr. Filene has written several books,
    including a novel, Home and Away. He has won six teaching awards.
      _________________________________________________________________

    How do you write a lecture, create a syllabus, or lead a discussion?

    In this book, Peter Filene covers the basics. He wrote it, he says,
    with freshly minted professors in mind. "I figured that new teachers
    in particular had very little luxury to entertain lots of theoretical
    discussion," he says.

    The book is brief (a little more than 150 pages) but it packs in lots
    of advice. In his chapter called "Constructing a Syllabus," Mr. Filene
    tells teachers not to cram too much into one semester. "In a survey of
    the English novel, for example, you can't imagine leaving out Tom
    Jones,Vanity Fair, and Middlemarch. Then again, can your students
    really read 2,280 pages in three weeks and also write that five-page
    midterm essay?" he writes.

    Mr. Filene suggests making a list of all the topics that need to be
    covered in the course and matching them with the number of classes. If
    there are more topics than days, start winnowing the list. "Engage in
    cold-blooded self reflection," he writes. "Did you emphasize [a
    certain topic] because it's the most important? Or because you wrote
    your dissertation on it and feel underprepared to teach the other
    sections of your subject?"

    In his chapter on encouraging discussion in class, Mr. Filene
    recommends handing out a list of questions in advance. He also
    suggests making sure students feel welcome to contribute to
    discussions. "The sooner you start this process, the less inertia you
    will need to overcome," Mr. Filene writes.

    At times the professor's advice seems pat ("To communicate
    effectively, good teachers present their ideas with clarity") and, in
    one chapter, he cites a 1987 study of teaching methods (couldn't he
    find anything more recent?). Still, he addresses nuts-and-bolts
    questions that more highfalutin books on pedagogy might overlook.
      _________________________________________________________________

    Clueless in Academe: How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind
    (Yale University Press, 2003)

    Gerald Graff, a professor of English at the University of Illinois at
    Chicago. Mr. Graff has written numerous books, including Beyond the
    Culture Wars.
      _________________________________________________________________

    Professors and students don't know how to talk to each other. They
    might as well be speaking different languages. In fact, that's exactly
    what they're doing according to Gerald Graff; he dubs the two tongues
    "Intellectualspeak" and "Studentspeak."

    To overcome this, professors need to do a better job of explaining
    what the mysterious world of academe is all about. And what it is all
    about is argument -- or so argues Mr. Graff. The problem is that the
    kind of argument that goes on in classrooms seems different from the
    kind that goes on everywhere else. But really it's not, according to
    the professor. He writes that "a more conversational view of
    argumentation can demystify academic writing" and make students feel
    less like outsiders.

    Sometimes that means altering the subject matter. "My maxim is, start
    with where students are," Mr. Graff says. "Students who might be hard
    to get fired up about Plato or Shakespeare turn out to be surprisingly
    smart about popular music or sports."

    What is important, he contends, is teaching students the habits of
    thought that lead to convincing arguments. And those skills "can be
    used to move them back to Plato."

    This semester Mr. Graff and his wife, Cathy Birkenstein-Graff, a
    lecturer in English, are co-teaching a freshman composition course.
    While it may come as a surprise that a well-known professor would be
    teaching a course that most English instructors do their best to
    avoid, Mr. Graff says he finds the class invigorating. "Being forced
    to explain yourself to undergraduates, I would argue, helps your
    research," he says. Mr. Graff and Ms. Birkenstein-Graff are finishing
    a textbook on argumentative writing, which is scheduled to be
    published this year.

    While Mr. Graff's ideas apply to all disciplines, he is particularly
    concerned with the teaching of writing. He writes that professors
    "need to disabuse ourselves of the widespread myth that academia and
    intelligibility don't mix."

From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  8 22:04:07 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 17:04:07 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] CHE: Online Textbooks Fail to Make the Grade
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502081703050.16114@panix1.panix.com>

Online Textbooks Fail to Make the Grade
The Chronicle of Higher Education, 5.2.11
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i23/23a03501.htm

[I'm taking my annual Lenten break from forwarding articles again this 
year. It's a vice to spend so much time doing this. So I'll be off the air 
for forty days and forty nights from Ash Wednesday until Easter.]

    Students prefer handling pages the old-fashioned way
    By SCOTT CARLSON
    Richmond, Va.

    While buying books for her marketing class this fall, Caitlyn F.
    Atwood, a senior at the University of Richmond, found herself a little
    low on cash, having already shelled out $500 for books for other
    courses. When she heard about an option to buy her textbook for half
    price -- an electronic edition that can only be read online -- she
    decided to try it.

    "I regret that," she says bluntly, sitting outside of her marketing
    class after a two-hour test. "With my other books I can go to the
    library, but with this I always have to be in front of a screen." And
    she has found that it is not always easy to find an available computer
    during crucial points in the semester, like right before midterms and
    finals.

    Online textbooks are in their infancy, but Ms. Atwood's experience,
    other anecdotal evidence, and at least one survey suggest that
    publishers might have their work cut out for them as they push for a
    switch from print to pixels.

    In the past year, several major publishers have started promoting
    online versions of their textbooks, available for sale directly to
    students through the Internet. Publishers say that online textbooks
    offer conveniences, like text-searching tools, that students today are
    accustomed to using. And authors can quickly and easily produce new or
    updated editions of textbooks without having to wait for a print run.

    Moreover, publishers say, cheaper online versions are a response to
    the growing dissatisfaction of consumer advocates and students with
    the high cost of textbooks. But some consumer advocates say online
    textbooks are no bargain, and that students give up a great deal of
    freedom in going digital because of the many restrictions publishers
    put on e-books, such as use of copy-protection software.

    And when it comes to textbooks, many in the digital generation have
    old-fashioned tastes: Ms. Atwood and others say that online editions
    might be a useful supplement to paper versions, but there's nothing
    like being able to open a book and study -- even when there are no
    computers or power outlets around.

    "If I had the paper book, the online version would have been a good
    tool," Ms. Atwood says, noting that she would have used it, for
    instance, to look up definitions of words. Being chained to the
    computer, though, was not only an inconvenience but an impediment.
    "You tend to be distracted by the Internet," she says, "so I had to
    stay focused."

    e-Book Strategies

    With the rise of distance-education programs and online course
    materials, publishers seem to be betting that students will soon
    prefer online books, and are increasing their electronic output.

    Three major textbook publishers -- Pearson, Thomson, and McGraw-Hill
    -- announced new online textbook programs last year, all billed as
    cheaper alternatives to paper.

    In February 2004, Thomson announced its Advantage Series, which
    includes e-textbooks offered at half the price of paper books. Susan
    K. Badger, chief executive officer of Thomson Higher Education, says
    sales of the e-books have not been robust so far, but her company is
    preparing for a day when students prefer electronic texts. "We all
    feel like we need to be ready when the tipping point comes," she says.

    Pearson's program, called SafariX, has added about 300 online books to
    its catalog since announcing the program in April, and officials plan
    to have 1,000 available by the end of the year. (The company didn't
    start selling the books until September.)

    Since 2000, McGraw-Hill had been in the business of producing custom
    electronic books, cobbled together from articles and chapters of
    books, for specific classes and at the request of individual
    professors. In June, the company began producing electronic versions
    of its best-selling textbooks. It has about 200 books available for
    sale directly to students, and is adding 10 electronic books to its
    catalog every week.

    Because books are prepared in electronic form before they go to press,
    putting them online is relatively easy, says Ginny Moffat, the vice
    president of course content delivery for McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
    "In fact, some of our books are online before they are printed," she
    says. Meanwhile, some smaller textbook publishers have also gone
    digital.

    Atomic Dog Publishing, a small textbook company that published the
    marketing textbook used in Ms. Atwood's class, has a different
    business model: a hybrid of ink and bytes. Every paper textbook
    published by Atomic Dog -- which costs about half as much as
    comparable titles from major publishers -- comes with access to a free
    online version as a supplement. Students like Ms. Atwood can save even
    more by buying only the online version, but just 20 percent of Atomic
    Dog's customers take that option.

    Atomic Dog was started five years ago amid the euphoria of soaring
    Internet stocks and whiz-pow marketing strategies. Technology "was the
    golden calf that everyone danced around," says Mark A. Greenberg,
    chairman and CEO of Atomic Dog. A former vice president at mainstream
    publishing firms including HarperCollins and Prentice Hall, he was
    brought in to reorganize the Internet company and refocus it on
    selling old-fashioned content and paper, not just passwords.

    "We learned that you could beam this stuff from Jupiter, and if the
    content wasn't wanted by instructors, they weren't going to buy it,"
    he says.

    Mixed Reviews

    Online textbooks combine the features of books, search engines, and
    course-management software like Blackboard and WebCT. Some online
    books are delivered as documents that users download to their
    computers, and some exist only on the Internet.

    Ms. Atwood logs into her marketing textbook from a Web browser with a
    user name and password. While reading the body of the text, she might
    come across a keyword highlighted in blue -- clicking on that, she
    brings up a definition in a window. In addition, by typing terms into
    a search box, she can quickly find chapters that mention those terms.

    The book includes photographs and diagrams, like any textbook would,
    but it also has animations and links to resources on the World Wide
    Web. As when using paper books, students can highlight portions of the
    text, add bookmarks to selected pages, or add notes about the reading.

    Each week Ms. Atwood's instructor, Dana-Nicoleta Lascu, an associate
    professor of marketing, assigns an online quiz through the textbook
    site. By logging into her own Atomic Dog account, Ms. Lascu can then
    track the progress of her students and alter her lectures as needed.

    Ms. Lascu, as it happens, is also the author of the marketing textbook
    used in her course. She says she found Atomic Dog after a book
    proposal with a mainstream publisher stalled. She was intrigued by the
    idea of publishing online -- enough to work with a small publisher.
    "It was a risk I was willing to take," she says.

    Thomas N. Duening, the director of entrepreneurial programs at Arizona
    State University, also sought out Atomic Dog because he and a
    co-author wanted to try publishing an online textbook. Mr. Duening is
    downright euphoric about online textbooks, going so far as to say that
    paper books, which have been around for hundreds of years, are a
    "passing fad."

    "In the near future, there is no way you can get away from offering
    things online," he says. "Kids today are learning to read online,
    learning to interact online. ... We're looking at where things are
    going."

    The future of online textbooks, however, is far from assured.
    Publishers like McGraw-Hill and Pearson would not discuss sales of
    online textbooks, but anecdotal evidence suggests that the current
    crop of college students are not jumping to buy them.

    Robert Collinge, a professor of economics at the University of Texas
    at San Antonio, is the author of a macroeconomics textbook that is
    featured online through Pearson's SafariX program. At the request of
    The Chronicle, he polled his students through an online discussion
    board: Have you bought, or would you ever consider buying, an online
    textbook for this course?

    Of the 20 students who responded, most said they weren't interested.
    "I refuse to buy an online textbook," wrote one student in a typical
    reply. "I prefer to have an actual hard copy of the book on hand to
    read whenever I want."

    Matthew I. Kyne, a sophomore majoring in mechanical engineering, was
    one of the few in Mr. Collinge's class who bought an online version.
    He had downloaded it to his laptop, and he said he liked it. But his
    motivations were unusual: He rides his bike 20 miles to campus every
    day. "If I don't have to carry a book, that's great," he says. "I
    would do it again for this type of class, but not for a physics class
    or a math class, where you have to work on problems out of the book.
    But if you are just reading, it's fine."

    Slow to Catch On

    Last year the National Association of College Stores released results
    of a survey of more than 4,000 students at 21 campuses across the
    country. Among students polled, 73 percent preferred buying textbooks
    in a traditional format, while only 11 percent preferred electronic
    versions.

    "Generally, our research shows that students seem to be very slow in
    embracing this," says Laura Nakoneczny, a spokeswoman for the
    association. However, she adds that electronic materials are used more
    frequently in elementary and secondary schools. "It could be that
    today's students, who were educated using traditional textbooks,
    aren't really embracing electronic books because the format is not
    familiar to them," she says. "And it could be that up-and-coming
    students could embrace them."

    But the association's study revealed habits among college students
    that could make marketing electronic books difficult. The study found
    that only 43 percent of students buy all of the required books for
    their courses. Many students borrow textbooks from a classmate or from
    a friend who has taken the class in the past. And more than 45 percent
    of the students surveyed said they keep their books for future
    reference, and among engineering, vocational, and science majors, as
    many as 60 percent save their books.

    Unlike paper books, many electronic books cannot be given to friends,
    sold to used-textbook dealers, or kept on shelves for later reading.
    Passwords for some online books expire within a year, and publishers
    have devised various mechanisms that prevent students from sharing
    passwords with friends or swapping downloaded versions of books on,
    say, peer-to-peer networks.

    For example, a downloadable electronic book published by McGraw-Hill
    "locks" itself to the computer on which it is installed. So a student
    who downloads a textbook to a dorm-room computer will not be able to
    read the book on computers at the library or at his or her parents'
    house. McGraw-Hill's online versions of books have limited numbers of
    "page views" -- that is, a reader can look at the pages of a book only
    so many times, generally four times the number of pages in the book.
    So in a 100-page book, a reader can look at one page 400 times, say,
    or all the pages four times.

    "We arrived at that figure after talking with professors," Ms. Moffat
    says. "They said, read it once, study for a mid-term, study for a
    final, and read it one more time. Four ought to be ample."

    But consumer advocates, who have rallied students to protest high
    prices on textbooks, find the intellectual-property protections on
    online books too limiting, even for a cheaper price tag.

    Compared with paper books, "you're giving up substantial numbers of
    rights in return for paying half the price," says Edmund M.
    Mierzwinski, the consumer program director at the U.S. Public Interest
    Research Group, a nonprofit watchdog group.

    "Heck, I would look at the page a lot more than four times if it were
    important," he says. "I think that's an extreme restriction on
    learning."

    No More Used Books?

    If electronic books catch on, Mr. Mierzwinski sees several advantages
    for publishers at the expense of consumers. "There will be no used
    digital books," he says. "So you're completely eliminating the
    used-book market and that form of competition."

    He says the move to digital will give publishers "a lot more control
    over the marketplace."

    "Once they control the market, once they have completely eliminated
    the secondary market, and once they have got students renting their
    books, what's going to stop them from raising the prices?" he asks.

    April Hattori, a spokeswoman for McGraw-Hill, says that students can
    always print pages that they want to archive. She adds that many
    students sell their books at the end of the semester, which is
    "equivalent" to subscribing to a book for a limited time.

    But the limitations of online textbooks could keep them from catching
    on in a major way, critics say.

    During the fall hurricane season, those limitations became clear in
    Ms. Lascu's class. The University of Richmond lost power for several
    days during one storm, and the handful of students in her class who
    had bought electronic books could not study for an upcoming test. Ms.
    Lascu changed the test to an open-book exam, and for the test, some of
    those students borrowed books owned by their peers.

    Mussie Assefaw, a junior who bought a paper version of Ms. Lascu's
    book, says he mainly reads the paper version but frequently refers to
    the online version to seek out key marketing terms or watch an
    animated graphic. His friend, Daniel B. Kim, who bought an online
    version, frequently borrows the paper version.

    Mr. Greenberg, of Atomic Dog, says that he is interested in using the
    online versions of his books for marketing leverage -- as a supplement
    and enhancement to paper textbooks, not the main attraction. He
    believes that is where the textbook market as a whole is going.

    "I think in the future you'll see some combination of classic print
    with digital resources," he says. "The real value of digitization is
    the interactivity, not the readability. ... It's silly to think that
    the book, as a printed item, is going to go away."


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  8 22:06:01 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 17:06:01 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] The Times: Authors in the front line: Martin Amis
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502081704540.16114@panix1.panix.com>

Authors in the front line: Martin Amis
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-531-1458940-531,00.html
5.2.6

    On the streets of Colombia, young boys cripple or murder each other
    just for showing disrespect or for winning at a game of cards. Is the
    taste for violence opening up a wound that can never heal? Report:
    Martin Amis

    The newsprint edition carries accompanying photographs by Tom Craig

    1. Exit wound

    For little Kevin, it was a bala perdida that almost did it: the stray
    bullet went in through his nape and came out through his brow. That
    was a year ago, when he was four. The incident took place a few yards
    from where we now sat, in a front room that felt like a car-less
    garage, with its damp cement floor, and a series - almost a pattern -
    of scorched light fixtures along its walls and ceiling. Kevin's
    grandmother runs a modest line in second-hand clothes; there was a
    stretched wire with some coat hangers on it, and a plastic bag stuffed
    with espadrilles and flip-flops. The family dog, small, frazzled and
    elderly, was still growling at us after half an hour, even while
    scratching its ear with a raised hind paw.

    Kevin was playing in the street when the car sped by (it never became
    clear to me what, if anything, the muchachos were trying to hit). At
    the hospital, his 20-year-old mother was told that Kevin had five
    minutes to live. They operated; and, after a five-day coma, a silent
    and unsmiling spell in a wheelchair, and a course of rehabilitation,
    Kevin seems to have re-emerged as a confident, even a stylish little
    boy.

    Kevin was deeply withdrawn for months; he responded only listlessly to
    other children, and was indifferent to adults. When he divided his toy
    soldiers into good guys and bad guys, the bad guys always won.

    What happened to Kevin was an accident: an accident in a very
    accident-prone city, but an accident. Another child, 10-year-old
    Bryan, will find it harder to gain the (in fact nonexistent)
    consolation of 'closure'. He was shot in the back by his best friend.
    Bryan's offence? It wasn't as if he threatened to take his football
    home - all he did was say he didn't want to play any more. Bryan now
    has a palsied gait (a slow, bobbing hop) and a face deprived of
    symmetry; and he looks blind too (though he isn't), because his gaze
    seeks nothing. Kevin, on the other hand, amiably complied when his
    grandmother, parting his hair and lifting his fringe, showed me the
    entry wound, the exit wound; they looked like vaccination scars. As we
    took our leave, the dog gave us an eloquent snarl: good riddance to
    bad rubbish. The dog, it seemed, had taken on the fear and distrust
    that ought to belong to Kevin.

    In the forecourt of the house opposite, a fully adult male
    (statistically quite a rarity in this neighbourhood) was closing up
    his house for the night; he stared at us with frank but nonspecific
    hostility, all the while rearranging the contents of his crimson
    running shorts.

    Some residents try to disguise it with fancy grilles and lattices, but
    most of the houses in non-downtown Cali are wholly encaged. The male
    adult across the street now proceeded to wall himself up in his
    personal penitentiary. In El Distrito, the boys rage all night and
    sleep all day (in their coffins and crypts); and at dusk they all turn
    into vampires.

    We always had to be out by five - but wait. There was still time to
    visit Ana Milena. Some years ago her sister had been paralysed after
    being shot in the throat by a neighbour; she died of depression and
    self-starvation in 1997. Seven years later, Ana broke up with her
    boyfriend. So he attacked her in broad daylight at a bus stop,
    stabbing her in the navel, the neck, and twice in the head. Their
    daughter (then nearly three) stood and watched, and hid her face. She
    still insists that her mother was hit by a car.

    Gang slang for a home-made gun is una pacha: a baby's bottle. The
    violence starts at once and never goes away. Kevin's scars are not at
    all disfiguring. He has an entry wound and an exit wound. His was
    easily the most hopeful story I heard in Cali. In general, you
    suspect, emotionally and psychologically there may be entry wounds,
    but there are no exit wounds.

    2. La Esperanza

    Occupying about a quarter of Colombia's third city, Aguablanca
    (Whitewater) consists of about 130 barrios; each barrio has two or
    three gangs, and all the gangs are theoretically at war with all the
    others. What do they fight about? They don't fight about drugs
    (ecstasy and dope are popular, but the cocaine trade is an elite
    activity). They fight about turf (a corner, a side street); they fight
    about anything at all to do with disrespect (what might be called
    'eyebrow' murders); and they fight about the fight that went before
    (venganza operates like a series of chain letters). Yet the main fuel
    of the murder figures, here as elsewhere, is the fantastic plenitude
    of weaponry. A home-made gun costs just over ?20, a hand grenade just
    over ?12 (a hand grenade is what you'll be needing if, for instance,
    you gatecrash a party and get turned away). 'Guns don't kill people.
    People kill people,' argued Ronald Reagan. You could take this line
    further, and say that people don't kill people either. Bullets kill
    people. In Cali they cost 50 cents each, and can be sold to minors
    individually, like cigarettes.

    Three teenage girls, acting as the representatives of a barrio called
    El Barandal (The Rail), advised us not to enter; but a couple of
    hundred yards down the road, at La Esperanza (Hope), we were casually
    welcomed. I asked what had made the difference, and our driver said
    that El Barandal was even poorer and dirtier and, crucially, fuller;
    there was more humiliation, more wrath, and more guns. Sara, the
    friendliest of the Esperanzans, had a different emphasis: 'Somos todos
    negros, y somos buena gente.' We're all black, and we're good people.
    And good people they would need to be. Every South American country
    has its own name for places like this. In Bogota the word is tugurio
    (hovel), but the Chilean version best evokes La Esperanza: callampa
    (mushroom). 'Whitewater' suggests a fast-flowing river, or rapids. The
    marshlands where the barrios sprouted up, in the 1980s, are now
    whitened by their own putrefaction. The endless ditch isn't deep
    enough to submerge the tubs and tyres that disturb its caustic mantle.
    Yet the egrets still consider it worth their while to paddle in it and
    peck in it; when they flap their wings you expect them to fly off on
    half-corroded stilts.

    The people here are desplazados, displaced peasants, mainly from the
    country's Pacific coast. Cali contains about 70,000 of the displaced.
    Some are pushed from the land by that irresistible modern force,
    urbanisation; others are fleeing what may be the final convulsions of
    a civil war that began in 1948. But here they are, with no money and
    no jobs. Colombia does not provide free health care or free education
    for its citizens; and the first explanation you reach for here is the
    enormous South American lacuna - taxation. Taxation, necessarily of
    the rich, is not enforced. To paraphrase the former president Lleras
    Camargo, Latin Americans have gone to jail for many strange reasons,
    but not one, in the whole continent, has ever gone to jail for tax
    fraud.

    Of the four houses I ducked into at La Esperanza, Sara's,
    counter-intuitively, was easily the worst. Your first step took you
    onto a nail bed of chipped, upward-pointing tiles on bare soil: this
    was clearly a work in progress, but for a moment it felt like a booby
    trap. Then a communal area, and a dorm of crushed cots. Then, finally,
    out towards the water, a kitchen-bathroom, with lots of exposed (and
    ingenious) plumbing, a hotplate, a heap of compost in the corner and a
    largely ornamental fridge with four eggs in its open door. A huge
    negress, already stripped to the waist, pushed past us and disappeared
    into a wooden wigwam. There came a gush of water and a burst of song.

    Outside, the ladies laugh, and playfully squabble about whose house is
    the prettiest. La Esperanza's lone shop has only a handwritten sign on
    its door, saying no fio (no credit), and sells only tobacco and
    starch, but the residents call it their supermercado. As for the
    rancid water, into which the barrio seems about to collapse - you just
    tell yourself, said Sara, that it's a nice sea view.

    Colombia has a foot in both of the two great oceans. It also straddles
    the equator. At noon, on a clear day, your shadow writhes around your
    shoes like a cat. We paid our visit on one of the cooler mornings (the
    clouds were the same colour as the water); and it was onerous to
    imagine the barrio under a sky-filling sun. Just back down the road,
    at the entry point to Aguablanca, the smell of the blighted canal,
    with its banks of solid rubbish, grips you by the tonsils. This smell
    is La Esperanza's future.

    3. Stag night

    The classic venganza, in Cali gangland, is not a bullet through the
    head but a bullet through the spine. Some thought has gone into this.
    'One month after the attack,' says Roger Micolta, the young therapist
    from Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), 'the victims ask me, 'Will I ever
    walk?' Two months after, they ask me, 'Will I ever f***?'' The answer
    to both questions is invariably no. So the victims not only have to
    live with their wound; they have to wear it, they have to wheel it:
    everybody knows that they have lost what made them men.

    At the municipal hospital in Aguablanca, at therapy time in the
    mid-afternoons, crippled innocents, like limping Bryan, are
    outnumbered by crippled murderers - by cripples who have done much
    crippling in their time. They go through interminable sets of
    exercises: pull-ups, sideways rolls. Girlfriends and sisters take
    hairbrushes to their legs, to encourage sensation. One young man,
    inching along the parallel bars, keeps freezing and closing his eyes
    in helpless grief. Another has a weight strapped to his ankle; he is
    watched by his mother, who reflexively swings her own leg in time with
    his.

    In the back room there is a storyboard used for psychosexual
    counselling. 'Lo mas frustrante: estar impotente. No poder sentir, no
    comprension, no tener ganas.' To be unable to feel, to understand, to
    have no desire. The MSF educational posters, too, rightly and
    aggressively zero in on the question of testosterone. A typical
    specimen shows a pistol with its shaft curling into a droop: 'To carry
    a gun doesn't make you a man.' Another shows a series of waistbands
    with the gun positioned behind the belt buckle and pointing straight
    downwards. In Cali, all the stuff you have ever read or heard about
    male insecurity, phallic symbols, and so on, is almost tediously
    verified, everywhere you look.

    Nearby, in the market streets, the shops are disconcertingly full of
    goods, essentials and nonessentials - cheap cameras, exercise gear,
    shower organisers (an item badly needed in La Esperanza). The armless,
    headless mannequins are faithful to the indigenous female type: high
    and prominent backsides, hefty breasts with nipples the size of drawer
    pulls. At the patisserie there is an elaborate cake representing a
    thonged muchacha. Another represents a penis. The testicles are
    hirsute with squiggles of chocolate; the blancmange-hued helmet bears
    a thin swipe of cream, appreciatively indicating the slit. A hen-night
    item, you might suppose. The inscription says 'Chupame, cari-o', in a
    toilingly decorative hand. Suck me, honey. There is no female form for
    it in Spanish - no cari-a. But you wonder. In Cali, maybe the tackle
    cake is meant for the stags.

    That night there was a cookout on a rooftop downtown. The guests were
    professionals, academics; there was music and some dancing - very
    chaste and technical. Yet even here a sexual trap door can open up
    beneath you. At one point a young woman began an innocent conversation
    with a handsome young guest, and after some joking in male undertones
    she was grinningly handed a paper napkin. The suggestion was that she
    would now be able to wipe away her drool.

    All the outer walls around us were topped by shards of glass, varying
    dramatically in size, shape and thickness. If glass-topped walls
    constitute a kind of architecture, then here we had it in its gothic
    phase. In Britain this form of crime prevention was a very frequent
    (and very stimulating) sight in my childhood - but not in my youth.
    Again and again you kept vaguely thinking: two or three generations,
    40 or 50 years - that's how far back they are. Just now, Colombia
    seems to be poised to turn in the right direction. If there is a
    current theme in the evolution of South America, it appears to be
    this: the vested interests (very much including the United States) are
    tolerating an improvement in the calibre of the political leaders,
    with Kirchner in Argentina, Lula in Brazil, and now, perhaps, Uribe in
    Colombia.

    Beyond the silver-studded walls you could see an entire mountainside
    of lights. This was the callampa of Siloe, which, I am told, is
    roughly twice as violent as Aguablanca.

    4. The central divide

    We were on the central divide of the dual carriageway, about 300 yards
    from one of the most decidedly no-go barrios. Three muchachos
    approached. When I offered Marlboros, I got two takers; they lowered
    their heads as they smoked, embarrassed by the fact that they didn't
    inhale. The third boy declined. He didn't say 'No fumo', he said 'No
    puedo fumar'. It wasn't that he didn't smoke. He couldn't smoke (much
    as he'd like to).

    Then he lifted his T-shirt and showed us why. His right shoulder, his
    right breast and his right armpit, where he had recently been shot,
    formed an unmade bed of bandages and brown sticky tape. He had
    recently been stabbed too, and with a vengeance. From his sternum to
    his navel ran the wound, not yet a scar, pink and plump, like a garden
    worm.

    He turned out to be a patient of Roger Micolta's (one of the less
    tractable). His name was John Anderson. This was by no means the first
    time he had been shot, nor the first time he had been stabbed. He was
    16.

    Like everyone else, they were keen to be photographed, but first they
    had to go and get their weapon. After rooting around in a rubbish dump
    across the road, they returned with a sawn-off shotgun. John posed,
    with his flintlock, his knife wound (like an attempt at vertical
    seppuku), his stupidly wonky hairstyle, his trigger-happy stare.
    Abruptly you were struck by the thinness and inanity of it: an
    existence so close to nonexistence.

    It couldn't have been clearer that John Anderson had only weeks to
    live. To say this of human beings is to say both the best and the
    worst. They can get used to anything.

    5. The less-crippled murderer

    And I got used to it too. You find yourself thinking: if I had to live
    in El Distrito, I wouldn't stay at Kevin's but at Ana Milena's, where
    they have cable TV and that nice serving hatch from the kitchen to the
    living room. And if I had to live in La Esperanza, I would gently but
    firmly refuse Sara's offer and try to buy myself into the place four
    houses along, where the guy has the fridge and the fan (and the 10
    dependents). Similarly, I now found myself thinking: you know, this
    crippled murderer isn't nearly as interesting as the crippled murderer
    I interviewed the day before yesterday. And so it seemed. Raul
    Alexander was nothing much, compared to Mario.

    When we called, Raul was lying on his bed watching The Simpsons. In
    Kevin's house, in Ana's house, in Sara's house, there were never any
    young men. When there is a young man in the house, it's because he
    can't walk away from it. He will certainly be a cripple, and very
    probably a crippled murderer.

    With his buzz-cut hair and ingenuous little face, Raul looked like the
    kind of waiter you might grow fond of at a resort hotel. It sounds
    tactless, but the truth was that we were settling for Raul. We had
    hoped for Alejandro. He was the crippled murderer who couldn't get to
    sleep at night if he hadn't killed someone earlier that day. But we'd
    already skipped an appointment with Alejandro, more than once, and
    when we did appear his mother told us he had taken the dog to the vet.
    Was this a particularly savage Latino anathema, or just a weak excuse?

    I thought of the gang verb groseriar (no respetar). And it was a
    relief, in the end, to make do with Raul.

    Asked about his childhood, he described it as normal, which it seemed
    to be, except for a father who remained in situ well into Raul's
    teens. He started stealing car parts, then cars, then cars with people
    sitting inside them. 'One on Monday, one on Thursday.' Then he got
    competitive with a friend: there would now be six armed carjackings a
    day. He started stealing money that was on its way to or from shops,
    factories, banks. He did nine months in prison and emerged,
    predictably fortified. By now the bank deliveries were oversubscribed,
    with queues of blaggers in the street; so Raul started venturing
    within. These weekly capers were not to last. He did 30 months, came
    out for three days, and went back in for three years. During his last
    stretch, Raul killed a man, for the first time, he claimed: payback
    for a stabbing.

    Blooded, his bones made, Raul took a job in an office. That last
    sentence may look slightly odd to a non-Cale-o, but when someone
    around here says that they worked in an office or did 'office work',
    you know exactly what they did: they sat by a phone, on a retainer
    (?250 a month), and did targeted assassinations through an agent for a
    further ?100 a time. Boys who work in offices, incidentally, are not
    called 'office boys', so far as I know, but boys are valued in office
    work, because they are cheap, fearless and unimprisonable till the age
    of 18. Raul would have been in his twenties at this stage. John
    Anderson, though, for example - he may well have worked in an office.

    The most popular day for office murders in Cali is Sunday: that's when
    people are more likely to be found at home.

    Raul's downfall? By this point my faith in his veracity, or in his
    self-awareness, never high, began to dwindle. How did he tell it? He
    had some trouble with a guy who shot his cousin, a murder that a
    friend of his (Raul's) impulsively avenged. There was this consignment
    of marijuana. Raul circled and meandered, and it all seemed to come
    down to a problema, a poker game, a spilt drink - an 'eyebrow'
    venganza.

    We took our leave of Raul Alexander heartlessly early (one of us had
    to get to the airport), and filed through a sunny nook containing his
    wheelchair and his walking frame. When, minutes earlier, I asked him
    how many people he had killed, he pouted and shrugged and said:
    'Ocho?' You thought: oh, sure. But even if Raul was dividing his score
    by two, or by 10, he was nothing much, compared to Mario.

    6. Mario

    He, too, is lying on his bed - apparently naked but for a pale-blue
    towel spread over his waist. The reproductions on the wall of the
    adjacent sitting room - a wooden cottage near a waterfall, a forest
    with a white horse picked out by opalescent sunbeams - prompt you, in
    describing Mario, to seek the heroic frame. You think of the fallen
    Satan, hurled over the crystal battlements. Mario was once very
    radiant and dynamic; but he has made the journey from power to no
    power, and now he lies on his bed all day with his clicker and his
    Cartoon Network.

    Although the long legs are tapering and atrophying, Mario's upper body
    still ripples. The armpits, in particular, are unusually pleasing;
    they look shaved or bikini-waxed, but a glance at the half-naked
    relative in the kitchen, who has his hands clasped behind his head,
    confirms that the abbreviation is natural. Mario's trouble, his
    difficulty, begins with his face. With its close-set eyes divided by a
    shallow bridge, its very strong jaw (full of avidity and appetite),
    Mario's is the face of a mandrill. If you'd seen Raul Alexander coming
    for you, on the street, in a bar, or standing in your doorway, you
    would have tried to resist him, or reason with him, or reimburse him.

    If you'd seen Mario coming for you, in his prime, you wouldn't have
    done anything at all.

    As a seven-year-old, he hid under a cloth-covered table and listened
    while nine peasants, two of them women, killed his father. Mario is
    about 30 years old now: this would have happened during the period
    known as La Violencia (though there is barely a period of Colombian
    history that could not be so called). When he was 12 he made a start
    on his venganzas, killing the first of the nine peasants with a knife.
    He then went on to kill the other eight. Then he gravitated to Cali.
    That's who they are in Aguablanca, in Siloe: peasants, and now the
    children of peasants, drastically citified.

    After a spell in carjacking, then in kidnapping (a vast field), Mario
    was called up for military service. On his discharge he took his
    improved organisational skills and 'went to the woods', supervising
    the production and transfer of talco (cocaine) in rural Colombia and
    in Ecuador. This was itself a kind of military tour; your adversary
    was not the police but the army.

    Mario speaks of his time in the woods with fondness and awe. 'The
    cocaine came in blocks, all stamped - very pretty [muy bonita], how it
    shines [como brilla],' he says. 'Once I saw a whole room full of
    money.'

    He came back to Cali, equipped with discipline, esprit and (one
    imagines) a ton of pesos, and started 'enjoying life'. It is not hard
    to imagine Mario enjoying life: in a city full of terrifying men, he
    would have been universally feared. He took a job in an office, and in
    this capacity he killed about 150 people in six years. But that's a
    lot of venganza to be storing up, and in December 2003 they came for
    him in force. He was at a stoplight when four men on two motorbikes
    pulled up on either side of the car.

    Now Mario's sister served coffee - a profound improvement on the Tizer
    and Dandelion & Burdock you are usually offered in Colombia.

    (It seems deeply typical of Aguablanca that there is never any coffee;
    you trudge from place to place searching for a cup.) Time to go. I
    asked Mario to describe the difference between his first murder and
    his last, and he said: 'The first, with the knife? It was awful. I had
    bad dreams.

    I cried all day. I had paranoia. But the last time? Nada. You just
    think, 'And now I get paid.''

    Mario called for his cloudy trophies, and lay half-immersed in them:
    his handgun (very heavy - to its wielder it must have the divine
    heaviness of gold), his x-rays (the lucent second bullet in the arched
    thorax), and his stainless police record (which cost him ?750). He
    also had his clicker, his clock, and, of course, his transparent
    wallet of urine, taped to the side of the bed.

    They are still after Mario, so it was double deliverance to get out of
    his house. When I thought about it later, though, it seemed to me that
    Mario, with his provenance, was entitled to his hate; and that the
    non-monstrous Raul, with his slight frame and his bellhop's smile, was
    the more representative figure - a leaf in the wind of the peer group.

    Machismo, in its Latin American mutation, has one additional emphasis,
    that of indifference - unreachable indifference. You felt that
    indifference very strongly with John Anderson, on the central divide.
    Any kind of empathy is not just enfeebling - it is effeminate. You
    have no empathy even for yourself.

    So it appears that the Aguablancans are playing a children's game -
    kids' stuff - of dare and taunt and posture, in which they all feel
    immortal. Except that the sticks and stones are now knives and guns
    and hand grenades.

    As you drive back into the heart of the city, you see boys - jugglers
    - performing for an audience that is sitting trapped in its cars. They
    are not juggling with clubs or oranges, but with machetes and brands
    of fire.

    7. The return of death

    On my last day I went to the MSF exhibition of photographs and case
    histories. There were familiar names and faces: Ana Milena, little
    Kevin. On the night the exhibition opened, all the featured victims
    attended, except Edward Ignacio.

    Still recovering from his multiple panga wounds, Edward was shot dead
    earlier that day.

    From there to the cemetery in the middle of town, a small, crowded
    plot of land between the football ground and the busy Texaco. Its
    entrance was almost submerged by roadworks: a steamroller, a cement
    mixer, hillocks of hot tar. Tradesmen had gathered with soft drinks
    and ice cream. A storm was coming, and you could smell the moisture in
    the dust.

    The cemetery was more like a morgue than a graveyard, with the dead
    stacked into a series of thick blocks, each berth the size of a paving
    stone. Every panel had something written on it, at the minimum just
    the name and the year of interment, in Magic Marker; others were more
    elaborate, with framed photographs, poems, avowals ('yo te quiero'),
    figurines, crosses, hearts, angels. We had come with a woman called
    Marleny Lopez. Her husband was one of the few who had been buried in
    the earth. The tombstone gave his name and dates, Edilson Mora,
    1965-1992. This was an engraver's error. Edilson was in fact 37 when
    he died, two years ago. He was playing dominoes with a policeman, and
    he won. This was perhaps survivable; but then the loser had to pay for
    the beers.

    Most of the other dates were shorter than Edilson's: 1983-2001,
    1991-2003. On the whole they got longer as you moved deeper in and
    further back in time. Further back in time, too, the names ceased to
    be Anglophone. And so went Diesolina, Arcelio, Hortencia, Bartolome,
    Nieves, Santiago, Yolima, Abelardo, Luz, Paz...

    I returned from one of the back alleys and found myself in the middle
    of a burial service. There was a coffin, with four bearers, and over
    100 people had come to mourn. This wasn't a gang slaying, a drive-by,
    a bala perdida. A woman had died of a heart attack at the age of 28:
    1976-2004. What happened next happened suddenly.

    I had spent the recent days making believe that death didn't matter.
    Now a bill was presented to me. It was a chastisement to see the
    bitter weeping of the husband, the bitter weeping of the mother. It
    was a chastisement, long overdue, to see death reassuming its proper
    weight.

    Authors in the Front line

    In The Sunday Times Magazine's continuing series of articles, renowned
    writers bring a fresh perspective to the world's trouble spots. The
    international medical-aid organisation MSF has helped our
    correspondents reach some of these inhospitable areas. To donate
    to MSF, visit [3]www.uk.msf.org, or call 0800 200 222

From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  8 22:07:24 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 17:07:24 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Commentary: Arthur Waldron: Europe's Crisis
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502081706120.16114@panix1.panix.com>

Arthur Waldron: Europe's Crisis
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article.asp?aid=11902050_1

    The great transatlantic European-American divorce, about which we have
    heard so much: is it really going to take place?

    A few months ago, from the other side of the Atlantic, it looked like
    a done deal. Seldom had the sheer weight of European opinion seemed so
    monolithically averse not only to American policies but to the
    American character, especially as represented by President George W.
    Bush. Before the November election, polls of the British parliament
    suggested that 87 percent of that body's members would have voted for
    John Kerry; among Tories, only 2 percent stated that they would be
    "delighted" by Bush's reelection. After the event took place, Le Soir
    of Brussels spoke for many in characterizing the reaction of European
    elites as "no longer about policy, but a matter of rage"--rage, the
    paper elsewhere went on to explain, over America's "anaesthetization
    by a detestable mixture of economic-financial interest groups, blind
    militarism, religious fundamentalism, and neoconservative propaganda."

    To be sure, this latest outburst of European America-loathing has
    roots, even deep roots. Readers of a certain age will remember the
    demonstrations in Britain of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament,
    founded in 1957; the massive Europe-wide protests against the Vietnam
    war in the 1970's; or the hysteria over European deployment of
    Pershing-2 missiles in the early 1980's. Since the end of the cold
    war, the debate has shifted somewhat. Today one is more likely to
    hear, in tones of resignation, bafflement, or fury, that Europe and
    America are simply too different, in too many ways, for their one-time
    alliance of convenience to continue.

    "Many U.S. priorities concern traditional power politics," goes one
    line of argument (I am quoting Le Soir again), "while the European
    Union often seems to be groping after a more rule-governed world."
    Another line focuses less on political than on economic priorities:
    Europeans distrust markets and favor state intervention to maintain
    living standards and equalize incomes, while Americans want less
    welfare and more tooth-and-claw competition. ("Only Europe," pleaded
    the London Guardian, can provide a "viable counterpoint to the
    economic brutalism of the American way.") Most importantly, perhaps,
    Europeans see themselves as enlightened secularists while Americans
    are incorrigibly and benightedly religious--and some, like Bush,
    frighteningly so: "God's President," as the London Observer put it.

    And yet, no sooner had Bush been reelected than Europe seemed suddenly
    beset by second thoughts, even if they were not always presented as
    such.

    The single most momentous catalyst for this rethinking was an event
    that occurred on election day itself, November 2. This was the brutal
    murder in Amsterdam, in broad daylight, of Theo van Gogh, a quixotic
    provocateur who had just completed a short film, Submission, about the
    abuse of women under Islam. The film had so enraged Mohammed Bouyeri,
    a twenty-six-year-old Dutch Muslim of Moroccan descent, that he
    ambushed the filmmaker as he pedaled to work, cut his throat to the
    spinal bone with a meat cleaver, and then thrust into his chest a
    dagger to which was affixed a letter threatening the lives of others
    for insulting or blaspheming Islam. Most of those named in the note
    are still in hiding.

    To add irony to gruesomeness, two years earlier this same Mohammed
    Bouyeri, his impeccably tolerant and liberal views expressed in
    perfect Dutch, had been featured in the media as a shining model of
    the success of Holland's official multiculturalism. Now his
    connections to Islamists in Morocco were quickly traced, and
    continuing investigations disclosed an ever-larger network--including
    contacts in Belgium and neighboring states--indicating that he had not
    acted alone. All of Western Europe, it rapidly came to be said, faced
    a similar peril: as Britain's then Home Secretary David Blunkett
    warned on BBC television, al Qaeda "is on our doorstep, and
    threatening our lives."

    That such sentiments marked a change in European attitudes toward the
    threat of Islamic terrorism should be plain enough. Previously, many
    had either derided American concerns on this score or seemed to assume
    that they could avoid the threat simply by keeping their distance from
    Washington. Thus, the Islamist bombings of Spanish railways in March
    2004 led not to a resolve on the part of Spaniards to redouble their
    efforts in the war against terror but, on the contrary, to the
    immediate ousting of their prime minister, who had brought the country
    into the American-led coalition in Iraq. In the Guardian, Polly
    Toynbee, in the course of dismissing Tony Blair as an American stooge,
    scoffed at the "breathtaking Pentagon nonsense about the nature of
    global terrorism, its causes and cures."

    After the murder of van Gogh, little more was heard along these lines.
    Suddenly--one could feel it happening--a whole state of mind seemed to
    disappear. If, as David Pryce-Jones rightly pointed out in the
    December 2004 Commentary, a kind of "fellow traveling" mentality had
    taken hold in Europe where the Islamist threat was concerned, it was
    now being generally acknowledged that one could not escape that
    threat, as the Spanish had attempted to do, by cutting ties with
    Washington; one could only escape it by defeating the terrorists.

    Of course, acknowledging reality is one thing; doing something about
    it is another. In the ensuing weeks, European governments moved rather
    quickly to increase numbers of police, to improve intelligence, to
    strengthen cooperation across borders, and to begin to confront the
    difficulties presented by the millions of Muslim immigrants whom their
    economies require for their survival. Suddenly respectable, even
    mainstream, became talk of identity cards, immigration controls, laws
    requiring imams to preach in the local language, and the need to come
    to grips with the sheer vacuity of what one Dutch politician decried
    as her country's longstanding creed of "passive tolerance," according
    to which newcomers of every kind were welcome and, facing no civic
    requirements or challenges of any kind, were simply invited to join in
    the general, non-conflictive fun.

    Has a line been crossed, then, or will momentary fright, having been
    met by spasmodic gestures of resolution, devolve into lethargy and
    accommodation? It is too soon to tell; but in the fleeting recognition
    that terrorism in Europe is not Washington's problem, and that
    Europeans cannot look to Washington to solve it for them, reality did
    intrude, and, if anything in life is certain, not for the last time.


    Nor is terrorism the only problem affecting Europe's general security
    that, like it or not, Europe alone is going to have to deal with. The
    present European Union, comprising 25 states (with 15 more hoping to
    join), faces unique strategic challenges. Already sharing a border
    with the newly expanded EU are Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, and Russia.
    If and when Turkey joins, Europe will include both it and Cyprus,
    another "Asian" state, and will then, by its own volition, be sharing
    borders with Georgia, Armenia, Iran, Iraq, and Syria.

    In short, the new European Union is forming itself smack in the
    cockpit of geopolitical danger. At the same time, it lacks either the
    material or the diplomatic wherewithal to deal with this danger in a
    forceful or unified manner. As the crisis of freedom in Ukraine
    developed this past November and December, and as Polish President
    Aleksandr Kwasniewski and Solidarity hero Lech Walesa headed for Kiev,
    the stance of the French government was, as a French commentator aptly
    put it, one of "embarrassment." "It can scarcely be an accident," the
    English columnist Philip Stephens dryly observed in the Financial
    Times, "that France's Jacques Chirac and Germany's Gerhard Schroeder
    have not missed the opportunity to keep quiet about Ukraine's orange
    revolution"--an event of far greater consequence for them, and for the
    European Union at large, than anything the United States may or may
    not be doing in Iraq.

    The plain fact is that, for 50 years, Europe enjoyed a privileged
    existence, relieved by the American deterrent of the need to defend
    itself against the Soviet Union. Those days are gone, but Europeans
    are only now beginning to understand what that means. "Europe is
    incapable of guaranteeing, on its territory, the security and freedom
    of movement of citizens and residents who wish to exercise their
    freedom of thought and free expression," lamented the French leftist
    paper LibE9ration after the van Gogh murder. To which might be added
    that it is also incapable of guaranteeing its territory against
    foreign threats.

    Unfortunately, many Europeans are still trapped in the old modes. A
    good example was a headline above a recent Financial Times editorial:
    "Iran's Deterrent: Only the U.S. Can Address Teheran's Nuclear
    Concerns." Can that really be the case? Is not Iran a good deal closer
    to Europe than to the United States--and are not the Europeans
    currently carrying out an initiative of their own vis-E0-vis Iran
    that, rightly or wrongly, excludes the United States?

    But there are other, more heartening signs as well. Just as terrorism
    has haltingly come to be addressed as a European problem, and not
    simply a byproduct of American incompetence or worse, so too are some
    Europeans beginning to contemplate defending themselves. The number of
    men under arms already exceeds that of the United States. The European
    Union has also started its own security program--so far, a minuscule
    one. Some 7,000 EU peacekeepers will go to Bosnia; a rapid-reaction
    force of 1,500, capable of moving on ten days' notice, is in the
    works.

    If the numbers are hardly impressive, that is partly because Europeans
    are not agreed among themselves about whether they really need a
    separate security organization. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, for example,
    the secretary general of NATO, sees "no need to reinvent the wheel."
    Nor is Europe necessarily willing to pay the freight. Currently,
    France spends $45 billion per year on defense, more than any other
    European country (the United Kingdom is next). The entire 25-member EU
    spends $208 billion. The United States alone spends $405 billion.

    But here is a place where, inadvertently (or perhaps I should say
    dialectically), Washington may be playing a helpful role. To reduce
    matters to their most basic, the security of Europe is no longer an
    indispensable security requirement of the United States. Of course
    Americans have values and sympathies, which may eventually add up to
    interests, but in the most hard-headed strategic terms, now that the
    USSR is gone, and with a home-based American ability to destroy any
    target in the world, the details of what happens eight or nine hours
    east by air from Washington will usually turn out to be of far deeper
    concern to Europe than to the United States. If we were to wake up one
    morning and learn that the EU buildings in Brussels and Strasbourg had
    been destroyed, we would surely be shocked, but we would not in any
    way be under direct threat ourselves.

    To this reality, too, more and more Europeans may at last be
    awakening.


    As in security, so in matters economic. At Lisbon in 2001 the European
    Union set the goal of becoming, by 2010, "the most competitive and
    dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world." Recently, this project
    was labeled "a big failure" by none other than Romano Prodi, the
    outgoing European Commission president.

    With five years to go before the target date of 2010, the facts are
    thoroughly dispiriting. According to Gordon Brown, British chancellor
    of the exchequer, speaking early in 2004, "Eurozone" growth for the
    year would be half that of the U.S. and Japan. In the last three
    years, cumulative Eurozone growth was just 3 percent, compared with
    5.5 percent for the U.S. and 6 for the UK. In fact the results proved
    far worse than Brown had predicted. Figures for the third quarter of
    2004 show German and French growth at 0.1 percent.

    Structural unemployment, itself intimately related to European welfare
    policies, is imbedded in the system. In France, unemployment runs to
    10 percent; in Belgium, it is at almost 9 percent in the relatively
    prosperous Flemish-speaking areas, 19 percent in French-speaking
    Wallonia, and an astonishing 22 percent in the capital city of
    Brussels. Germany, where an individual unemployed for more than a year
    can receive up to half his previous net wages for an unlimited period
    of time, has created a system unique in the world for discouraging the
    energetic search for work.

    Moreover, and despite the widespread unemployment, simply to fill
    existing jobs requires a net inflow of 1.5 million migrants a year. To
    bring European work-force participation to U.S. levels would require
    17 million more jobs. Who is to perform those jobs, if not immigrants?

    Fertility rates make the future look even more ominous. In the United
    States, the average woman produces 2.06 children, just about
    replacement level; in the 25-nation EU, the average number of children
    is only 1.46, which means populations will shrink, more immigrants
    will be needed, and, as longevity increases, the young will be
    increasingly burdened by the old.^1

    During a visit to China in October 2004, Jacques Chirac suggested that
    somehow his country and his continent could escape the need for
    internal reform by developing a privileged relationship with the
    "emerging superpower" of China. Whether or not the rise of China is
    inevitable--I have regularly expressed my own doubts about
    this^2--there is no denying that China is indeed growing. But how? Not
    by buying French grain, or by ordering a version of France's
    impressive high-speed train (the producer of which has gone bankrupt),
    or by buying French weapons. China, like India and the other economic
    powers of Asia, is growing by selling things.

    Exports constitute 20 percent of China's gross national product, and
    even its Asian neighbors are having trouble matching the
    bargain-basement prices made possible by Beijing's "disciplined" labor
    force. Great swaths of the American economy have already been laid low
    by Asian exports, Chinese in particular, and we are far better
    equipped to meet the challenge than are the Europeans. So the special
    relationship with China, which Paris has long pursued, is not going to
    save European manufacturing. If present trends continue, a far more
    likely prospect is that it will destroy it completely. When the smoke
    clears, we may well see an Asia much wealthier than before, a United
    States bruised but still standing--and a Europe that resembles
    something like the ruins of the Spanish empire.

    Whatever the sins of the United States, destroying the European
    economy is not among them. But denunciations of American capitalism
    remain legion in Europe, and the European has not yet emerged who will
    seriously engage the massive challenge posed to the continent by the
    growth of the Asian economies. In the meantime, the effects are
    already crashing over Europe like a storm tide.


    Is the economic situation then hopeless? My answer, perhaps
    surprisingly, is no. The continent still disposes of formidable
    material and human resources, and it is not a foregone conclusion that
    attempts to reform its internal problems and misdirections would fail.

    Europe already leads the United States in several dimensions critical
    to growth. It has a larger aggregate economy and far larger exports
    ($1,430 billion as against $986 billion), and, critically, its
    citizens enjoy much higher levels of educational skills. Thus, in a
    recent international study of mathematical achievement, Hong Kong
    ranked first, Finland second, the Netherlands fourth, Japan sixth,
    Canada seventh, Belgium eighth, France sixteenth, Germany nineteenth,
    Poland twenty-fourth--and the United States twenty-eighth. Mathematics
    is, of course, the key to future scientific and technical excellence,
    and in this area the Europeans are far ahead of us.

    Besides, if Europe is to be secure, it will have to reform its economy
    to support its military. So far, opportunism and complacency about the
    steadily declining economy have been the rule, but some influential
    figures are considering how to go about changing this, in the first
    place by acknowledging the magnitude of the impending crisis. An
    authoritative but little studied report by Michel Camdessus, former
    director of the International Monetary Fund, has put matters starkly:
    "We are engaged in a process of descent that cannot but lead us, if
    nothing is done, to a situation that, in a dozen years, will be
    irreversible." But it need not happen that way. Europe's current
    condition has identifiable causes, and if those can be addressed, the
    situation can be improved.

    In France, Nicolas Sarkozy, formerly the finance minister, and
    employment minister Jean-Louis Borloo have published a report
    estimating that by removing barriers to entry into business, France
    could create a million jobs. Wim Kok, the former Dutch prime minister,
    identifies the basic EU problem as "lack of commitment and political
    will," exemplified in the perennial flouting by core EU states like
    France and Germany of the Stability and Cooperation Pact intended to
    reduce deficits and keep European fiscal policies in alignment. Even
    Asian competition is on the agenda: in March, a European summit will
    discuss how to lift the competitiveness of the European economy
    without undercutting the "European model based on solidarity, and on
    compromise between employers and workers."


    It is easy to be amused by such small and wholly inadequate
    beginnings. It is easy to be amused by the actually existing European
    Union altogether, with its grandiose yet undistinguished buildings in
    Brussels and Strasbourg, its shameless feather-bedding and extravagant
    entertainment and conference budgets, side by side with its political
    haplessness, military weakness, book-length constitution, and
    reflexive habit of impotently wagging a finger across the Atlantic
    while ignoring Russia, China, the Middle East, and its own competing
    nationalisms and dysfunctional economies.

    But to be dismissive in this way may be to underestimate the depth,
    and the longevity, of Europe's determination to make something of
    itself as an entity. The project of unification did not emerge from
    some glass and steel office tower. It was forged in the fire of World
    War I, which was when most Europeans understood that they had to
    cooperate; and it was renewed in the aftermath of an even more
    catastrophic world war. Since then, however creepingly, the course has
    been set, and though the voyage has already been overlong, circuitous,
    and ridiculously costly, and will become more so, something like the
    destination may yet be reached.

    The issue is what Europe will look like at that point. Will it be
    vital, actively taking a role in the pressing issues of war, peace,
    and development, or will it be inwardly preoccupied and inert,
    effectively irrelevant to the broader world? For if the EU were
    actually able to pull off its planned integration with even partial
    success, and simultaneously resolve its besetting political and
    economic problems, its potential power could rather quickly be
    converted into real power. But then the same question would arise that
    has been hiding in plain sight all along: is it really in Europe's
    best interest to be seeking this power in order to balance and
    constrain--or overtake--the United States, as the French insist and as
    an inchoate consensus seems to believe today, or might not a
    rediscovery of what the estranged couple have in common be, in fact, a
    precondition for Europe's emergence from its current crisis?

    Here, too, there are some intriguing straws in the wind. To begin
    with, even amid the general consternation at the results of the
    American election, there were those in Europe who viewed things
    otherwise--who indeed saw positive lessons for Europe. In
    mid-November, the well-known French columnist Ivan Rioufol suggested
    that the reelection of George W. Bush should be regarded not as a fit
    of collective madness but rather as an understandable and appropriate
    demand by a majority of Americans that their liberal elites get back
    into line. Then he went further:

    The "conservative revolution" victoriously led by George Bush despite
    the predictions of the media could well be reproduced in France. In
    fact, the aspirations of Americans--values, religion, security--are
    not specific to their Anglo-Protestant culture. . . . France's
    political discourse, just like that of the American Left, only
    imperfectly reflects the preoccupations of its citizens.

    Who knows, in short, where the European Union could go if France were
    led by an international visionary like Ronald Reagan rather than by a
    petty nationalist like Jacques Chirac?

    We hear a great deal about European values, and how they differ from
    their inferior American counterparts. But in practice what we see in
    Europe day to day is a series of low-minded attempts by member states
    to use the EU for their own narrow purposes, or groups of states
    insisting on the indefinite postponement of pressing continental
    issues. These can never constitute a moral compass, let alone a
    direction forward.

    West European capitals today tend not to grasp the degree to which the
    world is moving toward the ideals of economic and political freedom.
    Central and East Europeans are miles ahead on this point, as has
    become clear with the rapid expansion of the EU and the emergence of
    ideological differences between what Secretary of Defense Donald
    Rumsfeld termed "old" and "new" Europe. Reactions to the Ukrainian
    crisis, as I have already suggested, underscored the difference; new
    Europeans instantly grasped its significance, old Europeans fell back
    into silence. As a letter writer to the Guardian observed, "Clearly it
    still only takes a growl from Russia for Western Europe to abandon all
    support for human rights on its eastern borders." One might add that
    it likewise takes only a growl from Beijing to silence any protest at
    Chinese actions which, if carried out far more gently by white people,
    would most certainly be labeled war crimes.

    The noble values of economic and political freedom, pioneered by
    Western Europe, are in low repute in Western Europe, though they are
    plainly what should serve as the EU's missing ideological cement.
    Recently I had a long chat with a Japanese ambassador about details of
    the alliance between our two countries. As we parted and he turned to
    shake hands, he said, "One more thing, Arthur. This is not about any
    of the things we discussed. It is about freedom." I can easily imagine
    similar words coming out of the mouth of a Polish or a Latvian or a
    Czech diplomat. But a French, German, or Italian one?

    After the November 2004 election, a German columnist wrote that "if
    there is one man capable of making a European feel truly European, it
    is not President Jacques Chirac of France or Chancellor Gerhard
    Schroeder of Germany. It is George W. Bush." He was not paying a
    compliment to the American President. Still and all, there may be more
    to his words than he intended. Some Europeans have chosen to forget
    what they were the first to teach the world, but Americans still
    remember and strive to live by it. Nor, on the grassroots level, are
    the two communities so different: to a recent survey asking whether
    the U.S. and Europe share enough common values to be able to cooperate
    on international problems, 70 percent of Americans answered yes, and
    so did 60 percent of Europeans. Sixty percent of both believed NATO
    was important to their security.

    What with its borders in flux and its membership growing, terrorism on
    the increase, and Washington ever more distant, the pressure on Europe
    to rise to its potential is far stronger today than at any point since
    the end of World War II. Historians have no right to be optimistic,
    but events and attitudes like those I have surveyed do sound to me
    like at least a basis for mutual rediscovery and cooperation, albeit
    with modalities redefined. It would be a fine historical irony if
    George W. Bush were to prove a catalyzing agent of this world
    transformation as well.

    Arthur Waldron is the Lauder professor of international relations at
    the University of Pennsylvania. He spent the second half of 2004 as a
    visiting professor of history at the Catholic University of Leuven,
    Belgium.

    ^1 In Europe as in the United States, the economy and standard of
    living are kept afloat by borrowing. Jacques de la Rosi?re, the former
    managing director of the International Monetary Fund, recently
    declared France's public finances "not sustainable."

    ^2 See, for example, "The Chinese Sickness" in Commentary, July-August
    2003.

From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  8 22:10:53 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 17:10:53 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Policy Review: Stanley Kurtz: Demographics and the
	Culture War
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502081709050.16114@panix1.panix.com>

Stanley Kurtz: Demographics and the Culture War
Policy Review, No. 129
http://www.policyreview.org/feb05/kurtz.html

    Stanley Kurtz is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford
    University.

    We moderns have gotten used to the slow, seemingly inexorable
    dissolution of traditional social forms, the family prominent among
    them. Yet the ever-decreasing size of the family may soon expose a
    fundamental contradiction in modernity itself. Fertility rates have
    been falling throughout the industrialized world for more than
    30 years, with implications that are only just now coming into view.
    Growing population has driven the economy, sustained the welfare
    state, and shaped modern culture. A declining population could
    conceivably put the dynamic of modernization into doubt.

    The question of the cultural and economic consequences of declining
    birthrates has been squarely placed on the table by four new books:
    The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity and
    What to Do About It, by Phillip Longman; Fewer: How the New Demography
    of Depopulation Will Shape Our Future, by Ben Wattenberg; The Coming
    Generational Storm: What You Need to Know About America's Economic
    Future, by Laurence J. Kotlikoff and Scott Burns; and Running On
    Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our
    Future and What Americans Can Do About It, by Peter G. Peterson.
    Longman and Wattenberg concentrate on the across-the-board
    implications of demographic change. Kotlikoff and Burns, along with
    Peterson, limn the economic crisis that could come in the absence of
    swift and sweeping entitlement reform.

    Taken together, these four books suggest that we are moving toward a
    period of substantial social change whose tantalizing ideological
    implications run the gamut from heightened cultural radicalism to the
    emergence of a new, more conservative cultural era.

    New demographics

    rawing on these books, let us first get a sense of the new demography.
    The essential facts of demographic decline discussed in all four are
    not in doubt. Global fertility rates have fallen by half since 1972.
    For a modern nation to replace its population, experts explain, the
    average woman needs to have 2.1 children over the course of her
    lifetime. Not a single industrialized nation today has a fertility
    rate of 2.1, and most are well below replacement level.

    In Ben Franklin's day, by contrast, America averaged eight births per
    woman. American birth rates today are the highest in the
    industrialized world -- yet even those are nonetheless just below the
    replacement level of 2.1. Moreover, that figure is relatively high
    only because of America's substantial immigrant population. Fertility
    rates among native born American women are now far below what they
    were even in the 1930s, when the Great Depression forced a sharp
    reduction in family size.

