From checker at panix.com Sat Oct 1 19:19:04 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Sat, 1 Oct 2005 15:19:04 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] Guardian: What we call Islam is a mirror in which we see ourselves Message-ID: What we call Islam is a mirror in which we see ourselves http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5285932-103677,00.html Six views of the west's problems with the Muslim world reveal as much about those who hold them as the conflict itself Timothy Garton Ash Thursday September 15, 2005 Sitting in the capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran, with a metal arrow on the ceiling of my hotel room pointing to Mecca and the television showing a female news presenter in full hijab, I feel impelled to write about our troubles with Islam. Four years after the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, which were perpetrated in the name of Allah, most people living in what we still loosely call the west would agree that we do have troubles with Islam. The vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists, but most of the terrorists who threaten us claim to be Muslims. Most countries with a Muslim majority show a resistance to what Europeans and Americans generally view as desirable modernity, including the essentials of liberal democracy. Why? What's the nub of the problem? Here are six different views often heard in the west, but also, it's important to add, in Muslim countries such as Iran. As you go down the list, you might like to put a mental tick against the view you most strongly agree with. It's logically possible to put smaller ticks against a couple of others, but not against them all. 1 The fundamental problem is not just Islam but religion itself, which is superstition, false consciousness, the abrogation of reason. In principle, Christianity or Judaism are little better, particularly in the versions embraced by the American right. The world would be a much better place if everyone understood the truths revealed by science, had confidence in human reason and embraced secular humanism. If we must have a framed image of a bearded old man on the wall, let it be a photograph of Charles Darwin. What we need is not just a secular state but a secular society. This is a view held by many highly educated people in the post-Christian west, especially in western Europe, including some of my closest friends. If translated directly into a political prescription, it has the minor drawback of requiring that some 3 billion to 5 billion men and women abandon their fundamental beliefs. Nor has the track record of purely secular regimes over the last hundred years been altogether inspiring. 2 The fundamental problem is not religion itself, but the particular religion of Islam. Islam, unlike western Christianity, does not allow the separation of church and state, religion and politics. The fact that my Iranian newspaper gives the year as 1384 points to a larger truth. With its systematic discrimination against women, its barbaric punishments for homosexuality and its militant intolerance, Islam is stuck in the middle ages. What it needs is its Reformation. A very widespread view. Two objections are that such a view encourages a monolithic, essentialist understanding of Islam, and tries to understand its history too much in western terms (middle ages, Reformation). If we mean by Islam "what people calling themselves Muslim actually think, say and do", there is a huge spectrum of different realities. 3 The problem is not Islam but Islamism. One of the world's great religions has been misrepresented by fanatics such as Osama bin Laden, who have twisted it into the service of a political ideology of hate. It's these ideologists and movements of political Islamism that we must combat. Working with the benign, peaceful majority of the world's Muslims, we can separate the poisonous fruit from the healthy tree. The view promulgated by Qur'an-toting western politicians such as George Bush and Tony Blair. Well, they would say that, wouldn't they? They're not going to insult millions of Muslim voters and the foreign countries upon which the west relies for its imported oil. But do they really believe it? I have my doubts. Put them on a truth serum, and I bet they'd be closer to 2, while many atheist or agnostic European leaders would be at 1. On the other hand, this analysis is made with learning and force by distinguished specialists on the Muslim world. 4 The nub of the problem is not religion, Islam or even Islamism, but a specific history of the Arabs. Among 22 members of the Arab League, none is a home-grown democracy. (Iraq now has some elements of democracy, but hardly home-grown.) Needless to say, this is not a racist claim about Arabs but a complex argument about history, economics, political culture, society and a set of failed attempts at post-colonial modernisation. A case can be made. There are democracies with Muslim majorities (Turkey, Mali). The political scientist Alfred Stepan has written a fascinating article suggesting that, in the democracy stakes, non-Arab Muslim countries have fared roughly as well as non-Muslim countries at a comparable level of economic development. But I'm struck by the fact that even in a traditionally anti-Arab country such as Iran, very few people think the trouble is just with Arabia. 5 We, not they, are the root of the problem. From the Crusades to Iraq, western imperialism, colonialism, Christian and post-Christian ideological hegemonism have themselves created this antipathy to western liberal democracy; and, at the extreme, its mortal enemies. Moreover, after causing (by the Holocaust of European barbarism), supporting or at least accepting the establishment of the state of Israel, we have for more than half a century ignored the terrible plight of the Palestinians. A widespread view among Muslims, and by no means only among Arabs in the Middle East. Also shared, from a different starting point, by some on the western left. Of course, even if this simplistic version of history were entirely true, we couldn't change the past. But we can acknowledge the historical damage for which we are genuinely responsible. And we can do more to create a free Palestine next to a secure Israel. 6 Whatever your view of the relative merits of the west and Islam, the most acute tension comes at the edges where they meet. It arises, in particular, from the direct, personal encounter of young, first- or second-generation Muslim immigrants with western, and especially European, secular modernity. The most seductive system known to humankind, with its polychromatic consumer images of health, wealth, excitement, sex and power, is hugely attractive to young people from often poor, conservative, Muslim backgrounds. But, repelled by its hedonistic excesses or perhaps disappointed in their secret hopes, alienated by the reality of their marginalised lives in the west or feeling themselves rejected by it, a few - a tiny minority - embrace a fierce, extreme, warlike new version of the faith of their fathers. From Mohammed Atta and the Hamburg cell of al-Qaida, through the bombers of Madrid to those of London, this has become a depressingly familiar story. I wish I could find some compelling evidence against this claim. But I can't. (Can some reader help?) Even if we were to assist at the birth of a free Palestine and pull out of Iraq tomorrow, this problem would remain. It threatens to make Europe a less civilised, comfortable place to live over the next 10 years. Now, which of the six views got your largest tick? In answering that question, you will not just be saying something about the Islamic world; you will be saying something about yourself. For what we call Islam is a mirror in which we see ourselves. Tell me your Islam and I will tell you who you are. From checker at panix.com Sat Oct 1 19:19:11 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Sat, 1 Oct 2005 15:19:11 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] Edward Smith: Catalog Of Correctable Omnipresent Human Flaws Message-ID: Edward Smith: Catalog Of Correctable Omnipresent Human Flaws http://www.transhumanismus.demokratietheorie.de/docs/the_catalog_of_correctable_human_flaws.html [I wonder how the intelligent designers will handle this.] PART 1: Corrections, Enhancements, And Species Names All human bodies have numerous flaws which can be eliminated by geneticly modifying the zygote. Those flaws exist because their elimination was and is not necessary for the survival of the human species. However, their elimination would greatly increase the efficiency of our actions, and thus both our physical prosperity and our quality of life. A distinction must be made between corrections and enhancements. Corrections are removals of negatives whereas enhancements are additions of positives. The line between a correction and an enhancement is not entirely defined, but most modifications clearly fall on one side or the other. A correction constitutes the replacement of an important trait that had evolved away due to lack of necessity, or the correction of a trait that had evolved wrongly due to evolutionary expedience, except when the correction of such a trait satisfies the criteria for being an enhancement. An enhancement constitutes any augmentation of ones abilities that are characterized as being competitive, other than the removal of specific weaknesses, or any elaborate or unnatural addition. Many examples of enhancements are: 1. enhancements, beyond the removal of specific weaknesses, of muscle strength, muscle disinhibition, muscle endurance, cardiovascular endurance, skill, sensory breadth, sensory sensitivity, intelligence, mental skills, appearance, speed of development, or ability to feel pleasure, 2. the ability to extract energy from sunlight, hydrocarbons, or other sources that are unnatural for animals, 3. chameleon-like color-changing ability or other camouflage, 4. echolocation ability (which is mostly applicable in the dark), 5. built-in phosphorescent light(s), 6. built-in fire lighter(s) (most likely phosphoric and sulfuric), 7. wings, fins, claws, gills, serpentine arms, cold-bloodedness, or any other complex animal-like traits, 8. built-in weapons, 9. built-in armor beyond the removal of any specific weaknesses, 10. any purely cosmetic alteration. Obviously, some of such enhancements would not even be practical, especially since artificial non-biological objects can serve many of those functions, though such artificial non-biological objects are often expensive and in any case they depend upon a technological industrial infrastructure and access to that infrastructure. It is evident that enhancements are further subdivisible into at least 2 general types, which are: 1. enhancements that are cosmetic, random, or otherwise not particularly practical, which may be called 'random enhancements', and 2. enhancements that are clearly practical, and which can be applied for the purpose of competition with others, which may be called 'competitive enhancements'. Many enhancements fall on a spectrum between those 2 sub-categories. It is important to first focus on corrections rather than enhancements, the reason being that corrections are limited in their scope (there are most likely only 40-50 possible corrections) and mostly benefit an individual by themself, whereas enhancements are virtually unlimited in their scope, are mostly beneficial to an individual in competition with others, and/or are prone to abuse. Pursuing the latter traits may thus touch off a rash of socially mutually-destructive genetic competition if it is not clear that such enhancements must only be made with the most rightful and socially responsible of intentions, as characterized by the geneticly-determined character of the enhanced beings, such that they have a fine, clear, rightness-seeking abstract focus (caused by the H1, M1, and M3 receptors in unmodified humans), which works in opposition to both crude blind wrongness-seeking focus (caused by the 5-HT2A, 5-HT2B, and 5-HT2C receptors in unmodified humans) and ethically indifferent greed. Luckily though, if a person is rational enough to support transhumanism, then they are more likely to be rational enough to realize that responsibility. The various possible human modifications fall on a spectrum between being a correction and being an enhancement (which may be called the correction-enhancement spectrum), with most possible modifications clearly falling on one side or the other. The further a trait falls toward the enhancement end of the spectrum, particularly in the case of competitive enhancements, the more dangerous it is, and thus the more rightful it's bearer's temperament must be. Being as highly modified humans that can reproduce certainly constitute a new taxonomic class, there should be specific taxonomic names to distinguish significantly-modified humans from unmodified or minimally-modified humans, and to distinguish humans that have only been modified by significant corrections from those that have been modified by significant enhancements (with or without significant corrections also). Taxonomic names, by custom, are latin, meaning that latin terms should be used to describe the 3 human types. The most appropriate latin taxonomic names for humans that are not significantly-modified, significantly-corrected only, and significantly-enhanced, respectively, are 'rudis', 'correctus', and 'altus', which mean in latin, respectively: 'rough, raw, or crude', 'corrected', and 'grown or improved'. As for the taxonomic level of the names, humans that have been modified with significant corrections have not gone substantially beyond natural human form or natural human competitive capacity, nor do they have any traits that primarily serve such functions, nor do they have a virtually unlimited number of possible modifications, whereas humans that have been modified with significant enhancements do have those traits. It is therefore most appropriate for 'rudis' and 'correctus' to distinguish between 2 homo sapien subspecies, and for 'altus' to refer to a different species. There are also different categories of modifications for both correction and enhancement modifications, which can serve to classify the modifications when making lists. Those categories are: 1. biochemical, 2. gross physical, and 3. neurological. A modification can fall under multiple categories to some extent, especially if it is complex, but such traits should be classified into the categories that they best fall under. Those categories may also have subcategories where appropriate, such as 'growth', 'autonomy', 'mobility', 'durability', etcetera, though not all modifications may fall into one of the subcategories. PART 2: Correctable Omnipresent Human Flaws The reference below describes many of, and most likely the vast majority of, geneticly-correctable omnipresent evolutionary flaws of unmodified humans (descriptions begin with "In unmodified humans,"), their corresponding corrected state (descriptions begin with "In the corrected state," and use the verb "will"), and any other relevant basic information. Closely related flaws are described as a single flaw: (If you don't want to read all of these details, skip to part 3: application .) category: BIOCHEMICAL subcategory: excess growth 1. epidermal skin cell division, mouth cell division, and sebum: In unmodified humans, skin cells of the epidermis, which are called keratinocytes, like all human cells except for neurons, constantly divide, and the older keratinocytes are constantly pushed toward the surface and die as the younger keratinocytes at the base of the epidermis replicate. On the skin surface, the dead keratinocytes are either consumed by microbes (mostly bacteria) directly on the skin, or they flake off as dust. In the former case, moderately-toxic and foul-smelling volatile metabolites are produced. In the latter case, dust fills the air and threatens microbial infections in the mucous membranes of the respiratory tract and reduces the oxygen supply to the blood, which in turn raises blood pressure. Dead keratinocytes constitute approximately 80 percent of indoor dust. However, some dead keratinocytes are specialized such that they do not decompose, but serve the useful function of comprising nails and the outer layer of each hair, called the cuticle. Cells that constitute the sebaceous glands divide, fill with sebum oil and die, releasing the sebum oil, which is excreted. Dihydrotestosterone receptors in the sebaceous glands increase the growth and replication of sebum cells (and thus cause increased sebum secretion), which, among the usual effects of sebum, also causes itching. Bacteria convert the sebum into the moderately-toxic volatile chemical propionic acid, which smells like sour milk. The face, ears, and scalp produce a particularly high level of sebum. However, a small amount of sebum may be beneficial to the skin, but that amount is much lower than that which is produced by the face, ears, scalp, and dihydrotestosterone receptors. Many sebum glands on the face, unlike the other sebum glands, are constructed very poorly with narrow openings and large internal sebum stores, such that they are prone to clogging and causing acne. The only way to eliminate most of the dust and toxic chemicals is to constantly wash them off with soap and water, and to do the same to the clothes that one wears (which also requires keeping multiple sets of clothing), which people do, and in so doing consume an average of over an hour of time and a great deal of energy per day. Also, the cells of the lining of the mouth, and especially the cells of the tongue, constantly divide and are consumed by microbes producing the same volatile chemicals as the decomposed keratinocytes. Such chemicals constitute halitosis, aka 'bad breath'. In the corrected state, keratinocytes will not continually reproduce and die except in the case of their useful functions in hair and nails, sebum production will be no higher in particular regions of the body, dihydrotestosterone receptors will not exist on sebaceous glands, poorly-constructed acne-prone sebaceous glands will not exist, and cells of the tongue and other parts of the interior of the mouth will not continually reproduce and die. When the stratum corneum (the outermost layer of the epidermis that consists of keratin-rich keratinocytes) is worn down or damaged, the keratinocytes immediately below the damage will quickly reproduce to repair the damage. 2. hair shedding and pubic hair length: In unmodified humans, hairs continually grow for a biologically-determined period of time, fall out, then immediately continue to grow again. As a result, a large number of hairs are shed. That is only slightly true of the hairs of the top of head and a full beard though, as such hairs grow continuously and shed rarely ever or never. With the exceptions of the hair of the top of heads and full beards, the environment is being constantly contaminated with shed hairs, which typically harbor bacteria as well. Also, shed eyelashes and eyebrows often fall into the eye and cause damage and resulting pain. Beard hairs are the fastest-growing hairs on the body, and trimming, shaving, or plucking the beard hairs is time-consuming. Pubic hairs of the armpit, genital region, and chest are impractically long and are prone to contamination. In the corrected state, hairs, with the possible exception of the hairs of the top of the head, will continue to grow until they are at full length, as gauged by the width of the hair at the base, at which point they will not shed. Plucked hairs will regrow. Hairs of the beard (when applicable), armpit, genital region, and chest (when applicable), will be short hairs of no longer than 3/8ths of an inch (about 9 millimeters), and they will be exclusively soft hairs like the hairs of most of the body, as opposed to thick bristles. 3. hair and nail growth: In unmodified humans, scalp hair, beard hair, finger nails, and toe nails grow constantly and at a slow rate. Because of that, they often grow when growth is not desired, and they often grow too slow when growth is desired, and they must be often cut when they grow past their desired length. The subject of the hair of most of the body is already covered by the modification regarding hair shedding. In the corrected state, there will be related efferent and afferent nerves in the scalp, face, finger tips, and toe tips that allow the frontal lobe to directly start or halt the growth, respectively, of the scalp hair, beard hair, finger nails, and toe nails. The afferent nerves will produce a feedback sensation when a shift in mode has occurred, such that the specific sensation indicates the specific mode, and the frontal lobe may probe any of those regions at any time to sense what mode they are in. 4. anus hairs: In unmodified humans, there is a large number of hairs that surround the anus, and those hairs are of similar length to the pubic hair of the armpits or genitals. As a result, after humans defecate, feces is caught in the hairs unless it is thoroughly washed out, such that it increases the amount of volatile moderately toxic chemicals in the air, and increases the spread of disease-causing intestinal bacteria. In the corrected state, there will be no hairs that grow on the skin within 1 inch (32 millimeters) of the anus. subcategory: general growth 5. growth rate: In unmodified humans, growth is extremely slow, such that, after conception, completing the vast majority of one's growth consumes approximately 19 years (this includes the 9 months of gestation), and completing the myelination and development of the prefrontal cortex and completing the development of the musculature consumes at least 5 more years. That is over one quarter of the average lifespan of an unmodified human, and over one third of the non-senescent lifespan. In the corrected state, the amount of time designated for growth will be drasticly lower than that of unmodified humans. Obviously, this modification can be used for rapid reproduction, an abusable ability, so to balance the advantages with the dangers, the correction will only constitute a moderate reduction in growth time, cutting total growth time by about 2/3rds and cutting gestation time by about 1/3. Gestation growth time, and especially that of early gestation, probably can not be reduced as much as post-birth growth time, the reason being that the majority of developmental organization, which may be delicate, occurs during gestation, and gestation time is already very short relative to post-birth growth time. 6. scarring: In unmodified humans, when the flesh is damaged, it repairs itself but does so crudely and poorly, leaving a scar. The tissue of a scar is more breakable and less elastic than the original tissue. That is in part due to the collagen fibers of the dermis of scars being straight, tight, and brittle, as opposed to the original tissue, in which they are more winding and elastic. In the corrected state, scars will heal completely, such that their tissue is indistinguishable from the original flesh that they replaced. The complete healing of scars is a type of regeneration. Unlike other types of regeneration, the complete healing of scars is biologically relatively simple, and scars are more common than other types of permanent physical damage. 7. regeneration: In unmodified humans, when a body part is cut off or destroyed, it does not regrow, with few exceptions, such as the liver and the finger tips. In the corrected state, any amputated or destroyed body part will regenerate completely, and without being inferior to the original part. Amphibians can regrow amputated parts, so the ability to regenerate is not only possible, but it is natural in some animals. Regrowing lost parts would of course require embryo-like action. It may be that embryological development only works because the cells thereof are relatively unspecialized, such that the genetic modifications must allow the developmental genes to direct the development of specialized cells. 8. age-induced degradation and death: In unmodified humans, all cells except for neurons (which depend upon glial cells to function) constantly divide, which results in one of the two daughter cells having a shortened DNA code due to the copying process, and the other cell being programmed to shortly die. Repeating non-coding genetic sequences called telomeres are at the ends of the entire genetic code of each chromosome, such that DNA replication damages the telomeres before it damages coding DNA, meaning that the telomeres protect the DNA. Over time, the telomeres are used up and coding DNA is damaged, resulting in age-related degradation and eventually death. In germ cells (sperm and eggs), the telomeres are restored by the telomerase-TERT (TERT is an abbreviation for telomere reverse transcriptase) protein complex. Progressive gene destruction via cell replication is not the only cause of age-related degradation. There is also the fact that the brain becomes saturated with memories and pieces of learned information (both of which consist of neuron-to-neuron connections) over time, the majority of which are probably useless or nearly-useless for one's current or future situations, and those memories are never erased completely. There is also the fact that microscopic cracks in the teeth that accumulate with time create deposits of enamel (pure hydroxyapatite crystal, which is hard but brittle) within the dentin (collagen fibers saturated with hydroxyapatite, which is softer but not brittle), which causes the teeth to become more brittle. That may be called 'tooth scarring', and it is an issue of both aging and regeneration, and there may also be other forms of cumulative scarring that cause elements of aging. There may also be parts of the body that do not cease growing after their appropriate growth is complete, but rather continue to grow at a very slow rate, such that they become enlarged with age. The ears may be one of such parts. Continual growth may also be the cause of wrinkles, due to the skin continuing to grow. Automatic age-induced death serves a useful evolutionary purpose, though age-induced degeneration doesn't, except insofar as it is conducive to death. Automatic age-induced death serves the evolutionary purpose of destroying old genetic combinations so as to decrease the consumption of resources which can be consumed by newer genetic combinations, which are typically better evolved. That is usually beneficial to the group, but some older individuals have better genes than the average young person, such that some high-quality older genomes are wasted, and some younger individuals have worse genes than the average old person, such that some low-quality younger genomes are wastefully supported. There is also the fact that growing a new human to replace a dead or senescent one consumes a vast amount of growth time, food, money, and time and energy for education and learning to talk. Death, by the way, is not a form of conscious harm as suffering is. Only memory creates the illusion of a single chronicly-coherent self. Due to the fact that a person's sensations of the past and future moments are not the same as those of the present moment, and the fact that pharmaceuticals can alter a person's fundamental intent (which consists of fundamental abstract perceptions), the conscious self exists in the moment and dies with the passing of every moment. Death is the loss of the physical body, the information stored within the brain, and the neurological traits that create conscious selves of a particular fundamental intent. In the corrected state, no forms of age-induced degeneration or age-induced death will occur, including, but not limited to, telomere shortening, accumulation of unerasable memories and learned pieces of information, cumulative scarring in dentin or elsewhere, or continual growth of tissues after their appropriate size has been attained. Cells will not divide continually as they do in unmodified humans, but rather they will only divide for the purposes of growth and regeneration. The reduced cell division will also reduce the body's demands for energy and protein. All human cells will express telomerase and TERT anyway, such that growth and regeneration will not shorten the telomeres. All of those modifications will only be made on zygotes that have been modified to produce fine, clear, rightful intent, such that the humans so modified will voluntarily die if and when it will benefit the whole of society. subcategory: autonomy 9. vitamins and other essential chemicals: In unmodified humans, there is a dependency upon many different environment-derived chemicals, either for survival, basic health, or optimum function. Those chemicals are the fat-soluble vitamins, the water-soluble vitamins, the essential amino acids, the essential fatty acids, omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, creatine, carnitine, taurine, choline, and antioxidants. Some of such chemicals are produced by the human body, but only in minimal amounts. Consuming all of such chemicals in a sufficient and optimum amount is very difficult, and the dependency thereof is very dangerous due to the unreliable nature of both the economy and the natural environment. Also, any dependence upon rare substances can be used for the purpose of extortion. In the corrected state, humans will possess all of the enzymes necessary to convert common biochemical substances into all of the essential chemicals that are required in small amounts. The enzymes necessary to synthesize the essential chemicals exist in other organisms (else the chemicals would not exist in the first place), so they will be transferred to humans from those organisms. Increasing the production of chemical-synthesizing enzymes that humans already possess requires only a small genetic modification. The enzymes will be expressed only in specialized cells, preferably located on the interior surface of blood vessels, so as to release the chemicals into the blood stream. The specialization is necessary to prevent the newly-implanted enzymes from interfering with biochemicals of other tissues. 10. minerals: In unmodified humans, there is a dependency upon very small amounts of many different elements. The elements calcium and phosphorus serve as essential structural materials of bones and teeth. The elements sodium, calcium, potassium, and chlorine serve as essential electrolytes in neurons. Most other trace minerals serve as coenzymes. Most or all of the required trace elements other than those already mentioned are chromium, cobalt, copper, iron, lithium, magnesium, manganese, selenium, zinc, and possibly other elements also. The human body wastes a large quantity of minerals by excreting them in the urine, and possibly some in the feces, rather than recovering and recycling them. Consuming all of the essential elements in an amount that is sufficient for optimum function is very difficult, though corrupt government agencies that serve various food and vitamin companies greatly exaggerate the necessary requirements. The dependence upon constant environmental sources of all of those minerals is very dangerous due to the unreliable nature of both the economy and the natural environment. Also, any dependence upon environmental sources of rare substances can be used for the purpose of extortion. In the corrected state, there will be many proteins that prevent minerals from being excreted from the body, and recover them for reuse, except when there is a large excess of a mineral. 11. cellulase: In unmodified humans, the gene that codes for the proteins of the conversion of cellulose and the related disaccharide cellobiose into glucose, which are collectively called cellulase, are absent. Those proteins are also absent in all other vertebrates. In animals that can digest cellulose, that ability only exists due to the fact that those animals harbor cellulose-digesting microbes, which are delicate and very energy-intensive to maintain. Despite the omnipresence of that lack of ability, the ability to digest cellulose is such a fundamental function that it's absence constitutes a flaw. The vast majority of plant matter is composed of cellulose, meaning that very little plant matter is edible to unmodified humans, and of that which is, little of it is healthy. Also, undigested cellulose in the food of unmodified humans, which constitutes most dietary fiber, is decomposed by archaebacteria which convert it to methane, which causes both farts and gas pains. In the corrected state, humans will possess the genes of the cellulase proteins. The cellulase proteins will be expressed in the small intestine rather than the stomach, as the stomach is highly acidic and may halt the function of the cellulase. 12. stasis ability: In unmodified humans, a large amount of energy, that being over half of the energy of sedentary humans, is constantly consumed for the purpose of sustaining the body temperature of between 97 and 100 degrees fahrenheit (about 37 degrees celsius), which human proteins function best in. The human body temperature drops from birth to adulthood by about 1.5 degrees. The human body constantly generates heat, which is why temperatures above 85 degrees are perceived by humans as hot, even when resting, meaning that the human body wastes a great deal of energy in the generation of heat. If the body temperature drops by even a few degrees, many proteins, especially those of the nervous system, will falter, resulting in a condition called hypothermia, and if it drops as low as 78 degrees fahrenheit (20 degrees below normal), death occurs. Many animals are cold-blooded, such that they can live and function through large temperature changes, and their proteins are functional over a wide range of temperature, though they are less effective than those of warm-blooded animals that are at their optimum temperature. Also, many mammals can hibernate and drop their temperature by over 10 degrees. Due to the laws of thermodynamics, the greater the difference in temperature between 2 adjacent bodies, the higher the rate of heat transfer between the 2. Humans evolved a high blood temperature because the use of clothing allowed it. The average human heart rate is approximately 70 beats per minute. When that beat lowers enough such that the cells do not have sufficient oxygen to maintain their metabolic functions, the most prominent of which is body temperature maintenance, they automatically die. When the human heart rate drops greatly below it's average resting rate, pulmonary edema occurs. Pulmonary edema is the filling of the lungs with fluid from the capillaries. Pulmonary edema due to greatly-decreased heart rate is the result of the pressure in the veins increasing from a negative pressure to a neutral pressure, as fluid is kept out of the lungs due to a pressure balance. Because of all of those facts, humans are very vulnerable to cold and/or starvation, and extremely vulnerable to temporary lapses in heart function. In the corrected state, the pressure balance mechanism of the capillary fluid in the lungs will be replaced with a pressure-independent system. The mechanisms that cause cells to automatically die when only partially deprived of oxygen will not be present. Humans will be able to conserve energy in a manner that is initiated by the frontal cortex (the thinking part of the brain) by dropping their body temperature by at least 30 degrees (at least about 70 degrees fahrenheit) and lowering their heart rate by at least half, at the expense of efficient muscular and neural function. That will be possible because humans will have some of the neuron proteins from cold-blooded animals that will allow the neural system to maintain basic function at low temperatures, particularly the maintenance of heart pumping and breathing, and a minimal amount of consciousness that will allow the frontal cortex to initiate the end of the stasis state when appropriate. The ability to drop the body temperature and/or heart rate even further, with or without the use of biological antifreeze, such that an exceptional amount of energy can be conserved and life can be sustained through great cold and/or starvation, constitutes an enhancement. not within a subcategory: 13. glucose management: In unmodified humans, when a substantial amount of glucose from food is consumed, it is rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream due to the effects of the polypeptide gastrin, and in turn it stimulates the production of the protein insulin and the polypeptide GIP (which increases insulin) to rapidly counteract the heightened glucose by storing it as glycogen in the cells, especially muscle and liver cells, and none in neurons or glials. The leftover insulin in turn continues to lower the glucose beyond it's original level. There is no specific hormone that slows digestion without causing an additional effect, such as high insulin (as in the polypeptide GIP). Neurons or glials do not store glucose, nor do they derive energy from lipids in the bloodstream as some tissues do, but they are uniquely dependent upon blood glucose for energy, meaning that increasingly low levels of blood glucose cause corresponding increasing mental fatigue, and a very low level of blood glucose causes death due to neuron dysfunction. When the level of glycogen in the cells is at or near it's maximum, additional glucose is either converted into stored fat or wasted as heat due to an increase in the thyroid hormones T3 and T4. The thyroid gland produces about 4 times as much T4 as T3, but most T4 is converted to T3 within the cells, and T3 is much more potent than T4. T3, and to a lesser extent, T4, produce heat by acting on the mitochondria. The thyroid hormones cause hydrogen ions which are pressurized in the mitochondrial interspace (which are normally directed through the protein ATP synthase (aka ATP synthetase) to produce the energy chemical ATP) to flow back through the protein channels that they were packed though, which produces no ATP but generates a large amount of heat. In the corrected state, there will be a hormone (which may be called digestion-inhibiting hormone here) that inhibits digestion (and therefore the release of glucose and other substances into the bloodstream) without causing any other effects. Digestion-inhibiting hormone will initially be dominant over gastrin, and after food is consumed, gastrin will only rise slowly (unlike in unmodified humans), and will be regulated by the amount of glucose released in the blood, such that a high level thereof halts gastrin production and induces the production of digestion-inhibiting hormone to the appropriate degree, such that there can not be spikes or dips in blood glucose. When the level of glycogen in the cells is at it's maximum, digestion-inhibiting hormone will rise and greatly slow digestion, as contrasted with unmodified humans, in which the excess glucose is converted to fat or burned off as excess heat. The level of glycogen stored in the cells will be directly proportional to the level of somatotropin (aka growth hormone) that is secreted into the bloodstream. 14. muscle latching: In unmodified humans, when a muscle is contracted to a certain degree (and therefore also the part that it moves), it constantly consumes energy in maintaining that state, especially if it is lifting a heavy load. The constant contraction of the muscle causes it to tire quickly. For every human muscle, only about 1/4th of the available muscle fibers are used. That serves the purpose of energy conservation, and it eliminates the necessity of making the bones stronger and heavier, which would further consume energy. When norepinephrine or epinephrine is very high, the latent muscular fibers are disinhibited. In the corrected state, there will be a latching mechanism within the muscles that prevents them from consuming energy when in a constant degree of contraction. The latch though will be capable of being broken with sufficient force in a manner that does not cause any damage, so as to prevent weakened or broken bones, tendons, and/or ligaments. The latching mechanism will also incorporate the latent muscle fibers, so as to prevent any possible damage to the muscle fibers from a heavy load. 15. muscle and cardiovascular adaptation: In unmodified humans, increasing muscle strength, muscle endurance, or general cardiovascular endurance is an extremely time-consuming process, taking several weeks or even several months. When a body is not exercised, the muscles and cardiovascular system eventually degrade to a very weak state. The strength of a muscle is determined by the quantity of myofibrils within it. The endurance of a muscle is determined by the quantity of sarcoplasm in it. Sarcoplasm consists of capillaries and mitochondria. General cardiovascular ability is determined by the strength of the heart muscle, the size of the lungs, and the degree of blood vessel permeation. Dihydrotestosterone receptors in the muscles decrease the speed with which both myofibrils and sarcoplasm grow in response to exercise. In the corrected state, the lower limit to which the muscles and cardiovascular system can degrade due to lack of exercise will be much higher than that of unmodified humans. Adaptive growth of the muscles and cardiovascular system in response to exercise will be 3 times faster than that of unmodified humans. Increasing the speed of muscle or cardiovascular adaptation much more than that constitutes an enhancement. 16. cancer: In unmodified humans, when DNA is damaged, such as by radiation or chemicals, the cell of the DNA has a small but substantial probability of becoming cancer. That is due to the damage of a specific gene or genes. In the corrected state, there will be several genes throughout the genome that produce proteins that serve the sole function of recognizing their cell as cancerous and killing it if that is the case, such that cancer can not occur as a result of general DNA damage. category: GROSS PHYSICAL subcategory: mobility 17. neck turning: In unmodified humans, the head can turn only about 70 degrees to either side by the action of it's own muscles. That limitation is caused by the position of the sternocleidomastoid muscle attachment on the skull, as it is situated not very far back. If the head is relaxed and turned by the hands, it can turn only about 80 degrees. That is due to the tightness of the connective tissues and/or the limit of turning of the cervical vertebra bones. In the corrected state, the sternocleidomastoid muscle attachment on the skull will be situated about 2 inches further back, the connective tissues of the neck that limit neck twisting will be loosened, and the cervical vertebrae will have any necessary alterations to allow the head to turn as far as the other parts allow. Together, that will allow the head to turn about 100 degrees to either side. 18. shoulder mobility: In unmodified humans, the shoulder, the position of which moves with the clavicle (collar bone) can be revolved around the torso about 30 degrees forward and about 60 degrees backward. Resting the shoulder-moving muscles and moving the shoulder via an external force does not increase either of those numbers, meaning that the movement limitation is not due to the muscles of movement, but rather the connective tissues and/or bone. There is no 'shoulder bone', but rather the bone inside the shoulder is the head of the humerus (the upper arm bone). The shoulder often obstructs motion, and especially forward motion, due to it's prominence and relative rigidity of position. In the corrected state, the bones, connective tissues, and muscles of the shoulder region will be such that the shoulder will be able to revolve around the torso 90 degrees forward and 90 degrees backward. 19. thumb and palm finger mobility: In unmodified humans, various connective tissues drasticly restrict the maximum angle of the thumb to the second metacarpal bone (in the edge of the palm), such that when the thumb is aligned with the 2nd palm finger (aka middle finger), it can only extend about 50 degrees away from the palm. As a result, a hand can not effectively hold a large but light-weight load. The palm fingers (meaning the fingers other than the thumb here) have minimal ability to twist, much less twist independently. As a result, a hand can not effectively handle multiple objects. The palm fingers can not bend backward, under their own power, by more than 45 degrees beyond being aligned with the palm, and some individual fingers, especially when straight, can not bend forward or backward relative to the adjacent fingers by more than 45 degrees or less. As a result, many tasks that require the use of only one finger, or a specific combination of fingers, can not be done without the other fingers getting in the way. In the corrected state, the connective tissues that determine the maximum angle of the thumb relative the palm will be long and/or loose enough such that the thumb, when aligned with the middle finger, will have a maximum thumb-to-palm angle of about 100 degrees, and any related necessary muscle structure will be present. All of the palm fingers will be able to twist independently by about 45 degrees in either direction, due to the presence of diagonal muscles that attach to the metacarpals (long bones inside the palm) and the proximal phalanx bones (bones of the fingers nearest to the palm) of the palm fingers, and any related necessary traits of the bones and connective tissues. The palm fingers will be able to bend backward, under their own power, by 90 degrees. Each palm finger will not be any more restrained in it's range of motion, relative to it's maximum range, based upon the degree of bending of any of the other fingers, due to the absence of the relevant restraining connective tissues and/or feedback nerves. 20. eye and ear coverage from sensory excess: In unmodified humans, the eye can cover itself with the thin eyelid, which translucently lets a substantial fraction of light through, probably no more than 1/8th, but that is nonetheless not sufficient to protect from bright lights. The eyes can be squinted further, such that wrinkles of skin protect the eyes more, but that is very energy-consuming. The ears do not have any self-covering mechanism. Because of that, it is necessary to to use the hands to cover or uncover the ears, which interferes with the necessary activity of the hands, and it is necessary to use artificial earphones to cover the ears at all without having to use the hands constantly. In the corrected state, humans will have a second, thicker eyelid that can be lowered without the use of constant flexing. The second eyelid will contain a thick layer (about 2 millimeters) of collagen and cover the eye surface completely. The ear opening will be surrounded by a thick muscle sphincter (about 1/4 inch / 6 millimeters thick) that can be sealed completely. The sphincters of the ears will contain a latching mechanism which eliminates the necessity of constant flexing. The muscles of both structures will be attached to nearby motor nerves. 21. nose and ear coverage from foreign substances: In unmodified humans, neither the nose nor the ears can close themselves. As a result, foreign substances other than air can enter them. That is especially true in the case of submerging the head in a fluid, usually water, at certain angles, in which the fluid enters the nasal sinus and/or auditory canal. In the corrected state, the nose will contain a muscle sphincter that can close the nose opening completely. The ear will contain a small, thin muscle sphincter 1 millimeter within the opening, which can close completely, and is thin enough to allow most sound to pass through. The sphincters of both the nose and the ears will contain a latching mechanism which eliminates the necessity of constant flexing. 22. trachea contamination: In unmodified humans, if a substance, such as a liquid, a thick semi-liquid such as mucus (a solution of the glycoprotein mucin), or a solid object, is in the trachea, there is no way to easily remove the foreign substance. The trachea consists of many incomplete 300-degree cartilage rings with the gap in the back, which are held together by connective tissue. The upper trachea in the throat is a thick one-piece tube of cartilage. Coughing is only effective in removing material from lower levels of the bronchial tree, as air simply flows past substances that adhere to the walls of the trachea. If the lungs are empty of air when a solid object becomes lodged in the trachea, then there is little that can be done to remove it. In the corrected state, the trachea can be contracted semi-shut in the front-to-back dimension by multiple muscle sphincters, which will be possible due to the cartilage being thin on the sides of the trachea. That will allow solid objects to be removed more easily, and it will allow the the area through which the air flows to be reduced, thus allowing substances that adhere to the wall of the trachea to be expelled. subcategory: durability 23. foot vulnerability: In unmodified humans, the foot, due to hundreds of thousands of years of shoe usage, is not suited for it's function of protecting against hard ground substances and various sharp natural objects that are often on the ground. In particular, the foot has vulnerable blood vessels under it that are prone to damage from high pressure, and the bones of the human foot have little protection from impact. In the corrected state, there will be a layer of cartilage about 3/16ths of an inch thick (about 4.5 millimeters) that covers the bone on the soles of the feet. Also, the blood vessels under the feet will be smaller, such that they are less effected by high pressure. 24. butt vulnerability: In unmodified humans, when the weight of the body is on the butt, which in turn is on a hard surface, the weight is concentrated on the 2 small areas (one on each side) of the edges of the blade-like ischium bones and the flesh that is trapped between the bone and the hard surface. That causes some damage to the flesh, and over time, it can warp the structure of the bone, as is evident by the differences in hip bone form in cultures of people that often sit on their butt and those of people who do not. In the corrected state, the lower part of the ischium will be twice as wide as that of an unmodified human, and there will be a 1/4th-inch-thick (8 millimeters) layer of cartilage on the outside edge of the ischium. 25. solar plexus vulnerability: In unmodified humans, there is a large group of interconnected nerve ganglia located behind the stomach. It is popularly called the solar plexus, or more properly, the celiac plexus. The celiac plexus is linked to the stomach, duodenum (the first part of the small intestines), liver, pancreas, spleen, kidneys, and adrenal glands. The celiac plexus uses feedback from each organ to coordinate their actions. If the horizontal middle of the front of the torso, between the 2 downward dips of each side of ribs is quickly impacted with even little force, it temporarily disrupts the function of the celiac plexus, causing indigestion, and it causes a large amount of pain during and immediately after the impact. In the corrected state, the solar plexus will not be prone to being damaged by an impact any more so than the small intestines. 26. esophagus vulnerability: In unmodified humans, the esophagus is particularly vulnerable to damage, and therefore pain, from an impact or pressure on the front of the trachea, as the esophagus is soft and is situated between the vertebra bones and the thick cartilaginous trachea. In the corrected state, the esophagus will be at least twice as thick as that of unmodified humans, such that it will be able to distribute the pressure and therefore be able to withstand a low level of pressure without being damaged. 27. testicle vulnerability: In unmodified humans, in males, the testicles are situated outside the main body, are unprotected, and are very vulnerable to damage and the resulting pain, such that males must be always be cautious not to damage them. In the corrected state, there will be a durable, semi-flexible wall of cartilage of about 1/8th of an inch thick (about 3 millimeters) that lines the scrotum and is anchored on the pelvis bone. 28. vagina vulnerability in childbirth: In unmodified humans, in females, the vagina is not constructed to easily stretch widely enough for a baby to fit through without causing significant tissue damage and resulting pain. In the corrected state, the vagina will be modified to be elastic enough to allow babies to pass through in the absence of tissue damage or the pain that results from it. 29. brain-skull interface: In unmodified humans, there is minimal cushioning substance between the brain and the skull, and as a result, the brain is very vulnerable to damage by mere low-intensity jarring, such as jerking the head by ones own neck muscles. In the corrected state, a cushioning tissue of about 1/4 of an inch (about 7 millimeters) will be between the brain and the skull. The presence of additional cushioning material that can protect the brain against high-intensity jarring constitutes an enhancement. The best biological cushioning substance is a matrix of collagen and elastin fibers and fat. not within a subcategory: 30. saliva secretion: In unmodified humans, there are 3 major sets of glands of the slime called saliva, those being the sublingual gland, the submaxillary gland, and the parotid gland. There are 2 components of saliva, which are the bubbly watery substance serous, which contains digestive enzymes, especially amylase, and the thick bubble-free substance mucus, which is a solution of the glycoprotein mucin. The sublingual glands produce mostly mucus, whereas the submaxillary and parotid glands produce mostly serous. Humans constantly produce and swallow saliva. Saliva serves the purpose of washing away the substances in the mouth that microbes feed and reproduce upon. Microbes in the mouth feed and reproduce on 2 substances, which are pieces of food and dead cells of the interior of the mouth. Due to the other genetic modification of preventing the continual division and death of cells of the interior of the mouth, the latter substance will no longer be a problem. Plain water is sufficient to clean pieces of food from the mouth. In the corrected state, the saliva glands will have the ability to secrete pure water in addition to serous and mucus. The degree of secretion of each of the 3 different types of saliva will be directly controlled by the frontal cortex (the thinking part of the brain). 31. sinus access: In unmodified humans, the nostril openings are small relative to the size of the nasal sinus, and a large, flat, vertical piece of cartilage called the septum splits both the nasal sinus and the nostrils into 2. The part of the septum in the nose is anchored to bones at the top and bottom of the nose. That causes those 2 bones to be very vulnerable to breakage due to bending of the septum. The nostril openings are constricted relative to the cavity within the nose. The nasal sinus often becomes clogged with semi-dry mucus, due to disease, allergic reactions, or for the purpose of filtering out airborne particles (which is related to allergic reactions). The function of mucus of filtering air is important for improving the oxygen supply to the blood. When the nasal sinus is clogged with mucus, the opposite occurs, as breathing is diverted to the mouth, which causes minimal air filtration. In the corrected state, the nasal septum will not exist and the nostril openings will be unconstricted, such that semi-solid mucus clogs in the nasal sinus can be removed. category: NEUROLOGICAL subcategory: control 32. esophagus peristalsis and gag reflexes: In unmodified humans, the esophagus automatically and irreversibly pushes food or other material down from top to bottom if it is placed in the top of the esophagus. That is called the peristalsis reflex. The intestines also have a peristalsis reflex. Often, a human eats toxic food, due to spoilage or otherwise, and smells the toxic odors of the contaminated food just as it is being swallowed by the peristalsis reflex, and the human is aware of the toxic nature of the food but is unable to regurgitate it because the peristalsis reflex has irreversibly pushed the contaminated food down. When a finger or other object is inserted into the back of the mouth, the gag reflex occurs, which consists of a tightening of the throat combined with a forward heave. That prevents the examination of the back of the mouth or the removal of any thick mucus, other thick semi-liquids, or other objects stuck there. In the corrected state, the esophagus peristalsis reflex will be reversible by the direct control of the conscious brain, and the gag reflex will not be present. 33. sleep induction and necessary duration: In unmodified humans, sleep occurs in relatively rigid cycles, and can be greatly altered by external factors, especially bright light versus dim light, standing versus laying posture (which is the result of the fact that norepinephrine is lower when one is laying, as norepinephrine causes wakefulness), gastrointestinal disturbance (which causes wakefulness), hunger (which causes wakefulness), and emotional arousal (which causes high norepinephrine and therefore wakefulness). Aside from the external factors that alter the time of sleep induction, sleep is primarily induced by neural fatigue. Sleep serves the function of expending energy largely for the purposes of growth, wound healing, and fighting disease, and sleep also serves the functions of consolidating memories and restoring the nervous system. The last of those functions is the one that sleep is most specificly essential for. A human that is completely deprived of sleep dies after approximately 10 days, due to degradation of the nervous system. The complete span of sleep for the average adult human is 7 hours (not 8 hours, as has often been popularized). A few humans, due to rare genetic alleles, can restore themselves with as little as 4 hours of sleep. Evolving rapid restoration to reduce sleep hours is no evolutionary difficulty, as long sleep hours exist primarily for the purpose of conserving energy, though it is not very efficient to that end, as the body temperature and heart rate do not lower greatly. Because of that, prey animals that are always vulnerable, particularly the ungulates, have unlengthened sleep hours, whereas animals that are in little danger, such as predators, have greatly lengthened sleep hours. The rigid sleep cycles create the effect called jet lag when a person has travelled by airplane over several timezones over a short period of time. The rigid sleep cycles, as well as the various external factors that effect sleep, greatly disrupt potential human productivity and schedule-keeping. In the corrected state, humans will be able to induce sleep directly from the frontal cortex (the thinking part of the brain) at any time, with an induction time of no more than 5 seconds, and they will be able to prolong wakefulness in a neurally-fatigued state for several hours without being involuntarily pulled into sleep. Due to accelerated restoration, the necessary duration of sleep will be at least as low as 4 hours. 34. vagus nerve and pituitary effects: In unmodified humans, the heart rate, blood pressure, vasodilation versus vasoconstriction, degree of perspiration on the hands and armpits, cortisol secretion (cortisol weakens various components of the body), and sebum production is not under any substantial direct control by the frontal cortex (the thinking part of the brain), but rather, with the exception of control by physical necessity (such as exercise or temperature), they are under the control of the emotions, especially anger and anxiety, but also other emotions as well. The control of those physiological functions by the emotions is mediated by norepinephrine, the vagus nerve (one of the 12 cranial nerves), the sympathetic nervous system (which is directed by a row of ganglions on each side of the spinal cord), the parasympathetic nervous system, and the pituitary gland (which is the 'master gland' which directs the other glands of the body). As a result of that emotional control, there are bad and/or distracting effects, such as muscle weakening (due to cortisol), weakened immune system (also due to cortisol), heart problems (due to blood pressure, heart rate, and vasoconstriction), itching (due to increased sebum production), the inability to hold writing utensils (due to palm sweating), and clothes soaking (due to increased armpit sweating). In the corrected state, the frontal cortex (the thinking part of the brain) will have direct control over the physical effects produced by the emotions on heart rate, blood pressure, vasodilation versus vasoconstriction, and cortisol secretion. The emotion-induced physiological effects of increased sweating of the palms and armpits and increased sebum production will be completely absent, as they serve no practical function, at least in modern humans. 35. detrimental strong motivational emotions: In unmodified humans, there is a vulnerability to having powerful emotions that can override the restraining force of judgment. The most notable emotions thereof are anger, fear, and desire for various pleasures. Judgment is caused by the prefrontal cortex. In the corrected state, humans will be able to directly restrain the strength of their motivational emotions from their frontal cortex, which is the thinking part of the brain. 36. penile erection: In unmodified humans, in males, the penis can become erect or stay erect against conscious intent, due to being controlled by other factors, those being psychological sexual arousal and non-psychological factors. Because of that, an erection that is visible can deceptively indicate that a human male is psychologically sexually aroused when they are not, and in turn cause others to consider them to be less responsible in their work ethic than they in fact are, and in turn trust them less than is appropriate. In the corrected state, penile erection will never occur nor maintain itself against conscious intent, due to a direct efferent neural pathway from the motor cortex to terminals that relax the veins of the penis, thereby terminating erection when intended. 37. ovulation periods: In unmodified humans, in females after the age of puberty, there is an involuntary 28-day cycle in which the sex hormones estradiol and progesterone greatly fluctuate, the uterus is prepared for birth with a lining of flesh that is rich in blood vessels, an egg is made fertile for conception, and the egg and the bloody uterus lining are discarded out of the vagina if conception does not occur in what is called menstruation, which is usually the case. The blood and other materials that are involuntarily expelled from the vagina can soil clothing and other objects and can disrupt activities, unless the vagina is plugged or covered with artificial absorbent material during the days that the menstrual discharge occurs or is likely to occur. The involuntary ovulation cycle can cause unintended pregnancy. In the corrected state, ovulation will be initiated directly by the conscious intent of the frontal lobe of the cerebrum, via a brain region adjacent to that which causes voluntary urination, and by no other cause. 38. memory management: In unmodified humans, memories (not excluding learned facts) can be formed and/or maintained against conscious intent, and memories can be lost against conscious intent. As a result, valued memories are often lost and unvalued memories increasingly consume the brain's capacity for memory until it is expended or nearly-expended, and that constitutes a major factor of aging. In the corrected state, there will be direct projections from the frontal lobe (the thinking part of the brain) to the parts of the brain that store memories, such that conscious intent can prevent the formation of a memory, erase or weaken a memory, or make a memory immune to automatic degradation. However, highly familiar, repetitively used memories will not be subject to being erased. not within a subcategory: 39. the hiccup reflex: In unmodified humans, there is an involuntary reflex, called a hiccup, that tightens the diaphragm and resultingly compresses and lifts the lungs and ribs, seals the throat, and creates a small amount of dull pain. In addition to the purposeless dull pain that hiccups cause, they disrupt breathing, talking, eating, and to a lesser extent, every other activity. Hiccups are caused by the phrenic nerve, which controls the contraction of the diaphragm. The phrenic nerve is prone to firing in the absence of stimuli or in the presence of irrelevant stimuli, especially the expansion of the esophagus or stomach due to food and/or drink. In the corrected state, the hiccup reflex will not be present, due to the phrenic nerve not firing in the presence of irrelevant stimuli or no stimuli at all. 40. yawning: In unmodified humans, there is an involuntary movement, called a yawn, in which the mouth opens and air is inhaled, though not necessarily through the mouth. The yawn might serve the useful purpose of clearing built-up carbon dioxide out of the lungs when appropriate, and the opening of the mouth may serve the useful purpose of increasing the effectiveness of the jaw muscle by eliminating the effects of short-term stagnation, as all reflexive stretching may do. However, the involuntary opening of the mouth disrupts speech, eating / drinking, and playing musical instruments, and can cause saliva, food / drink, or transported objects to fall out of the mouth. When a person observes an other person yawn, they themself feel like yawning and often do, which is disruptive to a person's activities. In the corrected state, the yawn will never occur when conscious intent is opposed to it, even if only somewhat opposed, and the observation of an other person's yawn will not increase the probability that one's self will yawn. 41. automatic neuron apoptosis: In unmodified humans, when certain neural pathways are inactive for a certain amount of time, they automaticly degrade. Destroying some of such neurons serves the useful function of making room for glials. To destroy a large fraction of such neurons serves the function of conserving a small amount of energy, at a great expense of functionality. The latter function is the only reason for pathway degradation in the periphery (outside the brain). In the corrected state, no automatic neural pathway degradation due to disuse will occur in the periphery, and the maximum degree of such automatic degradation in the brain will be greatly limited. 42. memory alteration: In unmodified humans, whenever a sensory memory (which is analog, as distinguished from learned facts, which are digital) is recalled, there is a large chance that it will be altered in the retrieval process, especially in the small details that are not specificly noted (as those noted details are digital). As a result, a given sensory memory is likely to become less accurate with every retrieval. In the corrected state, the retrieval of sensory memories will not cause them to be altered or prone to alteration. 43. subliminal messages, suggestion, and hypnosis: In unmodified humans, the action of the body (not excluding the brain) can be made to contradict natural conscious intent via the use of subliminal messages, the power of suggestion, and hypnosis. In the corrected state, subliminal messages, the power of suggestion, and hypnosis will not be capable of causing the action of the body to contradict conscious intent, due to the neural pathways that they depend upon being absent. 44. depression and excess pain: In unmodified humans, physical pain often occurs in uselessly high degrees. Physical pain serves the useful function of causing humans or other conscious animals to not do certain actions that are damaging to themself or to extricate themself from a situation that is damaging themself. Beyond a certain degree, pain does not motivate a person any more than that which is required for them to do all that they can to prevent themself from being damaged. Also, the high degree of pain impairs cognition, which is necessary to devise methods by which to prevent oneself from being damaged. In the corrected state, there will be un upper limit to the degree of physical pain that a human can feel, due to a limitation of the quantity of the brain receptors nk1, nk2, bradykinin receptors, and possibly also the nociceptin receptor. Depression will be completely absent, as it serves no practical function, at least in modern humans. 45. pleasure addiction and tolerance: In unmodified humans, the infusion into the bloodstream of chemicals that produce pleasure, and to a lesser extent the experience of any type of strong pleasure, produces a psychological dependence upon such pleasure so as to avoid a strong painful sensation of restlessness (caused by the nk1 receptor). It also decreases the strength of the pleasure that is produced from the same source (an effect called 'tolerance'), thus motivating erratic and unreliable behavior due to uncertain rewards. Tolerance is caused largely by the nociceptin receptor. In the corrected state, pleasure will not cause addiction or tolerance. 46. socially destructive evolutionary hangover character traits: In unmodified humans, there is malicious intent, malice being defined as the desire to perceive and act with crude blind wrongness, and it's opposite, goodwill, being defined as the desire to perceive and act with fine clear rightness. In a scientificly knowledgeable society, clear-sighted goodwill is beneficial and blind malice is detrimental, whereas in a scientificly unknowledgeable society, including that of the non-human animals, the opposite is more often than not true. Specificly, malice has various effects, which are: 1. the desire to maintain problems rather than overcome them, 2. the desire to arbitrarily control, harass, torture, and steal from others, and 3. the desire to serve a single clan patriarch at the expense of the group. When technology is poor, it is more beneficial to the species to maliciously ignore problems rather then overcome them. When heredity and controlled humane eugenics is unknown of, it is more beneficial to the species to engage in random dominance competition, and to be permissive toward the aggression one's own children, than to breed all individuals without restriction. When the benefits of large-scale teamwork are unknown of, it is better to serve the inefficient whims of a clan patriarch (the instinctive basis of nationalism and the belief in a god) then to live autonomously. Malice is caused by the serotonin receptors 5-HT2A, 5-HT2B, and 5-HT2C, the production of which is induced by sex hormones, whereas goodwill is caused by the histamine receptor H1 and the acetylcholine receptors M1 and M3. The histamine receptor H2 causes perfectionism, which is necessary for an individual to pursue useful large and long-term goals. Activity of the malicious receptors is inhibited by the inhibitory receptor 5-HT1A, and activity of the goodwilled receptors is inhibited by the inhibitory receptor M2 and a receptor of galantamine. Acetylcholine release is facilitated by the presynaptic nicotinic receptors. There are also neuropsychological side effects of goodwill and malice that have evolved as a result of the chronic favor of malice. Those are: 1. The 5-HT2C receptor increases endorphin, the 5-HT2A receptor increases dopamine, the M1 receptor decreases dopamine, and endorphin increases serotonin, 2. Acetylcholine increases the anxiety chemical cholecystokinin (cholecystokinin also causes acceleration pain), and cholecystokinin decreases both serotonin and endorphin. Also, pain that results from acceleration is caused by neural pathways in the brain that use the neurotransmitters cholecystokinin and acetylcholine, 3. M4 acetylcholine receptors convert norepinephrine into epinephrine, 4. Acetylcholine decreases multitasking ability due to the action of the M4 receptors of the striatum and possibly other factors as well, though that may also increase the ability to concentrate, 5. Sex hormones (which induce the production of malice receptors) increase the production of growth hormone (which causes physical and mental energy) or are increased in response to high growth hormone. Specificly, dihydrotestosterone increases the production of growth hormone, and growth hormone increases the production of progesterone and to a lesser extent estradiol, 6. Dihydrotestosterone induces the production of pain-decreasing enkephalin in the cingulate cortex, and estradiol induces the production of beta-endorphin, and 7. Sex hormones increase the quality of the body. Specificly, all of the sex hormones increase fertility, dihydrotestosterone causes muscle disinhibition and increased speed of muscle growth in response to exercise, especially in males, estradiol and progesterone increase bone strength and increase a female's ability to give birth to and breastfeed offspring, and all of the sex hormones improve physical attractiveness. (end of list) All of those detrimental neurological side effects of goodwill may collectively be called 'goodwill side-effect syndrome'. In the corrected state, nuclear sex hormone receptors will not induce the production of 5-HT2 receptors. Sex hormones will be medium to high, as their beneficial effects will occur without their detrimental effects. Serotonin and galanin will be low, and acetylcholine and histamine will be high. Acetylcholine will not increase the level of cholecystokinin, the M4 receptor will not convert norepinephrine into epinephrine, and acetylcholine will not impair multitasking ability, though no ability to concentrate will be sacrificed. Although this modification is a correction, it is also the basic modification that must be made to a genome before any enhancements should be made to it. This modification also guarantees that the modified human will support transhumanism. PART 3: Application As of now, mid 2005, transhumanist work has consisted of nothing except discussions, news-sharing, political debating, and some political work on behalf of issues that are related to transhumanism. There have apparently been no attempts at actually IMPLEMENTING transhumanism, that is, modifying human zygotes (probably produced in test tubes), most likely via a retroviral gene-delivery vector. The genome of an unmodified human has approximately 22,000 genes (in contrast to an early crude estimate of approximately 30,000 genes). Before the genetic modification of human zygotes occurs, it is first necessary to research the relevant genes and proteins of the various traits that are to be modified. That constitutes identifying what genes and proteins produce a specific trait; discovering how they produce that trait; learning their sequences; using that information to extrapolate the nature of the modified genes and proteins and their sequences; and testing the modified genes in animals (preferably fast-growing animals) that are sufficiently geneticly similar to humans in the relevant genes, until the modified genes function successfully. An other option is to geneticly engineer laboratory animals to grow more rapidly (so as to get faster test results) and/or to have more human-like genes (so as to get more accurate test results). It is therefore in the immediate interest of transhumanists to share any of the aforementioned research information. From checker at panix.com Sat Oct 1 19:19:18 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Sat, 1 Oct 2005 15:19:18 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] Guardian: What we call Islam is a mirror in which we see ourselves Message-ID: What we call Islam is a mirror in which we see ourselves http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5285932-103677,00.html Six views of the west's problems with the Muslim world reveal as much about those who hold them as the conflict itself Timothy Garton Ash Thursday September 15, 2005 Sitting in the capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran, with a metal arrow on the ceiling of my hotel room pointing to Mecca and the television showing a female news presenter in full hijab, I feel impelled to write about our troubles with Islam. Four years after the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, which were perpetrated in the name of Allah, most people living in what we still loosely call the west would agree that we do have troubles with Islam. The vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists, but most of the terrorists who threaten us claim to be Muslims. Most countries with a Muslim majority show a resistance to what Europeans and Americans generally view as desirable modernity, including the essentials of liberal democracy. Why? What's the nub of the problem? Here are six different views often heard in the west, but also, it's important to add, in Muslim countries such as Iran. As you go down the list, you might like to put a mental tick against the view you most strongly agree with. It's logically possible to put smaller ticks against a couple of others, but not against them all. 1 The fundamental problem is not just Islam but religion itself, which is superstition, false consciousness, the abrogation of reason. In principle, Christianity or Judaism are little better, particularly in the versions embraced by the American right. The world would be a much better place if everyone understood the truths revealed by science, had confidence in human reason and embraced secular humanism. If we must have a framed image of a bearded old man on the wall, let it be a photograph of Charles Darwin. What we need is not just a secular state but a secular society. This is a view held by many highly educated people in the post-Christian west, especially in western Europe, including some of my closest friends. If translated directly into a political prescription, it has the minor drawback of requiring that some 3 billion to 5 billion men and women abandon their fundamental beliefs. Nor has the track record of purely secular regimes over the last hundred years been altogether inspiring. 2 The fundamental problem is not religion itself, but the particular religion of Islam. Islam, unlike western Christianity, does not allow the separation of church and state, religion and politics. The fact that my Iranian newspaper gives the year as 1384 points to a larger truth. With its systematic discrimination against women, its barbaric punishments for homosexuality and its militant intolerance, Islam is stuck in the middle ages. What it needs is its Reformation. A very widespread view. Two objections are that such a view encourages a monolithic, essentialist understanding of Islam, and tries to understand its history too much in western terms (middle ages, Reformation). If we mean by Islam "what people calling themselves Muslim actually think, say and do", there is a huge spectrum of different realities. 3 The problem is not Islam but Islamism. One of the world's great religions has been misrepresented by fanatics such as Osama bin Laden, who have twisted it into the service of a political ideology of hate. It's these ideologists and movements of political Islamism that we must combat. Working with the benign, peaceful majority of the world's Muslims, we can separate the poisonous fruit from the healthy tree. The view promulgated by Qur'an-toting western politicians such as George Bush and Tony Blair. Well, they would say that, wouldn't they? They're not going to insult millions of Muslim voters and the foreign countries upon which the west relies for its imported oil. But do they really believe it? I have my doubts. Put them on a truth serum, and I bet they'd be closer to 2, while many atheist or agnostic European leaders would be at 1. On the other hand, this analysis is made with learning and force by distinguished specialists on the Muslim world. 4 The nub of the problem is not religion, Islam or even Islamism, but a specific history of the Arabs. Among 22 members of the Arab League, none is a home-grown democracy. (Iraq now has some elements of democracy, but hardly home-grown.) Needless to say, this is not a racist claim about Arabs but a complex argument about history, economics, political culture, society and a set of failed attempts at post-colonial modernisation. A case can be made. There are democracies with Muslim majorities (Turkey, Mali). The political scientist Alfred Stepan has written a fascinating article suggesting that, in the democracy stakes, non-Arab Muslim countries have fared roughly as well as non-Muslim countries at a comparable level of economic development. But I'm struck by the fact that even in a traditionally anti-Arab country such as Iran, very few people think the trouble is just with Arabia. 5 We, not they, are the root of the problem. From the Crusades to Iraq, western imperialism, colonialism, Christian and post-Christian ideological hegemonism have themselves created this antipathy to western liberal democracy; and, at the extreme, its mortal enemies. Moreover, after causing (by the Holocaust of European barbarism), supporting or at least accepting the establishment of the state of Israel, we have for more than half a century ignored the terrible plight of the Palestinians. A widespread view among Muslims, and by no means only among Arabs in the Middle East. Also shared, from a different starting point, by some on the western left. Of course, even if this simplistic version of history were entirely true, we couldn't change the past. But we can acknowledge the historical damage for which we are genuinely responsible. And we can do more to create a free Palestine next to a secure Israel. 6 Whatever your view of the relative merits of the west and Islam, the most acute tension comes at the edges where they meet. It arises, in particular, from the direct, personal encounter of young, first- or second-generation Muslim immigrants with western, and especially European, secular modernity. The most seductive system known to humankind, with its polychromatic consumer images of health, wealth, excitement, sex and power, is hugely attractive to young people from often poor, conservative, Muslim backgrounds. But, repelled by its hedonistic excesses or perhaps disappointed in their secret hopes, alienated by the reality of their marginalised lives in the west or feeling themselves rejected by it, a few - a tiny minority - embrace a fierce, extreme, warlike new version of the faith of their fathers. From Mohammed Atta and the Hamburg cell of al-Qaida, through the bombers of Madrid to those of London, this has become a depressingly familiar story. I wish I could find some compelling evidence against this claim. But I can't. (Can some reader help?) Even if we were to assist at the birth of a free Palestine and pull out of Iraq tomorrow, this problem would remain. It threatens to make Europe a less civilised, comfortable place to live over the next 10 years. Now, which of the six views got your largest tick? In answering that question, you will not just be saying something about the Islamic world; you will be saying something about yourself. For what we call Islam is a mirror in which we see ourselves. Tell me your Islam and I will tell you who you are. From checker at panix.com Sat Oct 1 19:19:24 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Sat, 1 Oct 2005 15:19:24 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] Edward Smith: Catalog Of Correctable Omnipresent Human Flaws Message-ID: Edward Smith: Catalog Of Correctable Omnipresent Human Flaws http://www.transhumanismus.demokratietheorie.de/docs/the_catalog_of_correctable_human_flaws.html [I wonder how the intelligent designers will handle this.] PART 1: Corrections, Enhancements, And Species Names All human bodies have numerous flaws which can be eliminated by geneticly modifying the zygote. Those flaws exist because their elimination was and is not necessary for the survival of the human species. However, their elimination would greatly increase the efficiency of our actions, and thus both our physical prosperity and our quality of life. A distinction must be made between corrections and enhancements. Corrections are removals of negatives whereas enhancements are additions of positives. The line between a correction and an enhancement is not entirely defined, but most modifications clearly fall on one side or the other. A correction constitutes the replacement of an important trait that had evolved away due to lack of necessity, or the correction of a trait that had evolved wrongly due to evolutionary expedience, except when the correction of such a trait satisfies the criteria for being an enhancement. An enhancement constitutes any augmentation of ones abilities that are characterized as being competitive, other than the removal of specific weaknesses, or any elaborate or unnatural addition. Many examples of enhancements are: 1. enhancements, beyond the removal of specific weaknesses, of muscle strength, muscle disinhibition, muscle endurance, cardiovascular endurance, skill, sensory breadth, sensory sensitivity, intelligence, mental skills, appearance, speed of development, or ability to feel pleasure, 2. the ability to extract energy from sunlight, hydrocarbons, or other sources that are unnatural for animals, 3. chameleon-like color-changing ability or other camouflage, 4. echolocation ability (which is mostly applicable in the dark), 5. built-in phosphorescent light(s), 6. built-in fire lighter(s) (most likely phosphoric and sulfuric), 7. wings, fins, claws, gills, serpentine arms, cold-bloodedness, or any other complex animal-like traits, 8. built-in weapons, 9. built-in armor beyond the removal of any specific weaknesses, 10. any purely cosmetic alteration. Obviously, some of such enhancements would not even be practical, especially since artificial non-biological objects can serve many of those functions, though such artificial non-biological objects are often expensive and in any case they depend upon a technological industrial infrastructure and access to that infrastructure. It is evident that enhancements are further subdivisible into at least 2 general types, which are: 1. enhancements that are cosmetic, random, or otherwise not particularly practical, which may be called 'random enhancements', and 2. enhancements that are clearly practical, and which can be applied for the purpose of competition with others, which may be called 'competitive enhancements'. Many enhancements fall on a spectrum between those 2 sub-categories. It is important to first focus on corrections rather than enhancements, the reason being that corrections are limited in their scope (there are most likely only 40-50 possible corrections) and mostly benefit an individual by themself, whereas enhancements are virtually unlimited in their scope, are mostly beneficial to an individual in competition with others, and/or are prone to abuse. Pursuing the latter traits may thus touch off a rash of socially mutually-destructive genetic competition if it is not clear that such enhancements must only be made with the most rightful and socially responsible of intentions, as characterized by the geneticly-determined character of the enhanced beings, such that they have a fine, clear, rightness-seeking abstract focus (caused by the H1, M1, and M3 receptors in unmodified humans), which works in opposition to both crude blind wrongness-seeking focus (caused by the 5-HT2A, 5-HT2B, and 5-HT2C receptors in unmodified humans) and ethically indifferent greed. Luckily though, if a person is rational enough to support transhumanism, then they are more likely to be rational enough to realize that responsibility. The various possible human modifications fall on a spectrum between being a correction and being an enhancement (which may be called the correction-enhancement spectrum), with most possible modifications clearly falling on one side or the other. The further a trait falls toward the enhancement end of the spectrum, particularly in the case of competitive enhancements, the more dangerous it is, and thus the more rightful it's bearer's temperament must be. Being as highly modified humans that can reproduce certainly constitute a new taxonomic class, there should be specific taxonomic names to distinguish significantly-modified humans from unmodified or minimally-modified humans, and to distinguish humans that have only been modified by significant corrections from those that have been modified by significant enhancements (with or without significant corrections also). Taxonomic names, by custom, are latin, meaning that latin terms should be used to describe the 3 human types. The most appropriate latin taxonomic names for humans that are not significantly-modified, significantly-corrected only, and significantly-enhanced, respectively, are 'rudis', 'correctus', and 'altus', which mean in latin, respectively: 'rough, raw, or crude', 'corrected', and 'grown or improved'. As for the taxonomic level of the names, humans that have been modified with significant corrections have not gone substantially beyond natural human form or natural human competitive capacity, nor do they have any traits that primarily serve such functions, nor do they have a virtually unlimited number of possible modifications, whereas humans that have been modified with significant enhancements do have those traits. It is therefore most appropriate for 'rudis' and 'correctus' to distinguish between 2 homo sapien subspecies, and for 'altus' to refer to a different species. There are also different categories of modifications for both correction and enhancement modifications, which can serve to classify the modifications when making lists. Those categories are: 1. biochemical, 2. gross physical, and 3. neurological. A modification can fall under multiple categories to some extent, especially if it is complex, but such traits should be classified into the categories that they best fall under. Those categories may also have subcategories where appropriate, such as 'growth', 'autonomy', 'mobility', 'durability', etcetera, though not all modifications may fall into one of the subcategories. PART 2: Correctable Omnipresent Human Flaws The reference below describes many of, and most likely the vast majority of, geneticly-correctable omnipresent evolutionary flaws of unmodified humans (descriptions begin with "In unmodified humans,"), their corresponding corrected state (descriptions begin with "In the corrected state," and use the verb "will"), and any other relevant basic information. Closely related flaws are described as a single flaw: (If you don't want to read all of these details, skip to part 3: application .) category: BIOCHEMICAL subcategory: excess growth 1. epidermal skin cell division, mouth cell division, and sebum: In unmodified humans, skin cells of the epidermis, which are called keratinocytes, like all human cells except for neurons, constantly divide, and the older keratinocytes are constantly pushed toward the surface and die as the younger keratinocytes at the base of the epidermis replicate. On the skin surface, the dead keratinocytes are either consumed by microbes (mostly bacteria) directly on the skin, or they flake off as dust. In the former case, moderately-toxic and foul-smelling volatile metabolites are produced. In the latter case, dust fills the air and threatens microbial infections in the mucous membranes of the respiratory tract and reduces the oxygen supply to the blood, which in turn raises blood pressure. Dead keratinocytes constitute approximately 80 percent of indoor dust. However, some dead keratinocytes are specialized such that they do not decompose, but serve the useful function of comprising nails and the outer layer of each hair, called the cuticle. Cells that constitute the sebaceous glands divide, fill with sebum oil and die, releasing the sebum oil, which is excreted. Dihydrotestosterone receptors in the sebaceous glands increase the growth and replication of sebum cells (and thus cause increased sebum secretion), which, among the usual effects of sebum, also causes itching. Bacteria convert the sebum into the moderately-toxic volatile chemical propionic acid, which smells like sour milk. The face, ears, and scalp produce a particularly high level of sebum. However, a small amount of sebum may be beneficial to the skin, but that amount is much lower than that which is produced by the face, ears, scalp, and dihydrotestosterone receptors. Many sebum glands on the face, unlike the other sebum glands, are constructed very poorly with narrow openings and large internal sebum stores, such that they are prone to clogging and causing acne. The only way to eliminate most of the dust and toxic chemicals is to constantly wash them off with soap and water, and to do the same to the clothes that one wears (which also requires keeping multiple sets of clothing), which people do, and in so doing consume an average of over an hour of time and a great deal of energy per day. Also, the cells of the lining of the mouth, and especially the cells of the tongue, constantly divide and are consumed by microbes producing the same volatile chemicals as the decomposed keratinocytes. Such chemicals constitute halitosis, aka 'bad breath'. In the corrected state, keratinocytes will not continually reproduce and die except in the case of their useful functions in hair and nails, sebum production will be no higher in particular regions of the body, dihydrotestosterone receptors will not exist on sebaceous glands, poorly-constructed acne-prone sebaceous glands will not exist, and cells of the tongue and other parts of the interior of the mouth will not continually reproduce and die. When the stratum corneum (the outermost layer of the epidermis that consists of keratin-rich keratinocytes) is worn down or damaged, the keratinocytes immediately below the damage will quickly reproduce to repair the damage. 2. hair shedding and pubic hair length: In unmodified humans, hairs continually grow for a biologically-determined period of time, fall out, then immediately continue to grow again. As a result, a large number of hairs are shed. That is only slightly true of the hairs of the top of head and a full beard though, as such hairs grow continuously and shed rarely ever or never. With the exceptions of the hair of the top of heads and full beards, the environment is being constantly contaminated with shed hairs, which typically harbor bacteria as well. Also, shed eyelashes and eyebrows often fall into the eye and cause damage and resulting pain. Beard hairs are the fastest-growing hairs on the body, and trimming, shaving, or plucking the beard hairs is time-consuming. Pubic hairs of the armpit, genital region, and chest are impractically long and are prone to contamination. In the corrected state, hairs, with the possible exception of the hairs of the top of the head, will continue to grow until they are at full length, as gauged by the width of the hair at the base, at which point they will not shed. Plucked hairs will regrow. Hairs of the beard (when applicable), armpit, genital region, and chest (when applicable), will be short hairs of no longer than 3/8ths of an inch (about 9 millimeters), and they will be exclusively soft hairs like the hairs of most of the body, as opposed to thick bristles. 3. hair and nail growth: In unmodified humans, scalp hair, beard hair, finger nails, and toe nails grow constantly and at a slow rate. Because of that, they often grow when growth is not desired, and they often grow too slow when growth is desired, and they must be often cut when they grow past their desired length. The subject of the hair of most of the body is already covered by the modification regarding hair shedding. In the corrected state, there will be related efferent and afferent nerves in the scalp, face, finger tips, and toe tips that allow the frontal lobe to directly start or halt the growth, respectively, of the scalp hair, beard hair, finger nails, and toe nails. The afferent nerves will produce a feedback sensation when a shift in mode has occurred, such that the specific sensation indicates the specific mode, and the frontal lobe may probe any of those regions at any time to sense what mode they are in. 4. anus hairs: In unmodified humans, there is a large number of hairs that surround the anus, and those hairs are of similar length to the pubic hair of the armpits or genitals. As a result, after humans defecate, feces is caught in the hairs unless it is thoroughly washed out, such that it increases the amount of volatile moderately toxic chemicals in the air, and increases the spread of disease-causing intestinal bacteria. In the corrected state, there will be no hairs that grow on the skin within 1 inch (32 millimeters) of the anus. subcategory: general growth 5. growth rate: In unmodified humans, growth is extremely slow, such that, after conception, completing the vast majority of one's growth consumes approximately 19 years (this includes the 9 months of gestation), and completing the myelination and development of the prefrontal cortex and completing the development of the musculature consumes at least 5 more years. That is over one quarter of the average lifespan of an unmodified human, and over one third of the non-senescent lifespan. In the corrected state, the amount of time designated for growth will be drasticly lower than that of unmodified humans. Obviously, this modification can be used for rapid reproduction, an abusable ability, so to balance the advantages with the dangers, the correction will only constitute a moderate reduction in growth time, cutting total growth time by about 2/3rds and cutting gestation time by about 1/3. Gestation growth time, and especially that of early gestation, probably can not be reduced as much as post-birth growth time, the reason being that the majority of developmental organization, which may be delicate, occurs during gestation, and gestation time is already very short relative to post-birth growth time. 6. scarring: In unmodified humans, when the flesh is damaged, it repairs itself but does so crudely and poorly, leaving a scar. The tissue of a scar is more breakable and less elastic than the original tissue. That is in part due to the collagen fibers of the dermis of scars being straight, tight, and brittle, as opposed to the original tissue, in which they are more winding and elastic. In the corrected state, scars will heal completely, such that their tissue is indistinguishable from the original flesh that they replaced. The complete healing of scars is a type of regeneration. Unlike other types of regeneration, the complete healing of scars is biologically relatively simple, and scars are more common than other types of permanent physical damage. 7. regeneration: In unmodified humans, when a body part is cut off or destroyed, it does not regrow, with few exceptions, such as the liver and the finger tips. In the corrected state, any amputated or destroyed body part will regenerate completely, and without being inferior to the original part. Amphibians can regrow amputated parts, so the ability to regenerate is not only possible, but it is natural in some animals. Regrowing lost parts would of course require embryo-like action. It may be that embryological development only works because the cells thereof are relatively unspecialized, such that the genetic modifications must allow the developmental genes to direct the development of specialized cells. 8. age-induced degradation and death: In unmodified humans, all cells except for neurons (which depend upon glial cells to function) constantly divide, which results in one of the two daughter cells having a shortened DNA code due to the copying process, and the other cell being programmed to shortly die. Repeating non-coding genetic sequences called telomeres are at the ends of the entire genetic code of each chromosome, such that DNA replication damages the telomeres before it damages coding DNA, meaning that the telomeres protect the DNA. Over time, the telomeres are used up and coding DNA is damaged, resulting in age-related degradation and eventually death. In germ cells (sperm and eggs), the telomeres are restored by the telomerase-TERT (TERT is an abbreviation for telomere reverse transcriptase) protein complex. Progressive gene destruction via cell replication is not the only cause of age-related degradation. There is also the fact that the brain becomes saturated with memories and pieces of learned information (both of which consist of neuron-to-neuron connections) over time, the majority of which are probably useless or nearly-useless for one's current or future situations, and those memories are never erased completely. There is also the fact that microscopic cracks in the teeth that accumulate with time create deposits of enamel (pure hydroxyapatite crystal, which is hard but brittle) within the dentin (collagen fibers saturated with hydroxyapatite, which is softer but not brittle), which causes the teeth to become more brittle. That may be called 'tooth scarring', and it is an issue of both aging and regeneration, and there may also be other forms of cumulative scarring that cause elements of aging. There may also be parts of the body that do not cease growing after their appropriate growth is complete, but rather continue to grow at a very slow rate, such that they become enlarged with age. The ears may be one of such parts. Continual growth may also be the cause of wrinkles, due to the skin continuing to grow. Automatic age-induced death serves a useful evolutionary purpose, though age-induced degeneration doesn't, except insofar as it is conducive to death. Automatic age-induced death serves the evolutionary purpose of destroying old genetic combinations so as to decrease the consumption of resources which can be consumed by newer genetic combinations, which are typically better evolved. That is usually beneficial to the group, but some older individuals have better genes than the average young person, such that some high-quality older genomes are wasted, and some younger individuals have worse genes than the average old person, such that some low-quality younger genomes are wastefully supported. There is also the fact that growing a new human to replace a dead or senescent one consumes a vast amount of growth time, food, money, and time and energy for education and learning to talk. Death, by the way, is not a form of conscious harm as suffering is. Only memory creates the illusion of a single chronicly-coherent self. Due to the fact that a person's sensations of the past and future moments are not the same as those of the present moment, and the fact that pharmaceuticals can alter a person's fundamental intent (which consists of fundamental abstract perceptions), the conscious self exists in the moment and dies with the passing of every moment. Death is the loss of the physical body, the information stored within the brain, and the neurological traits that create conscious selves of a particular fundamental intent. In the corrected state, no forms of age-induced degeneration or age-induced death will occur, including, but not limited to, telomere shortening, accumulation of unerasable memories and learned pieces of information, cumulative scarring in dentin or elsewhere, or continual growth of tissues after their appropriate size has been attained. Cells will not divide continually as they do in unmodified humans, but rather they will only divide for the purposes of growth and regeneration. The reduced cell division will also reduce the body's demands for energy and protein. All human cells will express telomerase and TERT anyway, such that growth and regeneration will not shorten the telomeres. All of those modifications will only be made on zygotes that have been modified to produce fine, clear, rightful intent, such that the humans so modified will voluntarily die if and when it will benefit the whole of society. subcategory: autonomy 9. vitamins and other essential chemicals: In unmodified humans, there is a dependency upon many different environment-derived chemicals, either for survival, basic health, or optimum function. Those chemicals are the fat-soluble vitamins, the water-soluble vitamins, the essential amino acids, the essential fatty acids, omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, creatine, carnitine, taurine, choline, and antioxidants. Some of such chemicals are produced by the human body, but only in minimal amounts. Consuming all of such chemicals in a sufficient and optimum amount is very difficult, and the dependency thereof is very dangerous due to the unreliable nature of both the economy and the natural environment. Also, any dependence upon rare substances can be used for the purpose of extortion. In the corrected state, humans will possess all of the enzymes necessary to convert common biochemical substances into all of the essential chemicals that are required in small amounts. The enzymes necessary to synthesize the essential chemicals exist in other organisms (else the chemicals would not exist in the first place), so they will be transferred to humans from those organisms. Increasing the production of chemical-synthesizing enzymes that humans already possess requires only a small genetic modification. The enzymes will be expressed only in specialized cells, preferably located on the interior surface of blood vessels, so as to release the chemicals into the blood stream. The specialization is necessary to prevent the newly-implanted enzymes from interfering with biochemicals of other tissues. 10. minerals: In unmodified humans, there is a dependency upon very small amounts of many different elements. The elements calcium and phosphorus serve as essential structural materials of bones and teeth. The elements sodium, calcium, potassium, and chlorine serve as essential electrolytes in neurons. Most other trace minerals serve as coenzymes. Most or all of the required trace elements other than those already mentioned are chromium, cobalt, copper, iron, lithium, magnesium, manganese, selenium, zinc, and possibly other elements also. The human body wastes a large quantity of minerals by excreting them in the urine, and possibly some in the feces, rather than recovering and recycling them. Consuming all of the essential elements in an amount that is sufficient for optimum function is very difficult, though corrupt government agencies that serve various food and vitamin companies greatly exaggerate the necessary requirements. The dependence upon constant environmental sources of all of those minerals is very dangerous due to the unreliable nature of both the economy and the natural environment. Also, any dependence upon environmental sources of rare substances can be used for the purpose of extortion. In the corrected state, there will be many proteins that prevent minerals from being excreted from the body, and recover them for reuse, except when there is a large excess of a mineral. 11. cellulase: In unmodified humans, the gene that codes for the proteins of the conversion of cellulose and the related disaccharide cellobiose into glucose, which are collectively called cellulase, are absent. Those proteins are also absent in all other vertebrates. In animals that can digest cellulose, that ability only exists due to the fact that those animals harbor cellulose-digesting microbes, which are delicate and very energy-intensive to maintain. Despite the omnipresence of that lack of ability, the ability to digest cellulose is such a fundamental function that it's absence constitutes a flaw. The vast majority of plant matter is composed of cellulose, meaning that very little plant matter is edible to unmodified humans, and of that which is, little of it is healthy. Also, undigested cellulose in the food of unmodified humans, which constitutes most dietary fiber, is decomposed by archaebacteria which convert it to methane, which causes both farts and gas pains. In the corrected state, humans will possess the genes of the cellulase proteins. The cellulase proteins will be expressed in the small intestine rather than the stomach, as the stomach is highly acidic and may halt the function of the cellulase. 12. stasis ability: In unmodified humans, a large amount of energy, that being over half of the energy of sedentary humans, is constantly consumed for the purpose of sustaining the body temperature of between 97 and 100 degrees fahrenheit (about 37 degrees celsius), which human proteins function best in. The human body temperature drops from birth to adulthood by about 1.5 degrees. The human body constantly generates heat, which is why temperatures above 85 degrees are perceived by humans as hot, even when resting, meaning that the human body wastes a great deal of energy in the generation of heat. If the body temperature drops by even a few degrees, many proteins, especially those of the nervous system, will falter, resulting in a condition called hypothermia, and if it drops as low as 78 degrees fahrenheit (20 degrees below normal), death occurs. Many animals are cold-blooded, such that they can live and function through large temperature changes, and their proteins are functional over a wide range of temperature, though they are less effective than those of warm-blooded animals that are at their optimum temperature. Also, many mammals can hibernate and drop their temperature by over 10 degrees. Due to the laws of thermodynamics, the greater the difference in temperature between 2 adjacent bodies, the higher the rate of heat transfer between the 2. Humans evolved a high blood temperature because the use of clothing allowed it. The average human heart rate is approximately 70 beats per minute. When that beat lowers enough such that the cells do not have sufficient oxygen to maintain their metabolic functions, the most prominent of which is body temperature maintenance, they automatically die. When the human heart rate drops greatly below it's average resting rate, pulmonary edema occurs. Pulmonary edema is the filling of the lungs with fluid from the capillaries. Pulmonary edema due to greatly-decreased heart rate is the result of the pressure in the veins increasing from a negative pressure to a neutral pressure, as fluid is kept out of the lungs due to a pressure balance. Because of all of those facts, humans are very vulnerable to cold and/or starvation, and extremely vulnerable to temporary lapses in heart function. In the corrected state, the pressure balance mechanism of the capillary fluid in the lungs will be replaced with a pressure-independent system. The mechanisms that cause cells to automatically die when only partially deprived of oxygen will not be present. Humans will be able to conserve energy in a manner that is initiated by the frontal cortex (the thinking part of the brain) by dropping their body temperature by at least 30 degrees (at least about 70 degrees fahrenheit) and lowering their heart rate by at least half, at the expense of efficient muscular and neural function. That will be possible because humans will have some of the neuron proteins from cold-blooded animals that will allow the neural system to maintain basic function at low temperatures, particularly the maintenance of heart pumping and breathing, and a minimal amount of consciousness that will allow the frontal cortex to initiate the end of the stasis state when appropriate. The ability to drop the body temperature and/or heart rate even further, with or without the use of biological antifreeze, such that an exceptional amount of energy can be conserved and life can be sustained through great cold and/or starvation, constitutes an enhancement. not within a subcategory: 13. glucose management: In unmodified humans, when a substantial amount of glucose from food is consumed, it is rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream due to the effects of the polypeptide gastrin, and in turn it stimulates the production of the protein insulin and the polypeptide GIP (which increases insulin) to rapidly counteract the heightened glucose by storing it as glycogen in the cells, especially muscle and liver cells, and none in neurons or glials. The leftover insulin in turn continues to lower the glucose beyond it's original level. There is no specific hormone that slows digestion without causing an additional effect, such as high insulin (as in the polypeptide GIP). Neurons or glials do not store glucose, nor do they derive energy from lipids in the bloodstream as some tissues do, but they are uniquely dependent upon blood glucose for energy, meaning that increasingly low levels of blood glucose cause corresponding increasing mental fatigue, and a very low level of blood glucose causes death due to neuron dysfunction. When the level of glycogen in the cells is at or near it's maximum, additional glucose is either converted into stored fat or wasted as heat due to an increase in the thyroid hormones T3 and T4. The thyroid gland produces about 4 times as much T4 as T3, but most T4 is converted to T3 within the cells, and T3 is much more potent than T4. T3, and to a lesser extent, T4, produce heat by acting on the mitochondria. The thyroid hormones cause hydrogen ions which are pressurized in the mitochondrial interspace (which are normally directed through the protein ATP synthase (aka ATP synthetase) to produce the energy chemical ATP) to flow back through the protein channels that they were packed though, which produces no ATP but generates a large amount of heat. In the corrected state, there will be a hormone (which may be called digestion-inhibiting hormone here) that inhibits digestion (and therefore the release of glucose and other substances into the bloodstream) without causing any other effects. Digestion-inhibiting hormone will initially be dominant over gastrin, and after food is consumed, gastrin will only rise slowly (unlike in unmodified humans), and will be regulated by the amount of glucose released in the blood, such that a high level thereof halts gastrin production and induces the production of digestion-inhibiting hormone to the appropriate degree, such that there can not be spikes or dips in blood glucose. When the level of glycogen in the cells is at it's maximum, digestion-inhibiting hormone will rise and greatly slow digestion, as contrasted with unmodified humans, in which the excess glucose is converted to fat or burned off as excess heat. The level of glycogen stored in the cells will be directly proportional to the level of somatotropin (aka growth hormone) that is secreted into the bloodstream. 14. muscle latching: In unmodified humans, when a muscle is contracted to a certain degree (and therefore also the part that it moves), it constantly consumes energy in maintaining that state, especially if it is lifting a heavy load. The constant contraction of the muscle causes it to tire quickly. For every human muscle, only about 1/4th of the available muscle fibers are used. That serves the purpose of energy conservation, and it eliminates the necessity of making the bones stronger and heavier, which would further consume energy. When norepinephrine or epinephrine is very high, the latent muscular fibers are disinhibited. In the corrected state, there will be a latching mechanism within the muscles that prevents them from consuming energy when in a constant degree of contraction. The latch though will be capable of being broken with sufficient force in a manner that does not cause any damage, so as to prevent weakened or broken bones, tendons, and/or ligaments. The latching mechanism will also incorporate the latent muscle fibers, so as to prevent any possible damage to the muscle fibers from a heavy load. 15. muscle and cardiovascular adaptation: In unmodified humans, increasing muscle strength, muscle endurance, or general cardiovascular endurance is an extremely time-consuming process, taking several weeks or even several months. When a body is not exercised, the muscles and cardiovascular system eventually degrade to a very weak state. The strength of a muscle is determined by the quantity of myofibrils within it. The endurance of a muscle is determined by the quantity of sarcoplasm in it. Sarcoplasm consists of capillaries and mitochondria. General cardiovascular ability is determined by the strength of the heart muscle, the size of the lungs, and the degree of blood vessel permeation. Dihydrotestosterone receptors in the muscles decrease the speed with which both myofibrils and sarcoplasm grow in response to exercise. In the corrected state, the lower limit to which the muscles and cardiovascular system can degrade due to lack of exercise will be much higher than that of unmodified humans. Adaptive growth of the muscles and cardiovascular system in response to exercise will be 3 times faster than that of unmodified humans. Increasing the speed of muscle or cardiovascular adaptation much more than that constitutes an enhancement. 16. cancer: In unmodified humans, when DNA is damaged, such as by radiation or chemicals, the cell of the DNA has a small but substantial probability of becoming cancer. That is due to the damage of a specific gene or genes. In the corrected state, there will be several genes throughout the genome that produce proteins that serve the sole function of recognizing their cell as cancerous and killing it if that is the case, such that cancer can not occur as a result of general DNA damage. category: GROSS PHYSICAL subcategory: mobility 17. neck turning: In unmodified humans, the head can turn only about 70 degrees to either side by the action of it's own muscles. That limitation is caused by the position of the sternocleidomastoid muscle attachment on the skull, as it is situated not very far back. If the head is relaxed and turned by the hands, it can turn only about 80 degrees. That is due to the tightness of the connective tissues and/or the limit of turning of the cervical vertebra bones. In the corrected state, the sternocleidomastoid muscle attachment on the skull will be situated about 2 inches further back, the connective tissues of the neck that limit neck twisting will be loosened, and the cervical vertebrae will have any necessary alterations to allow the head to turn as far as the other parts allow. Together, that will allow the head to turn about 100 degrees to either side. 18. shoulder mobility: In unmodified humans, the shoulder, the position of which moves with the clavicle (collar bone) can be revolved around the torso about 30 degrees forward and about 60 degrees backward. Resting the shoulder-moving muscles and moving the shoulder via an external force does not increase either of those numbers, meaning that the movement limitation is not due to the muscles of movement, but rather the connective tissues and/or bone. There is no 'shoulder bone', but rather the bone inside the shoulder is the head of the humerus (the upper arm bone). The shoulder often obstructs motion, and especially forward motion, due to it's prominence and relative rigidity of position. In the corrected state, the bones, connective tissues, and muscles of the shoulder region will be such that the shoulder will be able to revolve around the torso 90 degrees forward and 90 degrees backward. 19. thumb and palm finger mobility: In unmodified humans, various connective tissues drasticly restrict the maximum angle of the thumb to the second metacarpal bone (in the edge of the palm), such that when the thumb is aligned with the 2nd palm finger (aka middle finger), it can only extend about 50 degrees away from the palm. As a result, a hand can not effectively hold a large but light-weight load. The palm fingers (meaning the fingers other than the thumb here) have minimal ability to twist, much less twist independently. As a result, a hand can not effectively handle multiple objects. The palm fingers can not bend backward, under their own power, by more than 45 degrees beyond being aligned with the palm, and some individual fingers, especially when straight, can not bend forward or backward relative to the adjacent fingers by more than 45 degrees or less. As a result, many tasks that require the use of only one finger, or a specific combination of fingers, can not be done without the other fingers getting in the way. In the corrected state, the connective tissues that determine the maximum angle of the thumb relative the palm will be long and/or loose enough such that the thumb, when aligned with the middle finger, will have a maximum thumb-to-palm angle of about 100 degrees, and any related necessary muscle structure will be present. All of the palm fingers will be able to twist independently by about 45 degrees in either direction, due to the presence of diagonal muscles that attach to the metacarpals (long bones inside the palm) and the proximal phalanx bones (bones of the fingers nearest to the palm) of the palm fingers, and any related necessary traits of the bones and connective tissues. The palm fingers will be able to bend backward, under their own power, by 90 degrees. Each palm finger will not be any more restrained in it's range of motion, relative to it's maximum range, based upon the degree of bending of any of the other fingers, due to the absence of the relevant restraining connective tissues and/or feedback nerves. 20. eye and ear coverage from sensory excess: In unmodified humans, the eye can cover itself with the thin eyelid, which translucently lets a substantial fraction of light through, probably no more than 1/8th, but that is nonetheless not sufficient to protect from bright lights. The eyes can be squinted further, such that wrinkles of skin protect the eyes more, but that is very energy-consuming. The ears do not have any self-covering mechanism. Because of that, it is necessary to to use the hands to cover or uncover the ears, which interferes with the necessary activity of the hands, and it is necessary to use artificial earphones to cover the ears at all without having to use the hands constantly. In the corrected state, humans will have a second, thicker eyelid that can be lowered without the use of constant flexing. The second eyelid will contain a thick layer (about 2 millimeters) of collagen and cover the eye surface completely. The ear opening will be surrounded by a thick muscle sphincter (about 1/4 inch / 6 millimeters thick) that can be sealed completely. The sphincters of the ears will contain a latching mechanism which eliminates the necessity of constant flexing. The muscles of both structures will be attached to nearby motor nerves. 