Couldn't we just talk about the weather instead?

Insulting Rules and Hospitality

2011-07-22T13:21:00.003-04:00

Cindy and I ate kosher last night. It tasted fine but I'm still not sure how I feel about it all.

A friend of mine is leaving town and, although we already attended a big leaving party for him a few weeks ago, he invited us to a more intimate dinner hosted by a friend of his. It was a bit last-minute but we didn't mind; we were told that dinner would be barbecue beef brisket so I grabbed a bottle of red that I'd been saving.

When we arrived the hostess thanked us for offering the wine but said that she couldn't serve it because she keeps kosher. Cindy rolled her eyes and steeled herself for a night of biting her tongue; I allowed my miserliness to distract me from dwelling on it and accepted the alcoholic punch she offered.

That should have been the end of it but when the other guests arrived the hostess made a point of telling them that I had been thoughtful enough to bring wine that she wouldn't let us drink. I felt like saying to her, "Don't rub it in!" when our friend apologised for not letting me know and started to explain, incorrectly, that the only thing that makes wine kosher is the rule about letting fields lie fallow so that poor people can have some of the fruit. (He made it sound like a version of fair-trade. If that were the only rule I'd consider buying that sort of wine all the time.) I uncharacteristically tried to divert him from the subject because it was his leaving event and I didn't want to talk about sensitive issues. But when he finished saying that that was the only rule, I had to point out to him that there's also the rule that no gentiles can be involved in the production of kosher wine. (I think they can pick the grapes but that's all. Only sterilisation makes it ok for gentiles to touch.) It's not just about the ingredients and the method per se, it's also about who makes it. If I were the winemaker, I'd be very offended by that! Nothing I could do would make them willing to drink it - that's racism. (Or something extraordinarily close to it. I guess someone could convert to Judaism just to make the wine but, because the rabbi has to refuse your request three times, it's tantamount to racism.)

Afterwards when Cindy and I debriefed, she suggested that the reason why our hostess didn't just say, "I won't have any, so only open the bottle if the three of you can finish it without me" might have been because she was trying to keep all her glasses kosher. (It was only when she served dinner and our friend asked which were "the meat plates" that we realised just how serious she was. She also gave me Baileys in a different glass from everyone else, because it's dairy.)

I guess it might seem too much like BYO to not share it with the hostess. Her other option might have been to lie and say that she had paired another wine specifically with the meal. I would have looked forward to tasting whatever wine she served if she had said that! And it need not be a lie, she could actually pair wines with dishes in the future, if she wanted to avoid telling people that she was rejecting it because of the ethnicity of the winemakers. But of course she didn't expect gentiles to know those rules (she said as much).

The other issue that I didn't raise was the fact that we were served kosher meat. I've heard it suggested before that kosher and halal slaughter are less humane than stunned killing and I've been thinking about it again since the recent brouhaha in Australia. I'm no expert and I'm not going to give up meat altogether but when the RSPCA tells me that some methods of slaughter are unacceptable, though legal through religious loopholes, I take that seriously. I haven't made it a rule to refuse to eat kosher or halal meat because it seems there's still some experts who claim it's just as painless when done right. I suspect that these are outliers but I don't know enough to make a moral stand on this point.

Deontologically speaking, I probably should have said something about both the meat and the wine -- it's hard to justify putting politeness above opposing racism and cruelty, even if I would rather my vegetarian friends didn't lecture me. Kant himself would say that we may use animals as means to an end except where the cruelty makes us worse as humans. The kosher system is institutionalised enough for that to be a possibility they don't believe that they're beling cruel, so I'm not sure if that would count for Kant.

For consequentialism it would depend on whether any good could come of it. That means not turning on my heel and leaving but remaining and lecturing them on the wrongs of their two rules. But I didn't have enough info at my fingertips so there's no way I could have produced more good than displeasure by carrying on like that.

It would seem that I did exactly the right thing for virtue ethics -- trying to be a gracious guest. But I knew that, even if she didn't mean it that way, refusing our wine for that reason should be construed as insulting. The reason I didn't make a fuss was not just to keep the peace but more because I didn't feel offended. I guess I'm not very emotional but it still seems strange that what I know intellectually to be an insult didn't register emotionally as offence. When you look at it like that, it becomes a little less clear that I did the right thing from an aretaic view. A true Aristotelian phronimos might say that I should have demanded satisfaction. (I didn't have a glove with me but we could have left.) Similarly, a Confucian gentleman might be concerned with defending Cindy in some way. Naturally I would respond verbally to any deliberate insult but should people be called out for accidental ones? More to the point, I know that Cindy's emotional response was not offence, it was more like plain old disapproval (and she doesn't need my assistance with that!).

Marriage is a Social Construct

2011-06-28T18:46:00.005-04:00

I recently read this article opposing same-sex marriage. It's probably the best article I've seen opposing it but it's still wrong. Here's why:
There's a decent critique here.

But more importantly, the article depends on the reader's instinct to agree with them. I think that the key to understanding their persuasiveness is seeing the way they try to force the reader to agree that marriage is some sort of "natural kind" that has a real essence about which we can be right or wrong, as opposed to a social construct, which is just whatever we make it. The authors try to discourage people whose instinct is to support same-sex marriage from taking the constructivist line by saying that for marriage to be a right, it has to be a real thing with an essence.

Even if marriage did not have this independent reality, our other arguments against revisionists would weigh equally against constructivists who favor legally recognizing same‐sex unions: They would have no grounds at all for arguing that our view in‐ fringes same‐sex couplesʹ natural and inviolable right to marriage, nor for denying recognition to unions apparently just as socially valuable as same‐sex ones, for marriage would be a mere fiction designed to efficiently promote social utility.

It certainly seems that asserting the constructivist line would preclude rights-talk. I'm not sure if they're doing this deliberately or not but it seems that this line works by making the reader think that the social constructivist line precludes all moral assessment of the situation, not just rights-based ethics. If we think fairness is a virtue, same-sex marriage is in, even if it is a social construct.

The authors do have another follow-up argument, which happens to take a consequentialist line. They claim that monogamous heterosexual marriage is the only sort that will lead to maximal societal harmony and that anything else would actively erode the current situation. It would make me very uncomfortable to say that we should employ a useful fiction à la Plato's Republic but, if they had decent empirical data to support it, they'd have half an argument. But they don't really.

I have to say, though, that I'm grateful to the authors of this paper for helping me bite the bullet and realise that marriage really is a social construct. It's clear that polygamous and incestuous unions are not marriages in contemporary western society but who would say that Hussein bin Ali really was married to his first wife but nos 2-4 were mere concubines? Who would say that Cleopatra wasn't really married to her brothers, Ptolemy XIII & XIV even when their being married was crucial to their position in Macedonian Egypt? There might be plenty of moral arguments against polygamy and incest but that doesn't mean it can't be called marriage.

Circumcision

2011-06-05T16:22:00.007-04:00

I really don't understand Americans sometimes. I mean, I'm au fait with the arguments but I find myself unable to understand them in a Davidsonian sense because, try as I might, the only explanation I can come up with is that they justify contradictory traditions with a small amount of tolerance and a heaping helping of mauvaise foi.

Currently there's a debate about banning routine neo-natal male circumcision.

What's truly disturbing is how the newspapers are talking about the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. The ban is only for minors, adults will still be free to get circumcised. But it seem's that that's not good enough for Americans because (a) They consider their children's bodies as chattels; and (b) They can't imagine that their children would later choose their own religion.

This is the only explanation I can see for why a country with such a large proportion arguing for a woman's right to control her own body would stand for this.

A few comments in that article complain that there are too many laws already. That's often the case, well-meaning people sometimes insist on making their cause a law when it's not necessary. In this case I guess you could argue that non-consentual circumcisions should be prosecuted as assaults but I'm sure there's too many reasons against this. Most obviously because 30-50% of American male babies are still being circumcised, so much more awareness would be needed (it would be unfair to take a widespread practice and deem it assault overnight but it wouldn't be unfair to ban it with some warning).

Unfortunately one of the campaigners has drawn a comic book attacking circumcision that comes off as anti-Jewish. I don't know whether he is or not. Certainly he makes mohels into villains but, given the theme, he's probably just attacking their practices, not their ethnicity, attacking them qua mutilators, not qua Jews. But it's no surprise that people assume that it's both. But even assuming that this one activist is racist, that doesn't mean the result he's after is the wrong one. People could be motivated to ban polygamy out of a hatred of Mormons and Muslims, that doesn't make it the wrong thing to do.

7th June
Here's an argument I had today with a Jewish friend:

M: Should it also be illegal to tie off umbilical cords? Who knows? Maybe that hurts a baby. For other medical procedures, it is the parent who decides for the minor--why not circumcision? especially because it is known to provide health benefits to the child which is why it has become standard practice in american hospitals. also, you don't believe that this is just another attack on Muslims (and also Jews) in America by crazies on the right?

Nick: There are certainly many good reasons for all sorts of surgery. My point is that the reasoning should be entirely therapeutic, without regard to religious or secular traditions. (By secular tradition, I mean the fact that the USA is the only western country to perform the procedure because nowhere else do doctors see any health benefits. It's a Victorian tradition that has died out everywhere but here and Muslim countries.)
It's very sad that crazy people use serious issues to spite the ones they hate because it muddies the waters of what should be an ethical question, not an aesthetic one. The problem is, good people can argue for the right thing from good principles while at the same time hateful people argue for the same result from hateful principles. Then the good people have to waste time distancing themselves from the crazies and their serious message gets lost.
Nick: http://www.thehastingscenter.org/Bioethicsforum/Post.aspx?id=132
PS It really worries me that you think foreskins are similar to umbilical cords!

M: It really worries me that you and these other folks think that circumcision is some kind of mutilation. I'm not arguing that circumcision is a cure all or that it prevents HIV. It just seems that if being circumcised can enrich the life of a Jewish or Muslim baby and the procedure is not painful, why should anyone try to restrict the practice? We don't make piercing the ears of children illegal for the same reason.

Nick: Firstly, I don't accept your use of terms like "Muslim baby" as no baby can accept that Allah is the only god and Muhammad is his prophet. (I agree with Dawkins completely on this point, but I won't repeat his inflammatory language here.)
Nick: But if it makes you feel any better, I do think that there should be a minimum age for ear piercing. If you'd like to talk bioethics, maybe we should do piercing first, because most of the points are the same but there's much less at stake:
If you want to define terms, I'd happily extend a weak sense of "mutilation" to ear piercing because it certainly is non-therapeutic modification of the human body. (But it might be wiser to leave out emotionally laden language.)
In principle non-therapeutic body modification should never happen to anyone who doesn't/can't consent. When determining what constitutes consent, we could either take an absolute cut off for all things (18) or admit degrees of reason. I would suggest that the age of reason for ear piercing should be lower than for voting or for sex because it's reversible -- ear-lobes heal almost completely (just a little scar). I don't have strong views about where the age limit should be set but, at a guess, I'd say somewhere between 8 and 14. Likewise, if it were ever banned, I think that any penalty should be very mild, to reflect the fact it is reversible.
Other types of piercing are more complicated. In Australia, e.g., all genital piercing is banned for minors; parental consent does not give the child the right to have their genitals pierced by a professional. (I can only assume that the rationale in this case has more to do with the intimacy of the area and the higher risk of complications.) I imagine that there are some 16-year-olds who believe that their lives are less rich because of this nanny-state restriction but no adult thinks it's an infringement of their rights to make them wait a little.
Nick: Just to be clear -- this was not meant to be the male equivalent of a feminist rant against labiaplasty. I'm not trying to convince you, M., or anyone else to change your aesthetic preferences.
What I am trying to persuade you to do is, if you ever have a son, allow him to make this choice for himself.

M: There is such a thing as a Jewish baby and I have known some young men who were Jewish but not circumcised and it gave them a lot of anxiety. I would never put my own child through that. Second, I think that just because something is "nontherapeutic modification" doesn't mean it is harmful. And, I would argue that the rule against children getting genital piercings is more because children make stupid decisions rather than because their parents or families do. If there were non-harmful other forms of body modification required culturally or religiously I would also say that the benefits for the acquiring of such a modification outweigh the cost and from an ethical standpoint should not be medically restricted.
M: But, as we've discovered before, it is difficult for us to have a conversation because I am a cultural relativist from your perspective and you are a believer in one clear cut truth from my perspective.

I love arguments but it's rare that I have one about an important ethical issue so this one made me quite angry. "A Jewish baby" could only possibly mean that mitochondial DNA makes it ok. And her description of genital piercing being banned because kids do silly things misses the point that parental consent does not change it in that instance but I'll let that go because I recognise that her last comment gets to the nub of our disagreement, more or less.

I doubt I would have succeeded in persuading her if I hadn't pulled punches the way I did. I can leave the argument over cultural relativism for another day (she's not admitting that that's her position, so it'll be a long argument). The only thing I'd have liked to add would be to explain how docking of dogs' tails is illegal in NSW. That's a stronger point than genital piercing because, if you can't do these things to animals, you certainly shouldn't do them to humans.

Moral of the story: cultural moral relativism makes me angry when it has real world consequences.

8th June

R: Is there such a thing as a Republican baby? Or a Liberal baby? Or a Marxist baby?
R: M, pehaps giving the child as wide an education as possible while supporting any decision the child makes on religious, (or non), convictions combined with a parental backbone that supports your child even at the expense of one's own social isolation may be a better and more moral standpoint than hacking into a boy's penis without consent for no medical advantage whatsoever simply to please the neighbours. Wow, that was a loooong sentence. :D
R: Or possibly simply ask the hard questions, like: say, why is it so important that I take the foreskin off of my son? "Because God demands it", is simply not a good enough answer since God also demads slavery, genocide and stonings in the Old Testament and these have been dropped due to the arbitrary cruelty involved. So how is this different? And isn't it a parent's job to protect their child? It seems to me that your defence of this practice places a parent's responsibility of the congregation ahead of their responsibility to their child. And really, if abuse or shame is directed at the child because they haven't been circumcised, is it a rational, parental response to take to their child with a knife rather than remove them from the people orchastrating the grief and the shame? The poor child will feel guilt when we teach him that he SHOULD feel guilty and his parents don't stand up for him. The parents should be ashamed of themselves for their cowardice and for failing to prioritise their child above their own fear of social isolation. There is no way around it. People who defend this practice on the grounds on religion or culture are immoral and call into question their own fitness as parents.