    Population decline is by no means restricted to the industrial world.
    Remarkably, the sharp rise in American fertility rates at the height
    of the baby boom -- 3.8 children per woman -- was substantially above
    Third World fertility rates today. From East Asia to the Middle East
    to Mexico, countries once fabled for their high fertility rates are
    now falling swiftly toward or below replacement levels. In 1970, a
    typical woman in the developing world bore six children. Today, that
    figure is about 2.7. In scale and rapidity, that sort of fertility
    decline is historically unprecedented. By 2002, fertility rates in 20
    developing countries had fallen below replacement levels. 2002 also
    witnessed a dramatic reversal by demographic experts at the United
    Nations, who for the first time said that world population was
    ultimately headed down, not up. These decreases in human fertility
    cover nearly every region of the world, crossing all cultures,
    religions, and forms of government.

    Declining birth rates mean that societies everywhere will soon be
    aging to an unprecedented degree. Increasing life expectancy is also
    contributing to the aging of the world's population. In 1900, American
    life expectancy at birth was 47 years. Today it is 76. By 2050, one
    out of five Americans will be over age 65, making the U.S. population
    as a whole markedly older than Florida's population today. Striking as
    that demographic graying may be, it pales before projections for
    countries like Italy and Japan. The United Nations estimates that by
    2050, 42 percent of all people in Italy and Japan will be aged 60 or
    older.

    Can societies that old sustain themselves? That is the question
    inviting speculation. With fertility falling swiftly in the developing
    nations, immigration will not be able to ameliorate certain
    implications of a rapidly aging West. Even in the short or medium
    term, the aging imbalance cannot be rectified except through a level
    of immigration far above what Western countries would find politically
    acceptable. Alarmed by the problems of immigration and assimilation,
    even famously tolerant Holland has begun to turn away immigrants en
    masse -- and this before the recent murder of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh,
    which has subsequently forced the questions of immigration and
    demography to the center of the Dutch political stage.

    In short, the West is beginning to experience significant demographic
    changes, with substantial cultural consequences. Historically, the
    aged have made up only a small portion of society, and the rearing of
    children has been the chief concern. Now children will become a small
    minority, and society's central problem will be caring for the
    elderly. Yet even this assumes that societies consisting of elderly
    citizens at levels of 20, 30, even 40 or more percent can sustain
    themselves at all. That is not obvious.

    Population decline is also set to ramify geometrically. As population
    falls, the pool of potential mothers in each succeeding generation
    shrinks. So even if, well into the process, there comes a generation
    of women with a higher fertility rate than their mothers', the
    momentum of population decline could still be locked in. Population
    decline may also be cemented into place by economics. To support the
    ever-growing numbers of elderly, governments may raise taxes on
    younger workers. That would make children even less affordable than
    they are today, decreasing the size of future generations still
    further.

    If worldwide fertility rates reach levels now common in the developing
    world (and that is where they seem headed), within a few centuries,
    the world's population could shrink below the level of America's
    today. Of course, it's unlikely that mankind will simply cease to
    exist for failure to reproduce. But the critical point is that we
    cannot reverse that course unless something happens to substantially
    increase fertility rates. And whatever might raise fertility rates
    above replacement level will almost certainly require fundamental
    cultural change.

    Why does modern social life translate into the lower birth rates that
    spark all those wider implications? Urbanization is one major factor.
    In a traditional agricultural society, children are put to work early.
    They also inherit family land, using its fruits to care for aging
    parents. In a modern urban economy, on the other hand, children
    represent a tremendous expense, and one increasingly unlikely to be
    returned to parents in the form of wealth or care. With the growth of
    a consumer economy, potential parents are increasingly presented with
    a zero-sum choice between children and more consumer goods and
    services for themselves.

    Along with urbanization, the other important factor depressing world
    fertility is the movement of women into the workforce -- and the
    technological changes that have made that movement possible. By the
    time many professional women have completed their educations, their
    prime childbearing years have passed. Thus, a woman's educational
    level is the best predictor of how many children she will have. As
    Wattenberg shows, worldwide, the correlation between falling female
    illiteracy and falling female fertility is nearly exact. And as work
    increasingly becomes an option for women, having a child  means not
    only heavy new expenses, but also the loss of income that a mother
    might otherwise have gained through work.

    Technological change also stands behind the movement of women into the
    workforce. In a modern, knowledge-based economy, women suffer no
    physical disadvantage. The ability of women to work in turn depends
    upon the capacity of modern contraception, along with abortion, to
    control fertility efficiently. The sheer breadth and rapidity of world
    fertility decline implies that contraceptive technology has been a
    necessary condition of the change. Before fertility could be reliably
    controlled through medical technology, marriage and accompanying
    strictures against out-of-wedlock births were the key check on a
    society's birth rate. Economic decline meant delayed marriage, and
    thus lower fertility. But contraceptive technology now makes it
    possible to efficiently control fertility within marriage. This turns
    motherhood into a choice. And what demographic decline truly shows is
    that when childbearing has become a matter of sheer choice, it has
    become less frequent.

    The movement of population from tightly knit rural communities into
    cities, along with contraception, abortion, and the related entry of
    women into the workforce, explain many of the core cultural changes of
    the postmodern world. Secularism, individualism, and feminism are tied
    to a social system that discourages fertility. If a low-fertility
    world is unsustainable, then these cultural trends may be
    unsustainable as well. Alternatively, if these cultural trends cannot
    be modified or counterbalanced, human population appears on course to
    shrink ever more swiftly.

    New economics?

    et there are signs that the current balance of social forces is not
    sustainable and may well give way sooner rather than later. That, at
    any rate, is the view of Longman, Peterson, Kotlikoff and Burns.
    (Wattenberg is somewhat more sanguine about our ability to weather the
    coming challenge, although he does not directly address the more
    dystopic scenarios Peterson, Kotlikoff, and Burns float.) Broadly
    speaking, both the free market and the welfare state assume continual
    population growth. "Pay as you go" entitlements require ever-larger
    new generations to finance the retirement of previous generations.
    Longman argues that economic growth itself depends upon
    ever-increasing numbers of consumers and workers.

    Population growth, he argues, drove the Industrial Revolution, and
    there has never been economic growth under conditions of population
    decline. Thus, for example, he ascribes Japan's current economic
    troubles to its declining fertility. And though Longman doesn't point
    to Germany, it us interesting to note that this particular
    low-fertility country is also struggling economically to the point of
    revisiting the famously shorter European work week -- a phenomenon
    obviously related to the struggle to reduce the pensions promised to
    an aging population and premissed on more younger workers than
    actually came to exist.

    Both Longman and Wattenberg raise the question of whether markets need
    population growth in order to thrive. As Wattenberg puts the point, it
    hardly makes sense to invest in a business whose pool of potential
    customers is shrinking. That much might be true, even if entitlement
    programs like Social Security and Medicare were fully funded. But
    Social Security and Medicare are not fully funded. On the contrary,
    America's massive unfunded entitlement programs have the potential to
    spark a serious social and economic crisis in the not too distant
    future. And the welfare state in the rest of the developed world is on
    even shakier economic ground.

    The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the combined cost of
    Medicare and Medicaid alone will consume a larger share of the
    nation's income in 2050 than the entire federal budget does today. By
    2050, the combined cost of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and
    interest on the national debt will rise to 47 percent of gross
    domestic product -- more than double the level of expected federal
    revenues at the time. Without reform, all federal spending would
    eventually go to seniors. Obviously, the system will correct before we
    reach that point. But how?

    Already, senior citizens vote at very high rates -- reacting sharply
    to any potential cuts in benefits. As the baby boomers retire, the
    political weight of senior citizens will be vastly greater than it
    already is. Proposed pension reforms brought down French and Italian
    governments in the 1990s. Even China has been forced by large-scale
    protests and riots to back off from attempts to reduce retirement
    benefits.

    In the absence of serious reform, we may be in for an economic "hard
    landing." Peterson, Kotlikoff, and Burns warn of a spiraling financial
    crisis that could even lead to worldwide depression. Former Federal
    Reserve Board chairman Paul Volcker sees a 75 percent chance of an
    economic crisis of some sort within the next five years.

    What might such a "meltdown" look like? Peterson, Kotlikoff, and Burns
    spin out essentially the same scenario. The danger is that investors
    might at some point decide that the United States will never rein in
    its deficit. Once investors see America's deficits as out of control,
    they will assume their dollar-based securities will be eroded by
    inflation, higher interest rates, and a serious decline in the stock
    market. Should a loss of confidence cause leading investors to pull
    their money out of U.S. securities, it could set off a run on the
    dollar. That would create the very inflation, interest rate increases,
    and market decline that investors feared in the first place. Such has
    already happened in Argentina, which Kotlikoff and Burns use as a
    paradigm in which loss of investor confidence brought down the economy
    in a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy. The danger is that the United
    States and the rest of the industrialized world may already have
    entered the sort of debt trap common among Third World nations. A
    rapidly aging Japan is even more vulnerable than America, say
    Kotlikoff and Burns. They add that, should investors looking at
    teetering modern welfare states and the long-term demographic crisis
    bring down any of the advanced economies, the contagion could spread
    to others.

    Are we really headed for a worldwide economic meltdown that will leave
    tens of millions of aging seniors languishing in substandard nursing
    homes while the rest of us suffer from long years of overtaxation,
    rising crime, and political instability? Kotlikoff and Burns say the
    prospect is all too real, and Peterson implies as much.

    Yet there are also critics of such disaster scenarios. They argue that
    growth rates in the new information-based economy will likely be
    somewhat higher than in the past. Higher rates of economic growth will
    bring in enough revenue to offset the rising costs of entitlements.
    Medical advances are keeping older workers healthy and productive.
    Raise the retirement age by a couple of years, say many, and the
    expanded workforce would boost government revenues enough to offset
    shrinkage in the number of younger workers.

    Peterson, Kotlikoff, and Burns say these fixes won't work. Despite
    increased life expectancy, older workers have generally been retiring
    earlier. It would be politically difficult to force them in the other
    direction. And according to Kotlikoff and Burns, delayed retirement
    produces negligible gains for the economy. When people work longer,
    they save less because they have fewer years of retirement to finance.
    The effects cancel out. Overall investment in the economy is reduced,
    as is the real wage base available for government taxation.

    Kotlikoff and Burns also argue that the apparent productivity gains of
    the late nineties were illusory. Peterson argues that, even if
    productivity gains prove real, the benefit for the deficit will be
    canceled out by increases in discretionary spending.

    The truth is, no one knows what future productivity will be. There's a
    chance rates will turn higher on into the future, yet it seems
    imprudent to rely on luck with the stakes so high. And as Peterson,
    Kotlikoff, and Burns point out, so long as Social Security is indexed
    to wages, revenue gains from higher productivity will be canceled out
    by increased benefits. Even an ideal growth scenario cannot solve the
    entitlement crisis unless Social Security is indexed to prices rather
    than wages. It would seem that politically difficult reform and
    significant de facto benefit cuts are inevitable even on the most
    optimistic of reckonings. And the optimistic scenarios themselves seem
    strained.

    What about the pessimistic scenarios? It would be foolish to predict
    with certainty an economic "hard landing," much less world-wide
    depression. Still, the case that these are at least real possibilities
    seems strong. Even without a "meltdown," long-term prospects for the
    economy and the welfare state in rapidly aging societies seem
    uncertain at best. How exactly will nations like Japan or Italy be
    able to function when more than 40 percent of their citizens are over
    60? Hard landing or not, and the political power of the elderly
    notwithstanding, there seems a very real chance that America's
    entitlement programs will someday be substantially scaled back. But
    what sort of struggle between the old and the young will emerge in the
    meantime, and how will a massive and relatively impoverished older
    generation cope with the change?

    The Coming Generational Storm and Running On Empty are important
    books. Whether or not the reader is ultimately persuaded by these
    premonitions of economic peril, it's time the United States had a
    serious debate over entitlement reform. Nonetheless, there is also
    something problematic in the way that Peterson, Kotlikoff, and Burns
    place the lion's share of blame for our problems on our political
    leadership. True, both parties deserve to be chastised for running
    from the entitlement crisis. Yet even if Peterson, Burns, and
    Kotlikoff are right about that, they put too much blame on politicians
    for what broader cultural and demographic forces have wrought.
    Peterson nods to demography as the background condition for the
    deficit dilemma yet barely explores the link. Kotlikoff and Burns have
    much more to say about the demographic details yet treat our changed
    fertility patterns as irreversible and therefore irrelevant to policy.

    That is a questionable assumption. The growing expense of
    child-rearing, for example, plays a key role in holding birth rates
    down. Peterson, Kotlikoff, and Burns are quick to criticize the push
    for lower taxes, yet rising taxes arguably helped to deepen the
    population decline at the root of our economic dilemma. In 1955, at
    the height of the baby boom, a typical one-earner family paid 17.3
    percent of its income in taxes. Today, a median family with one
    paycheck pays 37.6 percent of its income in taxes -- 39 percent if
    it's a two-earner couple. So the new demography has put us into an
    economic trap. High taxes depress birth rates, but low taxes expand
    demographically driven deficits still further.

    Precisely because we are at an unprecedented demographic watershed,
    politicians have no model for taking these factors into account.
    Political leaders in an earlier era could take it for granted that
    ever-growing populations would keep the welfare state solvent and the
    economy humming. It's not surprising that neither the public nor
    politicians have been able to adjust to the immense, unintended, and
    only gradually emerging social consequences of postmodern family life.
    With their eyes firmly fixed on the underlying demographic changes,
    Wattenberg and Longman are less disposed to browbeat politicians than
    are Peterson, Kotlikoff, and Burns.

    A new conservatism?

    n the matter of the new demography and its social consequences, the
    work of Ben Wattenberg holds a place of special honor. In 1987, 17
    years before the publication of Fewer, Wattenberg wrote The Birth
    Dearth. That book was the first prominent public warning of a crisis
    of population decline. Yet many rejected its message. In an era when a
    "population explosion" was taken for granted, the message of The Birth
    Dearth flew squarely in the face of received wisdom. Subsequent
    events, however, have proved Wattenberg right.

    Despite that vindication, Wattenberg's own views have changed
    somewhat. Whereas The Birth Dearth advocated aggressive pro-natalist
    policies, today Wattenberg seems to have all but given up hope that
    fertility rates can be substantially increased. On the one hand, he
    thinks it unlikely that worldwide population can maintain a course of
    shrinkage without end. On the other hand, he sees no viable scenario
    by which this presumably unsustainable trend might be reversed.

    In The Empty Cradle, Philip Longman takes a different view. Longman
    believes that runaway population decline may be halted, yet he
    understands that this can be accomplished only by way of fundamental
    cultural change. The emerging demographic crisis will call a wide
    range of postmodern ideologies into question. Longman writes as a
    secular liberal looking for ways to stabilize the population short of
    the traditionalist, religious renewal he fears the new demography will
    bring in its wake.

    Given the roots of population decline in the core characteristics of
    postmodern life, Longman understands that the endless downward spiral
    cannot be reversed without a major social transformation. As he puts
    it, "If human population does not wither away in the future, it will
    be because of a mutation in human culture." Longman draws parallels to
    the Victorian era and other periods when fears of population decline,
    cultural decadence, and fraying social safety nets intensified family
    solidarity and stigmatized abortion and birth control. Longman also
    notes that movements of the 1960s, such as feminism, environmentalism,
    and the sexual revolution, were buttressed by fears of a population
    explosion. Once it becomes evident that our real problem is the
    failure to reproduce, these movements and attitudes could weaken.

    Longman's greatest fear is a revival of fundamentalism, which he
    defines broadly as any movement that relies on ancient myth and
    legend, whether religious or not, "to oppose modern, liberal, and
    commercial values." Religious traditionalists tend to have large
    families (relatively speaking). Secular modernists do not. Longman's
    fear is that, over time, Western secular liberals will shrink as a
    portion of world population while, at home and abroad, traditionalists
    will flourish. To counter this, and to solve the larger
    demographic-economic crisis, Longman offers some very thoughtful
    proposals for encouraging Americans to have more children. Substantial
    tax relief for parents is the foundation of his plan.

    Longman has thought this problem through very deeply. Yet, in some
    respects, his concerns seem odd and exaggerated. He lumps American
    evangelicals together with Nazis, racists, and Islamicists in the same
    supposed opposition to all things modern. This is more interesting as
    a specimen of liberal prejudice than as a balanced assessment of the
    relationship between Christianity and modernity. Moreover, the mere
    fact that religious conservatives have more children than secular
    liberals is no guarantee that those children will remain untouched by
    secular culture.

    Still, Longman rightly sees that population decline cannot be reversed
    in the absence of major cultural change, and the prospects of a
    significant religious revival must not be dismissed. In a future
    shadowed by vastly disproportionate numbers of poor elderly citizens,
    and younger workers struggling with impossible tax burdens, the
    fundamental tenets of postmodern life might be called into question.
    Some will surely argue from a religious perspective that mankind,
    having discarded God's injunctions to be fruitful and multiply, is
    suffering the consequences.

    Yet we needn't resort to disaster scenarios to see that our current
    demographic dilemma portends fundamental cultural change. Let us say
    that in the wake of the coming economic and demographic stresses, a
    serious secular, pronatalist program of the type proposed by Longman
    were to take hold and succeed. The result might not be
    "fundamentalism," yet it would almost certainly involve greater
    cultural conservatism. Married parents tend to be more conservative,
    politically and culturally. Predictions of future dominance for the
    Democratic Party are based on the increasing demographic prominence of
    single women. Delayed marriage lowers fertility rates and moves the
    culture leftward. Reverse that trend by stimulating married
    parenthood, and the country grows more conservative -- whether in a
    religious mode or not.

    But can the cultural engines of postmodernity really be thrown into
    reverse? After all, people don't decide to have children because they
    think it will help society. They act on their personal desires and
    interests. Will women stop wanting to be professionals? Is it
    conceivable that birth control might become significantly less
    available than it is today? It certainly seems unlikely that any free
    Western society would substantially restrict contraception, no matter
    how badly its population was dwindling.

    Yet it is important to keep in mind that decisions about whether and
    when to have children may someday take place in a markedly different
    social environment. As mentioned, children are valued in traditional
    societies because of the care they provide in old age. In the
    developed world, by contrast, old age is substantially provisioned by
    personal savings and the welfare state. But what will happen if the
    economy and the welfare state shrink significantly? Quite possibly,
    people will once again begin to look to family for security in old age
    -- and childbearing might commensurately appear more personally
    necessary.

    If a massive cohort of elderly citizens find themselves in a chronic
    state of crisis, the lesson for the young will be clear. Wattenberg
    notes that pro-natalist policies have failed wherever they've been
    tried. Yet in conditions of serious economic stress and demographic
    imbalance, sweeping pro-natalist plans like those offered by Longman
    may in fact become workable. That would usher in a series of deeper
    cultural changes, most of them pointing society in a more conservative
    direction.

    Then again, we may finesse the challenge of a rapidly aging society by
    some combination of increased productivity, entitlement reform, and
    delayed retirement. In that case, fertility will continue to fall, and
    world population will shrink at compounding speed. The end result
    could be crisis or change further down the road, or simply substantial
    and ongoing reductions in world population, with geostrategic
    consequences difficult to predict. One way or the other, it would seem
    that our social order is in motion.

    New eugenics?

    he emerging population implosion, then, may be taken in part as a
    challenge to Francis Fukuyama's "end of history" thesis. As Fukuyama
    himself came to recognize in his 2002 book, Our Posthuman Future, the
    greatest challenge to the "end of history" idea is the prospect that
    biotechnology might work a fundamental change in human nature and
    society. In the form of modern contraception, it may already have done
    so. And contraception could be only the beginning.

    Like others who warn of the dangers of biotechnology, Fukuyama is most
    concerned about the prospect that genetic engineering could undermine
    the principles of liberty and equality. If children are genetically
    engineered for greater health, strength, or intellectual capacity,
    erstwhile liberal society could be plunged into a brave new world of
    genetically-based class hierarchy.

    That is a grave concern, yet there may still be others. The disruptive
    effects of biotechnology will play out in a depopulating world --
    perhaps a world shadowed by economic and cultural crisis. So the
    immediate challenge of biotechnology to human history is the prospect
    that the family might be replaced by a bioengineered breeding system.
    Artificial wombs, not the production of supermen, may soon be the
    foremost social challenge posed by advancing science. Certainly, there
    is a danger that genetic engineering may someday lead to class
    distinctions. But the pressure on the bioengineers of the future will
    be to generate population. If and when the prospect of building
    "better" human beings becomes real, it will play out in the context of
    a world under radical population pressure. That population crunch will
    likely shape the new genetics at every turn.

    With talk of artificial wombs and the end of the family, we are a long
    way from the idea of a conservative religious revival. The truth is,
    the possibility of a population crisis simultaneously raises the
    prospect of conservative revival and eugenic nightmare. In his
    landmark book on Western family decline, Disturbing the Nest,
    sociologist David Popenoe traces out contrasting ideal-typical
    scenarios by which the Western family might be either strengthened or
    further eroded. Looking at these scenarios, it's evident that a
    population crisis could trigger either one.

    What could reverse the decline of the Western nuclear family? Anything
    that might counter the affluence, secularism, and individualism that
    led to family decline in the first place, says Popenoe. Economic
    decline could force people to depend on families instead of the state.
    A religious revival could restore traditional mores. And a revised
    calculation of rational interest in light of social chaos could call
    the benefits of extreme individualism into question. We've already
    seen that a demographic-economic crisis could invoke all three of
    these mechanisms.

    But what about the reverse scenario, in which the nuclear family would
    entirely disappear? According to Popenoe, the end of the nuclear
    family would come through a further development of our growing
    tendency to separate pair-bonding from sex and procreation. Especially
    in Europe, marriage is morphing into parental cohabitation. And in
    societies where parents commonly cohabit, the practice of "living
    alone together" is emerging. There unmarried parents remain "together"
    yet live in separate households, only one of them with a child. And of
    course, intentional single motherhood by older unmarried women --
    Murphy Brown-style -- is another dramatic repudiation of the nuclear
    family. The next logical step in all this would be for single mothers
    to turn their children over to some other individual or group for
    rearing. That would spell the definitive end of the nuclear family.

    A prolonged economic crisis accompanied by widespread concern over
    depopulation would undoubtedly place feminism under pressure. Yet it's
    unlikely that postmodern attitudes toward women, work and family could
    be swept aside -- or even significantly modified -- without a major
    cultural struggle. A eugenic regime would be the logical way to
    safeguard feminist goals in a depopulating world, and there is ample
    precedent for an alliance between eugenics and feminism.

    After all, birth control pioneers like Margaret Sanger in the United
    States and Marie Stopes in England blended feminism and eugenics at
    the outset of the twentieth century. As birth control came into wide
    use, fertility sharply declined -- particularly among the upper
    classes, which had access to the technology. Alarmed by the relative
    decline of the elites, Teddy Roosevelt urged upper-class women to have
    more children. Even progressives began to question their commitment to
    women's rights. Margaret Sanger's response was to promote a eugenic
    regime of forced sterilization and birth control among the unfit.
    Instead of urging "the intelligent" to have more children, Sanger
    advocated the suppression of births among "the insane and the
    blemished."

    The women's movement of the 1960s forged still more links between
    feminism and eugenics. Shulamith Firestone's 1970 classic, The
    Dialectic of Sex, argued that women would truly be free only when
    released from the burden of reproduction. Today, as scientists work to
    engineer embryos in the laboratory, while others devise technology to
    save premature babies at ever earlier stages of development, the
    possibility that a viable artificial womb will someday be created has
    emerged. While feminists are divided on the issue, many look forward
    to the prospect.

    Thus, if faced with an ultimate choice between feminist hopes of
    workplace equality with men and society's simultaneous need for more
    children, it is not hard to imagine that some on the cultural left
    would opt for technological outsourcing -- surrogacy in various forms
    -- as a way out. To some extent, this phenomenon has already begun:
    Consider the small but growing numbers of older, usually career women
    who choose and pay younger women to carry babies for them. As with
    Sanger and Firestone, eugenics may be seen by some as the "logical"
    alternative to pressure to restore the traditional family.

    Christine Rosen, who has usefully thought through the prospects and
    implications of "ectogenesis," suggests that objections to the human
    exploitation inherent in surrogacy could actually propel a shift
    toward artificial wombs. Of course, that would only complete the
    commodification of childbirth itself -- weakening if not eliminating
    the parent-child bond. And if artificial wombs one day become "safer"
    than human gestation, insurers might begin to insist on our not giving
    birth the old-fashioned way.

    Such dark possibilities demand serious intellectual attention. Neither
    principled objections to tampering with human nature nor instinctive
    horror at the thought of it suffice to meet the challenge of the new
    eugenics. Philosophy and instinct must be welded to a compelling
    social vision. The course and consequences of world population decline
    offer just such a vision. In the end, philosophical principles and
    reflexive horror are guardians of the social order, yet without a
    lively vision of the social order they are protecting, these guardians
    cannot properly do their work.

    New choices

    ven in the celebrated image of the conservative who stands athwart
    history yelling "Stop!" there is a subtle admission of modernization's
    inevitability. Tocqueville saw history's trend toward ever greater
    individualism as an irresistible force. The most we could do, he
    thought, was to balance individualism with modern forms of religious,
    family, and civic association. Today, even Tocqueville's cherished
    counterweights to radical individualism are disappearing --
    particularly in the sphere of the family.

    It is indeed tempting to believe that the fundamental social changes
    initiated in the 1960s have by now become irreversible. Widespread
    contraception, abortion, women in the workforce, marital decline,
    growing secularism and individualism -- all seem here to stay. Looked
    at from a longer view, however, the results are not really in. We
    haven't yet seen the passing of even the great demographic wave of the
    "baby boom." The latter half of the twentieth century may someday be
    seen not as ushering in the end of history, but as a transition out of
    modernity and into a new, prolonged, and culturally novel era of
    population shrinkage.

    The most interesting and unanticipated prospect of all would be a
    conservatism. Of our authors, only Longman has explored the potential
    ideological consequences of the new demography. In effect, Longman
    wrote his book to forestall a religiously-based conservatism
    precipitated by demographic and economic decline. Yet even Longman may
    underestimate the potential for conservative resurgence.

    It wouldn't take a full-scale economic meltdown, or even a relative
    disparity in births between fundamentalists and secularists, to change
    modernity's course. Chronic low-level economic stress in a rapidly
    aging world may be enough. There is good reason to worry about the
    fate of elderly boomers with fragile families, limited savings, and
    relatively few children to care for them. A younger generation of
    workers will soon feel the burden of paying for the care of this
    massive older generation. The nursing shortage, already acute, will
    undoubtedly worsen, possibly foreshadowing shortages in many other
    categories of workers. Real estate values could be threatened by
    population decline. And all these demographically tinged issues, and
    more, will likely become the media's daily fare.

    In such an atmosphere, a new set of social values could emerge along
    with a fundamentally new calculation of personal interest. Modernity
    itself may come in for criticism even as a new appreciation for the
    benefits of marriage and parenting might emerge. A successful
    pronatalist policy (if achieved by means of the conventional family
    rather than through surrogacy or artificial wombs) would only
    reinforce the conservative trend. In that case we will surely find
    that it is cultural radicals standing athwart history's new trend
    yelling "Stop!"

    Humankind faces three fundamental choices in the years ahead: at least
    a partial restoration of traditional social values, a radical new
    eugenics, or endless and compounding population decline. For a long
    time, this choice may not be an either/or. Divisions will likely
    emerge both within and between societies on how to proceed. Some
    regions may grow more traditional, others may experiment with radical
    new social forms, while still others may continue to shrink. And a
    great deal will depend upon an economic future that no one can predict
    with certainty. In any case, the social innovations of the modern
    world are still being tested, and the outcome is unresolved.

    Feedback? Email [10]polrev at hoover.stanford.edu. Or send us a


From checker at panix.com  Tue Feb  8 22:14:39 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 17:14:39 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Towards a truly clever Artificial Intelligence
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502081711300.16114@panix1.panix.com>

Towards a truly clever Artificial Intelligence
http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/information_technology/report-39894.html
The University of Reading 04.02.2005 
Craig Hillsley

[See you on Easter!]

    A pioneering new way of creating computer programs could be used in
    the future to design and build robots with minds that function like
    that of a human being, according to a leading researcher at The
    University of Reading.
    Dr James Anderson, of the Universitys Department of Computer Science,
    has developed for the first time the perspective simplex, or Perspex,
    which is a way of writing a computer program as a geometrical
    structure, rather than as a series of instructions.
    Not only does the invention of the Perspex make it theoretically
    possible for us to develop robots with minds that learn and develop,
    it also provides us with clues to answer the philosophical conundrum
    of how minds relate to bodies in living beings.
    A conventional computer program comprises of a list of instructions,
    and if one of those instructions goes missing or is damaged then the
    whole program crashes. However, with the Perspex, the program works
    rather like a neural network and is able to bridge gaps and continue
    running and developing even when it sustains considerable damage.
    "All computer programs can be written in terms of the Perspex.
    Essentially, it is a new, geometrical computer instruction that looks
    like an artificial neuron. Any existing computer program can be
    compiled into a network of these neurons".
    The Perspex links the geometry of the physical world with the
    structure of computations so, to the extent that mind is computable,
    the Perspex provides one solution to the centuries-old problem of how
    mind arises in physical bodies.
    "Perspexes exist in a mathematical space called perspex space. Perspex
    space can describe the ordinary space we live in, along with all of
    the physical bodies that make up our space, and all of the minds that
    arise from physical bodies. It provides a model that is accurate
    enough for a robot to use to describe its own mind and body".
    Perspex programs show the very human trait of periodic recovery and
    relapse when they are damaged; perhaps for the same reason. The
    Perspex tells us how mind can relate to body so the geometrical
    properties that govern a Perspex programs injury and recovery also
    apply to us because our bodies exist in space. We share a common
    geometry, and this has implications for our minds and bodies. For the
    first time, the Perspex makes computer programs prone to injury,
    illness, and recovery like a human being. And a computer program that
    continues developing despite damaged, erroneous, and lost data means
    that, in the future, we could have computers that are able to develop
    their own minds despite, or because of, the rigours of living in the
    world.
    The Perspex allows global reasoning to be attained with just one
    initial instruction. So a Perspex program can operate on the whole of
    a problem before it attends to the myriad of detail. This is very much
    like human strategic thinking. It arises from the geometry of the
    Perspex, not from the specific detail of the program that is being
    run. This tells us that strategic thinking can be a property of the
    way our brains are constructed and is not necessarily to do with the
    substance of what we happen to be thinking about. It might be that
    some people are better at strategic thinking than others because of
    the geometry of their brains."

References

   73. http://www.reading.ac.uk/
   76. http://www.innovations-report.com/reports/reports.php?typ=7&anzeige=0
   77. http://www.alphagalileo.org/
   78. http://www.netzgut.de/
   79. http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/information_technology/inhalt_6.html


From anonymous_animus at yahoo.com  Wed Feb  9 04:05:40 2005
From: anonymous_animus at yahoo.com (Michael Christopher)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 20:05:40 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] skimming long articles on paleopsych
In-Reply-To: <200502081931.j18JVgj24250@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <20050209040540.71794.qmail@web30807.mail.mud.yahoo.com>


Does anyone else find the long postings here difficult
to get through? Lately I find myself skimming the
list, unable to give full attention to many posts
because of the very long articles. Would it be
possible to post a couple paragraphs with a link,
instead of a multipage article?

Michael

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 


From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Wed Feb  9 04:17:59 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 21:17:59 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] skimming long articles on paleopsych
In-Reply-To: <20050209040540.71794.qmail@web30807.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <20050209040540.71794.qmail@web30807.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <42098EF7.8020305@solution-consulting.com>

I don't read them all - I read the first paragraph and delete 90% but 
the 10% I keep are worth it! I have been supportive of Frank's 
contribution because of those pearls of great price among all the slimy 
stuff.
Lynn

Michael Christopher wrote:

>Does anyone else find the long postings here difficult
>to get through? Lately I find myself skimming the
>list, unable to give full attention to many posts
>because of the very long articles. Would it be
>possible to post a couple paragraphs with a link,
>instead of a multipage article?
>
>Michael
>
>__________________________________________________
>Do You Yahoo!?
>Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
>http://mail.yahoo.com 
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>
>  
>



From waluk at earthlink.net  Wed Feb  9 04:20:49 2005
From: waluk at earthlink.net (G. Reinhart-Waller)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 20:20:49 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] skimming long articles on paleopsych
References: <20050209040540.71794.qmail@web30807.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <03c201c50e5e$bd24fe00$7a06f604@S0027397558>


Long postings lull me to sleep.  Granted that there are 
some linguists in the group.....those who love their 
words and formations.....but, hey.....short and sweet 
is my cup of tea.  Come to think of it....how can 
anyone post a very long discourse on his cellphone?  To 
learn brevity is an art.  Poetic too.

Gerry

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Christopher" 
<anonymous_animus at yahoo.com>
To: <paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2005 8:05 PM
Subject: [Paleopsych] skimming long articles on 
paleopsych


>
> Does anyone else find the long postings here 
> difficult
> to get through? Lately I find myself skimming the
> list, unable to give full attention to many posts
> because of the very long articles. Would it be
> possible to post a couple paragraphs with a link,
> instead of a multipage article?
>
> Michael
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam 
> protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> 




From shovland at mindspring.com  Wed Feb  9 16:12:53 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 08:12:53 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Iraq Elections: Day 10 and no results
Message-ID: <01C50E7F.27B8DFF0.shovland@mindspring.com>

What would happen if the Bushies try to cheat the Shia?

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net




From shovland at mindspring.com  Wed Feb  9 18:45:00 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 10:45:00 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Just deserts for a bad idea
Message-ID: <01C50E94.687194F0.shovland@mindspring.com>

Morning Edition </templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=3>, February 9, 2005 . 
"The board of directors of Hewlett-Packard calls for the resignation of chairman and chief executive 
Carly Fiorina. Fiorina made a mark as the first woman president, CEO and chairman of a major 
computer company, and steered HP through its merger with Compaq." 

Every time my HP computer boots up it says "Innovate."  That's exactly what she didn't do.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net




From shovland at mindspring.com  Thu Feb 10 03:40:12 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 19:40:12 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Iraq: An Inconvenient Election
Message-ID: <01C50EDF.2C967180.shovland@mindspring.com>

Do you remember the orgy of happy talk
that occurred in the days following the
election in Iraq?

One would have thought that Jesus Christ
had returned to Earth and was performing
miracles on a grand scale.

The Golden Age of Democracy and Freedom
had dawned, and the President's partisans
were wallowing in deep vats of self-congratulation.

And now a great fog of distraction has settled
over us.  

Everything but the election is the moment by 
moment subject of the talking heads.  

A massive effort to promote tort deform,
Social Insecurity, and Medicare Drug Fraud
commands our attention.

Meanwhile, the unelected but Elect election
officials of Iraq continue to sift through the ballots
like demented Alchemists eternally filtering
their precious fluids in search of the true gold.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net




From shovland at mindspring.com  Thu Feb 10 16:53:25 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 08:53:25 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Iraq Election Does Not Look Good
Message-ID: <01C50F4D.FC48E020.shovland@mindspring.com>

More than any administration I can remember,
the Bushies live by the notion that the appearance
is the reality.

That being the case, the appearance is that
something went wrong in the Iraqi elections,
and the American public may accept that as 
the reality.

And if something could go wrong there, why
not here?

If they are concerned about taking their time
to get it right over there, why was there such
a rush to declare the outcome over here?

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net




From shovland at mindspring.com  Thu Feb 10 19:05:10 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 11:05:10 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] inconvenient election
Message-ID: <01C50F60.63E905E0.shovland@mindspring.com>


Steve, this is bordering on incoherent. I am concerned about you.


Do you remember the orgy of happy talk
that occurred in the days following the
election in Iraq?

(Actually, there was plenty of "well, let's not get carried away" talk in 
the media. This paragraph makes little sense.)

One would have thought that Jesus Christ
had returned to Earth and was performing
miracles on a grand scale.

(No one I know thought that - this seems a bit delusional on your part, 
Steve)

The Golden Age of Democracy and Freedom
had dawned, and the President's partisans
were wallowing in deep vats of self-congratulation.

(No, there was some happiness the goal had been reached, but awareness it 
is just a first step. Many things can yet go wrong.)

And now a great fog of distraction has settled
over us.

(Who specifically? I don't feel distracted!)

Everything but the election is the moment by
moment subject of the talking heads.

(Old news? Old story! So what? Life moves on. When Iraq writes the 
constitution, it will be news again.)

A massive effort to promote tort deform,
Social Insecurity, and Medicare Drug Fraud
commands our attention.

(hate speech is not a sufficient substitute for careful thought, Steve. 
Surely you are smarter than what this use of mislabeling would imply. 
Dialog requires mutual respect; as I learned in the army, we must always 
respect our enemy. To fail to do so means we disrespect ourselves. ee 
cummings said something like, 'unbeing returns upon the unself, space being 
curved.' Hate speech will eventually rebound on yourself, and it will cause 
more suffering. Must you suffer?)

Meanwhile, the unelected but Elect election
officials of Iraq continue to sift through the ballots
like demented Alchemists eternally filtering
their precious fluids in search of the true gold.

(Now you are completely incoherent. Steve, get a grip! You need to 
cultivate some compassion and peace. Since you are anti-christian, I would 
suggest Buddhism, an excellent religion that doesn't require you believe in 
any God. Please give it a try.)

lj

Steve Hovland





From dsmith06 at maine.rr.com  Thu Feb 10 23:34:36 2005
From: dsmith06 at maine.rr.com (David Smith)
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 18:34:36 -0500
Subject: [Paleopsych] 4th Annual William D. Hamilton Memorial Lecture:
	Daniel C. Dennett on Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
Message-ID: <01f801c50fc9$1549ac00$0300a8c0@dad>

 
New England Institute for Cognitive Science and Evolutionary Psychology
4th Annual William D. Hamilton Memorial Lecture

Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
Daniel C. Dennett
April 29, 2005 at 7:00 PM 

CHP Room, Parker Pavilion
Westbrook College Campus
University of New England,
716 Stevens Avenue, Portland, Maine.

What kind of explanation can the natural sciences provide for the variety of religious practices and beliefs? One possibility, of course, is that it is simply the truth, and that all human groups discover this in the same way that they discover that food and water are necessary for survival, but there are other possible explanations that may shed light on the powerful influence of religion in all contemporary societies. 

Daniel C. Dennett is the author of Freedom Evolves (Viking Penguin, 2003) and Darwin's Dangerous Idea (Simon &Schuster, 1995), is University Professor and Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. His first book, Content and Consciousness, appeared in 1969, followed by Brainstorms (1978), Elbow Room (1984), The Intentional Stance (1987), Consciousness Explained (1991), Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995), Kinds of Minds (1996), and Brainchildren: A Collection of Essays 1984-1996 (MIT Press and Penguin, 1998). He co-edited The Mind's I with Douglas Hofstadter in 1981. He is the author of over two hundred scholarly articles on various aspects on the mind, published in journals ranging from Artificial Intelligence and Behavioral and Brain Sciences to Poetics Today and the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. He gave the John Locke Lectures at Oxford in 1983, the Gavin David Young Lectures at Adelaide, Australia, in 1985, the Tanner Lecture at Michigan in 1986, and the Jean Nicod lectures at Paris in 2001among many others. He has received two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Science. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1987. He was the Co-founder (in 1985) and Co-director of the Curricular Software Studio at Tufts, and has helped to design museum exhibits on computers for the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Science in Boston, and the Computer Museum in Boston.




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From shovland at mindspring.com  Fri Feb 11 06:06:34 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 22:06:34 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] RE: An improvement -
Message-ID: <01C50FBC.C9778A10.shovland@mindspring.com>

I'm aware that you tend to be cerebral.

Beware.  A Limbic Warrior like me will
use that to f*** up your head :-)

I would refer you to the work on emotional
intelligence for a survey of the power you
are missing.

There are at least 4 major areas where
the right is not contributing anything, and
where the left could take over if they
wished:  Budget Deficit, Trade Deficit,
Health Care, and Energy Policy.

I think that Iraq will prove to be a disaster
and that the real national interests of the
US will be badly damaged by that failure.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
Sent:	Thursday, February 10, 2005 8:39 PM
To:	Steve Hovland
Subject:	Re: An improvement -

Certainly I would miss that. Not big on poetry anyway, except for pretty 
straightforward stuff, so it might go over my head. I like Waddie Mitchell.

I am interested in Left thoughts, but I find them too emotional. There 
is an attempt to change 'liberal' to 'progressive' but, as Opinion 
Journal says, first they have to come up with something progressive. 
Digression. Well, what I am looking for is education, links, data, stuff 
that enlightens me. I am fond of the cerebral cortex, not the limbic 
system. I looked at Moveon.org a whle back, and found it barren of any 
actual exploration. Lacked data. I read townhall.com and find the 
arguments generally well reasoned, except that Ann Coulter who is mainly 
a humorist. Love Tom Sowell.

At the University (adjunct prof), I find the liberals are generally 
incapable of thoughtful discourse, and I wonder if I am on to something 
general or if I am just unlucky. They get irrational. I almost lost a 
good friend recently when I confided that I was reasonably certain that 
Iraq will work out pretty well, and I thought the war was a good thing. 
He was practically shaking with emotion,a nd it took him 3 months to 
calm down. We had lunch two weeks ago, and he has calmed down, but the 
guy thinks that Bush is a devil. I mean, based on what? And he cannot 
lay out a reasoned train of thought.

So perhaps I transfered my frustration with my friend onto you. I am 
seeking intelligent discourse. When the limbic system kicks into high 
gear, the blood flow to the frontal lobes diminishes, so functionally, 
high emotions equal loss of IQ points. I value intellect - data - 
science - reason - see it as 'man in god's image' and that.

Steve Hovland wrote:

>Have you considered the possibility that
>I sometimes write crazy irrational things
>to express my sense of a situation?
>
>More like poetry, perhaps?
>
>Steve Hovland
>www.stevehovland.net
>
>
>  
>



From unstasis at gmail.com  Tue Feb 15 00:36:34 2005
From: unstasis at gmail.com (Stephen Lee)
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 19:36:34 -0500
Subject: [Paleopsych] test again
Message-ID: <951ad070502141636710c5903@mail.gmail.com>

The domain got expired so that is why the messages have been bouncig
the last couple days.  If you can read this then the problem is fixed.

-- 
--
If Nothing Is
Then Nothing Was
But something is everwhere
Just because
--
http://www.freewebs.com/rewander
http://hopeisus.fateback.com/story.html


From shovland at mindspring.com  Tue Feb 15 04:32:39 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 20:32:39 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Democratic Family Values
Message-ID: <01C512D4.541FBCE0.shovland@mindspring.com>

The budget should be balanced.

Everyone person and organization that benefits from this nation should pay part of the cost of maintaining it.

We should export more than we import.

Everyone is entitled to basic health care.

We must become less dependent on petroleum.


Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net




From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Tue Feb 15 05:19:31 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 22:19:31 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy
In-Reply-To: <01C512D4.541FBCE0.shovland@mindspring.com>
References: <01C512D4.541FBCE0.shovland@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <42118663.7050609@solution-consulting.com>

Disclosure: Johnson in press release is not related to me.
Lynn

http://www.umich.edu/news/index.html?Releases/2005/Feb05/r020105
Feb. 1, 2005

 


          Positive emotions slash bias, help people see big picture details

ANN ARBOR, Mich.--Positive emotions like joy and humor help people "get 
the big picture," virtually eliminating the own-race bias that makes 
many people think members of other races "all look alike," according to 
new University of Michigan research.

"Negative emotions create a tunnel vision," said U-M psychology 
researcher Kareem Johnson. "Negative emotions like fear or anger are 
useful for short-term survival when there's an immediate danger like 
being chased by a dangerous animal. Positive emotions like joy and 
happiness are for long-term survival and promote big picture thinking, 
make you more inclusive and notice more details, make you think in terms 
of 'us' instead of 'them.'"

To simulate getting a quick glance of a stranger, scientists flashed 
photos of individuals for about a half second, finding subjects 
recognized members of their own race 75 percent of the time but only 
recognized members of another race 65 percent of the time, Johnson said. 
However, researchers found positive emotions boosted that recognition of 
cross-race faces about 10 to 20 percent, eliminating the gap.

The findings will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal 
Psychological Science.

Johnson, who is completing his PhD work in psychology, and Barbara 
Fredrickson, a U-M psychology professor and director of the Positive 
Emotion and Psychophysiology Laboratory, specialize in the power of 
positive emotions.

Researchers asked a group of 89 students to watch a video either of a 
comic to induce joy and laughter, a horror video to induce anxiety, or a 
"neutral" video that would not effect emotions. They then looked at 28 
yearbook style photos of college-aged people in random order for 500 
milliseconds.

Subjects who watched the comedy tested for having much higher positive 
emotions, while those who saw the horror video had far more "negative" 
emotions. In a testing phase, more images flashed by and they were asked 
to push buttons to indicate whether they'd seen the pictures earlier. 
Those in a positive mood had a far greater ability to recognize members 
of another race, while their ability to recognize members of their own 
race stayed the same.

The researchers conclude that positive emotions bring with them a 
"broadening effect" that helps people see a bigger, broader picture of 
the world around them.


Positive Emotion and Psychophysiology Laboratory 
<http://www.lsa.umich.edu/psych/peplab/>


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From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Tue Feb 15 05:37:47 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 22:37:47 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] Democratic Family Values
In-Reply-To: <01C512D4.541FBCE0.shovland@mindspring.com>
References: <01C512D4.541FBCE0.shovland@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <42118AAB.5090603@solution-consulting.com>

These are excellent values, very conservative, and I can endorse the 
spirit behind them. I don't know how to achieve them because of 
structural challenges in our society.  I wish I could see a way. Any help?
Irony alert: I just posted the piece on how positive emotions make us 
intelligent, and yet I see these serious problems. I guess we should 
pass around some jokes and then brainstorm for solutions. BTW, Fast 
Company December issue: creativity is a function of positive emotions.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/89/creativity.html

Steve Hovland wrote:

>The budget should be balanced.
>
That may require eliminating most of our entitlement programs unless we 
cripple the economy with taxes. Should social security be means-tested?

>
>Everyone person and organization that benefits from this nation should pay part of the cost of maintaining it.
>  
>
I suppose so. Now the bottom rungs of society pay no tax, and in fact 
get many benefits. Most taxes come from the top earners. Perhaps even 
the bottom portions of our society should pay at least a nominal tax.

>We should export more than we import.
>
There is no way I can see that happening for at least 50 years. China 
will continue to dominate the world's economy until an equilibrium point 
is reached, I would suppose. How could we do it? Building barriers to 
imports would cause a catastrophic trade war, I believe. And bankrupt 
Wal-Mart! (good idea). 70% of walmart merchandise comes from china.

>
>Everyone is entitled to basic health care.
>
Well, entitled is a dangerous word. We should work to provide for those 
in need. YET . . . I fear government enforcing this excellent idea, 
since I work in health care, and government in health care is always a 
disaster. Bureaucrats suck the life out of society. Look at HIPAA - 
every doctor I know hates it.

>
>We must become less dependent on petroleum.
>  
>
Total agreement. Bush is very short-sighted in this area. Yet, Clinton 
did nothing for eight years. We need private / public "Manhatten 
Projects" and they aren't happening.

>
>Steve Hovland
>www.stevehovland.net
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>  
>
Steve, I would add: We must control our borders. There is collusion 
between government and business / agricultural interests to make illegal 
immigration easy. Serious enforcement of immigration laws is not a 
reality. I think that is a disaster in the making.

Something should be done about exhorbitant compensation of CEOs. I fear 
government intervention, yet the CEO/lowest paid worker ratio is out of 
control and I believe that weakens our social contract. Any ideas?
lynn



From christian.rauh at uconn.edu  Tue Feb 15 14:05:29 2005
From: christian.rauh at uconn.edu (Christian Rauh)
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 09:05:29 -0500
Subject: [Paleopsych] Democratic Family Values
In-Reply-To: <42118AAB.5090603@solution-consulting.com>
References: <01C512D4.541FBCE0.shovland@mindspring.com>
	<42118AAB.5090603@solution-consulting.com>
Message-ID: <421201A9.7030606@uconn.edu>


Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. wrote:
> 
> Steve, I would add: We must control our borders. There is collusion 
> between government and business / agricultural interests to make illegal 
> immigration easy. Serious enforcement of immigration laws is not a 
> reality. I think that is a disaster in the making.

I strongly disagree with this point. One of the problems that I see with 
the "liberalization" of economies that have been forced upon every 
country in the world is that there is no liberalization of labor 
movement. It is crucial for the balance of a liberal system that not 
only capital and goods flow universaly but that labor follow it.

Let the workers move to where work is. The US won't let that happen 
because wages will drop enoumously, but hey! it's just what happens with 
the price beans when a country enters world markets, except is goes 
up...no one is complaining about that here.

The European empire has adopted this rule for the closest colonies.

> Something should be done about exhorbitant compensation of CEOs. I fear 
> government intervention, yet the CEO/lowest paid worker ratio is out of 
> control and I believe that weakens our social contract. Any ideas?

Agreed. Progressive income tax. Another good solution is increased 
liability proportional to salary because so many CEOs make so much money 
and leave the company broken.

Christian


From shovland at mindspring.com  Tue Feb 15 14:19:21 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 06:19:21 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy
Message-ID: <01C51326.4A1D0CF0.shovland@mindspring.com>

Do most of the positive emotions arise from the limbic?

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
Sent:	Monday, February 14, 2005 9:20 PM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	[Paleopsych] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy

Disclosure: Johnson in press release is not related to me.
Lynn

http://www.umich.edu/news/index.html?Releases/2005/Feb05/r020105
Feb. 1, 2005

 


          Positive emotions slash bias, help people see big picture details

ANN ARBOR, Mich.--Positive emotions like joy and humor help people "get 
the big picture," virtually eliminating the own-race bias that makes 
many people think members of other races "all look alike," according to 
new University of Michigan research.

"Negative emotions create a tunnel vision," said U-M psychology 
researcher Kareem Johnson. "Negative emotions like fear or anger are 
useful for short-term survival when there's an immediate danger like 
being chased by a dangerous animal. Positive emotions like joy and 
happiness are for long-term survival and promote big picture thinking, 
make you more inclusive and notice more details, make you think in terms 
of 'us' instead of 'them.'"

To simulate getting a quick glance of a stranger, scientists flashed 
photos of individuals for about a half second, finding subjects 
recognized members of their own race 75 percent of the time but only 
recognized members of another race 65 percent of the time, Johnson said. 
However, researchers found positive emotions boosted that recognition of 
cross-race faces about 10 to 20 percent, eliminating the gap.

The findings will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal 
Psychological Science.

Johnson, who is completing his PhD work in psychology, and Barbara 
Fredrickson, a U-M psychology professor and director of the Positive 
Emotion and Psychophysiology Laboratory, specialize in the power of 
positive emotions.

Researchers asked a group of 89 students to watch a video either of a 
comic to induce joy and laughter, a horror video to induce anxiety, or a 
"neutral" video that would not effect emotions. They then looked at 28 
yearbook style photos of college-aged people in random order for 500 
milliseconds.

Subjects who watched the comedy tested for having much higher positive 
emotions, while those who saw the horror video had far more "negative" 
emotions. In a testing phase, more images flashed by and they were asked 
to push buttons to indicate whether they'd seen the pictures earlier. 
Those in a positive mood had a far greater ability to recognize members 
of another race, while their ability to recognize members of their own 
race stayed the same.

The researchers conclude that positive emotions bring with them a 
"broadening effect" that helps people see a bigger, broader picture of 
the world around them.


Positive Emotion and Psychophysiology Laboratory 
<http://www.lsa.umich.edu/psych/peplab/>


 << File: ATT00006.html >>  << File: ATT00007.txt >> 


From shovland at mindspring.com  Tue Feb 15 14:31:32 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 06:31:32 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Democratic Family Values
Message-ID: <01C51327.FE0CEF40.shovland@mindspring.com>

These are values, which means that we can
assert them until they are heard.

The budget was in surplus before the Bush tax
cuts which mostly benefited the rich and which
have not resulted in an economic boom.

I have heard that there are many corporations
which do not pay taxes, and many use off-shore
registrations to avoid them.  We can stop that.

China has been booming because American
companies have been moving factories there
to get cheap labor.  

It is widely believed that taking measures to 
defend our economy would cause a trade war.  
We are already in a trade war, and our trade 
deficit is proof of that.

The Great Depression of the 1930's was caused
by a reduction in the money supply, not by
trade measures.  

Spain provides basic health care to everyone
for about $700 per capita per year, whereas 
we spend more than $4,000 per year per capita 
and have 40+ million uninsured.

In the midwest, wind turbines are being
installed very quickly, and there are many
other possibilities.  The main thing is to stop
the active opposition which comes from
Bush oil cronies.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
Sent:	Monday, February 14, 2005 9:38 PM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] Democratic Family Values

These are excellent values, very conservative, and I can endorse the 
spirit behind them. I don't know how to achieve them because of 
structural challenges in our society.  I wish I could see a way. Any help?
Irony alert: I just posted the piece on how positive emotions make us 
intelligent, and yet I see these serious problems. I guess we should 
pass around some jokes and then brainstorm for solutions. BTW, Fast 
Company December issue: creativity is a function of positive emotions.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/89/creativity.html

Steve Hovland wrote:

>The budget should be balanced.
>
That may require eliminating most of our entitlement programs unless we 
cripple the economy with taxes. Should social security be means-tested?

>
>Everyone person and organization that benefits from this nation should pay part of the cost of maintaining it.
>  
>
I suppose so. Now the bottom rungs of society pay no tax, and in fact 
get many benefits. Most taxes come from the top earners. Perhaps even 
the bottom portions of our society should pay at least a nominal tax.

>We should export more than we import.
>
There is no way I can see that happening for at least 50 years. China 
will continue to dominate the world's economy until an equilibrium point 
is reached, I would suppose. How could we do it? Building barriers to 
imports would cause a catastrophic trade war, I believe. And bankrupt 
Wal-Mart! (good idea). 70% of walmart merchandise comes from china.

>
>Everyone is entitled to basic health care.
>
Well, entitled is a dangerous word. We should work to provide for those 
in need. YET . . . I fear government enforcing this excellent idea, 
since I work in health care, and government in health care is always a 
disaster. Bureaucrats suck the life out of society. Look at HIPAA - 
every doctor I know hates it.

>
>We must become less dependent on petroleum.
>  
>
Total agreement. Bush is very short-sighted in this area. Yet, Clinton 
did nothing for eight years. We need private / public "Manhatten 
Projects" and they aren't happening.

>
>Steve Hovland
>www.stevehovland.net
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>  
>
Steve, I would add: We must control our borders. There is collusion 
between government and business / agricultural interests to make illegal 
immigration easy. Serious enforcement of immigration laws is not a 
reality. I think that is a disaster in the making.

Something should be done about exhorbitant compensation of CEOs. I fear 
government intervention, yet the CEO/lowest paid worker ratio is out of 
control and I believe that weakens our social contract. Any ideas?
lynn

_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Tue Feb 15 14:49:30 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 07:49:30 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy
In-Reply-To: <01C51326.4A1D0CF0.shovland@mindspring.com>
References: <01C51326.4A1D0CF0.shovland@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <42120BFA.5020305@solution-consulting.com>

The limbic system plays a role in positive emotions, but they 'source' 
from the left prefrontal lobe. Meditators show much higher left 
prefrontal activity and test as happier. Activity in the right 
hemisphere is associated with more worry and dread emotions.

Negative emotions are experienced in the limbic system, and during 
fear/anger/despair the frontal lobes are 'off line' so to speak, on the 
sidelines and consuming less oxygen.

Steve Hovland wrote:

>Do most of the positive emotions arise from the limbic?
>
>Steve Hovland
>www.stevehovland.net
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
>Sent:	Monday, February 14, 2005 9:20 PM
>To:	The new improved paleopsych list
>Subject:	[Paleopsych] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy
>
>Disclosure: Johnson in press release is not related to me.
>Lynn
>
>http://www.umich.edu/news/index.html?Releases/2005/Feb05/r020105
>Feb. 1, 2005
>
> 
>
>
>          Positive emotions slash bias, help people see big picture details
>
>ANN ARBOR, Mich.--Positive emotions like joy and humor help people "get 
>the big picture," virtually eliminating the own-race bias that makes 
>many people think members of other races "all look alike," according to 
>new University of Michigan research.
>
>"Negative emotions create a tunnel vision," said U-M psychology 
>researcher Kareem Johnson. "Negative emotions like fear or anger are 
>useful for short-term survival when there's an immediate danger like 
>being chased by a dangerous animal. Positive emotions like joy and 
>happiness are for long-term survival and promote big picture thinking, 
>make you more inclusive and notice more details, make you think in terms 
>of 'us' instead of 'them.'"
>
>To simulate getting a quick glance of a stranger, scientists flashed 
>photos of individuals for about a half second, finding subjects 
>recognized members of their own race 75 percent of the time but only 
>recognized members of another race 65 percent of the time, Johnson said. 
>However, researchers found positive emotions boosted that recognition of 
>cross-race faces about 10 to 20 percent, eliminating the gap.
>
>The findings will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal 
>Psychological Science.
>
>Johnson, who is completing his PhD work in psychology, and Barbara 
>Fredrickson, a U-M psychology professor and director of the Positive 
>Emotion and Psychophysiology Laboratory, specialize in the power of 
>positive emotions.
>
>Researchers asked a group of 89 students to watch a video either of a 
>comic to induce joy and laughter, a horror video to induce anxiety, or a 
>"neutral" video that would not effect emotions. They then looked at 28 
>yearbook style photos of college-aged people in random order for 500 
>milliseconds.
>
>Subjects who watched the comedy tested for having much higher positive 
>emotions, while those who saw the horror video had far more "negative" 
>emotions. In a testing phase, more images flashed by and they were asked 
>to push buttons to indicate whether they'd seen the pictures earlier. 
>Those in a positive mood had a far greater ability to recognize members 
>of another race, while their ability to recognize members of their own 
>race stayed the same.
>
>The researchers conclude that positive emotions bring with them a 
>"broadening effect" that helps people see a bigger, broader picture of 
>the world around them.
>
>
>Positive Emotion and Psychophysiology Laboratory 
><http://www.lsa.umich.edu/psych/peplab/>
>
>
> << File: ATT00006.html >>  << File: ATT00007.txt >> 
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>
>  
>



From ross.buck at uconn.edu  Tue Feb 15 15:15:36 2005
From: ross.buck at uconn.edu (Ross Buck)
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 10:15:36 -0500
Subject: [Paleopsych] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy
In-Reply-To: <01C51326.4A1D0CF0.shovland@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <200502151516.j1FFFoh02301@tick.javien.com>

It is interesting that the stimulus for positive emotions here is a
comedian.  We need to know more about the subject of the humor.  Often, the
funniest comedians are quite aggressive in their humor, possibly fostering
feelings of in-group bonding that are quite different from
hearts-and-flowers happiness, and perhaps actually enhancing "us versus
them" feelings.  Could the enhanced recognition of different-race faces
actually be a kind of vigilance?  

Cheers, Ross

Ross Buck, Ph. D.
Professor of Communication Sciences
	and Psychology
Communication Sciences U-1085		
University of Connecticut				
Storrs, CT 06269-1085
860-486-4494
fax  860-486-5422
buck at uconnvm.uconn.edu
http://www.coms.uconn.edu/docs/people/faculty/rbuck/index.htm

-----Original Message-----
From: paleopsych-bounces at paleopsych.org
[mailto:paleopsych-bounces at paleopsych.org] On Behalf Of Steve Hovland
Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2005 9:19 AM
To: 'The new improved paleopsych list'
Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy

Do most of the positive emotions arise from the limbic?

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
Sent:	Monday, February 14, 2005 9:20 PM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	[Paleopsych] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy

Disclosure: Johnson in press release is not related to me.
Lynn

http://www.umich.edu/news/index.html?Releases/2005/Feb05/r020105
Feb. 1, 2005




          Positive emotions slash bias, help people see big picture details

ANN ARBOR, Mich.--Positive emotions like joy and humor help people "get 
the big picture," virtually eliminating the own-race bias that makes 
many people think members of other races "all look alike," according to 
new University of Michigan research.

"Negative emotions create a tunnel vision," said U-M psychology 
researcher Kareem Johnson. "Negative emotions like fear or anger are 
useful for short-term survival when there's an immediate danger like 
being chased by a dangerous animal. Positive emotions like joy and 
happiness are for long-term survival and promote big picture thinking, 
make you more inclusive and notice more details, make you think in terms 
of 'us' instead of 'them.'"

To simulate getting a quick glance of a stranger, scientists flashed 
photos of individuals for about a half second, finding subjects 
recognized members of their own race 75 percent of the time but only 
recognized members of another race 65 percent of the time, Johnson said. 
However, researchers found positive emotions boosted that recognition of 
cross-race faces about 10 to 20 percent, eliminating the gap.

The findings will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal 
Psychological Science.

Johnson, who is completing his PhD work in psychology, and Barbara 
Fredrickson, a U-M psychology professor and director of the Positive 
Emotion and Psychophysiology Laboratory, specialize in the power of 
positive emotions.

Researchers asked a group of 89 students to watch a video either of a 
comic to induce joy and laughter, a horror video to induce anxiety, or a 
"neutral" video that would not effect emotions. They then looked at 28 
yearbook style photos of college-aged people in random order for 500 
milliseconds.

Subjects who watched the comedy tested for having much higher positive 
emotions, while those who saw the horror video had far more "negative" 
emotions. In a testing phase, more images flashed by and they were asked 
to push buttons to indicate whether they'd seen the pictures earlier. 
Those in a positive mood had a far greater ability to recognize members 
of another race, while their ability to recognize members of their own 
race stayed the same.

The researchers conclude that positive emotions bring with them a 
"broadening effect" that helps people see a bigger, broader picture of 
the world around them.


Positive Emotion and Psychophysiology Laboratory 
<http://www.lsa.umich.edu/psych/peplab/>


 << File: ATT00006.html >>  << File: ATT00007.txt >> 
_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych



From shovland at mindspring.com  Tue Feb 15 15:19:43 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 07:19:43 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy
Message-ID: <01C5132E.B97B5C20.shovland@mindspring.com>

Do you know of any exercises for increasing 
one's capacity for empathy?

