A Crisis of Leadership: Reflections on the recent Ontario election

Disclaimer: I know that hindsight is 20/20.  What I'm writing here is actually (believe it or not) what I was saying privately during the election and still hold to now.

The fact of the matter is, I didn't support much of the NDP's recent platform.  I find the obsession with minor issues (ATM fees, etc.) to be slightly ridiculous, as well as ineffectual in terms of significant, impactful, policy decisions that would reverse, stem, or quell the "neo-liberal" turn.

With that out there, I also am aware (painfully so at times) that I am not the average elector.  I am extremely over-educated and one could argue my leftist principles and preferences reflect a certain privilege (even if those views are also shared and held by many without said privilege).

More than that, I also realize that politics, especially the specific variety practiced in North America, is a very strange beast.  I know that it doesn't run on logic nor even on appearances.  It is extremely difficult thing to "get" - and I've seen die-hard idealists and realists read elections and outcomes in absolutely opposed and sometimes absolutely identical ways - and both be wrong.

All this is to say that while its hard to say I respect Canadian politics, I respect that I do not *know* how to read it very well.  And that, combined with my experience of a left politics that has lost all sense of solidarity and trust, I am often dismayed by the left-on-left criticism that is displayed during the mere 30 days of an average electoral campaign.

In the case of this recent election, the "open letter" by the Toronto left elite condemning Horwath seemed to me like a plot straight out of the Liberal playbook.  How could these intelligent people not see that their outcry could have no real benefit on leftist fortunes?

I am honestly unsure.  The fact of the matter remains that left parties are experiencing a crisis of leadership - a crisis that is not contingent on any particular leader but on the idea of leadership itself.  The hubris of left intellectuals is so great that they refuse *ever* to be yolked to a leader who potentially or actually diverts from their individualized vision of the party.  These people have neither the patience nor the forsight to direct their criticism where it belongs (at convention) and instead openly work to destroy the party to which they belong.

In my view, Andrea Horwath asked us for her trust for 30 days to do what she's been elected to do: lead.  She chose, as elected leader, to try a strategy of peculiar centrist populism.  Whatever the outcome (and an increase in seats and total vote share may, arguably, dictate she was successful), we owed her our allegiance, our solidarity, and even our silence - if only for 30 days.

Now, I'm afraid it truly is impossible to judge the outcome of the NDP because it is difficult to separate the leadership of Horwath from the sabotage of some members.  Had Horwath had our faith, and failed, the outcome would be obvious (as it was, with Hudak).  Instead, I'm left confused.  Should she resign over this outcome, slightly favourable as it is?  Would she have done better had the Left not intervened to sabotage her?  I'm unsure - its impossible to know.

All told, I wish we had let her have her shot so that we could allow her to be answerable to its outcome.  As it is, I feel we cannot do that, and perhaps thats the worst of it - because if she did blow the NDP's chance at significant gains (official opposition or better) - she should be given the boot - but instead we're left with the blame game and the unfortunate losses of NDP MPPs like Jonah Schein and Rosario Marchese - losses which may have been prevented had the Left got its own mouth under control.

Going forward, I hope that the disease that seems to affect most intensely the over-educated and privileged left, can be addressed.  I hope the values of faith (or trust) and solidarity make a return to leftist politics and that the hubris and individualism of expert opinions (almost always from the mouths of the most privileged of leftists) can be lessened considerably. 

Until then...

In solidarity.

Anti-Vax Myth #234934: Pre-Vaccine Medical Advances Account for Disease Elimination

Anti-Vax Myth: The decrease in the mortality rate that preceded the introduction of vaccines indicates that the elimination of infection are the result of non-vaccine-related bio-medical advances and that, therefore, vaccines  are ineffective.

The following response uses measles as a representative vaccine-preventable disease.

Now, its true that the mortality rate from measles decreased in the years prior to the introduction of the measles vaccine.

So between the years 1900-1950 we see measles deaths drop from roughly 10 per 100,000 people to somewhere around 1 per 100,000 people.

This means that in a country like the United States, we'd saw about 7600 people die every year in 1900 (based on a population of ~76 million) from measles and about 1500 people die from measles in 1950 (based on a population of ~150 million).

This is all without the measles vaccine and the data is not hidden.  See for example: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2024011/pdf/pubhealthreporig00184-0087.pdf

So the question we are debating is, how can we judge whether the measles vaccine is effective when there has already been an incredible reduction in deaths caused by measles?

Well here is the answer:

Though the death or mortality rate declined between 1900-1950 due to medical (non-vaccine-related) advances, the number of measles infections and deaths in the years preceding the introduction of the vaccines are staggeringly high in comparison to levels achieved immediately following the introduction of the measles vaccine.

Between 1944 and the introduction of the measles vaccine in 1963, the average infection rate was approximately 500,000 cases per year.

After the introduction of the measles vaccine the numbers drop to an average of 50,000 cases between 1968-1980 - a reduction of 90%.

After the introduction of the booster or second dosage during an outbreak in 1990, we see measles become virtually eliminated (dropping into the few hundreds cases per year) in the USA.