M: Mr. R, sorry it has taken me so long to respond to you--It's been a holiday. So, Judaism is not just a set of beliefs like republicanism, marxism, etc. Religion is just one aspect of Judaism. It's also an ethnic, cultural and genetic group(s). The better, closer question would be more like, can there be a black baby? can there be an American, Australian, German baby? And, I think we'd both agree that the answer is yes, despite all of these categories being largely man-made.
M: Additionally, there seem to be several medical advantages (at least through corolation) including reduced risk of genital cancer as well as reduced risk for some sexually transmitted diseases. I'd also argue that a circumcision is not a cruelty--just as earpiercing (which is actually less acceptable by old testament standards (it's what you do to someone when their period of slavery is over and yet, they'd like to be a slave for life) or any other non-harmful body modification.
M: Finally, I don't think that many parents see their reasons for circumcising their children to be because "God demands it", in particular because so many people (in America) who get their children circumcised are neither Jews nor Muslims but Christians, who feel that the old testament laws have been succeeded by the faith offered as an alternative in the new testament. So, they are obviously choosing circumcision for other reasons. Within Judaism, however, "because God demands it" is never enough and reasons for, laws about, details regarding the practice and ceremony of circumcision have been debated, consulted, argued against, etc., for thousands of years. Speaking of which, since the practice is thousands of years old, and Jews are still around, as they've always been, why would anyone think that this process is harmful?

Nick: We could have a different argument based on circumcision as prophylaxis against certain conditions. I’d be quite happy to consider that because I’m all in favour of vaccination (which does carry some risks); I’m open to game-theory in bioethics. You’d have to weigh the severity of and likelihood of contracting those conditions that it’s supposed to prevent and how reliably it prevents them against the foreskin’s role protecting a very sensitive organ. Sure, in certain situations I could see circumcision as the lesser of two evils.
But based on the information I’ve seen, the foreskin has been treated the way tonsils were and, like tonsils, doctors in most countries have rethought circumcision. If a single bout of tonsillitis is not a good enough reason to remove tonsils, you should really think twice before cutting the foreskin off a perfectly healthy baby. (No one is talking about banning therapeutic circumcision.)
http://www.abc.net.au/tasmania/stories/s2004776.htm
Nick: I grew up in a family with a Jack Russell Terrier. We used to joke occasionally about her docked tail but when we researched the breed we learnt that this was an important feature of Jack Russells for practical reasons. Jack Russell and Fox Terriers were bred for hunting foxes and, after the hounds had chased them to ground, it was the terriers who would go down the hole after them. But they couldn’t dig their own way out, so the hunter would pull them out by the tail. A short stumpy tail is much less likely to get dislocated when pulled, so docking was for the dogs’ own good. Even though this wasn’t the reason our dog had her tail docked before we bought her, I freely admit that she didn’t seem adversely affected by having only half a tail (surely she couldn’t remember having a whole one).
Then, in 2004, a number of Australian states banned the docking of dogs’ tails and the cropping of their ears. (I would rank circumcision as less severe than tail docking because it’s soft tissue but worse than ear cropping because it leaves a sensitive organ exposed.) Many breeders objected that short tails and pointy ears were part of the definition of these breeds and that they’d been practising these traditions for hundreds of years. The government said “Tough!” and the general public is coming around to seeing docking and cropping as completely unnecessary (and potentially cruel).
If a government is willing to protect pets against unnecessary body modification, they should do even more to protect humans!
Nick: After our old dog died, my sister got another Jack Russell, with a long tail. I’ll admit, at first it looked weird when she wagged that long floppy tail. But the dog was no less loved and we all soon got used to having a long-tailed Jack Russell Terrier. The breeder we bought her from said that he’d stopped docking their tails well before the ban. That was probably difficult for him, having others look at his dogs and say that they’re not “real” Jack Russells. The universal ban must have been particularly good for him because it meant that the whole community of dog breeders was forced to change its standards. Some people call it “the nanny state”, I call it “moral leadership”.
I understand that property rights are strongly protected in America by that libertarian streak that comes out in everyone occasionally, so I know that cropping of animals’ ears won’t be banned here in the near future. But shifting the circumcision debate towards seeing infants as humans with rights is a move in the right direction. You make me wonder, M, how the arguments would run if there were a strictly non-religious ethnic group that thought it important to practise a tradition like circumcision on their infants. Judging from the predominance of “free practice” arguments in the newsmedia, I think Americans would be more willing to tell other ethnic groups that their practices need to change, no matter what their mitochondrial DNA might hold.

R: Religious beliefs are not genetic. There is no evidence to support that notion. It makes little sense to compare a "jewish' baby to a black one. A person can change their beliefs, they cannot change their skin colour. The most wonderful feature of a democracy is that a person has the right to reject and move away from the beliefs of their parents and the community in which they are raised. Religion actively undermines this blessing through indoctrinations legitimised by 'rites of passage' mumbo jumbo like circumcision. Also, to state that Judaism, (or any religious belief system), is unlike other, (say political) beliefs because of the community and culture that surrounds it, completely ignores such instances, (such as in the USSR and China), where a politcal belief has been enforced by a culture and community in much the same way that religious communities were set up in the 10th - 12th century. And sure, a baby can be legally declared 'Australian' or 'German' and this is a neccessary step in a world where realism in international relations theory is the norm so as to guarantee the rights that come with citizenship, (whatever they may be). But can you imagine the outcry if an Australian citizen ceremony came with a dozen lashes because, hey, after all, that's all part and parcel of Australian settlement history and therefore tradition? Also, if religion is a genetic issue, isn't it incredibly lucky that Jewish children seem ALWAYS to have Jewish parents! What a stroke of good fortune! I can't imagine how difficult it is for all those children in Iran living in Muslim families while struggling to suppress their inner Jew! Religion is also does not fall under an ethic umbrella. To subscribe to that notion, one would have to assume that the people of Tonga, now overwhelmingly Christian were simply playing around with religion until the missionaries arrived. So does Tongan=Christian? Or is it more accurate to say that many, (most?), Tongans identify themselves as Christians in 2011? What's the difference? It's all in the way we view individual human beings. For if we can simply group people at the moment they are born and before they get a chance to make their own choices, we have removed free will from their lives and that flies in the face of both religious belief and secular human rights.
R: Neither the Australian Medical Association nor the American Medical Association agree that circumcision have any medical benefits at all. It's purpose was never medical. The medical arguments, (all now discredited), were simply rationalisations by 'loose' Christians as to why the practice should be continued. Often, fathers would have it done to their sons simply because it was done to them and they didn't want their son to be teased. We also now don't tolerate slavery, so any argument based on its use in biblical times is simply anachronistic to the 21st century, as is the circumcision argument as a whole. M, the assertion that the Jews are still here so therefore it can't be harmful is just plain silly. Millions of African women undergo female circumcision each year and have done so four thousands of years and yet they're still around. Is that okay? Other religions have been killing Jews for sport for thousands of years but they managed to survive as a race. So is this acceptable too? Do accept this on the basis on the survivability on the race again overlooks to rights and trials of the individual. In both cases, individual lives, and the lives of their families, were ruined. There have also been plenty of individual deaths due to circumcision, even in the USA, when rabbis infect babies via the germs in their mouths. So why would anyone think it is harmful? Evidence.

The Only Good Terrorist

2011-05-02T09:33:00.003-04:00

Here's what my Facebook friends are saying:

Dumb question time: why did it take this long for someone to say, "Hey! What's up with the GIANT mansion with the huge concrete walls and the barbed wire and shit?"

feels like, mayyybbbeee Bin Laden shouldn't have checked in his location on facebook.

"I have never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure." - Mark Twain.

At least Osama got some joy by been able to watch the royal wedding before he died.

likes R.I.P Osama Bin Laden - World Hide And Go Seek Champion (2001 - 2011)

Would love to read a transcript of the phone call between Obama and his predecessor.

The way Obama just walked away from that podium reminds me of the very last scene of "Stayin' Alive".

CNN is reporting that Bin Laden was in...Pakistan. Someone should notify Morgan Spurlock.

It took almost 24 hours but someone has finally posted something much less cynical:

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." Martin Luther King

Monachy, Gender and Religion

2011-04-19T10:23:00.004-04:00

The UK government has recently come to realise that the Act of Settlement, governing the rules of succession, is a terribly prejudiced and out-dated document. Well, derr!
So, instead of doing the sensible thing and just getting rid of the monarchy altogether, they're thinking of allowing the oldest child to succeed, regardless of sex. Really, is that it? Surely they're not going to change the rules for all those peerages that use a similar rule. (That would be almost impossible as the rules of succession for each peerage are set down in letters patent for each creation. And it doesn't matter at all any more because peers have no power.)
This is relevant outside the UK because, if Westminster passes this law, they're going to ask all the other Commonwealth monarchies to pass the same law (so that William and Kate don't end up with a daughter who is queen of the UK and a son who is king of Canada and Australia). But, as far as I've heard, the Poms aren't considering taking out any of the religious rules and asking the Australian and Kiwi PMs to sign off on a law requiring that someone be a member of the CofE and never marry a Papist seems a bit suss. It might even be against Australia's constitution. The most sensible solution would just be to become a republic and I'm hoping increased scrutiny of these rules will incline more Australians to see it that way too.
But assuming we don't get rid of the monarchy, what would we have to do to make it religiously acceptable? Why was it they included all the clauses banning Catholics (and those married to Catholics)? Enoch Powell, whose views on most other matters are thoroughly reprehensible, thought there was a pretty good reason:

When Thomas Hobbes wrote that "the Papacy is no other than the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire sitting crowned upon the grave thereof", he was promulgating an enormously important truth. Authority in the Roman Church is the exertion of that imperium from which England in the 16th century finally and decisively declared its national independence as the alter imperium, the "other empire", of which Henry VIII declared "This realm of England is an empire" ... It would signal the beginning of the end of the British monarchy. It would portend the eventual surrender of everything that has made us, and keeps us still, a nation.

There could be a grain of truth here. Not many twenty-first century Catholics heed the pope the way they did in the eighteenth century (or even in JFK's generation) but the monarchy is not about how things actually work, just about how they could happen in extreme situations. The reason why no one wants to introduce the guillotine is because all the British monarchs since William IV have behaved themselves and acted on the advice of their PMs. As good little Anglicans, they believe that only God is above them and so there isn't really any devil on the other shoulder to tell them to ignore the PM. But a Catholic monarch might be tempted to veto bills on abortion, contraception, etc.
Obviously I'd like to see them get rid of the bit that requires communion with the CofE. (I'm surprised that the UK still hasn't disestablished, Scandinavian countries have done it already.) And clearly an atheist monarch would have a similar, if not better, relationship with parliament. But if the goal is to open this up to as many people as possible, then we should probably say that the monarchy is open to people of any religious persuasion so long as they don't have any pontiff lording it over them. So Baptists, yes; Catholics, no. Sunnis, yes; Shi'ites, no. What could be more reasonable? (Only a republic.)

20th May 2011
This is why I'm right:

Representative Dale E. Kildee, an anti-abortion Democrat from Michigan who decided this week to support the Senate bill, said: “I will be 81 years old in September. Certainly at this point in my life, I’m not going to change my mind and support abortion, and I’m not going to risk my eternal salvation.”

French Catholicism

2011-04-18T23:26:00.003-04:00

They say that Catholicism as practised in France is a bit more permissive than elsewhere, e.g. Ireland. Combined with the fact that most of them are only nominally Catholic (like so many Australians), the actual image of religious dogma that you hear from French agnostics can be a little unorthodox. On the nature of the trinity:

C'est toujours au bébé Jesus qu'on prie. Parce que p'tit Jesus, d'accord ; Dieu, il met la lumière sur le berceau du bébé... Mais on ne prie pas au grand dadais qui s'est tapé Marianne.

And her interpretation of the issue of monophysitism vs dyophysitism:

It's like being an angel, when they get a kicked in the butt, they're put back into human form. It's a big disappointment for their families that they're not angels any more. Same for God.

Burqas, Niqabs and Hijabs

2010-09-19T21:04:00.000-04:00

This is such a big issue that everyone seems to have an opinion about. What surprises me is that no one is willing to admit that it's a complicated issue with decent arguments on both sides. That's why I haven't written about it until now.
Coming to Philadelphia has given me a slightly better perspective because, living in West Philly, I am for the first time in a suburb where I can walk down the street and see masked women. Walking down the right street here there's a good chance of seeing a woman in a niqab; two or three if you walk past the mosque. I realise that it's not as confronting as I thought it might be but that might be because I'm a man and don't empathise with women in a visceral way (some feminists bristle at the sight of a veiled woman for fear that they could be subject to the same situation).

I think part of the reason the debate is all heat and no light is because it's all or nothing, for or against completely banning a practice that means a lot to certain people. At least that's how it's portrayed; there's certainly differences in degree between banning something in the streets vs government buildings vs government employees.
But when France banned all religious symbols from schools in 2004 it seemed like overkill. Headscarves, kippahs etc. don't interfere with a student's ability to learn and one would think that a mere symbol wouldn't start fights in schools. Certainly I can't think of anywhere in Australia where religious symbols would work as gang tags (because that would require that religion be more controversial than race, which is not something you wear). One could imagine a situation where a school is divided along religious lines, which would necessitate the banning of religious symbols. But until this actually happens, why would you deprive people of a little freedom of expression?
Of course I have a lot of respect for France's tradition of secularity but I don't think it needs to apply to every citizen. What it should apply to is agents of the state, so teachers and postal workers shouldn't be allowed to wear religious symbols.

The prominent public philosopher Martha Nussbaum has weighed into the debate. She considers it from an American legal perspective, demolishing each argument for banning the practice based on the legal notion of respect. Because she considers only American law, there is an inbuilt assumption that the state won't interfere unless absolutely necessary:

Furthermore, equal respect for persons is compatible, as I said, with limiting religious freedom in the case of a “compelling state interest.” In the snake-handler case, the interest was in public safety. Another government intervention that was right, in my view, was the judgment that Bob Jones University should lose its tax exemption for its ban on interracial dating (Bob Jones v. U. S., 461 U. S. 574 (1983). Here the Supreme Court agreed that the ban was part of that sect’s religion, and thus that the loss of tax-exempt status was a “substantial burden” on the exercise of that religion, but they said that society has a compelling interest in not cooperating with racism. Never has the government taken similar steps against the many Roman Catholic universities that restrict their presidencies to a priest, hence a male; but in my view they should all lose their tax exemptions for this reason.