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
Sent:	Tuesday, February 15, 2005 6:50 AM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy

The limbic system plays a role in positive emotions, but they 'source' 
from the left prefrontal lobe. Meditators show much higher left 
prefrontal activity and test as happier. Activity in the right 
hemisphere is associated with more worry and dread emotions.

Negative emotions are experienced in the limbic system, and during 
fear/anger/despair the frontal lobes are 'off line' so to speak, on the 
sidelines and consuming less oxygen.

Steve Hovland wrote:

>Do most of the positive emotions arise from the limbic?
>
>Steve Hovland
>www.stevehovland.net
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
>Sent:	Monday, February 14, 2005 9:20 PM
>To:	The new improved paleopsych list
>Subject:	[Paleopsych] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy
>
>Disclosure: Johnson in press release is not related to me.
>Lynn
>
>http://www.umich.edu/news/index.html?Releases/2005/Feb05/r020105
>Feb. 1, 2005
>
> 
>
>
>          Positive emotions slash bias, help people see big picture details
>
>ANN ARBOR, Mich.--Positive emotions like joy and humor help people "get 
>the big picture," virtually eliminating the own-race bias that makes 
>many people think members of other races "all look alike," according to 
>new University of Michigan research.
>
>"Negative emotions create a tunnel vision," said U-M psychology 
>researcher Kareem Johnson. "Negative emotions like fear or anger are 
>useful for short-term survival when there's an immediate danger like 
>being chased by a dangerous animal. Positive emotions like joy and 
>happiness are for long-term survival and promote big picture thinking, 
>make you more inclusive and notice more details, make you think in terms 
>of 'us' instead of 'them.'"
>
>To simulate getting a quick glance of a stranger, scientists flashed 
>photos of individuals for about a half second, finding subjects 
>recognized members of their own race 75 percent of the time but only 
>recognized members of another race 65 percent of the time, Johnson said. 
>However, researchers found positive emotions boosted that recognition of 
>cross-race faces about 10 to 20 percent, eliminating the gap.
>
>The findings will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal 
>Psychological Science.
>
>Johnson, who is completing his PhD work in psychology, and Barbara 
>Fredrickson, a U-M psychology professor and director of the Positive 
>Emotion and Psychophysiology Laboratory, specialize in the power of 
>positive emotions.
>
>Researchers asked a group of 89 students to watch a video either of a 
>comic to induce joy and laughter, a horror video to induce anxiety, or a 
>"neutral" video that would not effect emotions. They then looked at 28 
>yearbook style photos of college-aged people in random order for 500 
>milliseconds.
>
>Subjects who watched the comedy tested for having much higher positive 
>emotions, while those who saw the horror video had far more "negative" 
>emotions. In a testing phase, more images flashed by and they were asked 
>to push buttons to indicate whether they'd seen the pictures earlier. 
>Those in a positive mood had a far greater ability to recognize members 
>of another race, while their ability to recognize members of their own 
>race stayed the same.
>
>The researchers conclude that positive emotions bring with them a 
>"broadening effect" that helps people see a bigger, broader picture of 
>the world around them.
>
>
>Positive Emotion and Psychophysiology Laboratory 
><http://www.lsa.umich.edu/psych/peplab/>
>
>
> << File: ATT00006.html >>  << File: ATT00007.txt >> 
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>
>  
>

_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


From shovland at mindspring.com  Tue Feb 15 15:37:08 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 07:37:08 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy
Message-ID: <01C51331.281558A0.shovland@mindspring.com>

If you check in on ThePoliticalSpinRoom on
yahoo groups you will find that at the moment
us lefties are making some very savage
jokes about the Republicans' sex lives.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Ross Buck [SMTP:ross.buck at uconn.edu]
Sent:	Tuesday, February 15, 2005 7:16 AM
To:	'The new improved paleopsych list'
Subject:	RE: [Paleopsych] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy

It is interesting that the stimulus for positive emotions here is a
comedian.  We need to know more about the subject of the humor.  Often, the
funniest comedians are quite aggressive in their humor, possibly fostering
feelings of in-group bonding that are quite different from
hearts-and-flowers happiness, and perhaps actually enhancing "us versus
them" feelings.  Could the enhanced recognition of different-race faces
actually be a kind of vigilance?  

Cheers, Ross

Ross Buck, Ph. D.
Professor of Communication Sciences
	and Psychology
Communication Sciences U-1085		
University of Connecticut				
Storrs, CT 06269-1085
860-486-4494
fax  860-486-5422
buck at uconnvm.uconn.edu
http://www.coms.uconn.edu/docs/people/faculty/rbuck/index.htm

-----Original Message-----
From: paleopsych-bounces at paleopsych.org
[mailto:paleopsych-bounces at paleopsych.org] On Behalf Of Steve Hovland
Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2005 9:19 AM
To: 'The new improved paleopsych list'
Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy

Do most of the positive emotions arise from the limbic?

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
Sent:	Monday, February 14, 2005 9:20 PM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	[Paleopsych] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy

Disclosure: Johnson in press release is not related to me.
Lynn

http://www.umich.edu/news/index.html?Releases/2005/Feb05/r020105
Feb. 1, 2005




          Positive emotions slash bias, help people see big picture details

ANN ARBOR, Mich.--Positive emotions like joy and humor help people "get 
the big picture," virtually eliminating the own-race bias that makes 
many people think members of other races "all look alike," according to 
new University of Michigan research.

"Negative emotions create a tunnel vision," said U-M psychology 
researcher Kareem Johnson. "Negative emotions like fear or anger are 
useful for short-term survival when there's an immediate danger like 
being chased by a dangerous animal. Positive emotions like joy and 
happiness are for long-term survival and promote big picture thinking, 
make you more inclusive and notice more details, make you think in terms 
of 'us' instead of 'them.'"

To simulate getting a quick glance of a stranger, scientists flashed 
photos of individuals for about a half second, finding subjects 
recognized members of their own race 75 percent of the time but only 
recognized members of another race 65 percent of the time, Johnson said. 
However, researchers found positive emotions boosted that recognition of 
cross-race faces about 10 to 20 percent, eliminating the gap.

The findings will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal 
Psychological Science.

Johnson, who is completing his PhD work in psychology, and Barbara 
Fredrickson, a U-M psychology professor and director of the Positive 
Emotion and Psychophysiology Laboratory, specialize in the power of 
positive emotions.

Researchers asked a group of 89 students to watch a video either of a 
comic to induce joy and laughter, a horror video to induce anxiety, or a 
"neutral" video that would not effect emotions. They then looked at 28 
yearbook style photos of college-aged people in random order for 500 
milliseconds.

Subjects who watched the comedy tested for having much higher positive 
emotions, while those who saw the horror video had far more "negative" 
emotions. In a testing phase, more images flashed by and they were asked 
to push buttons to indicate whether they'd seen the pictures earlier. 
Those in a positive mood had a far greater ability to recognize members 
of another race, while their ability to recognize members of their own 
race stayed the same.

The researchers conclude that positive emotions bring with them a 
"broadening effect" that helps people see a bigger, broader picture of 
the world around them.


Positive Emotion and Psychophysiology Laboratory 
<http://www.lsa.umich.edu/psych/peplab/>


 << File: ATT00006.html >>  << File: ATT00007.txt >> 
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paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych

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paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


From shovland at mindspring.com  Tue Feb 15 16:48:56 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 08:48:56 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] How to quickly restore order in Iraq
Message-ID: <01C5133B.30288FD0.shovland@mindspring.com>

Withdraw US forces.

The presence of our army is the main
motivator for the insurgency.

Left to their own devices the Kurds, the 
Sunnis, and the Shias would create order
in their own areas in a matter of days.

Then they could negotiate a union, or
disunion, of their own choice.

Isn't that why we went there, to give
them freedom of choice?


Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net




From anonymous_animus at yahoo.com  Tue Feb 15 20:28:56 2005
From: anonymous_animus at yahoo.com (Michael Christopher)
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 12:28:56 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] government/business in health care
In-Reply-To: <200502151936.j1FJaSh00615@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <20050215202857.17607.qmail@web30805.mail.mud.yahoo.com>


>>I fear government enforcing this excellent idea,
since I work in health care, and government in health
care is always a disaster.<<

--What alternatives do you recommend? I'm not
convinced that business in health care is any less
bureaucratic than government. Business culture, at
least when a few large corporations dominate the
market, seems to have some of the same problems as
government culture. The assumption that the market is
the friendlier force is often detached from an actual
comparison between people's experiences with
government and with business... those who have the
money to pay for good service (money does talk) are
often isolated from what others experience lower down
on the ladder, and they don't always realize the
consequences of making drastic changes in the system
because they are insulated from the effects of those
changes, beyond reducing their own taxes. For many of
the wealthy, as long as their own tax rate goes down,
everything's great. They don't always mingle on a
daily basis with people who don't have the same
resource, and it produces a lag time in the feedback
network that makes a society capable of reaching
balance. Ideally, those who make changes in a system
will be tapped into all levels of that system, and
respond to realtime feedback. Ideally, those who vote
for changes should have at least some contact with
people most affected. That isn't always the case.

My wife, who is from Australia, keeps complaining that
the large companies here don't put real people on the
phone for customer help and give people the runaround.
She feels Australia does better. She can be a little
patriotic about Australia, but then my mom says the
same thing and she's lived here all her life.
Corporations are not always less bureaucratic and
alienating than government, and there can be just as
much red tape, from what I've seen. 

Michael


		
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. 
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail 


From guavaberry at earthlink.net  Tue Feb 15 20:44:08 2005
From: guavaberry at earthlink.net (K.E.)
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 15:44:08 -0500
Subject: [Paleopsych] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy
In-Reply-To: <200502151516.j1FFFoh02301@tick.javien.com>
References: <01C51326.4A1D0CF0.shovland@mindspring.com>
	<200502151516.j1FFFoh02301@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <6.2.1.2.0.20050215153804.038c5e50@mail.earthlink.net>

You learn more because you are happy not scared.
the mother lode :-)
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Literacy/play.asp

Karen Ellis

We need to know more about the subject of the humor.  - Ross Buck, Ph. D.
Do most of the positive emotions arise from the limbic? - Steve Hovland
http://www.umich.edu/news/index.html?Releases/2005/Feb05/r020105 - Lynn D. 
Johnson, Ph.D.


<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>
The Educational CyberPlayGround
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/

National Children's Folksong Repository
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Culdesac/Repository/NCFR.html

Hot List of Schools Online and
Net Happenings, K12 Newsletters, Network Newsletters
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Community/index.html

7 Hot Site Awards
New York Times, USA Today , MSNBC, Earthlink,
USA Today Best Bets For Educators, Macworld Top Fifty
<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>  



From shovland at mindspring.com  Tue Feb 15 21:21:54 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 13:21:54 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] government/business in health care
Message-ID: <01C51361.522C0820.shovland@mindspring.com>

Can you give specific examples of the way in
which government in health care is a disaster?

Problems are often indicators of the need for
process improvement.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Michael Christopher [SMTP:anonymous_animus at yahoo.com]
Sent:	Tuesday, February 15, 2005 12:29 PM
To:	paleopsych at paleopsych.org
Subject:	[Paleopsych] government/business in health care


>>I fear government enforcing this excellent idea,
since I work in health care, and government in health
care is always a disaster.<<

--What alternatives do you recommend? I'm not
convinced that business in health care is any less
bureaucratic than government. Business culture, at
least when a few large corporations dominate the
market, seems to have some of the same problems as
government culture. The assumption that the market is
the friendlier force is often detached from an actual
comparison between people's experiences with
government and with business... those who have the
money to pay for good service (money does talk) are
often isolated from what others experience lower down
on the ladder, and they don't always realize the
consequences of making drastic changes in the system
because they are insulated from the effects of those
changes, beyond reducing their own taxes. For many of
the wealthy, as long as their own tax rate goes down,
everything's great. They don't always mingle on a
daily basis with people who don't have the same
resource, and it produces a lag time in the feedback
network that makes a society capable of reaching
balance. Ideally, those who make changes in a system
will be tapped into all levels of that system, and
respond to realtime feedback. Ideally, those who vote
for changes should have at least some contact with
people most affected. That isn't always the case.

My wife, who is from Australia, keeps complaining that
the large companies here don't put real people on the
phone for customer help and give people the runaround.
She feels Australia does better. She can be a little
patriotic about Australia, but then my mom says the
same thing and she's lived here all her life.
Corporations are not always less bureaucratic and
alienating than government, and there can be just as
much red tape, from what I've seen. 

Michael


		
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. 
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail 
_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Wed Feb 16 03:06:07 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 20:06:07 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy
In-Reply-To: <200502151516.j1FFFoh02301@tick.javien.com>
References: <200502151516.j1FFFoh02301@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <4212B89F.5010703@solution-consulting.com>

I emailed Kareem and asked him. I'll let you know if he answers.
Lynn

Ross Buck wrote:

>It is interesting that the stimulus for positive emotions here is a
>comedian.  We need to know more about the subject of the humor.  Often, the
>funniest comedians are quite aggressive in their humor, possibly fostering
>feelings of in-group bonding that are quite different from
>hearts-and-flowers happiness, and perhaps actually enhancing "us versus
>them" feelings.  Could the enhanced recognition of different-race faces
>actually be a kind of vigilance?  
>
>Cheers, Ross
>
>Ross Buck, Ph. D.
>Professor of Communication Sciences
>	and Psychology
>Communication Sciences U-1085		
>University of Connecticut				
>Storrs, CT 06269-1085
>860-486-4494
>fax  860-486-5422
>buck at uconnvm.uconn.edu
>http://www.coms.uconn.edu/docs/people/faculty/rbuck/index.htm
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: paleopsych-bounces at paleopsych.org
>[mailto:paleopsych-bounces at paleopsych.org] On Behalf Of Steve Hovland
>Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2005 9:19 AM
>To: 'The new improved paleopsych list'
>Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy
>
>Do most of the positive emotions arise from the limbic?
>
>Steve Hovland
>www.stevehovland.net
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
>Sent:	Monday, February 14, 2005 9:20 PM
>To:	The new improved paleopsych list
>Subject:	[Paleopsych] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy
>
>Disclosure: Johnson in press release is not related to me.
>Lynn
>
>http://www.umich.edu/news/index.html?Releases/2005/Feb05/r020105
>Feb. 1, 2005
>
>
>
>
>          Positive emotions slash bias, help people see big picture details
>
>ANN ARBOR, Mich.--Positive emotions like joy and humor help people "get 
>the big picture," virtually eliminating the own-race bias that makes 
>many people think members of other races "all look alike," according to 
>new University of Michigan research.
>
>"Negative emotions create a tunnel vision," said U-M psychology 
>researcher Kareem Johnson. "Negative emotions like fear or anger are 
>useful for short-term survival when there's an immediate danger like 
>being chased by a dangerous animal. Positive emotions like joy and 
>happiness are for long-term survival and promote big picture thinking, 
>make you more inclusive and notice more details, make you think in terms 
>of 'us' instead of 'them.'"
>
>To simulate getting a quick glance of a stranger, scientists flashed 
>photos of individuals for about a half second, finding subjects 
>recognized members of their own race 75 percent of the time but only 
>recognized members of another race 65 percent of the time, Johnson said. 
>However, researchers found positive emotions boosted that recognition of 
>cross-race faces about 10 to 20 percent, eliminating the gap.
>
>The findings will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal 
>Psychological Science.
>
>Johnson, who is completing his PhD work in psychology, and Barbara 
>Fredrickson, a U-M psychology professor and director of the Positive 
>Emotion and Psychophysiology Laboratory, specialize in the power of 
>positive emotions.
>
>Researchers asked a group of 89 students to watch a video either of a 
>comic to induce joy and laughter, a horror video to induce anxiety, or a 
>"neutral" video that would not effect emotions. They then looked at 28 
>yearbook style photos of college-aged people in random order for 500 
>milliseconds.
>
>Subjects who watched the comedy tested for having much higher positive 
>emotions, while those who saw the horror video had far more "negative" 
>emotions. In a testing phase, more images flashed by and they were asked 
>to push buttons to indicate whether they'd seen the pictures earlier. 
>Those in a positive mood had a far greater ability to recognize members 
>of another race, while their ability to recognize members of their own 
>race stayed the same.
>
>The researchers conclude that positive emotions bring with them a 
>"broadening effect" that helps people see a bigger, broader picture of 
>the world around them.
>
>
>Positive Emotion and Psychophysiology Laboratory 
><http://www.lsa.umich.edu/psych/peplab/>
>
>
> << File: ATT00006.html >>  << File: ATT00007.txt >> 
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>
>  
>



From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Wed Feb 16 03:49:22 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 20:49:22 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy
In-Reply-To: <01C5132E.B97B5C20.shovland@mindspring.com>
References: <01C5132E.B97B5C20.shovland@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <4212C2C2.3020207@solution-consulting.com>

Steve, this is a challenging question. I strive for it but don't see 
myself as excellent. Children have to be taught empathy, most would say. 
Here is a link on current thinking:

http://www.nwrel.org/scpd/sirs/7/cu13.html

Buddhism and Christianity both have much interest in empathy. The last 
time I read through the New Testament, I was forceably struck by the 
number of times Jesus is described as having "compassion" which is (1) 
empathy - knowing how another feels, plus (2) a desire to alieviate 
suffering.

Buddhism has many exercises on empathy. Generally, the Buddhist 
perspective is of a kind of detached empathy, where one feels compassion 
as a spiritual exercise. For example:
We have seen that Bodhisattva Kannon of the twenty-fifth chapter, like 
Bodhisattva Yakuo in chapter twenty-three and Bodhisattva Myo'on in 
chapter twenty-four, manifests himself in various forms in order to save 
all living beings. In terms of our own practice, this suggests the need 
for developing empathy, insight and responsiveness with respect to 
others. By discerning the hopes and fears, the sufferings and the 
dreams, of the people around us, we can best encourage their faith in 
the Mystic Law. Unless we can discern what is truly on another's mind, 
we will have no convincing encourage-men to offer In this sense, the 
name "He Who Perceives the Sounds of the World" does not simply mean to 
hear physical sounds, but to discern human hearts. As mentioned earlier, 
this power of altruistic insight and response derives from the Buddha 
nature awakened through our faith in the Gohonzon.
(http://etherbods.com/sutra/summaries/ls2526.htm)
So the Buddhist concept is that empathy is our way of communicating 
compassion and salvation to all sentient beings.Only through empathy can 
we teach. Empathy is awakened by faith in our teachers and through 
specific meditational exercises.

The Christian approach to empathy involves using Jesus as a model and 
praying for understanding and compassion. That approach is less inward 
than Buddhism; more outward. To the Buddhist, empathy is an experience, 
to the Christian is it an act. The book of James is the guide, i.e., 
James 2:14-17: "What doth it profit, my brethern, though a man say he 
hath faith, and have not works? Can faith save him? If a brother or 
sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto 
them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give 
them not those this which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? 
Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. (KJV) The 
whole book is quite good with this kind of practical empathic religion. 
We have empathy by compassionate prayer and by works (see Matthew 25: 31 
ff.)

The psychological approach is to demonstrate empathy in interviews by 
statements about (1) cognitive content and (2) emotional state. If the 
empathy is accurate one should see an increase in self-exploration and 
self-disclosure in the client. Also, clients can be asked to rate the 
empathy. I developed an empathy rating scale for my students to give to 
clients. So empathy is empirically judged. Empathy develops through 
supervision and consultation, where one is taught to listen with an 
'understanding heart' and infer the emotional state through minimal 
nonverbal cues as well as verbal content.

Personally, I like to watch crowds of people and pretend each one is my 
sibling, lost and temporarily forgotten. I practice feeling warmth 
toward each one, and try to discern their emotional state by nonverbal 
cues. This only works if you like your sibs. This sort of exercise (or 
the Buddhist meditations) likely intensify the interconnections in the 
left prefrontal lobe. There is abundant evidence now of neoneurogenisis, 
or new nerve cell growth as the result of brain exercises.

I would think that David Smith in this group will have some intelligent 
things to say about this; hope he jumps in.

Lynn

Steve Hovland wrote:

>Do you know of any exercises for increasing 
>one's capacity for empathy?
>
>Steve Hovland
>www.stevehovland.net
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
>Sent:	Tuesday, February 15, 2005 6:50 AM
>To:	The new improved paleopsych list
>Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy
>
>The limbic system plays a role in positive emotions, but they 'source' 
>from the left prefrontal lobe. Meditators show much higher left 
>prefrontal activity and test as happier. Activity in the right 
>hemisphere is associated with more worry and dread emotions.
>
>Negative emotions are experienced in the limbic system, and during 
>fear/anger/despair the frontal lobes are 'off line' so to speak, on the 
>sidelines and consuming less oxygen.
>
>Steve Hovland wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Do most of the positive emotions arise from the limbic?
>>
>>Steve Hovland
>>www.stevehovland.net
>>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
>>Sent:	Monday, February 14, 2005 9:20 PM
>>To:	The new improved paleopsych list
>>Subject:	[Paleopsych] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy
>>
>>Disclosure: Johnson in press release is not related to me.
>>Lynn
>>
>>http://www.umich.edu/news/index.html?Releases/2005/Feb05/r020105
>>Feb. 1, 2005
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>         Positive emotions slash bias, help people see big picture details
>>
>>ANN ARBOR, Mich.--Positive emotions like joy and humor help people "get 
>>the big picture," virtually eliminating the own-race bias that makes 
>>many people think members of other races "all look alike," according to 
>>new University of Michigan research.
>>
>>"Negative emotions create a tunnel vision," said U-M psychology 
>>researcher Kareem Johnson. "Negative emotions like fear or anger are 
>>useful for short-term survival when there's an immediate danger like 
>>being chased by a dangerous animal. Positive emotions like joy and 
>>happiness are for long-term survival and promote big picture thinking, 
>>make you more inclusive and notice more details, make you think in terms 
>>of 'us' instead of 'them.'"
>>
>>To simulate getting a quick glance of a stranger, scientists flashed 
>>photos of individuals for about a half second, finding subjects 
>>recognized members of their own race 75 percent of the time but only 
>>recognized members of another race 65 percent of the time, Johnson said. 
>>However, researchers found positive emotions boosted that recognition of 
>>cross-race faces about 10 to 20 percent, eliminating the gap.
>>
>>The findings will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal 
>>Psychological Science.
>>
>>Johnson, who is completing his PhD work in psychology, and Barbara 
>>Fredrickson, a U-M psychology professor and director of the Positive 
>>Emotion and Psychophysiology Laboratory, specialize in the power of 
>>positive emotions.
>>
>>Researchers asked a group of 89 students to watch a video either of a 
>>comic to induce joy and laughter, a horror video to induce anxiety, or a 
>>"neutral" video that would not effect emotions. They then looked at 28 
>>yearbook style photos of college-aged people in random order for 500 
>>milliseconds.
>>
>>Subjects who watched the comedy tested for having much higher positive 
>>emotions, while those who saw the horror video had far more "negative" 
>>emotions. In a testing phase, more images flashed by and they were asked 
>>to push buttons to indicate whether they'd seen the pictures earlier. 
>>Those in a positive mood had a far greater ability to recognize members 
>>of another race, while their ability to recognize members of their own 
>>race stayed the same.
>>
>>The researchers conclude that positive emotions bring with them a 
>>"broadening effect" that helps people see a bigger, broader picture of 
>>the world around them.
>>
>>
>>Positive Emotion and Psychophysiology Laboratory 
>><http://www.lsa.umich.edu/psych/peplab/>
>>
>>
>><< File: ATT00006.html >>  << File: ATT00007.txt >> 
>>_______________________________________________
>>paleopsych mailing list
>>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>
>>
>> 
>>
>>    
>>
>
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>
>  
>
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From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Wed Feb 16 04:00:22 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 21:00:22 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] government/business in health care
In-Reply-To: <20050215202857.17607.qmail@web30805.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <20050215202857.17607.qmail@web30805.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4212C556.3070109@solution-consulting.com>

Michael's question is good - what alternatives can one recommend?

I have worked in mental health for 30 years and done most of my own 
billing and insurance work. I find government programs are always the 
worst to deal with, and the additional problem, Michael, is that they 
are a monopoly. Both Medicade and Medicare have this impossible quality, 
and I think that quality suffers when government meddles. I resigned 
from a local panel with about 40% of the local population because they 
were difficult to deal with. I cannot do that with Medicare. If I want 
to make my living by only working on panels that treat providers and 
clients with respect I can do that. Hence my fear of government monopoly.

I recommend . . . (drum roll, please) Health savings accounts for all 
people.  This means personal ownership. It is your money, and you can 
shopt around. A friend of mine did just that. She and her husband had 
high deductable insurance, and when he needed an appendectomy, she 
called a half dozen providers and chose the cheapest one. Guts! But it 
worked out well. The cheap provider was an older surgeon with less 
overhead and less need for materialistic phallic symbols. He did a good 
job on my friend.

With the no-deductable plans today, there is no incentive to do that. 
HMOs and prepaid plans can be very good (Kaiser seems to be excellent) 
but if I had only one answer, I would say HSAs.

Complete medical coverage has been a  perverse incentive. It raises 
costs. Why should pharmaceutical companies compete when patients do NOT 
shop on the basis of cost? (Well, I always do, but most people don't).

Hope that helps advance the dialog, Michael.
Lynn

Michael Christopher wrote:

>>>I fear government enforcing this excellent idea,
>>>      
>>>
>since I work in health care, and government in health
>care is always a disaster.<<
>
>--What alternatives do you recommend? I'm not
>convinced that business in health care is any less
>bureaucratic than government. Business culture, at
>least when a few large corporations dominate the
>market, seems to have some of the same problems as
>government culture. The assumption that the market is
>the friendlier force is often detached from an actual
>comparison between people's experiences with
>government and with business... those who have the
>money to pay for good service (money does talk) are
>often isolated from what others experience lower down
>on the ladder, and they don't always realize the
>consequences of making drastic changes in the system
>because they are insulated from the effects of those
>changes, beyond reducing their own taxes. For many of
>the wealthy, as long as their own tax rate goes down,
>everything's great. They don't always mingle on a
>daily basis with people who don't have the same
>resource, and it produces a lag time in the feedback
>network that makes a society capable of reaching
>balance. Ideally, those who make changes in a system
>will be tapped into all levels of that system, and
>respond to realtime feedback. Ideally, those who vote
>for changes should have at least some contact with
>people most affected. That isn't always the case.
>
>My wife, who is from Australia, keeps complaining that
>the large companies here don't put real people on the
>phone for customer help and give people the runaround.
>She feels Australia does better. She can be a little
>patriotic about Australia, but then my mom says the
>same thing and she's lived here all her life.
>Corporations are not always less bureaucratic and
>alienating than government, and there can be just as
>much red tape, from what I've seen. 
>
>Michael
>
>
>		
>__________________________________ 
>Do you Yahoo!? 
>Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. 
>http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail 
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>
>  
>
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From shovland at mindspring.com  Wed Feb 16 05:48:12 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 21:48:12 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy
Message-ID: <01C513A8.0C9D5C40.shovland@mindspring.com>

This is very encouraging:

"There is abundant evidence now of neoneurogenisis, 
or new nerve cell growth as the result of brain exercises."

I have an exercise similar to yours that I do on the street:
glancing at people and trying to decide what their
emotional state is.  I'm not sure it improves my empathy,
but it does train me to pay attention to their states.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
Sent:	Tuesday, February 15, 2005 7:49 PM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy

Steve, this is a challenging question. I strive for it but don't see 
myself as excellent. Children have to be taught empathy, most would say. 
Here is a link on current thinking:

http://www.nwrel.org/scpd/sirs/7/cu13.html

Buddhism and Christianity both have much interest in empathy. The last 
time I read through the New Testament, I was forceably struck by the 
number of times Jesus is described as having "compassion" which is (1) 
empathy - knowing how another feels, plus (2) a desire to alieviate 
suffering.

Buddhism has many exercises on empathy. Generally, the Buddhist 
perspective is of a kind of detached empathy, where one feels compassion 
as a spiritual exercise. For example:
We have seen that Bodhisattva Kannon of the twenty-fifth chapter, like 
Bodhisattva Yakuo in chapter twenty-three and Bodhisattva Myo'on in 
chapter twenty-four, manifests himself in various forms in order to save 
all living beings. In terms of our own practice, this suggests the need 
for developing empathy, insight and responsiveness with respect to 
others. By discerning the hopes and fears, the sufferings and the 
dreams, of the people around us, we can best encourage their faith in 
the Mystic Law. Unless we can discern what is truly on another's mind, 
we will have no convincing encourage-men to offer In this sense, the 
name "He Who Perceives the Sounds of the World" does not simply mean to 
hear physical sounds, but to discern human hearts. As mentioned earlier, 
this power of altruistic insight and response derives from the Buddha 
nature awakened through our faith in the Gohonzon.
(http://etherbods.com/sutra/summaries/ls2526.htm)
So the Buddhist concept is that empathy is our way of communicating 
compassion and salvation to all sentient beings.Only through empathy can 
we teach. Empathy is awakened by faith in our teachers and through 
specific meditational exercises.

The Christian approach to empathy involves using Jesus as a model and 
praying for understanding and compassion. That approach is less inward 
than Buddhism; more outward. To the Buddhist, empathy is an experience, 
to the Christian is it an act. The book of James is the guide, i.e., 
James 2:14-17: "What doth it profit, my brethern, though a man say he 
hath faith, and have not works? Can faith save him? If a brother or 
sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto 
them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give 
them not those this which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? 
Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. (KJV) The 
whole book is quite good with this kind of practical empathic religion. 
We have empathy by compassionate prayer and by works (see Matthew 25: 31 
ff.)

The psychological approach is to demonstrate empathy in interviews by 
statements about (1) cognitive content and (2) emotional state. If the 
empathy is accurate one should see an increase in self-exploration and 
self-disclosure in the client. Also, clients can be asked to rate the 
empathy. I developed an empathy rating scale for my students to give to 
clients. So empathy is empirically judged. Empathy develops through 
supervision and consultation, where one is taught to listen with an 
'understanding heart' and infer the emotional state through minimal 
nonverbal cues as well as verbal content.

Personally, I like to watch crowds of people and pretend each one is my 
sibling, lost and temporarily forgotten. I practice feeling warmth 
toward each one, and try to discern their emotional state by nonverbal 
cues. This only works if you like your sibs. This sort of exercise (or 
the Buddhist meditations) likely intensify the interconnections in the 
left prefrontal lobe. There is abundant evidence now of neoneurogenisis, 
or new nerve cell growth as the result of brain exercises.

I would think that David Smith in this group will have some intelligent 
things to say about this; hope he jumps in.

Lynn

Steve Hovland wrote:

>Do you know of any exercises for increasing 
>one's capacity for empathy?
>
>Steve Hovland
>www.stevehovland.net
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
>Sent:	Tuesday, February 15, 2005 6:50 AM
>To:	The new improved paleopsych list
>Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy
>
>The limbic system plays a role in positive emotions, but they 'source' 
>from the left prefrontal lobe. Meditators show much higher left 
>prefrontal activity and test as happier. Activity in the right 
>hemisphere is associated with more worry and dread emotions.
>
>Negative emotions are experienced in the limbic system, and during 
>fear/anger/despair the frontal lobes are 'off line' so to speak, on the 
>sidelines and consuming less oxygen.
>
>Steve Hovland wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Do most of the positive emotions arise from the limbic?
>>
>>Steve Hovland
>>www.stevehovland.net
>>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
>>Sent:	Monday, February 14, 2005 9:20 PM
>>To:	The new improved paleopsych list
>>Subject:	[Paleopsych] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy
>>
>>Disclosure: Johnson in press release is not related to me.
>>Lynn
>>
>>http://www.umich.edu/news/index.html?Releases/2005/Feb05/r020105
>>Feb. 1, 2005
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>         Positive emotions slash bias, help people see big picture details
>>
>>ANN ARBOR, Mich.--Positive emotions like joy and humor help people "get 
>>the big picture," virtually eliminating the own-race bias that makes 
>>many people think members of other races "all look alike," according to 
>>new University of Michigan research.
>>
>>"Negative emotions create a tunnel vision," said U-M psychology 
>>researcher Kareem Johnson. "Negative emotions like fear or anger are 
>>useful for short-term survival when there's an immediate danger like 
>>being chased by a dangerous animal. Positive emotions like joy and 
>>happiness are for long-term survival and promote big picture thinking, 
>>make you more inclusive and notice more details, make you think in terms 
>>of 'us' instead of 'them.'"
>>
>>To simulate getting a quick glance of a stranger, scientists flashed 
>>photos of individuals for about a half second, finding subjects 
>>recognized members of their own race 75 percent of the time but only 
>>recognized members of another race 65 percent of the time, Johnson said. 
>>However, researchers found positive emotions boosted that recognition of 
>>cross-race faces about 10 to 20 percent, eliminating the gap.
>>
>>The findings will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal 
>>Psychological Science.
>>
>>Johnson, who is completing his PhD work in psychology, and Barbara 
>>Fredrickson, a U-M psychology professor and director of the Positive 
>>Emotion and Psychophysiology Laboratory, specialize in the power of 
>>positive emotions.
>>
>>Researchers asked a group of 89 students to watch a video either of a 
>>comic to induce joy and laughter, a horror video to induce anxiety, or a 
>>"neutral" video that would not effect emotions. They then looked at 28 
>>yearbook style photos of college-aged people in random order for 500 
>>milliseconds.
>>
>>Subjects who watched the comedy tested for having much higher positive 
>>emotions, while those who saw the horror video had far more "negative" 
>>emotions. In a testing phase, more images flashed by and they were asked 
>>to push buttons to indicate whether they'd seen the pictures earlier. 
>>Those in a positive mood had a far greater ability to recognize members 
>>of another race, while their ability to recognize members of their own 
>>race stayed the same.
>>
>>The researchers conclude that positive emotions bring with them a 
>>"broadening effect" that helps people see a bigger, broader picture of 
>>the world around them.
>>
>>
>>Positive Emotion and Psychophysiology Laboratory 
>><http://www.lsa.umich.edu/psych/peplab/>
>>
>>
>><< File: ATT00006.html >>  << File: ATT00007.txt >> 
>>_______________________________________________
>>paleopsych mailing list
>>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>
>>
>> 
>>
>>    
>>
>
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>
>  
>
 << File: ATT00224.html >>  << File: ATT00225.txt >> 


From shovland at mindspring.com  Wed Feb 16 05:56:12 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 21:56:12 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on Neurobics (brain exercises)
Message-ID: <01C513A9.2A8B4C20.shovland@mindspring.com>

http://www.fi.edu/brain/exercise.htm

Intro
Your brain is a thinking organ that learns and grows by interacting with 
the world through perception and action. Mental stimulation improves brain 
function and actually protects against cognitive decline, as does physical 
exercise.
The human brain is able to continually adapt and rewire itself. Even in old 
age, it can grow new neurons. Severe mental decline is usually caused by 
disease, whereas most age-related losses in memory or motor skills simply 
result from inactivity and a lack of mental exercise and stimulation. In 
other words, use it or lose it.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net




From shovland at mindspring.com  Wed Feb 16 05:59:55 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 21:59:55 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Neurogenesis in the Human Brain: Fact or Fiction
	(student paper)
Message-ID: <01C513A9.AF6D64F0.shovland@mindspring.com>

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro00/web1/Wall.html
Imagine a world where scientists could implant new brain cells into areas 
of the brain that are damaged by disease or accidents. Imagine replacing 
brain cells lost to aging, or even enhancing areas of the normal brain. 
Recent newspaper headlines, such as "A Decade of Discovery Yields a Shock 
About the Brain" (1) and "Brain May Grow New Cells Daily" (2) have 
indicated such advances may be in the near future. How far-fetched are such 
claims?
In the past several years, evidence has emerged that challenges the 
longstanding belief that humans are born with all the brain cells, or 
neurons, they will ever have. Recent experiments on monkeys have shown that 
new neurons are continually added to the cerebral cortex throughout 
adulthood. Some believe that this finding will prove to be true in the 
human adult brain as well. One scientist compared such a change in view to 
a paradigm shift, described by Thomas Kuhn as occurring when one major 
scientific theory is replaced by another. (3) In this paper I examine 
recent research on neurogenesis in the brain and attempt to answer the 
question of whether such conclusions are merited. And I ask what would be 
the implications if the adult human brain could regenerate itself.



From shovland at mindspring.com  Wed Feb 16 06:09:14 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 22:09:14 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] government/business in health care
Message-ID: <01C513AA.FCE03F90.shovland@mindspring.com>

I agree that first-dollar coverage is part of the problem.

I think some combination of HSA's and major medical
is practical.

But there also needs to be some kind of system to
make sure everyone gets a modicum of care.  

I definitely do not think any insurance program should
be paying for heart transplants.

I seem to recall that in the State of the Union message 
the President talked about putting some kind of clinic in 
every town and neighborhood.  If they fund it that is the 
right kind of idea.

Years ago I dated a woman who often vacationed in
Mexico.  One time she suffered an injury requiring
stitches.  She went to the little government clinic in the 
nearby village and was treated at no charge.

No matter who the payer is, they need to have sound
business processes in place.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
Sent:	Tuesday, February 15, 2005 8:00 PM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] government/business in health care

Michael's question is good - what alternatives can one recommend?

I have worked in mental health for 30 years and done most of my own 
billing and insurance work. I find government programs are always the 
worst to deal with, and the additional problem, Michael, is that they 
are a monopoly. Both Medicade and Medicare have this impossible quality, 
and I think that quality suffers when government meddles. I resigned 
from a local panel with about 40% of the local population because they 
were difficult to deal with. I cannot do that with Medicare. If I want 
to make my living by only working on panels that treat providers and 
clients with respect I can do that. Hence my fear of government monopoly.

I recommend . . . (drum roll, please) Health savings accounts for all 
people.  This means personal ownership. It is your money, and you can 
shopt around. A friend of mine did just that. She and her husband had 
high deductable insurance, and when he needed an appendectomy, she 
called a half dozen providers and chose the cheapest one. Guts! But it 
worked out well. The cheap provider was an older surgeon with less 
overhead and less need for materialistic phallic symbols. He did a good 
job on my friend.

With the no-deductable plans today, there is no incentive to do that. 
HMOs and prepaid plans can be very good (Kaiser seems to be excellent) 
but if I had only one answer, I would say HSAs.

Complete medical coverage has been a  perverse incentive. It raises 
costs. Why should pharmaceutical companies compete when patients do NOT 
shop on the basis of cost? (Well, I always do, but most people don't).

Hope that helps advance the dialog, Michael.
Lynn

Michael Christopher wrote:

>>>I fear government enforcing this excellent idea,
>>>      
>>>
>since I work in health care, and government in health
>care is always a disaster.<<
>
>--What alternatives do you recommend? I'm not
>convinced that business in health care is any less
>bureaucratic than government. Business culture, at
>least when a few large corporations dominate the
>market, seems to have some of the same problems as
>government culture. The assumption that the market is
>the friendlier force is often detached from an actual
>comparison between people's experiences with
>government and with business... those who have the
>money to pay for good service (money does talk) are
>often isolated from what others experience lower down
>on the ladder, and they don't always realize the
>consequences of making drastic changes in the system
>because they are insulated from the effects of those
>changes, beyond reducing their own taxes. For many of
>the wealthy, as long as their own tax rate goes down,
>everything's great. They don't always mingle on a
>daily basis with people who don't have the same
>resource, and it produces a lag time in the feedback
>network that makes a society capable of reaching
>balance. Ideally, those who make changes in a system
>will be tapped into all levels of that system, and
>respond to realtime feedback. Ideally, those who vote
>for changes should have at least some contact with
>people most affected. That isn't always the case.
>
>My wife, who is from Australia, keeps complaining that
>the large companies here don't put real people on the
>phone for customer help and give people the runaround.
>She feels Australia does better. She can be a little
>patriotic about Australia, but then my mom says the
>same thing and she's lived here all her life.
>Corporations are not always less bureaucratic and
>alienating than government, and there can be just as
>much red tape, from what I've seen. 
>
>Michael
>
>
>		
>__________________________________ 
>Do you Yahoo!? 
>Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. 
>http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail 
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>
>  
>
 << File: ATT00226.html >>  << File: ATT00227.txt >> 


From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Wed Feb 16 13:36:49 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 06:36:49 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] [Fwd: Re: perceptual accuracy study]
Message-ID: <42134C71.50403@solution-consulting.com>

He got right back, so, Ross, here is a thoughtful discussion.
Lynn

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Re: perceptual accuracy study
Date: 	Tue, 15 Feb 2005 22:41:54 -0500
From: 	Kareem Johnson <kareemjj at umich.edu>
To: 	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. <ljohnson at solution-consulting.com>
References: 	<4212B883.1010907 at solution-consulting.com>



Okay first things first.
Who are you exactly? What is paleopsychology and why are you talking 
about my soon to be published study?

As for your question.  It's funny my co-author Barb Fredrickson is 
cautious of using comedians because some humor relies on ridicule and 
can be hostile or offensive.  But I think that there is something 
special about laughter as a positive emotion. I  set out to choose 
humor that would poke fun at common and shared experiences.

The comedian was a Cacausian male comedian (Kevin James; he's in the 
move "Hitch" with Will Smith, star of "King of Queens").   It is hard 
to translate comedy material but the segment mentions topics such as 
dads that won't turn on air conditioning, long messages on answering 
machines, the rhythm of phone numbers, and waiting in elevators.  The 
segments consistently rate high in reports of amusement, happiness, and 
joy and low in anger, fear, or disgust.  Ratings of the positive 
emotions were positively correlated with cross-race recognition, and 
negative emotions like anger and anxiety were negatively correlated 
with cross-race recognition.

As for vigilance, there were three emotion conditions; humor, fear, and 
neutral.  If vigilance would enhance recognition you'd expect the fear 
condition to enhance recognition but it did not.   Other studies shown 
stress (also vigilance) actual impairs cross-race recognition.

The paper is in press at Psychological Science.  It should be published 
sometime this summer.

A sufficient answer?

Now it is an open question whether using  an offensive or "us versus 
them" comic would do.   Perhaps comedy that makes fun of people that 
are different than us (ethnic jokes, gay jokes, jokes about the 
mentally retarded) would have a different effect on recognition.  But 
across a college population sample the emotion reports would also 
reveal higher levels of negative emotions of the people offended.  Then 
you get into the personality variables... so tell me again... how do 
you know about this study and why do you care? ;-)

--kareem

On Feb 15, 2005, at 10:05 PM, Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. wrote:

> Kareem,
> A question came up on the paleopsychology list - what was the specific 
> content of the humor tape. The question was from Ross Buck:
>
> It is interesting that the stimulus for positive emotions here is a
> comedian.  We need to know more about the subject of the humor.  
> Often, the
> funniest comedians are quite aggressive in their humor, possibly 
> fostering
> feelings of in-group bonding that are quite different from
> hearts-and-flowers happiness, and perhaps actually enhancing "us versus
> them" feelings.  Could the enhanced recognition of different-race faces
> actually be a kind of vigilance?
> Cheers, Ross
>
> Ross Buck, Ph. D.
> Professor of Communication Sciences
> 	and Psychology
> Communication Sciences U-1085		
> University of Connecticut				
> Storrs, CT 06269-1085
> 860-486-4494
> fax  860-486-5422
> buck at uconnvm.uconn.edu
>
> Any response to that?
> Lynn
>
>
>
>
________________________________________________________
Kareem Johnson						Department of Psychology
Ph.D. candidate						University of Michigan
(734) 330-5131						(734) 936-0640	




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From christian.rauh at uconn.edu  Wed Feb 16 18:22:37 2005
From: christian.rauh at uconn.edu (Christian Rauh)
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 13:22:37 -0500
Subject: [Paleopsych] [Fwd: Fears For A Finite Planet - The Climate Crisis]
Message-ID: <42138F6D.803@uconn.edu>



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Fears For A Finite Planet - The Climate Crisis
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 11:50:13 +0000 (UT)
From: Medialens Media Alert Precis <noreply at medialens.org>
To: Christian Rauh <christian.rauh at uconn.edu>

MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media

February 16, 2005


MEDIA ALERT: FEARS FOR A FINITE PLANET

Rampant Corporate Globalisation And The Climate Crisis

"Our continuing uneconomic growth makes us complicit in a process that 
is triggering an ecological catastrophe for our children and generations 
beyond them. They will justifiably sit in judgment on our failure to 
have prevented its devastating consequences knowing that we chose to 
look the other way." (Mayer Hillman, environmentalist and author)


A Fat Cat Laments

The audacity of corporate propaganda still has the capacity to make us 
gasp. Consider the astonishing attack on nongovernmental organisations 
launched at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, by 
Sir Digby Jones, director general of the Confederation of Business 
Industry. "The pendulum is swinging too far in favour of the NGOs", 
Jones claimed. "The World Economic Forum is caving in to them. Davos has 
been hijacked by those who want business to apologise for itself."

According to Jones, business is the only route to cleaner water, better 
healthcare, better education and better roads. "Have I heard that in 
Davos? Have I hell. We have heard how we are greedy and how we pollute, 
and how we have got to help Africa. But a celebration of business? No."

Jones is "fed up with business being characterised as greedy". He goes 
on: "Has anybody ever thought about the greed of the consumer? The 
consumer consistently wants more for less and business is expected to 
deliver it." (Larry Elliott 'CBI chief claims Davos hijacked by NGOs', 
The Guardian, January 31, 2005)

For the World Economic Forum to be "caving in" under the onslaught of 
grassroots groups really must feel like the end of the world to those 
who like to shape the planet's affairs in their own narrow interests.

But Jones's concern is misplaced. The legal obligation to shareholders 
to maximise profits in pursuit of endless economic growth, even as the 
finite planet groans, does face a real obstacle. Namely, that the wealth 
generated by global capitalism - shared ever more unequally in society - 
is rapidly being overtaken by the damage that the system itself is 
wreaking. If existing trends continue, the Global Commons Institute 
estimates that damages due to climate change will actually exceed global 
GDP by 2065. (http://www.gci.org.uk/papers/env_finance.pdf)

Global capitalism has an inbuilt death wish that will likely take most 
of us with it - if we let it.

To read the rest of this alert, please go to:

http://www.medialens.org/blog/index.htm

Best wishes

The Editors


To unsubscribe click on the link below:
http://www.medialens.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/medialens/mailproc/register.cgi?em=christian.rauh at uconn.edu&act=un&at=9



From shovland at mindspring.com  Wed Feb 16 18:30:40 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 10:30:40 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] [Fwd: Fears For A Finite Planet - The Climate Crisis]
Message-ID: <01C51412.907DFD70.shovland@mindspring.com>

Another front where the Limbics are
starting to gain ground against the
Reptilians :-)

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Christian Rauh [SMTP:christian.rauh at uconn.edu]
Sent:	Wednesday, February 16, 2005 10:23 AM
To:	Lista Paleopsych
Subject:	[Paleopsych] [Fwd: Fears For A Finite Planet - The Climate Crisis]



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Fears For A Finite Planet - The Climate Crisis
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 11:50:13 +0000 (UT)
From: Medialens Media Alert Precis <noreply at medialens.org>
To: Christian Rauh <christian.rauh at uconn.edu>

MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media

February 16, 2005


MEDIA ALERT: FEARS FOR A FINITE PLANET

Rampant Corporate Globalisation And The Climate Crisis

"Our continuing uneconomic growth makes us complicit in a process that 
is triggering an ecological catastrophe for our children and generations 
beyond them. They will justifiably sit in judgment on our failure to 
have prevented its devastating consequences knowing that we chose to 
look the other way." (Mayer Hillman, environmentalist and author)


A Fat Cat Laments

The audacity of corporate propaganda still has the capacity to make us 
gasp. Consider the astonishing attack on nongovernmental organisations 
launched at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, by 
Sir Digby Jones, director general of the Confederation of Business 
Industry. "The pendulum is swinging too far in favour of the NGOs", 
Jones claimed. "The World Economic Forum is caving in to them. Davos has 
been hijacked by those who want business to apologise for itself."

According to Jones, business is the only route to cleaner water, better 
healthcare, better education and better roads. "Have I heard that in 
Davos? Have I hell. We have heard how we are greedy and how we pollute, 
and how we have got to help Africa. But a celebration of business? No."

Jones is "fed up with business being characterised as greedy". He goes 
on: "Has anybody ever thought about the greed of the consumer? The 
consumer consistently wants more for less and business is expected to 
deliver it." (Larry Elliott 'CBI chief claims Davos hijacked by NGOs', 
The Guardian, January 31, 2005)

For the World Economic Forum to be "caving in" under the onslaught of 
grassroots groups really must feel like the end of the world to those 
who like to shape the planet's affairs in their own narrow interests.

But Jones's concern is misplaced. The legal obligation to shareholders 
to maximise profits in pursuit of endless economic growth, even as the 
finite planet groans, does face a real obstacle. Namely, that the wealth 
generated by global capitalism - shared ever more unequally in society - 
is rapidly being overtaken by the damage that the system itself is 
wreaking. If existing trends continue, the Global Commons Institute 
estimates that damages due to climate change will actually exceed global 
GDP by 2065. (http://www.gci.org.uk/papers/env_finance.pdf)

Global capitalism has an inbuilt death wish that will likely take most 
of us with it - if we let it.

To read the rest of this alert, please go to:

http://www.medialens.org/blog/index.htm

Best wishes

The Editors


To unsubscribe click on the link below:
http://www.medialens.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/medialens/mailproc/register.cgi?em=christian.rauh at uconn.edu&act=un&at=9

_______________________________________________
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paleopsych at paleopsych.org
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From christian.rauh at uconn.edu  Wed Feb 16 18:46:39 2005
From: christian.rauh at uconn.edu (Christian Rauh)
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 13:46:39 -0500
Subject: [Paleopsych] [Fwd: Fears For A Finite Planet - The Climate Crisis]
In-Reply-To: <01C51412.907DFD70.shovland@mindspring.com>
References: <01C51412.907DFD70.shovland@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <4213950F.2010504@uconn.edu>

Well, when people give me a 2065 deadline for the cost to get over 
benefit then things start to get real in my mind.

Is there any research on how far into the future a cost must be 
perceived for people to take actions? Maybe in the smoking cessation 
literature?

Christian

Steve Hovland wrote:

> Another front where the Limbics are
> starting to gain ground against the
> Reptilians :-)
> 
> Steve Hovland
> www.stevehovland.net
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Christian Rauh [SMTP:christian.rauh at uconn.edu]
> Sent:	Wednesday, February 16, 2005 10:23 AM
> To:	Lista Paleopsych
> Subject:	[Paleopsych] [Fwd: Fears For A Finite Planet - The Climate Crisis]
> 
> 
> 
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Fears For A Finite Planet - The Climate Crisis
> Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 11:50:13 +0000 (UT)
> From: Medialens Media Alert Precis <noreply at medialens.org>
> To: Christian Rauh <christian.rauh at uconn.edu>
> 
> MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media
> 
> February 16, 2005
> 
> 
> MEDIA ALERT: FEARS FOR A FINITE PLANET
> 
> Rampant Corporate Globalisation And The Climate Crisis
> 
> "Our continuing uneconomic growth makes us complicit in a process that 
> is triggering an ecological catastrophe for our children and generations 
> beyond them. They will justifiably sit in judgment on our failure to 
> have prevented its devastating consequences knowing that we chose to 
> look the other way." (Mayer Hillman, environmentalist and author)
> 
> 
> A Fat Cat Laments
> 
> The audacity of corporate propaganda still has the capacity to make us 
> gasp. Consider the astonishing attack on nongovernmental organisations 
> launched at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, by 
> Sir Digby Jones, director general of the Confederation of Business 
> Industry. "The pendulum is swinging too far in favour of the NGOs", 
> Jones claimed. "The World Economic Forum is caving in to them. Davos has 
> been hijacked by those who want business to apologise for itself."
> 
> According to Jones, business is the only route to cleaner water, better 
> healthcare, better education and better roads. "Have I heard that in 
> Davos? Have I hell. We have heard how we are greedy and how we pollute, 
> and how we have got to help Africa. But a celebration of business? No."
> 
> Jones is "fed up with business being characterised as greedy". He goes 
> on: "Has anybody ever thought about the greed of the consumer? The 
> consumer consistently wants more for less and business is expected to 
> deliver it." (Larry Elliott 'CBI chief claims Davos hijacked by NGOs', 
> The Guardian, January 31, 2005)
> 
> For the World Economic Forum to be "caving in" under the onslaught of 
> grassroots groups really must feel like the end of the world to those 
> who like to shape the planet's affairs in their own narrow interests.
> 
> But Jones's concern is misplaced. The legal obligation to shareholders 
> to maximise profits in pursuit of endless economic growth, even as the 
> finite planet groans, does face a real obstacle. Namely, that the wealth 
> generated by global capitalism - shared ever more unequally in society - 
> is rapidly being overtaken by the damage that the system itself is 
> wreaking. If existing trends continue, the Global Commons Institute 
> estimates that damages due to climate change will actually exceed global 
> GDP by 2065. (http://www.gci.org.uk/papers/env_finance.pdf)
> 
> Global capitalism has an inbuilt death wish that will likely take most 
> of us with it - if we let it.
> 
> To read the rest of this alert, please go to:
> 
> http://www.medialens.org/blog/index.htm
> 
> Best wishes
> 
> The Editors
> 
> 
> To unsubscribe click on the link below:
> http://www.medialens.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/medialens/mailproc/register.cgi?em=christian.rauh at uconn.edu&act=un&at=9
> 
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


From shovland at mindspring.com  Wed Feb 16 19:13:24 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 11:13:24 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] [Fwd: Fears For A Finite Planet - The Climate Crisis]
Message-ID: <01C51418.88A3BD50.shovland@mindspring.com>

I suspect people need to see the cost
as almost immediate.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Christian Rauh [SMTP:christian.rauh at uconn.edu]
Sent:	Wednesday, February 16, 2005 10:47 AM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] [Fwd: Fears For A Finite Planet - The Climate Crisis]

Well, when people give me a 2065 deadline for the cost to get over 
benefit then things start to get real in my mind.

Is there any research on how far into the future a cost must be 
perceived for people to take actions? Maybe in the smoking cessation 
literature?

Christian

Steve Hovland wrote:

> Another front where the Limbics are
> starting to gain ground against the
> Reptilians :-)
> 
> Steve Hovland
> www.stevehovland.net
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Christian Rauh [SMTP:christian.rauh at uconn.edu]
> Sent:	Wednesday, February 16, 2005 10:23 AM
> To:	Lista Paleopsych
> Subject:	[Paleopsych] [Fwd: Fears For A Finite Planet - The Climate Crisis]
> 
> 
> 
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Fears For A Finite Planet - The Climate Crisis
> Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 11:50:13 +0000 (UT)
> From: Medialens Media Alert Precis <noreply at medialens.org>
> To: Christian Rauh <christian.rauh at uconn.edu>
> 
> MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media
> 
> February 16, 2005
> 
> 
> MEDIA ALERT: FEARS FOR A FINITE PLANET
> 
> Rampant Corporate Globalisation And The Climate Crisis
> 
> "Our continuing uneconomic growth makes us complicit in a process that 
> is triggering an ecological catastrophe for our children and generations 
> beyond them. They will justifiably sit in judgment on our failure to 
> have prevented its devastating consequences knowing that we chose to 
> look the other way." (Mayer Hillman, environmentalist and author)
> 
> 
> A Fat Cat Laments
> 
> The audacity of corporate propaganda still has the capacity to make us 
> gasp. Consider the astonishing attack on nongovernmental organisations 
> launched at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, by 
> Sir Digby Jones, director general of the Confederation of Business 
> Industry. "The pendulum is swinging too far in favour of the NGOs", 
> Jones claimed. "The World Economic Forum is caving in to them. Davos has 
> been hijacked by those who want business to apologise for itself."
> 
> According to Jones, business is the only route to cleaner water, better 
> healthcare, better education and better roads. "Have I heard that in 
> Davos? Have I hell. We have heard how we are greedy and how we pollute, 
> and how we have got to help Africa. But a celebration of business? No."
> 
> Jones is "fed up with business being characterised as greedy". He goes 
> on: "Has anybody ever thought about the greed of the consumer? The 
> consumer consistently wants more for less and business is expected to 
> deliver it." (Larry Elliott 'CBI chief claims Davos hijacked by NGOs', 
> The Guardian, January 31, 2005)
> 
> For the World Economic Forum to be "caving in" under the onslaught of 
> grassroots groups really must feel like the end of the world to those 
> who like to shape the planet's affairs in their own narrow interests.
> 
> But Jones's concern is misplaced. The legal obligation to shareholders 
> to maximise profits in pursuit of endless economic growth, even as the 
> finite planet groans, does face a real obstacle. Namely, that the wealth 
> generated by global capitalism - shared ever more unequally in society - 
> is rapidly being overtaken by the damage that the system itself is 
> wreaking. If existing trends continue, the Global Commons Institute 
> estimates that damages due to climate change will actually exceed global 
> GDP by 2065. (http://www.gci.org.uk/papers/env_finance.pdf)
> 
> Global capitalism has an inbuilt death wish that will likely take most 
> of us with it - if we let it.
> 
> To read the rest of this alert, please go to:
> 
> http://www.medialens.org/blog/index.htm
> 
> Best wishes
> 
> The Editors
> 
> 
> To unsubscribe click on the link below:
> http://www.medialens.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/medialens/mailproc/register.cgi?em=christian.rauh at uconn.edu&act=un&at=9
> 
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


From guavaberry at earthlink.net  Wed Feb 16 19:35:16 2005
From: guavaberry at earthlink.net (K.E.)
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 14:35:16 -0500
Subject: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy
In-Reply-To: <4212C2C2.3020207@solution-consulting.com>
References: <01C5132E.B97B5C20.shovland@mindspring.com>
	<4212C2C2.3020207@solution-consulting.com>
Message-ID: <6.2.1.2.0.20050216142930.038706b0@mail.earthlink.net>

All animals have empathy

Non Human Animals Have Intelligence,
Culture, Emotion, Compassion and Language
http://www.wildlifeprotection.net/Cruelty/cruelty4.html


karen

<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>
The Educational CyberPlayGround
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/

National Children's Folksong Repository
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Culdesac/Repository/NCFR.html

Hot List of Schools Online and
Net Happenings, K12 Newsletters, Network Newsletters
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Community/index.html

7 Hot Site Awards
New York Times, USA Today , MSNBC, Earthlink,
USA Today Best Bets For Educators, Macworld Top Fifty
<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>  



From christian.rauh at uconn.edu  Wed Feb 16 19:48:59 2005
From: christian.rauh at uconn.edu (Christian Rauh)
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 14:48:59 -0500
Subject: [Paleopsych] [Fwd: Fears For A Finite Planet - The Climate Crisis]
In-Reply-To: <01C51418.88A3BD50.shovland@mindspring.com>
References: <01C51418.88A3BD50.shovland@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <4213A3AB.5020103@uconn.edu>

I always considered the ability to perceive time into the future and 
past as one of the evolving capacities of brains. It seems to me that we 
can plan/analyze things ahead and back thus not living only "in the 
moment". (An ability that sometimes is detrimental to the enjoyment of 
life, I must say.) And this planning/analyzing involves emotional and 
rational responses to imagined future events and past experiences.

There is certainly an interplay between the time into the future or past 
and the intensity/type of emotion felt and motivation to act. If the 
event is ocurring right now, you have maximum emotional and rational 
involvement - immediate danger - and action is taken. However, if the 
event is in the future the involvement is lower and action might not be 
taken. That is, until the event reaches a treshold in future time 
(2065?) when action seems necessary.

Business, which are made up of humans, are based on planning. And our 
economical system seems to be moving more and more towards prediction 
instead of past results. But how much can business plan ahead and be 
profitable? It seems that 2065 is not enough to make businesses consider 
  those effects. 60 years is to much to go into business planing. But 
how much can business predict ahead? 5 years? 10 years? I think the 
longest government bonds are issued at 25 years. Could that be the 
treshold for business action?

Am I making any sense?