There are still 2 or 3 deaths per 1000 cases of measles (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15106083) but because measles cases are below 1000 per annum generally there is usually 0 deaths in any given year (maybe 1 death every couple of years).

So let's compare again.  In 1950 we saw about 1500 people die from measles, in 1968, a few years after the measles vaccine introduced we see the death rate drop by 90% to 100-150.  After the second dose, we see measles eliminated and the death rate drop to virtually zero.

See here for graph: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles

So now we can see that though medical advances did drop the number of measles deaths from 7600 to 1500, the introduction of the measles vaccine took that 1500 number  from 1950 (which according to today's population would actually be more like 3000 deaths per year given the population is ~310 million) and reduced it to 2 or 3 deaths per 1000 cases (less than 1 death a year).

We can also talk, however, about the fact that even though a reduction in measles deaths followed between 1900-1950, the fact that hundreds of thousands of measles cases continued until the invention of the vaccine meant that people still had to suffer from a measles infection.  Even though the risk of dying was significantly lower in 1950 than 1900, 500,000 people still suffered from the measles until the vaccine all but eliminated the disease.  Here's a blurb about measles infection from Wikipedia:

The classic signs and symptoms of measles include four-day fevers [the 4 D's] and the three Cs—cough, coryza (head cold), and conjunctivitis (red eyes)—along with fever and rashes. The fever may reach up to 40 °C (104 °F)

Complications with measles are relatively common, ranging from mild and less serious complications such as diarrhea to more serious ones such as pneumonia (either direct viral pneumonia or secondary bacterialpneumonia),[10] otitis media,[11] acute encephalitis (and very rarely SSPE—subacute sclerosing panencephalitis),[12] and corneal ulceration (leading to corneal scarring).[13] Complications are usually more severe in adults who catch the virus.[14]

Now, compare the symptoms of measles, the possibility of complications and even death (in rare instances), with the fact that "Adverse reactions to vaccination are rare, with fever and pain at the injection site being the most common. Life-threatening adverse reactions occur in less than one per million vaccinations (<0.0001%)."

Addendum: Can living a healthy lifestyle overcome dangerous diseases?

No amounts of nutrition, exercise, hydration, and rest can hope to overcome dangerous diseases.

Just ask the nearly extinct native population of the Americas or the Pacific Islands that were wiped off the face of the planet through contact with Europeans.  Many of these individuals lived comparatively idyllic lives in comparison to the Europeans that landed on their shores - healthy bodies accustomed to proper nutrition, exercise, hydration and rest.  And yet... tens of millions died in a most painful manner thanks to an exposure they could not predict (any more than we can predict who among us might have become infected from a trip overseas, etc...)

From Wikipedia - but I also recommend Jared Diamond's book Gun, Germs, and Steel:

Numerous other diseases were brought to Native American tribes, including measles, scarlet fever, typhoid, typhus, influenza, pertussis (whooping cough), tuberculosis, cholera, diphtheria, chickenpox and sexually transmitted diseases.^[4] Each of these diseases brought destruction through sweeping epidemics, involving illness and extensive death. Many Native American tribes experienced extensive depopulation, averaging 25–50 percent of tribal life lost due to disease. Additionally, singular tribes also neared extinction after facing severely destructive spread of disease.^[4] The significant toll that this took on Native populations is expounded upon in the article Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas. A specific example of this devastation was Cortes' invasion of Mexico. Before his arrival, the Mexican population was estimated to have been around 25-30 million. Fifty years after his arrival, the Mexican population was cut down to 3 million, attributable mainly to infectious disease. Here we see the real effect of the invasion of the Europeans in the new world. With no natural immunity to help them in their fight against these pathogens, the native Americans were massacred. The eminent Yale historian David Brion Davis says this was "the greatest genocide in the history of man. “Yet it's increasingly clear that most of the carnage had nothing to do with European barbarism. The worst of the suffering was caused not by swords or guns but by germs”.^[6]

Justin Trudeau's "Pro-Choice" Decree

Trudeau’s recent pronouncement that new candidates for the Liberal Party of Canada (LPC) must be "pro-choice" has stirred up some controversy. Criticism stemming from the National Post’s Andrew Coyne (Trudeau ban on pro-lifers implies the issue is settled. It isn’t) and the Toronto Star’s editorial board (Justin Trudeau contradicts ‘open nomination’ pledge) slammed Trudeau’s one-sidedness. The common theme is that this issue is still controversial and Trudeau is decreeing that it has been settled. Trudeau is accused of silencing dissent over an issue that can exist as an open-ended questions within a stable, liberal, democracy.

It is at this point, however, that I find myself in disagreement with Coyne et al. Insofar as we frame the issue as one between “pro-life” and “pro-choice” then indeed the issue has been settled. Canada is a firmly “pro-choice” country, like the others Coyne cites (Netherlands and Sweden). Let me explain what I mean. Between the options of “pro-life” and “pro-choice” the matter at hand is fairly simple. Either abortion is legally permissible or it is not. That’s it - let’s not add in any qualifiers. There is no stable, liberal, democratic country that remains on the side that abortion is outright illegal. Ipso facto, there is no country in the list Coyne produces that is “pro-life.”