When she considers the claim that only an outright ban can stop men from forcing their wives to cover up, her legal answer is that there are already laws to stop that. This seems to be one of the weaker points of her discussion. I don't know if she'd say the same thing about other laws targeting very specific forms of abuse, such as genital mutilation laws. It seems to me that a canny politician is missing an opportunity here to play both sides by introducing a bill that only bans the coercion of others into covering their faces. This should please feminists but you'd also get the right on side by making an example of the very small number of Muslim men living in Western countries who actually abuse their wives in this way.

Nussbaum discusses coercion of children in a reply to comments on the first article. I think her discussion of coercion recognises but refuses to say what the nub of the issue is. She would have the government ban only those practices that can be shown to be physically harmful and irreversible. Thus she thinks male circumcision ok because, although irreversible, she doesn't believe that it's harmful. But because burqas come off they can be imposed on children. Here's the problem: the first person to say to Nussbaum, 'What about the mental damage done?' will meet the instant rejoinder, 'You have no objective measure to decide what sort of indoctrination constitutes harm and what is merely enculturation.'
While I'd like to defend everyone's right to choose, I'm not enough of a cultural relativist to say that all or even most of those women who choose to cover their faces are making a free choice. Keeping one's face uncovered is the natural default position and making someone think that talking from behind a screen in preferable amounts to brainwashing. For the small number of women who actually make a free choice, I can't think of any explanation for wanting to hide that part of the body from everyone apart from some sort of pathological shyness. It's futile to fight brainwashing in the current generation but we can try to stop parents doing it to the next; pathological shyness is not a sin but should not be encouraged.

And when she discusses the Amish depriving their children of compulsory education, Nussbaum just cites legal precedent. Very unsatisfying as a moral argument but at least she acknowledges that this is tricky - 'The case is difficult, because the parents made a convincing case that work on the farm, at that crucial age, was a key part of their community-based religion — and yet education opens up so many exit opportunities that the denial even of those two years may unreasonably limit children’s future choices.'
However, I don't think it's as difficult as she makes it seem: children are not their parents' chattels so it doesn't much matter that the practice is a way to get their children to follow in their footsteps. All that matters is that the children have a choice

Why can no one see that people on different ends of the political spectrum can start with different principles but come up with the same answer? It's like they want to cut off their noses to spite their faces. As much as I hate Fred Nile, I agree with his anti-tobacco stance and if I were a parliamentarian and he introduced a workable bill, I'd vote for it. Closer to the main point, the British Nationalist Party has a good stance against animal cruelty. This is probably just a way to annoy Muslims and Jews by banning Halal and Kosher slaughter but the BNP's bad motives are not reason enough to oppose this sort of legislation. Sure, when nasty people support something, that might make you take a look, but in the end the only criterion should be whether the benefits outweigh the costs.

Maybe this sort of public declaration from Muslims will make liberals realise that they're supporting the same end for very different reasons:

Women did not wear Islamic dress out of freedom of choice, Fautmeh Ardati told the Lakemba rally.
''Because to use freedom of choice as a justification, then we are also accepting of women who undress out of this same freedom of choice, and we can never do this as Muslim women. We dress like this because it is the command of Allah, not any man.''

Unlike liberals, progressives might claim that they're just using different language to talk about the same thing, ie pluralism rather than mere liberty but that's going to be hard to argue. And the end of the article undermines the plausibility even further -- 'One woman wearing a burqa said she would have to ask her husband before speaking to the Herald. When asked if she needed her husband's permission to speak, she said: ''We are allowed but we choose not to.'''

Agnosticism

2010-08-05T18:14:00.001-04:00

Recently I had a conversation with an agnostic. A real agnostic, not a closeted atheist or a deist lost for words. I had to ask her a few leading questions to get to the point where it was clear that she really did think the existence of a deity was more than a conceptual possibility, that it has a very good chance of being true. When I asked her why she estimated the probability so much higher than I do she said it was simply because so many people have religious experiences of various sorts, she can't help but think that the existence of a deity might be a good explanation for most of them. ( I tried to tell her about how this can be induced through electrodes in the brain, making the supernatural an unnecessary hypothesis but we didn't get far as our Catholic friend was trying to eat.)

I'm starting to think that the fact that she's never been very devout helps her come to this position. That seems counter- intuitive so let me spell it out. I think ex believers have a tendency to look at the content of belief and say 'no more than one religious text can be right and even the most plausible is crazy; therefore atheism.' Whereas someone for whom all supernatural beliefs are foreign might consider the form of belief, not insisting that any doctrine be right and thinking that there might be some reality out there that religions apprpximate more or less well.

Itonly now strikes me that this is the same form of argument for all types of scepticism vs realism. But when it comes to realism about science, I think it's more likely to be those with scientific training who take a position like of asymptotic realism. Conversely, a strongly sceptical position only sounds plausible when one plays the outsider, like Latour did in Laboratory Life.
Could it be the other way around with religious beliefs? Well it's too hard to imagine people coming from a culture completely free from any theistic tendencies. The other cultural differences would swamp that one. Could a sceptic from a religious background see all religions as approximating the truth? Doesn't that imply that he's not a real sceptic, wouldn't he then be a Bahai'i or something?

And now Gary Gutting has come out with a brace of articles attacking both sides and claiming that agnosticism wins by default. I still think the evidence clearly leans far enough in one direction that we shouldn't sit on the fence.

Electoral Misinformation

2010-07-20T09:51:00.001-04:00

I'm constantly disappointed with the way the Labor and Liberal parties deliberately misrepresent Australia's electoral system just to maintain their positions.

The pollies are starting to realise how popular Q&A is getting, so they're preparing to use it even more like a soapbox than Lateline. It's getting so bad that Tony Jones is having trouble keeping them under control. It didn't surprise me that Julie Bishop would accuse the Greens of becoming a new faction of the ALP, that sort of hyperbole is nothing new but I wish she wouldn't insist on it as though a mere preference deal makes it literally true.

Yet Piers Ackerman is the one who really disgusts me. He pointedly re-inforced people's misunderstanding of the electoral system just to sound like he was saying something scary. He stated that 80% of Green preferences went to Labor as though those people casting the votes had no power over that!

So, you know, 80 per cent of those votes will be essentially the people who think they're voting Green for whatever reason, maybe a protest, maybe over the sacking of Kevin Rudd or the assassination of Kevin Rudd, will actually be voting - wind up voting for Labor.

What a cunt!

There was similar misinformation coming from a former Lib cum Democrat (probably bitter that their place has been taken by a party that would never have passed the GST). He was considering the possibility that the Greens would get together with the Coalition but making it sound like it all depends on Bob Brown's opinion. Even from his own (quite accurate) description, it's clear that it's not up to Brown alone -- the power to block supply will only come when the Greens deem it "gross political corruption or misconduct" AND the Liberal-National Coalition opposes the legislation. Dickhead! If somehow all those three parties with their radically different points of view can agree that something's not right, I think there probably should be a double-dissolution.

Cults and Warm Welcomes

2010-06-20T22:43:00.002-04:00

I've been frequenting a French table in Bloomington for almost 4 years now and while I'm in Philadelphia for the summer I'm attending one here too. Being a regular at one, you see a lot of people come and go but starting with a new group has taught me some interesting things. The most impressive is how friendly people can be: all you need is to have one little thing in common and a group of people will be very welcoming. I wouldn't have imagined that learning a language was like joining a club where you could go along to group meetings in another city and have people accept you straight away; apparently French is much like the Scouts or Rotary in that way.

Noticing this club-like-nature made me realise that someone had in fact pointed this out before but I'd ignored the observation. For a semester or two one of my professors ate dinner with his wife and another philosophy professor at the Runcible Spoon on Tuesdays just before our French table met. We'd wave and he knew what we were doing because he'd make use of the information in class or at other times. Once he described it as a "cult", of course he was joking but the more I think about it, the more I realise that it is a type of club.

The other reason why the cult accusation is not too far off is because of the structure. Rather than using a site that charges money as the two Philly groups do, in Bloomington we just keep a list of addresses and send out a BCC email every week. I first got that job a couple of summers ago when the organiser was out of town for a few months and straight away I felt the power rush. It was immediately apparent why he had been so vain when it came to the French table -- attendees were not just group members but his friends! I'm fully aware of how few of those people I know personally so it doesn't have quite the same effect on me. But there are times when I feel somehow influential: I enjoy being able to help people by sending an announcement to a list of 130 readers, even if most of those will just ignore the message.

All this makes me see how smart it was for the Australian Greens to have "convenors" of local groups and even the state party etc. Dividing up the power so that the chief only decides when and where the meeting will be held is a very sensible way to keep the rest of the power for rank-and-file members. So far I've being using ridiculously grandiose titles for the French table, describing the former organiser as a king, myself as his steward and Cindy as my lieutenant. (Maybe I could think about appointing a dauphin!) If I run out of joke titles I'll have to take a leaf out of the Greens' book and call myself the "convocateur".

Discretion

2010-06-01T23:20:00.003-04:00

A couple of new roommates just moved in to this house I'm sharing in Philly. Soon after their arrival a big stack of condoms appeared in the bathroom cabinet. I can only think of two explanations:

1. Someone's planning to have sex in the bathroom; or
2. Someone's offering to share his prophylactics.

Now, I think this cabinet probably doesn't slide closed anymore but that doesn't really change the fact that it's communal storage space. I've never had a male roommate before - maybe frat boys routinely share their condoms. But in this house no food is shared so I'm kind surprised to see this particular product out there.

Old-School Atheism

2010-05-15T19:46:00.006-04:00

This guy is partly right but mostly just a smug bastard:

On the one hand I can identify with his expectation that atheists go through some sort of mourning for their loss of faith. I did. It wasn't too bad but for a long time I tried to find a niche between being a "former Christian" (too much dignity for that label) and some sort of soulless heathen. Turning my back on my former beliefs didn't undo that aspect of my formative years and one thing I learnt from the experience was how slowly attitudes have to change, as opposed to beliefs about matters of fact*. I had read an article condemning perennial agnosticism as an untenable position† and I found Pascal's Wager intellectually and morally repugnant, so I was forced to choose "teapot atheism".

So I am an old-school atheist; not just because I read Russell well before Dawkins, but because I went through the process. And it's an ongoing process, it's only recently that I've read Sartre and Camus and really started to fathom the way in which we are responsible for our own actions far more profoundly than we ever could be by following commandments. But I don't think Russell was ever as preoccupied with ethical concerns and angst the way the Existentialists are so famous for, so I guess there's a fair bit of diversity in Old-School Atheism. Still, even someone as angst-free as Russell acknowledges that ethical questions need addressing from an atheist perspective, in a way that the new atheists don't. Maybe it's the lack of philosophical influence; Dennett should speak up more.

Furthermore, the reason why clerics can't make these sorts of pronouncements is because you can't assume that atheism means losing God for everyone. So many people are raised without any religious beliefs and have no God-shaped hole. Their "more than bread alone" holes are all different shapes and those people filled them with friends, family and other intellectual pursuits well before they realised that God doesn't exist. I don't know how widespread this misunderstanding is but I've previously encountered Christians unable to understand how anyone could be an atheist. They think converts to atheism some sort of intellectual trick and, when presented with someone who has grown up agnostic, are baffled by the suggestion that not everyone has a God-shaped hole.

* Bertrand Russell's essay "On Catholic and Protestant Sceptics" explains this phenomenon very well.
† N.R. Hanson, "The Agnostic's Dilemma" in Stephen Toulmin & Harry Woolf (eds), What I do not believe: and other essays.

Discrimination

2010-04-16T09:07:00.002-04:00

I was just reading an article saying that Obama has ordered gay people to visit their partners in hospital more often, or something to that effect. It explains that 'the new rule will affect any hospital that receives Medicare or Medicaid funding, a move that covers the vast majority of the nation's health-care institutions'. I guess that's all you can do with an executive order, but that made me wonder why they don't just enforce some existing law.

Then I read further down in the article that the USA's Federal anti-discrimination law does not prevent discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. Some states have it but 29 American states provide no such protection. Naturally, Indiana's one of the slow ones.

Interestingly, some states provide extra protection for certain groups, e.g. Michigan prohibits discrimination on the ground of height or weight. And, guess what, Indiana protects smokers! Smokers can do what they like in their free time but gay people can't.

Top Jesus Sightings of All Time

2010-04-04T15:51:00.001-04:00

List of The 20 Funniest Sightings Of Jesus' Face On Things on Ranker

Censorship in Australia

2010-02-13T09:43:00.000-05:00

A Flowchart to Determine What Religion You Should Follow

2010-01-22T10:36:00.002-05:00

A fantastic tool from Holy Taco:

I'm tempted to redraw it myself and add some finer distinctions within the Christian group. E.g. "Do you love pomp and ceremony?" if 'yes', "Do you think the pope is infallible?" if 'yes', "Catholic", if 'no', then Anglican.

Breaking the Cycle

2009-11-19T10:19:00.004-05:00

This is the best news I've heard in a while. The humanists are taking their campaign to Northern Ireland, where everyone knows that damage that sectarianism can do.

Naturally, religious leaders plead that it's not their fault. No, wait, none cited hear is denying that they are the problem, this is the more typical response:

It is none of their business how people bring up their children. It is the height of arrogance that the BHA would even assume to tell people not to instruct their children in their religion.

Oh, well. I'm sure that all the moderates sick and tired of violence will see the sense in this. The problem has been that for hundreds of years moderates have been forced to choose a side. If they are just given the option of staying out of it, maybe sectarian violence won't return to Ireland.

I mean, even if these kids do choose a religion when they grow up, everyone will know that it's a matter of choice. If that attitude of treating religious opinions like other preferences becomes ingrained enough, it's possible that the groups will be able to live together without feeling that it's a take-over by an alien race. Fingers crossed.