Christian

Steve Hovland wrote:

> I suspect people need to see the cost
> as almost immediate.
> 
> Steve Hovland
> www.stevehovland.net
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Christian Rauh [SMTP:christian.rauh at uconn.edu]
> Sent:	Wednesday, February 16, 2005 10:47 AM
> To:	The new improved paleopsych list
> Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] [Fwd: Fears For A Finite Planet - The Climate Crisis]
> 
> Well, when people give me a 2065 deadline for the cost to get over 
> benefit then things start to get real in my mind.
> 
> Is there any research on how far into the future a cost must be 
> perceived for people to take actions? Maybe in the smoking cessation 
> literature?
> 
> Christian
> 
> Steve Hovland wrote:
> 
> 
>>Another front where the Limbics are
>>starting to gain ground against the
>>Reptilians :-)
>>
>>Steve Hovland
>>www.stevehovland.net
>>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From:	Christian Rauh [SMTP:christian.rauh at uconn.edu]
>>Sent:	Wednesday, February 16, 2005 10:23 AM
>>To:	Lista Paleopsych
>>Subject:	[Paleopsych] [Fwd: Fears For A Finite Planet - The Climate Crisis]
>>
>>
>>
>>-------- Original Message --------
>>Subject: Fears For A Finite Planet - The Climate Crisis
>>Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 11:50:13 +0000 (UT)
>>From: Medialens Media Alert Precis <noreply at medialens.org>
>>To: Christian Rauh <christian.rauh at uconn.edu>
>>
>>MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media
>>
>>February 16, 2005
>>
>>
>>MEDIA ALERT: FEARS FOR A FINITE PLANET
>>
>>Rampant Corporate Globalisation And The Climate Crisis
>>
>>"Our continuing uneconomic growth makes us complicit in a process that 
>>is triggering an ecological catastrophe for our children and generations 
>>beyond them. They will justifiably sit in judgment on our failure to 
>>have prevented its devastating consequences knowing that we chose to 
>>look the other way." (Mayer Hillman, environmentalist and author)
>>
>>
>>A Fat Cat Laments
>>
>>The audacity of corporate propaganda still has the capacity to make us 
>>gasp. Consider the astonishing attack on nongovernmental organisations 
>>launched at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, by 
>>Sir Digby Jones, director general of the Confederation of Business 
>>Industry. "The pendulum is swinging too far in favour of the NGOs", 
>>Jones claimed. "The World Economic Forum is caving in to them. Davos has 
>>been hijacked by those who want business to apologise for itself."
>>
>>According to Jones, business is the only route to cleaner water, better 
>>healthcare, better education and better roads. "Have I heard that in 
>>Davos? Have I hell. We have heard how we are greedy and how we pollute, 
>>and how we have got to help Africa. But a celebration of business? No."
>>
>>Jones is "fed up with business being characterised as greedy". He goes 
>>on: "Has anybody ever thought about the greed of the consumer? The 
>>consumer consistently wants more for less and business is expected to 
>>deliver it." (Larry Elliott 'CBI chief claims Davos hijacked by NGOs', 
>>The Guardian, January 31, 2005)
>>
>>For the World Economic Forum to be "caving in" under the onslaught of 
>>grassroots groups really must feel like the end of the world to those 
>>who like to shape the planet's affairs in their own narrow interests.
>>
>>But Jones's concern is misplaced. The legal obligation to shareholders 
>>to maximise profits in pursuit of endless economic growth, even as the 
>>finite planet groans, does face a real obstacle. Namely, that the wealth 
>>generated by global capitalism - shared ever more unequally in society - 
>>is rapidly being overtaken by the damage that the system itself is 
>>wreaking. If existing trends continue, the Global Commons Institute 
>>estimates that damages due to climate change will actually exceed global 
>>GDP by 2065. (http://www.gci.org.uk/papers/env_finance.pdf)
>>
>>Global capitalism has an inbuilt death wish that will likely take most 
>>of us with it - if we let it.
>>
>>To read the rest of this alert, please go to:
>>
>>http://www.medialens.org/blog/index.htm
>>
>>Best wishes
>>
>>The Editors
>>
>>
>>To unsubscribe click on the link below:
>>http://www.medialens.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/medialens/mailproc/register.cgi?em=christian.rauh at uconn.edu&act=un&at=9
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>paleopsych mailing list
>>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>_______________________________________________
>>paleopsych mailing list
>>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> 
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


From anonymous_animus at yahoo.com  Wed Feb 16 19:50:07 2005
From: anonymous_animus at yahoo.com (Michael Christopher)
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 11:50:07 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings
In-Reply-To: <200502161916.j1GJGRh22298@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <20050216195007.25331.qmail@web30803.mail.mud.yahoo.com>


U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings

More than 200 Fish and Wildlife researchers cite cases
where conclusions were reversed to weaken protections
and favor business, a survey finds.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-scientists10feb10,0,4954654.story?coll=la-home-nation


	
		
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. 
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail


From waluk at earthlink.net  Wed Feb 16 20:33:03 2005
From: waluk at earthlink.net (G. Reinhart-Waller)
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 12:33:03 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on Neurobics (brain exercises)
References: <01C513A9.2A8B4C20.shovland@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <017001c51466$b8279a30$3000f604@S0027397558>

>>Severe mental decline is usually caused by
disease, whereas most age-related losses in memory or 
motor skills simply
result from inactivity and a lack of mental exercise 
and stimulation. In
other words, use it or lose it.>>

Depends.  No matter how often one engages in physical 
exercise, his body will show signs of aging.  The same 
is true for mental exercise.  Use it or lose it is only 
true up to a certain age.  All skin wrinkles....

Gerry 




From shovland at mindspring.com  Wed Feb 16 20:50:09 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 12:50:09 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] [Fwd: Fears For A Finite Planet - The Climate Crisis]
Message-ID: <01C51426.0CCA1450.shovland@mindspring.com>

Even though the maximum impact of something
like global warming may be off in some hard to
imagine future, things like that also manifest in
the present.

For example, in the midwest they have been
having 60 degree days in Minnesota at a time
of year when 20 degrees would be a nice warm
day.  

This could be evidence of rapid climate change 
and the lack of snow could easily produce a famine 
next year in some part of the world.

So that is one way to wake people up- to point
out the current consequences of long range
trends.

Similarly, in the US the consequences of Bush's
financial mismanagement are showing up as 
reduced fire and police protection in many cities,
and the long term consequences will be more
severe.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Christian Rauh [SMTP:christian.rauh at uconn.edu]
Sent:	Wednesday, February 16, 2005 11:49 AM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] [Fwd: Fears For A Finite Planet - The Climate Crisis]

I always considered the ability to perceive time into the future and 
past as one of the evolving capacities of brains. It seems to me that we 
can plan/analyze things ahead and back thus not living only "in the 
moment". (An ability that sometimes is detrimental to the enjoyment of 
life, I must say.) And this planning/analyzing involves emotional and 
rational responses to imagined future events and past experiences.

There is certainly an interplay between the time into the future or past 
and the intensity/type of emotion felt and motivation to act. If the 
event is ocurring right now, you have maximum emotional and rational 
involvement - immediate danger - and action is taken. However, if the 
event is in the future the involvement is lower and action might not be 
taken. That is, until the event reaches a treshold in future time 
(2065?) when action seems necessary.

Business, which are made up of humans, are based on planning. And our 
economical system seems to be moving more and more towards prediction 
instead of past results. But how much can business plan ahead and be 
profitable? It seems that 2065 is not enough to make businesses consider 
  those effects. 60 years is to much to go into business planing. But 
how much can business predict ahead? 5 years? 10 years? I think the 
longest government bonds are issued at 25 years. Could that be the 
treshold for business action?

Am I making any sense?

Christian

Steve Hovland wrote:

> I suspect people need to see the cost
> as almost immediate.
> 
> Steve Hovland
> www.stevehovland.net
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Christian Rauh [SMTP:christian.rauh at uconn.edu]
> Sent:	Wednesday, February 16, 2005 10:47 AM
> To:	The new improved paleopsych list
> Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] [Fwd: Fears For A Finite Planet - The Climate Crisis]
> 
> Well, when people give me a 2065 deadline for the cost to get over 
> benefit then things start to get real in my mind.
> 
> Is there any research on how far into the future a cost must be 
> perceived for people to take actions? Maybe in the smoking cessation 
> literature?
> 
> Christian
> 
> Steve Hovland wrote:
> 
> 
>>Another front where the Limbics are
>>starting to gain ground against the
>>Reptilians :-)
>>
>>Steve Hovland
>>www.stevehovland.net
>>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From:	Christian Rauh [SMTP:christian.rauh at uconn.edu]
>>Sent:	Wednesday, February 16, 2005 10:23 AM
>>To:	Lista Paleopsych
>>Subject:	[Paleopsych] [Fwd: Fears For A Finite Planet - The Climate Crisis]
>>
>>
>>
>>-------- Original Message --------
>>Subject: Fears For A Finite Planet - The Climate Crisis
>>Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 11:50:13 +0000 (UT)
>>From: Medialens Media Alert Precis <noreply at medialens.org>
>>To: Christian Rauh <christian.rauh at uconn.edu>
>>
>>MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media
>>
>>February 16, 2005
>>
>>
>>MEDIA ALERT: FEARS FOR A FINITE PLANET
>>
>>Rampant Corporate Globalisation And The Climate Crisis
>>
>>"Our continuing uneconomic growth makes us complicit in a process that 
>>is triggering an ecological catastrophe for our children and generations 
>>beyond them. They will justifiably sit in judgment on our failure to 
>>have prevented its devastating consequences knowing that we chose to 
>>look the other way." (Mayer Hillman, environmentalist and author)
>>
>>
>>A Fat Cat Laments
>>
>>The audacity of corporate propaganda still has the capacity to make us 
>>gasp. Consider the astonishing attack on nongovernmental organisations 
>>launched at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, by 
>>Sir Digby Jones, director general of the Confederation of Business 
>>Industry. "The pendulum is swinging too far in favour of the NGOs", 
>>Jones claimed. "The World Economic Forum is caving in to them. Davos has 
>>been hijacked by those who want business to apologise for itself."
>>
>>According to Jones, business is the only route to cleaner water, better 
>>healthcare, better education and better roads. "Have I heard that in 
>>Davos? Have I hell. We have heard how we are greedy and how we pollute, 
>>and how we have got to help Africa. But a celebration of business? No."
>>
>>Jones is "fed up with business being characterised as greedy". He goes 
>>on: "Has anybody ever thought about the greed of the consumer? The 
>>consumer consistently wants more for less and business is expected to 
>>deliver it." (Larry Elliott 'CBI chief claims Davos hijacked by NGOs', 
>>The Guardian, January 31, 2005)
>>
>>For the World Economic Forum to be "caving in" under the onslaught of 
>>grassroots groups really must feel like the end of the world to those 
>>who like to shape the planet's affairs in their own narrow interests.
>>
>>But Jones's concern is misplaced. The legal obligation to shareholders 
>>to maximise profits in pursuit of endless economic growth, even as the 
>>finite planet groans, does face a real obstacle. Namely, that the wealth 
>>generated by global capitalism - shared ever more unequally in society - 
>>is rapidly being overtaken by the damage that the system itself is 
>>wreaking. If existing trends continue, the Global Commons Institute 
>>estimates that damages due to climate change will actually exceed global 
>>GDP by 2065. (http://www.gci.org.uk/papers/env_finance.pdf)
>>
>>Global capitalism has an inbuilt death wish that will likely take most 
>>of us with it - if we let it.
>>
>>To read the rest of this alert, please go to:
>>
>>http://www.medialens.org/blog/index.htm
>>
>>Best wishes
>>
>>The Editors
>>
>>
>>To unsubscribe click on the link below:
>>http://www.medialens.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/medialens/mailproc/register.cgi?em=christian.rauh at uconn.edu&act=un&at=9
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>paleopsych mailing list
>>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>_______________________________________________
>>paleopsych mailing list
>>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> 
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
_______________________________________________
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paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


From checker at panix.com  Wed Feb 16 21:09:55 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 16:09:55 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings
In-Reply-To: <20050216195007.25331.qmail@web30803.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <20050216195007.25331.qmail@web30803.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502161526480.8638@panix1.panix.com>

This is pretty alarming. I have long realized that certain facts will be 
ignored (like innate racial differences in intelligence at the U.S. Dept. 
of Education). I've realized that opposing viewpoints will not be listened 
to (the unwinnability of the Viet Nam war). But to have facts altered is 
something else.

It's further alarming, since I'm a free marketeer and look favorably upon 
big business as being triumphs, a la Ayn Rand. I don't think of business 
vs. the exploited workers and consumers. I'm not interested in equality 
and do not care if CEOs make 10 or 1000 times what the workers make. I 
have little sense of envy. I do not want to take from the productive and 
give to the non-productive. I do not want to bilk tobacco companies for 
the follies of smokers. All these sorts of things.

But this is more. What we're seeing is an extreme us-vs-them mentality, 
where the businessmen now take this us-vs-them mentality into politics. 
What THIS list needs to do is not to be alarmed or to groan or to argue 
one side or the other but to EXPLAIN the widening polarity.

Tomorrow, in a different mood, I'm sure I can come up with an argument 
that polarity is a good thing, that it has high entertainment value or 
something such.

At a personal level, here at the U.S. Department of Education, it's a big 
disappointment. Last week, I went to a talk by the Director of the Office 
of Technology. She gave an excellent presentation. During the question 
period I said that distinguishing good from bogus information on the Net 
would be the singly most important skill to have in the world of 2025, 
when the current crop of kids in school are out of school. The problem is 
that the most important skill of all is very hard to measure. I urged that 
when the No Child Left Behind Act gets extended to high school that the 
law be made more flexible to take this difficulty of measurement into 
account.

She answered by saying that a two-day conference could be held on this 
very topic and that I asked a great question. However, she thought that 
schools that could be teaching this kind of skill need not fear running 
afoul of NCLB. I spent 10-15 minutes talking with her after the meeting, 
too. I followed up with some e-mails of highly relevant articles and 
further thoughts of my own.

But since then: nothing. I think she got cold feet when she realized that 
I might be dangerously independent (no, I'm not about to bring up race 
differences) and would not tow the party line. I suspect that she, too, 
wants to find out what the party line and then tow it, rather than even 
hint that the party line needs clarification. No, I don't mean that she 
really wants to do this--she clearly liked talking to me--but that she has 
no choice.

It is the case, in my experience anyhow, that Democrats are more 
open-minded than Republicans. I say this even though I prefer Republican 
policies, as least when there was a substantial difference. I think it's 
because Democrats are much more goo-goo (good government) types and want 
to improve something that they approve of, while Republicans want to 
reduce or get rid of programs.

I sense a divisiveness that has grown beyond this, though, and it's a 
theory about the rise and fall of divisiveness that I'd like to explore on 
this list, NOT about "this is what I want the world to be."

On 2005-02-16, Michael Christopher opined [message unchanged below]:

> Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 11:50:07 -0800 (PST)
> From: Michael Christopher <anonymous_animus at yahoo.com>
> Reply-To: The new improved paleopsych list <paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
> To: paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> Subject: [Paleopsych] U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings
> 
>
> U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings
>
> More than 200 Fish and Wildlife researchers cite cases
> where conclusions were reversed to weaken protections
> and favor business, a survey finds.
>
> http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-scientists10feb10,0,4954654.story?coll=la-home-nation


From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Thu Feb 17 05:13:16 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 22:13:16 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive emotions and perceptual
	accuracy
In-Reply-To: <6.2.1.2.0.20050216142930.038706b0@mail.earthlink.net>
References: <01C5132E.B97B5C20.shovland@mindspring.com>	<4212C2C2.3020207@solution-consulting.com>
	<6.2.1.2.0.20050216142930.038706b0@mail.earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <421427EC.3020805@solution-consulting.com>

Well, many mammals seem to have empathy. I do not think that reptiles 
have empathy nor fish. I have not seen empathy in cows, but some in 
horses. My Lab retriever has empathy for our cat, and the cat hates the 
dog. I have not seen empathy in cats. No offense intended, you cat 
lovers. Your examples are mostly chimps, and certainly they have 
empathy. The bird studies show intelligence but I don't see the empathy. 
Our bird has no empathy for anyone except the lovely bird behind the 
mirror. Empathy is likely a limbic / neocortex combination, bigger 
cortex, more empathy???. I suspect that animals living in groups would 
tend to develop empathy.
Lynn

K.E. wrote:

> All animals have empathy
>
> Non Human Animals Have Intelligence,
> Culture, Emotion, Compassion and Language
> http://www.wildlifeprotection.net/Cruelty/cruelty4.html
>
>
> karen
>
> <>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>
> The Educational CyberPlayGround
> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/
>
> National Children's Folksong Repository
> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Culdesac/Repository/NCFR.html
>
> Hot List of Schools Online and
> Net Happenings, K12 Newsletters, Network Newsletters
> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Community/index.html
>
> 7 Hot Site Awards
> New York Times, USA Today , MSNBC, Earthlink,
> USA Today Best Bets For Educators, Macworld Top Fifty
> <>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<> 
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>



From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Thu Feb 17 05:15:14 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 22:15:14 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on Neurobics (brain exercises)
In-Reply-To: <017001c51466$b8279a30$3000f604@S0027397558>
References: <01C513A9.2A8B4C20.shovland@mindspring.com>
	<017001c51466$b8279a30$3000f604@S0027397558>
Message-ID: <42142862.7020100@solution-consulting.com>

Old folks who take up aerobics do increase brain size and intelligence 
measures.  We deteriorate, but physical exercise does protect us against 
brain atrophy.
:Lynn

G. Reinhart-Waller wrote:

>>> Severe mental decline is usually caused by
>>
> disease, whereas most age-related losses in memory or motor skills simply
> result from inactivity and a lack of mental exercise and stimulation. In
> other words, use it or lose it.>>
>
> Depends.  No matter how often one engages in physical exercise, his 
> body will show signs of aging.  The same is true for mental exercise.  
> Use it or lose it is only true up to a certain age.  All skin 
> wrinkles....
>
> Gerry
>
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>



From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Thu Feb 17 05:35:13 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 22:35:13 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: perceptual accuracy study
In-Reply-To: <5b340392565d32d802447c58252355ed@umich.edu>
References: <4212B883.1010907@solution-consulting.com>
	<5b340392565d32d802447c58252355ed@umich.edu>
Message-ID: <42142D11.20407@solution-consulting.com>

Who are we? A secret government agency, we have one black helicopter but 
it is in the shop right now and we get around in Ford Probes. You have 
been Probed.

All seriousness aside: Paleopsych is a listserv of fans of Howard Bloom, 
author of The Lucifer Principle and Global Brain. It is a group of 
scientists,  academics, some clinicians like me, and a motley crew of 
unclassified people.
Howard's website: http://www.howardbloom.net/

I'm a clinical psychologist practicing in Salt Lake City. I picked up on 
your study from another Listserv, the Appreciative Inquiry list. There 
was a reference to a press release from UM. I read the press release and 
passed it on to Paleopsych.
AI website: http://appreciativeinquiry.cwru.edu/

Human potential is an occasional thread, and I come from the positive 
psychology area, solution-focused psychotherapy, and appreciative 
inquiry. Background in emotional intelligence. I liked the study because 
I have read a lot of the current pos psych stuff and Fredrickson's 
articles and pass them on. Tomorrow I speak to a group of businessmen 
about positive psych (they have all taken Seligman's ASQ and we are 
going to discuss optimism) and I will probably print out the UM press 
release, pass it out, and discuss it. When we are happy we are smarter, 
will be my theme. They don't all believe it. One is quite critical of my 
ideas. One is enthusiastic. Some have glazed eyes. We will discuss how 
your study shows an increase in a kind of quick intelligence from 
cheerfulness. So your name will be taken, possibly in vain. Thanks for 
replying so promptly, I passed your reply on to the listserv. If there 
is more discussion, I will let you know.
thanks again,
Lynn Johnson
no relation to Kareem

Kareem Johnson wrote:

> Okay first things first.
> Who are you exactly? What is paleopsychology and why are you talking 
> about my soon to be published study?
>
> As for your question.  It's funny my co-author Barb Fredrickson is 
> cautious of using comedians because some humor relies on ridicule and 
> can be hostile or offensive.  But I think that there is something 
> special about laughter as a positive emotion. I  set out to choose 
> humor that would poke fun at common and shared experiences.
>
> The comedian was a Cacausian male comedian (Kevin James; he's in the 
> move "Hitch" with Will Smith, star of "King of Queens").   It is hard 
> to translate comedy material but the segment mentions topics such as 
> dads that won't turn on air conditioning, long messages on answering 
> machines, the rhythm of phone numbers, and waiting in elevators.  The 
> segments consistently rate high in reports of amusement, happiness, 
> and joy and low in anger, fear, or disgust.  Ratings of the positive 
> emotions were positively correlated with cross-race recognition, and 
> negative emotions like anger and anxiety were negatively correlated 
> with cross-race recognition.
>
> As for vigilance, there were three emotion conditions; humor, fear, 
> and neutral.  If vigilance would enhance recognition you'd expect the 
> fear condition to enhance recognition but it did not.   Other studies 
> shown stress (also vigilance) actual impairs cross-race recognition.
>
> The paper is in press at Psychological Science.  It should be 
> published sometime this summer.
>
> A sufficient answer?
>
> Now it is an open question whether using  an offensive or "us versus 
> them" comic would do.   Perhaps comedy that makes fun of people that 
> are different than us (ethnic jokes, gay jokes, jokes about the 
> mentally retarded) would have a different effect on recognition.  But 
> across a college population sample the emotion reports would also 
> reveal higher levels of negative emotions of the people offended.  
> Then you get into the personality variables... so tell me again... how 
> do you know about this study and why do you care? ;-)
>
> --kareem
>
> On Feb 15, 2005, at 10:05 PM, Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. wrote:
>
>> Kareem,
>> A question came up on the paleopsychology list - what was the 
>> specific content of the humor tape. The question was from Ross Buck:
>>
>> It is interesting that the stimulus for positive emotions here is a
>> comedian.  We need to know more about the subject of the humor.  
>> Often, the
>> funniest comedians are quite aggressive in their humor, possibly 
>> fostering
>> feelings of in-group bonding that are quite different from
>> hearts-and-flowers happiness, and perhaps actually enhancing "us versus
>> them" feelings.  Could the enhanced recognition of different-race faces
>> actually be a kind of vigilance?
>> Cheers, Ross
>>
>> Ross Buck, Ph. D.
>> Professor of Communication Sciences
>>     and Psychology
>> Communication Sciences U-1085       
>> University of Connecticut               
>> Storrs, CT 06269-1085
>> 860-486-4494
>> fax  860-486-5422
>> buck at uconnvm.uconn.edu
>>
>> Any response to that?
>> Lynn
>>
>>
>>
>>
> ________________________________________________________
> Kareem Johnson                        Department of Psychology
> Ph.D. candidate                        University of Michigan
> (734) 330-5131                        (734) 936-0640   
>
>
>
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From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Thu Feb 17 13:23:02 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 06:23:02 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] more on perceptual accuracy study
Message-ID: <42149AB6.304@solution-consulting.com>

\This is Kareem's reply to me

Thanks for your amusing reply. I was caught a bit off guard by your 
initial e-mail since the study is not yet published. The PR folks at 
Michigan never told me when the press release came out. I am curious 
about your group, I will follow the links you provided.

I wanted to offer some words of wisdom. It is not as simple as being 
happy makes us smarter. In fact there is quite a good chunk of data that 
suggests the exact opposite. Those that are highly versed in some the of 
social psych literature may know of studies finding positive moods 
associated with the use of more heuristics (mental shortcuts) and 
stereotypes. That perspective suggests that people want to maintain 
positive feelings and become "cognitively lazy". There is even a paper 
by Norbert Schwarz entitled "Happy = mindless, sad = smart". A very 
different perspective than positive emotions broaden and build. I 
eventually would like to write a review paper that will show these 
different perspectives aren't incommensurate.

But... the happy = mindless perspective is slowly being debunked. For 
instance, when subjects think a task is relevant (either personally or 
because their decisions may have an actual outcome) positive moods no 
longer increase the use of heuristics and stereotypes. I can give you 
references if you like.

The stuff we've done in the Fredrickson lab supports positive emotions 
as evolutionarily adaptive... broadening visual attention, promoting 
inclusive social thinking, and facilitating coping mechanisms is 
conceptually quite different from the judgement and decision tasks that 
were used in the above studies. ... but that leads to a lengthy discussion

Point is.. a review of the literature would not support the idea that 
happy means smarter, but there may be specific domains when it is true. 
I think some the most exciting stuff we do is how positive emotions 
change how we interact with the social world.. for instance expanding 
the self-concept or eliminating recognition biases, we've been calling 
it social broadening, In essence a state when we more readily see our 
similarities and connection to others.


--kareem
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From shovland at mindspring.com  Thu Feb 17 14:14:31 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 06:14:31 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive emotions and
	perceptual	accuracy
Message-ID: <01C514B7.F21DFF30.shovland@mindspring.com>

I know my cats have emotions, but they
are also cold-blooded killers of birds and
mice (they bring their kills to show us.)

Since they have emotions and wills but
not much language I try to use empathy
in dealing with them.  For example, the
older cat just jumped up on my keyboard
but she was there for food, not affection.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
Sent:	Wednesday, February 16, 2005 9:13 PM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive emotions and perceptual	accuracy

Well, many mammals seem to have empathy. I do not think that reptiles 
have empathy nor fish. I have not seen empathy in cows, but some in 
horses. My Lab retriever has empathy for our cat, and the cat hates the 
dog. I have not seen empathy in cats. No offense intended, you cat 
lovers. Your examples are mostly chimps, and certainly they have 
empathy. The bird studies show intelligence but I don't see the empathy. 
Our bird has no empathy for anyone except the lovely bird behind the 
mirror. Empathy is likely a limbic / neocortex combination, bigger 
cortex, more empathy???. I suspect that animals living in groups would 
tend to develop empathy.
Lynn

K.E. wrote:

> All animals have empathy
>
> Non Human Animals Have Intelligence,
> Culture, Emotion, Compassion and Language
> http://www.wildlifeprotection.net/Cruelty/cruelty4.html
>
>
> karen
>
> <>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>
> The Educational CyberPlayGround
> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/
>
> National Children's Folksong Repository
> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Culdesac/Repository/NCFR.html
>
> Hot List of Schools Online and
> Net Happenings, K12 Newsletters, Network Newsletters
> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Community/index.html
>
> 7 Hot Site Awards
> New York Times, USA Today , MSNBC, Earthlink,
> USA Today Best Bets For Educators, Macworld Top Fifty
> <>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<> 
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>

_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


From shovland at mindspring.com  Thu Feb 17 14:15:33 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 06:15:33 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on Neurobics (brain exercises)
Message-ID: <01C514B8.177BBB50.shovland@mindspring.com>

And many men die a relatively short time after
they retire, which points out the need for
challenge and meaningful activity.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
Sent:	Wednesday, February 16, 2005 9:15 PM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on Neurobics (brain exercises)

Old folks who take up aerobics do increase brain size and intelligence 
measures.  We deteriorate, but physical exercise does protect us against 
brain atrophy.
:Lynn

G. Reinhart-Waller wrote:

>>> Severe mental decline is usually caused by
>>
> disease, whereas most age-related losses in memory or motor skills simply
> result from inactivity and a lack of mental exercise and stimulation. In
> other words, use it or lose it.>>
>
> Depends.  No matter how often one engages in physical exercise, his 
> body will show signs of aging.  The same is true for mental exercise.  
> Use it or lose it is only true up to a certain age.  All skin 
> wrinkles....
>
> Gerry
>
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>

_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


From checker at panix.com  Thu Feb 17 15:03:51 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 10:03:51 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on Neurobics (brain exercises)
In-Reply-To: <01C514B8.177BBB50.shovland@mindspring.com>
References: <01C514B8.177BBB50.shovland@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502171003380.15551@panix1.panix.com>

I'd love to get data on this, Steve.

On 2005-02-17, Steve Hovland opined [message unchanged below]:

> Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 06:15:33 -0800
> From: Steve Hovland <shovland at mindspring.com>
> Reply-To: The new improved paleopsych list <paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
> To: 'The new improved paleopsych list' <paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
> Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on Neurobics (brain
>     exercises)
> 
> And many men die a relatively short time after
> they retire, which points out the need for
> challenge and meaningful activity.
>
> Steve Hovland
> www.stevehovland.net
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
> Sent:	Wednesday, February 16, 2005 9:15 PM
> To:	The new improved paleopsych list
> Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on Neurobics (brain exercises)
>
> Old folks who take up aerobics do increase brain size and intelligence
> measures.  We deteriorate, but physical exercise does protect us against
> brain atrophy.
> :Lynn
>
> G. Reinhart-Waller wrote:
>
>>>> Severe mental decline is usually caused by
>>>
>> disease, whereas most age-related losses in memory or motor skills simply
>> result from inactivity and a lack of mental exercise and stimulation. In
>> other words, use it or lose it.>>
>>
>> Depends.  No matter how often one engages in physical exercise, his
>> body will show signs of aging.  The same is true for mental exercise.
>> Use it or lose it is only true up to a certain age.  All skin
>> wrinkles....
>>
>> Gerry
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> paleopsych mailing list
>> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>


From guavaberry at earthlink.net  Thu Feb 17 15:02:41 2005
From: guavaberry at earthlink.net (K.E.)
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 10:02:41 -0500
Subject: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive emotions and
	perceptual accuracy
In-Reply-To: <421427EC.3020805@solution-consulting.com>
References: <01C5132E.B97B5C20.shovland@mindspring.com>
	<4212C2C2.3020207@solution-consulting.com>
	<6.2.1.2.0.20050216142930.038706b0@mail.earthlink.net>
	<421427EC.3020805@solution-consulting.com>
Message-ID: <6.2.1.2.0.20050217095656.038f3828@mail.earthlink.net>

I don't want to offend, I do want to say that empathy is felt. If you don't 
see it then fine, I wouldn't expect that. If there are not scientific tests 
that allow you to see it, I wouldn't expect that either.

Science - doesn't have the ability to test for everything - ALL animals is 
a pretty huge statement I agree, however we can't KNOW that they don't have 
it on some level.

k
(aka motley crew of - highly- unclassified people)

At 12:13 AM 2/17/2005, you wrote:
>Well, many mammals seem to have empathy. I do not think that reptiles have 
>empathy nor fish. I have not seen empathy in cows, but some in horses. My 
>Lab retriever has empathy for our cat, and the cat hates the dog. I have 
>not seen empathy in cats. No offense intended, you cat lovers. Your 
>examples are mostly chimps, and certainly they have empathy. The bird 
>studies show intelligence but I don't see the empathy. Our bird has no 
>empathy for anyone except the lovely bird behind the mirror. Empathy is 
>likely a limbic / neocortex combination, bigger cortex, more empathy???. I 
>suspect that animals living in groups would tend to develop empathy.
>Lynn
>
>K.E. wrote:
>
>>All animals have empathy
>>
>>Non Human Animals Have Intelligence,
>>Culture, Emotion, Compassion and Language
>>http://www.wildlifeprotection.net/Cruelty/cruelty4.html
>>
>>
>>karen
>>
>><>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>
>>The Educational CyberPlayGround
>>http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/
>>
>>National Children's Folksong Repository
>>http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Culdesac/Repository/NCFR.html
>>
>>Hot List of Schools Online and
>>Net Happenings, K12 Newsletters, Network Newsletters
>>http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Community/index.html
>>
>>7 Hot Site Awards
>>New York Times, USA Today , MSNBC, Earthlink,
>>USA Today Best Bets For Educators, Macworld Top Fifty
>><>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>



From ross.buck at uconn.edu  Thu Feb 17 15:19:17 2005
From: ross.buck at uconn.edu (Ross Buck)
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 10:19:17 -0500
Subject: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive emotions and perceptual
	accuracy
In-Reply-To: <421427EC.3020805@solution-consulting.com>
Message-ID: <200502171519.j1HFJUh25439@tick.javien.com>

Empathy can be defined in many ways--does a predator have empathy for its
prey when it judges accurately which way it will escape?--but many consider
nurturance and protectiveness to be important.  To some extent, these are
necessary behaviors in birds and mammals, although different species do
display them to differing degrees.  The differences between monogamous
prairie vole and polygamous meadow voles are particularly instructive, as
these tendencies are closely related to oxytocin and vasopressin systems.
There is recent evidence that, incredibly, the ruggedly individualistic but
philandering male meadow vole can be made to act like a sweet, sensitive,
reliable male prairie vole by the alteration of a single gene.  Lim et al.
(2004) demonstrated that V1aR gene transfer into the ventral forebrain of
male meadow voles substantially increased partner preference formation.  The
V1aR gene transfer increases vasopressin receptors in the ventral forebrain,
and the authors suggest that this has the effect of increasing social memory
of the partner's olfactory signature and also associating that social memory
with dopamine-mediated reward.  

Don't try this at home.  

Cheers, Ross

Reference:  Lim, M. M., Wang, Z., Olazabal, D. E., Ren, X., Terwilliger, E.
F., & Young, L. J. (2004)  Enhanced partner preference in a promiscuous
species by manipulating the expression of a single gene.  Nature.  429.
754-757.  

-----Original Message-----
From: paleopsych-bounces at paleopsych.org
[mailto:paleopsych-bounces at paleopsych.org] On Behalf Of Lynn D. Johnson,
Ph.D.
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 12:13 AM
To: The new improved paleopsych list
Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive emotions and perceptual
accuracy

Well, many mammals seem to have empathy. I do not think that reptiles 
have empathy nor fish. I have not seen empathy in cows, but some in 
horses. My Lab retriever has empathy for our cat, and the cat hates the 
dog. I have not seen empathy in cats. No offense intended, you cat 
lovers. Your examples are mostly chimps, and certainly they have 
empathy. The bird studies show intelligence but I don't see the empathy. 
Our bird has no empathy for anyone except the lovely bird behind the 
mirror. Empathy is likely a limbic / neocortex combination, bigger 
cortex, more empathy???. I suspect that animals living in groups would 
tend to develop empathy.
Lynn

K.E. wrote:

> All animals have empathy
>
> Non Human Animals Have Intelligence,
> Culture, Emotion, Compassion and Language
> http://www.wildlifeprotection.net/Cruelty/cruelty4.html
>
>
> karen
>
> <>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>
> The Educational CyberPlayGround
> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/
>
> National Children's Folksong Repository
> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Culdesac/Repository/NCFR.html
>
> Hot List of Schools Online and
> Net Happenings, K12 Newsletters, Network Newsletters
> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Community/index.html
>
> 7 Hot Site Awards
> New York Times, USA Today , MSNBC, Earthlink,
> USA Today Best Bets For Educators, Macworld Top Fifty
> <>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<> 
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>

_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych



From shovland at mindspring.com  Thu Feb 17 15:33:26 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 07:33:26 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Science confirms Akashic Record (Ervin Laslow)
Message-ID: <01C514C2.F8C5CA10.shovland@mindspring.com>

http://www.physlink.com/Education/essay_laszlo.cfm
The concept of mind

In the on going co-evolution of matter with the vacuum's zero-point field, 
life emerges out of nonlife, and mind and consciousness emerge out of the 
higher domains of life. This evolutionary concept does not 'reduce' reality 
either to non-living matter (as materialism), or assimilate it to a 
nonmaterial mind (as idealism). Both are real but (unlike in dualism), 
neither is the original element in reality. Matter as well as mind evolved 
out of a common cosmic womb: the energy-field of the quantum vacuum. The 
interaction of our mind and consciousness with the quantum vacuum links us 
with other minds around us, as well as with the biosphere of the planet. It 
'opens' our mind to society, nature, and the universe. This openness has 
been known to mystics and sensitives, prophets and meta-physicians through 
the ages. But it has been denied by modern scientists and by those who took 
modern science to be the only way of comprehending reality. Now, however, 
the recognition of openness is returning to the natural sciences. Traffic 
between our consciousness and the rest of the world may be constant and 
flowing in both directions. Everything that goes on in our mind could leave 
its wave traces in the quantum vacuum, and everything could be received by 
those who know how to 'tune in' to the subtle patterns that propagate 
there. This assumption is borne out by the empirical findings of 
psychiatrists such as Stanislav Grof. They confirm the insight of Vaclav 
Havel: it is as if something like an antenna were picking up signals from a 
transmitter that contains the experience of the entire human race.

Whitley Strieber interview at:  http://www.unknowncountry.com/media/

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net




From shovland at mindspring.com  Thu Feb 17 16:08:20 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 08:08:20 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on Neurobics (brain exercises)
Message-ID: <01C514C7.D8C4C9F0.shovland@mindspring.com>

Try this:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=men+die+soon+after+retirement

"Some people look forward to retirement with enthusiasm while others regard 
it with dread. It is a sad fact that many men develop serious illness and 
die soon after retirement. It's different for women. The subject of 
retirement provokes varied reactions depending on whom you speak to. As 
life expectancy increases it is likely that the number of retired people 
will steadily increase over the coming decades. Is this country prepared 
for the major changes in the age profile of our population that will occur 
in the years ahead? It is also important to question if individuals have 
planned properly for the changes that occur when they finish working?"
above paragraph from:  http://www.irishhealth.com/?level=4&id=2114

Personally, I intend to always do something to make some money.

I am perhaps lucky in having some artistic pursuits that I can continue
with when I give up doing computer work.

When I am too feeble to do something worthwhile, I may choose to die
so I can move on to my next life :-)

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Premise Checker [SMTP:checker at panix.com]
Sent:	Thursday, February 17, 2005 7:04 AM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	RE: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on Neurobics (brain 
exercises)

I'd love to get data on this, Steve.

On 2005-02-17, Steve Hovland opined [message unchanged below]:

> Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 06:15:33 -0800
> From: Steve Hovland <shovland at mindspring.com>
> Reply-To: The new improved paleopsych list <paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
> To: 'The new improved paleopsych list' <paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
> Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on Neurobics (brain
>     exercises)
>
> And many men die a relatively short time after
> they retire, which points out the need for
> challenge and meaningful activity.
>
> Steve Hovland
> www.stevehovland.net
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
> Sent:	Wednesday, February 16, 2005 9:15 PM
> To:	The new improved paleopsych list
> Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on Neurobics (brain 
exercises)
>
> Old folks who take up aerobics do increase brain size and intelligence
> measures.  We deteriorate, but physical exercise does protect us against
> brain atrophy.
> :Lynn
>
> G. Reinhart-Waller wrote:
>
>>>> Severe mental decline is usually caused by
>>>
>> disease, whereas most age-related losses in memory or motor skills 
simply
>> result from inactivity and a lack of mental exercise and stimulation. In
>> other words, use it or lose it.>>
>>
>> Depends.  No matter how often one engages in physical exercise, his
>> body will show signs of aging.  The same is true for mental exercise.
>> Use it or lose it is only true up to a certain age.  All skin
>> wrinkles....
>>
>> Gerry
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> paleopsych mailing list
>> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


From waluk at earthlink.net  Thu Feb 17 17:10:47 2005
From: waluk at earthlink.net (G. Reinhart-Waller)
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 09:10:47 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on Neurobics (brain exercises)
References: <01C514B8.177BBB50.shovland@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <010401c51513$a0874a30$8203f604@S0027397558>

All old folks participating in aerobics classes do not 
immune themselves to Alzheimer's.

Gerry Reinhart-Waller
Independent Scholar
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~waluk

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Hovland" <shovland at mindspring.com>
To: "'The new improved paleopsych list'" 
<paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 6:15 AM
Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on 
Neurobics (brain exercises)


> And many men die a relatively short time after
> they retire, which points out the need for
> challenge and meaningful activity.
>
> Steve Hovland
> www.stevehovland.net
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. 
> [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 9:15 PM
> To: The new improved paleopsych list
> Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on 
> Neurobics (brain exercises)
>
> Old folks who take up aerobics do increase brain size 
> and intelligence
> measures.  We deteriorate, but physical exercise does 
> protect us against
> brain atrophy.
> :Lynn
>
> G. Reinhart-Waller wrote:
>
>>>> Severe mental decline is usually caused by
>>>
>> disease, whereas most age-related losses in memory 
>> or motor skills simply
>> result from inactivity and a lack of mental exercise 
>> and stimulation. In
>> other words, use it or lose it.>>
>>
>> Depends.  No matter how often one engages in 
>> physical exercise, his
>> body will show signs of aging.  The same is true for 
>> mental exercise.
>> Use it or lose it is only true up to a certain age. 
>> All skin
>> wrinkles....
>>
>> Gerry
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> paleopsych mailing list
>> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> 




From kendulf at shaw.ca  Thu Feb 17 18:43:18 2005
From: kendulf at shaw.ca (Val Geist)
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 10:43:18 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on Neurobics (brain exercises)
References: <01C514C7.D8C4C9F0.shovland@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <000b01c51520$8c865dc0$03224346@yourjqn2mvdn7x>

When I met my mentor two years after his mandatory retirement he was 
brimming with energy and happiness. "Had I only known what retirement is all 
about, I would have retired at he earliest opportunity!" he gushed, and that 
from a dean and university professor of considerable renown! Still, I took 
it as a hint with the telephone pole and retired soon after it was possible 
to do so, and am now 10 years down the road. My mentor, by the way is now 94 
years of age - and going strong, two recent strokes not withstanding! Me? 
Groan! Don't retire. It's too much work! I published more books after 
retirement than before, won more literary awards than before, wish 
fervorently to either be cloned or the day be doubled to 48 hours - 
whichever is fastest! You think you might be bored to death? Forget it. You 
will be worked to death! Retirement is not for sissies - so the wisdom of 
another "retired" friend of mine. Cheers, Val Geist
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Hovland" <shovland at mindspring.com>
To: "'The new improved paleopsych list'" <paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 8:08 AM
Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on Neurobics (brain 
exercises)


> Try this:
>
> http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=men+die+soon+after+retirement
>
> "Some people look forward to retirement with enthusiasm while others 
> regard
> it with dread. It is a sad fact that many men develop serious illness and
> die soon after retirement. It's different for women. The subject of
> retirement provokes varied reactions depending on whom you speak to. As
> life expectancy increases it is likely that the number of retired people
> will steadily increase over the coming decades. Is this country prepared
> for the major changes in the age profile of our population that will occur
> in the years ahead? It is also important to question if individuals have
> planned properly for the changes that occur when they finish working?"
> above paragraph from:  http://www.irishhealth.com/?level=4&id=2114
>
> Personally, I intend to always do something to make some money.
>
> I am perhaps lucky in having some artistic pursuits that I can continue
> with when I give up doing computer work.
>
> When I am too feeble to do something worthwhile, I may choose to die
> so I can move on to my next life :-)
>
> Steve Hovland
> www.stevehovland.net
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Premise Checker [SMTP:checker at panix.com]
> Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 7:04 AM
> To: The new improved paleopsych list
> Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on Neurobics (brain
> exercises)
>
> I'd love to get data on this, Steve.
>
> On 2005-02-17, Steve Hovland opined [message unchanged below]:
>
>> Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 06:15:33 -0800
>> From: Steve Hovland <shovland at mindspring.com>
>> Reply-To: The new improved paleopsych list <paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>> To: 'The new improved paleopsych list' <paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>> Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on Neurobics (brain
>>     exercises)
>>
>> And many men die a relatively short time after
>> they retire, which points out the need for
>> challenge and meaningful activity.
>>
>> Steve Hovland
>> www.stevehovland.net
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
>> Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 9:15 PM
>> To: The new improved paleopsych list
>> Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on Neurobics (brain
> exercises)
>>
>> Old folks who take up aerobics do increase brain size and intelligence
>> measures.  We deteriorate, but physical exercise does protect us against
>> brain atrophy.
>> :Lynn
>>
>> G. Reinhart-Waller wrote:
>>
>>>>> Severe mental decline is usually caused by
>>>>
>>> disease, whereas most age-related losses in memory or motor skills
> simply
>>> result from inactivity and a lack of mental exercise and stimulation. In
>>> other words, use it or lose it.>>
>>>
>>> Depends.  No matter how often one engages in physical exercise, his
>>> body will show signs of aging.  The same is true for mental exercise.
>>> Use it or lose it is only true up to a certain age.  All skin
>>> wrinkles....
>>>
>>> Gerry
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> paleopsych mailing list
>>> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>>> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>>
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> paleopsych mailing list
>> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>> _______________________________________________
>> paleopsych mailing list
>> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>
> -- 
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.8 - Release Date: 2/14/2005
> 



-- 
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From kendulf at shaw.ca  Thu Feb 17 18:46:35 2005
From: kendulf at shaw.ca (Val Geist)
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 10:46:35 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive emotions
	and	perceptualaccuracy
References: <01C514B7.F21DFF30.shovland@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <001301c51521$01819220$03224346@yourjqn2mvdn7x>

My cat chooses in a cool fashion to interfere when I am really engaged on the computer. Then she begins the process of winding up on my shoulders and stretching her paw out to the keys. That rotten brain of his understands humor - I think! Cheers, Val Geist
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Hovland" <shovland at mindspring.com>
To: "'The new improved paleopsych list'" <paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 6:14 AM
Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive emotions and perceptualaccuracy


>I know my cats have emotions, but they
> are also cold-blooded killers of birds and
> mice (they bring their kills to show us.)
> 
> Since they have emotions and wills but
> not much language I try to use empathy
> in dealing with them.  For example, the
> older cat just jumped up on my keyboard
> but she was there for food, not affection.
> 
> Steve Hovland
> www.stevehovland.net
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 9:13 PM
> To: The new improved paleopsych list
> Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy
> 
> Well, many mammals seem to have empathy. I do not think that reptiles 
> have empathy nor fish. I have not seen empathy in cows, but some in 
> horses. My Lab retriever has empathy for our cat, and the cat hates the 
> dog. I have not seen empathy in cats. No offense intended, you cat 
> lovers. Your examples are mostly chimps, and certainly they have 
> empathy. The bird studies show intelligence but I don't see the empathy. 
> Our bird has no empathy for anyone except the lovely bird behind the 
> mirror. Empathy is likely a limbic / neocortex combination, bigger 
> cortex, more empathy???. I suspect that animals living in groups would 
> tend to develop empathy.
> Lynn
> 
> K.E. wrote:
> 
>> All animals have empathy
>>
>> Non Human Animals Have Intelligence,
>> Culture, Emotion, Compassion and Language
>> http://www.wildlifeprotection.net/Cruelty/cruelty4.html
>>
>>
>> karen
>>
>> <>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>
>> The Educational CyberPlayGround
>> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/
>>
>> National Children's Folksong Repository
>> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Culdesac/Repository/NCFR.html
>>
>> Hot List of Schools Online and
>> Net Happenings, K12 Newsletters, Network Newsletters
>> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Community/index.html
>>
>> 7 Hot Site Awards
>> New York Times, USA Today , MSNBC, Earthlink,
>> USA Today Best Bets For Educators, Macworld Top Fifty
>> <>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> paleopsych mailing list
>> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>
>>
> 
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> 
> 
> -- 
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.8 - Release Date: 2/14/2005
> 
>
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From kendulf at shaw.ca  Thu Feb 17 19:23:25 2005
From: kendulf at shaw.ca (Val Geist)
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:23:25 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on Neurobics (brain exercises)
References: <01C514C7.D8C4C9F0.shovland@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <005001c51526$26edb3e0$03224346@yourjqn2mvdn7x>

Dear Steven,

Here is a little follow up on my earlier note. It's an excerpt I sent to a 
friend. "I just got back from a busy trip to the US (four talks in four 
days, one radio interview, one 3 1/2 hour taping [the batteries ran out!] 
two field trips and interminable discussions at breakfast, lunch, supper - 
and in between). Add to that two days of travel with seven flights and it 
adds up to proper retirement activities. On top of it anxieties as in my 
absence the bloody turkeys decided on more adventures. So, upon return we 
diminished the flock by five of the young toms so full of "Wanderlust". A 
full day of plucking and drawing turkeys developed plus - sparing one - 
delivering it to a friend, where, after having one wing clipped, it promptly 
gobbled to get the attention of the one and only female remaining to my 
friend. There are still twenty turkeys left, and they still show some 
"wanderlust". Cheers, Val Geist

PS. Have set aside some time for breathing, but consequently got way behind 
on accumulated mail, e-mail and otherwise. When you retire you loose your 
secretary. At least I did. Now that is a loss!
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Hovland" <shovland at mindspring.com>
To: "'The new improved paleopsych list'" <paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 8:08 AM
Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on Neurobics (brain 
exercises)


> Try this:
>
> http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=men+die+soon+after+retirement
>
> "Some people look forward to retirement with enthusiasm while others 
> regard
> it with dread. It is a sad fact that many men develop serious illness and
> die soon after retirement. It's different for women. The subject of
> retirement provokes varied reactions depending on whom you speak to. As
> life expectancy increases it is likely that the number of retired people
> will steadily increase over the coming decades. Is this country prepared
> for the major changes in the age profile of our population that will occur
> in the years ahead? It is also important to question if individuals have
> planned properly for the changes that occur when they finish working?"
> above paragraph from:  http://www.irishhealth.com/?level=4&id=2114
>
> Personally, I intend to always do something to make some money.
>
> I am perhaps lucky in having some artistic pursuits that I can continue
> with when I give up doing computer work.
>
> When I am too feeble to do something worthwhile, I may choose to die
> so I can move on to my next life :-)
>
> Steve Hovland
> www.stevehovland.net
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Premise Checker [SMTP:checker at panix.com]
> Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 7:04 AM
> To: The new improved paleopsych list
> Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on Neurobics (brain
> exercises)
>
> I'd love to get data on this, Steve.
>
> On 2005-02-17, Steve Hovland opined [message unchanged below]:
>
>> Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 06:15:33 -0800
>> From: Steve Hovland <shovland at mindspring.com>
>> Reply-To: The new improved paleopsych list <paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>> To: 'The new improved paleopsych list' <paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>> Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on Neurobics (brain
>>     exercises)
>>
>> And many men die a relatively short time after
>> they retire, which points out the need for
>> challenge and meaningful activity.
>>
>> Steve Hovland
>> www.stevehovland.net
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
>> Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 9:15 PM
>> To: The new improved paleopsych list
>> Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on Neurobics (brain
> exercises)
>>
>> Old folks who take up aerobics do increase brain size and intelligence
>> measures.  We deteriorate, but physical exercise does protect us against
>> brain atrophy.
>> :Lynn
>>
>> G. Reinhart-Waller wrote:
>>
>>>>> Severe mental decline is usually caused by
>>>>
>>> disease, whereas most age-related losses in memory or motor skills
> simply
>>> result from inactivity and a lack of mental exercise and stimulation. In
>>> other words, use it or lose it.>>
>>>
>>> Depends.  No matter how often one engages in physical exercise, his
>>> body will show signs of aging.  The same is true for mental exercise.
>>> Use it or lose it is only true up to a certain age.  All skin
>>> wrinkles....
>>>
>>> Gerry
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> paleopsych mailing list
>>> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>>> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>>
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> paleopsych mailing list
>> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>> _______________________________________________
>> paleopsych mailing list
>> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>
> -- 
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.8 - Release Date: 2/14/2005
> 



-- 
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.8 - Release Date: 2/14/2005



From shovland at mindspring.com  Thu Feb 17 20:06:37 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 12:06:37 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on Neurobics (brain exercises)
Message-ID: <01C514E9.222CE430.shovland@mindspring.com>

Some people who do not have Alzheimers
show the same brain shrinkage as people
who do.

Perhaps our bad-fat diet has something
to do with it.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	G. Reinhart-Waller [SMTP:waluk at earthlink.net]
Sent:	Thursday, February 17, 2005 9:11 AM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on Neurobics (brain exercises)

All old folks participating in aerobics classes do not 
immune themselves to Alzheimer's.

Gerry Reinhart-Waller
Independent Scholar
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~waluk

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Hovland" <shovland at mindspring.com>
To: "'The new improved paleopsych list'" 
<paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 6:15 AM
Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on 
Neurobics (brain exercises)


> And many men die a relatively short time after
> they retire, which points out the need for
> challenge and meaningful activity.
>
> Steve Hovland
> www.stevehovland.net
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. 
> [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 9:15 PM
> To: The new improved paleopsych list
> Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] The Franklin Institute on 
> Neurobics (brain exercises)
>
> Old folks who take up aerobics do increase brain size 
> and intelligence
> measures.  We deteriorate, but physical exercise does 
> protect us against
> brain atrophy.
> :Lynn
>
> G. Reinhart-Waller wrote:
>
>>>> Severe mental decline is usually caused by
>>>
>> disease, whereas most age-related losses in memory 
>> or motor skills simply
>> result from inactivity and a lack of mental exercise 
>> and stimulation. In
>> other words, use it or lose it.>>
>>
>> Depends.  No matter how often one engages in 
>> physical exercise, his
>> body will show signs of aging.  The same is true for 
>> mental exercise.
>> Use it or lose it is only true up to a certain age. 
>> All skin
>> wrinkles....
>>
>> Gerry
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> paleopsych mailing list
>> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> 


_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


From anonymous_animus at yahoo.com  Thu Feb 17 20:10:21 2005
From: anonymous_animus at yahoo.com (Michael Christopher)
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 12:10:21 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] science and politics
In-Reply-To: <200502171918.j1HJI1h26902@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <20050217201021.91032.qmail@web30807.mail.mud.yahoo.com>


>>What we're seeing is an extreme us-vs-them
mentality, where the businessmen now take this
us-vs-them mentality into politics. What THIS list
needs to do is not to be alarmed or to groan or to
argue one side or the other but to EXPLAIN the
widening polarity.<<

--If you look into PR companies and their techniques,
you'll see that a HUGE amount of money has been put
into rendering good environmental science in a dubious
light. There is just more money in denying reality
than in promoting it. The status quo, and whoever
benefits from it, is ALWAYS pushing science back,
because science by its very nature is progressive, it
takes new information into account and overrides the
old.

Most people seem to believe what they see on TV, the
way they used to believe anything they saw in print.
Now, people don't read the papers, they watch
whichever TV station is biased in their direction,
while denouncing the other stations as biased. A
dangerous game, given the inability of any TV network
to focus deeply on issues, and the inevitable trend
toward sensationalism and ad hominem politics,
regardless of which way the bias leans. Whether it's
Fox or CNN, the issues are going to be rendered in
cartoonish terms with one side benefitting from
fallacies held by the public and unchallenged by the
anchors. And when attempts are made to show balance,
false facts are unquestioned and regarded simply as
"the other side of the story".

Michael




		
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today! 
http://my.yahoo.com 
 



From waluk at earthlink.net  Thu Feb 17 20:19:27 2005
From: waluk at earthlink.net (G. Reinhart-Waller)
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 12:19:27 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive emotionsand	perceptualaccuracy
References: <01C514B7.F21DFF30.shovland@mindspring.com>
	<001301c51521$01819220$03224346@yourjqn2mvdn7x>
Message-ID: <023d01c5152d$fc20d950$8203f604@S0027397558>


Domesticated animals including cats, dogs, horses, even birds reflect the personality type of their particular breed.  Each animal is unique and depending upon the way raised, reflects this personality to its owners and guests.  Usually though a sourpuss owner doesn't raise a humerous cat.

Gerry

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Val Geist 
To: The new improved paleopsych list 
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 10:46 AM
Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive emotionsand perceptualaccuracy


My cat chooses in a cool fashion to interfere when I am really engaged on the computer. Then she begins the process of winding up on my shoulders and stretching her paw out to the keys. That rotten brain of his understands humor - I think! Cheers, Val Geist
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Hovland" <shovland at mindspring.com>
To: "'The new improved paleopsych list'" <paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 6:14 AM
Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive emotions and perceptualaccuracy


>I know my cats have emotions, but they
> are also cold-blooded killers of birds and
> mice (they bring their kills to show us.)
> 
> Since they have emotions and wills but
> not much language I try to use empathy
> in dealing with them.  For example, the
> older cat just jumped up on my keyboard
> but she was there for food, not affection.
> 
> Steve Hovland
> www.stevehovland.net
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 9:13 PM
> To: The new improved paleopsych list
> Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive emotions and perceptual accuracy
> 
> Well, many mammals seem to have empathy. I do not think that reptiles 
> have empathy nor fish. I have not seen empathy in cows, but some in 
> horses. My Lab retriever has empathy for our cat, and the cat hates the 
> dog. I have not seen empathy in cats. No offense intended, you cat 
> lovers. Your examples are mostly chimps, and certainly they have 
> empathy. The bird studies show intelligence but I don't see the empathy. 
> Our bird has no empathy for anyone except the lovely bird behind the 
> mirror. Empathy is likely a limbic / neocortex combination, bigger 
> cortex, more empathy???. I suspect that animals living in groups would 
> tend to develop empathy.
> Lynn
> 
> K.E. wrote:
> 
>> All animals have empathy
>>
>> Non Human Animals Have Intelligence,
>> Culture, Emotion, Compassion and Language
>> http://www.wildlifeprotection.net/Cruelty/cruelty4.html
>>
>>
>> karen
>>
>> <>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>
>> The Educational CyberPlayGround
>> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/
>>
>> National Children's Folksong Repository
>> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Culdesac/Repository/NCFR.html
>>
>> Hot List of Schools Online and
>> Net Happenings, K12 Newsletters, Network Newsletters
>> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Community/index.html
>>
>> 7 Hot Site Awards
>> New York Times, USA Today , MSNBC, Earthlink,
>> USA Today Best Bets For Educators, Macworld Top Fifty
>> <>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> paleopsych mailing list
>> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>
>>
> 
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> 
> 
> -- 
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.8 - Release Date: 2/14/2005
> 
> 


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


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Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.8 - Release Date: 2/14/2005



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From shovland at mindspring.com  Thu Feb 17 20:46:11 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 12:46:11 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] science and politics
Message-ID: <01C514EE.A98B2E50.shovland@mindspring.com>

It's divide and conquer.

Works both ways.

We liberals can use fiscal responsibility
to separate the true conservatives from
the radical whackos.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Michael Christopher [SMTP:anonymous_animus at yahoo.com]
Sent:	Thursday, February 17, 2005 12:10 PM
To:	paleopsych at paleopsych.org
Subject:	[Paleopsych] science and politics


>>What we're seeing is an extreme us-vs-them
mentality, where the businessmen now take this
us-vs-them mentality into politics. What THIS list
needs to do is not to be alarmed or to groan or to
argue one side or the other but to EXPLAIN the
widening polarity.<<

--If you look into PR companies and their techniques,
you'll see that a HUGE amount of money has been put
into rendering good environmental science in a dubious
light. There is just more money in denying reality
than in promoting it. The status quo, and whoever
benefits from it, is ALWAYS pushing science back,
because science by its very nature is progressive, it
takes new information into account and overrides the
old.

Most people seem to believe what they see on TV, the
way they used to believe anything they saw in print.
Now, people don't read the papers, they watch
whichever TV station is biased in their direction,
while denouncing the other stations as biased. A
dangerous game, given the inability of any TV network
to focus deeply on issues, and the inevitable trend
toward sensationalism and ad hominem politics,
regardless of which way the bias leans. Whether it's
Fox or CNN, the issues are going to be rendered in
cartoonish terms with one side benefitting from
fallacies held by the public and unchallenged by the
anchors. And when attempts are made to show balance,
false facts are unquestioned and regarded simply as
"the other side of the story".

Michael




		
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today! 
http://my.yahoo.com 
 

_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


From shovland at mindspring.com  Thu Feb 17 20:55:31 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 12:55:31 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive emotionsand	perceptualaccuracy
Message-ID: <01C514EF.F72762E0.shovland@mindspring.com>

One of our cats was sent to the shelter
at 11 months of age.  She has huge
abandonment issues...

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	G. Reinhart-Waller [SMTP:waluk at earthlink.net]
Sent:	Thursday, February 17, 2005 12:19 PM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive 
emotionsand	perceptualaccuracy


Domesticated animals including cats, dogs, horses, even birds reflect the 
personality type of their particular breed.  Each animal is unique and 
depending upon the way raised, reflects this personality to its owners and 
guests.  Usually though a sourpuss owner doesn't raise a humerous cat.

Gerry

----- Original Message -----
From: Val Geist
To: The new improved paleopsych list
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 10:46 AM
Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive emotionsand 
perceptualaccuracy


My cat chooses in a cool fashion to interfere when I am really engaged on 
the computer. Then she begins the process of winding up on my shoulders and 
stretching her paw out to the keys. That rotten brain of his understands 
humor - I think! Cheers, Val Geist
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Hovland" <shovland at mindspring.com>
To: "'The new improved paleopsych list'" <paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 6:14 AM
Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive emotions and 
perceptualaccuracy


>I know my cats have emotions, but they
> are also cold-blooded killers of birds and
> mice (they bring their kills to show us.)
>
> Since they have emotions and wills but
> not much language I try to use empathy
> in dealing with them.  For example, the
> older cat just jumped up on my keyboard
> but she was there for food, not affection.
>
> Steve Hovland
> www.stevehovland.net
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 9:13 PM
> To: The new improved paleopsych list
> Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive emotions and perceptual 
accuracy
>
> Well, many mammals seem to have empathy. I do not think that reptiles
> have empathy nor fish. I have not seen empathy in cows, but some in
> horses. My Lab retriever has empathy for our cat, and the cat hates the
> dog. I have not seen empathy in cats. No offense intended, you cat
> lovers. Your examples are mostly chimps, and certainly they have
> empathy. The bird studies show intelligence but I don't see the empathy.
> Our bird has no empathy for anyone except the lovely bird behind the
> mirror. Empathy is likely a limbic / neocortex combination, bigger
> cortex, more empathy???. I suspect that animals living in groups would
> tend to develop empathy.
> Lynn
>
> K.E. wrote:
>
>> All animals have empathy
>>
>> Non Human Animals Have Intelligence,
>> Culture, Emotion, Compassion and Language
>> http://www.wildlifeprotection.net/Cruelty/cruelty4.html
>>
>>
>> karen
>>
>> <>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>
>> The Educational CyberPlayGround
>> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/
>>
>> National Children's Folksong Repository
>> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Culdesac/Repository/NCFR.html
>>
>> Hot List of Schools Online and
>> Net Happenings, K12 Newsletters, Network Newsletters
>> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Community/index.html
>>
>> 7 Hot Site Awards
>> New York Times, USA Today , MSNBC, Earthlink,
>> USA Today Best Bets For Educators, Macworld Top Fifty
>> <>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>
>> _______________________________________________
>> paleopsych mailing list
>> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>
> --
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.8 - Release Date: 2/14/2005
>
>


------------------------------------------------------------------------  
--------


No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.8 - Release Date: 2/14/2005



------------------------------------------------------------------------  
--------


_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
 << File: ATT00011.html >>  << File: ATT00012.txt >> 


From waluk at earthlink.net  Thu Feb 17 21:30:56 2005
From: waluk at earthlink.net (G. Reinhart-Waller)
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 13:30:56 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive emotionsand	perceptualaccuracy
References: <01C514EF.F72762E0.shovland@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <02b501c51537$f8aa1d90$8203f604@S0027397558>


There's a runt in every litter.  Some owners explain 
their actions towards pets in one way while others 
might have an opposite explanation.  Truth lies in the 
eyes of the beholder.