21. nose and ear coverage from foreign substances: In unmodified humans, neither the nose nor the ears can close themselves. As a result, foreign substances other than air can enter them. That is especially true in the case of submerging the head in a fluid, usually water, at certain angles, in which the fluid enters the nasal sinus and/or auditory canal. In the corrected state, the nose will contain a muscle sphincter that can close the nose opening completely. The ear will contain a small, thin muscle sphincter 1 millimeter within the opening, which can close completely, and is thin enough to allow most sound to pass through. The sphincters of both the nose and the ears will contain a latching mechanism which eliminates the necessity of constant flexing. 22. trachea contamination: In unmodified humans, if a substance, such as a liquid, a thick semi-liquid such as mucus (a solution of the glycoprotein mucin), or a solid object, is in the trachea, there is no way to easily remove the foreign substance. The trachea consists of many incomplete 300-degree cartilage rings with the gap in the back, which are held together by connective tissue. The upper trachea in the throat is a thick one-piece tube of cartilage. Coughing is only effective in removing material from lower levels of the bronchial tree, as air simply flows past substances that adhere to the walls of the trachea. If the lungs are empty of air when a solid object becomes lodged in the trachea, then there is little that can be done to remove it. In the corrected state, the trachea can be contracted semi-shut in the front-to-back dimension by multiple muscle sphincters, which will be possible due to the cartilage being thin on the sides of the trachea. That will allow solid objects to be removed more easily, and it will allow the the area through which the air flows to be reduced, thus allowing substances that adhere to the wall of the trachea to be expelled. subcategory: durability 23. foot vulnerability: In unmodified humans, the foot, due to hundreds of thousands of years of shoe usage, is not suited for it's function of protecting against hard ground substances and various sharp natural objects that are often on the ground. In particular, the foot has vulnerable blood vessels under it that are prone to damage from high pressure, and the bones of the human foot have little protection from impact. In the corrected state, there will be a layer of cartilage about 3/16ths of an inch thick (about 4.5 millimeters) that covers the bone on the soles of the feet. Also, the blood vessels under the feet will be smaller, such that they are less effected by high pressure. 24. butt vulnerability: In unmodified humans, when the weight of the body is on the butt, which in turn is on a hard surface, the weight is concentrated on the 2 small areas (one on each side) of the edges of the blade-like ischium bones and the flesh that is trapped between the bone and the hard surface. That causes some damage to the flesh, and over time, it can warp the structure of the bone, as is evident by the differences in hip bone form in cultures of people that often sit on their butt and those of people who do not. In the corrected state, the lower part of the ischium will be twice as wide as that of an unmodified human, and there will be a 1/4th-inch-thick (8 millimeters) layer of cartilage on the outside edge of the ischium. 25. solar plexus vulnerability: In unmodified humans, there is a large group of interconnected nerve ganglia located behind the stomach. It is popularly called the solar plexus, or more properly, the celiac plexus. The celiac plexus is linked to the stomach, duodenum (the first part of the small intestines), liver, pancreas, spleen, kidneys, and adrenal glands. The celiac plexus uses feedback from each organ to coordinate their actions. If the horizontal middle of the front of the torso, between the 2 downward dips of each side of ribs is quickly impacted with even little force, it temporarily disrupts the function of the celiac plexus, causing indigestion, and it causes a large amount of pain during and immediately after the impact. In the corrected state, the solar plexus will not be prone to being damaged by an impact any more so than the small intestines. 26. esophagus vulnerability: In unmodified humans, the esophagus is particularly vulnerable to damage, and therefore pain, from an impact or pressure on the front of the trachea, as the esophagus is soft and is situated between the vertebra bones and the thick cartilaginous trachea. In the corrected state, the esophagus will be at least twice as thick as that of unmodified humans, such that it will be able to distribute the pressure and therefore be able to withstand a low level of pressure without being damaged. 27. testicle vulnerability: In unmodified humans, in males, the testicles are situated outside the main body, are unprotected, and are very vulnerable to damage and the resulting pain, such that males must be always be cautious not to damage them. In the corrected state, there will be a durable, semi-flexible wall of cartilage of about 1/8th of an inch thick (about 3 millimeters) that lines the scrotum and is anchored on the pelvis bone. 28. vagina vulnerability in childbirth: In unmodified humans, in females, the vagina is not constructed to easily stretch widely enough for a baby to fit through without causing significant tissue damage and resulting pain. In the corrected state, the vagina will be modified to be elastic enough to allow babies to pass through in the absence of tissue damage or the pain that results from it. 29. brain-skull interface: In unmodified humans, there is minimal cushioning substance between the brain and the skull, and as a result, the brain is very vulnerable to damage by mere low-intensity jarring, such as jerking the head by ones own neck muscles. In the corrected state, a cushioning tissue of about 1/4 of an inch (about 7 millimeters) will be between the brain and the skull. The presence of additional cushioning material that can protect the brain against high-intensity jarring constitutes an enhancement. The best biological cushioning substance is a matrix of collagen and elastin fibers and fat. not within a subcategory: 30. saliva secretion: In unmodified humans, there are 3 major sets of glands of the slime called saliva, those being the sublingual gland, the submaxillary gland, and the parotid gland. There are 2 components of saliva, which are the bubbly watery substance serous, which contains digestive enzymes, especially amylase, and the thick bubble-free substance mucus, which is a solution of the glycoprotein mucin. The sublingual glands produce mostly mucus, whereas the submaxillary and parotid glands produce mostly serous. Humans constantly produce and swallow saliva. Saliva serves the purpose of washing away the substances in the mouth that microbes feed and reproduce upon. Microbes in the mouth feed and reproduce on 2 substances, which are pieces of food and dead cells of the interior of the mouth. Due to the other genetic modification of preventing the continual division and death of cells of the interior of the mouth, the latter substance will no longer be a problem. Plain water is sufficient to clean pieces of food from the mouth. In the corrected state, the saliva glands will have the ability to secrete pure water in addition to serous and mucus. The degree of secretion of each of the 3 different types of saliva will be directly controlled by the frontal cortex (the thinking part of the brain). 31. sinus access: In unmodified humans, the nostril openings are small relative to the size of the nasal sinus, and a large, flat, vertical piece of cartilage called the septum splits both the nasal sinus and the nostrils into 2. The part of the septum in the nose is anchored to bones at the top and bottom of the nose. That causes those 2 bones to be very vulnerable to breakage due to bending of the septum. The nostril openings are constricted relative to the cavity within the nose. The nasal sinus often becomes clogged with semi-dry mucus, due to disease, allergic reactions, or for the purpose of filtering out airborne particles (which is related to allergic reactions). The function of mucus of filtering air is important for improving the oxygen supply to the blood. When the nasal sinus is clogged with mucus, the opposite occurs, as breathing is diverted to the mouth, which causes minimal air filtration. In the corrected state, the nasal septum will not exist and the nostril openings will be unconstricted, such that semi-solid mucus clogs in the nasal sinus can be removed. category: NEUROLOGICAL subcategory: control 32. esophagus peristalsis and gag reflexes: In unmodified humans, the esophagus automatically and irreversibly pushes food or other material down from top to bottom if it is placed in the top of the esophagus. That is called the peristalsis reflex. The intestines also have a peristalsis reflex. Often, a human eats toxic food, due to spoilage or otherwise, and smells the toxic odors of the contaminated food just as it is being swallowed by the peristalsis reflex, and the human is aware of the toxic nature of the food but is unable to regurgitate it because the peristalsis reflex has irreversibly pushed the contaminated food down. When a finger or other object is inserted into the back of the mouth, the gag reflex occurs, which consists of a tightening of the throat combined with a forward heave. That prevents the examination of the back of the mouth or the removal of any thick mucus, other thick semi-liquids, or other objects stuck there. In the corrected state, the esophagus peristalsis reflex will be reversible by the direct control of the conscious brain, and the gag reflex will not be present. 33. sleep induction and necessary duration: In unmodified humans, sleep occurs in relatively rigid cycles, and can be greatly altered by external factors, especially bright light versus dim light, standing versus laying posture (which is the result of the fact that norepinephrine is lower when one is laying, as norepinephrine causes wakefulness), gastrointestinal disturbance (which causes wakefulness), hunger (which causes wakefulness), and emotional arousal (which causes high norepinephrine and therefore wakefulness). Aside from the external factors that alter the time of sleep induction, sleep is primarily induced by neural fatigue. Sleep serves the function of expending energy largely for the purposes of growth, wound healing, and fighting disease, and sleep also serves the functions of consolidating memories and restoring the nervous system. The last of those functions is the one that sleep is most specificly essential for. A human that is completely deprived of sleep dies after approximately 10 days, due to degradation of the nervous system. The complete span of sleep for the average adult human is 7 hours (not 8 hours, as has often been popularized). A few humans, due to rare genetic alleles, can restore themselves with as little as 4 hours of sleep. Evolving rapid restoration to reduce sleep hours is no evolutionary difficulty, as long sleep hours exist primarily for the purpose of conserving energy, though it is not very efficient to that end, as the body temperature and heart rate do not lower greatly. Because of that, prey animals that are always vulnerable, particularly the ungulates, have unlengthened sleep hours, whereas animals that are in little danger, such as predators, have greatly lengthened sleep hours. The rigid sleep cycles create the effect called jet lag when a person has travelled by airplane over several timezones over a short period of time. The rigid sleep cycles, as well as the various external factors that effect sleep, greatly disrupt potential human productivity and schedule-keeping. In the corrected state, humans will be able to induce sleep directly from the frontal cortex (the thinking part of the brain) at any time, with an induction time of no more than 5 seconds, and they will be able to prolong wakefulness in a neurally-fatigued state for several hours without being involuntarily pulled into sleep. Due to accelerated restoration, the necessary duration of sleep will be at least as low as 4 hours. 34. vagus nerve and pituitary effects: In unmodified humans, the heart rate, blood pressure, vasodilation versus vasoconstriction, degree of perspiration on the hands and armpits, cortisol secretion (cortisol weakens various components of the body), and sebum production is not under any substantial direct control by the frontal cortex (the thinking part of the brain), but rather, with the exception of control by physical necessity (such as exercise or temperature), they are under the control of the emotions, especially anger and anxiety, but also other emotions as well. The control of those physiological functions by the emotions is mediated by norepinephrine, the vagus nerve (one of the 12 cranial nerves), the sympathetic nervous system (which is directed by a row of ganglions on each side of the spinal cord), the parasympathetic nervous system, and the pituitary gland (which is the 'master gland' which directs the other glands of the body). As a result of that emotional control, there are bad and/or distracting effects, such as muscle weakening (due to cortisol), weakened immune system (also due to cortisol), heart problems (due to blood pressure, heart rate, and vasoconstriction), itching (due to increased sebum production), the inability to hold writing utensils (due to palm sweating), and clothes soaking (due to increased armpit sweating). In the corrected state, the frontal cortex (the thinking part of the brain) will have direct control over the physical effects produced by the emotions on heart rate, blood pressure, vasodilation versus vasoconstriction, and cortisol secretion. The emotion-induced physiological effects of increased sweating of the palms and armpits and increased sebum production will be completely absent, as they serve no practical function, at least in modern humans. 35. detrimental strong motivational emotions: In unmodified humans, there is a vulnerability to having powerful emotions that can override the restraining force of judgment. The most notable emotions thereof are anger, fear, and desire for various pleasures. Judgment is caused by the prefrontal cortex. In the corrected state, humans will be able to directly restrain the strength of their motivational emotions from their frontal cortex, which is the thinking part of the brain. 36. penile erection: In unmodified humans, in males, the penis can become erect or stay erect against conscious intent, due to being controlled by other factors, those being psychological sexual arousal and non-psychological factors. Because of that, an erection that is visible can deceptively indicate that a human male is psychologically sexually aroused when they are not, and in turn cause others to consider them to be less responsible in their work ethic than they in fact are, and in turn trust them less than is appropriate. In the corrected state, penile erection will never occur nor maintain itself against conscious intent, due to a direct efferent neural pathway from the motor cortex to terminals that relax the veins of the penis, thereby terminating erection when intended. 37. ovulation periods: In unmodified humans, in females after the age of puberty, there is an involuntary 28-day cycle in which the sex hormones estradiol and progesterone greatly fluctuate, the uterus is prepared for birth with a lining of flesh that is rich in blood vessels, an egg is made fertile for conception, and the egg and the bloody uterus lining are discarded out of the vagina if conception does not occur in what is called menstruation, which is usually the case. The blood and other materials that are involuntarily expelled from the vagina can soil clothing and other objects and can disrupt activities, unless the vagina is plugged or covered with artificial absorbent material during the days that the menstrual discharge occurs or is likely to occur. The involuntary ovulation cycle can cause unintended pregnancy. In the corrected state, ovulation will be initiated directly by the conscious intent of the frontal lobe of the cerebrum, via a brain region adjacent to that which causes voluntary urination, and by no other cause. 38. memory management: In unmodified humans, memories (not excluding learned facts) can be formed and/or maintained against conscious intent, and memories can be lost against conscious intent. As a result, valued memories are often lost and unvalued memories increasingly consume the brain's capacity for memory until it is expended or nearly-expended, and that constitutes a major factor of aging. In the corrected state, there will be direct projections from the frontal lobe (the thinking part of the brain) to the parts of the brain that store memories, such that conscious intent can prevent the formation of a memory, erase or weaken a memory, or make a memory immune to automatic degradation. However, highly familiar, repetitively used memories will not be subject to being erased. not within a subcategory: 39. the hiccup reflex: In unmodified humans, there is an involuntary reflex, called a hiccup, that tightens the diaphragm and resultingly compresses and lifts the lungs and ribs, seals the throat, and creates a small amount of dull pain. In addition to the purposeless dull pain that hiccups cause, they disrupt breathing, talking, eating, and to a lesser extent, every other activity. Hiccups are caused by the phrenic nerve, which controls the contraction of the diaphragm. The phrenic nerve is prone to firing in the absence of stimuli or in the presence of irrelevant stimuli, especially the expansion of the esophagus or stomach due to food and/or drink. In the corrected state, the hiccup reflex will not be present, due to the phrenic nerve not firing in the presence of irrelevant stimuli or no stimuli at all. 40. yawning: In unmodified humans, there is an involuntary movement, called a yawn, in which the mouth opens and air is inhaled, though not necessarily through the mouth. The yawn might serve the useful purpose of clearing built-up carbon dioxide out of the lungs when appropriate, and the opening of the mouth may serve the useful purpose of increasing the effectiveness of the jaw muscle by eliminating the effects of short-term stagnation, as all reflexive stretching may do. However, the involuntary opening of the mouth disrupts speech, eating / drinking, and playing musical instruments, and can cause saliva, food / drink, or transported objects to fall out of the mouth. When a person observes an other person yawn, they themself feel like yawning and often do, which is disruptive to a person's activities. In the corrected state, the yawn will never occur when conscious intent is opposed to it, even if only somewhat opposed, and the observation of an other person's yawn will not increase the probability that one's self will yawn. 41. automatic neuron apoptosis: In unmodified humans, when certain neural pathways are inactive for a certain amount of time, they automaticly degrade. Destroying some of such neurons serves the useful function of making room for glials. To destroy a large fraction of such neurons serves the function of conserving a small amount of energy, at a great expense of functionality. The latter function is the only reason for pathway degradation in the periphery (outside the brain). In the corrected state, no automatic neural pathway degradation due to disuse will occur in the periphery, and the maximum degree of such automatic degradation in the brain will be greatly limited. 42. memory alteration: In unmodified humans, whenever a sensory memory (which is analog, as distinguished from learned facts, which are digital) is recalled, there is a large chance that it will be altered in the retrieval process, especially in the small details that are not specificly noted (as those noted details are digital). As a result, a given sensory memory is likely to become less accurate with every retrieval. In the corrected state, the retrieval of sensory memories will not cause them to be altered or prone to alteration. 43. subliminal messages, suggestion, and hypnosis: In unmodified humans, the action of the body (not excluding the brain) can be made to contradict natural conscious intent via the use of subliminal messages, the power of suggestion, and hypnosis. In the corrected state, subliminal messages, the power of suggestion, and hypnosis will not be capable of causing the action of the body to contradict conscious intent, due to the neural pathways that they depend upon being absent. 44. depression and excess pain: In unmodified humans, physical pain often occurs in uselessly high degrees. Physical pain serves the useful function of causing humans or other conscious animals to not do certain actions that are damaging to themself or to extricate themself from a situation that is damaging themself. Beyond a certain degree, pain does not motivate a person any more than that which is required for them to do all that they can to prevent themself from being damaged. Also, the high degree of pain impairs cognition, which is necessary to devise methods by which to prevent oneself from being damaged. In the corrected state, there will be un upper limit to the degree of physical pain that a human can feel, due to a limitation of the quantity of the brain receptors nk1, nk2, bradykinin receptors, and possibly also the nociceptin receptor. Depression will be completely absent, as it serves no practical function, at least in modern humans. 45. pleasure addiction and tolerance: In unmodified humans, the infusion into the bloodstream of chemicals that produce pleasure, and to a lesser extent the experience of any type of strong pleasure, produces a psychological dependence upon such pleasure so as to avoid a strong painful sensation of restlessness (caused by the nk1 receptor). It also decreases the strength of the pleasure that is produced from the same source (an effect called 'tolerance'), thus motivating erratic and unreliable behavior due to uncertain rewards. Tolerance is caused largely by the nociceptin receptor. In the corrected state, pleasure will not cause addiction or tolerance. 46. socially destructive evolutionary hangover character traits: In unmodified humans, there is malicious intent, malice being defined as the desire to perceive and act with crude blind wrongness, and it's opposite, goodwill, being defined as the desire to perceive and act with fine clear rightness. In a scientificly knowledgeable society, clear-sighted goodwill is beneficial and blind malice is detrimental, whereas in a scientificly unknowledgeable society, including that of the non-human animals, the opposite is more often than not true. Specificly, malice has various effects, which are: 1. the desire to maintain problems rather than overcome them, 2. the desire to arbitrarily control, harass, torture, and steal from others, and 3. the desire to serve a single clan patriarch at the expense of the group. When technology is poor, it is more beneficial to the species to maliciously ignore problems rather then overcome them. When heredity and controlled humane eugenics is unknown of, it is more beneficial to the species to engage in random dominance competition, and to be permissive toward the aggression one's own children, than to breed all individuals without restriction. When the benefits of large-scale teamwork are unknown of, it is better to serve the inefficient whims of a clan patriarch (the instinctive basis of nationalism and the belief in a god) then to live autonomously. Malice is caused by the serotonin receptors 5-HT2A, 5-HT2B, and 5-HT2C, the production of which is induced by sex hormones, whereas goodwill is caused by the histamine receptor H1 and the acetylcholine receptors M1 and M3. The histamine receptor H2 causes perfectionism, which is necessary for an individual to pursue useful large and long-term goals. Activity of the malicious receptors is inhibited by the inhibitory receptor 5-HT1A, and activity of the goodwilled receptors is inhibited by the inhibitory receptor M2 and a receptor of galantamine. Acetylcholine release is facilitated by the presynaptic nicotinic receptors. There are also neuropsychological side effects of goodwill and malice that have evolved as a result of the chronic favor of malice. Those are: 1. The 5-HT2C receptor increases endorphin, the 5-HT2A receptor increases dopamine, the M1 receptor decreases dopamine, and endorphin increases serotonin, 2. Acetylcholine increases the anxiety chemical cholecystokinin (cholecystokinin also causes acceleration pain), and cholecystokinin decreases both serotonin and endorphin. Also, pain that results from acceleration is caused by neural pathways in the brain that use the neurotransmitters cholecystokinin and acetylcholine, 3. M4 acetylcholine receptors convert norepinephrine into epinephrine, 4. Acetylcholine decreases multitasking ability due to the action of the M4 receptors of the striatum and possibly other factors as well, though that may also increase the ability to concentrate, 5. Sex hormones (which induce the production of malice receptors) increase the production of growth hormone (which causes physical and mental energy) or are increased in response to high growth hormone. Specificly, dihydrotestosterone increases the production of growth hormone, and growth hormone increases the production of progesterone and to a lesser extent estradiol, 6. Dihydrotestosterone induces the production of pain-decreasing enkephalin in the cingulate cortex, and estradiol induces the production of beta-endorphin, and 7. Sex hormones increase the quality of the body. Specificly, all of the sex hormones increase fertility, dihydrotestosterone causes muscle disinhibition and increased speed of muscle growth in response to exercise, especially in males, estradiol and progesterone increase bone strength and increase a female's ability to give birth to and breastfeed offspring, and all of the sex hormones improve physical attractiveness. (end of list) All of those detrimental neurological side effects of goodwill may collectively be called 'goodwill side-effect syndrome'. In the corrected state, nuclear sex hormone receptors will not induce the production of 5-HT2 receptors. Sex hormones will be medium to high, as their beneficial effects will occur without their detrimental effects. Serotonin and galanin will be low, and acetylcholine and histamine will be high. Acetylcholine will not increase the level of cholecystokinin, the M4 receptor will not convert norepinephrine into epinephrine, and acetylcholine will not impair multitasking ability, though no ability to concentrate will be sacrificed. Although this modification is a correction, it is also the basic modification that must be made to a genome before any enhancements should be made to it. This modification also guarantees that the modified human will support transhumanism. PART 3: Application As of now, mid 2005, transhumanist work has consisted of nothing except discussions, news-sharing, political debating, and some political work on behalf of issues that are related to transhumanism. There have apparently been no attempts at actually IMPLEMENTING transhumanism, that is, modifying human zygotes (probably produced in test tubes), most likely via a retroviral gene-delivery vector. The genome of an unmodified human has approximately 22,000 genes (in contrast to an early crude estimate of approximately 30,000 genes). Before the genetic modification of human zygotes occurs, it is first necessary to research the relevant genes and proteins of the various traits that are to be modified. That constitutes identifying what genes and proteins produce a specific trait; discovering how they produce that trait; learning their sequences; using that information to extrapolate the nature of the modified genes and proteins and their sequences; and testing the modified genes in animals (preferably fast-growing animals) that are sufficiently geneticly similar to humans in the relevant genes, until the modified genes function successfully. An other option is to geneticly engineer laboratory animals to grow more rapidly (so as to get faster test results) and/or to have more human-like genes (so as to get more accurate test results). It is therefore in the immediate interest of transhumanists to share any of the aforementioned research information. From checker at panix.com Sat Oct 1 19:20:29 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Sat, 1 Oct 2005 15:20:29 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] Daniel H. Wilson: How to Survive the Robot Uprising Message-ID: How to Survive the Robot Uprising Tips on Defending Yourself against the Coming Rebellion http;//www.robotuprising.com An inspired and hilarious look at how humans can defeat the inevitable robot rebellion-as revealed by a robotics expert. How do you spot a robot mimicking a human? How do you recognize and then deactivate a rebel servant robot? How do you escape a murderous "smart" house, or evade a swarm of marauding robotic flies? In this dryly hilarious survival guide, roboticist Daniel H. Wilson teaches worried humans the keys to quashing a robot mutiny. >From treating laser wounds to fooling face and speech recognition, besting robot logic to engaging in hand-to-pincer combat, How to Survive a Robot Uprising covers every possible doomsday scenario facing the newest endangered species: humans. And with its thorough overview of current robot prototypes-including giant walkers, insect, gecko, and snake robots-How to Survive a Robot Uprising is also a witty yet legitimate introduction to contemporary robotics. Full of charming illustrations, and referencing some of the most famous robots in pop-culture, How to Survive a Robot Uprising is a one-of-a-kind book that is sure to be a hit with all ages. Daniel H. Wilson is a Ph.D. candidate at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University, where he has received master's degrees in Robotics and Data Mining. He has worked in top research laboratories, including Microsoft Research, the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), and Intel Research Seattle. Daniel currently lives with several unsuspecting roommates in a fully wired smart house in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This is his first book. From checker at panix.com Sat Oct 1 19:20:34 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Sat, 1 Oct 2005 15:20:34 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] Foreign Policy: The Prospect/FP Top 100 Public Intellectuals Message-ID: The Prospect/FP Top 100 Public Intellectuals http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3249&print=1 Posted September 2005 [webOnly.gif] [This is a difficult list. My choices, among those listed, would be Baudrillard, Eco, Geertz, Habermas, and E.O. Wilson, at least for their long term influence. James M. Buchanan, one of the Founding Fathers of Public Choice theory, would certainly qualify as influential, since nearly everyone now accepts the idea that politicians mostly aim to get reelected, though he is hardly an "public intellectual," who weighs in constantly on all the issues of the day. But, then, several of the ones I chose are not on the teevee talk circuit either. I'll have to think about it more and do my own voting. I'm not a fan of Geertz' studious avoidance of biology, for example, but that does not mean he has not been highly influential. Far from it.] Who are the world's leading public intellectuals? FP and Britain's Prospect magazine would like to know who you think makes the cut. We've selected our top 100, and want you to vote for your top five. If you don't see a name that you think deserves top honors, include them as a write-in candidate. Voting closes October 10, and the results will be posted the following month. Name Occupation Country Chinua Achebe Novelist Nigeria Jean Baudrillard Sociologist, cultural critic France Gary Becker Economist United States Pope Benedict XVI Religious leader Germany, Vatican Jagdish Bhagwati Economist India, United States Fernando Henrique Cardoso Sociologist, former president Brazil Noam Chomsky Linguist, author, activist United States J.M. Coetzee Novelist South Africa Gordon Conway Agricultural ecologist Britain Robert Cooper Diplomat, writer Britain Richard Dawkins Biologist, polemicist Britain Hernando de Soto Economist Peru Pavol Demes Political analyst Slovakia Daniel Dennett Philosopher United States Kemal Dervis Economist Turkey Jared Diamond Biologist, physiologist, historian United States Freeman Dyson Physicist United States Shirin Ebadi Lawyer, human rights activist Iran Umberto Eco Medievalist, novelist Italy Paul Ekman Psychologist United States Fan Gang Economist China Niall Ferguson Historian Britain Alain Finkielkraut Essayist, philosopher France Thomas Friedman Journalist, author United States Francis Fukuyama Political scientist, author United States Gao Xingjian Novelist, playwright China Howard Gardner Psychologist United States Timothy Garton Ash Historian Britain Henry Louis Gates Jr. Scholar, cultural critic United States Clifford Geertz Anthropologist United States Neil Gershenfeld Physicist, computer scientist United States Anthony Giddens Sociologist Britain Germaine Greer Writer, academic Australia, Britain J?rgen Habermas Philosopher Germany Ha Jin Novelist China V?clav Havel Playwright, statesman Czech Republic Ayaan Hirsi Ali Politician Somalia, Netherlands Christopher Hitchens Polemicist United States, Britain Eric Hobsbawm Historian Britain Robert Hughes Art critic Australia Samuel Huntington Political scientist United States Michael Ignatieff Writer, human rights theorist Canada Shintaro Ishihara Politician, author Japan Robert Kagan Author, political commentator United States Daniel Kahneman Psychologist Israel, United States Sergei Karaganov Foreign-policy analyst Russia Paul Kennedy Historian Britain, United States Gilles Kepel Scholar of Islam France Naomi Klein Journalist, author Canada Rem Koolhaas Architect Netherlands Enrique Krauze Historian Mexico Julia Kristeva Philosopher France Paul Krugman Economist, columnist United States Hans K?ng Theologian Switzerland Jaron Lanier Virtual reality pioneer United States Lawrence Lessig Legal scholar United States Bernard Lewis Historian Britain, United States Bj?rn Lomborg Environmentalist Denmark James Lovelock Scientist Britain Kishore Mahbubani Author, diplomat Singapore Ali Mazrui Political scientist Kenya Sunita Narain Environmentalist India Antonio Negri Philosopher, activist Italy Martha Nussbaum Philosopher United States Sari Nusseibeh Diplomat, philosopher Palestine Kenichi Ohmae Management theorist Japan Amos Oz Novelist Israel Camille Paglia Social critic, author United States Orhan Pamuk Novelist Turkey Steven Pinker Experimental psychologist Canada, United States Richard Posner Judge, scholar, author United States Pramoedya Ananta Toer Writer, dissident Indonesia Yusuf al-Qaradawi Cleric Egypt, Qatar Robert Putnam Political scientist United States Tariq Ramadan Scholar of Islam Switzerland Martin Rees Astrophysicist Britain Richard Rorty Philosopher United States Salman Rushdie Novelist, political commentator Britain, India Jeffrey Sachs Economist United States Elaine Scarry Literary theorist United States Amartya Sen Economist India Peter Singer Philosopher Australia Ali al-Sistani Cleric Iran, Iraq Peter Sloterdijk Philosopher Germany Abdolkarim Soroush Religious theorist Iran Wole Soyinka Playwright, activist Nigeria Lawrence Summers Economist, academic United States Mario Vargas Llosa Novelist, politician Peru Harold Varmus Medical scientist United States Craig Venter Biologist, businessman United States Michael Walzer Political theorist United States Florence Wambugu Plant Pathologist Kenya Wang Jisi Foreign-policy analyst China Steven Weinberg Physicist United States E.O. Wilson Biologist United States James Q. Wilson Criminologist United States Paul Wolfowitz Policymaker, academic United States Fareed Zakaria Journalist, author United States Zheng Bijian Political scientist China Slavoj Zizek Sociologist, philosopher Slovenia [4][Vote_here.gif] 4. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/redirect/6236.php Criteria The irony of this "thinkers" list is that it does not bear thinking about too closely. The problems of definition and judgment that it involves would discourage more rigorous souls. But some criteria must be spelled out. What is a public intellectual? Someone who has shown distinction in their own field along with the ability to communicate ideas and influence debate outside of it. Candidates must have been alive, and still active in public life (though many on this list are past their prime). Such criteria ruled out the likes of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Milton Friedman, who would have been automatic inclusions 20 or so years ago. This list is about public influence, not intrinsic achievement. And that is where things get really tricky. Judging influence is hard enough inside one's own culture, but when you are peering across cultures and languages, the problem becomes far harder. Obviously our list of 100 has been influenced by where most of us sit, in the English-speaking West. We tried to avoid the "box ticking" problem of having x Chinese, y economists and z under-50s. But we have also tried to give due weight to the important thinkers in all the main intellectual disciplines and centers of population. We also tried to ensure that all names on the list are influential in at least a few countries in their region, if not the entire globe. We may not have succeeded in following all these rules to the letter, but for those of you irritated by our choices, there is a small safety valve--a write-in vote that allows you to nominate a name that wasn't included on our list. -- Prospect and Foreign Policy From checker at panix.com Sat Oct 1 19:20:41 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Sat, 1 Oct 2005 15:20:41 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] Foreign Policy: Dangerously Unique Message-ID: Dangerously Unique http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3212 MISSING LINKS: COLUMNS ON THE SURPRISES OF GLOBALIZATION Dangerously Unique By Mois?s Na?m September/October 2005 Why our definition of "normalcy" can be costly for everyone else. You are not normal. If you are reading these pages, you probably belong to the minority of the world's population that has a steady job, adequate access to social security, and enjoys substantial political freedoms. Moreover, you live on more than $2 a day, and, unlike 860 million others, you can read. The percentage of humanity that combines all of these attributes is minuscule. According to the World Bank, about half of humanity lives on less than $2 a day, while the International Labour Organization reckons that a third of the available labor force is unemployed or underemployed, and half of the world's population has no access to any kind of social security. Freedom House, an organization that studies countries' political systems, categorizes 103 of the world's 192 nations as either "not free" or "partially free," meaning that the civil liberties and basic political rights of their citizens are limited or severely curtailed. More than 3.6 billion people, or 56 percent of the world, live in such countries. Statistically, a "normal" human being in today's world is poor, lives in oppressive physical, social, and political conditions, and is ruled by unresponsive and corrupt government. But normalcy is not only defined by statistics. Normal implies something that is "usual, typical, or expected." Therefore, normal is not only what is statistically most frequent but also what others assume it to be. In this sense, the expectations of a tiny minority trump the realities of the vast majority. There is an enormous gap between what average citizens in advanced Western democracies--and the richer elites everywhere--assume is or should be normal, and the daily realities faced by the overwhelming majority of people. Information about the dire conditions common in poor countries is plentiful and widely discussed. Curiously, however, expectations about what it means to be normal in today's world continue to reflect the abnormal reality of a few rich countries rather than the global norm. We assume that it is normal to eat at least three meals a day, to walk the streets without fear, and to have access to water, electricity, phones, and public transportation. Sadly, it is not. Today, 852 million people, including many children and the elderly, do not get three meals a day, and when they do, their meals do not provide them with the daily caloric intake required by a normal person. Roughly 1.6 billion people lack access to electricity, and 2.4 billion rely on traditional fuels such as wood and dung for cooking and heating. Thirty percent of the world's population has never made a phone call. Street crime and urban violence are normal in most of the world. The average homicide rate in Latin America and the Caribbean is about 25 per 100,000 inhabitants and, in sub-Saharan Africa, it is roughly 18 murders per 100,000. (In the European Union, there are just 3 homicides for every 100,000 inhabitants.) An estimated 246 million children, about 1 in 6, work, and 73 million of them are less than 10 years old. Whereas childbirth is typically an occasion for celebration in high-income countries, it is a source of death, disease, and disability elsewhere. According to the World Health Organization, more than half a million women die every year due to pregnancy-related complications in the developing world, where the risk of maternal mortality is 1 in 61. In rich countries, the risk of maternal mortality is 1 in 2,800. [EMBED] This distorted perception of what is normal can take on subtler forms. Consider, for example, our common assumptions about the quality of the news we get. We tend to assume that the news is free from government interference. Yet, in most of the world, that is not the case. A World Bank survey of media ownership found that in 97 countries, 72 percent of the top five radio stations and 60 percent of the top five TV companies were state-owned. The study also found strong statistical evidence that countries with greater state ownership of the media have fewer political rights, less developed markets, and strikingly inferior education and health. Rich-world assumptions about what constitutes the global norm are costly illusions. Billions of dollars have been wasted by assuming that governments in poorer countries are more or less like those in rich ones, only a little less efficient. Despite constant reminders that most governments in the world are unable to perform relatively simple tasks, such as delivering the mail or collecting the garbage, most recipes for how these countries should solve their problems reflect the sophisticated capabilities taken for granted in rich countries, not the realities that exist everywhere else. We want people to have a better life, and it is natural that our definition of normal serves as a compass for helping others. The gap between what we assume is normal and the reality that billions of people face is driven less by a parochial propensity to impose our experience on others than a sincere expression of our values. Nor should values be abandoned--they are our true north and point us in the direction where progress lies. But our strongly felt ideals must not become the basis for policy. At a time when values have become so common in political discourse, it is important to remain alert to when our advice is built on faulty assumptions about what is normal. When that happens, values lead to bad decisions, not moral clarity. Mois?s Na?m is editor in chief of FOREIGN POLICY. From shovland at mindspring.com Sat Oct 1 07:20:20 2005 From: shovland at mindspring.com (shovland at mindspring.com) Date: Sat, 1 Oct 2005 00:20:20 -0700 (GMT-07:00) Subject: [Paleopsych] "Avoid Unnecessary Travel" Message-ID: <3519976.1128151221187.JavaMail.root@mswamui-backed.atl.sa.earthlink.net> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: UnnecessaryTravel.jpg Type: image/pjpeg Size: 156973 bytes Desc: not available URL: From checker at panix.com Sun Oct 2 19:31:29 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2005 15:31:29 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: Bizarre and Infamous Join Scholarship in an Archive of Psychology Message-ID: Bizarre and Infamous Join Scholarship in an Archive of Psychology http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/27/health/psychology/27muse.html By DAN HURLEY AKRON, Ohio - Just 45 minutes from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, half an hour from the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton and two blocks from the Inventors Hall of Fame in this city's downtown is an attraction like no other. Where else but at the Archives of the History of American Psychology can visitors see the uniforms and billy clubs used in the Stanford Prison Experiment, in which students ended up acting the role of guards all too realistically; watch a home movie of Freud batting fruit out of a tree with his cane; or have the bumps on their heads measured to calculate their personalities and career prospects with a 1933 psychograph? Forty years after its founding at the University of Akron as a national repository for scholars, the archives - psychology's attic - have amassed not only the papers of more than 740 psychologists, but also a dazzling array of their instruments, ephemera, photographs and films. Although it is a beacon to historians from around the world and the source of hundreds of scholarly articles and books, the archives remains virtually unknown to the public at large. "Never heard of it," said the administrator of an office one floor up in the same building. No sign on Main Street here indicates the presence of the archives in, unfittingly enough, the basement of the former Polsky department store, now a branch of the University of Akron. Not even the directory next to the elevators on the main floor lists it. "Isn't it amazing, all this stuff down in a basement in Akron?" asked the archive director, Dr. David B. Baker, who is also a professor of psychology at the university. Surrounded by century-old devices as arcane as they are beautiful, Dr. Baker described his twin mission to increase the visibility of the archives and the field it illuminates. The archive was named an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution in 2003. In April, Roadway Express, the trucking company, announced that it was donating a large building next to the University of Akron to allow the archives to escape its basement hiding place and expand its public offerings. "The field of psychology has mushroomed," he said. "It's getting more and more specialized. But we do have common roots. The place where we all meet is here, in our history." He traced the roots of recent efforts to evaluate the level of consciousness of Terri Schiavo, the comatose Florida woman who died on March 31, to many of the antique instruments in the archives. Built more than a century ago of brass and glass, they were designed to measure perception and the discrimination of visual, audio and tactile stimuli. One instrument built around 1880, the chronoscope, could measure how long it took a person to react to a stimulus down to the hundredth of a second. "Things like reaction time, which now seem deadly dull, were of the utmost importance," Dr. Baker said. "They were some of the very first scientific demonstrations of the ability to measure mind. That's what got people excited 100 years ago." Testing was, in fact, the raison d'?tre of psychology until just after World War II, he noted, when psychologists were first permitted to offer clinical care in response to the needs of returning veterans. Even the bizarre psychograph, Dr. Baker said, was predicated on a theory that remains a bedrock of modern research, that different regions of the brain have differing functions that can be measured and described. Although psychologists and neurologists of today measure those regions using magnetic resonant imaging, 19th-century phrenologists believed that those regions could be calculated from outside. The device is one of three remaining in the United States. With its 1,954 parts housed in a walnut case, it sits in a corner of the reading room, its crown of calipers ready to measure every nook and node of the skull. "You'll have to remove your glasses," John Bean, an undergraduate in psychology who works as an assistant at the archives, said as he put on latex gloves to place the sharp, heavy calipers on a visiting reporter's skull. In less than two minutes, it cranked out a kind of ticker tape giving a five-point rating, from "poor" to "excellent," on 28 personality variables like benevolence, suavity, caution, conscientiousness, acquisitiveness and conjugal love. The device automatically combined the variables to predict suitability for various professions, a process that Mr. Bean modernized with a computer spreadsheet. "Do you want to see your results?" Dr. Baker asked. "Your highest score, you've got 70 percent on mechanic, followed by pugilist, at 60 percent. How did you do on journalist? Forty-five percent. You have a higher score as a zeppelin attendant." Among the more than 1,000 instruments in the collection, a crown jewel is the simulated shock generator designed by Dr. Stanley Milgram. It was used in experiments in the early 1960's to investigate how far people would go to obey instructions from an authority figure. The participants were told that they were in a study on using electric shocks to penalize participants who failed a simple learning test. They were instructed to flick switches that would deliver steadily more intense shocks, from mild to dangerously severe. In fact, despite the convincing labels and knobs, the shocks were imaginary, and volunteers pretended to react in pain to the nonexistent shocks. Dr. Milgram found that nearly half of the real subjects followed orders to inflict pain that they were convinced was real. "It's probably one of the most important psychological experiments of the 20th century," Dr. Baker said. "It deals with a very fundamental question about the nature of good and evil. We like to believe that it would only be a very sick and evil person who would inflict torture on others. He showed us otherwise." Standing 30 feet from the display, he demonstrated a more harmless test of conformity, conducted on visitors to the exhibition. A sign at the front entrance instructed visitors to step only on black tiles in a passageway with a floor of alternating black and white tiles. Sure enough, Dr. Baker watched as a family of visitors followed the instructions. "They were like a group of ducklings there," he said. "That's what Milgram said, we're very compliant." Similar conclusions were reached in the early 70's, when Dr. Philip G. Zimbardo of Stanford carried out his prison experiment in which students, told to act and dress as prison guards, quickly began mistreating other students dressed as prisoners. On display in addition to the guards' and prisoners' uniforms are fake cans of Chemical Mace and a cell door used in the experiment. For all the interest generated by such displays, the primary draw to historians is a trove of psychologists' papers, the largest such collection in the world. Ronald F. Levant, president of the American Psychological Association, said the papers represented the field's "institutional memory." Dr. Alexandra Rutherford, coordinator of one of only two graduate-level programs in the history of psychology, at York University in Toronto, said she and many of her students had often visited the archives. "AHAP is a world-class resource for any historian of psychology or the social sciences," Dr. Rutherford said, adding that many articles published by psychology journals were based on research there. "I can't tell you how many visits I've made, probably 25," said Ludy T. Benjamin Jr., professor of psychology at Texas A&M. "Probably 75 percent of what I've written in the last 30 years has come at least partially from that collection. Those are the best moments of my professional life, to be able to sit at one of those tables and read somebody else's mail. There's a real rush to that." A bit of the frisson of discovery may be felt walking down Row 17 of the stacks, where the papers of Dr. Abraham Maslow, the humanistic psychologist, are in numbered boxes. Box M437, picked at random, had a folder marked "expression, spontaneity." Inside was a column of an undated article from The New Yorker torn from its surrounding page. The article, apparently addressing the question of why writers write, offered this dour answer, "All work and creative action is a way to snatch ourselves from the meaninglessness of transience." Dr. Maslow would have none of it. In his angular, easily legible script, the psychologist famed for extolling the search for peak experiences had scribbled this typically Maslovian answer: "To objectify our subjective thought so as to be able to look at it and improve it toward perfection. To seek peak experiences." Much as he knows that such papers offer profound insights into the history of psychology, Dr. Baker's passion for the peculiar and absurd in the equipment he guards is undeniable. "It's a shame you won't be here on Friday," he said. "A U-Haul full of stuff from this place called the IQ Zoo is coming. They were the ones who worked with Skinner on a pigeon-guided missile. When a collection arrives, it's like Christmas morning. It's like, 'Oh my gosh, look at this stuff.' " It was to make such "stuff" available that Dr. John A. Popplestone and the late Dr. Marion White McPherson, the married couple who taught psychology at the university, established the archives in 1965. Forced to teach a course on the history of psychology, Dr. Popplestone casually said to his wife one evening that the field would never amount to anything without a central archive. He recalled her saying, "That's the best idea you've had in quite a while." From checker at panix.com Sun Oct 2 19:31:35 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2005 15:31:35 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] Journal of Religion and Society: Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies Message-ID: Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies Journal of Religion and Society http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html [Creighton is a Roman Catholic Jesuit university, founded in Omaha in 1878. First, an summary from the Times of London, to which Laird alerted me.] NATIONS WITH GOD ON THEIR SIDE DO WORSE RUTH GLEDHILL, TIMES, UK - Religious belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today. According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems. The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society. It compares the social performance of relatively secular countries, such as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator rather than the theory of evolution. Many conservative evangelicals in the US consider Darwinism to be a social evil, believing that it inspires atheism and amorality. Many liberal Christians and believers of other faiths hold that religious belief is socially beneficial, believing that it helps to lower rates of violent crime, murder, suicide, sexual promiscuity and abortion. The benefits of religious belief to a society have been described as its "spiritual capital". But the study claims that the devotion of many in the US may actually contribute to its ills. The paper, published in the Journal of Religion and Society, a US academic journal, reports: "Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world. "In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies. The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so." Gregory Paul, the author of the study and a social scientist, used data from the International Social Survey Program, Gallup and other research bodies to reach his conclusions. . . The study concluded that the US was the world's only prosperous democracy where murder rates were still high, and that the least devout nations were the least dysfunctional. Mr Paul said that rates of gonorrhea in adolescents in the US were up to 300 times higher than in less devout democratic countries. The US also suffered from " uniquely high" adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, and adolescent abortion rates, the study suggested. . . He said that the disparity was even greater when the US was compared with other countries, including France, Japan and the Scandinavian countries. These nations had been the most successful in reducing murder rates, early mortality, sexually transmitted diseases and abortion, he added. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1798944,00.html ------------------- ISSN: 1522-5658 Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies A First Look Gregory S. Paul Baltimore, Maryland Introduction [1] Two centuries ago there was relatively little dispute over the existence of God, or the societally beneficial effect of popular belief in a creator. In the twentieth century extensive secularization occurred in western nations, the United States being the only significant exception (Bishop; Bruce; Gill et al.; Sommerville). If religion has receded in some western nations, what is the impact of this unprecedented transformation upon their populations? Theists often assert that popular belief in a creator is instrumental towards providing the moral, ethical and other foundations necessary for a healthy, cohesive society. Many also contend that widespread acceptance of evolution, and/or denial of a creator, is contrary to these goals. But a cross-national study verifying these claims has yet to be published. That radically differing worldviews can have measurable impact upon societal conditions is plausible according to a number of mainstream researchers (Bainbridge; Barro; Barro and McCleary; Beeghley; Groeneman and Tobin; Huntington; Inglehart and Baker; Putman; Stark and Bainbridge). Agreement with the hypothesis that belief in a creator is beneficial to societies is largely based on assumption, anecdotal accounts, and on studies of limited scope and quality restricted to one population (Benson et al.; Hummer et al.; Idler and Kasl; Stark and Bainbridge). A partial exception is given by Barro and McCleary, who correlated economic growth with rates of belief in the afterlife and church attendance in numerous nations (while Kasman and Reid [2004] commented that Europe does not appear to be suffering unduly from its secularization). It is surprising that a more systematic examination of the question has not been previously executed since the factors required to do so are in place. The twentieth century acted, for the first time in human history, as a vast Darwinian global societal experiment in which a wide variety of dramatically differing social-religious-political-economic systems competed with one another, with varying degrees of success. A quantitative cross-national analysis is feasible because a large body of survey and census data on rates of religiosity, secularization, and societal indicators has become available in the prosperous developed democracies including the United States. [2] This study is a first, brief look at an important subject that has been almost entirely neglected by social scientists. The primary intent is to present basic correlations of the elemental data. Some conclusions that can be gleaned from the plots are outlined. This is not an attempt to present a definitive study that establishes cause versus effect between religiosity, secularism and societal health. It is hoped that these original correlations and results will spark future research and debate on the issue. The Belief that Religiosity is Socially Beneficial [3] As he helped initiate the American experiment Benjamin Franklin stated that "religion will be a powerful regulator of our actions, give us peace and tranquility within our minds, and render us benevolent, useful and beneficial to others" (Isaacson: 87-88). When the theory of biological evolution removed the need for a supernatural creator concerns immediately arose over the societal implications of widespread abandonment of faith (Desmond and Moore; Numbers). In 1880 the religious moralist Dostoyevsky penned the famous warning that "if God does not exist, then everything is permissible." Even so, in Europe the issue has not been a driving focus of public and political dispute, especially since the world wars. [4] Although its proponents often claim that anti-evolution creationism[1]<1> is scientific, it has abjectly failed in the practical realms of mainstream science and hi-tech industry (Ayala et al.; Crews; Cziko; Dawkins, 1996, 1997; Dennett; Gould; Koza et al.; L. Lane; Miller; Paul and Cox; Shanks; Wise; Young and Edis). The continuing popularity of creationism in America indicates that it is in reality a theistic social-political movement partly driven by concerns over the societal consequences of disbelief in a creator (Forrest and Gross; Numbers). The person most responsible for politicizing the issue in America, evangelical Christian W. J. Bryan,[2]<2> expressed relatively little interest in evolution until the horrors of WW I inspired him to blame the scientific revolution that invented chemical warfare and other modern ills for "preaching that man has a brute ancestry and eliminating the miraculous and the supernatural from the Bible" (Numbers: 178). [5] In the United States many conservative theists consider evolutionary science a leading contributor to social dysfunction because it is amoral or worse, and because it inspires disbelief in a moral creator (Colson and Pearcey; Eve and Harrold; Johnson; Numbers; Pearcey; Schroeder). The original full title for the creationist Discovery Institute was the Discovery Institute for the Renewal of Science and Culture (a title still applied to a division), and the institute's mission challenges "materialism on specifically scientific grounds" with the intent of reversing "some of materialism's destructive cultural consequences." The strategy for achieving these goals is the "wedge" strategy to insert intelligent design creationism into mainstream academe and subsequently destroy Darwinian science (Johnson; Forrest and Gross note this effort is far behind schedule). The Discovery Institute and the less conservative, even more lavishly funded pro-theistic Templeton Foundation fund research into the existence and positive societal influence of a creator (Harris et al.; Holden). In 2000 the Discovery Institute held a neocreationist seminar for members of Congress (Applegate). Politically and socially powerful conservatives have deliberately worked to elevate popular concerns over a field of scientific and industrial research to such a level that it qualifies as a major societal fear factor. The current House majority leader T. Daley contends that high crime rates and tragedies like the Columbine assault will continue as long schools teach children "that they are nothing but glorified apes who have evolutionized [sic] out of some primordial soup of mud" (DeLay and Dawson). Today's leaders of the world's largest Christian denomination, the Catholic Church, share a dim view of the social impact of evolution. In his inauguration speech, Benedict XVI lauded the benefits of belief in a creator and contended, "we are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution." A leading church cleric and theologian (Schonborn) proclaimed that "the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design" refutes the mindless creation of Darwinian natural selection (also Dean, Dean and Goodstein). [6] Agreement with the hypothesis that popular religiosity is societally advantageous is not limited to those opposed to evolutionary science, or to conservatives. The basic thesis can be held by anyone who believes in a benign creator regardless of the proposed mode of creation, or the believer's social-political worldview. In broad terms the hypothesis that popular religiosity is socially beneficial holds that high rates of belief in a creator, as well as worship, prayer and other aspects of religious practice, correlate with lowering rates of lethal violence, suicide, non-monogamous sexual activity, and abortion, as well as improved physical health. Such faith-based, virtuous "cultures of life" are supposedly attainable if people believe that God created them for a special purpose, and follow the strict moral dictates imposed by religion. At one end of the spectrum are those who consider creator belief helpful but not necessarily critical to individuals and societies. At the other end the most ardent advocates consider persons and people inherently unruly and ungovernable unless they are strictly obedient to the creator (as per Barna; Colson and Pearcey; Johnson; Pearcey; Schroeder). Barro labels societal advantages that are associated with religiosity "spiritual capital," an extension of Putman's concept of "social capital." The corresponding view that western secular materialism leads to "cultures of death" is the official opinion of the Papacy, which claims, "the proabortion culture is especially strong precisely where the Church's teaching on contraception is rejected" (John Paul II). In the United States popular support for the cultural and moral superiority of theism is so extensive that popular disbelief in God ranks as another major societal fear factor. [7] The media (Stepp) gave favorable coverage to a report that children are hardwired towards, and benefit from, accepting the existence of a divine creator on an epidemiological and neuro-scientific basis (Benson et al.). Also covered widely was a Federal report that the economic growth of nations positively responds to high rates of belief in hell and heaven.[3]<3> Faith-based charities and education are promoted by the Bush administration[4]<4> and religious allies and lobbies as effective means of addressing various social problems (Aronson; Goodstein). The conservative Family Research Council proclaims, "believing that God is the author of life, liberty and the family, FRC promotes the Judeo-Christian worldview as the basis for a just, free and stable society." Towards the liberal end of the political spectrum presidential candidate Al Gore supported teaching both creationism and evolution, his running mate Joe Leiberman asserted that belief in a creator is instrumental to "secure the moral future of our nation, and raise the quality of life for all our people," and presidential candidate John Kerry emphasized his religious values in the latter part of his campaign. [8] With surveys showing a strong majority from conservative to liberal believing that religion is beneficial for society and for individuals, many Americans agree that their church-going nation is an exceptional, God blessed, "shining city on the hill" that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly skeptical world. But in the other developing democracies religiosity continues to decline precipitously and avowed atheists often win high office, even as clergies warn about adverse societal consequences if a revival of creator belief does not occur (Reid, 2001). Procedures and Primary Data Sources [9] Levels of religious and nonreligious belief and practice, and indicators of societal health and dysfunction, have been most extensively and reliably surveyed in the prosperous developed democracies ([5]Figures 1-9). Similar data is often lacking for second and third world nations, or is less reliable. The cultural and economic similarity of the developing democracies minimizes the variability of factors outside those being examined. The approximately 800 million mostly middle class adults and children act as a massive epidemiological experiment that allows hypotheses that faith in a creator or disbelief in evolution improves or degrades societal conditions to be tested on an international scale. The extent of this data makes it potentially superior to results based on much smaller sample sizes. Data is from the 1990s, most from the middle and latter half of the decade, or the early 2000s. [10] Data sources for rates of religious belief and practice as well as acceptance of evolution are the 1993 Environment I (Bishop) and 1998 Religion II polls conducted by the International Social Survey Program (ISSP), a cross-national collaboration on social science surveys using standard methodologies that currently involves 38 nations. The last survey interviewed approximately 23,000 people in almost all (17) of the developing democracies; Portugal is also plotted as an example of a second world European democracy. Results for western and eastern Germany are combined following the regions' populations. England is generally Great Britain excluding Northern Ireland; Holland is all of the Netherlands. The results largely agree with national surveys on the same subjects; for example, both ISSP and Gallup indicate that absolute plus less certain believers in a higher power are about 90% of the U.S. population. The plots include Bible literalism and frequency of prayer and service attendance, as well as absolute belief in a creator, in order to examine religiosity in terms of ardency, conservatism, and activities. Self-reported rates of religious attendance and practice may be significantly higher than actual rates (Marler and Hadaway), but the data is useful for relative comparisons, especially when it parallels results on religious belief. The high rates of church attendance reported for the Swiss appear anomalous compared to their modest levels of belief and prayer. [11] Data on aspects of societal health and dysfunction are from a variety of well-documented sources including the UN Development Programme (2000). Homicide is the best indicator of societal violence because of the extremity of the act and its unique contribution to levels of societal fear, plus the relatively reliable nature of the data (Beeghley; Neapoletan). Youth suicide (WHO) was examined in order to avoid cultural issues related to age and terminal illness. Data on STDs, teen pregnancy and birth (Panchaud et al.; Singh and Darroch) were accepted only if the compilers concluded that they were not seriously underreported, except for the U.S. where under reporting does not exaggerate disparities with the other developing democracies because they would only close the gaps. Teen pregnancy was examined in a young age class in which marriage is infrequent. Abortion data (Panchaud et al.) was accepted only from those nations in which it is as approximately legal and available as in the U.S. In order to minimize age related factors, rates of dysfunction were plotted within youth cohorts when possible. [12] Regression analyses were not executed because of the high variability of degree of correlation, because potential causal factors for rates of societal function are complex, and because it is not the purpose of this initial study to definitively demonstrate a causal link between religion and social conditions. Nor were multivariate analyses used because they risk manipulating the data to produce errant or desired results,[6]<5> and because the fairly consistent characteristics of the sample automatically minimizes the need to correct for external multiple factors (see further discussion below). Therefore correlations of raw data are used for this initial examination. Results [13] Among the developing democracies absolute belief in God, attendance of religious services and Bible literalism vary over a dozenfold, atheists and agnostics five fold, prayer rates fourfold, and acceptance of evolution almost twofold. Japan, Scandinavia, and France are the most secular nations in the west, the United States is the only prosperous first world nation to retain rates of religiosity otherwise limited to the second and third worlds (Bishop; PEW). Prosperous democracies where religiosity is low (which excludes the U.S.) are referred to below as secular developing democracies. [14] Correlations between popular acceptance of human evolution and belief in and worship of a creator and Bible literalism are negative ([7]Figure 1). The least religious nation, Japan, exhibits the highest agreement with the scientific theory, the lowest level of acceptance is found in the most religious developing democracy, the U.S. [15] A few hundred years ago rates of homicide were astronomical in Christian Europe and the American colonies (Beeghley; R. Lane). In all secular developing democracies a centuries long-term trend has seen homicide rates drop to historical lows ([8]Figure 2). The especially low rates in the more Catholic European states are statistical noise due to yearly fluctuations incidental to this sample, and are not consistently present in other similar tabulations (Barcley and Tavares). Despite a significant decline from a recent peak in the 1980s (Rosenfeld), the U.S. is the only prosperous democracy that retains high homicide rates, making it a strong outlier in this regard (Beeghley; Doyle, 2000). Similarly, theistic Portugal also has rates of homicides well above the secular developing democracy norm. Mass student murders in schools are rare, and have subsided somewhat since the 1990s, but the U.S. has experienced many more (National School Safety Center) than all the secular developing democracies combined. Other prosperous democracies do not significantly exceed the U.S. in rates of nonviolent and in non-lethal violent crime (Beeghley; Farrington and Langan; Neapoletan), and are often lower in this regard. The United States exhibits typical rates of youth suicide (WHO), which show little if any correlation with theistic factors in the prosperous democracies ([9]Figure 3). The positive correlation between pro-theistic factors and juvenile mortality is remarkable, especially regarding absolute belief, and even prayer ([10]Figure 4). Life spans tend to decrease as rates of religiosity rise ([11]Figure 5), especially as a function of absolute belief. Denmark is the only exception. Unlike questionable small-scale epidemiological studies by Harris et al. and Koenig and Larson, higher rates of religious affiliation, attendance, and prayer do not result in lower juvenile-adult mortality rates on a cross-national basis.[12]<6> [16] Although the late twentieth century STD epidemic has been curtailed in all prosperous democracies (Aral and Holmes; Panchaud et al.), rates of adolescent gonorrhea infection remain six to three hundred times higher in the U.S. than in less theistic, pro-evolution secular developing democracies ([13]Figure 6). At all ages levels are higher in the U.S., albeit by less dramatic amounts. The U.S. also suffers from uniquely high adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, which are starting to rise again as the microbe's resistance increases ([14]Figure 7). The two main curable STDs have been nearly eliminated in strongly secular Scandinavia. Increasing adolescent abortion rates show positive correlation with increasing belief and worship of a creator, and negative correlation with increasing non-theism and acceptance of evolution; again rates are uniquely high in the U.S. ([15]Figure 8). Claims that secular cultures aggravate abortion rates (John Paul II) are therefore contradicted by the quantitative data. Early adolescent pregnancy and birth have dropped in the developing democracies (Abma et al.; Singh and Darroch), but rates are two to dozens of times higher in the U.S. where the decline has been more modest ([16]Figure 9). Broad correlations between decreasing theism and increasing pregnancy and birth are present, with Austria and especially Ireland being partial exceptions. Darroch et al. found that age of first intercourse, number of sexual partners and similar issues among teens do not exhibit wide disparity or a consistent pattern among the prosperous democracies they sampled, including the U.S. A detailed comparison of sexual practices in France and the U.S. observed little difference except that the French tend - contrary to common impression - to be somewhat more conservative (Gagnon et al.). Discussion [17] The absence of exceptions to the negative correlation between absolute belief in a creator and acceptance of evolution, plus the lack of a significant religious revival in any developing democracy where evolution is popular, cast doubt on the thesis that societies can combine high rates of both religiosity and agreement with evolutionary science. Such an amalgamation may not be practical. By removing the need for a creator evolutionary science made belief optional. When deciding between supernatural and natural causes is a matter of opinion large numbers are likely to opt for the latter. Western nations are likely to return to the levels of popular religiosity common prior to the 1900s only in the improbable event that naturalistic evolution is scientifically overturned in favor of some form of creationist natural theology that scientifically verifies the existence of a creator. Conversely, evolution will probably not enjoy strong majority support in the U.S. until religiosity declines markedly. [18] In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the prosperous democracies ([17]Figures 1-9). The most theistic prosperous democracy, the U.S., is exceptional, but not in the manner Franklin predicted. The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so, and almost always scores poorly. The view of the U.S. as a "shining city on the hill" to the rest of the world is falsified when it comes to basic measures of societal health. Youth suicide is an exception to the general trend because there is not a significant relationship between it and religious or secular factors. No democracy is known to have combined strong religiosity and popular denial of evolution with high rates of societal health. Higher rates of non-theism and acceptance of human evolution usually correlate with lower rates of dysfunction, and the least theistic nations are usually the least dysfunctional. None of the strongly secularized, pro-evolution democracies is experiencing high levels of measurable dysfunction. In some cases the highly religious U.S. is an outlier in terms of societal dysfunction from less theistic but otherwise socially comparable secular developing democracies. In other cases, the correlations are strongly graded, sometimes outstandingly so. [19] If the data showed that the U.S. enjoyed higher rates of societal health than the more secular, pro-evolution democracies, then the opinion that popular belief in a creator is strongly beneficial to national cultures would be supported. Although they are by no means utopias, the populations of secular democracies are clearly able to govern themselves and maintain societal cohesion. Indeed, the data examined in this study demonstrates that only the more secular, pro-evolution democracies have, for the first time in history, come closest to achieving practical "cultures of life" that feature low rates of lethal crime, juvenile-adult mortality, sex related dysfunction, and even abortion. The least theistic secular developing democracies such as Japan, France, and Scandinavia have been most successful in these regards. The non-religious, pro-evolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator. The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted. Contradicting these conclusions requires demonstrating a positive link between theism and societal conditions in the first world with a similarly large body of data - a doubtful possibility in view of the observable trends. Conclusion [20] The United States' deep social problems are all the more disturbing because the nation enjoys exceptional per capita wealth among the major western nations (Barro and McCleary; Kasman; PEW; UN Development Programme, 2000, 2004). Spending on health care is much higher as a portion of the GDP and per capita, by a factor of a third to two or more, than in any other developing democracy (UN Development Programme, 2000, 2004). The U.S. is therefore the least efficient western nation in terms of converting wealth into cultural and physical health. Understanding the reasons for this failure is urgent, and doing so requires considering the degree to which cause versus effect is responsible for the observed correlations between social conditions and religiosity versus secularism. It is therefore hoped that this initial look at a subject of pressing importance will inspire more extensive research on the subject. Pressing questions include the reasons, whether theistic or non-theistic, that the exceptionally wealthy U.S. is so inefficient that it is experiencing a much higher degree of societal distress than are less religious, less wealthy prosperous democracies. Conversely, how do the latter achieve superior societal health while having little in the way of the religious values or institutions? There is evidence that within the U.S. strong disparities in religious belief versus acceptance of evolution are correlated with similarly varying rates of societal dysfunction, the strongly theistic, anti-evolution south and mid-west having markedly worse homicide, mortality, STD, youth pregnancy, marital and related problems than the northeast where societal conditions, secularization, and acceptance of evolution approach European norms (Aral and Holmes; Beeghley, Doyle, 2002). It is the responsibility of the research community to address controversial issues and provide the information that the citizens of democracies need to chart their future courses. Figures ([18]return) Indicators of societal dysfunction and health as functions of percentage rates of theistic and non-theistic belief and practice in 17 first world developed democracies and one second world democracy. ISSP questions asked: I know God really exists and I have no doubt about it = absolutely believe in God; 2-3 times a month + once a week or more = attend religious services at least several times a month; several times a week - several times a day = pray at least several times a week; the Bible is the actual word of God and it is to be taken literally, word for word = Bible literalists; human beings [have] developed from earlier species of animals = accept human evolution; I don't know whether there is a God and I don't believe there is a way to find out + I don't believe in God = agnostics and other atheists. 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References 5. http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html#figures 28. http://www.csdp.org/research/hosb1203.pdf 29. http://www.americanvalues.org/html/hardwired.html 30. http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?c=ABOUT_FRC 31. http://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/re/2004/c/pages/fear_of_hell.html 32. http://www.geocities.com/lclane2/references.html 33. http://www.nssc1.org/index2.htm 34. http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/country_reports/en/index.html From checker at panix.com Sun Oct 2 19:31:41 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2005 15:31:41 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] Demos: Atlas of Ideas Message-ID: Atlas of Ideas http://www.demos.co.uk/projects/currentprojects/atlasproject/ Third Floor, Magdalen House; 136 Tooley Street, London SE1 2TU; Tel: +44 (0) 845 458 5949; Fax: + 44 (0) 20 7367 4201; Email: hello at demos.co.uk [38]hello at demos.co.uk * China, India and the new geography of science Across the world of science, the boundaries are being redrawn. A new political emphasis is being placed on science and innovation by countries such as China, India, and South Korea. At the same time, a gradual process of `offshore innovation' is underway, as higher-value R&D begins to flow overseas. Confronted by these trends, Britain has a choice. It can either retreat into a scientific version of protectionism. Or it can embrace the new opportunities for networking and collaboration that such transformations create. This two-year project, to be carried out in partnership with the Foreign Office and others, will provide a compelling framework for understanding the new geography of science. The project has five central aims: 1. To map emerging trends and patterns in the globalisation of science, with a primary focus on three countries: China, India and South Korea; 2. To forecast how such trends might evolve over the next 10-15 years; 3. To identify new models of networking and collaboration between scientists, policymakers and companies in China, India, South Korea and the UK; 4. To analyse the implications of these trends for science policy and investment in the UK and Europe; 5. To produce an agenda-setting publication which sparks widespread policy and media debate. This project is being carried out in partnership with: * The Foreign and Commonwealth Office * The British Council * Scottish Enterprise * The Medical Research Council * The Institution of Electrical Engineers * South East of England Development Agency * Universities UK * Microsoft Resarch * Vodafone Research themes Research themes and questions will include: 1. Knowledge mapping and forecasting How effectively can we map and predict global trends in R&D and innovation? What patterns can be detected by nation, by region and by sector? How are China, India and South Korea faring in key areas of biotech, ICT, nanotech and climate science? How rapidly are Indian and Chinese companies moving up the R&D value chain? How strong and sustainable is their science base? To what extent are R&D activities starting to spread beyond the hi-tech clusters around Beijing, Delhi, Bangalore and Shanghai? How will all of these trends change over the next decade and beyond? 2. Networks, competition and collaboration How can the UK position itself to take advantage of these developments? What new forms of networking and capacity-building are required? How strong are the UK's links across the Chinese, Indian and Korean R&D communities, when compared to other OECD countries? What are dominant attitudes of Chinese and Indian scientists and business leaders towards the UK? Can funding structures (e.g. research councils, EU Framework programmes) be adapted to maximise the potential for collaboration? 3. Science and sustainable development The rapid development of particular cities in China and India should not obscure the fact that there are still chronic levels of poverty and underdevelopment across vast regions. To what extent can science and innovation contribute to poverty alleviation, sustainable development and good governance in China and India? What role can the UK play in catalysing science-based partnerships to tackle poverty, climate change and other social and environmental problems? What alternative energy and environmental technologies are being developed? Will these enable China and India to `leapfrog' straight to a cleaner, more sustainable model of economic development? 4. New metrics and indicators There is a widespread sense that the traditional metrics and indicators used in these debates are failing to capture some key dimensions of change. What new metrics could we develop? How do we design metrics that are appropriate and usable in the context of rapidly developing economies (like China and India), but which also provide UK policymakers with the reliable evidence base they need? And how do we measure the effectiveness - or otherwise - of networks and collaboration between UK actors and those in other countries? Building on earlier Demos work on innovation systems and network analysis, we will suggest new metrics that could be adopted. 5. Talent attraction and knowledge diasporas As the science and research base improves in China, India and South Korea, will we see an intensifying `war for talent' in science and technology? How will the UK fare? Will fewer students travel to the UK and Europe to study and work? Already there are signs that growing numbers of the Chinese, Indian and Korean `scientific diaspora' are returning home, encouraged by improved working conditions and other incentives. Will this trend gather pace? And will China, India and Korea follow the example of Singapore in directly recruiting US and European scientists to boost their national science capabilities? 6. Innovation, precaution and public engagement How will potential tensions between innovation and precaution affect the global distribution of research and commercialisation? What is the relationship between innovation and democracy? To what extent can arguments about open and plural systems of innovation - often seen as critical to the success of countries like Finland and Sweden - be applied to countries like China? Will higher ethical, environmental and regulatory standards in Europe strengthen its scientific and economic dominance? Or will looser regulation and a less-sensitive public allow China and India to move ahead more quickly? How can the UK encourage higher ethical standards in emerging markets? We will be holding a launch event for the project on 12 October, 2005. For questions, comments or more information on this project, email Molly Webb: [41]molly.webb at demos.co.uk References 38. mailto:hello at demos.co.uk 39. http://validator.w3.org/check/referer 40. http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/ 41. mailto:molly.webb at demos.co.uk From checker at panix.com Sun Oct 2 19:31:48 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2005 15:31:48 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] Shelley Mallett: Understanding home: a critical review of the literature Message-ID: Shelley Mallett: Understanding home: a critical review of the literature author at The University of Melbourne The Sociological Review Volume 52 Issue 1 Page 62 - February 2004 doi:10.1111/j.1467-954X.2004.00442.x Abstract In recent years there has been a proliferation of writing on the meaning of home within the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, psychology, human geography, history, architecture and philosophy. Although many researchers now understand home as a multidimensional concept and acknowledge the presence of and need for multidisciplinary research in the field, there has been little sustained reflection and critique of the multidisciplinary field of home research and the diverse, even contradictory meanings of this term. This paper brings together and examines the dominant and recurring ideas about home represented in the relevant theoretical and empirical literature. It raises the question whether or not home is (a) place(s), (a) space(s), feeling(s), practices, and/or an active state of state of being in the world? Home is variously described in the literature as conflated with or related to house, family, haven, self, gender, and journeying. Many authors also consider notions of being-at-home, creating or making home and the ideal home. In an effort to facilitate interdisciplinary conversations about the meaning and experience of home each of these themes are briefly considered in this critical literature review. Home 1. The place or a place where one lives: have you no home to go to? 2. a house or other dwelling. 3. a family or other group living in a house or other place. 4. a person's country, city, esp. viewed as a birthplace, a residence during one's early years, or a place dear to one. 5. the environment or habitat of a person or animal. 6. the place where something is invented, founded or developed: the US is the home of baseball. 7.a. a building or organization set up to care for orphans, the aged etc b. an informal name for a mental home. 12. a home from home a place other than one's own home where one can be at ease. 14. at home in, on, or with. familiar or conversant with. 25. bring home to. a. to make clear to. b. to place the blame on (Collins English Dictionary, 1979: 701) Introduction: dream home Sometimes when I am lying in bed at night awake and restless I play a game to induce sleep. I imagine all the houses I have lived in since I was born. My imaginary journeys invariably begin and end with a stroll through my childhood home [-] a place that I lived in for the first 18 years of my life, a place my family left nearly 20 years ago. Starting at the front door I proceed through all the rooms in the house. As I walk I try to remember the house fittings and furnishings in each room. Memories of my early life, our family life, flood back to me as I move through the space. These memories show no respect for chronological time. Nor do they come with an accompanying autobiographical narrative. A certain equality prevails in this remembered world. Eventful moments in my family life hold equal sway with the mundane activities of domestic life. More recently these imaginary journeys have taken me to places beyond our house, to our street, and the park across the road. Sometimes I see myself playing with friends and neighbours, going to kindergarten, catching the train to school, and walking along the pier or on the sand at the local beach. I observe myself in these places, but mostly the places and me seem as one. Are these happy memories? Perhaps they are best described as benign. Here in this imaginary terrain painful memories are leached of their power. I feel comfortable and secure. I am at home. Sleep comes quickly. Wide awake, poised to write a theoretical reflection on home, it struck me that these nighttime experiences mirror many of the ways home is defined and discussed in the relevant literature. My journeys inflect ideas of home integral to the modern Anglo-European imaginary. In this realm, at once personal and social, house and home are related but not conflated. The birth family house holds symbolic power as a formative dwelling place, a place of origin and return, a place from which to embark upon a journey. This house or dwelling accommodates home but home is not necessarily confined to this place. The boundaries of home seemingly extend beyond its walls to the neighborhood, even the suburb, town or city. Home is place but it is also a space inhabited by family, people, things and belongings [-] a familiar, if not comfortable space where particular activities and relationships are lived. In my account home is a virtual place, a repository for memories of the lived spaces. It locates lived time and space, particularly intimate familial time and space. Thankfully my nighttime recollections are not burdened by the need to provide a comprehensive account of contemporary meanings of home. Sleep would be elusive if that were the case! Absent in my story, yet present in the diverse multi-disciplinary research literature, is the idea of home as homeland, the land of one's forebears. While memories of home are often nostalgic and sentimental, home is not simply recalled or experienced in positive ways. My reflection, however, provides no sense of home as a space of tyranny, oppression or persecution. Equally, the relationship between home, gender, ethnicity and sexuality are overlooked. In the following paper I review and critically reflect on these and other ways home is understood and discussed in the literature. Research on the meaning and experience of home has proliferated over the past two decades, particularly within the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, psychology, human geography, history, architecture and philosophy. This expansion of the field followed several key conferences on home and the publication of a number of edited collections (Gurney, 1997). Many researchers now understand home as a multidimensional concept and acknowledge the presence of and need for multidisciplinary research in the field. However, with the exception of two exemplary articles by Despr?s (1991) and Somerville (1997) few have translated this awareness into genuinely, interdisciplinary studies of the meaning of home.1 Instead researchers generally limit their analyses to particular dimensions of home [-] typically those aspects that routinely fall within their own disciplinary orbit. They explore similar issues about home yet speak in their own disciplinary voice, often confining their discussion to interested researchers in their own discipline. Where criticism is leveled at research in the field it generally focuses on the efficacy and political implications of particular theoretical and methodological approaches used to understand the meaning of home. This should not surprise us because as Saunders and Williams write: Precisely because the home touches so centrally on our personal lives, any attempt to develop a dispassionate social scientific analysis inevitably stimulates emotional and deeply fierce argument and disagreement. The home is a major political background [-] for feminists, who see it in the crucible of gender domination; for liberals, who identify it with personal autonomy and a challenge to state power; for socialists, who approach it as a challenge to collective life and the ideal of a planned and egalitarian social order. (1988: 91) It is the task of this paper to bring together and examine the dominant and recurring ideas about home represented in the literature. This is not a reductive exercise aimed at reconciling disparate dimensions of or disciplinary perspectives on home. Nor is it my intention to produce a definitive interdisciplinary approach to the study of home. My intentions are more modest. This project is designed to promote conversation about home in the literature and facilitate discussion between the disciplines that both reflects and accommodates people's complex and diverse lived experience of home. Of course there are elisions in my own analysis of the field. Most obvious among them is my regrettable lack of discussion of the cross-cultural perspectives on home, place and space. Although important, these perspectives fall beyond the scope of this paper.2 The question then remains, how is home understood, defined and described across the relevant theoretical and empirical literature? This question invokes another that is central to, although not always explicitly stated in, discussion and recurring debates about the meaning of home in the literature. Is home (a) place(s), (a) space(s), feeling(s), practices, and/or an active state of state of being in the world? Home is variously described as conflated with or related to house, family, haven, self, gender, and journeying. Many authors also consider notions of being-at-home, creating or making home and the ideal home. In an effort to reflect the multi-dimensional nature of home each of these themes are briefly considered below. House and home Many researchers have examined the etymology of the word home as part of a broader agenda to examine the historical antecedents of the term. In an expansive essay on the uses of the term in particular Western languages, Hollander (1991) notes that the Germanic words for home, Heim, ham, heem, are derived from the Indo-European kei meaning lying down and something dear or beloved. In other words, it means something like a place to lay one's head. He suggests that the German word for house, thought of as a building where people live, or a dwelling place for a family, is imbued with the sense of home (see also Rykwert, 1991). In English, the term 'home' derives from the Anglo-Saxon word ham, meaning village, estate or town (Hollander, 1991). Berger (1984 : 55) notes that with the seventeenth century rise of the bourgeoisie, 'two kinds of moralists' have subsequently displaced this meaning of the term. The concept of homeland was appropriated by the ruling classes to promote a form of nationalism and patriotism aimed at protecting and preserving their land, wealth and power. At the same time the idea of home became the focal point for a form of 'domestic morality' aimed at safeguarding familial property, including estates, women and children. Rykwert (1991: 53) notes that the association between house and home was consolidated in English case law in the early 17th century by the Jacobean Judge, Sir Edward Coke. The judge declared, 'The house of everyman is to him as his castle and fortresse, as well as his defense against injury and violence, as for his repose' (Rykwert, 1991 : 53). Later simplified in the nineteenth century to 'The Englishmen's house is his castle' (53), this phrase was popularly appropriated to define and describe home as a haven which comprises both house and surrounding land. Many authors assert that contemporary Anglo-European, Anglo-American or more broadly white Western conceptions of home privilege a physical structure or dwelling, such as a house, flat, institution or caravan (Bowlby et al., 1997: 344; Giddens, 1984). It is a place where space and time are controlled and 'structured functionally, economically, aesthetically and morally' and where domestic 'communitarian practices' are realized (Rapport and Dawson, 1998: 6; Douglas, 1991). House and home are often conflated in the popular media, typically as a means of selling real estate and promoting 'home' ownership. While the building and real estate industries clearly gain from a community's valorization of home ownership, so too do governments with particular social agendas. In fact, as some researchers note, governments of advanced capitalist countries such as Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand have actively promoted the conflation of house, home and family as part of a broader ideological agenda aimed at increasing economic efficiency and growth. These governments have attempted to shift the burden of responsibility for citizens' welfare away from the state and its institutions on to the home and nuclear family (Madigan et al., 1990; Dupuis and Thorns, 1998). The expansion of the middle classes that occurred during the 1950's and 1960's and the global economic downturn of the late 1970's are cited as some of the reasons for the re-structuring of economies and welfare states that has occurred in these countries over the past two to three decades. As a consequence of this restructuring in these contexts, owner occupied housing has increased, public housing has decreased and housing tenure has increasingly featured in the meaning of home.3 As Madigan et al. (1990) indicate, the literature on the significance of home ownership variously argues that it is a source of personal identity and status and/or a source of personal and familial security (Dupuis and Thorns, 1996). It can also provide a sense of place and belonging in an increasingly alienating world. In attempting to elucidate the relationship between house and home many researchers, particularly architects and historians, have examined the ways design, spatial organization, and furnishings of domestic dwellings influence and inflect concepts and/or ideologies of the home.4 Research of this kind is premised on at least two inter-related ideas. First, most authors uncritically conflate house and home. Second, they assert that the spatial organization of domestic dwellings both influences and reflects forms of sociality associated with and/or peculiar to any given cultural and historical context. In other words, household designs, furnishings and technologies constrain or facilitate cultural and historical modes of relating between the people who share these spaces. A prominent example of this kind of research is the architect, Witold Rybczynski's (1986) book, Home: A Short History of an Idea. Rybczynski examines historical and cultural ideas of home especially as they are inflected through the design of American and European houses, household furnishings and technologies since the Middle Ages and particularly from the seventeenth century onwards. He asserts that during the seventeenth century ideas about privacy, domesticity, intimacy and comfort emerged as organizing principles for the design and use of domestic spaces among the bourgeoisie, particularly in the Netherlands.5 These ideas gradually took hold in other parts of Europe and among other classes as the widespread social change heralded by the industrial revolution effected the constitution of households and participation in and organization of work. Of course how these ideas were manifest aesthetically varied according to social, cultural and historical contexts. The aesthetics themselves also reflected culturally and historically specific ideas about home. The ideas about privacy, intimacy, domesticity and comfort that Rybczynski identifies, are also prominent and recurring themes in contemporary analyses of the meaning of home. Ideal house/home The relationship between house and home has also been examined in extensive research on the notion of the ideal home or house (Chapman and Hockey, 1999a; Wright, 1991). Typically focusing on physical structures, this body of work both reflects and perpetuates common ideas about the ideal home in Anglo-American and Australian contexts. Although the notion of an 'ideal home' is problematized in this work, the authors who address this issue continue to privilege the relationship between house and home, de-emphasizing other idealised meanings of home. For example Porteous (1976) states that independent studies conducted in Australia, Britain and the United States on notions of the ideal home reveal that people from diverse backgrounds express a consistent preference for a free-standing house with a yard and occupied by a single family (see also Cieraad, 1999). Some of the social, historical and political antecedents of this aspiration are explored in an edited collection, Ideal homes?: Social change and domestic life (Chapman and Hockey, 1999a), that reflects on past and present models of the ideal home in Britain (see also Chapman and Hockey, 1999b; Hepworth, 1999; Brindley, 1999; Chapman, 1999). Reflecting on the 1995 British Ideal Home Exhibition, a version of the home shows that occur in many large Western cities, the collection' s editors, Chapman and Hockey (1999b), draw attention to the manipulative marketing techniques employed by the exhibition designers. Show visitors walked through sub-standard mockups of yester-year houses to finally arrive at a fully and luxuriously furnished, brick house of the future. The exhibition Guide booklet emphasized the inadequate design features of the historical houses, drawing attention to house designs and technologies that impacted on people's comfort, privacy, security and budget. The narrative also included descriptions of negative, even calamitous, social events contemporaneous with each historical house. In contrast, descriptions of the house of tomorrow were overwhelmingly positive. Interested in the forces that influence people's perceptions of, and desire for the ideal home, the authors note that ideas about home are not simply shaped by the interests of capital and the manufacturers' marketing departments. Rather they assert that people's personal and familial experiences as well as significant social change, influence their perceived needs and desires in relation to house design. Changing patterns of employment, particularly the organization and location of work, together with shifts in the distribution of wealth, transformations in peoples' ideas about community, family, even the good life, all impact on the notion of the ideal home. Even so people have very limited choice about the design of their houses. Whether they build a new home or live in an established dwelling their choices are constrained by cultural and economic factors as well as developers, architects, urban planners, politicians, engineers and builders, interior designers all of whom have their own ideas about what is a desirable, appropriate and acceptable living space (Chapman and Hockey, 1999b: 5; Shove, 1999). The association between home and the physical dwelling or house is commonly acknowledged in the relevant interdisciplinary literature, with some social researchers arguing that such a conflation reductively represents home as one-dimensional (Douglas, 1991; Rapport and Dawson, 1998; Porteous, 1976). As noted earlier, researchers routinely claim that home is a multi-dimensional concept or a multi-layered phenomenon (Bowlby et al., 1997; Wardaugh, 1999; Somerville, 1992). As such, the physical dwelling or shelter is described as simply one aspect of home. Moreover, it is generally recognized that the relationships between the terms house and home must be established in varying cultural and historical contexts. As part of a broader attempt to define home and clarify the relationship between home and physical shelter, Saunders and Williams (1988), for example, distinguish between house, home and household. Home is conceived by these authors as a locale which, following Giddens (1984), they define as 'simultaneously and indivisibly a spatial and a social unit of interaction' (82). It is the physical 'setting through which basic forms of social relations and social institutions are constituted and reproduced' (82). As such home is a 'socio-spatial system' that represents the fusion of the physical unit or house and the social unit or household. While rejecting any form of environmental or physical determinism the authors argue that the physical aspects of the home, including the location, design, and size of the home, 'both enable and constrain' different relationships and patterns of action' (82). Like Pahl (1984: 20), Saunders and Williams (1988) argue that the household, rather than the individual, is the most 'basic economic unit' through which the relationships of production and consumption can be analyzed. Although it is the 'core domestic unit' of society, the household should not be conflated with the family as the 'kinship system has arguably declined in significance as a structuring principle of social life' (82). As such they stress that there are many and varied household types. In this social constructionist formulation, the home 'is the crucible of the social system' (85) representing a vital interface between society and the individual. It is invested with diverse cultural meanings that differ within and between households and across cultural and social settings. Within households, gender and age are the 'key dimensions' that differentiate household members' perception of the meaning of home. Geographical factors, especially residential location, together with issues such as class, ethnicity and housing tenure, explain some of the variations in the meaning of home that exists between households (Saunders and Williams, 1988; Saunders, 1989). By developing a theoretical approach to the meaning of home that neither conflates home with house or family, Saunders and Williams (1988) remind us of the need to develop a complex view of home that takes into account the interaction between place and social relationships. However, as Somerville (1989) argues in a wide-ranging critique of their work, the proposed relationship between house and household in Saunders and Williams' formulation of home is highly problematic. He takes issue with both their underlying concept of society as an atomistic entity comprising 'basic units' and their understanding of culture as discrete and autonomous. Somerville (1989) argues that empirical evidence suggests that it is 'far from obvious' that home is 'necessarily or always' a fusion of house and household (114). In making this argument he points to the fact that there are many institutional contexts where the term home is invoked (e.g., home for the aged) in which the notion of household simply does not apply. Moreover he asserts that even if we were to accept that the notion of household is a useful construct in defining home (see Jones, 2000), Saunders and Williams offer no theoretical explanation of the mutually constitutive relationship between these so called physical and social units of interaction and their role in the reproduction of social action. This critique could be usefully extended to most of those who write on the ideal home. Between the real and the ideal, the actual and remembered home References to the symbolic potency of the ideal or idealized home recur throughout home literature. For example, Tucker (1994) suggests that 'most people spend their lives in search of home, at the gap between the natural home [conceived as the home environment conducive to human existence, i.e. dry land] and the particular ideal home where they would be fully fulfilled'. This may be a confused search, a sentimental and nostalgic journey for a lost time and space. It may also be a religious pilgrimage or 'search for a Promised Land.' One's 'actual home tends to be our best approximation of our ideal home, under a given set of constraining circumstances' (184). Discussion of the ideal home generally focuses on nostalgic or romantic notions of home. Critics of the ideal home reject exclusively positive descriptions and assessments of home as naive expressions of false consciousness that do not reflect people's diverse experience and understanding of home. In so doing they appeal to and inscribe a valorized notion of the real home. In other words the real and ideal home are established as oppositional terms. Those who promote the ideal home are thought to have a diminished grasp of reality or the real. This approach is at odds with the views of researchers such as Somerville (1992) and Jackson (1995) and Rapport and Dawson (1998). Somerville (1992) argues that the concepts of home as ideal and home as reality are integral to the social construction of this term. Writing from a phenomenological perspective Jackson (1995) writes that home 'is always lived as a relationship, a tension. . . . [L]like any word we use to cover a particular field of experience, [home] always begets its own negation. . . . [It] may evoke security in one context and seem confining in another' (122 [-] 3). Although they write on home from quite different theoretical perspectives both authors promote a way of understanding home that holds ideas of the real and the ideal, or the real and the imagined in tension rather than opposition. Accordingly the real and the ideal are not pure and distinct concepts or domains. They are mutually defining concepts and experiences. It is an approach that resonates with Doreen Massey's (1992, 1994) discussion of place, home, and memory. Massey writes that there is 'no single simple "authenticity" [-] a unique eternal truth of an (actual or imagined/remembered) place or home [-] to be used as a reference either now or in the past' (1994: 119). Place is constituted by the particular social relations that occur in a specific location, the social effects that arise in this interaction and its 'positive interrelations with elsewhere' or outside (1992: 13). By its very nature then the identity of a place is 'provisional' or in flux. The boundaries of place and/or home are permeable and unstable. Equally, places have no fixed or essential past. The identity and meaning of a place must be constructed and negotiated. However this does not mean that there is no role for remembering or that remembering will always be a counter-productive, nostalgic longing for something to be as it was in an idealized past. Rather, Massey suggests, following Hooks (1991), that remembering, even memories of the traditional can be important for they 'illuminate and transform the present' (Hooks, 1991: 147; Massey, 1992: 14). It is a point that is reinforced by Rapport and Dawson (1998 : 8) who argue that home encompasses 'cultural norms and individual fantasies'. 'Home brings together memory and longing, the ideational, the affective and the physical, the spatial and the temporal, the local and the global, the positively evaluated and the negatively' (see also Saunders, 1989). Some who write on home and memory suggest that people's home histories, including their tenure in any given home, are crucial to their understanding of the meaning of home (Perkins and Thorns, 2000 ; Giulani, 1991) and their view of the ideal home. Others suggest that the relationship between home and memory is complex and fluid, and must take account of the significance of home experiences and memories at various stages of the life cycle (Csikszentmih?lyi and Rochberg-Halton, 1981) and in varying kinship and household configurations (Armstrong, 1993; Somerville, 1997). Home as haven Home is often described in the literature as a haven or refuge. It is depicted as a place and/or space where people can retreat and relax (Moore, 1984). This understanding of home is founded on several related ideas, most obvious among them, the distinction between public and private, and the inside and outside world (Wardaugh, 1999; Altman and Werner, 1985). According to this dichotomy the inside or enclosed domain of the home represents a comfortable, secure and safe space (Dovey, 1985). It is a confined space. Some say it is a feminine space, yet others dismiss this idea as simplistic. In contrast, the outside is perceived as an imposing, if not threatening or dangerous space. It is more diffuse, less defined. Different performative expectations exist for people in this outside space. There are different rules of engagement with people, places and things. Related to this view of home, as a refuge is the idea that it is a private, often familial realm clearly differentiated from public space and removed from public scrutiny and surveillance. The public sphere is associated with work and political engagements and non-kin relationships. In contrast, the private realm of the home is typically understood as a space that offers freedom and control (Darke, 1994), security (Dovey, 1985) and scope for creativity and regeneration (Allan and Crow, 1989; Bachelard, 1969; Korosec-Serfaty, 1984; Cooper, 1976; Finighan, 1980). It is an intimate space that provides a context for close, caring relationships. Saunders and Williams (1988) argue that our understanding of home as a distinct private sphere is informed by three related concepts: privacy, privatism and privatization. In this context privacy at home refers to freedom from surveillance and external role expectations. Privatism is the process whereby people are increasingly withdrawing from communal life and centering or orienting their activities around the home. Privatization refers to the shift away from public or state owned housing towards owner occupied housing and privatized consumption.6 Challenges to the view that home is universally understood and/or experienced as a private haven abound in the research literature (Sibley, 1995 ; Wardaugh, 1999). Most critics take exception to and focus their arguments on one or more of the binary oppositions (inside/outside, work/home, public/private, comfortable/uncomfortable, safe/unsafe) underpinning this notion of home. All reject the idealized view of home perpetuated by such ideas. Some argue that home as haven is an historic and culturally relative idea which is integrally linked to equally fluid concepts of the family. For example, Hareven (1993) states that this view of home emerged among bourgeois households in Britain and France in the mid-eighteenth century and in urban middle class American families in the mid-nineteenth century as a consequence of industrialization, urbanization and the related transformation of family life and work. Prior to industrialization work was primarily situated in households which comprised family members and other non-kin workers and boarders. The organization of these households was predicated on sociability rather than privacy. As industrialization took hold, work was relocated away from the home and, in time, the State assumed greater responsibility for education and health care. As a consequence, households were increasingly seen as a domestic retreat for the nuclear family. Where once all able members of households contributed to work or related activities, in the new era women and children were marginalised from these activities and consigned to a transformed and valorized domestic realm. What began in the upper and middle classes, had by the mid-twentieth century extended into working class families. As many historians, sociologists and human geographers attest, the division between domestic and workspaces and relations, between the private and public realms, was never as neat as the home as haven idea implies. Whether engaged in paid or unpaid labor, women have always worked within the home sphere. Men too have engaged in different and varying forms of domestic, home based labor in these spheres. Also, as writers such as Hepworth (1999) and Tosh (1996) suggest, houses were never exclusively private and/or restricted spaces. Public, social spaces such as the parlor also featured in historical house designs and people other than the inhabitants of the house entered, worked or socialized in this sphere. Contemporary house designs, incorporating open plan or flexible living spaces, parents and/or children's retreats, and studies or home offices increasingly challenge simplistic notions of home as a private haven or refuge from work and the outside world. The advent of technologies such as the personal computer, the fax/phone, email, internet services and the mobile phone has made it possible for more people, particularly middle class professionals and the self-employed, to engage in paid work from home (Duncan, 1996). The reasons for such shifts in the organization of domestic life and work are obviously complex and beyond the scope of this paper, but include transformed gender relations and the consequent need for more flexible child care arrangements. While some experience this as an intrusion, others welcome the flexibility it enables. Other critics suggest that the characterization of home as haven is an expression of an idealized, romanticized even nostalgic notion of home at odds with the reality of peoples' lived experience of home (Jones, 2000 ; Wardaugh, 1999). They reject the view that this so-called private haven is a secure, safe, free or regenerative space (Wright, 1993), for a significant percentage of women, children and young people who are subject to violence and sexual abuse in the home environment (Wardaugh, 1999; Jones, 1995, 2000; Goldsack, 1999). Home for these people is a site of fear and isolation, a prison, rather than a place of absolute freedom and ontological security (Giddens, 1984, 1990; Dupuis and Thorns, 1998). Goldsack (1999), argues that in contrast to men who face risks of violence in the public sphere women are 'more likely to be raped, assaulted and even killed at home than in any other place' (123). Wardaugh (1999) rejects the characterization of home as haven, favoring a phenomenological understanding that 'counterposes inside with outside space' (96). Accordingly, privacy, safety, security, comfort and refuge are not necessarily associated with the inside or home but may be found beyond its reaches. Similarly, danger, fear and insecurity are not necessarily located in the outside world. Like Hooks (1991) and Ahmed (1999) and Massey (1992) she argues that home is not some purified space of belonging, with fixed and impermeable boundaries. Rather it is as Sibley (1995) suggests a space of unavoidable 'tensions surrounding the use of domestic spaces' (94). Wardaugh also argues that subscription to the home as haven idea actually contributes to the 'creation of homelessness'. She notes that 'those who are abused and violated within the family are likely to feel "homeless at home" and many subsequently become homeless in an objective sense, in that they escape [-] or are ejected from [-] their violent homes' (96 [-] 7). Equally those who reject or are unable to conform to conventional ideas and expressions of gender, sexuality and class might be both symbolically and literally 'excluded from and notion or semblance of home' (97). This resonates with Sibley's view of home as a potential space of 'exclusion' where a 'fear of difference', of 'non-conforming people, activities or artifacts' can be projected onto the 'objects and spaces comprising the home' (1995: 91). Ironically many researchers who reject the idealized characterization of home continue to conflate home and dwelling and thereby preserve a clear demarcation between inside and outside. A more radical critique of the understanding of home as an enclosed, private space [-] a haven from the outside world is provided by some of the cross-cultural research. For example, Jackson (1995) implies that nomadic peoples, 'for whom dwelling is not synonymous with being housed and settled' do not focus on ideas of home as a private place clearly differentiated from the outside world. He states that for the Warlpiri of the Tanami Desert in Central Australia . . . 