There's so many other places where this approach is needed but I doubt that many are ready for it. Clearly Israelis and Palestinians are not going to stop labelling their children any time soon. Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims in Iraq have more immediate concerns. In the Balkans, the difference between Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks is only religious (they speak different dialects of the same language) but they've already settled on a multi-state solution, so it's probably too late for them.

Update -- This is not the same as labelling your kids "atheist"
The Freethinker reports that this message went straight over the heads of many people, including the father of the kids in the ad and their vicar:

I think it is hilarious that the happy and liberated children on the atheist poster are in fact Christian.

Someone please sit these two down and explain to them what the message of the poster is!

Jingoism

2009-10-25T23:22:00.005-04:00

It seems I underestimated the differences between Europe and the Anglosphere when it comes to nationalism. This is a little ironic given that the word chauvinism is due to a Frenchman. (My guess is that the Vichy Régime just exhausted any nationalist pride they might have had left. Now they stick to pride in their food and fashion, which is far less dangerous.)

Recently France's minister for immigration, Eric Besson, was chatting to a journalist about a range of issues and made this comment:

Je pense par exemple qu'il serait bon -- aux Etats-Unis c'est banal, en France ça reste parfois compliqué -- que tous les jeunes Français aient une fois dans l'année l'occasion de chanter la Marseillaise

Apparently this is true, their national anthem is almost never sung in school. They learn it once when they do the French Revolution but it's not sung every school assembly like in Australia. Once a year certainly doesn't sound like an overkill to me.

After I asked Cîndy about this, she went on to tell me about one time in high school when it seemed appropriate and a student requested that they sing "the Marseillaise" in class. Her teacher said, 'No, let's sing something else. How about "the Internationale"?' That put me in mind of Billy Bragg at first but then I remembered that it was originally a French song. So we sang the first verse through in French and English then I said to Cîndy, 'One time when we're with a group of Americans I'm going to ask you to tell them what song your teacher taught them. I'll be standing nearby to pick their jaws up off the floor for them!'

Teaching Utilitarianism

2009-10-13T23:24:00.004-04:00

A memorable thought experiment from Peter Singer's famous paper, "Famine, Affluence and Morality":

if I am walking past a shallow pond and see a child drowning in it, I ought to wade in and pull the child out. This will mean getting my clothes muddy, but this is insignificant, while the death of the child would presumably be a very bad thing.

One of my students' recollection:

...let's say there is a small child drowning in a pile of mud, and you walk by and see this. It is very easy for you to save the child, just step in the mud and grab her. However, is it of moral significance for YOU to do so... your pants will probably get ruined and maybe you think that somebody else will do it, however you have to weigh your options. Singer was trying to show that you might think, "Of course you save the child's life, it's just a pair of pants," however, those pair of pants might be of equal or more significance to the man than saving the girl's life. The principle states that it is all about your opinion and what is significant to you.

What the hell am I doing wrong!?

At least when students badly misunderstood philosophy of science I could tell myself, "They just don't get it because it's a bit technical. They're not bad people!" I'm not looking forward to discussion of the death penalty later in the semester.

Religion vs Ethics

2009-09-26T11:17:00.003-04:00

I've posted about this before but now something is finally happening - the St James Ethics Centre is running a pilot of their children's ethics classes.

However, there are some wowsers:

The pilot, developed by the St James Ethics Centre, is fully funded and was endorsed unanimously by the Federation of Parents and Citizens' Associations of NSW in July. But it must still be approved by the Minister for Education in consultation with a religious advisory panel.

''It doesn't have the support of the religious community, that's just a pragmatic reality,'' the acting chairman of the Inter-Church Commission on Religious Education in Schools, Reverend Mark Hillis, told the Herald. ''I don't see how having a small interest group coming into a school and ramping up things helps.''

Does the current scripture programme have the support of the atheist community? Better get rid of it then!

I notice that their argument is not that they're afraid that the religious kiddies will miss out, and that they need ethical instruction as much as the atheists. The only reasonable argument against ethics classes altogether would be if there weren't enough time. But that's precisely the point of this move, non-scripture kids are forced to waste time. The only way out of that is to make scripture classes meet at 2pm and let out the non-scripture kids early. Or for government schools to not assist parents to indoctrinate their children with their own supernatural beliefs (there's plenty of time for that on the weekend!).

Another Political Compass

2009-08-04T10:01:00.001-04:00

This one is through Facebook.
My Political Views
I am a far-left moderate social libertarian
Left: 7.8, Libertarian: 1.21

Political Spectrum Quiz

Two dimensions are not enough:
My Foreign Policy Views
Score: -7.8

Political Spectrum Quiz

My Culture War Stance
Score: -8.09

Political Spectrum Quiz

Monroe County Fair '09

2009-07-30T12:01:00.003-04:00

Just thought I'd mention a few of the things I saw at the Monroe County Fair last night:

* A stand for the Monroe County TEA Party
* The Republican party stand with a sign saying "Say no to socialized medicine"
* A "Christians for Life" stand with models of fœtuses at various stages
* A test your Bible knowledge electronic quiz
* The American Legion giving out stationary with the Pledge of Allegiance on it. Cindy took one that said "Proud to be an American". I opted for one with all the presidents on it (it was up to date).
* Overheard a kid making a (root)beer joke with his grandmother. Her reply was, "If your parents let you do that, they must be more liberal than Obama!"

Consistency

2009-07-30T11:39:00.002-04:00

Do people's positions have to be consistent in order for you to take them seriously? Hilary Putnam famously said that that it's better to be right than to have been consistent. That sounds about right, so I guess all you need to do is fess up to the change in belief and explain how your new position is better that your old one.

That's not always easy to do when you are arguing against an opponent. Khadijah Ouararhni-Grech is a good example. In the first reports of her argument with the bus-driver, she responded with indignation at her mask being described as a mask. In her first interview with the Tele she insisted that it wasn't a mask that she was wearing. She stated that she was no different from all the other women on the bus. (To which, I assume the driver would have replied, "They're not wearing masks.")

I figure someone must have sat her down and explained that a niqab is a type of mask, because in her interview with ABC's PM she claims that what she said was, "What's the difference between me wearing this and anyone else wearing like a swine-flu mask or wearing what they chose to wear?" That's not such a bad argument. I doubt there were any wearers of surgical masks on the bus that day but it's quite plausible that the driver would have let them on (after chuckling at their stupidity).

But much worse is the way in which her melodramatic reaction devalues other people's suffering - 'It's almost being like raped of [sic.] your culture. It's like something has been taken away from you.' What exactly has been taken from her? If something were taken, wouldn't that be theft, not rape? Not only is that a ridiculous misuse of the word "rape", it doesn't even make sense of her experience. In the same interview the reporter explains, 'Khadijah Ouararhni-Grech says growing up as a Catholic before converting to Islam has given her a valuable insight into discrimination.' Which is it? She can't feel culturally insulted because it isn't her heritage. Islam is something she chose to embrace. This is a clear cut case of personal preference and any talk of culture only serves to muddy the waters.

Next time someone tells me they don't like my beret, I'm going to cry "rape"!

Differences of Degree vs Differences of Kind

2009-07-23T23:19:00.004-04:00

I'm going to argue that a liberal society should generally ignore the motives of people's practices when deciding what to ban. In particular, when deciding what sort of attire to allow in public, the same sorts of standards should be applied whether the requirements are religious or aesthetic. This is in contrast to some places, e.g. France, where symbolism is the primary criterion. (Whether religious symbols should be allowed in government institutions is a different issue.)

The Tele is reporting that a Muslim woman was asked to remove her mask before getting on a bus. I'd like to point out that it is she who raises the issue of race by denying that she's an Arab (i.e. insisting that she's Maltese-Australian). The driver criticises her for something she chooses to do. This is different in kind from the "driving while black" phenomenon in the USA.

She insists that a niqab is not a mask. The Oxford Dictionary begs to differ:

mask, n. -
I. A covering for the face, and related senses.
1. a. A covering worn on or held in front of the face for disguise, esp. one made of velvet, silk, etc., and concealing the whole face or the upper part of it (except the eyes), worn at balls and masques.

My main point is simply that there's a significant difference of degree between a Muslim woman covering her hair and covering her face. We have normal social interactions with people who cover their hair for a wide range of reasons, e.g. hats, baldness. That sort of hijab should not be banned in public. On the other hand we don't like people walking into shops (or onto busses) in balaclavas or motorcycle helmets.

I think the basic principle of fairness dictates that if we require nudists to cover up, religious nudists should not be exempt. If we require people to show their faces, religious people should not be exempt from that either.

The only question that remains, then, is whether we really do/should impose these requirements on non-religious people. My guess is that if I tried to walk onto a bus wearing a balaclava, most drivers would react in a similar way to this one. Nor should I be allowed to go into a bank wearing a gorilla mask just because the Flying Spaghetti Monster (bless his noodly appendage) says I need to wear one the third Thursday of every 30-day month.

On the other hand
In France the debate has cooled down a bit. They're saying that making a law specifically against this sort of thing would be like breaking a butterfly upon the wheel. I normally wouldn't want to say that it's question of numbers but on this point I agree, that a specific law is not necessary (and thus Muslims would even be justified in feeling persecuted by a law specifically tageting them). Current rules about not concealing your identity should be quite sufficient.

Bogan Names

2009-07-02T20:22:00.004-04:00

This is perennial bugbear for me but the SMH has just released the list of Australia's most over-used names for 2008. Here it is :
Jack, William, Lachlan, Joshua, Riley, Thomas, Cooper, Oliver, James and Ethan
Mia, Chloe, Isabella, Charlotte, Emily, Ella, Olivia, Sienna, Ava and Sophie

Now, it's not SMH's fault that people don't know the difference between a surname and a given name, don't know what full name goes with a nickname or just make shit up. The main problem with the article is that they quote a social researcher who says that this is a conservative trend. The dolt claims that "in 1950, John was the most popular boy's name but is now ranked 80th". Not it's not - Jack's listed at #1. The boy's list also contains two surnames mistaken for given names. Riley? Cooper? Do you really want your son to grow up a barrel-maker?

And what's with the girls' names? I want to meet the parents of a Sienna just so I can ask whether she's named after the limonite clay or after the Toyota van.

Those poor kids. Won't someone please think of the children!?

Darwin Movie!

2009-06-18T22:44:00.001-04:00

Looks even better than the PBS Darwin's Dangerous Idea.

Appropriateness

2009-05-13T10:01:00.004-04:00

Saturday I went to a graduation ceremony to see a friend get her PhD. I was looking forward to see the little differences between American "Commencement" ceremonies and the one I had but I felt quite at home with the new university president being and Australian and having Michael Kirby as the keynote speaker.

I've often said how much more I prefer when department colloquia are given by people who make bold claims because it means I don't fall asleep at 4.30 on Friday afternoon. This is even more true when their bold claims are things I disagree with, that way I can sit there trying to work out what exactly is wrong with their claims, rather than just sitting passively.

Apparently most people are not like me because Kirby's speech pissed off a lot of Mid-Westerners. He started off talking about how we need to continue to think more and more globally and told the graduates that an IU education was a good start. He argued that the good work at Indiana University was known around the work and gave the example of Alfred Kinsey. (That was when I knew he was going to mention his own homosexuality.) He emphasised scientific empiricism as the source of all human knowledge (possibly the weak point of his argument) and how Herman B. Wells showed intellectual integrity by standing up for him. At the end of the speech we saw on the screen a lot of people in the audience not applauding, while others gave him a standing ovation (not such a rare thing in the States). I was pleased that he spoke well and managed to make his experiences relevant to IU.

But then in the student newspaper there was an article saying how many people were annoyed by Kirby's address. The thing that stuck me the most was how so many of them were misusing the word "inappropriate". They were using it as a euphemism to mean "don't ask, don't tell". I found it a bit disappointing from a grammatical perspective because there wasn't anything inappropriate: as you can expect, there was no discussion of sex (which might have made me squeamish); there was no advocating for same-sex marriage, which many in the audience could have legitimately disagreed about; the only thing mentioned was the empirical fact that a significant proportion of humans are attracted to members of the same sex. If people can't handle that, they should stop pretending that they disagree about what's appropriate and just admit that they don't like his kind.

Parents of Students

2009-05-06T12:24:00.000-04:00

One of the most noticeable things about American undergrads compared with Australians is how all Americans leave home to go to uni whereas (I'd estimate) only around half of Australian students do, yet so many American parents still want to have so much say in their (adult) children's lives.

I've never experienced it myself I've heard other tertiary teachers saying that you occasionally get parents wanting to know their children's grades. When they're told that it's against privacy laws to tell them, they get quite irate and tell the teacher or registrar about how much they're paying in fees etc. I don't understand why they can't just see it as an issue between parents and their kids. Why should the registrar suffer if the kids don't want to fess up to their parents?

But here's another example that I found more surprising. Apparently there is a gender-neutral room-sharing policy in some Stanford dormitories. At first I was on her side, the university admin not being sufficiently frank about what was going on, how much choice students would have etc. The mothers worries seemed reasonable, asking, "How well do you know these boys? Can you trust them even if they've been drinking?"

But then the author mentions that the daughter was actually ok with the situation and didn't want to inconvenience the other people that she'd made the arrangement with. The mother's reaction:

We, like many parents, do not consider a “gender neutral” housing arrangement morally acceptable. We don’t consider such an arrangement consistent with common sense. We would never have consented to pay for our daughter’s enrollment as a freshman if we had been aware that she might be placed in such a rooming arrangement. As we told the president of the university, if Stanford had informed us that it was allowing such housing, we would have required her either to transfer out or to find another source of funding. Perhaps, since she was a senior, we would have made an agreement with her concerning acceptable off-campus housing. But Stanford never gave us the chance...

If parents don’t want “gender neutral” housing for their children, they need to talk with their money, the only voice the university will allow them.

The thing is, the attitude that parents should be informed of their adult children's behaviour is not rare.

But this bit is less common:

I could talk about conspiracy theories, and how the modern university is trying to change society’s norms. I could talk about how the university caters to the “edgy” — whatever that is at the moment. I could talk about how I have new sympathy for my parents’ concerns about rooming arrangements at Yale when I arrived there 30-some years ago. I could talk about mother-guilt, and how I have failed to convey my moral values to my daughter...