Gerry

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Hovland" <shovland at mindspring.com>
To: "'The new improved paleopsych list'" 
<paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 12:55 PM
Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive 
emotionsand perceptualaccuracy


> One of our cats was sent to the shelter
> at 11 months of age.  She has huge
> abandonment issues...
>
> Steve Hovland
> www.stevehovland.net
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: G. Reinhart-Waller [SMTP:waluk at earthlink.net]
> Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 12:19 PM
> To: The new improved paleopsych list
> Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive
> emotionsand perceptualaccuracy
>
>
> Domesticated animals including cats, dogs, horses, 
> even birds reflect the
> personality type of their particular breed.  Each 
> animal is unique and
> depending upon the way raised, reflects this 
> personality to its owners and
> guests.  Usually though a sourpuss owner doesn't 
> raise a humerous cat.
>
> Gerry
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Val Geist
> To: The new improved paleopsych list
> Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 10:46 AM
> Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive 
> emotionsand
> perceptualaccuracy
>
>
> My cat chooses in a cool fashion to interfere when I 
> am really engaged on
> the computer. Then she begins the process of winding 
> up on my shoulders and
> stretching her paw out to the keys. That rotten brain 
> of his understands
> humor - I think! Cheers, Val Geist
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Steve Hovland" <shovland at mindspring.com>
> To: "'The new improved paleopsych list'" 
> <paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
> Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 6:14 AM
> Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive 
> emotions and
> perceptualaccuracy
>
>
>>I know my cats have emotions, but they
>> are also cold-blooded killers of birds and
>> mice (they bring their kills to show us.)
>>
>> Since they have emotions and wills but
>> not much language I try to use empathy
>> in dealing with them.  For example, the
>> older cat just jumped up on my keyboard
>> but she was there for food, not affection.
>>
>> Steve Hovland
>> www.stevehovland.net
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. 
>> [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
>> Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 9:13 PM
>> To: The new improved paleopsych list
>> Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive 
>> emotions and perceptual
> accuracy
>>
>> Well, many mammals seem to have empathy. I do not 
>> think that reptiles
>> have empathy nor fish. I have not seen empathy in 
>> cows, but some in
>> horses. My Lab retriever has empathy for our cat, 
>> and the cat hates the
>> dog. I have not seen empathy in cats. No offense 
>> intended, you cat
>> lovers. Your examples are mostly chimps, and 
>> certainly they have
>> empathy. The bird studies show intelligence but I 
>> don't see the empathy.
>> Our bird has no empathy for anyone except the lovely 
>> bird behind the
>> mirror. Empathy is likely a limbic / neocortex 
>> combination, bigger
>> cortex, more empathy???. I suspect that animals 
>> living in groups would
>> tend to develop empathy.
>> Lynn
>>
>> K.E. wrote:
>>
>>> All animals have empathy
>>>
>>> Non Human Animals Have Intelligence,
>>> Culture, Emotion, Compassion and Language
>>> http://www.wildlifeprotection.net/Cruelty/cruelty4.html
>>>
>>>
>>> karen
>>>
>>> <>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>
>>> The Educational CyberPlayGround
>>> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/
>>>
>>> National Children's Folksong Repository
>>> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Culdesac/Repository/NCFR.html
>>>
>>> Hot List of Schools Online and
>>> Net Happenings, K12 Newsletters, Network 
>>> Newsletters
>>> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Community/index.html
>>>
>>> 7 Hot Site Awards
>>> New York Times, USA Today , MSNBC, Earthlink,
>>> USA Today Best Bets For Educators, Macworld Top 
>>> Fifty
>>> <>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> paleopsych mailing list
>>> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>>> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>>
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> paleopsych mailing list
>> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>> _______________________________________________
>> paleopsych mailing list
>> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>
>>
>> --
>> No virus found in this incoming message.
>> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
>> Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.8 - Release 
>> Date: 2/14/2005
>>
>>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
>
> No virus found in this outgoing message.
> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.8 - Release 
> Date: 2/14/2005
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> << File: ATT00011.html >>  << File: ATT00012.txt >>
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From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Fri Feb 18 02:23:44 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 19:23:44 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive emotions and	perceptual
	accuracy
In-Reply-To: <6.2.1.2.0.20050217095656.038f3828@mail.earthlink.net>
References: <01C5132E.B97B5C20.shovland@mindspring.com>	<4212C2C2.3020207@solution-consulting.com>	<6.2.1.2.0.20050216142930.038706b0@mail.earthlink.net>	<421427EC.3020805@solution-consulting.com>
	<6.2.1.2.0.20050217095656.038f3828@mail.earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <421551B0.1020606@solution-consulting.com>

No offense taken, Karen, you are a fascinating contributor to this 
listserv. Always interesting stuff.

In a sense you are right. All creatures may have empathy. But to feel 
empathy in another sentient creature requires something I don't possess, 
psychic abilities. I actually believe they (psychic abilities) exist, 
because after my interviews of near death experiencers, I found some 
pretty anomolous data. Rupert Sheldrake lives! So I infer empathy from 
actions. Technically, what the dog feels for my cat is compassion. If 
the cat is outside and the weather turns bad, the dog will pace and 
whine until I let her out. She goes out, collects the cat, and herds her 
in. So I infer empathy/compassion. Never seen a cat do anything like 
that. MY cat seems to specialize in bugging me when I am trying to write 
an email. Total lack of empathy for me. I pet her anyway. I have empathy 
for her. Dumb cat.

So what am I missing about feeling empathy in critters?
Lynn
motley Ph.D.


K.E. wrote:

> I don't want to offend, I do want to say that empathy is felt. If you 
> don't see it then fine, I wouldn't expect that. If there are not 
> scientific tests that allow you to see it, I wouldn't expect that either.
>
> Science - doesn't have the ability to test for everything - ALL 
> animals is a pretty huge statement I agree, however we can't KNOW that 
> they don't have it on some level.
>
> k
> (aka motley crew of - highly- unclassified people)
>
> At 12:13 AM 2/17/2005, you wrote:
>
>> Well, many mammals seem to have empathy. I do not think that reptiles 
>> have empathy nor fish. I have not seen empathy in cows, but some in 
>> horses. My Lab retriever has empathy for our cat, and the cat hates 
>> the dog. I have not seen empathy in cats. No offense intended, you 
>> cat lovers. Your examples are mostly chimps, and certainly they have 
>> empathy. The bird studies show intelligence but I don't see the 
>> empathy. Our bird has no empathy for anyone except the lovely bird 
>> behind the mirror. Empathy is likely a limbic / neocortex 
>> combination, bigger cortex, more empathy???. I suspect that animals 
>> living in groups would tend to develop empathy.
>> Lynn
>>
>> K.E. wrote:
>>
>>> All animals have empathy
>>>
>>> Non Human Animals Have Intelligence,
>>> Culture, Emotion, Compassion and Language
>>> http://www.wildlifeprotection.net/Cruelty/cruelty4.html
>>>
>>>
>>> karen
>>>
>>> <>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>
>>> The Educational CyberPlayGround
>>> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/
>>>
>>> National Children's Folksong Repository
>>> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Culdesac/Repository/NCFR.html
>>>
>>> Hot List of Schools Online and
>>> Net Happenings, K12 Newsletters, Network Newsletters
>>> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Community/index.html
>>>
>>> 7 Hot Site Awards
>>> New York Times, USA Today , MSNBC, Earthlink,
>>> USA Today Best Bets For Educators, Macworld Top Fifty
>>> <>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>
>>
>
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>



From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Fri Feb 18 13:32:29 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 06:32:29 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] Politics of global warming
Message-ID: <4215EE6D.1070603@solution-consulting.com>

Interesting WSJ editorial today, apropos of recent discussion of the 
politics of science. By way of disclosure, I am highly skeptical of 
global warming but still open minded enough to dialog and learn.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110006314
Hockey Stick on Ice
Politicizing the science of global warming.

Friday, February 18, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

On Wednesday National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman canceled 
the season, and we guess that's a loss. But this week also brought news 
of something else that's been put on ice. We're talking about the 
"hockey stick."

Just so we're clear, this hockey stick isn't a sports implement; it's a 
scientific graph. Back in the late 1990s, American geoscientist Michael 
Mann published a chart that purported to show average surface 
temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere over the past 1,000 years. The 
chart showed relatively minor fluctuations in temperature over the first 
900 years, then a sharp and continuous rise over the past century, 
giving it a hockey-stick shape.

Mr. Mann's chart was both a scientific and political sensation. It 
contradicted a body of scientific work suggesting a warm period early in 
the second millennium, followed by a "Little Ice Age" starting in the 
14th century. It also provided some visually arresting scientific 
support for the contention that fossil-fuel emissions were the cause of 
higher temperatures. Little wonder, then, that Mr. Mann's hockey stick 
appears five times in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 
landmark 2001 report on global warming, which paved the way to this 
week's global ratification--sans the U.S., Australia and China--of the 
Kyoto Protocol.

Yet there were doubts about Mr. Mann's methods and analysis from the 
start. In 1998, Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the 
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics published a paper in the 
journal Climate Research, arguing that there really had been a Medieval 
warm period. The result: Messrs. Soon and Baliunas were treated as 
heretics and six editors at Climate Research were made to resign.

Still, questions persisted. In 2003, Stephen McIntyre, a Toronto 
minerals consultant and amateur mathematician, and Ross McKitrick, an 
economist at Canada's University of Guelph, jointly published a critique 
of the hockey stick analysis. Their conclusion: Mr. Mann's work was 
riddled with "collation errors, unjustifiable truncations of 
extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, geographical location 
errors, incorrect calculations of principal components, and other 
quality control defects." Once these were corrected, the Medieval warm 
period showed up again in the data.

This should have produced a healthy scientific debate. Instead, as the 
Journal's Antonio Regalado reported Monday, Mr. Mann tried to shut down 
debate by refusing to disclose the mathematical algorithm by which he 
arrived at his conclusions. All the same, Mr. Mann was forced to publish 
a retraction of some of his initial data, and doubts about his 
statistical methods have since grown. Statistician Francis Zwiers of 
Environment Canada (a government agency) notes that Mr. Mann's method 
"preferentially produces hockey sticks when there are none in the data." 
Other reputable scientists such as Berkeley's Richard Muller and Hans 
von Storch of Germany's GKSS Center essentially agree.

We realize this may all seem like so much academic nonsense. Yet if 
there really was a Medieval warm period (we draw no conclusions), it 
would cast some doubt on the contention that our SUVs and air 
conditioners, rather than natural causes, are to blame for apparent 
global warming.

There is also the not-so-small matter of the politicization of science: 
If climate scientists feel their careers might be put at risk by 
questioning some orthodoxy, the inevitable result will be bad science. 
It says something that it took two non-climate scientists to bring Mr. 
Mann's errors to light.

But the important point is this: The world is being lobbied to place a 
huge economic bet--as much as $150 billion a year--on the notion that 
man-made global warming is real. Businesses are gearing up, at 
considerable cost, to deal with a new regulatory environment; complex 
carbon-trading schemes are in the making. Shouldn't everyone look very 
carefully, and honestly, at the science before we jump off this 
particular cliff?


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From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Fri Feb 18 13:49:06 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 06:49:06 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] Frank: Politics of science theme
In-Reply-To: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502161526480.8638@panix1.panix.com>
References: <20050216195007.25331.qmail@web30803.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<Pine.NEB.4.61.0502161526480.8638@panix1.panix.com>
Message-ID: <4215F252.1010604@solution-consulting.com>

Frank, et al.,
I once consulted with a pharmaceutical research firm. We found that 
scientists were NOT being clear and direct in communications with each 
other about research. A scientist would present current progress on a 
line of research, and some other researchers would walk out of the 
meeting saying, "Well, that is a pretty stupid direction to go" but they 
would not challenge each other.

Divergent opinions are generally felt as threatening to the group, and 
it takes sustained effort to legitimize divergent opinions. We came up 
with "Robust Scientific Dialog" as a title for an organizational 
intervention that had some positive impact.

Lynn

Premise Checker wrote:

> This is pretty alarming. I have long realized that certain facts will 
> be ignored (like innate racial differences in intelligence at the U.S. 
> Dept. of Education). I've realized that opposing viewpoints will not 
> be listened to (the unwinnability of the Viet Nam war). But to have 
> facts altered is something else.
>
> It's further alarming, since I'm a free marketeer and look favorably 
> upon big business as being triumphs, a la Ayn Rand. I don't think of 
> business vs. the exploited workers and consumers. I'm not interested 
> in equality and do not care if CEOs make 10 or 1000 times what the 
> workers make. I have little sense of envy. I do not want to take from 
> the productive and give to the non-productive. I do not want to bilk 
> tobacco companies for the follies of smokers. All these sorts of things.
>
> But this is more. What we're seeing is an extreme us-vs-them 
> mentality, where the businessmen now take this us-vs-them mentality 
> into politics. What THIS list needs to do is not to be alarmed or to 
> groan or to argue one side or the other but to EXPLAIN the widening 
> polarity.
>
> Tomorrow, in a different mood, I'm sure I can come up with an argument 
> that polarity is a good thing, that it has high entertainment value or 
> something such.
>
> At a personal level, here at the U.S. Department of Education, it's a 
> big disappointment. Last week, I went to a talk by the Director of the 
> Office of Technology. She gave an excellent presentation. During the 
> question period I said that distinguishing good from bogus information 
> on the Net would be the singly most important skill to have in the 
> world of 2025, when the current crop of kids in school are out of 
> school. The problem is that the most important skill of all is very 
> hard to measure. I urged that when the No Child Left Behind Act gets 
> extended to high school that the law be made more flexible to take 
> this difficulty of measurement into account.
>
> She answered by saying that a two-day conference could be held on this 
> very topic and that I asked a great question. However, she thought 
> that schools that could be teaching this kind of skill need not fear 
> running afoul of NCLB. I spent 10-15 minutes talking with her after 
> the meeting, too. I followed up with some e-mails of highly relevant 
> articles and further thoughts of my own.
>
> But since then: nothing. I think she got cold feet when she realized 
> that I might be dangerously independent (no, I'm not about to bring up 
> race differences) and would not tow the party line. I suspect that 
> she, too, wants to find out what the party line and then tow it, 
> rather than even hint that the party line needs clarification. No, I 
> don't mean that she really wants to do this--she clearly liked talking 
> to me--but that she has no choice.
>
> It is the case, in my experience anyhow, that Democrats are more 
> open-minded than Republicans. I say this even though I prefer 
> Republican policies, as least when there was a substantial difference. 
> I think it's because Democrats are much more goo-goo (good government) 
> types and want to improve something that they approve of, while 
> Republicans want to reduce or get rid of programs.
>
> I sense a divisiveness that has grown beyond this, though, and it's a 
> theory about the rise and fall of divisiveness that I'd like to 
> explore on this list, NOT about "this is what I want the world to be."
>
> On 2005-02-16, Michael Christopher opined [message unchanged below]:
>
>> Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 11:50:07 -0800 (PST)
>> From: Michael Christopher <anonymous_animus at yahoo.com>
>> Reply-To: The new improved paleopsych list <paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>> To: paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>> Subject: [Paleopsych] U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter 
>> Findings
>>
>>
>> U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings
>>
>> More than 200 Fish and Wildlife researchers cite cases
>> where conclusions were reversed to weaken protections
>> and favor business, a survey finds.
>>
>> http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-scientists10feb10,0,4954654.story?coll=la-home-nation 
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>



From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Fri Feb 18 13:59:38 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 06:59:38 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] Frank's topic: divergent opinions in science
Message-ID: <4215F4CA.9040907@solution-consulting.com>

Here is another example, from my own interest in near death literature. 
Synopsis: Van Lommel did a prospective study of NDEs and published 
results in Lancet. Michael Shermer wrote a column in Scientific American 
suggesting that Van Lommel's results showed there is no extra-corporeal 
"spirit" but that NDEs were all artifacts of the death process.
    Actually, Shermer had totally distorted the Lancet article. When Van 
Lommel wrote a reply/ correction . . . wait for it . . . Scientific 
American refused to publish his reply. Deeply disturbing. We cannot 
question the party line.
    In this wonderful world of the internet, Van Lommel was able to 
publish his piece anyway, which I post below FYI.
    So, Michael and Frank, this very medium is already having a positive 
effect on the lack of scientific dialog and promoting more diversity, a 
healthy direction.

A Reply to Shermer

Medical Evidence for NDEs

Pim van Lommel

Article from Skeptical Investigations
http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/whoswho/vanLommel.htm

The Background
In his "Skeptic" column in Scientific American in March, 2003, Michael 
Shermer cited a research study published in The Lancet, a leading 
medical journal, by Pim van Lommel and colleagues. He asserted this 
study "delivered a blow" to the idea that the mind and the brain could 
separate. Yet the researchers argued the exact opposite, and showed that 
conscious experience outside the body took place during a period of 
clinical death when the brain was flatlined. As Jay Ingram, of the 
Canadian Discovery Channel, commented: "His use of this study to bolster 
his point is bogus. He could have said, 'The authors think there's a 
mystery, but I choose to interpret their findings differently'. But he 
didn't. I find that very disappointing" (Toronto Star, March 16, 2003). 
Here, Pim van Lommel sets out the evidence that Shermer misrepresented.

A Reply to Shermer

Medical Evidence for NDEs

Dr. Pim van Lommel

Only recently someone showed me the "Skeptic" article* by Michael 
Shermer. From a well respected and, in my opinion, scientific journal 
like the Scientific American I always expect a well documented and 
scientific article, and I don't know how thoroughly peer-reviewed the 
article from Shermer was by the editorial staff before publication. My 
reaction to this article by Shermer is because I am the main author of 
the study published in The Lancet, December 2001, entitled: "Near-death 
experience in survivors of cardiac arrest; a prospective study in the 
Netherlands". About what he writes about the conclusions from our study, 
as well as from the effect of magnetic and electrical "stimulation" of 
the brain, forces me to write this paper, because I disagree with his 
theories as well as with his conclusions.

We performed our prospective study in 344 survivors of cardiac arrest to 
study the frequency, the cause and the content of near-death experience 
(NDE). A near-death experience is the reported memory of all impressions 
during a special state of consciousness, including specific elements 
such as out-of-body experience, pleasant feelings, and seeing a tunnel, 
a light, deceased relatives, or a life review. In our study 282 patients 
(82%) did not have any memory of the period of unconsciousness, 62 
patients (18%) however reported a NDE with all the "classical" elements. 
Between the two groups there was no difference in the duration of 
cardiac arrest or unconsciousness, intubation, medication, fear of death 
before cardiac arrest, gender, religion, education or foreknowledge 
about NDE. More frequent NDE was reported at age younger than 60 years, 
more than one cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) during hospital stay, 
and previous NDE. Patients with memory defects after lengthy and 
complicated CPR reported less frequent NDE.

There are several theories that should explain the cause and content of 
NDE. The physiologic explanation: the NDE is experienced as a result of 
anoxia in the brain, possibly also caused by release of endomorphines, 
or NMDA receptor blockade.

In our study all patients had a cardiac arrest, they were clinically 
dead, unconscious, caused by insufficient blood supply to the brain 
because of inadequate blood circulation, breathing, or both. If in this 
situation CPR is not started within 5-10 minutes, irreparable damage is 
done to the brain and the patient will die. According to this theory, 
all patients in our study should have had an NDE, they all were clinical 
dead due to anoxia of the brain caused by inadequate blood circulation 
to the brain, but only 18% reported NDE.

The psychological explanation: NDE is caused by fear of death. But in 
our study only a very small percentage of patients said they had been 
afraid the seconds preceding the cardiac arrest, it happened too 
suddenly to realize what occurred to them. However, 18 % of the patients 
reported NDE. And also the given medication made no difference.

We know that patients with cardiac arrest are unconscious within 
seconds, but how do we know that the electro-encephalogram (EEG) is 
flat-lined in those patients, and how can we study this?

Complete cessation of cerebral circulation is found in cardiac arrest 
due to ventricular fibrillation (VF) during threshold testing at 
implantation of internal defibrillators. This complete cerebral 
ischaemic model can be used to study the result of anoxia of the brain.

In VF complete cardiac arrest occurs, with complete cessation of 
cerebral flow, and resulting in acute pancerebral anoxia. The Vmca, the 
middle cerebral artery blood flow, which is a reliable trend monitor of 
the cerebral blood flow, decreases to 0 cm/sec immediately after the 
induction of VF (2). Through many studies in human, as well as in animal 
models, cerebral function has been shown to be severely compromised 
during cardiac arrest and electric activity in both cerebral cortex and 
the deeper structures of the brain has been shown to be absent after a 
very short period of time. Monitoring of the electric activity of the 
cortex (EEG) has shown ischaemic changes consisting of a decrease of 
fast high amplitude waves and an increase of slow delta waves, and 
sometimes also an increase in amplitude of theta activity, progressively 
and ultimately declining to isoelectricity. More often initial slowing 
(attenuation) of the EEG waves is the first sign of cerebral ischaemia. 
The first ischaemic changes in the EEG are detected an average of 6.5 
seconds after circulatory arrest. With prolongation of the cerebral 
ischaemia always a progress to an isoelectric (flat) line is monitored 
within 10 to 20 (mean 15) seconds from the onset of the cardiac arrest 
(3-6).

In case of a prolonged cardiac arrest of more than 37 seconds the EEG 
activity may not return for many minutes to hours after cardiac arrest 
has been restored, depending of the duration of cardiac arrest, in spite 
of the maintenance of adequate blood pressure during the recovery phase. 
After defibrillation the middle cerebral artery flow velocity recurred 
rapidly within 1-5 seconds regardless the arrest duration. However, the 
EEG recovery takes more time, depending of the duration of cardiac 
arrest. EEG recovery underestimates metabolic recovery of the brain, and 
cerebral oxygen uptake may be depressed for a considerable time after 
restoration of circulation because the initial overshoot on reperfusion 
(hyperoxia) is followed by a significant decrease in cerebral blood 
flow. (7)

Anoxia causes loss of function of our cell systems. However, in anoxia 
of only some minute's duration this loss may be transient, in prolonged 
anoxia cell death occurs with permanent functional loss. During an 
embolic event a small clot obstructs the blood flow in a small vessel of 
the cortex, resulting in anoxia of that part of the brain with loss of 
electrical activity. This results in a functional loss of the cortex 
like hemiplegia or aphasia. When the clot is resolved or broken down 
within several minutes the lost cortical function is restored. This is 
called a transient ischaemic attack (TIA). However, when the clot 
obstructs the cerebral vessel for minutes to hours it will result in 
neuronal cell death with a permanent loss of function of this part of 
the brain, with persistent hemiplegia or aphasia, and the diagnosis of 
cerebro vascular accident (CVA) is made. So transient anoxia results in 
transient loss of functions.

In cardiac arrest global anoxia of the brain occurs within seconds. 
Timely and adequate CPR reverses this functional loss of the brain 
because definitive damage of the brain cells, resulting in cell death, 
has been prevented. Long lasting anoxia, caused by cessation of blood 
flow to the brain for more than 5-10 minutes, results in irreversable 
damage and extensive cell death in the brain. This is called brain 
death, and most patients will ultimately die.

In acute myocardial infarction the duration of cardiac arrest (VF) on 
the CCU is usually 60-120 seconds, on the cardiac ward 2-5 minutes, and 
in out-of-hospital arrest it usually exceeds 5-10 minutes. Only during 
threshold testing of internal defibrillators or during electro 
physiologic stimulation studies will the duration of cardiac arrest 
hardly exceed 30-60 seconds.

 From these studies we know that in our prospective study of patients 
that have been clinically dead (VF on the ECG) no electric activity of 
the cortex of the brain (flat EEG) must have been possible, but also the 
abolition of brain stem activity like the loss of the corneareflex, 
fixed dilated pupils and the loss of the gag reflex is a clinical 
finding in those patients. However, patients with an NDE can report a 
clear consciousness, in which cognitive functioning, emotion, sense of 
identity, and memory from early childhood was possible, as well as 
perception from a position out and above their "dead" body. Because of 
the sometimes reported and verifiable out-of -body experiences, like the 
case of the dentures reported in our study, we know that the NDE must 
happen during the period of unconsciousness, and not in the first or 
last second of this period.

So we have to conclude that NDE in our study was experienced during a 
transient functional loss of all functions of the cortex and of the 
brainstem. It is important to mention that there is a well documented 
report of a patient with constant registration of the EEG during 
cerebral surgery for an gigantic cerebral aneurysm at the base of the 
brain, operated with a body temperature between 10 and 15 degrees, she 
was put on the heart-lung machine, with VF, with all blood drained from 
her head, with a flat line EEG, with clicking devices in both ears, with 
eyes taped shut, and this patient experienced an NDE with an out-of-body 
experience, and all details she perceived and heard could later be 
verified. (8)

There is also a theory that consciousness can be experienced 
independently from the normal body-linked waking consciousness. The 
current concept in medical science states that consciousness is the 
product of the brain. This concept, however, has never been 
scientifically proven. Research on NDE pushes us at the limits of our 
medical concepts of the range of human consciousness and the 
relationship between consciousness and memories with the brain.

For decades, extensive research has been done to localize memories 
inside the brain, so far without success. In connection with the 
hypothesis that consciousness and memories are stored inside the brain 
the question also arises how a non-material activity such as 
concentrated attention or thinking can correspond with a visible 
(material) reaction in the form of a measurable electrical, magnetic and 
chemical activity at a certain place in the brain. Different mental 
activities give rise to changing patterns of activity in different parts 
of the brain. This has been shown in neurophysiology through EEG, 
magneto-encephalogram (MEG) and at present also through magnetic 
resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET-scan). 
(9-11) Also an increase in cerebral blood flow is observed during such a 
non-material activity like thinking (12). It is also not well understood 
how it is to be explained that in a sensory experiment following a 
physical sensation the person involved in the test stated that he was 
aware (conscious) of the sensation a few thousands of a second following 
the stimulation, while the subject's brain showed that neuronal adequacy 
wasn't achieved until after a full 500 msec. following the sensation. 
This experiment has led to the so-called delay-and-antedating hypothesis 
(13).

Most body cells, and especially all neurons, show an electrical 
potential across cell membranes, formed by the presence of a metabolic 
Na/K pump. Transportation of information along neurons happens by means 
of action potentials, differences in membrane potential caused by 
synaptic depolarisation (excitatory) and hyperpolarisation (inhibitory). 
The sum total of changes along neurons causes transient electric fields, 
and therefore also transient magnetic fields, along the synchronously 
activated dendrites. Not the number of neurons, the precise shape of the 
dendrites (dendritic tree), nor the accurate position of synapses, 
neither the firing of individual neurons is crucial, but the derivative, 
the fleeting electric and/or magnetic fields generated along the 
dendrites. These should be shaped as optimally as possible into 
short-lasting meaningful patterns, constantly changing in 
four-dimensional shape and intensity (self-organization), and constantly 
mutually interacting between all neurons. This process can be considered 
as a biological quantum coherence phenomenon.

The influence of external localized magnetic and electric fields on 
these constant changing electric and/or magnetic fields during normal 
function of the brain should now be mentioned.

Neurophysiological research is being performed using transcranial 
magnetic stimulation (TMS), in the course of which a localized magnetic 
field (photons) is produced. TMS can excite or inhibit different parts 
of the brain, depending of the amount of energy given, allowing 
functional mapping of cortical regions, and creation of transient 
functional lesions. It allows assessing the function in focal brain 
regions on a millisecond scale, and it can study the contribution of 
cortical networks to specific cognitive functions. TMS is a non-invasive 
research tool to study aspects of human brain physiology including motor 
function, vision, language, and the pathophysiology of brain disorders 
as well as mood disorders like depression, and it even may be useful for 
therapy. In studies TMS can interfere with visual and motion perception, 
it gives an interruption of cortical processing with an interval of 
80-100 milliseconds. Intracortical inhibition and facilitation are 
obtained by paired-pulse studies with TMS, and reflect the activity of 
interneurons in the cortex. Also TMS can alter the functioning of the 
brain beyond the time of stimulation, but it does not appear to leave 
any lasting effect. (14).

Interrupting the electrical fields of local neuronal networks in parts 
of the cortex also disturbs the normal function of the brain, because by 
localized electrical stimulation of the temporal and parietal lobe 
during surgery for epilepsy the neurosurgeon and Nobel prize winner W. 
Penfield could sometimes induce flashes of recollection of the past 
(never a complete life review), experiences of light, sound or music, 
and rarely a kind of out-of-body experience. These experiences did not 
produce any transformation.(15-16) After many years of research he 
finally reached the conclusion that it is not possible to localize 
memories inside the brain. Olaf Blanke also recently described in Nature 
a patient with induced OBE by inhibition of cortical activity caused by 
more intense external electrical stimulation of the gyrus angularis in a 
patient with epilepsy (17).

The effect of the external magnetic or electrical stimulation is 
dependent of the amount of energy given. There may be no clinical effect 
or sometimes stimulation is seen when only a small amount of energy is 
given, for instance during stimulation of the motoric cortex. But during 
"stimulation" with higher energy inhibition of local cortical functions 
occurs by extinction of the electrical and magnetic fields resulting in 
inhibition of local neuronal networks (personal communication Blanke). 
Also in the patient described by Blanke in Nature stimulation with 
higher electric energy was given, resulting in inhibition of the 
function of the local neuronal networks in the gyrus angularis.

And when for instance the occipital visual cortex is stimulated by TMS, 
this results not in a better sight, but instead it causes temporary 
blindness by inhibition of this part of the cortex. We have to conclude 
that localized artificial stimulation with real photons (electrical or 
magnetic energy) disturb and also inhibit the constant changing 
electrical and magnetic fields of our neuronal networks, and so 
influence and inhibit the normal function of our brain.

In trying to understand this concept of mutual interaction between the 
"invisible and not measurable" consciousness, with its enormous amount 
of information, and our visible, material body it seems wise to compare 
it with modern worldwide communication.

There is a continuous exchange of objective information by means of 
electromagnetic fields (real photons) for radio, TV, mobile telephone, 
or laptop computer. We are unaware of the innumerable amounts of 
electromagnetic fields that constantly, day and night, exist around us 
and through us as well as through structures like walls and buildings. 
We only become aware of these electromagnetic informational fields the 
moment we use our mobile telephone or by switching on our radio, TV or 
laptop. What we receive is not inside the instrument, nor in the 
components, but thanks to the receiver the information from the 
electromagnetic fields becomes observable to our senses and hence 
perception occurs in our consciousness. The voice we hear in our 
telephone is not inside the telephone. The concert we hear in our radio 
is transmitted to our radio. The images and music we hear and see on TV 
is transmitted to our TV set. The internet is not located inside our 
laptop. We can receive at about the same time what is transmitted with 
the speed of light from a distance of some hundreds or thousands of 
miles. And if we switch off the TV set, the reception disappears, but 
the transmission continues. The information transmitted remains present 
within the electromagnetic fields. The connection has been interrupted, 
but it has not vanished and can still be received elsewhere by using 
another TV set. Again, we do not realize us the thousands of telephone 
calls, the hundreds of radio and TV transmissions, as well as the 
internet, coded as electromagnetic fields, that exist around us and 
through us.

Could our brain be compared with the TV set that electromagnetic waves 
(photons) receives and transforms into image and sound, as well as with 
the TV camera that image and sound transforms into electromagnetic waves 
(photons)? This electromagnetic radiation holds the essence of all 
information, but is only conceivable to our senses by suited instruments 
like camera and TV set.

The informational fields of our consciousness and of our memories, both 
evaluating by our experiences and by the informational imput from our 
sense organs during our lifetime, are present around us as electrical 
and/or magnetic fields [possible virtual photons? (18)], and these 
fields only become available to our waking consciousness through our 
functioning brain and other cells of our body.

So we need a functioning brain to receive our consciousness into our 
waking consciousness. And as soon as the function of brain has been 
lost, like in clinical death or in brain death, with iso-electricity on 
the EEG, memories and consciousness do still exist, but the reception 
ability is lost. People can experience their consciousness outside their 
body, with the possibility of perception out and above their body, with 
identity, and with heightened awareness, attention, well-structured 
thought processes, memories and emotions. And they also can experience 
their consciousness in a dimension where past, present and future exist 
at the same moment, without time and space, and can be experienced as 
soon as attention has been directed to it (life review and preview), and 
even sometimes they come in contact with the "fields of consciousness" 
of deceased relatives. And later they can experience their conscious 
return into their body.

Michael Shermer states that, in reality, all experience is mediated and 
produced by the brain, and that so-called paranormal phenomena like 
out-of body experiences are nothing more than neuronal events. The study 
of patients with NDE, however, clearly shows us that consciousness with 
memories, cognition, with emotion, self-identity, and perception out and 
above a life-less body is experienced during a period of a 
non-functioning brain (transient pancerebral anoxia). And focal 
functional loss by inhibition of local cortical regions happens by 
"stimulation" of those regions with electricity (photons) or with 
magnetic fields (photons), resulting sometimes in out-of-body states.

To quote Michael Shermer: it is the job of science to solve those 
puzzles with natural, rather than supernatural, explanations. But one 
has to be aware of the progress of science, and to study recent 
literature, to know what is going on in current science. For me science 
is asking questions with an open mind, and not being afraid to 
reconsider widely accepted but scientifically not proven concepts like 
the concept that consciousness and memories are a product of the brain. 
But also we should realize that we need a functioning brain to receive 
our consciousness into our waking consciousness. There are still a lot 
of mysteries to solve, but one has not to talk about paranormal, 
supernatural or pseudoscience to look for scientific answers on the 
intriguing relation between consciousness and memories with the brain.

* Michael Shermer, 'Demon-Haunted Brain' Scientific American, page 25, 
March 2003.
 

References
1 Van Lommel W., Van Wees R., Meyers V., Elfferich I. Near-death 
experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: a prospective study in the 
Netherlands. The Lancet 2001; 358: 2039-2045.
2 Gopalan KT, Lee J, Ikeda S, Burch CM. Cerebral blood flow velocity 
during repeatedly induced ventricular fibrillation. J. Clin. Anesth. 
1999 Jun; 11 (4): 290-5.
3 De Vries JW, Bakker PFA, Visser GH, Diephuis JC, Van Huffelen AC 
Changes in cerebral oxygen uptake and cerebral electrical activity 
during defibrillation threshold testing. Anesth. Analg. 1998; 87: 16-20
4 Clute H, Levy WJ. Elecroencephalographic changes during brief cardiac 
arrest in humans. Anesthesiology 1990; 73 : 821-825
5 Losasso TJ, Muzzi DA, Meyer FB, Sharbrough FW. Electroencephalographic 
monitoring of cerebral function during asystole and successful 
cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Anesth. Analg. 1992; 75: 1021-4.
6 Parnia S, Fenwick P. Near death experiences in cardiac arrest: visions 
of a dying brain or visions of a new science of consciousness. Review 
article. Resuscitation 2002; 52: 5-11
7 Smith DS, Levy W, Maris M, Chance B Reperfusion hyperoxia in brain 
after circulatory arrest in humans . Anesthesiology 1990; 73 : 12-19
8 Sabom M.B. Light and Death: One Doctors Fascinating Account of 
Near-Death Experiences. "The Case of Pam Reynolds" in chapter 3: Death: 
the Final Frontier, (37-52). Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, 
Michigan, USA. 1998.
9 Desmedt J.E., Robertson D. Differential enhancement of early and late 
components of the cerebral somatosensory evoked potentials during 
forced-paced cognitive tasks in man. Journal of Physiology 1977; 271: 
761-782.
10 Roland P.E., Friberg L. Localization in cortical areas activated by 
thinking. Journal of Neurophysiology 1985; 53: 1219-1243.
11 Eccles J.C. The effect of silent thinking on the cerebral cortex. 
Truth Journal, International Interdisciplinary Journal of Christian 
Thought. 1988; Vol 2.
12 Roland P.E. Somatotopical tuning of postcentral gyrus during focal 
attention in man. A regional cerebral blood flow study. Journal of 
Neurophysiology 1981; 46: 744-754.
13 Libet B. Subjective antedating of a sensory experience and mind-brain 
theories: Reply to Honderich (1984). Journal of Theoretical Biology 
1985; 144: 563-570.
14 Hallett M. Transcranial magnetic stimulation and the human brain. 
Nature 2000; 406: 147-150.
15 Penfield W. The Excitable Cortex in Conscious Man. Liverpool: 
Liverpool University Press, 1958.
16 Penfield W. The Mystery of the Mind. Princeton University Press, 
Princeton. 1975
17 Blanke O., Ortigue S., Landis Th., Seeck M. Stimulating illusory 
own-body perceptions. The part of the brain that can induce out-of-body 
experiences has been located. Nature 2002, 419: 269-270.
18 Romijn, H. Are virtual photons the elementary carriers of 
consciousness? Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2002; 9: 61-81.

 


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From HowlBloom at aol.com  Fri Feb 18 19:19:27 2005
From: HowlBloom at aol.com (HowlBloom at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 14:19:27 EST
Subject: [Paleopsych] Fwd: Eshel, Joel, and Eran--water phantoms
Message-ID: <c1.526d4141.2f4799bf@aol.com>

Sent this originally during the two days the server was down.  Trying  to 
send it to paleopsych again by just forwarding.  Contact Stephen at 
_sjlee at howardbloom.net_ (mailto:sjlee at howardbloom.net)  if the graphics  don't come through 
for some reason.
 
----------
Howard Bloom
Author of The Lucifer Principle: A  Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of 
History and Global Brain: The Evolution  of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to the 
21st Century
Visiting Scholar-Graduate  Psychology Department, New York University; Core 
Faculty Member, The Graduate  Institute
www.howardbloom.net
www.bigbangtango.net
Founder:  International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member: Epic 
of Evolution  Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project; founder: The 
Big Bang Tango  Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences, American 
Association for the  Advancement of Science, American Psychological Society, 
Academy of Political  Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society, International 
Society for Human  Ethology; advisory board member: Youthactivism.org; 
executive editor -- New  Paradigm book series.
For information on The International Paleopsychology  Project, see: 
www.paleopsych.org
for two chapters from 
The Lucifer  Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History, 
see  www.howardbloom.net/lucifer
For information on Global Brain: The Evolution of  Mass Mind from the Big 
Bang to the 21st Century, see  www.howardbloom.net

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Subject: Re: Eshel, Joel, and Eran--water phantoms
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From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Sat Feb 19 06:16:40 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 23:16:40 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] [Fwd: ScienceDaily News Release: Multiple Therapies
 Curb Declining Ability To Learn With Age]
Message-ID: <4216D9C8.8050409@solution-consulting.com>

We have been discussing methods of enhancing brain function. Here is an interesting piece.
Lynn


Source:      University Of Toronto
Date Posted:	2005-01-27
Web Address:	http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/01/050126112156.htm

MULTIPLE THERAPIES CURB DECLINING ABILITY TO LEARN WITH AGE

A new study of beagles led by researchers at the University of Toronto at Scarborough underscores the importance of using a combination of diet and behaviour therapies to curb the progressive decline in the ability to learn that occurs with advanced aging.
 
?We were really surprised just how clear-cut the benefit is of using a combined therapy,? says lead investigator and psychology professor Bill Milgram of the U of T at Scarborough, who specializes in aging research.
 
The results of the study, published in the January 2005 issue of Neurobiology of Aging, looked at the impact four combinations of behavioural enrichment and supplementation of diet with antioxidants had on a beagle?s ability to learn as the senior dog grew older. The first group had a regular diet and regular experience; the second received a regular diet and enriched experience; the third group a regular experience and an enriched diet; and the fourth group an enriched diet and an enriched experience.
 
Whereas previous studies have looked at dogs of different ages all at once to identify age-related differences, this investigation followed four groups of dogs over a period of two years. As predicted, the researchers found a dog?s ability to learn declines with age. What they had not anticipated was seeing such a statistically-significant benefit of combining behavioral enrichment and the antioxidant supplementation compared to giving either alone.
 
?Since humans and dogs have many biological and behavioral parallels, I predict similar results would be attained in people,? notes Milgram. The study was funded by the National Institute of Aging and the U.S. Department of the Army. The following conflict of interest was declared by the authors with respect to publication of this paper: investigator Steven Zicker is an employee of Hill?s Pet Nutrition Inc., which has commercialized the antioxidant fortified food used in the study.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------






From guavaberry at earthlink.net  Sun Feb 20 03:08:45 2005
From: guavaberry at earthlink.net (K.E.)
Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2005 22:08:45 -0500
Subject: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive emotions
	and	perceptualaccuracy
In-Reply-To: <001301c51521$01819220$03224346@yourjqn2mvdn7x>
References: <01C514B7.F21DFF30.shovland@mindspring.com>
	<001301c51521$01819220$03224346@yourjqn2mvdn7x>
Message-ID: <6.2.1.2.0.20050219215756.03845c90@mail.earthlink.net>

Hey Val,

yeah - cat jokes :-)

1 thing about my dog mollie and my cat guavaberry (siamese / crucian / 
pirate ship)
they would keep us fed

  between the 2 of 'em nobody would starve around here

  it could be for dinner and keep us all alive
(if i was granny on the beverly hillbillies ummmm possum stew)

it's hot cat, hot dog love for sure
& i feel the love
they've brought it all home - to feed me

best,
karen





my dog mollie can play a joke on me - she teases me with the ball
LIKE she is really going to give it to me - she'll tork me up pretty good
then kiss (lick) me

At 01:46 PM 2/17/2005, you wrote:
>My cat chooses in a cool fashion to interfere when I am really engaged on 
>the computer. Then she begins the process of winding up on my shoulders 
>and stretching her paw out to the keys. That rotten brain of his 
>understands humor - I think! Cheers, Val Geist
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Steve Hovland" 
><<mailto:shovland at mindspring.com>shovland at mindspring.com>
>To: "'The new improved paleopsych list'" 
><<mailto:paleopsych at paleopsych.org>paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 6:14 AM
>Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive emotions and 
>perceptualaccuracy
>
> >I know my cats have emotions, but they
> > are also cold-blooded killers of birds and
> > mice (they bring their kills to show us.)
> >
> > Since they have emotions and wills but
> > not much language I try to use empathy
> > in dealing with them.  For example, the
> > older cat just jumped up on my keyboard
> > but she was there for food, not affection.
> >
> > Steve Hovland
> > <http://www.stevehovland.net>www.stevehovland.net
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
> > Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 9:13 PM
> > To: The new improved paleopsych list
> > Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive emotions and 
> perceptual accuracy
> >
> > Well, many mammals seem to have empathy. I do not think that reptiles
> > have empathy nor fish. I have not seen empathy in cows, but some in
> > horses. My Lab retriever has empathy for our cat, and the cat hates the
> > dog. I have not seen empathy in cats. No offense intended, you cat
> > lovers. Your examples are mostly chimps, and certainly they have
> > empathy. The bird studies show intelligence but I don't see the empathy.
> > Our bird has no empathy for anyone except the lovely bird behind the
> > mirror. Empathy is likely a limbic / neocortex combination, bigger
> > cortex, more empathy???. I suspect that animals living in groups would
> > tend to develop empathy.
> > Lynn
> >
> > K.E. wrote:
> >
> >> All animals have empathy
> >>
> >> Non Human Animals Have Intelligence,
> >> Culture, Emotion, Compassion and Language
> >> 
> <http://www.wildlifeprotection.net/Cruelty/cruelty4.html>http://www.wildlifeprotection.net/Cruelty/cruelty4.html
> >>
> >>
> >> karen
> >>
> >> <>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>
> >> The Educational CyberPlayGround
> >> <http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/>http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/
> >>
> >> National Children's Folksong Repository
> >> 
> <http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Culdesac/Repository/NCFR.html>http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Culdesac/Repository/NCFR.html
> >>
> >> Hot List of Schools Online and
> >> Net Happenings, K12 Newsletters, Network Newsletters
> >> 
> <http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Community/index.html>http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Community/index.html
> >>
> >> 7 Hot Site Awards
> >> New York Times, USA Today , MSNBC, Earthlink,
> >> USA Today Best Bets For Educators, Macworld Top Fifty
> >> <>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> paleopsych mailing list
> >> <mailto:paleopsych at paleopsych.org>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> >> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> >>
> >>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > paleopsych mailing list
> > <mailto:paleopsych at paleopsych.org>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> > http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> > _______________________________________________
> > paleopsych mailing list
> > <mailto:paleopsych at paleopsych.org>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> > http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> >
> >
> > --
> > No virus found in this incoming message.
> > Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> > Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.8 - Release Date: 2/14/2005
> >
> >
>No virus found in this outgoing message.
>Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
>Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.8 - Release Date: 2/14/2005
>
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych



From guavaberry at earthlink.net  Sun Feb 20 04:11:05 2005
From: guavaberry at earthlink.net (K.E.)
Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2005 23:11:05 -0500
Subject: [Paleopsych] empathy [was] Positive emotions
	and	perceptual accuracy
In-Reply-To: <421551B0.1020606@solution-consulting.com>
References: <01C5132E.B97B5C20.shovland@mindspring.com>
	<4212C2C2.3020207@solution-consulting.com>
	<6.2.1.2.0.20050216142930.038706b0@mail.earthlink.net>
	<421427EC.3020805@solution-consulting.com>
	<6.2.1.2.0.20050217095656.038f3828@mail.earthlink.net>
	<421551B0.1020606@solution-consulting.com>
Message-ID: <6.2.1.2.0.20050219221320.01ef12a8@mail.earthlink.net>

hey Lynn

At 09:23 PM 2/17/2005, you wrote:
>No offense taken, Karen, you are a fascinating contributor to this 
>listserv. Always interesting stuff.

<shy grin>


>In a sense you are right. All creatures may have empathy.

yes it is in a "sense" - it is "to sense"

some brains are wired in a way that gives them a more intense
ability to sense - other energy - you'll have to just let it go - whatever we
could discuss about energy is more than i want to type
and in how may ways creatures are wired to sense energy . . ..

so

those animals knew (sensed) the tsunami was coming - they went to higher ground
how'd they know - how are they wired to sense tsunami energy?

indigenous people living close to the earth - who still have an oral tradition
passing their righteous wisdom down thru the ages
watch animals & they left for higher ground

basically it's only the "Educated People" with all the technology
and no oral tradition who have lost their senses - they died pfffffft

i know i know - how can i say such things - it's ok, i don't really have
to defend all that i've typed - it's just what i think

>But to feel empathy in another sentient creature requires something I 
>don't possess, psychic abilities. I actually believe they (psychic 
>abilities) exist, because after my interviews of near death experiencers, 
>I found some pretty anomolous data. Rupert Sheldrake lives! So I infer 
>empathy from actions. Technically, what the dog feels for my cat is 
>compassion. If the cat is outside and the weather turns bad, the dog will 
>pace and whine until I let her out. She goes out, collects the cat, and 
>herds her in. So I infer empathy/compassion. Never seen a cat do anything 
>like that. MY cat seems to specialize in bugging me when I am trying to 
>write an email. Total lack of empathy for me. I pet her anyway. I have 
>empathy for her. Dumb cat.

my smart cat guavaberry knew that i would protect her - she had her kittens 
in my bed next to me in the middle of the night. I was dreaming that she 
was having kittens (i saw her having the kittens in my dream) and i got so 
excited it woke me up to see this happening next to me.
fact: i never knew anything about her being pregnant, my friend to told me 
she was, joking i flippantly said the due date -  she had those kittens on 
that very day. I've got a lifetime of stories like that, creatures/ humans 
born or dyin'.

It's not the only time i've seen it in my mind before it happens - how do i 
see it? is this being psychic?  well okie dokie if you think so, but to me 
it's like green grass, a very ordinary thing.

>So what am I missing about feeling empathy in critters?

their pain

<snip>
So we have to conclude that NDE in our study was experienced during a 
transient functional loss of all functions of the cortex and of the 
brainstem. It is important to mention that there is a well documented 
report of a patient with constant registration of the EEG during cerebral 
surgery for an gigantic cerebral aneurysm at the base of the brain, 
operated with a body temperature between 10 and 15 degrees, she was put on 
the heart-lung machine, with VF, with all blood drained from her head, with 
a flat line EEG, with clicking devices in both ears, with eyes taped shut, 
and this patient experienced an NDE with an out-of-body experience, and all 
details she perceived and heard could later be verified. (8)

Out of Body - please, humans do it all the time,  it's a defense, it's 
natural it's ordinary
science "knows very little

& this is the best science can do at this point.
You know how hard it is to get this eensy weensy teeny weeny thing published!

"No One gets in to see the Wizard, Not no way, Not no how!" -- The Guard to 
Dorothy
"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." -- The Wizard to Dorothy


best to ya,

karen

>Lynn
>motley Ph.D.
>
>
>K.E. wrote:
>
>>I don't want to offend, I do want to say that empathy is felt. If you 
>>don't see it then fine, I wouldn't expect that. If there are not 
>>scientific tests that allow you to see it, I wouldn't expect that either.
>>
>>Science - doesn't have the ability to test for everything - ALL animals 
>>is a pretty huge statement I agree, however we can't KNOW that they don't 
>>have it on some level.
>>
>>k
>>(aka motley crew of - highly- unclassified people)
>>
>>At 12:13 AM 2/17/2005, you wrote:
>>
>>>Well, many mammals seem to have empathy. I do not think that reptiles 
>>>have empathy nor fish. I have not seen empathy in cows, but some in 
>>>horses. My Lab retriever has empathy for our cat, and the cat hates the 
>>>dog. I have not seen empathy in cats. No offense intended, you cat 
>>>lovers. Your examples are mostly chimps, and certainly they have 
>>>empathy. The bird studies show intelligence but I don't see the empathy. 
>>>Our bird has no empathy for anyone except the lovely bird behind the 
>>>mirror. Empathy is likely a limbic / neocortex combination, bigger 
>>>cortex, more empathy???. I suspect that animals living in groups would 
>>>tend to develop empathy.
>>>Lynn
>>>
>>>K.E. wrote:
>>>
>>>>All animals have empathy
>>>>
>>>>Non Human Animals Have Intelligence,
>>>>Culture, Emotion, Compassion and Language
>>>>http://www.wildlifeprotection.net/Cruelty/cruelty4.html
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>karen
>>>>
>>>><>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>
>>>>The Educational CyberPlayGround
>>>>http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/
>>>>
>>>>National Children's Folksong Repository
>>>>http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Culdesac/Repository/NCFR.html
>>>>
>>>>Hot List of Schools Online and
>>>>Net Happenings, K12 Newsletters, Network Newsletters
>>>>http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Community/index.html
>>>>
>>>>7 Hot Site Awards
>>>>New York Times, USA Today , MSNBC, Earthlink,
>>>>USA Today Best Bets For Educators, Macworld Top Fifty
>>>><>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>



From shovland at mindspring.com  Sun Feb 20 18:10:44 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2005 10:10:44 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Cats who live in glass houses
Message-ID: <01C51734.71710E20.shovland@mindspring.com>

 

Isn't it time for a scientific study of the 
relationship between middle aged
men and their cats?

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net

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From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Mon Feb 21 05:16:49 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2005 22:16:49 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] Robust scientific dialog
In-Reply-To: <002e01c515c4$85312150$6401a8c0@ISV2>
References: <002e01c515c4$85312150$6401a8c0@ISV2>
Message-ID: <42196EC1.2050905@solution-consulting.com>

David,
Thank you for this inspiring question. I have been giving it some thought.

My assumption is that we find true dialog threatening. Groups value 
stability. Stability comes from shared meanings, shared norms, shared 
values. We create meaning about the universe, and we are dismayed by 
data that undermines our creation.

So we started that particular project with a focus on group culture. 
What is the norm about dialog? Clearly it had been to suppress debate. 
Back-channel communications were common.

I used an Appreciative Inquiry / Solution-focused approach, looking for 
exceptions, times when dialog had worked. The idea behind that is that 
we can change a culture by seeking positive examples of what is desired. 
Fluctuations occur in all systems all the time. Even in a culture of 
defensiveness and non-sharing, I assume there will be examples of times 
when sharing did happen. If we discover those exceptions and talk about 
them, the group members begin to re-view their concepts of the group. 
New norms can be based on those exceptional times. Trust in the new 
norms is improved by further dialog about them, mroe examples.

We asked scientists:
"We all have experiences of direct, robust dialog, and we also have 
experiences when we do not talk directly to others. We want to study 
times when dialog was direct, to the point, and helpful. Please tell us 
a time when that happened. What was going on? Who was involved? What 
were you told? How did that help?"

In retrospect, I should have trained three scientists to collect that 
data, and each of them training three more and so on. I did too much of 
the work. When the consultant does the interviews, it greatly reduces 
the impact on the system, since the consultant is an outsider. Insider 
collection of exceptional times is much more powerful.

The senior scientist was quite pleased and felt that people were being 
more open. We didn't have any actual data, though. Not  long after, the 
VP of HR became ill and eventually died.

I have much more to say. I wonder whether we ought to say this on list? 
Would the paleo group be interested in this dialog between you and me? I 
will forward this on to the group and see if we get interest. In the 
mean time, David, please write back and tell me if this kind of story is 
what you have in mind. I am interested in keeping this going.

Lynn

W. David Schwaderer wrote:

>>I once consulted with a pharmaceutical research firm. ... but they
>>would not challenge each other.
>>
>>Divergent opinions are generally felt as threatening to the group, and
>>it takes sustained effort to legitimize divergent opinions. We came up
>>with "Robust Scientific Dialog" as a title for an organizational
>>intervention that had some positive impact.
>>    
>>
>
>Lynn, I am *extremely* interested in this phenomena - treatment of dissent
>and divergent opinion.  This is a key human behavior....
>
>=> If you have *any* other thoughts on this please let me know what they
>are.  Please.
>
>
>
>  
>
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From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Mon Feb 21 15:05:33 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 08:05:33 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: Robust scientific dialog
In-Reply-To: <004d01c517dc$1e78e2d0$6401a8c0@ISV2>
References: <002e01c515c4$85312150$6401a8c0@ISV2>
	<42196EC1.2050905@solution-consulting.com>
	<004d01c517dc$1e78e2d0$6401a8c0@ISV2>
Message-ID: <4219F8BD.40009@solution-consulting.com>

David,
These are fascinating references. I look forward to reading them.

One piece I didn't mention is the key is the CEO, the leader of the 
group. I started with him, interviewed him, and videotaped the 
interview. I then selected portions to show to the rest of the 
organization, emphasizing that the CEO was instigating this, was 
supportive, and so on. So if one is to make a change, one must start at 
the top.

Since change is too often seen as a threat (your quote from "Stupidity" 
illustrates that), by using Appreciative Inquiry, we accomplish two things:
    1. Find exceptions and talk about them. This makes the upcoming 
change seem a part of the history of the group. We do this in family 
therapy, when we move the family toward talking about times when the 
Identified Patient has behaved in strong positive ways. This changes the 
views of the IP and thus changes the future. (The assumption is that the 
future is determined by what we expect; that is a recursive statement, 
the future is created by our vision of the future.)
    2. We make the change seem positive and exciting. The old notion was 
that pain had to drive organizational change. But this notion is that 
change is more about a positive expectation, a hope. We create that hope 
based on discovery of what has been our best past behavior. More of That.

I also have the idea that people have four stages of change, based on 
Solution-focused therapy (deShazer) and on Prochaska's work on change. 
My four stages are:
    - Bystander / Visitor
    - Complainant
    - Shopper
    - Customer

I have a handout on that if you would like to see more. Anyway, the 
theory here that a colleague and I have been working on is that 
organizations go through the same four stages. I have a talk on that on 
audiotape I can send you if you'd like, where I apply the four stages to 
organizational change.

Well, off to work
Lynn

W. David Schwaderer wrote:

> Also, in "Cult of the Mouse" pg. 107 a discussion,
>  
> 4. Cults enforce Strict rules of Behavior that stamp out Individuality 
> and Dissent.
>  
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1580086330/qid=1108965895/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-4450274-6343938?v=glance&s=books 
> <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1580086330/qid=1108965895/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-4450274-6343938?v=glance&s=books>
>  
> and, in "In Search of Stupidity", footnote at page 220:
>  
> I was later informed that many in the audience had actually found my 
> negative attitude discouraging and I collected very few business cards 
> (well, none actually).  This experience drove home to me the 
> realization that a herd of lemmings in the act of flinging themselves 
> over a cliff are primed to discuss the importance of teamwork, the 
> need to stay focused on the task at hand, and the necessity of 
> maintaining  positive attitude.
>  
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1590591046/qid=1108966311/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-4450274-6343938?v=glance&s=books 
> <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1590591046/qid=1108966311/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-4450274-6343938?v=glance&s=books>
>  
> => Different contextual flavors with the same outcome.....

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From Schwaderer_Lists at comcast.net  Mon Feb 21 15:34:56 2005
From: Schwaderer_Lists at comcast.net (W. David Schwaderer)
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 07:34:56 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: Robust scientific dialog
References: <002e01c515c4$85312150$6401a8c0@ISV2><42196EC1.2050905@solution-consulting.com><004d01c517dc$1e78e2d0$6401a8c0@ISV2>
	<4219F8BD.40009@solution-consulting.com>
Message-ID: <002401c5182a$e53efa50$6401a8c0@ISV2>

These are fascinating references. I look forward to reading them. 

=> I have many more - I have studied resistance to change for about eight years now...any thoughts you have on why people are resistant to change I would enjoy hearing.  Group solidarity is certainly one reason.

One piece I didn't mention is the key is the CEO, the leader of the group. ...

=> Yep, the designated leader can be critical.  It's even better if you get the leader to introduce you around early on.  It sends a very clear message.....which may or may not be vetoed by subordinates.

Since change is too often seen as a threat ...
    1. Find exceptions and talk about them. ..
    2. We make the change seem positive and exciting. 

=> Very interesting.  But you need to establish excitement on a very broad scale all at once since old behavior patterns are very resilient.....and peer-group exposure can erase any interest.....person by person.

I also have the idea that people have four stages of change, based on Solution-focused therapy (deShazer) and on Prochaska's work on change. My four stages are:
    - Bystander / Visitor
    - Complainant
    - Shopper
    - Customer

I have a handout on that if you would like to see more. Anyway, the theory here that a colleague and I have been working on is that organizations go through the same four stages. I have a talk on that on audiotape I can send you if you'd like, where I apply the four stages to organizational change. 

=> I would love to see/hear these materials and understand them in entirity.  There is an expression which I cannot remember = "There is no such thing as an innocent bystander,....."  I can't remember the other two...  

=> Please do not post my address: David Schwaderer, 13165 Paseo Presada, Saratoga, CA 95070 <=

Thanks for all considerations,
David Schwaderer
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From shovland at mindspring.com  Mon Feb 21 15:38:56 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 07:38:56 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Robust scientific dialog
Message-ID: <01C517E8.674BF590.shovland@mindspring.com>

"You get what you inspect" may also apply here.

Rudy Giuliani dramatically changed the output
of many agencies in New York by measuring
progress toward the results he wanted.

He probably didn't change the culture, which is
very difficult, but he got a different result, which
was enough.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
Sent:	Sunday, February 20, 2005 9:17 PM
To:	W. David Schwaderer; The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	[Paleopsych] Robust scientific dialog

David,
Thank you for this inspiring question. I have been giving it some thought.

My assumption is that we find true dialog threatening. Groups value 
stability. Stability comes from shared meanings, shared norms, shared 
values. We create meaning about the universe, and we are dismayed by 
data that undermines our creation.

So we started that particular project with a focus on group culture. 
What is the norm about dialog? Clearly it had been to suppress debate. 
Back-channel communications were common.

I used an Appreciative Inquiry / Solution-focused approach, looking for 
exceptions, times when dialog had worked. The idea behind that is that 
we can change a culture by seeking positive examples of what is desired. 
Fluctuations occur in all systems all the time. Even in a culture of 
defensiveness and non-sharing, I assume there will be examples of times 
when sharing did happen. If we discover those exceptions and talk about 
them, the group members begin to re-view their concepts of the group. 
New norms can be based on those exceptional times. Trust in the new 
norms is improved by further dialog about them, mroe examples.

We asked scientists:
"We all have experiences of direct, robust dialog, and we also have 
experiences when we do not talk directly to others. We want to study 
times when dialog was direct, to the point, and helpful. Please tell us 
a time when that happened. What was going on? Who was involved? What 
were you told? How did that help?"

In retrospect, I should have trained three scientists to collect that 
data, and each of them training three more and so on. I did too much of 
the work. When the consultant does the interviews, it greatly reduces 
the impact on the system, since the consultant is an outsider. Insider 
collection of exceptional times is much more powerful.

The senior scientist was quite pleased and felt that people were being 
more open. We didn't have any actual data, though. Not  long after, the 
VP of HR became ill and eventually died.

I have much more to say. I wonder whether we ought to say this on list? 
Would the paleo group be interested in this dialog between you and me? I 
will forward this on to the group and see if we get interest. In the 
mean time, David, please write back and tell me if this kind of story is 
what you have in mind. I am interested in keeping this going.

Lynn

W. David Schwaderer wrote:

>>I once consulted with a pharmaceutical research firm. ... but they
>>would not challenge each other.
>>
>>Divergent opinions are generally felt as threatening to the group, and
>>it takes sustained effort to legitimize divergent opinions. We came up
>>with "Robust Scientific Dialog" as a title for an organizational
>>intervention that had some positive impact.
>>    
>>
>
>Lynn, I am *extremely* interested in this phenomena - treatment of dissent
>and divergent opinion.  This is a key human behavior....
>
>=> If you have *any* other thoughts on this please let me know what they
>are.  Please.
>
>
>
>  
>
 << File: ATT00005.html >>  << File: ATT00006.txt >> 


From shovland at mindspring.com  Mon Feb 21 17:27:50 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 09:27:50 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: Robust scientific dialog
Message-ID: <01C517F7.9DDDFFE0.shovland@mindspring.com>

A corporate culture also includes beliefs,
which are very resistant to change.

I sent out an article awhile ago about this.

A belief is a mental structure that tends to
have survival value, so any proposed to changing
beliefs will tend to threaten people severely.

Leaders are critical.  They get what they are,
so if they don't like what they are getting, they
need to change themselves before their
organization will respond.

Those of us who have had successful therapy
knows that it changes the way we present to
the world, and therefore changes the way the
world manifest to us.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	W. David Schwaderer [SMTP:Schwaderer_Lists at comcast.net]
Sent:	Monday, February 21, 2005 7:35 AM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] Re: Robust scientific dialog

These are fascinating references. I look forward to reading them.

=> I have many more - I have studied resistance to change for about eight  
 years now...any thoughts you have on why people are resistant to change I 
would enjoy hearing.  Group solidarity is certainly one reason.

One piece I didn't mention is the key is the CEO, the leader of the group. 
...

=> Yep, the designated leader can be critical.  It's even better if you get 
the leader to introduce you around early on.  It sends a very clear 
message.....which may or may not be vetoed by subordinates.

Since change is too often seen as a threat ...
    1. Find exceptions and talk about them. ..
    2. We make the change seem positive and exciting.

=> Very interesting.  But you need to establish excitement on a very broad 
scale all at once since old behavior patterns are very resilient.....and 
peer-group exposure can erase any interest.....person by person.

I also have the idea that people have four stages of change, based on 
Solution-focused therapy (deShazer) and on Prochaska's work on change. My 
four stages are:
    - Bystander / Visitor
    - Complainant
    - Shopper
    - Customer

I have a handout on that if you would like to see more. Anyway, the theory 
here that a colleague and I have been working on is that organizations go 
through the same four stages. I have a talk on that on audiotape I can send 
you if you'd like, where I apply the four stages to organizational change.

=> I would love to see/hear these materials and understand them in 
entirity.  There is an expression which I cannot remember = "There is no 
such thing as an innocent bystander,....."  I can't remember the other 
two...