Now, many will rightly point out that actual abortion policy varies from nation to nation. This is correct, however, the fact of the matter is that the “pro-choice” (i.e. legalized abortion) position has become the de facto, if not de jure, norm. Variations do not amount to concessions to the pro-life side.

Now, some will argue that because Canada has no legal guidelines on abortion Trudeau was wrong to take a side on the issue of abortion. I cannot see the connection here. Limitations on abortion exist within the framework of its permissibility.  Whereas the “pro-life” side can be honestly and accurately identified with the perspective that abortion is murder (and therefore absolutely impermissible), the “pro-choice” side cannot be identified with the opposite. Indeed, while there are a fringe minority that argue that abortion should be available for all nine months of a pregnancy, the vast majority of pro-choice supporters only desire a reasonable allowance for abortion. If we stop speaking of the issue abstractly, we can note that while Canada does lack legislative restrictions on abortion, there exists de facto limitations established by the Canadian medical community that essentially limits abortion to the first trimester, well in line with the norm amongst other “pro-choice” countries.

So what has Trudeau really done? He has said the future LPC must exist within the long-established status quo on abortion in Canada and that the stance that abortion ought to be outlawed should receive no accommodation. The debate instead should focus on how or if, within the rubric of a “pro-choice” (i.e. permissive) perspective, we decide to place limits on abortion. This debate, however, Trudeau seems rightly uninterested in having, because outside of the false debate on whether abortion should be legal (it should, is and will be), Canadians are quite satisfied with the de facto status quo. Even Stephen Harper is satisfied.

Coyne and the rest who are scrambling to denounce the end of free speech or free votes on the issue of abortion are, in my opinion, creating controversy where there is none. Certainly one can still run for parliament as a pro-life supporter whether as an independent or perhaps in a post-Harper Conservative party. Otherwise, all Trudeau is doing is sidestepping a pointless debate that has already been settled. To allow it to, even potentially, take the spotlight within a major political party (especially of the centre/left variety) is, in my opinion, the equivalent of allowing a debate between anti-vax and vaccine supporters. Its a non-debate. Trudeau was right to treat it as such.

*Edit: It has been pointed out to me that the issue of access to abortion services needs to be urgently addressed as there are growing areas of the country that effectively forbid abortion because of the lack of available (funded) medical services.  I strongly believe that *this* is the issue that should be addressed in parliament.  The "debate" between pro-life and pro-choice unfortunately distracts us from addressing this crucial issue.

My Encounter with General Semantics

The following is a narrative about my encounter with General Semantics.  If you are like me, you’ve probably never heard of GS, and my initial introduction to the subject via the Internet put me on the defensive.  If I was to summarize GS in a neutral and objective manner, it would be to call it praxiological - that is, its concerned with practice.  It is a specific knowledge (logos) of acting and conducting oneself.  In this vein it is ethical, not in the a highly moralistic way (as the word might connote) but rather in the sense that it is concerned with “right” or “correct” acting, in the same vein that Stoicism or Zen Buddhism are considered ethical.

Returning to my introduction to GS via the Internet (Wikipedia etc), I learned the fact that Scientology, the mysterious “religion” invented by L. Ron Hubbard, was inspired in part by aspects of GS.  However, at the same time, a number of respected colleagues of mine from graduate school were to varying degrees interested in GS and I felt it deserved at least a fair shake.  And to be honest, who doesn’t love the chance to root for the underdog - or potentially expose the rotten core of Scientology that GS may represent.

I decided my more formal introduction to GS would be via a book.  Having briefly attempted to gain knowledge by stirring the pot on the Official GS Facebook group, I concluded that a book would be the best option.  My attempts to “learn” via FB, like most efforts that involve FB, was largely wasted and probably misguided to begin with.  Expecting strangers to openly want to educate someone who hasn’t taken the effort to educate himself - especially when those strangers are probably wary of the scepticism aimed at GS - makes failure somewhat inevitable.  My FB encounters did, however, indirectly introduce me to Bruce Kodish whose book, co-written with his wife Susan, Drive Yourself Sane was positively reviewed on Amazon and reasonably priced.  I decided this would be my introduction to GS.

While the title of the book (once again, its Drive Yourself Sane) was both embarrasing - I attempted to hide the cover when reading in public - and irksome - I felt the claim to be a tad bit hubristic - I read it cover to cover.  To my surprise (given my initial prejudices), I found much of the description of GS to be laudatory and complementary to many of my own research findings.  I’ll briefly enumerate them before continuing to some basic issues I also found with GS.