Stanford and at least 50 other colleges and universities are promoting through their dormitory arrangements an ideology of gender that we personally reject and oppose. There will probably be plenty of families willing to bet their children’s happiness on the prestige of a Stanford degree. We, however, are not among them. We told our daughter that we would not pay for her final quarter — if she wanted to stay at Stanford, she would have to take out a loan. When she protested that we were changing the terms of her attendance at the university, we told her that as far as we were concerned, it was Stanford that had changed the deal. Our morality is not for sale.

De-Friending

2009-04-27T17:57:00.003-04:00

Today Facebook asked me if I wanted to become a fan of "Defending Marriage according to Jesus", despite the fact that I have "Legalize Gay Marriage" as a cause I support. I found out which "friend" was a member and once it became clear that she hadn't "become a fan" ironically, I de-friended her.

She wasn't a real friend to begin with, just a casual acquaintance of Cindy's who we see at parties. But now I'm wondering whether I'm being inconsistent for not deleting several other Facebook "friends" who I'm almost certain have similar views. Some of them I'm confident have even more disagreeable views than this girl who described herself as liberal. I guess I just don't want to be too pro-active in weeding out the people who shouldn't be my friends.

That's not to say that I'm violating the Categorical imperative or anything like that. I wouldn't be offended if someone de-friended me because they didn't agree with the politically-charged links I post. If anything it would be a bit of a relief.

Morality Quiz

2009-04-26T11:20:00.004-04:00

So I just took a moral psychology test and got a result. It's based on the idea that there are five main moral values but people with different political perspectives weight them differently.

Here's my result, I'm the green column:

I wonder if it's significant that I rank the values in basically the same order as "liberals" (in the US sense) but exaggerate the difference in emphasis.

Counterfactuals - What Jesus Could Have Done

2009-04-19T12:34:00.001-04:00

Patrick Stewart

2009-03-28T13:45:00.002-04:00

I didn't like Ricky Gervais in The Office but I decided to give him another go with his other show, Extras. This scene had me kacking myself for hours.

There's just something about Shakespearean actors that lends gravitas to any situation. I can't wait until the episode with Sir Ian McKellan (though I doubt it could beat this).

Jesus Camp

2009-03-27T13:17:00.003-04:00

This is the full movie. You can even download it for free.

I was so shocked when I saw the woman and her home-schooled kids pledging allegiance to the Christian flag. I thought "one nation under God" would have been enough for them!

The Christian flag scares me. The first time I saw it was on the episode of John Safran vs God when he visits the KKK. Since then I've seen it flying outside a church in southern Bloomington, very worrying.

The First Rule About Censorship is "You Don't Talk About Censorship"

2009-03-18T21:45:00.002-04:00

Apparently the Australian Federal Government's Australian Communications and Media Authority is threatening to fine Australian ISPs for hosting so much as a link to a site on their blacklist. Fines are reportedly up to $11,000 per day!

But the worst thing is that the list is secret. That's right, you can be fined for linking to a site on the list but you can't check to see whether the site you want to link to is blacklisted! Reminiscent of the Inquisition. Of course, the list has been leaked: you can see it here.

Most of the stuff is porn but there are some things you definitely wouldn't want blocked, like individual MySpace pages and YouTube account pages and the blacklists of other countries.

Underpants Gnome

2009-03-18T10:34:00.001-04:00

Disgusting
Originally uploaded by tigitogs

Smoking

2009-03-02T11:05:00.003-05:00

This recent Herald article got me thinking.

Cindy likes to say that she's "racist" against smokers. I agree that, in general, they are subhuman filth.

But, like all modern racists, I'm occasionally forced to admit, 'But some of my best friends are!' I'm starting to think that this approach is not entirely consistent. Would it be better to use "love the sinner, hate the sin" rhetoric? The former simply claims exceptions to the rule, which could add up. The second is far more insulting, when you think about it.

I want to retain the most punchy approach, so I think I prefer the second - 'I love you qua person [agape]. I only hate you qua smoker.' Anything to use "qua" in a pub setting.

Update
I got a chance to use this line at a party. I then realised that Cindy and I make a good deadpan comedy duo because Americans don't understand either of us. I explained, 'Smoking pains me deeply; I hate the sin but love the sinner. But Cindy's racist against them, she thinks they're sub-human filth.'
Not knowing how serious I was being, our guest asks, 'What? Not really?'
But Cindy replies, 'Well, yes, more or less. I do hate smokers with a passion. The more I get to know them the more I despise them...'

Orthography and Edition

2009-02-13T11:17:00.004-05:00

When you work in the history of philosophy or the history of science, you take it for granted that there are standard editions of the "Complete Works of" very famous people. Plato, Aristotle, Descartes and Kant all have theirs, and the page numbering of those canonical editions then appear in the margins of any other edition you use. Now, I don't read Greek or German so I've never consulted most of those (just seen the numbers in the margins of my English translations) but I've started trying to use the Adam and Tannery edition of Descartes. My conclusion is that Charles Adam and Paul Tannery were either very lazy or a pair of wankers.

Let me explain. Firstly, French is governed by the Académie Française who, every now and then, change official spellings to bring them in line with pronunciation or what have you. there have been some changes since Descartes wrote. Most notably, silent Ses turning into circumflexes; and Is and Us changing into Js and Vs.

So, if you pick up a first edition of Descartes (or get a pdf of a first edition from Gallica) you'd expect these sorts of difficulties. On the other hand, if you picked up a later edition, you'd assume they'd have updated all of that. If you went for the edition edited by Victor Cousin, published 1824-26, you'd be right - modern French spelling, accents etc. (Except some oi becoming ai, which was changed in 1835 but doesn't slow down reading much.) However, if you chose Adam and Tannery, the edition that everyone cites, published in 1909, you'd get seventeenth-century spelling, crazy accents and long Ses. That's right, printed in 1909 and they decide to uſe mediaeval ſes, juſt to piſs everyone off!

"Oh, but it's true to the original." Bollocks! Orthography doesn't change the meaning of the word. We're talking about philosophy here, not poetry. If you have aesthetic reasons for keeping Chaucer and Shakespeare in their original, fine, but there's no good reason to do that for philosophy.

This comes as a contrast to the other Œuvres that I regularly consult, those of Lavoisier. Edited by Jean-Baptiste Dumas in 1862, all spelling has been normalised and even Lavoisier's evolving spellings of oxygène have been smoothed over. Jean-Baptiste Dumas, not a wanker.

But how can science account for x?!

2009-02-08T12:08:00.004-05:00

It really annoys me when people confuse atheism and science. Why on earth do they think that scientific theories are meant to do all the deus ex machina work that religion does. Each theory only explains facts within a certain domain e.g. Big-Bang theory answers certain questions of cosmology, Natural Selection explains how new species are formed and why some old species are extinct. But, naturally, to understand the whole world properly you need other non-theistic theories, like a good ethics.

So reading this bollocks by some theologian struck a nerve. I just had to reply:

Tom Frame may be professor of theology but he's no ethicist. He claims that "A dedicated Darwinian would welcome imperialism, genocide, mass deportation, ethnic cleansing, eugenics, euthanasia, forced sterilisations and infanticide." That's rubbish; any scientist who tried that (and a few have) would be committing a logical fallacy. As early as 1740 David Hume pointed out that we cannot draw morally prescriptive conclusions directly from what goes on in nature (the "is-ought" problem).

By publicly denouncing eugenics and genocide, Richard Dawkins is just following in a long line of evolutionary biologists - going back to T.H. Huxley and Charles Darwin himself - who have argued that our moral duty is to fight against "nature red in tooth and claw". Indeed, Darwin's scientific ideas partly stemmed from his recognition that human races are all one species and his strong opposition to slavery.

If Prof. Frame finds materialistic atheism unsatisfying by itself, he should try adding a little secular ethics. I think he'll find that atheist ethicists like David Hume, John Stuart Mill, G.E. Moore and Bernard Williams have a lot more to offer than Lennon's "Imagine" or angels at the bottom of the garden.

I know that they like bitchiness and it certainly helps get letters published but do you think the bit about "angels at the bottom of the garden" was too much?

(And I'll fess up here: Hume and Moore were not so much atheists as agnostics. But their ethical theories were a-theistic.)

More Kickbacks

2009-02-06T12:16:00.000-05:00

A little while back I posted about bonuses for signing up to ING. They were for the ING Savings Maximizer.

Now I discover that you can also get them for their Electric Orange Checking [sic.] account. All you have to do is make 3 signature or internet transactions in the first 45 days and they credit you $25 and they give me $10!

Here's a couple of those links:

ING Direct "Electric Orange" Checking Account $25 Referral

ING Direct "Electric Orange" Checking Account $25 Referral

I'll put up more if these run out.

Creationism in Australian Schools

2008-12-08T21:42:00.002-05:00

A few months ago I was barracking for my old mate John Kaye on this episode of Insight. (It's one of the few Australian current affairs shows I can watch regularly; Q&A is the other.)

I wasn't paying too much attention to the crazy creationist science teacher but luckily Chris Bonnor was. He's called for an inquiry into whether they're actually teaching evolution between their hapless teacher's attempts to order the various flavours of creationism.

Well the results are in. Aunty reported it matter of factly. But the SMH is quoting a few people:

The NSW Greens MP John Kaye said the board's ruling set a dangerous precedent that had "opened the floodgates to a religious invasion of the curriculum". The board had failed in its duty to protect the integrity of the science curriculum, he said.

"Every fundamentalist private school in NSW will be emboldened by this decision."...

Mr O'Doherty said Mr Bonnor had misquoted the Pacific Hills science teacher, and Dr Kaye's comments amounted to vilification.

I can't imagine a pogrom against Christians in Australia anytime soon. Short of actual discrimination, a little vilification never hurt anyone.

More telling is this:

The board spokeswoman said: "Parents are entitled to choose schools for their children that support their own beliefs. However, it has been repeatedly made clear to faith-based and other schools that creationism is not part of the mandatory science curriculum, cannot take the place of any part of the mandatory science curriculum, and will not be assessed in the mandatory School Certificate science test."

(My emphasis.)
This epitomises the problem here. The assumption is that, because children are their chattels, parents have the right, nay the duty, to have them indoctrinate. No one - not Christian, Jew nor Muslim - questions this assumption.

2008-11-18T11:19:00.002-05:00

The SMH reports:

A BAPTIST pastor has admitted telling Jewish leaders that Jews were "going to hell" and faced a fate "worse than the Holocaust" because they had not accepted Jesus as their saviour.

I thought the Jews were all going to convert to Christianity after they'd fought Armageddon.

But seriously, although it's fun to get on one's high horse and condemn Christian bigotry, I don't think this attitude is an appropriate target. People need to get over the fact that Christians believe that non-Christians are going to hell. It's just one of their basic beliefs about what makes their religion the right one. If they didn't believe that, they'd still be Jews!

It doesn't offend me in the slightest that they believe I'm going to hell; it's just a bit irritating when they try to do something to stop it.

The only problem then is that it was a bit insensitive to mention the Holocaust. Apparently he, 'admitted using the word "holocaust" but said it was Biblical language.' He's right. Until recently, the word "holocaust" was not reserved for the Nazi atrocities but was used more generally. (E.g. Winston Churchill described the Armenian Genocide as an holocaust well before the Nazis even came to power. Some Armenians want to reclaim the word but I don't think they'll have much luck.) So basically this Baptist minister is guilty of insensitivity but nothing more.

Last chance to make fun of Sarah Palin before everyone forgets who she is

2008-11-07T14:22:00.000-05:00

Attack Ads and Religion

2008-10-23T18:36:00.003-04:00

I do agree that Christians' evasive answers about the Trinity does amount to flip-flopping on a perfectly simple question.

Still, this comes as a bit of a surprising contrast to Woody Guthrie's song "Christ for President", made famous by Billy Bragg:

Academic Freedom and Teaching

2008-10-19T19:21:00.002-04:00

So those Zegna-suited Blackshirts known as the Young Liberals have been (for a while now) campaigning against academics who express left-leaning opinions when teaching. The problem is it's not just targeting discriminatory grading practices or demonstrable bias against legitimate differences of opinion. Rather it's a crusade against anything perceived as a leftist perspective. (Broadly construed to include anything that shows a moral dimension, from the sound of some of the complaints.) Some of the complainants really show their true colours by whinging about lecturers who so much as admit that they have political opinions of their own! One said she felt she had to drop a class because the lecturer outed himself as a member of the Greens. (No report on whether he was willing to name other members or fellow travellers for the black list.)

John Kaye has already spoken out against this crazy Senate inquiry:

Unless [the terms of reference] are ignored they could end up stifling academic independence, academic freedom and freedom of expression in schools and universities around Australia

This would be a dreadful outcome at a time when we're already facing a skills shortage, and when universities and schools are already under enormous pressure.

And today, another academic I used to know quite well, Peter Slezak has argued that the teaching styles the witch-hunt is looking for are the best methods at the tertiary level.

Here's the email I sent Peter:

Hi Peter,

I just read your article in the Herald and wanted to tell you how the more teaching experience I get, the more I come to agree with your approach when teaching certain topics.

I had heard about the Young Libs' campaign and was just as shocked as everyone. Disgusted really at the quote from one young woman who said she couldn't stay in the class taught by a member of the Greens. I fear we may not see the real damage of the Howard era until that generation of Young Libs comes to power.

But here's a glimpse at what it might be like:
I'm sure you're familiar with the stereotype of the "liberal college professor" that working-class Americans fear will corrupt their children. Here in the States (particularly right here in the Midwest) all academics are acutely aware of this and try very hard not to have students put up the shutters.
The best example I saw was when I was tutoring for (the philosopher of biology) Elisabeth Lloyd's class on evolution and creationism. It wasn't just equal time (which is fine in a philosophy class); her attempts at respect and even-handedness went too far, it seems. A more-astute student said he appreciated the equal time given in lectures but was disappointed that she never presented equally-strong arguments for creationism. It was then I switched into Slezak-mode and told him there weren't any, that he'd need to find one himself if he wanted a strong argument.
Conversely, a less astute student actually asked me, "What do you [the two tutors and the lecturer] actually believe, evolution or creationism?" My jaw dropped to the floor at that point. It took a lot of restraint to maintain that veneer of respect for creationism as I explained that this was a philosophical controversy, not a scientific one, that there's no doubt where the evidence points.
At the end of the course there were a number who had counted themselves creationists at the start that came to believe in evolution but this was just for lack of knowledge. Apart from doing some good, I fear that we might have legitimated "the controversy" a little.