'home is where one hails from . . . , but it also suggests the places one has camped, sojourned and lived during the course of one's own lifetime' (122). Similarly, for the people of Nuakata Island, Papua New Guinea, home is variously translated as matrilineal village(s), or the island itself, and is not a private physical dwelling that is clearly differentiated from an outside world (Mallett, 2003). Rather it equates to the lands and places where one's matrilineal forbears stayed or dwelled. While these spaces are not private, enclosed dwellings, they are possessed spaces or territories with defined, though not always visible, boundaries that must be observed and respected by those who do not belong there. Home and family An association between home and family has been noted by many researchers (Jones, 1995, 2000; Finch and Hayes, 1994; Bowlby et al., 1997), however the nature and significance of this relationship for the meaning of home remains keenly contested. So too is the meaning of family. Some authors, so-called traditionalists, suggest that the link between home and family is so strong that the terms are almost interchangeable (Crow, 1989; Oakley, 1976; Bernardes, 1987). When conceived as inter-related or overlapping terms, home typically symbolizes the birth family dwelling and the birth family or family of origin (Gilman, 1980). Home encompasses the house or dwelling that a person lived in immediately after birth and/or their childhood family house(s). It also symbolizes the family relationships and life courses enacted within those spaces. As such it is the place where children are nurtured and reared and finally depart when they come of age (Bowlby et al., 1997; Hunt, 1989; Jones, 1995, 2000). Without the family a home is 'only a house' (Gilman, 1980; Leonard, 1980). According to Bachelard (1969) this house or dwelling is our 'first universe'. As such 'it shelters our daydreaming, cradles our thoughts and memories and provides us with a sense of stability. Throughout our lives the house in which we are born remains "physically inscribed in us" ' (Jackson, 1995: 86; see also Domosh, 1998). Critics of this view of the relationship between home and family concede it has currency in the Western popular imaginary, however they argue that it is ideologically laden and premised on the white, middle class, heterosexual nuclear family (Wagner, 1993; Passaro, 1996; Wardaugh, 1999; Bowlby et al., 1997; Leonard, 1980 ; Hooks, 1990). Under this definition the home belongs both materially and symbolically to the heterosexual couple who enact and promote particular gendered roles and relationships (see Barrett and McIntosh, 1982). Typically children only belong there when they are young and have little power and authority although they have increasing status as evidenced by the increased space accorded them within modern house designs (Jones, 1995, 2000; Ainley, 1991; Finch and Hayes, 1994). Munro and Madigon (1999) suggest that governments and other institutions (e.g. religions, environmental groups) promote an ideological trinity of family, home and community (107). These institutions have a vested interest (material, economic, social, spiritual) in defining the types and expressions of ideal family relationships (Watson and Austerbury, 1986). Saunders and Williams (1988) argue that the nuclear family is increasingly irrelevant in contemporary Western societies, and that other household forms might be equally pertinent to the constitution of home.7 A vast literature on cross-cultural notions of kinship, place and belonging also suggests that the nuclear family and the nuclear family house are of limited relevance to the meaning of home and family for many people. For example, the family comprises extended family members and home might encompass the places where these extended family members reside. Similarly research on migration, exile and that on home leaving suggests the significance of the relationship between home and family can change over the course of an individual life or in different spatial contexts. Hence, at some points and places in a person's life it may be pivotal, but at others it may be largely irrelevant. Home and gender Within the literature, reflections on the significance of family to the meaning of home invariably occur as part of a broader discussion of the relationship between gender and home. Women are often the focus of this material. This is not surprising given that much of the relevant research [-] whether it is in sociology, anthropology, social psychology, human geography, architecture or history [-] is inspired and informed by feminist theory and debates. Feminist theories, particularly second wave theories have often privileged women's experience, effectively, if not intentionally conflating women and gender (Mallett, 2003). Analyses of the relationship between gender and the meaning of home generally focus on issues of: work or production, consumption, spaces including house design, and/or housing tenure and the house as an expression of status. Early writers on gendered perceptions of home claim that men consider it to be a signifier of status and achievement whereas women view home as a haven (Somerville, 1997; Seeley et al., 1956; Rainwater, 1966). Almost without exception, second-wave feminist writers (of the 1970's and 1980's), particularly but not exclusively socialist feminists, identify home as a site of oppression, tyranny and patriarchal domination of women. Accordingly, it is in this private realm that women are consigned to a life of reproductive and domestic labor (Oakley, 1974; Eisenstein, 1984). While they manage household consumption they do not have economic control of it. Although their work in creating and maintaining (a clean, comfortable, aesthetically pleasing) home and family is, to some extent, valued, they remain socially isolated, with few opportunities to achieve the social, economic and political status accorded their male partners who engage in paid work in the public domain (Madigan et al., 1990). Despite home being generally considered a feminine, nurturing space created by women themselves, they often lack both authority and a space of their own within this realm (Darke, 1994; Madigan et al., 1990; Munro and Madigan, 1999). Their emotional and spatial needs are secondary to those of their husband and children. In contrast, for men home is a space in which they have ultimate authority, yet limited responsibility for the domestic and child-rearing duties that take place in it. Home is a haven from the pressure of the outside world, even a site of leisure and recreation. While home is a source of status for men, paid work and other activities in the public realm provide them with alternative and highly valued identities. Related, second-wave feminist research on the interaction between gender, space and home noted how these social and historical ideas about gender roles and relationships in the home environment are inflected in housing designs, domestic interiors and technologies (Goodall, 1990). The impact of and implications of segregated housing estates on women has also been examined. In these contexts women are often socially isolated, have a diminished capacity for paid employment and participation in wider communal and political spheres and often feel fearful, physically vulnerable and insecure (Madigon et al., 1990). Over the last decade or so these feminist critiques of home have been subjected to increased scrutiny by a range of social researchers, including feminist researchers. As Gurney (1997) notes, the work of Saunders (1989, 1990a, 1990b) on gender and the meaning of home provided impetus for some of this work. Convinced that socialist feminist critiques of home were skewing debates within the social sciences, Saunders (1990a) claimed his empirical research revealed that there was an enormous disparity between feminist critiques of home and women's descriptions of the meaning of home. Accordingly the women in his study did not describe home as a place of oppression. While many researchers in the field of urban sociology and housing studies have critiqued Saunders's work on methodological and theoretical grounds, Gurney (1997) refutes his claims on the basis of his own episodic ethnographies of working class owner-occupied households in East Bristol, England. Gurney found that while women initially provide emotional and positive accounts of home whereas as men are more likely to offer 'negative and instrumental meanings of home', this situation was reversed over time, in subsequent or later conversations (see also Richards, 1990). More recent research on gender, work and home has challenged the somewhat narrow, view of home as a private, domestic and female realm where reproductive rather than productive work occurs. For example contemporary research on both rural and urban outworkers or home workers reveals that many women engage in paid work such as sewing, washing ironing, cooking, clerical and administrative tasks, and child minding in their own home environments (Oberhauser, 1995, 1997). Equally, some men, particularly self-employed tradesmen and professionals, routinely engage in paid work from home, be it full or part-time. Many researchers have demonstrated that the sort of paid work men and women engage in, when and in what spaces within the house, impacts on family members experience and their perceptions of home and familial relationships (Massey, 1996; Duncan, 1996b; Phizacklea and Wolkowitiz, 1995). Discussion of women's increased participation in paid employment both within and beyond the home generally focuses on the double burden experienced by women. As such researchers claim that despite some evidence of men's increasing participation in household labor, women continue to experienced and/or describe home as a site of oppression. Women remain pri-marily responsible for domestic labor and over and above this they now choose or are expected to engage in either full or part-time paid employment. Despite this, however, there is a growing body of feminist literature that valorizes women's experience of domestic labour and mothering within home environments. Early work on gender and space argued that certain rooms or space in the family home were gendered (e.g. the kitchen was a female space, the shed a male one, etc.). House designs reflected stereotypical gendered relationships peculiar to a given social and historical period (Hunt, 1989; Lupton, 1992, 1993; Sparke, 1995; Buckley, 1996). More recent discussions of gender and space have argued for a more sophisticated analysis of the ways space is negotiated and lived in the family house/home. There is, for example, increasing recognition that rooms or spaces in the family home are not effectively gendered even when they are designed to meet the requirements of a man or a woman (e.g. height of kitchen benches). Rather it is the activities that are performed in these spaces at given times and in given relational contexts that reflect and/or subvert particular ideas about gender, age, and role (Munro and Madigan, 1999; Mallett, 2003; Bowlby et al., 1997; Massey, 1996). Despite these advances, general debate about gender and the meaning of home remains problematic, if not simplistic. For example many researchers in the field of urban sociology, and housing studies continue to conflate house and home and take little or no account of the widespread critiques of fixed and bounded notions of sex, gender and sexuality that have occurred within feminist and queer theory in the last decade or so (Butler, 1990, 1993; Gatens, 1983; Grosz, 1994; Young, 1990). Consequently many researchers unthinkingly privilege gender rather than say sexuality or a combined sex, gender and sexuality when reflecting on people's understanding and experiences of home (see Madigan et al., 1990; Gurney, 1997; Saunders, 1989). The intersection between gender, sexuality and ethnicity and age is also forgotten or elided in most of these analyses. There are exceptions of course but these largely fall outside of the dedicated literature. Both Hooks (1990) and Crenshaw (1994), for example write about the experience and meaning of home for African-American women and women of color. Crenshaw views the home as a site of oppression and disempowerment for women of colour rooted in the intersecting issues of race and gender. Hooks (1990) acknowledges that home is a potential site of patriarchal oppression for African-American women yet she also argues that it need not be seen as a politically neutral place. It is potentially a site for radical subversive activity for both Afro-American men and women who may feel marginalized in public spaces. Although detailed critique of the research on gender and home is beyond the scope of this paper it is clear that there is a great need for such an analysis in the field. Home/journeying Cultural studies and anthropological literature detailing the experience of migrants and refugees as well as sociological and psychological empirical research on family formation and home-leaving claim that ideas about staying, leaving and journeying are integrally associated with notions of home. These ideas are in turn linked to, among other things, notions of dependency, inter-dependence and autonomy, continuity and dis/location. As such, home, be it defined as a dwelling, a homeland, or even a constellation of relationships, is represented as a spatial and relational realm from which people venture into the world and to which they generally hope to return (Case, 1996). It is a place of origin (however recent or relative) as well as a point of destination. For Ginsburg (1999) home is less about 'where you are from' and 'more about where you are going' (35). This sentiment is also expressed by Tucker (1994), who stresses that 'home-searching is a basic trait of human nature', one which arises out of the propensity of humans to migrate as a means of ensuring their survival (186). Journeys away from home, for no matter how trivial or routine a purpose, are thought to constitute both home and traveler. Dovey (1985) claims that these journeys establish the thresholds and boundaries of home, particularly boundarties associated with time and the experience of being at home. Similarly, people's experience of home influences the meaning and significance of their journeys beyond it. Considered a realm where socio-cultural and historical ideas about family, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality and age are reinforced, it is also a space where ideas about who may take particular journeys are enacted. For example, in Western contexts at least, it is commonly expected that young people will reach a point in their life when it is appropriate for them to leave the birth family home. At this time they will ideally establish an independent place of their own without severing all ties to their birth family or the family dwelling. This expectation is premised on, what many see as an idealized, ideological and ethnocentric view of home. According to this construction home is thought of as a nurturing environment underpinned by stable relationships that provide continuity of care and foster interdependence while also facilitating a capacity for independence. Ideas about the age and manner in which young men or women should leave home (i.e., to get married or establish an independent household, to travel, work or go to university) are culturally and historically contingent. Nonetheless usual and socially acceptable routes out of home remain and those young people who take alternative pathways risk social exclusion or marginalisation. The pathway taken out of home, whether chosen or imposed, is often crucial in how these young people and/or their (past, present and future) homes are identified and defined (Jones, 1995; Wardaugh, 1999). These ideas resonate with some of the literature on migrants, refugees and people living in exile. Accordingly the conditions under which people leave their homelands, their journeys beyond and away from home and their destinations are all said to impact on their identity and understanding of home. Many who write about these experiences represent the relationship between home and away as oppositional. As Ahmed (1999) notes, in some postcolonial literature home is a space of belonging and being with clearly defined, fixed boundaries in which the subject is free of desire, at rest, secure and comfortable. In contrast, migration and nomadism are conceived as exceptional and extraordinary encounters with strange lands and strangers that engender homeless states of being or identities in perpetual flux. Ahmed (1999) like others who write on home and travel (Bammer, 1992; Olwig, 1999) rejects the idea that home and away are oppositional experiences and concepts. She argues that home is not a pure bounded and fixed space of belonging and identity that is as familiar as the away is both strange and inhabited by strangers. Home encompasses both movement and strangers. Home can be experienced as strange and/or familiar: It is not simply a question then of those who stay at home, and those who leave, as if these two different trajectories simply lead people to different places. Rather 'homes' always involve encounters between those who stay, those who arrive and those who leave . . . There is movement and dislocation within the very forming of homes as complex and contingent spaces of inhabitance. (340) In making this argument Ahmed (1999), like Massey (1992) and Hooks (1990) asserts that home is not necessarily a singular place or state of being rather it may be one's country, city or town, where one's family lives or comes from and/or where one usually lives. It may be other places or relationships. These homes hold differing symbolic meaning and salience. It is possible to be homeless in one, some or all of these categories at the same time. This view resonates with Mary Douglas (1991) view of home as a 'kind of space' or 'localizable idea'. 'Home is located in space, but it is not necessarily a fixed space . . . home starts by bringing some space under control' (289). It cannot be simply equated with shelter, house or household. For Ahmed, along with Gurney, Somerville and others, home and more particularly being at home is a matter, at least in part, of affect or feeling- as the presence or absence of particular feelings. It is also usefully theorized, following Brah (1996), as the lived experience of locality. Being at home involves the 'immersion of a self in a locality'. The locality 'intrudes' upon the self through the senses, defining 'what one smells, hears, touches, feels, remembers'. Equally the self penetrates the locality. Accordingly the boundaries between home and self and between home and away are permeable. As such when one moves away from home the movement itself occurs in relation to home, it is part of the very 'constitution' of home itself. Being at home (in the world) Ahmed's work is consistent with a significant stream of phenomenological research on home that describes the experience of 'being-at-home' in the world. Understood in this way, home is a (stative) verb rather than a noun, a state of being which is not necessarily bounded by a physical location. Phenomenologists do not attempt to define the essence of home or circumscribe people's experience. Instead they focus on practice, on the diverse ways people 'do' and feel home (Gurney, 1997; Jackson, 1995; Ingold, 1995) rather than the ways that they think about home. They are interested in the dialectical relationship between self and object in the intentional production of home and accord 'epistemological status to the subject's meanings and experience' (Somerville, 1997: 230). As such many explore the 'dynamic processes and transactions' that transform a 'dwelling unit . . . into a home in the context of everyday life' (Despres, 1991: 101; see also Dovey, 1985; Korosec-Serfaty, 1985). These temporal processes can include routinized activities as well as seasonal and/or cyclical events such as birthdays (Saile, 1985). Others writers, inspired by, but not wedded to, phenomenology retain their fascination for people's experiences of being at home in the world, without appealing to fixed notions of society, culture or even the person. These writers de-emphasize without necessarily dismissing the notion of the intentional subject. Michael Jackson's work, particularly his (1995) book, At Home in the World is a prominent example of this approach. His work on home arises form a broader intellectual project to 'describe how in different societies, people work-in reality and through illusion, alone and in concert with others [-] to shape the course of their own lives' (123). As such '[h]ome is grounded less in a place and more in the activity that occurs in the place' (148). Home then is not simply a person, a thing or a place, but rather it relates to the activity performed by, with or in person's, things and places. Home is lived in the tension between the given and the chosen, then and now, here and there. Jackson comments that 'we often feel at home in the world when what we do has some effect and what we say carries some weight' (123). All too often the dialectical tension between shaping and being shaped by the world goes too far in one direction, swinging between 'world mastery' and alienation. Many who employ phenomenological approaches to understand the meaning of home are attuned to people's experiences of injustice and inequality in the home sphere and draw attention to this in their work. Wardaugh's (1999) work on homeless women is a recent example. Wardaugh (1999) following Dovey (1985) notes that while home maybe located in space as a particular place (e.g. a house, an apartment, an institution, etc), it is always more than this. It is a physical space that is lived [-] a space that is an 'expression of social meanings and identities' (95). Wardaugh asserts that the concept of home cannot exist without the concept of homelessness. Home and homelessness exist in a dynamic, dialectical relationship. They are not, as some suggest, fixed oppositional terms. Rather they refer to 'complex and shifting experiences and identities' (Wardaugh, 1999: 93) that emerge and unfold in and through time. Critiques of phenomenological or phenomenologically inspired accounts of home take one of two conventional forms. As Somerville (1997) notes, some critics, particularly sociologists, dismiss phenomenological approaches for failing to adequately consider or acknowledge the social and discursive fields that impinge upon and frame experience. Other critics focus on the adequacy, even accuracy of the representations of people's experiences. Prominent among these are the feminist critiques which claim that gendered experiences of home are often overlooked or misrepresented. Surprisingly there has been very little sustained analysis of the methodologies employed by phenomenologically inspired researchers, even though ethnography, episodic ethnographies, in-depth interviewing, even quantitative surveys have all been claimed as legitimate phenomenological methods. The use of quantitative and semi-structured interviews is particularly perplexing given that phenomenology is first and foremost a study of people's accounts of their everyday practices and experiences. Some researchers avoid using phenomenological and social constructionist theories together (Jackson, 1995), claiming that the emphasis on subjective experience integral to phenomenology is at odds with the focus on objective and discrete notions of society (and person) implicit in the social constructionist metaphor (Somerville, 1997). However, many researchers and theorists of home slip between and/or strategically employ the two approaches. This is perhaps best exemplified with brief reference to the work of sociologist, Craig Gurney. Gurney (1997), for example, employs a range of methods including in-depth interviews, episodic ethnographies and survey data to analyze how people make sense of home through lived experience. Although his interest in process and lived experience reflects his considerable debt to phenomenology, he cannot be described as a phenomenologist. Gurney's work is premised on a belief that the worlds people inhabit are socially constructed. By employing the social construction metaphor he appeals to a notion of a passive, ontological social world or society upon which ideas, discourses and practices are elaborated. People make sense of these socially constructed worlds through lived experience. Accordingly he argues that home is an ideological construct that emerges through and is created from people's lived experience. Gurney stresses the importance of emotion (love, intimacy, family, anger, depression, among others) in the discursive construction of the meaning of home, as part of a broader agenda to affirm and consolidate both a sociology of emotions and a feminist epistemology that does not separate reason and emotion. Somerville (1992) is perhaps typical of those theorists who claim that phenomenological accounts of home fail to adequately theorise the social and discursive worlds that impinge on people's notion of home. Like Gurney (1997), Somerville argues that home is an ideological construct but rejects the view that the meaning of home is only established experientially. He writes: Home is not just a matter of feelings and lived experience but also of cognition and intellectual construction: people may have a sense of home even though they have no experience or memory of it. . . . We cannot know what home 'really' is outside of these ideological structures. (530) Here Somerville makes a questionable theoretical distinction between cognition and experience and offers no account of how ideological forms emerge. Elaborating upon the empirical work of Watson and Austerbury (1986) Somerville postulates a provisional, conceptual construction of the meaning of home.8 He identifies six to seven key signifiers of home: 'shelter, hearth, privacy, roots, abode and (possibly) paradise' (332). In this construction, shelter refers to the physical structure or dwelling place that offers protection. This contrasts with a very minimalist notion of home as abode [-] a place, however unstable, where one can stay. Where hearth refers to a welcoming, warm, and relaxing physical environment, heart refers to a loving, supportive, secure and stable environment that provides emotional and physical well being. Home as privacy means a space where one has the capacity to establish and control personal boundaries. The term roots denotes home as a source of identity and meaning in the world and finally paradise refers to a constellation of positive idealized notions of home, evident in but not confined to the other key signifiers. Despite his emphasis on the ideological construction of home, Somerville concludes that the most important thing to know is 'what the home means to different people and to attempt to explain the range of different meanings that we find' (115). In a later article Somerville (1997) elaborates on this view, positing a mulit-disciplinary hybrid approach that attempts to reconcile and integrate (hetero)phenomenological theories with constructivist sociological analyses of the meaning of home. He argures for a unitary social phenonomenology founded on a belief in the socially, historically and culturally contingent nature of social relations- relations that are understood to be 'constructed by the intentional activity of free agents' (238). However in striving for a singular theory of home founded on consistent epistemologies and ontologies Somerville's overlooks the benefits of keeping potentially contradictory theoretical approaches to the study of home in creative tension. There is a sense in which he believes that it is possible to achieve a definitive theory of home, one that 'strikes at the heart of the matter', and one that uncritically relies on a notion of the intentional subject. Home, self, identity and being Many authors refer to the relation between home and identity and/or the concept of the self although few elaborate on the nature of this relationship Some claim for example that the home, which they typically conflate with house, is an expression or symbol of the self. Accordingly the house itself, the interior design of the house, and the decorations and use of space all reflect the occupant's sense of self (see Despr?s, 1991). Clare Cooper's (1976) article entitled the House, as Symbol of the Self is a prominent example of such work. In making this tentative claim, Cooper draws on the Jungian concept of the collective unconscious which links people to their primitive past and is the repository of fundamental forms of psychic energy known as archetypes. Symbols manifest these unconscious archetypes in space and time. Accordingly she speculates that one of the most fundamental archetypes, the free-standing house on the ground, is a frequent symbol of the self (Horelli, 1990). Tucker also suggests that home may be an expression of a person's subjectivity in the world. Alternatively he states it may simply be a space where people feel at ease and are able to express and fulfill their unique selves or identities. The home of which he speaks though is not conflated with the house. It may be an emotional environment, a culture, a geographical location, a political system, a historical time and place, a house etc., and a combination of all of the above (1994: 184). Authors such as Havel (1992; cited by Tucker, 1994) conceive of home as an inalienable source of identity. Havel, like Hollander (1991) imagines home in terms of concentric circles. These circles represent an aspect of existential experience that include, house, village or town, family, social environment, professional environment, the nation, civic society, the civilization and the world. Each is equally important and must be given its due although some may be more important to people at different times in their lives. Havel writes, 'All the circles of our home . . . are an inalienable part of us, and an inseparable element of our human identity. Deprived of all the aspects of his home, man would be deprived of himself, of his humanity' (1992: 31; cited by Tucker, 1994). For philosophers such as Kuang-Ming Wu (1993) home refers to the intersubjective relationships that brings a self, person or I into being or existence. Home is therefore understood as fundamental to being. It is not conceptualised as a place or space. Drawing on the work of Sartre and Martin Buber, Kuang-Ming Wu claims that 'home is being-with-other(s)' (193). This being with others constitutes the person. Following Buber, Kuang-Ming Wu understands the 'I' as relational. It gives expression to a relation while also generating a relation. As such 'I' comes into being in relation to an-other and the other can become my hell and my home. Accordingly, to say that I am at home means 'I am at home in you (singular plural)'. When you accept me as I am, and I accept you accepting me then I am at home and 'I am born in this reciprocal acceptance' (194). 'Home is where I both was born and am being continually born, within that womb called other people, in their being not me' (195). Another strand of research on home and person or more correctly home and being, which has largely been inspired by Heidegger (1971), stresses the importance of building or making to our notion of home and our very existence. Heidegger claims that our building activities are integrally associated with and arise out of our capacity to dwell. In short the forms that we build, whether they be material or imaginary arise out of our immersion in the world- the very homeland of our thoughts (Merleau-Ponty, 1962: 24; Ingold, 1995: 76). Ginsburg (1998), like Ingold argues that 'human beings are homemakers'. He writes: We make our homes. Not necessarily by constructing them, although some people do that. We build the intimate shell of our lives by the organization and furnishing of the space in which we live. How we function as persons is linked to how we make ourselves at home. We need time to make our dwelling into a home. . . . Our residence is where we live, but our home is how we live. (31) Conclusion: it all depends. . . . How then is home understood? How should home be understood? Or, how could home be understood? Clearly the term home functions as a repository for complex, inter-related and at times contradictory socio-cultural ideas about people's relationship with one another, especially family, and with places, spaces, and things. It can be a dwelling place or a lived space of interaction between people, places, things; or perhaps both. The boundaries of home can be permeable and/or impermeable. Home can be singular and/or plural, alienable and/or inalienable, fixed and stable and/or mobile and changing. It can be associated with feelings of comfort, ease intimacy, relaxation and security and/or oppression, tyranny and persecution. It can or can not be associated with family. Home can be an expression of one's (possibly fluid) identity and sense of self and/or one's body might be home to the self. It can constitute belonging and/or create a sense of marginalisation and estrangement. Home can be given and/or made, familiar and/or strange, an atmosphere and/or an activity, a relevant and/or irrelevant concept. It can be fundamental and/or extraneous to existence. Home can be an ideological construct and/or an experience of being in the world. It can be a crucial site for examining relations of production and consumption, globalisation and nationalism, citizenship and human rights, and the role of government and governmentality. Equally it can provide a context for analysing ideas and practices about intimacy, family, kinship, gender, ethnicity, class, age and sexuality. Such ideas can be inflected in domestic architecture and interior and urban design. Together, the three questions listed above are relevant to interdisciplinary debates and studies of home. In responding to these questions interested researchers could usefully reflect on people's diverse experience and ways of understanding home while also considering actual and potential (i.e., how is, should and could home be understood?) theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of home. Clearly both the experience and the study of home is value laden. As such researchers in the field need to be clear and transparent about the motivation behind and purposes for their own research. They also need to recognise and acknowledge the limitations of their work and the implication of these limitations for their own and others' understanding of this term. Hollander (1991) puts this succinctly when he argues that both the meaning and study of home 'all depends'. Briefly, how home is and has been defined at any given time depends upon 'specification of locus and extent' and the broader historical and social context. Acknowledgements I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their incisive critiques. Both reviewers approached this paper with generous spirits. Their commentaries were both invaluable. This research was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, USA Grant MH61185. I wish to thank Jen Johnson and Alina Turner for discussing the ideas in this paper, Paul Myers for chasing references and Doreen Rosenthal for her academic support. I also wish to thank the Project i team at the Centre for Community Health, UCLA. Notes 1 Wardaugh (1999) and Jackson (1995) draw on a diverse range of home literature, although they do not set out to posit an interdisciplinary approach to the study of home. 2 For a discussion of cross-cultural significance of home, place and space see for example, Low, S. and Lawrence-Z? [n] iga, D., (eds), (2003), Birdwell Pheasant, D. and Lawrence-Z? [n] iga, (1999), Feld and Basso 1996; Fox; 1997; Rapoport 1981; Mallett, 2003. 3 This project on the relationship between home and homelessness is being undertaken as part of Project i, a cross national, longitudinal study of homeless young people in Melbourne and Los Angeles. 4 This is not to suggest that housing and land tenure did not figure in the meaning of home prior to the latter half of the 20th century. In New Zealand for example, following the 19th century land wars the colonial governments appropriated indigenous Maori land which was them leased or sold to European settlers to farm. Later as the urban centres developed, colonial governments extended this offer to include urban home ownership. Legislation introduced at the beginning of the 20th century aimed at 'extending home ownership to the working class' led to nearly 60% owner occupancy rates in New Zealand by 1921 (Dupuis and Thorne, 1998: 400). 5 This approach has been pursued by Hepworth (1999) and Tosh (1996) in their discussion of the design features of the ideal Victorian home. Hepworth argues that the design and organization of Victorian homes valorized notions of security, privacy and respectability, as demonstrated by an emphasis on rooms and external surrounds bounded by walls, doors, locks and keys. The home was conceived as a fortress from the potentially deviant realms of the outside world. As Tosh notes the bourgeois Victorian home was a gendered domain that valorized a form of domesticity founded on the separation of home and work that occurred as a consequence of industrialization. See Brindley (1999) for a discussion of the Modern house in England. 6 Heidi la Mare takes exception to view that the Netherlands was the place where this happened first. 7 Somerville (1989) dismisses Saunders and Williams (1988) analysis of privacy claiming it is simplistic and fails to grasp that the private domain is constituted by social, economic and political relationships both within and beyond the home. 8 Somerville (1989) rejects this claim, arguing that it needs to be supported by empirical research. 9 Watson and Austerbury (1986) claim form their empirical findings of a study of homeless that material conditions, emotional and physical well-being, loving and caring social relations, control and privacy and living/sleeping space are the key dimensions of home identified by their participants. References Ahmed, S., (1999), 'Home and Away: Narratives of Migration and Estrangement', International Journal of Cultural Studies, 2 (3): 329 [-] 347. 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Religion and Society: The Development of Muscular Christianity in Victorian Britain and Beyond Message-ID: The Development of Muscular Christianity in Victorian Britain and Beyond Journal of Religion and Society http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-2.html [Muscular Christianity was alive and well in Mr. Mencken's day. Teddy Roosevelt iirc was a champion. You have to click on the URL to get the Java-based notes. The paragraphs are numbered. They are not links.] Nick J. Watson York St. John's College, University of Leeds Stuart Weir Christians in Sport, UK Stephen Friend York St. John's College, University of Leeds Introduction [1] The development of Muscular Christianity in the second half of the nineteenth century has had a sustained impact on how Anglo-American Christians view the relationship between sport, physical fitness, and religion. It has been argued that the birth of Muscular Christianity in Victorian Britain forged a strong ". . . link between Christianity and sport" that ". . . has never been broken" (Crepeau: 2). The emergence of neo-muscular Christian groups during the latter half of the twentieth century (Putney) and the promotion of sport in Catholic institutions, such as the University of Notre Dame, can be seen as a direct consequence of Victorian Muscular Christianity. Modern Evangelical Protestant organizations, such as Christians in Sport (CIS) in England and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) in the U.S., have resurrected many of the basic theological principles used to promote sport and physical fitness in Victorian Britain. [2] The basic premise of Victorian Muscular Christianity was that participation in sport could contribute to the development of Christian morality, physical fitness, and "manly" character. The term was first adopted in the 1850s to portray the characteristics of Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) and Thomas Hughes' (1822-1896) novels. Both Kingsley and Hughes were keen sportsmen and advocates of the strenuous life. Fishing, hunting, and camping were Kingsley's favorite pastimes, which he saw as a "counterbalance" to ". . . education and bookishness" (Bloomfield: 174). Hughes was a boxing coach and established an athletics track and field program and cricket team at the Working Men's College in London where he eventually became Principal (Redmond). Not just writers but social critics, Kingsley and Hughes were heavily involved in the Christian Socialist movement and believed that the Anglican Church had become weakened by a culture of effeminacy (Putney). Kingsley supported the idea that godliness was compatible with manliness and viewed manliness as an "antidote to the poison of effeminacy - the most insidious weapon of the Tractarians - which was sapping the vitality of the Anglican Church" (Newsome: 207). From this, the doctrine of Muscular Christianity was adopted as a response to the perceived puritanical and ascetic religiosity of the Tractarians, later known as the Oxford Movement. [3] Aside from the religious motivations for the evolution and advancement of Muscular Christianity, the Victorians' preoccupation with health is arguably the most significant factor. "No topic more occupied the Victorian mind than Health . . . they invented, revived, or imported from abroad a multitude of athletic recreations, and England became in Sir Charles Tennyson's words, the world's game master" (Haley: 3). Haley suggests there were three main reasons for the prominence of the concept of the healthy body in the mid-nineteenth century. [4] First, the Industrial Revolution brought about a Leisure Revolution within the working class population (Cunningham) and played a major role in focusing the Victorian psyche on health. Paradoxically, the automation of industry had led to sedentary lifestyles and as a consequence an exponential rise in cardio-vascular and respiratory disease. In addition, poor conditions and long arduous working hours in the factories resulted in many contracting occupational diseases. Second, the nineteenth century witnessed a number of major developments in medical science. The founding of physiology as a distinct discipline separate from biological science, and the emergence of physiological psychology engendered a holistic understanding of health and an emphasis on the mind-body connection. Third, and often less publicized, there was a real threat of war from a number of European countries and the Americans. Responding to this, the intelligentsia saw the need to protect the British Empire and produce leaders that were well educated and "manly" (Haley). Kingsley and Hughes, amongst other Protestant elite, saw Muscular Christianity as an appropriate vehicle for advancing British imperialism and increasing the health and well-being of the nation (Putney). Through the medium of sport, Kingsley saw the potential for spiritual, moral, and physical development: . . . in the playing field boys acquire virtues which no books can give them; not merely daring and endurance, but, better still temper, self-restraint, fairness, honor, unenvious approbation of another's success, and all that `give and take'of life which stand a man in good stead when he goes forth into the world, and without which, indeed, his success is always maimed and partial (Kingsley cited in Haley: 119). [5] The aim of this essay is to provide an understanding of the historical and theological development of Muscular Christianity in Victorian Britain and how this has contributed to the relationship that exists between Christianity and Sport today. Discussion will focus on the historical and theological roots of the movement and its manifestation in the late twentieth^ and twenty-first century. Historical and Theological Roots of Muscular Christianity [6] The origins of Muscular Christianity can be traced back to the New Testament where St. Paul and others used athletic metaphors to help describe the challenges of the Christian life (1 Corinthians 6:19; 9:24-25; and 2 Timothy. 4: 7).[1]<1> However, the explicit advocacy of sport and exercise, in the guise of Muscular Christianity, did not evolve until the mid-nineteenth century in Britain, and the source of the idiom has been a point of debate amongst scholars (Redmond). It is commonly accepted that a review of Charles Kingsley's Two Years Ago (1857) for the Saturday Review, written by the cleric T.C. Sandars was the first place the term appeared (Simon and Bradley). Ironically, Kingsley abhorred it and wrote a vitriolic response to the author who had used ". . . that painful, if not offensive term, `Muscular Christianity'" (Haley: 109). Thomas Hughes, a friend and supporter of Kingsley, then used the concept in a follow-up to Tom Brown's Schooldays (1857), called Tom Brown at Oxford (1861). In contrast to Kingsley, who seemed worried about the negative connotations that may have been attached to the secular phrase "muscular", Hughes used it to promote the athleticism that was so pervasive in his novels (Winn). This said, Rosen notes that he was careful to clearly distinguish the concept of "muscular Christians" from the "musclemen" (athletes without Christian beliefs): "the only point in common between the two being, that both hold it to be a good thing to have strong and well-exercised bodies . . . Here all likeness ends", the Christian belief is ". . . that a man's body is given him to be trained and brought into subjection and then used for the protection of the weak, the advancement of all righteous causes" (Hughes: 99). [7] Interestingly, Redmond has noted that a closer examination of other children's literature long before the birth of the concept in Kingsley and Hughes shows that the general thesis of Muscular Christianity was implicit within works published between 1762 and 1857. The work of writers, such as J.J. Rousseau, William Clarke, Dorothy Kilner, William Howitt, and S.G. Goodrich all possess glimpses of the Christian muscular gospel that flowered in the literature of Kingsley and Hughes. In his classic, Emile (1762), Rousseau emphasizes the importance of physical education in the development of moral character: "Give his body constant exercise, make it strong and healthy in order to make him good and wise . . . The lessons the scholars learn from one another in the playground are worth a hundred fold more than what they learn in the classroom" (cited in Redmond: 9). In conclusion, Redmond suggests neither Kingsley nor Hughes can be accredited with the original "athletic gospel" but they "reaped the harvest" that gave birth to the Muscular Christian movement during the Victorian period. [8] Their personal lives, education, and political and theological affiliations heavily influenced Kingsley's and Hughes' ideas. The period between 1850-1900 was characterized by social unrest and political instability in the form of labor unrest in the working class population and serious problems with public health (Clark). Both Hughes and Kingsley had been sympathizers of Chartism, a political movement that developed in response to the social injustices suffered by the working classes. As a rector and author of social novels such as Yeast (1848), Westward Ho! (1855), and Alton Locke (1850), Kingsley became widely known as the "Chartist clergyman" (McGlynn). Following the House of Commons' decision to reject the Chartist Petition in 1848 and the subsequent demise of Chartism, Kingsley and Hughes continued to support the grievances of the working classes as leading proponents of Christian Socialism. They joined forces with other Christian Socialist thinkers such as F.D. Maurice (1805-1872), J.M. Ludlow (1821-1911), and Thomas Arnold (1795-1842). It was Ludlow who convinced Kingsley and Maurice that Christianity and Socialism could be integrated to offer an antidote to the political doctrine of Chartism (Bloomfield). [9] Although the Christian Socialist movement had a similar goal as Chartism, its primary focus was on providing solutions to social ills through educational and moral change, not change in political legislation (Norman). At the time, this was a radical idea. Before the late 1840s, the Church of England's attitude to implementing social reform was conservative with leading evangelicals emphasizing the hierarchical class system, thus marginalizing the poor and downtrodden. They saw poverty as being self-inflicted through various sins such as self-indulgence and intemperance (Parsons). The class system was also reinforced during the late nineteenth century by the fashionable concept of Social Darwinism. In short, the primary concern of the Victorian Church of England before the mid-nineteenth century had been to "save the lost" (i.e., to win converts) with concern for social welfare often coming a poor second. [10] The Christian Socialists heavily criticized the Church's advocacy of the classic political economy and hierarchical class structure, which had contributed to the dehumanizing and neglect of the working class population during the early nineteenth century (Norman). In respect to Muscular Christianity, Kingsley had stressed the social benefits that accrue from participation in athletic activities, especially in terms of demolishing class divisions. Nevertheless, the Christian Socialist idea of a classless society often concealed ". . . a deeper belief in the class system and in the bourgeois hegemony" which is personified by the middle-class boys depicted in Hughes' Tom Brown's Schooldays (Allen: 120). And although implicit, there seems to be what Allen calls a "conceptual dilemma" in Hughes' classic work, between "the classless democracy of the athletic body and the hierarchical structure of the class system" (120-21). This tension was also evident in what Hargreaves calls a "leadership cult," which existed in middle-class public schools where society's leaders were being nurtured. [11] The Christian Socialists, a small but very influential group of academics and Protestant clergy, disseminated their ideas primarily through two journals, Politics of the People (1848-1849) and The Christian Socialist (1850-1851). F.D. Maurice, who is recognized as the movement's most influential and leading thinker, also founded the Working Men's College in London in 1854, which ran evening classes, thus acting as a vehicle to educate the working class people. The theology that underpinned the Christian Socialist thesis and which complemented Muscular Christianity can be mainly attributed to Maurice. Heavily influenced by the idealism of Coleridge he believed that the Kingdom of God should be accessible to all members of society, a theology of universal brotherhood (Norman). In Maurice's book The Kingdom of God (1838) and in a later controversial publication Theological Essays (1852), he championed an Incarnational theology, which provided an elevated view of humanity with a stress on the importance of educating the masses to recognize their place in God's Kingdom. [12] During the first half of the nineteenth century, there had been an emphasis on the Atonement within theological circles. Nevertheless, the advent of the Christian Socialist movement, especially in the work of Maurice, saw a shift ". . . to promote the study of social and political questions in the light of the Incarnation" (Norman: 30). This it was argued, has a sound biblical basis in the teachings of Jesus (e.g., Mark 3:20-30; Matthew 12:25-32; Luke 4) and provided the basis for Kingsley's theological position, which recognized the significance of the embodied soul, and in turn the goodness of athleticism and physical strength in the formation of character. Donald Hall has noted that the frequent reference to the body in the Politics for the People and other Christian Socialist literature provides evidence that ". . . the metaphors and pedagogical goals of the Christian Socialists and muscular Christians are inextricably linked" (48). This highlights the importance and significance of Hughes and Kingsley's work within the Christian Socialist movement and its impact upon social and cultural change during the Victorian period. Of the two, Kingsley has written more on the muscular Christian ethic and deserves the credit for providing Muscular Christianity ". . . with a cohesive and conscious philosophy, consisting equally of athleticism, patriotism, and religion" (Putney: 12). [13] It can be argued that the most significant idea to evolve from Kingsley's corpus of writings is "Christian manliness." His doctrine of masculinity had been originally based upon his ". . . instincts which told him that the life of a clergyman was compatible with married life and with that of a sportsman" (Haley: 111). From this, he sought to provide philosophical and theological justification for his feelings and borrowed from a diverse group of thinkers. The philosophical lineage of Kingsleyan masculinity is derived from Plato's concept of thumos, which he interpreted as a primal manly force involved in sex, morality, and fighting (Rosen). Although Bloomfield acknowledges that it is speculative, she suggests Kingsley's work may have also been influenced by the mystical and occult philosophy of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). There are a number of clear parallels in their work and perhaps most significantly their ". . . desire - to seek the relationship between soul and body" (173). Due to the influence of Plato's mind-body dualism and the liberal philosophy of Swedenborg in his work, his more orthodox contemporaries frequently accused Kingsley of Neo-Platonism and Pantheism, an accusation that he angrily refuted. These philosophical roots were formed while he was reading Classics at Cambridge University, where he gained a first class degree. He then developed and focused his ideas into a doctrine of social action and reform through reading the works of, and collaborating with essayist and social historian Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) and theologian F.D. Maurice. [14] Carlyle had been influenced by the German Romanticist thought of Herder and Goethe. In trying to synthesize what Kant had described as the noumena and phenomena, Johan Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803) had promoted the ". . . veneration of the body as being natural, beautiful manifestation of life and vitality, a vehicle through which, by means of gesture, the soul could speak" (Bloomfield: 180). Hence, it is possible to trace certain elements of German Romanticism in the thought of Kingsley. Haley proposes that Kingsley's notion of the muscular Christian or "healthy hero" was primarily based upon three of Carlyle's ideas: the body is an expression of the spirit and therefore the obedience to healthy impulse is a sign of constitutional harmony; the state of health is acknowledgment of the laws of nature and compliance with these laws; and heroism is a life of action made possible by observing the laws of health (111-12). In light of this, neither Kingsley, Maurice, or Hughes accepted the entire "vague theistic gospel" of Carlyle, but nevertheless it had a significant impact upon their work. Primarily, it was the ". . . angry Old Testament rhetoric of Carlyle's social criticism," which was a ". . . brutally direct stimulus to social action and intervention" that most significantly influenced the Christian socialist theology of Maurice and his associates (Vance: 59). [15] In Alderson's analysis of Christian manliness in Kingsley's novel Alton Locke (1850), he contends that "the imperatives of a counter-revolutionary and Protestant culture . . . enabled the Kingsleyan sense of the ideal male body to become so central to the masculine self-definition of Britain's rulers" (43-44). In addition to the fears within the Protestant elite of the feminization of the Victorian Church, the rise of evolutionary theory and in the late nineteenth century Freudian and Jungian psychologies also helped strengthen Kingsley's notion of masculinity (Rosen). The doctrine of masculinity has been absorbed into the "deep structure" of society and continues to have a pervasive influence in athletics, religion, and men's movements within modern Anglo-American culture. For example, twentieth century men's movements that "seek to rid men of the problems of pre-sixties' macho and post-sixties' sensitivities" owe much to Kingsley (Rosen: 39-40). And in relation to sports participation, Harris proposes that ". . . the muscular novel according to Kingsley and Hughes contributed to the immense vogue of athletics from the late sixties onwards" (11). [16] In light of the widespread and prolonged influence of Kingsley's notion of the muscular Christian, there were notable Victorian and post-Victorian writers, such as Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) and E.M. Forster (1879-1970), who strongly disagreed with Kingsley's ideas (Putney). Forster suggested that those educated within the movement ended up with "well-developed bodies . . . and underdeveloped hearts" (5). Likewise, in a contemporary analysis of values, sport, and education, Grace suggests, "the irony of muscular Christianity is that it elevated sport more than the Gospels" (17). There were also staunch criticisms from a number of leading professors within American academia, especially before 1880. A major reason for this was the American Civil War. Soldiers hardly needed to prove their manliness on a playing field after demonstrating it on the battlefield and thus often derided the concept of Muscular Christianity (Putney). [17] One of the key figures in the Oxford Movement, Catholic theologian John Henry Newman (1801-1890), had also publicly voiced his criticisms of Kingsley's philosophy. In his novel Westward Ho! (1855), Kingsley attacked the Catholic Church, and specifically its asceticism and condemnation of the flesh, and judged what he called "Mariolatry" as a major reason for the feminization of Victorian culture (Schiefelbein). According to Schiefelbein, this points out that Kingsley himself had been prone to confusion between his ascetic impulses and his sexual desires. The result was the most unfortunate (for Kingsley!) and infamous Kingsley-Newman controversy, which centred on a disagreement over the anthropological nature of man. Kingsley promoted a vision of the "divineness of the whole manhood," a synthesis of mind and body, and an education wherein ". . . one did not need to attend a university to form a manly character" (Haley: 119). While Newman agreed with Kingsley's understanding of the wholeness of man, he rejected his anti-intellectualism and emphasis on the corporeal dimension within the Christian life. In agreement with Newman, Fasick has argued against Kingsley's "hyper-masculinity" commenting, "despite his homage to gentleness and patience, Kingsley's real attraction is apparently to the displays of power and aggression with which he adorns his novels" (109). Haley notes that Newman adopted a more sophisticated approach arguing, "the man of philosophic habit has `illumination,' not an inborn, infallible guide to conduct," which in turn differentiated between manliness and what Newman called gentlemanliness (Haley: 118). Kingsley had frequently criticized a number of High Anglican and Catholic clergy, but when he personally attacked Newman, Newman was quick to respond producing Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1864), a rigorous defense of Catholicism. In the eyes of the intelligentsia, this won Newman the debate, much to Kingsley's embarrassment (Putney). The Fruits of Muscular Christianity: Socio-Cultural Developments in Victorian Britain [18] Following the rise of Chartism and Christian Socialism, and shifting theological perspectives during the mid-Victorian period, a significant number of the Protestant elite, especially Kingsley and Hughes, advocated the use of sports and exercise to promote the harmonious development of mind, body, and spirit (Hall, 1994). Mathisen identified four models of Muscular Christianity that had developed from the ideas of Hughes and Kingsley by the end of the nineteenth century. These are the classical model, evangelical model, the YMCA model, and the Olympic model. The promulgation of sport and physical pursuits in English Public Schools such as Rugby, Eton, and Uppingham, was arguably the most significant socio-cultural development to evolve from "classical" Muscular Christianity. [19] During the late 1850s, the tenets of Muscular Christianity became an integral part of the public school educational system. The primary reason was to encourage Christian morality and help develop the character of the future captains of industry and political leaders, and in turn strengthen the British Empire (Wilkinson). Edward Thring (1821-1887), headmaster of Uppingham between 1853-1857, sums this up when he states, "the whole efforts of a school ought to be directed to making boys, manly, earnest and true" (Rawnsley: 12). The main impetus for the integration of the muscular Christian ethic into Public Schools was Thomas Hughes' book[2]<2> Tom Brown's School Days (1857), a story of a boy whose character was shaped playing sport at Rugby School. Hughes had been heavily influenced by Rev. Dr. Thomas Arnold, his headmaster at Rugby during the 1830s, who instilled in him ". . . a strong religious faith and loyalty to Christ" (Brown: x). Although, it is Arnold that is most frequently cited in the literature as the driving force behind sports in public schools, the Rev. George Cotton had masterminded the sports program at Rugby School under Arnold. Cotton was perhaps the prototype of what Mangan called "a novel kind of school master - the athletic pedagogue" (23). [20] The Muscular Christianity movement within public schools relied heavily upon the notion of Kingsleyan manliness. The sport of rugby was particularly popular as it gave plenty of opportunity to "take hard knocks without malice" (Mason 1981), a desirable trait in possible future leaders of industry and the military. Rugby, Dobbs suggests, was almost the perfect game for the promotion of Muscular Christianity, and if it had not already existed leaders of the movement would have invented it: If the Muscular Christians and their disciples in the public schools, given sufficient wit, had been asked to invent a game that exhausted boys before they could fall victims to vice and idleness, which at the same time instilled the manly virtues of absorbing and inflicting pain in about equal proportions, which elevated the team above the individual, which bred courage, loyalty and discipline, which as yet had no taint of professionalism and which, as an added bonus, occupied 30 boys at a time instead of a mere twenty-two, it is probably something like rugby that they would have devised (89). [21] Dobbs' reference to rugby as an activity that would distract boys from vice and idleness was closely associated to the two unmentionables of the Victorian period: masturbation and homosexuality (Dobre-Laza). It was hoped that "games and religious worship . . ." would ". . . offer the Muscular Christian substitute gratifications for sexual desire . . ." which may otherwise be expressed in the perceived vice of masturbation (Harrington: 50). Homosexuality was also a major concern of public school masters. Holt has commented that ". . . at precisely the moment when the new norms of maleness were coming into force, the incarnation of the opposite of `manliness' was defined in the form of homosexuality, which for the first time was generally designated a crime in 1885" (90). Thus, Kingsleyan masculinity acted as the antithesis of homosexuality and aesthetics during the Victorian age (Dobre-Laza).[3]<3> [22] A number of modern sports historians are skeptical about the motivations behind the original muscular Christians and the implementation of these ideas in nineteenth century public schools. For example, Baker (2000) argues that the ideologies behind the promotion of sport in Victorian Schools were primarily related to class, the Protestant work ethic, and the idea of manliness that was pedaled as an antidote to the feminization of the Church. As Grace has argued, Baker presents a purely functionalist thesis, which has some merit but is a rather narrow and simplistic analysis of a movement that has offered much to our understanding of sport and Christian values. In summary, the birth of Muscular Christianity in nineteenth century public schools has been one of the most significant factors in the development of sport and physical training in our modern educational systems (Mechikoff and Estes). [23] A form of Muscular Christianity was also adopted as an evangelical tool by a number of individuals and groups during the Victorian period. C.T. Studd (1860-1931), a world-renowned cricketer and leader of the so called Cambridge Seven, and the American lay evangelist Dwight L. Moody (1837-1899), both recognized the compatibility of sport and Christianity. However, their philosophy was not directly in line with "classical" Kingsleyan Muscular Christianity, which was largely a liberal and high Church phenomenon. As evangelicals, they emphasized that sport, although a valid recreational activity, was unimportant compared to gospel ministry. The story of Scotsman Eric Liddell, Olympic athlete, international rugby player, and Christian missionary in the early 1920s, powerfully depicted in the Academy award winning film Chariots of Fire (1981), closely resonates with the type of Muscular Christianity advocated by Studd and Moody. Liddell's decision not to race on a Sunday, due to his Christian faith (Exodus 20: 8), so missing the 100 meter final of the 1924 Olympics and his decision to give up a distinguished athletics career to become a missionary in China (Liddell), demonstrates many of the virtues of the muscular Christian ethic. Vance highlights that Liddell was a popular speaker at evangelical rallies and in universities where students were keen to listen to the testimony and ideas of the "flying Scotsman," and that Liddell has "carried the neo-evangelical version of what was essentially Victorian Christian manliness into the middle of the twentieth century" (172). [24] Muscular Christianity also influenced the founding of the British Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in London in 1844 by George Williams. However, at its inception the YMCA emphasized ". . . bible-study, prayer and education" and had frowned upon sport and athletic activities as an unwanted distraction from evangelism. But they found it increasingly difficult to retain members due to competition with these secular attractions (Vance: 168). Over the next twenty to thirty years more liberal views crept into the philosophy of the YMCA, which had previously been characterized by evangelical piety. Towards the end of the nineteenth century Kingsleyan manliness became a pervasive theme in evangelical literature and rhetoric, and the concept of Muscular Christianity was thoroughly institutionalized into Victorian culture and the YMCA (Rosen). The result was the proliferation of gymnasia and health and fitness programs within the YMCA on both sides of the Atlantic.[4]<4> [25] The main impetus for the founding of the YMCA in Britain had been the unhealthy social conditions arising from the industrial revolution. Young men, who had previously worked in a rural setting, worked ten to twelve hours a day, six days a week, in factories with generally appalling conditions. Shortly after the founding of the YMCA in Britain, a number of American Protestant ministers from various denominations, along with Captain Thomas Sullivan, formed a YMCA in Boston in 1851. This was based upon the British model and in time led to the development of the YMCA in numerous major American cities. Two hundred and five were established across the states by 1860 (Putney). The lay evangelists Dwight L. Moody and John Mott (1865-1955) were heavily involved with the American YMCA during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Many young men were sent abroad as missionary-like YMCA secretaries and war workers. This was a major dimension of the significant missionary outreach by Christian Churches around the turn of the century (YMCA). [26] In terms of promoting Muscular Christianity, Dr Luther H. Gulick (1865-1918), an instructor in the YMCA Training School in Springfield, MA, was perhaps the most influential figure within the YMCA (Putney). Gulick created the distinctive triangular emblem of the YMCA that conceptualized fitness as an integration of mind, body and spirit, and in turn emphasized their muscular Christian ethos. Putney suggests that Gulick campaigned to ". . . Christianize the gym" (Putney: 71) and in turn reinforced the growing relationship between sport and Christianity. The founding of the Boys' Brigade by Sir William Alexander Smith (1854-1914) in Glasgow in 1883 further strengthened the synthesis of sport and Christianity during the Victorian era. Sport and other activities were used in addition to drills as a means of building Christian manly character. Smith identified the use of outdoor adventure in building character and manliness, and was intrigued by the scouting methods used by soldiers in the Boer war. This led to Smith asking Sir S.S. Baden Powell (1857-1941), a hero of the war, to re-write his Aids to Scouting for the Boys Brigade. Eventually, this resulted in the publication of Scouting for Boys (1907) and the formation of the Boy Scouts in Britain in 1897, an independent organization, which unlike the Boys Brigade evolved into a mainly secular organization (Vance). The Americans soon followed suit with a number of YMCA staff members playing a key role in establishing the Boy Scouts of America in 1910 (YMCA). [27] Commenting on the significance of the YMCA and the movement of Muscular Christianity in which it is embedded, the prominent American psychologist G. Stanley Hall stated with great insight that "among all the marvelous advances of Christianity either within this organization [the YMCA] or without it . . . the future historian of the Church will place this movement of carrying the gospel to the body as one of the most epoch making" (377). Over the last one hundred and fifty years the YMCA has evolved into a worldwide organization and respected Christian institution that has made a significant contribution to the promotion of sport and physical training in a Christian context. [28] The development of the Modern Olympic Games in 1896 by Baron Pierre de Coubertin (1863-1937) also had strong links with the ideology of Muscular Christianity. Notably, early in his life de Coubertin had contemplated entering the priesthood, having been brought up in the Roman Catholic tradition and attending a Jesuit school. However, he could not accept the dogma of the Church and advocated what has been termed "the religion of humanity"[5]<5> (Baker 2001: 15). Nevertheless, "Coubertin wrote in his memoirs that for him `. . . sport is religion with Church, dogma, cult . . . but especially with religious feeling', thus Coubertin . . . clearly had a religious understanding of Olympism" (Kortzfleisch: 231-36). Widund has also noted the similarities between de Coubertin's understanding of the Olympic ethos and St. Paul's writings, which encourage us to run the "good race" (1 Corinthians 9:24-25). Addressing the members of the International Olympic Committee at a banquet in London, de Coubertin said "the importance of these Olympiads is not so much to win as to take part . . . The important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have won but to have fought well" (Widund: 11). This became the core message of the modern Olympic movement and was borne in part from de Coubertin's engagement with the Muscular Christian ideal. [29] After reading a French translation of Thomas Hughes' Tom Brown's Schooldays and consequently visiting Rugby School, de Coubertin saw the athletic traditions of the English public schools system as a vehicle for rebuilding the character of France after the Franco-Prussian war (Vance) and as a perfect model for the rebirth of the Ancient Olympics (776 B.C.). In his own words, the philosophy of the games was "to unite ancient spirit and modern form" (Lammer: 107). He viewed the sports arena as ". . . a laboratory for manliness . . . an incomparable pedagogical tool . . . and it was all the invention of the Reverend Thomas Arnold. The Rugby School experiment, he said [inaccurately!], gave birth to `muscular Christianity' . . . a Greek formula perfected by Anglo-Saxon Civilization" (cited in Lucas: 51). In his Pedagogie Sportive (1934) de Coubertin credits Kingsley and Arnold as totally altering the direction and definition of non-professional sport (Lucas). This is certainly true and our next task is to briefly outline how Muscular Christianity has impacted upon the modern world where ". . . the invocation of God and Christ in the world of sports has reached epidemic proportions" (Crepeau: 2). The Legacy of Muscular Christianity in the Modern World [30] Sport in the modern world has become what Pope John Paul II states is a ". . . paradigm of mass psychology" that permeates all levels of contemporary society (in Feeney: 80). The Pope himself enjoyed swimming, skiing, and mountain climbing during his younger years, and is a strong advocate of the philosophy of Muscular Christianity (Feeney). In an address to the National Olympic Committee in Rome in 1979 he commented, "the Church has always been interested in . . . sport, because she prizes everything that contributes constructively to the harmonious and complete development of man, body and soul" (in Feeney: 60). Just prior to the 2004 Athens Olympics, the Vatican recognized the importance of promoting ethics in sports and formed an office for "Church and Sport" within the pontifical Council for the laity. The Council's statement states that the new office will strive to foster "a culture of sport" that is "an instrument of peace and brotherhood among peoples" (Glatz: 12). [31] In line with this, many Catholic colleges and universities, such as the University of Notre Dame, have emphasized the importance of a holistic education that includes sport and athletic activities. Notably, Lawrence Dallaglio, the English rugby union ex-captain who is often venerated for his leadership qualities and who epitomizes "manliness," is a former pupil of Ampleforth College, an English Catholic boarding school. Following the tradition of the nineteenth century public schools, the college is renowned for its sporting prowess, especially its twelve rugby teams. Their mission statement is imbued with the ideals of Victorian Muscular Christianity: To share with parents in the spiritual, moral and intellectual formation of their children . . . to work for excellence in all our endeavours, academic, sporting and cultural . . . to help Ampleforth boys and girls grow up mature and honourable, inspired by high ideals and capable of leadership, so that they may serve others generously. [32] The use of sports and outdoor pursuits as a method of instilling character in leaders has not been restricted to academic institutions. A Devon based Bible College, the Riverside Christian Centre, has recently incorporated "extreme sports" into its curriculum. Sports such as rafting, potholing, abseiling, white-water canoeing and surfing are used as ". . . part of the development of Christian leaders of the future" (Saunders 2003a). This is further evidence of the resurgence of the original muscular Christian ethic adopted by nineteenth century public school headmasters. In part, this has contributed to the establishment of academic research centers, such as The Centre for the Study of Sport and Spirituality at York St. John College, England. Other institutions have developed sports ministry centers that offer undergraduate and postgraduate courses in sport and theology. [33] In the United States, the University of Notre Dame and Neumann College formed a sports ministry partnership ". . . with the goal of bringing a faith-based approach to Catholic youth sports programmes in parishes across the country . . . a renewal of Catholic youth sport organizations . . . in the 1920s and 1930s" (The Mendelson Centre and Neumann College). A key part of this venture has been the establishment of the Centre for Sport, Spirituality and Character Development at Neumann College and the Mendelson Centre for Sports, Character and Community at the Notre Dame campus. Dr. Edward Hastings and Len DiPaul, co-directors of the Centre for Sport Spirituality and Character Development, have ". . . a vision of sports as an educational enterprise which promotes the inescapable spiritual and ethical dimension that exists within athletics." The center offered one undergraduate and two undergraduate modules, titled Sport and Spirituality, The Soul of Athletics and The Spiritual, and Moral Dimensions of Athletics respectively. [34] Similarly, the British Protestant Evangelical organization Christians in Sport (CIS) has recently established a one-year course at All Nations Christian College, called Sports and Intercultural Leadership Studies, which is validated by the Open University as a Certificate of Higher Education. Modules offered on the course are Theology of Sport, Sports Mission, and Sports Leadership. Graham Daniels, General Director of CIS, suggests the course will allow graduates to view the world of sport as a mission field. With around twenty-five million people participating in sport in England during April 2003, Daniels sees it as imperative not to ". . . take Christians out of this mission field!" (Saunders 2003b:7). [35] As sport is a major socializing agent in the western world, evangelical groups such as CIS, have been quick to pick up the mantle of the original muscular Christians. Many Protestant evangelical organizations have been founded in the United States. The Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA), Athletes in Action (AIA), and Pro Athletes Outreach (PAO) are three of the largest, and are active in nearly all intercollegiate athletic programs (Crepeau) - an approach wholeheartedly sponsored by the famed evangelist Billy Graham. Graham's regular use of famous sports people in his crusades became a significant mode of evangelical Muscular Christianity from the 1940s until the 1990s (Ladd and Mathisen). Organizations such as the CIS, FIA, and others are active worldwide, sending "Sports Ministers" to third world countries such as Africa, Latin America, and south-east Asia, to deliver the gospel message. [36] Literature in this area is limited; however, recent publications such as Sports Outreach: Principles and Practice for Successful Sports Ministry (Connor) and Into the Stadium: An Active Guide to Sport Ministry in the Local Church (Mason 1982) acknowledge a growing interest. Many well-known sportsmen and women have used their status and popularity as a means of witnessing for their Christian faith. Examples are Olympic triple-jump champion Jonathan Edwards, European golfer Bernhard Langer, and ex-track athlete Kriss Akabusi, who have all been actively involved with CIS and have published autobiographies or biographies describing their lives as Christians in elite sport. [37] Triple jumper, Jonathan Edwards is perhaps the most well known Christian sports person in Britain and has often been portrayed as a modern-day Eric Liddell (Folley). As the British trials for the 1988 Seoul Olympics were on a Sunday, Edwards bravely decided to follow in the footsteps of Liddell and not compete. The media created a furor, much to Edwards' surprise, but some writers clearly saw virtue in Edwards' actions: A religious athlete is a contradiction in terms in our psyched up, hyped up, drugged up days of sport. Eric Liddell, of Chariots of Fire, was already an anachronism when he refused to compete on a Sunday in the Paris Olympic games. But that was 1924 when there were still a few Christians left in Britain. They have become an endangered species who surprise the rest of us with their eccentric belief in God and the soul and other such things you can't buy with a credit card. Jonathan Edwards might as well be a time traveller, hundreds of Years old, who's come along in his personal Tardis to shake things up a bit (cited in Folley: 56-57). [38] Edwards clearly saw his Christian beliefs as more important than sport and money, I am sure to the delight of many evangelicals! He admitted at the time that his decision had not been directly influenced by the story of Liddell and that he was flattered at the comparisons that had been made to the great Scot. He had much respect for Liddell, ". . . an exceptional man . . . who won Olympic gold, but we remember him as a man of faith . . . He committed himself to serve God and, though he could have used success by staying in Scotland and sharing the gospel, he bravely went as a missionary to China" (Folley: 61). Nevertheless, in time Edwards reconsidered and decided to compete on what he had previously viewed as the one true holy day in the week. Using Romans 14:15, which states that "one man considers one day more sacred than the other; another man considers every day alike" he argued that modern-day Christians are not under any requirement to observe the Old Testament law of the Sabbath (Exodus 20:8). This decision provoked a mixed response from family, friends, media, and the sporting world. [39] Aside from the question of competing on Sunday, there is no doubt that Edwards has had a tremendously positive influence on the world of sport and wider culture. Having recently retired from professional athletics, Edwards continues to use the platform his fame and popularity have provided to promote the gospel if not always through explicit evangelism. Like Liddell, he has often spoken at evangelical conferences, and on Easter Sunday 2003 presented the well-known BBC program Songs of Praise. Recently, Edwards has also become a member of a board that oversees standards of taste and decency on television and radio (Buckeridge). To a much lesser degree, this is reminiscent of the work of Kingsley and Hughes, who also strove to reinforce Christian ideals and implement social reform within Victorian culture. [40] Through the example of his life in sport and beyond, Edwards and other Christian athletes provide a welcome response to the ". . . egotism, cynicism, nihilism . . . obsessive focus on money, and win at all costs mentality" (Spencer: 143) that is so pervasive in modern sport. Paradoxically, recent scandals surrounding athletes at the explicitly Christian Baylor University, ". . . who have been pursuing a very public quest to become America's Protestant Notre Dame" (Armstrong: 1), emphasize the disparity between the muscular Christian ideal and today's dominant sports ethic, especially in the United States. Revelations of under-the-table scholarships and drug use have caused much embarrassment. In America it is common place for ". . . coaches and players to make the sign of the cross and spew references to their faiths during post-game jubilation . . . and from their celebrity pulpits . . . encourage their followers to subscribe to their faiths" (Elliott: 1-2). However, it is legitimate to ask how much of this outward witness is demonstrated in athletes' personal lives. Although a high percentage of Americans assert a belief in God, this is not reflected in ". . . ethical conduct inasmuch as many sense that the nation is in moral discord" (Spencer: 145). Writing in Christianity Today, Armstrong suggests a need for a twenty-first century Thomas Arnold to resurrect the genuine Muscular Christian message in American sport and education: . . . the darker side of the "athletic ethic" [in the United States] . . . has little to do with an excess of evangelistic zeal, and everything to do with the usual muck of life in a country too rich and self-indulgent for its own good. Perhaps the memory of the original ideals will spark some modern reformer to usher school athletics, as a prodigal son, back to the father (4). [41] The decline in ethical and moral standards within professional sport has predictably been absorbed into the Olympic Games. Modern day Olympics have been polluted with drug-taking, political boycotts and cheating. Volkwein attributes this primarily to professionalization and commercialization of top-level sport, which has distorted the notion of fair play and the true spirit of sport advocated by de Coubertin at the end of the nineteenth century. Following the rising tide of world terrorism, fuelled by religious fundamentalism, there were serious concerns raised over the safety of athletes and spectators at the 2004 Olympics in Athens (e.g., Bone and McGrory). Fortunately, no such terrorist atrocities occurred. Predictably, there were a number of high profile drug scandals that tainted the games. Embarrassingly for the hosts, it was the controversy surrounding the Greek sprinters, Kostas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou, which received the most media attention (e.g., Bose). Despite these depressing facts, the bond between Christianity and the modern Olympics has certainly not been severed. The Olympic Charter includes a reference to freedom of religious worship, which has led the Church and evangelical sports organizations to recognize the opportunity for witness and service at major sporting events (Weir). [42] Explicit Christian ministry at major sporting events started at the 1972 Munich Olympics, with chaplains providing an "unofficial" service to athletes. However, major events ministry did not begin until 1988, at the summer Olympics in Seoul and the Winter Olympics in Calgary, Canada. The International Bible Society produced an evangelistic booklet in the form of a souvenir program for the 1988 games, which proved to be a major success and a significant development in the history of sports ministry. From this, the use of "non-crass" evangelical literature was a key strategy at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Christian publishers also created many other resources for the 2000 games, such as CDs, websites, and Sports New Testaments. More than one million Christian sports resources were distributed during the period leading up to the Sydney games and perhaps most notably two-hundred and twenty-five thousand Sports New Testaments were sold. Christian outreach also played a major role with approximately forty-five denominations and para-Church ministry groups and seven hundred Churches involved in service and witness across Australia. A conservative estimate suggests that there were two-thousand, two-hundred and twenty-five commitments of faith during the Sydney Olympics (Weir, 2004). Predictably, this success has resulted in the evolution of sports ministry into a worldwide phenomenon. [43] It was estimated that sport ministry, in some form, occurred in-between one-hundred and two-hundred countries throughout the period of the 2004 Athens Olympics. In Athens, the Church of England's Greater Athens Chaplaincy and the local Greek Evangelical Church corroborated to form a group of forty Protestant Chaplains to minister to Olympic athletes for the games in August and the Paralympics in September. In addition, many evangelical sport organizations sent representatives to Athens for the 2004 Olympics. At the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, AIA sent seventy volunteers ". . . to promote the good will of sport and help in a variety of ways" (AIA: 1). Unfortunately, Coffman may be right in suggesting that although the ethic of Muscular Christianity is still alive in ". . . fit and fresh faced Christians" who ". . . make the best ambassadors for faith . . . you just won't hear about it at the Olympics" (3). Concluding Remarks [44] The aim of this essay was to examine the historical and theological development of Muscular Christianity and how this has impacted upon the relationship between sport and Christianity in the late twentieth and twenty-first century. It can be argued that Muscular Christianity and its rebirth in the form of Sports Ministry, has provided the basis for much of the research and scholarship on Christianity and sport today. During the last thirty years and especially in the last decade, there has been a significant increase in literature exploring the relationship between sport and religion (Novak 1976; Hoffman), the use of Christian prayer in sport (Czech et al; Kreider), spirituality in sport (Hastings; G?tz) and sport psychology (Watson and Nesti), and the relationship between Judaeo-Christian ethics and sport (Grace; Spencer; Stevenson). Hopefully, this will provide a much needed corrective to the negative influences so pervasive in modern sport. [45] There is vast potential for research and scholarship on the relationship between Christianity and sport. Professor Michael Novak, renowned social theorist and author of the seminal text The Joy of Sports (1976), recently noted that ". . . research into the multiple dimensions of sports (religious, psychological, anthropological, philosophical) continues to go deeper . . . sports have an intellectual and moral depth that has been too neglected in academic life" (Novak 2003). The revitalization of the Muscular Christian ethic could be a useful means of combating the obesity pandemic that has engulfed the Western world. Alongside the promotion of sport and exercise, the Christian doctrine of gluttony could be used as a valid method, amongst others, in combating this growing health and social problem. Other areas that are worthy of further investigation include: the effectiveness of sports ministry and evangelism in the modern world; the ethical, sociological and political issues that may surround sports evangelism; the use of sports and outdoor activities in modern educational systems and in training Christian ministers and youth workers; and the spiritual and religious dimensions of the Olympic movement. Acknowledgement: The authors would like to express their gratitude to Ms. Kate Hutchings for her invaluable help with proof-reading. Bibliography AIA 2000 Olympic Summer Games 2000 in Sydney: Outreach. [6]http://www.aiaeurope.com/english/news/olympics2000-frame.html. October 25, 2000. Alderson, David 1996 "An Anatomy of the British Polity: Alton Locke and Christian Manliness." Pp. 43-61 in Victorian Identities: Social and Cultural Formations in Nineteenth-Century Literature. Edited by Ruth Robins and Julian Wolfreys. New York: St. Martin. Allen, Dennis W. 1994 "Young England: Muscular Christianity and the Politics of the Body in `Tom Brown's Schooldays.'" Pp. 114-32 in Muscular Christianity: Embodying the Victorian Age. Edited by Donald E. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ampleforth College 2004 Mission Statement: Ampelforth College. [7]http://www.ampleforthcollege.york.sch.uk/mission_statement.html. April 5, 2004. Armstrong, Chris 2003 College Sports: Prodigal Son of "Muscular Christianity". http://[8]www.christianitytoday.com/history/newsletter/2003/aug15.html . September 3, 2003. Baker, William J. 1994 "To Play or to Pray? The YMCA Question in the United Kingdom and the United States, 1850-1900." International Journal of the History of Sport 11, 1: 42-62. 2000 "Questioning Tom Brown: Sport and the Character Game." Pp. 7-18 in A Fair go for All? Current Issues in Australian Sport Ethics. Edited by John Squires. Sydney: New College Institute for Values Research. 2001 If Christ Came to the Olympics: New College Lectures. Australia: University of New South Wales Press. Ballou, Ralph, B. 1973 "Analysis of the Writings of Selected Church Fathers to A.D. 394 to Reveal Attitudes regarding Physical Activity." Pp. 187-99 in History of Sport and Physical Education to 1900: Selected Topics. Edited by Earle F. Zeigler. Champaign, IL: Stipes. Bone, James, and Daniel McGrory 2004 "US Golden Girl Fears Olympic Terror Attack." The Times March 30: 3. Bose, Mihir 2004 "Greeks Step Up Kenteris Grilling." The Daily Telegraph August 31. Bloomfield, Anne 1994 "Muscular Christian or Mystic? Charles Kingsley Reappraised." The International Journal of the History of Sport 11 2:172-90. Brown, Emma 1880 True Manliness: From the Writings of Thomas Hughes. Boston. D. Lothrop. Buckeridge, John 2003 "Christian Sportsman gets Watchdog Role." Christian Renewal June: 4. Clark, Stephen H. 1996 The Development of Leisure in Britain after 1850. [9]http://www.65.107.211.206/history/leisure2.html. January 25, 2004. Coffman, Elesha 2002 Christian History Corner: Citius, Altius, Sanctus. http://[10]www.christiantytoday.com/ct/2002/105/53.0.html. February 5, 2004. Connor, Steven 2003 Sports Outreach: Principles and Practice for Successful Sports Ministry. Scotland: Christian Focus Publications. Crepeau, Richard C. 2001 Playing with God: The History of Athletes Thanking the "Big Man Upstairs". http://www.poppolitics.com/articles/2001-03-09-sport.shtml. March 9, 2004. Cunningham, Hugh 1980 Leisure in the Industrial Revolution c1780-1880. London: Croom Helm. Czech, Daniel R., Craig A. Wrisberg, Leslee A. Fisher, Charles L. Thompson, and Gene Hayes 2004 "The Experience of Christian Prayer in Sport - An Existential Phenomenological Investigation." Journal of Psychology and Christianity 2: 1-19. Dobre-Laza, Mona 2003 Victorian and Edwardian Sporting Values. [11]http://elt.britcoun.org.pl/s_vict.html. February 5, 2004. Dobbs, Brian 1973 Edwardians at Play: 1890-1914. London: Pelham. Eisen, George 1975 "Physical Activity, Physical Education and Sport in the Old Testament." Journal of History of Sport and Physical Education 6: 45-65. Elliott, Philip 2004 Super God: `Jock Idolatry' Gives Evangelical Athletes a Forum at the Super Bowl. [12]http://www.myinky.com/ecp/religion/article0,1626,ECP_782_2617774,00.html March 30, 2004. Fasick, Laura 1993 "The Failure of Fatherhood: Maleness and its Discontents in Charles Kingsley." Children's Literature Association Quarterly 18, 3: 106-11. Feeney, Robert 1995 A Catholic Perspective: Physical Exercise and Sport. US: Aquinas. Folley, Malcom 2001 A Time to Jump: The Authorized Biography of Jonathan Edwards. London: Harper Collins. Forster, Edward M. 1936 Abinger Harvest. New York: Harcourt, Brace. Gay, Peter 1992 "The Manliness of Christ." Pp. 102-16 in Religion and Irreligion in Victorian Society. Edited by Robert W. Davis and Richard J. Helmstadter. London: Routledge. Glatz, Carol 2004 "Sports Office Speeds Out of the Blocks." The Catholic Times Sunday August 15: 12. Grace, Damian J. 2000 "Values, Sport and Education." Journal of Christian Education 43, 2: 7-17. G?tz, Ignacio, L. 2001 "Spirituality and the Body." Religious Education 96, 3:2-19. Haley, Bruce 1978 The Healthy Body and Victorian Culture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Hall, Donald E. 1994 "On the Making and Unmasking of Monsters: Christian Socialism, Muscular Christianity, and the Metaphorization of Class Conflict." Pp. 46-65 in Muscular Christianity: Embodying the Victorian Age. Edited by Donald E. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hall, Granville S. 1902 "Christianity and Physical Culture." Pedagogical Seminary 9, 3: 377. Hargreaves, John E.R. 1986 Sport, Power and Culture: A Social and Historical Analysis of Popular Sports in Britain. London: Polity. Harrington, Henry R. 1971 Muscular Christianity: The Study of the Development of a Victorian Idea. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation: University of Stanford. Harris, Styron. 1990 "The `Muscular Novel': Medium of a Victorian Ideal." Tennessee Philological Bulletin 27: 6-13. Hastings, Edward. 2004 "Spirituality in Sport." Spirituality May/June: 160-66. Hastings, Edward, and Len DiPaul 2003 The Center for Sport, Spirituality and Character Development. [13]http://www.neuman.edu. August 12, 2003. Hoffman, Shirl J., editor 1992 Sport and Religion. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Holt, Richard. 1990 Sport and the British: A Modern History. Oxford: Clarendon. Hughes, Thomas 1861 Tom Brown at Oxford. London: Macmillan. Kortzfleisch, Siegmund V. 1970 "Religious Olympism." Social Research 37: 231-36. Kreider, Anthony J. 2003 "Prayers for Assistance as Unsporting Behavior." Journal of the Philosophy of Sport XXX: 17-25. Ladd, Tony, and James A. Mathisen 1999 Muscular Christianity: Evangelical Protestants and the Development American Sport. Michigan: Baker. Lammer, Manfred 1992 "Myth of Reality: The Classic Olympic Athlete." Review for the Sociology of Sport 18: 64-84. Liddell, Eric 1985 The Disciplines of the Christian Life. Nashville: Abingdon. Lucas, John A. 1976 "Victorian `Muscular Christianity': Prologue to the Olympic Games." Olympic Review 99/100: 49-52. Mangan, James A. 1982 "Philathlete Extraordinary: A Portrait of the Victorian Moarlist Edward Bowen. Journal of Sport History 9, 3: 23-40. Mason, Bryan 1981 Association Football and English Society 1863-1915. Brighton: Harvester. 1982 Into the Stadium: An Active Guide to Sport and Recreation Ministry in the Local Church. UK: Spring Harvest. Mathisen, James 1994 "Towards an Understanding of Muscular Christianity: Religion, Sport and Culture in the Modern World." Pp. 192-205 in Christianity and Leisure. Edited by Paul Heintzman, Glen E. Van Andel, and Thomas L. Visker. Sioux Center, IA: Dordt College. McGlynn, Hilary, editor 2000 The Hutchinson Encyclopaedia. Oxford: Helicon. McGrath, Alister E., editor 1996 The NIV Thematic Study Bible. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Mechikoff, Robert, and Steven Estes 2002 A History of Philosophy of Sport and Physical Education. London: McGraw-Hill. The Mendelson Center and Neumann College. 2003 Mendelson Centre: Ministry through Sports Initiative. [14]http://www.nd.edu/~cscc/cmts.html. August 12, 2003. Newsome, David 1961 Godliness and Good Learning: Four Studies on a Victorian Ideal. London: Cassell. Norman, Edward 1987 "Victorian Values: Stewart Headlam and the Christian Socialists." History Today April: 27-32. Novak, Michael 1976 The Joy of Sports: End Zones, Bases, Baskets, Balls and Consecration of the American Spirit. New York: Basic. 2003 Personal Communication, October 14. Parsons, Gerald, editor 1988 Religion in Victorian Britain: Vol II. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Putney, Clifford 2001 Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America 1880-1920. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Rawnsley, Hardwicke D. 1889 Edward Thring, Teacher and Poet. London: T Fisher Unwin. Redmond, Gerald 1978 "The First Tom Brown's Schooldays: Origins and Evolution of `Muscular Christianity' in Children's Literature." Quest 30: 4-18. Rosen, David 1994 "The Volcano and the Cathedral: Muscular Christianity and the Origins of Primal Manliness." Pp. 17-44 in Muscular Christianity: Embodying the Victorian Age. Edited by Donald E. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Saunders, Martin 2003a "Devonian College Embraces Extreme Sports." Christian Renewal November: 5. 2003b "New Course Combines Sport and Theology." Christian Renewal May: 7. Schiefelbein, Michael 1998 "Blighted by a Upas-Shadow: Catholicism's Function for Kingsley in Westward Ho!" Victorian Newsletter 94: 10-17. Simon, Brian, and Ian Bradley 1975 The Victorian Public School. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan. Spencer, Albert F. 2000 "Ethics, Faith and Sport." Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 12, 1/2: 143-58. Stevenson, Christopher L. 1997 "Christian Athletes and the Culture of Elite Sport: Dilemmas and Solutions. Sociology of Sport Journal 14: 241-62. Vance, Norman. 1985 The Sinews of the Spirit: The Ideal of Christian Manliness in Victorian Literature and Religious Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Volkwein, Karin A.E. 1995 "Ethics and Top-Level Sport - A Paradox?" International Review for Sociology of Sport 30, 3/4: 311-319. Watson, Nick J., and Mark Nesti In press "The Role of Spirituality in Sport Psychology Consulting: An Analysis and Integrative Review of Literature." Journal of Applied Sport Psychology. Weir, Stuart 2004 The Ultimate Prize: Great Christian Olympians. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Widund, Ture 1994 "Ethelbert Talbot His Life and Place in Olympic History." Citius, Altius, Fortius: The International Society of Olympic History Journal 2, 2: 7-14. Winn, William E. 1960 "Tom Brown's Schooldays and the Development of `Muscular Christianity'". Church History 29: 66. Wilkinson, Rupert 1964 Gentlemanly Power - British Leadership and Public Schools Tradition. London: Oxford University Press. YMCA 2004 A Brief History of the YMCA Movement. [15]http://www.ymca.net/about/cont/history.html. March 30, 2004. References 6. http://www.aiaeurope.com/english/news/olympics2000-frame.html 7. http://www.ampleforthcollege.york.sch.uk/mission_statement.html 8. http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/newsletter/2003/aug15.html 9. http://www.65.107.211.206/history/leisure2.html 10. http://www.christiantytoday.com/ct/2002/105/53.0.html 11. http://elt.britcoun.org.pl/s_vict.html 12. http://www.myinky.com/ecp/religion/article0,1626,ECP_782_2617774,00.html 13. http://www.neuman.edu/ 14. http://www.nd.edu/~cscc/cmts.html 15. http://www.ymca.net/about/cont/history.html From checker at panix.com Sun Oct 2 20:21:01 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2005 16:21:01 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] Virginia Law Review: Dwight Lee: Symposium on the Theory of Public Choice Message-ID: Symposium on the Theory of Public Choice: Politics, Ideology, and the Power of Public Choice Virginia Law Review MARCH, 1988 74 Va. L. Rev. 191 Dwight R. Lee * * Professor of Economics and holder of the Ramsey Chair of Private Enterprise Economics, University of Georgia. SUMMARY: ... THE major strength of public choice derives from the assumption that individuals, regardless of the decisionmaking environment, are motivated primarily by private interests rather than the public interest. ... According to this view, the private interest assumption misses the very essence of political decision-making and renders public choice largely irrelevant to an understanding of the political process. ... Critics of the private interest assumption buttress their criticism by pointing to numerous studies that indicate that people commonly vote against their economic interests in support of broad ideological concerns. ... The key to the public choice explanation for the importance of ideology in voting is found in the indecisiveness of the individual vote, and the willingness to vote despite this indecisiveness. ... If affecting the outcome of an election were the only benefit an individual could derive from voting, it would be difficult to explain why people vote in the numbers they do. ... The fact that people vote against their economic interest in order to support positions of which they approve for ideological reasons is hardly an embarrassment to public choice theorists. ... Thus, if the voter receives any ideological satisfaction from voting yes, he might as well do so; it will not cost him anything even if the legislation is detrimental to his economic interest. ... ----------- [*191] THE major strength of public choice derives from the assumption that individuals, regardless of the decisionmaking environment, are motivated primarily by private interests rather than the public interest. Economists have long applied this assumption with considerable success to the analysis of market behavior. By applying the private interest assumption to political behavior, public choice economists have been able to use the analytical leverage of economic theory to develop new insights into the operation of the political process. At the same time, critics attack the private interest assumption of public choice. Economics has always attracted criticism on the ground that, even in market settings, individuals are motivated by concerns broader than their private interests. Few deny, however, that private interest is the dominant motive in most market choices; when investigating traditional economic behavior the private interest assumption is widely, if sometimes grudgingly, accepted as a simplification justified by its explanatory power. There is greater resistance to the assumption of private interest as the dominant motive in political activity. Most academics (including most economists) whose work concerns government policy and practice tend to assume, if only implicitly, that political decisionmakers are motivated by the desire to promote the interest of the general community. As stated by political scientist Steven Kelman: "There is the elementary fact that political decisions apply to the entire community. That they do so encourages people to think about others when taking a stand. This is in contrast to making personal decisions, when people think mainly of themselves." 1 According to this view, the private interest assumption misses the very essence of political decision-making [*192] and renders public choice largely irrelevant to an understanding of the political process. 2 Critics of the private interest assumption buttress their criticism by pointing to numerous studies that indicate that people commonly vote against their economic interests in support of broad ideological concerns. 3 Furthermore, the fact that people bother to vote at all is seen as evidence that in a political setting individuals put their civic responsibility ahead of their private interests. If, as public choice economists argue, an individual vote is unlikely to affect the outcome of an election, then why would a person motivated primarily by self-interest bother to vote at all? The purpose of this Article is not to deny that individuals commonly vote on the basis of ideology and against their economic interests, or that individuals will take the trouble to vote, even though they recognize that their vote will surely not affect the outcome of the election. These are obvious facts of political life, and in no way are they inconsistent with public choice analysis or with the private interest assumption that underlies this analysis. Indeed, public choice better explains ideological voting than do the critics who point to ideological voting in an attempt to discredit public choice. The key to the public choice explanation for the importance of ideology in voting is found in the indecisiveness of the individual vote, and the willingness to vote despite this indecisiveness. Parts I and II of this Article present a public choice explanation for the importance of ideology voting. Although the input of voters influences political outcomes, it does not necessarily control those outcomes. The concerns of voters interact with the concerns of organized interest groups to shape legislation. Part III discusses the effect that this interaction has on the ideological content of political decisions. [*193] I. VOTING AND THE LOW COST OF IDEOLOGICAL EXPRESSION That large numbers of people vote is an empirical fact that cannot be denied. But why do they do so? People do not go to the polls to vote for one candidate over another for the same reason they go to the supermarket to choose one product over another. In the supermarket an individual's product choice is decisive; the individual receives the product he chooses because he chose it. The motivation for making choices in the supermarket is dominated by outcome considerations. This is not the case at the polls. The probability that an individual's vote will be decisive in a typical election is effectively zero. An individual may or may not receive the political outcome she favors, but not because she voted for it. The outcome will be the same whether she votes yea, nay, or not at all. The expectation of affecting the outcome has little to do with an individual's motivation to vote. If affecting the outcome of an election were the only benefit an individual could derive from voting, it would be difficult to explain why people vote in the numbers they do. But people receive satisfaction from participating in processes they feel are important, from supporting things they believe are good, and from opposing things they believe are bad. People are motivated to go to the polls and vote for much the same reason they are motivated to go to the sports arena and cheer. It is the satisfaction that comes from participation and expression, not the expectation that they will determine the outcome, that draws people to the polls and to the sports arena. There is no more difficulty reconciling voting with private interest than there is with reconciling attendance at sporting events with private interest. Of course, any activity can be reconciled with private interest by inserting it into the decisionmakers' utility function as a positively valued variable. The obvious criticism of this reconciliation is that the theory that explains everything explains nothing. For example, according to Professors Daniel Farber and Philip Frickey, "Attempts have been made to reconcile voter behavior with the economic model by postulating a 'taste' for voting. This explanation is tautological -- anything people do can be 'justified' by saying they have a taste for doing it." 4 [*194] This criticism notwithstanding, it is obvious that people place positive value on a multitude of things, including participation and expression, and public choice theory is not rendered less useful by acknowledging this fact. Public choice assumes, as does economic theory in general, that, no matter what their objectives, people pursue them rationally. They will allocate their limited resources over alternative activities in order to maximize their personal satisfaction. This assumption moves the analysis beyond the level of a meaningless tautology that says nothing more than "people do those things that they want to do." The general implication of economic analysis is that if the cost of engaging in an activity goes up, people will engage in it less, and vice versa. Applied to politics, the analysis implies that people will behave differently in a political setting than in a market setting because the relative costs of alternative choices are different. This allows behavioral predictions to be made on the basis of objective differences between political and market institutions, and between the incentives they generate. Methodological consistency is therefore possible when evaluating and contrasting differences in political and market behavior. In particular, there is no need to resort to the assumption that people are more concerned with the public interest when making political choises than when making market choices in order to explain the importance of ideology in political behavior. Indeed, by applying the private interest assumption uniformly over both decisionmaking settings, public choice provides an evenhanded explanation of why ideological considerations are more important in political decisions than in market decisions. The fact that people vote against their economic interest in order to support positions of which they approve for ideological reasons is hardly an embarrassment to public choice theorists. To the contrary, the ability to provide a coherent explanation for ideological voting illustrates the power of public choice. People put ideological considerations ahead of economic interests when voting for the simple reason that it costs them almost nothing to do so. Consider the situation facing an individual who is contemplating a vote for expensive environmental protection legislation, or for a candidate who pledges support for the legislation. On the one hand, the individual may feel that it is important to protect the natural environment, not only for himself but for [*195] others as well, and will feel a sense of moral virtue by voting for the legislation. On the other hand, he will realize that the legislation, if enacted, will impose costs on him in the form of higher prices and taxes. The voter can ignore these costs with impunity, however, because his vote will, with near certainty, make no difference as to whether or not the legislation is enacted. Thus, if the voter receives any ideological satisfaction from voting yes, he might as well do so; it will not cost him anything even if the legislation is detrimental to his economic interest. 5 This situation contrasts sharply with that faced by decisionmakers in a market setting. It is possible for consumers to seek goods produced by firms that incur the necessary costs of minimizing the negative environmental impact of their productive processes. If enough consumers expressed their ideological commitments to a clean environment in this way, it would pay firms to invest voluntarily in pollution abatement until, at the margin, the value from a cleaner environment equaled the cost of acquiring it, as reflected in higher product prices. But this is not an effective approach to environmental protection, because few individuals will buy more expensive products, when less expensive products are available, in order to reduce environmental pollution. To act on the basis of ideological considerations by choosing the more expensive products is costly because, as opposed to voting, the individual's choices in the marketplace are decisive. The demand curve for ideological expression is like all demand curves: greater costs result in less quantity demanded. Not surprisingly, then, ideology plays a minor role in market decisions and a major role in voting decisions. II. SPECIAL INTEREST INFLUENCE AND THE HIGH COST OF IDEOLOGICAL EXPRESSION Although voters may make decisions predominantly on the basis of ideological considerations, the outcomes that emerge from the [*196] political process will reflect other considerations as well. Not all political actors will elevate ideology to a dominant role, for the simple reason that for some it is more costly to do so than it is for the individual voter. Special interest groups typically organize around narrowly motivated economic concerns, with little regard for ideological considerations. 6 This is to be expected, given the fact that organized groups are often able to exert decisive influence over political decisions. For an organized group to use this influence to promote an ideologically motivated outcome detrimental to its economic interest would be genuinely costly. 7 The clear implication is that the influence of politically organized groups will reduce the ideological content of political decisions. Public choice analysis suggests, however, that this occurs in ways that are not always obvious to the casual observer. Organized interests will have less influence on the general nature of the legislation that is passed than they will on the detailed implementation and enforcement of that legislation. 