1. GS recognizes and affirms modern metaphysics.  Much of my research prior to my interest in GS dwelt on the subject of the debate or quarrel between the ancients and the moderns.  This actual war of words historically took place in what we call early modernity when leading intellectuals took sides on the topic of whether to affirm the values of the ancient world (as exemplified by Greece and Rome) or the modern world that developed in recent centuries.  While this quarrel sometimes became vulgarized as one between reason (attributed to the Greeks) and faith (attributed to moderns), others argued, incisively, that the ancients possessed one version of reason (and a corresponding structure of belief) and moderns another.  
2. GS opposes Aristotelian metaphysics to those of modern science.  Aristotle is singled out as a representative of ancient reason, but what is primarily the target seems to me to be a science that is one-sidedly objective, linear (teleological), and static.  GS, with frequent reference to modern theorists, especially those in 19th and 20th century fields, stakes its claim on relativity, reciprocity, and multi-causality - all positions that would be unthinkable for Aristotle and his peers.
3. GS emphasizes operational over abstract knowledge.  A great schism between modern and pre-modern thinking came via nominalism.  This name is given to those moderns who criticized a thinking that granted reality to abstract entities that, in their minds, were merely “names.”  Aristotle is relevant here because he believe that universal categories were more real than their particular instances.  For example, the category “horse” was more real than any particular horse one might find on a field.  The nominalists rejected this view, believing the category to be merely a name and descriptor which served to abstractly unify disparate objects but which had no reality in and of itself.  GS rejects the emphasis and reliance on these abstract terms in exchange for a switch of focus onto effective truth.  To quote Forrest Gump, stupid is as stupid does.  It is the latter which defines the former.

Inasmuch as I agree with much of GS, I couldn’t help but be irritated by a number of aspects of GS culture I experienced which may (or may not) have to do with tenets of GS theory itself.  I’ll explain the behavior in reference to the claims of GS I believe might drive them.

1. The Silent Level.  I mentioned earlier that my initial foray into things GS was a failure.  This, I admit, was partially my fault.  However, I couldn't shake the feeling that GS was a closed community and that this closure was not fully the result of unfair hostility directed at GS.  Indeed, my honest attempts to inform myself through others were often rebuffed or greeted with redirections.  I was told that part of this stems from the fact that the truth GS provides cannot simply be learned but must be discovered.  Meditation and comparisons to Zen were made and may be warranted.  I remain, however, troubled by this claim.  For one, while the gospel of GS does include as a firm tenet the claim that truth is found through self-searching and meditation, the very existence of GS literature seems to indicate a desire for communication - even if the latter serves only a secondary capacity.  For this reason, I felt that redirects to meditation were unsatisfactory.  Much of GS appeals to me precisely because it is defensible by reason and yet, for some, GS belongs to that vulgarism (mentioned earlier) between reason and faith, where the truth can only be found in the latter to the exclusion of the former.  The hesitation to engage in reason (which is not itself necessarily abstract or Aristotelian, as GS itself illustrates) made me confused and wary.
2. The Silent Level, II.  While my first complaint (or criticism) may perhaps be simply subjective - based on my personal experience with GS - this second one will be broader and hence more abstract.  I lead with this in order to anticipate a challenge to the criticism, namely that by speaking abstractly I am missing the truth that comes from the experience itself.  So be it.  My second issue relates to the recourse to the silent level itself.  Recourse to a non-verbal “reality” is nothing new and GS is aware of this, as allusions to Zen and other meditative programs indicate.  This groups GS then with a number of praxiological regimes that posit that truth exists non-verbally “beneath” the surface.  Most all metaphysics would agree with such a position.  Indeed, the idea that the essence of cat lies somehow on the surface of the letters c,a,t is preposterous.  Moreover, while meaning can be deferred to a description, this process is necessarily infinite such that, to paraphrase Derrida, meaning is always and eternally deferred.  As such, meaning cannot be found at the level of mere words alone.  If one wished to speak Biblically one could think of the famous comparisons between the letter and the spirit as another useful analogy.  Indeed, that latter example provides us again with a certain history of meditation (the convent, the monastery) as places where the ineffable was to be contemplated.  The first such monastery, however, is truly the Platonic academy (and the Aristotelian lysium) which places us back into the knowledge/practice relationship of the ancients.  Given GS’s aversion to the static abstract in favour of the active and operational truth, I am surprised that it doesn’t seek to adopt the stance of the Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music that pushes Maria into the real world (in much the same fashion as Father Zosima did Alyosha in Dostoevsky’s Brother Karamazov).  The decline of the monastery/convent initiated in modernity (following its upsurgence in late antiquity through to the middle ages) accompanies a shift in the locus of truth from the silent-real to the historical.  Truth is as much in the here-and-now - as Machiavelli shows us - as it is beneath or beyond it.  Moreover, the contemplative stance breaks with what GS supposedly holds dear: relativity, reciprocity, complexity.  These latter concepts name ways of relating to the world and others - and yet truth, GS tells us, is to be found alone, in silent isolation.  This presents itself to me as a contradiction and a violation of the key metaphysical “turn” represented by modernity over antiquity.
3. Opposites attract.  Part of the grievances I expressed above relate to how GS appears in some ways to be identifying with that which it categorically opposes: Aristotelianism.  My dissertation focused on how contrary positions often align or reverse themselves into that which they oppose.  I see this partially in GS, as I believe the previous point illustrates.  GS, for example, situates itself against Aristotelianism (and the Eleatic origin of ancient philosophy in general) by affirming becoming over being and dynamism over stasis - Heraclitus over the Eleatics, as the Kodishes allude (61).  A couple of times in my interactions with GSers I was reminded that “being” is “becoming” a fact to be validated by my own meditative experiences.  At this point, I am unable to confirm or deny this truth of GS from the depths of the silent level, but I am aware enough of the contradictions attending the notion of “being” and equally those that accompany its antagonist, “becoming.”  I have generally subscribed to the view of Nietzsche who, after long opposing the two concepts, came to the idea that becoming must be stamped by being - that the two must be thought together - indeed, that the tension of these two opposites held close would generate fruit rather than the barren limbs of negated contradictions.  And yet despite that epiphany, I have found GS generally to locate itself categorically in a single camp, that of becoming.  Superficially, this opposition seems to belong to the one I named earlier (between modern and ancient) and yet, as Nietzsche and others like him knew, it was rather a return of ancient metaphysics once again.  I give you Kierkegaard: “...when speculative thought mediates between the doctrine of the Eleatics and that of Heraclitus, this can be altogether proper, because the doctrine of the Eleatics is not related as an opposite of speculation but is itself speculative, and likewise the doctrine of Heraclitus.” (Concluding Unscientific Postscript, 376).  Kierkegaard’s point is simple, and taken in the larger context of the book, illustrative.  “Existence and existing are the very opposite of speculation” (380), they are, in fact, the modern operational concepts GS wishes to elaborate, yet the doctrines of both being and becoming are speculative.  Kierkegaard, who as a representative of the “modern” camp, distinguishes an existential (factual is the term preferred by GS) approach from an abstract intellectual one, and thereby eludes the false opposition between being and becoming.  Moreover, in identifying the trap of abstraction (what he calls speculation), Kierkegaard does not resort to the mystification of the “silent level” even if he holds to its existence.  Indeed, one only has to examine the size and scope of his prodigious work to know that Kierkegaard valued the search for truth through communication not meditation.
4. Particularism.  Another opposition I am wary of I also mentioned earlier.  While I agree with the criticism of Aristotelian universalism (the granting of reality to abstract categories), I am cautious about the opposite position.  GS’s embrace of the particular at the expense of the universal was anticipated by Hegel who described this choice in terms of a contradictory reversal.  Hegel saw that while universal’s clearly do not exist, neither do particulars.  Try, for example, to indicate in any manner the particular uniqueness of a given object.  If you do, you’ll probably notice you used words that can be applied to many other objects.  If I try to point out “this blue pen” I could be talking about a million blue pens.  I could describe imperfections or exceptions but even then I would be using language - whether verbal or gestural - that inevitably relies upon universal categories (“this,” “blue,” “pen” and others I might add like “broken,” “oversized,” etc).  There is no sign or symbol for only one thing.  As such, we’re stuck with universals and while we are wise not to over-emphasize their importance (as did Aristotle) we cannot simply reverse that position without defeating all attempts at communication (unless, of course, that’s the point).  Indeed, such a reversal would mean that we could only “know” an object through non-communicative means (enter the silent level), which makes it open season for non-rational “revelations.”  In this way, GS suddenly seems to veer far off-course from modern science with its emphasis on verifiability and the community of researchers into the solipsism of individual experience.  