So you might be pleased to hear that I take a less-sympathetic approach when I lecture on the history of evolution. A respectful critique of Paley is contrasted with a brusque dismissal of neo-creationists; I defend catastrophists such as Cuvier who only believed that the Noah legend was based on an actual event etc. (I expect Americans find me a little bumptious but you can get away with a lot if you say it with the right accent!)

Hope all is well at UNSW. Keep fighting the good fight,

Nick

Almost Omniscient

2008-10-17T19:14:00.003-04:00

An Italian professor in my dept made a joke this afternoon at a colloquium when we were talking about nuns. Apparently there's an old saying:

There's only three things God doesn't know:
How much money the Vatican has,
What Jesuits really think, and
How many different orders of nuns there are.

But a quick Google bring up a couple of different versions:

What the Dominicans are thinking,
What the Jesuits are doing, and
How many orders of nuns there are.

or

What a Dominican just said,
What a Jesuit is going to say, and
How many Franciscan orders there are.

Looks like the Jesuits are a common theme (no surprise) but the Vatican's money version wins the prize for most cynical!

Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar

2008-10-14T11:37:00.006-04:00

Whenever I think about the Political Compass, I have to keep asking myself why it is I believe in government control of economic matters but great liberty in social matters. This is an important question as I apparently do feel strongly about both, as my location on the compass indicates. (For me, it doesn't feel like being extreme in any way, it's just commonsense. This could be partly due to the other thing this pic tells you, the fact that I don't associate with people whose views are very different from my own.)

Libertarians claim that they are being more consistent in embracing both freedoms but I don't buy it. As is often the case, Chomsky manages to express my instinct far more lucidly than I can:

John Maynard Keynes, the British negotiator, considered the most important achievement of Bretton Woods to be the establishment of the right of governments to restrict capital movement.

In dramatic contrast, in the neoliberal phase after the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system in the 1970s, the US treasury now regards free capital mobility as a "fundamental right", unlike such alleged "rights" as those guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: health, education, decent employment, security and other rights that the Reagan and Bush administrations have dismissed as "letters to Santa Claus", "preposterous", mere "myths".

It goes without saying that Keynes was far from being a socialist! This swing back towards government intervention is only going to bring the political spectrum back to centre, not to the left. Even if Americans will consider that the left.

The Problem of Evil

2008-10-13T14:28:00.004-04:00

So elegant!

Still, I know that my theist friends will reply that evil is just a privation of good but I'm yet to hear a good justification for this premiss.

I'd Turn Gay for David Marr

2008-10-01T16:02:00.005-04:00

I've recently been catching up on Australian current affairs. I only just discovered that Tony Jones has a new show, even better than Lateline was. I've been downloading the episodes that boast the most interesting guests. I downloaded episode 9 because it had David Marr on the panel and I wasn't disappointed!

Not being a reader of The American I'd never heard of Angela Shanahan before this. I still kind of wish I hadn't; but it's nice to see a bigot put in her place. Her talk of immutability makes a tory like Downer sound like real leftie!

What I don't get is how anyone can keep a straight face while claiming that people have to actively place themselves outside the Church. How can they seriously assume that Christianity is the default position when their imaginary friend is invisible?

An Oldie

2008-09-20T12:20:00.001-04:00

Russell's Paradox

2008-08-28T14:13:00.000-04:00

Nerd joke:

(And a philosophical nerd joke, at that!)

Succinct

2008-08-27T15:05:00.003-04:00

Race

2008-08-20T20:30:00.004-04:00

Whenever I want to be intellecually offended and annoyed but challenged, I read David Stove. One of his most offensive papers is "Racial and Other Antagonisms", wherein he argues that "racism" is a word for what everyone knows it true. Yet the more time I spend with nice people, the more I think Stove might have been on to something.

Prima facie he was saying that we should all believe in racism and anyone who didn't was simply in denial. He went even further to ridicule the term, claiming that something so obvious requires no "-ism"; no more than the believe that the sun rises in the east should be labelled "eastism".

When I first read that essay, I struggled to see precisely what his mistake was. Then I realised that what he was actually arguing against was not what I thought racism was. The paper set out to argue that there are racial differences that are recognisable and are born out statistically. I think he argues this point relatively successfully so I had trouble seeing how his argument could be right and his conclusion wrong. Then I saw that he had done nothing to prove any particular racist theses in the superiority of some races over others. Likewise he blythely dismisses the objection that many of the characteristics he discussed might be social rather than genetic. It was then I decided that he was wrong for those two reasons, that for racism to be true it would have to be the case that certain races were genetically inferior. The "racism" that Stove showed to be commonsense was simply the belief that racial differences exist. But if racism means either racial prejudice or belief in the inferiority of other races, there's no defence for that.

Now, within the circles in which I move, all discussion of race is taboo. (In the narrow sense, of genetic difference, lineage etc. Discussion of ethnic differences is encouraged when it's sympathetic to the underdog.) This has led to the strange phenomenon that people who do discuss genetic differences in terms of race are looked at askance.

So much so that even generalisations about clearly cultural phenomena are frowned upon and criticism of other cultural practices are off limits. I flout this occasionally for trivial topics; I understand that it's just a generalisation but for me, if the question is not morally-laden, it's worth going out on a limb and guessing. For example, I told a Chinese friend that she'd definitely like liquorice despite having just waxed lyrical on how the world is divided into liquorice-lovers and liquorice-haters. I confidently told her that all Chinese people like liquorice (so far I've been right) because star anise is a staple of Chinese cuisine.

Recently I discovered that this attitude only exists in the Anglosphere, Europeans are not nearly as sensitive. For example, when French people (my sample set is 2) hear about the Spanish basketball team's slant-eye gesture, they don't see it as inherently offensive, they interpret it as affectionate. Likewise, even asian people who've grown up in asia (my sample set is 1) don't find it offensive, simply because they're tough enough to take a joke.

That's not meant to be a criticism of asians living in western countries, they've a right to be sensitive after the childhood teasing. But still, it's interesting to see this difference.

I'd also like to add that people who want to combat racism shouldn't use the arguement that genetic diversity doesn't match up exactly to our everyday notions of race. This may or may not be a good characterisation (depending on whether or not you thing all genes should be equally weighted). The problem is that it allows that we could justify hatred of other races if it turned out that we were more different genetically. The reason we shouldn't has little to do with descent. We should treat all races equally because the evidence is that they are all equal in the ways that count, that is, in terms of intellectual potential, social characteristics etc. If we were to encounter an extra-terrestrial race that had these same similarities, we should treat them well regardless of whether or not their DNA is like ours (or if they even have DNA). If the overall result is that we can have a civil relationship with those aliens, we should.

God and Naturalism

2008-08-18T20:40:00.004-04:00

I've just left a rather long comment on Lara's latest blog post. Thought I might put a copy here too.

Re Lennox's original piece
A professor of mine who was a student of Gould's has taught me to be wary of how people quote him. He made overtures to the religious community that have been taken out of all proportion (and now that he's dead he can't reply). But even a proper understanding of his "non-overlapping magisteria" thesis is completely incompatible with ID. Intelligent Design is the claim that we can infer things about the supernatural realm (broadly construed) by studying the natural world. In this article Lennox seems to understand Gould's claim that ne'er the twain shall meet. Why then is he quoting Gould in an article aimed at undermining Darwin? Because his real target is Dawkins! Why do people feel compelled to downplay Darwin's genius ever time Dawkins is rude and condescending to them? Beats me!

I think he's wrong about Sagan, though, when he says 'The Genesis statement is a statement of belief, not a statement of science. This is precisely the case with Sagan's assertion as well. He is expressing a personal belief that emanates from a world view, rather than science.' Seems to me Sagan was just marking out territory. To say "The cosmos is all there is, or was, or ever shall be." is more of an axiom than anything else; I think he's saying that no matter how far it extends in space or time, cosmologists should try to study it. Yes, tacit in this claim is the assertion that scientists should study any gods we might discover. But what's wrong with that?

Re Vic Stenger and your reply, which got printed:
You're right that it's underdetermined but, bearing in mind that you granted him "beyond reasonable doubt", that doesn't mean that we can't rule out certain things. So if we're using science to test the God hypothesis and it seems prima facie that there are no Judaeo-Christian God, then we bring in the Duhem-Quine thesis to insist that some auxiliary hypothesis failed the test.
"There's a skeptic in the room" is the best way but I think Stenger is right to say that 'a beneficent God would not deliberately hide from people who are honestly open to belief but do not believe for lack of evidence. The very presence of such non-believers in the world proves that a beneficent God does not exist.' If you grant him this, the hypothesis that was falsified is that God is not a tease. Or you can decide not to grant him that premise and simply say that people like Peter and myself are insincere in claiming to be open to belief.
Likewise, vestigial organs and childhood illnesses seem to indicate that organisms not designed by a benevolent god. Again, Duhem-Quine will allow you to lay the blame somewhere else, but where? A non-omnipotent god who couldn't have done any better? Some vague "best of all possible worlds"? (Remind me, where do you stand on the voluntarist question?)
You're quite right to use the Duhem-Quine thesis but please specify which auxiliary hypothesis have been falsified.

Re Paul Gittings's letter, your reply and on naturalism in general:
Well, the reason Gittings is attacking Lennox is not because of what appeared in the article but because of what he read between the lines. Lennox wasn't attacking Darwin in order to argue for Lamarckian evolution and from what you're said he understood Lennox's goal rightly enough.

Lennox didn't promote a god-of-the-gaps but. by invoking Gould, that's the logical result. (Because Gould's two magesteria cannot overlap, the more the natural realm grows, the more the supernatural must shrink, until all that's left is ethics and aesthetics, if that.)

As for naturalism being faith-based, that really depend on how you read it. Most claims of naturalism can be interpreted undogmatically (like Sagan's above) to mean just that science should never stop investigating, even investigate what has in the past been deemed supernatural. Methodologically speaking, it's one of the two extremes away from Gould's unhappy compromise (religious dogma being the other extreme). Still, I have to admit that it it a metaphysical claim of sorts. But of the broadest sort and somehow that seems a whole lot less metaphysical. It's the opposite to Wittgenstein's "The world is a collection of facts, not of things."

What's good for the goose...

2008-08-13T15:45:00.001-04:00

It's amazing how easy the Bush administration makes The Daily Show's job.

Politics and Science

2008-07-30T15:44:00.000-04:00

The Paradox of Tolerance

2008-07-13T10:14:00.004-04:00

In his Open Society and Its Enemies, Popper argued that the only thing that a tolerant, open society cannot tolerate is intolerance:

The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek. The idea is, in a slightly different form, and with very different tendency, clearly expressed in Plato.
Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.

He sounds like he thinks he's solved the problem just by rephrasing the sentence as reserving the right to be intolerant in certain situations.

I used to think that this was a crude but effective solution. Now I'm not even sure how effective it is. But then I found this extra explanation:

All these paradoxes can easily be avoided if we frame our political demands in... some such manner as this. We demand a government that rules according to the principles of equalitarianism [sic.] and protectionism; that tolerates all who are prepared to reciprocate, i.e. who are tolerant; that is controlled by, and is accountable to, the public.

So just maybe Popper is already talking about a sui generis system, something akin to a Kuhnian paradigm.

I expect he would deny such a similarity and that he would argue that, just as two sciences can be assessed according to their verisimilitude, falsifiability and lack of falsification (a claim thoroughly debunked by Lakatos), so societies can be compared by their degree of openness and the governments' accountability to the people. But I think the questions of incommensurability come through here too.

(Leaving aside all Rousseau/Thoreau problems regarding the lack of freedom to opt-in or -out of a society) the question remains, how to explain cross-cultural tolerance. Specifically, is there any way to say who is the originator of the intolerance? Who started it? What to do when neither side tolerates the other? Isn't that just maintaining the status quo (not that that's necessarily a bad thing)?

For example, "Islamic values are sometimes quite different from Western values". When you say this sort of thing in Australia or America, most tolerant people interpret it as xenophobia, pure and simple. (Most of the time it is, but not always.) In Australia when the Howard govt introduced the Australian values test for citizenship it was widely ridiculed, because, among other things, knowing who The Don was is not really a good indication of the values one holds dear. When you ask an Australian about these things the answers are quite vague, words like "mateship" and "a fair go" pop up but interpretations of these words differ widely.

On the other hand, France recently denied citizenship to a Muslim woman for not being sufficiently integrated into French society. You see, she wasn't just Muslim, she and her husband are Wahabi. They're proud of the fact that they don't think men and women are equal. She has shown a "comportment in society incompatible with the essential values of the French community". While that statement would seem a bit vague in Australia (where such values are not enshrined in law; or even in America with its bill of rights), apparently it's quite clear to the French. When I asked Cindy she replied immediately, "Égalité is commandment number two. Obviously that means equality between the sexes. If you don't believe in that, then you don't believe in the French Republic."

So if we frame this as an intolerance of women acting in certain ways, the Islamic value is a type of intolerance. Then we are able to recast the refusal to allow these practices as an intolerance of that particular intolerance (rather than an intolerance of religious practices in general). But of course the Muslim will insist that this is a mischaracterisation, that it really is intolerance of her religion and thus she may reserve the right not to tolerate that. Where do we end up? This is not much like Popper's example of someone wanting to commit murder (although it may seem rather similar to his other example of reïntroducing slavery!). If we see both these values as central to a society (both the Frenchman and the Wahabi Muslim will tell you that they are central) then isn't each of them right sui generis?

I'd much prefer to believe that societies are not incommensurable and that there are some underlying values that all can agree on but this sort of thing makes me wonder.

Bogan Test

2008-07-05T09:24:00.000-04:00

Your result for The Bogan Test...

Paddington Poofter

You are 22% Bogan!

Ponsy Tall Poppy. Born with a silver spoon and probably silver non-spill mug as well. Could probably even make a latte. No time for you.