8 Consider, for example, the previous discussion of the costlessness of expressing concern for the environment by voting for an environmental protection program. The result is strong electoral, and therefore legislative, support for such programs that has little to do with special interest influence. But after an individual makes a costless expression of support for environmental protection at the polls, much remains to be done if the environment is to be protected adequately. It is unfortunately costly for an individual to express concern for environmental quality by lobbying for the most [*197] efficient environmental protection programs and by monitoring those who implement these programs. Predictably, there is little genuine public surveillance of environmental protection programs, and organized groups have significant latitude to influence environmental programs in ways that serve their private interests. This means, of course, that these programs are far less effective at protecting the environment than they could be. 9 Organized groups often do little to oppose legislation that is potentially adverse to their interests, especially when public opinion strongly favors the legislation. Well-organized groups often will "get on board" and "support" legislation that is inimical to their economic interests. But, as opposed to individuals who voted for the legislation and who quickly forgot it once it was passed, the affected organized interests will be unrelenting in their efforts to influence the day-to-day details of the legislation's implementation. This influence will typically not be exerted on behalf of the broad public interest. Government attempts to help the poor, protect the consumer, and regulate business pricing and practices provide additional examples of supposedly general interest legislation that is subverted by organized interest groups. The initial motivation for the legislation may have been dominated by ideological considerations, but narrow economic concerns motivate the special interest influence that does so much to determine its effect. III. CONCLUSION As critics of public choice are so fond of pointing out, ideological considerations are important in political decisionmaking. But, contrary to the criticism, the importance of ideology in politics is completely consistent with public choice analysis. Indeed, the power of public choice analysis is demonstrated by its ability to explain why ideology is more important in political choices than in market choices, without resorting to an ad hoc bifurcation of underlying [*198] motivations. Public choice assumes that an individual making a political decision is fundamentally the same as one making a market decision. The explanation for the difference in the ideological content of these decisions is found in the differences between political and market institutions, and in the effect these differences have on the costs of alternative choices. It is simply less costly for people to base decisions on ideological considerations in a political setting than in a market setting. The public choice approach does more, however, than explain why ideology is more important in political behavior than in market behavior. The cost of ideological decisionmaking varies over different political settings, and the ideological content of political decisions varies accordingly. Ideological conviction and narrow economic interest interact in interesting ways to determine political outcomes, and public choice provides a methodologically consistent way of analyzing this interaction. In particular, public choice suggests that ideology will be more important than narrow economic interest in providing general direction to legislation, but less important in determining the details of the legislation and how it is implemented. Public choice provides only one window through which to view the political process. Any serious attempt to understand political phenomena requires the view from many windows. But public choice provides a far better perspective on the role of ideology in politics than many of its critics seem to realize. FOOTNOTES: n1 S. Kelman, Making Public Policy: A Hopeful View of American Government 22 (1987). n2 Critics of public choice do not deny that private interest is a powerful motive, but rather argue that public choice overstates its influence over political behavior: "Instead of trying to mix self-interest and altruism into every decision, the individual might try to reserve certain decisions to self-interest and others to altruism." Id. at 244. Steven Kelman leaves no doubt that people tend to give the greatest weight, or "pride of place," to altruism in political decisions. Id. n3 For citation and discussion of many of these studies, see, e.g., id. at 255-59; S. Rhoades, The Economist's View of the World: Government, Markets, and Public Policy 153-58 (1985); Farber & Frickey, The Jurisprudence of Public Choice, 65 Tex. L. Rev. 873, 897-900 (1987). n4 Farber & Frickey, supra note 3, at 894 n.129. n5 Tullock used the indecisiveness of individual votes to explain why people vote for poverty programs that, if passed, will cost them far more than they would contribute voluntarily. Tullock, The Charity of the Uncharitable, 9 W. Econ. J. 379 (1971). For discussions of the implications of the indecisiveness of an individual vote, see Brennan & Buchanan, Voter Choice: Evaluating Political Alternatives, 28 Am. Behav. Scientist 185 (1984); Brennan & Lomasky, The Impartial Spectator Goes to Washington, 1 Econ. Phil. 189 (1985). n6 Some politically active interest groups are organized around ideological issues for largely ideological reasons. However, most politically organized interest groups, certainly most well-financed interest groups, are motivated primarily by narrow economic concerns. n7 The standard explanation for political interest groups' focus on narrow economic interests is that it is easier to organize a group around such interests. See M. Olson, The Logic of Collective Action 142-45 (1965). The argument of this Article is that once a group becomes politically influential, no matter what the initial impetus behind its organization, it is costly for it to ignore private economic concerns in order to advance an ideologically motivated agenda. n8 Based on studies of the legislative impact of organized interest groups, some investigators have concluded that these groups have relatively little influence. See, e.g., R. Bauer, I. Pool & L. Dexter, American Business and Public Policy 341-49 (1963). However, the studies underlying this conclusion are flawed because they were concerned almost exclusively with whether Congress passes legislation the interest groups favor, and gave little attention to how these groups influence the details of legislation that is passed. See K. Schlozman & J. Tierney, Organized Interests and American Democracy 8 (1986). n9 There is compelling evidence that pollution control policy is less effective than it could be. See R. Crandall, H. Gruenspecht, T. Keeler & L. Lave, Regulating the Automobile 85-116 (1986); A. Kneese & C. Schultze, Pollution, Prices, & Public Policy (1975). There is also compelling evidence that the deficiencies in pollution control policy are in large measure the result of special interest influence. See J. Thomasian, The Clean Air Act, the Electric Utilities, and the Coal Market (1982); Bureaucracy vs. Environment: The Environmental Costs of Bureaucratic Governance (J. Baden & R. Stroup eds. 1981); Ackerman & Hassler, Beyond the New Deal: Coal and the Clean Air Act, 89 Yale L.J. 1466, 1497-1511 (1980). From checker at panix.com Sun Oct 2 20:21:08 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2005 16:21:08 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] Ha'va'd L. Rev. Symposium: Changing Images of the State Message-ID: Symposium: Changing Images of the State: The Rise and Fall of the Administrative State Ha'va'd Law Review, 94.4 107 Harv. L. Rev. 1231 Gary Lawson Associate Professor, Northwestern University School of Law. B.A. 1980, Claremont Men's College; J.D. 1983, Yale Law School. I am grateful to Robert W. Bennett, Steven G. Calabresi, Cynthia R. Farina, Patricia B. Granger, Daniel Polsby, Martin H. Redish, Jennifer Roback, Marshall Shapo, and the participants at colloquia at Cornell Law School and Northwestern University School of Law for their insightful comments and suggestions. SUMMARY: ... The post-New Deal administrative state is unconstitutional, and its validation by the legal system amounts to nothing less than a bloodless constitutional revolution. ... Furthermore, I am aware of only one instance in the Reagan-Bush era in which the Justice Department formally opposed legislation on such grounds; a 1986 opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel stated that Congress did not have the enumerated power to enact a national lottery. ... Significantly, that power to execute the laws is vested, not in the executive department of the national government, but in "a President of the United States of America." ... Indeed, most contemporary scholars believe that Congress may vest discretionary authority in subordinate officers free from direct presidential control, and early American history and practice reflect this view to a considerable extent. ... This overlap between the executive and judicial functions is not surprising; under many pre-American conceptions of separation of powers, the judicial power was treated as an aspect of the executive power. ... Furthermore, if Professor Ackerman is correct that the Reconstruction Amendments were invalid under formal constitutional rules of ratification, the obvious conclusion seems to be that both the Reconstruction Amendments and the modern administrative state are unconstitutional. ... According to McCutchen, the administrative state is here to stay, and even a very weak theory of precedent ratifies this result. ... --------------- [*1231] The post-New Deal administrative state is unconstitutional, 1 and its validation by the legal system amounts to nothing less than a bloodless constitutional revolution. 2 The original New Dealers were aware, at least to some degree, that their vision of the national government's proper role and structure could not be squared with the written Constitution: 3 The Administrative Process, James Landis's classic exposition of the New Deal model of administration, fairly drips with contempt for the idea of a limited national government subject to a formal, tripartite separation of powers. 4 Faced with a choice between the administrative state and the Constitution, the architects of our modern government chose the administrative state, and their choice has stuck. There is a perception among some observers, however, that this post-New Deal consensus has recently come under serious legal attack, [*1232] especially from the now-departed Reagan and Bush administrations. 5 But though debate about structural constitutional issues has clearly grown more vibrant over the past few decades, 6 the essential features of the modern administrative state have, for more than half a century, been taken as unchallengeable postulates by virtually all players in the legal and political worlds, including the Reagan and Bush administrations. The post-New Deal conception of the national government has not changed one iota, nor even been a serious subject of discussion, since the Revolution of 1937. 7 Part I of this Article sketches, in purely descriptive fashion, some of the most important ways in which the modern administrative state, without serious opposition, contravenes the Constitution's design. 8 Many elements of this design remain poorly understood even after more than two centuries, and my brief discussion here is unlikely to be satisfying. Nonetheless, my discussion at least touches on such important issues as the scope of Congress's legislative powers, the contours and constitutional source of the nondelegation doctrine, the character of the unitary executive created by Article II, and the extent to which administrative adjudication is inconsistent with Article III. Part II briefly ponders some possible responses to the enormous gap between constitutional meaning and constitutional practice. For those of us for whom the written Constitution (as validly amended) is the only Constitution, 9 the seemingly irrevocable entrenchment of the [*1233] post-New Deal structure of national governance raises serious doubts about the utility of constitutional discourse. I. THE DEATH OF CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT The United States Congress today effectively exercises general legislative powers, in contravention of the constitutional principle of limited powers. Moreover, Congress frequently delegates that general legislative authority to administrative agencies, in contravention of Article I. Furthermore, those agencies are not always subject to the direct control of the President, in contravention of Article II. In addition, those agencies sometimes exercise the judicial power, in contravention of Article III. Finally, those agencies typically concentrate legislative, executive, and judicial functions in the same institution, in simultaneous contravention of Articles I, II, and III. In short, the modern administrative state openly flouts almost every important structural precept of the American constitutional order. A. The Death of Limited Government The advocates of the Constitution of 1789 were very clear about the kind of national government they sought to create. As James Madison put it: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined." 10 Those national powers, Madison suggested, would be "exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce," 11 and the states would be the principal units of government for most internal matters. 12 The expectations of founding-era figures such as James Madison are instructive but not controlling for purposes of determining the Constitution's original public meaning: the best laid schemes o' mice, men and framers gang aft a-gley. The Constitution, however, is well designed to limit the national government essentially to the functions described by Madison. Article I of the Constitution vests in the national Congress "[a]ll legislative powers herein granted," 13 and thus clearly indicates that the national government can legislate only in accordance with enumerations [*1234] Article I then spells out seventeen specific subjects to which the federal legislative power extends: such matters as taxing and borrowing, interstate and foreign commerce, naturalization and bankruptcy, currency and counterfeiting, post offices and post roads, patents and copyrights, national courts, piracy and offenses against the law of nations, the military, and the governance of the nation's capital and certain federal enclaves. 15 Article IV further grants to Congress power to enforce interstate full-faith-and-credit requirements, to admit new states, and to manage federal territories and property. 16 Article V grants Congress power to propose constitutional amendments. 17 This is not the stuff of which Leviathan is made. None of these powers, alone or in combination, grants the federal government anything remotely resembling a general jurisdiction over citizens' affairs. The Commerce Clause, for example, is a grant of power to regulate "Commerce . . . among the several States," 18 not to regulate "all Activities affecting, or affected by, Commerce . . . among the several States." The Commerce Clause clearly leaves outside the national government's jurisdiction such important matters as manufacturing (which is an activity distinct from commerce), 19 the terms, formation, and execution of contracts that cover subjects other than the interstate shipment of goods, and commerce within a state's boundaries. Nor does the Necessary and Proper Clause, 20 which the founding generation called the Sweeping Clause, grant general legislative powers to the national government. This clause contains two significant internal limitations. First, it only validates laws that "carry[] into Execution" other granted powers. To carry a law or power "into Execution" means to provide the administrative machinery for its enforcement; it does not mean to regulate unenumerated subjects in order to make the exercise of enumerated powers more effective. 21 Second, and more fundamentally, laws enacted pursuant to the Sweeping Clause must be both "necessary and proper" for carrying into [*1235] execution enumerated powers. As Patty Granger and I have elsewhere demonstrated at length, the word "proper" in this context requires executory laws to be distinctively and peculiarly within the jurisdictional competence of the national government -- that is, consistent with background principles of separation of powers, federalism, and individual rights. 22 Thus, the Sweeping Clause does not grant Congress power to regulate unenumerated subjects as a means of regulating subjects within its constitutional scope. 23 Nor does the power of the purse give Congress unlimited authority, though here the limits are a bit fuzzy. The Constitution contains a Taxing Clause, 24 but it does not contain a "spending clause" as such. 25 Nevertheless, Congress acquires the power to spend from two sources. First, the Sweeping Clause permits Congress to pass appropriations laws -- provided that such laws "carry[] into Execution" an enumerated power and are "necessary and proper" for doing so. Second, as David Engdahl has pointed out, Congress's power "to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States" 26 seems to provide a general spending power. 27 But a general power to spend is not a general power to regulate. Even if Congress can impose whatever conditions it pleases on the receipt of federal funds, those conditions are contractual in nature, a fact that limits both their enforceability and their scope. 28 Moreover, it is not obvious that the Property Clause gives Congress wholly unlimited power to enact spending conditions, though identifying any limits on such power would require careful consideration of the meaning of the phrase "dispose of," the relationship between the Property Clause and the Sweeping Clause, and the viability of a general doctrine of unconstitutional conditions. Admittedly, some post-1789 amendments to the Constitution expand Congress's powers beyond their original limits. For example, the Thirteenth and Fifteenth Amendments authorize Congress to enforce prohibitions against, respectively, involuntary servitude 29 and racially discriminatory voting practices; 30 the Fourteenth Amendment [*1236] gives Congress power to enforce that Amendment's numerous substantive constraints on states; 31 and the Sixteenth Amendment permits Congress to impose direct taxes without an apportionment requirement. 32 These are important powers, to be sure, but they do not fundamentally alter the limited scope of Congress's power over private conduct. Of course, in this day and age, discussing the doctrine of enumerated powers is like discussing the redemption of Imperial Chinese bonds. There is now virtually no significant aspect of life that is not in some way regulated by the federal government. This situation is not about to change. Only twice since 1937 has the Supreme Court held that a congressional statute exceeded the national government's enumerated powers, 33 and one of those holdings was overruled nine years later. 34 Furthermore, both cases involved the direct regulation of state governments in their sovereign capacities. To the best of my knowledge, the post-New Deal Supreme Court has never invalidated a congressional intrusion into private affairs on ultra vires grounds; instead the Court has effectively acquiesced in Congress's assumption of general legislative powers. 35 The courts, of course, are not the only, or even the principal, interpreters of the Constitution. Under the Constitution, it is emphatically the province and duty of the President to say what the law [*1237] is 36 -- and hence to veto bills that contravene constitutional limits. During their twelve years in office, however, the Reagan and Bush administrations made no serious attempt to resuscitate the doctrine of enumerated powers. I do not know of a single instance in which President Reagan or President Bush vetoed or even opposed legislation on the ground that it exceeded Congress's enumerated powers. Furthermore, I am aware of only one instance in the Reagan-Bush era in which the Justice Department formally opposed legislation on such grounds; a 1986 opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel stated that Congress did not have the enumerated power to enact a national lottery. 37 Thus, the demise of the doctrine of enumerated powers, which made possible the growth of the modern regulatory state, has encountered no serious real-world legal or political challenges, and none are on the horizon. B. The Death of the Nondelegation Doctrine The Constitution both confines the national government to certain enumerated powers and defines the institutions of the national government that can permissibly exercise those powers. Article I of the Constitution provides that "[a]ll legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives." 38 Article II provides that "[t]he executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." 39 Article III specifies that "[t]he judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." 40 The Constitution thus divides the powers of the national government into three categories -- legislative, executive, and judicial -- and vests such powers in three separate institutions. To be sure, the Constitution expressly prescribes some deviations from a pure tripartite scheme of separation, 41 but this only underscores the role of [*1238] the three Vesting Clauses in assigning responsibility for governmental functions that are not specifically allocated by the constitutional text. Although the Constitution does not contain an express provision declaring that the Vesting Clauses' allocations of power are exclusive, 42 it is a mistake in principle to look for such an express declaration. 43 The institutions of the national government are creatures of the Constitution and must find constitutional authorization for any action. Congress is constitutionally authorized to exercise "[a]ll legislative Powers herein granted," the President is authorized to exercise "[t]he executive Power," and the federal courts are authorized to exercise "[t]he judicial Power of the United States." Congress thus cannot exercise the federal executive or judicial powers for the simple reason that the Constitution does not vest such power in Congress. Similarly, the President and the federal courts can exercise only those powers vested in them by the Constitution: the general executive and judicial powers, respectively, plus a small number of specific powers outside those descriptions. Thus, any law that attempts to vest legislative power in the President or in the courts is not "necessary and proper for carrying into Execution" constitutionally vested federal powers and is therefore unconstitutional. 44 Although the Constitution does not tell us how to distinguish the legislative, executive, and judicial powers from each other, 45 there is [*1239] clearly some differentiation among the three governmental functions, which at least generates some easy cases. Consider, for example, a statute creating the Goodness and Niceness Commission and giving it power "to promulgate rules for the promotion of goodness and niceness in all areas within the power of Congress under the Constitution." If the "executive power" means simply the power to carry out legislative commands regardless of their substance, then the Goodness and Niceness Commission's rulemaking authority is executive rather than legislative power and is therefore valid. But if that is true, then there never was and never could be such a thing as a constitutional principle of nondelegation -- a proposition that is belied by all available evidence about the meaning of the Constitution. Accordingly, the nondelegation principle, which is textually embodied in the command that all executory laws be "necessary and proper," constrains the substance of congressional enactments. Certain powers simply cannot be given to executive (or judicial) officials, because those powers are legislative in character. A governmental function is not legislative, however, merely because it involves some element of policymaking discretion: it has long been understood that some such exercises of discretion can fall within the definition of the executive power. 46 The task is therefore to determine when a statute that vests discretionary authority in an executive (or judicial) officer has crossed the line from a necessary and proper implementing statute to an unnecessary and/or improper delegation of distinctively legislative power. While I cannot complete that task here, the core of the Constitution's nondelegation principle can be expressed as follows: Congress must make whatever policy decisions are sufficiently important to the statutory scheme at issue so that Congress must make them. Although this circular formulation may seem farcical, 47 it recognizes that a statute's required degree of specificity depends on context, takes seriously the well-recognized distinction between legislating and gap-filling, and corresponds reasonably well to judicial application of the nondelegation principle in the first 150 years of the nation's history. 48 If it does not precisely capture [*1240] the true constitutional rule of nondelegation, it is a plausible first approximation. 49 In any event, it is a much better approximation of the true constitutional rule than is the post-New Deal positive law. The Supreme Court has not invalidated a congressional statute on nondelegation grounds since 1935. 50 This has not been for lack of opportunity. The United States Code is filled with statutes that create little Goodness and Niceness Commissions -- each confined to a limited subject area such as securities, 51 broadcast licenses, 52 or (my personal favorite) imported tea. 53 These statutes are easy kills under any plausible interpretation of the Constitution's nondelegation principle. The Supreme Court, however, has rejected so many delegation challenges to so many utterly vacuous statutes that modern nondelegation decisions now simply recite these past holdings and wearily move on. 54 Anything short of the Goodness and Niceness Commission, it seems, is permissible. 55 [*1241] The rationale for this virtually complete abandonment of the nondelegation principle is simple: the Court believes -- possibly correctly -- that the modern administrative state could not function if Congress were actually required to make a significant percentage of the fundamental policy decisions. Judicial opinions candidly acknowledge this rationale for permitting delegations. For example, the majority in Mistretta v. United States 56 declared that "our jurisprudence has been driven by a practical understanding that in our increasingly complex society, replete with ever changing and more technical problems, Congress simply cannot do its job absent an ability to delegate power under broad general directives." 57 When faced with a choice between the Constitution and the structure of modern governance, the Court has had no difficulty making the choice. Contrary to conventional wisdom, neither did the Reagan and Bush administrations. Neither President Reagan nor President Bush ever vetoed or opposed legislation on the express ground that it violated the nondelegation doctrine. Nor, to my knowledge, did the Reagan-Bush Justice Departments ever formally make such an objection to proposed or actual legislation. 58 Thus, the demise of the nondelegation doctrine, which allows the national government's now-general legislative powers to be exercised by administrative agencies, has encountered no serious real-world legal or political challenges, and none are on the horizon. C. The Death of the Unitary Executive Article II states that "[t]he executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." 59 Although the precise contours of this "executive Power" are not entirely clear, 60 at a minimum it includes the power to execute the laws of the United States. [*1242] Other clauses of the Constitution, such as the requirement that the President "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed," 61 assume and constrain this power to execute the laws, 62 but the Article II Vesting Clause is the constitutional source of this power -- just as the Article III Vesting Clause is the constitutional source of the federal judiciary's power to decide cases. 63 Significantly, that power to execute the laws is vested, not in the executive department of the national government, but in "a President of the United States of America." 64 The Constitution thus creates a unitary executive. Any plausible theory of the federal executive power must acknowledge and account for this vesting of the executive power in the person of the President. Of course, the President cannot be expected personally to execute all laws. Congress, pursuant to its power to make all laws "necessary and proper for carrying into Execution" the national government's powers, can create administrative machinery to assist the President in carrying out legislatively prescribed tasks. But if a statute vests discretionary authority directly in an agency official (as do most regulatory statutes) rather than in the President, the Article II Vesting Clause seems to require that such discretionary authority be subject to the President's control. 65 This model of presidential power is not without its critics. Indeed, most contemporary scholars believe that Congress may vest discretionary authority in subordinate officers free from direct presidential control, 66 and early American history and practice reflect this view to a considerable extent. 67 Nonetheless, the Vesting Clause inescapably [*1243] vests "the executive Power" directly and solely in the person of the President. Accordingly, scholars sometimes deny that the Article II Vesting Clause is a grant of power to the President to execute the laws, 68 but none has yet adequately rebutted the compelling textual and structural arguments for reading the Vesting Clause as a grant of power 69 -- a grant of power specifically and exclusively to "a President of the United States." Thus, the important question is what form the President's power of control over subordinates must take in order to ensure a constitutionally unitary executive. There are two evident possibilities. First, the President might be thought to have the power personally to make all discretionary decisions involving the execution of the laws. On this understanding, the President can step into the shoes of any subordinate and directly exercise that subordinate's statutory powers. 70 Second, one might think that, although the President cannot directly exercise power vested by statute in another official, any action by that subordinate contrary to presidential instructions is void. 71 Either alternative is plausible, though the latter is perhaps more consistent with Congress's power under the Sweeping Clause to structure the executive department. 72 [*1244] Congress and the President have fought hard in recent years over control of the federal administrative machinery, and the courts have adjudicated such disputes in some high-profile cases. 73 Significantly, however, neither of the two possible constitutional mechanisms of presidential control has played a role in those battles. No modern judicial decision specifically addresses the President's power either directly to make all discretionary decisions within the executive department or to nullify the actions of insubordinate subordinates. Instead, debate has focused almost exclusively on whether and when the President must have unlimited power to remove subordinate executive officials. That is an interesting and important question, but it does not address the central issue concerning the executive power. Even if the President has a constitutionally unlimited power to remove certain executive officials, that power alone does not satisfy the Article II Vesting Clause. If an official exercises power contrary to the President's directives and is then removed, one must still determine whether the official's exercise of power is legally valid. If the answer is "no," then the President necessarily has the power to nullify discretionary actions of subordinates, and removal is therefore not the President's sole power of control. If the answer is "yes," then the insubordinate ex-official will have effectively exercised executive power contrary to the President's wishes, which contravenes the vesting of that power in the President. A presidential removal power, even an unlimited removal power, is thus either constitutionally superfluous or constitutionally inadequate. 74 Congress, the President, and the courts [*1245] have accordingly been spending a great deal of energy arguing about something of relatively little constitutional significance. The death of the unitary executive cannot be traced to the New Deal revolution. The First Congress, in the so-called Decision of 1789, engaged in one of the most spirited and sophisticated debates on executive power in the nation's history, but did not once focus on a presidential power to make discretionary decisions or to veto actions by subordinates. 75 Moreover, many Attorneys General in the nineteenth century affirmatively denied that the President must always have the power to review decisions by subordinates. 76 The absence of a functioning unitary executive principle, however, may well have made the Revolution of 1937 possible. Judging from the political conflict that is often generated by disputes between Congress and the President, it is at least arguable that Congress would never have granted agencies their current, almost-limitless powers if Congress recognized that such power had to be directly under the control of the President. 77 Although the Reagan and Bush administrations often fought hard to defend their views of the proper role of the President, they did not directly assert their power to invalidate discretionary actions of subordinates or to make discretionary executive decisions when statutes confer power directly on subordinates. Opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel from the Reagan-Bush era have sometimes insisted that congressional attempts to place executive authority beyond presidential supervision are unconstitutional, 78 but neither President Reagan nor President Bush ever made either of the two plausible conceptions of [*1246] the unitary executive the focal point of a separation of powers dispute. The unitary executive has met its fate almost as meekly as have the principles of enumerated powers and nondelegation. D. The Death of the Independent Judiciary Article III provides that "[t]he judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." 79 The judges of all such federal courts are constitutionally guaranteed tenure during good behavior as well as assurance that their salaries will not be diminished during their time in office. 80 One of the principal functions of administrative agencies is to adjudicate disputes, yet "administrative adjudicators plainly lack the essential attributes that Article III requires of any decisionmaker invested with 'the judicial Power of the United States.'" 81 Is adjudication by administrative agencies therefore another instance of abandonment of a fundamental constitutional principle? Maybe. Administrative adjudication is problematic only if it must be considered an exercise of judicial power. But an activity is not exclusively judicial merely because it is adjudicative -- that is, because it involves the application of legal standards to particular facts. Much adjudicative activity by executive officials -- such as granting or denying benefits under entitlement statutes -- is execution of the laws by any rational standard, 82 though it also fits comfortably within the concept of the judicial power if conducted by judicial officers. 83 This overlap between the executive and judicial functions is not surprising; under many pre-American conceptions of separation of powers, the judicial power was treated as an aspect of the executive power. 84 Agency adjudication is therefore constitutionally permissible under Article III as long as the activity in question can fairly fit the definition of executive power, even if it also fairly fits the definition of judicial power. Some forms of adjudication, however, are quintessentially judicial. The conviction of a defendant under the criminal laws, for [*1247] example, is surely something that requires the exercise of judicial rather than executive power. Although it is difficult to identify those activities that are strictly judicial in the constitutional sense, perhaps Justice Curtis had the right answer in Murray's Lessee v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co. 85 when he suggested that the Article III inquiry merges with questions of due process: if the government is depriving a citizen of "life, liberty, or property," 86 it generally must do so by judicial process, which in the federal system requires an Article III court; 87 but if it is denying a citizen (to use discredited but useful language) a mere privilege, it can do so by purely executive action. Wherever the line is drawn, however, at least some modern administrative adjudication undoubtedly falls squarely on the judicial side. Most notably, the imposition of a civil penalty or fine is very hard to distinguish from the imposition of a criminal sentence (especially when the criminal sentence is itself a fine). If the latter is judicial, it is difficult to see why the former is not as well. Some scholars believe that administrative adjudication is constitutionally permissible as long as the administrative decisions are subject to Article III appellate court review that is "adequately searching" 88 and "meaningful." 89 And there's the rub. An agency's interpretation of a statute that it administers receives considerable deference under current law. 90 More fundamentally, agency fact-finding is generally subject to deferential review under numerous statutes that expressly require courts to affirm agency factual conclusions that are supported by "substantial evidence." 91 This kind of deferential review arguably fails to satisfy Article III. Article III certainly would not be satisfied if Congress provided for judicial review but ordered the courts to affirm the agency no matter what. That would effectively vest the judicial power either in the agency or in Congress. There is no reason to think that it is any different if Congress instead simply orders courts to put a thumb (or perhaps two forearms) on the [*1248] agency's side of the scale. I do not make this claim with full confidence (and thus do not emphasize the Reagan and Bush administrations' failure to advance it), but it seems to me that Article III requires de novo review, of both fact and law, of all agency adjudication that is properly classified as "judicial" activity. Much of the modern administrative state passes this test, but much of it fails as well. E. The Death of Separation of Powers The constitutional separation of powers is a means to safeguard the liberty of the people. 92 In Madison's famous words, "[t]he accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." 93 The destruction of this principle of separation of powers is perhaps the crowning jewel of the modern administrative revolution. Administrative agencies routinely combine all three governmental functions in the same body, and even in the same people within that body. 94 Consider the typical enforcement activities of a typical federal agency -- for example, of the Federal Trade Commission. 95 The Commission promulgates substantive rules of conduct. The Commission then considers whether to authorize investigations into whether the Commission's rules have been violated. If the Commission authorizes an investigation, the investigation is conducted by the Commission, which reports its findings to the Commission. If the Commission thinks that the Commission's findings warrant an enforcement action, the Commission issues a complaint. The Commission's complaint that a Commission rule has been violated is then prosecuted by the Commission and adjudicated by the Commission. This Commission adjudication can either take place before the full Commission or before a semi-autonomous Commission administrative law judge. If the Commission chooses to adjudicate before an administrative law judge rather than before the Commission and the decision is adverse to the Commission, the Commission can appeal to the Commission. If the Commission ultimately finds a violation, then, and only then, the affected private party can appeal to an Article III court. 96 But the agency decision, even before the bona fide Article III tribunal, [*1249] possesses a very strong presumption of correctness on matters both of fact and of law. This is probably the most jarring way in which the administrative state departs from the Constitution, and it typically does not even raise eyebrows. The post-New Deal Supreme Court has never seriously questioned the constitutionality of this combination of functions in agencies. 97 Nor, to the best of my knowledge, did Presidents Reagan or Bush ever veto or object to legislation on this ground. II. WHAT IS TO BE DONE? The actual structure and operation of the national government today has virtually nothing to do with the Constitution. There is no reasonable prospect that this circumstance will significantly improve in the foreseeable future. If one is not prepared (as I am) to hold fast to the Constitution though the heavens may fall, what is one supposed to do with that knowledge? One option, of course, is to argue directly that the Constitution, properly interpreted in accordance with its original public meaning, is actually flexible enough to accommodate the modern administrative state. But although some of the claims I make in Part I with respect to Articles II and III may ultimately prove to be wrong in some important respects, the most fundamental constitutional problems with modern administrative governance -- unlimited federal power, rampant delegations of legislative authority, and the combination of functions in administrators -- are not even remotely close cases. The Commerce Clause does not give Congress jurisdiction over all human activity, 98 and the Sweeping Clause does not give Congress carte blanche to structure the government any way it chooses. 99 [*1250] A second option is to insist that the administrative state can be reconciled with the Constitution if only we reject the methodology of original public meaning. I cannot enter here into a discussion of interpretative theory, but for those of us who believe that "a dash of salt" refers to some identifiable, real-world quantity of salt, 100 originalist interpretivism is not simply one method of interpretation among many -- it is the only method that is suited to discovering the actual meaning of the relevant text. 101 A third option, pursued at length by Bruce Ackerman, is to argue that the Constitution has been validly amended, through means other than the formal process of Article V, in a fashion that constitutionalizes the administrative state. 102 Professor Ackerman claims that the [*1251] ratifications of the original Constitution and the Reconstruction Amendments were knowingly "illegal" under then-governing formal norms for the ratification of fundamental law. 103 The New Deal, he contends, reflected a similarly self-conscious rejection of the formal mechanisms for constitutional change. According to Professor Ackerman, if the formally deficient "ratifications" of the Constitution and the Reconstruction Amendments are legally valid, it is difficult to see why the same cannot be true of the formally deficient "ratification" of the New Deal structure of governance via the 1936 election and the concomitant Revolution of 1937. I cannot here do justice to Professor Ackerman's elegant and still-growing edifice, so I will content myself with some preliminary thoughts. For purposes of constitutional interpretation, the creation of the Constitution is the legal equivalent of the Big Bang; the Constitution, whatever its normative significance may be, is an irreducible fact from which constitutional interpretation proceeds. Accordingly, from an interpretative, as opposed to a justificatory, standpoint, irregularities in the Constitution's ratification validate further irregularities only if the original irregularity reflects a background principle that was then incorporated into the Constitution and the subsequent irregularity conforms to that principle. Professor Ackerman's proposed method of constitutional amendment does not follow the form of the background principle employed by the original ratifiers/usurpers. 104 Furthermore, if Professor Ackerman is correct that the Reconstruction Amendments were invalid under formal constitutional rules of ratification, the obvious conclusion seems to be that both the Reconstruction Amendments and the modern administrative state are unconstitutional. Professor Ackerman's response is that the formally deficient ratifications of the Reconstruction Amendments, which occurred under the regime of the Constitution of 1789, "provide us with 'historic [*1252] precedents[]' [for such ratifications] which we are no more justified in ignoring than Marbury v. Madison." 105 But if precedent is a validating concept under the Constitution, why not invoke precedent more straightforwardly? This suggests a fourth option for dealing with the modern administrative state: conclude, with Henry Monaghan, that because "[p]recedent is, of course, part of our understanding of what law is," 106 the administrative state's firm entrenchment through precedent constitutes legal validation. I have elsewhere argued, however, that the use of horizontal precedent in federal constitutional interpretation is itself forbidden by the Constitution. 107 Those who believe in some form of precedent have the fifth option, ingeniously advanced in a recent manuscript by Peter McCutchen, 108 of seeking "a form of constitutional damage control." 109 According to McCutchen, the administrative state is here to stay, and even a very weak theory of precedent ratifies this result. 110 But our goal, his theory continues, should be to approximate the "first-best" world as nearly as we can from within a state of constitutional disequilibrium. As McCutchen puts it: Where unconstitutional institutions are allowed to stand based on a theory of precedent, the Court should allow (or even require) the creation of compensating institutions that seek to move back toward the constitutional equilibrium. The Court should allow such institutions even where the compensating institutions themselves would have been unconstitutional if considered standing alone. 111 For example, the legislative veto, standing alone, is plainly unconstitutional because it violates the Article I presentment requirement. 112 But the legislative veto helps compensate for widespread, unconstitutional delegations to agencies. A first-best world would have neither delegations nor legislative vetoes, but a world with both delegations [*1253] and legislative vetoes is closer to the correct constitutional "baseline" than is a world with only delegations. 113 If there is any proper role for precedent in constitutional theory, McCutchen is probably right: if an incorrect precedent creates a constitutional disequilibrium, it is foolish to proceed as though one were still in an equilibrium state. As discussed above, however, I do not believe that there is any proper role for horizontal precedent in constitutional theory. 114 There remains a sixth option: acknowledge openly and honestly, as did some of the architects of the New Deal, that one cannot have allegiance both to the administrative state and to the Constitution. If, however, one then further follows the New Deal architects in choosing the administrative state over the Constitution, one must also acknowledge that all constitutional discourse is thereby rendered problematic. The Constitution was a carefully integrated document, which contains no severability clause. It makes no sense to agonize over the correct application of, for example, the Appointments Clause, the Exceptions Clause, or even the First Amendment when principles as basic to the Constitution as enumerated powers and nondelegation are no longer considered part of the interpretative order. What is left of the Constitution after excision of its structural provisions, however interesting it may be as a matter of normative political theory, simply is not the Constitution. One can certainly take bits and pieces of the Constitution and incorporate them into a new, hypothetical document, but nothing is fostered other than intellectual confusion by calling that new document the Constitution. 115 Modern champions of the administrative state, however, seem loathe to abandon the sheltering language of constitutionalism. But tactical considerations aside, it is not at all clear why this is so. Perhaps instead of assuming that the label "unconstitutional" should carry normative weight, the constitutional problems of the administrative state can lead us to ask whether it should carry any weight -- with judges or anyone else. After all, the moral relevance of the Constitution is hardly self-evident. 116 [*1254] And at that point, the humble lawyer must plead incompetence. Questions about the Constitution's normative significance, as with all questions about how people ought to behave, are distinctively within the domain of moral theory. A legal scholar qua legal scholar can tell us, as a factual matter, that one must choose between the Constitution and the administrative state. He or she can tell us that the architects of the New Deal chose the administrative state and that that choice has been accepted by all institutions of government and by the electorate. 117 But only the best of moral philosophers can tell us which choice is correct. 118 FOOTNOTES: n1 I use the word "unconstitutional" to mean "at variance with the Constitution's original public meaning." That is not the only way in which the word is used in contemporary legal discourse. On the contrary, it is commonly used to mean everything from "at variance with the private intentions of the Constitution's drafters" to "at variance with decisions of the United States Supreme Court" to "at variance with the current platform of the speaker's favorite political party." These other usages are wholly unobjectionable as long as they are clearly identified and used without equivocation. The usage I employ, however, is the only usage that fully ties the words "constitutional" and "unconstitutional" to the actual meaning of the written Constitution. A defense of this claim would require an extended essay on the philosophy of language, but I can offer some preliminary observations: consider a recipe that calls for "a dash of salt." If one were reading the recipe as a poem or an aspirational tract, one might seek that meaning of "dash" that is aesthetically or morally most pleasing. But if one is reading it as a recipe, one wants to know what "dash" meant to an informed public at the time the recipe was written (assuming that the recipe was written for public consumption rather than for the private use of the author). Of course, once the recipe is understood, one might conclude that it is a bad recipe, either because it is ambiguous or, more fundamentally, because the dish that it yields simply isn't very appealing. But deciding whether to try to follow the recipe and determining what the recipe prescribes are conceptually distinct enterprises. If the Constitution is best viewed as a recipe -- and it certainly looks much more like a recipe than a poem or an aspirational tract -- application of the methodology of original public meaning is the appropriate way to determine its meaning. n2 Cf. Cass R. Sunstein, Constitutionalism After the New Deal, 101 HARV. L. REV. 421, 447-48 (1987) (noting that the New Deal "altered the constitutional system in ways so fundamental as to suggest that something akin to a constitutional amendment had taken place"). n3 See 1 BRUCE ACKERMAN, WE THE PEOPLE 44 (1991); Sunstein, supra note 2, at 430. n4 See JAMES M. LANDIS, THE ADMINISTRATIVE PROCESS passim (1938). n5 This perception is evident more from the quantity and tone than from the specific content of recent discussions of the structural Constitution, but a few scholars have stated the point expressly. See Alfred C. Aman, Jr., Introduction, 77 CORNELL L. REV. 421, 427 (1987) (claiming that structural issues "of fundamental importance" "are again up for grabs"); Sunstein, supra note 2, at 509 (noting that "[t]he last three decades have seen a growing rejection of the New Deal conception of administration"). n6 See Geoffrey P. Miller, From Compromise to Confrontation: Separation of Powers in the Reagan Era, 57 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 401, 401 (1989). n7 Modern debates about the scope and structure of the national government tend to concern such relatively peripheral matters as the removability of administrative officials, see, e.g., Morrison v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654, 682-83 (1988); Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U.S. 714, 721-34 (1986), or the national government's power directly to regulate state governments, see, e.g., New York v. United States, 112 S. Ct. 2408, 2419-32 (1992); Garcia v. San Antonio Metro. Transit Auth., 469 U.S. 528, 537-47 (1985); National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 833, 852-55 (1976), overruled by Garcia, 469 U.S. at 531 (1985). n8 Cynthia Farina has aptly described this explicitly non-normative project as an exercise in "legal archaeology." n9 It is possible to maintain that the phrase "the Constitution of the United States" refers not to the text of a specific document, but refers instead, in the fashion of England's unwritten constitution, to a set of practices and traditions that have evolved over time. As a matter of practical governance, such unwritten practices are surely more important than the instructions contained in the written Constitution, but this Article is concerned solely with the written texts that have been submitted to and ratified by the American electorate. Cf. Akhil Reed Amar, Our Forgotten Constitution: A Bicentennial Comment, 97 YALE L.J. 281, 282-85 (1987) (noting discrepancies between the document produced by the constitutional convention and the document ratified by the electorate). n10 THE FEDERALIST No. 45, at 292 (James Madison) (Clinton Rossiter ed., 1961). n11 Id. n12 See id. at 292-93. In my favorite passage from The Federalist, Madison boldly proclaimed that the federal revenue collectors "will be principally on the seacoast, and not very numerous." Id. at 292. n13 U.S. CONST. art. I, ? 1 (emphasis added). n14 This understanding is expressly confirmed by the Tenth Amendment, which declares that "[t]he powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Id. amend. X. n15 See id. art. I, ? 8, cls. 1-17. n16 See id. art. IV, ?? 1, 3. n17 See id. art. V. n18 See id. art. I, ? 8, cl. 3. n19 See Richard A. Epstein, The Proper Scope of the Commerce Power, 73 VA. L. REV. 1387, 1388-89, 1393-95 (1987). n20 U.S. CONST. art. I, ? 8, cl. 18 (providing that Congress shall have the power "[t]o make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof"). n21 See Epstein, supra note 19, at 1397-98. n22 See Gary Lawson & Patricia B. Granger, The "Proper" Scope of Federal Power: A Jurisdictional Interpretation of the Sweeping Clause, 43 DUKE L.J. 267, 335-36 (1993). n23 See id. at 331-32. But see DAVID E. ENGDAHL, CONSTITUTIONAL FEDERALISM IN A NUTSHELL 18-19 (2d ed. 1987) (arguing that Congress may regulate unenumerated subjects in the course of implementing enumerated powers); David E. Engdahl, The Spending Power 9-14 (April 14, 1993) (unpublished manuscript, on file with the Harvard Law School Library) (same). n24 See U.S. CONST. art. I, ? 8, cl. 1. n25 See Engdahl, supra note 23, at 29-32 (demonstrating that the Taxing Clause is not a proper source of a federal spending power). n26 U.S. CONST. art. IV, ? 3, cl. 2 (emphasis added). n27 See Engdahl, supra note 23, at 30-31. n28 See id. at 37-63. n29 See U.S. CONST. amend. XIII, ? 2. n30 See id. amend. XV, ? 2. n31 See id. amend. XIV, ? 5. n32 See id. amend. XVI. Other amendments also grant power to Congress. See id. amend. XIX, cl. 2 (giving Congress the power to enforce a prohibition on gender-based discriminatory voting practices); id. amend. XXIII, ? 2 (giving Congress the power to enforce the District of Columbia's participation in the electoral college); id. amend. XXIV, ? 2 (giving Congress the power to enforce a prohibition against poll taxes); id. amend. XXVI, ? 2 (giving Congress the power to enforce a prohibition against denying eighteen-year-old people the vote on account of age). n33 See New York v. United States, 112 S. Ct. 2408, 2428-29 (1992); National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 833, 852 (1976). n34 See Garcia v. San Antonio Metro. Transit Auth., 469 U.S. 528, 531 (1985) (overruling Usery). n35 See, e.g., Perez v. United States, 402 U.S. 146, 156-57 (1971) (holding the Consumer Credit Protection Act to be within Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce); Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111, 128-29 (1942) (holding regulation of the production of wheat grown for personal consumption to be within Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce). The lower federal courts have basically followed suit, though there has been a modest counterrevolution in the past two years. See Hoffman Homes, Inc. v. Administrator, United States EPA, 961 F.2d 1310, 1311 (7th Cir.) (stating that the EPA could not regulate, as "wetlands" subject to the Clean Water Act, a small depression that occasionally filled with rainwater), vacated, 975 F.2d 1554 (7th Cir. 1992); United States v. Cortner, 834 F. Supp. 242, 244 (M.D. Tenn. 1993) (holding that Congress could not make carjacking a federal criminal offense, because the activity "lacks any rational nexus to interstate commerce"); cf. United States v. Lopez, 2 F.3d 1342, 1366-68 (5th Cir. 1993) (holding that Congress could not, in the absence of explicit legislative findings of an effect on interstate commerce, prohibit knowing possession of a firearm within one thousand feet of a school). n36 See Frank H. Easterbrook, Presidential Review, 40 CASE W. RES. L. REV. 905 (1989-1990). n37 10 Op. Off. Legal Counsel 40, 40-42 (1986). n38 U.S. CONST. art. I, ? 1. n39 Id. art. II, ? 1. n40 Id. art. III, ? 1. n41 The President, through the presentment and veto provisions, see id. art. I, ? 7, cls. 2-3, is given a sui generis role in the legislative process that defies classification along tripartite lines. See Gary Lawson, Territorial Governments and the Limits of Formalism, 78 CAL. L. REV. 853, 858 n.19 (1990). The Vice President is made an officer of the Senate and is given the power to break ties in that body. See U.S. CONST. art. I, ? 3, cl. 4. The Senate is given the seemingly judicial power to try impeachments. See id. art. I, ? 3, cl. 6. Certain other powers, such as the power to make treaties and to appoint national officers, are shared among the various departments. See id. art. II, ? 2, cl. 2. n42 A number of state constitutions of the founding era did contain such express separation of powers provisions. The most famous example is the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780: In the government of this Commonwealth, the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them: The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them; The judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them: To the end it may be a government of laws and not of men. MASS. CONST. of 1780, pt. I, art. 30; see also VA. CONST. of 1776 P2 ("The legislative, executive, and judiciary departments shall be separate and distinct, so that neither exercise the powers properly belonging to the other."). n43 I am profoundly indebted to Marty Redish for this important insight. n44 U.S. CONST. art I, ? 8, cl. 18 (emphasis added). The word "proper" in the Sweeping Clause provides the textual vehicle for enforcement of the Constitution's nondelegation principle. See Lawson & Granger, supra note 22, at 333-34. n45 See Thomas W. Merrill, The Constitutional Principle of Separation of Powers, 1991 SUP. CT. REV. 225, 256 ("[T]he Constitution makes no effort to define the 'legislative,' 'executive,' and 'judicial' powers."). The framers harbored no illusions that these powers were self-defining. Madison, for example, observed in The Federalist: Experience has instructed us that no skill in the science of government has yet been able to discriminate and define, with sufficient certainty, its three great provinces -- the legislative, executive, and judiciary. . . . Questions daily occur in the course of practice which prove the obscurity which reigns in these subjects, and which puzzle the greatest adepts in political science. THE FEDERALIST NO. 37, at 228 (James Madison) (Clinton Rossiter ed., 1961). The problem of distinguishing the three functions of government has long been, and continues to be, one of the most intractable puzzles in constitutional law. See Wayman v. Southard, 23 U.S. (10 Wheat.) 1, 46 (1825) ("[T]he maker of the law may commit something to the discretion of the other departments, and the precise boundary of this power is a subject of delicate and difficult inquiry. . . ."). See generally William B. Gwyn, The Indeterminacy of the Separation of Powers and the Federal Courts, 57 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 474, 503 (1989). n46 See Paul M. Bator, The Constitution as Architecture: Legislative and Administrative Courts Under Article III, 65 IND. L.J. 233, 264 (1990). n47 Circularity of this kind is neither fatal nor unprecedented. For example, under relevant (and correct) case law, a federal employee is an officer subject to the Appointments Clause, U.S. CONST. art. II, ? 2, cl. 2, if he or she is sufficiently important to be subject to the Appointments Clause. See Lawson, supra note 41, at 865 n.63. n48 For a description and analysis of the case law on nondelegation, see Cynthia R. Farina, Statutory Interpretation and the Balance of Power in the Administrative State, 89 COLUM. L. REV. 452, 478-88 (1989). n49 Marty Redish has independently formulated a very similar principle for distinguishing the legislative and executive powers, which he calls the "political commitment principle." See MARTIN H. REDISH, THE CONSTITUTION AS POLITICAL STRUCTURE (forthcoming 1994) (manuscript ch. 5, at 2-4, on file with author). This principle requires of valid legislation "some meaningful level of normative political commitment by the enacting legislators, thus enabling the electorate to judge its representatives." Id. ch. 5, at 4; see also David Schoenbrod, The Delegation Doctrine: Could the Court Give It Substance?, 83 MICH. L. REV. 1223, 1252-58 (1985) (distinguishing between statutes that prescribe rules of conduct and invalid statutes that merely state legislative goals). n50 See Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495, 541-42 (1935); Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, 293 U.S. 388, 430 (1935). The Court does occasionally invoke delegation concerns in the course of statutory interpretation. See, e.g., Industrial Union Dep't, AFL-CIO v. American Petroleum Inst. (Benzene), 448 U.S. 607, 646 (1980) (plurality opinion) (holding that an OSHA statute, if interpreted broadly, would be a sweeping and unconstitutional delegation of power). n51 See 15 U.S.C. ? 78j(b) (1988) (proscribing the use or employment, "in connection with the purchase or sale of any security . . ., [of] any manipulative or deceptive device or contrivance in contravention of such rules and regulations as the [Securities and Exchange] Commission may prescribe as necessary or appropriate in the public interest or for the protection of investors"). n52 See 47 U.S.C. ? 307(a) (1988) (prescribing that the Federal Communications Commission shall grant broadcast licenses to applicants "if public convenience, interest, or necessity will be served thereby"). n53 See 21 U.S.C. ? 41 (1988) (forbidding the importation of "any merchandise as tea which is inferior in purity, quality, and fitness for consumption to the standards" set by the Secretary of Health and Human Services). n54 See, e.g., Touby v. United States, 111 S. Ct. 1752, 1756 (1991); Skinner v. Mid-America Pipeline Co., 490 U.S. 212, 218-24 (1989); Mistretta v. United States, 488 U.S. 361, 378-79 (1989). n55 The problem with the Goodness and Niceness Commission under current law (if indeed there is a problem) would be that it had been delegated too much of Congress's power in one fell swoop. Modern law, in other words, will permit Congress to create a set of miniature Goodness and Niceness Commissions, no one of which has authority over all aspects of life, but would likely balk at a single agency exercising unconstrained legislative authority over too broad a range of subjects. See Industrial Union Dep't, AFL-CIO v. American Petroleum Inst. (Benzene), 448 U.S. 607, 646 (1980) (plurality opinion) (narrowly construing the Occupational Safety and Health Act because a broad construction would give the Secretary of Labor "unprecedented power over American industry" and would thus constitute "such a 'sweeping delegation of legislative power' that it might be unconstitutional") (quoting Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495, 539 (1935)). n56 488 U.S. 361 (1989). n57 Id. at 372. n58 David Schoenbrod has documented that President Reagan never vetoed a bill on nondelegation grounds nor did his Justice Department ever oppose such legislation. See David Schoenbrod, How the Reagan Administration Trivialized Separation of Powers (and Shot Itself in the Foot), 57 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 459, 464-65 (1989). I have confirmed that this same fact is true of the Bush administration through my own recollections and those of several Bush administration officials and by consulting published opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel. n59 U.S. CONST. art. II, ? 1, cl. 1. n60 See Steven G. Calabresi & Kevin H. Rhodes, The Structural Constitution: Unitary Executive, Plural Judiciary, 105 HARV. L. REV. 1153, 1177 n.119 (1992). n61 U.S. CONST. art. II, ? 3, cl. 3. n62 See Calabresi & Rhodes, supra note 60, at 1198 n.221. n63 See Steven G. Calabresi, The Vesting Clauses As Power Grants, 88 NW. U. L. REV. (forthcoming 1994) (manuscript at 2, on file with the Harvard Law School Library). n64 U.S. CONST. art. I, ? 1, cl. 1. n65 The qualifier "discretionary" is important. If a statute requires a ministerial act, such that a writ of mandamus would properly lie to compel its performance, it does not matter in whom the statute vests power. See Kendall v. United States, 37 U.S. (12 Pet.) 524, 610-13 (1838). n66 See, e.g., Thomas O. McGarity, Presidential Control of Regulatory Agency Decisionmaking, 36 AM. U. L. REV. 443, 465-72 (1987) (arguing that Congress "may provide that the President may not substitute his judgment . . . for that of the official to whom Congress has delegated decisionmaking power"); cf. Lawrence Lessig & Cass R. Sunstein, The President and the Administration, 94 COLUM. L. REV. 1, 55 (1994) (claiming that, under an originalist interpretation of the Constitution, "Congress has wide discretion to vest . . . [administrative powers] in officers operating under or beyond the plenary power of the President"). n67 Several legal scholars have compiled impressive lists of historical materials suggesting that many early legal actors and writers did not contemplate any wide-ranging presidential power of supervision. See Lessig & Sunstein, supra note 66, at 15-17; Morton Rosenberg, Presidential Control of Agency Rulemaking: An Analysis of Constitutional Issues That May Be Raised by Executive Order 12,291, 23 ARIZ. L. REV. 1199, 1205-10 (1981). n68 See Lessig & Sunstein, supra note 66, at 46-52; McGarity, supra note 66, at 466; Rosenberg, supra note 67, at 1209. n69 Steve Calabresi has recently formulated and marshalled these arguments. See Calabresi, supra note 63, at 4-22; Steven G. Calabresi, The Trinity of Powers and the Lessig/Sunstein Heresy passim (March 6, 1994) (unpublished manuscript, on file with the Harvard Law School Library). I can here summarize only a few of Professor Calabresi's arguments. First, the Sweeping Clause gives Congress power to carry into execution "all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof." U.S. CONST. art. I, ? 8, cl. 18 (emphasis added). In view of this language, it is very hard to argue that the Article II Vesting Clause does not vest powers. Second, a close textual and structural comparison of Articles II and III demonstrates that the Vesting Clauses in each Article serve the same function. Inasmuch as the Article III Vesting Clause must be read as a grant of power to courts to decide cases rather than as merely a designation of office, the Article II Vesting Clause must also be a grant of power. Third, the Article II Vesting Clause is the only plausible source of a constitutional power to execute the laws. The only other conceivable source of such a power -- the Take Care Clause, U.S. CONST. art II, ? 2, cl. 3 (declaring that the President "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed") -- is worded as a duty of faithful execution rather than as a grant of power. n70 See Calabresi & Rhodes, supra note 60, at 1166. n71 See id.; Lee S. Liberman, Morrison v. Olson: A Formalist Perspective on Why the Court Was Wrong, 38 AM. U. L. REV. 313, 353-54 (1989). n72 The executive power, unlike the legislative and judicial powers, has always been understood to be delegable by the President. See Mistretta v. United States, 488 U.S. 361, 424-25 (1989) (Scalia, J., dissenting); 2 ANNALS OF CONG. 712 (1792) ("[I]t is of the nature of Executive power to be transferrable to subordinate officers; but Legislative authority is incommunicable, and cannot be transferred.") (statement of Representative Findley). Accordingly, if the President can directly exercise all powers vested by statute in executive officials, the President can presumably designate any subordinate official to exercise that power. Thus, if a statute vests authority to promulgate standards for workplace safety in the Secretary of Labor, the President could, on this understanding, personally assume that power and then delegate it to the Secretary of Defense. Perhaps this is the correct view of the President's power, but it seems more plausible to suppose that Congress can at least determine which subordinate officials, if any, are permitted to exercise delegated executive powers. See Geoffrey P. Miller, The Unitary Executive in a Unified Theory of Constitutional Law: The Problem of Interpretation, 15 CARDOZO L. REV. 201, 205 (1993). On this supposition, if a statute vests power to promulgate workplace standards in the Secretary of Labor, the President cannot personally promulgate safety standards nor designate anyone other than the Secretary of Labor to perform that task, although the President can issue instructions -- including instructions so detailed that they take the form of regulations -- with which the Secretary of Labor must comply if he or she is to act at all. n73 See, e.g., Morrison v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654, 696-97 (1988) (upholding the constitutionality of the independent counsel provisions of the Ethics in Government Act); Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U.S. 714, 721-27 (1986) (striking down a provision of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act that gave the Comptroller General a role in the appropriations process). n74 It is therefore constitutionally nonexistent as well. The only mode of removal specifically mentioned in the Constitution is impeachment. See U.S. CONST. art. II, ? 4. Accordingly, one could reasonably believe: that impeachment is the only permissible form of removal, that Congress's power to create offices carries with it the power to prescribe the form of removal, or that the power of removal follows the power of appointment, so that if the Senate must consent to an officer's appointment, it must also consent to that officer's removal. See Lawson, supra note 41, at 883 n.172. One can infer a presidential removal power only by assuming that such a power is necessary in order to ensure a unitary executive. See Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52, 132-35 (1926) (making such an inference). Inasmuch as even the strongest removal power does not ensure compliance with the Article II Vesting Clause, any such inference of a constitutionally based presidential removal power seems hard to justify. n75 See 1 ANNALS OF CONG. 384-412, 473-608, 614-31, 635-39 (1789). Should this fact give pause to advocates of the unitary executive? Probably, although the framers' silence is not decisive in the face of compelling textual and structural arguments for presidential control of execution. In order to establish that something is the original meaning of a constitutional provision, one needs to show that the general public would have acknowledged that meaning as correct if all relevant arguments and information had been brought to its attention. Actual instances of usage (or non-usage) are therefore probative but not dispositive. n76 See, e.g., 18 Op. Att'y Gen. 31, 32 (1884); 11 Op. Att'y Gen. 14, 15-19 (1864); 1 Op. Att'y Gen. 624, 625-29 (1823). But see 6 Op. Att'y Gen. 326, 339-46 (1854) (disavowing the reasoning and conclusions of these opinions). n77 See Merrill, supra note 45, at 253-54. Nor is it obvious that courts would have validated limitless delegations directly to the President rather than to "expert, non-political" agencies. n78 See 15 Op. Off. Legal Counsel 8, 16-17 (1991) (construing a statute to permit the Secretary of Education to review decisions of administrative law judges on the ground, inter alia, that foreclosure of review would be unconstitutional); 13 Op. Off. Legal Counsel 299, 306-07 (1989) (objecting generally to concurrent reporting requirements that allow agencies to transmit budget requests or legislative proposals to Congress without presidential review); 12 Op. Off. Legal Counsel 58, 60-71 (1988) (asserting the unconstitutionality of a congressional resolution requiring the Centers for Disease Control to mail AIDS information free from executive supervision). n79 U.S. CONST. art. III, ? 1. n80 See id. n81 Joshua I. Schwartz, Nonacquiescence, Crowell v. Benson, and Administrative Adjudication, 77 GEO. L.J. 1815, 1835 (1989). n82 See Freytag v. Commissioner, 111 S. Ct. 2631, 2654-56 (1991) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment); Murray's Lessee v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co., 59 U.S. (18 How.) 272, 280 (1855); Frank H. Easterbrook, "Success" and the Judicial Power, 65 IND. L.J. 277, 280-81 (1990). n83 See Freytag, 111 S. Ct. at 2655; Murray's Lessee, 59 U.S. at 284. n84 See REDISH, supra note 49, ch. 5, at 9-11 (discussing Locke and Montesquieu). n85 59 U.S. (18 How.) 272 (1855). n86 U.S. CONST. amend. V. n87 Legislation that does not require executive and judicial adherence to principles of due process is not "proper" under the Sweeping Clause and thus would have been unconstitutional even before ratification of the Fifth Amendment in 1791. See Lawson & Granger, supra note 22, at 329-30. n88 Richard H. Fallon, Jr., Of Legislative Courts, Administrative Agencies, and Article III, 101 HARV. L. REV. 916, 918 (1988). n89 Martin H. Redish, Legislative Courts, Administrative Agencies, and the Northern Pipeline Decision, 1983 DUKE L.J. 197, 227. n90 See Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. National Resources Defense Counsel, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 842-43 (1984). n91 See, e.g., 5 U.S.C. ? 706(2)(E) (1988) (specifying the substantial evidence test); 29 U.S.C. ? 660(a) (1988) (same). n92 See Calabresi & Rhodes, supra note 60, at 1155-56. n93 THE FEDERALIST NO. 47, at 301 (James Madison) (Clinton Rossiter ed., 1961). n94 See Sunstein, supra note 2, at 446-47. n95 See OFFICE OF THE FED. REGISTER, NATIONAL ARCHIVES & RECORD ADMIN., UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT MANUAL 1993/1994, at 612-17 (1993). n96 See FTC v. Standard Oil Co., 449 U.S. 232, 245 (1980) (refusing to permit judicial review of the filing of an administrative complaint on the ground that such agency action is nonfinal). n97 See Rebecca L. Brown, Separated Powers and Ordered Liberty, 139 U. PA. L. REV. 1513, 1556 (1991). n98 See supra p. 1234. n99 Although, as Lawrence Lessig and Cass Sunstein point out, the Sweeping Clause gives Congress substantial power to control the manner in which the executive department executes the laws, see Lessig & Sunstein, supra note 66, at 66-69, that power is limited by the Sweeping Clause's terms. Congress is permitted to create a particular governmental structure if, but only if, other constitutional provisions or background understandings establish that such a structure conforms to a "proper" conception of separation of powers. See Lawson & Granger, supra note 22, at 333-34; see also Lessig & Sunstein, supra note 66, at 67 n.278, 69 (noting that there are constitutional limits on Congress's power under the Sweeping Clause). Thus, the scope of Congress's power to structure the national government depends largely on the extent to which the Vesting Clauses of Articles II and III do or do not grant power to the President and the federal courts, respectively -- and thus do not or do leave governmental powers unallocated by the constitutional text. Accordingly, Professors Lessig and Sunstein's conclusion that "the framers wanted to constitutionalize just some of the array of power a constitution-maker must allocate, and as for the rest, the framers intended Congress (and posterity) to control as it saw fit," id. at 41, ultimately rests, as a textual matter, on their argument that the Article II and Article III Vesting Clauses are not grants of power, see id. at 46-52 -- an argument that is very difficult to sustain either textually or structurally. See supra note 69. (Patty Granger and I are grateful to Professors Lessig and Sunstein for their generous use of our article on the Sweeping Clause in their recent work on the presidency. See Lessig & Sunstein, supra note 66, at 41 n.178, 67 n.278. At the risk of appearing to quibble in the name of clarification, however: Professors Lessig and Sunstein cite our article, under a "see also" signal, in support of the conclusion that the framers left the allocation of some important governmental powers to "Congress (and posterity) to control as it saw fit." See id. at 41 n.178. Our article neither directly supports nor directly rebuts such a claim of congressional power. It demonstrates that Congress can structure the government only through laws that are objectively necessary and proper, see Lawson & Granger, supra note 22, at 276, but whether a particular governmental structure is "proper" depends on constitutional norms external to the Sweeping Clause. Thus, as noted above, the soundness of Professors Lessig and Sunstein's conclusion concerning congressional power depends largely on the soundness of their interpretation of the Article II and Article III Vesting Clauses. The phrase "necessary and proper" in the Sweeping Clause is a neutral player in that dispute -- although the Sweeping Clause's use of the phrase "powers vested" supports a power-granting construction of the Vesting Clauses. See supra note 69. By way of further clarification: Professors Lessig and Sunstein cite -- and endorse -- our conclusion that the word "proper" in the Sweeping Clause constrains Congress's power, but with the proviso that they "do not agree that the clause is a limitation on Congress's power (rather than a grant of power)." Lessig & Sunstein, supra note 66, at 67 n.278. In fact, on this point (as on many others), there is no disagreement among us. Ms. Granger and I emphatically maintain that the Sweeping Clause is a grant of power to Congress, see, e.g., Lawson & Granger, supra note 22, at 270, 276, 328, but insist that it is a grant of limited rather than unlimited power.) n100 See supra note 1. n101 I suspect that this claim is controversial only because of a failure to distinguish between theories of interpretation and theories of adjudication. Imagine, for example, that a second American revolution openly discards the Constitution, so that there is no chance that any conclusions about the Constitution's meaning could have any significant effects on the real world. In the absence of any plausible concern about the practical consequences of constitutional interpretation (and putting aside for the moment the interpretative significance of precedent), it seems inconceivable that one would even think to apply anything other than originalist interpretivism when interpreting the Constitution -- just as no one would today think of interpreting the Articles of Confederation by any other method. In other words, I suspect that originalist interpretivism is controversial only because its descriptive interpretative conclusions are widely thought to have prescriptive adjudicative consequences. n102 See ACKERMAN, supra note 3, at 34-57; Bruce Ackerman, Constitutional Politics/Constitutional Law, 99 YALE L.J. 453, 510-15 (1989) [hereinafter Ackerman, Constitutional Politics]; Bruce Ackerman, The Storrs Lectures: Discovering the Constitution, 93 YALE L.J. 1013, 1051-57 (1984). n103 The Constitution was ratified in a manner inconsistent both with the amendment process specified in the Articles of Confederation and with the ratification procedures of a number of state constitutions. The ratification of the Reconstruction Amendments involved something very close to vote fraud. See Ackerman, Constitutional Politics, supra note 102, at 500-07. n104 Akhil Amar has argued that the ratification of the original Constitution was valid because it was consistent with an accepted background norm for the ratification of fundamental law: ratification by direct majority vote of "We the People." That norm, he argues, is carried forward in the existing Constitution as an unenumerated right of the people, so an amendment ratified by direct majority vote would be constitutionally valid. See Akhil Reed Amar, Philadelphia Revisited: Amending the Constitution Outside Article V, 55 U. CHI. L. REV. 1043, 1044 (1988). This analysis, however, cannot save the administrative state, because no such amendment has ever been so ratified. n105 Ackerman, Constitutional Politics, supra note 102, at 508 (paraphrasing Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433, 449 (1939)). n106 Henry P. Monaghan, Stare Decisis and Constitutional Adjudication, 88 COLUM. L. REV. 723, 748 (1988) (emphasis added). n107 See Gary Lawson, The Constitutional Case Against Precedent, 17 HARV. J.L. & PUB. POL'Y 23, 25-33 (1994). It is perhaps a bit arrogant to toss off a proposition of this magnitude so casually, but the prima facie case against precedent is undeceptively simple: if interpreters have the power and duty to prefer the Constitution to statutes or executive acts because the Constitution is supreme law, they a fortiori have the same power and duty to prefer the Constitution to prior judicial decisions. n108 Peter B. McCutchen, Mistakes, Precedent, and the Rise of the Administrative State: Toward a Constitutional Theory of the Second Best (October 20, 1993) (unpublished manuscript, on file with the Harvard Law School Library). n109 Id. at 3. n110 See id. at 26-32. n111 Id. at 3, 4. n112 U.S. CONST. art. I, ? 7, cls. 2-3. n113 See McCutchen, supra note 108, at 62-65. n114 See supra note 107. n115 See Suzanna Sherry, An Originalist Understanding of Minimalism, 88 NW. U. L. REV. 175, 182 (1993). Of course, there may be tactical reasons for casting normative political arguments in the (often unaccommodating) language of constitutionalism. If official actors or the public believe, or act as though they believe, that the Constitution matters, effective rhetorical strategy requires that one couch arguments in constitutional language -- and perhaps even that one lie about one's goals and methods. But truth-seekers have no interest in such rhetorical games. n116 See Gary S. Lawson, An Interpretivist Agenda, 15 HARV. J.L. & PUB. POL'Y 157, 160-61 (1992); Larry Simon, The Authority of the Constitution and Its Meaning: A Preface to a Theory of Constitutional Interpretation, 58 S. CAL. L. REV. 603, 606-07, 613-19 (1985). n117 Political candidates seeking office typically do not call for abolishing administrative government in the name of the Constitution, which suggests that such a platform probably would not garner a large percentage of the popular vote. n118 See Gary S. Lawson, The Ethics of Insider Trading, 11 HARV. J.L. & PUB. POL'Y 727, 778 (1988) ("It is conceivable that the ethical, epistemological, and metaphysical problems of the ages will be solved by an article in a twentieth-century, English-language law journal. But I rather doubt it."). From shovland at mindspring.com Sun Oct 2 23:10:52 2005 From: shovland at mindspring.com (Steve Hovland) Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2005 16:10:52 -0700 Subject: [Paleopsych] The Grand Canal in Venice from the Rialto Bridge Message-ID: I'm not sure I sent this. If not, I hope it inspires fond memories in some of you, and ambition to see it yourself in others :-) If you haven't been there, Venice is about a 3-day event. Steve -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Grand Canal.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 172178 bytes Desc: not available URL: From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com Mon Oct 3 01:30:27 2005 From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.) Date: Sun, 02 Oct 2005 19:30:27 -0600 Subject: [Paleopsych] Journal of Religion and Society: Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <434089B3.9070906@solution-consulting.com> This is an amazingly silly study, as it contradicts tons of social research on the actual effects of religion. America is a sui generis, and to compare us with any other country is ridiculous. Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Other than that I have no strong opinion. Lynn Premise Checker wrote: > Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with > Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies > Journal of Religion and Society > http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html > [Creighton is a Roman Catholic Jesuit university, founded in Omaha in > 1878. First, an summary from the Times of London, to which Laird > alerted me.] > > NATIONS WITH GOD ON THEIR SIDE DO WORSE > > RUTH GLEDHILL, TIMES, UK - Religious belief can cause damage to a > society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual > promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today. > According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only > unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to > social problems. The study counters the view of believers that > religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of > a healthy society. > > It compares the social performance of relatively secular countries, > such as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator > rather than the theory of evolution. Many conservative evangelicals in > the US consider Darwinism to be a social evil, believing that it > inspires atheism and amorality. > > Many liberal Christians and believers of other faiths hold that > religious belief is socially beneficial, believing that it helps to > lower rates of violent crime, murder, suicide, sexual promiscuity and > abortion. The benefits of religious belief to a society have been > described as its "spiritual capital". But the study claims that the > devotion of many in the US may actually contribute to its ills. > > The paper, published in the Journal of Religion and Society, a US > academic journal, reports: "Many Americans agree that their > churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the > hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly > sceptical world. > > "In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator > correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult > mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the > prosperous democracies. The United States is almost always the most > dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly > so." > > Gregory Paul, the author of the study and a social scientist, used > data from the International Social Survey Program, Gallup and other > research bodies to reach his conclusions. . . > > The study concluded that the US was the world's only prosperous > democracy where murder rates were still high, and that the least > devout nations were the least dysfunctional. Mr Paul said that rates > of gonorrhea in adolescents in the US were up to 300 times higher than > in less devout democratic countries. The US also suffered from " > uniquely high" adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, and > adolescent abortion rates, the study suggested. . . > > He said that the disparity was even greater when the US was compared > with other countries, including France, Japan and the Scandinavian > countries. These nations had been the most successful in reducing > murder rates, early mortality, sexually transmitted diseases and > abortion, he added. > > http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1798944,00.html > > ------------------- > > ISSN: 1522-5658 > > Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with > Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies > > A First Look > > Gregory S. Paul > Baltimore, Maryland > > Introduction > > [1] Two centuries ago there was relatively little dispute over the > existence of God, or the societally beneficial effect of popular > belief in a creator. In the twentieth century extensive secularization > occurred in western nations, the United States being the only > significant exception (Bishop; Bruce; Gill et al.; Sommerville). If > religion has receded in some western nations, what is the impact of > this unprecedented transformation upon their populations? Theists > often assert that popular belief in a creator is instrumental towards > providing the moral, ethical and other foundations necessary for a > healthy, cohesive society. Many also contend that widespread > acceptance of evolution, and/or denial of a creator, is contrary to > these goals. But a cross-national study verifying these claims has yet > to be published. That radically differing worldviews can have > measurable impact upon societal conditions is plausible according to a > number of mainstream researchers (Bainbridge; Barro; Barro and > McCleary; Beeghley; Groeneman and Tobin; Huntington; Inglehart and > Baker; Putman; Stark and Bainbridge). Agreement with the hypothesis > that belief in a creator is beneficial to societies is largely based > on assumption, anecdotal accounts, and on studies of limited scope and > quality restricted to one population (Benson et al.; Hummer et al.; > Idler and Kasl; Stark and Bainbridge). A partial exception is given by > Barro and McCleary, who correlated economic growth with rates of > belief in the afterlife and church attendance in numerous nations > (while Kasman and Reid [2004] commented that Europe does not appear to > be suffering unduly from its secularization). It is surprising that a > more systematic examination of the question has not been previously > executed since the factors required to do so are in place. The > twentieth century acted, for the first time in human history, as a > vast Darwinian global societal experiment in which a wide variety of > dramatically differing social-religious-political-economic systems > competed with one another, with varying degrees of success. A > quantitative cross-national analysis is feasible because a large body > of survey and census data on rates of religiosity, secularization, and > societal indicators has become available in the prosperous developed > democracies including the United States. > > [2] This study is a first, brief look at an important subject that has > been almost entirely neglected by social scientists. The primary > intent is to present basic correlations of the elemental data. Some > conclusions that can be gleaned from the plots are outlined. This is > not an attempt to present a definitive study that establishes cause > versus effect between religiosity, secularism and societal health. It > is hoped that these original correlations and results will spark > future research and debate on the issue. > > The Belief that Religiosity is Socially Beneficial > > [3] As he helped initiate the American experiment Benjamin Franklin > stated that "religion will be a powerful regulator of our actions, > give us peace and tranquility within our minds, and render us > benevolent, useful and beneficial to others" (Isaacson: 87-88). When > the theory of biological evolution removed the need for a supernatural > creator concerns immediately arose over the societal implications of > widespread abandonment of faith (Desmond and Moore; Numbers). In 1880 > the religious moralist Dostoyevsky penned the famous warning that "if > God does not exist, then everything is permissible." Even so, in > Europe the issue has not been a driving focus of public and political > dispute, especially since the world wars. > > [4] Although its proponents often claim that anti-evolution > creationism[1]<1> is scientific, it has abjectly failed in the > practical realms of mainstream science and hi-tech industry (Ayala et > al.; Crews; Cziko; Dawkins, 1996, 1997; Dennett; Gould; Koza et al.; > L. Lane; Miller; Paul and Cox; Shanks; Wise; Young and Edis). The > continuing popularity of creationism in America indicates that it is > in reality a theistic social-political movement partly driven by > concerns over the societal consequences of disbelief in a creator > (Forrest and Gross; Numbers). The person most responsible for > politicizing the issue in America, evangelical Christian W. J. > Bryan,[2]<2> expressed relatively little interest in evolution until > the horrors of WW I inspired him to blame the scientific revolution > that invented chemical warfare and other modern ills for "preaching > that man has a brute ancestry and eliminating the miraculous and the > supernatural from the Bible" (Numbers: 178). > > [5] In the United States many conservative theists consider > evolutionary science a leading contributor to social dysfunction > because it is amoral or worse, and because it inspires disbelief in a > moral creator (Colson and Pearcey; Eve and Harrold; Johnson; Numbers; > Pearcey; Schroeder). The original full title for the creationist > Discovery Institute was the Discovery Institute for the Renewal of > Science and Culture (a title still applied to a division), and the > institute's mission challenges "materialism on specifically scientific > grounds" with the intent of reversing "some of materialism's > destructive cultural consequences." The strategy for achieving these > goals is the "wedge" strategy to insert intelligent design creationism > into mainstream academe and subsequently destroy Darwinian science > (Johnson; Forrest and Gross note this effort is far behind schedule). > The Discovery Institute and the less conservative, even more lavishly > funded pro-theistic Templeton Foundation fund research into the > existence and positive societal influence of a creator (Harris et al.; > Holden). In 2000 the Discovery Institute held a neocreationist seminar > for members of Congress (Applegate). Politically and socially powerful > conservatives have deliberately worked to elevate popular concerns > over a field of scientific and industrial research to such a level > that it qualifies as a major societal fear factor. The current House > majority leader T. Daley contends that high crime rates and tragedies > like the Columbine assault will continue as long schools teach > children "that they are nothing but glorified apes who have > evolutionized [sic] out of some primordial soup of mud" (DeLay and > Dawson). Today's leaders of the world's largest Christian > denomination, the Catholic Church, share a dim view of the social > impact of evolution. In his inauguration speech, Benedict XVI lauded > the benefits of belief in a creator and contended, "we are not some > casual and meaningless product of evolution." A leading church cleric > and theologian (Schonborn) proclaimed that "the overwhelming evidence > for purpose and design" refutes the mindless creation of Darwinian > natural selection (also Dean, Dean and Goodstein). > > [6] Agreement with the hypothesis that popular religiosity is > societally advantageous is not limited to those opposed to > evolutionary science, or to conservatives. The basic thesis can be > held by anyone who believes in a benign creator regardless of the > proposed mode of creation, or the believer's social-political > worldview. In broad terms the hypothesis that popular religiosity is > socially beneficial holds that high rates of belief in a creator, as > well as worship, prayer and other aspects of religious practice, > correlate with lowering rates of lethal violence, suicide, > non-monogamous sexual activity, and abortion, as well as improved > physical health. Such faith-based, virtuous "cultures of life" are > supposedly attainable if people believe that God created them for a > special purpose, and follow the strict moral dictates imposed by > religion. At one end of the spectrum are those who consider creator > belief helpful but not necessarily critical to individuals and > societies. At the other end the most ardent advocates consider persons > and people inherently unruly and ungovernable unless they are strictly > obedient to the creator (as per Barna; Colson and Pearcey; Johnson; > Pearcey; Schroeder). Barro labels societal advantages that are > associated with religiosity "spiritual capital," an extension of > Putman's concept of "social capital." The corresponding view that > western secular materialism leads to "cultures of death" is the > official opinion of the Papacy, which claims, "the proabortion culture > is especially strong precisely where the Church's teaching on > contraception is rejected" (John Paul II). In the United States > popular support for the cultural and moral superiority of theism is so > extensive that popular disbelief in God ranks as another major > societal fear factor. > > [7] The media (Stepp) gave favorable coverage to a report that > children are hardwired towards, and benefit from, accepting the > existence of a divine creator on an epidemiological and > neuro-scientific basis (Benson et al.). Also covered widely was a > Federal report that the economic growth of nations positively responds > to high rates of belief in hell and heaven.[3]<3> Faith-based > charities and education are promoted by the Bush administration[4]<4> > and religious allies and lobbies as effective means of addressing > various social problems (Aronson; Goodstein). The conservative Family > Research Council proclaims, "believing that God is the author of life, > liberty and the family, FRC promotes the Judeo-Christian worldview as > the basis for a just, free and stable society." Towards the liberal > end of the political spectrum presidential candidate Al Gore supported > teaching both creationism and evolution, his running mate Joe > Leiberman asserted that belief in a creator is instrumental to "secure > the moral future of our nation, and raise the quality of life for all > our people," and presidential candidate John Kerry emphasized his > religious values in the latter part of his campaign. > > [8] With surveys showing a strong majority from conservative to > liberal believing that religion is beneficial for society and for > individuals, many Americans agree that their church-going nation is an > exceptional, God blessed, "shining city on the hill" that stands as an > impressive example for an increasingly skeptical world. But in the > other developing democracies religiosity continues to decline > precipitously and avowed atheists often win high office, even as > clergies warn about adverse societal consequences if a revival of > creator belief does not occur (Reid, 2001). > > Procedures and Primary Data Sources > > [9] Levels of religious and nonreligious belief and practice, and > indicators of societal health and dysfunction, have been most > extensively and reliably surveyed in the prosperous developed > democracies ([5]Figures 1-9). Similar data is often lacking for second > and third world nations, or is less reliable. The cultural and > economic similarity of the developing democracies minimizes the > variability of factors outside those being examined. The approximately > 800 million mostly middle class adults and children act as a massive > epidemiological experiment that allows hypotheses that faith in a > creator or disbelief in evolution improves or degrades societal > conditions to be tested on an international scale. The extent of this > data makes it potentially superior to results based on much smaller > sample sizes. Data is from the 1990s, most from the middle and latter > half of the decade, or the early 2000s. > > [10] Data sources for rates of religious belief and practice as well > as acceptance of evolution are the 1993 Environment I (Bishop) and > 1998 Religion II polls conducted by the International Social Survey > Program (ISSP), a cross-national collaboration on social science > surveys using standard methodologies that currently involves 38 > nations. The last survey interviewed approximately 23,000 people in > almost all (17) of the developing democracies; Portugal is also > plotted as an example of a second world European democracy. Results > for western and eastern Germany are combined following the regions' > populations. England is generally Great Britain excluding Northern > Ireland; Holland is all of the Netherlands. The results largely agree > with national surveys on the same subjects; for example, both ISSP and > Gallup indicate that absolute plus less certain believers in a higher > power are about 90% of the U.S. population. The plots include Bible > literalism and frequency of prayer and service attendance, as well as > absolute belief in a creator, in order to examine religiosity in terms > of ardency, conservatism, and activities. Self-reported rates of > religious attendance and practice may be significantly higher than > actual rates (Marler and Hadaway), but the data is useful for relative > comparisons, especially when it parallels results on religious belief. > The high rates of church attendance reported for the Swiss appear > anomalous compared to their modest levels of belief and prayer. > > [11] Data on aspects of societal health and dysfunction are from a > variety of well-documented sources including the UN Development > Programme (2000). Homicide is the best indicator of societal violence > because of the extremity of the act and its unique contribution to > levels of societal fear, plus the relatively reliable nature of the > data (Beeghley; Neapoletan). Youth suicide (WHO) was examined in order > to avoid cultural issues related to age and terminal illness. Data on > STDs, teen pregnancy and birth (Panchaud et al.; Singh and Darroch) > were accepted only if the compilers concluded that they were not > seriously underreported, except for the U.S. where under reporting > does not exaggerate disparities with the other developing democracies > because they would only close the gaps. Teen pregnancy was examined in > a young age class in which marriage is infrequent. Abortion data > (Panchaud et al.) was accepted only from those nations in which it is > as approximately legal and available as in the U.S. In order to > minimize age related factors, rates of dysfunction were plotted within > youth cohorts when possible. > > [12] Regression analyses were not executed because of the high > variability of degree of correlation, because potential causal factors > for rates of societal function are complex, and because it is not the > purpose of this initial study to definitively demonstrate a causal > link between religion and social conditions. Nor were multivariate > analyses used because they risk manipulating the data to produce > errant or desired results,[6]<5> and because the fairly consistent > characteristics of the sample automatically minimizes the need to > correct for external multiple factors (see further discussion below). > Therefore correlations of raw data are used for this initial > examination. > > Results > > [13] Among the developing democracies absolute belief in God, > attendance of religious services and Bible literalism vary over a > dozenfold, atheists and agnostics five fold, prayer rates fourfold, > and acceptance of evolution almost twofold. Japan, Scandinavia, and > France are the most secular nations in the west, the United States is > the only prosperous first world nation to retain rates of religiosity > otherwise limited to the second and third worlds (Bishop; PEW). > Prosperous democracies where religiosity is low (which excludes the > U.S.) are referred to below as secular developing democracies. > > [14] Correlations between popular acceptance of human evolution and > belief in and worship of a creator and Bible literalism are negative > ([7]Figure 1). The least religious nation, Japan, exhibits the highest > agreement with the scientific theory, the lowest level of acceptance > is found in the most religious developing democracy, the U.S. > > [15] A few hundred years ago rates of homicide were astronomical in > Christian Europe and the American colonies (Beeghley; R. Lane). In all > secular developing democracies a centuries long-term trend has seen > homicide rates drop to historical lows ([8]Figure 2). The especially > low rates in the more Catholic European states are statistical noise > due to yearly fluctuations incidental to this sample, and are not > consistently present in other similar tabulations (Barcley and > Tavares). Despite a significant decline from a recent peak in the > 1980s (Rosenfeld), the U.S. is the only prosperous democracy that > retains high homicide rates, making it a strong outlier in this regard > (Beeghley; Doyle, 2000). Similarly, theistic Portugal also has rates > of homicides well above the secular developing democracy norm. Mass > student murders in schools are rare, and have subsided somewhat since > the 1990s, but the U.S. has experienced many more (National School > Safety Center) than all the secular developing democracies combined. > Other prosperous democracies do not significantly exceed the U.S. in > rates of nonviolent and in non-lethal violent crime (Beeghley; > Farrington and Langan; Neapoletan), and are often lower in this > regard. The United States exhibits typical rates of youth suicide > (WHO), which show little if any correlation with theistic factors in > the prosperous democracies ([9]Figure 3). The positive correlation > between pro-theistic factors and juvenile mortality is remarkable, > especially regarding absolute belief, and even prayer ([10]Figure 4). > Life spans tend to decrease as rates of religiosity rise ([11]Figure > 5), especially as a function of absolute belief. Denmark is the only > exception. Unlike questionable small-scale epidemiological studies by > Harris et al. and Koenig and Larson, higher rates of religious > affiliation, attendance, and prayer do not result in lower > juvenile-adult mortality rates on a cross-national basis.[12]<6> > > [16] Although the late twentieth century STD epidemic has been > curtailed in all prosperous democracies (Aral and Holmes; Panchaud et > al.), rates of adolescent gonorrhea infection remain six to three > hundred times higher in the U.S. than in less theistic, pro-evolution > secular developing democracies ([13]Figure 6). At all ages levels are > higher in the U.S., albeit by less dramatic amounts. The U.S. also > suffers from uniquely high adolescent and adult syphilis infection > rates, which are starting to rise again as the microbe's resistance > increases ([14]Figure 7). The two main curable STDs have been nearly > eliminated in strongly secular Scandinavia. Increasing adolescent > abortion rates show positive correlation with increasing belief and > worship of a creator, and negative correlation with increasing > non-theism and acceptance of evolution; again rates are uniquely high > in the U.S. ([15]Figure 8). Claims that secular cultures aggravate > abortion rates (John Paul II) are therefore contradicted by the > quantitative data. Early adolescent pregnancy and birth have dropped > in the developing democracies (Abma et al.; Singh and Darroch), but > rates are two to dozens of times higher in the U.S. where the decline > has been more modest ([16]Figure 9). Broad correlations between > decreasing theism and increasing pregnancy and birth are present, with > Austria and especially Ireland being partial exceptions. Darroch et > al. found that age of first intercourse, number of sexual partners and > similar issues among teens do not exhibit wide disparity or a > consistent pattern among the prosperous democracies they sampled, > including the U.S. A detailed comparison of sexual practices in France > and the U.S. observed little difference except that the French tend - > contrary to common impression - to be somewhat more conservative > (Gagnon et al.). > > Discussion > > [17] The absence of exceptions to the negative correlation between > absolute belief in a creator and acceptance of evolution, plus the > lack of a significant religious revival in any developing democracy > where evolution is popular, cast doubt on the thesis that societies > can combine high rates of both religiosity and agreement with > evolutionary science. Such an amalgamation may not be practical. By > removing the need for a creator evolutionary science made belief > optional. When deciding between supernatural and natural causes is a > matter of opinion large numbers are likely to opt for the latter. > Western nations are likely to return to the levels of popular > religiosity common prior to the 1900s only in the improbable event > that naturalistic evolution is scientifically overturned in favor of > some form of creationist natural theology that scientifically verifies > the existence of a creator. Conversely, evolution will probably not > enjoy strong majority support in the U.S. until religiosity declines > markedly. > > [18] In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator > correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult > mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the > prosperous democracies ([17]Figures 1-9). The most theistic prosperous > democracy, the U.S., is exceptional, but not in the manner Franklin > predicted. The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional > of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so, and almost > always scores poorly. The view of the U.S. as a "shining city on the > hill" to the rest of the world is falsified when it comes to basic > measures of societal health. Youth suicide is an exception to the > general trend because there is not a significant relationship between > it and religious or secular factors. No democracy is known to have > combined strong religiosity and popular denial of evolution with high > rates of societal health. Higher rates of non-theism and acceptance of > human evolution usually correlate with lower rates of dysfunction, and > the least theistic nations are usually the least dysfunctional. None > of the strongly secularized, pro-evolution democracies is experiencing > high levels of measurable dysfunction. In some cases the highly > religious U.S. is an outlier in terms of societal dysfunction from > less theistic but otherwise socially comparable secular developing > democracies. In other cases, the correlations are strongly graded, > sometimes outstandingly so. > > [19] If the data showed that the U.S. enjoyed higher rates of societal > health than the more secular, pro-evolution democracies, then the > opinion that popular belief in a creator is strongly beneficial to > national cultures would be supported. Although they are by no means > utopias, the populations of secular democracies are clearly able to > govern themselves and maintain societal cohesion. Indeed, the data > examined in this study demonstrates that only the more secular, > pro-evolution democracies have, for the first time in history, come > closest to achieving practical "cultures of life" that feature low > rates of lethal crime, juvenile-adult mortality, sex related > dysfunction, and even abortion. The least theistic secular developing > democracies such as Japan, France, and Scandinavia have been most > successful in these regards. The non-religious, pro-evolution > democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good > conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator. > The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal > disaster is therefore refuted. Contradicting these conclusions > requires demonstrating a positive link between theism and societal > conditions in the first world with a similarly large body of data - a > doubtful possibility in view of the observable trends. > > Conclusion > > [20] The United States' deep social problems are all the more > disturbing because the nation enjoys exceptional per capita wealth > among the major western nations (Barro and McCleary; Kasman; PEW; UN > Development Programme, 2000, 2004). Spending on health care is much > higher as a portion of the GDP and per capita, by a factor of a third > to two or more, than in any other developing democracy (UN Development > Programme, 2000, 2004). The U.S. is therefore the least efficient > western nation in terms of converting wealth into cultural and > physical health. Understanding the reasons for this failure is urgent, > and doing so requires considering the degree to which cause versus > effect is responsible for the observed correlations between social > conditions and religiosity versus secularism. It is therefore hoped > that this initial look at a subject of pressing importance will > inspire more extensive research on the subject. Pressing questions > include the reasons, whether theistic or non-theistic, that the > exceptionally wealthy U.S. is so inefficient that it is experiencing a > much higher degree of societal distress than are less religious, less > wealthy prosperous democracies. Conversely, how do the latter achieve > superior societal health while having little in the way of the > religious values or institutions? There is evidence that within the > U.S. strong disparities in religious belief versus acceptance of > evolution are correlated with similarly varying rates of societal > dysfunction, the strongly theistic, anti-evolution south and mid-west > having markedly worse homicide, mortality, STD, youth pregnancy, > marital and related problems than the northeast where societal > conditions, secularization, and acceptance of evolution approach > European norms (Aral and Holmes; Beeghley, Doyle, 2002). It is the > responsibility of the research community to address controversial > issues and provide the information that the citizens of democracies > need to chart their future courses. > > Figures ([18]return) > > Indicators of societal dysfunction and health as functions of > percentage rates of theistic and non-theistic belief and practice in > 17 first world developed democracies and one second world democracy. > ISSP questions asked: I know God really exists and I have no doubt > about it = absolutely believe in God; 2-3 times a month + once a week > or more = attend religious services at least several times a month; > several times a week - several times a day = pray at least several > times a week; the Bible is the actual word of God and it is to be > taken literally, word for word = Bible literalists; human beings > [have] developed from earlier species of animals = accept human > evolution; I don't know whether there is a God and I don't believe > there is a way to find out + I don't believe in God = agnostics and > other atheists. > > [19]Figure 1 > [20]Figure 2 > [21]Figure 3 > [22]Figure 4 > [23]Figure 5 > [24]Figure 6 > [25]Figure 7 > [26]Figure 8 > [27]Figure 9 > > Legend > > A = Australia > C = Canada > D = Denmark > E = Great Britain > F = France > G = Germany > H = Holland > I = Ireland > J = Japan > L = Switzerland > N = Norway > P = Portugal > R = Austria > S = Spain > T = Italy > U = United States > W = Sweden > Z = New Zealand > > Bibliography > > Abma, Joyce, Gladys Martinez, William Mosher and Brittany Dawson > > 2004 "Teenagers in the United States: Sexual Activity, Contraceptive > Use, and Childbearing, 2002, National Center for Health Statistics." > Vital Health Statistics 23 (24). > > Applegate, David > > 2000 "Anti-evolutionists Open a New Front." 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Futures 36: 1009-23. > > Barcley, Gordon and Cynthia Tavares > > 2003 International Comparisons of Criminal Justice Statistics 2001. > [28]http://www.csdp.org/research/hosb1203.pdf. > > Barna > > 2003 "A Biblical Worldview has a Radical Effect on a Person's Life." > Barna Research Online. http://www.barna.org. > > Barro, Robert > > 2004 "Spirit of Capitalism: Religion and Economic Development." > Harvard International Review 25 (4). > > Barro, Robert and Rachel McCleary > > 2003 "Religion and Economic Growth Across Countries." American > Sociological Review 68: 760-81. > > Beeghley, Leonard > > 2003 Homicide: A Sociological Explanation. Lanham, MD: Rowman and > Littlefield. > > Benson, Peter et al. > > 2004 "Hardwired to Connect: The New Scientific Case for Authoritative > Communities." [29]http://www.americanvalues.org/html/hardwired.html. > > Bishop, George > > 1999 "What Americans Really Believe, and Why Faith Isn't as Universal > as They Think." 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Rockland, MA: Charles River Media. > > Pearcey, Nancy > > 2004 Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity. > Wheaton, IL: Crossways. > > PEW > > 2002 Global Attitudes Project. > > Putman, Robert > > 2000 Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. > New York: Simon & Schuster. > > Reid, T. R. > > 2001 "Hollow Halls in Europe's Churches." Washington Post 5/6: A1, > A22. > > 2004 The United States of Europe. New York: Penguin. > > Rosenfeld, Richard > > 2004 "The Case of the Unsolved Crime Decline." Scientific American 290 > (2): 82-89. > > Schonborn, Christoph > > 2005 "Finding Design in Nature." New York Times 7/7: A27. > > Schroeder, Gerald > > 1997 The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical > Wisdom. NewYork: Broadway. > > Scott, Eugenie > > 1999 "The Creation/Evolution Continuum." Reports of the National > Center for Science Education 19 (4): 16, 17, 21. > > Shanks, Niall > > 2004 God, the Devil and Darwin. Oxford: Oxford University Press. > > Singh, Sushella and Jacqueline Darroch > > 2000 "Adolescent Pregnancy and Childbearing: Levels and Trends in > Developed Countries." Family Planning Perspectives 32: 14-23. > > Sommerville, C. > > 2002 "Stark's Age of Faith Argument and the Secularization of Things: > A Commentary." Sociology of Religion 63: 361-72. > > Stark, Rodney and William Bainbridge > > 1996 Religion, Deviance and Social Control. New York: Routledge. > > Stepp, Laura > > 2004 "An Inspired Strategy." Washington Post 3/21: D1, D6. > > UN Development Programme > > 2000 Human Development Report 2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press. > > 2004 Human Development Report 2004. Oxford: Oxford University Press. > > WHO > > 2001 "Suicide Prevention." > [34]http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/ > country_reports/en/index.html. > > Wise, Donald > > 1998 "Creationism's Geologic Time Scale." American Scientist > 86:160-73. > > Young, Matt and Taner Edis (eds.) > > 2004 Why Intelligent Design Fails. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University > Press. > > References > > 5. http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html#figures > 28. http://www.csdp.org/research/hosb1203.pdf > 29. http://www.americanvalues.org/html/hardwired.html > 30. http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?c=ABOUT_FRC > 31. > http://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/re/2004/c/pages/fear_of_hell.html > 32. http://www.geocities.com/lclane2/references.html > 33. http://www.nssc1.org/index2.htm > 34. > http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/country_reports/en/index.html > > _______________________________________________ > paleopsych mailing list > paleopsych at paleopsych.org > http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych > > From checker at panix.com Tue Oct 4 22:00:37 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2005 18:00:37 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] U. Chi. L. Rev.: Madison's Nightmare Message-ID: Madison's Nightmare. University of Chicago Law Review SPRING, 1990 57 U. Chi. L. Rev. 335 Richard B. Stewart Assistant Attorney General, Environment and Natural Resources Division, U.S. Department of Justice. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Justice or the United States. The assistance of Jonathan Wiener in the preparation of this article is gratefully acknowledged. SUMMARY: ... The separation of powers within the national government would provide an additional safeguard against domination by factions while preventing the growth of excessive and irresponsible central power. ... Originally the states performed the bulk of the regulation, but eventually the national government stepped in as decentralized regulation in a federal system of numerous states proved to be hampered by several factors. ... The courts' relaxation of traditional separation of powers limitations freed the national government to meet these demands. ... The task of controlling these new federal powers was largely assumed by the federal courts, which developed new subconstitutional principles of administrative law to replace the now waning separation of powers jurisprudence that had previously limited the scope of the national government. ... Rather, it has made clear that Congress and the states retain political discretion to determine and change the content of the benefits afforded. ... Even more liberalized standing, ready judicial review of administrative discretion, more stringent procedural requirements, assured access for public advocacy groups, greater judicial control of agency discretion through statutory construction and other techniques, and more expansive judicial remedies (especially against state and local government), are affirmed as the solution to the ills of the centralized regulatory welfare state. ... The national government would focus on the general plan of reconstitution, foregoing detailed central planning of social and economic life. ... --------------- [*335] I. THE SPECIAL INTEREST REGULATORY WELFARE STATE James Madison identified domination by economic and ideological factions as the central problem in a liberal polity. He argued that such domination was more likely to occur in smaller, territorially limited units of government than in the proposed national government. An extended republic would encompass so many diverse and scattered factions that no single interest group could gain dominance, nor could permanent coalitions be maintained. Liberated from servitude to faction, federal officials would forswear parochial and partisan loyalties and adopt measures for the common good. 1 The separation of powers within the national government would provide an additional safeguard against domination by factions while preventing the growth of excessive and irresponsible central power. 2 The form of national political integration achieved through the new Constitution's legal structure would thus ensure government in the public interest. Economic integration and development would accompany political integration, aided by federally guaranteed free movement of labor, goods, and capital within a multi-state economy. Furthering Madison's vision, the federal courts during the nineteenth century provided security for interstate contracts and investments, encouraged [*336] the growth of multi-state business corporations, curbed state protectionism, and fostered the development of a common commercial law. These measures, together with Congress's creation of a national currency and its investment, along with the states, in a transportation infrastructure, promoted economic growth and the rise of regional and national markets. Other aspects of economic policy and virtually the entire field of social life were left to the states and localities. With the striking exception of slavery, events throughout the nineteenth century amply justified Madison's optimism. By the end of the nineteenth century economic growth had resulted in full-scale industrialization and spawned giant multi-state business corporations. 3 These developments generated demands for political control of the new leviathans -- demands asserted not only by consumers and workers but also by business, as small businesses sought protection against the competition of large enterprises, and the large enterprises sought governmental measures to stabilize the vicissitudes of the market. The courts could not or would not provide such protection. Private adjudication was inherently ill-suited to addressing the collective consequences of industrialization. Moreover, most judges were firmly committed to market competition as the preferred mode for organizing economic activity. Legislatures responded more favorably to these demands, but generally rejected government ownership of industrial enterprises as a solution. Instead, they chose regulation. Originally the states performed the bulk of the regulation, but eventually the national government stepped in as decentralized regulation in a federal system of numerous states proved to be hampered by several factors. First, the interstate mobility of capital and commodities, which the federal courts have so zealously promoted, undermines the willingness of states to impose stringent controls on business enterprises. States fear that such measures will handicap their own industries in competition with those of other states, and also drive business investment elsewhere. Second, many of the smaller states have far fewer administrative resources than the corporations that they seek to regulate. Finally, coordination problems make a system of decentralized state regulations especially ill-suited for controlling national transportation systems and product markets. Thus, federal regulation was first enacted in these areas. [*337] The dominant form of government regulation, whether at the state or national level, was a "command and control" system implemented by specialized administrative agencies. This system was first developed in railroad regulation, where price, entry, and service controls were used to combat the perceived evils of market power. It was later extended to such diverse fields as pharmaceuticals, trade practices, and broadcasting. 