The belief in the virtue and validity of the individual, meditative, non-cognitive, experience has a long history.  I’ve already mentioned Zen and Stoicism as possible forerunners of the GS model.  One could also list European Romanticism which followed the Enlightenment’s exaggeration of the power of logos.  The driving force of Romanticism was to protect faith from reason (part of the vulgar opposition of the two I mentioned earlier).  This opposition caricatured both sides - the one affirming the truth of the heart against the cold logical grasping of reason.  It worries me that this contradictory “dialectic of enlightenment” may be at play in GS.  This doesn't mean I will be dismissing it out of hand going forward.  I plan to continue dabbling in this field which has provided me useful exercises in clarifying and articulating my thoughts on my own research.

Abstraction & The Divine Exception

“Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.”¹

And so the argument goes, round and round, where it stops, nobody knows, the centuries old battle between public and private, between socialism and capitalism, seems without end, as if the disputants, intoxicated by rarefaction of the abstract heights, have ignored the process of history itself which has largely made irrelevant these very musings. Yet, humanity has never felt it beneath itself to starve, struggle, maim and kill another on behalf of an idea, and so the battle must be settled in the ideal sphere itself, in the realm of ideas.

Michel Foucault once called the cold war face-off between capitalism and socialism a mere “tempest in a teapot,” snubbing in four words a conflict that had immersed millions and brought the world to the brink of nuclear destruction. Can such an outrageous remark be attributed to that run-of-the-mill academic pretension that so haughtily places itself above everything concrete and meaningful? Or, rather, was Foucault on to something profound that not only permits but encourages an aristocratic flick of the hand that dismisses the whole scene as something utterly sub-standard and not worthy of an enlightened process of digestion.