Take The Bogan Test at HelloQuizzy

Inequality in America

2008-06-27T18:28:00.003-04:00

I'm starting to understand why Americans are so pre-occupied with race. It's often said that race is to Americans what class is to the British. That's roughly true and becomes very obvious when they use the colour-words associated with races to denote class-based stereotypes.

But now I see that poverty really does show up along racial lines. Indiana is not a rich state but I just assumed it was the rural nature of Bloomington that meant that there were so few minorities in my uni classes (except the international students). I think the rest of the town is similar to the undergrads, mostly caucasian. Now I'm teaching in a summer program for disadvantaged high school students they're coming out of the woodwork! Of 40 students, I have 2-3 Hispanics and the rest are African-American (if we count the 2-3 mixed race kids, which all Americans would). Looking at the whole program (including students not in my classes) it's about the same.

I'm proud to be participating in a program that's going to help them but it's scary to see how racially homogeneous the poorest level of American society is. I live in an area where one race is a small minority but selecting for income and education makes them the overwhelming majority. Maybe there are other selection biases going on here but I'm sure that there's a strong correlation.

A large proportion of the staff for the program are also African-American. I was talking to a couple after a meeting last night and one mentioned that there was a caucasian girl finding it a little hard to fit in (I think there's only one caucasian in the whole program, if you don't count mixed-race kids). But the thing was that her idea of trying to learn about African-American culture was "eating fried chicken and listening to rap music." Of course these staff members were disgusted by the stereotyping, blaming it on the parents, but hopefully this will be a good chance for that student to get past the stereotypes.

Camden

2008-05-30T16:18:00.005-04:00

I'm surprised just how far new of redneckery in the Sydney basin spreads, it was even in the BBC news!

But I've noticed that for every 9 or 10 stupid things they say - "My kids don't speak Muslim," one local said - there's the occasional line where they make a good point -

I want Muslims in Australia to attend our schools so their children can grow up with our values and, more importantly, so that their mothers can meet Australian mums and see how they don't have to put up with the sort of treatment they sometimes endure.

So what's the solution? Oppose racism by siding with the imams to protect their god-given right to oppress their womenfolk? Or support people's liberties by siding with the rednecks who won't even give others a chance to assimilate?

My idea: a sign out the front of the local public school saying, "Muslims welcome here. No need to build your own school, enroll at ours."

Tibet

2008-04-17T16:40:00.004-04:00

Today at the main gates of campus there was a pro-China Olympic gathering of sorts. (I can't really describe it as a demonstration because they weren't against anything explicitly, just trying to distract attention from the anti-China protesters.) I doubt they'll get much joy here in Bloomington, which (for such a small town) has a sizable Tibetan community (enough for two Tibetan restaurants). It seems like almost every-second car has a "Free Tibet" bumper sticker; the others have "Support our troops".

I would have liked to stick around to watch but it was too small for anything interesting to happen, I think. Conversely, at Duke university a Chinese girl just trying to keep the peace has been labelled a traitor and her parents threatened. A shame.

I'm still watching keenly to see what exactly will happen as the torch goes through Canberra. After Sebastian Coe, the head of London's Olympic body, described them as thugs; apparently some runners weren't to happy about being jostled either.

But Big Kev assured us that the Chinese para-military will not guard the flame in Oz. What a loss of sovereignty that would be; it should be Australian police brutalising protestors! Then we heard from The Disgraced* Kevan Gosper that they will actually be there, confined to a bus, but that they might be called upon if the Australian security can't handle it themselves. Then the ACT Chief Minister explained that a couple of the Chinse guards might jog with the torch to be quick with the Zippo if it goes out. But -- and this is why I love Lateline -- Virginia Trioli was sharp enough to ask "If some protester did lunge at the torch, you couldn't possibly stop one of the Chinese guards from overstepping his mandate and coathangering the protester, could you?" And she also asked what they'll do if the Chaser turns up!

I guess it's fair that people don't take eggs or water bombs but not allowing soft-drink cans sounds like overkill.

Update
With the huge barricades being erected, one has to wonder what the point of it all is, if not to give the public access to the spectacle. When the torch for the Sydney Olympics went through Penrith I didn't bother going to see it; I'm not much one for sporting triumphalism. But I don't think they had any sort of barricade and I doubt the escorts would have been paramilitary. I remember thinking it a shame that the Olympic officials made a point of deactivating each runner's torch after their leg was over, so it could never be used again (wouldn't it be great to have an Olympic torch to light light the barbie?). That sort of control pales in comparison to what's going on now.

And now there's talk of plain-clothes Chinese operatives:

Australian Federal Police refused to confirm well-placed information that plain-clothes Chinese security officers would infiltrate the crowd, on the grounds the information was "operationally sensitive".

That's scary.

*That honourific was bestowed during the torch relay for the 2000 Olympics, I believe. As I understand it, he keeps it for life, like retired MPs with The Honourable.

Pete Seeger's banjo

2008-03-29T14:08:00.001-04:00

Pete Seeger's banjo
Originally uploaded by guano

It doesn't have quite the same ring to it as "This machine kills fascists". That's the problem with Pete Seeger, he's just too perfect!

I suppose I should approve more heartily of Seeger's banjo that Guthrie's guitar but there's something about having a shocking slogan that makes it far more appealing. And it's not as though a guitar can literally kill people.

Easter

2008-03-21T10:17:00.003-04:00

I want this t-shirt!

2008-03-21T10:13:00.000-04:00

Religious Dialogue

2008-03-20T10:57:00.000-04:00

The Perennial Relevance of Pete Seeger

2008-03-11T17:09:00.002-04:00

I was watching a doco on PBS on Pete Seeger last night. I was struck by how well his concerns map the important issues of the day - he started out primarily concerned with labour issues, then the Vietnam war, then the environment. (It disappoints me when people who care about workers' rights don't respect the environment etc.)

The most striking scene was a clip of Seeger chatting with Johnny Cash about how his appearance on the Johnny Cash show had attracted hate mail (because he had been a communist). Seeger stated quite baldly, "If I didn't love this country, I would have left a long time ago." If only more people would understand this simple argument there might be less ad hominem attacks between left and right.

This Vietnam allegory works just as well for Iraq:

In this one he's singing on the Smothers Brothers show. His appearance was prerecorded but that scene was cut from the broadcast version of the episode. But then there was such a big deal made by the hosts not wanting to be censored that it was eventually broadcast a few months later.

I also liked the way the doco ended with the other currently relevant number, "Bring 'em Home". Unfortunately YouTube doesn't have that clip so you can watch The Boss's cover instead:

I was wondering why this hasn't been resurrected by the anti-war movement then found that a cover is available on YouTube set to a Ron Paul fan vid. Sigh!

ING $25 Bonus Referrals

2008-03-03T13:06:00.007-05:00

If you live in the USA and are looking for a high-interest, no strings savings account, this is for you! ING Direct offers a $25 bonus to all referred customers who open an account with an initial deposit of $250 or more, so long as they leave it there for 30 days. That's 10% return in just 30 days! Their regular deal is good too, so you'll probably want to stick with them - it's 3.40% at the moment, which is quite good for America.

I have a few referral links for ING Direct Savings accounts to give away. I will receive $10 for each referral used and you receive $25! If you are interested in opening an ING Direct Savings account with an initial deposit of $250 or more, click on a link and make $25. Yes it really is just that easy!

This is literally free money for just a few minutes of your time. ING Direct is a great bank and is where I keep all of my savings. Their web-site and customer service are top-notch. I highly recommend them!
If you click on a link and it says:

We’re sorry, but the referral link within the email you received has expired and is no longer valid. We recommend that you contact the sender and ask them to re-send the referral email. Or click ‘Continue’ to proceed with the application process without the account opening bonus.

this means, the link has already been used. Please choose another link instead. If I run out of referrals I'll post links to my girlfriend's and you can use her bonuses.

Here are the ING Direct Referral Links, so get saving!

$25 for you and $10 for me:

~~ING Direct Savings Account $25 Referral~~

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ING Direct Savings Account $25 Referral

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$25 for you and $10 for Cindy:
to come

Their fine print:
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Of Creationists and Camels

2007-12-09T17:36:00.001-05:00

Conservative Nationalism

2007-12-01T10:56:00.000-05:00

Why is it that conservatism leads to certain pronouncements in areas like education that seem to conflict with their pronouncements on, say, nationalism? Lisa Prior makes a good point:

For some time conservatives in particular have railed against the practice of raising children to think they are brilliant, perfect geniuses regardless of their achievements. They have argued, rightly, that true self-esteem should come from hard work, striving and discipline rather than an innate sense of self-satisfaction.

Yet when it comes to nationalism, hollow self-satisfaction and undeserved self-esteem is precisely what has been championed by conservatives over the past decade. We have been told that Australia is the best country ever and anyone who doubts it is treated like a traitor. We have been told we should be proud of our history, never wear a black armband, never doubt the actions of our ancestors. Loving the country has meant focusing on triumphs and ignoring failings.

And what happened to Australia? Australia became a lazy, indulged, arrogant child. Rather than leading the world, we have devoted our energies to finding excuses to not even follow.

And how do we fix this? By taking the conservatives' advice on education and applying it to nationalism. Rather than dragging the chain on climate change and finding excuses not to join the rest of the world in mitigating its consequences, we should pour our energies into finding solutions and showing the world how it is done. Rather than protecting our fragile national ego, we should develop a sense of worth robust enough to accept criticism and strive towards improvement. Then the prospect of saying sorry to Aborigines will not seem so hard.

Perhaps we could even become the kind of country people come to when they want to do clever things, not the kind of country people leave when they want to do clever things, only to return once they are ready to settle down and need a backyard for the kids.

The corollary to that is that those migrants looking to Australia as a land of opportunity are better Australians than I.

Brendan Nelson

2007-11-29T15:46:00.000-05:00

Well, he's worse than Malcolm Turnbull but not nearly as bad as Tony Abbot would have been. (An opposition leader like him would have kept Rudd on the Centre-Right and stopped Gillard from bringing any balance back to Labor. I hope Abbot doesn't challenge just before the next election!)

What I don't understand is how Hewson was able to lure him to the dark side. He says it was interest rates but if he was so dead against the Libs why didn't he join the Dems or someone less evil?

Ah, the Schadenfreude!

2007-11-24T12:29:00.001-05:00

(photo by Adam Hollingworth, stolen from SMH)

(If you don't recognise her, that's Liberal candidate Karen Chijoff in the car.)

These photos were taken at Glenmore Park Public School, where I was handing out How-to-Votes last Federal election.

I can't wait for this week's Chaser!

Finally caught in the act

2007-11-23T10:19:00.000-05:00

So I'm sure everyone's heard by now about Jackie Kelly's hubbie, Gary Clark (who had been my sister's orthodontist, but won't be getting any more of my parents' money) was letterboxing fake pamphlets with the candidate's husband and right-faction powerbroker Jeff Egan.

The only interesting thing is that they got caught this time. Last Federal election Ed Husic was targeted with similar shit-sheets in the Bible-belt seat of Greenway. His Liberal opponent Louise Markus, a Hillsong member, went on to win that seat. Similarly, they dressed up as the Save the ADI Site party and handed out fake How-to-Votes. (This was widely known in my hometown of Penrith.)

But worse is Kackie's reaction.

Contrition is just not within her emotional range. Rumour has it that Tony Abbot told her to make the comparison to The Chaser. I'm still waiting for the punch-line!

One ABC journo asked her, "What's funny about that?" To which she replied that it was a reference to Robert McLelland's "gaffe". She's referring to the fact that McLelland said that Australia should encourage Asian countries to get rid of the death penalty, which is perfectly in line with Labor (and Liberal!) policy of opposing the death penalty. But apparently, for Rudd and Howard, that human right is only for Australian citizens.

It's also disturbing the way she keeps saying that it was a gang of "unionists" that caught her bubbie red-handed. I fail to see how that changes photographic evidence of their wrongdoing. Besides which, when did it become acceptable for people to go around hating? I remember that Latham caught a lot of flack for saying that he was raising his boys to hate the other side of politics. Why does Kackie think that "He hates the unions" somehow makes it right for Gary Clark to steal an election? To my mind it just makes him sound like a worse person, if this whole thing is fuelled by a hatred of these organisations that so often do good things for working people. Sure, some union leaders are corrupt. But so are some cops. Yet if I went out there saying that I hated all police and that I wanted them all run out of town, the interviewer would leap upon such a statement. I guess Howard has succeeded in maligning the unions to such an extent that they're now a perfectly legitimate target for hatred.

The best part is that The Chaser have actually offered her a job!

The worst is the realisation that, had they not been caught, it may well have worked, such is the xenophobia out in the Western Suburbs of Sydney.

Post-Election Update
Well, Kackie had the audacity to face the media again on election night.

The best she could do was admit to being "clumsy". "Pathological liar with Machiavellian intent" is more like it.

Conversely, Karen Chijoff has shown some outward signs of contrition. She's told the media that she's not talking to her husband at the moment. Whether that's because he did what he did, or simply because he got caught (or even if it's true), I don't know. But it's certainly better than Jackie's attempt to laugh it off.

Done My Duty

2007-11-17T14:41:00.000-05:00

I just postal voted.

I received the ballot papers yesterday and today my sole Australian friend came around so we could witness each other. Both being Australian, we weren't quite as forthright with our political opinions as two Americans would be, but we did discuss it a little and I was pleased to hear that I was helping her vote against Howard.

(Three years ago I probably would have enquired as to whether she was voting 1 for Labor in the Senate. Because that election I went around begging Labor voters to vote below the line (or vote 1 Greens) so that the prefs wouldn't flow to Fred Nile. This time around I was happy with any vote against Howard.)

Understanding the System

2007-11-12T22:51:00.000-05:00

This type of explanatory campaigning is what we need more of, especially in a country like Australia where voting is compulsory. When I used to hand out, my response to any question about preference was always to emphasise the fact that, ultimately, the voter has the final say.

These videos do a good job of explaining how politics works. I hope a lot of young people watch them.

Why are so many on the Religious Right gay?

2007-10-29T16:50:00.000-04:00

Did anyone else read this in the Herald? Seems a Family First candidate has been disendorsed because of his appearance on a gay porn site, in contradiction with their strongly anti-porn policy. I love his defence, that it wasn't his penis in the photo, that it must have been Photoshopped in.