4 Then came the Great Depression, a vivid lesson in economic interdependence. Fresh political demands arose for ambitious new federal regulatory programs aimed at stabilizing the national economy. The command and control system of regulation was extended to labor relations, securities, agriculture, trucking, aeronautics, and other sectors. The New Deal also produced the first wave of large-scale national social insurance and welfare programs, including the social security and unemployment systems. These and later national social welfare programs responded to the states' inability to meet the growing demand for government provision of social services and assistance. As theorists of fiscal federalism have shown, there are grave structural impediments to providing such benefits through a system of decentralized government. 5 The interstate mobility of commodities and capital discourages states from raising taxes to fund generous social programs because states fear burdening their own businesses and triggering an exit of wealth. An additional disincentive is the mobility of individuals among states -- a mobility that has been legally guaranteed by the federal courts. States fear that if they adopt generous social programs, they will attract an influx of the needy, necessitating further tax increases. On the other hand, this fear may be overstated, because in practice many poor, ill, aged, or otherwise needy individuals cannot readily move and may remain trapped in poorer states or localities that lack the fiscal resources to adequately provide for them. 6 Two basic types of national measures have been enacted by Congress to deal with these fiscal federalism problems. One consists of the federal government delivering benefits to individuals in the form of cash (social security retirement and disability payments) [*338] or near-cash (food stamps and payment of medical expenses). The other consists of federal grants to states and localities to support various state and local social services (education, housing, health care services, rehabilitation, transportation) that otherwise might not be adequately funded because of the factors previously noted. These grants are generally conditioned on the states and localities dedicating the funds to specific purposes, supplying matching funds, and complying with various other requirements. 7 When these and similar regulatory and social welfare programs were challenged on constitutional grounds, the Supreme Court sustained them, repudiating earlier dual federalism jurisprudence that had sought to allocate distinct roles to the state and federal governments. In doing so, the Court not only had to construe Congress's taxing, spending, and commerce powers very broadly, but also had to reject claims that these exertions of national authority violated structural principles of federalism protecting state autonomy. Moreover, the implementation of these federal programs required the development of vast and unprecedented federal bureaucracies. In sustaining the validity of these new bureaucratic arrangements, the Court allowed Congress to delegate broad lawmaking powers to administrative agencies, invest them with adjudicatory powers that would traditionally have been exercised by courts, and limit the President's power to remove and thus control their directors. At the same time, the Court abandoned constitutional protection for common law economic rights and liberties. This was the New Deal constitutional revolution. 8 In its aftermath, majoritarian politics determined economic and social policy, creating a system of competitive federalism in which either the federal government or the states could adopt and implement such policies. Increasingly, it was the national government that was best able to meet rising political demands for economic stabilization, growth, and economic justice. The courts' relaxation of traditional separation of powers limitations freed the national government to meet these demands. Congress created the regulatory and social welfare programs of the New Deal and Great Society, and established [*339] vast administrative bureaucracies to implement these programs. The abandonment by the Supreme Court of dual federalism and other structural principles of constitutional law was little mourned. 9 Commentators found adequate safeguards for federalism in the political structuring of the Constitution, which provided for territorially-based representation in Congress and in the presidential electoral college. Also, the national political parties have a decentralized structure based primarily on states and large cities. This system was thought to ensure the effective representation of state and local interests in Congress. Given this composition, Congress would accordingly be sensitive to federalism values and not enact new national programs unless necessary to meet overriding national need. 10 Moreover, the several branches of the federal government were increasingly viewed as more responsive to racial and other minorities than state or local governments. As federal civil rights legislation extended and enforced the initiatives of the federal courts during the late 1960s and early 1970s, the successes of the civil rights movement were emulated by advocates for the poor and for consumer and environmental interests. The advocates asserted that their constituents were not adequately served either by the market or by state and local governments. They thus sought appropriate protection from the federal courts and Congress. In the period 1965-1980, Congress adopted sweeping new environmental, health, safety, and antidiscrimination regulatory statutes. There are at present over sixty major federal programs regulating business and non-profit organizations. Congress dramatically increased funding for direct federal social insurance and assistance programs, many of which also apply to state and local governments. Congress also greatly increased federal funding of conditional grant programs to states and localities. They now impose over one thousand different sets of conditions and requirements on state and local governments. Nonprofit organizations such as universities and health care institutions that receive federal grants are also subject to these conditions. In many cases, these grants regulate [*340] not only the recipients' substantive policies, but their organizational structure, employment practices, and decisionmaking procedures as well. State and local governments submit to these requirements because of irresistible pressures from local interest group constituencies that stand to benefit from the federal funds. 11 On Madisonian premises, the growth of these federal programs should be welcomed as an authentic expression of the public interest and an appropriate consequence of the national government's superior performance in promoting that interest. The Founders, one could argue, clearly intended for a politics of the national good to override state and local measures. National regulatory and social programs can be understood as correctives for state and local neglect fostered by indifference, the local entrenchment of privilege, or the structural impediments in a federal system to decentralized regulation and redistribution. These confident assumptions of latter-day champions of national control have, however, been badly shaken during the past decade. It is now widely understood that the processes through which national measures are adopted and enforced do not always ensure that assertions of national power serve the general interests. Instead, they can invite the very domination by faction that Madison so desired to prevent. This realization has been sharpened by the rise of public choice theory, which applies the methodology of economics to political conduct. 12 Public choice theorists use a more detailed formulation of Madison's faction analysis to look beyond stated public interest goals and to focus on political incentives and their interplay with institutional arrangements. Genuine aspirations for social and economic progress may be subverted by institutional structures that fail to properly reconcile the incentives of the various decisionmakers. Several factors explain the vulnerability of national policy to factional control. First, the strength of traditional territorially-based political parties has been sapped by the rise of a new political system, one based on the national media, mass mailings, and single issue political contributions. This system is dominated by nationally-organized economic and ideological interest groups of single issue rather that majoritarian politics. [*341] Second, federal conditional grant programs, sometimes celebrated as a form of "cooperative federalism," 13 are used to co-opt state and local interest groups and officials. The programs do so by exploiting such groups' dependency on federal monies to convert them into supporters of federal measures rather than defenders of state and local independence. Third, the dominant reliance on legalistic "command and control" strategies to achieve national goals inevitably involves a substantial shift of decisionmaking power from Congress and the President to federal bureaucracies and courts, sidestepping the already weakened federalism and separation of powers safeguards against factions. Command and control regulatory strategies attempt to achieve national goals by requiring or proscribing specific conduct on the part of regulated entities, such as the use of specific pollution control technologies, or the adoption of particular workplace safety measures. The rapid growth of federal controls has outstripped the capacity of Congress or the President to responsibly make the thousands of decisions required to dictate conduct throughout a vast, diverse, and dynamic nation. Such decisions are either delegated within Congress to subcommittees that are subject to only weak political accountability, or outside the legislative branch to federal bureaucracies and courts -- whose political accountability is even weaker. The exercise of administrative discretion is heavily influenced by organized economic and ideological interest groups, who offer political support, threaten political opposition, and deploy legal remedies to block or delay administrative actions. Since the 1960s, it has been popular wisdom that regulatory agencies are typically "captured" by the industries that they are supposed to regulate. But economic interests beyond the regulated entities have also played a major role in influencing agency decisionmaking. These include labor, government contractors, agricultural interests, and other client groups. In recent years, a variety of new ideological interest groups, including organizations championing the environment, consumers, religion, the handicapped, women, abortion rights, unborn children, and others, have arisen to join the "regulation game." 14 [*342] Rather than offsetting each other through mechanisms of countervailing power, as Madison envisaged, these groups have instead divided power among themselves. This parcelling of power has been accomplished though congressional delegations of authority to functionally specialized bureaucracies. Each of these new power centers is dominated by the officials of the agency in question and the small number of legislators and private groups interested in that agency's decisions. Madison identified the problem of factional domination in teritorially limited government. The growth of the national regulatory welfare state, however, has spawned a new form of factional domination. By an irony of inversion, Madison's centralizing solution to the problem of faction has produced Madison's Nightmare: A faction-ridden maze of fragmented and often irresponsible micro-politics within the government. 15 The post-New Deal constitutional jurisprudence of majoritarian politics has helped produce this result, because the demands for national regulatory and spending programs have outstripped the capacity of the national legislative process to make decisions that are accountable and politically responsive to the general interest. This has subverted the very premises of Madisonian politics. ATTEMPTING TO CURE MADISON'S NIGHTMARE THROUGH ADMINISTRATIVE LAW: ENTITLEMENTS AND PUBLIC INTEREST LAW The shortcomings of the new bureaucratic system, at once centralized and fractionalized, constitute Madison's Nightmare. Affected political constituencies have viewed these shortcomings from two basic perspectives. The constituencies that were supposed to have benefited from new bureaucratic and regulating programs -- the poor and disadvantaged, environmentalists, consumers, and workers' organizations -- have found the benefits delivered to be far below those promised. The constituencies whose conduct has been centrally regulated in order to provide these benefits -- state and local governments, businesses, and large nonprofit organizations -- believe that their institutional autonomy and freedom of initiative have been unduly and arbitrarily curtailed. Both problems can be traced to the inherent difficulty in attempting to order a vast and dynamic country through the Federal Register and the Federal Reports. [*343] The legal commands adopted by central agencies are necessarily crude, dysfunctional in many applications, and rapidly obsolescent. These characteristics, which have received much publicity in the United States in recent years and helped fuel the political movement for deregulation, are the inescapable result of centralization. Bureaucrats in Washington simply cannot gather and process the vast amount of information needed to tailor regulations to the nation's many variations in circumstances and the constant changes in relevant conditions. In order to reduce decisionmaking costs, national officials adopt uniform regulations that are inevitably procrustean in application. 16 The same problems that have plagued the Soviet effort at central management of the economy hamper American efforts to plan selected aspects of the economy through centralized regulations. These dysfunctions not only overburden the regulated entities but also cause them to fail at their intended goals. Legal blueprints drafted in Washington inevitably fall short of their postulated outcomes and produce unintended side effects when officials attempt to apply them to unforseen or changed conditions. The problem of "implementation gaps" is exacerbated by the dependence of the federal government on the states to enforce federal regulations. This enforcement problem is vast. 17 Furthermore, the Supreme Court has steadfastly refused to preempt the growth of the centralized regulatory welfare state. During the 1980s, attacks on the system's shortcomings became politically popular. The Reagan administration even attacked its constitutional underpinnings, which had remained virtually unchanged and unchallenged since their New Deal foundation. With a few wavering exceptions, however, the Court refused to reconsider key, long-established rulings that had construed Congress's commerce and spending powers in sweeping terms, unconstrained [*344] by federalism concerns. 18 The Court meanwhile abandoned received separation of powers understandings in order to allow Congress to delegate its own lawmaking authority to administrative bureaucracies effectively insulated from political control. At the same time and fueled in important part by powerful civil rights concerns, state and local governments were induced by conditioned grants of funds or directly coerced by federal regulators to implement federal programs and to conform their own programs to federal standards. The task of controlling these new federal powers was largely assumed by the federal courts, which developed new subconstitutional principles of administrative law to replace the now waning separation of powers jurisprudence that had previously limited the scope of the national government. Administrative agencies in the United States have long been required to follow adjudicatory hearing procedures in making decisions, and their decisions have been subject to judicial review. But review was traditionally afforded only to regulated actors subject to coercive orders. Beginning in the late 1960s, the federal courts created new remedies for the beneficiaries of social programs by recognizing individual claims to benefits as entitlements protected by procedural due process. Following Charles Reich's logic, 19 courts held that benefits analogous to traditional common law property rights -- including social insurance, assistance payments, housing, and employment -- could not be withheld by the government without affording the affected individual an administrative hearing and judicial review. This stratagem was, however, of limited reach because of the government's need to readjust the content of most broad benefits in light of changing economic and social conditions. [*345] The federal courts accordingly developed other remedies for the beneficiaries of collective benefits such as a cleaner environment, safer workplaces and products, or a better-informed consumer market. Reacting to the emerging perception of "capture" of regulatory agencies by regulated entities, federal courts in the late 1960s began to extend rights to administrative hearings and judicial review to consumer representatives, environmental and civil rights groups, and other collective interests affected by agency decisions. The result was a new "interest representation" model of administrative law in which all affected groups have the right to participate in agency decisionmaking procedures and obtain judicial review in order to ensure that the agency has adequately considered their interests. 20 The key developments included greatly expanded principles of standing to obtain judicial review; a changed approach to statutory interpretation that recognized legally enforceable agency obligations to protect the interests of program beneficiaries; the creation of "paper hearing" rulemaking procedures that afforded all interested groups an opportunity to submit data, analyses, and comments to an administrative record without hobbling the agency process under trial-type adjudicatory procedures; and the creation of a "hard look" standard of review of administrative discretion to ensure that an agency's decision addressed in a reasoned fashion the concerns and contentions of the interested parties. The interest representation model attempted to cure Madison's Nightmare by frankly acknowledging the delegation of legislative discretion to administrators and creating a judicial forum in which all interests could participate. The hope was that decisions in furtherance of the public interest would emerge out of the judicially-supervised clash of factions. The new system of administrative law sought to cure "implementation gaps" by giving new legal remedies to consumer, environmental, and other "public interest" groups. In addition to securing review of administrative action or inaction, courts empowered these groups to enforce federal controls directly against regulated firms or state and local governments. The protections of the interest representation process were not, however, limited to the beneficiaries of federal programs. The heavy reliance on central mandates to carry out these programs bore heavily on business firms, state and local governments, and nonprofit organizations. [*346] The courts thus also sought to provide relief to those regulated, by requiring agencies to pay greater attention to compliance burdens and to ameliorate the arbitrary consequences of uniform rules. III. THERMIDOR The attempt to cure Madison's Nightmare through new systems of administrative law has produced improvements, but may in the end only succeed in entrenching the nightmare. The "new property" ideal -- to afford individual social program benefits the same security as traditional property rights -- could not be fully reconciled with the exigencies of bureaucratic administration and the inevitable limitations on the legal resources available to claimants. The security of traditional property interests lay as much in market forces as in their legal underpinnings. The administrative capacities and traditions necessary to equivalent protection of special program beneficiaries were and remain sadly underdeveloped. Formal adjudicative hearings cannot provide a substitute without creating intolerable delay, cost, and other burdens. Moreover, the interests affected even by programs that provide individual benefits have a collective character that cannot be reduced to bipolar adjudication. The interest representation version of administrative law frankly recognizes these collective elements. But it puts a premium on organizational and legal resources, and these resources are unevenly distributed. Once the traditional model of adjudication is abandoned in favor of an interest representation approach, there is no feasible way to ensure that all affected interests are represented, or that the litigants truly represent the broader constituencies for which they claim to speak. A combination of bureaucratic hearings and review by unelected judges is an unlikely process for selecting and implementing measures in the general interest. Courts and agencies are buried in lengthy adversary hearings that often take many years to resolve. Federalism values are severely undermined because interest groups can circumvent state and local political processes by bringing federal court actions to force local officials to carry out national directives. No one bears clear responsibility for decisions. The already severe fragmentation of central authority is exacerbated by treating each agency decision as an isolated event to be judicially reviewed on the basis of its separate [*347] evidentiary record. The result is a self-contradictory attempt at "central planning through litigation." 21 The Supreme Court has reacted to the burdens and dysfunctions of Great Society administrative jurisprudence only by priming its growth; it has failed either to reject the new approach or to develop any alternative systemic remedy for Madison's Nightmare. The Court has, however, taken several steps to ameliorate the inevitable difficulties of subjecting administrative management to trial-type adjudicatory procedures in the name of the "new property." Thus, it has refused to recognize substantive constitutional entitlements to social benefits such as assistance payments, education, and housing. Rather, it has made clear that Congress and the states retain political discretion to determine and change the content of the benefits afforded. The judicial role is limited to ensuring adequate procedural guarantees for whatever advantages the political authorities choose to provide, regardless of claimants' needs or their expectations of entitlement. 22 In addition, the procedural protections afforded have in almost all instances been sharply depreciated from the judicial adjudication model through use of a cost-benefit calculation that gives considerable weight to administrators' concerns for managerial efficiency. 23 Goldberg v Kelly 24 remains an isolated high water mark of a reformist tide long ebbed. The Court has also pulled back from full implementation of the interest representation model for protection of collective interests. Liberal standing to secure judicial review still prevails, with only a few trimmings at the margins. But the ability of regulatory program beneficiaries to mandate affirmative protection by federal agencies or state authorities has been restricted. 25 The Supreme Court has underscored the broad discretion of agencies to determine the substantive content of administrative policies, 26 and has given them a similar discretion in shaping administrative procedures. 27 These accommodations to political-managerial interests in [*348] the context of collective benefits closely resemble the similar accommodation the courts have made in the "new property" context. The accommodations have often been accompanied, in judicial opinions and more explicitly in academic commentary, by invocations of the superiority of political processes for resolving issues of social and economic policy. These invocations, however, seldom betray real enthusiasm for these political processes. The case for cutbacks in Great Society administrative jurisprudence rests far more on discontent with its burden than on affirmative support for any particular alternative. The problem of Madison's Nightmare therefore persists. IV. CURING MADISON'S NIGHTMARE Political and academic discourse identifies three prevailing cures for Madison's Nightmare: reinvigoration of judicial controls over the administrative state; structural change to restore political responsibility; and dissolution of the regulatory welfare state through deregulation and devolution. This essay briefly considers each of these alternatives and offers a fourth -- reconstitute law. A. Reinvigoration of Administrative Law Many hold that the Supreme Court's retreat from Great Society administrative jurisprudence is a mistake, and that reinvigorated judicial supervision of the regulatory welfare state is the best cure for Madison's Nightmare. Even more liberalized standing, ready judicial review of administrative discretion, more stringent procedural requirements, assured access for public advocacy groups, greater judicial control of agency discretion through statutory construction and other techniques, and more expansive judicial remedies (especially against state and local government), are affirmed as the solution to the ills of the centralized regulatory welfare state. The author himself has joined parts of this chorus, believing that the Supreme Court has sometimes spoken in too sweeping terms and that a more finely-tailored adjustment of judicial controls was preferable. 28 But refurbishing judicial innovations of the late 1960s is not a sufficient remedy for Madison's Nightmare in the 1990s. These remedies respond more to the symptoms of the [*349] problem than its underlying roots. They may nonetheless be worthwhile, even if costly and burdensome; contemporary administrative law does afford greater access and accountability than would otherwise be available. But administrative law alone is not a sufficient response, as its most knowledgeable advocates recognize. 29 Moreover, the current and likely future federal judiciary has little enthusiasm for it. B. Constitutional Fundamentalism Critics of the national regulatory welfare state have sought to shake its jurisprudential foundation by advocating judicial revival of traditional structural principles of constitutional law. The federal courts were, for example, urged to revive a form of dual federalism by reserving certain functions or fields to the states and limiting the powers of the federal government in order to protect state and local independence. The Supreme Court attempted such a revival in its 1976 decision, National League of Cities v Usery, 30 invalidating as an unconstitutional invasion of state autonomy the application of national minimum wage laws (adopted by Congress in an exercise of its commerce power) to municipal employees. This decision, however, bore little fruit and in 1985 the Court overruled it. 31 Proposals to revive the constitutional principles prohibiting delegation of legislative power to agencies, and limiting the transfer of adjudicatory responsibilities from courts to federal agencies, have similarly been unavailing. 32 The problem seems to be that a full-fledged revival of traditional structural principles would impose serious limits on federal governmental powers and plunge the courts into acute and perilous political controversy. On the other hand, more modest efforts to use constitutional adjudication to limit federal power at the margins, as exemplified by National League of Cities, inevitably seem arbitrary. Similarly, any judicial effort to reserve certain functions or fields of policy to the states runs up against the need for national [*350] measures to deal with the far-reaching consequences of integration in a federal system (at least one comprising fifty states) 33 and the impossibility of principled, a priori line-drawing. Alternatively, the judges could prohibit the national government from using certain policy instruments, such as conditions on federal grants to state and local governments, that are especially destructive of federalism values. But such instruments may sometimes be necessary to achieve common goals. And if such measures were prohibited, Congress could devise alternatives (such as total federal preemption) that are equally or perhaps even more destructive. Finally, case-by-case judicial balancing of national and state interests leaves major national programs prey to subjective, shifting assessments by unelected judges. The court's overruling of National League of Cities reflects its unwillingness to venture these hazards. Another possible constitutional cure for Madison's Nightmare is invalidation of broad congressional delegations of regulatory authority to federal administrative agencies. 34 Advocates claim that forcing Congress to make detailed policy choices would restore political accountability, reinvigorate the political safeguard of federalism, and ensure more responsible decisions in the general interest. But such a step would also amount to a constitutional counterrevolution. The Supreme Court has only twice invalidated national statutes as unconstitutional delegations of legislative power. 35 These decisions, rendered early in the New Deal period, were soon abandoned. The Court concluded that it should not, save in the most extreme and improbable circumstances, second-guess congressional decisions that broad delegations are necessary and proper means of realizing regulatory and welfare goals. 36 Resurrecting the doctrine against delegation of legislative powers would force the courts to make essentially subjective and standardless judgments about which delegations are constitutionally permissible [*351] and which are not. Similar difficulties would attend judicial efforts to impose strict limits on Congress's transfer of adjudicatory authority from courts to agencies. Even if the courts did enforce the non-delegation doctrine rigorously and in doing so invalidated many current federal programs, it seems likely that Congress would react by passing the writing of detailed measures on to its own legislative subcommittees. Experience with Congress's use of the legislative veto of agency regulations suggests the hazards inherent in this approach. 37 Subcommittees are subject to the same interest group influences as administrative agencies. Moreover, the safeguards of public hearings and judicial review that apply to federal administrative agencies do not apply to Congress or its subcommittees. Increased internal delegations by Congress could well have the effect not of ending but of prolonging Madison's Nightmare. Some changes in structural jurisprudence may nonetheless be justified as enhancing political responsibility and accountability. For example, the Supreme Court's decisions in INS v Chadha 38 and Bowsher v Synar 39 have properly restrained Congress's efforts to exercise ongoing controls over powers delegated to the executive. In addition, the freedom of the President and his staff to deliberate with and advise administrative officials deserves firmer elaboration and protection. Finally, the issues of campaign financing and incumbent entrenchment require systematic examination in concert with more traditional discussions of the legal foundation of national governance and politics. But such measures alone will not cure Madison's Nightmare. C. Deregulation and Devolution The Reagan administration's New Federalism program proposed that much of the national regulatory welfare state be dismantled through a combination of deregulation and devolution of responsibilities to state and local governments. Many forms of economic regulation are indeed unjustified. Greater reliance on market competition in many areas will enhance consumer welfare. 40 Much of the deregulation accomplished in the United States in recent years in fields such as energy, transportation, communications, [*352] and financial services has been a success. But markets alone cannot be relied upon to resolve many of the environmental, health, safety, and consumer problems created by industrialization and mass marketing. Moreover, state and local governments cannot deal effectively with these problems of market failure in the face of economically integrated national markets, product and capital mobility, and the rise of large multi-state businesses. Similarly, the mobility of commodities, capital, and people, as well as disparities in resources, prevents states and localities from adequately meeting social welfare needs. National measures are thus required to deal with the problems generated by a national economy. D. Reconstitutive Law The most promising solution to Madison's Nightmare is not indiscriminate devolution and deregulation. Neither is it a constitutional counterrevolution by the courts, nor stiffer judicial controls on administrators through administrative law. The best solution is to adopt new strategies for achieving national goals in lieu of the centralizing command and control techniques relied upon so heavily in recent decades. The ultimate goal of national measures is to ensure that decisions by state and local governments, individuals, businesses, and nonprofit organizations promote national norms and goals. Command and control regulation attempts to achieve such harmonization by dictating the precise outcome of specific decisions within these various institutional systems. Rather than dictating conduct within other institutions, the national government can instead use more indirect methods to achieve "strategic coupling" of the institutions' decisions with national norms and goals. 41 The laws governing these institutions can be reconstituted in order to steer the overall tendency of institutions' decisions in the desired direction without attempting to dictate particular outcomes in every situation. Reconstitutive law can in many areas replace command law as a means of promoting national goals. 42 For example, the National Labor Relations Act transformed the structure of decisionmaking in labor relations from a model of private employer-employee contract to one of collective bargaining, reconstituting the labor market to emphasize the collective and inframarginal voice of [*353] workers, and collective decisions by employers, rather than relying on the signals given by marginal worker mobility. 43 The "bubble" and other emissions trading innovations adopted by the Environmental Protection Agency allowed regulatory permissions to be bought and sold, creating a new form of market property and a reconstituted market. 44 Antitrust law reconstituted the terms of market competition. A related form of reconstitution is to substitute one form of regulatory structure for another: during the 1930s federal legislation adopted for many sectors of the economy a system of administrative price, quantity and service controls in lieu of a system of markets governed by antitrust. In the economic deregulation movement of the past fifteen years, this process was reversed. Many of the social regulatory goals -- including environmental, health, and worker and consumer protection -- that have received priority in recent decades can also be promoted through reconstitutive measures. For example, the elaborate existing system of central regulatory controls on air and water pollution in the United States could be replaced by a system of transferable pollution permits that would simultaneously limit the total amounts of pollution permitted and allow authorizations to pollute to be freely bought and sold among polluters. The government would have to monitor emissions to ensure that no source was polluting in excess of its permit rights. But the national government would no longer attempt to dictate through uniform regulations how much each plant may emit, or what control technologies to employ. The total costs of pollution control -- currently over $ 60 billion annually in the United States -- would likely be reduced 50 percent or more because each plant could adopt the most cost-effective control method available to it, and plants that could control more cheaply would assume more of the clean-up burden and hold fewer permits. There would be a strong economic incentive for all firms to pollute less, conserve resources, develop innovative technologies, and sell excess permits. States or regional authorities could be [*354] given a major role in the initial allocation of permits and the subsequent management of the pollution permits market. 45 In other areas of regulation, different reconstitutive strategies could be used. For example, the current reliance on central administrative commands to promote occupational health and safety in the United States could be significantly reduced if measures were taken to promote greater efforts by employers and employees to address health and safety problems. Such measures could include disclosure of information about workplace hazards, joint employer-employee selection of occupational hazard officers, and steps to promote resolution of health and safety issues through collective bargaining. This approach would substitute flexibility and innovation for the current system of rigid and relatively ineffective central commands. 46 The problem of ensuring adequate provisions of social services to the needy by states and localities could be resolved by adopting a general system of horizontal income transfers among states and localities in place of the existing overgrown and fragmented system of federal conditional rights. The federal tax system would be used to transfer resources from states with strong revenue bases or few needy persons to states and localities with few revenue bases and many needy persons. States and localities receiving these transfers would enjoy wide discretion on how the monies would be spent. Such a system would reduce disparities among states and localities in the resources available to meet social needs. It would also help avoid the frustrating combination of exiting wealth and entering needy individuals that threatens state efforts to increase benefits through higher taxes. 47 Wider adoption of such reconstitutive strategies would go far towards curing Madison's Nightmare. Renunciation of efforts to centrally mandate the decisions of states, localities, businesses, and nonprofit organizations would promote federalism values by restoring decisionmaking responsibility and flexibility to these institutions. The operational overload imposed on all branches of the federal government by the current command and control strategy would be greatly eased. The national government would focus on the general plan of reconstitution, foregoing detailed central planning of social and economic life. [*355] Eliminating central overload would also help restore political responsibility to the center. The main goals and measures of reconstitution could be debated and resolved by Congress and the President, reducing the delegation of vast decisionmaking responsibility to unelected bureaucrats and judges. The political safeguards of federalism and separation of powers principles would both be reinvigorated. And the current system of faction dominated, legal-bureaucratic micropolitics would be gradually transformed into one closer to Madison's vision of a politics of the national good. Such change cannot be accomplished through constitutional adjudication by judges. In an integrated federal system of many states, it is not possible to achieve social and economic justice, restore federalism values, and promote a more responsible politics of the national good by simply cutting back on the role of the central government and reintroducing other structural limitations on national authority. What is needed is not a reduction in national authority, but its affirmative exercise in new ways. What is needed is not judicial limitations on national authority, but the replacement of command law with reconstitutive law. The courts are powerless to dictate such a change to Congress and the President. This change can only be accomplished through political initiatives. What reason is there to expect that a new politics, one more favorable to reconstitutive strategies, will arise? It can hardly be expected that the factions that have entrenched themselves in the congressional and bureaucratic subsystems of centralized power will lightly yield place. Current conditions, however, seem favorable to the emergence of a new politics. The public has not abandoned its aversion to centralized controls -- an aversion that propelled Ronald Reagan into the White House. The deregulatory and decentralizing initiatives of the Reagan presidency were a necessary and salutary check on the growth of Madison's Nightmare. Those initiatives that have succeeded enjoy continued support and are unlikely to be reversed to any great extent. But at the same time, the public is committed to national goals of social and economic justice, public health and safety, and the protection of the environment. Reconstitutive strategies can respond to these public sentiments and create a third course between indiscriminate deregulation and devolution on the one hand, and attempted government by central decree on the other. Moreover, there are two powerful external constraints that will force the United States to develop less cumbersome, more cost-effective alternatives to the dominant command and control form of regulation. The first is the political constraint on increased federal [*356] spending. The current system of command regulation, which requires tremendous centralization of information and decisionmaking, is generally far more costly for the government to administer than alternatives that place greater reliance on market incentives. In addition, command and control regulation typically gives away valuable public resources and privileges for free, including use of the air and water to emit industrial residuals, radio and television frequencies, and airport landing slots. Regulatory programs that use market-based approaches are far more likely to generate appropriate revenues for the government. 48 The second invigorating constraint is international competitiveness. The command and control approach penalizes investment and innovation because of high compliance costs, the restrictions imposed by uniform, inflexible directives, and the delay and uncertainty created by protracted litigation and administrative licensing and standard-setting proceedings. As it strives to restore the international vitality of its key industries, the United States can no longer afford to maintain a regulatory system that puts it at a severe disadvantage in competing with other developed nations. Greater use of market-based and other reconstitutive strategies will be needed in order to reduce compliance burdens and encourage diversity, flexibility, and innovation on the part of businesses, consumers, nonprofit organizations, and state and local governments. Such strategies will permit the United States to meet social goals that it deservedly holds important, without compromising the nation's productivity and its economic standing in the world community. FOOTNOTES: n1 See Federalist 10 (Madison) in Clinton Rossiter, ed, The Federalist Papers 77, 77-78 (New Am Lib, 1961). n2 See Federalist 51 (Madison) in id at 320, 323-35. n3 See Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Harvard, 1977). n4 Stephen Breyer, in Regulation and its Reform (Harvard, 1982), analyzes the functional relations between different types of market activity thought to require government modification, and different types of tools (including command and control measures) that government might use to regulate such activity. n5 See, for example, Wallace E. Oates, Fiscal Federalism (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972). n6 See Oates, Fiscal Federalism at 49-53; and Richard B. Stewart, Federalism and Rights, 19 Ga L Rev 917, 949-50 (1985). n7 Another technique, adopted by Congress in the 1930s to deal with unemployment compensation, is to impose a federal tax on business but recognize an offsetting credit if a state imposes a similar tax and uses the proceeds in ways specified by Congress. See Steward Machine Co. v Davis, 301 US 548 (1937) (upholding constitutionality of Title IX of the Social Security Act). n8 See Bruce A. Ackerman, The Storrs Lectures: Discovering the Constitution, 93 Yale LJ 1013, 1069 (1984). n9 See Edward S. Corwin, The Passing of Dual Federalism, 36 Va L Rev 1, 21-23 (1950). n10 See Morton Grodzins, The American System 254-89 (Rand McNally, 1966); Herbert Wechsler, The Political Safeguards of Federalism: The Role of the States in the Composition and Selection of the National Government in Arthur W. MacMahon, ed, Federalism: Mature and Emergent 97 (Russell & Russell, 1962). This view remains popular today. See Garcia v San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 US 528, 551-52 (1985) (states should look to Congress, not courts, for protection of their interests). n11 Richard B. Cappalli, 2 Federal Grants and Cooperative Agreements ? 11:24 at 54-55 (Callaghan, 1982). n12 See, for example, Daniel A. Farber and Philip P. Frickey, The Jurisprudence of Public Choice, 65 Tex L Rev 873 (1987); James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent (U Mich, 1962). n13 See Grodzins, The American System at 25-48 (cited in note 10). n14 See Bruce M. Owen and Ronald Braeutigam, The Regulation Game: Strategic Uses of the Administrative Process 2-30 (Ballinger, 1978). Various theories of the regulatory process are explored in Barry M. Mitnick, The Political Economy of Regulation 79-167 (Columbia, 1980). n15 See Theodore J. Lowi, The End of Liberalism 200-06 (Norton, 2d ed 1978). n16 See Eugene Bardach and Robert A. Kagan, Going By the Book (Temple, 1981). n17 There are over 200,000 industrial sources of air pollution, 200,000 sources of water pollution, and over one million generators of hazardous wastes subject to national regulation. Since states and municipalities have already established regulatory authority in these areas and are thus well-equipped to monitor and enforce, national programs related to the environment and many other fields rely heavily on state implementation and enforcement. Such reliance is also inherent in the conditional grant programs. States, however, are reluctant, for reasons already noted, to enforce national regulations against their own industries or raise taxes in order to comply with costly federal grant conditions. See page 3 above. In order to prevent state backsliding, federal officials have resorted to court actions and other coercive measures to command compliance. This coercion directly short-circuits state and local political processes. n18 The Court had decades earlier established Congress' broad authority under the spending power, see, for example, Helvering v Davis, 301 US 619 (1937) (upholding old age benefits); and Steward Machine Co. v Davis, 301 US 548 (upholding unemployment compensation), and the commerce clause, see, for example, Wickard v Filburn, 317 US 111 (1942) (upholding the Agricultural Adjustment Act); United States v Darby, 312 US 100 (1941) (upholding the Fair Labor Standards Act); NLRB v Jones & Laughlin Steel Co., 301 US 1 (1937) (upholding the National Labor Relations Act); and West Coast Hotel v Parrish, 300 US 379 (1937) (upholding minimum wage and maximum hour rules). The Rehnquist Court's general refusal to depart from these precedents is illustrated in its reversal of field from National League of Cities to Garcia, discussed in the text at notes 30-32, and in, for example, South Dakota v Dole, 483 US 203 (1987) (upholding federal law conditioning state receipt of federal highway funds on state passage of 21-year-old minimum drinking age); Hodel v Virginia Mining & Reclamation Assn., 452 US 264 (majority), 307 (Rehnquist concurring in the judgment) (1981) (upholding Surface Mining Conservation and Reclamation Act under, among other things, commerce powers). n19 In Charles A. Reich, The New Property 73 Yale L J 733 (1964). n20 See Richard B. Stewart, Reformation of American Administrative Law, 88 Harv L Rev 1669, 1760-90 (1975). n21 See Richard B. Stewart, The Discontents of Legalism: Interest Group Relations in Administrative Regulation, 1985 Wis L Rev 655, 655. n22 Dandridge v Williams, 397 US 471, 487 (1970); and Bishop v Wood, 426 US 341, 349-50 (1976). n23 Mathews v Eldridge, 424 US 319, 343-47 (1976); and Heckler v Campbell, 461 US 458, 465-68 (1983). n24 397 US 254 (1970). n25 Heckler v Chaney, 470 US 821, 837-38 (1985). n26 Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v NRDC, 467 US 837 (1984); and Campbell, 461 US 458. n27 Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v NRDC, 435 US 519 (1978). n28 Richard B. Stewart, Vermont Yankee and the Evolution of Administrative Procedure, 91 Harv L Rev 1805, 1821 (1978); and Richard B. Stewart and Cass R. Sunstein, Public Programs and Private Rights, 95 Harv L Rev 1193, 1305-07 (1982). n29 Cass R. Sunstein, Constitutionalism After the New Deal, 101 Harv L Rev 421, 485-91 (1987); Cass R. Sunstein, Interpreting Statutes in the Regulatory State, 103 Harv L Rev 405, 505 (1989); Christopher F. Edley, Jr., Administrative Law (Yale, 1990). n30 426 US 833 (1976). n31 Garcia v San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 US 528 (1985). n32 Such proposals are reflected in, for example, Justice Rehnquist's opinions in Industrial Union Dept. v American Petroleum Institute, 448 US 607, 671 (1980) (concurring in the judgment), and American Textile Manufacturers Institute v Donovan, 452 US 490, 543 (1981) (dissenting). n33 Experience in Canada and the Federal Republic of Germany suggests that in a federal system that has a smaller number of states and constitutionally derived reservations to the states of power in specific fields, the states may be able to agree on common measures to deal effectively with the effects of economic integration. For example, in Germany broadcast regulation is the responsibility of the Lander, but a largely unified system of governmental policy has nonetheless emerged. n34 This remedy is advocated in Lowi, The End of Liberalism at 128-56 (cited in note 15), which documents the rise of factional micropolitics within the national regulatory welfare state. n35 See Panama Refining Co. v Ryan, 293 US 388 (1935); and A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v United States, 295 US 495 (1935). n36 See Stephen G. Breyer and Richard B. Stewart, Administrative Law and Regulatory Policy 68-95 (Little, Brown, 2d ed 1985). n37 See Harold H. Bruff and Ernest Gellhorn, Congressional Control of Administrative Regulation: A Study of Legislative Vetoes, 90 Harv L Rev 1369, 1433-37 (1977). n38 462 US 919 (1983). n39 478 US 714 (1986). n40 See Breyer, Regulation and Its Reform ch 8 (cited in note 4). n41 The concept of "strategic coupling" is developed in Gunther Teubner, After Legal Instrumentalism? Strategic Models of Post-Regulatory Law, 12 Intl J Soc L 375 (1984). n42 The notion of "reconstitutive law" is explained in Richard B. Stewart, Reconstitutive Law, 46 Md L Rev 86 (1986). n43 See, for example, Richard Freeman and James Medoff, What Do Unions Do? (Basic Books, 1984); Paul Weiler, Governing the Workplace (Harvard, forthcoming 1990). n44 See, for example, Bruce A. Ackerman and Richard B. Stewart, Reforming Environmental Law, 37 Stan L Rev 1333 (1985); Robert W. Hahn and Gordon L. Hester, Marketable Permits: Lessons for Theory and Practice, 16 Ecol L Q 361 (1989); James T.B. Tripp and Daniel J. Dudek, Institutional Guidelines for Designing Successful Transferable Rights Programs, 6 Yale J Reg 369 (1989); U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Emissions Trading Policy Statement, 51 Fed Reg 43814 (1986). n45 See Ackerman and Stewart, 37 Stan L Rev at 1355-59 (cited in note 44). n46 See W. Kip Viscusi, Risk by Choice 156-62 (Harvard, 1983). n47 See Richard B. Stewart, Federalism and Rights, 19 Ga L Rev 917, 975-79 (1985) for further development of this proposal. n48 See Ackerman and Stewart, 37 Stan L Rev at 1343-44 (cited in note 44). From checker at panix.com Tue Oct 4 22:00:44 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2005 18:00:44 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] Public Choice at the Dawn of the Special Interest State: The Story of Butter and Margarine. Message-ID: Public Choice at the Dawn of the Special Interest State: The Story of Butter and Margarine. California Law Review, 89.1 77 Calif. L. Rev. 83 Geoffrey P. Miller Associate Dean and Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School; A.B. 1973, Princeton University; J.D. 1978, Columbia University. I would like to thank the participants at faculty workshops at Washington and Northwestern University Law Schools for their helpful comments, Linda Brinker, Brian Hedlund, and Leon Greenfield for valuable research help, the John M. Olin Foundation for financial assistance, and Randall R. Lee of the CALIFORNIA LAW REVIEW for outstanding editorial work. SUMMARY: ... Yet for over three quarters of a century, between the 1870s and the 1950s, margarine was the victim of a sustained and concerted pattern of discrimination by the national government and almost every state in the union. ... In 1873 the dairy industry experienced the first stages of a profound technological change that would revolutionize American dairying: the growth of the factory system for processing milk into cheese and butter. ... The dairy industry entered politics in earnest in 1877, when margarine began to challenge the hegemony of butter in the nation's diet. ... In a unitary system, the dairy industry might have eliminated margarine through system-wide prohibitory legislation that could have been enforced against manufacturers throughout the country. ... Still, a tax of ten cents per pound was unlikely to raise much revenue because it would increase the cost of margarine to the point where it could not compete with butter. ... The margarine and butter forces descended on the White House with a vengeance, the former claiming that the bill was the worst sort of class legislation, the latter proclaiming the absolute necessity of the bill as a means of protecting the dairy farmer against ruinous competition from counterfeit butter. ... If the dairy industry could be protected against margarine, then cotton might seek protection against wool, or one grade of butter against another grade of butter. ... HIGHLIGHT: Nothing on earth, save the virtue of woman, is more susceptible to scandal than butterfat. W.D. Hoard 1 ----------------- [*83] Few substances seem as innocuous as the prosaic table spread and shortening agent oleomargarine. Yet for over three quarters of a century, between the 1870s and the 1950s, margarine was the victim of a sustained and concerted pattern of discrimination by the national government and almost every state in the union. The antimargarine laws that resulted were the construct of a powerful, highly sophisticated special interest: the American dairy industry. The story of these laws -- and of the margarine industry's struggle against them -- in many respects epitomizes the growth and development of special interest politics in the United States. Indeed, the initial battles in the margarine war provide some of the earliest examples of special interest lobbying by one domestic industry for federal protection against competition from another, less powerful, domestic industry. This Article provides a history of the first battle in the margarine war, 2 which culminated in the passage of the federal Oleomargarine Act [*84] of 1886. 3 Intended as an application of the theory of public choice to one [*85] set of historical and industrial circumstances, this Article illustrates the subtle and complex interplay among politics, technology, markets, and law in American society. This study highlights three important problems in the theory of public choice. 4 First, it confronts the classic problem of explaining the formation of large groups. 5 Public choice theory posits that political interest groups are much more likely to arise when the number of interested parties is small because the costs of organizing a large group are much higher than the costs of forging a small coalition. Furthermore, the free-rider effects 6 that plague any organizing campaign multiply as the size of the group in question increases. In short, returns diminish in scale as the number of constituents in an interest group grows. 7 A simplistic application of public choice theory would predict that the dairy lobby could never have been created, due to its sheer size. That lobby represented approximately five million dairy farmers and thousands of factory owners and middlemen. The costs and free-rider effects of organizing this massive group into a cohesive political force would seem prohibitive. Yet such a lobby was indeed created at the dawn of the special interest state in this country. How was this development possible? This Article explains the creation of the dairy lobby by examining [*86] its origins. It theorizes that the dairy industry drew on a preexisting structure of state, regional, and national organizations when it finally entered politics. These institutions, originally established to combat certain industry economic problems, enabled dairy leaders to overcome the organizational and free-rider costs that otherwise might have doomed their campaign. This pattern explains a seeming anomaly, which has perplexed public choice theorists. A second issue in public choice theory highlighted in this study is how the two basic structural principles of American government -- federalism and separation of powers -- affect the growth and efficacy of special political interests. This Article posits that, in the case of the margarine controversy, federalism benefited the dairy industry, while separation of powers hindered it. The existence of a federal system benefited the dairy lobby because the industry could initiate campaigns for state legislation, where free-rider and organization costs were low relative to national politics. Legislation could easily be obtained in states with powerful dairy constituencies, providing impetus for the enactment of similar legislation in other states. The industry could use the states as "laboratories" -- not in Brandeis' positive sense of controlled environmental settings for the creation of anticompetitive statutes designed to serve narrow special interests. Once state legislative campaigns were underway, the industry could marshal its resources to obtain federal legislation. State statutes provided models for such federal action. Even setbacks in the dairy industry's campaign at the state level, such as unfavorable judicial rulings, could stimulate lobbying at the federal level. Federal legislation provided a body of protections that overlapped and supplemented the state statutes and held the promise of eliminating margarine manufacture entirely. If the federal law proved inadequate for any reason, the industry could launch a new state-level campaign. To be sure, federalism did not wholly benefit the dairy industry, because the resources necessary to achieve protection at two levels were potentially greater than those required in a unitary system, and because certain states could serve as havens for margarine manufacturers. On the whole, however, federalism facilitated the growth of the special interest state. Separation of powers, on the other hand, tended to hinder the dairy industry's campaign. To achieve its goal of eliminating competition from [*87] margarine, the industry needed the active cooperation of all three branches of government at both the state and federal levels. Merely enacting legislation was not enough, because legislation needed enforcement to have effect. In fact, the dairy industry encountered resistance from both the judicial and the executive branches of government in its campaign. Prosecutors failed to enforce the antimargarine laws with any vigor. Even when prosecutors brought enforcement actions, courts often threw them out on technical or constitutional grounds. The effect of separation of powers is not entirely clearcut, because the splintering of authority among three branches allowed the dairy industry to focus its organizational resources on the government arm in which the industry was likely to have the most influence -- the legislature, where five million votes carried significant force. In a unitary system, the dairy industry could not have concentrated its fire in this fashion. Nevertheless, the effect of separation of powers generally inhibited the development of the special interest state. This Article highlights a third aspect of public choice theory: the question of how economic conditions in an industry affect an interest group's readiness to lobby for protective legislation. In the case of the dairy industry, it appears that political activity increased in times of adverse economic conditions. Dairy lobbying was more intense when butter prices were low and less intense when butter prices were high -- even though low butter prices also meant low margarine sales because margarine is a substitute for butter. Why an industry's anticompetitive activity should be more intense in times of economic downturn than in prosperous times is something of a puzzle. Enhanced lobbying in times of downturn might have reflected either reduced fears of new entry into the industry (which would otherwise dissipate the benefits derived from lobbying), or dairy farmers' willingness to pay more to protect a benefit they had than to purchase a benefit that they did not have. 9 These observations about the growth of large group lobbies, the effects of government structure, and the relevance of economic conditions may have validity across a range of industries and time periods. This Article, however, focuses on a single industry during a limited period. Whether the effects posited here exist elsewhere must await further research. Part I of this Article describes the origins of the dairy lobby by examining the structure of the industry, the growth of factory dairying, and the establishment of precursors to the dairy lobby in the form of private associations. It then examines the origin of the margarine industry [*88] and compares the resources available to the dairy and margarine industries at the outset of the political struggle. Part II discusses the dairy industry's early state campaigns and describes the first antimargarine laws. Part III examines the industry's federal campaign that culminated in the Oleomargarine Act of 1886. The Article concludes by examining the antimargarine campaign from the perspective of public choice theory, relating the controversy to some of the broader themes outlined above. I ORIGINS OF THE BUTTER LOBBY The dairy industry in the early 1870s showed no indication that, in less than two decades, it would become one of the nation's most potent political lobbies. To be sure, dairy farmers represented a huge potential voting bloc. They were, however, almost entirely disorganized. No single farmer had an interest in organizing the industry to reduce price fluctuations or develop markets. The free-rider problems that plague any attempt to organize an interest group were especially severe in the case of the dairy industry. 10 Moreover, the establishment of an industry lobby had little precedent in either the farming sector or elsewhere in the economy. No federal programs for farmers existed, 11 nor were there any significant state programs. Dairy farmers believed more in the virtues of sound management and hard work than in salvation through government intervention. 12 Although the dairy farmer, like other American agriculturalists, was swept up by the granger crusade of the 1870s, 13 the granger movement then focused on broad questions of national policy and did not contemplate organizing dairy farmers into an interest group capable of forcing its special agenda on the nation's political institutions. Nevertheless, within little more than a decade the industry had become a powerful and organized special interest lobby. How the lobby evolved is a question of some historical interest. Its answer may shed light on the United [*89] States' transformation into a special interest state during the last part of the nineteenth century. A. Structure of the Dairy Industry Profound technological and economic changes in the 1870s and 1880s transformed dairying from a cottage industry into a sophisticated, industrialized area of commerce. The industrialization of American dairying, moreover, facilitated the creation of a national political lobby when margarine threatened to replace butter as a staple of the national diet. 1. Dairy Farming in 1873 By the time commercial production of margarine started in the United States in 1873, 14 dairy farming was already one of the largest domestic industries. As many as five million farmers owned at least one milk cow during this period. 15 Unlike other large industries such as the capital-intensive mills and railroads, dairying was still an industry of small producers. 16 Probably a majority of dairy farmers kept a cow to supply personal needs. They sold milk on the market mostly during the peak production period in the spring and early summer, if at all. 17 Dairy products were almost wholly processed on the farm. The farmer sold a portion of the raw milk he produced and converted the rest into butter or cheese, sending it to market in stone jars, soap and candle boxes, tobacco and candy pails, and barrels of all sizes. 18 The quality of the dairy products depended on the skill of the individual farmer. 19 Dairy farms were spread out over every state and territory during this period. This wide geographic dispersion of American dairying was due, in part, to the ecological flexibility of the milk cow, able to survive in all sorts of climates and on various kinds of feed. The lack of centralization also reflected the technological difficulties of bringing fluid milk to markets. A notoriously perishable commodity, fluid milk could sour or, [*90] worse, become infected with disease if not consumed within a few days after production. With refrigeration still in its infancy, pasteurization decades in the future, 20 and relatively primitive transportation systems beyond the railroads' path, milk had to be produced very close to its markets. 21 Dairy farming was not uniformly distributed throughout the country, however. A vast dairy belt about 150 miles wide, extending from New England westward for about 1800 miles, produced most of the nation's milk, cheese, and butter. 22 New York led the nation in butter production by far, followed by Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. 23 The fastest growing butter producing states were Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, where farmers were turning from wheat production to the tending of milk cows. 24 Southern states were relatively weak dairy producers. 2. Growth of Factory Dairying In 1873 the dairy industry experienced the first stages of a profound technological change that would revolutionize American dairying: the growth of the factory system for processing milk into cheese and butter. The first dramatic shift in dairy technology occurred with the production of factory cheese after the Civil War. Factory cheese had numerous advantages over farm cheese. It generally had a higher quality because expertise in cheese making could be concentrated in the factory. 25 The factory could develop more effective marketing methods 26 and could produce cheese in quantities sufficient for sale in national and foreign markets. Cheese factories sprang up across the dairy states during the 1860s; 27 by 1899, 94.5% of the nation's cheese was produced in factories. 28 The industrialization of butter production lagged about a decade behind that of cheese. Initially, the process of making butter in factories (known as "creameries") differed little from the process on the farm. Compared to farm butter production, creameries earned only relatively minor returns to capital. 29 Thus, creameries existed exclusively as [*91] adjuncts of cheese-manufacturing plants. 30 In 1878, however, the invention of the centrifugal cream separator triggered a revolution in butter making. 31 The centrifugal separator proved much more efficient at removing the butterfat from milk than the older method of gravity separation. 32 Because centrifugal separators required a substantial capital investment and could process milk in bulk, they were suitable only for factory use. 33 Butter produced in factories ("creamery butter") quickly gained a reputation as having a better taste and a more consistent quality than farm butter 34 -- connotations that attach to the term "creamery butter" even today. The relative market prices of creamery and farm butter reflected the strong consumer preference for the former. In 1878, Wisconsin creamery butter sold for 38 to 40 per pound compared with only about 13 per pound for farm butter. 35 These technological and market developments facilitated an explosive rise in creamery manufacture of butter. 36 Virtually nonexistent in 1869, Wisconsin's creamery butter production rose to 489,000 pounds in 1879, 14,060,000 pounds in 1889, 61,814,000 pounds in 1899, and 103,885,000 pounds in 1909. 37 Nationwide, factory butter constituted an insignificant percentage of total butter production in 1870. It rose to 3.6% in 1880, 14.9% in 1890, and 28.2% in 1900. 38 B. Precursors of the Dairy Lobby Dairying's factory system stimulated the establishment of formal and informal organizations that would eventually serve as building blocks in the creation of a national lobby. Although these groups took a variety of forms and represented differing interests, they all served the goal of improving and expanding dairy markets. The most important groups were (1) factory owners, (2) producer associations, (3) boards of trade and produce exchanges, and (4) producer and dealer cartels. [*92] 1. Factory Owners With the growth of factory-produced cheese and butter, a new figure assumed a leading role in the politics of dairying -- the factory dairyman. As entrepreneurs, factory dairymen set up butter and cheese factories to exploit the profit opportunities introduced by the new dairying technology. Although they professed solidarity with dairy farmers and swore allegiance to the ideals of animal husbandry, factory dairymen were more manufacturers and businessmen than farmers. While many factory owners maintained herds of milk cows in the early days of factory dairying, their interest in milk production gradually became secondary to their manufacturing businesses. 39 The interests of factory owners and dairy farmers conflicted in certain respects. Factory owners monitored the operations of their suppliers to improve product quality. They explored new means of production and constantly encouraged farmers to improve operations -- a call that many farmers strongly resisted. 40 As purchasers of the dairy farmer's product, they inevitably bickered over terms such as price, quality, and risk. 41 Moreover, farmers who manufactured their own butter or cheese competed directly with factory owners. Despite these tensions, factory dairymen were well-qualified for the role of industry champions. First, their interests coincided with those of dairy farmers on issues affecting the industry generally. Both groups, for example, wanted to stave off competition from nondairy products. Farmers could trust factory dairymen to represent them in a campaign focused on eliminating competition from butterfat substitutes. Second, factory owners had stronger incentives to organize the industry than did farmers because margarine threatened them more than it did farmers. Factory owners wanted to protect their capital investments, which were both larger and less diversified than the investments of dairy farmers. 42 The dairy farmer could market raw milk in fluid form or for cheese; if milk production became unprofitable he could send his cows to the stockyards and convert land to other productive use. In contrast, the creamery owner faced ruin if butter making became unprofitable. In addition, the relatively small number of factory owners alleviated the pervasive free-rider problems that hampered the organization of an undifferentiated mass of small dairy producers. [*93] Third, factory owners generally possessed intellectual and organizational abilities well-suited for industry leaders. 43 Aware of the rapid growth of industry and science in the United States and of the far-reaching consequences these trends portended for dairying, the owners participated in wholesale markets for cheese and butter that were national and even international in scope. Involvement in these markets gave factory dairymen a broad overview of the dairy industry's problems and a network of contacts with dairy leaders in other states. These qualifications enabled factory owners to spearhead the industry's early campaigns against margarine. They masterminded the industry's overall strategy and directed its day-to-day operations. This relatively cohesive cohort of specially qualified and motivated leaders helped crystallize the industry into a powerful lobby in the legislative battle for protection against margarine. 2. Dairy Associations A variety of county, state, and national dairy associations represented a second important precursor to the national dairy lobby. These associations attempted to expand regional markets for dairy products. They responded to two important market needs: 1) coping with a perceived problem of "overproduction"; and 2) policing against opportunistic behavior by members. a. Overproduction Dairy farming, like other areas of agriculture, was often said to suffer from "overproduction." 44 Repeated constantly at industry meetings, the bugbear of overproduction haunted dairy farmers. Yet dairymen seldom explained exactly what they meant by the term. It implied that simply too much milk was on the market. Presumably, the concern was based on the following postulate: In a system of factory dairying, with interlinked geographic markets, any exogenously caused rise in the supply of dairy products would drive prices down. Faced with lower prices, dairy farmers would have to step up production to break even. Their efforts would be futile, however, because the more they produced, the more prices would fall and thus the less they earned for their labors. This concept of overproduction makes little economic sense. Prices in dairy markets are functions of supply and demand. An unexpected increase in supply or decrease in demand will cause prices to fall, perhaps even to the point where the farmer suffers an outright loss. This situation will not last, however, because some farmers will leave the market. Supply [*94] will contract, driving prices back to levels at which farmers can earn competitive returns on their capital investment and labor. Under traditional market theory, a sustained condition of overproduction in an unregulated competitive market is impossible. 45 As applied to conditions in dairying in the late nineteenth century, references to overproduction were more accurately complaints about the industry's lack of barriers to entry. 46 Low butter prices cut into farmers' profits and reduced the value of their herds. During these periods farmers were indeed overproducing, in the sense that the industry no doubt operated on low profit margins. But low prices in one period must have been balanced by high prices in another, when farmers earned good profits on their investment in farm and herd. Indeed, despite the variability in butter prices, the total number of dairy cows increased in linear fashion over the entire period, growing from approximately ten million cows in 1870 to approximately fourteen million cows in 1886. 47 The increase in the number of cows suggests that dairy farming was not unprofitable relative to other occupations during this period. Thus, it seems apparent that references to "overproduction" were often disguised complaints about the lack of protection against competition. 48 The problem of overproduction (or lack of supercompetitive profits) could be mitigated either by reducing output or by increasing demand. Output could be reduced by forming a cartel. The free-rider and organizational costs of cartelizing the butter industry as a whole, however, were probably prohibitive, given thousands of dairy factories shipping butter [*95] into geographically extended markets. 49 Increasing demand represented a more feasible alternative because butter produced in areas with good reputations sold for more than butter from other areas. 50 A region's farmers and factory owners could raise prices by increasing the reputation of their product relative to products from other regions. Although the benefits of increased demand would partially dissipate over time through new entry, supercompetitive profits were possible in the short term. Even in the long run, profits were unlikely to be completely dissipated because the potential for cartels was stronger in narrowly segmented markets. b. Opportunism A basic technological limitation in dairying rested in the difficulty of assessing the quality of dairy products on simple inspection. 51 Butterfat content and resistance to spoilage principally determined the value of dairy products. Neither quality could be measured directly. No simple measure of butterfat content existed until the introduction of the Babcock butterfat test in 1890. 52 Grading of milk and cream did not become commonplace until early in the twentieth century. 53 As to perishability, almost anyone could detect spoiled cheese, rancid butter, or sour milk, but it was virtually impossible to ascertain how long a fresh dairy product would remain fresh. Middlemen, retailers, and exporters assumed spoilage risk while the products rested in their control. 54 These technological shortcomings created a classic form of market failure which George A. Akerlof terms the "market for lemons." 55 The difficulty in directly measuring the quality of dairy products subjected dairy markets to severe informational asymmetries in which the seller knew more about the quality of the product than did the buyer. In such conditions, buyers must rely on some statistic as a proxy for qualities [*96] that cannot be directly measured. The nature of that statistic in the dairy industry depended on the market in which the dairy product was sold. In raw milk supply markets, the volume of milk supplied by the farmer served as the operative statistic. 56 In wholesale and retail markets for processed dairy products, the statistics were weight, variety, and geographic origin. Hard cheese might command a higher price than soft; Wisconsin butter might sell for more than Iowa butter, and so on. 57 But the use of statistics in place of direct quality measures invites selsellers to behave opportunistically, which creates the market for lemons. Akerlof describes the problem as follows: There are many markets in which buyers use some market statistic to judge the quality of prospective purchases. In this case there is incentive for sellers to market poor quality merchandise, since the returns for good quality accrue mainly to the entire group whose statistic is affected rather than to the individual seller. As a result, there tends to be a reduction in the average quality of goods and also in the size of the market. 58 In the dairy industry sellers could, and did, behave opportunistically. Farmers, knowing they would be paid on a volume basis, supplied milk that was watered or partly skimmed, fed their cows on inadequate fodder, or simply used inferior animals that produced milk low in butterfat. 59 Owners of cheese factories, knowing that their product would sell in foreign markets at the same price as all other American cheese of the same type, manufactured cheese out of skim milk laced with vegetable oil. 60 Butter manufacturers, knowing that their product was sold by weight, churned it with water to produce "overruns" 61 and failed to maintain high standards of cleanliness and care. 62 Middlemen, knowing that the value of processed dairy products depended on geographic location, obtained cheap butter or cheese from one state and passed it off as premium merchandise from another state. 63 Butter factories contrived to insert the word "Elgin" in their names, hoping consumers would mistakenly associate their product with Elgin butter, widely known as the [*97] nation's finest. n64Retailers sold margarie and "renovated" butter to customers at premium butter prices. 65 The list could be extended. 66 Although informational asymmetries existed in the dairy industry prior to 1876, the growth of industrialization in dairying severely aggravated the lemons problem. In dairying's days as a cottage industry, buyers often obtained their butter, milk, and cheese from a farmer whose reputation depended on the quality of his product. 67 Knowing that buyers would go elsewhere if his products turned out to be inferior, the farmer supplied goods of reliable quality. In contrast, the factory system separated buyers and sellers by several layers of middlemen such as wholesalers, jobbers, and retailers. 68 Moreover, goods of different suppliers were consolidated into common pools and sold as fungible units. Producers pooled milk for sale to factories; factories sold cheese and butter into markets where price was determined by the factory's location; and dairymen across the country operated in a world market where the price for american butter and cheese depended on its general reputation for quality. These developments meant that the price a supplier could obtain no longer wholly depended on the quality of his product. Accordingly, the problem of opportunistic behavior in dairy markets became acute after the advent of factory dairying. The lemons markets that developed posed a threat to the industry at all levels of production and distribution. As Akerlof points out, a lemons market is a market in breakdown. 69 Because buyers expect that sellers will behave opportunistically, the amount they are willing to pay drops below the amount demanded by sellers of higher quality goods. Thus, inferior goods tend to drive superior ones off the market in a peculiar manifestation of Gresham's Law. 70 Because social and private returns differ, the consequence is a deadweight social loss. 71 [*98] c. The Growth of Dairy Associations Factory dairymen and other dairy industry leaders responded to these two problems of dairying -- overproduction and informational asymmetry -- by organizing the industry on a county-wide and eventually state-wide basis. 72 Small groups of producers and factory men formed the first dairy associations in order to enhance the prestige of dairy products from their region. These associations aimed to mitigate the lemons problem and increase demand by establishing a reputation for quality in dairy products produced by the associations' members. Dairy association activities typically included entering the products of their region in fairs and expositions, encouraging the use of modern dairying techniques by local farmers, and preventing opportunistic behavior by their members. 73 Associations developed first at the local level because organizational costs and free-rider effects are lower in small groups than in large groups. Once in place, however, these local associations greatly reduced the costs of statewide organization because a state association could be constructed out of the local groups. Accordingly, dairy associations quickly grew to statewide proportions. In 1866, a group of New York cheese makers formed the American Dairymen's Association, which -- although purportedly national in scope -- essentially operated as a New York organization. 74 Vermont (the greatest dairy state in milk produced per square mile) 75 organized a dairy association in 1869. 76 Likewise a small elite principally concerned with the expansion of the factory interest in their state formed the Wisconsin Dairymen's Association. 77 In addition to general dairy associations, specialized organizations with broad geographic scope sprang up for the purpose of enhancing the value and prestige of particular dairy cow breeds. 78 These broader associations originally intended to increase domestic consumption of their members' products and exploit the possibilities of entering foreign markets. 79 In other words, the associations helped dairymen maintain supercompetitive profits through continuous expansion of markets. State dairy associations also informed dairy farmers [*99] about market conditions and new developments in dairy science through association gatherings, county fairs, and publications. These educational activities improved the quality of dairy products produced within the states. 80 Various dairy newspapers serving different parts of the country were loosely affiliated with the state dairy associations. 81 The most influential periodical in Wisconsin was the Jefferson County Union, published by William D. Hoard, a prominent spokesman for the factory interests, later Governor of Wisconsin, and ultimately leader of the industry's national campaign against margarine in 1900-1902. 82 The Rural New Yorker exerted similar influence in New York and New Jersey. 83 The activities of the state dairy associations were not explicitly political at first, except for a few isolated incidents of petitioning state legislatures for protection against particular, defined evils. 84 However, organizing the industry into unified groups focused on a common end naturally facilitated the exercise of political power; the dairy leaders' goals, moreover, were such that they could be accomplished through legislation. 3. Boards of Trade and Produce Exchanges Boards of trade and dairy produce exchanges made up a third key building block in the national dairy lobby. As the factory system expanded, wholesale merchants began to play an important role in the distribution of butter and other products. To facilitate their operations, merchants organized into boards of trade and produce exchanges such as the New York Mercantile Exchange, the Chicago Butter and Egg Board, the Elgin Board of Trade, the Chicago Produce Exchange, and the Baltimore Produce Exchange. 85 These bodies facilitated dairy product transactions in extended geographic markets by allowing buyers and sellers to convene in a centralized location at which prices could be set quickly and accurately. They defined classes and grades of butter to encourage quality standardization. 86 Most [*100] initiated inspection programs for grading particular lots of butter. 87 In addition to grading, inspectors often counseled producers on improving the quality of their products. 88 By standardizing the product, they widened the geographic scope of dairy markets, inducing other dairy groups to organize at regional and national levels. As preexisting organizations of dairy merchants, boards of trade and produce exchanges readily enlisted in the campaign against margarine. 4. Cartels Cartels of buyers and sellers of fluid milk became a fourth organizational form that contributed to the antimargarine campaign. Because of its extreme perishability, fluid milk could be marketed only in limited geographic areas or in areas served by efficient rail transportation. This natural market limitation reduced the number of participants in milk markets and thereby facilitated cartelization. Both buyers' and sellers' cartels formed during this period. 89 Around 1880, producers began to band together into regional associations to control prices paid by dealers. 90 The president of the Orange County Milk Producers' Association of New York described how organizing into a county-wide association gave the farmers enhanced bargaining power in the milk market: [F]or a number of years prior to the year 1883 business had been depressed, from the fact that the men with whom the farmers were dealing were sharp and unscrupulous in their business ways and had succeeded in reducing the prices of milk to a figure that made the business unprofitable. In 1882 we formed an organization of the producers of milk for the New York market, an organization of farmers in that particular section, for the purpose of mutual protection. We succeeded in 1883 in forming a strong association of some eight hundred members, and became an incorporated body, and succeeded by the withholding of milk, or by what was known at that time as the Orange County Milk War, in increasing the price of milk to the farmers of our county so that they received in the years 1883 and 1884 nearly a million dollars more for their product than they had received prior to that time. . . . 91 Purchasers of fluid milk also established their own buyers' cartels. In response to the growth of the Orange County Milk Producers' Association, the creameries and larger milk dealers in the New York City milkshed organized the New York Milk Exchange Limited, which attempted to control the industry through overt price fixing. The bylaws of the [*101] exchange required members to adhere to specified rates paid to dealers and charged to consumers. 92 Producer and purchaser associations thus organized the dairy industry into groups that could easily become politically active when the need arose. Although the producer associations' goals were initially adverse to those of factory owners and milk dealers, there was no reason why these different interests could not cooperate on matters of mutual concern. Margarine, because it threatened the interests of dairy farmers as well as factory owners, provided an obvious rallying point for the whole industry. The factory system created a high degree of economic interdependence among dairymen, stimulating the formation of various associations and groups at different geographical levels. It took but a small step to turn these groups to political action once the appropriate issue arose. Accordingly, when the leaders of the dairy industry decided to counter the margarine threat through political action, they did not face the daunting task of organizing five million farmers and a substantial number of middlemen, retailers, and factory owners from scratch. Rather, the dairy lobby crystallized out of powerful but previously nonpolitical bodies which themselves had been organized in response to the factory system in dairying. C. Origins of the Margarine Industry Although the dairy industry established a base for organized political action by the mid-1870s, only an external threat finally galvanized the industry's leaders into entering politics in earnest. That threat arrived on the scene in the form of margarine, an unanticipated technological development that irrevocably altered the political organization of the dairy industry. A French chemist, Hippolyte Mege-Mouries, invented margarine sometime in the late 1860s. He made the product from oleo (refined caul fat of beef) churned with milk, salt and a few other ingredients. 93 Mistakenly believing that his invention contained margaric acid, Mege-Mouries called it "oleo-margarine," a name that quickly achieved universal [*102] acceptance. 94 The product was a smashing success. When colored with vegetable dye, margarine was a dead ringer for yellow butter. It had a buttery taste, 95 could be substituted for butter in cooking or as a spread, and had similar qualities of perishability and digestibility. Above all, margarine could be sold at about half the price of butter. 96 The commercial potential of margarine immediately became apparent. Entrepreneurs around the world eagerly sought to exploit the product. Commercial margarine production in this country began when Mege-Mouries obtained a United States patent on his invention and sold it to the United States Dairy Company. 97 The invention, however, proved impossible to protect; competitors filed over 180 patents in the ensuing years that designed around the Mege-Mouries claim by specifying slightly different procedures for treating the fat or including minor ingredients not contained in the original patent. 98 Soon margarine producers operated in a number of states, shipping their products nationwide. Margarine manufacture remained a fairly concentrated industry during this period. Fifteen margarine factories operated in 1880, twelve in 1890, and only twenty-four by 1900. 99 Among the first major margarine producers were the great Chicago meat packing firms. 100 These firms enjoyed important advantages over other producers: ready access to meat fats, an efficient rail transportation system, centralized facilities for manufacture and shipment, and nationwide marketing networks. The meat packers enhanced their advantage when they discovered in the 1870s that they could increase quality and lower manufacturing costs by substituting neutral lard (processed hog fat) for some of the oleo oil. 101 Chicago quickly became an important center of oleomargarine manufacture. 102 One additional technological development became important to the subsequent politics of margarine: the practice of some margarine producers to substitute small amounts of cottonseed oil for some of the oleo or neutral lard. Cottonseed oil was considerably cheaper than these other fats, although it could not be used in quantity because the taste could not be completely neutralized and because the oil adversely affected margarine's [*103] melting qualities. 103 The use of cottonseed oil, however, gave the Southern cotton states an interest in promoting the margarine business, an interest which later proved politically significant in the national struggle over margarine. D. Political Resources of the Dairy and Margarine Interests As the struggle between butter and margarine began, the two industries enjoyed fundamentally different political resources; these resources dictated each industry's political strategy. The dairy industry's resources favored legislative action, while the resources of the margarine forces favored executive and judicial action (or inaction). A representative legislature clearly favored the dairy industry for three reasons. First, the industry enjoyed the support of the nation's five million dairy farmers who sold on cash markets, coupled with middlemen and factory owners whose livelihoods depended on butter. These voters had a strong personal interest in protecting butter markets against competition from margarine because their capital was not highly diversified. This was especially true of middlemen and factory men who dealt specifically in butter rather than dairy products generally. Second, the various private industry organizations could monitor elected officials and mobilize their constituencies to reward pro-dairy votes and punish pro-margarine votes. Finally, the presence of dairy farmers in every state allowed the industry to mobilize on a national level, while the relative concentration of dairying in New York, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Vermont gave the industry sufficient power in certain states to overcome local lawmakers' initial resistance to new and unfamiliar legislation. The margarine industry enjoyed far less direct voting power. In contrast to butter production, margarine production was capital-intensive, with only a few thousand people working directly in that business. Only in Chicago was the direct voting support for margarine manufacturers a significant factor. Nationally, livestock and cotton interests were aligned with the margarine manufacturers because meat fats and cottonseed oil were used in margarine manufacture. However, their interest in protecting margarine manufacturers was relatively slight. While livestock owners could profit from margarine, their livelihoods did not depend on it, since margarine added only marginally to the total value of a head of beef or a hog. As to cotton interests, the technological problems of using cottonseed oil in margarine left the value of margarine largely unrealized. In one sense the margarine interests were allied with the largest voting bloc of all, the general public, since the public undoubtedly benefited [*104] from the availability of a cheap and palatable butter substitute. Immigrants and blue collar workers, who could not otherwise afford to put butter on their tables, were the most obvious beneficiaries. Despite their size, however, these segments of the public were completely unorganized. Thus, while the several million dairy farmers organized into an effective political power group, the many millions of immigrants and blue collar workers almost never participated actively in the controversy. The dairy industry's advantage in raw voting power was offset somewhat by the margarine industry's greater access to capital. Margarine manufacturers tended to be large corporations with substantial cash incomes. 104 They could raise the funds necessary to combat the dairy industry's campaign with ease and could treat the expenditures as an ordinary cost of doing business. Firms in the dairy industry tended to be smaller, and therefore enjoyed considerably less access to ready capital. 105 Moreover, margarine interests suffered less from agency and freerider effects than did the dairy industry. Although the farmer might be willing to write constituent mail or to vote as recommended by dairy leaders, he was much less likely to send hard-earned cash to somebody who might not use it as the farmer wished. Margarine manufacturers, on the other hand, spent their capital themselves, thereby reducing agency costs. Unilateral expenditures by margarine manufacturers did raise free-rider problems, but the relatively high degree of concentration in the industry mitigated these concerns. 106 Expenditures by Armour and Swift, for example, would rebound largely to their own benefit because of their large market shares. At the outset of the battle over margarine, therefore, the two industries possessed different strengths and weaknesses. The next Part describes how the competing industries used these resources in the first skirmishes of the margarine war. [*105] II THE DAIRY INDUSTRY ENTERS POLITICS The dairy industry entered politics in earnest in 1877, when margarine began to challenge the hegemony of butter in the nation's diet. The industry's policy was clear from the start: Do everything possible to ensure that margarine did not compete freely with butter. The butter interests' search for protection hardly seems surprising from the perspective of today's political environment, where special interests routinely vie for government favors. In its era, however, the dairy industry's battle against margarine was unusual. It was among the first national campaigns by one domestic industry to enlist the government to crush competition from another. In a sense, the first shots in the margarine war mark the birth of the modern special interest state. A. The Initial Dairy Industry Response Although margarine posed an obvious threat to butter, the dairy interests did not immediately organize effective political opposition to the product. The industry's initial hesitation resulted principally from a belief that margarine did not threaten the factory interests. When margarine first appeared in the United States in 1873, creameries were still in their infancy. Most dairy factories produced only cheese, a product that margarine did not threaten. Those factory owners who had moved into butter production may well have seen margarine as more a blessing than a curse. "Creamery butter" had begun to command a significantly higher price than farm butter. 107 If margarine displaced butter at all, it would drive out farm butter, 108 to the advantage of commercial butter producers. Quite possibly, inferior farm butter created something of a lemons market that depressed the prices of creamery butter. If margarine eliminated farm butter, the position of creamery butter could improve. This view of margarine may explain why some industry leaders regarded the product with apparent equanimity during its first years on the market. 109 In addition, favorable conditions in the dairy industry between 1873 and 1877 assuaged concerns about competition from margarine. Dairy farming had been profitable since the Civil War. Butter prices increased [*106] threefold between 1861 and 1866, 110 presumably as a result of wartime shortages. Although prices dropped after 1866, they remained well above their prewar levels. 111 After 1872, prices began to rise again. The average price of butter in Wisconsin was 18 per pound in 1873, a major improvement over the 14.6 per pound of the previous year. 112 By 1874, Wisconsin butter had jumped to 21.8 per pound; and prices remained relatively high through 1877. 113 Moreover, the number of milk cows increased significantly during this period, with only a slight decline in the average price per cow. 114 Although high butter prices undoubtedly enhanced margarine sales, 115 this fact, if observed at all, apparently did not disturb the industry's general sense of well-being. Given the prosperous times, the absence of any significant dairy industry clamor about imitation butter is not surprising. Industry leaders, however, had sorely underestimated the margarine threat. If unscrupulous dealers could palm farm butter off on consumers as creamery butter, they could do the same with margarine and earn equal or greater profits from their fraud. The lemons problem would be exacerbated, not improved. The problem of fraudulently representing margarine as butter was well-known by the mid-1870s. Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, published in 1874, records the boasts of an early oleomargarine salesman overheard on a Mississippi steamboat: 'Now as to this article,' said [the salesman], 'it's from our house; look at it -- smell of it -- taste it. Put any test on it you want to. Take [*107] your own time -- no hurry -- make it thorough. There now -- what do you say? Butter, ain't it? Not by a thundering sight -- it's oleomargarine! Yes, sir, that's what it is -- oleomargarine. You can't tell it from butter; by George, an expert can't! . . . We supply most of the boats in the West; there's hardly a pound of butter on one of them. We are crawling right along -- jumping right along is the word. We are going to have that entire trade. Yes, and the hotel trade too. You are going to see the day, pretty soon, when you can't find an ounce of butter to bless yourself with, in any hotel in the Mississippi and Ohio valleys, outside of the biggest cities. Why, we are turning out oleomargarine now by the thousands of tons. And we can sell it so dirt-cheap that the whole country has got to take it -- can't get around it, you see. Butter don't stand any show -- there ain't any chance for competition. Butter's had its day -- and from this out, butter goes to the wall.' 116 Twain's report boded ill for the dairy industry, although it would be a few years before industry leaders fully realized that a grain of truth might lie behind the boasts of the oleomargarine salesmen. The threat posed by margarine became apparent, however, when the relative prosperity that had prevailed through 1877 gave way late in that year to a disastrous downturn in prices. Average wholesale Wisconsin butter in 1877 was only 16.3 per pound and falling. 117 By 1878, Wisconsin butter had dropped to 13.2 per pound, recovering only slightly to 13.6 in 1879. 118 As the following graph illustrates, national butter prices reflected a similar downturn, falling from approximately 20 per pound in 1877 to approximately 14 per pound in 1879. 119 The average value of milk cows fell rapidly during this period as well, dropping from [*108] about $ 27.50 in 1877 to approximately $ 21.50 in 1879. 120 The resulting hardship for dairy farmers and factory owners energized the forces of opposition to margarine. 121 [SEE ILLUSTRATION IN ORIGINAL] B. State Antimargarine Laws By 1877, margarine's rapidly growing acceptance in cities across the country represented a serious threat to the dairy industry. When dairy industry leaders awoke to the threat, they quickly drew on the preexisting structure of industry organizations to press for legislative action. 1. First-Generation Statutes State dairy associations, led by New York's association, first pressed for antimargarine protection in the form of labelling statutes sometime in 1877. New York's leadership in the first years of the campaign against margarine resulted from a combination of factors. First, the leading American margarine producer during the earliest years, the United States Dairy Company, was located in New York. 122 Second, New York City, the state's primary butter market, was particularly vulnerable to competition from margarine because of its large blue collar and immigrant population. Third, New York's large share of the butter market minimized the free-rider inhibitions against being the first to start a campaign against margarine. The dairymen of the first state to act against margarine would perform a free service for their fellow dairymen in other states by drafting proposed legislation, adducing evidence necessary to support the proposal, developing a model of effective political organization that dairy interests in other states could emulate, and demonstrating that antimargarine legislation could actually be obtained. Because New York was the nation's leading dairy state, its dairymen would capture a greater percentage of the gains from their organizing efforts than would the dairymen from any other state. It was not surprising, therefore, that New York led the early battles against margarine. New York enacted an antimargarine law in 1877 at the direct urging of the butter interests. 123 Missouri followed suit the same year. 124 Six states adopted labelling laws in 1878: California, 125 Connecticut, 126 [*109] Maryland, 127 Massachusetts, 128 Ohio, 129 and Pennsylvania. 130 Three more states passed legislation in 1879: Delaware, 131 Illinois, 132 and Tennessee. 133 Others soon fell into line; by 1886, thirty-four states and territories had enacted some version of margarine labelling legislation. 134 These first-generation antimargarine statutes ostensibly countered the problem of palming-off by requiring proper labelling, prescribing penalties for fraudulent misrepresentation, or both. 135 The original Wisconsin law, for example, required that imitation butter made with tallow (beef fat) be labelled "oleomargarine" in half-inch letters, and, if made with lard, be labelled "butterine." 136 Some statutes required hotels, restaurants, and boarding houses to post public notices if they served margarine to guests. 137 These statutes were designed to eliminate a particular lemons problem in retail butter markets. If consumers could not easily distinguish margarine from butter, then sellers would have an incentive to substitute margarine for the more expensive product. The first-generation statutes, if effectively enforced, could alleviate this market breakdown. Accordingly, the dairy interests had little trouble portraying the measures they sought as protecting the public interest. Although the first-generation statutes appeared justifiable as public interest measures, 138 the dairy industry's support for these laws was no [*110] doubt also motivated by a less benign purpose. As late as 1886, members of the industry professed the view that most consumers would not knowingly eat oleomargarine if given the choice. 139 Presumably those sentiments were even stronger in the earliest days of the conflict between margarine and butter. Dairy industry leaders probably believed that the first-generation laws would not only inform consumers, but would also effectively drive margarine out of business. Unfortunately for the dairy industry, the first-generation statutes failed to accomplish either their explicit purpose of eliminating market fraud or their implicit purpose of destroying the margarine industry. First, neither the executive nor the judicial branches of the government vigorously enforced the antimargarine laws. Judges often sympathized with the plight of retailers charged with purveying a harmless food item. 140 Prosecutors were reluctant to pursue margarine cases which were time-consuming and expensive, requiring the services of undercover agents and analytic chemists as well as lawyers. 141 Accordingly, law enforcement officials typically devoted little time or effort to enforcing the margarine laws. 142 The low penalties for violations posed an additional enforcement problem. Even when prosecutions did occur, margarine distributors could afford to simply pay their fines and continue in business. 143 Presumably even a low probability of prosecution could have achieved significant deterrence, if high penalties for violations of these statutes were [*111] imposed. 144 However, increased penalties would probably have been counterproductive; judges, juries and prosecutors would have even greater incentives to nullify the antimargarine laws. Accordingly, under a system of separation of powers in which the laws were enforced by prosecutors and judges of general jurisdiction, the dairy industry could not achieve an acceptable level of enforcement. Palming-off apparently continued to be a serious problem. 145 A second major problem was consumers' continuing demand for margarine over butter, due in part to a significant price differential. Although statistics on margarine production are not available for this period, the evidence indicates that the margarine trade was booming. Margarine prices increased from 11 per pound in 1879 to 13 per pound in 1880, 146 suggesting an increase in demand. The jump in butter prices between 1879 (14 per pound) and 1880 (17 per pound) also suggests increased margarine demand 147 since margarine is a substitute for butter and increases in butter prices undoubtedly increased the demand for margarine. The rapid increase in margarine sales between 1880-1886 indicates that margarine quickly gained consumer acceptance. 2. Prohibitory Statutes Despite the increased margarine trade, dairy forces failed to undertake any significant new initiatives during the period from 1879 to 1883. 148 This may be explained by the profitability of dairying during this period. Butter prices rose to 20 per pound in 1881 and remained close to that level through 1883. 149 Butter exports surged from 21.5 million [*112] pounds in 1878 to 39.5 million pounds in 1880. 150 Just as the depressed condition in the industry precipitated the initial campaign of 1877, the ensuing prosperity of 1880-1883 dampened any desire to continue an aggressive campaign. Sometime in 1883, however, butter prices began to break, falling to 18 per pound in 1884, 17 per pound in 1885, and 16 per pound in 1886. 151 The situation in export markets was also troubling. Margarine exports, which had risen rather steadily since 1877, exceeded butter exports for the first time in 1882. By 1883, margarine exports had risen sharply (from 21 to 31 million pounds) while butter exports had plummeted (from 14.5 to 12.5 million pounds). 152 Although butter exports recovered somewhat after 1883, rising to over 20 million pounds in 1885, 153 they remained far below margarine exports. The one unambiguously positive sign for dairy farmers was the price of milk cows, which rose sharply between 1879 ($ 21.50 per cow) and 1884 ($ 31.50 per cow). 154 The value of milk cows dropped during the following two years, however, falling to $ 29.50 in 1885 and $ 27.50 in 1886. 155 Accordingly, dairy farmers' complaints about the industry's depressed conditions increased between 1883 and 1886. 156 The economic downturn sparked a new round of antimargarine [*113] activity by the dairy lobby, even though the decline in butter prices evidently suppressed the margarine trade during those years as well. 157 To counter the continued threat of margarine, dairy interests in several states obtained progressively more stringent antimargarine laws. These laws represented a major shift in regulatory philosophy, moving away from labelling legislation toward prohibitory legislation that outlawed margarine altogether. 158 The movement for prohibitory legislation quickly gained momentum. By 1886 nine states had enacted prohibitory statutes: Maine, 159 Michigan, 160 Minnesota, 161 Missouri, 162 New Jersey, 163 New York, 164 Ohio, 165 Pennsylvania, 166 and Wisconsin. 167 New Hampshire whimsically required that margarine be colored pink. 168 Not surprisingly, most of the states enacting prohibitory legislation were among the nation's leading dairy states in 1886. 169 Prohibitory legislation held a number of advantages over the earlier labelling laws. It was easier to enforce because it could be applied against a small group of manufacturers and wholesalers rather than a large, dispersed, and shifting retail class. More importantly, if effectively enforced, it not only eliminated the problem of fraud but also threatened to eliminate competition from margarine altogether. Many of these second-generation [*114] state statutes included viable enforcement mechanisms to remedy the notorious inefficacy of the labelling legislation. Again New York took the lead, establishing in 1884 an office of dairy commissioner specifically charged with uncovering and prosecuting violations of the margarine law. 170 The State provided the commissioner with a generous budget, a force of inspectors, and staff experts to document whether substances sold as butter were actually margarine. 171 The legislative creation of independent departments specifically charged with enforcing the margarine laws provided a means of circumventing some of the obstacles to effective interest group activity created by the separation of powers. To be sure, the dairy commissions did not exercise judicial or legislative functions: their role was to detect and prosecute offenses of existing law before courts of general jurisdiction. Their functions were purely executive in nature. However, their specific legislative mandate -- focused as it was on one particular industry -- substantially undercut the prosecutorial discretion that had stymied earlier efforts to enforce the margarine laws. Created to enforce the antimargarine laws with vigor, the commissioners responded to the expectations of the dairy interests. In this respect the dairy commission was a precursor of the independent regulatory agency, a device that grew in later years to circumvent the barriers to interest group activity under a system of separation of powers. 172 From the dairy interests' viewpoint, prohibitory legislation's principal advantage lay in its elimination of all competition from margarine. At the same time, however, this effect also weakened the legal case for such legislation. Prohibitory legislation was obviously overinclusive if its goal was to attack fraud. In stamping out fraud, it would also prevent legitimate competition from margarine. The dairy industry therefore began to supplement the fraud contention with the argument that margarine was dangerous to the public health. Legislation banning the product outright could be justified easily if margarine were shown to be unhealthful. In support of its public health claim, the dairy interests charged that margarine caused dyspepsia and a host of other ailments. 173 The industry fomented claims that margarine contained diseased or putrid beef, [*115] dead horses, dead hogs, dead dogs, mad dogs, and drowned sheep. 174 In New York, dairy interests engineered an investigation into margarine by the state senate's public health committee. 175 Managed by friends of the dairy industry, the investigation proved little more than a witchhunt. The committee received "evidence" that margarine was made with the worst sorts of filthy grease, that workmen had lost toenails because of the process, and so on. 176 Just as the committee heard all kinds of far-fetched charges, the case in favor of margarine's healthfulness was suppressed. Eminent authorities, such as Professor Charles I. Chandler of Columbia College, a former president of the New York City Board of Health, were interviewed but not called before the committee when it became evident that they would testify to the healthfulness of margarine. 177 Not surprisingly, the committee recommended total prohibition of margarine. 178 The charge that margarine was unhealthful, however, was exceedingly weak. Margarine and butter were virtually identical in chemical composition. 179 Even the dairy commissioner of New York failed to uncover any evidence that the components of margarine were harmful, despite having expended several years and much money in efforts to do so. 180 The fact that margarine was nothing more than a mixture of ingredients universally recognized as healthful demonstrated the futility of the task. Nor was there merit to the charge that the fat of decaying or diseased animals was used in margarine. Recognized nutritional scientists testified that only the freshest and highest quality fats could be used in manufacturing margarine. 181 Moreover, the dairy industry's charges were somewhat hypocritical given the unsanitary conditions prevailing in that industry at the time. Raw milk was produced on thousands of farms across the country where sanitation was unknown. 182 Flies, straw, and dung contaminated many milking stalls. Milk arrived at creameries in cans containing an inventory [*116] of daily farm life -- bars of soap, dishrags, potatoes, parsnips, and hairpins, together with the product of the cow that lent such fertility to its pastures. 183 Health experts nurtured a strong -- and ultimately justified -- suspicion that dairy products often transmitted tuberculosis, a major cause of human mortality. 184 Not surprisingly, microscopists who testified about the existence of bacteria in margarine were not invited to investigate butter similarly. 185 Even so, the industry successfully maintained its bogus charges against margarine for a time. A House of Representatives committee concluded that margarine was "detrimental to the public health, being the fruitful cause of dyspepsia and other diseases." 186 The United States Supreme Court accepted findings that margarine might be dangerous to health in upholding Pennsylvania's prohibitory statute. 187 Prohibitory legislation held the promise of effectively denying consumers access to margarine even if they affirmatively desired to buy the product. Nevertheless, prohibitory legislation at the state level was not wholly satisfactory to the dairy interests. For one thing, prohibitory legislation was much more difficult to obtain than labelling laws. States with weak dairy lobbies were unlikely to enact such legislation. As noted above, 188 by 1886 such legislation had passed only in those relatively few states with strong dairy interests. Thus, a strategy directed solely at enactment of prohibitory legislation at the state level would not effectively prohibit margarine nationwide. Second, prohibitory legislation, while relatively easy to enforce against in-state manufacturers of margarine, could not bar the production of margarine in other states. Out-of-state manufacturers easily could ship margarine to wholesalers in states with prohibitory statutes, which could then be distributed to retailers for sale to the public. 189 Enforcing prohibitory legislation against these in-state retailers and wholesalers proved exceedingly difficult. Not only was detecting margarine sales by retailers expensive, but even if the retailer were prosecuted, [*117] the chances of conviction were low because of sympathetic judges and juries. 190 The failure of state prohibitory legislation to cut off interstate commerce in margarine illustrates how the system of federalism, otherwise beneficial to the dairy industry, inhibited its campaign in one respect. In a unitary system, the dairy industry might have eliminated margarine through system-wide prohibitory legislation that could have been enforced against manufacturers throughout the country. In a federal system, however, the industry could not prohibit margarine completely. Prohibitory legislation in individual states would not eradicate in-state margarine sales if the substance could be manufactured elsewhere -- especially if (as the Supreme Court later ruled) 191 the commerce clause limited state power to restrain interstate shipments. Furthermore, even federal prohibitory legislation would not eliminate all manufacture if (as the Court also later ruled) 192 the federal government had no right to regulate manufacturers within a state. 193 The danger of judicial invalidation proved to be another drawback of prohibitory legislation. Effective enforcement of the prohibitory laws required judicial, as well as executive, action. Although the problem of executive enforcement could be remedied to some extent by legislation establishing specialized agencies with strong enforcement incentives, it proved much more difficult for the dairy industry to elicit cooperation from the judiciary. Constitutional prohibitions could not be overturned by legislation. It was difficult, even in states with elected judiciaries, to bring direct political pressure to bear on state judges. Thus, the dairy industry's voting power was relatively ineffective in stimulating favorable judicial action. In People v. Marx, 194 the margarine forces finally achieved the constitutional victory they had sought. 