While there are many points of entry to begin our critical discussion, our purposes are best served to begin with Ayn Rand, whose ideas are still clung to, by some, with a religious ferocity, and who set herself up as a major critic of socialism and uber-proponent of capitalist individualism. According to Rand, government is to play a small set of rudimentary roles. “These basic functions are: the police, the law courts, the military. (These represent the only moral justification for the existence of a government: the protection of individual rights, i.e., the protection of individual citizens from the initiators of physical force.)”²

What is interesting about Rand, in this case, is not that she enumerates a number of exceptions to the ideal of a pure laissez-faire model of capitalism, as the “proper” sphere of government but that she does so without being arbitrary, never pretending as if their number and existence were guaranteed by virtue of their presence on the page or as if they had tumbled from the very mouth of God. Rand is far too smart for such dogmatic utterances and thus she describes the test that produced that list, the test of “the protection of individual rights” -- not, it is to be noted, a test of efficiency which is a measure that plays solely to capitalism's strengths and goals. Rand's “test,” however, far from marks her as a thinker on the fringe of mainstream discourse. Instead, it places her snugly within the bosom of liberal thought dating back hundreds of years. It is this test, in fact, that has linked together serious and thoughtful individuals that today are claimed by a variety of ideologies but that overall fall within the expansive European tradition of liberalism that links Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and J.S. Mill with Adam Smith, G.W.F. Hegel and Karl Marx. Hobbes, whose famous four words will be remember long after Foucault's memory has completely dissipated, describes an existence of pure individualism as “nasty, brutish and short.” Starting from lofty and idyllic beginnings of humans living solely for their own needs, he quickly stumbles across the contradiction of death via an all out war. In the place of pure individualism then, he argues, there must exist a social contract binding one with another that serves not the bogeyman of “collectivism” but that very individualism he previously demonstrated to be contradictory in its very being. Hobbes realized that an ideology of pure individualism led to a “war of all against all” where each sought to dominate the other for fear of being likewise dominated. Yet, rather than simply reject individualism, Hobbes aimed to guarantee it through its opposite – the collective. Thus Hobbes's most valuable contribution to political and philosophical thought is twofold: the individual alone (and the ideology of pure individualism) is contradictory; and, that this contradiction is resolved through its opposite, the social realm.

Hobbes leads us by the hand from abstract individualism (“I exist for myself”) to concrete individualism (“I exist because and through the existence of others whose existence I, too, work to guarantee”). The difference or the “middle term” between these two modes of individualism is the social realm, sometimes identified with the government. This simple journey lies at the core of the liberal thought that embraces the scholars above and many more. Rand, herself, finds a home within this skeletal system when she makes government a necessary element to provide for the existence of the individual – for she knows, as does Hobbes, that the individual left to itself is a contradiction. The individual exists only within the social.

As I alluded to above, Rand's list of three functions of government is the product of a test and not the results of a divine exception that arbitrarily secludes those aspects of a social order from the rest. While chronologically they appear before the test in Rand's phrase, they are the logical results of that test. It is the test of the “the protection of individual rights” that spawns, in her eyes, three products: the police, the law courts, the military. However, because it is the test that counts and not the products, these three items are always susceptible to a re-test to determine if they continue to meet the standard. Moreover, because these three are not arbitrarily chosen a priori, as if plucked from the mind of God, but are products, they are not bound by any logical determination to be the only three. The test, in all its formulaic glory, is not limited by any earthly consideration, neither number nor ideology. Its goal is simply to test each potential candidate against the aforementioned measure and decree a result. As such, the difference between the chosen three and any number of items, say health care, postal services, road maintenance, coffee production, dentistry, etc., is eliminated. All items, like individuals, are equal before the law, and the law decides in each case according to the merits of each. Some items, it decrees, assist the task of translating individuals from abstract to concrete reality, others hinder it.

What becomes apparent at this point, is that Ayn Rand's test is no different from that of Hobbes, Smith or Marx's. The test for all is the same, what is different, is the outcome tallied by each individual thinker. Hobbes tallies the least, listing only government, Smith tallies more, including a role for social welfare within his model, and Marx tallies the most, enumerating a lengthy number of roles that must be brought within the realm of social supervision in order to protect the rights of individuals (such as the length of the working day, public education, etc.). Each of these thoughtful individuals are thus in communication with each other, disputing not between dissimilar systems but nuances within the very same system. Moreover, this argument across time has none of the bipolar features of Internet discussions that bounce between abstract individualism and abstract socialism. Each thinker above accepts and makes the individual and his or her concrete existence the goal of their system, and thereby weighs the institutions of society accordingly. Each thinker implicitly or explicitly accepts that the individual and the social exist together, reinforcing each other, in dialogue. For them, there is no world of pure individualism or pure collectivism.

Thus, from what appeared to be a world war without possibility of mediation, we find instead an internal war, a civil struggle – which as history teaches us can be of the most uncivil variety – between foes with a similar purpose and a common heritage. In this understanding, the divine exception that seemed to miraculously cleave Rand's three roles from charges of “socialization” is eliminated. The functioning of a liberal, individualist, society is seen anew as one that exists on a continuum of socialization. Thereafter, the charges of “socialism” lose their heretical potency to be replaced instead with thoughtful contemplation and practical experimentation, based in the empirical realities of everyday existence, that seek to determine to what degree more or less socialization preserves the rights of individuals. The divine exception removed, citizens are free to wonder why, if the police exist necessarily to protect individual rights should there not also exist a social health care system to protect the property (the body included, according to Locke) of citizenry? With the divine exception removed everything becomes fair game for the test whose results are never predictable beforehand and must always be interpreted using empirical data by the democratic multitude for which it exists. For again, there is no simple abstract pre-existing law enumerating a set number of social services.