=> Please do not post my address: David Schwaderer, 13165 Paseo Presada, 
Saratoga, CA 95070 <=

Thanks for all considerations,
David Schwaderer << File: ATT00017.html >>  << File: ATT00018.txt >> 


From shovland at mindspring.com  Mon Feb 21 17:35:05 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 09:35:05 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Robust scientific dialog
Message-ID: <01C517F8.A0CDFE70.shovland@mindspring.com>

Carly Fiorino's tenure was also flawed because
she was a manager, not a leader.

All she did was to call in the consultants and
go with their standard recommendation to make
a large acquisition.

All the genius in HP's patents was essentially
discarded.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	ldj [SMTP:ldj at mail.sisna.com]
Sent:	Monday, February 21, 2005 9:23 AM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Cc:	Steve Hovland
Subject:	RE: [Paleopsych] Robust scientific dialog

Steve,
thanks for this reminder. Of course, you are right.

At the same time, the dilemma is why didn't mayors before Guilani do that? 
They were not leaders, they were managers. It comes down to vision and 
leadership. What the Mouse Cult book seems to argue (based on my reading of 
the reviews on Amazon) is that Eisner's leadership is fatally flawed. 
Eisner lacks the vision that Walt Disney had. Instead, he wants to simply 
maximize profit. So what he inspects is the wrong thing, namely how can we 
mazimize our profit? Walt seemed to have a vision of entertainng people, 
educating them via his nature films, entrancing them.

So a vital problem that David is raising is what about leadership? Someone 
once said that it is not that power corrupts, it is that power attracts 
corruptable people. Too often our organizations are run by people who 
simply want power for its own sake, that is, for the sake of their own ego, 
and not because they actually have a worthy vision that serves the 
customer/stakeholder/citizen. I ordered the In Search of Stupidity this 
mornng from Abebooks.com so I may speak too early, but it appears that the 
failures he documents originate from the top leadership, lack of vision.

This message goes to you because I am at work and I don't know how to make 
this mail program use my list name, ljohnson at solution-consulting.com. So 
paleo will bounce it. If you forward it, you have my appreciation.
Lynn
working to celebrate presidents


---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: Steve Hovland <shovland at mindspring.com>
Reply-To: The new improved paleopsych list <paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
Date:  Mon, 21 Feb 2005 07:38:56 -0800

>"You get what you inspect" may also apply here.
>
>Rudy Giuliani dramatically changed the output
>of many agencies in New York by measuring
>progress toward the results he wanted.
>
>He probably didn't change the culture, which is
>very difficult, but he got a different result, which
>was enough.
>
>Steve Hovland
>www.stevehovland.net
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
>Sent:	Sunday, February 20, 2005 9:17 PM
>To:	W. David Schwaderer; The new improved paleopsych list
>Subject:	[Paleopsych] Robust scientific dialog
>
>David,
>Thank you for this inspiring question. I have been giving it some thought.
>
>My assumption is that we find true dialog threatening. Groups value
>stability. Stability comes from shared meanings, shared norms, shared
>values. We create meaning about the universe, and we are dismayed by
>data that undermines our creation.
>
>So we started that particular project with a focus on group culture.
>What is the norm about dialog? Clearly it had been to suppress debate.
>Back-channel communications were common.
>
>I used an Appreciative Inquiry / Solution-focused approach, looking for
>exceptions, times when dialog had worked. The idea behind that is that
>we can change a culture by seeking positive examples of what is desired.
>Fluctuations occur in all systems all the time. Even in a culture of
>defensiveness and non-sharing, I assume there will be examples of times
>when sharing did happen. If we discover those exceptions and talk about
>them, the group members begin to re-view their concepts of the group.
>New norms can be based on those exceptional times. Trust in the new
>norms is improved by further dialog about them, mroe examples.
>
>We asked scientists:
>"We all have experiences of direct, robust dialog, and we also have
>experiences when we do not talk directly to others. We want to study
>times when dialog was direct, to the point, and helpful. Please tell us
>a time when that happened. What was going on? Who was involved? What
>were you told? How did that help?"
>
>In retrospect, I should have trained three scientists to collect that
>data, and each of them training three more and so on. I did too much of
>the work. When the consultant does the interviews, it greatly reduces
>the impact on the system, since the consultant is an outsider. Insider
>collection of exceptional times is much more powerful.
>
>The senior scientist was quite pleased and felt that people were being
>more open. We didn't have any actual data, though. Not  long after, the
>VP of HR became ill and eventually died.
>
>I have much more to say. I wonder whether we ought to say this on list?
>Would the paleo group be interested in this dialog between you and me? I
>will forward this on to the group and see if we get interest. In the
>mean time, David, please write back and tell me if this kind of story is
>what you have in mind. I am interested in keeping this going.
>
>Lynn
>
>W. David Schwaderer wrote:
>
>>>I once consulted with a pharmaceutical research firm. ... but they
>>>would not challenge each other.
>>>
>>>Divergent opinions are generally felt as threatening to the group, and
>>>it takes sustained effort to legitimize divergent opinions. We came up
>>>with "Robust Scientific Dialog" as a title for an organizational
>>>intervention that had some positive impact.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>Lynn, I am *extremely* interested in this phenomena - treatment of 
dissent
>>and divergent opinion.  This is a key human behavior....
>>
>>=> If you have *any* other thoughts on this please let me know what they
>>are.  Please.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
> << File: ATT00005.html >>  << File: ATT00006.txt >>
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>


_________________________________
SISNA...more service, less money.
http://www.sisna.com/exclusive/ 


From schwaderer_lists at comcast.net  Mon Feb 21 20:29:10 2005
From: schwaderer_lists at comcast.net (schwaderer_lists at comcast.net)
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 20:29:10 +0000
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: Robust scientific dialog
Message-ID: <022120052029.15369.421A4496000122EF00003C0922058860149C9B9C0704A19D0A9D0A0B0E99080C9C@comcast.net>



-------------- Original message -------------- 

> A corporate culture also includes beliefs, 
> which are very resistant to change. 
> 
> I sent out an article awhile ago about this. 

Steve, which article was this?  Was it this one?...
http://www.csicop.org/si/2000-11/beliefs.html

Thanks.....
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From anonymous_animus at yahoo.com  Mon Feb 21 23:19:00 2005
From: anonymous_animus at yahoo.com (Michael Christopher)
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 15:19:00 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
In-Reply-To: <200502211901.j1LJ1Qh26758@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <20050221231900.57618.qmail@web30808.mail.mud.yahoo.com>


Lynn says:
>>My assumption is that we find true dialog
threatening. Groups value stability. Stability comes
from shared meanings, shared norms, shared values.<<

--Very true. There is often the perception that anyone
who can bridge the values of two groups is a traitor
to both sides. Someone beyond the liberal/conservative
dichotomy may be rejected by both sides as a nuisance,
a threat to shared assumptions that define a group
against another. It's common in a polar system
dominated by two opposing parties for each to drift
away from its own values simply because it's using
difference from the other party or dominance over it
as the only feedback that matters.

Michael


		
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search.
http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250


From waluk at earthlink.net  Mon Feb 21 23:19:10 2005
From: waluk at earthlink.net (G. Reinhart-Waller)
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 15:19:10 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Robust scientific dialog
References: <01C517F8.A0CDFE70.shovland@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <028701c5186b$c1008050$d003f604@S0027397558>


Managers direct while leaders inspire.

Both Hewlett and Packard were hands on kinda guys who 
were always roaming the plant in rolled up shirt 
sleeves.  Fiorino chose to sashay her way in spiked 
heels....she is now in oblivion.

Gerry Reinhart-Waller
Independent Scholar

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Hovland" <shovland at mindspring.com>
To: <ldj at mail.sisna.com>
Cc: "paleopsych at paleopsych. org (E-mail)" 
<paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 9:35 AM
Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] Robust scientific dialog


> Carly Fiorino's tenure was also flawed because
> she was a manager, not a leader.
>
> All she did was to call in the consultants and
> go with their standard recommendation to make
> a large acquisition.
>
> All the genius in HP's patents was essentially
> discarded.
>
> Steve Hovland
> www.stevehovland.net
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ldj [SMTP:ldj at mail.sisna.com]
> Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 9:23 AM
> To: The new improved paleopsych list
> Cc: Steve Hovland
> Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] Robust scientific dialog
>
> Steve,
> thanks for this reminder. Of course, you are right.
>
> At the same time, the dilemma is why didn't mayors 
> before Guilani do that?
> They were not leaders, they were managers. It comes 
> down to vision and
> leadership. What the Mouse Cult book seems to argue 
> (based on my reading of
> the reviews on Amazon) is that Eisner's leadership is 
> fatally flawed.
> Eisner lacks the vision that Walt Disney had. 
> Instead, he wants to simply
> maximize profit. So what he inspects is the wrong 
> thing, namely how can we
> mazimize our profit? Walt seemed to have a vision of 
> entertainng people,
> educating them via his nature films, entrancing them.
>
> So a vital problem that David is raising is what 
> about leadership? Someone
> once said that it is not that power corrupts, it is 
> that power attracts
> corruptable people. Too often our organizations are 
> run by people who
> simply want power for its own sake, that is, for the 
> sake of their own ego,
> and not because they actually have a worthy vision 
> that serves the
> customer/stakeholder/citizen. I ordered the In Search 
> of Stupidity this
> mornng from Abebooks.com so I may speak too early, 
> but it appears that the
> failures he documents originate from the top 
> leadership, lack of vision.
>
> This message goes to you because I am at work and I 
> don't know how to make
> this mail program use my list name, 
> ljohnson at solution-consulting.com. So
> paleo will bounce it. If you forward it, you have my 
> appreciation.
> Lynn
> working to celebrate presidents
>
>
> ---------- Original 
> Message ----------------------------------
> From: Steve Hovland <shovland at mindspring.com>
> Reply-To: The new improved paleopsych list 
> <paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
> Date:  Mon, 21 Feb 2005 07:38:56 -0800
>
>>"You get what you inspect" may also apply here.
>>
>>Rudy Giuliani dramatically changed the output
>>of many agencies in New York by measuring
>>progress toward the results he wanted.
>>
>>He probably didn't change the culture, which is
>>very difficult, but he got a different result, which
>>was enough.
>>
>>Steve Hovland
>>www.stevehovland.net
>>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. 
>>[SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
>>Sent: Sunday, February 20, 2005 9:17 PM
>>To: W. David Schwaderer; The new improved paleopsych 
>>list
>>Subject: [Paleopsych] Robust scientific dialog
>>
>>David,
>>Thank you for this inspiring question. I have been 
>>giving it some thought.
>>
>>My assumption is that we find true dialog 
>>threatening. Groups value
>>stability. Stability comes from shared meanings, 
>>shared norms, shared
>>values. We create meaning about the universe, and we 
>>are dismayed by
>>data that undermines our creation.
>>
>>So we started that particular project with a focus on 
>>group culture.
>>What is the norm about dialog? Clearly it had been to 
>>suppress debate.
>>Back-channel communications were common.
>>
>>I used an Appreciative Inquiry / Solution-focused 
>>approach, looking for
>>exceptions, times when dialog had worked. The idea 
>>behind that is that
>>we can change a culture by seeking positive examples 
>>of what is desired.
>>Fluctuations occur in all systems all the time. Even 
>>in a culture of
>>defensiveness and non-sharing, I assume there will be 
>>examples of times
>>when sharing did happen. If we discover those 
>>exceptions and talk about
>>them, the group members begin to re-view their 
>>concepts of the group.
>>New norms can be based on those exceptional times. 
>>Trust in the new
>>norms is improved by further dialog about them, mroe 
>>examples.
>>
>>We asked scientists:
>>"We all have experiences of direct, robust dialog, 
>>and we also have
>>experiences when we do not talk directly to others. 
>>We want to study
>>times when dialog was direct, to the point, and 
>>helpful. Please tell us
>>a time when that happened. What was going on? Who was 
>>involved? What
>>were you told? How did that help?"
>>
>>In retrospect, I should have trained three scientists 
>>to collect that
>>data, and each of them training three more and so on. 
>>I did too much of
>>the work. When the consultant does the interviews, it 
>>greatly reduces
>>the impact on the system, since the consultant is an 
>>outsider. Insider
>>collection of exceptional times is much more 
>>powerful.
>>
>>The senior scientist was quite pleased and felt that 
>>people were being
>>more open. We didn't have any actual data, though. 
>>Not  long after, the
>>VP of HR became ill and eventually died.
>>
>>I have much more to say. I wonder whether we ought to 
>>say this on list?
>>Would the paleo group be interested in this dialog 
>>between you and me? I
>>will forward this on to the group and see if we get 
>>interest. In the
>>mean time, David, please write back and tell me if 
>>this kind of story is
>>what you have in mind. I am interested in keeping 
>>this going.
>>
>>Lynn
>>
>>W. David Schwaderer wrote:
>>
>>>>I once consulted with a pharmaceutical research 
>>>>firm. ... but they
>>>>would not challenge each other.
>>>>
>>>>Divergent opinions are generally felt as 
>>>>threatening to the group, and
>>>>it takes sustained effort to legitimize divergent 
>>>>opinions. We came up
>>>>with "Robust Scientific Dialog" as a title for an 
>>>>organizational
>>>>intervention that had some positive impact.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>Lynn, I am *extremely* interested in this 
>>>phenomena - treatment of
> dissent
>>>and divergent opinion.  This is a key human 
>>>behavior....
>>>
>>>=> If you have *any* other thoughts on this please 
>>>let me know what they
>>>are.  Please.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> << File: ATT00005.html >>  << File: ATT00006.txt >>
>>_______________________________________________
>>paleopsych mailing list
>>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>
>
>
> _________________________________
> SISNA...more service, less money.
> http://www.sisna.com/exclusive/
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> 




From schwaderer_lists at comcast.net  Mon Feb 21 23:59:24 2005
From: schwaderer_lists at comcast.net (schwaderer_lists at comcast.net)
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 23:59:24 +0000
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
Message-ID: <022120052359.13107.421A75DC0006D22C0000333322070032019C9B9C0704A19D0A9D0A0B0E99080C9C@comcast.net>

> --Very true. There is often the perception that anyone 
> who can bridge the values of two groups is a traitor 
> to both sides. 

Very interesting.....like cross-over singers who alienate the original group of fans.....
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From shovland at mindspring.com  Tue Feb 22 00:31:47 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 16:31:47 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] RE: redistricting in CA
Message-ID: <01C51832.D74D5C90.shovland@mindspring.com>

My stipulation that we would remove
the human element from the process.

Arnold's solution of a board of retired
judges is just as prone to corruption
as anything involving people.

A pure grid system composed of 1 mile
squares would be OK.  With that grid
laid over the map of a state, we would
count the population and then apportion
representatives according to the
standard formula of so many per
thousand constituents.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	ldj [SMTP:ldj at mail.sisna.com]
Sent:	Monday, February 21, 2005 9:47 AM
To:	Steve Hovland
Subject:	redistricting in CA


Steve, give me the liberal take on this:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/jeffjacoby/jj20050221.shtml

It seems to me this could be an area we can agree on, left and right? 
Perhaps the underlying value is power for its own sake (incumbents) vs. 
real representative government (insurgents)??? Incumbents (in Utah, 
religious conservatives, in CA, institutionalized democrats) are rigging 
districts to keep power.

Lynn

_________________________________
SISNA...more service, less money.
http://www.sisna.com/exclusive/ 


From shovland at mindspring.com  Tue Feb 22 00:35:26 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 16:35:26 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: Robust scientific dialog
Message-ID: <01C51833.5A062CC0.shovland@mindspring.com>

Yes.  That article really turned on a light for me.

I think it's important to coldly regard beliefs
as mere mental structures.  

They aren't worth dying for, and they should not 
be enshrined to such a degree that it is hard to 
dispose of them when they no longer have 
survival value.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	schwaderer_lists at comcast.net [SMTP:schwaderer_lists at comcast.net]
Sent:	Monday, February 21, 2005 12:29 PM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	RE: [Paleopsych] Re: Robust scientific dialog



-------------- Original message -------------- 

> A corporate culture also includes beliefs, 
> which are very resistant to change. 
> 
> I sent out an article awhile ago about this. 

Steve, which article was this?  Was it this one?...
http://www.csicop.org/si/2000-11/beliefs.html

Thanks..... << File: ATT00004.html >>  << File: ATT00005.txt >> 


From shovland at mindspring.com  Tue Feb 22 00:42:14 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 16:42:14 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
Message-ID: <01C51834.4CB69F90.shovland@mindspring.com>

Like other forms of group competition,
politics probably has a full spectrum
of belief that is normally distributed.

Is America a Liberal country or a
Conservative country.  The answer
is yes :-)

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	schwaderer_lists at comcast.net [SMTP:schwaderer_lists at comcast.net]
Sent:	Monday, February 21, 2005 3:59 PM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20

> --Very true. There is often the perception that anyone
> who can bridge the values of two groups is a traitor
> to both sides.

Very interesting.....like cross-over singers who alienate the original 
group of fans..... << File: ATT00012.html >>  << File: ATT00013.txt >> 


From waluk at earthlink.net  Tue Feb 22 02:48:03 2005
From: waluk at earthlink.net (G. Reinhart-Waller)
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 18:48:03 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: Robust scientific dialog
References: <01C51833.5A062CC0.shovland@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <032101c51888$ef3230f0$d003f604@S0027397558>


When anyone regards beliefs as "mere mental structures" 
is when their entire system of socio-political 
assurance dissolves.   These are our founding father's 
beliefs and believe it or not it's what they decided to 
die for.  Oh, yeh, they certainly have a survival 
value.

Gerry

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Hovland" <shovland at mindspring.com>
To: "'The new improved paleopsych list'" 
<paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 4:35 PM
Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] Re: Robust scientific dialog


> Yes.  That article really turned on a light for me.
>
> I think it's important to coldly regard beliefs
> as mere mental structures.
>
> They aren't worth dying for, and they should not
> be enshrined to such a degree that it is hard to
> dispose of them when they no longer have
> survival value.
>
> Steve Hovland
> www.stevehovland.net
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: schwaderer_lists at comcast.net 
> [SMTP:schwaderer_lists at comcast.net]
> Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 12:29 PM
> To: The new improved paleopsych list
> Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] Re: Robust scientific 
> dialog
>
>
>
> -------------- Original message -------------- 
>
>> A corporate culture also includes beliefs,
>> which are very resistant to change.
>>
>> I sent out an article awhile ago about this.
>
> Steve, which article was this?  Was it this one?...
> http://www.csicop.org/si/2000-11/beliefs.html
>
> Thanks..... << File: ATT00004.html >>  << File: 
> ATT00005.txt >>
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> 




From waluk at earthlink.net  Tue Feb 22 02:55:47 2005
From: waluk at earthlink.net (G. Reinhart-Waller)
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 18:55:47 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
References: <20050221231900.57618.qmail@web30808.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <035701c5188a$03639ae0$d003f604@S0027397558>

>> Someone beyond the liberal/conservative
dichotomy may be rejected by both sides as a nuisance,
a threat to shared assumptions that define a group
against another.

This is absolutely amazing!  Why would any audience 
reject someone who cannot plop into either the liberal 
or conservative camp?  Please explain the threat you 
feel is apparent.  This I need to hear!

Gerry




From shovland at mindspring.com  Tue Feb 22 03:35:25 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 19:35:25 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: Robust scientific dialog
Message-ID: <01C5184C.7E3E9960.shovland@mindspring.com>

Many of our founding fathers beliefs still have survival value.

Within many religions we find beliefs that I think have
little survival value, but which continue to have vast
influence because we tend to value beliefs more than
facts.  

How many times have you seen someone reject a physical 
fact because it conflicted with one of their beliefs about reality?

The God of someone who is deeply steeped in science is
much different from that of a typical Bible thumper.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	G. Reinhart-Waller [SMTP:waluk at earthlink.net]
Sent:	Monday, February 21, 2005 6:48 PM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] Re: Robust scientific dialog


When anyone regards beliefs as "mere mental structures" 
is when their entire system of socio-political 
assurance dissolves.   These are our founding father's 
beliefs and believe it or not it's what they decided to 
die for.  Oh, yeh, they certainly have a survival 
value.

Gerry

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Hovland" <shovland at mindspring.com>
To: "'The new improved paleopsych list'" 
<paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 4:35 PM
Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] Re: Robust scientific dialog


> Yes.  That article really turned on a light for me.
>
> I think it's important to coldly regard beliefs
> as mere mental structures.
>
> They aren't worth dying for, and they should not
> be enshrined to such a degree that it is hard to
> dispose of them when they no longer have
> survival value.
>
> Steve Hovland
> www.stevehovland.net
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: schwaderer_lists at comcast.net 
> [SMTP:schwaderer_lists at comcast.net]
> Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 12:29 PM
> To: The new improved paleopsych list
> Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] Re: Robust scientific 
> dialog
>
>
>
> -------------- Original message -------------- 
>
>> A corporate culture also includes beliefs,
>> which are very resistant to change.
>>
>> I sent out an article awhile ago about this.
>
> Steve, which article was this?  Was it this one?...
> http://www.csicop.org/si/2000-11/beliefs.html
>
> Thanks..... << File: ATT00004.html >>  << File: 
> ATT00005.txt >>
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> 


_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


From andrewsa at newpaltz.edu  Tue Feb 22 04:30:53 2005
From: andrewsa at newpaltz.edu (Alice Andrews)
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 23:30:53 -0500
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
References: <20050221231900.57618.qmail@web30808.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<035701c5188a$03639ae0$d003f604@S0027397558>
Message-ID: <03a501c51897$4eefbdb0$1af9ae44@CallaStudios>

Hi Gerry, 
Randy Nesse edited a book called "Evolution and the Capacity for Commitment"; do you know it? It's wonderful... if you don't. (His 'Commitment in the Clinic' chapter is superb, btw.) Anyway, I think the book addresses your question. The word 'commitment' itself addresses the question. We have evolved mechanisms for detecting commitment and for detecting possible defection in others. People who tow the party line, etc. are considered committed. We seek out such people because it is proximately and ultimately adaptive to do so. Befriending, supporting, trusting, etc. the uncommitted would have been-- and still is, a risk (or threat). Such risks could have been very costly over our evolutionary history and can be still today. Of course, sometimes such risks (siding with someone who seems to be sitting on the fence, uncommitted, a rebel) can be to one's advantage. But 'ancient-brain' doesn't know this--and probably 'statistics-brain' doesn't know this either!
Anyway, enough late-night babbling! It's a good book and might answer your question...
All best!
Alice
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: G. Reinhart-Waller 
  To: The new improved paleopsych list 
  Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 9:55 PM
  Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20


  >> Someone beyond the liberal/conservative
  dichotomy may be rejected by both sides as a nuisance,
  a threat to shared assumptions that define a group
  against another.

  This is absolutely amazing!  Why would any audience 
  reject someone who cannot plop into either the liberal 
  or conservative camp?  Please explain the threat you 
  feel is apparent.  This I need to hear!

  Gerry


  _______________________________________________
  paleopsych mailing list
  paleopsych at paleopsych.org
  http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
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From shovland at mindspring.com  Tue Feb 22 11:36:31 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 03:36:31 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
Message-ID: <01C5188F.B3EC6090.shovland@mindspring.com>

This also touches on the issue of black-and-white
versus shades-of-gray mentalities.

The conservative mentality tends to be black-and-white
while the liberal mentality is more shades-of-gray.

Both sides have problems when carried to the extreme.

A conservative can be unbending at a time when it is
actually in his self-interest to be flexible, and a liberal
can be unable to commit to a course of action when
that is required.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Alice Andrews [SMTP:andrewsa at newpaltz.edu]
Sent:	Monday, February 21, 2005 8:31 PM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20

Hi Gerry,
Randy Nesse edited a book called "Evolution and the Capacity for 
Commitment"; do you know it? It's wonderful... if you don't. (His 
'Commitment in the Clinic' chapter is superb, btw.) Anyway, I think the 
book addresses your question. The word 'commitment' itself addresses the 
question. We have evolved mechanisms for detecting commitment and for 
detecting possible defection in others. People who tow the party line, etc. 
are considered committed. We seek out such people because it is proximately 
and ultimately adaptive to do so. Befriending, supporting, trusting, etc. 
the uncommitted would have been-- and still is, a risk (or threat). Such 
risks could have been very costly over our evolutionary history and can be 
still today. Of course, sometimes such risks (siding with someone who seems 
to be sitting on the fence, uncommitted, a rebel) can be to one's 
advantage. But 'ancient-brain' doesn't know this--and probably 
'statistics-brain' doesn't know this either!
Anyway, enough late-night babbling! It's a good book and might answer your 
question...
All best!
Alice
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: G. Reinhart-Waller
  To: The new improved paleopsych list
  Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 9:55 PM
  Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20


  >> Someone beyond the liberal/conservative
  dichotomy may be rejected by both sides as a nuisance,
  a threat to shared assumptions that define a group
  against another.

  This is absolutely amazing!  Why would any audience
  reject someone who cannot plop into either the liberal
  or conservative camp?  Please explain the threat you
  feel is apparent.  This I need to hear!

  Gerry


  _______________________________________________
  paleopsych mailing list
  paleopsych at paleopsych.org
  http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych << File: 
ATT00002.html >>  << File: ATT00003.txt >> 


From waluk at earthlink.net  Tue Feb 22 16:25:16 2005
From: waluk at earthlink.net (G. Reinhart-Waller)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 08:25:16 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: Robust scientific dialog
References: <01C5184C.7E3E9960.shovland@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <001501c518fb$193f6490$e300f604@S0027397558>


I would suspect that many of our founding fathers were 
quite religious and not the least atheistic.  The Salem 
witch trials were not based on reality but on belief 
that witches walked amongst the people of Salem, 
Massachusetts.  One of the main differences between 
then and now is that some of us presently are so 
steeped in scientism that in some instances it 
functions as a religion.

Gerry Reinhart-Waller



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Hovland" <shovland at mindspring.com>
To: "'The new improved paleopsych list'" 
<paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 7:35 PM
Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] Re: Robust scientific dialog


> Many of our founding fathers beliefs still have 
> survival value.
>
> Within many religions we find beliefs that I think 
> have
> little survival value, but which continue to have 
> vast
> influence because we tend to value beliefs more than
> facts.
>
> How many times have you seen someone reject a 
> physical
> fact because it conflicted with one of their beliefs 
> about reality?
>
> The God of someone who is deeply steeped in science 
> is
> much different from that of a typical Bible thumper.
>
> Steve Hovland
> www.stevehovland.net
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: G. Reinhart-Waller [SMTP:waluk at earthlink.net]
> Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 6:48 PM
> To: The new improved paleopsych list
> Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: Robust scientific 
> dialog
>
>
> When anyone regards beliefs as "mere mental 
> structures"
> is when their entire system of socio-political
> assurance dissolves.   These are our founding 
> father's
> beliefs and believe it or not it's what they decided 
> to
> die for.  Oh, yeh, they certainly have a survival
> value.
>
> Gerry




From waluk at earthlink.net  Tue Feb 22 16:50:58 2005
From: waluk at earthlink.net (G. Reinhart-Waller)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 08:50:58 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
References: <20050221231900.57618.qmail@web30808.mail.mud.yahoo.com><035701c5188a$03639ae0$d003f604@S0027397558>
	<03a501c51897$4eefbdb0$1af9ae44@CallaStudios>
Message-ID: <003101c518fe$aff81c80$e300f604@S0027397558>


Hi Alice,

Thanks for the rec re: Nesse's  "Evolution and the Capacity for Commitment".  Although I still haven't read it I'm familiar with its contents.  The issue of 'commitment' especially for young people is something that definitely needs addressing and maybe requiring our youth to make a firm political commitment to a particular party will carry over to their demonstrating less risky behavior with drugs, sex, employment, family or whatever.  Yet isn't our youth already politically brainwashed into political awareness or have they flicked away that duty as well?  I no longer hang out with our country's young but when I did I found that very few had their head screwed on correctly and many were adrift;  from what I hear now they still continue on their aimless flow.  When I wrote my original answer my thoughts were on "my generation", not the others.  Thanks for your post.

I'll add the book to my list.

Gerry



----- Original Message ----- 
From: Alice Andrews 
To: The new improved paleopsych list 
Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 8:30 PM
Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20


Hi Gerry, 
Randy Nesse edited a book called "Evolution and the Capacity for Commitment"; do you know it? It's wonderful... if you don't. (His 'Commitment in the Clinic' chapter is superb, btw.) Anyway, I think the book addresses your question. The word 'commitment' itself addresses the question. We have evolved mechanisms for detecting commitment and for detecting possible defection in others. People who tow the party line, etc. are considered committed. We seek out such people because it is proximately and ultimately adaptive to do so. Befriending, supporting, trusting, etc. the uncommitted would have been-- and still is, a risk (or threat). Such risks could have been very costly over our evolutionary history and can be still today. Of course, sometimes such risks (siding with someone who seems to be sitting on the fence, uncommitted, a rebel) can be to one's advantage. But 'ancient-brain' doesn't know this--and probably 'statistics-brain' doesn't know this either!
Anyway, enough late-night babbling! It's a good book and might answer your question...
All best!
Alice
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: G. Reinhart-Waller 
  To: The new improved paleopsych list 
  Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 9:55 PM
  Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20


  >> Someone beyond the liberal/conservative
  dichotomy may be rejected by both sides as a nuisance,
  a threat to shared assumptions that define a group
  against another.

  This is absolutely amazing!  Why would any audience 
  reject someone who cannot plop into either the liberal 
  or conservative camp?  Please explain the threat you 
  feel is apparent.  This I need to hear!

  Gerry


  _______________________________________________
  paleopsych mailing list
  paleopsych at paleopsych.org
  http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
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From anonymous_animus at yahoo.com  Tue Feb 22 20:03:20 2005
From: anonymous_animus at yahoo.com (Michael Christopher)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 12:03:20 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] bias and categories
In-Reply-To: <200502221937.j1MJaph30154@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <20050222200321.56368.qmail@web30805.mail.mud.yahoo.com>


>>This is absolutely amazing!  Why would any 
audience reject someone who cannot plop into either
the liberal or conservative camp?<<

--Because people don't like to be fooled. And when
there is a huge amount of information to sift through
and all sources carry some bias, it reduces the work
involved significantly if one takes a side and views
the other side as biased, deliberately misleading, or
corrupt. One side's half-truths, distortions and out
of context interpretations of events can be swallowed
whole as long as the other side is seen as biased and
its perspective rejected out of hand. If we can
dismiss everything from liberal sources as sour
grapes, or everything from conservative sources as
power-mongering, it's a lot easier to feel certain and
secure in one's assessment of the political scene.

Much harder to stand between two groups that are
chronically suspicious and resentful of each other,
and take truth from whichever side has more of it at
the moment. Much harder to sift through all the
information, tracking sources and sorting half-truths
from distortion, putting everything in context, etc.
That's all painstaking work, and even most journalists
will categorize information simplistically in order to
stick with the two-party dichotomy. If people can't
categorize you, you're like the singer another poster
mentioned who tries to cross over into a different
style, alienating their original audience. It makes
ideas and people harder to categories, and that causes
uncertainty and even feelings of betrayal.

Michael




	
		
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. 
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail


From waluk at earthlink.net  Tue Feb 22 21:42:32 2005
From: waluk at earthlink.net (G. Reinhart-Waller)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 13:42:32 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
References: <01C5188F.B3EC6090.shovland@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <01d301c51927$6b8822b0$e300f604@S0027397558>


Of interest is that many older people have grave 
concerns about their children having difficulty making 
long-term commitments (see Alice's post below).  If 
what Steve says (below) is correct, by advising our 
youths to make political and social commitments, we are 
in effect brainwashing them into grabbing a 
conservative mentality.  I wonder if it also follows 
that those without any commitment are those with 
liberal mentality.

Gerry Reinhart-Waller


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Hovland" <shovland at mindspring.com>
To: "'Alice Andrews'" <andrewsa at newpaltz.edu>; "'The 
new improved paleopsych list'" 
<paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 3:36 AM
Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, 
Issue 20


> This also touches on the issue of black-and-white
> versus shades-of-gray mentalities.
>
> The conservative mentality tends to be 
> black-and-white
> while the liberal mentality is more shades-of-gray.
>
> Both sides have problems when carried to the extreme.
>
> A conservative can be unbending at a time when it is
> actually in his self-interest to be flexible, and a 
> liberal
> can be unable to commit to a course of action when
> that is required.
>
> Steve Hovland
> www.stevehovland.net
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alice Andrews [SMTP:andrewsa at newpaltz.edu]
> Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 8:31 PM
> To: The new improved paleopsych list
> Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 
> 9, Issue 20
>
> Hi Gerry,
> Randy Nesse edited a book called "Evolution and the 
> Capacity for
> Commitment"; do you know it? It's wonderful... if you 
> don't. (His
> 'Commitment in the Clinic' chapter is superb, btw.) 
> Anyway, I think the
> book addresses your question. The word 'commitment' 
> itself addresses the
> question. We have evolved mechanisms for detecting 
> commitment and for
> detecting possible defection in others. People who 
> tow the party line, etc.
> are considered committed. We seek out such people 
> because it is proximately
> and ultimately adaptive to do so. Befriending, 
> supporting, trusting, etc.
> the uncommitted would have been-- and still is, a 
> risk (or threat). Such
> risks could have been very costly over our 
> evolutionary history and can be
> still today. Of course, sometimes such risks (siding 
> with someone who seems
> to be sitting on the fence, uncommitted, a rebel) can 
> be to one's
> advantage. But 'ancient-brain' doesn't know this--and 
> probably
> 'statistics-brain' doesn't know this either!
> Anyway, enough late-night babbling! It's a good book 
> and might answer your
> question...
> All best!
> Alice
>  ----- Original Message -----
>  From: G. Reinhart-Waller
>  To: The new improved paleopsych list
>  Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 9:55 PM
>  Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 
> 9, Issue 20
>
>
>  >> Someone beyond the liberal/conservative
>  dichotomy may be rejected by both sides as a 
> nuisance,
>  a threat to shared assumptions that define a group
>  against another.
>
>  This is absolutely amazing!  Why would any audience
>  reject someone who cannot plop into either the 
> liberal
>  or conservative camp?  Please explain the threat you
>  feel is apparent.  This I need to hear!
>
>  Gerry
>
>
>  _______________________________________________
>  paleopsych mailing list
>  paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> 
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych 
> << File:
> ATT00002.html >>  << File: ATT00003.txt >>
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> 




From waluk at earthlink.net  Tue Feb 22 21:43:33 2005
From: waluk at earthlink.net (G. Reinhart-Waller)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 13:43:33 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] bias and categories
References: <20050222200321.56368.qmail@web30805.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <01d401c51927$8fd81850$e300f604@S0027397558>

> --Because people don't like to be fooled. And when
> there is a huge amount of information to sift through
> and all sources carry some bias, it reduces the work
> involved significantly if one takes a side and views.

Even more amazing!  But you are absolutely correct. 
And it isn't only politics in which this occurs.  The 
worst scenario is when it happens on campus.  In my 
undergraduate days in college I pledged a sorority and 
chose one I thought was unlike the rest in that the 
young women couldn't be typed as they could in the 
others houses.  However, when it came time to select a 
new pledge class I watch in disbelief how "slippers" 
made it into the house and women with a sense of unique 
persona became controversial and ended up being 
"blackballed".   The more mundane a person was the 
greater chance she had in being accepted by the group.

Back to politics.....I tend to think that an either/or 
choice only takes place in a two party dominated 
political system.  Totalitarian rule certainly 
eliminates this choice as should a multi-party system 
similar to what can be found in many European 
countries.

> Much harder to stand between two groups that are
> chronically suspicious and resentful of each other,
> and take truth from whichever side has more of it at
> the moment. Much harder to sift through all the
> information, tracking sources and sorting half-truths
> from distortion, putting everything in context, etc.
> That's all painstaking work, and even most 
> journalists
> will categorize information simplistically in order 
> to
> stick with the two-party dichotomy. If people can't
> categorize you, you're like the singer another poster
> mentioned who tries to cross over into a different
> style, alienating their original audience. It makes
> ideas and people harder to categories, and that 
> causes
> uncertainty and even feelings of betrayal.

Most academics follow the flow that you describe yet 
there are some who do not.  These unbelievers are the 
unique individuals who have discovered that truth is 
relative, lies within the eyes of the beholder, and is 
constantly changing.  These people are the scourge of 
their fellow peers and in many instances attract only a 
handful of students because they, like truth, continue 
to change.  Yet these are the scholars whose work will 
stand up to the test of time, especially if they can 
figure out how to create an alternate personna which 
fits into one camp or the other.

Gerry Reinhart-Waller
Independent Scholar
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~waluk





From shovland at mindspring.com  Wed Feb 23 02:32:31 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 18:32:31 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
Message-ID: <01C5190C.DFACC170.shovland@mindspring.com>

I hear the divorce rate in the red states is
higher than the blue states :-)



Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	G. Reinhart-Waller [SMTP:waluk at earthlink.net]
Sent:	Tuesday, February 22, 2005 1:43 PM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20


Of interest is that many older people have grave 
concerns about their children having difficulty making 
long-term commitments (see Alice's post below).  If 
what Steve says (below) is correct, by advising our 
youths to make political and social commitments, we are 
in effect brainwashing them into grabbing a 
conservative mentality.  I wonder if it also follows 
that those without any commitment are those with 
liberal mentality.

Gerry Reinhart-Waller


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Hovland" <shovland at mindspring.com>
To: "'Alice Andrews'" <andrewsa at newpaltz.edu>; "'The 
new improved paleopsych list'" 
<paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 3:36 AM
Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, 
Issue 20


> This also touches on the issue of black-and-white
> versus shades-of-gray mentalities.
>
> The conservative mentality tends to be 
> black-and-white
> while the liberal mentality is more shades-of-gray.
>
> Both sides have problems when carried to the extreme.
>
> A conservative can be unbending at a time when it is
> actually in his self-interest to be flexible, and a 
> liberal
> can be unable to commit to a course of action when
> that is required.
>
> Steve Hovland
> www.stevehovland.net
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alice Andrews [SMTP:andrewsa at newpaltz.edu]
> Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 8:31 PM
> To: The new improved paleopsych list
> Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 
> 9, Issue 20
>
> Hi Gerry,
> Randy Nesse edited a book called "Evolution and the 
> Capacity for
> Commitment"; do you know it? It's wonderful... if you 
> don't. (His
> 'Commitment in the Clinic' chapter is superb, btw.) 
> Anyway, I think the
> book addresses your question. The word 'commitment' 
> itself addresses the
> question. We have evolved mechanisms for detecting 
> commitment and for
> detecting possible defection in others. People who 
> tow the party line, etc.
> are considered committed. We seek out such people 
> because it is proximately
> and ultimately adaptive to do so. Befriending, 
> supporting, trusting, etc.
> the uncommitted would have been-- and still is, a 
> risk (or threat). Such
> risks could have been very costly over our 
> evolutionary history and can be
> still today. Of course, sometimes such risks (siding 
> with someone who seems
> to be sitting on the fence, uncommitted, a rebel) can 
> be to one's
> advantage. But 'ancient-brain' doesn't know this--and 
> probably
> 'statistics-brain' doesn't know this either!
> Anyway, enough late-night babbling! It's a good book 
> and might answer your
> question...
> All best!
> Alice
>  ----- Original Message -----
>  From: G. Reinhart-Waller
>  To: The new improved paleopsych list
>  Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 9:55 PM
>  Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 
> 9, Issue 20
>
>
>  >> Someone beyond the liberal/conservative
>  dichotomy may be rejected by both sides as a 
> nuisance,
>  a threat to shared assumptions that define a group
>  against another.
>
>  This is absolutely amazing!  Why would any audience
>  reject someone who cannot plop into either the 
> liberal
>  or conservative camp?  Please explain the threat you
>  feel is apparent.  This I need to hear!
>
>  Gerry
>
>
>  _______________________________________________
>  paleopsych mailing list
>  paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> 
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych 
> << File:
> ATT00002.html >>  << File: ATT00003.txt >>
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> 


_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Wed Feb 23 04:14:10 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 21:14:10 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
In-Reply-To: <01C5190C.DFACC170.shovland@mindspring.com>
References: <01C5190C.DFACC170.shovland@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <421C0312.3060302@solution-consulting.com>

Misstatement - more people are _married_ in red states; in blu states 
they just live together, so 'divorces' aren't recorded.


Steve Hovland wrote:

>I hear the divorce rate in the red states is
>higher than the blue states :-)
>
>
>
>Steve Hovland
>www.stevehovland.net
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From:	G. Reinhart-Waller [SMTP:waluk at earthlink.net]
>Sent:	Tuesday, February 22, 2005 1:43 PM
>To:	The new improved paleopsych list
>Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
>
>
>Of interest is that many older people have grave 
>concerns about their children having difficulty making 
>long-term commitments (see Alice's post below).  If 
>what Steve says (below) is correct, by advising our 
>youths to make political and social commitments, we are 
>in effect brainwashing them into grabbing a 
>conservative mentality.  I wonder if it also follows 
>that those without any commitment are those with 
>liberal mentality.
>
>Gerry Reinhart-Waller
>
>
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Steve Hovland" <shovland at mindspring.com>
>To: "'Alice Andrews'" <andrewsa at newpaltz.edu>; "'The 
>new improved paleopsych list'" 
><paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 3:36 AM
>Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, 
>Issue 20
>
>
>  
>
>>This also touches on the issue of black-and-white
>>versus shades-of-gray mentalities.
>>
>>The conservative mentality tends to be 
>>black-and-white
>>while the liberal mentality is more shades-of-gray.
>>
>>Both sides have problems when carried to the extreme.
>>
>>A conservative can be unbending at a time when it is
>>actually in his self-interest to be flexible, and a 
>>liberal
>>can be unable to commit to a course of action when
>>that is required.
>>
>>Steve Hovland
>>www.stevehovland.net
>>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Alice Andrews [SMTP:andrewsa at newpaltz.edu]
>>Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 8:31 PM
>>To: The new improved paleopsych list
>>Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 
>>9, Issue 20
>>
>>Hi Gerry,
>>Randy Nesse edited a book called "Evolution and the 
>>Capacity for
>>Commitment"; do you know it? It's wonderful... if you 
>>don't. (His
>>'Commitment in the Clinic' chapter is superb, btw.) 
>>Anyway, I think the
>>book addresses your question. The word 'commitment' 
>>itself addresses the
>>question. We have evolved mechanisms for detecting 
>>commitment and for
>>detecting possible defection in others. People who 
>>tow the party line, etc.
>>are considered committed. We seek out such people 
>>because it is proximately
>>and ultimately adaptive to do so. Befriending, 
>>supporting, trusting, etc.
>>the uncommitted would have been-- and still is, a 
>>risk (or threat). Such
>>risks could have been very costly over our 
>>evolutionary history and can be
>>still today. Of course, sometimes such risks (siding 
>>with someone who seems
>>to be sitting on the fence, uncommitted, a rebel) can 
>>be to one's
>>advantage. But 'ancient-brain' doesn't know this--and 
>>probably
>>'statistics-brain' doesn't know this either!
>>Anyway, enough late-night babbling! It's a good book 
>>and might answer your
>>question...
>>All best!
>>Alice
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: G. Reinhart-Waller
>> To: The new improved paleopsych list
>> Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 9:55 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 
>>9, Issue 20
>>
>>
>> >> Someone beyond the liberal/conservative
>> dichotomy may be rejected by both sides as a 
>>nuisance,
>> a threat to shared assumptions that define a group
>> against another.
>>
>> This is absolutely amazing!  Why would any audience
>> reject someone who cannot plop into either the 
>>liberal
>> or conservative camp?  Please explain the threat you
>> feel is apparent.  This I need to hear!
>>
>> Gerry
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> paleopsych mailing list
>> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>>
>>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych 
>><< File:
>>ATT00002.html >>  << File: ATT00003.txt >>
>>_______________________________________________
>>paleopsych mailing list
>>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>
>>    
>>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>
>  
>
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From shovland at mindspring.com  Wed Feb 23 04:37:52 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 20:37:52 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
Message-ID: <01C5191E.61F3AD40.shovland@mindspring.com>

I remember when "Red" used to mean "Commie."

How things change :-)

Who knows, maybe the Republicans are just a
front for the Communists.  Strange bedfellows!

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
Sent:	Tuesday, February 22, 2005 8:14 PM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20

Misstatement - more people are _married_ in red states; in blu states 
they just live together, so 'divorces' aren't recorded.


Steve Hovland wrote:

>I hear the divorce rate in the red states is
>higher than the blue states :-)
>
>
>
>Steve Hovland
>www.stevehovland.net
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From:	G. Reinhart-Waller [SMTP:waluk at earthlink.net]
>Sent:	Tuesday, February 22, 2005 1:43 PM
>To:	The new improved paleopsych list
>Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
>
>
>Of interest is that many older people have grave 
>concerns about their children having difficulty making 
>long-term commitments (see Alice's post below).  If 
>what Steve says (below) is correct, by advising our 
>youths to make political and social commitments, we are 
>in effect brainwashing them into grabbing a 
>conservative mentality.  I wonder if it also follows 
>that those without any commitment are those with 
>liberal mentality.
>
>Gerry Reinhart-Waller
>
>
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Steve Hovland" <shovland at mindspring.com>
>To: "'Alice Andrews'" <andrewsa at newpaltz.edu>; "'The 
>new improved paleopsych list'" 
><paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 3:36 AM
>Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, 
>Issue 20
>
>
>  
>
>>This also touches on the issue of black-and-white
>>versus shades-of-gray mentalities.
>>
>>The conservative mentality tends to be 
>>black-and-white
>>while the liberal mentality is more shades-of-gray.
>>
>>Both sides have problems when carried to the extreme.
>>
>>A conservative can be unbending at a time when it is
>>actually in his self-interest to be flexible, and a 
>>liberal
>>can be unable to commit to a course of action when
>>that is required.
>>
>>Steve Hovland
>>www.stevehovland.net
>>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Alice Andrews [SMTP:andrewsa at newpaltz.edu]
>>Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 8:31 PM
>>To: The new improved paleopsych list
>>Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 
>>9, Issue 20
>>
>>Hi Gerry,
>>Randy Nesse edited a book called "Evolution and the 
>>Capacity for
>>Commitment"; do you know it? It's wonderful... if you 
>>don't. (His
>>'Commitment in the Clinic' chapter is superb, btw.) 
>>Anyway, I think the
>>book addresses your question. The word 'commitment' 
>>itself addresses the
>>question. We have evolved mechanisms for detecting 
>>commitment and for
>>detecting possible defection in others. People who 
>>tow the party line, etc.
>>are considered committed. We seek out such people 
>>because it is proximately
>>and ultimately adaptive to do so. Befriending, 
>>supporting, trusting, etc.
>>the uncommitted would have been-- and still is, a 
>>risk (or threat). Such
>>risks could have been very costly over our 
>>evolutionary history and can be
>>still today. Of course, sometimes such risks (siding 
>>with someone who seems
>>to be sitting on the fence, uncommitted, a rebel) can 
>>be to one's
>>advantage. But 'ancient-brain' doesn't know this--and 
>>probably
>>'statistics-brain' doesn't know this either!
>>Anyway, enough late-night babbling! It's a good book 
>>and might answer your
>>question...
>>All best!
>>Alice
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: G. Reinhart-Waller
>> To: The new improved paleopsych list
>> Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 9:55 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 
>>9, Issue 20
>>
>>
>> >> Someone beyond the liberal/conservative
>> dichotomy may be rejected by both sides as a 
>>nuisance,
>> a threat to shared assumptions that define a group
>> against another.
>>
>> This is absolutely amazing!  Why would any audience
>> reject someone who cannot plop into either the 
>>liberal
>> or conservative camp?  Please explain the threat you
>> feel is apparent.  This I need to hear!
>>
>> Gerry
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> paleopsych mailing list
>> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>>
>>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych 
>><< File:
>>ATT00002.html >>  << File: ATT00003.txt >>
>>_______________________________________________
>>paleopsych mailing list
>>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>
>>    
>>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>
>  
>
 << File: ATT00001.html >>  << File: ATT00002.txt >> 


From seamensa at yahoo.com  Wed Feb 23 04:59:51 2005
From: seamensa at yahoo.com (SEAMUS)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 20:59:51 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] HELLO ALICE RE Paleopsych List
In-Reply-To: <03a501c51897$4eefbdb0$1af9ae44@CallaStudios>
Message-ID: <20050223045951.38775.qmail@web54408.mail.yahoo.com>

Hello Alice and by the way, I have read that book quite recently.
 
I have been in Dublin Ireland at Trinity College, and have not had much time for the list discussions lately.
 
I am also wondering. Are you at New Paltz SUNY? one of my alma maters from some time ago actually,,, I still love the Shawangunks very much.
 
Well anyway, THANK YOU AGAIN, and perhaps if you like, when I am in NEW York again, I would like to hear more of what you have to say. I hear there is a Starbucks in New Paltz nowadays/// 
 
Yours
Seamus

		
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
 Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard.
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From andrewsa at newpaltz.edu  Wed Feb 23 13:48:57 2005
From: andrewsa at newpaltz.edu (Alice Andrews)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 08:48:57 -0500
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
References: <01C51833.5A062CC0.shovland@mindspring.com>
	<032101c51888$ef3230f0$d003f604@S0027397558>
Message-ID: <031e01c519ae$6d1984c0$1af9ae44@CallaStudios>

Hi Gerry,
Thanks for the note...
There was an interesting article somewhere--maybe Frank sent it in?--about teenagers and the possiblity that what they were missing was 'religion' or 'spirituality' or a 'sense of purpose and meaning beyond them.' Do you remember reading that on paleo some time ago? I can't find it...But it seems apropos to your missive. (If anyone knows it and can send out again, I'd appreciate!)
Thanks and cheers,
Alice

Hi Alice,

Thanks for the rec re: Nesse's  "Evolution and the Capacity for Commitment".  Although I still haven't read it I'm familiar with its contents.  The issue of 'commitment' especially for young people is something that definitely needs addressing and maybe requiring our youth to make a firm political commitment to a particular party will carry over to their demonstrating less risky behavior with drugs, sex, employment, family or whatever.  Yet isn't our youth already politically brainwashed into political awareness or have they flicked away that duty as well?  I no longer hang out with our country's young but when I did I found that very few had their head screwed on correctly and many were adrift;  from what I hear now they still continue on their aimless flow.  When I wrote my original answer my thoughts were on "my generation", not the others.  Thanks for your post.

I'll add the book to my list.

Gerry



----- Original Message ----- 
From: Alice Andrews 
To: The new improved paleopsych list 
Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 8:30 PM
Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20


Hi Gerry, 
Randy Nesse edited a book called "Evolution and the Capacity for Commitment"; do you know it? It's wonderful... if you don't. (His 'Commitment in the Clinic' chapter is superb, btw.) Anyway, I think the book addresses your question. The word 'commitment' itself addresses the question. We have evolved mechanisms for detecting commitment and for detecting possible defection in others. People who tow the party line, etc. are considered committed. We seek out such people because it is proximately and ultimately adaptive to do so. Befriending, supporting, trusting, etc. the uncommitted would have been-- and still is, a risk (or threat). Such risks could have been very costly over our evolutionary history and can be still today. Of course, sometimes such risks (siding with someone who seems to be sitting on the fence, uncommitted, a rebel) can be to one's advantage. But 'ancient-brain' doesn't know this--and probably 'statistics-brain' doesn't know this either!
Anyway, enough late-night babbling! It's a good book and might answer your question...
All best!
Alice
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: G. Reinhart-Waller 
  To: The new improved paleopsych list 
  Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 9:55 PM
  Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20


  >> Someone beyond the liberal/conservative
  dichotomy may be rejected by both sides as a nuisance,
  a threat to shared assumptions that define a group
  against another.

  This is absolutely amazing!  Why would any audience 
  reject someone who cannot plop into either the liberal 
  or conservative camp?  Please explain the threat you 
  feel is apparent.  This I need to hear!

  Gerry


  _______________________________________________
  paleopsych mailing list
  paleopsych at paleopsych.org
  http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
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From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Wed Feb 23 15:50:45 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 08:50:45 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
In-Reply-To: <031e01c519ae$6d1984c0$1af9ae44@CallaStudios>
References: <01C51833.5A062CC0.shovland@mindspring.com>	<032101c51888$ef3230f0$d003f604@S0027397558>
	<031e01c519ae$6d1984c0$1af9ae44@CallaStudios>
Message-ID: <421CA655.8060400@solution-consulting.com>

Marty Seligman (learned helplessness theorist, Learned Optimism, 
Authentic Happiness, former APA president) - an atheist - mentions that 
as a key to true happiness. He reviews literature that religious people 
are generally happier and more fulfilled, more resilient. Czentmyhali 
(spelling!) at U Chicago finds that kids involved in something greater 
than themselves are much more likely to experience "flow" and periods of 
greater happiness. Religion is clearly an adaptive force. BTW, I don't 
want to hear arguments that religion is behind most wars. That is a 
pretty tired argument that was thoroughly debunked by the 20th Century.
Lynn

Alice Andrews wrote:

> Hi Gerry,
> Thanks for the note...
> There was an interesting article somewhere--maybe Frank sent it 
> in?--about teenagers and the possiblity that what they were missing 
> was 'religion' or 'spirituality' or a 'sense of purpose and meaning 
> beyond them.' Do you remember reading that on paleo some time ago? I 
> can't find it...But it seems apropos to your missive. (If anyone knows 
> it and can send out again, I'd appreciate!)
> Thanks and cheers,
> Alice
>  
> Hi Alice,
>  
> Thanks for the rec re: Nesse's  "Evolution and the Capacity for 
> Commitment".  Although I still haven't read it I'm familiar with its 
> contents.  The issue of 'commitment' especially for young people is 
> something that definitely needs addressing and maybe requiring our 
> youth to make a firm political commitment to a particular party will 
> carry over to their demonstrating less risky behavior with drugs, sex, 
> employment, family or whatever.  Yet isn't our youth already 
> politically brainwashed into political awareness or have they flicked 
> away that duty as well?  I no longer hang out with our country's young 
> but when I did I found that very few had their head screwed on 
> correctly and many were adrift;  from what I hear now they still 
> continue on their aimless flow.  When I wrote my original answer my 
> thoughts were on "my generation", not the others.  Thanks for your post.
>  
> I'll add the book to my list.
>  
> Gerry
>  
>  
>  
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Alice Andrews <mailto:andrewsa at newpaltz.edu>
> To: The new improved paleopsych list <mailto:paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
> Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 8:30 PM
> Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
>
> Hi Gerry,
> Randy Nesse edited a book called "Evolution and the Capacity for 
> Commitment"; do you know it? It's wonderful... if you don't. (His 
> 'Commitment in the Clinic' chapter is superb, btw.) Anyway, I think 
> the book addresses your question. The word 'commitment' itself 
> addresses the question. We have evolved mechanisms for detecting 
> commitment and for detecting possible defection in others. People who 
> tow the party line, etc. are considered committed. We seek out such 
> people because it is proximately and ultimately adaptive to do so. 
> Befriending, supporting, trusting, etc. the uncommitted would have 
> been-- and still is, a risk (or threat). Such risks could have been 
> very costly over our evolutionary history and can be still today. Of 
> course, sometimes such risks (siding with someone who seems to be 
> sitting on the fence, uncommitted, a rebel) can be to one's advantage. 
> But 'ancient-brain' doesn't know this--and probably 'statistics-brain' 
> doesn't know this either!
> Anyway, enough late-night babbling! It's a good book and might answer 
> your question...
> All best!
> Alice
>
>     ----- Original Message -----
>     From: G. Reinhart-Waller <mailto:waluk at earthlink.net>
>     To: The new improved paleopsych list
>     <mailto:paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>     Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 9:55 PM
>     Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
>
>     >> Someone beyond the liberal/conservative
>     dichotomy may be rejected by both sides as a nuisance,
>     a threat to shared assumptions that define a group
>     against another.
>
>     This is absolutely amazing!  Why would any audience
>     reject someone who cannot plop into either the liberal
>     or conservative camp?  Please explain the threat you
>     feel is apparent.  This I need to hear!
>
>     Gerry
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     paleopsych mailing list
>     paleopsych at paleopsych.org <mailto:paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>     http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>  
>
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From christian.rauh at uconn.edu  Wed Feb 23 16:19:36 2005
From: christian.rauh at uconn.edu (Christian Rauh)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 11:19:36 -0500
Subject: [Paleopsych] True happiness.
In-Reply-To: <421CA655.8060400@solution-consulting.com>
References: <01C51833.5A062CC0.shovland@mindspring.com>
	<032101c51888$ef3230f0$d003f604@S0027397558>
	<031e01c519ae$6d1984c0$1af9ae44@CallaStudios>
	<421CA655.8060400@solution-consulting.com>
Message-ID: <421CAD18.3040109@uconn.edu>

Is religion *true* hapiness?

I know many people who are oblivious to world events and are definetely 
more happy than the ones who follow what is going on. Are these people 
*truly* happy?

Is the spouse who doesn't know of their partner's affair *truly* happy?

Should we create an artifical environment of happiness?

This has been a long debate in philosophy.

Christian

Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. wrote:
> Marty Seligman (learned helplessness theorist, /Learned Optimism, 
> Authentic Happiness/, former APA president) - an atheist - mentions that 
> as a key to true happiness. He reviews literature that religious people 
> are generally happier and more fulfilled, more resilient. Czentmyhali 
> (spelling!) at U Chicago finds that kids involved in something greater 
> than themselves are much more likely to experience "flow" and periods of 
> greater happiness. Religion is clearly an adaptive force. BTW, I don't 
> want to hear arguments that religion is behind most wars. That is a 
> pretty tired argument that was thoroughly debunked by the 20th Century.
> Lynn
> 
> Alice Andrews wrote:
> 
>> Hi Gerry,
>> Thanks for the note...
>> There was an interesting article somewhere--maybe Frank sent it 
>> in?--about teenagers and the possiblity that what they were missing 
>> was 'religion' or 'spirituality' or a 'sense of purpose and meaning 
>> beyond them.' Do you remember reading that on paleo some time ago? I 
>> can't find it...But it seems apropos to your missive. (If anyone knows 
>> it and can send out again, I'd appreciate!)
>> Thanks and cheers,
>> Alice
>>  
>> Hi Alice,
>>  
>> Thanks for the rec re: Nesse's  "Evolution and the Capacity for 
>> Commitment".  Although I still haven't read it I'm familiar with its 
>> contents.  The issue of 'commitment' especially for young people is 
>> something that definitely needs addressing and maybe requiring our 
>> youth to make a firm political commitment to a particular party will 
>> carry over to their demonstrating less risky behavior with drugs, sex, 
>> employment, family or whatever.  Yet isn't our youth already 
>> politically brainwashed into political awareness or have they flicked 
>> away that duty as well?  I no longer hang out with our country's young 
>> but when I did I found that very few had their head screwed on 
>> correctly and many were adrift;  from what I hear now they still 
>> continue on their aimless flow.  When I wrote my original answer my 
>> thoughts were on "my generation", not the others.  Thanks for your post.
>>  
>> I'll add the book to my list.
>>  
>> Gerry
>>  
>>  
>>  
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> *From:* Alice Andrews <mailto:andrewsa at newpaltz.edu>
>> *To:* The new improved paleopsych list <mailto:paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>> *Sent:* Monday, February 21, 2005 8:30 PM
>> *Subject:* Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
>>
>> Hi Gerry,
>> Randy Nesse edited a book called "Evolution and the Capacity for 
>> Commitment"; do you know it? It's wonderful... if you don't. (His 
>> 'Commitment in the Clinic' chapter is superb, btw.) Anyway, I think 
>> the book addresses your question. The word 'commitment' itself 
>> addresses the question. We have evolved mechanisms for detecting 
>> commitment and for detecting possible defection in others. People who 
>> tow the party line, etc. are considered committed. We seek out such 
>> people because it is proximately and ultimately adaptive to do so. 
>> Befriending, supporting, trusting, etc. the uncommitted would have 
>> been-- and still is, a risk (or threat). Such risks could have been 
>> very costly over our evolutionary history and can be still today. Of 
>> course, sometimes such risks (siding with someone who seems to be 
>> sitting on the fence, uncommitted, a rebel) can be to one's advantage. 
>> But 'ancient-brain' doesn't know this--and probably 'statistics-brain' 
>> doesn't know this either!
>> Anyway, enough late-night babbling! It's a good book and might answer 
>> your question...
>> All best!
>> Alice
>>
>>     ----- Original Message -----
>>     *From:* G. Reinhart-Waller <mailto:waluk at earthlink.net>
>>     *To:* The new improved paleopsych list
>>     <mailto:paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>>     *Sent:* Monday, February 21, 2005 9:55 PM
>>     *Subject:* Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
>>
>>     >> Someone beyond the liberal/conservative
>>     dichotomy may be rejected by both sides as a nuisance,
>>     a threat to shared assumptions that define a group
>>     against another.
>>
>>     This is absolutely amazing!  Why would any audience
>>     reject someone who cannot plop into either the liberal
>>     or conservative camp?  Please explain the threat you
>>     feel is apparent.  This I need to hear!
>>
>>     Gerry
>>
>>
>>     _______________________________________________
>>     paleopsych mailing list
>>     paleopsych at paleopsych.org <mailto:paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>>     http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> _______________________________________________
>> paleopsych mailing list
>> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>paleopsych mailing list
>>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>  
>>
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych

-- 

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
"The gravest danger to freedom lies at the crossroads
  of radicalism and technology."

                               - President Bush
                                         June 1, 2002, West Point, NY


"we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our
  right of selfdefense by acting preemptively [...] we recognize that
  our best defense is a good offense"

     - The National Security Strategy of The United States of America

                             <http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html>

_____________________________________________________________________
?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????


From andrewsa at newpaltz.edu  Wed Feb 23 18:07:08 2005
From: andrewsa at newpaltz.edu (Alice Andrews)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 13:07:08 -0500
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: HELLO ALICE RE Paleopsych List
References: <20050223045951.38775.qmail@web54408.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <084e01c519d2$7f3a7050$1af9ae44@CallaStudios>

Hiya Seamus,
Good to know you read 'Commitment"...I happen to love the way Randy Nesse writes--complex and brilliant ideas written so clearly...What could be better?
Yes, I'm at SUNY New Paltz...And yes, the 'Gunks are very wonderful. Still appreciate them after all these 5 1/2 years of living here...!
BTW, I have not forgotten your submission from a while ago and will be getting back to people before March 31....I've gotten a lot of stuff, actually! It's exciting...
Well, I'll be writing back soon,
All best,
Alice

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: SEAMUS 
  To: Alice Andrews ; The new improved paleopsych list 
  Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 11:59 PM
  Subject: HELLO ALICE RE Paleopsych List


  Hello Alice and by the way, I have read that book quite recently.