195 The New York Court of Appeals declared a prohibitory statute unconstitutional as interfering with liberty [*118] of contract. 196 On the basis of expert trial testimony, the court found that margarine was both healthful and virtually indistinguishable chemically from butter. 197 Moreover, the court took judicial notice that the law's purpose was to suppress the manufacture and sale of margarine, that the law had been passed at the behest of the dairy industry, that it effectively expropriated the capital of margarine producers, and that as a consequence of the prohibition, "such of the people of the State as cannot afford to buy dairy butter must eat their bread unbuttered." 198 The Marx opinion recognized that the challenged legislation represented something new in the politics of the state -- a phenomenon that if allowed to develop into a trend would carry pernicious consequences for the public at large. The sole reason for the New York statute, said the court, was to keep butter prices high by suppressing competition from margarine. 199 According to the court, "[m]easures of this kind are dangerous even to their promoters," 200 because if the principle of protectionism were constitutionally sustained, its reach could not be limited to any particular industry. On the contrary, margarine manufacturers could suppress the dairy industry if they obtained enough legislative clout. 201 The court warned that "[i]llustrations might be indefinetely multiplied of the evils which would result from legislation which should exclude one class of citizens from industries, lawful in other respects, in order to protect another class against competition. We cannot doubt that such legislation is [unconstitutional]." 202 The Marx case significantly set back dairy interests. A decision by the highest court of the nationhs largest dairy state, especially one written in such a tone of moral outrage, was damaging enough. More immediately, Marx opened up the massive New York City market to the margarine business -- a potentially devastating blow to the powerful dairy interests in Orange County and elsewhere in the state. The dairy industry responded, as seen in Part III, with a renewed effort to check margarine production on the federal level. III THE FEDERAL STATUTE OF 1886 A. The Proposed Statute Federal legislation had been on the agenda of various dairy leaders [*119] since about 1880. The National Association for the Prevention of the Adulteration of Butter (NAPAB), a group of dairymen and butter merchants formed in 1879 and headquartered in New York, 203 spearheaded the initial efforts. Although it focused most of its efforts in New York, this group also lobbied dairy state representatives in Congress. In 1880 204 an Illinois congressman introduced a bill to tax margarine at 10 per pound. A House committee held hearings on the subject in 1882 and recommended passage of antimargarine legislation. 205 These initiatives were rather desultory; no powerful national campaign against margarine existed prior to 1885. In 1885, however, several forces combined to stimulate a successful campaign for federal antimargarine legislation. First and most important, dairy industry conditions suffered a downturn. In 1883, butter sold for 19 per pound but dropped the following year to 18 per pound, and in 1885 to 17 per pound. 206 The situation became especially serious in Wisconsin, where prices dropped from 19.2 per pound in 1882 to 14.1 per pound in 1885. 207 At the same time, the value of milk cows dropped by almost a quarter. 208 Large numbers of cows were slaughtered in the Chicago stockyards because they were worth more as carcasses than as milk producers. 209 Second, by 1885 margarine had become a major industry. Estimates of nationwide margarine production in 1886 ranged from two hundred million pounds per year (the dairy industry's figure) 210 to between thirty-two and thirty-five million pounds (a margarine manufacturer's estimate). 211 Whatever the actual figures, margarine production was clearly big business in 1886. Margarine also gained a strong competitive position in the export market during this time. In 1880, approximately forty million pounds of butter were exported as compared with twenty million pounds of margarine. By 1885 their positions were almost perfectly reversed; butter exports had fallen to only approximately twenty-two million pounds while margarine exports had increased to over thirty-seven million [*120] pounds. 212 Decided in June of 1885, the Marx case provided the third and perhaps most immediate stimulus to the dairy industry's federal campaign, convincing industry leaders that they could not rely upon state governments to protect their interests adequately. 213 They required a national strategy as well. Although, as will be noted, 214 federal prohibitory legislation also faced constitutional difficulties, the industry had reason to hope that the federal taxing power could accomplish what the state police power had failed to do in New York. 215 To organize a federal campaign, the American Agricultural and Dairy Association -- successor to the New York organization formed twenty years earlier 216 -- called a national convention of dairymen in New York City early in 1885. 217 Delegates came from twenty-six states and all sectors of the industry. Their numbers included representatives of state governors, delegates from state agricultural societies and boards of agriculture, state and local dairy associations and granges, and representatives of the produce and mercantile exchanges of New York and other cities. 218 Under the leadership of a New York dairyman, the convention agreed to a bold plan of seeking federal legislation designed to suppress the margarine industry. 219 As it emerged from the House Committee on Agriculture, their legislation combined both prohibitory and regulatory aspects. The prohibitory part of the bill involved a tax of ten cents per pound. 220 The tax would raise the price of margarine at least as high as that of creamery butter, destroying margarine's commercial viability. The proposal's regulatory aspect required that margarine be labelled as such. 221 Margarine found to contain ingredients deleterious to human health would be confiscated and forfeited. 222 The bill required manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers of margarine to obtain licenses to carry on their trade, for which they had to pay large fees: $ 600 for manufacturers, $ 480 for wholesalers, and $ 48 for retailers. 223 The bill also imposed [*121] fines and criminal penalties for violations, and charged the Commissioner of Internal Revenue with responsibility for collecting the tax and for prescribing regulations fleshing out the statutory requirements. 224 A sophisticated piece of legislative drafting, the bill drew on prior state legislation, borrowing those features that had been successful and scrapping the parts that had proved ineffective. Consequently, it was cleverly framed to emphasize the dairy industry's asserted public interest rationales for limiting margarine. The labelling requirements were ostensibly designed to deter fraudulent sales of margarine as butter, while the inspection and forfeiture provisions were supposedly intended to deal with the alleged unhealthful conditions of margarine manufacture. The taxing and licensing features could be presented as revenue measures designed to support the costs of enforcing the regulatory provisions. The taxing provisions of the bill also provided a rationale for vesting enforcement responsibility in the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, an official who enjoyed a considerable reputation for vigorous enforcement of the revenue laws. 225 At the same time, the bill seemed reasonably calculated to survive constitutional challenge. The federal government's power to prohibit margarine outright was questionable. For one thing, express prohibition would be subject to the same type of substantive due process objections that had doomed the New York statute in that state's highest court. 226 Perhaps more important, an absolute prohibition on all margarine sales and manufacture would almost certainly have run afoul of the commerce clause as then interpreted. 227 On the other hand, the Supreme Court's decisions suggested that the taxing power provided a broader source of federal authority than the commerce power. 228 The federal government's taxing authority was not limited to matters in interstate commerce. Thus Congress could tax the manufacture and intrastate sale of margarine even if it could not regulate these matters directly under the commerce clause. Moreover, the Supreme Court had already upheld a statute imposing a prohibitory federal tax on state bank notes, 229 suggesting that even a prohibitory margarine tax might be upheld. [*122] B. Congressional Consideration The dairy industry had no difficulty finding willing sponsors for its proposal in the House of Representatives. 230 The political pressures brought to bear by the dairy industry were remarkable for the time and respectable even by the standards of today's Congress. The dairy interests in the various states organized a massive letter-writing campaign, generating over 104,000 petitions for the bill. The most intense pressure, as might be expected, came from the big dairy states: New York (21,923 petitions), Pennsylvania (15,487), Iowa (11,601), Ohio (10,081), Minnesota (8,282), Illinois (7,533), and Wisconsin (6,482). 231 The bill was heavily lobbied by state and local granges, national producer groups such as the National Butter, Cheese and Egg Association, the American Agricultural Association, the American Agricultural and Dairy Association, 232 state and local producer or creamery groups, 233 dairy merchants and produce exchanges, 234 the New York Dairy Commission, 235 a leader of a producers' cartel, 236 and individual factory dairymen. 237 In this manner, many of the dairy organizations described earlier in this Article 238 contributed to the political pressure in favor of the proposed federal statute. The bill's opponents included margarine producers, western cattlemen anxious to protect a market for beef fat, various boards of trade, labor organizations, and cotton producers who wanted to protect an incipient market for cottonseed oil. 239 But unlike the well-organized butter [*123] forces, the promargarine interests found themselves unable to muster a powerful and concerted defense of their product. One company, Armour & Co., which at that time was the largest margarine producer nationwide, organized much of the opposition to the bill. 240 The margarine interests proved ineffective because they had not developed patterns of cooperation and joint action. Aside from their desire to protect the margarine business, livestock owners, cotton growers, and margarine manufacturers shared few interests. The bill's proponents mustered a variety of ostensibly legitimate arguments on its behalf. First, they charged that margarine was a threat to the public health 241 -- an argument that had already been extensively rehearsed in battles with the margarine interests at the state level. The pro-dairy legislators dutifully repeated the familiar slanders about dead animals and Bright's kidney disease. 242 In addition, someone in the pro-dairy camp looked up the various patents for margarine, all of which listed slightly different ingredients to avoid infringing on the original Mege-Mouries process. The ingredients listed in the patents for these different margarines included a variety of revolting and dangerous substances, including nitric acid, sulphuric acid, carbolic acid, and caustic soda. 243 Proponents of the margarine tax read from this list in the congressional debates to suggest that margarine was unhealthful. 244 In fact, however, few of these patents were actually used in margarine production, and most of the offensive ingredients were simply acids used in the processing of the animal fat and formed no part of the substance ultimately purveyed to the public. 245 [*124] Second, proponents urged that the bill was necessary to prevent the fraudulent passing-off of margarine as butter. 246 Although this argument could have supported the labelling provisions, it could not easily justify taxation, the feature most desired by the dairy industry. Further, the bill's proponents did not explain convincingly why state legislation was not the more appropriate means of preventing fraud. Third, proponents urged that the bill was legitimately framed as a revenue measure. 247 The need for extra revenue seemed debatable, however, because the government had enjoyed a surplus the previous year. 248 There was some reason to believe that 1887 would bring a revenue shortfall. 249 Still, a tax of ten cents per pound was unlikely to raise much revenue because it would increase the cost of margarine to the point where it could not compete with butter. Opponents of the measure thus repeatedly denounced the purported revenue justification as sham. 250 Fourth, proponents claimed that the bill was needed to preserve the dairy industry, a "great national industry" and "one of the chief industries of the country." 251 They failed to explain, however, why the dairy industry merited special protection, particularly when protecting the dairy industry would inflict harm on another domestic industry. Opponents charged that the measure was obviously intended to stamp out the margarine industry to protect and benefit the dairy industry. 252 They claimed that such a motive was morally illegitimate and constitutionally suspect. Although proponents usually denied that they intended to enact class legislation designed to protect one domestic industry against competition from another, the charge had considerable substance. A contemporary political scientist, Henry C. Bannard, observed that House and Senate leaders "rushed the bill through, with the avowed determination of enhancing the price of butter for the sole benefit of those engaged in the manufacture of this one article." 253 Even the bill's proponents admitted in candid moments that it constituted class legislation. In the words of Congressman Scott of Pennsylvania, a chief supporter of the bill, "[h]aving done this much for itself without the fostering aid of class legislation, the great farming interest [*125] may rightfully insist upon a hearing when it appeals for protection against an insidious foe whose further advancement must inevitably destroy its chief support." 254 Others were equally frank. One New Yorker remarked that "[t]his oleomargarine business is a bad business . . . and the sooner it is exterminated the better it will be for us." 255 A member from Wisconsin opposed any reduction in the proposed tax, arguing that a lower tax "might not accomplish the object that I am free to say inclines me to the support of the measure under consideration, for I fly the flag of an intent to destroy the manufacture of the noxious compound by taxing it out of existence." 256 Confronted with overwhelming political support for the dairy cause, the margarine interests realized that they could not stop passage of some form of antimargarine legislation. They adopted the strategy of trying to amend the bill to eliminate or drastically reduce its most offensive feature -- the prohibitory tax. 257 On balance, this strategy proved quite successful. The House halved the margarine tax to five cents per pound, 258 and the Senate dropped the tax to two cents per pound. 259 In other respects, however, the bill emerged from Congress much as the dairy industry had proposed, with provisions for labelling, forfeiture, and licensing. It passed the House by a vote of 177 to 101 260 and the Senate by a vote of 37 to 24. 261 The bill was then presented to President Cleveland for his signature. The margarine and butter forces descended on the White House with a vengeance, the former claiming that the bill was the worst sort of class legislation, the latter proclaiming the absolute necessity of the bill as a means of protecting the dairy farmer against ruinous competition from counterfeit butter. 262 Many petitioners did not even bother to disguise their motives as public-spirited; as the President dryly observed, "those on both sides of the question whose advocacy or opposition is based upon [*126] no broader foundation than local or personal interest have outnumbered all the others." 263 One Washington paper, in a humorous editorial, pictured the President listening to a barnyard convention in the White House back lot, describing his sensations as he listened to the cackle of the hens and the lowing of the cows and overheard their discussions of how they would punish him politically if he did not sign the measure. 264 The press showed intense interest in the bill, with speculation rife as to whether the President would sign or veto. 265 Opinion was evenly split between the view that the President favored the bill but was going to veto it, and that he was conscientiously opposed to it but had decided to sign it. 266 Eventually the President signed the bill, issuing an explanation that courageously managed to credit the arguments made by all sides to the controversy. 267 The President acknowledged that if the matter were presented to him as an initial matter he might doubt the need for additional taxes, and he agreed that if the real purpose of the measure were "to destroy, by the use of the taxing power, one industry of our people for the protection and benefit of another," he would doubtless veto the measure. 268 But, said the President, in this context his function involved deference to a coordinate branch of government, and he was not entitled to indulge any suspicions of improper motives on Congress' part. After bowing to the margarine forces, the President then paid his respects to the butter interests by mouthing the usual platitudes about hard-working farmers and the virtues of butterfat. 269 One waggish newspaper declined a reader's request that the President's message be reproduced in full, observing that the full text could be summarized as follows: "For many obvious reasons this bill should not become a law. I therefore return it approved to the body in which it originated." 270 C. The 1886 Statute in Perspective Prosaic as it may have been in subject matter, the Margarine Tax Act of 1886 represents something of a watershed in American politics. It was among the first instances of federal legislation in which one domestic industry sought to enlist the government's coercive power to stamp out [*127] competition from another domestic industry. The involvement of smaller banks in Andrew Jackson's campaign to abolish the Second Bank of the United States might provide the closest analogy. 271 That campaign, however, was not spearheaded by smaller banks as an organized group. 272 Tariff legislation, with its long history of discrimination against foreign industry for the protection of domestic interests offers another analogy. 273 But tariff laws had always been directed against foreign interests, and are thus distinguishable from a statute designed to protect one domestic industry against competition from another. The margarine tax also bore a certain resemblance to the various types of federal sumptuary legislation that discriminated against items or activities considered to be morally questionable, such as alcohol and tobacco. 274 But this type of legislation targeted products that were at least arguably harmful in their own right. In the case of margarine, once the bogus health argument was put aside, the only harm involved was the weakening of the butter market. Advocates of the bill also cited laws banning counterfeit currency 275 -- a spurious analogy, at best, to a proposal taxing margarine (or "counterfeit butter") out of existence. The bill's opponents repeatedly emphasized its unusual nature. 276 They warned that if the statute were enacted, the principle of protection would have no logical stopping place. 277 If the dairy industry could be [*128] protected against margarine, then cotton might seek protection against wool, or one grade of butter against another grade of butter. As the bill approached passage, its opponents sought to delay matters by introducing facetious amendments for the protection of various items of commerce against competition by new technology. One Congressman proposed to impose a punitive tax on the manufacture and sale of glass eggs, so "that the great American hen may be properly protected." 278 Although these remarks were humorous, they served the serious purpose of illustrating the effects of protecting one domestic industry against competition from another more technologically advanced industry, if taken to its logical conclusion. These dangers were not merely theoretical. Political scientist Henry C. Bannard warned that legislation of this sort was already gaining favor in state legislatures. A bill introduced into the Ohio legislature would have prohibited the consumption of beef slaughtered and dressed outside the state. In Illinois, the coopers' union sought the passage of legislation prohibiting the use of second-hand flour barrels and butter firkins. 279 Once lawmakers opened the Pandora's box of domestic protection, the types of legislation sought would be limitless. If protectionist legislation of this sort were allowed, the power of special interest political lobbies would obviously be greatly enhanced. Several members of Congress commented on the power that the special interests had already gained in the legislative process. As one Congressman remarked: I am amazed, I lack words to express my astonishment, that the American Congress could be absolutely converted, deliberately converted, into a great wrestling-ground, a gymnasium where all the business athletes of the country come to wrestle for supremacy, a prize-ring where jobbers come to blows and where the big jobs knock the little jobs out." 280 Members of Congress understood that the sudden emergence of the dairy lobby represented something new in American politics. Several members lamented the fact that power was seeping away from members who voted according to their individual consciences to groups of constituents who pressured their representatives. Senator Vance was not far from the mark when he punned that "butter, like conscience, [had] made [*129] cowherds of them all." 281 Another Senator who voted for the measure said that "it is an outrageous bill, but we have got to vote for it. We do so in the hope and belief that the Supreme Court will declare it unconstitutional." 282 Political scientist Henry Bannard agreed that this legislation was unprecedented, observing that "[t]his enactment . . . marks a new era in our political history. It widens the sphere of sumptuary legislation, emphasizes the interference theory of government, and extends the doctrine of protection to domains never before reached in our history." 283 As one of the first successful efforts by one domestic industry to obtain federal legislative protection against competition from another, the margarine tax statute of 1886 marks the birth of the modern special interest state. The period between 1875 and 1900 constituted the great formative era of industrial interest groups: meat packers, 284 cattlemen, 285 wool growers, 286 butchers, 287 coopers, 288 and many other industrial groups formed associations during this period, all of them dedicated to protecting their markets from competition through the application of government force. Before 1875, interest groups in the modern sense were unusual; after 1900 they were ubiquitous. Why was this quarter-century the formative period for modern political lobbies? Two forces may have produced the growth of special interest groups: first, the rapid industrialization of the American economy during this period, which disrupted established livelihoods and occupations; 289 and second, the return to normalcy following the Civil War and Reconstruction, which encouraged a focus on narrow self-interest that had been temporarily set aside during the war's cataclysmic events. The growth of special interest politics during this period is a topic that might usefully be addressed in a study broader in scope than this Article. CONCLUSION The dairy industry's early campaign against margarine illustrates the complex interplay of markets, technology, politics, and law in American [*130] society of the time. Among the first efforts by a domestic industry to stamp out competition from another domestic industry, the story of that campaign presents a useful case history for the theory of public choice. This Article has analyzed the early antimargarine battles to explore three fundamental questions. First, given organizational costs and free-rider effects, how did a mass of five million dairy farmers and many thousands of factory owners and merchants coalesce so quickly into a potent political interest group? This Article shows that the industry succeeded in forging an effective lobby by drawing on a well-developed set of preexisting institutions, such as factory owners, state and local dairy associations, boards of trade and produce exchanges, and at least one producers' cartel, which had been formed for nonpolitical purposes such as stimulating demand for dairy products or correcting market failures. Second, how did the basic structural features of the American political system -- federalism and separation of powers -- affect the growth and development of special interest lobbies? The Article demonstrates that federalism generally facilitated interest group activity, because states could act as laboratories for the development of anticompetitive legislation, and because the interest group could achieve two layers of protection in a federal system. The effect of federalism was not unambiguous, however, because states could provide havens for margarine manufacture and because two levels of protection may have required greater resources than a unitary system. On the other hand, separation of powers generally hindered interest group activity because the group seeking protection had to enlist the active cooperation of three separate branches of government. Again, however, the effect was not unambiguous because the splintering of government authority into three branches allowed the interest group to concentrate its fire on the branch where the group's political resources were likely to be most influential. Third, how did economic conditions in the industry affect the level of interest group activity? This Article suggests that the level of interest group activity was generally higher during depressed times than during prosperous times. The dairy industry initiated its antimargarine campaigns during times of falling butter prices: 1877 (first-generation state statutes), 1884 (second-generation state statutes), and 1886 (the federal statute). The industry did not initiate campaigns in times of relatively high butter prices (1874-77, 1881-83), even though margarine sales were also high during these periods. Once a campaign had been initiated, however, the industry was able to sustain some momentum even in prosperous times, as demonstrated by the continuous enactment of first-generation statutes in various states between 1881 and 1883. These observations, of course, are based on events in a single industry [*131] during a limited time frame. The Article, then, leaves open whether they hold true for other industries and other time periods. How these theories fare in other situations may provide a potentially fruitful subject for further research. FOOTNOTES: n1. G. RANKIN, WILLIAM DEMPSTER HOARD 180 (1925) (quoting William Dempster Hoard, Governor of Wisconsin from 1888 to 1891 and a leading nineteenth-century dairyman). n2. Surprisingly, there appears to be no general history of the margarine controversy. The matter is treated in passing in E. LAMPARD, THE RISE OF THE DAIRY INDUSTRY IN WISCONSIN: A STUDY OF AGRICULTURAL CHANGE 1820-1920, at 257-66 (1963). This outstanding work, however, focuses only on the controversy's aspects affecting Wisconsin dairy interests. A few works discuss the controversy in general comparisons of margarine and butter. See W. PABST, BUTTER AND OLEOMARGARINE: AN ANALYSIS OF COMPETING COMMODITIES (Studies in History, Economics and Public Law No. 427, 1937); K. SNODGRASS, MARGARINE AS A BUTTER SUBSTITUTE (Fats and Oils Studies No. 4, 1930); E. WIEST, THE BUTTER INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES (Studies in History, Economics and Public Law No. 165, 1916); see also W. MCCUNE, THE FARM BLOC (1943) (describing the dairy lobby's campaign against margarine in the early 1940s); M. OKUN, FAIR PLAY IN THE MARKETPLACE 250-86 (1986) (describing aspects of the controversy relevant to the battle over pure food and drug laws, especially in New York); S. RIEPMA, THE STORY OF MARGARINE (1970) (reviewing the subject in a general treatise on margarine as a commodity from a promargarine perspective). A few law review articles examine the matter from the standpoint of legal doctrine. See Storke, Oleomargarine and the Law, 18 ROCKY MTN. L. REV. 79 (1946); Note, Oleomargarine and the Constitution, 10 MONT. L. REV. 46 (1949); Note, The Oleomargarine Controversy, 33 VA. L. REV. 631 (1947). A useful compendium of margarine statutes is found in S. Zwick, The Effects of Certain Supreme Court Decisions upon State Margarine Policies (1950) (unpublished master's dissertation). n3. Oleomargarine Act of 1886, ch. 840, 24 Stat. 209. See infra text accompanying notes 203-270. The dairy industry's campaign against butterfat substitutes lasted from the 1870s through the 1950s (and even into the 1960s in a few major dairy states). When the legislation described in this Article proved ineffective, the dairy industry organized a new campaign at both the state and federal levels intended to discourage margarine sales by regulating the product's color, either by forbidding yellow margarine or by mandating that margarine be colored pink. See K. SNODGRASS, supra note 2, at 90-91. The federal Oleomargarine Act of 1902, ch. 784, 32 Stat. 193, imposed a prohibitive tax on colored margarine, thus effectively requiring that margarine sold in interstate commerce remain in its "natural" (white) color. This law hampered the margarine industry because consumers would not buy white margarine. However, the industry circumvented these "white" laws by using special fats that gave margarine a naturally yellow tinge, by including small dye packages in the bricks for use in coloring margarine at home, and at least initially by simply disobeying the federal statute. See K. SNODGRASS, supra note 2 at 62-76; 1911 COMM'R ANN. REP. 17-19. Additionally, an omitted comma in the 1902 statute, coupled with the development of hydrogenation as a technique for solidifying vegetable oils, allowed the development of a huge industry in margarine made from coconut oil, a product not subject to the federal statute and which therefore could be sold in colored form. K. SNODGRASS, supra note 2, at 78-84. Congress brought "nut" margarine within the federal statute in 1930. Act of July 10, 1930, ch. 882, 46 Stat. 1022. Congress closed the loophole for "naturally" colored margarine in 1931. Act of Mar. 4, 1931, ch. 520, 46 Stat. 1549. Meanwhile, disastrous Depression conditions stimulated a new round of repressive state legislation in the form of heavy margarine taxes. See Storke, supra note 2, at 84. The political equilibrium changed dramatically in the following years. Technological developments permitted cottonseed and soybean oils to become important ingredients in margarine by the late 1930s, see S. RIEPMA, supra note 2, at 124-26, creating a powerful domestic constituency in favor of margarine. Butter shortages during the Second World War led to increasing consumer complaints about restrictive margarine legislation. Id. Public interest groups lobbied for repeal of the margarine laws. Id. After a protracted battle, Congress repealed the federal oleomargarine tax in 1950. Act of Mar. 16, 1950, ch. 61, 64 Stat. 20. Margarine legislation was also repealed or judicially invalidated in most states, with the last holdout, Wisconsin, repealing its statute in 1967. Act of May 31, 1967, ch. 42, 1967 Wis. Laws 44. Today, margarine outsells butter by more than two to one. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS, U.S. DEPT. OF COMMERCE, STATISTICAL ABSTRACT OF THE UNITED STATES 114 (1988) (10.8 pounds of margarine and 4.9 pounds of butter consumed per capita in 1985). In addition to battling against margarine, the dairy industry stoutly resisted competition from milkfat substitutes in the fluid milk and cheese markets. Congress imposed a prohibitive tax on "filled cheese" (skimmed-milk cheese laced with vegetable oil) in 1896, Act of June 6, 1896, ch. 337, 29 Stat. 253, and outlawed the sale of "filled milk" (evaporated skim milk laced with vegetable oil) in 1923, Filled Milk Act of 1923, 21 U.S.C. ?? 61-64. The federal filled-cheese statute was repealed in 1974. Act of Oct. 26, 1974, ? 3, 88 Stat. 1466. In addition, despite having been twice upheld by the Supreme Court, see Carolene Products Co. v. United States, 323 U.S. 18 (1944), United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144 (1938), the filled-milk statute has been declared unconstitutional by a federal district court. Milnot Co. v. Richardson, 350 F.Supp. 221 (S.D.Ill. 1972). It is no longer enforced. See Miller, The True Story of Carolene Products, 1987 SUP. CT. REV. 397 (1987); Strong, A Post-Script to Carolene Products, 5 CONST. COMM. 185 (1988). n4. For introductions to public choice theory see I. MCLEAN, PUBLIC CHOICE: AN INTRODUCTION (1987); D. MUELLER, PUBLIC CHOICE (1979). Mueller defines public choice as "the economic study of nonmarket decisionmaking, or simply the application of economics to political science." D. MUELLER, supra, at 1; see also Brennan & Buchanan, Is Public Choice Immoral? The Case for the "Nobel" Lie, 74 VA. L. REV. 179, 179 (1988) ("the application of the theoretical method and techniques of modern economics to the study of political processes"); Tollison, Public Choice and Legislation, 74 VA. L. REV. 339, 339 (1988) ("economic theory of legislation"); J. Macey, Public Choice: The Theory of the Firm and the Theory of Market Exchange (1988) (unpublished manuscript) ("the application of game theory and microeconomic analysis to the production of law by legislatures, regulatory a agencies and courts"). n5. In the words of Robert D. Tollison, a leading public choice theorist: A basic principle as well as a basic conundrum underlies the demand for legislation. The principle is that groups who can organize for less than one dollar in order to obtain one dollar of benefits from legislation will be the effective demanders of laws. The conundrum is that economists have little idea of how successful, cost-effective interest groups are formed. That is, how do groups overcome free rider problems and organize for collective action so as to be able to seek one dollar for less than one dollar? The plain truth is that economists know very little about the dynamics of group formation and action. Tollison, supra note 4, at 341-42 (footnote omitted). n6. A free rider is someone who takes advantage of the beneficial activities of others but who does not contribute her fair share to the cost of these activities. A standard example is the sailor at sea who navigates with the help of a lighthouse on shore, the upkeep of which is paid by others. For exposition, see D. MUELLER, supra note 4, at 14-18. n7. For accounts of the economic theory of groups, see M. OLSON, THE LOGIC OF COLLECTIVE ACTION: PUBLIC GOODS AND THE THEORY OF GROUPS 53-65 (1965); Stigler, Free Riders and Collective Action: An Appendix to Theories of Economic Regulation, 5 BELL J. ECON. & MGMT. SCI. 359 (1974); Stigler, The Theory of Economic Regulation, 2 BELL J. ECON. & MGMT. SCI. 3 (1971). n8. See New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U.S. 262, 310-11 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting) ("It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country."). n9. See Miller, supra note 3, at j26-27 (1987) (discussing the correlation between economic conditions and the dairy industry's campaign against filled milk). n10. For a classic discussion of how free-rider problems can interfere with effective political organization, see M. OLSON, supra note 7. n11. In contrast, today's farm lobby recently obtained the most costly federal farm subsidies in history during a period of overall retrenchment in government spending. See Schneider, Cost of Farm Law Might be Double Original Estimate, N.Y. Times, July 22, 1986, at 1, col. 4 (cost of new farm legislation might reach $ 35 billion in fiscal year 1986). n12. See J. WILLIAMS, THE EXPANSION OF RURAL LIFE 10-11 (1926) (discussing "sentiment of liberty" among American farmers in 1874, which included a "sentiment of economic independence" and a "sentiment for freedom from political regulation, an attitude of free enterprise"). Leaders of the dairy industry preached "an austere discipline of technical and intellectual fitness for a competitive universe in which the only sure token of grace was 'extra' prices." E. LAMPARD, supra note 2, at 340. n13. See E. LAMPARD, supra note 2, at 338-39. n14. E. WIEST, supra note 2, at 234. This date is only an estimate; the actual point at which commercial margarine production started in the United States is not precisely known. S. RIEPMA, supra note 2, at 110. n15. See J. SCHLEBECKER, A HISTORY OF AMERICAN DAIRYING 4 (1967); Testimony Taken Before the Senate Comm. on Agriculture and Forestry in Regard to the Manufacture and Sale of Imitation Dairy Products, 49th Cong., 1st Sess. 2 (1886) [hereinafter 1886 Hearings] (statement of Joseph H. Reall, President of the American Agricultural and Dairy Association). n16. See U.S. DEP'T OF JUSTICE, MILK MARKETING: A REPORT TO THE TASK FORCE ON ANTITRUST IMMUNITIES 19 (1977) [hereinafter JUSTICE REPORT]. n17. See id. at 19-20. n18. See 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 256 (statement of H. W. Henshaw). n19. See E. GUTHRIE, THE BOOK OF BUTTER: A TEXT ON THE NATURE, MANUFACTURE AND MARKETING OF THE PRODUCT 188 (1923). n20. See JUSTICE REPORT, supra note 16, at 20-21. n21. Id. at 19. n22. 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 3 (remarks of L. I. Seaman). n23. See E. WIEST, supra note 2, at 78 (figures for 1870). n24. See 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 4 (Minnesota); E. LAMPARD, supra note 2, at 47-56 (Wisconsin); E. WIEST, supra note 2, at 78. n25. E. LAMPARD, supra note 2, at 94. n26. See id. at 97-98. n27. See id. at 94-96. n28. See E. WIEST, supra note 2, at 11-13. n29. E. LAMPARD, supra note 2, at 204; E. WIEST, supra note 2, at 40. Perhaps for this reason, creameries were relatively small throughout the nineteenth century. See E. GUTHRIE, supra note 19, at 4. n30. E. LAMPARD, supra note 2, at 110; see E. WIEST, supra note 2, at 20. n31. See E. GUTHRIE, supra note 19, at 57; E. LAMPARD, supra note 2, at 204-08. n32. See E. GUTHRIE, supra note 19, at 54-55; W. PABST, supra note 2, at 14-15. n33. See J. SCHLEBECKER, supra note 15, at 25-26; E. WIEST, supra note 2, at 40. The creamery's advantages in separation technology were reduced a few years later by the introduction of hand separators suitable for use on the farm. See E. GUTHRIE, supra note 19, at 65; E. WIEST, supra note 2, at 28-29. n34. See E. GUTHRIE, supra note 19, at 189; E. WIEST, supra note 2, at 16; 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 4 (remarks of L. I. Seaman). n35. E. LAMPARD, supra note 2, at 111. n36. See E. WIEST, supra note 2, at 39 (tying growth of factory system to the introduction of power and hand separators, extension of railroad service, and superior quality of creamery butter). n37. E. LAMPARD, supra note 2, app. at 453. n38. See E. WIEST, supra note 2, at 38. n39. See E. LAMPARD, supra note 2, at 101-05 (describing the importance of factory owners to the growth of Wisconsin dairying). n40. Id. at 97-99, 105. n41. See id. at 98-99. n42. Factory dairymen needed to purchase a fairly wide variety of equipment that could not realistically be turned to other uses. See E. GUTHRIE, supra note 19, at 54-83 (separators), 123-26 (power churns), 155-59 (cutters), 183-85 (cold storage facilities). n43. E. LAMPARD, supra note 2, at 104-46. n44. See id. at 121. n45. See J. DOLL, V. RHODES & J. WEST, ECONOMICS OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION, MARKETS AND POLICY 263-82 (1968). n46. In the twentieth century, by contrast, "overproduction" typically describes the surplus that can be expected to accompany government price support programs for farm products. See generally THE OVERPRODUCTION TRAP IN U.S. AGRICULTURE (G. Johnson & R. Ruance eds. 1972). n47. [SEE ILLUSTRATION IN ORIGINAL] n48. See 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 25 (statement of W. P. Richardson) (complaining that competition from other milk producers had disrupted a producers' cartel). n49. See generally G. STIGLER, THE THEORY OF PRICE 230-37 (1966). n50. See infra notes 63-64 and accompanying text. n51. See E. GUTHRIE, supra note 19, at 84-87. n52. See E. LAMPARD, supra note 2, at 197-202; J. SCHLEBECKER, supra note 15, at 31. Dairy leaders unanimously agreed ont he revolutionary effects of the Babcock test. In the words of William Dempster Hoard, the test came "none too soon to enable some dairymen to correct certain practices of which they had been guilty and which, if continued, would have barred them from passing through the portals where Saint Peter stands as the faithful sentinel." G. RANKIN, supra note 1, at 161. n53. See E. GUTHRIE, supra note 19, at 86 (cream first graded in 1905). n54. The spoilage problem became particularly acute in the export market for cheese, where domestic manufacturers had taken to "filling" cheese made from skim milk with various animal or vegetable fats. Filled cheese, which could not readily be distinguished from ordinary cheese, spoiled much more rapidly than cheese made from whole milk, and often turned during the voyage to European markets. See E. LAMPARD, supra note 2, at 245-48. n55. Akerlof, The Market for "Lemons": Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism, 84 Q.J. ECON. 488 (1970). n56. E. WIEST, supra note 2, at 25. n57. See id. at 128-29. Price differentials based on geographic origin were often pronounced. In 1877, for example, butter from Elgin, Illinois sold for 38 to 40 per pound, while the best New York butter sold for only 30 to 33 per pound. Id. at 129. Butter from other areas sold for even less. n58. Akerlof, supra note 55, at 488. n59. E. LAMPARD, supra note 2, at 99; M. OKUN, supra note 2, at 192-93; E. WIEST, supra note 2, at 25. n60. See Act of June 6, 1896, ch. 337, 29 Stat. 253 (regulation and taxation of filled cheese). n61. E. GUTHRIE, supra note 19, at 217; E. WIEST, supra note 2, at 33-34 (defining "overrun" as the increase of finished butter attributable to water and substances other than fat). n62. See Oleomargarine: Hearings Before the House Comm. on Agriculture, 56th Cong., 1st Sess. 196 (1900) [hereinafter 1900 House Hearings], reprinted in The Oleomargarine Bill: Hearings on H.R. 3717 Before the Senate Comm. on Agriculture and Forestry, 56th Cong., 2d Sess. 703 (1901). n63. See id. n64. See E. GUTHRIE, supra note 19, at 202. n65. On renovated butter, see E. GUTHRIE, supra note 19, at 216-18; E. WIEST, supra note 2, at 229-34. n66. For example, farmers who delivered whole milk to creameries received a pro rata share of a common pool of skim milk which they typically fed to livestock. This skim milk was often of degraded or inferior quality and was sometimes infected with tuberculosis or other diseases. See E. WIEST, supra note 2, at 28, 35-36. The introduction of a separator suitable for farm use in the 1890s mitigated this particular problem. See id. at 35-36; T. PIRTLE, HISTORY OF THE DAIRY INDUSTRY 82-83 (1926). n67. See JUSTICE REPORT, supra note 16, at 19; E. WIEST, supra note 2, at 159. n68. See E. WIEST, supra note 2, at 159. n69. See Akerlof, supra note 55, at 488-89. n70. Gresham's Law states that bad money tends to drive out good money in an economy where both are in use. See id. at 489. As Akerlof observes, the analogy to Gresham's Law is not precise because money users know which is bad money and which is good, whereas purchasers of goods subject to severe quality uncertainty are not able to distinguish between good and poor quality commodities. Id. at 490. n71. Id. at 488. n72. See E. LAMPARD, supra note 2, at 124-25 (describing the growth of small local groups into Wisconsin dairy associations). n73. See, e.g., E. GUTHRIE, supra note 19, at 189 (describing the influence of dairy associations in developing grading systems for butter). n74. E. LAMPARD, supra note 2, at 122. n75. E. WIEST, supra note 2, at 79. n76. Id. at 101. n77. E. LAMPARD, supra note 2, at 104. n78. See, e.g., 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 1 (mentioning the Holstein Breeders Association). n79. See E. LAMPARD, supra note 2, at 122-25; 128-29. n80. See E. WIEST, supra note 2, at 128. n81. See T. PIRTLE, supra note 66, at 140-41. n82. Hoard is beatified in G. RANKIN, supra note 1. The Jefferson County Union started publication in 1870. Hoard later established the most influential national journal for the dairy industry, Hoard's Dairyman, which first appeared in 1885. The success of Hoard's Dairyman provides some measure of the growing power of the dairy lobby: its circulation was a mere 700 in 1885, over 11,000 in 1892, and nearly 70,000 by 1918. E. LAMPARD, supra note 2, at 341. n83. See G. RANKIN, supra note 1, at 204. n84. For example, in 1864 the New York State Cheese Manufacturers' Association obtained a law prohibiting dilution of milk by farmers supplying cheese factories. E. WIEST, supra note 2, at 25 n.2. n85. See E. GUTHRIE, supra note 19, at 194-95; 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 130. n86. E. GUTHRIE, supra note 19, at 195. n87. Id. at 198-200. n88. Id. at 200. n89. See 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 25 (statement of W. P. Richardson, President, Orange County Milk Producers' Association). n90. See M. OKUN, supra note 2, at 199. n91. 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 25 (statement of W. P. Richardson). n92. See M. OKUN, supra note 2, at 200. n93. S. RIEPMA, supra note 2, at 7-8; M. SCHWITZER, MARGARINE AND OTHER FOOD FATS: THEIR HISTORY, PRODUCTION AND USE 60 (1956); K. SNODGRASS, supra note 2, at 125-26; Van Alphen, Hippolyte Mege Mouries, in MARGARINE: AN ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND SCIENTIFIC HISTORY 1869-1969 5, 6-7 (J. Van Stuyvenberg ed. 1969). Mege-Mouries began his research with the bizarre hypothesis that melting the fatty tissue of cow udders would produce the basic fat material of butter. E. LAMPARD, supra note 2, at 257-58. He was awarded a prize by Napoleon III for developing the best butter substitute. M. SCHWITZER, supra, at 59; K. SNODGRASS, supra note 2, at 125. n94. S. RIEPMA, supra note 2, at 6-7; K. SNODGRASS, supra note 2, at 129. n95. See M. OKUN, supra note 2, at 252-53. n96. For a comparison of margarine and butter prices between 1877 and 1886, see infra notes 117-119 and accompanying text. n97. M. OKUN, supra note 2, at 252; W. PABST, supra note 2, at 19; Note, The Oleomargarine Controversy, supra note 2, at 632. n98. See W. PABST, supra note 2, at 19. n99. E. LAMPARD, supra note 2, at 258. n100. See K. SNODGRASS, supra note 2, at 132-33. n101. See id.; W. PABST, supra note 2, at 20. n102. See W. PABST, supra note 2, at 21. n103. See K. SNODGRASS, supra note 2, at 134-36; E. WIEST, supra note 2, at 221. n104. For example, Armour & Co., the great Chicago packing house, was among the biggest margarine manufacturers at the time. See 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 102 (statement of George H. Webster); id. at 224-27. The United States Dairy Company was affiliated with the Commercial Manufacturing Company, which was the largest company in the United States, according to one witness at the Senate hearings. See M. OKUN, supra note 2, at 252; 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 146 (statement of James H. Seymour). United States Dairy Company was also linked with H.K. and F.B. Thurber & Co., the nation's largest wholesale grocer. See M. OKUN, supra note 2, at 100, 252. n105. In 1904, the average value of product per creamery was $ 24,000, compared with $ 400,000 for margarine factories. W. PABST, supra note 2, at 22. Although data are not available for earlier years, the discrepancy was probably larger before 1886. Dairy farms, of course, were even smaller operations than creameries. See supra notes 16-17 and accompanying text. n106. See 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 105 (statement of George H. Webster) (noting that there were about thirty margarine producers nationwide); supra notes 99-102 and accompanying text. n107. The advantage was pronounced by 1878 and almost certainly existed five years earlier. See E. LAMPARD, supra note 2, at 110-11. n108. See E. WIEST, supra note 2, at 235 (describing competition between oleomargarine and cheaper grades of butter). n109. See E. LAMPARD, supra note 2, at 258. A Wisconsin factory owner declared with apparent pleasure that margarine was "giving better satisfaction than most dairy butter as now made," and predicted that unless dairy (farm) butter improved, margarine would drive it off the market. Id. n110. Guthrie reports wholesale butter prices of 14.75 per pound in 1861 and 44.5 per pound in 1866. E. GUTHRIE, supra note 19, at 199. n111. Id. n112. E. LAMPARD, supra note 2, at 455. n113. Id. n114. [SEE ILLUSTRATION IN ORIGINAL] n115. For analysis of demand cross-elasticities between margarine and butter, see E. WIEST, supra note 2, at 206-08. n116. M. TWAIN, LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI 328-29 (1923). n117. E. LAMPARD, supra note 2, at 455. n118. Id. n119. Source: 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 184-85. n120. See supra note 114. n121. See W. PABST, supra note 2, at 30; see also M. OKUN, supra note 2, at 255-56. n122. See M. Okun, supra note 2, at 252. n123. Act of June 5, 1877, ch. 415, 1877 N.Y. Laws 441. The title of the New York statute was "An act for the protection of dairymen, and to prevent deception in sales of butter." Id. See also M. OKUN, supra note 2, at 254-55. n124. Act of Apr. 28, 1877, 1877 Mo. Laws 319. Although the Missouri statute passed the legislature before the New York law, New York's law was approved and became effective a few weeks earlier than the one passed by Missouri. See id.; supra note 123. n125. Act of Mar. 26, 1878, ch. 352, 1877-78 Cal. Stat. 535. n126. Act of Mar. 27, 1878, ch. 121, 1878 Conn. Pub. Acts 337. n127. Act of Apr. 5, 1878, ch. 493, 1878 Md. Laws 826. n128. Act of Apr. 3, 1878, ch. 106, 1878 Mass. Acts 70. n129. Act of May 15, 1878, 1878 Ohio Laws 558. n130. Act of May 22, 1878, No. 112, 1878 Pa. Laws 87. The Pennsylvania law was submitted for advance approval to organizations such as the Solebury Farmers' Club, the Bucks County Agricultural Society, and the Doylestown Agricultural and Mechanics Institute. E. WIEST, supra note 2, at 237. n131. Act of Feb. 10, 1879, ch. 154, 16 Del. Laws 223. n132. Act of May 31, 1879, 1879 Ill. Laws 95. n133. Act of Mar. 24, 1879, ch. 169, 1879 Tenn. Acts 212. n134. See Act of Apr. 2, 1885, No. 127, 1885 Ark. Acts 204; Act of Apr. 6, 1885, 1885 Colo. Sess. Laws 282; Act of Mar. 10, 1885, ch. 64, ?? 3-7, 1885 Dakota Laws 110; Act of Feb. 17, 1881, ch. 3280, No. 62, 1881 Fla. Laws 84; Act of Sept. 21, 1883, No. 261, 1882-83 Ga. Laws 124; Act of Jan. 27, 1885, 1884-85 Idaho Sess. Laws 61; Act of Mar. 3, 1883, ch. 62, 1883 Ind. Acts 78; Act of Mar. 12, 1880, ch. 39, 1880 Iowa Acts 34; Act of Feb. 28, 1883, ch. 154, 1883 Me. Acts 125; Act of June 10, 1881, No. 254, 1881 Mich. Pub. Acts 346; Act of Mar. 2, 1881, ch. 133, 1881 Minn. Laws 175; Act of Mar. 9, 1882, ch. 50, 1882 Miss. Laws 85; Act of Mar. 10, 1885, 1885 Mont. Laws 51; Act of Feb. 20, 1883, ch. 53, 1883 Neb. Laws 239; Act of Feb. 4, 1881, ch. 14, 1881 Nev. Stat. 24; Act of Aug. 11, 1881, ch. 57, 1881 N.H. Laws 476; Act of Feb. 21, 1884, ch. 15, 1884 N.J. Laws 24; Act of Feb. 25, 1885, 1885 Or. Laws 127; Act of June 8, 1880, ch. 829, 1880 R.I. Acts & Resolves 8; Act of Feb. 10, 1880, ch. 64, 1879-80 Va. Acts 49; Act of Nov. 25, 1884, No. 88, 1884 Vt. Laws 82; Act of Feb. 4, 1886, 1885-86 Wash. Laws 118; Act of Mar. 3, 1881, ch. 40, 1881 Wis. Laws 39. n135. See K. SNODGRASS, supra note 2, at 89-90. n136. Act of Mar. 3, 1881, ch. 40, 1881 Wis. Laws 39. n137. See, e.g., Act of Sept. 21, 1883, No. 261, 1882-83 Ga. Laws 124. n138. The economic justification for these statutes can be rephrased in modern terminology using Akerlof's "lemons" model, discussed at supra notes 55-71 and accompanying text. According to Akerlof's scenario, some merchants who knew that consumers could not easily tell the difference between butter and margarine would palm off margarine as butter. Consumers, however, would come to realize that they were likely to receive margarine rather than butter and, accordingly, would lower the amount they were willing to pay for any table spread or shortening agent. As the market price went down, butter would be driven off the market, to be replaced by margarine. Eventually consumers who desired to purchase butter would be unable to do so. This scenario of market breakdown provides a solid contemporary economic justification of the first-generation statutes (assuming the accuracy of the factual premises that consumers could not easily distinguish butter and margarine and that some of them would be willing to pay premium prices for genuine butter). n139. See, e.g., 17 CONG. REC. 4894 (1886) (remarks of Rep. Millard); id. at 4901 (remarks of Rep. Frederick). n140. See, e.g., 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 7 (remarks of L.I. Seaman) ("[T]here appear to be so many milk-and-water judges on the bench, who seem to regard the violation of the [margarine] law in the light that they do some other unimportant violations of it, that it is an exception when a man is fined even."). n141. One of the earliest margarine prosecutions in New York fell apart when the experts failed to agree on whether the chief exhibit was margarine or butter. M. OKUN, supra note 2, at 256. See also 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 9 (remarks of Gardiner B. Chapin). n142. See 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 9 (remarks of Gardiner B. Chapin (state antimargarine laws are "not generally executed at all"); id. at 11 (remarks of James Hughes); id. at 13 (remarks of Victor E. Piollet) n143. See 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 7 (remarks of L.I. Seaman) ("These people violate the law, and then when they are arrested and convicted they pay the fine of $ 100 and go back and repeat the offense, and yet make money by it"); id. at 11 (remarks of James Hughes). n144. See generally Becker, Crime and Punishment: An Economic Analysis, 76 J. POL. ECON. 169 (1968) (discussing the relationship between frequency of enforcement and size of sanction in deterring crime); Stigler, The Optimum Enforcement of the Laws, 78 J. POL. ECON. 526 (1970) (discussing the conditions for optimum enforcement in terms of costs of enforcement and costs of violations). n145. See 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 8-9 (remarks of Gardiner B. Chapin). n146. See id. at 184-85. n147. See id. n148. The industry did, however, continue to press for labelling legislation in additional states, see supra note 134, and did make desultory efforts to obtain federal protection, see infra notes 204-205. n149. See 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 27 (remarks of S. P. Hibbard) (dairying a prosperous business in 1880 and part of 1881). At least one industry representative testified in 1886 that business had been depressed for a number of years prior to 1883, but the statement refers to special conditions in the New York fluid milk market where dealers had apparently formed a buyers' cartel to drive prices down. See 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 25 (statement of W. P. Richardson). n150. [SEE ILLUSTRATION IN ORIGINAL] n151. See id. and accompanying text. n152. See id. n153. See id. n154. See supra note 114. n155. See id. n156. See 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 25-26 (statement of W. P. Richardson) ("depression in the butter counties"); id. at 28 (statement of S. P. Hibbard); id. at 31-33 (statement of G. W. Martin). n157. Margarine fell from 15 per pound in 1883 to 11 per pound in 1886, probably reflecting reduced demand caused by lower butter prices. See supra note 119 and accompanying text. n158. Pennsylvania's prohibitory statute, enacted in 1885, was typical. It provided in pertinent part that "no person . . . shall manufacture out of any oleaginous substance . . . any article designed to take the place of butter . . . produced from pure unadulterated milk, or cream from the same . . . nor shall sell or offer for sale, or have in his . . . possession with intent to sell the same as an article of food." Act of May 21, 1885, No. 25, 1885 Pa. Laws 22. n159. Act of Mar. 3, 1885, ch. 297, 1885 Me. Acts 247. n160. Act of June 12, 1885, no. 186, 1885 Mich. Pub. Acts 256. n161. Act of Mar. 5, 1885, ch. 149, 1885 Minn. Laws 189. n162. Act of Mar. 24, 1881, 1881 Mo. Laws 120. n163. Act of May 5, 1884, ch. CXCIV, 1884 N.J. Laws 289. n164. Act of Apr. 24, 1884, ch. 202, 1884 N.Y. Laws 255. n165. Act of Apr. 27, 1885, no. 705, 1885 Ohio Laws 159. n166. Act of May 21, 1885, supra note 158. n167. Act of Apr. 8, 1885, ch. 361, 1885 Wis. Laws 333. n168. Act of Aug. 26, 1885, ch. 68, 1885 N.H. Laws 269. n169. Butter Produced States Population (Pounds) Illinois 3,077,871 53,657,943 Indiana 1,978,301 37,377,797 Iowa 1,624,615 55,481,958 Kansas 996,096 21,671,762 Michigan 1,636,937 38,821,890 Minnesota 780,773 19,161,385 Missouri 2,168,380 28,572,124 New York 5,082,871 111,922,423 Ohio 3,198,062 67,634,263 n170. Act of Apr. 29, 1884, ch. 202, ? 9, 1884 N.Y. Laws 255, 257. n171. Id. The state appropriated $ 30,000 a year for the dairy commission. Id. In two years the dairy commission made over 300 arrests and obtained nearly 100 convictions. 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 20 (statement of B. F. Van Valkenburgh, assistant dairy commissioner). Despite these efforts, however, enforcement problems persisted in New York. Id. at 20-21. n172. See generally Miller, Independent Agencies, 1986 SUP. CT. REV. 41, 74 ("agency independence provides a useful mechanism for compromise and accommodation among competing political interest groups.") n173. See, e.g., H.R. REP. NO. 2028, 49th Cong., 1st Sess. 2 (1886). n174. See, e.g., 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 35, 41, 46. n175. See M. OKUN, supra note 2, at 274-75. n176. 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 68 (remarks of Charles I. Chandler). n177. See id. Chandler's credibility, however, is not entirely above suspicion, since he had previously served as an expert witness for the United States Dairy Company in actions for infringement of the Mege patent. M. OKUN, supra note 2, at 272. n178. M. OKUN, supra note 2, at 275. n179. E.g., 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 72-73. n180. Id. at 22 (statement of B. F. Van Valkenburgh). Although the commissioner conceded that chemistry could not prove that margarine was unhealthy, he did argue that the substance could cause physiological harm. Id. n181. E.g., id. at 60 (statement of Prof. Henry Morton). n182. A leading dairy authority stated as late as 1916 that "[t]he unsanitary conditions under which the greater portion of the supply of milk is produced and marketed is a rebuke to society. . . . [O]n a great many farms, where dairying is not specialized, sanitation is very sadly neglected." E. WIEST, supra note 2, at 15. n183. See 1900 House Hearings, supra note 62, at 121 (statement of John Dadie, Esq.). n184. See, e.g., 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 64 (statement of Professor Henry Morton); 1900 House Hearings, supra note 62, at 121 (statement of John Dadie, Esq.); E. GUTHRIE, supra note 19, at 96-98. n185. See 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 45 (statement of Dr. Thomas Taylor) (explaining that no analysis was made of butter because "it is generally supposed that butter is made from healthy cows"). Any microscopic investigation of butter would have discovered bacteria galore. See E. GUTHRIE, supra note 19, at 35-44, 177-80. n186. H.R. REP. NO. 2028, supra note 173, at 2. n187. Powell v. Pennsylvania, 127 U.S. 678, 684-86 (1888) (declaring Pennsylvania's prohibitory statute to be a legitimate exercise of police power to protect public health). n188. See supra notes 159-170 and accompanying text. n189. See 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 20 (statement of B. F. Van Valkenburgh); id. at 152 (statement of James H. Seymour); 17 CONG. REC. 4911 (1886) (remarks of Rep. Henderson). n190. See 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 20-21 (statement of B. F. Van Valkenburgh); id. at 169 (statement of W. S. Truesdell). n191. Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U.S. 100, 124-25 (1890) (invalidating state statute prohibiting sale of out-of-state liquors). n192. United States v. E.C. Knight Co., 156 U.S. 1, 12-13 (1895) (control of manufacturing not subject to regulation under commerce clause). n193. Both these impediments have since been overcome, thus significantly reducing the degree to which federalism inhibits interest group activity. See Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942) (effectively overruling E. C. Knight); Plumley v. Massachusets, 155 U.S. 461, 478-79 (1894) (sustaining state statute prohibiting sale of margarine colored to look like butter). n194. 99 N.Y. 377, 2 N.E. 29 (1885). n195. A prohibitory statute in Missouri had earlier been upheld, the court observing that "the legislature may do many things in the legitimate exercise of [the police] and other powers, which, however unwise or injudicious they may be, are not obnoxious to the objection of being beyond the scope of legislative authority." State v. Addington, 77 Mo. 110, 117 (1882). n196. Marx, 99 N.Y. at 386-87, 2 N.E. at 33-34. n197. Id. at 381-82, 2 N.E. at 30. n198. See id. at 383-87, 2 N.E. at 31-34. n199. Id. at 387, 2 N.E. at 33. n200. Id. n201. Id. n202. Id. at 387, 2 N.E. at 34. n203. M. OKUN, supra note 2, at 256. n204. Id. at 261-63. n205. See Manufacture and Sale of Oleomargarine, H.R. REP. NO. 1529, 47th Cong., 1st Sess. (1882). n206. See supra notes 149 & 151 and accompanying text. n207. E. LAMPARD, supra note 2, at 455. n208. H.R. REP. NO. 2028, supra note 173, at 2 (reporting that the value of milk cows had dropped from $ 40 per head to $ 30 per head, representing a total capital loss of $ 150,000,000). n209. See id. (300,000 milk cows slaughtered in 1885 in Chicago alone). n210. Id. This figure may have represented as much as one-fifth of the nation's annual production of butter. See 17 CONG. REC. 4865 (1886) (remarks of Rep. Scott). n211. 1186 Hearings, supra note 15, at 224 (statement of George H. Webster). n212. See supra notes 150 & 153 and accompanying text. n213. See 17 CONG. REC. 4894 (1886) (remarks of Rep. Millard) (observing that the New York legislature had attempted in vain to regulate the margarine business in that state). n214. See infra notes 226-229 and accompanying text. n215. See id. n216. See supra note 74 and accompanying text. n217. See 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 238 (statement of F. K. Moreland, counsel to the American Agricultural and Dairy Association). n218. See 17 CONG. REC. 4865 (1886) (remarks of Rep. Scott). n219. See M. OKUN, supra note 2, at 100, 279. n220. 17 CONG. REC. 5055 (1886). n221. Id. at 5053, 5173. n222. Id. at 5166. n223. See id. at 4977. n224. See id. at 5037, 5044, 5161. The text of the bill (with one important amendment discussed below) was substantially similar to the provision eventually enacted into law. See Act of Aug. 2, 1886, ch. 840, 24 Stat. 209, 212-13. n225. See 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 11 (statement of James Hughes). n226. See supra text accompanying notes 194-202. n227. The Supreme Court ruled that manufacturing was beyond the reach of federal power under the commerce clause in United States v. E. C. Knight Co., 156 U.S. 1 (1895). n228. See D. CURRIE, THE CONSTITUTION IN THE SUPREME COURT 317-20 (1985). n229. Veazie Bank v. Fenno, 75 U.S. (8 Wall.) 533 (1869). n230. Four bills initially were referred to the Judiciary Committee for an assessment of their constitutionality. The Judiciary Committee issued a report deferring judgment on two bills and concluding that the other two were unconstitutional. H.R. REP. No. 1880, 49th Cong., 1st Sess. 4 (1886). With some parliamentary legerdemain, members of Congress who supported the dairy cause engineered the referral of one bill to the Agriculture Committee, a favorable forum, instead of the Revenue Subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee, which had a stronger claim to jurisdiction. The Agriculture Committee was given jurisdiction over the measure by a direct vote of the House. H.R. REP. No. 2028, supra note 173, at 1. n231. See 17 CONG. REC. 4930 (1886) (remarks of Rep. Price). Each of these states was among the nation's top twelve dairy states in 1886. See supra note 170. n232. See 17 CONG. REC. 4931 (1886). n233. See 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 144 (statement of A. M. Fuller, representing the Pennsylvania State Dairymen's Association); id. at 167 (statement of W. S. Truesdell, representing the Mississippi Valley Dairy and Creamery Association). n234. See id. at 10 (statement of James Hughes of the Produce Exchange of Baltimore City); id. at 17 (statement of W. H. Duckworth, commission merchant and dairy farmer); id. at 27 (statement of S. P. Hibbard, commission merchant); id. at 130 (statement of Col. R. M. Littler, secretary of the Chicago Produce Exchange). n235. See id. at 20 (statement of B. F. Van Valkenburgh, assistant dairy commissioner of New York). n236. See id. at 25 (statement of W. P. Richardson). n237. See id. at 201 (statement of G. W. Simpson). n238. See supra notes 39-92 and accompanying text. n239. See, e.g., 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 173 (statement of Irus Coy, representing the Chicago Live Stock Exchange); id. at 195 (statement of Howard M. Holden of the Kansas City Live Stock Exchange); id. at 209 (letter from Wyoming Stock-Growers' Association); 17 CONG. REC. 4898 (1886) (Pittsburgh Grain and Flour Exchange); id. at 4905 (Cotton-Seed Crushers' Association); id. at 4914 (Chicago Board of Trade); id. at 4970 (Knights of Labor); id. at 4971 (Union Stock Yard and Transit Company); id. at 5117 (Trades Assembly of Western Pennsylvania). Retail grocers split on the bill, with an official representative from New York favoring the bill, see 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 163 (statement of Lawrence J. Callanan), and other retail grocers speaking against it, see id. at 194 (statement of J. Merrill Currier); id. at 233 (statement of George M. Harris). n240. See 17 CONG. REC. 4903 (1886) (remarks of Rep. Hepburn) ("I am glad to say that the whole of this opposition emanates from a single house in the city of Chicago which manufactures 9,000,000 pounds of this bogus butter"); id. at 4919 (remarks of Rep. Morgan) (attributing virtually all of the arguments and petitions in opposition to the bill to Armour's influence); id. at 4914-15 (remarks of Rep. Dunham) (submitting affidavit of Philip D. Armour); id. at 4925 (remarks of Rep. Farquhar) (identifying Armour as the nation's largest margarine manufacturer); id. at 5124 (remarks of Rep. Parker) (citing press report that Armour's representatives had travelled to Cleveland to persuade the Knights of Labor to oppose the bill). n241. See, e.g., 17 CONG. REC. 4865 (1886) (remarks of Rep. Scott). n242. See 17 CONG. REC. 4869 (1886) (remarks of Rep. Hopkins); id. at 4931 (report of House Committee on Agriculture). n243. See id. at 4931 (1886) (report of House Committee on Agriculture). n244. See, e.g., id. at 4868 (remarks of Rep. Hopkins); id. at 5129 (remarks of Rep. Evans). n245. See 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 96-97 (remarks of Professor James F. Babcock). n246. See, e.g., 17 CONG. REC. 4865-66 (1886) (remarks of Rep. Scott). n247. See, e.g., id. at 4927 (remarks of Rep. Price). n248. See id. at 5076 (remarks of Rep. McCreary); id. at 4936 (remarks of Rep. Wilson). n249. See id. at 4904 (remarks of Rep. Henderson) (quoting a report from the Secretary of the Treasury estimating a deficit of $ 24,600,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1887). n250. See, e.g., id. at 4936 (remarks of Rep. Wilson); id. at 4972 (remarks of Rep. Morrison); id. at 4898 (remarks of Rep. Mills). n251. See, e.g., id. at 4865, 4867 (remarks of Rep. Scott). n252. See, e.g., id. at 4871 (remarks of Rep. Reagan) ("[t]he object is clearly to legislate in favor of one class of people and against another class"); id. at 5050 (remarks of Rep. Browne) (the bill "destroys competition and robs one citizen to put the money in the pocket of another"). n253. Bannard, The Oleomargarine Law, 2 POL. SCI. Q. 545, 554 (1887). n254. 17 CONG. REC. 4866 (1886). n255. Id. at 4894 (remarks of Rep. Millard). n256. Id. at 5082 (remarks of Rep. Hudd); see also id. at 4872 (remarks of Rep. Hiscock) (acknowledging that the bill "may possibly have the effect of stamping [the margarine] industry out of existence"). n257. See, e.g., id. at 5209 (vote on amendment that would have reduced the tax to three cents a pound). At least one pro-dairy legislator strongly suggested that the bill's proponents would agree to reduction in the size of the tax so long as the principle of taxing oleomargarine were accepted. See id. at 4868 (remarks of Rep. Hopkins) ("I would not imperil [the bill's] passage in the House by obstinately adhering to the tax of 10 cents per pound . . . where some other member, actuated by honest motives, as I presume him to be, should feel that 2 or 5 per pound is as much as should be imposed"). n258. Id. at 5210. n259. Id. at 7201-02. n260. Id. at 5213. n261. Id. at 7202. n262. See H.R. EXEC. DOC. No. 368, 49th Cong., 1st Sess. 1-2 (1886). n263. Id. at 1. n264. See The Oleomargarine Bill: Hearings on H.R. 3717 Before the Senate Comm. on Agriculture and Forestry, 56th Cong., 2d Sess. 396 (1901) (remarks of Henry E. Davis) (describing the newspaper editorial). n265. See Washington Post, July 31, 1886, at 1, col. 8 (describing a stir among the press corps when the Speaker of the House received a message thought to be a veto of the margarine bill). n266. Washington Post, July 31, 1886, at 2, col. 1. n267. H.R. EXEC. DOC. No. 368, supra note 262, at 1-4. n268. Id. at 2. n269. Id. n270. Bannard, supra note 253, at 557. n271. See B. HAMMOND, BANKS AND POLITICS IN AMERICA: FROM THE REVOLUTION TO THE CIVIL WAR 405-450 (1957). n272. See id. n273. Dairy forces used this analogy in debate on the bill. See, e.g., 17 CONG. REC. 4894 (1886) (remarks of Rep. Millard). n274. See id. at 4894 (remarks of Rep. Millard). n275. See, e.g., id. at 4977 (remarks of Rep. Milliken). n276. See id. at 4870 (remarks of Rep. Hammond) ("never have we undertaken to give protection to one individual of our own people as against another individual of our own people"); id. at 4917 (remarks of Rep. Glass) ("[t]he Government of the United States has no right to tax an industry out of existence, or to tax one industry oppressively for the benefit of another"); id. at 5056 (remarks of Rep. Butterworth) (asking whether the "time has come when you are willing to wipe out one legitimate domestic industry which but for your antagonistic legislation might survive and flourish, to wipe it out simply because it is the competitor of another domestic industry"). n277. See, e.g., id. at 4914 (remarks of Rep. Dunham) ("if we, by legislation or by taxing a product in order to force up the price of butter, can succeed in this case, in the next Congress another large interest or large class in the country will apply to us to tax something else, so that they can keep up the price of their product"); id. at 4936 (remarks of Rep. Wilson) ("[o]nce we establish the principle that the sovereign power of taxation with which the people intrust their servants can be perverted from its only honest purpose of raising taxes, and be used to oppress, to suppress, or to destroy the industry of any class of our citizens in order to increase the profits of the industry of any other class of our citizens, and this ceases to be a government of equal laws and becomes at once a government of privileged classes and occupations"); id. at 5050 (remarks of Rep. Browne) ("[t]his bill seeks a class legislation in its present shape of the most pronounced type. A great danger lurks under its thin di[s]guises; it makes a precedent which may be at any time employed to destroy the weak in the interest of the strong. The theory upon which this bill proceeds may be used to justify any legislative monopoly however monstrous or exacting"); id. at 4898 (remarks of Rep. Mills) ("[i]f you can destroy [the margarine] industry, you can destroy any other by abusing the power of taxation"); id. at 5091 (remarks of Rep. Daniel) ("in this bill is the doctrine that Congress may create monopoly, and may help monopoly to crush out and destroy every wholesome industry" that is opposed by superior political force); id. at 5156 (remarks of Rep. Wellborn) ("there cannot be found in all the history of the Republic a more dangerous precedent than that which the enactment of this bill . . . would establish"). n278. Id. at 5010-11. n279. Bannard, supra note 253, at 545. n280. 17 CONG. REC. 4918 (1886) (remarks of Rep. Dunn). n281. See Washington Post, July 20, 1886, at 2, col. 3. n282. Washington Post, July 21, 1886, at 2, col. 1. n283. Bannard, supra note 253, at 546. n284. See R. CLEMEN, THE AMERICAN LIVESTOCK AND MEAT INDUSTRY 802-03 (1923). n285. See 1886 Hearings, supra note 15, at 209. n286. See S. MISC. DOC. NO. 99, 49th Cong., 1st Sess. (1886). n287. See R. CLEMEN, supra note 284, at 242-43. n288. See Bannard, supra note 253, at 545. n289. See M. SKLAR, THE CORPORATE RECONSTRUCTION OF AMERICAN CAPITALISM, 1890-1916: THE MARKET, THE LAW, AND POLITICS (1987); I. TARBELL, THE NATIONALIZING OF BUSINESS 1878-98 (1936). From checker at panix.com Tue Oct 4 22:00:55 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2005 18:00:55 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] Guardian: (Trivers) The kindness of strangers Message-ID: The kindness of strangers http://books.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5271019-110738,00.html Despite switching disciplines - from maths to law to history then the sciences - Robert Trivers profoundly influenced evolutionary biology with his theory that our sense of justice has Darwinian explanations. But he suffered severe mental breakdowns and his career at Harvard was dogged by controversy. After 15 years in genetics he has now turned to anthropology Andrew Brown Saturday August 27, 2005 Robert Trivers could have been one of the great romantic heroes of 20th-century science if he'd died in the 70s, as some people supposed he would. But here he is, loping down the quiet, pale corridors of Harvard's Programme in Evolutionary Development, a powerfully built man about six foot tall, bespectacled, dressed in trainers, narrow blue cord trousers, a black leather jacket and a knitted watchman's cap. His language matches the macho clothes: for an Ivy League professor, he says "fuck" a lot. In the early 70s, as a graduate student at Harvard with no formal training in biology, he wrote five papers that changed forever the way that evolution would be understood. He came up with the first Darwinian explanations for human cooperation, jealousy and our sense of justice that made genetic sense, and he showed how these arose from the same forces as act on all animals, from the pigeons outside his window to the fish of coral reefs. Then he analysed the reasons why, in almost all species, one sex is pickier about who it mates with than the other; then the ways in which children can be genetically programmed to demand more attention than their parents can provide. Even the way in which patterns of infanticide vary by sex and class in the Punjab is predicted by one of Trivers's papers. EO Wilson, who coined the term sociobiology, described him as one of the most influential - and consistently correct - theoretical evolutionary biologists of our time. But he was reckless, aggressive and suffered from bipolar disorder which led him into agonising, debilitating breakdowns. His work was politically controversial. Harvard would not give him a professorship and towards the end of the 70s he seemed to vanish. In fact, he went in 1979 to the University of California in Santa Cruz, then a university with a reputation for drug abuse and slackness. "It was a once-in-a-lifetime mistake," he says, "in the sense that I can't afford to make another one like that. I survived, and I helped raise my children for a while; but that was all." He also switched his attention from theoretical biology to the detailed and difficult study of stretches of DNA and their conflicts within particular bodies. He says: "Call it arrogance, overconfidence, or ignorance; it was mostly ignorance, I think. I naively thought - this was my phrase - I'll whip genetics into shape in three to five years. Fifteen years later, genetics has whipped me into shape. You do not whip genetics into shape within three to five years. It took me eight to 10 to understand what I was reading." He is bringing out a book, Genes in Conflict, written with a younger colleague, Austin Burt, which summarises everything that is known about conflicts within the genome; but at just the point when the two of them know as much as anyone can about this discipline he has switched back to anthropology. His next project is to show that we have evolved the capacity to deceive ourselves because it makes us better at lying to other people. This kind of wild leap between disciplines has characterised his life. He was born in 1943, the second of seven children born to Howard and Mildred Trivers, who had met at graduate school in Harvard in the 30s. His father, whom he characterises as clever but ineffectual, had pursued postgraduate studies in German philosophy in Germany, until 1938 when even he noticed it was time for a Jewish student to leave. He was able to do this because his own father, an immigrant from Lithuania, had made a fortune in the rag trade: his gimmick was the two-pants suit, which consisted of a jacket with two pairs of trousers, since they would wear out first. During the second world war, Howard Trivers worked for the army, and produced the regulations for denazification: he was rewarded with a post in the state department, so Robert Trivers grew up in a diplomatic household, a handicap he has triumphantly overcome: his opponents at Harvard are described as fools, and he says Richard Lewontin, the intellectual leader of the campaigns against sociobiology, grossly underestimated the role that selection plays in the makeup of the genome, while sanctioning all sorts of slanders against his opponents. Trivers says of his old enemy Stephen Jay Gould's theory that the female orgasm was merely a by- product of the fact that the opposite sex has them, "It makes you wonder just how close Steve had ever been to that blessed event if he thought it was a side-effect ..." He was sent to grand schools - at Phillips Academy Andover, Massachusetts, where the Bushes went, he was regarded as a promising mathematician after he taught himself calculus, in three months, aged 14; and he took two advanced maths courses before he arrived at Harvard. Typically enough, he then lost interest in maths, and decided to be a lawyer instead, fighting injustice, defending people who were minimally criminal. He had grown up in Washington as well as Berlin and Copenhagen, and was keenly aware of injustice and racial discrimination. In order to become a lawyer, he had to have a humanities degree, so his first studies at Harvard were in American history. They were interrupted by the first, and worst, of his breakdowns, which took the form of spiralling mania - staying up all night, night after night, reading Wittgenstein and then collapsing. He was hospitalised, and treated with the first generation of effective anti-psychotic drugs. While recovering, he took courses in art, and was hired to illustrate, and then to write, a series of textbooks for high schools. Despite his history degree, it was obvious to his supervisors that he knew little about human biology, so he was given the animals to write about, and started to learn modern Darwinian biology. He fell in love with the logic of evolution. In the flow of genes through generations, and the steady, inexorable shaping of behaviour by natural selection, he saw a geometry of time, as beautiful as the geometry of space that Newton and Galileo had discovered. His mentor was an ornithologist called Bill Drury, whose memory he venerates. Drury was an expert on herring gulls. Trivers says: "He knew enough that if God had made him a herring gull, he would have known 90% of what he needed to survive." Drury became very close to his pupil and his trust was reciprocated: "Bill and I were walking in the woods one day, and I told him that my first breakdown had been so painful that I had resolved that if I ever felt another one coming on, I would kill myself. Lately, however, I had changed my mind, and drawn up a list of 10 people I would kill first in that event. I wanted to know if this was going forwards or backwards. He thought for a while, then he said 'Can I add three names to that list?'. That was his only comment." The textbook series was meant to be as influential as the new mathematics, and to transform the teaching of biology, which meant that Trivers himself had to get a thorough understanding of animal behaviour. In the event, it was killed by Christian conservatives. It taught evolution as fact, and examined human behaviour as an anthropologist might, so the states where it might have sold in millions would have nothing to do with it. It sold 50,000 or 60,000 copies where it might have sold five or six million. Trivers determined to take a doctorate in biology; but university protocol meant that Drury could not be his adviser. Instead, he chose the curator of herpetology, Ernest Williams, who derailed his original plan to study monkeys in favour of going to Jamaica to study lizards. Trivers admits: "I was also quite frankly, interested in the women. When we flew to Jamaica I took one look at the women and one look at the island and decided to become a lizard man if that's what it took to go back there." Since that first epiphany, he has lived for about 13 years in Jamaica, off and on; he has married two Jamaican women. Though he no longer studies lizards, he still has a long-term project going on the island, which studies symmetry in growing children. Symmetry is important in Trivers' theories because it is a measure of fidelity to the genetic masterplan, and so of health and desirability. More symmetrical children should appear more attractive to their peers, even if the differences are not consciously discernible. Some of the experiments that have arisen from this are extraordinary. They have measured which way round children cuddle dolls; it appears that the more closely your ears resemble each other, the more likely you are to hold a doll (or a baby) with its head to the left. The theoretical justification for this is that the left ear feeds into the right side of the brain, which is normally where most information about feelings is processed. But a child with asymmetrical ears is more likely to have an unusual distribution of tasks between the two sides of the brain - both traits being expressions of a disturbance in the normal growth of the head and brain. The asymmetries Trivers is measuring in a very detailed fashion are very small, quite undetectable in normal life, yet we seem to be unconsciously very sensitive to them. Symmetrical children are consistently judged to be the best dancers, which is also a measurement of sexual attractiveness. Theory would predict that women measure attractiveness more closely than men do. Sure enough, the gap between those judged best and worst dancers was greatest among the boys. Unlike the other founders of sociobiology, Trivers was more interested in human than in animal behaviour. The founding genius of sociobiology, Bill Hamilton, was a naturalist and romantic who felt himself ill at ease in the modern world, and had a passion for insects, especially wasps. EO Wilson loves ants and arranged his office at Harvard so that there were ant colonies in perspex all around the walls, and the visitor might think he was inside a gigantic ants' nest. Wilson added one final chapter on humans to his book Sociobiology almost as an afterthought, though this caused a bitter feud that has divided the Harvard biology faculty to this day. Trivers, however, started his theories from what he could observe of human behaviour, and then went looking for genetic causes whose logic would apply across the whole living world. It seemed to some biologists in the 60s that the central problem of their discipline was why animals are nice to each other. Previous generations had explained this as an adaptation for the good of the species but there seemed to be no mechanism that could make this true. If I sacrifice myself for you, this may very well benefit the tribe to which we both belong, It may even benefit humanity as a whole. But this is an act, other things being equal, which will increase the number of your descendants, not of mine. So your genes, less eager for sacrifice, will spread through the population and eventually the species will consist entirely of members who do not cooperate with each other. How, then, do we account for the obvious and widespread fact that the world is full of cooperative species, whose members will sacrifice their own immediate interests for others? One answer had been encapsulated in a pub joke by the British biologist (and communist) JBS Haldane, who was asked, in the 50s, whether a man should lay down his life for his brother. "For two brothers," he said, "or four cousins." In other words, genes that benefit your relatives are likely to spread through the population, even if they damage the bearer sometimes, because the relatives will be likely to carry their own copies. This insight was reached independently by Bill Hamilton, as a student, who worked it out in mathematical detail in 1963, and showed how it could explain the behaviour of ants and bees, whose curious pattern of reproduction means that females are more closely related to their sisters than to their offspring. But there is cooperation in many species which do not have these patterns of relatedness; also between animals which are not closely related, nor even members of the same species. Even among humans, as Trivers observed, many people will more readily sacrifice themselves for their friends than for their relatives - an observation easy to make among the rebellious youth of the 60s. So a more general kind of rule than Hamilton had supplied was needed. Trivers came up with the notion of reciprocal altruism. In plain language, this said that self-sacrifice could be understood as self-interest providing there was a chance the beneficiary would repay the deed in the future. The example he gave in the first paper was that of a man who sees someone drowning and rescues him. Providing, says Trivers, that the benefit of being saved is much greater than the cost of rescuing the swimmer, then it makes sense to dive in and play the lifeguard because the person you rescue from drowning may do the same for you some day. This example became extremely famous, and has been held up to scorn on the grounds that anyone likely to drown is not someone you would choose as the lifeguard when you are yourself in danger. But in the original paper, Trivers side-stepped this objection by suggesting either that the swimmer was in difficulties because of a sudden cramp or that they were being rescued with a branch extended from the bank. It may seem absurd that people devoted so much effort to arguing about what was only meant to be an illustration of a more general principle, but the stakes were high. Before writing the paper, Trivers attempted, and failed, to get a grasp of the state of moral arguments about altruism. "What was missing from the papers was exactly what was missing from the discipline itself: any functional understanding of the behaviours that they were discussing. Why did it make sense for the organism to [behave unselfishly]? This was, of course, what evolutionary biology, and myself in particular, was set to provide." Of course the idea that we have moral sentiments because they are useful and profitable seems to many people to misunderstand or deny the nature of morality. The whole point of altruistic behaviour is that we do it without thought of reward - sometimes, without any thought at all, as when rescuing people from drowning, or pulling them back from an oncoming car. There are less dramatic examples, however, which include sharing food, helping the sick, the very young, and the old, even when we are not related to them, and sharing tools and knowledge. All these are nearly universal human habits; in fact we describe societies where they don't happen as inhuman. This kindliness became part of human nature, Trivers argued, because kind instincts were rewarded and this happened because our ancestors lived sufficiently long lives in small stable groups to keep track of who owed whom favours. The great originality of the theory is not that it says that we are under certain circumstances naturally benevolent. Plenty of people had made that observation before. What no one had seen was that this benevolence requires a very strong sense of fairness if it is to become an established instinct. Fairness, or justice, has its roots for Trivers in the determination to see that other people are not cheating us, and taking favours without giving anything in return. From abstract notions about the flow of genes he had come up with concrete and testable ideas about the ways our minds work; and it turned out to be demonstrably true that we find it much easier to solve logical puzzles if they are framed as if they are about cheating rather than an emotionally neutral subject, even though the two ways of putting the problem are logically equivalent. The paper on reciprocal altruism, written before he had even gained a doctorate, has been enormously influential. Robin Dunbar, the professor of behavioural ecology at Liverpool University, says Trivers played a fundamentally important role in the development of modern evolutionary studies of behaviour and ecology. His four key early papers spawned (and continue to spawn) research in the study of both animals and humans. The importance of his contribution is beyond question. The modern field of behavioural ecology (the name under which sociobiology now travels) would simply not have been the same had he not written these papers. Trivers' early work set the foundation for a biologically based system of ethics, in which a preference for some sorts of justice was part of our nature. Matt Ridley, whose book The Origins of Virtue is largely an expansion and restatement of Trivers's argument, says that when he was a student at Oxford, and got a postcard from Trivers asking for a reprint of one of his papers, "It was like getting a postcard from God"; and the whole line of popularising Darwinian books from Richard Dawkins all the way down to Steven Pinker descends from Trivers's insights. There is a paradox here. Ridley, a former science editor of the Economist, takes the moral of Trivers's work to be distinctly Thatcherite, and in general the attacks on sociobiology, as well as the defences of it, have taken it to be a Right-wing construction, and a way to defend power and privilege by showing they are part of human nature. Even fairly left-wing Darwinists like Daniel Dennett tend to discover from their study of human nature that the perfect way for humans to live is that favoured by professors at good universities on the East Coast. But Trivers, one-time friend of the Black Panthers, loathes the Bush regime more than most forms of authority. He thinks biology teaches us to be wary of the idea that any particular individual could be perfectly designed by evolution: "You're always facing a new world to which you're poorly adapted. So if you look at any given individual, and ask how the hell did [they] survive for 4.5bn years, then it is helpful to think of all these error-prone processes: sexual reproduction ensures that there is lots of variation in the population, and most of it will be less than optimal." His second big idea was parental investment. Parents and children would have differing genetic interests, he saw, because a parent would wish to spread its investment of energy and time over all its children, to guard against the possibility of any one of them dying, whereas any individual child would want more than the parent should optimally give. As a baby mammal, it is to your advantage to suckle for as long as possible, but your mother may leave more grandchildren if she weans you in favour of a younger sibling. Three more classic papers followed before a second breakdown, in 1972. After that, his interests shifted away from social theory in animals. He got married, for the first time, to Lorna Staples, with whom he had four children, including twins; and grew increasingly frustrated with Harvard's refusal to give him a properly paid job. He attributed this to Lewontin, so he took particular pleasure, earlier this year, in being invited back to Harvard to lecture Lewontin's own students. "It's like killing those fuckers and stealing the young away from them." He has also quarrelled with his own side. He had written a foreword to the first edition of Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene, a book which popularised many of his ideas when it appeared in 1976; but it did not appear in the translation and when the book was republished in 1989, the foreword was dropped altogether, and replaced by a second author's preface, a breach of academic etiquette which made Trivers angry. Dawkins says that dropping the foreword was an accident and that he hopes to reinstate it. Trivers was disinclined to allow it to be published: "My first wife, a wonderful woman, used to refer to Dick as the Selfish Gene, just because of the way he acts"; however, he has now relented and Dawkins confirms it will appear in future editions. In Santa Cruz in the 80s, Trivers formed a fast friendship with Huey Newton, the Black Panther, whom he described as an untutored genius, but one who was also in some respects unteachable. The two men planned a book on deceit and self-deception. Newton, Trivers says, was an expert on both. His youngest daughter was Newton's god-daughter. A baby photograph of her, taken for her first passport, hangs in his office at Harvard, and with it comes a story about Newton: "We said to Huey, if she were going to be the judge at your trial, would you do the crime? And he looked at the picture for a while, and said, no. So we had it blown up and framed, and he hung the picture above his bed to remind himself not to do the crime. Did it work? I'm not sure it helped at all, because he was basically someone who did whatever he felt like doing." Trivers also wrote a textbook of animal behaviour, which failed in its purpose of assuring him of a small income for life, but proved influential in the way the subject was taught. In 1995, he moved back to Rutgers University, in New Jersey, as a professor of anthropology and biology, but continued to work on the conflicts that can arise within the genome. Although this required him to master an entirely new field of science he felt it was related to his earlier studies. They had concentrated on conflicts that appear within species once you realise that the unit of self-interest is the individual. Now he was looking at conflicts within individuals, which arise when genes inside an organism are in conflict. He says: "There are people who say to me, you never would have done it if you thought it would take you 15 years. And I say, no, of course I wouldn't. So they say, well self-deception, namely blinding yourself to the cost, is adaptive. Then I say, you cannot prove that, because you never know what I would have accomplished with those 15 years not devoted to genetics. Maybe I'd have made major insights into psychology ... The general trajectory in academia is to do ever easier things, so you start with social theory based on natural selection. Then you do deceit and self-deception, if that's really easier - at least it's vaguer; then you do religion, then you do your autobiography. "So in retrospect I did something unusual, which is very rewarding." Genes in Conflict by Robert Trivers and Austin Burt will be published by Harvard University Press in November. Robert Trivers Born: February 19 1943, Washington DC. Education: Phillips Academy, Andover; Harvard (1965 BA history, '72 Phd biology. Married: 1974-1988 Lorna Staples (three daughters: Natasha and Natalia (twins), Alelia, one son Jonathan); '97-2004 Debra Dixon (one daughter, Aubrey). Occupation: Harvard 1971-72 instructor in anthropology; '73-75 assistant professor of biology; '75-78 associate professor of biology; '78-94 professor of biology, University of California, Santa Cruz; '94- professor of anthropology and biological sciences, Rutgers; 2005 (spring) visiting professor of psychology, Harvard. Selected publications: 1985 Social Evolution; 2002 Natural Selection and Social Theory: Selected Papers of Robert Trivers. From checker at panix.com Tue Oct 4 22:01:01 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2005 18:01:01 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] Edge: An Epidemology of Representations: A Talk with Dan Sperber Message-ID: An Epidemology of Representations: A Talk with Dan Sperber http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/sperber05/sperber05_index.html How do the microprocesses of cultural transmission affect the macro structure of culture, its content, its evolution? The microprocesses, the small-scale local processes I am talking about are, on the one hand, psychological processes that happen inside people's brains, and on the other hand, changes that people bring about in their common environment-- for instance the noise they make when they talk or the paths they unconsciously maintain when they walk--and through which they interact. Just as the human mind is not a blank slate on which culture would somehow imprint its content, the communication process is not a xerox machine copying contents from one mind to another. This is where I part company not just from your standard semiologists or social scientists who take communication to be a coding-decoding system, a transmission system, biased only by social interests, by power, by intentional or unconscious distortions, but that otherwise could deliver a kind of smooth flow of undistorted information. I also part company from Richard Dawkins who sees cultural transmission as based on a process of replication, and who assume that imitation and communication provide a robust replication system. AN EPIDEMIOLOGY OF REPRESENTATIONS [7.27.05] A Talk with Dan Sperber Dan Sperber Edge Video [10]Broadband | [11]Modem Introduction Dan Sperber is a French anthropologist who has focused on the more cognitive, more naturalist, approaches linked to evolution. "For a long time," he says, "my ideas were not very well received among anthropologists. They've been discussed a lot, but I found myself spending too much time with my fellow anthropologists arguing the basics of the field rather than moving forward in research. I got involved in linguistics, experimental psychology, philosophy of science, evolutionary biology, and lots of fascinating topics--and continuing also the conversation with anthropologists. Anthropology is a discipline that has been in crisis all my life." Dan Sperber's parents were both eastern-European Jews; his father, Manes Sperber, a famous novelist, was born in Galicia, grew up in Vienna, then moved to Germany. He met his mother, who came from Latvia, in France in the 30s . Manes Sperber was a Communist, was very active in the party, but left the party at the time of the Moscow trials. Sperber was born in France. "That's my culture," he says. "I am French. Still, there are French people who are much more French than I am. They have roots as they say, but the image of roots has always made me smile. You know, I'm not a plant." The reason he gives for having become an anthropologist is that he was raised an atheist. There was no god in the family. His father, Manes Sperber, was from a Jewish family, had refused to do his bar mitzvah, and he transmitted zero religion to his son, but at the same time, he had deep respect for religious people. There was no sense that they are somehow inferior. This left the young Sperber with a puzzle: how can people, intelligent decent people, be so badly mistaken? Sperber is known for his work in developing a naturalistic approach to culture under the name of "epidemiology of representations", and, with British linguist Deirdre Wilson, for developing a cognitive approach to communication known as "Relevance Theory". Both the epidemiology of representations and relevance theory has been influential and controversial. He is also known for his early work on the anthropology or religion, in which he tried to understand, in a generalist manner and in a positive way (i.e. without making them into idiots), why people could be religious. He took part in classical anthropological studies but he also argued from the start that you have to look at basic innate mental structures, which, he argued, "played quite an important role in the very possibility of religious beliefs, in the fact that, more generally, beliefs in the supernatural fixate in the way they do in the human mind, are so extraordinarily catching". Sperber's "catchiness", a theory he has been exploring for a generation, connects with Malcolm Gladwell's idea of a "tipping point". "I've never met Gladwell, " he says, "but when his book came out, many people sent me the book, or told me to read it, telling me that here's the same kind of thing you've been arguing for a long time. Yes, you get the kind of epidemiological process of something gradually, almost invivibly spreading in a population and then indeed reaching a "tipping point." That's the kind of dynamic you may find with epidemiological phenomena. Still, I don't believe that Gladwell or anybody else, myself included, has a satisfactory understanding of the general causes of the dynamics of cultural distribution." " Now, if I could just write with the slickness of Gladwell, and coin one of his best-selling titles such as Blink! or The Tipping Point. . . but I guess I would also have to give up trying to convey much of the hard substance of my work. Oh well..". Edge is pleased to present An Epidemiology of Representations: A Talk with Dan Sperber. -- [12]JB DAN SPERBER, Directeur de Recherche au CNRS, Paris, is a French social and cognitive scientist. He is the author of Rethinking Symbolism, On Anthropological Knowledge, and Explaining Culture. He is also the co-author, (with Deirdre Wilson) of Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Sperber holds a research professorship at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Paris, and has held visiting positions at Cambridge University, the British Academy, the London School of Economics, the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, Princeton University, the University of Michigan, the University of Bologna, and the University of Hong-Kong. [13]DAN SPERBER's Edge Bio Page _________________________________________________________________ AN EPIDEMIOLOGY OF REPRESENTATIONS [DAN SPERBER:] What I want to know is how, in an evolutionary perspective, social cultural phenomena relate to psychological mental phenomena. The social and the psychological sciences,when they emerged as properly scholarly disciplines with their own departments in the nineteenth century took quite different approaches, adopted different methodologies, asked different questions. Psychologists lost sight of the fact that what's happening in human minds is always informed by the culture in which individuals grow. Social scientists lost sight of the fact that the transmission, the maintenance, and the transformation of culture takes place not uniquely but in part in these individual psychological processes. This means that if what you're studying is culture, the part played by the psychological moments, or episodes, in the transmission of culture should be seen as crucial. I find it unrealistic to think of culture as something hovering somehow above individuals -- culture goes through them, and through their minds and their bodies and that is, in good part, where culture is being made. I've been arguing for a very long time now that one should think of the evolved psychological makeup of human beings both as a source of constraints on the way culture can develop, evolve, and also, of course, as what makes culture possible in the first place. I've been arguing against the now discredited "blank slate" view of the human mind--now splendidly laid to rest by Steve Pinker--but it wasn't discredited when I was a student, in fact the "blank slate" view was what we were taught and what most people went on teaching. Against this, I was arguing that there were specific dispositions, capacities, competencies, in the human mind that gave rise to culture, contributed to shaping it, and also constrained the way it can evolve -- so that led me to work both in anthropology--and more generally in the social sciences--,which was my original domain, and,more and more, in what was to become cognitive sciences. In those years, the late 60s, psychology was in the early stags of the "cognitive revolution." It was a domain that really transformed itself in a radical manner. This was, and still is, a very exciting intellectual period in which to live, with, alas, nothing comparable happening in social sciences, (where little that is truly exciting has happened during this period in my opinion). I wanted the social sciences to take advantage of this revolution in the study of cognition and I've tried to suggest how this could be done. How do the microprocesses of cultural transmission affect the macro structure of culture, its content, its evolution? The microprocesses, the small-scale local processes I am talking about are, on the one hand, psychological processes that happen inside people's brains, and on the other hand, changes that people bring about in their common environment--for instance the noise they make when they talk or the paths they unconsciously maintain when they walk--and through which they interact. Just as the human mind is not a blank slate on which culture would somehow imprint its content, the communication process is not a xerox machine copying contents from one mind to another. This is where I part company not just from your standard semiologists or social scientists who take communication to be a coding-decoding system, a transmission system, biased only by social interests, by power, by intentional or unconscious distortions, but that otherwise could deliver a kind of smooth flow of undistorted information. I also part company from Richard Dawkins who sees cultural transmission as based on a process of replication, and who assume that imitation and communication provide a robust replication system. A good part of my work has been to study, in large part with British linguist Deirdre Wilson, the mechanisms of human communication and show that they're much more complex and interesting than is generally assumed, and much less preservative and replicative and more constructive than one might think: understanding involves a lot of construction, and not just reconstruction, and very little by way of simple replication. When you are told something, the simple view of what happens would be: 'ah! These are words, they have meaning,' and so you decode the meaning of the word and you thereby understand what the speaker meant. A more realistic and, as I said, also a more interesting idea is that the words don't encode the speaker meaning, they just give you evidence of the speaker's meaning. When we speak we want our audience to understand something that's in our mind. And we have no way to fully encode it, and trying at least to encode as much as possible would be absurdly cumbersome. Linguistic utterances, however rich and complex they may be, cannot fully encode our thoughts. But they can give strong richly structured piece of evidence of what our thoughts are. From the point of view of the audience, a speaker is providing rich pieces of evidence, which we interpret in a context of shared background knowledge, drawing on the common cultural, on the local situation, on the ongoing conversation, and so on. You construct a complex representation helped by all these different factors. You to end up with something which will have been strongly guided, sometimes guided in an exquisitely detailed manner, by the communication, by the words used by the speaker, but which end up being a thought of your own, relevant to you, a recognition, to begin with, of what the speaker meant, from which you extract what is relevant to you. We're not that interested when we try to comprehend what others say, in getting in our minds a copy of what they had in mind, we're interested in getting that which is of use and of relevance to us, and we see what others are trying to tell us as a source of insight and information from which we can indeed construct a thought of our own. The same is true of imitation; rarely are you concerned when you imitate other people's behavior in copying them exactly. What you want when you see others doing something that you think is worth doing, for instance, cook a souffl?, it's not to copy the exact gestures and the exact souffle that you saw, with its qualities, and also maybe its defects, your goal is to cook a good souffl?, your good souffl?. The goal of these partly preservative processes of communication and imitation is not to copy per se, but to take advantage of information provided by others in order to build thoughts of our own, knowledge of our own, objects of our own, behaviors of our own, for which we take part of the responsibility. The process is constructive in that sense. Communication is a very broad notion --one should ask whether it makes sense to look for a general theory of communication, given that the notion covers such a variety of processes -- processes of communication among machines; biologists talk about communication among cells; by "animal communication" biologists mean also unitentional deception as when the viceroy butterfly has wings mimicking the pattern found on the poisonous monarch butterfly, so as not to be eaten by predator birds, and so on. All these form of communication and many others are communication in a very broad sense where some information--in some broad sense of information too--is provided by one device or organism, and is used by another. There are some commonalities linked to this general definition of communication, and indeed, Shannon and Weaver for instance were interested in such a very basic notion. But if we think of communication in biological terms, it is not clear that we have the subject matter of a useful general theory. Think of locomotion. How much can you get from a general theory of locomotion, even sticking to the biological domain and leaving aside artifacts, airplanes, cars, bicycles. I doubt that there is much to get from a general theory of locomotion that would cover fish swimming, birds flying, snakes crawling, us walking, and so on. If you're studying human locomotion, then you look at the specific organs, the way, for instance, we do it, why we do it, what evolutionary pressure have selected our particular way of doing it. Even more--much more--than human bipedal upright walking, human communication is very special, it's quite unlike the communication you find in other animals. Not just because of language, which indeed has no real equivalent among other species, but also because of another reason which is also quite remarkable but that has not been stressed, and on which Deirdre Wilson and I have been doing a lot of work, namely that if you look at human languages as codes -- which in a sense they undoubtedly are -- they are very defective codes! When say, vervet monkeys communicate among themselves, one vervet monkey might spot a leopard and emit an alarm cry that indicates to the other monkeys in his group that there's a leopard around. The other vervet monkeys are informed by this alarm cry of the presence of a leopard, but they're not particularly informed of the mental state of the communicator, and they don't give a damn about it. The signal puts them in a cognitive state of knowledge about the presence of a leopard, similar to that of the communicating monkey -- here you really have a smooth coding-decoding system. In the case of humans, when we speak we're not interested per se in the meaning of the words, we register what the word means as a way to find out what the speaker means. Speaker's meaning is what's involved. Speaker's meaning is a mental state of the speaker, an intention he or she has to share with us some content. Human communication is based on the ability we have to attribute mental state to others, to want to change the mental states of others, and to accept that others change ours. When I communicate with you I am trying to change your mind. I am trying to act on your mental state. I'm not just putting out a kind of signal for you to decode. And I do that by providing you with evidence of a mental state in which I want to put you in and evidence of my intention to do so. The role of what is often known in cognitive science as "theory of mind," that is the uniquely human ability to attribute complex mental states to others, is as much a basis of human communication as is language itself. I am full of admiration for the mathematical theory of information and communication, the work of Shannon, Weaver, and others, and it does give a kind of very general conceptual framework which we might take advantage of. But if you apply it directly to human communication, what you get is a mistaken picture, because the general model of communication you find is a coding-decoding model of communication, as opposed to this more constructive and inferential form of communication which involves infering the mental stateof others, and that's really characteristic of humans. I have been developing my own approach to culture under the general heading of "epidemiology of representations". The first thing to do, of course, is to take away the negative connotation of epidemiology -- it's not the epidemiology of diseases -- epidemiology is the study of the distribution of certain items or conditions in the population. One can study the distribution of particular pathological conditions, but you can also study the distribution of good habits, or thoughts, or representations, artifacts, or forms of knowledge. I'm not assuming that culture is good -- I don't want to have a cultural epidemiology to be on the side of the angels, as opposed to medical anthropology on the side of the demons. What's I like about epidemiology is that it's the one social science that is truly naturalistic in studying what happens in populations, typically in human populations, and it explains the macro phenomena at the level of population such as epidemics, by the aggregation of the micro processes both inside individuals and in their interaction. I believe that the cultural and the social in general should be approached in the same manner. Of course I'm not the only one to do that, a number of people, mostly coming from biology, like Luigi Cavalli-Sforza, Marcus W. Feldman, E.O Wilson and Xharles Lumsden, Richard Dawkins, Bill Durham, Robert Boyd, and Peter Richerson, have developed different conceptions which in this broad sense are epidemiological, or, another way to put it: they are forms of "population-thinking" applied to culture. You take what happens at the population level to results from the microprocesses affecting individuals in the population. Dawkins, who is particularly clear and simple in a good way in his approach, offers a contrast to my approach. For Dawkins, you can take the Darwinian model of selection and apply it almost as is to culture. Why? Because the basic idea is that, just as genes are replicators, bits of culture that Dawkins called "memes" are replicators too. If you take the case of population genetics, the causal mechanisms involved split into two subsets. You have the genes, which are extremely reliable mechanisms of replication. On the other hand, you have a great variety of environmental factors -- including organisms which are both expression of genes and part of their environment --, environmental factors that affect the relative reproductive success of the genes. You have then on one side this extremely robust replication mechanism, and on the other side a huge variety of other factors that make these competing replication devices more or less successful. Translate this into the cultural domain, and you'll view memes, bits of culture, as again very strong replication devices, and all the other factors, historical, ecological, and so on, as contributing to the relative success of the memes. What I'm denying, and I've mentioned this before, is that there is a basis for a strong replication mechanism either in cognition or in communication. It's much weaker than that. As I said, preservative processes are always partly constructive processes. When they don't replicate, this does not mean that they make an error of copying. Their goal is not to copy. There are transformation in the process of transmission all the time, and also in the process of remembering and retrieving past, stored information, and these transformations are part of the efficient working of these mechanisms. In the case of cultural evolution, this yields a kind of paradox. On the one hand, of course, we have macro cultural stability -- we do see the same dish being cooked, the same ideologies being adopted, the same words being used, the same song being sung. Without some relatively high degree of cultural stability--which was even exaggerated in classical anthropology--, the very notion of culture wouldn't make sense. How then do we reconcile this relative macro stability at the cultural level, with a lack of fidelity at the micro level? You might think: if it's stable at the macro level, what else could provide you this macro stability apart from the faithful copying at the micro level? It's the only possible explanation that most people think of. But that's not the only one, and it's not even a plausible one. Dawkins himself has pointed out that each act of of cultural transmission may involve some mistakes in copying, some mutation. But if that is the case, then the Darwinian selection model isunlikely to apply, at least in its basic form. The problem is reconciling this macro stability with the micro lack of sufficient fidelity. The answer, I believe, is linked precisely to the fact that in human, transmission is achieved not just by replication, but also by construction. If it were just replication, copying, and there were lots of errors of copy all the time, then nothing would stabilize and it's unlikely that the selective pressures would be strong enough to produce a real selection comparable to the one you see in biology. On the other hand, if you have constructive processes, they can compensate the limits of the copying processes. What happens is this. Although indeed when things get transmitted they tend to vary with each episode of transmission, these variations tend to gravitate around what I call "cultural attractors", which are, if you look at the dynamics of cultural transmission, points or regions in the space of possibilities, towards which transformations tend to go. The stability of cultural phenomena is not provided by a robust mechanism of replication. It's given in part, yes, by a mechanism of preservation which is not very robust, not very faithful, (and it's not its goal to be so). And it's given in part by a strong tendency for the construction -- in every mind at every moment-- of new ideas, new uses of words, new artifacts, new behaviors, to go not in a random direction, but towards attractors. And, by the way, these cultural attractors themselves have a history. Dawkins, of course, is only one of the people who have proposed new ways of modeling cultural evolution. He's important because he brings it down to the simplest possible version -- there's a great merit in simplicity. He sees cultural evolution at the same time as being analogous to biological evolution, and as being an evolution almost independent from biological evolution: it has just been made possible by the biological evolution of homo sapiens, which has given us the mind we have, and which, so the story goes, makes us capable indeed of endlessly copying contents. We are supposed to be imitation machines, "meme machines" to use Susan Blakemore's phrase, and this explains that. Dawkins, in a strange way, presents