Henceforth, abstraction, deemed a calumniator for its earnest attempts to foment eternal contradiction, is considered persona non grata and banned from the social realm for good. Hurray!

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1 Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (New York: Dutton, 1992): 199.
2 Ayn Rand, The Ayn Rand Reader, ed. Gary Hull and Leonard Peikoff (New York: Plume, 1999): 105.

Truth & Artifice: A Return to Form

Having started this blog in the 'tween of my undergraduate and graduate careers, where the mundane repetition of the real world seemed to open a void that called out to be filled by thoughts and the good cheer of diversions (in my case, mainly music), my return to the academy spelt its eventual demise (as can be witnessed in the gradual drop in posts beginning September 2006).  I am not yet sure if my loss of voice ought be attributed to the discovery of my own ignorance, as if my encounter with the university was akin to that of the citizen of Athens with the great Socrates, or if, rather, it was the product of an increasing sickness of the Word itself brought about by the loquacity of mealy-mouthed academics whose strutting and fretting upon the stage convinced me of the nothingness of signifying and the significance of nothingness.

It is the irony of the academy that I have seen many with much to say say nothing and those with nothing to say take centre stage.  The survivors of the academic process that demands "publish or perish" convert their every passing thought into scholarly currency, spinning straw into gold these Rumpelstiltskins covet and secure the professorships of the nation all the while devaluing the stock of knowledge everywhere.

The sickness of the Word is the presence of this very knowledge and yet to recognize it and face it elicits no courage nor calm.  The cure lies in the very disease itself, in the Word, in putting pen to paper and making thought actuality whilst not losing oneself in the (im)materialism of academic honourship.  A conviction to return to the pen, to out ideas as charlatans if they alone thrive in the recesses of the mind, and to prepare the way to contribute something, if only one thing, to the intellectual activity of the world.  This is my task.

My response to Margaret Wente in the G&M

First, read Wente's piece here (I've also pasted it below as quote): http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081024.wcowent25/BNStory/specialComment/home
My response follows.

What Dick Pound said was really dumb – and also true
MARGARET WENTE
From Saturday's Globe and Mail

October 24, 2008 at 8:03 PM EDT

Was Canada once a land of savages? And is saying so tantamount to racism? Many people would answer no, and yes. That's why Dick Pound, the high-profile Olympics figure, is in a heap of trouble for describing the Canada of four centuries ago as " un pays de sauvages." He was talking to a reporter from La Presse about the Beijing Olympics and the issue of human rights. "We must not forget that 400 years ago, Canada was a land of savages, with scarcely 10,000 inhabitants of European descent, while in China, we're talking about a 5,000-year-old civilization," he said.

Not surprisingly, native groups are up in arms. "Mr. Pound must apologize to first peoples and educate himself about the history of first peoples in this country," insisted Phil Fontaine, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations. Some want Mr. Pound to resign from Vancouver's Olympics organizing committee, and some want him to quit his post as chancellor of McGill University. He says he wasn't referring to today's native peoples, and he didn't mean to give offence. But critics aren't mollified. B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell calls his remarks "disgraceful."

"Stupid" is another word that comes to mind. The B.C. government and VANOC have been working furiously – and sparing no expense – to get aboriginal groups on side for the 2010 Winter Games. The last thing they want is for native protests to steal the spotlight. Comments about "savages," in whatever language, are not helpful.

Mr. Pound's choice of words was inflammatory, to say the least. But what about the underlying thought? Is it fair to say that the Canada of 1600 was not as "civilized" as China?

Yes, says Frances Widdowson, who, along with Albert Howard, is the author of an impressive new book on aboriginal policy and culture. Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry (to be published next month) knocks the stuffing out of the prevailing mythology that surrounds the history of first peoples. That mythology holds that aboriginal culture was equal or superior to European culture. At the time of contact, North America was occupied by a race of gentle pastoralists with their own science, their own medicine and their own oral history that was every bit as rich as Europe's.

The truth is different. North American native peoples had a neolithic culture based on subsistence living and small kinship groups. They had not developed broader laws or institutions, a written language, evidence-based science, mathematics or advanced technologies. The kinship groups in which they lived were very small, simply organized and not very productive. Other kinship groups were regarded as enemies, and the homicide rate was probably rather high. Until about 30 years ago, the anthropological term for this developmental stage was "savagery."

"Never in history has the cultural gap between two peoples coming into contact with each other been wider," Ms. Widdowson says.

Today, however, it is simply not permissible to say that aboriginal culture was less evolved than European culture or Chinese culture – even though it's true. Ms. Widdowson argues that the most important explanation for aboriginal problems today is not Western colonialism but the vast gulf between a relatively simple neolithic kinship-based culture and a vastly complex late-industrial capitalist culture. "It doesn't mean that they are stupid or inferior," says Ms. Widdowson. "We all passed through the stage of neolithic culture."