  I have been in Dublin Ireland at Trinity College, and have not had much time for the list discussions lately.

  I am also wondering. Are you at New Paltz SUNY? one of my alma maters from some time ago actually,,, I still love the Shawangunks very much.

  Well anyway, THANK YOU AGAIN, and perhaps if you like, when I am in NEW York again, I would like to hear more of what you have to say. I hear there is a Starbucks in New Paltz nowadays/// 

  Yours
  Seamus


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Do you Yahoo!?
  Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard.
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From andrewsa at newpaltz.edu  Wed Feb 23 18:17:50 2005
From: andrewsa at newpaltz.edu (Alice Andrews)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 13:17:50 -0500
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
Message-ID: <087a01c519d3$fc8c8ab0$1af9ae44@CallaStudios>

Hi Lynn,
Yes, thanks for reminding me re both of those guys in relation to the question (I like both of them!): I'll do a search for them and see if i can find that particular article! 
Also...a while ago I was reading "The Age of Bifurcation: Understanding the Changing World" by Ervin Laszlo, and he had a wonderful few pages on how to be a materialist and spiritual at the same  time. He's speaking at a place in MA--and seems to be connected to WIE?--the place that Howard seems to be connected to...I wish I could go...
cheerys,
Alice



  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. 
  To: Alice Andrews ; The new improved paleopsych list 
  Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2005 10:50 AM
  Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20


  Marty Seligman (learned helplessness theorist, Learned Optimism, Authentic Happiness, former APA president) - an atheist - mentions that as a key to true happiness. He reviews literature that religious people are generally happier and more fulfilled, more resilient. Czentmyhali (spelling!) at U Chicago finds that kids involved in something greater than themselves are much more likely to experience "flow" and periods of greater happiness. Religion is clearly an adaptive force. BTW, I don't want to hear arguments that religion is behind most wars. That is a pretty tired argument that was thoroughly debunked by the 20th Century. 
  Lynn

  Alice Andrews wrote:

    Hi Gerry,
    Thanks for the note...
    There was an interesting article somewhere--maybe Frank sent it in?--about teenagers and the possiblity that what they were missing was 'religion' or 'spirituality' or a 'sense of purpose and meaning beyond them.' Do you remember reading that on paleo some time ago? I can't find it...But it seems apropos to your missive. (If anyone knows it and can send out again, I'd appreciate!)
    Thanks and cheers,
    Alice

    Hi Alice,

    Thanks for the rec re: Nesse's  "Evolution and the Capacity for Commitment".  Although I still haven't read it I'm familiar with its contents.  The issue of 'commitment' especially for young people is something that definitely needs addressing and maybe requiring our youth to make a firm political commitment to a particular party will carry over to their demonstrating less risky behavior with drugs, sex, employment, family or whatever.  Yet isn't our youth already politically brainwashed into political awareness or have they flicked away that duty as well?  I no longer hang out with our country's young but when I did I found that very few had their head screwed on correctly and many were adrift;  from what I hear now they still continue on their aimless flow.  When I wrote my original answer my thoughts were on "my generation", not the others.  Thanks for your post.

    I'll add the book to my list.

    Gerry



    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Alice Andrews 
    To: The new improved paleopsych list 
    Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 8:30 PM
    Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20


    Hi Gerry, 
    Randy Nesse edited a book called "Evolution and the Capacity for Commitment"; do you know it? It's wonderful... if you don't. (His 'Commitment in the Clinic' chapter is superb, btw.) Anyway, I think the book addresses your question. The word 'commitment' itself addresses the question. We have evolved mechanisms for detecting commitment and for detecting possible defection in others. People who tow the party line, etc. are considered committed. We seek out such people because it is proximately and ultimately adaptive to do so. Befriending, supporting, trusting, etc. the uncommitted would have been-- and still is, a risk (or threat). Such risks could have been very costly over our evolutionary history and can be still today. Of course, sometimes such risks (siding with someone who seems to be sitting on the fence, uncommitted, a rebel) can be to one's advantage. But 'ancient-brain' doesn't know this--and probably 'statistics-brain' doesn't know this either!
    Anyway, enough late-night babbling! It's a good book and might answer your question...
    All best!
    Alice
      ----- Original Message ----- 
      From: G. Reinhart-Waller 
      To: The new improved paleopsych list 
      Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 9:55 PM
      Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20


      >> Someone beyond the liberal/conservative
      dichotomy may be rejected by both sides as a nuisance,
      a threat to shared assumptions that define a group
      against another.

      This is absolutely amazing!  Why would any audience 
      reject someone who cannot plop into either the liberal 
      or conservative camp?  Please explain the threat you 
      feel is apparent.  This I need to hear!

      Gerry


      _______________________________________________
      paleopsych mailing list
      paleopsych at paleopsych.org
      http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    _______________________________________________
    paleopsych mailing list
    paleopsych at paleopsych.org
    http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
  
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From waluk at earthlink.net  Wed Feb 23 19:35:33 2005
From: waluk at earthlink.net (G. Reinhart-Waller)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 11:35:33 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
References: <01C51833.5A062CC0.shovland@mindspring.com>
	<032101c51888$ef3230f0$d003f604@S0027397558>
	<031e01c519ae$6d1984c0$1af9ae44@CallaStudios>
Message-ID: <024201c519de$d8c04300$d203f604@S0027397558>

Hi Alice,
Many teens need a formal spirituality especially if they are without a purposeful meaning to their life.  Others find this purpose through their work, or study, or family.  

No, I'm not familiar with Frank's post.

Gerry 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Alice Andrews 
To: G. Reinhart-Waller ; The new improved paleopsych list 
Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2005 5:48 AM
Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20


Hi Gerry,
Thanks for the note...
There was an interesting article somewhere--maybe Frank sent it in?--about teenagers and the possiblity that what they were missing was 'religion' or 'spirituality' or a 'sense of purpose and meaning beyond them.' Do you remember reading that on paleo some time ago? I can't find it...But it seems apropos to your missive. (If anyone knows it and can send out again, I'd appreciate!)
Thanks and cheers,
Alice

Hi Alice,

Thanks for the rec re: Nesse's  "Evolution and the Capacity for Commitment".  Although I still haven't read it I'm familiar with its contents.  The issue of 'commitment' especially for young people is something that definitely needs addressing and maybe requiring our youth to make a firm political commitment to a particular party will carry over to their demonstrating less risky behavior with drugs, sex, employment, family or whatever.  Yet isn't our youth already politically brainwashed into political awareness or have they flicked away that duty as well?  I no longer hang out with our country's young but when I did I found that very few had their head screwed on correctly and many were adrift;  from what I hear now they still continue on their aimless flow.  When I wrote my original answer my thoughts were on "my generation", not the others.  Thanks for your post.

I'll add the book to my list.

Gerry



----- Original Message ----- 
From: Alice Andrews 
To: The new improved paleopsych list 
Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 8:30 PM
Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20


Hi Gerry, 
Randy Nesse edited a book called "Evolution and the Capacity for Commitment"; do you know it? It's wonderful... if you don't. (His 'Commitment in the Clinic' chapter is superb, btw.) Anyway, I think the book addresses your question. The word 'commitment' itself addresses the question. We have evolved mechanisms for detecting commitment and for detecting possible defection in others. People who tow the party line, etc. are considered committed. We seek out such people because it is proximately and ultimately adaptive to do so. Befriending, supporting, trusting, etc. the uncommitted would have been-- and still is, a risk (or threat). Such risks could have been very costly over our evolutionary history and can be still today. Of course, sometimes such risks (siding with someone who seems to be sitting on the fence, uncommitted, a rebel) can be to one's advantage. But 'ancient-brain' doesn't know this--and probably 'statistics-brain' doesn't know this either!
Anyway, enough late-night babbling! It's a good book and might answer your question...
All best!
Alice
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: G. Reinhart-Waller 
  To: The new improved paleopsych list 
  Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 9:55 PM
  Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20


  >> Someone beyond the liberal/conservative
  dichotomy may be rejected by both sides as a nuisance,
  a threat to shared assumptions that define a group
  against another.

  This is absolutely amazing!  Why would any audience 
  reject someone who cannot plop into either the liberal 
  or conservative camp?  Please explain the threat you 
  feel is apparent.  This I need to hear!

  Gerry


  _______________________________________________
  paleopsych mailing list
  paleopsych at paleopsych.org
  http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
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From waluk at earthlink.net  Wed Feb 23 19:53:15 2005
From: waluk at earthlink.net (G. Reinhart-Waller)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 11:53:15 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
References: <01C51833.5A062CC0.shovland@mindspring.com>	<032101c51888$ef3230f0$d003f604@S0027397558><031e01c519ae$6d1984c0$1af9ae44@CallaStudios>
	<421CA655.8060400@solution-consulting.com>
Message-ID: <026501c519e1$5190d770$d203f604@S0027397558>


Optimism is always key to a happier disposition than is the proverbial glum of a sour puss.  Yet it needs to be balanced between too strong a dose that resembles Pollyanna Anna and not enough.  Like seasoning of food, too much salt renders the dish inedible.  Kids need involvement in something but I certainly wouldn't want to advocate suicide bombing as a way of supporting an ideology.   Religion IS behind most wars.....possibly the reason you make the statement you do is because 20th century wars were given tags that substituted for religious zeal...."nationalism" and "technological supremacy" are two such labels.

Gerry Reinhart-Waller

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. 
To: Alice Andrews ; The new improved paleopsych list 
Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2005 7:50 AM
Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20


Marty Seligman (learned helplessness theorist, Learned Optimism, Authentic Happiness, former APA president) - an atheist - mentions that as a key to true happiness. He reviews literature that religious people are generally happier and more fulfilled, more resilient. Czentmyhali (spelling!) at U Chicago finds that kids involved in something greater than themselves are much more likely to experience "flow" and periods of greater happiness. Religion is clearly an adaptive force. BTW, I don't want to hear arguments that religion is behind most wars. That is a pretty tired argument that was thoroughly debunked by the 20th Century. 
Lynn

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From waluk at earthlink.net  Wed Feb 23 20:02:06 2005
From: waluk at earthlink.net (G. Reinhart-Waller)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 12:02:06 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] True happiness.
References: <01C51833.5A062CC0.shovland@mindspring.com><032101c51888$ef3230f0$d003f604@S0027397558><031e01c519ae$6d1984c0$1af9ae44@CallaStudios><421CA655.8060400@solution-consulting.com>
	<421CAD18.3040109@uconn.edu>
Message-ID: <027c01c519e2$8e28f7c0$d203f604@S0027397558>


Happiness like most other emotions is truly in the eyes 
of the beholder.  Many psychiatrists have discovered 
the secret for creating an operable world for their 
patients and it consists of the new brands of Happy 
Drugs.  Prosaic has become standardized in America just 
like Apple Pie.  If the patient responds favorably, 
both psychologically and physically, then I'd say 
prescribe Prosaic.  But not all individuals have the 
same reaction to drugs nor do they have the same 
psychological problems.  Every tub on its own bottom.

Gerry Reinhart-Waller

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Christian Rauh" <christian.rauh at uconn.edu>
To: "The new improved paleopsych list" 
<paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2005 8:19 AM
Subject: [Paleopsych] True happiness.


> Is religion *true* hapiness?
>
> I know many people who are oblivious to world events 
> and are definetely more happy than the ones who 
> follow what is going on. Are these people *truly* 
> happy?
>
> Is the spouse who doesn't know of their partner's 
> affair *truly* happy?
>
> Should we create an artifical environment of 
> happiness?
>
> This has been a long debate in philosophy.
>
> Christian




From anonymous_animus at yahoo.com  Wed Feb 23 20:47:46 2005
From: anonymous_animus at yahoo.com (Michael Christopher)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 12:47:46 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] omnology and commitment
In-Reply-To: <200502231925.j1NJPKh02701@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <20050223204746.31988.qmail@web30805.mail.mud.yahoo.com>


Gerry says:
>>Of interest is that many older people have grave 
concerns about their children having difficulty making
long-term commitments (see Alice's post below).<<

--Interestingly, the long-term commitments we ask them
to make are often bad risks, or fail to address the
real concerns of those who are not yet indoctrinated
into a habitual lifestyle. Those who see more options
are also more aware of risk, and many kids are
"perfectionistic slackers" whose anxiety or indecision
is covered by overt apathy. They don't feel secure to
make a decision and have it stick. They see how things
could go wrong, and if their parents are on dead-end
paths that won't work for future generations, kids are
more likely to see it. There's also the "apocalypse"
effect. If the culture as a whole cannot visualize a
livable future, without anxiety over catastrophic wars
or ecological collapse, the kids feel that too.
  
>>If what Steve says (below) is correct, by advising 
our youths to make political and social commitments,
we are in effect brainwashing them into grabbing a
conservative mentality.  I wonder if it also follows 
that those without any commitment are those with 
liberal mentality.<<

--Whether we're indoctrinating them politically
depends on which contexts we pick to apply pressure.
Are we pressuring them to make money rather than
follow their souls? Or are we pressuring them to
develop confidence in their ability to adapt? What
rewards/punishments are used? Do we punish them for
being undisciplined, or for choosing fields we don't
want them to be disciplined in?

Liberals may be able to see many possible futures as
opposed to one in which everything is set and certain.
In times of confusion, that would give the
conservative mindset an edge, but when conservative
policies fail, liberals are better able to adapt. I
think one can be a Leftist without having a liberal
mindset, or a Right-winger without having a genuine
conservative attitude. 

An omnologist would, presumably, want to be
disciplined in many fields, and free to venture into
new fields, explore unusual hypotheses, and follow
hunches. The combination of self-discipline and
wide-ranging interest is probably not cultivated in
any efficient way in the school system (it's been a
while so I don't know what schools are like these
days).

Michael





		
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search.
http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250


From shovland at mindspring.com  Thu Feb 24 02:49:31 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 18:49:31 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
Message-ID: <01C519D8.6955D3F0.shovland@mindspring.com>

Lynn, are you familiar with the cult aspects
of Naziism?  

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
Sent:	Wednesday, February 23, 2005 7:51 AM
To:	Alice Andrews; The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20

Marty Seligman (learned helplessness theorist, Learned Optimism, 
Authentic Happiness, former APA president) - an atheist - mentions that 
as a key to true happiness. He reviews literature that religious people 
are generally happier and more fulfilled, more resilient. Czentmyhali 
(spelling!) at U Chicago finds that kids involved in something greater 
than themselves are much more likely to experience "flow" and periods of 
greater happiness. Religion is clearly an adaptive force. BTW, I don't 
want to hear arguments that religion is behind most wars. That is a 
pretty tired argument that was thoroughly debunked by the 20th Century.
Lynn

Alice Andrews wrote:

> Hi Gerry,
> Thanks for the note...
> There was an interesting article somewhere--maybe Frank sent it 
> in?--about teenagers and the possiblity that what they were missing 
> was 'religion' or 'spirituality' or a 'sense of purpose and meaning 
> beyond them.' Do you remember reading that on paleo some time ago? I 
> can't find it...But it seems apropos to your missive. (If anyone knows 
> it and can send out again, I'd appreciate!)
> Thanks and cheers,
> Alice
>  
> Hi Alice,
>  
> Thanks for the rec re: Nesse's  "Evolution and the Capacity for 
> Commitment".  Although I still haven't read it I'm familiar with its 
> contents.  The issue of 'commitment' especially for young people is 
> something that definitely needs addressing and maybe requiring our 
> youth to make a firm political commitment to a particular party will 
> carry over to their demonstrating less risky behavior with drugs, sex, 
> employment, family or whatever.  Yet isn't our youth already 
> politically brainwashed into political awareness or have they flicked 
> away that duty as well?  I no longer hang out with our country's young 
> but when I did I found that very few had their head screwed on 
> correctly and many were adrift;  from what I hear now they still 
> continue on their aimless flow.  When I wrote my original answer my 
> thoughts were on "my generation", not the others.  Thanks for your post.
>  
> I'll add the book to my list.
>  
> Gerry
>  
>  
>  
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Alice Andrews <mailto:andrewsa at newpaltz.edu>
> To: The new improved paleopsych list <mailto:paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
> Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 8:30 PM
> Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
>
> Hi Gerry,
> Randy Nesse edited a book called "Evolution and the Capacity for 
> Commitment"; do you know it? It's wonderful... if you don't. (His 
> 'Commitment in the Clinic' chapter is superb, btw.) Anyway, I think 
> the book addresses your question. The word 'commitment' itself 
> addresses the question. We have evolved mechanisms for detecting 
> commitment and for detecting possible defection in others. People who 
> tow the party line, etc. are considered committed. We seek out such 
> people because it is proximately and ultimately adaptive to do so. 
> Befriending, supporting, trusting, etc. the uncommitted would have 
> been-- and still is, a risk (or threat). Such risks could have been 
> very costly over our evolutionary history and can be still today. Of 
> course, sometimes such risks (siding with someone who seems to be 
> sitting on the fence, uncommitted, a rebel) can be to one's advantage. 
> But 'ancient-brain' doesn't know this--and probably 'statistics-brain' 
> doesn't know this either!
> Anyway, enough late-night babbling! It's a good book and might answer 
> your question...
> All best!
> Alice
>
>     ----- Original Message -----
>     From: G. Reinhart-Waller <mailto:waluk at earthlink.net>
>     To: The new improved paleopsych list
>     <mailto:paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>     Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 9:55 PM
>     Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
>
>     >> Someone beyond the liberal/conservative
>     dichotomy may be rejected by both sides as a nuisance,
>     a threat to shared assumptions that define a group
>     against another.
>
>     This is absolutely amazing!  Why would any audience
>     reject someone who cannot plop into either the liberal
>     or conservative camp?  Please explain the threat you
>     feel is apparent.  This I need to hear!
>
>     Gerry
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     paleopsych mailing list
>     paleopsych at paleopsych.org <mailto:paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>     http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>  
>
 << File: ATT00025.html >>  << File: ATT00026.txt >> 


From waluk at earthlink.net  Thu Feb 24 03:54:59 2005
From: waluk at earthlink.net (G. Reinhart-Waller)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 19:54:59 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] True happiness.
References: <01C51833.5A062CC0.shovland@mindspring.com>
	<032101c51888$ef3230f0$d003f604@S0027397558>
	<031e01c519ae$6d1984c0$1af9ae44@CallaStudios>
	<421CA655.8060400@solution-consulting.com>
	<421CAD18.3040109@uconn.edu>
	<027c01c519e2$8e28f7c0$d203f604@S0027397558>
	<421CFAF4.4050600@uconn.edu>
Message-ID: <05d801c51a24$9ddc4310$d203f604@S0027397558>


I honestly doubt it.  I think that people who need a 
happiness pill don't give a hoot....happiness is 
happiness in whatever dosage be it pharmelogical or 
religious.  I'm so pleased I'm not a happiness freak.

Gerry

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Christian Rauh" <christian.rauh at uconn.edu>
To: "G. Reinhart-Waller" <waluk at earthlink.net>
Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2005 1:51 PM
Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] True happiness.


> But is there a difference between types of hapiness 
> such that people will diferentiate between, for 
> example, the pharmacological hapiness and religious 
> hapiness?
>
> And is there one which can be called true?
> Can they be compared at all?
>
> Christian
>
> G. Reinhart-Waller wrote:
>
>>
>> Happiness like most other emotions is truly in the 
>> eyes of the beholder.  Many psychiatrists have 
>> discovered the secret for creating an operable world 
>> for their patients and it consists of the new brands 
>> of Happy Drugs.  Prosaic has become standardized in 
>> America just like Apple Pie.  If the patient 
>> responds favorably, both psychologically and 
>> physically, then I'd say prescribe Prosaic.  But not 
>> all individuals have the same reaction to drugs nor 
>> do they have the same psychological problems.  Every 
>> tub on its own bottom.
>>
>> Gerry Reinhart-Waller
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Christian Rauh" 
>> <christian.rauh at uconn.edu>
>> To: "The new improved paleopsych list" 
>> <paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>> Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2005 8:19 AM
>> Subject: [Paleopsych] True happiness.
>>
>>
>>> Is religion *true* hapiness?
>>>
>>> I know many people who are oblivious to world 
>>> events and are definetely more happy than the ones 
>>> who follow what is going on. Are these people 
>>> *truly* happy?
>>>
>>> Is the spouse who doesn't know of their partner's 
>>> affair *truly* happy?
>>>
>>> Should we create an artifical environment of 
>>> happiness?
>>>
>>> This has been a long debate in philosophy.
>>>
>>> Christian
>>
>>
>>
> 




From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Thu Feb 24 05:40:24 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 22:40:24 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
In-Reply-To: <01C519D8.6955D3F0.shovland@mindspring.com>
References: <01C519D8.6955D3F0.shovland@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <421D68C8.70401@solution-consulting.com>

Yes, it is clear that Nazism tried to undermine legitimate religions and 
was positively hostile toward religious figures. Recall the famous quote 
by Niemoeller, and observe that it was often religiously committed 
people who opposed Nazism (Niemoeller was far too rough on himself; he 
was an early opponent of Nazism, as were many other pastors.)
http://www.christianethicstoday.com/Issue/009/First%20They%20Came%20for%20the%20Jews%20By%20Franklin%20H%20Littell_009_29_.htm

The cult was, IMHO, a maneuver to reduce religiousity, to replace 
Christianity with something that could be induced to support 
irreligiousity. Have you read The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom? She 
points out that there was a terrible erosion of religious devotion in 
Germany in the late 1920s. Her brother, studying in Germany, wrote 
extensively to her about it. The dialog she reports between herself and 
the Nazi lieutenent is breathtaking. One cannot be truely educated about 
the 20th Century without digesting that book.

BTW, the story behind the family that hid the piano player (that movie) 
was that they were committed Catholics who saved him from the Nazis at 
the risk of their own lives. The movie hid that vital bit of data. Thank 
you, anti-religious fanatics of Hollywood.

Finally, a young Mormon lad named Huebner was beheaded by the gestapo 
for publishing anti-nazi tracts (he secretly used the church duplicating 
machine - remember those old things you hand cranked with a special 
carbon-like master?). Religiousity played an oppositional role in Nazi 
Germany, and the loss of religiousity caused people to lose their 
bearings. Corrie Ten Boom and her sister clearly did not lose theirs; 
Huebner did not lose his, and Martin Niemoeller certainly did not lose his.
Lynn


Steve Hovland wrote:

>Lynn, are you familiar with the cult aspects
>of Naziism?  
>
>Steve Hovland
>www.stevehovland.net
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
>Sent:	Wednesday, February 23, 2005 7:51 AM
>To:	Alice Andrews; The new improved paleopsych list
>Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
>
>Marty Seligman (learned helplessness theorist, Learned Optimism, 
>Authentic Happiness, former APA president) - an atheist - mentions that 
>as a key to true happiness. He reviews literature that religious people 
>are generally happier and more fulfilled, more resilient. Czentmyhali 
>(spelling!) at U Chicago finds that kids involved in something greater 
>than themselves are much more likely to experience "flow" and periods of 
>greater happiness. Religion is clearly an adaptive force. BTW, I don't 
>want to hear arguments that religion is behind most wars. That is a 
>pretty tired argument that was thoroughly debunked by the 20th Century.
>Lynn
>
>Alice Andrews wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Hi Gerry,
>>Thanks for the note...
>>There was an interesting article somewhere--maybe Frank sent it 
>>in?--about teenagers and the possiblity that what they were missing 
>>was 'religion' or 'spirituality' or a 'sense of purpose and meaning 
>>beyond them.' Do you remember reading that on paleo some time ago? I 
>>can't find it...But it seems apropos to your missive. (If anyone knows 
>>it and can send out again, I'd appreciate!)
>>Thanks and cheers,
>>Alice
>> 
>>Hi Alice,
>> 
>>Thanks for the rec re: Nesse's  "Evolution and the Capacity for 
>>Commitment".  Although I still haven't read it I'm familiar with its 
>>contents.  The issue of 'commitment' especially for young people is 
>>something that definitely needs addressing and maybe requiring our 
>>youth to make a firm political commitment to a particular party will 
>>carry over to their demonstrating less risky behavior with drugs, sex, 
>>employment, family or whatever.  Yet isn't our youth already 
>>politically brainwashed into political awareness or have they flicked 
>>away that duty as well?  I no longer hang out with our country's young 
>>but when I did I found that very few had their head screwed on 
>>correctly and many were adrift;  from what I hear now they still 
>>continue on their aimless flow.  When I wrote my original answer my 
>>thoughts were on "my generation", not the others.  Thanks for your post.
>> 
>>I'll add the book to my list.
>> 
>>Gerry
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: Alice Andrews <mailto:andrewsa at newpaltz.edu>
>>To: The new improved paleopsych list <mailto:paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>>Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 8:30 PM
>>Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
>>
>>Hi Gerry,
>>Randy Nesse edited a book called "Evolution and the Capacity for 
>>Commitment"; do you know it? It's wonderful... if you don't. (His 
>>'Commitment in the Clinic' chapter is superb, btw.) Anyway, I think 
>>the book addresses your question. The word 'commitment' itself 
>>addresses the question. We have evolved mechanisms for detecting 
>>commitment and for detecting possible defection in others. People who 
>>tow the party line, etc. are considered committed. We seek out such 
>>people because it is proximately and ultimately adaptive to do so. 
>>Befriending, supporting, trusting, etc. the uncommitted would have 
>>been-- and still is, a risk (or threat). Such risks could have been 
>>very costly over our evolutionary history and can be still today. Of 
>>course, sometimes such risks (siding with someone who seems to be 
>>sitting on the fence, uncommitted, a rebel) can be to one's advantage. 
>>But 'ancient-brain' doesn't know this--and probably 'statistics-brain' 
>>doesn't know this either!
>>Anyway, enough late-night babbling! It's a good book and might answer 
>>your question...
>>All best!
>>Alice
>>
>>    ----- Original Message -----
>>    From: G. Reinhart-Waller <mailto:waluk at earthlink.net>
>>    To: The new improved paleopsych list
>>    <mailto:paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>>    Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 9:55 PM
>>    Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
>>
>>    >> Someone beyond the liberal/conservative
>>    dichotomy may be rejected by both sides as a nuisance,
>>    a threat to shared assumptions that define a group
>>    against another.
>>
>>    This is absolutely amazing!  Why would any audience
>>    reject someone who cannot plop into either the liberal
>>    or conservative camp?  Please explain the threat you
>>    feel is apparent.  This I need to hear!
>>
>>    Gerry
>>
>>
>>    _______________________________________________
>>    paleopsych mailing list
>>    paleopsych at paleopsych.org <mailto:paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>>    http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>_______________________________________________
>>paleopsych mailing list
>>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>paleopsych mailing list
>>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>> 
>>
>>    
>>
> << File: ATT00025.html >>  << File: ATT00026.txt >> 
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>
>  
>
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From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Thu Feb 24 14:45:54 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 07:45:54 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] Experienced Physicians not better 
Message-ID: <421DE8A2.3030309@solution-consulting.com>

Interesting piece from Medscape, since we sometimes discuss aging and 
functional loss.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/499664


More Experienced Physicians May Provide Lower Quality of Care

Cathy Tokarski

Feb. 17, 2005 ? Conventional wisdom about physician expertise generally 
holds that the longer a physician has been in practice, the better honed 
his or her clinical skills become. But a new study turns that adage on 
its head with its conclusion that physicians who have been in practice 
longer may, in fact, provide lower quality of care.

The problem is not that more experienced physicians are not intelligent, 
well-trained or competent, and the findings "should not be used to put 
the blame on older physicians," said study lead author Niteesh K. 
Choudhry, MD, an instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in 
Boston, Massachusetts. Instead, "the problem is that we've been relying 
on methods that may not be very effective in requiring that physicians 
keep up to date."

To address that gap, the traditional methods of keeping physicians' 
knowledge and clinical practice current need to be reexamined and 
altered, according to the study. "Over the past 15 or 20 years, there 
has been a body of literature generated that helps to identify what 
techniques work and don't work," Dr. Choudhry told Medscape in an 
interview. "We should refocus our efforts for recertification and 
relicensing on that."

The study linking physician years in practice to quality of care, 
published in the Feb. 15 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, was 
based on a Medline review of 59 articles from 1996 through 2004 that 
reported data on 62 groups of outcomes. Studies were included if they 
were original reports that provided empirical results; measured 
knowledge, guideline adherence, mortality, or some other type of 
quality-of-care process; and included years since graduation from 
medical school, years since certification, or physician age as a 
potential variable influencing results.

The studies were then categorized into four groups on the basis of 
whether they evaluated knowledge (such as knowledge of indications for 
blood transfusions); adherence to standards of care for diagnosis, 
screening, or prevention (for example, following preventive care 
guidelines); adherence to standards of care for therapy (such as 
appropriate prescribing); or health outcomes (mortality, for example).

Results were then classified into six groups on the basis of the 
association between the length of time a physician had been in practice 
and his or her performance: consistently negative, partially negative, 
no effect, mixed effect, partially positive, and consistently positive.

Overall, more than half (52%) of the 62 evaluations captured in the 
studies showed a negative association between increasing experience and 
performance for all outcomes assessed, and an additional 21% showed a 
negative association for some outcomes and none for others.

The study also found that only two evaluations (3%) reported that 
performance initially increased with longer experience, peaked, then 
decreased, while 21% found no association. One evaluation (2%) reported 
increased performance with longer experience in practice for some 
outcomes, but no association for others, and only one evaluation (2%) 
found increased performance with more years in practice for all outcomes.

In the area of assessing the knowledge of practicing physicians, for 
example, all of the 12 studies used reported a negative association 
between knowledge and increased experience, the study found. For 
example, after adjusting for specialty and other variables, physicians 
younger than 40 years were more likely to believe in the value of 
established therapies that improve survival rates for acute myocardial 
infarction (AMI), such as thrombolytic agents, aspirin, and 
beta-blockers, and less likely to believe in the value of therapies that 
have been disproved, such as prophylactic lidocaine, the study found.

The methodology used in the AMI study was "particularly well done," said 
Dr. Choudhry, controlling for variables that often can skew a theory 
about experience and competence. "What this study did was it controlled 
for a series of patient and physician factors that would have confounded 
the relationship," he said. "It's hard to dismiss the results out of hand."

The study results call into question the benefit of relying exclusively 
on continuing medical activities, such as attending lectures or reading 
journal articles, as a way to remain current in knowledge and practice, 
Dr. Choudry said. Such methods require only a "passive participation in 
acquiring knowledge." What is needed instead are activities in which 
"physicians are interacting with other physicians or using information 
technology" to measure or build on their clinical skills, he said.

So-called "academic detailing," in which physicians or pharmacists visit 
physicians' offices to discuss appropriate treatments has proven 
successful in areas where it has been tested in Canada, Dr. Choudhry 
said. "One of the big messages of the literature about behavior change 
is that we need to use more than one thing."

An accompanying editorial cautions, "The profession cannot ignore this 
striking finding and its implications: Practice does not make perfect, 
but it must be accompanied by an ongoing effort to maintain competence 
and quality of care."

To that end, the editorialists representing the American College of 
Physicians and the American Board of Internal Medicine recommend that 
professional development apply to a physician's entire career, not just 
to those in the early professional years.

In addition, the editorial called on physicians to support the concept 
behind the American Board of Medical Specialties' "maintenance of 
certification," which replaces one-time certification for life with 
ongoing performance measurement. "This model of professional development 
provides a way to identify gaps between current and ideal practice, 
which is the first step toward acquiring needed new knowledge, skills, 
and processes of care," the editorialists write.

Ann Intern Med. 2005:142:260-273, 302-303

Reviewed by Gary D. Vogin, MD



From waluk at earthlink.net  Thu Feb 24 16:49:37 2005
From: waluk at earthlink.net (G. Reinhart-Waller)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 08:49:37 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] omnology and commitment
References: <20050223204746.31988.qmail@web30805.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <008101c51a90$d4d2ba40$2003f604@S0027397558>

Michael offers:
> I
> think one can be a Leftist without having a liberal
> mindset, or a Right-winger without having a genuine
> conservative attitude.

I'm not all that clear what you mean here.  Is it that 
you think Leftists can have a conservative streak and 
Right-wingers are able to think in liberal tones?  If 
that were true then USA would be one party system. 
Actually I do think you're onto something.  Care to 
explain further?

Gerry Reinhart-Waller




From waluk at earthlink.net  Thu Feb 24 16:56:05 2005
From: waluk at earthlink.net (G. Reinhart-Waller)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 08:56:05 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
References: <01C519D8.6955D3F0.shovland@mindspring.com>
	<421D68C8.70401@solution-consulting.com>
Message-ID: <009601c51a91$bc0fa850$2003f604@S0027397558>

Lynn writes:

>>BTW, the story behind the family that hid the piano player (that movie) was that they were committed Catholics who saved him from the Nazis at the risk of their own lives. The movie hid that vital bit of data. Thank you, anti-religious fanatics of Hollywood.>> 

That's the story my family tells about their relatives in Poland.  Only we who were raised Catholic might have been of Jewish ancestry.


Gerry Reinhart-Waller
Independent Scholar
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From anonymous_animus at yahoo.com  Thu Feb 24 20:05:33 2005
From: anonymous_animus at yahoo.com (Michael Christopher)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 12:05:33 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] teen spirit
In-Reply-To: <200502241916.j1OJGlh21937@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <20050224200533.30607.qmail@web30806.mail.mud.yahoo.com>


Alice says:
>>There was an interesting article somewhere--maybe 
Frank sent it in?--about teenagers and the possiblity
that what they were missing was 'religion' or
'spirituality' or a 'sense of purpose and meaning
beyond them.'<<

--I think that's true in a way. Unfortunately, the
only alternatives kids can see are traditional
religion, drugs or "boot camp" and team-oriented
programs which tend to be too authoritarian to meet
spiritual needs. What's needed is a place where kids
can be creative, make music, play with multimedia.
Something that involves teamwork without coercion,
enables kids to develop a voice in the world and be
heard. Our culture has become swamped with conformity
and with knee-jerk rebelliousness (which has its own
rules of conformity), neither of which enables kids to
develop a genuine, individual creative voice. Most
people, including adults, use romantic relationships
as their next best outlet, which puts too much
pressure on relationships. Spiritual blocks and
creative blocks are basically the same problem:
overediting, overfiltering and excessive worry or
confusion about how messages are received. Give kids a
place they can fully express their visions, where they
aren't torn down for coloring outside the lines, and
you'll change the culture for the better. The current
trend toward greater structure and conformity won't
work, although it may pave the way for more evolved
forms of teamwork later on. Discipline isn't a bad
thing, but when it's based on fear of disappointing a
group or an authority, a compensating tendency toward
individuality is inevitable.

Michael


		
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Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. 
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From anonymous_animus at yahoo.com  Thu Feb 24 20:19:55 2005
From: anonymous_animus at yahoo.com (Michael Christopher)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 12:19:55 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] religion
In-Reply-To: <200502241916.j1OJGlh21937@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <20050224201955.55678.qmail@web30809.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Lynn says:
>>Religion is clearly an adaptive force.<< 

--Probably true. But what makes it so? The ability to
feel certain, to override doubt, to avoid the
paralysis of indecision? The feeling of being part of
a group dedicated to a common goal? I'm sure both
would change the biochemical habits of the brains
involved. 

I'm not sure I'd classify an isolated mystic in the
same category as a "team player" whose religion is
deeply enmeshed with group morality and conformity.
They may both have a religious belief, but their
behavior may be vastly different. Can patriotism be
considered a kind of religion, with a flag as its
deity and military/economic/social/religious
authorities as prophets? Some have called Soviet-style
Communism a "religion". For dictionary purposes,
religion may involve a deity, invisible forces and so
on, but we've seen that the religious FEELING, the
behavior attached to faith, can be found in groups
lacking a deity but using some "sacred" symbol as its
focus. 

Is religion inherently "politically correct", based on
conformity to one belief? Does it lose its power when
free inquiry and interpretation are encouraged? Or is
belief only a flag added to an already moving force,
the synchronization of bodies, beneath the level of
language? 

For anthropological purposes, it might make some sense
to classify religious and nonreligious groups by the
particular forms of entrainment, role modeling, and
conformity enforcement found in them. Under that kind
of classification, a religious group that is very
diverse and individualistic would be qualitatively
different from a religious group that enforces
conformity and engages in "spiritual battle" against
impurity. An atheist group which does the latter would
be classified with the religious group, while an
atheist group populated by diversity generators would
be grouped with liberal religious groups. This might
undermine the traditional "religious vs. nonreligious"
polarity, but it makes more sense to me from a
behavioral standpoint. Any thoughts?

>>BTW, I don't want to hear arguments that religion is
behind most wars. That is a pretty tired argument that
was thoroughly debunked by the 20th Century.<<

--No doubt, religious belief isn't necessary in order
for a group to see another group as evil and worthy of
extermination. It might help a little, however, if you
believe your group is endorsed by a deity who hates
your enemy as much as you do. But, as I mentioned,
that deity can be replaced by the spirit of the group,
if that spirit is unquestioned and has its own
momentum. Perhaps that's what a deity really is, the
hidden face of the power of the group.

Michael



__________________________________________________
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From paul.werbos at verizon.net  Thu Feb 24 21:29:20 2005
From: paul.werbos at verizon.net (Paul J. Werbos, Dr.)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 16:29:20 -0500
Subject: [Paleopsych] religion
In-Reply-To: <20050224201955.55678.qmail@web30809.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <200502241916.j1OJGlh21937@tick.javien.com>
	<20050224201955.55678.qmail@web30809.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.0.20050224162209.05c79c20@incoming.verizon.net>

We can agree reasonably far on what defines religion -- i.e. how we
decide what is or is not a "religion" in common language in English.
We can do so, at least by example. And Webster and the Oxford dictionary
have gone about as far as we can reasonably do with that aspect
of "what is religion?"

On the other hand, it is much harder for us even to discuss what the 
significance
of the phenomenon is, or even how it interacts dynamically with human
minds and human societies, if we make very different assumptions about the
spiritual aspects of life.

In a debate between the formalistic "people of the books," who see religion
as some kind of obedience to authority or commitment to a particular pile
of words -- versus modern secular humanism...
is there any hope of connecting to reality from either perspective?
Or is it like the logical thrashing of a kind of expert system which
does not have any inductive, sensory or semiotic component?

Whatever...



From shovland at mindspring.com  Fri Feb 25 00:30:53 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 16:30:53 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
Message-ID: <01C51A8E.36152200.shovland@mindspring.com>

If you can find it, an old book called "The Morning of the Magicians"
had quite a lot about Nazi occultism- the Thule stuff, expeditions
to Tibet.  Just before he was executed one SS man muttered 
some kind of strange prayer and went to his death placidly.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
Sent:	Wednesday, February 23, 2005 9:40 PM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20

Yes, it is clear that Nazism tried to undermine legitimate religions and 
was positively hostile toward religious figures. Recall the famous quote 
by Niemoeller, and observe that it was often religiously committed 
people who opposed Nazism (Niemoeller was far too rough on himself; he 
was an early opponent of Nazism, as were many other pastors.)
http://www.christianethicstoday.com/Issue/009/First%20They%20Came%20for%20the%20Jews%20By%20Franklin%20H%20Littell_009_29_.htm

The cult was, IMHO, a maneuver to reduce religiousity, to replace 
Christianity with something that could be induced to support 
irreligiousity. Have you read The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom? She 
points out that there was a terrible erosion of religious devotion in 
Germany in the late 1920s. Her brother, studying in Germany, wrote 
extensively to her about it. The dialog she reports between herself and 
the Nazi lieutenent is breathtaking. One cannot be truely educated about 
the 20th Century without digesting that book.

BTW, the story behind the family that hid the piano player (that movie) 
was that they were committed Catholics who saved him from the Nazis at 
the risk of their own lives. The movie hid that vital bit of data. Thank 
you, anti-religious fanatics of Hollywood.

Finally, a young Mormon lad named Huebner was beheaded by the gestapo 
for publishing anti-nazi tracts (he secretly used the church duplicating 
machine - remember those old things you hand cranked with a special 
carbon-like master?). Religiousity played an oppositional role in Nazi 
Germany, and the loss of religiousity caused people to lose their 
bearings. Corrie Ten Boom and her sister clearly did not lose theirs; 
Huebner did not lose his, and Martin Niemoeller certainly did not lose his.
Lynn


Steve Hovland wrote:

>Lynn, are you familiar with the cult aspects
>of Naziism?  
>
>Steve Hovland
>www.stevehovland.net
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
>Sent:	Wednesday, February 23, 2005 7:51 AM
>To:	Alice Andrews; The new improved paleopsych list
>Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
>
>Marty Seligman (learned helplessness theorist, Learned Optimism, 
>Authentic Happiness, former APA president) - an atheist - mentions that 
>as a key to true happiness. He reviews literature that religious people 
>are generally happier and more fulfilled, more resilient. Czentmyhali 
>(spelling!) at U Chicago finds that kids involved in something greater 
>than themselves are much more likely to experience "flow" and periods of 
>greater happiness. Religion is clearly an adaptive force. BTW, I don't 
>want to hear arguments that religion is behind most wars. That is a 
>pretty tired argument that was thoroughly debunked by the 20th Century.
>Lynn
>
>Alice Andrews wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Hi Gerry,
>>Thanks for the note...
>>There was an interesting article somewhere--maybe Frank sent it 
>>in?--about teenagers and the possiblity that what they were missing 
>>was 'religion' or 'spirituality' or a 'sense of purpose and meaning 
>>beyond them.' Do you remember reading that on paleo some time ago? I 
>>can't find it...But it seems apropos to your missive. (If anyone knows 
>>it and can send out again, I'd appreciate!)
>>Thanks and cheers,
>>Alice
>> 
>>Hi Alice,
>> 
>>Thanks for the rec re: Nesse's  "Evolution and the Capacity for 
>>Commitment".  Although I still haven't read it I'm familiar with its 
>>contents.  The issue of 'commitment' especially for young people is 
>>something that definitely needs addressing and maybe requiring our 
>>youth to make a firm political commitment to a particular party will 
>>carry over to their demonstrating less risky behavior with drugs, sex, 
>>employment, family or whatever.  Yet isn't our youth already 
>>politically brainwashed into political awareness or have they flicked 
>>away that duty as well?  I no longer hang out with our country's young 
>>but when I did I found that very few had their head screwed on 
>>correctly and many were adrift;  from what I hear now they still 
>>continue on their aimless flow.  When I wrote my original answer my 
>>thoughts were on "my generation", not the others.  Thanks for your post.
>> 
>>I'll add the book to my list.
>> 
>>Gerry
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: Alice Andrews <mailto:andrewsa at newpaltz.edu>
>>To: The new improved paleopsych list <mailto:paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>>Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 8:30 PM
>>Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
>>
>>Hi Gerry,
>>Randy Nesse edited a book called "Evolution and the Capacity for 
>>Commitment"; do you know it? It's wonderful... if you don't. (His 
>>'Commitment in the Clinic' chapter is superb, btw.) Anyway, I think 
>>the book addresses your question. The word 'commitment' itself 
>>addresses the question. We have evolved mechanisms for detecting 
>>commitment and for detecting possible defection in others. People who 
>>tow the party line, etc. are considered committed. We seek out such 
>>people because it is proximately and ultimately adaptive to do so. 
>>Befriending, supporting, trusting, etc. the uncommitted would have 
>>been-- and still is, a risk (or threat). Such risks could have been 
>>very costly over our evolutionary history and can be still today. Of 
>>course, sometimes such risks (siding with someone who seems to be 
>>sitting on the fence, uncommitted, a rebel) can be to one's advantage. 
>>But 'ancient-brain' doesn't know this--and probably 'statistics-brain' 
>>doesn't know this either!
>>Anyway, enough late-night babbling! It's a good book and might answer 
>>your question...
>>All best!
>>Alice
>>
>>    ----- Original Message -----
>>    From: G. Reinhart-Waller <mailto:waluk at earthlink.net>
>>    To: The new improved paleopsych list
>>    <mailto:paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>>    Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 9:55 PM
>>    Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
>>
>>    >> Someone beyond the liberal/conservative
>>    dichotomy may be rejected by both sides as a nuisance,
>>    a threat to shared assumptions that define a group
>>    against another.
>>
>>    This is absolutely amazing!  Why would any audience
>>    reject someone who cannot plop into either the liberal
>>    or conservative camp?  Please explain the threat you
>>    feel is apparent.  This I need to hear!
>>
>>    Gerry
>>
>>
>>    _______________________________________________
>>    paleopsych mailing list
>>    paleopsych at paleopsych.org <mailto:paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>>    http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>_______________________________________________
>>paleopsych mailing list
>>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>paleopsych mailing list
>>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>> 
>>
>>    
>>
> << File: ATT00025.html >>  << File: ATT00026.txt >> 
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>
>  
>
 << File: ATT00000.html >>  << File: ATT00001.txt >> 


From shovland at mindspring.com  Fri Feb 25 00:58:36 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 16:58:36 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] omnology and commitment
Message-ID: <01C51A92.15B9E960.shovland@mindspring.com>

At the extremes of both the left and right
you will probably find black and white
thinking.  In the middle of the distribution
you will moderate conservatives and
moderate liberals who are more relaxed.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	G. Reinhart-Waller [SMTP:waluk at earthlink.net]
Sent:	Thursday, February 24, 2005 8:50 AM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] omnology and commitment

Michael offers:
> I
> think one can be a Leftist without having a liberal
> mindset, or a Right-winger without having a genuine
> conservative attitude.

I'm not all that clear what you mean here.  Is it that 
you think Leftists can have a conservative streak and 
Right-wingers are able to think in liberal tones?  If 
that were true then USA would be one party system. 
Actually I do think you're onto something.  Care to 
explain further?

Gerry Reinhart-Waller


_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


From shovland at mindspring.com  Fri Feb 25 00:59:54 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 16:59:54 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] religion
Message-ID: <01C51A92.44383990.shovland@mindspring.com>

I think it is useful to separate religious technology
such as prayer from the encrustations of sectarian
belief systems.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Paul J. Werbos, Dr. [SMTP:paul.werbos at verizon.net]
Sent:	Thursday, February 24, 2005 1:29 PM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list; paleopsych at paleopsych.org
Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] religion

We can agree reasonably far on what defines religion -- i.e. how we
decide what is or is not a "religion" in common language in English.
We can do so, at least by example. And Webster and the Oxford dictionary
have gone about as far as we can reasonably do with that aspect
of "what is religion?"

On the other hand, it is much harder for us even to discuss what the 
significance
of the phenomenon is, or even how it interacts dynamically with human
minds and human societies, if we make very different assumptions about the
spiritual aspects of life.

In a debate between the formalistic "people of the books," who see religion
as some kind of obedience to authority or commitment to a particular pile
of words -- versus modern secular humanism...
is there any hope of connecting to reality from either perspective?
Or is it like the logical thrashing of a kind of expert system which
does not have any inductive, sensory or semiotic component?

Whatever...

_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


From shovland at mindspring.com  Fri Feb 25 01:12:41 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 17:12:41 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Warning From the Markets (NY Times editorial)
Message-ID: <01C51A94.0D297570.shovland@mindspring.com>

Warning From the Markets
When a seemingly innocuous remark from the central bank of South Korea 
makes the dollar tank, as happened on Tuesday, all is not well with the 
United States' position in the world economy.

The dollar has been on a downward trajectory for three years, thanks in 
part to the Bush administration's decision to try to use a cheap dollar to 
shrink the nation's enormous trade deficit. (A weak dollar makes exports 
cheaper and imports costlier, a combination that theoretically should 
narrow the trade gap.) To be truly effective, however, a weak dollar must 
be combined with a lower federal budget deficit - or even a budget surplus, 
something the administration clearly hasn't delivered. So predictably, the 
weak-dollar ploy hasn't worked. The United States' trade deficit has 
mushroomed to record levels, as has the United States' need to borrow from 
abroad - some $2 billion a day - just to balance its books.

Enter South Korea. On Monday, its central bank reported that it intended to 
diversify into other currencies and away from dollar-based assets. And why 
not? It holds about $69 billion in United States Treasury securities, or 4 
percent of the total foreign Treasury holdings. Such dollar-based 
investments lose value as the dollar weakens, leading to losses that any 
cautious banker would want to avoid. But as the Korean comment ping-ponged 
around the world, all hell broke loose, with currency traders selling 
dollars for fear that the central banks of Japan and China, which hold 
immense dollar reserves - a combined $900 billion, or 46 percent of foreign 
Treasury holdings - might follow suit.

That would be the United States' worst economic nightmare. If it appeared 
that the flow of investment from abroad was not enough to cover the 
nation's gargantuan deficits, interest rates would rise sharply, the dollar 
would plunge further, and the economy would stall. A fiscal crisis would 
result.

Tuesday's sell-off of dollars did not precipitate a meltdown. But it sure 
gave a taste of one. The dollar suffered its worst single-day decline in 
two months against the yen and the euro. Stock markets in New York, London, 
Paris and Frankfurt dropped, and gold and oil prices, which tend to go up 
when the dollar goes down, spiked.

Luckily, the markets calmed down yesterday, as Asian central banks said 
they they did not intend to shun dollars. While such damage control is 
welcome, it's no fix. Tuesday's market episode has its roots in American 
structural imbalances that will be corrected only by new policies, not more 
of the same tax-cut-and-weak-dollar deficit-bloating ploys.

If Mr. Bush were half the capitalist he claims he is, he would listen to 
what the markets are telling him.


From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Fri Feb 25 03:12:08 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 20:12:08 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] religion
In-Reply-To: <20050224201955.55678.qmail@web30809.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <20050224201955.55678.qmail@web30809.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <421E9788.1020903@solution-consulting.com>

A few comments . . .

Michael Christopher wrote:

>Lynn says:
>  
>
>>>Religion is clearly an adaptive force.<< 
>>>      
>>>
>
>--Probably true. But what makes it so? The ability to
>feel certain, to override doubt, to avoid the
>paralysis of indecision? The feeling of being part of
>a group dedicated to a common goal? I'm sure both
>would change the biochemical habits of the brains
>involved. 
>
The piece about being in a group is very important, that shows up in 
some studies as vital. When we meet face-to-face each week, there is 
something intrinsic about that which gives a sense of belonging and 
security and confidence in the future. The group is with you.

Prayer and an internal spiritual life (or, meditation in Buddhism) helps 
a great deal. Adherents "see answers to prayers" and there is a positive 
loop established which gives one a sense of mastery of diffuse forces, 
as well as a way of feeling attuned to outcomes one doesn't like (see 
C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed.)

A religion that emphasizes peace, forgiveness, and compassion has some 
vital pieces, namely raising immune markers, DHEA, lowering cortisol, 
etc. There are large-scale studies on forgiveness, for example, which 
demonstrate powerful pro-health benefits.

>
>I'm not sure I'd classify an isolated mystic in the
>same category as a "team player" whose religion is
>deeply enmeshed with group morality and conformity.
>
The conformity piece is probably over-emphasized by people who haven't 
been a sustaining part of a faith-based community. That is something 
that most adherents do not experience as an issue.

>They may both have a religious belief, but their
>behavior may be vastly different. Can patriotism be
>considered a kind of religion, with a flag as its
>deity and military/economic/social/religious
>authorities as prophets? 
>
Likely, good point. But patriotism doesn't have the face-to-face weekly 
group experience that a faith community typically does. It is more 
removed, and it is less of a personal challenge. In faith communities 
one strives to conform one's behavior, NOT BECAUSE OF CONFORMITY, 
please, but because of an over-riding vision of what a "good life" 
consists of.

>Some have called Soviet-style
>Communism a "religion". 
>
Yes, but detrimental to people, there is no question of that. No 
emphasis on individual accountability, on compassion, forgiveness, peace 
. . . it was / is an "evil empire" in every sense.

>For dictionary purposes,
>religion may involve a deity, invisible forces and so
>on, but we've seen that the religious FEELING, the
>behavior attached to faith, can be found in groups
>lacking a deity but using some "sacred" symbol as its
>focus. 
>  
>
Ummm??? For example? Flag? I am patriotic and religious, and the two are 
very different experiences.

>Is religion inherently "politically correct", based on
>conformity to one belief? Does it lose its power when
>free inquiry and interpretation are encouraged? Or is
>belief only a flag added to an already moving force,
>the synchronization of bodies, beneath the level of
>language? 
>
Look at a site like Adherents.com and notice the dialog. Conformity is 
never the key, and inquiry and interpretation are ubiquitous. Belief, 
not conformity is the common element.  There are old saws about get two 
Jews together and you get three opinions. Mormons are the same way. The 
internal, mental life of a believer is active and vital, and there is 
much soul searching and deep reflection. Within religious groups there 
is much diversity.

>
>For anthropological purposes, it might make some sense
>to classify religious and nonreligious groups by the
>particular forms of entrainment, role modeling, and
>conformity enforcement found in them. Under that kind
>of classification, a religious group that is very
>diverse and individualistic would be qualitatively
>different from a religious group that enforces
>conformity and engages in "spiritual battle" against
>impurity. An atheist group which does the latter would
>be classified with the religious group, while an
>atheist group populated by diversity generators would
>be grouped with liberal religious groups. This might
>undermine the traditional "religious vs. nonreligious"
>polarity, but it makes more sense to me from a
>behavioral standpoint. Any thoughts?
>
>  
>
>>>BTW, I don't want to hear arguments that religion is
>>>      
>>>
>behind most wars. That is a pretty tired argument that
>was thoroughly debunked by the 20th Century.<<
>
>--No doubt, religious belief isn't necessary in order
>for a group to see another group as evil and worthy of
>extermination. It might help a little, however, if you
>believe your group is endorsed by a deity who hates
>your enemy as much as you do. But, as I mentioned,
>that deity can be replaced by the spirit of the group,
>if that spirit is unquestioned and has its own
>momentum. Perhaps that's what a deity really is, the
>hidden face of the power of the group.
>
Well, that lacks the therapeutic qualities of group interaction, faith, 
compassion  . . .

>
>Michael
>
>
>
>__________________________________________________
>Do You Yahoo!?
>Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
>http://mail.yahoo.com 
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>
>  
>
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From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Fri Feb 25 03:34:07 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 20:34:07 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
In-Reply-To: <01C51A8E.36152200.shovland@mindspring.com>
References: <01C51A8E.36152200.shovland@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <421E9CAF.2080401@solution-consulting.com>

I found this:
http://www.cafes.net/ditch/motm1.htm

I am doubtful about the veracity of the book, based on that essay. It 
sounds like the author, Pauwels, was a provocative and speculative 
writer, not an historian.

I did find this:
http://www.sumeria.net/politics/nazioccult.html

and I recall that Hitler did have great fascination with the occult. 
That article supports that.  I am not certain what role occultism 
played, in spite of that website. There is ambiguous evidence, even on 
that site. (Nice emphasis on how 'science' causes wars . . . eugenics!) 
I haven't read Rise and Fall of the Third Reich since I was in 8th 
grade, and so I don't remember what Shirer says about that. Anyone else 
want to elucidate?
Lynn

PS: both sites seem to be characterized by special pleading, and that is 
generally a bad sign.

Steve Hovland wrote:

>If you can find it, an old book called "The Morning of the Magicians"
>had quite a lot about Nazi occultism- the Thule stuff, expeditions
>to Tibet.  Just before he was executed one SS man muttered 
>some kind of strange prayer and went to his death placidly.
>
>Steve Hovland
>www.stevehovland.net
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
>Sent:	Wednesday, February 23, 2005 9:40 PM
>To:	The new improved paleopsych list
>Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
>
>Yes, it is clear that Nazism tried to undermine legitimate religions and 
>was positively hostile toward religious figures. Recall the famous quote 
>by Niemoeller, and observe that it was often religiously committed 
>people who opposed Nazism (Niemoeller was far too rough on himself; he 
>was an early opponent of Nazism, as were many other pastors.)
>http://www.christianethicstoday.com/Issue/009/First%20They%20Came%20for%20the%20Jews%20By%20Franklin%20H%20Littell_009_29_.htm
>
>The cult was, IMHO, a maneuver to reduce religiousity, to replace 
>Christianity with something that could be induced to support 
>irreligiousity. Have you read The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom? She 
>points out that there was a terrible erosion of religious devotion in 
>Germany in the late 1920s. Her brother, studying in Germany, wrote 
>extensively to her about it. The dialog she reports between herself and 
>the Nazi lieutenent is breathtaking. One cannot be truely educated about 
>the 20th Century without digesting that book.
>
>BTW, the story behind the family that hid the piano player (that movie) 
>was that they were committed Catholics who saved him from the Nazis at 
>the risk of their own lives. The movie hid that vital bit of data. Thank 
>you, anti-religious fanatics of Hollywood.
>
>Finally, a young Mormon lad named Huebner was beheaded by the gestapo 
>for publishing anti-nazi tracts (he secretly used the church duplicating 
>machine - remember those old things you hand cranked with a special 
>carbon-like master?). Religiousity played an oppositional role in Nazi 
>Germany, and the loss of religiousity caused people to lose their 
>bearings. Corrie Ten Boom and her sister clearly did not lose theirs; 
>Huebner did not lose his, and Martin Niemoeller certainly did not lose his.
>Lynn
>
>
>Steve Hovland wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Lynn, are you familiar with the cult aspects
>>of Naziism?  
>>
>>Steve Hovland
>>www.stevehovland.net
>>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
>>Sent:	Wednesday, February 23, 2005 7:51 AM
>>To:	Alice Andrews; The new improved paleopsych list
>>Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
>>
>>Marty Seligman (learned helplessness theorist, Learned Optimism, 
>>Authentic Happiness, former APA president) - an atheist - mentions that 
>>as a key to true happiness. He reviews literature that religious people 
>>are generally happier and more fulfilled, more resilient. Czentmyhali 
>>(spelling!) at U Chicago finds that kids involved in something greater 
>>than themselves are much more likely to experience "flow" and periods of 
>>greater happiness. Religion is clearly an adaptive force. BTW, I don't 
>>want to hear arguments that religion is behind most wars. That is a 
>>pretty tired argument that was thoroughly debunked by the 20th Century.
>>Lynn
>>
>>Alice Andrews wrote:
>>
>> 
>>
>>    
>>
>>>Hi Gerry,
>>>Thanks for the note...
>>>There was an interesting article somewhere--maybe Frank sent it 
>>>in?--about teenagers and the possiblity that what they were missing 
>>>was 'religion' or 'spirituality' or a 'sense of purpose and meaning 
>>>beyond them.' Do you remember reading that on paleo some time ago? I 
>>>can't find it...But it seems apropos to your missive. (If anyone knows 
>>>it and can send out again, I'd appreciate!)
>>>Thanks and cheers,
>>>Alice
>>>
>>>Hi Alice,
>>>
>>>Thanks for the rec re: Nesse's  "Evolution and the Capacity for 
>>>Commitment".  Although I still haven't read it I'm familiar with its 
>>>contents.  The issue of 'commitment' especially for young people is 
>>>something that definitely needs addressing and maybe requiring our 
>>>youth to make a firm political commitment to a particular party will 
>>>carry over to their demonstrating less risky behavior with drugs, sex, 
>>>employment, family or whatever.  Yet isn't our youth already 
>>>politically brainwashed into political awareness or have they flicked 
>>>away that duty as well?  I no longer hang out with our country's young 
>>>but when I did I found that very few had their head screwed on 
>>>correctly and many were adrift;  from what I hear now they still 
>>>continue on their aimless flow.  When I wrote my original answer my 
>>>thoughts were on "my generation", not the others.  Thanks for your post.
>>>
>>>I'll add the book to my list.
>>>
>>>Gerry
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>----- Original Message -----
>>>From: Alice Andrews <mailto:andrewsa at newpaltz.edu>
>>>To: The new improved paleopsych list <mailto:paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>>>Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 8:30 PM
>>>Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
>>>
>>>Hi Gerry,
>>>Randy Nesse edited a book called "Evolution and the Capacity for 
>>>Commitment"; do you know it? It's wonderful... if you don't. (His 
>>>'Commitment in the Clinic' chapter is superb, btw.) Anyway, I think 
>>>the book addresses your question. The word 'commitment' itself 
>>>addresses the question. We have evolved mechanisms for detecting 
>>>commitment and for detecting possible defection in others. People who 
>>>tow the party line, etc. are considered committed. We seek out such 
>>>people because it is proximately and ultimately adaptive to do so. 
>>>Befriending, supporting, trusting, etc. the uncommitted would have 
>>>been-- and still is, a risk (or threat). Such risks could have been 
>>>very costly over our evolutionary history and can be still today. Of 
>>>course, sometimes such risks (siding with someone who seems to be 
>>>sitting on the fence, uncommitted, a rebel) can be to one's advantage. 
>>>But 'ancient-brain' doesn't know this--and probably 'statistics-brain' 
>>>doesn't know this either!
>>>Anyway, enough late-night babbling! It's a good book and might answer 
>>>your question...
>>>All best!
>>>Alice
>>>
>>>   ----- Original Message -----
>>>   From: G. Reinhart-Waller <mailto:waluk at earthlink.net>
>>>   To: The new improved paleopsych list
>>>   <mailto:paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>>>   Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 9:55 PM
>>>   Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
>>>
>>>   >> Someone beyond the liberal/conservative
>>>   dichotomy may be rejected by both sides as a nuisance,
>>>   a threat to shared assumptions that define a group
>>>   against another.
>>>
>>>   This is absolutely amazing!  Why would any audience
>>>   reject someone who cannot plop into either the liberal
>>>   or conservative camp?  Please explain the threat you
>>>   feel is apparent.  This I need to hear!
>>>
>>>   Gerry
>>>
>>>
>>>   _______________________________________________
>>>   paleopsych mailing list
>>>   paleopsych at paleopsych.org <mailto:paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>>>   http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>>
>>>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>paleopsych mailing list
>>>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>>>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>>
>>>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>paleopsych mailing list
>>>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>>>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>>
>>>
>>>   
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>><< File: ATT00025.html >>  << File: ATT00026.txt >> 
>>_______________________________________________
>>paleopsych mailing list
>>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>
>>
>> 
>>
>>    
>>
> << File: ATT00000.html >>  << File: ATT00001.txt >> 
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>
>  
>
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From shovland at mindspring.com  Fri Feb 25 05:39:53 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 21:39:53 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
Message-ID: <01C51AB9.60420AE0.shovland@mindspring.com>

I think the motivations of the Reich were mostly
economic.  Some Nazi's admitted that they targeted 
the Jews because they had a lot of money.  The 
killing of mental and physical defectives as well as 
homosexuals and gypsies says something about 
social ideals, but not religion.  Most of the pseudo-
religious stuff seems to be associated with the
inner circle of the SS.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
Sent:	Thursday, February 24, 2005 7:34 PM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20

I found this:
http://www.cafes.net/ditch/motm1.htm

I am doubtful about the veracity of the book, based on that essay. It 
sounds like the author, Pauwels, was a provocative and speculative 
writer, not an historian.