something very similar to the blank slate view of the mind. The blank slate view, as I was taught it in anthropology, says the human mind is capable of learning anything -- whatever content would be provided by culture can be written on the blank slate. Well, the general imitating machine does more or less the same thing. It's capable of imitating just whatever type of content it is presented with, and the relative success of some contents against others, has to do with the selective forces. The idea that the human mind is such a kind of universal imitation machine is hardly better psychology, in my view, than the blank slate story. Others, E.O Wilson and Charles Lumsden, Rob Boyd and Pete Richerson, have asked to what extent the evolved dispositions that both constrain and make possible culture are, in return, affected by cultural evolution itself so as to yield a kind of gene-culture coevolution. Instead of having two evolutionary scenarios running in parallel, one biological evolution, the other cultural evolution, you get some degree of interaction, possibly a strong interaction, between gene and culture. The general idea has got to be correct. The details, in my opinion, are still very poorly understood. For a variety of reasons, I believe that memes are not the right story about cultural evolution. This is because in the cultural case, replication is not very successful in explaining cultural stability. I also believe that among the factors we need to take into account to explain cultural attraction of which I was talking before, are evolved aspect of the human psychology. The one type of scholarship and research that has to be brought into the picture, in my view, is evolutionary psychology, as defended in particular in the work of Leda Cosmides, John Tooby, Steve Pinker and taken up in more critical ways by a growing number of developmental psychologists and of philosophers. To understand culture, we have to understand the complexity of the psychological makeup of human beings. We have to go to really deep psychology, understood both in a richly cognitive manner and with a proper evolutionary perspective, to put start explaining cultural evolution. We need a representation of a human mind that's complex in an appropriate manner, true to the empirical data, and rich enough indeed to explain the regularities the, stability, and the variability of culture. This is them a different story, but it's still a Darwinian story. It's a Darwinian story in the sense that it's an application of population thinking, which tries to explains the macro phenomena in terms of a micro processes and properties, and which doesn't assume that there are types or essences of macro cultural and social things. Macro regularities are always the outcome of distribution of micro features, evolving all the time. In this Darwinian story however, instead of causal processes in culture as split between robust replication devices and a variety of selection factor, we have a much more promiscuous form of causality. Cultural causality is promiscuous. Constructive processes always interfere with preservation processes. So we need to build models different from standard Darwinian models of selection, in order to arrive at the right way to draw on Darwinian inspiration with regard to culture, that is, we must generalize Darwin to the cultural case, rather than adjust it in a way which twists the data well beyond what is empirically plausible. ~~ The idea of God isn't a supernatural idea. If the idea of God were supernatural, then religion would be true. The idea of God, the idea, the representation of something supernatural is not itself supernatural. If it were, then we would be out of business. Precisely what we're trying to explain is, to quote the title of a book by Pascal Boyer, the "naturalness of religious ideas," explain, in other terms, how these ideas of the supernatural can occur in the natural beings we are, in human brains and minds and culture, and have the kind of success that they have, in spite of the fact that you can't explain them in the way that you explain so many human ideas, such as ideas that are acquired through experience of the things they are about. We humans have ideas about plants and animals because we experience plants and animals in a special way with the brain we have. We don't experience God, or goblins or witches, because there are no such things. Nevertheless, we have rich complex ideas about them, a richness in many ways comparable to the ideas we have about plants, animals and the natural things around them. How is that possible? The issue is what makes these kind of ideas psychologically, cognitively attractive -- "catching", such that they stay with you in your head and you may want to communicate them and to guide your behavior on their basis. And also: which of them, among all the unrealistic unsupported ideas that are possible in infinite variety, are going to be so "catching" as to achieve cultural success, in the manner of the many religious ideas that has been around for centuries? It's not like any blatantly false idea will somehow make it to a cultural success -- far from it. Most of them don't stand a chance. What's special about ideas of the supernatural? I argued long ago that it had to do with the fact that they are rooted in our cognitive dispositions, in the way we approach the natural world. Instead of departing from our commonsense ideas so to speak at random, they're like direct provocation -- they have always an aspect of going directly against what should be the most intuitively obvious. So for instance it's part of our common sense knowledge of of living forms, that an animal can't be both a dog and a cat, but the supernatural is full of creatures like dragons that typically belong to several species simultaneously. It's part of our common sense knowledge of the physical world that an entity cannot be in two places simultaneously, but ubiquity is a distinctive trait of supernatural beings. It's kind of again commonsense, in our commonsense psychology which we deploy in everyday interaction with one another, that one's visual perceptions are limited to what's present in front of one's eyes. Supernatural beings typically can see the past, the future, and things on the other side of earth. So supernatural beings are kind of provocations to commonsense. They are really deeply counterintuitive. That's an idea I suggested a long time ago and that Pascal Boyer has developed and enriched in a remarkable fashion, and which I think is one of the cognitive ingredients that helps explain the success of religious ideas. Of course, it's only one little fragment of a kind of complex picture. ~~ I started as an anthropologist. Precisely because they were more cognitive, more naturalist, more linked also to evolution than most, for a long time, my ideas were not very well received among anthropologists. They've been discussed a lot, but I found myself spending too much time with my fellow anthropologists arguing the basics of the field rather than moving forward in research. I got involved in linguistics, experimental psychology, philosophy of science, evolutionary biology, and lots of fascinating topics--and continuing also the conversation with anthropologists. Anthropology is a discipline that has been in crisis all my life. When I started the crisis was linked to the end of the colonization. Anthropology had developed during the period of colonization, as a kind of ancillary science for colonial enterprise. At the same time so many anthropologists were actually active in anti-colonialist movement, and that was also one of the reasons I came to anthropology. But, the decolonisation, anthropology lost this kind of historical and sociological context. Anthropologists in the 60s, 70s, were asking about their political role, about whether or not we were on the right side. Anthropologists started studying themselves and trying to reflect on their own situation. It was a kind of reflective anthropology, which had a number of interesting aspects. I certainly don't think it was useless although it became a bit obsessive. Parallel to these developments, were the post-structuralist and then post-modernist movements in the humanities and the social sciences, the development of "cultural studies," and many anthropologists felt at ease in these movements. This produced a new kind of discourse, taking the study of other cultures as much as a pretext as a subject matter to be investigated in a standard scholarly manner. Again, some of the products of this appraoch are of genuine interest, but on the whole more harm has been done than good. While this was happening, others, in part in reaction against this turn toward the literary in anthropology, moved on the contrary toward a more naturalistic anthropology. They became interested in social biology, in biological anthropology. What you find now in anthropology departments is that people can't talk to each other. Some universities have now had two anthropology departments. So anthropology is stilll in crisis, even if it is not the same crisis. You can look at such a crisis from an institutional or from an intellectual point of view. Universities as we know them emerged in the nineteenth century and unerwent major changes, in particular after World War II. It does not make sense to project this short past into an indefinite future. In fact, universities are evolving, transforming themselves beyond recognition. The biggest changes are will be due to new communication technology. There is also now a big and blatant gap between the structure of departments in universities, which have to do with institution of transmission of knowledge, and which seem to define stable domains such as psychology, anthropology, sociology, and the real ongoing research which is structured in new ways -- in the form of creative, or dynamic, research programs, that may fall within a traditional discipline, or, more often, across several traditional disciplines. Depending on the productivity of such dynamic programs, they are can go on for ten years, 20 years, 30 years, or more. It is these dynamic research programs that interest me; I've been involved in several, and that's what I find to be intellectually exciting. When we say anthropology is in crisis we're talking about anthropology as defined by academic institutions. And it doesn't matter. It deserves to be in crisis; it deserves to explode, let it do so. References 10. http://www.edge.org/video/dsl/sperber.html 11. http://www.edge.org/video/56k/sperber.html 12. http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/brockman.html 13. http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/sperber.html 14. http://www.edge.org/documents/summerbooks2005/books.html 15. http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/brockman.html 16. http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/weinberger.html 17. mailto:editor at edge.org 18. http://www.edge.org/about_edge.html 19. http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/sperber05/sperber05_index.html#top From checker at panix.com Tue Oct 4 22:08:27 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2005 18:08:27 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] Old Design: Amillennials, Premillennials, Postmillennials, Historists, Praeterists, and Spiritualists Message-ID: Amillennials, Premillennials, Postmillennials, Historists, Praeterists, and Spiritualists http://www.olddesign.com/Literal%20or%20Spiritual.html [This looks like a good rundown of the various major viewpoints.] There is a great debate that has constantly raged among theologians upon the subject of what they call eschatology, which is a term that they have developed to refer to the study of the "end times" or the last age of time of humanity upon the earth. Many, if not most Amills, Premills and Historists are to some degree futurists, as they see most or some degree of prophecy to be yet fulfilled, which fulfillment may also include the final dissolution of the natural or physical universe or cosmos. There are two main groups of Millennialists, The Pre and the Post, with the Premills being the largest; but with many variations of ideas, and many subdivisions exist among them . The Postmillennials believe that there will be a period of great tribulation for the saints AFTER the Milliennium, while the Premillennials believe that this period of tribulation will take place BEFORE the Milliennium (a literal 1000 year personal reign of Christ upon earth.) The Premillennials and the Amillennials: The Amillennialists The Amillennials generally hold that the Kingdom of Christ on earth is NOW, Amills believe that the kingdom is physical and spiritual in nature, (though they disagree greatly as to the extent of the spirituality and physicalness of the Kingdom;) That the kingdom is now spiritually present within those He deems to be His people, and this kingdom will literally, spiritually and chronologically continue until Christ bodily returns in a great cosmological event, when He will destroy the physical earth by fire, (and many believe that He will dissolve the entire universe or cosmos at this same time also, and that Time will cease to exist as a creation of God; but again, there are some variations of their views on this.) That He will reassemble the biological bodies of all the human race from the elements of the earth, and perhaps from beyond, into the original of their former earthly state, change their earthly physical bodies into "spiritual" bodies, then raise them into the atmosphere or some other place, where Christ will then hold a Great Tribunal, while seated upon a literal Great White Throne - That He will resurrect the righteous first, and then the remainder of those who are alive upon the earth; That He will separate the "sheep from the goats", judge all according to their past deeds, whether good or bad, and those who are judged wicked, to an everlasting or eternal punishment for their wickedness, cast these wicked into a literal burning lake of fire, where they will eternally suffer punishment for their sins against God and the light of nature. Some Amills believe that the wicked and righteous will all be literally resurrected from their physical graves at the same time, but the righteous will be judged not quilty, Some hold that the righteous only will be resurrected, while the wicked are directly consigned to everlasting punishment. Those, (after their bodies have been changed) will be judged righteous in Christ in God's sight, and will be exonerated from all punishment by the judgment of Christ, and then carried to the Eternal Heaven to live with God forever. -But again, there are many more variations of the above, and this is only a general representation of the ideas that Amills hold on eschatology. Some Amills and other schools are regarded by most Millennialists as taking excessive liberty in allegorizing and "spiritualizing" the Scriptures, while Premills claim they hold a more "literal", chronological interpretation which is more consistent with the "time frames" of prophecy. (Whether this claim is really true or not, can be critically examined in the opinion of the present writer.) This is just a general sketch that represents the common view of Amills. Of course there are many variations of specific details within the Amillennial scenario. "The third generic view of the interpretation of the facts of Scripture relating to eschatology, is called Amillennialism. The name itself is unfortunate in that it would seem to indicate that its advocates do not believe in the thousand year period of Revelation 20. The name literally means `no millennium,' while as a matter of fact, its advocates believe that the Millennium is a spiritual or heavenly Millennium, rather than an earthly one of a literal reign of Christ on earth before the final judgment. From one point of view, it might be called a variety of Postmillennialism, since it believes that the spiritual or heavenly Millennium precedes the second coming of Christ." Floyd E. Hamilton The Premillennialists Futurists, of whom are the Milliannists, according to some writers, were very small or nearly non-existent during the last half of the nineteenth century, but there has been quite a resurgence of those who hold this view of eschatology during the 20th Century, though at the present time seems to be again losing some ground. (beginning of the 21st Century) Premillennialists (or dispensationalists as they are usually called) generally hold that the present Kingdom of Christ, or the gospel dispensation exists, but it exists only as an interim period, and that it was instituted because the Jews rejected Jesus as The true Messiah. Many, if not most of them believe that His coming in the flesh to the Jews was based upon a conditional "offer" of salvation to the Jews, in order that He might establish a literal political kingdom among them; that this was God's "original intention for Christ's Kingdom on earth; but since they rejected this "offer", He then postponed the establishment of this same type of kingdom until a later period, which will then comprise their Millennium under consideration. Some Premills that are Arminian in sentiment hold that the actual and final fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant was conditional to the natural Jew under the Law, but wll be unconditional to the future establishment of the coming millenium (which will be headed up by natural Jews) and the present gospel (church) kingdom is a conditional covenant to believers in Christ! Millennialists generally hold that the prophecies and promises of the O.T. Scriptures applied to (or were exclusively for) the natural Jews only, and will finally be fullfilled to these as such in their coming millianium; That Christ made another covenant with those called under the Gospel Dispensation, and that this covenant is only to be temporary; but His main covenant is and has always been with the original Israelites as a nation, and He will finally restore them and give them life again when He reverts again to this covenant, and when they will again be recognized as the main body of His favor, and graft them again into their own Tree of original promises made to them. - But again there are quite a few variations within this general scenario. Many Milliannists claim that Amillennialism (kingdom is NOW present) is not founded upon the Scriptures, or the general doctrine of the "end-times" as generally believed by the early church fathers, and that according to the writings of the fathers and other secular historians of that age, the doctrines of Amillennialism were largely invented by Augustine, Origen and other church fathers, and that the political actions of that age, especially those of Constantine, greatly attributed to the process of establishing Amillennialism as the leading doctrine of the Catholic Church. To quote from some authors: "The Premillennial school of interpreters are electionists in doctrine, holding that God has foretold that not everyone, in this present age, will be saved, but rather that, through a world-wide preaching of the Gospel there will be gathered from the Jews and Gentiles a people for His name. Such interpreters further hold that when this promise has been fulfilled, the Lord will gather His people to Himself and then, personally, bodily, literally and visibly return to earth and that following this, He will set up a Kingdom upon earth with its center at Jerusalem which will be particularly related to the Jews but world-wide in its influence and beneficence. They also hold that this kingdom will endure for exactly one thousand years. That after this time, the new heavens and earth will be brought into view and then, that eternity, with its rewards for the saved and punishment for the lost, will follow." Henry W. Frost (The Second Coming of Christ, p.152) (The Basis of Millennial Faith, p.35) "In ecclesiology, the main doctrine of the Church, Premillenarianism has a firm basis. The main point in question is whether or not the Church is a distinct body in this present age. If the Church is not a subject of Old Testament prophecy, then the Church is not fulfilling Israel's promises but instead Israel herself must fulfill them and that in the future. In brief, Premillennialism with a dispensational view recognizes the Church as a distinct entity, distinct from Israel in her beginning, in her relation to this age and her promises. If the Church is not a distinct body, then the door is open wide for Amillennialism to enter with its ideas that the Church is some sort of full-bloomed development of Judaism and the fulfiller of Israel's promise of blessing (but not of judgment). Thus Premillenialism and ecclesiology are inseparably related." Charles C. Ryrie (The Basis of Premillennial faith, p.126) Historicism While the Praeterists hold that most, if not all Scripture prophecy was fulfilled in 70 A.D. and shortly following, the Historists believe that Divine prophecy is gradually being fulfilled throughout the succeeding ages of time, and especially that the Revelation to John described these unfolding events in prophecy. One argument that Historists use to support this and to mitigate the statements in Revelation concerning the things that must shortly be done is that they contend that Revelation was written in 96 A.D. (which is the traditional view held by most Futurists,) instead of BEFORE the destruction of ancient Jerusalem, or around 64-68 A.D, which date most Praeterists contend for - Historists attempt to leave much room in their eschatology for prophecy to yet be fulfilled. Many of them along with the Amills, (many of whom are of the Historist school) say that Daniels seventy weeks did not actually end in 70 AD, but rather in the middle of the last week of Daniels prophecy. (Dan 9) Many say that revelations to man from God did not end at the time of the appearance of Christ with His propitiation for sin, but will continue until the "end of time" or until the dissolution of all things. In contrast with the Praeterists, Most Historists believe that although Christ finished His redemptive work at the cross, yet God's revelation to man was not complete in Christ at that time, but must be gradually fulfilled throughout succeeding ages of time : We have demonstrated in our short discourse that for the "seventy weeks" to have ended at the fall of Jerusalem would have required another "break" in time, similar to how the Futurists view this prophecy. This was proved by applying the "Day for a Year" principle, which is firmly grounded in Scripture. The subject of the Day for a Year is so rich that it deserves a thorough study of its own. The "seventy weeks" concerned itself not with announcing the end of God's revelations to man but rather with the appearance of Jesus Christ, His ministry and the call of the Gentiles or Nations into Salvation. Again, why were the "seventy weeks" determined? To finish the transgression; to make an end of sins; to make reconciliation for iniquity; to bring in everlasting righteousness; to seal up the vision and prophecy; and to anoint the most Holy! Bill and Sandy Kalivas (But when Philip Mauro, Anstey and other "seventy week" writers apply the day for a year principle they get 70 AD as the fulfillment of the predicted 490 years of Daniel.) Historicism is a satisfying and godly view of Revelation. It allows for God's hand to be seen in our past, present and future. Events which have been considered political in nature are shown to be fulfillment of His recorded word. No other interpretation offers this. Praeterism, placing Revelation behind us and Futurism, placing Revelation before us, put these revealing prophecies out of our present lives. Bill and Sandy Kalivas The Preterists There are two general groups of Preterists, The Full Preterists, and the Partial Preterists. The Amills and Preterists are actually in more general agreement than are the Amills and Premills, though many Premills and Amills would deny this, largely because many Amills charge most Preterists, (especially Full Preterists) with denying a resurrection of the physical (bodies of) the saints, because most Amills, along with futurists in general, look upon the resurrection in a physical way or as a great event that will transpire with great literal glory and display that may be perceived by human physical faculties. A Full Preterist, or one who holds to what is commonly called "fullfilled eschatology" emphasizes along with some hybrid Preterist-Amills, that the prophecies and promises made by God through the Old Testament Prophets were fullfilled in their entirety by the Advent of Christ and during the succeeding Apostolic Age, sometimes including a resurrection of the O. T. saints along with that of the then present age saints and transpired at the end of the Apostolic Age) and that since many of them believe that Christ destroyed death itself in His Death and Resurrection, (including the power of physical death over their soul,) death has no more power over the saints to hold them captive in literal and biological graves (which Amills generally deny, for they believe that the resurrection of saints is yet in the future.) Amills and Premills alike often interject the resurrection issue into their controversy with Preterists for support of their own eschatology. Therefore, many Amills seem to think that all Preterists deny a bodily resurrection, but that all Preterists hold to mere spiritualism; (This does not seem to be the case in my researches so far. It seems that most Preterists view only the nature of the resurrection in a different way from the traditional or catholic view.) Praeterists especially emphasize that the predictions of judgment upon the Jews as contained in the words of Christ and found in such passages as Matt Chapters 23-25, and many other passages in the Old and New Testament, which many other interpreters choose to apply to various other scenarios and events in history - that have either already transpired, or are merely speculative in these interpreters imaginations. (see Farrar below) but to Preterists, these prophecies refer specifically to those horrific events that climaxed with the total destruction of the Jewish nation, and did not in any way refer to a far-off futuristic period. Many Amills agree with this history up to this point, but there they pretty much part company with the Praeterists,, because most Amills believe that the kingdom of Christ was fully established at or shortly after Christs Intercession. Praeterists believe the events referred to in His Olivet Discourse were the near-approching calamities (35-40 years distant) that would finally and literally consumate and terminate the Law Dispensation, and would be the attending sign that would hearld this. In some things the Amills, Historists and Praeterists can agree, but the average Preterist runs head-on with the Premills, because Premills put all of this prophetic history in the far future from Christ and the Apostles time.- Although some Amills would be of a different opinion, and say that the Amills and Premills really have more in common in their beliefs, because Preterists believe that the Old Economy was not ushered out at the actual time of the redemptive work of Christ, therefore some futurists are revolted at the notion that it took the actions of Titus in 70 AD to finally accomplish all that was written concerning Christ; and so they say that this idea demeans Christ and His work, and leaves the final accomplishment of establishing His Spiritual Kingdom in the hands of a Roman general. Here are some quotes from a Praeterist of the past: (Frederic W. Farrar - 1882) There have been three great schools of Apocalyptic interpretation :- 1. The Pr?terists, who regard the book as having been mainly fulfilled. 2. The Futurists, who refer it to events which are still wholly future. 3. The Continuous-Historical Interpreters, who see in it an outline of Christian history from the days of St. John down to the End of all things. The second of these schools -- the Futurists -- has always been numerically small, and at present may be said to be non-existent. The school of Historical Interpreters was founded by the Abbot Joachim early in the 13th century, and was specially flourishing in the first fifty years of the present century. [There are two schools of the interpreters who make the Apocalypse a prophecy of all Christian history. The school of Bengel, Vitringo, Elliott, &c., make it mainly a history of the Church. Another school regards it more generally, and less specifically, as an outline of Epochs of the History of the world and the great forces which shape it into a Kingdom of God. To this latter school belong Hengstenberg, Ebrard, Auberlen, &c.] The views of the Pr?terists have been adopted, with various shades of modification, by Grotius, Hammond, Le Clerc, Bousset, Eichorn, Hug, Wetstein, Ewald, Herder, Zullig, Bleek, DeWette, Lucke, Moses Stuart, Davidson, Volkmar, Krenkel, Dusterdieck, Renan, and almost the whole school of modern German critics and interpreters. It has been usual to say that the Spanish Jesuit Alcasar, in his Vestigatio arcani sensus in Apocalpysi (1614), was the founder of the Pr?terist School, and it certainly seems as if to him must be assigned the credit of having first clearly enunciated the natural view that the Apocalypse, like all other known Apocalypses of the time, describes events nearly contemporaneous, and is meant to shadow forth the triumph of the Church in the struggle first with Judaism and then with Heathendom. But to me it seems that the founder of the Pr?terist School is none other than St. John himself. For he records the Christ as saying to him when he was in the Spirit, "Write the things which thou sawest, and THE THINGS WHICH ARE, and the things which are about to happen after these things." No language surely could more clearly define the bearing of the Apocalypse. It is meant to describe the contemporary state of things in the Church and the world, and the events which were to follow in immediate sequence. If the Historical School can strain the latter words into an indication that we are (contrary to all analogy) to have a symbolic and unintelligible sketch of many centuries, the Pr?terist School may at any rate apply these words, "THE THINGS WHICH ARE," to vindicate the application of a large part of the Apocalypse to events nearly contemporary, while they also give the natural meaning to the subsequent clause by understanding it of events which were then on the horizon. The Seer emphatically says that the future events which he has to foreshadow will occur speedily [Compare Tachu (Rev. 22. 5,16 ; iii.11; xi.14 ; xxii.20). It is curious to see with what extraordinary ease commentators explain the perfect simple and ambiguous expression "speedily" to mean any length of time which they may choose to demand. The word "immediately," in Matt. xxiv.29, has been subject to similar handling, in which indeed all Scripture exegesis abounds. The failure to see that the Fall of Jerusalem and the end of the Mosaic Dispensation was a "Second Advent" -- and THE Second Advent contemplated in many of the New Testament prophecies -- has led to a multitude of errors..] and the recurrent burden of his whole book is the nearness of the Advent. Language is simply meaningless if it is to be so manipulated by every successive commentator as to make the words "speedily" and "near" to imply any number of centuries of delay. The Pr?terist method of interpretation does not, however, interfere with that view of prophecy which was so well defined by Dr. Arnold. This is the view of those who have been called the "spiritual" interpreters. It admits of the analogical application of prophecy to conditions which, in the cycles of history, bear a close resemblance to each other. It applies to all times the principles originally laid down with reference to events which were being then enacted, and starts with the axiom of Bacon, that divine prophecies have steps and grades of fulfillment through divers ages. [De Augment. Scient. ii.11.] All that is really valuable in the works of the Historical Interpreters may thus be retained. No importance can be attached to their limitation of particular symbols, but the better part of their labours may be accepted as an illustration of the manner in which the Apocalyptic symbols convey moral lessons which are applicable to the conditions of later times. But, apart from St. John's own words, it cannot be conceded that the central conception of the Pr?terist exegesis is a mere novelty of the 17th century. On the contrary, we can trace from very early days the application of various visions to the early emperors of Pagan Rome. Thus Justin Martyr believed that the Antichrist would be a person who was close at hand, who would reign three and a half years. [Dial. c. Tryph. p. 250] Irenaeus also thought that Antichrist, as foreshadowed by the Wild Beast, would be a man ; and that "the number of the Beast" represented Lateinos, "a Latin," [Iren. Haer. v. 25] Hippolytus compares the action of the False Prophet giving life to the Beast's image, to Augustus inspiring fresh force into the Roman Empire. [De Antichristo, p.6] Later on, I shall furnish abundant evidence that a tradition of the ancient Church identified Nero with the Antichrist, and expected his literal return, just as the Jews expected the literal return of the Prophet Elijah. St. Victorinus (about A.D.303) counts the five dead emperors from Galba, and supposes that, after Nerva, the Beast (whom he identifies with Nero) will be recalled to life. ["Bestia de septem est quoniam ante ipsos reges Nero regnavit."] St. Augustine mentions a similar opinion. [De Civ. Dei, xx.19] The Pseudo-Prochorus, writing on Rev. xvii. 10, says that the "one which is" is meant for Domition. Bishop Andreas, in the fifth century, applies Rev. vi.12 to the siege of Jerusalem, and considers that Antichrist will be "as a king of the Romans." Bishop Arethas, on Rev. vii., implies that the Apocalypse was written before the Jewish War. The fragments of ancient comment which we possess cannot be said to have much intrinsic value ; but such as they are they suffice to prove that the tendency of modern exegesis approaches quite as nearly to the earliest traditions as that of the Historical School. It is a specially important fact that St. Augustine, as well as many others, recognized the partially retrogressive and iterative character of the later visions, and thereby sanctioned one of the most important principles of modern interpretation. [Id. ib. 17.] The internal evidence that the book was written before the Fall of Jerusalem has satisfied not only many Christian commentators, who are invidiously stigmatised as "rationalistic," but even such writers as Wetstein, Lucke, Neander, Stier, Auberlen, Ewald, Bleek, Gebhardt, Immer, Davidson, Dusterdieck, Moses Stuart, F.D. Maurice, the author of "The Parousia," Dean Plumptree, the authors of the Protestanten-Bibel and multitudes of others no less entitled to the respect of all Christians. If, however, the reader still looks with prejudice and suspicion on the only school of Apocalyptic exegesis with unites the suffrages of the most learned recent commentators in Germany, France, and England, I hardly know where he is to turn. The reason why the early date and mainly contemporary explanation of the book is daily winning fresh adherents among unbiased thinkers of every Church and school, is partly because it rests on so simple and secure a basis, and partly because no other can compete with it. It is indeed the only system which is built on the plain and repeated statements and indications of the Seer himself, and the corresponding events are so closely accordant with the symbols as to make it certain that this scheme of interpretation is the only one that can survive. A few specimens may suffice to show how completely other systems float in the air. Let us suppose that the student has found out that in viii.13 the true reading is "a single eagle," not an angel ; but, whether eagle or angel, he wants to know what the symbol means. He turns to the commentators, and finds that it is explained to be the Holy Spirit (Victorinus); or Pope Gregory the Great (Elliott); or St. John himself (DeLyra); or St. Paul (Zeger); or Christ himself (Wordsworth). The Pr?terists mostly take it to be simply an eagle, as the Scriptural type of carnage--the figure being suggested not by the resemblance of the word "woe!" ("ouai") to the eagle's screams, but by the use of the same symbol for the same purpose by our Lord in His discourse about the things to come. [Matt. xxiv.28.] But this is nothing! The student wishes to learn what is meant by the star fallen from heaven, in ix.1. The Historical school will leave him to choose between an evil spirit (Alford); a Christian heretic (Wordsworth); the Emperor Valens (DeLyra); Mohammed (Elliott); and, among others, Napoleon (Hengstenberg) ! The confusion deepens as we advance. The locusts are "heretics" (Bede); or Goths (Vitringa); or Vandals (Aureolus); or Saracens (Mede); or the mendicant orders (Brightman); or the Jesuits (Scherzer); or Protestants (Bellarmine). The same endless and aimless diversity reigns throughout the entire works of the Historical interpreters ; none of them seems to satisfy any one but himself. The elaborate anti-papal interpretation of Elliott--of which (to show that I am far from prejudiced) I may mention, in passing, that I made a careful study and a full abstract when I was seventeen years old-- is all but forgotten. Mr. Faber admits that there is not the least agreement as to the first four trumpets among writers of his school, and he rightly says that "so curious a circumstance may well be deemed the opprobrium of Apocalyptic interpretation, and may naturally lead us to suspect that the true key to the distinct application of the first four trumpets has never yet been found." Not that this school leave us any better off when we come to the seven thunders. They are seven unknown oracles (Mede); or events (Ebrard); or the seven crusades (Vitringa); or the seven Protestant kingdoms (Dunbar); or the Papal Bull against Luther (Elliott). The two wings of the great eagle in xii.14 are the two Testaments (Wordsworth); or the eastern and western divisions of the empire (Mede, Auberlen); or the Emperor Theodosius (Elliott). The number of the Beast -- which may be now regarded as certainly intended to stand for Nero -- has been made to serve for Genseric, Benedict, Trajan, Paul V., Calvin, Luther, Mohammed, Napoleon -- not to mention a host of other interpretations which no one has ever accepted except their authors. [The majority of guesses which have the least seriousness in them point to Rome, the Roman Empire, or the Roman Emperor.] It is needless to multiply further instances. They might be multiplied almost indefinitely, but their multiplicity is not so decisive of the futility of the principles on which they are selected, as is the diversity of results which are wider than the poles asunder. What are we to say of methods which leave us to choose between the applicability of a symbol to the Holy Spirit or to Pope Gregory, to the Two Testaments or to the Emperor Theodosius? Anyone, on the other hand, who accepts the Pr?terist system finds a wide and increasing consensus among competent enquirers of all nations, and can see an explanation of the book which is simple, natural, and noble -- one which closely follows its own indications, and accords with those to be found throughout the New Testament. He sees that events, mainly contemporary, provide an interpretation clear in its outlines, though necessarily uncertain in minor details. It he takes the view of the Spiritualists, he may at his pleasure make the symbols mean anything in general and nothing in particular. If he is of the Historical School he must let the currents of Gieseler or Gibbon sweep him hither and thither at the will of the particular commentator in whom he for the time may chance to confide. But if he follows the guidance of a more reasonable exegesis, he may advance with a sure step along a path which becomes clearer with every fresh discovery. Frederic W. Farrar, 1831 - 1903 D.D. , F.R,S, The Spiritualists As commented above by Farrar, Spiritualists feel, when at their own discretion they may make the symbols mean anything in general and nothing in particular, and thus it would seem that the Spirtualist interpreters may lose some, if sometimes not most context of the Scriptures; and indeed, it seems that they who follow this practice, many times do; while at the same time they may present many things that are very valuable within their specific subject- if it be in accordance with the general analogy of faith. But the danger of the straight Spiritualist approach is that these may rely upon this method to the extent that they are not then led to study and compare the historical and literal aspects of the Scriptures, so they may then drift entirely into the habit of excessively allegorizing the word of truth, so to make the Scriptures mean anything that may strike their fancy. To close with a bit of humor concerning eschatology: When asked to one, "What is your method of eschatology? They replied, "Pan-Milliannian". "What do you mean by ' "Pan" Milliannial ?' they replied. "I believe all things will "pan" out according to the will of God." With this all believers should be able to agree. [1]A PAN-MILLENNIAL VIEW: By Stanley Phillips OAB If any perceived errors are found here, I would appreciate any corrections. Please direct your comments to: Allen Bailey mountaintraveler at hotmail.com References 1. http://www.geocities.com/thepredestinarian/panmill.html From checker at panix.com Tue Oct 4 22:08:39 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2005 18:08:39 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] Economics as Religion by Robert Nelson Message-ID: Economics as Religion by Robert Nelson http://www.psupress.org/Justataste/samplechapters/justatasteRNelson.html [This is just an excerpt from this book. I had a proof copy of an earlier book of his, _Reaching for Heaven on Earth: The Theological Roots of Economics_, but never read it.] Chapter 1 Tenets of Economic Faith To the extent that any system of economic ideas offers an alternative vision of the "ultimate values," or "ultimate reality," that actually shapes the workings of history, economics is offering yet another grand prophesy in the biblical tradition. The Jewish and Christian bibles foretell one outcome of history. If economics foresees another, it is in effect offering a competing religious vision. The prophesies of economics would then be a substitute for the traditional messages of the Bible. Perhaps the biblical God has reconsidered. Perhaps, instead of Jesus, he has now chosen economists to be a new bearer of his message, replacing the word of the Old and New Testaments that has now become outdated for the modern age--as Islam advertised the Koran as a later and more accurate statement of God's real plans for the world. Perhaps God has decided that the underlying ordering forces of the world, the ultimate reality that will shape the future outcome of history, will truly be economic. To be sure, for many thinkers, such a message of economic prophesy has not depended on the necessary existence of any god in the hereafter. In this case their belief system results not in a Judeo-Christian heresy, but in an entirely new and secular religion--although one that draws many of its themes from the biblical tradition, now typically reworking them in a less direct and mostly implicit fashion.1 The Marxist Example No economic thinker, for example, was more outwardly antagonistic to religion than Karl Marx.2 Religion was for him the "opiate" of the masses. Yet, in retrospect, no social scientist better illustrates the power of underlying religious influences than Marx.* Beneath his confused economic analysis and grand pronouncements on the economic laws of history lies a simple biblical eschatology. Humankind has fallen into evil ways, corrupted by the workings of the forces of the class struggle. The resulting "alienation" for Marx has virtually the same meaning for the human situation as "original sin" in the biblical message. Human beings are today still living in a state of darkness, depravity, and corruption. The prospect of escape from this terrible condition, however, is close at hand. God (now replaced in Marx by the economic laws of history) has promised to deliver the world from sin (alienation). There will be a fierce struggle and a great cataclysm (a final war in history between the capitalist and the working classes), followed by the arrival of the kingdom of God on earth (the triumph of the proletariat and the arrival of pure communism). In Christian theology the twin coercive instruments of government and property are both products of the fallen condition of mankind in this world since the Garden of Eden, and in heaven neither will exist. In Marxist theology as well, the end of the class struggle, the end of alienation (sin), will bring about the abolition of government and property alike. Secular religion, as this example shows, can follow remarkably closely in the path of Judeo-Christian religion. (* The Encyclopedia of the World's Religions includes a chapter on Marxism, declaring that it meets all the essential requirements of a religion. See R. C. Zaehner, "Dialectical Materialism," in R. C. Zaehner, ed., Encyclopedia of the World's Religions (New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1997).) Marx thus is best understood not fundamentally as an economist at all, but as another Jewish messiah--like Jesus--with another message of salvation for the world. If the message of Jesus had conquered the Mediterranean and European world, the Marxist gospel in the twentieth century would spread over Russia, China, and many other nations--to billions of people throughout the globe. As Paul Tillich said in his history of Christian religion, and however distorted the Marxist gospel, Marx was one of the most influential "theologians" who ever lived.3 To be sure, as D. McCloskey has said is true for of the value systems embodied in the work of many current economists as well, this value system of Marx with its roots in Judeo-Christian eschatology is never made explicit; instead, the religion is left buried under a large body of ostensibly "scientific" arguments.4 Thus, the libertarian and Austrian economist Murray Rothbard considered Marxism to be an "atheized variant of a venerable Christian heresy" that offered a "messianic goal" to be realized by the "apocalyptic creation" of a new world order. Joachim of Fiore and other Christian visionaries had preached messages of a communist "final state of mankind as one of perfect harmony and equality," inspiring among others the later Anabaptist revolutionaries of the Protestant Reformation. The greatest new element introduced by Marx and his followers in the modern age was that these ancient themes now assumed a "secular context."5 Aside from this, Rothbard saw Marxism as the application of an ancient formula: [For Marx] history is the history of suffering, of class struggle, of the exploitation of man by man. In the same way as the return of the Messiah, in Christian theology, would put an end to history and establish a new Heaven and new Earth, so the establishment of communism would put an end to human history. And just as for . . . Christians, man, led by God's prophets and saints, would establish a Kingdom of God on Earth, . . . so for Marx and other schools of communists, mankind, led by a vanguard of secular saints, would establish a secularized kingdom of heaven on earth.6 The success of Marxism in Russia, according to one leading interpreter, was attributable to its ability to draw on a long-standing "`religious conception of the czar's authority' and a deep belief that land belonged to God." The powerful religious faith of the Russian people was capable of "switching over and directing itself to purposes which are not merely religious, for example, to social objects," part of a process in which Russians "could very readily pass from one integrated faith to another" as found in the Marxist gospel. Indeed, as perceived by many Russians, "the world mission of the [Communist Party] Third International echoed Orthodox Christian messianism, which saw Moscow as the Third Rome." Under Stalin, the members of the communist party functioned "less as members of a political party than as clergy under an infallible pope."7 Marxist economics clearly met Tillich's requirement that a genuine religion must offer a vision of "ultimate reality." For Marx everything that happened in the history of the world was controlled by economic laws. Altogether blind to the obvious religious character of his own economic system, Marx said that every form of religious belief is merely a product of a particular economic stage of the class struggle. Echoing this tenet of Marxist faith, for example, in the bible of Chinese communism, the "red book," Mao Tse-Tung would say that "in the general development of history the material determines the mental and social being determines social consciousness."8 Religion for Marxism thus can have no objective content; it merely provides a convenient rationalization for the relations of economic power of the moment. If capitalists are the dominant economic class today, then the current religion of society will be determined by the objective needs of capitalism at this particular time. If capitalists actually believe in the truth of their religion, this grand self-delusion merely shows the warped and distorted quality of human thought in the current state of deep human alienation (a secular restatement of the sinfulness of fallen men and women). Marx regards everything else in society in the same perspective. Political organizations, social theories, the legal system, the role of universities, all the institutional features of society are designed to serve the existing relationships of economic power, as manifested in and determined by the current stage of the class struggle. As a new "ultimate reality," the laws of economics have literally taken the very place of the laws of God in ordering the world. The economic god of Marx is, moreover, a harsh god in the biblical tradition; he has condemned the present world to constant fighting and destruction and most human beings to lives of deception and depravity. To be sure, Marx may have offered an exaggerated version, but he was hardly alone in thinking in this religious way. Just as the biblical message was recorded by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in different versions, the god who works through economic history has also had multiple interpreters. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, according to one authority, believed that "it was property alone which induced crime and wars," corrupting the original happy state of nature by conflicts over material possessions.9 Also in the eighteenth century, David Hume had said: "Let us suppose that nature has bestowed on the human race such profuse abundance of all external conveniences, that . . . every individual finds himself fully provided with whatever his most voracious appetite can want, or luxurious imagination wish or desire." If this state of affairs should ever be reached, Hume suggested, "it seems evident that, in such a happy state, every other social virtue would flourish, and receive tenfold increase." Property and the divisions in society it fosters would cease to have relevance in a world of perfect abundance; issues of social justice would no longer be a concern, because there would be little or no crime or conflict. It would be a world of "unlimited abundance" where "justice, in that case, being totally useless, would be an idle ceremonial."10 By the late nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, social scientists of all kinds and stripes were occupying themselves in showing how economic forces in the long run determine almost everything important that happens in history. A few have been grand synthesizers on the order of Marx, such as Herbert Spencer with his message of social Darwinism. Many others have focused on the illustration of one or another specific case of the controlling power of economic forces in history. In American history, for example, Charles Beard claimed to show that the American Constitution was not really the outcome of a battle of ideas about freedom but was the result of a clash of economic interests in the late eighteenth century.11 Others would argue that the Civil War was not about the morality of slavery or about preserving one union grounded in a common American civil religion but was actually the product of a conflict between powerful economic interests of the North and the South. Thorstein Veblen would contend that the entire economic system and the relationships of property ownership in this system were being driven by the exigencies of technological change in the newly industrializing United States, that the economic realities of modern industrial society entirely "shapes their habits of thought" for those directly involved in its workings.12 John Kenneth Galbraith would echo Veblen's vision when he claimed in the 1960s that the technological imperatives of modern government and industry had displaced the formal owners of capital and empowered a new "technostructure" of scientific and administrative experts to run the affairs of the nation.13 Outside the United States, the French Revolution was recast by leading intellectuals as an economic power struggle, the means by which the rising middle class finally displaced the old feudal order. Max Weber, while he found many of the economic details of Marxism inaccurate, nevertheless often looked at noneconomic aspects of society in terms of the workings of economic forces. The important thing about Calvinism for Weber was not the objective reality of its truth claims about the human condition. Rather, the more significant element was that Calvinism provided a powerful economic motive for and rationalized the existence of a new economic class--the emerging new commercial and other business groups in Europe, the very groups among whom Calvinism had first found favor.14 Much in the manner of Marx, Weber was seeming to agree that the form and character of religion was shaped by necessities to be found in the underlying workings of economic forces.* (* More recent reviewers, it should be noted, have found many aspects of Weber's argument to be deficient. See Kurt Samuelsson, Religion and Economic Action:The Protestant Ethic, the Rise of Capitalism, and the Abuses of Scholarship (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993).) A Coming Age of Abundance The Marxist assumption that the working of the laws of economics will yield a new species of human being, the "new man" of the communist utopia, has often been derided as an example of the folly of Marx's overall scheme. However, the hope for a new human condition as a result of economic progress is not unique to Marxism; indeed, the same kind of thinking was manifested in western European socialism, American Progressivism, and other leading economic belief systems of the twentieth century. As Kate Soper has commented, the great attraction of socialism derives from the "satisfaction it permits to the ethical demand for justice and equity in the distribution of goods, as [much as] it has to do with the material gratification afforded by those goods."15 In the economic gospels, the existence of evil behavior in the world has reflected the severity of the competition for physical survival of the past. Human beings have often lied and cheated, murdered, and stolen, were filled with hatreds and prejudices, because they were driven to this condition by the material pressures of their existence.* If the choice was to live or die in the struggle for control over resources, few people were likely to choose to sacrifice themselves in order to save others. Thus, the state of material deprivation is the original sin of economic theology./- Then, if this diagnosis is correct, the cure for evil in the world follows directly enough. If sin results from destructive forces brought into existence by material scarcity, a world without scarcity, a world of complete material abundance, will be a world without sin.16 (* Although there are many fewer people today who believe that economic influences are so important, such views that conflicts are stirred by material deprivation are still widely expressed.Among many examples that could be cited, one 1995 report in Washington Post finds that "South Korean President Kim Young Sam and other officials have warned that hunger and economic desperation could tempt North Korea's leaders to consider a military strike against South Korea." See Kevin Sullivan, "Food Shortages Fuel Alarm over N.Korea, "Washington Post, December 23, 1995, A11.) (/- Another way of putting this is to say that it is material deprivation that gives rise to the "craving for belongings" and that evil behavior arises because human beings have been "thoroughly warped" by this intense desire for possessions. The secularization of the idea of original sin in this manner became a principal theme of Rousseau and other French intellectuals in the eighteenth century. One of them, writing anonymously, declares: "The only vice which I know in the universe is avarice; all the others, whatever name one gives them, are merely forms, degrees of it: it is the Proteus, the Mercury, the base, the vehicle of all the other vices. Analyze vanity, conceit, pride, ambition, deceitfulness, hypocrisy, villainy; break down the majority of our sophisticated virtues themselves, all dissolve in this subtle and pernicious element, the desire to possess." See Richard Pipes, Property and Freedom (New York: Vintage Books, 1999), 41. Then, if evil in the world could be traced to material causes, it followed logically enough that the remaking of the material world by human effort had the potential to abolish evil. Humankind could refashion social and economic circumstances to perfect the condition of the world--to achieve a new heaven on earth. Inspired by their hopes for such a secular salvation, the first to make the effort were the French during the French Revolution. It was a new species of religious revolution where God was now dropped from the essential vocabulary. Many others would come later in the modern age, following one or another economic theory of the elimination of scarcity and thus the elimination of the very grounds for the existence of material cravings and for evil behavior on earth.) The contemporary philosopher Will Kymlicka thus comments that in Marxism "it is material abundance which allows communist society to overcome the need for justice." It is not because "individuals cease to have conflicting goals in life, or when a `more developed form of altruism' arises." Rather, evil currently exists in the world because the economic relations of production create a material circumstance in which "the social creations of an individual take on an alien independence, `enslaving him instead of being controlled by him.' These include the imperatives of capitalist competition, role requirements of the division of labor, rigours of the labour market, and what Marx calls the `fetishism' of money, capital and commodities." Thus, "material scarcity" is the "crucial circumstance," but it also creates the possibility that the present state of alienation "can be eliminated." The perfection of the world for Marx "is impossible without abundance" but following the triumph of the proletariat "is guaranteed by abundance."17 As Marx himself stated: In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor . . . has vanished; after labour has become not only a means to life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly--only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!18 Engels had written as early as 1847 that "private property can be abolished only when the economy is capable of producing the volume of goods needed to satisfy everyone's requirements. . . . The new rate of industrial growth will produce enough goods to satisfy all the demands of society. . . . Society will achieve an output sufficient for the needs of all members."19 Marxism thus has an ambivalence that some might find surprising with respect to the existence of the capitalist economic system based on competition in the marketplace. Although the workings of this system may degrade the laboring classes today, without the marvelous advances in economic productivity due to the profit incentive and other elements of the market system, the future salvation of the world would not be possible. Capitalism is thus a necessary economic stage on the road to heaven on earth. If the date of its arrival could not be precisely fixed, Marx would "hail each important new invention as the magical `material productive force' that would inevitably bring about the socialist revolution."20 The scientific development of electricity with its amazing and transformative economic capabilities, Marx was sure, had significantly advanced the timetable for the arrival of his new heaven on earth. The Keynesian God It would be hard to imagine a temperament more the opposite of Marx's than that of John Maynard Keynes. If Marx was prophetic and bombastic, Keynes had the manner of the worldly wise. If Marx was a social misfit and bohemian, the urbane Keynes designed economic blueprints for the British Treasury, and yet at the next moment might be consorting with the artistic elite of Bloomsbury.21 Keynes also differed sharply from Marx in his prescription for solving unemployment and other economic problems. Yet in terms of ultimate values, Keynesianism was only a modest variation on Marx--on the recent revelation of God's actual plan for the world, that the Christian Bible is apparently mistaken, that God actually works in history through economic forces and is planning a glorious ending to the world based on the workings of rapidly advancing material productivity. In his 1930 essay "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren," Keynes agreed with Marx (and Jesus) that capitalism--necessarily grounded in the desire for money and the competitive workings of self-interest in the market--is a "disgusting" system, characterized by motives unworthy of human beings. Christianity, and later Marxism, were right to believe that "avarice is a vice, that the exaction of usury is a misdemeanor, and the love of money is detestable." Keynes also agreed that it was the force of economic pressures--the result of material scarcity in the world and the resulting fierce struggle for mere physical survival--that had separated human beings from their inner better selves. Marx was right to say that the economic workings of capitalism (and feudalism and other economic systems before that) had alienated human beings from their true natures (as the Fall in the Garden had previously been thought to be the true cause of this separation). As Keynes himself put it, the economic individual had been required to suppress a natural instinct to "pluck the hour and the day virtuously and well," to be able to take spontaneous and "direct enjoyment in things," as was possible for the "lilies of the field who toil not, neither do they spin."22 The modern god of Keynes who spoke to humankind through the workings of economic forces in history had the same basic plan for a secular salvation as had the god of Marx. Both relied on the marvelous productive powers of capitalism to bring on a final stage of history.* It will be an era of abundance, ending the corrosive and corrupting influence of economic scarcity, thus bringing on a time of great human virtue, equality, and contentment. Keynes, like Marx, sees a new man and woman being born: "All kinds of social customs and economic practices, affecting the distribution of wealth and of economic rewards and penalties, which we now maintain at all costs, however distasteful and unjust they may be in themselves, because they are tremendously useful in promoting the accumulation of capital, we shall then be free, at last, to discard." It will all come about, Keynes writes, as a result of "the greatest change that has ever occurred in the material environment of life for human beings in the aggregate." After this happens, we will finally be "able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us" for centuries.23 (* While economists have often been blind to the underlying values in their economic messages, Christians theologians--lamenting the substitution of secular beliefs for traditional Christian teachings-- have often been more perceptive in seeing the core religious quality of these beliefs.Thus,Richard Niebuhr in the 1930s came to think that "the Social Gospel, with its focus on human striving,was insufficiently centered on God."The Christian churches of America were located in a "culture caught up in idolatrous faiths which take partial human communities, activities and desires as cherished objects. Nationalism focuses on one's country, capitalism on economic production and racism on a particular group.The church has been infiltrated by these social faiths"but must now seek a future "emancipation from cultural bondage" with its pervasive "idols" such as "economic production." See Douglas F. Ottati," God and Ourselves:The Witness of H.Richard Niebuhr,"Christian Century, April 2,1997,346.) Keynes's timetable was hardly less optimistic than that of Marx. Like the early followers of Jesus in biblical times, Keynes thought that the arrival of the kingdom of heaven on earth was near at hand, to occur in perhaps one hundred years or so. The continued rapid advance of economic progress in the world would soon "lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight."24 In terms of the path to heaven on earth, there was one key difference between Keynes and Marx. Marx was what in Christianity is called a "premillennial" prophet; Keynes was instead a "postmillennial."25 The premillennials, like Marx, see humankind as mired today in such fundamental depravity that the only hope--which God (or the economic forces of history) fortunately has predestined--is an apocalyptic transformation of the human condition. This transformation will often be prefigured by catastrophes of the worst kind. For postmillennials, in contrast, the millennium has already begun; human progress toward heaven on earth is already taking place at this very moment; humankind has an important continuing role to play within the divine plan for bringing about the salvation of the world. As Keynes said, being careful to distinguishing himself from Marx in this regard, the coming era of economic abundance would not be experienced initially "as a catastrophe." Instead, like a good Christian postmillennial, Keynes writes that "I look forward, therefore, in the days not so very remote" to great changes in the human condition for the better. "But, of course, it will all happen gradually. . . . Indeed, it has already begun."26 Keynes included his essay "Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren" as the closing chapter in Essays in Persuasion. This was not the only time that Keynes chose to wrap up on important book in this manner--to indicate that the details of his prior economic theorizing were designed in the end to serve a grand moral purpose. In the concluding chapter of The General Theory, Keynes repeats similar themes, if in a somewhat more subdued and cautious language, also reflecting the different conventions of the academic audience to which this work was directed. Moreover, by the mid-1930s Hitler was already becoming a threat to the world, and Keynes's assessment of the human condition was shifting accordingly. Thus, Keynes writes at the end of The General Theory that there are "dangerous human proclivities" at work in a sinful world that pose the prospect of "cruelty, the reckless pursuit of personal power and authority, and other forms of self-aggrandizement." Capitalism could serve an important short-run function because "it is better that a man should tyrannise over his bank balance than his fellow citizens." Moreover, there were "valuable human activities" that depended on the "motive of money-making and the environment of private wealth-ownership for their full fruition."27 Yet, in the longer run, if society would heed the prescriptions of The General Theory, the resulting steady economic growth would mean--much as Marx had prophesied--"the euthanasia of the cumulative oppressive power of the capitalist class to exploit the scarcity value of capital." The current capitalist system was merely a "transitional phase" after which the world would experience a "sea-change."28 If Keynes did not give many details concerning the consequences of this change in The General Theory, one can assume that he meant something of the kind that he had already described in Essays in Persuasion. Keynes of course did not advertise The General Theory as a work of theology. Instead, as the title reflected, he seemed to suggest that readers should see his efforts more as following in the footsteps of Albert Einstein. Einstein had discovered a general theory of time and space; Keynes had now discovered a general theory of economic interactions. Einstein's theory of relativity had shown that dynamic factors could fundamentally alter the conclusions of Newtonian physics; Keynesian economics would now show that dynamic factors could yield new and unexpected laws fundamentally altering the behavior of a market economy. Thus, like Marx, Keynes presented himself in the role of a true scientist of society--an essential element in the enormous influence both would have on the history of the twentieth century. D. McCloskey may be right, however. Despite the scientific aspirations of The General Theory (which have not held up well over time), the more important content may have been an implicit theological message. Contrary to Marx, Keynes was saying, the salvation of the world would take time, it would require patience. Both agreed that capitalism was a debased form of existence, yet Marx no less than Keynes now thought that capitalism at present was indispensable to the economic growth that would end economic scarcity and bring on a new stage of abundance in history. However, as Keynes now thought, attempts to accelerate the schedule for the end of capitalism, acted out under the duress of the economic conditions of the depression years, would be disastrous in the long run. The millennium had already begun; the human condition was steadily improving already. With patience and trust in the economic forces in history, the underlying moral theology of The General Theory was that the capitalist stage of economic history would soon enough be ended (in one hundred years or so), and no great economic cataclysm or other great disaster would be necessary to fulfill the looming material and spiritual perfection of the world.* No dictatorship of the proletariat was necessary or desirable; it was necessary only to use the instrument of existing democratic government to make further incremental adjustments in the workings of the current market system. (* As a postmillennial, Keynes was following closely in the tradition of John Stuart Mill, more so than of the premillennial, apocalyptic Marx. Mill in his Principles of Political Economy offered a view of the future strikingly similar to that later developed by Keynes in "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren." Agreeing with Keynes, Mill describes the current stage of industrial development, characterized by the "trampling, crushing, elbowing, and treading on each other's heels" of the competitive process, as impossible to consider "anything but the disagreeable symptoms of one of the phases of industrial progress." Mill also agrees with Keynes (and Marx) that capitalism may be a "necessary stage"; it would be important for some time to come that "the energies of mankind should be kept in employment by the struggle for riches," especially because in the present material circumstances of mankind the alternative might be (as Keynes would also warn) "the struggle of war." But capitalism should be regarded, Mill says, as a "very early stage of human improvement" that will eventually be superceded by a much better "ultimate type." In the current stage it is necessary to exalt degraded values such as the "increase of production and accumulation."However, in the longer run such economic motives will be of "little importance." The current environment, with its prevailing motive "to grow as rich as possible," will be replaced by a world in which "no one desires to be richer." This "steady state," as Mill's characterizes it,"would be, on the whole, a very considerable improvement on our present condition." It would be,as Marx and Keynes also emphasized, the transforming power of material progress that would lead to this new world in which "a much larger body of persons than atpresent,[would be] not only exempt from the coarser toils, but with sufficient leisure, both physical and mental, to cultivate freely the graces of life." Progress would no longer be conceived in economic terms, but in the steady state, as Mill believes, "there would be as much scope as ever for all kinds of . . . moral and social progress; as much room for improving the Art of Living, and much more likelihood of its being im-proved, when minds ceased to be engrossed by the art of getting on" economically. If any further economi growth did occur, it would not be used to increase levels of consumption that would already be ample to meet any real needs but with "abridging labour" and thus opening the way for greater leisure and personal development. In short, Mill is yet another of the leading economists of the past two hundred years who sees material progress not as the end in itself but as the short-run means of reaching for a long-run future heaven on earth. See John Stuart Mill, "The Stationary State," chap. 6 in bk. 4 of Principles of Political Economy (1871; reprint, Fairfield,N.J.: Augustus M.Kelley, 1987), 746-51.) This secular Keynesian theology would become "the new gospel" for the economics profession in the years following World War II.29 As Milton Friedman has commented, it was "tremendously effective" in the United States in influencing the direction of public policy. Friedman recalled how a whole generation of "economists, myself included, have sought to discover how to manipulate the levers of power effectively, and to persuade--or educate--government officials regarded as seeking to serve the public interest."30 The most important form of manipulation would be that of the "market mechanism." Keynes sought especially to ward off the ideas of Marxists, doctrinaire socialists, and other potentially harmful influences on public opinion, the kinds of people whom Keynes himself characterized as most likely in practice actually "to serve not God but the devil."31 If false religions were at work in the land, Keynes found it necessary to fight fire with fire. As Joseph Schumpeter would relate, Keynes's own efforts inspired a band of followers who exhibited a new religious fervor: A Keynesian school formed itself, not a school in that loose sense in which some historians of economics speak of a French, German, Italian school, but a genuine one which is a sociological entity, namely, a group that professes allegiance to One Master and One Doctrine, and has its inner circle, its propagandists, its watchwords, its esoteric and its popular doctrine. Nor is this all. Beyond the pale of orthodox Keynesianism there is a broad fringe of sympathizers and beyond this again are the many who have absorbed, in one form or another, readily or grudgingly, some of the spirit or some individual items of Keynesian analysis. There are but two analogous cases in the whole history of economics--the Physiocrats and the Marxists.32 Samuelson's Economics would be the means by which the Keynesian gospel was communicated to millions of American college students in the postwar years. Samuelson was an unabashed admirer not only of the Keynesian economic theories but also of Keynes himself, whom he declared to be a true "many-sided genius" of our time who was eminent not only in economics but also in "the field of mathematics and philosophy."33 Samuelson's mission in Economics was to communicate persuasively not only the technical details but also the moral philosophy--the implicit secular religion--of Keynesianism. Samuelson's great accomplishment was to devise a way of accomplishing this task ideally suited to his specific time and place in American history. _________________________________________________________________ 1. See Frank E. Manuel and Fritzie P. Manuel, Utopian Thought in the Western World (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979); J. L.Talmon, Politican Messianism:The Romantic Phase (Boulder,Colo.: Westview Press, 1985; 1st ed., 1960). 2. Isaiah Berlin, Karl Marx: His Life and Environment (New York: Time Books, 1963; 1st ed., 1939). 3. Paul Tillich, A History of Christian Thought: From Its Judaic and Hellenistic Origins to Existentialism (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967), 476. 4. See G.N. Kitching, Marxism and Science:Analysis of an Obsession (University Park: Penn State Press, 1994). 5. Murray N. Rothbard, Classical Economics: An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought (Brookfield, Vt.:Edward Elgar, 1995), 433, 299, 301. 6. Ibid., 317. 7. Mitchell Cohen, "Theories of Stalinism," Dissent 39 (Spring 1992): 180-82, 184. 8. Quotations from Mao Tse-tung (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1966), 222. This publication was widely known as the red book. 9. J.W. Harris, Property and Justice (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 292. 10. Charles W. Hendel, Jr., ed., Hume Selections (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1927), 203-4. 11. Charles A. Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution (New York: Macmillan, 1913). 12. Thorstein Veblen, "The Preconceptions of Economic Science, I," Quarterly Journal of Economics (January 1899): 143. See also Thorstein Veblen, The Engineers and the Price System (New York: Augustus Kelley, 1965; 1st ed., 1921). 13. John Kenneth Galbraith, The New Industrial State (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979; 1st ed., 1967). 14. Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Charles Scribner,1958; 1st ed., 1905). 15. Kate Soper, "Socialism and Personal Morality," in David McLellan and Sean Sayers, eds., Socialism and Morality (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990), 111. 16. See Steven Lukes, Marxism and Morality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985); and Eugene Kamenka, Marxism and Ethics (London: Macmillan, 1969). 17. Will Kymlicka, Liberalism, Community, and Culture (New York:Oxford University Press, 1989), 114, 119, 114-15, 119. 18. Karl Marx,Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875), quoted in Kymlicka, Liberalism,Community, and Culture, 119. 19. Quoted in Rothbard, Classical Economics, 327. 20. Ibid., 374. 21. For the life history of Keynes, see Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes: Hopes Betrayed, 1883-1920 (New York: Viking, 1986); and, John Maynard Keynes:The Economist as Savior, 1920-1937 (New York: Viking, 1994). 22. John Maynard Keynes,"Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren,"(1930) in Keynes, Essays in Persuasion (New York:W.W.Norton, 1963), 369, 371-72. 23. Ibid., 369-372. 24. Ibid., 372. 25. See Robert G. Clouse, ed., The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1977), 7-9. 26. Keynes, "Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren," 369-73. 27. John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1965; 1st ed., 1936), 374. 28. Ibid., 376. 29. David C. Colander and Harry Landreth, introduction to Colander and Landreth, eds., The Coming of Keynesianism to America: Conversations with the Founders of Keynesian Economics (Brookfield, Vt.:Edward Elgar, 1996), 9. 344 Notes to Pages 23-33 30. Milton Friedman, "John Maynard Keynes," Economic Quarterly (Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond) 83 (Spring 1997): 22. 31. Letter from Keynes to Friedrich Hayek praising his The Road to Serfdom, quoted in Friedman, "John Maynard Keynes," 22. 32. Joseph A.Schumeter, Ten Great Economists from Marx to Keynes (1951),quoted in Colander and Landreth's introduction to The Coming of Keynesianism, 9-10. 33. Paul A.Samuelson, Economics (New York:McGraw Hill, 1948), 253. From checker at panix.com Tue Oct 4 22:08:48 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2005 18:08:48 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] God the Liberal Message-ID: God the Liberal God, at least the one in the Bible, is a liberal. He had too high expectations of human nature. Timeline (all from the Scofield Reference Bible, which uses the King James Version, but using, not the original 1611 spelling, but that of 1769, which continues to this day): 4004 BC: On the sixth day, God makes the first, or Edenic, Covenant (Gen. 1:26-3:13) 4004 BC: On the eighth day, God kicks Adam and Eve out of Paradise. 4004 BC: Later that day, God makes the Second, or Adamic, Covenant (Gen. 3:14-19). 2353 BC: God floods the earth (Gen. 6). 2348 BC: God makes the Third, or Noahic, Covenant (Gen. 8:20-11:9). 2247 BC: Tower of Babel: "Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of the earth" (Gen. 11:7-8). 1913 BC: God makes the Fourth, or Abrahamic, Covenant (Gen. 15:18). 1491 BC: God makes the Fifth, or Mosaic, Covenant (Ex. 20, which includes the Ten Commandments). 1451 BC: God makes the Sixth, or Palestinian, Covenant (Deu. 30). 1042 BC: God makes the Seventh, or David, Covenant (II Sam. 7). I am not sure what crashed expectations of the Lord necessitated all the additional covenants, but God got so fed up with man that he decided to end his entire creation. 4 BC: God, just but nevertheless merciful, sends his son to forgive individuals (all of them) that fail to live up to his various commandments, provided they will accept the offer. This constitutes the Eighth, or New, Covenant (Heb. 8:8). 26 AD: John the Baptist is fed up with the whole lot of the Jews, not just those in the religious establishment: "Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" (Luke 3:7). 31 AD: Jesus repeats the charge: "O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the of abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." (Mat. 12:34), though later he restricts the charges to "scribes and Pharisees" (Mat. 23:29-33). 33 AD: In a familiar act of rent-seeking, the Jewish religious establishment induces the government (the Romans) to get rid of the competition (all four Gospels). This is, of course, highly controversial, but as a Public Choice economist, I know rent-seeking when I see it. You would think that by this time, God would have offered a covenant more in keeping with human nature as it is, not what a liberal would like it to be. before 70 AD (I accept John A.T. Robinson's _Redating the New Testament_ here, while Scofield assigns 96 AD), God reveals to St. John the Divine that, nevertheless, "And I saw a new heaven an a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away: and there was no more sea (Rev. 21:1). Fri Sep 24, 2004 12:18 pm From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com Wed Oct 5 02:37:55 2005 From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.) Date: Tue, 04 Oct 2005 20:37:55 -0600 Subject: [Paleopsych] God the Liberal In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <43433C83.6030706@solution-consulting.com> Frank is in rare form here, thoroughly enjoyable essay. Thanks, and a humble bow to his scholarship. Lynn Premise Checker wrote: > God the Liberal > > God, at least the one in the Bible, is a liberal. He had too high > expectations of human nature. > > Timeline (all from the Scofield Reference Bible, which uses the King > James Version, but using, not the original 1611 spelling, but that of > 1769, which continues to this day): > > 4004 BC: On the sixth day, God makes the first, or Edenic, Covenant > (Gen. 1:26-3:13) > > 4004 BC: On the eighth day, God kicks Adam and Eve out of Paradise. > > 4004 BC: Later that day, God makes the Second, or Adamic, Covenant > (Gen. 3:14-19). > > 2353 BC: God floods the earth (Gen. 6). > > 2348 BC: God makes the Third, or Noahic, Covenant (Gen. 8:20-11:9). > > 2247 BC: Tower of Babel: "Go to, let us go down, and there confound > their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So > the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of the earth" > (Gen. 11:7-8). > > 1913 BC: God makes the Fourth, or Abrahamic, Covenant (Gen. 15:18). > > 1491 BC: God makes the Fifth, or Mosaic, Covenant (Ex. 20, which > includes the Ten Commandments). > > 1451 BC: God makes the Sixth, or Palestinian, Covenant (Deu. 30). > > 1042 BC: God makes the Seventh, or David, Covenant (II Sam. 7). I am > not sure what crashed expectations of the Lord necessitated all the > additional covenants, but God got so fed up with man that he decided > to end his entire creation. > > 4 BC: God, just but nevertheless merciful, sends his son to forgive > individuals (all of them) that fail to live up to his various > commandments, provided they will accept the offer. This constitutes > the Eighth, or New, Covenant (Heb. 8:8). > > 26 AD: John the Baptist is fed up with the whole lot of the Jews, not > just those in the religious establishment: "Then said he to the > multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of > vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" (Luke 3:7). > > 31 AD: Jesus repeats the charge: "O generation of vipers, how can ye, > being evil, speak good things? for out of the of abundance of the > heart the mouth speaketh." (Mat. 12:34), though later he restricts the > charges to "scribes and Pharisees" (Mat. 23:29-33). > > 33 AD: In a familiar act of rent-seeking, the Jewish religious > establishment induces the government (the Romans) to get rid of the > competition (all four Gospels). This is, of course, highly > controversial, but as a Public Choice economist, I know rent-seeking > when I see it. > > You would think that by this time, God would have offered a covenant > more in keeping with human nature as it is, not what a liberal would > like it to be. before 70 AD (I accept John A.T. Robinson's _Redating > the New Testament_ here, while Scofield assigns 96 AD), God reveals to > St. John the Divine that, nevertheless, "And I saw a new heaven an a > new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away: > and there was no more sea (Rev. 21:1). > > Fri Sep 24, 2004 12:18 pm > _______________________________________________ > paleopsych mailing list > paleopsych at paleopsych.org > http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych > > From checker at panix.com Wed Oct 5 17:15:03 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2005 13:15:03 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] HBES: Evolutionary psychology and "peak oil:" A Malthus inspired "heads up" for humanity. Message-ID: Evolutionary psychology and "peak oil:" A Malthus inspired "heads up" for humanity. http://www.hbes.com/Hbes/PeakOil.htm Human Behavior and Evolution Society Evolutionary biologists are aware of the concept of ecological "carrying capacity," and Malthus' application of these ideas to human populations. Malthus wrote: "It is an obvious truth, which has been taken notice of by many writers, that population must always be kept down to the level of the means of subsistence; but no writer that the Author recollects has inquired particularly into the means by which this level is effected..." -- Thomas Malthus, 1798 An Essay on the Principle of Population http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/malthus/malthus.0.html And more recently, Dawkins echoed Malthus' concerns: "If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored." -- Richard Dawkins This is exemplified in a well known paper by David Klein, "The Introduction, Increase and Crash of Reindeer on St. Matthew Island" (see: http://dieoff.org/page80.htm ) Humans on Easter Island suffered a similar fate when the population/consumption overshot the island carrying capacity (see Jared Diamond's recent book, "[5]Collapse," as well as "[6]Overshoot" by William Catton). Of course, the entire earth can also be viewed as an "island" with some resources that are finite and that are being rapidly depleted by a human population explosion.One of the most critical finite resources are fossil fuels, which provide a cheap source of energy to power technological/industrial civilization. "Peak oil" is the point when 1/2 of extractable world oil has been extracted. A similar concept is "oil demand/production cross-over" -- when the growing demand for oil crosses above the production capacity, causing oil prices to increase. We are close to, or at, these inflection points now.What most people do not realize is that there is no energy-equivalent substitute for oil, in terms of its energy density, transportability, safety, range, and cost. Oil is to modern industrial/technological civilization what trees were to the Easter Islanders. When critical resources are decreasing, game theorists call this situation a "negative sum game." Such "shrinking overall pie" situations can often lead to conflict over critical resources, unless social structures are developed to help to enable cooperation. Evolutionary psychology researchers may help us to better understand the genesis of the problem, and what potential solutions might be developed to help to facilitate a "soft landing" for our species as oil supplies dwindle and oil based products become progressively more scarce and expensive. -- [7]Dr. Michael E. Mills (HBES website editor) For more information about Peak Oil: Slideshows: >From Powerswitch.org.uk http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/portal/images/stories/animoil.swf (Brief overview) Peak Oil and the Fate of Humanity, by Borbert Beriault. PowerPoint book -- excellent. http://www.peakoilandhumanity.com/ Online Videos: Congressman Bartlett's Peak Oil Presentation to the US Congress (March 14, 2005): http://www.energybulletin.net/5080.html Also see his interview on E&E TV: http://www.eande.tv/main/?date=041805 Kenneth Deffeyes, author of "Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak," explains his theories and looks at oil alternatives. http://www.eande.tv/main/?date=072705 Lecture by physics professor David Goodstein, author of "Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil." Lecture given at Caltech on 10/13/2004: http://today.caltech.edu/theater/list?subset=science (search in list for lecture) Lecture by chemistry professor Nathan Lewis: "Powering the Planet: Where in the World Will Our Energy Come From?" Lecture given at Caltech on 5/25/2005. http://today.caltech.edu/theater/list?subset=all&story%5fcount=end (search in list for lecture) Lecture by Robert Kaufmann "Oil and the American Way of Life: Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Fermilab Colloquium Lectures, June 1, 2005. http://vmsstreamer1.fnal.gov/VMS_Site_03/Lectures/Colloquium/050601Kaufmann/index.htm Interview with 'Twilight in the Desert' author Matt Simmons. Are the Saudis running out of oil, and are their reserve estimates accurate? What other sources might help fill the gap? (Originally aired: 06/15/2005) http://www.eande.tv/main/?date=061505 Chevron Oil -- television (and print) advertisements warning about peak oil: http://www.eande.tv/main/?date=072705Also see their "Issues in Brief:" http://www.willyoujoinus.com/issues/ The myths, and pros and cons, of [20]hydrogen fuel cells (PBS - Nova) DVDs: [21]Peak Oil: Imposed by Nature (2005) -- DVD. [22]The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream (2004) -- DVD Online articles: [23]What Can Replace Cheap Oil -- and When? Richard A. Kerr and Robert F. Service, Science, Vol 309, Issue 5731, 101, 1 July 2005. [24]Brief summary of Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, & Risk Management (study led by led by Dr. Robert Hirsch and sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy) Wall Street Journal article (8/3/05): [25]Drilling for Broke? Experts Debate 'Peak Oil' [26]Experts: Petroleum May Be Nearing a Peak. Associated Press / Forbes, 5/28/05 List of online articles: http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Articles.html Websites: www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net www.powerswitch.org.uk/ www.oilscenarios.info www.culturechange.org www.peakoil.net www.odac-info.org/ www.willyoujoinus.com/ - Chevron Oil website on peak oil. A few relevant books: Recommended: [35]The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of the Oil Age, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century, by James Howard Kunstler (2005). Also see a review of this book in [36]American Scientist. Others (in order of publication date): [37]An Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Malthus (1798) [38]Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change by William Catton (1982) [39]Beyond Malthus: Nineteen Dimensions of the Population Challenge by Lester R. Brown, Gary Gardner, Brian Halweil (1999) [40]Hubbert's Peak : The Impending World Oil Shortage, by Kenneth S. Deffeyes (2003) [41]Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil, by David Goodstein (2004) [42]Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, by Jared Diamond (2004) [43]Powerdown : Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World by Richard Heinberg (2004) and [44]The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies by Richard Heinberg (2003). [45]Beyond Oil : The View from Hubbert's Peak by Kenneth S. Deffeyes (2005) [46]Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, by Matthew R. Simmons (2005) [47]Over a Barrel: A Simple Guide to the Oil Shortage by Tom Mast (2005) References 5. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0670033375/humanbehaviorand 6. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0252009886/humanbehaviorand 21. http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/PeakOilImposed.html 22. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0009231TG/humanbehaviorand 23. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/309/5731/101?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&author1=Kerr&author2=service&searchid=1123265775957_5908&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&fdate=10/1/1995&tdate=8/31/2005 24. http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=11748 25. http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB112298166483102477-6gMLCLIoOfpd7t41Ueb0M3Vxgr4_20060802,00.html?mod=mktw 26. http://www.forbes.com/work/feeds/ap/2005/05/28/ap2063077.html 35. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0871138883/humanbehaviorand 36. http://www.americanscientist.org/template/BookReviewTypeDetail/assetid/45924 37. http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/malthus/malthus.0.html 38. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0252009886/humanbehaviorand 39. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393319067/humanbehaviorand 40. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0691116253/humanbehaviorand 41. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393058573/humanbehaviorand 42. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0670033375/humanbehaviorand 43. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0865715106/humanbehaviorand 44. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0865714827/humanbehaviorand 45. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0809029561/humanbehaviorand 46. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/047173876X/humanbehaviorand 47. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0976444003/humanbehaviorand From checker at panix.com Wed Oct 5 17:15:12 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2005 13:15:12 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] Larry Samuelson: Foundations of Human Sociality: A Review Essay Message-ID: Larry Samuelson: Foundations of Human Sociality: A Review Essay Journal of Economic Literature Vol. XLIII (June 2005), pp. 488?497 1. Introduction The scientists and engineers at the University of Wisconsin have periodic open houses. Thousands of visitors "ooh" and "aah" at the gleaming equipment--nuclear reactors, particle accelerators, electron microscopes, wind tunnels--and sophisticated experiments--cloning, fusion reactions, artificial hearts, and so on. It is no wonder that people walk away anxious to give money. Economists could surely benefit from putting on a similar display, but what would we show? Foundations of Human Sociality: Economic Experiments and Ethnographic Evidence from Fifteen Small-Scale Societies provides one answer. 1 It reports on a research program involving coordinated experiments in fifteen societies scattered around the world. This is a project as sophisticated as anything the scientists can produce. The fifteen societies are described in the title as "small-scale," but this is an * Samuelson: University of Wisconsin. I thank the National Science Foundation (SES-0241506) and Russell Sage Foundation (82-02-04) for financial support. 1Foundations of Human Sociality: Economic Experiments and Ethnographic Evidence from Fifteen Small-Scale Societies. Edited by Joseph Henrich, Robert Boyd, Samuel Bowles, Colin Camerer, Ernst Fehr, and Herbert Gintis. Oxford University Press, 2004. understatement. They are remote, they speak a variety of uncommon languages, and they live in circumstances that make even basic data collection difficult. They fit the stereotype of societies that would be studied by anthropologists, and the editors are joined in the project by a team of (primarily) anthropologists. Three questions lie behind this book. First, experimental economists have amassed a wealth of data in recent years, featuring considerable consensus in some respects. The bulk of the subjects in these data are university students, often American university students. Could the relatively consistent data be an artifact of a homogeneous subject pool, with a world of unexplored variety lurking beyond? Second, a growing number of economists have explored models in which people are concerned with more than simply their own material well-being. How might we model such "social" preferences, and how might we use experimental data to bring some discipline to what otherwise looks like a game with no rules? Finally, having designed such a research program, what do the data have to say? Reflecting these questions, the book splits into two parts. One of these is chapter 3, written by Colin Camerer and Ernst Fehr. This chapter lays out a program for the experimental investigation of social preferences, centered around a series of games that allows one to evaluate and refine hypotheses about preferences and their induced behavior. The second part, comprising the bulk of the book, includes chapter 2, written by the six coeditors and Richard McElreath, and chapters 4?14. The latter report the field work done with the fifteen small-scale societies, emphasizing the economic experiments. Chapter 2 ties the field work together with a description of the common elements as well as the inevitable differences. 2. Social Preferences: A Research Program It will help organize the subsequent discussion to begin with the research program for studying social preferences outlined in chapter 3. Some terms will be helpful. Let us say that an agent?s preferences are personal if they depend only on the amount of money the agent receives.2 If not, then they are social. An agent?s social preferences can in turn be substantive, in which case they depend only upon the final allocation of (perhaps everyone?s) monetary payoffs, or can be procedural, in which case they also depend upon aspects of the process by which these payoffs were determined.3 The book offers a useful example of substantive social preferences, taken from Fehr and Klaus M. Schmidt (1999) (see Gary E. 2 More generally, an agent?s preferences are personal if they depend only upon the agent?s own consumption, but it suffices here to consider preferences over amounts of money. 3 The authors refer to procedural preferences as "reciprocal" preferences, carrying the connotation that agent i?s attitude toward payoffs may depend upon choices j has made, so that i?s behavior may reciprocate j's. This term fits well, but I prefer an alternative because reciprocal is used in the literature with a variety of different meanings. For example, the chapter in question refers to players "reciprocating cooperation" and "reciprocating defection" in the prisoners' dilemma, while explaining how the substantive preferences given by (1) (below) can explain such behavior, thus using the word in its common form in a setting where its technical meaning is inappropriate. Bolton and Axel Ockenfels 2000 for a similar model). The utility ui(pi,pj) derived by player i from i's monetary payoff pi and j's monetary payoff pj is given by .p ap ( -p if p=p (1) i (i, j )..i - ij i ) ij upp = .p ?p p if p= -p .ii (i - j ) ij i =1. The special case =0 gives personal preferences. are positive, player i still likes high monetary payoffs, but now is also averse to inequality, being especially unhappy with inequality in which she receives the short end of the stick. Chapter 3 notes that either substantive or procedural preferences are consistent with behavior observed in the experiments discussed in the chapter. However, the authors suggest that procedural preferences provide better descriptions of behavior in other experiments.4 In light of these remarks, it would have been helpful for the chapter to present an example of procedural preferences analogous to (1), and to have the experimental results discussed in this chapter explained in terms of this model.5 The research described in this chapter is centered around a series of five games that have played prominent roles in the experimental literature:6 The prisoners' dilemma. The point of departure is the prisoners' dilemma.7 4 For example, they refer (p. 83) to an "increasing number of experiments that compare predictions of competing theories," providing "clear evidence for reciprocity beyond inequality aversion . . . " 5 The chapter refers the reader to Matthew Rabin (1993) as well as other models. 6 The authors include two additional games, a public goods game that gives rise to incentives analogous to those of the prisoners' dilemma, and a gift exchange game that gives rise to incentives analogous to those of the trust game. 7 An example of a prisoners' dilemma is: 2 CD C 1 D 2, 2 3, ?1 ?1, 3 0, 0 The key characteristics are that defection (D) is a dominant strategy, while mutual cooperation (C) yields a superior outcome. Personal preferences yield an unambiguous prediction, namely that players should invariably defect. Instead, laboratory experiments routinely find that some agents defect but others cooperate.8 There are manipulations of the experimental environment that make cooperation less frequent, but there is no experimental treatment that reliably produces universal defection. If we are to account for this behavior while retaining the organizing principle of economics, namely that rational players make optimal choices guided by well- defined and stable preferences, then we must admit the possibility of social preferences: some people prefer to cooperate in the prisoners' dilemma. In terms of (1), we thus have evidence that for at least some > 0.9 For cooperation to be optimal, however, an individual must not only , but must also think the opponent is sufficiently likely , or are they simply pessimistic about the prospects that their opponents will cooperate, while standing ready to cooperate against sufficiently cooperative opponents? The ultimatum game. In response, attention turns to the ultimatum game.10 Personal preferences, coupled with sub- game perfection, call for player 1 to offer player 2 nothing (or at most the smallest possible positive amount) and for player 2 to accept. Conditional on player 2 always accepting, player 1's choices should provide . Larger values of correspond to larger offers to player 2. 8 See John O. Ledyard 1995 for a survey. > 0 is necessary for C to be preferred to D. The interpretation is that such an agent prefers the more equal (but personally less lucrative) outcome of mutual cooperation to the more asymmetric payoffs produced by defecting against a cooperator. 10 Player 1 proposes a division of a sum of money to player 2, who either accepts the division, in which case it is implemented, or rejects it, in which case both receive nothing. In experiments, player 1 often offers a substantial portion of the money to player 2, while player 2 often rejects smaller offers.11 The latter behavior provides evidence that > 0 for some players, so that an equal outcome of no money for both is preferred to receiving a relatively small amount of money. However, this player-2 behavior obscures the lessons concerning player 1's . Does player 1 offer money to player 2 because 1 prefers not to have too unequally large a share, or because player 2 rejects small offers? The dictator game. To answer this question, the authors direct attention to the dictator game.12 Personal preferences call for player 1 to retain all of the money. However, player 1 typically offers some money to player 2, but less than in the ultimatum game (Roth 1995). The positive offers again provide evidence for positive , but the comparison suggests that 1's behavior in the ultimatum game is a mixture of concerns for player 2's payoff and concerns about being rejected. The trust game. Attention next turns to the trust game.13 Personal preferences, again coupled with subgame perfection, call for player1 to retain everything, sacrificing the efficiency gains of making a contribution to player 2. Experimental findings, with significant variation, are that player1 typically contributes about halfof1'sendowmentto2, who returns a sum leaving player 1 slightly worse off than if1had contributed nothing. Given that player 1's behavior reflects a mixture of preferences and expectations about 2's behavior, as in the ultimatum game, the clearest implications for preferences 11 See Werner G?th, Rolf Schmittberger, and Bernd Schwarze (1982) for the initial study and Alvin E. Roth (1995) for a survey. 12 Player 1 divides a sum of money between player 1 and 2. 13 Player 1 and 2 each receive an endowment of S. Player 1 first decides how much of S to give to player 2, retaining the rest. The money given to player 2 is tripled, at which point player 2 decides how much money to return to player 1. 14 The preferences given by (1) are linear in payoffs, as is the feasible set facing player 2. Taken literally, (1) then implies that player 2 should (generically) either return none of the money or equalize payoffs, but generalizations give interior solutions. come from player 2's behavior. The fact that player 2 returns anything at all provides > 0. However, the data pose puzzles for both substantive and procedural preferences. Player 2 fills the position of a dictator, with the amount to be divided depending upon player 1's first move. In this dictator portion of the trust game, the final payoff typically allocated to player 1 does not increase as the amount to be divided increases. One might have expected preferences such as those captured by (1) to call for the player 1's payoff to increase.14 Perhaps the answer is that procedural considerations are important here. The second move in a trust game is not a de novo dictator game, but a game that follows a choice on the part of player 1 that affects player 2's preferences. The difficulty here is that as player 1 contributes more, and hence acts so as to enhance the welfare of player 2, player 2 "reciprocates" with actions that decrease player 1's relative payoff, leaving player 1 no better off and appearing to put increasing emphasis on player 2's payoffs. This is an unusual brand of reciprocity. The trust game illustrates how subtle the match between experimental results and simple economic models can be. In light of this, a more detailed discussion would have been helpful, including a demonstration of how the substantive model given by (1) and an analogous procedural model might match behavior. Punishment games. People may have social preferences, but are the departures from personal preferences large enough to have real effects on behavior? The point behind the punishment games described briefly in this chapter is that seemingly small effects in preferences can be leveraged into large effects in behavior. Suppose that there is an accepted standard of behavior, and that people have the opportunity to sanction those who stray from this standard. These sanctions may have a large cumulative effect on their target while imposing relatively small costs on those doing the sanctioning. Experiments show that people will impose such sanctions, even against those whose actions have no direct payoff consequences for the sanctioner, and that the sanctions can have significant effects on behavior (Fehr and Urs Fischbacher 2004, Fehr and Simon G?chter 2000, 2000, 2002). 3. The Experiments Chapter 3 offers a template for the study of social preferences. The second and larger part of the book pursues this program, reporting on experiments with fifteen groups of people. The following table identifies the groups with whom the experiments were done, their location, and the researchers who did the experiments and wrote the relevant chapters. Every study involved the ultimatum game. In some cases, experiments with one or more of the public-goods game, the trust game, or the dictator game were also performed. The most striking aspect of the experimental work is the chance to compare ultimatum-game behavior across a wide range of settings, and I'll concentrate on the ultimatum game. The authors organize their results around five themes. Variability. The behavior observed in the fifteen societies exhibits more variation than found in the familiar experimental literature based on university students. Mean offers in ultimatum-game experiments with university students tend to lie between 40 and 50 percent. Among the fifteen societies studied here, the means range from 25 to 57 percent. Most existing experiments have produced modes at 50 percent, while modal offers here range from 15 to 50. Rejection behavior is similarly varied. Four groups (Kazakhs, Ache, Quichua, and Chapter Group Country Researcher 4 Achuar Ecuador John Q. Patton 4 Quichua Ecuador John Q. Patton 5 Machiguenga Peru Joseph Henrich and Natalie Smith 5 Mapuche/Huinca Chile Joseph Henrich and Natalie Smith 6 Hadza Tanzania Frank Marlowe 7 Tsimane' Bolivia Michael Gurven 8 Au Papua New Guinea David P. Tracer 8 Gnau Papua New Guinea David P. Tracer 9 Kazakhs Mongolia Franciso J. Gil-White 9 Torguuds Mongolia Franciso J. Gil-White 10 Shona Zimbabwe Abigail Barr 11 Sangu Tanzania Richard McElreath 12 Orma Kenya Jean Ensminger 13 Ache Paraguay Kim Hill and Michael Gurven 14 Lamalera Indonesia Michael S. Alvard Tsimane') rejected no offers (with sample sizes from 10 to 70), even though in two of these cases about half of the offers were for less than 30 percent of the surplus. Another group (Machiguenga) rejected only one offer (out of 21), though 75 percent of the offers were for less than 30 percent of the surplus. Two of the groups (Au and Gnau) often rejected offers of more than fifty percent, and appeared to be just as likely to reject high as low offers. In other groups, rejections were relatively frequent, especially of low offers. Preferences. The prediction of subgame perfection with personal preferences, that the proposer offers virtually nothing and the responder accepts, does not provide a good match for the data. As one might expect, given the variability in behavior, there are aspects of the data that appear to be both closer to and further from this benchmark than the bulk of the existing literature. Intergroup differences. The authors construct measures of two characteristics for each group. A group is deemed to have higher potential gains from cooperation if productive activities in the group are more likely to require interaction with nonrelatives. A group is deemed to have higher aggregate market integration the more often its people engage in market exchange, the larger its settlements, and the more complex its political structure. A regression suggests that mean ultimatum-game offers are higher for those groups exhibiting a higher potential benefit from cooperation and higher aggregate market interaction.15 These results nicely exploit the strength of the research design and data, namely the variability in groups and behavior. At this point, it would be helpful to have more attention devoted to how one might interpret the link between aggregate market integration and ultimatum-game behavior. If asked for the direction of this link before seeing this book, I'm not sure which I would have predicted. I can imagine market 15 A standard deviation increase in either variable gives about half a standard deviation increase in mean offer. integration making people more likely to treat others "fairly" or more likely to induce them to drive and sometimes accept hard bargains.16 Some additional scrutiny and perhaps modeling would be helpful in interpreting the correlation. Intragroup differences. A variety of individual characteristics, such as sex, age, wealth, education, market participation, and others, showed little relationship to behavior in the experiments. Everyday life. The authors note that one can find parallels between the behavior of various groups in the experiments and their everyday life. For example, foragers who routinely share the meat they catch (the Ache), to the point that a successful hunter often takes none of the catch, sometimes declining even the credit for making the catch by leaving it outside the village to be found anonymously, made quite generous offers in the ultimatum game and generated no rejections. Foragers who appear to share only under duress (the Hadza), often attempting to sneak their catch into camp unseen, made smaller offers that often generated rejections. The links between everyday and experimental behavior are especially intriguing. First, they suggest a view of preferences as being shaped by one's culture and way of life, a suggestion that runs throughout the book.17 Among the clearer examples, John Patton (pp. 121?22) suggests that the Achuar tend to be involved in more stable interactions in their daily lives than do the Quichua, which may be reflected in different perceptions of what behavior is fair or acceptable, and hence different behavior in the ultimatum game. Richard McElreath (pp. 350?51) offers a similar explanation for 16 Jean Ensminger's contribution (pp. 356?357) provides a brief discussion of ideas suggesting that market participation may either enhance or attenuate tendencies to be fair. 17 Henrich (2004) presents a model in which cultural evolutional shapes social preferences. behavioral differences between Sangu herders and farmers. Michael Gurven (p. 227) closes his discussion with a call for further investigation of such cultural foundations of social preferences. At the same time, this link raises issues in interpreting the experimental results. For example, the Orma are said (pp. 38?41) to have readily recognized the public goods game as a "harambee" game, referring to the contributions they make when constructing public goods such as roads or schools. However, the harambee itself appears to be best modeled as a repeated relationship, unlike the one-shot nature of the experiment. If subjects responded to the experiment with behavior appropriate for the repeated environment of the harambee, then their behavior may tell us little about their preferences. We return to this issue in the following section. The experiments provide a wealth of material for those interested in studying experimental methods. How does one attempt standardized experiments when dealing with twelve researchers in fifteen societies spread across the globe in challenging settings? As the authors note, a variety of compromises had to be made. Some actual ultimatum-game offers were supplemented with sham offers to generate more variation. Some sample sizes were small. The game was typically presented in the abstract, but sometimes with the help of analogies to concrete situations. Subjects were typically paid in money,but not always. How does one control the variation inevitable in oral presentations? How does one ensure that the various settings have not introduced framing effects that swamp other considerations? How does one work, not only without the sophisticated computer interfaces typical of experimental laboratories, but with subjects who may not be able to do even simple arithmetic? The authors are aware of these difficulties. I think it a sensible response to note that if one waited for perfect procedures and perfect answers to all of these questions, no study of this type would ever get off the ground. It is clear from the recurring discussions of method in the book that the authors worked hard in quest of the best experimental practice they could achieve, and worked hard to control and standardize their procedures. This is as much as one can ask. 4. Discussion The book provides clear answers, sketched in the previous two sections, to the first two motivating questions raised in section 1. There are ways to systematically use experiments in investigating social preferences. There is more variety in behavior than previous experiments might lead us to believe. The third question is more challenging. What do the results tell us about the nature of people's social preferences? Using (1) to organize the discussion, what do the ? In particular, do the experimental observations imply that we should rethink our economic models, in which personal preferences currently play a prominent role, to allow more room for social preferences? The answer appears to be yes, if the games played by the subjects are a good match for the ultimatum game that appears in our theoretical models. This qualification, however, is important. A key feature of the ultimatum game is that it involves anonymous opponents with no future interaction. If the participants are concerned with the implications of current play for future behavior, perhaps in the form of an effect of current play on their reputation, then the simple link between behavior in the ultimatum game and preferences is broken. How might such a concern with the future or a feeling of nonanonymity arise? The subjects in the experiments reported here are typically drawn from small societies, with whom they know they will have subsequent interactions, often while living with virtually no privacy. Despite the best attempts of the experimenter to make experimental play 18 Notice that this possibility differs from a maladaption account, in which evolution is said to have neglected to equip us even with an understanding of one-shot interactions (because we purportedly evolved in an environment in which the norm was repeated interactions with small groups of primarily relatives). Fehr and Henrich (2003) and Henrich (2004) argue that such maladaption does not provide an adequate model of social preferences. Instead, we are considering here the possibility that subjects may understand the implications of one-shot interactions, but not view the experiments as such interactions. anonymous, the subjects may have perceived, perhaps correctly, that their current play would have future repercussions.18 This possibility is raised several times in the book. Gurven (p. 221) suggests that rejections in the ultimatum game may have been relatively rare because subjects viewed rejection as giving rise to costs or punishments in subsequent interactions. Ensminger (p. 358) notes that anonymity may be impossible to achieve in small-scale societies. Hill and Gurven suggest (p. 403) that their subjects live in a sufficiently small community that aggressive behavior in the game could be deterred by the attendant negative impact on subsequent community relations, and note (pp. 406-07) that subjects appeared to treat the public goods games as part of an iterated sequence of social interactions. These difficulties are exacerbated by the challenges of getting the experimental subjects to understand the abstract experimental environment. Patton (p. 105) indicates that the experiment was described to the potential subjects as a minga, or cooperative labor exchange. This may have helped in many respects, but a minga entails future obligations (p. 101), potentially introducing the ideas of repetition or lack of anonymity into subjects' views of the experiment. As we have noted, Ensminger (p. 376) reports that her subjects immediately recognized the public goods game as a harambee, a village-level pubic goods contribution process that again potentially introduces elements of repetition or the lack of anonymity. It does not appear as if one can explain all of the data by simply muttering "they acted Samuelson: Foundations of Human Sociality: A Review Essay 495 19 Ensminger follows her comment with the observation that something more appears to be at work. Hill and Gurven note that the shadow of the future was most pronounced in a version of the public goods game in which contributions were made publicly, an indication that subjects understand that the future is sometimes more important than others. as if the game was repeated."19 However, as various of the authors' comments indicate, the possibility that such considerations played a role in shaping play is heightened by the nature of the subject populations, and makes it difficult to identify the games and the forces that shaped the subjects' behavior. This in turn makes it difficult to draw inferences from the observed behavior. Why is this a problem? Everyone recognizes that people sometimes do things-- make anonymous contributions, render aid to strangers, chastise transgressors--that are most readily modeled with social preferences. Differences of opinion arise in assessing the importance of social preferences in explaining economic behavior, and it is here that experiments can be especially valuable. But if the behavior in the experiments depends importantly on features beyond the experimental design, then conclusions concerning the nature and importance of social preferences are difficult to draw. This difficulty becomes more pronounced if we consider procedural preferences rather than the substantive preferences of (1). Not only are outcomes now important, but so is the process by which these outcomes are achieved. In addition, we cannot expect the experiment to control all of the details of this process. For example, Gurven (p. 226) notes that preferences for how resources are to be allocated may depend importantly on how the resources are made available--whether as the result of a windfall, for example, or as a result of having been earned. How do the experimental subjects perceive the surplus, and what effect does it have on their behavior? Preferences now depend upon the game and the context in which the game is played. The experiment can control the former, but we can expect much of the latter to be supplied by the subjects. A recurring theme throughout this book is that behavior in the experiments reflects the subjects' behavior in their everyday lives, as one would hope if the experiments are to tell us about the preferences that guide the subjects' lives. However, running along with this is the theme that the experimental behavior may be borrowed from a variety of real-life situations, not all of them an appropriate match for the setting one typically hopes to capture with the ultimatum game. Henrich and Smith (p. 164) suggest that behavior in the ultimatum game depends upon which of a diverse set of behavioral rules is triggered by the experimental implementation. McElreath (p. 344) suggests that different players may map the ultimatum game into different social experiences and hence effectively play different games. Patton (p. 98) suggests that ultimatum-game behavior reflects a logic of reciprocal fairness that is not well suited for the ultimatum game, but also not easily overruled by a conscious understanding of the game. Tracer (p. 255) suggests that his players "inescapably brought the understandings, beliefs, expectations, and values that they apply to daily life into the experiment," including a belief that current actions would incur future obligations. Hill and Gurven (p. 403) offer a similar interpretation. Gurven (p. 226) notes that people can be more or less likely to cooperate depending upon the type of cooperation required--a group may readily cooperate in hunting or fishing, but not in conservation--making it difficult to make the link from experimental behavior to any particular real-life behavior. We thus have two related obstacles standing between the observed behavior and conclusions about social preferences. First, the subjects may have viewed their behavior as having future implications. If so, then subjects with personal preferences could exhibit behavior that could only be rationalized by social preferences in a literal implementation of the ultimatum game. Second, social preferences, especially procedural social preferences, may call into play a variety of factors beyond those captured by the ultimatum game model and the surrounding experimental design. Distinguishing between personal and social preferences is thus not straightforward. These difficulties are not new. The existing experimental literature is full of experiments that are interpreted by some as being consistent with social preferences and others as reflecting personal preferences, with the differences frequently revolving around the connection between the experimenter's model of the strategic interaction and the subjects' model of the interaction. Indeed, this diversity of interpretations and conclusions is reflected in miniature in the studies in this volume.20 One can conclude that the experimental findings in this volume are consistent witha modelin which social elements play an important role in people's preferences and behavior, but also that they are consistent with a model in which behavior is guided primarily by personal preferences. Further work is required to distinguish these alternatives. Work that moves us outside the traditional experimental economics laboratory, like the experiments reported here, is likely to be especially useful. In this respect, perhaps the most valuable part of this book is its analysis linking experimental play to group characteristics such as the importance of cooperation and degree of market integration. Once again, the results lend themselves to multiple interpretations. It could be that cultural evolution has led different groups to different configurations of social preferences that reflect differences in their ways of life. It could also be that subjects from different groups associate the experiment with different experiences from 20 As the editors note in their introduction to this volume (p. 7), they made no attempt to force a party line on the studies. their contrasting ways of life, prompting different behavior from personal preferences. Comparative static studies of this kind are likely to hold the key to separating the various hypotheses and getting a better idea of preferences.21 A single study cannot be expected to resolve every question, even a study as large as this one. But it has enriched the discussion and opened new directions for research, directions that hold great promise and that one hopes become standard. 