The fact that North American cultures never evolved further can be explained, as American evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond showed, by geography, climate and a host of other material factors. But today, it's not acceptable to argue that some cultures are more highly developed than others, or that cultural development is a force for good. Instead, our policies are based on the belief that aboriginal culture is equal but separate, and that the answer to aboriginal social problems is to revive and preserve indigenous culture on a "separate but equal" parallel track.

This belief has produced a sizable industry of academics, consultants, lawyers, social workers and bureaucrats, to say nothing of lucrative sinecures for many aboriginals themselves. Ms. Widdowson once belonged to this industry, as a government policy analyst in the North. She soon became disillusioned and switched to an academic career, where she has been a lonely voice in a world where native spirituality and "traditional knowledge" are held to be just as valid as Western science.

Today, "traditional knowledge," which generally resides among the elders, is sought after by governments, studied in universities around the world, and recognized in environmental assessment processes. But Ms. Widdowson says most of it is useless – a heap of vague beliefs and opinions that can't be verified or tested. Why have the muskoxen drifted west? Because, according to the elders, the animals were "following the people because they missed them and wanted their company."

We have romanticized indigenous culture so much that it is often described (especially in native studies courses) as morally superior. Historically, aboriginal people were more spiritual, more egalitarian, more peaceable, less greedy and more ecologically minded than the rest of us. (To which Ms. Widdowson responds, "It's hard to damage the environment with a stone axe.") People are reluctant to challenge these assumptions. And they're not inclined to challenge indigenous spiritual beliefs, no matter how absurd. For example, anyone who questions the widespread belief that aboriginals originated in North America (rather than Africa, like the rest of us) is bound to be accused of disrespect and cultural insensitivity.

Claims about aboriginal contributions to civilization are also vastly overstated. Did the Iroquois Confederacy really influence the Declaration of Independence? Sorry, no. Do native medicinal herbs play an important role in modern drugs? No. Yet, some leading intellectuals try to argue otherwise. The thesis of John Ralston Saul's new bestseller is that we are at root a Métis civilization, even though he has no evidence to prove it. What is a Métis civilization? That's not too clear, either. But it's a good thing.

Much of our romanticism, of course, is fuelled by guilt. We robbed and mistreated aboriginal people for a very long time, and most of us feel terrible about it. Yet, Ms. Widdowson believes this denial of reality is extremely damaging. It dooms hundreds of thousands of native Canadians and their descendants to lives that remain isolated from the modern world, without the skills and aptitudes they need to make their way in an increasingly complex society. The message they get is that they need not, and should not, change.

But a neolithic culture cannot possibly give them a future. And it's time for us to face that. "The existing policy direction is so harmful," she says. "Aboriginal people are people like everyone else. They deserve to interact with the modern world like everyone else."

Needless to say, Ms. Widdowson, who currently teaches at Calgary's Mount Royal College, has been accused of hating aboriginals, and much else. "It doesn't mean that you're a racist or a colonialist if you recognize that there's a culture gap," she says. "But to say that aboriginal people were just as sophisticated as the Europeans – that's just nonsense."

The definition of savage, according to the Random House dictionary, reads: "1) fierce, ferocious, or cruel; untamed: savage beasts. 2) uncivilized; barbarous: savage tribes." Margaret Wente defends Dick Pound and his labelling of the original inhabitants of North America because it is "not permissible to say that aboriginal culture was less evolved than European culture or Chinese culture - even though it's true." This argument utilizes what we ivory-tower types call conceptual slippage. How did Ms. Wente go from an argument that such-and-such a group are "savage" to "less evolved"? Furthermore, how does Ms. Wente measure evolution and why does she continue to slip between "cultural" factors and "technical" ones? Jared Diamond, who Wente cites as an authority for her argument, writes that geographical factors determine technical development - not cultural development. Diamond makes this argument in the book titled "Guns, Germs and Steel" which serves to encapsulate his argument and to demonstrate that the difference between the "savage" and the "civilized" lies not in the production of culture or "sophistication" but in the proliferation of weaponry, both biological and technical. The same weapons that were turned on North America in 1492 would continue to be used in Europe itself in what could only be called a "fierce, ferocious or cruel," i.e. savage, way. Thus, Europeans may win the award for technical "evolution," but I am quite certain that is not the argument that Mr. Pound or Ms. Wente are making. By slipping between the argument that we are more technologically-advanced to one of culture, Ms. Wente justifies her claims to superiority and that is what is racist about her argument. Further, by defending Pound's position on the "savage" nature of the indigenous, Wente has gone far beyond identifying a "cultural gap" (if such a thing exists, and if it does how do we measure it, by how well another culture imitates our own?). Instead she strips the original inhabitants of culture altogether, for "savages," the "uncivilized" and "barbarous," are terms antithetical to culture. If a comment can be both dumb and true, it should be cause for self-reflection. In this case, I believe the comment is dumb (read wrong), and the truth is that it resonates with Margaret Wente's worldview.

Jason Harman
Toronto, Ontario