I did find this:
http://www.sumeria.net/politics/nazioccult.html

and I recall that Hitler did have great fascination with the occult. 
That article supports that.  I am not certain what role occultism 
played, in spite of that website. There is ambiguous evidence, even on 
that site. (Nice emphasis on how 'science' causes wars . . . eugenics!) 
I haven't read Rise and Fall of the Third Reich since I was in 8th 
grade, and so I don't remember what Shirer says about that. Anyone else 
want to elucidate?
Lynn

PS: both sites seem to be characterized by special pleading, and that is 
generally a bad sign.

Steve Hovland wrote:

>If you can find it, an old book called "The Morning of the Magicians"
>had quite a lot about Nazi occultism- the Thule stuff, expeditions
>to Tibet.  Just before he was executed one SS man muttered 
>some kind of strange prayer and went to his death placidly.
>
>Steve Hovland
>www.stevehovland.net
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
>Sent:	Wednesday, February 23, 2005 9:40 PM
>To:	The new improved paleopsych list
>Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
>
>Yes, it is clear that Nazism tried to undermine legitimate religions and 
>was positively hostile toward religious figures. Recall the famous quote 
>by Niemoeller, and observe that it was often religiously committed 
>people who opposed Nazism (Niemoeller was far too rough on himself; he 
>was an early opponent of Nazism, as were many other pastors.)
>http://www.christianethicstoday.com/Issue/009/First%20They%20Came%20for%20the%20Jews%20By%20Franklin%20H%20Littell_009_29_.htm
>
>The cult was, IMHO, a maneuver to reduce religiousity, to replace 
>Christianity with something that could be induced to support 
>irreligiousity. Have you read The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom? She 
>points out that there was a terrible erosion of religious devotion in 
>Germany in the late 1920s. Her brother, studying in Germany, wrote 
>extensively to her about it. The dialog she reports between herself and 
>the Nazi lieutenent is breathtaking. One cannot be truely educated about 
>the 20th Century without digesting that book.
>
>BTW, the story behind the family that hid the piano player (that movie) 
>was that they were committed Catholics who saved him from the Nazis at 
>the risk of their own lives. The movie hid that vital bit of data. Thank 
>you, anti-religious fanatics of Hollywood.
>
>Finally, a young Mormon lad named Huebner was beheaded by the gestapo 
>for publishing anti-nazi tracts (he secretly used the church duplicating 
>machine - remember those old things you hand cranked with a special 
>carbon-like master?). Religiousity played an oppositional role in Nazi 
>Germany, and the loss of religiousity caused people to lose their 
>bearings. Corrie Ten Boom and her sister clearly did not lose theirs; 
>Huebner did not lose his, and Martin Niemoeller certainly did not lose his.
>Lynn
>
>
>Steve Hovland wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Lynn, are you familiar with the cult aspects
>>of Naziism?  
>>
>>Steve Hovland
>>www.stevehovland.net
>>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From:	Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. [SMTP:ljohnson at solution-consulting.com]
>>Sent:	Wednesday, February 23, 2005 7:51 AM
>>To:	Alice Andrews; The new improved paleopsych list
>>Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
>>
>>Marty Seligman (learned helplessness theorist, Learned Optimism, 
>>Authentic Happiness, former APA president) - an atheist - mentions that 
>>as a key to true happiness. He reviews literature that religious people 
>>are generally happier and more fulfilled, more resilient. Czentmyhali 
>>(spelling!) at U Chicago finds that kids involved in something greater 
>>than themselves are much more likely to experience "flow" and periods of 
>>greater happiness. Religion is clearly an adaptive force. BTW, I don't 
>>want to hear arguments that religion is behind most wars. That is a 
>>pretty tired argument that was thoroughly debunked by the 20th Century.
>>Lynn
>>
>>Alice Andrews wrote:
>>
>> 
>>
>>    
>>
>>>Hi Gerry,
>>>Thanks for the note...
>>>There was an interesting article somewhere--maybe Frank sent it 
>>>in?--about teenagers and the possiblity that what they were missing 
>>>was 'religion' or 'spirituality' or a 'sense of purpose and meaning 
>>>beyond them.' Do you remember reading that on paleo some time ago? I 
>>>can't find it...But it seems apropos to your missive. (If anyone knows 
>>>it and can send out again, I'd appreciate!)
>>>Thanks and cheers,
>>>Alice
>>>
>>>Hi Alice,
>>>
>>>Thanks for the rec re: Nesse's  "Evolution and the Capacity for 
>>>Commitment".  Although I still haven't read it I'm familiar with its 
>>>contents.  The issue of 'commitment' especially for young people is 
>>>something that definitely needs addressing and maybe requiring our 
>>>youth to make a firm political commitment to a particular party will 
>>>carry over to their demonstrating less risky behavior with drugs, sex, 
>>>employment, family or whatever.  Yet isn't our youth already 
>>>politically brainwashed into political awareness or have they flicked 
>>>away that duty as well?  I no longer hang out with our country's young 
>>>but when I did I found that very few had their head screwed on 
>>>correctly and many were adrift;  from what I hear now they still 
>>>continue on their aimless flow.  When I wrote my original answer my 
>>>thoughts were on "my generation", not the others.  Thanks for your post.
>>>
>>>I'll add the book to my list.
>>>
>>>Gerry
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>----- Original Message -----
>>>From: Alice Andrews <mailto:andrewsa at newpaltz.edu>
>>>To: The new improved paleopsych list <mailto:paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>>>Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 8:30 PM
>>>Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
>>>
>>>Hi Gerry,
>>>Randy Nesse edited a book called "Evolution and the Capacity for 
>>>Commitment"; do you know it? It's wonderful... if you don't. (His 
>>>'Commitment in the Clinic' chapter is superb, btw.) Anyway, I think 
>>>the book addresses your question. The word 'commitment' itself 
>>>addresses the question. We have evolved mechanisms for detecting 
>>>commitment and for detecting possible defection in others. People who 
>>>tow the party line, etc. are considered committed. We seek out such 
>>>people because it is proximately and ultimately adaptive to do so. 
>>>Befriending, supporting, trusting, etc. the uncommitted would have 
>>>been-- and still is, a risk (or threat). Such risks could have been 
>>>very costly over our evolutionary history and can be still today. Of 
>>>course, sometimes such risks (siding with someone who seems to be 
>>>sitting on the fence, uncommitted, a rebel) can be to one's advantage. 
>>>But 'ancient-brain' doesn't know this--and probably 'statistics-brain' 
>>>doesn't know this either!
>>>Anyway, enough late-night babbling! It's a good book and might answer 
>>>your question...
>>>All best!
>>>Alice
>>>
>>>   ----- Original Message -----
>>>   From: G. Reinhart-Waller <mailto:waluk at earthlink.net>
>>>   To: The new improved paleopsych list
>>>   <mailto:paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>>>   Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 9:55 PM
>>>   Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: paleopsych Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20
>>>
>>>   >> Someone beyond the liberal/conservative
>>>   dichotomy may be rejected by both sides as a nuisance,
>>>   a threat to shared assumptions that define a group
>>>   against another.
>>>
>>>   This is absolutely amazing!  Why would any audience
>>>   reject someone who cannot plop into either the liberal
>>>   or conservative camp?  Please explain the threat you
>>>   feel is apparent.  This I need to hear!
>>>
>>>   Gerry
>>>
>>>
>>>   _______________________________________________
>>>   paleopsych mailing list
>>>   paleopsych at paleopsych.org <mailto:paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>>>   http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>>
>>>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>paleopsych mailing list
>>>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>>>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>>
>>>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>paleopsych mailing list
>>>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>>>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>>
>>>
>>>   
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>><< File: ATT00025.html >>  << File: ATT00026.txt >> 
>>_______________________________________________
>>paleopsych mailing list
>>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>>
>>
>> 
>>
>>    
>>
> << File: ATT00000.html >>  << File: ATT00001.txt >> 
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>
>  
>
 << File: ATT00005.html >>  << File: ATT00006.txt >> 


From christian.rauh at uconn.edu  Fri Feb 25 15:00:22 2005
From: christian.rauh at uconn.edu (Christian Rauh)
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 10:00:22 -0500
Subject: [Paleopsych] teen spirit
In-Reply-To: <20050224200533.30607.qmail@web30806.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <20050224200533.30607.qmail@web30806.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <421F3D86.5060307@uconn.edu>

Tha't why I played role-playing games as a kid. No limits to creativity 
and not adults involved. ;-)

Christian

Michael Christopher wrote:
> Alice says:
> 
>>>There was an interesting article somewhere--maybe 
> 
> Frank sent it in?--about teenagers and the possiblity
> that what they were missing was 'religion' or
> 'spirituality' or a 'sense of purpose and meaning
> beyond them.'<<
> 
> --I think that's true in a way. Unfortunately, the
> only alternatives kids can see are traditional
> religion, drugs or "boot camp" and team-oriented
> programs which tend to be too authoritarian to meet
> spiritual needs. What's needed is a place where kids
> can be creative, make music, play with multimedia.
> Something that involves teamwork without coercion,
> enables kids to develop a voice in the world and be
> heard. Our culture has become swamped with conformity
> and with knee-jerk rebelliousness (which has its own
> rules of conformity), neither of which enables kids to
> develop a genuine, individual creative voice. Most
> people, including adults, use romantic relationships
> as their next best outlet, which puts too much
> pressure on relationships. Spiritual blocks and
> creative blocks are basically the same problem:
> overediting, overfiltering and excessive worry or
> confusion about how messages are received. Give kids a
> place they can fully express their visions, where they
> aren't torn down for coloring outside the lines, and
> you'll change the culture for the better. The current
> trend toward greater structure and conformity won't
> work, although it may pave the way for more evolved
> forms of teamwork later on. Discipline isn't a bad
> thing, but when it's based on fear of disappointing a
> group or an authority, a compensating tendency toward
> individuality is inevitable.
> 
> Michael
> 
> 
> 		
> __________________________________ 
> Do you Yahoo!? 
> Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. 
> http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail 
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych

-- 

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
"The gravest danger to freedom lies at the crossroads
  of radicalism and technology."

                               - President Bush
                                         June 1, 2002, West Point, NY


"we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our
  right of selfdefense by acting preemptively [...] we recognize that
  our best defense is a good offense"

     - The National Security Strategy of The United States of America

                             <http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html>

_____________________________________________________________________
?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????


From checker at panix.com  Fri Feb 25 16:24:35 2005
From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker)
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 11:24:35 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] Possible evidence for immortal bacteria! (And why not?)
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0502251124030.19799@panix1.panix.com>

This should be of particular interest to Howard.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 08:41:59 +0100
From: Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org>
Reply-To: transhumantech at yahoogroups.com
To: transhumantech at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [>Htech] Re: [GRG] Possible evidence for immortal bacteria! (And why
     not?) (fwd from ag24 at gen.cam.ac.uk)

----- Forwarded message from Aubrey de Grey <ag24 at gen.cam.ac.uk> -----

From: Aubrey de Grey <ag24 at gen.cam.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 18:17:33 +0000
To: grg at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: Re: [GRG] Possible evidence for immortal bacteria! (And why not?)
Reply-To: Gerontology Research Group <grg at lists.ucla.edu>


> This was the very study to which I was referring in my reply to Bob!

It's probably the most talked-about scientific publication of the month,
in fact.  It's certainly very exciting, but various details need to be
kept in mind at this stage:

1) The experiment was done for eight generations and showed a linear
decline in the growth rate with increasing numbers of generations in
which the old pole was inherited.  This is in contrast to the standard
pattern in aging where the functional decline accelerates with age.  It
is thus very important to extend this study to 20 or 30 generations to
see whether the trend eventually accelerates or levels off.  Of course
the entire lineage does not need to be followed -- one just needs some
cells at each point in the virtual lineage.

2) The authors measured "growth rate", and they really do mean rate of
increase in the size of the cells.  However, they note that new-pole
daughters are larger on average than old-pole ones, and additionally
that the new-pole daughter tends to divide first.  The latter is to be
expected, since increase of size is generally limiting for generation
time for bacteria in rich medium.  This merits a lot more discussion
(for example there is nothing about whether multi-generation-old-pole
cells are especially small), because the whole result may be because
smaller cells grow more slowly at first (not that that wouldn't be
interesting, of course).  The authors describe the above results as
showing that there is no "juvenile phase" whereby the new cell needs
to go through some initial maturation process before it gets going,
but they forget that it may be the daughter with the old pole that is
going through such a phase.

3) The authors allude in the discussion to the phenomenon constituting
a 2% "cost" of the aging process at the population level.  They don't
elaborate, but I think the meaning must be that the colony would grow
2% faster if all cells grew as fast as the new-pole ones.  But this is
not the right calculation if one wants to determine cost, because if the
divisions were precisely symmetrical then the old-pole cell would grow
faster but the new-pole cell would grow more slowly.  I haven't done
the maths but I strongly suspect that asymmetrical division (and hence
asymmetrical dilution of damage) can for some examples of the function
linking growth rate to damage levels confer a higher colony growth rate
than symmetrical division.

4) Possibly the main reason the above points matter so much, especially
the last one, is because of the effect on the validity of concluding
that the observed phenomenon is universal, inescapable etc.  There are
numerous circumstances in which an organism's optimum metabolic tactics
vary non-linearly with stress: for example the increase of maintenance
at the expense of reproduction in caloric restriction, or the fusion
response of mitochondria to high stress, or the senescence response
of cells to over-frequent double-strand breaks.  I suspect that under
a variety of alternative, reasonable assumptions, the colony growth rate
would switch from being best with symmetrical division to being best
with asymmetrical division depending on whether stress (e.g. oxidative)
and hence rate of damage accumulation was above or below some threshold.
If so, repeating this experiment under low oxygen might give different
results.

Aubrey de Grey
_______________________________________________
GRG mailing list
GRG at lists.ucla.edu
http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/grg


From waluk at earthlink.net  Fri Feb 25 16:40:13 2005
From: waluk at earthlink.net (G. Reinhart-Waller)
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 08:40:13 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] religion
References: <20050224201955.55678.qmail@web30809.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <005901c51b58$af004670$9200f604@S0027397558>

Michael writes:
> --No doubt, religious belief isn't necessary in order
> for a group to see another group as evil and worthy 
> of
> extermination. It might help a little, however, if 
> you
> believe your group is endorsed by a deity who hates
> your enemy as much as you do. But, as I mentioned,
> that deity can be replaced by the spirit of the 
> group,
> if that spirit is unquestioned and has its own
> momentum. Perhaps that's what a deity really is, the
> hidden face of the power of the group.

Many religions hold other groups in disfavor and could 
foster the hatred and disrespect one group feels for 
the enemy.  Yet I'm given to thinking that the spirit 
of the group, the esprit de corps, is what energizes 
and sustains group fervor in rabblerousing against the 
other.

Gerry Reinhart-Waller
Independent Scholar




From anonymous_animus at yahoo.com  Sat Feb 26 01:24:51 2005
From: anonymous_animus at yahoo.com (Michael Christopher)
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 17:24:51 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] flag/religion
In-Reply-To: <200502251937.j1PJb7h17580@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <20050226012451.17552.qmail@web30801.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Lynn says:

>>Ummm??? For example? Flag? I am patriotic and 
religious, and the two are very different
experiences.<<

--In what particular ways are they very different? In
what ways are they similar?

Michael



__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 


From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Sat Feb 26 16:32:35 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 09:32:35 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] flag/religion
In-Reply-To: <20050226012451.17552.qmail@web30801.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <20050226012451.17552.qmail@web30801.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4220A4A3.8000603@solution-consulting.com>

NOTE: If you receive this as a BCC copy (your address isn't attached, 
and you aren't on the Paleopsycho list), it is because I liked this 
answer to Michael and want to solicit your response.

Michael Christopher wrote:

Lynn says:


>>Ummm??? For example? Flag? I am patriotic and 
>>    
>>
religious, and the two are very different
experiences.<<

--In what particular ways are they very different? In
what ways are they similar?

Michael



Michael,
I heard the psychologist Alan Bergin characterize two types of 
religiosity - horizontal and vertical. In published reports, Bergin 
called those intrinsic and extrinsic.

The extrinsically religious person experiences little or do difference 
between patriotism and religion - both good things, based on a positive 
emotional commitment. Both can influence behavior. But the influence is 
limited. Patriotic persons can do evil things. Bergin has shown that 
extrinsic religiosity is correlated with behavioral problems and 
anxiety; intrinsic religiosity is correlated with better mental health 
and better long-term health.

Intrinsic religiosity: In the series Lost, two of the characters - Sayid 
and Sawyer - have heard whispering in the forest. Both have taken human 
life, and the implication is that is why they hear the whispers. The 
sounds come from either their own conscience or from the actual spirits 
of those whose lives they have taken. Each of them tries to deny or 
rationalize what they have heard. Sawyer asks Sayid if he heard anything 
when he was in the forest - Sayid almost admits, then recants and asks 
what Sawyer heard. Sawyer almost says, then recants and says he heard 
nothing. The two antagonists share something inexpressible.

For the intrinsically religious person, that is sort of what religion is 
like. There is a very quiet, subtle experience of God tapping on one's 
shoulder, a kind of reminder, "You promised to remember Me." If you have 
read Surprised by Joy you can understand the experience. It feels like 
it clearly comes from outside one's self. The actual trappings of the 
religion - for the intrinsically religious person - seem of little 
importance, and the personal experience is the core. It is not so much, 
"I believe in God" as "God believes in me, and I know He does."

So patriotism swells the heart, inspires great deeds, gives one a 
feeling of belonging to a worthy community, all positive things. It can 
also inspire evil deeds and alienation between us (the good guys) and 
the French . . . well, anyone who seems strange and unworthy. This is a 
limbic system activity.

Intrinsic religiosity gives one a sense of one's relationship with God 
and with others. It is clearly a right temporal lobe mediated function, 
and very different from loyalty and patriotism. I was in San Francisco, 
Ghirdelli Square one night with a friend who looks rather like me, only 
30# lighter. A young black boy was sitting on a railing, watching us. 
"Hey," he said, "you guys brothers?"

"Yes," I replied, "we are brothers, and you are our brother too."

"I ain't your brother," he replied scornfully.

"Yes, you are," I said. "You have just forgotten us."

Lynn

PS: Abstracts of  three of Bergin's I/E religiosity articles:

PsycINFO: Citation and Abstract 	
<http://www.psycinfo.com/psycinfo/index.cfm?action=showdoc&docview=CitationAndAbstract&Refs=No&UID=1987-18508-001&Printable=1> 
	Printer-friendly version 
<http://www.psycinfo.com/psycinfo/index.cfm?action=showdoc&docview=CitationAndAbstract&Refs=No&UID=1987-18508-001&Printable=1> 



Title 	Religiousness and mental health reconsidered: A study of an 
intrinsically religious sample.
Abstract 	Despite the existence of strong viewpoints, the relation 
between religiousness and mental health is not yet clearly understood. 
The Religious Orientation Scale has provided researchers with a valuable 
tool for differentiating between intrinsic (I) and extrinsic (E) 
religious orientations, thereby clarifying some of the confusion in this 
area. In the present study we assessed correlations between these two 
scales and anxiety, personality traits, self-control, irrational 
beliefs, and depression. Results generally indicated that I is 
negatively correlated with anxiety and positively correlated with 
self-control and "better" personality functioning, whereas the opposite 
is true of E. Correlations were generally not found with irrational 
beliefs or depression. By dividing subjects into a fourfold typology, we 
discovered that 98.6% of the present sample of religious students were 
"intrinsics." When their personality scores were compared with those of 
other normal populations, trends slightly favoring this intrinsic sample 
were observed. Thus, these results indicated that I is related to 
"normality" and that religiousness is not necessarily indicative of 
emotional disturbance. Some implications for counseling are suggested. 
(PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2004 APA, all rights reserved)
Authors 	Bergin, Allen E.; Masters, Kevin S.; Richards, P. Scott
Affiliations 	Bergin, Allen E.: Brigham Young U, UT
Source 	Journal of Counseling Psychology. 34(2), Apr 1987, 197-204.



PsycINFO: Citation and Abstract 	
<http://www.psycinfo.com/psycinfo/index.cfm?action=showdoc&docview=CitationAndAbstract&Refs=No&UID=1988-20093-001&Printable=1> 
	Printer-friendly version 
<http://www.psycinfo.com/psycinfo/index.cfm?action=showdoc&docview=CitationAndAbstract&Refs=No&UID=1988-20093-001&Printable=1> 



Title 	Religious life-styles and mental health: An exploratory study.
Abstract 	Conducted an intensive, case-by-case assessment of life-styles 
of a sample of religious students. We identified differing styles of 
religiousness and made comparisons by means of tests and interviews 
between subgroups whose subjects manifested differing religious 
life-styles. Those subjects with continuous religious development and 
mild religious experiences appeared to be healthier than those with 
discontinuous development and intense religious experiences; however, 
intense religious experiences tended to enhance the adjustment of those 
who experienced them. There was no evidence in the group as a whole for 
an overall negative or positive correlation between religiousness and 
mental health, but some modes of religious involvement appeared to be 
related to disturbance, whereas other modes appeared to be related to 
enhanced stability and resilience. Because causality in these relations 
remains uncertain, we generate hypotheses concerning further studies of 
life-styles and adjustment. We also discuss implications for student 
counseling and development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2004 APA, all 
rights reserved)
Authors 	Bergin, Allen E.; Stinchfield, Randy D.; Gaskin, Thomas A.; 
Masters, Kevin S.; et al
Affiliations 	Bergin, Allen E.: Brigham Young U, Provo, UT, US
Source 	Journal of Counseling Psychology. 35(1), Jan 1988, 91-98.


PsycINFO: Citation and Abstract 	
<http://www.psycinfo.com/psycinfo/index.cfm?action=showdoc&docview=CitationAndAbstract&Refs=No&UID=1991-25111-001&Printable=1> 
	Printer-friendly version 
<http://www.psycinfo.com/psycinfo/index.cfm?action=showdoc&docview=CitationAndAbstract&Refs=No&UID=1991-25111-001&Printable=1> 



Title 	Values and religious issues in psychotherapy and mental health.
Abstract 	A decade of work by A. E. Bergin and others is reviewed and 
synthesized concerning 2 broad issues: (a) the role of values in 
psychotherapy and (b) the relation of religion to mental health. Trends 
have changed, and there is now more professional support for addressing 
values issues in treatment. There is also more openness to the healthy 
potentialities of religious involvement, and therapists themselves 
manifest a new level of personal interest in such matters. Cautions and 
guidelines for dealing with such issues are considered in both empirical 
and clinical terms. The multifactorial nature of religion is documented, 
and healthy and unhealthy ways of being religious are described. 
Suggestions are given for including education in values and religious 
issues in the training of clinicians so that the vast population of 
religious clientele may be better served. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 
2004 APA, all rights reserved)
Authors 	Bergin, Allen E.
Affiliations 	Bergin, Allen E.: Brigham Young U, Provo, UT, US
Source 	American Psychologist. 46(4), Apr 1991, 394-403.


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From paul.werbos at verizon.net  Sat Feb 26 16:52:28 2005
From: paul.werbos at verizon.net (Paul J. Werbos, Dr.)
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 11:52:28 -0500
Subject: [Paleopsych] flag/religion - a different world
In-Reply-To: <4220A4A3.8000603@solution-consulting.com>
References: <20050226012451.17552.qmail@web30801.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<4220A4A3.8000603@solution-consulting.com>
Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.0.20050226114414.01dfead8@incoming.verizon.net>

We do seem to be living in different worlds here. Yet,
the spirit of Teilhard de Chardin, I would argue that we aree only
making real progress if we have some sense of how the worlds come
together... turn out to be "one elephant...".

=======

So here is one view of the elephant, per a plenary talk I will be giving soon
in China:

---------------------
Neural Networks and Adaptive Dynamic Programming: the New Path to Building 
and Understanding Brain-Style Intelligence

Neural networks provide new tools, new questions and new foundations for 
solving practical problems
in prediction, modeling, decision and control, state estimation, pattern 
recognition, data mining, etc.
Traditional statistics tries to collect a huge library of different methods 
for different tasks, but the brain is living proof
that one system can do it all, if there is data. It proves that a system 
can manage many millions of variables
without being confused (usually, when we really use our brain). Neural-type 
learning implemented on distributed
elements like neurons allows use of new general chips like CNN, with many 
thousand times more throughput than older chip types.
Adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) is a type of learning related to the 
Bellman equation, which is as important to the
general adaptive optimal value-based management of complex systems (like 
energy systems) as Maxwell's Laws
and the Dirac equation are to electronics. New advances, designs and 
applications of  ADP on neural networks show   some big improvements in 
performance and stability over
older methods, and a new functional way to understand the brain and mind 
themselves. Still,
this new hyper-rational way to understand the mind is very synergistic with 
practical ways to understand the mind
rooted in personal experience which have evolved in wise folk traditions 
like Freud, Jung, Taoism, Confucianism and even some types of Buddhism.

==================

It is curious to hear the phrase "religious technology, like prayer."
I do not have time right now to discuss all the many directions that 
suggests to me.
But it reminds me of the old struggle between empirically-based approaches and
the lost-in-symbolic-space worlds of superstring theory, Aquinas, 
ideological correctness
(left or right) and obsession with hermeneutics and such.

A key aspect that my abstract doesn't address (initially, directly) is the 
need to
approach issues like spirituality in a less "technological" way - a failing
that some Chinese would attribute to teh two equally-dirty-crazy
barbarians of fundamentalist Islam and fundamentalist Christianity.
Is "regios technology"  -- all authentic experience -- to b reduced
to trying to order hamburgers from god's macdonalds in the sky?
When an earthquake or two or three hits Iran, do we really blame it all on 
Wendy's?

And -- re Iraq -- when the Sunni dominant group asks for a "definite 
timetable for withdrawal"
as the one thing they want, could we reconsier the "redunadnt" step of the 
kind of Act I was
proposing? How much are we lost in our own heads unable to respect the reality
in other minds we share this world with?

Best of luck to us all, and sorry for the time constraint...

Paul 



From anonymous_animus at yahoo.com  Sat Feb 26 19:50:59 2005
From: anonymous_animus at yahoo.com (Michael Christopher)
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 11:50:59 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] religion
In-Reply-To: <200502261915.j1QJEuh22459@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <20050226195059.40785.qmail@web30804.mail.mud.yahoo.com>


Lynn says:
>>For the intrinsically religious person, that is 
sort of what religion is like. There is a very quiet,
subtle experience of God tapping on one's shoulder, a
kind of reminder, "You promised to remember Me."<<

--That's a good distinction. Is there intrinsic
patriotism, a quiet, subtle voice reminding you that
you're part of a larger group, a larger world? What
would happen if one's political identity, one's
allegiance to a particular group or ideological
movement in a particular nation, conflicted with an
impulse toward patriotism to some larger body that may
be multinational and not associated with any political
party? Christianity and Islam seem to involve that
kind of conflict. The Body of Christ has no country,
and the Ummah of Islam is supposed to be beyond
borders. How is that conflict resolved in various
groups?

Another question: what happens if intrinsic religion
gets tangled up with extrinsic religion? As in the
person who has an inner spiritual experience involving
Jesus, who on remembering and retelling the experience
re-coats it with dogmas derived from his social group
about Biblical infallibility, religious politics, and
so on? Would such a person experience an intolerable
conflict, given that the thing deep inside which
provides a genuine spiritual connection to something
greater is distorted by ideas derived from culture?

I ask that latter question because in my own spiritual
experiences I've come across Jesus once or twice, and
he never said anything about gay marriage destroying
civilization. But if I'd had the same religious
experiences, which you would call intrinsic, while a
member of a Christian group, I might have ended up
coating what Jesus really was to me, deep down, with
some extra layers of dogma about what Jesus wants.
Biblical infallibility and literalism seem like a huge
stumbling block, and when politics is added, even more
so. These days, Christians who interpret the Bible
"wrongly" (for example, if they reconcile the New
Testament with gay marriage the way many Christians
forego the admonishments in the NT for women to cover
their heads, or if they reconcile evolution with
Genesis) are treated not just as theological heretics
but as political heretics as well. I've had numerous
right wing Christians tell me that evolution is a
"lie". Not just criticizing the theory, but claiming
that everyone who supports it is deliberately
deceptive. And a roughly equal number of Christians
have told me that it's impossible to reconcile gay
marriage with the Bible. What does one do if one has a
genuine spiritual experience involving Jesus, but
cannot conform that vision to the "political
correctness" of scriptural literalism and
infallibility? 

Michael


		
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search.
http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250


From shovland at mindspring.com  Sat Feb 26 20:06:21 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 12:06:21 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] flag/religion - a different world
Message-ID: <01C51BFB.96C8F220.shovland@mindspring.com>

We live in an infinity of parallel universes :-)

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Paul J. Werbos, Dr. [SMTP:paul.werbos at verizon.net]
Sent:	Saturday, February 26, 2005 8:52 AM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list; The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	[Paleopsych] flag/religion - a different world

We do seem to be living in different worlds here. Yet,
the spirit of Teilhard de Chardin, I would argue that we aree only
making real progress if we have some sense of how the worlds come
together... turn out to be "one elephant...".

=======

So here is one view of the elephant, per a plenary talk I will be giving soon
in China:

---------------------
Neural Networks and Adaptive Dynamic Programming: the New Path to Building 
and Understanding Brain-Style Intelligence

Neural networks provide new tools, new questions and new foundations for 
solving practical problems
in prediction, modeling, decision and control, state estimation, pattern 
recognition, data mining, etc.
Traditional statistics tries to collect a huge library of different methods 
for different tasks, but the brain is living proof
that one system can do it all, if there is data. It proves that a system 
can manage many millions of variables
without being confused (usually, when we really use our brain). Neural-type 
learning implemented on distributed
elements like neurons allows use of new general chips like CNN, with many 
thousand times more throughput than older chip types.
Adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) is a type of learning related to the 
Bellman equation, which is as important to the
general adaptive optimal value-based management of complex systems (like 
energy systems) as Maxwell's Laws
and the Dirac equation are to electronics. New advances, designs and 
applications of  ADP on neural networks show   some big improvements in 
performance and stability over
older methods, and a new functional way to understand the brain and mind 
themselves. Still,
this new hyper-rational way to understand the mind is very synergistic with 
practical ways to understand the mind
rooted in personal experience which have evolved in wise folk traditions 
like Freud, Jung, Taoism, Confucianism and even some types of Buddhism.

==================

It is curious to hear the phrase "religious technology, like prayer."
I do not have time right now to discuss all the many directions that 
suggests to me.
But it reminds me of the old struggle between empirically-based approaches and
the lost-in-symbolic-space worlds of superstring theory, Aquinas, 
ideological correctness
(left or right) and obsession with hermeneutics and such.

A key aspect that my abstract doesn't address (initially, directly) is the 
need to
approach issues like spirituality in a less "technological" way - a failing
that some Chinese would attribute to teh two equally-dirty-crazy
barbarians of fundamentalist Islam and fundamentalist Christianity.
Is "regios technology"  -- all authentic experience -- to b reduced
to trying to order hamburgers from god's macdonalds in the sky?
When an earthquake or two or three hits Iran, do we really blame it all on 
Wendy's?

And -- re Iraq -- when the Sunni dominant group asks for a "definite 
timetable for withdrawal"
as the one thing they want, could we reconsier the "redunadnt" step of the 
kind of Act I was
proposing? How much are we lost in our own heads unable to respect the reality
in other minds we share this world with?

Best of luck to us all, and sorry for the time constraint...

Paul 

_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


From shovland at mindspring.com  Sat Feb 26 20:08:51 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 12:08:51 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] religion
Message-ID: <01C51BFB.F00D4570.shovland@mindspring.com>

It would seem to me that intrinsic patriotism
is noticeably absent from the current regime, 
which includes all of the incumbent politicians 
in both parties.  They serve those who bribe
them with campaign contributions, not the
interest of the country as a whole.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Michael Christopher [SMTP:anonymous_animus at yahoo.com]
Sent:	Saturday, February 26, 2005 11:51 AM
To:	paleopsych at paleopsych.org
Subject:	[Paleopsych] religion


Lynn says:
>>For the intrinsically religious person, that is 
sort of what religion is like. There is a very quiet,
subtle experience of God tapping on one's shoulder, a
kind of reminder, "You promised to remember Me."<<

--That's a good distinction. Is there intrinsic
patriotism, a quiet, subtle voice reminding you that
you're part of a larger group, a larger world? What
would happen if one's political identity, one's
allegiance to a particular group or ideological
movement in a particular nation, conflicted with an
impulse toward patriotism to some larger body that may
be multinational and not associated with any political
party? Christianity and Islam seem to involve that
kind of conflict. The Body of Christ has no country,
and the Ummah of Islam is supposed to be beyond
borders. How is that conflict resolved in various
groups?

Another question: what happens if intrinsic religion
gets tangled up with extrinsic religion? As in the
person who has an inner spiritual experience involving
Jesus, who on remembering and retelling the experience
re-coats it with dogmas derived from his social group
about Biblical infallibility, religious politics, and
so on? Would such a person experience an intolerable
conflict, given that the thing deep inside which
provides a genuine spiritual connection to something
greater is distorted by ideas derived from culture?

I ask that latter question because in my own spiritual
experiences I've come across Jesus once or twice, and
he never said anything about gay marriage destroying
civilization. But if I'd had the same religious
experiences, which you would call intrinsic, while a
member of a Christian group, I might have ended up
coating what Jesus really was to me, deep down, with
some extra layers of dogma about what Jesus wants.
Biblical infallibility and literalism seem like a huge
stumbling block, and when politics is added, even more
so. These days, Christians who interpret the Bible
"wrongly" (for example, if they reconcile the New
Testament with gay marriage the way many Christians
forego the admonishments in the NT for women to cover
their heads, or if they reconcile evolution with
Genesis) are treated not just as theological heretics
but as political heretics as well. I've had numerous
right wing Christians tell me that evolution is a
"lie". Not just criticizing the theory, but claiming
that everyone who supports it is deliberately
deceptive. And a roughly equal number of Christians
have told me that it's impossible to reconcile gay
marriage with the Bible. What does one do if one has a
genuine spiritual experience involving Jesus, but
cannot conform that vision to the "political
correctness" of scriptural literalism and
infallibility? 

Michael


		
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search.
http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250
_______________________________________________
paleopsych mailing list
paleopsych at paleopsych.org
http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych


From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Sun Feb 27 01:34:21 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 18:34:21 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] religion
In-Reply-To: <20050226195059.40785.qmail@web30804.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <20050226195059.40785.qmail@web30804.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4221239D.90609@solution-consulting.com>

Great questions /observations. I agree, it is hard to seperate our 
socialization from the actual experience. One or two humble comments 
interspersed.

Michael Christopher wrote:

>Lynn says:
>  
>
>>>For the intrinsically religious person, that is 
>>>      
>>>
>sort of what religion is like. There is a very quiet,
>subtle experience of God tapping on one's shoulder, a
>kind of reminder, "You promised to remember Me."<<
>
>--That's a good distinction. Is there intrinsic
>patriotism, a quiet, subtle voice reminding you that
>you're part of a larger group, a larger world? What
>would happen if one's political identity, one's
>allegiance to a particular group or ideological
>movement in a particular nation, conflicted with an
>impulse toward patriotism to some larger body that may
>be multinational and not associated with any political
>party? Christianity and Islam seem to involve that
>kind of conflict. The Body of Christ has no country,
>and the Ummah of Islam is supposed to be beyond
>borders. How is that conflict resolved in various
>groups?
>
Only a religion that emphasizes the brotherhood piece can do that. The 
sense of "all are one" is frequently an aspect of  spiritual 
experiences. The external / extrinsic part often excludes that, as the  
jihaddists seem to do today.

>
>Another question: what happens if intrinsic religion
>gets tangled up with extrinsic religion? As in the
>person who has an inner spiritual experience involving
>Jesus, who on remembering and retelling the experience
>re-coats it with dogmas derived from his social group
>about Biblical infallibility, religious politics, and
>so on? Would such a person experience an intolerable
>conflict, given that the thing deep inside which
>provides a genuine spiritual connection to something
>greater is distorted by ideas derived from culture?
>
>I ask that latter question because in my own spiritual
>experiences I've come across Jesus once or twice, 
>
powerful experience, I am in awe.

>and
>he never said anything about gay marriage destroying
>civilization. But if I'd had the same religious
>experiences, which you would call intrinsic, while a
>member of a Christian group, I might have ended up
>coating what Jesus really was to me, deep down, with
>some extra layers of dogma about what Jesus wants.
>Biblical infallibility and literalism seem like a huge
>stumbling block, and when politics is added, even more
>so. These days, Christians who interpret the Bible
>"wrongly" (for example, if they reconcile the New
>Testament with gay marriage the way many Christians
>forego the admonishments in the NT for women to cover
>their heads, or if they reconcile evolution with
>Genesis) are treated not just as theological heretics
>but as political heretics as well. I've had numerous
>right wing Christians tell me that evolution is a
>"lie". Not just criticizing the theory, but claiming
>that everyone who supports it is deliberately
>deceptive. And a roughly equal number of Christians
>have told me that it's impossible to reconcile gay
>marriage with the Bible. What does one do if one has a
>genuine spiritual experience involving Jesus, but
>cannot conform that vision to the "political
>correctness" of scriptural literalism and
>infallibility? 
>  
>
Good point. An experience doesn't answer all questions; in some ways it 
complicates one's life alarmingly. Then one must hammer out pieces of 
the meaning on the anvil of one's own experience.

Mythical story (ie, you need not believe in the literal story that 
follows): In 1984, I did a survey of near -death experiencers. One, 
Patricia, had attempted suicide at the age of 17 by drinking a poison. 
Her mother - an alcoholic schizophrenic - rushed her to the hospital. 
Patricia saw her body on the gurney.

She was told: "You were sent to earth to learn, and if you don't learn 
this way you will have to learn in another way, much more painful. We 
don't want you to go through that pain."

Lynn: What did they mean, "another way"?

Patricia: I don't know, they didn't explain. Maybe you go to hell. I 
think it is reincarnation, you come back in an even worse life. But I 
don't really know.

Patricia's humility "I don't know, I wasn't told" is refreshing and she 
is unusual in that she acknowledged the limits of her experience and the 
unanswered questions. Too often we confabulate meaning where the 
experience has gaps. Religion is a messy business, not as tidy as we 
would like to believe. The universe is strange.

>Michael
>
>
>		
>__________________________________ 
>Do you Yahoo!? 
>Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search.
>http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>
>  
>
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From paul.werbos at verizon.net  Sun Feb 27 02:39:15 2005
From: paul.werbos at verizon.net (Paul J. Werbos, Dr.)
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 21:39:15 -0500
Subject: [Paleopsych] religion
In-Reply-To: <20050226195059.40785.qmail@web30804.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <200502261915.j1QJEuh22459@tick.javien.com>
	<20050226195059.40785.qmail@web30804.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.0.20050226210731.01dabe00@incoming.verizon.net>

At 02:50 PM 2/26/2005, Michael Christopher wrote:


>I ask that latter question because in my own spiritual
>experiences I've come across Jesus once or twice, and
>he never said anything about gay marriage destroying
>civilization. But if I'd had the same religious
>experiences, which you would call intrinsic, while a
>member of a Christian group, I might have ended up
>coating what Jesus really was to me, deep down, with
>some extra layers of dogma about what Jesus wants.

This does move in an important direction.

Personally I think that any truly serious
study of the psychology of religion should cite the classic study by
Greeley.... But I don't have the citation at home... in the New York Times
weekly magazine, circa 1972... the article "Are We a Nation of Mystics?"
After a very lengthy, large and careful study of the deep values of 
Americans (funded by NSF)...
they had some results which seemed very counterintuitive at first.
In a pretest, they asked the question "have you ever had a 
religion-mystical experience?",
30 percent said "yes." The survey-takers laughed, assume people didn't know 
what
a "mystical experience" was supposed to be, and rephrased the question to 
make it
more concrete, clear and even shocking, something like -- "Did you ever 
have an experience
in which a great spiritual force descended upon you, and pulled you up out 
of your body, revealing..."
And then, when they asked it that way in the full survey, sent to 
thousands... 40 percent said yes.
The statistics showed a higher "yes" rate with more education, clear on up 
to PhD, and
social status, and so on. The really entertaining part came when the 
results came back,
and the university review committee tried to make sense of it. One guy 
says:"There must be a gross
error here. this is impossible. If this ANOVA formula is right, 70 percent 
of the people in THIS room
right now would say yes to THAT question. And we certainly know THAT can't 
be true."
After silence, another guy says:"OK, you put me in a very awkward situation.
This is a confidential proceeding, right? In the interest of science, and 
of not demeaning
this survey we have all worked so hard on, I must confess.." And then 
another, and another, until it was
70 percent. And then they did a kind of informal follow-on "survey" (no 
names) on the twelve "yes."

ALL of them felt both grateful and scared. They all became more loyal to 
WHATEVER
religion they happened to belong to, as if to say:"PLease, God, I'll be a 
good boy, whatever you
want, just don't do THAT again, I'm really not ready."

I remember having very similar reactions myself during prep school, at a 
time when I was
a truly committed Amazing-Randi type skeptic... and the ghost my mother
warned me about did put me off guard... such an inner turmoil... I don't 
believe ..
but please don't take it as an insult... how can I sleep?...
I certainly am not ready for this...

But years passed, and I gradually realized that one is more secure with eyes
open than with eyes shut, in the light rather than in the darkness, even if 
one starts out seeing
only fog.

And... years later... I remember the young woman from rural Korea telling 
me about their regular
family procedures, trying to use a "ghost-calling bell" and other 
meditative techniques to TRY
to call the spirits of their ancestors to communicate with them, to stay in 
touch...
It is a more natural attitude than fear, I think, and it is weird how our 
officious textbooks
brand those people as "just another nation of soulless atheists..." and the 
like.

But then again, OUR attitude of really wanting to understand what is going 
on here,
and avoid being fuzzy and to maintain a scientific attitude... well...
we do have our own special angle for viewing the elephant, and it is useful 
too.

--------------------------------------

There is also another aspect to your email.
I think Freud said a lot about how our "subconscious mind"
often communicates "to us" via whatever symbol system we happen
to have gotten ingrained. Thus there are aspects of such experience which
need to be interpreted very carefully, in much the same way as one 
interprets dreams.
This is no small matter. And it is a challenge to try to
evolve one's inner symbol system so as to facilitate more exact
communication, less dependent on metaphorical colorings.


>Biblical infallibility and literalism seem like a huge
>stumbling block, and when politics is added, even more
>so. These days, Christians who interpret the Bible
>"wrongly" (for example, if they reconcile the New
>Testament with gay marriage the way many Christians
>forego the admonishments in the NT for women to cover
>their heads, or if they reconcile evolution with
>Genesis) are treated not just as theological heretics
>but as political heretics as well. I've had numerous

Indeed. Organized religions often do more to oppress and
weaken and ultimately kill the soul than to facilitate its growth
and health.

But... I have often been reminded lately of an old saying...

"I don't belong to any organized religion. I am a Quaker..."


>right wing Christians tell me that evolution is a
>"lie". Not just criticizing the theory, but claiming
>that everyone who supports it is deliberately
>deceptive. And a roughly equal number of Christians
>have told me that it's impossible to reconcile gay
>marriage with the Bible. What does one do if one has a
>genuine spiritual experience involving Jesus, but
>cannot conform that vision to the "political
>correctness" of scriptural literalism and
>infallibility?

In a case like this, thinking for oneself is only a beginning, though an 
important one.

I have sometimes wonder what life would be like, if the 70 percent
did not feel compelled to lock up their real thoughts within themselves,
due to fear of gestapos both of the Amazing Randis and of the
TV preacher pharisee types?

But then again... if our 70 percent do not really desire to see more...
well, it really is a question what we are ready for...
and opening Pandora's Box can have its perils, depending on how
it is approached.

Best,

   Paul



>Michael
>
>
>
>__________________________________
>Do you Yahoo!?
>Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search.
>http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych



From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com  Sun Feb 27 15:21:20 2005
From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.)
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 08:21:20 -0700
Subject: [Paleopsych] religion
In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.0.20050226210731.01dabe00@incoming.verizon.net>
References: <200502261915.j1QJEuh22459@tick.javien.com>	<20050226195059.40785.qmail@web30804.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<6.2.0.14.0.20050226210731.01dabe00@incoming.verizon.net>
Message-ID: <4221E570.7080809@solution-consulting.com>

Paul, this is a wonderful reminder. I did some searching on it, and it 
seems that this 1975 study has held up well. We certainly have the 
capacity for mystical experiences; I recall last year a study where a 
researcher in Britain had constructed a helmut that produced some weak 
rotating magnetic fields over the right temporal lobe; people felt 
ineffible, mystical sensations. Except, of course, Richard Dawkins, who 
put the helmut on and said, in essence, "Nope, I don't feel a thing." 
the researcher commented that Dawkin's right temporal lobe seemed 
underdeveloped. LOL.
Lynn

Paul J. Werbos, Dr. wrote:

> At 02:50 PM 2/26/2005, Michael Christopher wrote:
>
>
>> I ask that latter question because in my own spiritual
>> experiences I've come across Jesus once or twice, and
>> he never said anything about gay marriage destroying
>> civilization. But if I'd had the same religious
>> experiences, which you would call intrinsic, while a
>> member of a Christian group, I might have ended up
>> coating what Jesus really was to me, deep down, with
>> some extra layers of dogma about what Jesus wants.
>
>
> This does move in an important direction.
>
> Personally I think that any truly serious
> study of the psychology of religion should cite the classic study by
> Greeley.... But I don't have the citation at home... in the New York 
> Times
> weekly magazine, circa 1972... the article "Are We a Nation of Mystics?"
> After a very lengthy, large and careful study of the deep values of 
> Americans (funded by NSF)...
> they had some results which seemed very counterintuitive at first.
> In a pretest, they asked the question "have you ever had a 
> religion-mystical experience?",
> 30 percent said "yes." The survey-takers laughed, assume people didn't 
> know what
> a "mystical experience" was supposed to be, and rephrased the question 
> to make it
> more concrete, clear and even shocking, something like -- "Did you 
> ever have an experience
> in which a great spiritual force descended upon you, and pulled you up 
> out of your body, revealing..."
> And then, when they asked it that way in the full survey, sent to 
> thousands... 40 percent said yes.
> The statistics showed a higher "yes" rate with more education, clear 
> on up to PhD, and
> social status, and so on. The really entertaining part came when the 
> results came back,
> and the university review committee tried to make sense of it. One guy 
> says:"There must be a gross
> error here. this is impossible. If this ANOVA formula is right, 70 
> percent of the people in THIS room
> right now would say yes to THAT question. And we certainly know THAT 
> can't be true."
> After silence, another guy says:"OK, you put me in a very awkward 
> situation.
> This is a confidential proceeding, right? In the interest of science, 
> and of not demeaning
> this survey we have all worked so hard on, I must confess.." And then 
> another, and another, until it was
> 70 percent. And then they did a kind of informal follow-on "survey" 
> (no names) on the twelve "yes."
>
> ALL of them felt both grateful and scared. They all became more loyal 
> to WHATEVER
> religion they happened to belong to, as if to say:"PLease, God, I'll 
> be a good boy, whatever you
> want, just don't do THAT again, I'm really not ready."
>
> I remember having very similar reactions myself during prep school, at 
> a time when I was
> a truly committed Amazing-Randi type skeptic... and the ghost my mother
> warned me about did put me off guard... such an inner turmoil... I 
> don't believe ..
> but please don't take it as an insult... how can I sleep?...
> I certainly am not ready for this...
>
> But years passed, and I gradually realized that one is more secure 
> with eyes
> open than with eyes shut, in the light rather than in the darkness, 
> even if one starts out seeing
> only fog.
>
> And... years later... I remember the young woman from rural Korea 
> telling me about their regular
> family procedures, trying to use a "ghost-calling bell" and other 
> meditative techniques to TRY
> to call the spirits of their ancestors to communicate with them, to 
> stay in touch...
> It is a more natural attitude than fear, I think, and it is weird how 
> our officious textbooks
> brand those people as "just another nation of soulless atheists..." 
> and the like.
>
> But then again, OUR attitude of really wanting to understand what is 
> going on here,
> and avoid being fuzzy and to maintain a scientific attitude... well...
> we do have our own special angle for viewing the elephant, and it is 
> useful too.
>
> --------------------------------------
>
> There is also another aspect to your email.
> I think Freud said a lot about how our "subconscious mind"
> often communicates "to us" via whatever symbol system we happen
> to have gotten ingrained. Thus there are aspects of such experience which
> need to be interpreted very carefully, in much the same way as one 
> interprets dreams.
> This is no small matter. And it is a challenge to try to
> evolve one's inner symbol system so as to facilitate more exact
> communication, less dependent on metaphorical colorings.
>
>
>> Biblical infallibility and literalism seem like a huge
>> stumbling block, and when politics is added, even more
>> so. These days, Christians who interpret the Bible
>> "wrongly" (for example, if they reconcile the New
>> Testament with gay marriage the way many Christians
>> forego the admonishments in the NT for women to cover
>> their heads, or if they reconcile evolution with
>> Genesis) are treated not just as theological heretics
>> but as political heretics as well. I've had numerous
>
>
> Indeed. Organized religions often do more to oppress and
> weaken and ultimately kill the soul than to facilitate its growth
> and health.
>
> But... I have often been reminded lately of an old saying...
>
> "I don't belong to any organized religion. I am a Quaker..."
>
>
>> right wing Christians tell me that evolution is a
>> "lie". Not just criticizing the theory, but claiming
>> that everyone who supports it is deliberately
>> deceptive. And a roughly equal number of Christians
>> have told me that it's impossible to reconcile gay
>> marriage with the Bible. What does one do if one has a
>> genuine spiritual experience involving Jesus, but
>> cannot conform that vision to the "political
>> correctness" of scriptural literalism and
>> infallibility?
>
>
> In a case like this, thinking for oneself is only a beginning, though 
> an important one.
>
> I have sometimes wonder what life would be like, if the 70 percent
> did not feel compelled to lock up their real thoughts within themselves,
> due to fear of gestapos both of the Amazing Randis and of the
> TV preacher pharisee types?
>
> But then again... if our 70 percent do not really desire to see more...
> well, it really is a question what we are ready for...
> and opening Pandora's Box can have its perils, depending on how
> it is approached.
>
> Best,
>
>   Paul
>
>
>
>> Michael
>>
>>
>>
>> __________________________________
>> Do you Yahoo!?
>> Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search.
>> http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250
>> _______________________________________________
>> paleopsych mailing list
>> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>



From shovland at mindspring.com  Sun Feb 27 16:54:31 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 08:54:31 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Nanotech: a next big thing
Message-ID: <01C51CA9.F491E520.shovland@mindspring.com>

http://www.zyvex.com/nano/
Manufactured products are made from atoms. The properties of those products 
depend on how those atoms are arranged. If we rearrange the atoms in coal 
we can make diamond. If we rearrange the atoms in sand (and add a few other 
trace elements) we can make computer chips. If we rearrange the atoms in 
dirt, water and air we can make potatoes.
Todays manufacturing methods are very crude at the molecular level. 
Casting, grinding, milling and even lithography move atoms in great 
thundering statistical herds. It's like trying to make things out of LEGO 
blocks with boxing gloves on your hands. Yes, you can push the LEGO blocks 
into great heaps and pile them up, but you can't really snap them together 
the way you'd like.
In the future, nanotechnology will let us take off the boxing gloves. We'll 
be able to snap together the fundamental building blocks of nature easily, 
inexpensively and in most of the ways permitted by the laws of physics. 
This will be essential if we are to continue the revolution in computer 
hardware beyond about the next decade, and will also let us fabricate an 
entire new generation of products that are cleaner, stronger, lighter, and 
more precise.
It's worth pointing out that the word "nanotechnology" has become very 
popular and is used to describe many types of research where the 
characteristic dimensions are less than about 1,000 nanometers. For 
example, continued improvements in lithography have resulted in line widths 
that are less than one micron: this work is often called "nanotechnology." 
Sub-micron lithography is clearly very valuable (ask anyone who uses a 
computer!) but it is equally clear that conventional lithography will not 
let us build semiconductor devices in which individual dopant atoms are 
located at specific lattice sites. Many of the exponentially improving 
trends in computer hardware capability have remained steady for the last 50 
years. There is fairly widespread belief that these trends are likely to 
continue for at least another several years, but then conventional 
lithography starts to reach its limits.
If we are to continue these trends we will have to develop a new 
manufacturing technology which will let us inexpensively build computer 
systems with mole quantities of logic elements that are molecular in both 
size and precision and are interconnected in complex and highly 
idiosyncratic patterns. Nanotechnology will let us do this.
When it's unclear from the context whether we're using the specific 
definition of "nanotechnology" (given here) or the broader and more 
inclusive definition (often used in the literature), we'll use the terms 
"molecular nanotechnology" or "molecular manufacturing."
Whatever we call it, it should let us
Get essentially every atom in the right place.
Make almost any structure consistent with the laws of physics that we can 
specify in molecular detail.
Have manufacturing costs not greatly exceeding the cost of the required raw 
materials and energy.





From shovland at mindspring.com  Sun Feb 27 23:52:51 2005
From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland)
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 15:52:51 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] Screen saver from San Francisco Orchid Show
Message-ID: <01C51CE4.64AE4170.shovland@mindspring.com>



 

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net

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From anonymous_animus at yahoo.com  Mon Feb 28 02:53:45 2005
From: anonymous_animus at yahoo.com (Michael Christopher)
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 18:53:45 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] religious experiences
In-Reply-To: <200502271920.j1RJKhh30292@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <20050228025345.98006.qmail@web30806.mail.mud.yahoo.com>


Lynn says:
>>Only a religion that emphasizes the brotherhood 
piece can do that. The sense of "all are one" is
frequently an aspect of  spiritual experiences. The
external / extrinsic part often excludes that, as the
jihaddists seem to do today.<<

--I agree the "all are one" experience is one of the
basic building blocks of spirituality. That leads me
to ask this question: are Jihaadists, witch hunters
and other "purifiers" reacting allergically to that
sense that all are one? Perhaps a suicide bomber's
final act is a simultanous denial and reinforcement of
the feeling of connectedness with what he hates. In
death, he seeks purification, while mixing his blood
with that of his victims in a most intimate way.

Michael



		
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone. 
http://mobile.yahoo.com/maildemo 


From anonymous_animus at yahoo.com  Mon Feb 28 02:59:46 2005
From: anonymous_animus at yahoo.com (Michael Christopher)
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 18:59:46 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Paleopsych] spirituality and dogma
In-Reply-To: <200502271920.j1RJKhh30292@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <20050228025946.44633.qmail@web30807.mail.mud.yahoo.com>


Paul says:
>>ALL of them felt both grateful and scared. They all
became more loyal to WHATEVER religion they happened
to belong to, as if to say:"PLease, God, I'll be a 
good boy, whatever you want, just don't do THAT again,
I'm really not ready."<<

--I had that kind of experience in my early 20's on
LSD, without any religious training. There was no
dogma attached, only the sense that I was connected to
everything and everyone in the world and that it was
my denial of that connection that had put me in hell.
I felt intimately connected with the starving in
Africa, with the restlessness in the Middle East (this
was pre-911) and with the alienation and chaos in my
own culture. It was all tied up with my life, and all
my attempts at achieving personal happiness were a
denial, a temporary refuge at best. It felt as if I
had thrown away the story of my generation, ignored
something terribly important, and that my refusal to
engage the world with genuine empathy had damaged the
world as well as myself.

I can only imagine what someone who HAD had religious
training would make of the experience afterward. It
would be rather easy for a preacher to hook into that
guilt and fear and attach whatever dogma he wanted.

Michael

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
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From n.j.c.bannan at reading.ac.uk  Mon Feb 28 15:53:32 2005
From: n.j.c.bannan at reading.ac.uk (Nicholas Bannan)
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 15:53:32 -0000
Subject: [Paleopsych] Mozart Effect
Message-ID: <011801c51dad$a7ae68a0$6882e186@.rdg.ac.uk>

      Stanford Report, February 2, 2005  
      Dubious 'Mozart Effect' remains music to many Americans' ears

      BY MARINA KRAKOVSKY


      Scientists have discredited claims that listening to classical music enhances intelligence, yet this so-called "Mozart Effect" has actually exploded in popularity over the years.

      So says Chip Heath, an associate professor of organizational behavior who has systematically tracked the evolution of this scientific legend. What's more, Heath and his colleague, Swiss psychologist Adrian Bangerter, found that the Mozart Effect received the most newspaper mentions in those U.S. states with the weakest educational systems-giving tentative support to the previously untested notion that rumors and legends grow in response to public anxiety.

      "When we traced the Mozart Effect back to the source [the 1993 Nature journal report titled 'Music and Spatial Task Performance'], we found this idea achieved astounding success," says Heath. The researchers found far more newspaper articles about that study than about any other Nature report published around the same time. And as the finding spread through lay culture over the years, it got watered down and grossly distorted. "People were less and less likely to talk about the Mozart Effect in the context of college students who were the participants in the original study, and they were more likely to talk about it with respect to babies-even though there's no scientific research linking music and intelligence in infants," says Heath, who analyzed hundreds of relevant newspaper articles published between 1993 and 2001.

      Not only had babies never been studied, but the original 1993 experiment had found only a modest and temporary IQ increase in college students performing a specific kind of task while listening to a Mozart sonata. And even that finding was proved suspect after a 1999 review showed that over a dozen subsequent studies failed to verify the 1993 result. While many newspapers did report this blow to the Mozart Effect, the legend continued to spread-overgeneralizations and all. For example, Heath cites a 2001 article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that refers to "numerous studies on the Mozart Effect and how it helps elementary students, high school students, and even infants increase mental performance." In truth, none of these groups had been studied, says Heath.

      So why did the Mozart Effect take such a powerful hold in popular culture, particularly in reference to babies and children? Heath and Bangerter surmised that the purported effect tapped into a particularly American anxiety about early childhood education. (Bangerter, who was doing research in Stanford's psychology department during the study, had been struck by Americans' obsession with their kids' education. For example, he saw that a preschool near the Stanford campus had the purposeful name "Knowledge Beginnings," whereas a preschool near a university in Switzerland was called "Vanilla-Strawberry." The latter made no lofty claims about its educational goals.) Concern about education was so great, in fact, that several U.S. states actually passed laws requiring state-subsidized childcare centers to play classical music or giving all new mothers a classical music CD in the hospital.

      To test their hypothesis that the legend of the Mozart Effect grew in response to anxiety about children's education, Heath and Bangerter compared different U.S. states' levels of media interest in the Mozart Effect with each state's educational problems (as measured by test scores and teacher salaries). Sure enough, they found that in states with the most problematic educational systems (such as Georgia and Florida), newspapers gave the most coverage to the Mozart Effect.

      "Problems attract solutions," explains Heath, and people grappling with complex problems tend to grasp for solutions, even ones that aren't necessarily credible. "They can be highly distorted, bogus things like the Mozart Effect," says Heath, adding that similar patterns occur in our culture's fixation on fad diets and facile business frameworks.

      Heath's analysis also found that spikes in media interest generally corresponded to events outside of science-particularly state legislation and two pop psychology books, The Mozart Effect and The Mozart Effect for Children.

      Lest Heath's own findings spawn overgeneralizations, he's quick to point out that the Mozart Effect is a particular type of legend. "The Mozart Effect points out a solution, whereas urban legends point out a problem." The prevailing but untested thinking about urban legends holds that they spread by tapping into public anxiety. But Heath says that even if the Mozart Effect succeeded by suggesting a solution to an anxiety, it's not clear why legends that create anxiety would spread. Why, for example, would people circulate stories about rat meat in KFC meals or about the perils of flashing your headlights at motorists driving without their lights on. "I'm still skeptical about the anxiety approach to urban legends," he cautions.

      The anxiety explanation seems simple and convenient on the surface, but as the history of the Mozart Effect shows, a convenient answer may well be completely false. As Heath puts it, "We've got to look for a realistic way out instead of an easy way out."
     

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From waluk at earthlink.net  Mon Feb 28 19:26:49 2005
From: waluk at earthlink.net (G. Reinhart-Waller)
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 11:26:49 -0800
Subject: [Paleopsych] religious experiences
References: <20050228025345.98006.qmail@web30806.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <01a101c51dcb$7460e180$2206f604@S0027397558>

Michael writes:
> --I agree the "all are one" experience is one of the
> basic building blocks of spirituality. That leads me
> to ask this question: are Jihaadists, witch hunters
> and other "purifiers" reacting allergically to that
> sense that all are one? Perhaps a suicide bomber's
> final act is a simultanous denial and reinforcement 
> of
> the feeling of connectedness with what he hates. In
> death, he seeks purification, while mixing his blood
> with that of his victims in a most intimate way.

Jihaadists, witch hunters, and other purifiers are 
certainly acting according to what they perceive as an 
"all for one" experience except the task they wish to 
perform is offensive to those they wish to harm.  A 
thief may steal a loaf of bread to feed his family but 
at the same time this act of stealing is clearly 
against civil and religious law.  If one can examine an 
issue in the multi-faceted views it offers, one can 
conclude that all instances present both a harmful AND 
beneficial scenario.  It all depends upon which option 
you side with.

Gerry Reinhart-Waller
Independent Scholar