5. Conclusion This is a fascinating book to read on many levels. It provides a captivating window into the world of anthropologists.22 It is impressive both in the goals the authors are willing to set for an experimental study and in the lengths they are willing to go in pursuit of these goals. We have much to learn from these experiments, most notably that humans exhibit a richer variety of behavior than many of us have imagined. The authors indicate they are working on additional experiments that will allow them to make use of what they have learned in this study and to fill in some more pieces of the puzzle. Readers of this book will surely look forward to the next. REFERENCES Bewley,TrumanF. 1999. Why Wages Don't Fall During a Recession. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Bolton, Gary E., and Axel Ockenfels. 2000. "ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition." American Economic Review, 90(1): 166-93. Fehr, Ernst, and Urs Fischbacher. 2004. "Third Party 21Truman F. Bewley (1999) offers another promising direction for such work, seeking evidence that considerations such as fairness and morale play a role in workplace behavior, as does the growing body of work with field experiments (cf. Glenn W. Harrison and John A. List 2004). It may be useful to pursue experiments analogous to those of this book with larger societies in which anonymity may be more readily obtained. 22 The introduction briefly mentions a dinner in which the anthropologists on this project entertained the economists with stories of what the former had eaten in the field. The book is less graphic, but no less interesting in describing how work in economics and anthropology can be combined. Punishment and Social Norms." Evolution and Human Behavior, 25(2): 63-87. Fehr, Ernst, and Simon G?chter. 2000. "Cooperation and Punishment in Public Goods Experiments." American Economic Review, 90(4): 980-94. Fehr, Ernst, and Simon G?chter. 2000. "Fairness and Retaliation: The Economics of Reciprocity." Journal of Economic Perspectives, 14(3): 159-81. Fehr, Ernst, and Simon G?chter. 2002. "Altruistic Punishment in Humans." Nature, 415(6868): 137-40. Fehr, Ernst, and Joseph Henrich. 2003. "Is Strong Reciprocity a Maladaptation? On the Evolutionary Foundations of Human Altruism," in The Genetic and Cultural Evolution of Cooperation. Peter Hammerstein, ed. Cambridge: MIT Press, 55-82. Fehr, Ernst, and Klaus M. Schmidt. 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation." Quarterly Journal of Economics, 114(3): 817-68. G?th, Werner, Rolf Schmittberger, and Bernd Schwarze. 1982. "An Experimental Analysis of Ultimatum Bargaining." Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 3(4): 367-88. Harrison, Glenn W., and John A. List. 2004. "Field Experiments," Mimeo. University of Central Florida and University of Maryland. Henrich, Joseph. 2004. "Cultural Group Selection, Coevolutionary Processes and Large-Scale Cooperation." Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 53(1): 3-35. Ledyard, John O. "Public Goods: A Survey of Experimental Research," in Handbook of Experimental Economics. John Kagel and Alvin E. Roth, eds. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 111-94. Rabin, Matthew. 1993. "Incorporating Fairness into Game Theory and Economics." American Economic Review, 83(5): 1281-1302. Roth, Alvin E. 1995. "Bargaining Experiments," in Handbook of Experimental Economics. John H. Kagel and Alvin E. Roth, eds. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 253-348. From checker at panix.com Wed Oct 5 17:15:21 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2005 13:15:21 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] LAT: Study: Adept Liars' Brains Are Built Differently Message-ID: Study: Adept Liars' Brains Are Built Differently http://www.latimes.com/la-093005liar_lat,0,7350923.story?track=hpmostemailedlink [Thanks to Laird for this.] Robert Lee Hotz Times Staff Writer 10:47 AM PDT, September 30, 2005 In the lexicon of lying, there are white lies and bare-faced lies. Facts can be fudged, forged or shaded. There are fibbers, fabricators and feckless fabulists. By whatever clinical term, the truth simply is not in some people. Now scientists have an anatomical inkling why. A new study from the University of Southern California, published in the October issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry, suggests that the talent for compulsive deception is embedded in the structure of the brain itself. People who habitually lie and cheat ??? pathological liars ??? appear to have much more white matter, which speeds communication between neurons, in the prefrontal cortex than normal people, the researchers found. They also have fewer actual neurons. The differences affect a portion of the brain, located just behind the forehead, that enables people to feel remorse, learn moral behavior and plan complex strategies. The surplus of connections between neurons might enable these people to be more adept at the complex neural networking that underlies deceit. Lying is hard work and these brains may be better equipped to handle it, the researchers said. "Lying is cognitively complex," said USC psychologist Adrian Raine, the senior scientist on the research project. "It is not easy to lie. It is certainly more difficult than telling the truth. Some people have a biological advantage in lying. It gives them a slight edge." The researchers recruited 108 volunteers, then sorted them into groups based on psychological tests designed to determine how often they lied. The volunteers were then scanned using magnetic structural imaging to obtain detailed anatomical images of their brain tissue. The group of compulsive liars had 25.7% more white matter in the prefrontal cortex and 14.2% less gray matter than the normal control group. "To our knowledge, it is the first imaging study on people who lie, cheat and deceive as a group," Raine said. From checker at panix.com Wed Oct 5 17:15:30 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2005 13:15:30 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] American Journal of Bioethics: Review of Citizen Cyborg Message-ID: Review of Citizen Cyborg American Journal of Bioethics Volume 5 Number 5 | September-October 2005 Book Review Of "James Hughes. 2004. Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future" Cambridge, MA: Westview Press. 294 pages, $26.95, hardcover Reviewed by Linda MacDonald Glenn I love technology; it promises so much. Then, when it doesn't work, I find it infuriating and frustrating. Transhumanists (short for "transitional humans") have a reputation for embracing technology with unbridled passion. Conservative social theorist Francis Fukuyama claims that transhumanism is the "world's most dangerous idea." Some conservative groups have described transhumanists as extreme militant libertarians, who advocate anarchy and pure capitalism. Given that context, I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised when I finished reading Citizen Cyborg. Author James Hughes does not advocate any sort of extreme militant libertarianism; he advocates a more balanced democratic socialism. 1 James Hughes teaches health policy at Trinity College in Connecticut, and is the executive director of the World Transhumanist Association (WTA). He describes Citizen Cyborg as a book "about the conflict between [J.S.] Haldane's optimism that we could overcome our squeamishness about technology to build a better world and [Aldous] Huxley's pessimism that biotechnologies will dehumanize and enslave us." As a self-described Buddhist, he attempts to find the "middle way" between Haldane and Huxley. The first section of the book is a comprehensive review of the latest advances in the field of converging technologies: nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive technologies (NBIC). Hughes draws much of his information from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), which convened a series of workshops and commissioned a series of papers on the consequences of the convergence of NBIC for "improving human performance." The NBIC report concludes: "With proper attention to ethical issues and societal needs, converging technologies could achieve a tremendous improvement in human abilities, societal outcomes, the nation's productivity, and quality of life." Hughes contends that these new technologies can help end violence, war, and torture; repair bodies and brains; help us be happier and smarter; and live longer. Despite his ample optimism for the potential good, Hughes recognizes the importance of monitoring and regulating the development and use of this technology. The second section of the book describes "the new biopolitical landscape," in terms of extremist groups including defenders of natural law, left-wing bioLuddites, "upwingers" (as opposed to left-wing, right-wing, or any other wing), "extropians" (techno-libertarians) and run-of-the-mill transhumanists. Such a perspective is rather contrary to Buddhist philosophy. (Buddhism tends to focus on the "oneness," rather than categorization, and "right speech"-speaking in ways that are trustworthy, harmonious, comforting, and worth taking to heart). Hughes spends too much time arguing with and bashing those who are leery of the technology; the focus on the potential good is persuasive enough. Also, as he agrees that the development and application of this technology needs to be monitored and regulated, he has more common ground with the moderately cautious bioLuddites than the reader is otherwise led to believe. On the other hand, considering Fukuyama's comment about the "dangerousness" of transhumanism, Hughes' defensive tone is understandable. Hughes emphasizes the position of the WTA that "Racism, sexism, speciesism, belligerent nationalism, and religious intolerance are unacceptable," and explains that the WTA formally denounces "Any and all doctrines of racial or ethnic supremacy/inferiority [as] incompatible with the fundamental tolerance and humanist roots of transhumanism". Hughes also lays out an argument for rights based on the notion of personhood, and argues that the minimal criterion for personhood is self-awareness. The difficulty with using self-awareness as a criterion is that it is terribly subjective, and therefore not objectively verifiable. Hughes appreciably attempts to find a path for moral and legal status between traditional Kantianism and traditional utilitarianism; his arguments are similar to philosopher Peter Singer of Princeton. However, many in the bioethics community will find his classification of brain-dead persons, embryos, and fetuses as property (albeit, sentient property for fetuses), troublesome. His statement that "things that are not citizens are necessarily property" (xx) reveals the difficulty in a dualistic, dichotomized traditional property versus personhood approach; it doesn't recognize that new categories have been and are being recognized in developing law (for example, the law recognizes corporations as persons and at least one court has recognized that frozen embryos are quasi-property, as opposed to mere property. Also, other legal scholars have argued for the recognition of categories in between persons and property.) Interestingly, and to his credit, Hughes acknowledges that when it comes to the issue of cybernetic intelligence, the issue of self-awareness and rights becomes much more complicated. He states that "organic people will likely face more significant threats from machine minds that achieve self-awareness than they do from enhanced chimpanzees.. Machine minds are far less certain of having capacities for empathy and morality.. Our obligation to acknowledge self-aware machines will need to be balanced by our obligation to protect the interests of already existing organic citizens" (xi). In the third section, Hughes argues that, like the democratic humanism of the French and American revolutions, diverse threads of humanity "can be united in a radically democratic form of techno-optimism, a democratic transhumanism" (xx). He further states, "If libertarians want enhancement technologies to be safe, widely available and unhampered by Luddite bans, they need to support legitimate regulation and universal provision" (xx). He attempts to assuage the fears of those who worry that transhumanism would create a culture of eugenics by emphasizing the careful balancing of liberty against the public good; he stresses the need for open debate and education, as well as (dare I say Buddhist) policies that encourage empathy and compassion. In summary, anyone interested in enhancement technologies, whether pro or con, should read Citizen Cyborg. Time will tell if we are beneficiaries or victims of our own devices. Hughes makes a cogent argument that, through democratic processes, we can and will control technologies and that technologies will not control us. I love technology; it promises so much. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1 The online free encyclopedia, Wikipedia, describes democratic socialism as a political movement that can gradually establish socialist reform by modifying capitalism from within, via democracy and trade unions and reform, rather than by violent revolution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_socialism (Accessed 6/8/2005) From checker at panix.com Wed Oct 5 17:15:40 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2005 13:15:40 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] Corante: DARPA's Radical Neurowar Technologies Message-ID: DARPA's Radical Neurowar Technologies http://www.corante.com/brainwaves/archives/2005/09/30/darpas_radical_neurowar_technologies.php September 30, 2005 Posted by Zack Lynch All technologies are double-edged swords. While advances in neuroscience are making possible more effective treatments for mental illness, the same technology is also going to be used for other purposes. For example, the U.S. Defense Science Office recently announced (http://www.darpa.mil/dso/future/faoi.htm) that it is creating a future in which our warfighters instantaneously assimilate all available information through advances in neurotechnology. One program promises a future in which warfighters can maintain their peak physical and cognitive performance, despite battlefield stressors such as sleep deprivation and exposure to extreme environments. The DSO envisions a future where severe pain is eliminated for weeks with a single dose and no adverse cognitive effects. Remarkable, they state, this pain therapy is already in clinical trials. Another program that has come out of the DSO's long investment in understanding language of the brain has led to the possibility of the developing an upper limb prosthetic that responds to brain control, a prosthetic that has all the motor and sensory capabilities of a natural limb. While this program might have alternative uses, it is currently targeted to help returning soldiers who have lost a limb to participate more fully in their return to society. These are just a few of the programs that are beginning to give rise to the scary neurowar scenario I have previously written about. From checker at panix.com Wed Oct 5 17:15:49 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2005 13:15:49 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] NYTBR: 'The Darwin Conspiracy': Survival of the Baddest Message-ID: 'The Darwin Conspiracy': Survival of the Baddest http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/02/books/review/02gutin.html [First chapter appended.] THE DARWIN CONSPIRACY By John Darnton. 309 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $24.95. By JOANN C. GUTIN For a guy who's been in the news practically every day of this administration, Charles Darwin led a pretty dull life. He was married to the same woman for 43 years, loved dogs, orchids and children, and thought a great time meant lying on the sofa smoking a cigarette while his wife read Jane Austen out loud. His friends unanimously described him as the kindest, best-natured man they knew. Apart from a five-year voyage around the world on the H.M.S. Beagle, Darwin spent most of his time alone in his study, reading, experimenting and fretting about how the world would react to his theory of evolution by natural selection. All this makes him lousy villain material. But that doesn't stop John Darnton, a longtime editor at The New York Times, from giving it his best shot in "The Darwin Conspiracy," an elaborately plotted but unconvincing historical thriller in which two young researchers comb musty archives and crumbling manor houses for hidden documents that will reveal a secret side to Darwin's personality. Alternating chapters, set in the 19th century, tell Darnton's version of what really happened on the Beagle voyage, not the supposedly sanitized account accepted by scholars for the past 150 years. If all this reminds you of [60]A. S. Byatt's "Possession," you're not far wrong. Of course, there's nothing wrong with homage, if that's what this is. In theory. The story begins with Darnton's hero, the aimless American graduate student Hugh Kellem, alone in the Galapagos studying the birds called Darwin's finches. For natural history buffs, this is a promising start: the real finch project on the Galapagos, run for 30-odd years by two Princeton professors, is legendary among evolutionary biologists for producing some of the best evidence for the effects of natural selection in real time. So far, so good. Soon a beautiful young biologist with an interesting background arrives on the island. "There're these rumors that she's related to him somehow, somewhere way back there, a great-great something or other," another new colleague tells Hugh. The "him" would be Darwin, but the lovely Beth, strangely, doesn't like to talk about her relative. In the real world, capitalizing on one's Darwin family connections is a hoary tradition, but O.K., this is fiction. Whatever. But when the smitten Hugh abandons finches and fieldwork, telling his adviser he plans to do "some kind of research, maybe on Darwin," I, too, jumped ship. Some kind of research? Don't these people write grant proposals? No, Hugh just reads a few biographies, and next thing we know, the weedy lad with a B.A. is permitted to paw through the archives of Darwin's London publisher. There he finds . . . a secret diary kept by Darwin's daughter Elizabeth! "And just think, it had been lying there unread all those years." This bit of serendipity puts the two investigators on the trail of plagiarism, blackmail and murder most foul. "Hugh couldn't believe his luck." Me neither. We bought the long-lost document trick in "Possession" because Byatt immersed us in the kind of detail that made us care about people and places: the light in the Reading Room of the London Library, the Victorian dust on the unopened book, the smell of cat urine in the basement flat of her dweeby postdoc hero. Darnton's characters and their motivation, though, are as thin as the case for intelligent design. Besides which, it takes four long-lost documents to bring "The Darwin Conspiracy" to an end. As Hugh exclaims, unnecessarily, "The whole thing is so unbelievable." Clearly, Darnton is a demon researcher. The Galapagos setting is accurate; the layout of Darwin's home in Kent is perfect; the story of the Beagle invitation is exactly as Janet Browne tells it in her riveting biography. Darnton nails nearly every fact, from the length of the Galapagos drought in 1977 to the name of Darwin's butler. What defeats him is the impossibility of making a bad guy out of a great man. JoAnn C. Gutin, a science writer in New York, writes frequently for Newsday and Salon. First chapter of 'The Darwin Conspiracy' http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/02/books/chapters/1002-1st-darnt.html By JOHN DARNTON Hugh spotted the boat while it was still a dot on the horizon and watched it approach the island, making a wide, white arc. He shaded his eyes but still he had to squint against the shards of reflected light. Already the morning sun had cut through the haze to lay a shimmering sword on the water. All around him the birds swooped and darted in the cacophonous morning feeding-hundreds of them, screaming swallow-tailed gulls, brown noddies, boobies homing in with fish dangling in their beaks. A frigate circled behind a gull, yanked its tail feathers to open the gullet, then made a corkscrew dive to grab the catch-a flash of acrobatic violence that had long since ceased to amaze him. The boat appeared to be a panga, but that was odd: supplies weren't due for days. Hugh fixed his stare on the dark silhouette of the driver. He looked like Raoul, the way he leaned into the wind, one arm trailing back on the throttle. Hugh dropped his canvas tool bag near the mist net and started down. The black rocks were streaked white and gray with guano, which stank in the windless air and made the lava slippery, but he knew the footholds perfectly. The heat pressed down on him. When he reached the bottom of the cliffside, Raoul was already there. He idled the swaying panga a few feet from the landing rock, a narrow ledge that was washed by an ankle-deep wave every few seconds. "Amigo," shouted Raoul, grinning behind dark glasses. "Hey, Cowboy," said Hugh. He coughed to clear his throat-it had been a long time since he had talked to anybody. Raoul was wearing pressed khaki shorts, a Yankees cap over his thick black hair at a jaunty angle, and a dark blue jersey with the insignia of the Galapagos National Park on the left breast pocket. "Just stopping by," he said. "What's new?" "Not much." "I thought you will be totally crazy by now." His English was almost perfect but sometimes an odd phrasing gave him away. "No, not totally. But I'm working on it." "So, how's the ermitano?" "The what?" "Ermitano," Raoul repeated. "How do you say that?" "Hermit." Raoul nodded and regarded him closely. "So, how're you doing?" "Fine," lied Hugh. Raoul looked away. "I brought two chimbuzos." He gestured with his chin to two water barrels strapped to the mid-seat. "Help me to deliver them." Hugh leapt into the boat, unstrapped a barrel, and hoisted it over his right shoulder. The weight threw off his balance and he tottered like a drunken sailor and almost fell into the water. "Not like that," said Raoul. "Put them overboard and shove them to the mat. Then you climb up and pick them up." The mat, short for "welcome mat," was the nickname the researchers called the rocky ledge. Raoul had hung around them so long, helping out now and then because he admired what they were doing, that he was picking up their lingo. Hugh finally got both barrels ashore and lugged them up to the beginning of the path. He was dripping with sweat by the time he returned. "Want to come on shore, stay a while?" he asked. The offer was disingenuous. The water was too deep to anchor-more than eighty feet straight down-and if the panga docked, the waves would smash it against the rocks. "I can't stay. I just wanted to say hello. How're your crazy birds-getting thirsty, no?" "The heat's rough on them. Some are dying." Raoul shook his head. "How many days without rain?" he asked. "Today is two hundred something, two hundred twenty-five, I think." Raoul whistled and shook his head again, a fatalistic gesture, and lit a cigarette. They talked for a while about the study. Raoul was always eager to hear how it was going. He had once said that if he came back to earth a second time that was what he wanted to do-camp out and study birds. Hugh thought that Raoul had no idea what it was really like-the solitude, the fatigue and boredom and endless repetition of extremes, boiling during the day and then at night when the temperature dropped forty degrees, lying in your sleeping bag and shivering so violently you can't go to sleep even though you're exhausted. Anything can sound glamorous until you do it. "Say," Raoul said lightly, "I hear you're getting company. Two more guys coming out." "Yeah-so I'm told." Raoul looked quizzical. From checker at panix.com Wed Oct 5 17:18:03 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2005 13:18:03 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] SW: Race vs. Genes as Risk Factors in Health Message-ID: Public Health: Race vs. Genes as Risk Factors in Health http://scienceweek.com/2005/sw051007-4.htm The following points are made by Mike Bamshad (J. Am. Med. Assoc. 2005 294:937): 1) An important goal of 21st-century medicine is to predict an individual's medical future -- that is, to identify the set of risk factors for disease and predictors of treatment response that influence a person's health, with the goal of more effectively treating and preventing disease. Throughout much of the world, race -- using its historical meaning as a descriptor of Africans, Asians, Europeans, Native Americans, and Pacific Islanders -- is often considered one key determinant of health.[1,2] 2) Race might influence an individual's health in several ways. It might covary with different environmental or genetic factors that underlie risk, different interactions between genetic and environmental factors, or different combinations thereof. Many environmental factors that influence health are known, but most of the genetic factors, much less interactions between the two, remain to be discovered. Nevertheless, there is widespread speculation that genetic factors influencing health differ among racial groups because many health-related traits vary among racial groups.[3] This speculation has revived a long-standing debate in medical and scientific communities about the validity and necessity of using race to make inferences about an individual's genetic ancestry, some scientists embracing this idea and others dismissing it.[4,5] 3) In this debate, one issue that is commonly confused is the difference between race and ancestry. Ancestry refers to objective genetic relationships between individuals and among populations, whereas race has always been a somewhat arbitrary definition of population boundaries. For example, while an individual might have ancestors from Europe, Africa, and North America, he or she still might be categorized as an African American. Therefore, race captures some biological information about ancestry, but it is not equivalent to ancestry. 4) Yet clinicians often want to know whether it is valid and reliable to use race as a proxy to infer an individual's genetic risk for disease and treatment response. Whether race matters is, however, complicated because it depends on the relationship between the genetic risk factor, ancestry, and race. For example, beta-blockers and angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors for hypertension treatment may not work as well, on average, in African Americans compared with European Americans, but both types of drugs appear to work perfectly well in a large fraction of African Americans and poorly in some European Americans. 5) The observation might be explained by a hypothetical genetic predictor of positive response to ACE inhibitors that is common in European Americans but that is also present in some African Americans because of admixture and absent in some European Americans. In such a case, the best predictor of treatment response might be the presence of the variant (ie, direct testing); the next best might be an accurate estimator of genetic ancestry, and race might be only a poor predictor of genetic risk and therefore treatment response. References (abridged): 1. Osborne NG, Feit MD. The use of race in medical research. JAMA. 1992;267:275-279. 2. Oppenheimer G. Paradigm lost: race, ethnicity, and the search for a new population taxonomy. Am J Public Health. 2001;91:1049-1055. 3. Institute of Medicine. Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care. Washington, DC: National Academies Press; 2003 4. Risch N, Burchard E, Ziv E, Tang H. Categorization of humans in biomedical research: genes, race, and disease. Genome Biol. 2002;3:1-12 5. Burchard EG, Ziv E, Coyle N, et al. The importance of race and ethnic background in biomedical research and clinical practice. N Engl J Med. 2003;348:1170-1175 J. Am. Med. Assoc. http://www.jama.com -------------------------------- Related Material: ANTHROPOLOGY: ON HUMANS AND RACE The following points are made by D.A. Hughes et al (Current Biology 2004 14:R367): 1) Systematists have not defined a "type specimen" for humans, in contrast to other species. Recent attempts to provide a definition for our species, so-called "anatomically modern humans", have suffered from the embarrassment that exceptions to such definitions inevitably arise -- so are these exceptional people then not "human"? Anyway, in comparison with our closest-living relatives, chimpanzees, and in light of the fossil record, the following trends have been discerned in the evolution of modern humans: increase in brain size; decrease in skeletal robusticity; decrease in size of dentition; a shift to bipedal locomotion; a longer period of childhood growth and dependency; increase in lifespan; and increase in reliance on culture and technology. 2) The traditional classification of humans as Homo sapiens, with our very own separate family (Hominidae) goes back to Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778). Recently, the controversial suggestion has been made of lumping humans and chimpanzees together into at least the same family, if not the same genus, based on the fact that they are 98-99% identical at the nucleotide sequence level. DNA sequence similarity is not the only basis for classification, however: it has also been proposed that, in a classification based on cognitive/mental abilities, humans would merit their own separate kingdom, the Psychozoa (which does have a nice ring to it). 3) As for sub-categories, or "races", of humans, in his Systema Naturae of 1758 Linnaeus recognized four principal geographic varieties or subspecies of humans: Americanus, Europaeus, Asiaticus, and Afer (Africans). He defined two other categories: Monstrosus, mostly hairy men with tails and other fanciful creatures, but also including some existing groups such as Patagonians; and Ferus, or "wild boys", thought to be raised by animals, but actually retarded or mentally ill children that had been abandoned by their parents. In his scheme of 1795, Johann Blumenbach (1752-1840) added a fifth category, Malay, including Polynesians, Melanesians and Australians. 4) Blumenbach is also responsible for using the term "Caucasian" to refer in general to Europeans, which he chose on the basis of physical appearance. He thought Europeans had the greatest physical beauty of all humans -- not surprising, as he was of course European himself -- and amongst Europeans he thought those from around Mount Caucasus the most beautiful. Hence, he named the "most beautiful race" of people after their supposedly most beautiful variety -- a good reason to avoid using the term "Caucasian" to refer to people of generic European origin (another is to avoid confusion with the specific meaning of "Caucasian", namely people from the Caucasus). 5) The extent to which racial classifications of humans reflect any underlying biological reality is highly controversial; proponents of racial classification schemes have been unable to agree on the number of races (proposals range from 3 to more than 100), let alone how specific populations should be classified, which would seem to greatly undermine the utility of any such racial classification. Moreover, the apparent goal of investigating human biological diversity is to ask how such diversity is patterned and how it came to be the way that it is, rather than how to classify populations into discrete "races".(1-4) References: 1. Nature Encyclopedia of the Human Genome. (2003). Cooper, D. ed. (Nature Publishing Group), 2. Fowler, C.W. and Hobbs, L. (2003). Is humanity sustainable?. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B. Biol. Sci. 270, 2579-2583 3. Encyclopedia of Human Evolution and Prehistory. (1988). Tattersall, I., Delson, E., and Van Couvering, J. eds. (Garland Publishing) 4. World Health Organization Website http://www.who.int Current Biology http://www.current-biology.com -------------------------------- Related Material: PUBLIC HEALTH: ON RACE-BASED THERAPEUTICS The following points are made by M. Gregg Bloche (New Engl. J. Med. 2004 351:2035): 1) Are we moving into a new era of race-based therapeutics? The recent publication of the African-American Heart Failure Trial (A-HeFT), a clinical trial of a medication intended for a single racial group, poses this awkward question. The study's most striking finding -- that the addition of isosorbide dinitrate and hydralazine to conventional therapy for heart failure reduced relative one-year mortality by 43 percent among blacks -- has provoked wide discussion. The trial's sponsor, NitroMed, which holds a patent on the fixed-dose combination of isosorbide dinitrate and hydralazine that was used, posits that heart failure has a different pathophysiology in blacks than in whites, necessitating different treatment strategies.(1) 2) The reported 43 percent relative decrease in the rate of death due to heart failure among blacks is cause for celebration. There is wide agreement that blacks die from heart failure at rates disproportionate to those among whites. But to assess A-HeFT's larger implications for the role of race in therapeutic design, it is important to be clear about what the study has not shown. 3) First, A-HeFT has not established that adding isosorbide dinitrate and hydralazine to conventional therapy for heart failure yields greater benefits for blacks than for other racial or ethnic groups. The study, which enrolled only self-identified blacks, did not test this hypothesis. The clinical and economic logic behind A-HeFT's design has its roots in previous, multiracial studies that compared isosorbide dinitrate and hydralazine with other investigational drugs, administered in combination with different conventional therapies. These therapies were standard in their day but are inferior to the conventional therapy used today, which typically includes an angiotensin-converting-enzyme (ACE) inhibitor. Indeed, one of these previous studies helped to establish ACE inhibitors as standard treatment. This trial compared isosorbide dinitrate and hydralazine with the ACE inhibitor enalapril and demonstrated that enalapril resulted in a greater overall reduction in mortality.(2) 4) An ill-defined subgroup of patients, though, did well when treated with isosorbide dinitrate and hydralazine and fared poorly with enalapril. Seizing on this opportunity, a biotechnology firm obtained intellectual-property rights to a fixed-dose combination of isosorbide dinitrate and hydralazine and sought approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1996 to market this formulation as a new drug. The FDA declined, citing statistical uncertainties in the trial data.(1) That is when race entered the picture. A group of investigators (including the holder of the patent on the combination treatment) reanalyzed the previous clinical-trial data according to race and concluded in 1999 that the combination treatment did as well as enalapril at prolonging the lives of black patients with heart failure.(3) Other work suggested that ACE inhibitors were less effective in blacks than in whites. 5) At this point, it might have made clinical and scientific sense to add isosorbide dinitrate and hydralazine to conventional therapy (which by now typically included an ACE inhibitor) and to compare this combination to conventional therapy alone -- for all patients with heart failure, regardless of race. Such a trial had not been performed, since the standard therapies used in earlier trials did not include ACE inhibitors. But race consciousness offered a faster way through the FDA's regulatory maze. In 1999, NitroMed obtained intellectual-property rights to fixed-dose isosorbide dinitrate and hydralazine and said it would seek FDA approval to market the formulation as a therapy for heart failure in blacks. Two years later, the FDA indicated to NitroMed that successful completion of a clinical trial in black patients with heart failure would probably result in approval.(1) This commitment gave rise to A-HeFT, and the publication of this trial's results virtually ensures FDA approval. 6) We need not shy away from the potential benefits of race-conscious therapeutics, but we should manage its downside risks. Greater awareness among physicians and the public that race is at best a placeholder for other predispositions, and not a biologic verity, would be a first step. Beyond such awareness, companies -- such as NitroMed -- that stand to gain from taking account of race could commit a substantial portion of their profits to research on genetic, psychosocial, and other mechanisms that might underlie racial gaps in clinical response.(3-5) References (abridged): 1. Kahn J. How a drug becomes "ethnic": law, commerce, and the production of racial categories in medicine. Yale J Health Policy Law Ethics 2004;4:1-46 2. Cohn JN, Archibald DG, Ziesche S, et al. A comparison of enalapril with hydralazine-isosorbide dinitrate in the treatment of chronic congestive heart failure. N Engl J Med 1991;325:303-310 3. Carson P, Ziesche S, Johnson G, Cohn JN. Racial differences in response to therapy for heart failure: analysis of the vasodilator-heart failure trials. J Card Fail 1999;5:178-187 4. Lifton RJ. The Nazi doctors: medical killing and the psychology of genocide. New York: Basic Books, 1986 5. Cacioppo JT, Hawkley LC. Social isolation and health, with an emphasis on underlying mechanisms. Perspect Biol Med 2003;46:Suppl:S39-S52 New Engl. J. Med. http://www.nejm.org From shovland at mindspring.com Tue Oct 4 13:46:46 2005 From: shovland at mindspring.com (shovland at mindspring.com) Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2005 06:46:46 -0700 (GMT-07:00) Subject: [Paleopsych] Anyone can be a terrorist Message-ID: <13032346.1128433607247.JavaMail.root@mswamui-swiss.atl.sa.earthlink.net> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: AnyoneTerrorist.jpg Type: image/pjpeg Size: 140662 bytes Desc: not available URL: From shovland at mindspring.com Wed Oct 5 14:00:52 2005 From: shovland at mindspring.com (shovland at mindspring.com) Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2005 07:00:52 -0700 (GMT-07:00) Subject: [Paleopsych] Re-Education Center #1 Message-ID: <30508001.1128520853259.JavaMail.root@mswamui-thinleaf.atl.sa.earthlink.net> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: ReEducation1.jpg Type: image/pjpeg Size: 150663 bytes Desc: not available URL: From guavaberry at earthlink.net Thu Oct 6 16:49:49 2005 From: guavaberry at earthlink.net (K.E.) Date: Thu, 06 Oct 2005 12:49:49 -0400 Subject: [Paleopsych] Culture Maker Music Legend Harold Leventhal Passes Away Message-ID: <6.2.1.2.0.20051006124904.01d8a2e8@mail.edu-cyberpg.com> Hi, I haven't written to the list in a while but . . I'm sorry to tell you that Harold Leventhal, world wide culture maker, music legend, and manager of many, many great folk artists has passed away. http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Music/Bob_Dylan.html FOLK MUSIC http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Music/folkmusic.html started before there was a music industry when the role of music was about your life - about the life and times that most of us don't experience anymore and originally folk music was sung because it helped the people get through life and tell stories about their life and work. INTEGRATE FOLKLORE, MUSIC, & TRADITIONAL CULTURE INTO K - 12 http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Teachers/folk.html High School Curriculum for Traditional Music Learn about Folk Music history and the Origins of Nursery Rhymes How do you turn children into American citizens? FOLK MUSIC SONG LYRICS, story telling and folk tales best, Karen Ellis Educational CyberPlayGround <>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<> The Educational CyberPlayGround http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/ National Children's Folksong Repository http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/NCFR/ Hot List of Schools Online and Net Happenings, K12 Newsletters, Network Newsletters http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Community/ 7 Hot Site Awards New York Times, USA Today , MSNBC, Earthlink, USA Today Best Bets For Educators, Macworld Top Fifty <>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<> From checker at panix.com Fri Oct 7 00:55:46 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 20:55:46 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] SW: NEJM: Abstract: On Chronic Insomnia Message-ID: Abstract: On Chronic Insomnia ScienceWeek Message Board http://scienceweek.com/swbb/messages/bb208.htm Abstract: On Chronic Insomnia - NEJM 09/29/05 11:30 AM [Bibliography on chronic insomnia appended.] Insomnia is defined as difficulty with the initiation, maintenance, duration, or quality of sleep that results in the impairment of daytime functioning, despite adequate opportunity and circumstances for sleep. (Difficulty with sleep maintenance implies waking after sleep has been initiated but before a desired wake time.) Most research studies adopt an arbitrary definition of a delay of more than 30 minutes in sleep onset or a sleep efficiency (the ratio of time asleep to time in bed) of less than 85 percent. However, in clinical practice, a patient's subjective judgment of sleep quality and quantity is a more important factor. Transient insomnia lasts less than one week, and short-term insomnia one to four weeks. Chronic insomnia -- insomnia lasting more than one month -- has a prevalence of 10 to 15 percent and occurs more frequently in women, older adults, and patients with chronic medical and psychiatric disorders. It may follow episodes of acute insomnia in patients who are predisposed to having the condition and may be perpetuated by behavioral and cognitive factors, such as worrying in bed and holding unreasonable expectations of sleep duration. Consequences include fatigue, mood disturbances, problems with interpersonal relationships, occupational difficulties, and a reduced quality of life. Full text: Michael H. Silber (New Engl. J. Med. 2005 353:803): ---------------- Bibliography: Chronic Insomnia - JH 09/29/05 11:57 AM http://scienceweek.com/swbb/messages/bb209.htm 1. Michael H. Silber. Chronic Insomnia. New Engl. J. Med. 2005 353:803-810 2. Costa e Silva JA, Chase M, Sartorius M, Roth T. Special report from a symposium held by the World Health Organization and the World Federation of Sleep Research Societies: an overview of insomnias and related disorders -- recognition, epidemiology, and rational management. Sleep 1996;19:412-416. 3. The international classification of sleep disorders, revised: diagnostic and coding manual. Rochester, Minn.: American Sleep Disorders Association, 1997. 4. Morin CM, Culbert JP, Schwartz SM. Nonpharmacological interventions for insomnia: a meta-analysis of treatment efficacy. Am J Psychiatry 1994;151:1172-1180. 5. Spielman AJ, Caruso LS, Glovinsky PB. A behavioral perspective on insomnia treatment. Psychiatr Clin North Am 1987;10:541-553. 6. Littner M, Hirshkowitz M, Kramer M, et al. Practice parameters for using polysomnography to evaluate insomnia: an update. Sleep 2003;26:754-760. 7. The international classification of sleep disorders: diagnostic & coding manual, ICDS-2. 2nd ed. Westchester, Ill.: American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 2005. 8. Perlis ML, Smith MT, Pigeon WR. Etiology and pathophysiology of insomnia. In: Kryger MH, Roth T, Dement WC, eds. Principles and practice of sleep medicine. 4th ed. Philadelphia: Elsevier/Saunders, 2005:714-25. 9. Bootzin RR, Epstein D, Wood JM. Stimulus control instructions. In: Hauri PJ, ed. Case studies in insomnia. New York: Plenum Medical Book, 1991:19-28. 10. Spielman AJ, Saskin P, Thorpy MJ. Treatment of chronic insomnia by restriction of time in bed. Sleep 1987;10:45-56. 11. Hauri PJ. Sleep hygiene, relaxation therapy, and cognitive interventions. In: Hauri PJ, ed. Case studies in insomnia. New York: Plenum Medical Book, 1991:65-84. 12. Murtagh DRR, Greenwood KM. Identifying effective psychological treatments for insomnia: a meta-analysis. J Consult Clin Psychol 1995;63:79-89. 13. Espie CA, Inglis SJ, Tessier S, Harvey L. The clinical effectiveness of cognitive behavior therapy for chronic insomnia: implementation and evaluation of a sleep clinic in general medical practice. Behav Res Ther 2001;39:45-60. 14. Edinger JD, Wohlgemuth WK, Radtke RA, Marsh GR, Quillian RE. Cognitive behavioral therapy for treatment of chronic primary insomnia: a randomized controlled trial. JAMA 2001;285:1856-1864. 15. Turner RM, Ascher LM. Therapist factor in the treatment of insomnia. Behav Res Ther 1982;20:33-40. 16. Morgan K, Dixon S, Mather N, Thompson J, Tomeny M. Psychological treatment for insomnia in the management of long-term hypnotic drug use: a pragmatic randomised controlled trial. Br J Gen Pract 2003;53:923-928. 17. Baillargeon L, Demers L, Ladouceur R. Stimulus-control: nonpharmacologic treatment for insomnia. Can Fam Physician 1998;44:73-79. 18. Edinger JD, Sampson WS. A primary care "friendly" cognitive behavioral insomnia therapy. Sleep 2003;26:177-182. 19. Riedel BW, Lichstein KL, Dwyer WO. Sleep compression and sleep education for older insomniacs: self-help versus therapist guidance. Psychol Aging 1995;10:54-63. 20. Mimeault V, Morin CM. Self-help treatment for insomnia: bibliotherapy with and without professional guidance. J Consult Clin Psychol 1999;67:511-519. 21. Meoli AL, Rosen CL, Kristo D, et al. Oral nonprescription treatment for insomnia: an evaluation of products with limited evidence. J Clin Sleep Med 2005;1:173-87. 22. Rogers NL, Dinges DF, Kennaway DJ, Dawson D. Potential action of melatonin in insomnia. Sleep 2003;26:1058-1059. 23. Nowell PD, Mazumdar S, Buysse DJ, Dew MA, Reynolds CF III, Kupfer DJ. Benzodiazepines and zolpidem for chronic insomnia: a meta-analysis of treatment efficacy. JAMA 1997;278:2170-2177. 24. Holbrook AM, Crowther R, Lotter A, Cheng C, King D. Meta-analysis of benzodiazepine use in the treatment of insomnia. CMAJ 2000;162:225-233. 25. Elie R, Ruther E, Farr I, Elilien G, Salinas E. Sleep latency is shortened during 4 weeks of treatment with zaleplon, a novel nonbenzodiazepine hypnotic. J Clin Psychiatry 1999;60:536-544. 26. Walsh JK, Vogel GW, Scharf M, et al. A five week, polysomnographic assessment of zaleplon 10 mg for the treatment of primary insomnia. Sleep Med 2000;1:41-49. 27. Walsh JK, Pollak CP, Scharf MB, Schweitzer PK, Vogel GW. Lack of residual sedation following middle-of-the-night zaleplon administration in sleep maintenance insomnia. Clin Neuropharmacol 2000;23:17-21. 28. Krystal AD, Walsh JK, Laska E, et al. Sustained efficacy of eszopiclone over 6 months of nightly treatment: results of a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of adults with chronic insomnia. Sleep 2003;26:793-799. 29. Walsh JK, Roth T, Randazzo A, et al. Eight weeks of non-nightly use of zolpidem for primary insomnia. Sleep 2000;23:1087-1096. 30. Perlis ML, McCall WV, Krystal AD, Walsh JK. Long-term, non-nightly administration of zolpidem in the treatment of patients with primary insomnia. J Clin Psychiatry 2004;65:1128-1137. 31. Voshaar RC, van Balkom AJ, Zitman FG. Zolpidem is not superior to temazepam with respect to rebound insomnia: a controlled study. Eur Neuropsychopharmacol 2004;14:301-306. 32. Vogel GW, Morris D. The effects of estazolam on sleep, performance, and memory: a long-term sleep laboratory study of elderly insomniacs. J Clin Pharmacol 1992;32:647-651. 33. Roth T, Roehrs TA. A review of the safety profiles of benzodiazepine hypnotics. J Clin Psychiatry 1991;52:Suppl:38-41. 34. Monti JM, Attali P, Monti D, Zipfel A, de la Giclais B, Morselli PL. Zolpidem and rebound insomnia -- a double-blind, controlled polysomnographic study in chronic insomniac patients. Pharmacopsychiatry 1994;27:166-175. 35. Soldatos CR, Dikeos DG, Whitehead A. Tolerance and rebound insomnia with rapidly eliminated hypnotics: a meta-analysis of sleep laboratory studies. Int Clin Psychopharmacol 1999;14:287-303. 36. Greenblatt DJ, Harmatz JS, Zinny MA, Shader RI. Effect of gradual withdrawal on the rebound sleep disorder after discontinuation of triazolam. N Engl J Med 1987;317:722-728. 37. Scharf MB, Roth T, Vogel GW, Walsh JK. A multicenter, placebo-controlled study evaluating zolpidem in the treatment of chronic insomnia. J Clin Psychiatry 1994;55:192-199. 38. Rothschild AJ. Disinhibition, amnestic reactions, and other adverse reactions secondary to triazolam: a review of the literature. J Clin Psychiatry 1992;53:Suppl:69-79. 39. Roth T, Hartse KM, Saab PG, Piccione PM, Kramer M. The effects of flurazepam, lorazepam, and triazolam on sleep and memory. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 1980;70:231-237. 40. Canaday BR. Amnesia possibly associated with zolpidem administration. Pharmacotherapy 1996;16:687-689. 41. Morgenthaler TI, Silber MH. Amnestic sleep-related eating disorder associated with zolpidem. Sleep Med 2002;3:323-327. 42. Mendelson WB. Clinical distinctions between long-acting and short-acting benzodiazepines. J Clin Psychiatry 1992;53:Suppl:4-7. 43. Morin CM, Colecchi C, Stone J, Sood R, Brink D. Behavioral and pharmacological therapies for late-life insomnia: a randomized controlled trial. JAMA 1999;281:991-999. 44. Walsh JK, Schweitzer PK. Ten-year trends in the pharmacological treatment of insomnia. Sleep 1999;22:371-375. 45. Kaynak H, Kaynak D, Gozukirmizi E, Guilleminault C. The effects of trazodone on sleep in patients treated with stimulant antidepressants. Sleep Med 2004;5:15-20. 46. Nierenberg AA, Adler LA, Peselow E, Zornberg G, Rosenthal M. Trazodone for antidepressant-associated insomnia. Am J Psychiatry 1994;151:1069-1072. 47. Walsh JK, Erman M, Erwin CW, et al. Subjective hypnotic efficacy of trazodone in DSM3-R primary insomnia. Hum Psychopharmacol 1998;13:191-198. 48. Hajak G, Rodenbeck A, Voderholzer U, et al. Doxepin in the treatment of primary insomnia: a placebo-controlled, double-blind, polysomnographic study. J Clin Psychiatry 2001;62:453-463. 49. Aslan S, Isik E, Cosar B. The effects of mirtazapine on sleep: a placebo controlled, double-blind study in young healthy volunteers. Sleep 2002;25:677-679. 50. McClusky HY, Milby JB, Switzer PK, Williams V, Wooten V. Efficacy of behavioral versus triazolam treatment in persistent sleep-onset insomnia. Am J Psychiatry 1991;148:121-126. 51. Jacobs GD, Pace-Schott EF, Stickgold R, Otto MW. Cognitive behavior therapy and pharmacotherapy for insomnia: a randomized controlled trial and direct comparison. Arch Intern Med 2004;164:1888-1896. 52. Smith MT, Perlis ML, Park A, et al. Comparative meta-analysis of pharmacotherapy and behavior therapy for persistent insomnia. Am J Psychiatry 2002;159:5-11. 53. Hauri PJ. Can we mix behavioral therapy with hypnotics when treating insomniacs? Sleep 1997;20:1111-1118. 54. Baillargeon L, Landreville P, Verreault R, Beauchemin JP, Gregoire JP, Morin CM. Discontinuation of benzodiazepines among older insomniac adults treated with cognitive-behavioral therapy combined with gradual tapering: a randomized trial. CMAJ 2003;169:1015-1020. 55. Morin CM, Bastien C, Guay B, Radouco-Thomas M, Leblanc J, Vallieres A. Randomized clinical trial of supervised tapering and cognitive behavior therapy to facilitate benzodiazepine discontinuation in older adults with chronic insomnia. Am J Psychiatry 2004;161:332-342. 56. Zammit G, Roth T, Erman M, et al. Double-blind, placebo-controlled polysomnography and outpatient trial to evaluate the efficacy and safety of ramelteon in adult patients with chronic insomnia. Sleep 2005;28:A228-A229. 57. Zemlan FP, Mulchahey JJ, Scharf MB, Mayleben DW, Rosenberg R, Lankford A. The efficacy and safety of the melatonin agonist beta-methyl-6-chloromelatonin in primary insomnia: a randomized, placebo-controlled, crossover clinical trial. J Clin Psychiatry 2005;66:384-390. 58. Chesson AL Jr, Anderson WM, Littner M, et al. Practice parameters for the nonpharmacologic treatment of chronic insomnia: an American Academy of Sleep Medicine report: Standards of Practice Committee of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Sleep 1999;22:1128-1133. 59. Morin CM, Hauri PJ, Espie CA, Spielman AJ, Buysse DJ, Bootzin RR. Nonpharmacologic treatment of chronic insomnia: an American Academy of Sleep Medicine review. Sleep 1999;22:1134-1156. From checker at panix.com Fri Oct 7 00:55:54 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 20:55:54 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: For Mormons in Harlem, a Bigger Space Beckons Message-ID: For Mormons in Harlem, a Bigger Space Beckons http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/02/nyregion/02mormon.html [Christianity as a whole became non-White about 1980. I don't know if it's true for LDS yet.] By [3]ANDY NEWMAN The pilgrims' progress began in a back dining room at Sylvia's. In 1997, a handful of members of the Mormon Church began meeting on Sundays in a mirror-lined banquet hall at Sylvia's restaurant, the venerable cathedral of soul food in Harlem. Now, after seven transitional and increasingly cramped years in a windowless brick shoebox on West 129th Street, the congregation is moving around the corner to a gleaming new five-story structure on Malcolm X Boulevard, one of Harlem's main arteries. Never again will the members have to cut services short to make way for Sylvia's overflow brunch crowd. There is only one problem with the new building, in the view of Herbert Steed, whose title with the newly established Harlem First Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is first counselor. "I think it's going to be too small soon," he said. As they have across the world, the Mormons continue to multiply in the New York City region, from one congregation in 1965 to several dozen in 1985, to 129 today, serving more than 41,000 members. Last year the church opened a temple - a place where high rituals are performed - across from Lincoln Center. It is the only Mormon temple between Washington and Boston. But church leaders point with special pride to their expansion in Harlem. They say they hope it dispels any lingering misconceptions that the church, which until 1978 barred blacks from full membership, remains a bastion of whiteness. A 1998 survey by a Mormon and amateur sociologist, James W. Lucas, found that about 20 percent of Mormons in New York City were black. "We're not in Harlem because of affirmative action," said Ahmad S. Corbitt, the church's Northeastern public affairs director, who is black. "We're in Harlem because we love people." The new building, a bright red-brick haven scheduled to open by month's end, looks a bit like a schoolhouse topped by a 50-foot steeple. The resemblance is apt: Much of the space is filled with classrooms for religious education and a gymnasium that the church promises to open to the neighborhood. The sanctuary seats 350, and the baptismal font accommodates full-body immersions. The soon-to-be-former place of worship, in contrast, recalls nothing so much as the waiting room of a government office, with dingy industrial carpeting, folding chairs, fluorescent lights and a dropped ceiling. As at most Mormon churches, the walls are bare. The only visual clue to the room's function is the list of hymn numbers posted at the front. But last Sunday, as usual, the 150 chairs were filled and people stood at the back. Also as usual, the room was one of the most racially integrated in Harlem, with about equal numbers of white and black worshipers. (The Mormons have separate congregations for Spanish speakers.) The members approved a formal upgrade of the congregation from a branch, the smallest worship unit, to a ward, which must have at least 300 members. Then, after sharing a sacrament of white bread and water, they took turns speaking. (The Mormon church does not have specialized clergy, and preaching duties rotate among its members. Most adult males are ordained priests, which entitles them to perform marriages and baptisms. While women cannot be priests, they do preach and teach.) "Because we stood strong together, this is what happened," a founding member of the congregation, Polly Dickey, 59, testified through tears. "This is what this church is about. As long as we stay together, we can accomplish anything." The Mormon Church, founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith Jr., is one of the fastest-growing religions in the world, with more than 12 million members; half are in the [4]United States, mostly in Western states. It is based on what Smith said were transcriptions of gold tablets he had found hidden in a mountain in upstate New York, which told the story of a lost tribe of [5]Israel that fled to the New World and was eventually wiped out. Many members of the Harlem church said they had tried several other religions before being converted by Mormon missionaries who came to their doors. "It's the common sense of it," said Wilbertine Thomas, 53, a Baptist-turned-Catholic who was baptized in February. "At Our Lady of Lourdes they don't tell you the details of how to live your life." The "details" part of the service came when partitions went up and the congregation broke into study groups. A dozen of the newest members, mostly black, gathered in a back room to learn Gospel essentials from three well-scrubbed young white teachers in short-sleeved white shirts and ties. One teacher, Blake Carter, a graduate student at Columbia University, narrated a lesson in obedience, using the other two as actors. The young man who did as his parents instructed was rewarded with car keys and an extended curfew. The one who rebelled and stayed out late was arrested. Mr. Carter deployed his tie as a makeshift set of handcuffs. "We have the obedient one who has freedom," Mr. Carter said. "Then we have the disobedient one - what's his situation?" "He really has no freedom now," Ms. Thomas said. Exactly, Mr. Carter said: "You gain freedom by obedience to God's commandments and obedience to man's commandments: the local laws. Commandments are just blessings waiting to happen." The newest member, Bruce Rochester, who works restoring tires and who was attending only his fourth service, said that though he had been looking for a religious home after his wife died last year, he never pictured himself as a Mormon. "When the missionaries came, I thought when I saw the church it was going to be a one-sided race thing," said Mr. Rochester, 55, who was wearing an electric-blue dress shirt and tie. But he said he quickly learned otherwise. "I've been to churches that have different races, but this is different," Mr. Rochester said. "There's more love. I felt like I belong here. I hardly ever felt that at other churches." From checker at panix.com Fri Oct 7 00:55:59 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 20:55:59 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: On the Well-Traveled Road of Self Help Message-ID: On the Well-Traveled Road of Self Help http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/02/weekinreview/02word.html By MARY JO MURPHY SELF-HELP." The author regretted the title even after the book became an international best seller. Judged by it, he feared, the book might be seen as "a eulogy of selfishness," as he wrote in the preface to the revised edition in 1866, when in fact its chief object had been "to stimulate youths to apply themselves diligently to right pursuits, - sparing neither labour, pains, nor self-denial in prosecuting them, - and to rely upon their own efforts in life, rather than depend upon the help or patronage of others." Over the next century and a half, counseling people to "rely upon their own efforts," as Samuel Smiles had put it, became a well-rewarded effort indeed. "The Road Less Traveled," whose author, M. Scott Peck, died last week, was among a handful of books to lead the way. If some critics scorn the self-help pantheon as so much snake oil for the soul and psyche, readers scorn the scorners, drawn by the tens of millions in search of practical advice served up in slim volumes. Here, a sampling, taken cheerfully out of context and without discipline or diligence from those considered to be classics of the genre. Help yourself. In "Self-Help" in 1859, Samuel Smiles sketched biographies of successful men for Victorian Britons to emulate: Indeed, "how NOT to do it" is of all things the easiest learnt: it needs neither teaching, effort, self-denial, industry, patience, perseverance nor judgment. Besides, readers do not care to know about the general who lost his battles, the engineer whose engines blew up, the architect who designed only deformities, the painter who never got beyond daubs, the schemer who did not invent his machine.... We often discover what will do by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery. It was 1936 before the next blockbuster, Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People": Why read this book to find out how to win friends? Why not study the technique of the greatest winner of friends the world has ever known? Who is he? You may meet him tomorrow coming down the street. When you get within 10 feet of him, he will begin to wag his tail. If you stop and pat him, he will almost jump out of his skin to show you how much he likes you. And you know that behind this show of affection on his part, there are no ulterior motives: he doesn't want to sell you any real estate, and he doesn't want to marry you. Did you ever stop to think that a dog is the only animal that doesn't have to work for a living? A hen has to lay eggs, a cow has to give milk, and a canary has to sing. But a dog makes his living by giving you nothing but love. Metaphor is the well-milked cow of the genre. Carnegie writes of a disappointed woman who has gone mad: Life once wrecked all her dream ships on the sharp rocks of reality; but in the sunny, fantasy isles of insanity, all her barkentines race into port with canvas billowing and winds singing through the masts. Tragic? Oh, I don't know. Her physician said to me: "If I could stretch out my hand and restore her sanity, I wouldn't do it. She's much happier as she is." In 1952, Norman Vincent Peale took his metaphorical turn in "The Power of Positive Thinking": The vast tree of worry which over long years has grown up in your personality can best be handled by making it as small as possible. Thus it is advisable to snip off the little worries and expressions of worry. ... As you snip off these small worries you will gradually cut back to the main trunk of worry. Then with your developed greater power you will be able to eliminate basic worry; i.e., the worry habit, from your life. Peale, a minister, was a master of pop pulpitry: Have you ever considered the importance of having the peace of God in your muscles, in your joints? Perhaps your joints will not pain so much when they have the peace of God in them. Your muscles will work with correlations when the peace of God who created them governs their action. Speak to your muscles every day and to your joints and to your nerves, saying, "Fret not thyself." Eastern and Western spiritual traditions both are represented in the literature. In 1983, Benjamin Hoff borrowed from A. A. Milne for "The Tao of Pooh": As anyone who doesn't have it can see, the Eeyore Attitude gets in the way of things like wisdom and happiness, and pretty much prevents any sort of real Accomplishment to life. Like metaphor, allegory serves the self-help author. From "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus," in 1992, by John Gray: Never go into a man's cave or you will be burned by the dragon! Much unnecessary conflict has resulted from a woman following a man into his cave. And from "The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success," in 1994, by Deepak Chopra: Imagine throwing a little stone into a still pond and watching it ripple. Then, after a while, when the ripples settle down, perhaps you throw another little stone. That's exactly what you do when you go into the field of pure silence and introduce your intention. In this silence, even the faintest intention will ripple across the underlying ground of universal consciousness, which connects everything with everything else. But, if you do not experience stillness in consciousness, if your mind is like a turbulent ocean, you could throw the Empire State Building into it, and you wouldn't notice a thing. Dr. Peck's perennial, "The Road," first published in 1978, opens with the line "Life is difficult." But the road winds on before it winds up: The type of discipline required to discipline discipline is what I call balancing. ... Balancing is the discipline that gives us flexibility. Extraordinary flexibility is required for successful living in all spheres of activity. ... A final word on the discipline of balancing and its essence of giving up: you must have something in order to give it up. You cannot give up anything you have not already gotten. If you give up winning without ever having won, you are where you were at the beginning: a loser. From checker at panix.com Fri Oct 7 00:56:08 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 20:56:08 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] WSJ: (Kurzweil) Here It Comes Message-ID: Here It Comes: Technology's progress will soon accelerate--exponentially. You have no idea how much. Ray Kurzweil does. http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB112811088248757062-nXscMNuHx_ypalA6uV0oWWUNuxQ_20060930,00.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top By GLENN HARLAN REYNOLDS Special to THE WALL STREET JOURNAL October 1, 2005; Page P8 The Singularity Is Near By Ray Kurzweil Viking, 652 pages, $29.95 The bearded fellow with a sign reading "The End Is Nigh" is a staple of editorial cartoons. The title-phrase of "The Singularity Is Near" is obviously meant to evoke that image, and for any reader who is slow to catch on Ray Kurzweil makes the allusion clear in Chapter 7 ("Ich bin ein Singularitarian") with an amusing photo of himself holding up a sign announcing the imminence of the Singularity. But Mr. Kurzweil's book is about beginnings, not endings. The Singularity is a term coined by futurists to describe that point in time when technological progress has so transformed society that predictions made in the present day, already a hit-and-miss affair, are likely to be very, very wide of the mark. Much of Mr. Kurzweil's book consists of a closely argued analysis suggesting that the Singularity is, well, near: poised to appear in a mere three or four decades. People's thoughts of the future tend to follow a linear extrapolation -- steadily more of the same, only better -- while most technological progress is exponential, happening by giant leaps and thus moving farther and faster than the mind can easily grasp. Mr. Kurzweil himself, thinking exponentially, imagines a plausible future, not so far away, with extended life-spans (living to 300 will not be unusual), vastly more powerful computers (imagine more computing power in a head-sized device than exists in all the human brains alive today), other miraculous machines (nanotechnology assemblers that can make most anything out of sunlight and dirt) and, thanks to these technologies, enormous increases in wealth (the average person will be capable of feats, like traveling in space, only available to nation-states today). Naturally, Mr. Kurzweil has little time for techno-skeptics like the Nobel Prize-winning chemist Richard Smalley, who in September 2001 published a notorious piece in Scientific American debunking the claims of nanotechnologists, in particular the possibility of nano-robots (nanobots) capable of assembling molecules and substances to order. Mr. Kurzweil's arguments countering Dr. Smalley and his allies are a pleasure to read -- Mr. Kurzweil clearly thinks that nanobots are possible -- but in truth he is fighting a battle that is already won. These days skeptics worry that advanced technologies, far from failing to deliver on their promises, will deliver on them only too well -- ushering in a dystopia of, say, destructive self-replication in which the world is covered by nanobots that convert everything into copies of themselves (known in the trade as the "gray goo" problem). Mr. Kurzweil's sense of things isn't nearly so bleak as that -- he is an optimist, after all, an enthusiast for the techno-future -- but he does sound a surprisingly somber note. Indeed, "The Singularity Is Near" is partly a cautionary tale. Having established that we're going to face a very different world in the second half of the 21st century -- and face it healthier, wealthier and more artificially intelligent if not precisely wiser -- Mr. Kurzweil concedes that so-called GNR technologies (genetics, nanotech and robotics) may present problems. We may find ourselves battling genetically enhanced super pathogens, deadly military nanobots and powerful "unfriendly" artificial intelligences scheming against those of us with mere natural intelligence. Though Mr. Kurzweil regards these threats as manageable, he does not minimize them and offers chilling scenarios of what could go wrong. These scenarios are all the more credible because they come from Mr. Kurzweil and not from one of the usual gang of scaremongering Luddites. Unlike the Luddites, Mr. Kurzweil argues that the best way of curbing technology's potential harm is ... more technology. He notes that to pull back on forward-looking research, or to abandon various machine-marvels, will only make things worse by driving research underground and into irresponsible hands. Instead we should start thinking now about how to safeguard society from technology gone wrong. Mr. Kurzweil advocates prophylactic measures like the Asilomar guidelines for recombinant DNA research, which require special precautions for dangerous pathogens and restrict the most serious meddling. He also calls for much more research into antiviral drugs, rapid vaccines, defensive nanotech and artificial intelligence designed to remain friendly. It is a persuasive plea, but will anyone listen in time? The political system tends to lag behind technological change, which is often a good thing. I remember attending a House subcommittee hearing in the 1980s on whether the U.S. should create a phone-computer system modeled on the state-funded French Minitel, a text-only network being promoted as the wave of the future. Fortunately, the Internet exploded -- making Minitel obsolete -- before Congress could fund such a project. But when it comes to the dangers that Mr. Kurzweil worries about, the slow approach is a problem. The government is so often behind the curve -- think of how sluggishly it adapts to changes in employment patterns, shifts in international trade or attacks of new diseases like avian flu. What happens when the curve is an exponential one? Perhaps it won't matter. As Mr. Kurzweil notes, private entrepreneurs seem to have pushed back the threat of computer viruses, for instance, moving more rapidly and more effectively than any government agency ever could. And certainly free-marketeers reading Mr. Kurzweil's book will see opportunities for profit: Imagine the billions to be made from rapid vaccine-production technologies in a world where genetic engineering is common. But I would feel more comfortable if more people started following Mr. Kurzweil's advice in the near future, before the Singularity gets here. From checker at panix.com Fri Oct 7 01:07:41 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 21:07:41 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] Ottawa Citizen: Rushton Revisited Message-ID: Andrew Duffy The Ottawa Citizen October 1, 2005 http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=6c9fe76b-f1bd-4cfb-baa8-5d006efdf650&page=1 et seq. Research that supports Philippe Rushton includes the work of anthropologist Henry Harpending. Mr. Harpending led a study that suggested Ashkenazi Jews -- Jews of European descent -- have evolved an enhanced intellectual ability. Albert Einstein, above, for example, is part of the Ashkenazim bloodline, as are half of the world's chess champions. The research points to a millennium of discrimination in Europe that forced Jews into intellectual occupations and the fact that they consistently married within their own community. Controversial Canadian professor Philippe Rushton, best known for shocking the world in 1989 with a paper arguing some races were smarter than others, is back with another study saying blacks are not as genetically gifted as whites or East Asians. Sixteen years ago, his theory was incendiary. This time around, it was greeted with a shrug. What's changed? Has he softened his views? Have we grown tired of him? Or have advances in science made him more palatable? Andrew Duffy investigates. - - - In January 1989, when University of Western Ontario psychologist Philippe Rushton presented a research paper at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco, it triggered an academic maelstrom. His paper, which argued that genetic evolution has created identifiable IQ gaps among groups of East Asians, whites and blacks, was denounced by scientists on the conference floor. Why would he launch such an inquiry? How, they demanded, could he draw findings from intelligence tests that were culturally biased? Then-premier David Peterson called him a racist and demanded that he be fired by the university. The police launched a hate crimes investigation. Security concerns forced him to deliver lectures by videotape. Mr. Rushton became part of the Canadian lexicon, an epithet. He also became the most famous university professor in the country, a guest on The Geraldo Rivera Show. All of which makes the muted reaction to Mr. Rushton's latest academic paper so curious. In June, Mr. Rushton and University of California psychology professor Arthur Jensen published a 60-page study in Psychology, Public Policy and Law, a journal of the American Psychological Association. In it, the scholars presented 10 categories of evidence, including military and academic tests, brain size and adoption studies, to support their contention that East Asians as a group enjoy an evolutionary advantage over whites, and whites over blacks, that has contributed to measurable intelligence gaps between them. "Neither the existence nor the size of race differences in IQ are a matter of dispute, only their cause," the authors wrote. The cause of that difference is contentious. Some blame the tests, arguing that they measure a narrow, western notion of intelligence. Others say intelligence is primarily determined not by genetics but by environmental factors: poverty, nutrition, parental education, discrimination, the quality of local schools. But Mr. Rushton and Mr. Jensen posit that 50 to 80 per cent of the IQ gaps between racial groups can be explained by genetics, by the gift of inherited intelligence. That theory, they contend, holds important policy implications since it suggests that society must accept that group differences will repeatedly reveal themselves in scholastic achievement and other important measurements of "success." "Ultimately," they wrote, "the public must accept the pragmatic reality that some groups will be over-represented and other groups under-represented in various socially valued outcomes." In other words, those who design social policy should not seek to create equality between racial groups -- an impossible outcome in Mr. Rushton's mind -- but learn to live with the statistical differences. "You absolutely have to accept that Chinese people are going to be under-represented on the basketball team, and that black people are going to be under-represented in high school graduates," Mr. Rushton said in a recent interview. "That is just a fact of life. And it really doesn't matter how much lower you will place the bar, you will never equalize those outcomes, it is impossible." The findings, Mr. Rushton notes, do not apply to individuals, but to groups. It's an idea that he believes must be taught in schools. "Even kindergarten children are capable of learning that although boys are typically taller than girls, many girls are taller than the average boy," he says. Although seemingly as incendiary as ever, Mr. Rushton's latest ideas have generated little response from scientists or politicians, police or protesters. It has led even Mr. Rushton to ask: What has changed? Why were his ideas so controversial 15 years ago but not now? Has Canada grown tired of him? Or have advances in genetic science pulled his theories into the mainstream? Mr. Rushton says he would like to believe that his erstwhile critics have been silenced by the scientific force of his latest publication. But he's not that naive. "In fact, I think the opposite is the case," he says. "It is just bad news to many people. So the best thing to do is just to avert the eyes and carry on, keep their heads in the sand." There's no doubt that Mr. Rushton suddenly finds himself in an increasingly crowded field of inquiry. In the 1980s, Mr. Rushton was viewed as a rogue academic. But today, a small army of scientists is exploring the genetic foundation of intelligence, and the genetic differences between people of African, Asian, Indian, Middle Eastern and European descent. Their work flows from the landmark Human Genome Project, which found slight differences in the pattern of DNA among ethnic groups. In June, for instance, the Journal of Biosocial Science published a paper by a team of University of Utah scientists who suggested that Ashkenazi Jews -- Jews of European descent -- have evolved an enhanced intellectual ability through natural selection. The researchers, led by anthropologist Henry Harpending, found that Ashkenazim score higher on IQ tests than any other ethnic group to which they can be reliably compared. Six times as many Ashkenazim as Europeans score in the "genius range" above 140 on IQ tests. Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud and Gustav Mahler are part of the Ashkenazim bloodline, as are half of the world's chess champions. In the U.S., Ashkenazim have won 27 per cent of the Nobel Prizes awarded to Americans, while making up just three per cent of the population. Mr. Harpending and his colleagues concluded that natural selection has played a role in boosting the group's brain power. According to their theory, a millennium of discrimination in Europe forced Jews into intellectually challenging occupations as bankers and merchants -- jobs then considered distasteful for Christians. Since European Jews married consistently within their own community, and since successful merchants tended to have larger families than less successful ones, a process of natural selection took place whereby genes that enhanced intelligence became more common. (The researchers went on to hypothesize that the same genes that enhance intelligence may trigger neurological diseases, such as Tay-Sachs, Gaucher's and Niemann-Pick, that have an unusually high incidence among Ashkenazim.) "Absolutely anything in human biology that is interesting is going to be controversial," Mr. Harpending has said in defending his study. Earlier this month, another study made news in Mr. Rushton's once-isolated universe. Published in the magazine Science, the University of Chicago study suggested that the brain continues to evolve rapidly because of the influence of two genes that help determine its size. What's more, the study said, the genes are more readily found in some populations, such as in Europe and East Asia, than others, such as those in sub-Saharan Africa. Again, the report's conclusions held nettlesome social implications. Mr. Rushton, however, said he was "delighted" with the University of Chicago study, which identified, for the first time, a gene related to brain size. "This is exactly what all theory has to predict," he says. Mr. Rushton says that study, much like the work on the Ashkenazim, has lent respectability to his own work. "Here is another ethnic group (the Ashkenazim) that has been identified, genetically, as possessing a higher IQ," he says. "So if nature has not made every population group in the world exactly equal in mean IQ, if there is one somewhat above, then it's quite possible to find one or two somewhat below?" Mr. Rushton believes that he has always been a mainstream psychologist. The only difference now, he argues, is that the mainstream has been enlarged by the work of other scientists exploring the genetic basis of race, intelligence and disease. Still, many of his colleagues continue to regard Mr. Rushton as academic nitro: a volatile and destructive force best left on the shelf. The journal, Psychology, Public Policy and Law, took the unusual step of including three rebuttal essays when it published his most recent study. "What good is research of the kind done by Rushton and Jensen supposed to achieve?" asks one of the critics, Yale University psychologist Robert Sternberg. Mr. Sternberg suggests the question to which Mr. Rushton has devoted himself has no value except to those cynics who would use it to justify discrimination. "Does science," he asks, "really want to provide that ammunition?" Mr. Rushton and Mr. Jensen offer an explosive response to that question. They argue that their research is important because "we will never make progress in race relations if we operate on the belief that one segment of society is responsible for the plight of another segment and that belief is false." They suggest that policy-makers and judges have mistakenly ascribed "the underachievement of black people to prejudice and discrimination by white people," rather than to genetic disadvantages. Mr. Rushton and Mr. Jensen then cite the landmark U.S. Supreme Court Decision, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which outlawed racial segregation in schools, as an example of a decision based on just such a wrong-headed assumption. Mr. Rushton claims to be interested only in truth and in the dissemination of science, even when it's politically unpopular. Yet there's no denying that Mr. Rushton also has a nose for controversy that even Geraldo Rivera would envy. He has written that Asians, as a group, have larger brains and exhibit more intelligence, family stability and sexual restraint than whites, and whites more than blacks. He has conducted a mass mailout of a book that propounds that theory to social scientists across North America. Then, three years ago, he became president of the Pioneer Fund, a foundation incorporated in 1937 with the goal of "race betterment, with special reference to the United States." Among other things, it funds scientific studies that examine the differences between human beings based on gender, race and class. The Pioneer Fund has a checkered history. One of its first funding grants in 1937 paid for the U.S. distribution of a Nazi Party film on eugenics. The fund's primary benefactor, Wickliffe Draper, was interested in the idea of repatriating U.S. blacks to Africa and later offered significant financial support for legal battles to oppose the racial desegregation of schools in the U.S. That activity has led critics to charge that the Pioneer Fund hides an ugly political agenda behind its veil of science. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a non-profit advocacy organization, bluntly calls it a hate group. Soon after accepting the job of Pioneer Fund president, Mr. Rushton authored a detailed defence of the foundation. He characterized it as a ground-breaking scientific enterprise inspired by the spirit of Charles Darwin. "The directors of Pioneer Fund have always believed it is important to investigate the biological basis of traits like intelligence, the causes of racial and other group differences and the factors affecting demographic change," he wrote. "Because some Pioneer grants have reached what some believe are politically unpalatable conclusions on these topics, they, and Pioneer, have become unpopular in some circles. We in no way apologize for supporting supporting this research... "We also believe it is unscientific and counterproductive to tag any and all such research as 'Nazi' or 'racist.' " Geneticists once seemed poised to eliminate race entirely from the field of science, to make Mr. Rushton obsolete. In the early 1970s, Harvard geneticist Richard Lewontin argued that the genetic differences between races were so infinitesimal that researchers would have no reason to sort people into classifications such as black, white and Asian. His belief that race is "biologically meaningless" became an article of faith for many academics. Then, in 2000, a seismic scientific event, the Human Genome Project, reordered the world of biology and made scientists take a fresh, new look at our genetic heritage. At first, the DNA research seemed to affirm Mr. Lewontin's message of equality and brotherhood. The 13-year project found that humans share with each other 99.9 per cent of their genetic heritage. All people possess the same basic set of genes, the researchers announced. The differences between individuals and races, they said, owe themselves to variations in a tiny fraction of the three billion letter sequence in the human genome. Rather than explore what unites us, however, scientists have seized upon discovering exactly what separates us. That's because scientists believe the variation between people holds the answer to the genetic riddle of diabetes, heart disease, strokes and cancer. It's widely acknowledged that diseases are not evenly distributed among ethnic groups and races. Sickle cell anemia, a blood disorder, is considerably more common among those with African ancestry. Hemochromatosis, an inherited disorder that causes the body to absorb too much iron, is not found among Indians or Chinese, yet more than seven per cent of Swedes suffer it. The incidence of hypertension, prostate cancer and kidney failure is higher among blacks than whites (although some of that variability can be tied to diet and lifestyle). Scientists believe that mapping the DNA variability between races and ethnic groups may lead them to the genetic triggers of disease, which in turn, could produce important drug breakthroughs and treatments. Canadian scientists are now part of a $185-million international effort to produce a detailed map of human genetic variation. The International Haplotype Project will chart the common DNA sequence variations between major ethnic groups based on the DNA of Han Chinese in Beijing, Japanese in Tokyo, Yoruba in Ibadan, Nigeria, and Utah residents with ancestry from northern and western Europe. As more researchers explore the relationship between genetics and race, more have come to the conclusion that Mr. Lewontin was wrong. Neil Risch, widely regarded as one of the world's leading geneticists, has been a key figure in the still emotion-charged debate. Mr. Risch has argued that small genetic differences have evolved between races because of the geographic isolation of generations of sub-Saharan Africans, Caucasians, Asians, Pacific Islanders and Native Americans. Mr. Risch has shown that researchers, by analyzing DNA, can correctly match an individual's self-described race in 99.9 per cent of cases. There was a greater chance, he said, that researchers would incorrectly guess an individual's self-described gender. "There is great validity in racial/ethnic self-categorizations, both from research and public policy points of view," Mr. Risch, now director of the Center for Human Genetics at the University of California, concluded in a 2002 paper in Nature Genetics. Even Francis Collins, the former director of the Genome Project, conceded as much last year when he told Nature Genetics that the project's researchers probably overstated their case about the insignificance of biology's connection to race. "It is not strictly true that race or ethnicity has no biological connection," he said. "It must be emphasized, however, that the connection is generally quite blurry." The focus of the debate has now shifted to how scientists should properly categorize their findings about genetic variation. Those like Mr. Risch believe that race is a legitimate method, but others argue that using race is unnecessary and sensational. The second school of thought holds that differences between people would more properly be expressed in terms of group "genetic markers" that correspond with different parts of the globe. Most scientists today accept that genetics plays some role in human variation and that some combination of hereditary and environmental factors determine intelligence. That point is conceded by two of the three critics who respond to Mr. Rushton's latest publication in Psychology, Public Policy and Law. The more challenging question is whether the IQ gap that has been identified between Asians, whites and blacks is fixed or changeable. What can be done to raise group IQs and, more importantly, academic achievement levels among specific race and ethnic groups? Charles Murray, co-author of the bestselling 1994 book The Bell Curve, recently published an essay in Commentary magazine in which he argued that, at the very least, educational outcomes can be improved. "Dropout rates, literacy and numeracy are all tractable. School discipline, teacher performance and the quality of the curriculum are tractable. Academic performance within a given IQ range is tractable," he wrote. "The existence of group differences need not and should not discourage attempts to improve schooling for millions of American children who are now getting bad educations." New York University psychology professors Lisa Suzuki and Joshua Aronson argue the danger of Mr. Rushton's theory flows from the implication that IQ gaps are largely immutable. It's an idea, they say, that could diminish support for affirmative action hiring and pre-school educational programs aimed mostly at impoverished, black Americans. For his part, Mr. Rusthon said that while black academic achievement can be improved, and while the IQ gap can be somewhat narrowed, there will never be equality. Parents, he said, easily accept the idea that some of their children are more gifted intellectually or physically than other ones. As a society, he argued, we have to accept the same notion. "It's very harmful, this philosophy we currently have, which is that anybody, all of us, we can just reinvent ourselves. We can grow and change and develop into something very different, that somehow we're not constrained genetically. "The more you can realize who you are earlier, and that includes race and IQ, then personally the more you can accept it, the easier it will be." Mr. Rushton contends his ideas are controversial today only because they do not dovetail with popular religious and political dogmas about everyone being born equal. "It's not happy news for a lot of people, so in that sense it is controversial," he said. He takes particular offence to the suggestion that his work is unnecessary and offers no meaningful social insight. Indeed, his response to that criticism is made of more Rushton nitrogylcerin, the kind that no amount of science is ever likely to defuse. "If it really was a colour blind society, and nobody even noticed race, maybe there would be some more justification for it (the criticism)," he told the Citizen. "But people are pulling their hair out and are saying, 'What about Toronto the Good? Where did it go to?' What about Ottawa? I'm sure it is the same? What about Montreal? I'll bet you it's the same. I'll bet it's the same in every bloody city in Canada where you have black people. It's inevitable that it won't be. So there you go." From checker at panix.com Fri Oct 7 01:07:47 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 21:07:47 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: (Kurzweil) Will the Future Be a Trillion Times Better? Message-ID: Will the Future Be a Trillion Times Better? New York Times Daily Book Review, 5.10.3 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/03/books/03masl.html Books of the Times | 'The Singularity Is Near' The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology By Ray Kurzweil 652 pages. Viking. $29.95. By [57]JANET MASLIN In "The Singularity Is Near," the inventor and prognosticator Ray Kurzweil postulates that we are fast approaching a time when humankind melds with technology to produce mind-boggling advances in intelligence. We will be able to play quidditch as Harry Potter does. We will control the aging process. We will be smarter by a factor of trillions. We will be so smart that we understand what Ray Kurzweil is talking about. Qubits, foglets, gigaflops, haptic interfaces, probabilistic fractals: Mr. Kurzweil is not writing science for sissies. He is envisioning precise details about how and when the Singularity - a fusion of symbiotic advances in genetics, robotics and nanotechnology that creates "a profound and disruptive transformation in human capability" - will be upon us. Mark the calendar for big doings in 2045 in case he's right. Most science books at this level of sophistication leave the armchair quantum-mechanics buff in the dust. But "The Singularity Is Near" works simultaneously on different levels. Anyone can grasp Mr. Kurzweil's main idea: that mankind's technological knowledge has been snowballing, with dizzying prospects for the future. The basics are clearly expressed. But for those more knowledgeable and inquisitive, the author argues his case in fascinating detail. As evidence that the concept of Singularity is as grandiose as it is controversial, Mr. Kurzweil deals almost offhandedly with prospects like "a cool, zero-energy-consuming computer with a memory of about a thousand trillion trillion bits and a processing capacity of 1042 operations a second, which is abut 10 trillion times more powerful than all human brains on Earth." And all he's talking about is reconfiguring the atomic structure of a rock. The book gets much headier when it looks at the reverse engineering and replication of the human brain. Where Mr. Kurzweil's thinking turns quidditch-wizardly is with concepts like virtual reality created by tiny computers in eyeglasses and clothing, or cell-size devices that can operate within the bloodstream. These innovations and their far-reaching effects, he says, exist not only within the province of science fiction (they sneak into audacious roller-coaster rides like "Minority Report" and "Being John Malkovich") but are also already in the works. Others (most recently Joel Garreau in "Radical Evolution") have argued about the Singularity's imminence and consequences. But Mr. Kurzweil approaches the subject with the glee of a businessman-inventor as well as the expertise of a scientist. The fact that a dollar bought one transistor in 1968 and about 10 million transistors in 2002 has not escaped his notice. "The Singularity Is Near" is startling in scope and bravado. Mr. Kurzweil envisions breathtakingly exponential progress, and he is merely extrapolating from established data. To his way of thinking, "when scientists become a million times more intelligent and operate a million times faster, an hour would result in a century of progress (in today's terms)." The underpinnings of this logic go beyond the familiar to suggest that the pace of evolution (he has no doubts about Darwin) is logarithmic - another indication that the future is almost here. Like string theory's concept of an 11-dimensional universe, Mr. Kurzweil's projections are as abstract and largely untested as they are alluring. Predictions from his earlier books (including "The Age of Spiritual Machines" and "The Age of Intelligent Machines") have been borne out, but much of his thinking tends to be pie in the sky. He promotes buoyant optimism more readily than he contemplates the darker aspects of progress. He is more eager to think about the life-enhancing powers of nanotechnology than to wonder what happens if cell-size computers within the human body run amok. In the last part of the book, he engages in one-sided batting practice with his critics. He introduces each complaint only to swat it into oblivion. By and large he is a blinkered optimist, disinclined to contemplate the dangers of what he imagines. The Manhattan Project model of pure science without ethical constraints still looms over the Singularity and its would-be miracles. "What if not everyone wants to go along with this?" a straw man asks Mr. Kurzweil. For purposes of simulated debate, the book drums up an assortment of colorful naysayers. This voice is that of Ned Ludd, the opponent of technological advances who gave Luddites their name, but Charles Darwin and Timothy Leary also chime in. Mr. Kurzweil also gives a speaking part to George 2048, a mid-21st-century machine with a reassuring personality. His boldest move is to let bacteria from two billion years ago argue among themselves about the wisdom of banding together to form multicellular life-forms. If the author is right, Singularity-phobes will look no less shortsighted when the dividing line between humans and machines erodes. "This is not because humans will have become what we think of as machines today," he writes, "but rather machines will have progressed to be like humans and beyond." In other words, "technology will be the metaphorical opposable thumb that enables our next step in evolution." Mr. Kurzweil ultimately describes himself as a Singularitarian in a religious sense. Not for him the "deathist rationalization" (that is, "rationalizing the tragedy of death as a good thing") of traditional religion: his own vision of eternal life is expressed in these pages. He underscores his conviction by putting on a cardboard "The Singularity Is Near" sign and posing for a crazy-man photo. He won't look crazy if the Singularity arrives on cue. References 57. http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=JANET%20MASLIN&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=JANET%20MASLIN&inline=nyt-per From checker at panix.com Fri Oct 7 01:07:55 2005 From: checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 21:07:55 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Paleopsych] CHE: The Economist as Biologist Message-ID: The Economist as Biologist The Chronicle of Higher Education, 5.10.7 http://chronicle.com/weekly/v52/i07/07b00501.htm By PHILIP N. JEFFERSON That feeling of being inauthentic hit me in the small hours of the night, early this year. It comes on me every now and then, when the gap between what I truly know and what I teach gets too large. Redesigning my econometrics course to incorporate experimental concepts and methods had pushed me over the precipice this time. I knew I could read more about how to interpret particular social events as quasi-experiments. There are hundreds of papers in economics on that. But further scholastic scrutiny was not the remedy to what ailed me. The problem, while not deep, was fundamental: The precise understanding of what an experiment is had faded from my mind. How was I to get out of that bind? The answer to my problem came at a faculty lunch in March, when the biologist Amy Cheng Vollmer discussed her concern about the Balkanization of disciplines that often takes place at colleges and universities. She felt that at our institution, Swarthmore College, the natural sciences were seen as somehow different from the humanities or social sciences. She worried that faculty members outside of the natural sciences believed that almost all natural-science majors were headed for medical or graduate school, and thus humanists and social scientists might be advising some students not to take natural-science courses. How could the faculty eliminate the incorrect perceptions that could limit the range of students' intellectual experience at Swarthmore? Amy concluded her talk with a startling proposal. She would open her microbiology laboratory to any faculty member outside the natural sciences who was willing to spend some time over the summer actually doing biology. The idea was to break down a perceived barrier by having nonscientists do what they would normally keep at a distance. My first thought upon hearing Amy's proposal was that she was way off the farm. It was easy to understand her concern, but academics are who we are: specialists. We can and probably do read across disciplines, but why would we want to work across disciplines? But after ruminating on my own conundrum for a couple of days, I thought of Amy and her daring idea. Perhaps working in her microbiology lab was a way to close my authenticity gap. I met her for lunch, and we clarified our objectives, defined parameters, and set timelines. Luckily for me, another colleague, Cheryl Grood of the mathematics department, was already working in the lab. Cheryl was refreshing her knowledge of biology from courses taken long ago. She and I would form a mini-team. A great advantage of having a mathematician as a partner is that all of your measurements and calculations are likely to be precise -- even if the conclusions are precisely wrong! I could not have wished for a better partner. Amy explained that our project was to use established methods of genetic engineering to see if we could make bacteria that were sensitive to ampicillin, an antibiotic, resistant to it instead. We would isolate a plasmid -- a small, self-reproducing element containing DNA but outside the chromosome -- from ampicillin-resistant bacteria. Subsequently, we would manipulate an ampicillin-sensitive strain of the same bacteria so that it would absorb the plasmid. The hope was that the plasmid would transform the recipient's DNA so the bacteria would exhibit resistance to ampicillin. Was she serious? First, how do you pronounce DNA's full name, deoxyribonucleic acid? Second, what is to prevent me from combining the DNA of the ampicillin-resistant bacteria with my own DNA, thereby rendering me resistant to antibiotics -- and likely to catch all kinds of ailments from my students, who sometimes come into class coughing and wheezing? Third, given that the plasmids, cytoplasm, chromosomes, genes, and all the other stuff inside the bacteria cells are too small for me to see with the naked eye, how will I know if any transformation has taken place? And fourth, don't you need some kind of license to engage in genetic engineering? Obviously I had some reservations about actually doing microbiology. But it took me only three days of continuous practice to solve the pronunciation problem: dee-ox-ee-RYE-bo-new-clay-ick (the "acid" part was easier). Because no known pathogens are handled in Amy's lab, the odds of contamination are extremely low. My qualms about absorbing bacterial DNA were thus unwarranted. Although the transformation we were trying to accomplish could not be seen by the naked eye, the result -- the expression of a gene or trait -- can be confirmed by experimentation. And as a novice, I needed only a mentor, not a license, to make sure that my work in the lab was well within ethical bounds. The return from doing science hands-on is high. The experiments required care and precision. How do you set up a control? Are you sure that the background conditions -- the medium used to suspend the plasmids, the settings on the spectrophotometer, the size of the pipettes, the agar, etc. -- are exactly the same for the control and the experimental specimens? How do you measure, assess, and interpret your results? Can an amateur possibly get all that right? More important, can an amateur steeped in a foreign intellectual tradition -- in my case, social science -- possibly comprehend or appreciate the elegance and power of the scientific methods employed? Amy made everything possible. Taking more time than I could have imagined, explaining every concept, showing how every piece of equipment worked, answering every question (many of them more than once), enduring every mistake, she led Cheryl and me through the processes of plasmid isolation and gel electrophoresis. Not only did we succeed in those feats of genetic engineering, but we also confirmed that the ampicillin-resistant trait was due to the presence of the added plasmid DNA, given that we were able to re-isolate the plasmid from the newly transformed bacteria. My econometrics course will be different from now on. Not because the material or the text or the statistical software will be new, but because my understanding of one small slice of applied science has been refreshed. I now have new comparisons, examples, interpretations, exercises, and thought experiments to use with my students in the social sciences. Experiments in the social sciences will never be as clean as they are in the natural sciences. But I feel much better about teaching quasi-experimental concepts now that I have worked in a real laboratory. If my professional life allowed it, I would like to spend more time in a lab. That may sound strange coming from a social scientist, and I realize that many faculty members in the humanities and social sciences would not agree with me. Before the desire to refresh my memory of what an experiment was became a pressing matter for me, I thought the idea of my doing science was impractical. Now, however, I have joined Amy off the farm on the issue of communication and collaboration among the disciplines. You know, the air out here is fresh, the sky is clear, and the company is very good. Philip N. Jefferson is a professor of economics at Swarthmore College. From ljohnson at solution-consulting.com Fri Oct 7 04:10:00 2005 From: ljohnson at solution-consulting.com (Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.) Date: Thu, 06 Oct 2005 22:10:00 -0600 Subject: [Paleopsych] NYT: For Mormons in Harlem, a Bigger Space Beckons In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4345F518.8020703@solution-consulting.com> There are now somewhat more members of the LDS faith in South America and Central America than in North America. The church is growing rapidly in Africa. Europe - well, nothing is happening in Europe except with immigrants. So the church becomes ever more brown and black. Lynn Premise Checker wrote: > For Mormons in Harlem, a Bigger Space Beckons > http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/02/nyregion/02mormon.html > [Christianity as a whole became non-White about 1980. I don't know if > it's true for LDS yet.] > > By [3]ANDY NEWMAN > > The pilgrims' progress began in a back dining room at Sylvia's. > > In 1997, a handful of members of the Mormon Church began meeting on > Sundays in a mirror-lined banquet hall at Sylvia's restaurant, the > venerable cathedral of soul food in Harlem. > > Now, after seven transitional and increasingly cramped years in a > windowless brick shoebox on West 129th Street, the congregation is > moving around the corner to a gleaming new five-story structure on > Malcolm X Boulevard, one of Harlem's main arteries. Never again will > the members have to cut services short to make way for Sylvia's > overflow brunch crowd. > > There is only one problem with the new building, in the view of > Herbert Steed, whose title with the newly established Harlem First > Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is first > counselor. "I think it's going to be too small soon," he said. > > As they have across the world, the Mormons continue to multiply in the > New York City region, from one congregation in 1965 to several dozen > in 1985, to 129 today, serving more than 41,000 members. > > Last year the church opened a temple - a place where high rituals are > performed - across from Lincoln Center. It is the only Mormon temple > between Washington and Boston. > > But church leaders point with special pride to their expansion in > Harlem. They say they hope it dispels any lingering misconceptions > that the church, which until 1978 barred blacks from full membership, > remains a bastion of whiteness. > > A 1998 survey by a Mormon and amateur sociologist, James W. Lucas, > found that about 20 percent of Mormons in New York City were black. > "We're not in Harlem because of affirmative action," said Ahmad S. > Corbitt, the church's Northeastern public affairs director, who is > black. "We're in Harlem because we love people." > > The new building, a bright red-brick haven scheduled to open by > month's end, looks a bit like a schoolhouse topped by a 50-foot > steeple. The resemblance is apt: Much of the space is filled with > classrooms for religious education and a gymnasium that the church > promises to open to the neighborhood. The sanctuary seats 350, and the > baptismal font accommodates full-body immersions. > > The soon-to-be-former place of worship, in contrast, recalls nothing > so much as the waiting room of a government office, with dingy > industrial carpeting, folding chairs, fluorescent lights and a dropped > ceiling. As at most Mormon churches, the walls are bare. The only > visual clue to the room's function is the list of hymn numbers posted > at the front. > > But last Sunday, as usual, the 150 chairs were filled and people stood > at the back. Also as usual, the room was one of the most racially > integrated in Harlem, with about equal numbers of white and black > worshipers. (The Mormons have separate congregations for Spanish > speakers.) > > The members approved a formal upgrade of the congregation from a > branch, the smallest worship unit, to a ward, which must have at least > 300 members. > > Then, after sharing a sacrament of white bread and water, they took > turns speaking. (The Mormon church does not have specialized clergy, > and preaching duties rotate among its members. Most adult males are > ordained priests, which entitles them to perform marriages and > baptisms. While women cannot be priests, they do preach and teach.) > > "Because we stood strong together, this is what happened," a founding > member of the congregation, Polly Dickey, 59, testified through tears. > "This is what this church is about. As long as we stay together, we > can accomplish anything." The Mormon Church, founded in 1830 by Joseph > Smith Jr., is one of the fastest-growing religions in the world, with > more than 12 million members; half are in the [4]United States, mostly > in Western states. It is based on what Smith said were transcriptions > of gold tablets he had found hidden in a mountain in upstate New York, > which told the story of a lost tribe of [5]Israel that fled to the New > World and was eventually wiped out. > > Many members of the Harlem church said they had tried several other > religions before being converted by Mormon missionaries who came to > their doors. > > "It's the common sense of it," said Wilbertine Thomas, 53, a > Baptist-turned-Catholic who was baptized in February. "At Our Lady of > Lourdes they don't tell you the details of how to live your life." > > The "details" part of the service came when partitions went up and the > congregation broke into study groups. A dozen of the newest members, > mostly black, gathered in a back room to learn Gospel essentials from > three well-scrubbed young white teachers in short-sleeved white shirts > and ties. > > One teacher, Blake Carter, a graduate student at Columbia University, > narrated a lesson in obedience, using the other two as actors. The > young man who did as his parents instructed was rewarded with car keys > and an extended curfew. The one who rebelled and stayed out late was > arrested. Mr. Carter deployed his tie as a makeshift set of handcuffs. > > "We have the obedient one who has freedom," Mr. Carter said. "Then we > have the disobedient one - what's his situation?" > > "He really has no freedom now," Ms. Thomas said. > > Exactly, Mr. Carter said: "You gain freedom by obedience to God's > commandments and obedience to man's commandments: the local laws. > Commandments are just blessings waiting to happen." > > The newest member, Bruce Rochester, who works restoring tires and who > was attending only his fourth service, said that though he had been > looking for a religious home after his wife died last year, he never > pictured himself as a Mormon. > > "When the missionaries came, I thought when I saw the church it was > going to be a one-sided race thing," said Mr. Rochester, 55, who was > wearing an electric-blue dress shirt and tie. But he said he quickly > learned otherwise. > > "I've been to churches that have different races, but this is > different," Mr. Rochester said. "There's more love. I felt like I > belong here. I hardly ever felt that at other churches." > _______________________________________________ > paleopsych mailing list > paleopsych at paleopsych.org > http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych > > From HowlBloom at aol.com Fri Oct 7 19:24:07 2005 From: HowlBloom at aol.com (HowlBloom at aol.com) Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 15:24:07 EDT Subject: [Paleopsych] scale invariance and Ur patterns Message-ID: <29.7d3a6ba4.30782557@aol.com> If we could get Eshel on our panel at HBES, it would be terrific. I can go after him once you get at OK from HBES on moving forward. Make scale-invariance the topic, and I suspect we'll pull some very, very interesting insights from Eshel. Howard ps in Bloomspeak, scale invariance is reflected in "Ur patterns", basic patterns that are parts of the "deep structure" of the cosmos and that show up on level after level of emergence. It's the persistence of these patterns that makes it possible for humans to use poetry, religion, metaphor, and math to model the world at levels from the microscopic to the galactic. These Ur patterns can be captured in math, metaphor, and in metaphoric systems like poetry, religion, and science. Why? Because like other forms of emergence, symbolic systems used by humans carry those Ur patterns within them. Human symbolic systems share something in common with bacteria, food plants, and the stars. All are descendents of the basic patterns with which the universe kicked itself into being. All are children of the big bang. And it's the big bang's "genome", its underlying rules, its Ur patterns that show up over and over again in stair-step after stair-step of evolution. The big bang's underlying rules are, in fact, the "deep structures" implied by Noam Chomsky's use of the term. Howard ps I owe the use of the term "deep structures" to Pavel Kurakin, who demonstrated the relevance of Chomsky's phrase in our joint paper, ?Conversation (dialog) model of quantum transitions?. ---------- 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 Recent 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: Institute for Accelerating Change ; 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From HowlBloom at aol.com Fri Oct 7 19:26:27 2005 From: HowlBloom at aol.com (HowlBloom at aol.com) Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 15:26:27 EDT Subject: [Paleopsych] Fwd: Universal Footprint: Power Laws Message-ID: <20a.b04d498.307825e3@aol.com> In a message dated 10/7/2005 3:13:06 PM Eastern Standard Time, Howl Bloom writes: All thanks, Jim. I just gave a presentation related to this subject to an international quantum physics conference in Moscow--Quantum Informatics 2005. I wish I'd seen the article before giving the talk. It would have come in handy. Meanwhile I tracked down a copy of the full article. It's downloadable for free at _http://www.pasteur.fr/recherche/unites/neubiomol/ARTICLES/Gisiger2001.pdf_ (http://www.pasteur.fr/recherche/unites/neubiomol/ARTICLES/Gisiger2001.pdf) Better yet, enclosed is a file with the full article and with another article that relates. I may not have the time to read these, so if you digest anything interesting from them and get the time, please jot me an email and give me your summary of what these articles are getting at. Since Eshel Ben-Jacob has been trying to point out for years why such concepts as scale-free power laws and fractals fail to get at the creative twists evolution comes up with as it moves from one level of emergence to another, anything in these pieces that indicates how newness enters the repetition of the old would be of particular interest. Again, all thanks. Onward--Howard In a message dated 10/5/2005 5:12:27 PM Eastern Standard Time, JBJbrody at cs.com writes: _Biological Reviews_ (http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=74595#) (2001), 76: 161-209 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S1464793101005607 Published Online 17May2001 *This article is available in a PDF that may contain more than one article