I found the story particularly interesting because I kinda know that Andrew Quah. He edits on Wikipedia. His main thing is removing accusations of religiosity from Family First's page. In fact, he's probably the best one for such a job because he's not a member of the Assemblies of God. In fact, he considers himself an atheist, no less! (Raised Buddhist, he says, which he considers an atheistic religion. I don't think he practises anymore.) I always found this a little confusing but I suppose there's more than a few non-religious people who appropriate the "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" fallacy.

What I don't understand is how such a person can justify such anti-feminism without Ephesians. I'm glad such an insecure individual is not going to hold office. It's bad enough that our PM thinks gay men getting married will make him love his wife less, we don't need any more people like that in parliament.

Is Being a Wizard a Lifestyle Choice or is it Genetic?

2007-10-27T13:32:00.000-04:00

Last weekend I was at a party where some drunk guy started trying to tell us that Albus Dumbledore was gay. Turns out he wasn't full of shit after all. Rowling actually said it. In fact it explains his relationship with Grindlewald rather well.

But the interesting thing is that now people are re-reading it as a theme of the whole series, a school in Chicago has banned outright all Harry Potter costumes (not just Dumbledore, the straight characters too) this Halloween.

"It’s school policy that students cannot wear any sexually suggestive costumes during Halloween," said officials at Trinity Lake’s Elementary School in Oak Brook, IL.

"We don’t want students promoting any sexual agenda, gay or straight" said school principal Tom Mannino, "so we’re preempting any issues parents or students might have and banning all Harry Potter costumes outright."

In a letter home to parents, Principal Mannino explained that, "Even though Dumbledore shows no outward signs of being gay, it’s important that we don’t allow other people’s lifestyle choices to be imposed upon our children."

I just love the symmetry, I guess this means that they'll ban every character who has ever been married, so as not to force the heterosexual lifestyle choice on anyone either.

What is is about pontiffs and sex?

2007-10-27T13:13:00.000-04:00

That famous homophobe Tenzin Gyatso is in Bloomington, Indiana on his latest speaking tour. Tickets are going for $50 (although I have heard that IU students can buy this ticket to nirvana for as little as $15). That's a pretty cheap price for enlightenment but the Catholic World Youth Day is charging the same $50 price for their cheapest tickets, which includes meals (as part of a 4 tier 'from each according to their ability' scheme). I think Catholicism's better value, who'd have thought!

Anyway, I've seen quite a few Buddhist monks on campus in the last day or two, but not the llama himself.

Voting Overseas

2007-10-17T09:29:00.000-04:00

As soon as I arrived in the US and found a fixed residence I registered with the AEC as an overseas elector. (I had been very politically active right up to the time I left, so this was natural.) I remember filling out two different forms and, I swear, the second was to guarantee that I get ballot papers sent to me as soon as they're drawn up (making me a General Postal Voter). Yet when the last NSW election came around I waited and waited for the letter yet never received my ballot papers. (Don't anyone tell John Kaye that he didn't actually get my vote; he was so pleased when I told him I had registered to vote overseas. Besides, he got in without it.)

So this time I'm on top of things, I now realise that I need to ask them for ballot papers every election. But the problem is that I need another Australian to witness for me. The only Australian friend I had here is now living in Idaho. A few months ago I met an Australian professor in the French dept but when I emailed her the other day she replied that she'd moved back to Oz. An Australian friend in Pittsburgh said that he'd sign for me if I sent it to him but the witness is really supposed to watch you sign the paper. I didn't know what to do. (My worries were not helped by that same friend threatening to hold me personally responsible if the wrong party won through me not voting!)

Then last night, at the French table we attend every Tuesday, I met another Australian. I felt just like the Bunyip of Berkeley's Creek when he finally met another bunyip! So now it's all sorted out, we're going to sign each other's forms and we'll both be able to do our civic duty. (We were in complete agreement when we said that we wouldn't want Australia to have a voter turnout like the US -- 40-odd% -- and then a president elected on less than 50% of the vote because of the first past the post system. "20% of the country voted for him. Wow, what a mandate!")

Centrism

2007-08-16T10:51:00.000-04:00

This sums up my feelings pretty well:

Federalism

2007-07-31T23:08:00.000-04:00

So, John Howard has released a new YouTube video, this time to announce that he's intervening in Tasie, to keep open a hospital that would have been downgraded by the state govt. That's no biggie, an extra injection of funds from the Federal govt is surely welcome, so long as it's guaranteed long-term.

What worried me is his skiting about the NT intervention, saying that the territory govt wasn't pulling its weight. He's right that Australians aren't fussed about whether it's state or federal govt that provides a service - that goes for me too - what scares me shitless is that a federal government can force it's way into services that state govts are already running. A right-wing govt like his is bound to fuck up that system even worse than the state govt was doing and then try to privatise the thing for ideological reasons.

This is worse than the NSW govt dissolving the City of Sydney and gerrymandering it's boundries.

Stranger than fiction

2007-07-30T17:10:00.000-04:00

I just subscribed to a new blog, it's titled "Biologists Helping Bookstores: Reshelving pseudo-scientific nonsense since 2007". This guy goes around reshelving books that don't belong in the science section, particularly Behe's latest drivel.

Simple yet elegant. Don't try to censor their crazy beliefs, but call them what they are - applied religion, not science.

Stem Cells

2007-07-26T16:07:00.000-04:00

Doonesbury makes an interesting point here.

Nevertheless, this argument doesn't address the issue of therapeutic cloning, which recently became legal in NSW. Personally, it seems a little inappropriate to be calling it "cloning" when it's not really making an identical person, only part of one. Bob Carr summed it up quite well:

...within five years it will be possible with nuclear transfer medicine to take an egg from her ovary surrounded by its nurturing cumulus cells. The nucleus from one of these cells is transferred into the egg, its own nucleus removed. The stem cells developed are injected back into the sufferer's bloodstream.

That's therapeutic cloning. No sperm. No fertilised egg. Nothing returned to the womb. No human reproduction.

In some ways this seems more acceptable than using the surplus IVF embryos if you think that making a new person is worse than just making new parts of the same person. (Not that I'm saying that IVF zygotes are people, when they don't even have brains, let alone consciousness.)

Creation Museum

2007-07-19T10:45:00.000-04:00

A few days ago I took a drive to Kentucky with a few friends to see the Creation Museum. I must say I was a little disappointed. I mean, I was expecting Young Earth Creationism but what they presented was little more than general attacks on secuarism. I wasn't expecting anything as subtle as Intelligent Design but I have heard much better Young Earth Creationism than this (is "good Young Earth Creationism" an oxymoron?). They even did a timeline of secularism, condemning anyone whose Biblical interpretation didn't agree with Bishop Ussher's chronology. They even condemned Galileo for suggesting that the Bible needs to be re-interpreted in light of scientific discoveries. They failed to mention that it was the passages suggesting that the Earth stands still (esp. Josh. 10:12) that Galileo wanted to re-interpret, so that he could promote the Copernican system! I would have loved to ask the director what he meant by that panel, whether he would really have us believe in a geocentric universe just because Joshua commanded the sun to stop over Gibeon.

I amused myself by joking with one of my friends who happens to be a practising Jew (the rest of us were atheists). You see, this museum was none too subtle and didn't try to restrict itself to Genesis and talk about Creation myths and Flood Geology. They also ventured into the New Testament, which, to my recollection, has very little to say about dinosaurs. Yes, their tenants were the 7 Cs: Creation, Corruption, Castastrophe [the Flood], Confusion [Babel], Christ, Cross, Consummation. So I had good fun nudging my Jewish friend as she was grinding her teeth, reminding her that she's already half way there. (Of course she's not half way, she's no creationist.)

My biggest bitch was with their presentation of Archaeopteryx. They admitted that the fossil exists, denied that it was a true transitional form but gave no explanation whatsoever as to what else it could be. (Is it just another bird, or is it a reptile?) And that was typical of their approach to everything - sow the seeds of doubt without providing a better explanation, lest the people see who much weaker the Creationist excuses are.

Trust In Whom?

2007-05-29T15:07:00.001-04:00

Out driving today I saw a car with a few interesting bumper stickers. Not too original but around the number plate of this car was a little frame saying, "In case of rapture, this car will be unmanned."

Now, of course the number plate itself was one of those "In God We Trust" plates. That's right, here in Indiana separation of church and state means the Bureau of Motor Vehicles putting religious messages on vehicles. Of course not all plates are like that, that style is a personalised plate. Still, at first I couldn't work out why there were so many of them about if they are a special plate style. Then I was informed that this is the one type that costs no more than the standard plate. Now, as soon as they came out last year the ACLU challenged the constitutionality of the government subsidising religious messages. Of course this is appropriate, but I don't really understand how it can possibly succeed after the same phrase was declared kosher on currency. Apparently ceremonial deism is just fine, so long as there's no real religious exegesis. What's more, during the Cold War it was voted through congress as the official motto of the USA, so any campaing against this state law is useless while the federal motto stands.

Yet there is hope. Some vigilante groups are going around stamping out the phrase on bank notes. They claim that it's not illegal to do this so long as they're not purporting to change the face value of the currency. It reminds me of the introduction of the polymer banknotes in Australia, how people were erasing the Queen's face from the $5 note, until they changed the printing process to make the ink less soluble!

This phrase is so loaded that it has it's own Wikipedia page (which, surprisingly, doesn't have a PoV flag). Apparently, the campaign to put God on US currency started as far back as the Civil War. The most interesting point on that page is that Teddy Roosevelt opposed it for religious reasons, he didn't want the blasphemy of associating religion with filthy lucre. Sounds quite consistent with "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." (Mark 12:17)

What kind of name is "Mitt", anyway?

2007-05-21T14:24:00.000-04:00

I really should stop just posting videos from Comedy Central. But this one raises some very important questions.

Is it worse to be irrational about more things? That is, are Mormons less rational because they believe in a nineteenth century hoax as well as having the same uncritical beliefs that normal Christians hold about Jesus' and other prophets' miracles? Or is it a matter of, "in for a penny, in for a pound"? Even if it's not a matter of number of unjustified beliefs, could it be less rational to believe in more recent miracles simply because they are less obscured in the sands of time? Or could it be vice-verse - is it inherently less plausible to believe that Joseph Smith really used Seer Stones to read from Golden Tablets even though no body saw them than to believe that Jesus rose from the dead, even though it's now impossible to contact the people supposed to have witnessed it.

And then there's questions about the religious prerogative to discriminate. Most people outside America don't know enough about Mormons to know that they had a no-blacks rule until the 70s. I don't understand how they got away with that in that decade following the Civil Rights Act. It sound abhorent that they had institutionalised racism, but what about other religions? Orthodox and Conservative Jews only allow descendents of Aaron to become Kohanim and give the priestly (Vulcan) blessing. Maybe it's a matter of spin, but to me it seems just as bad to give some group a privelege because their ancestor (Aaron) did something good as it is to deny a group because their ancestor (Ham) did something bad. And what about gender equity, that's enshrined in the laws of most Western countries these days (eg US Equal Rights Amendment) yet the Catholic Church (and the Sydney Archiocesse of the Anglican Church) won't let women be priests! (Oh, and again with Judaism, women can never be Rabbis.)

I shouldn't feign surprise that these prejudices abound. What's truly surprising is that all these bigoted establishments are revered and exempted from the laws of the land. And in Australia they are even given money to help them indoctrinate children with those same prejudices.

The Church of Atheism

2007-05-04T17:57:00.000-04:00

Funny but true. This is why I've never joined an atheist society.

Turn Me On!

2007-04-28T18:11:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Steffan for the link!

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

2007-04-24T10:02:00.000-04:00

John Stewart explains to his American audience that, not only do other countries exist, there are also other presidential elections.

Sacre bleu!

And also this from Stephen Colbert

Oh, la la!

What Colbert doesn't understand (or maybe is simply ignoring) is the fact that the French Socialist party is actually centre-left. Their socialist party is part of Socialist International, to which even former Left parties like the ALP still belong. That's right, in France the word "socialiste" never really attracted the same stigma as it did in English-speaking countries. For something more radical you have to go to the French Communist party, which actually has a credible candidate who gets media air-time. Even more radical but still well-known are two Trotskyist parties, the Worker's Struggle and its more successful offshoot, the Revolutionary Communist League (4.08%). As a Fabian, all this revolutionary language does worry me a little. But I'm just glad to see that some countries still have a thriving left.

So Colbert's remarks are quite wide of the mark. In fact, Ségolène Royal is closer to Third Way politics, although I doubt she's as bad as Bill Clinton, Tony Blair or Kevin Rudd.

Update - 2007/5/7
Well, Nicolas Sarkozy won the second round. Here's what Étienne Colbert has to say about it:

Send 'er down, Hughie!

2007-04-19T15:32:00.000-04:00

And now Howard is slowly bringing religious language into Australian politics - 'We should all pray for rain,' he said.

Actually, that quote taken out of context looks rather idiomatic to me. Not necessarily more religious than "keep your fingers crossed" or the title of this post. Maybe I shouldn't be so quick to jump down his throat.

Yet Phillip Coorey at the SHM has taken him at his word, 'John Howard has urged everyone to pray for rain after warning that the millions of people along the Murray-Darling Basin will have only enough water for basic domestic use from the middle of the year.' I wonder whether or not he really meant it like that.

And I wonder why the SMH would assume that it was meant literally. Don't tell me that Australia is already losing its aversion to religious language in the public sphere. That's one of the defining features I tell Americans about Australia, that politics and religion are not for polite conversation, only amongst friends. (In Australia I was considered quite outspoken on my political opinions yet here I've had a friend tell me that I'm very reserved.)

As an aside, last time I gave that spiel to Americans there was a professor there who remarked that Oxbridge High Tables are much the same. Then he went on to say something like, 'You've got to get rid of Howard next time!' And then agreed with me when I said I thought Howard would retire soon. I'm yet to find out how an Italian, educated in the UK and living in the USA knows about Australian politics.

Atheism and the Problem of Evil

2007-04-19T15:15:00.000-04:00

Why is it in the US you can't be a conservative without also being a religious bigot?

For example:

Where Is Atheism When Bad Things Happen? by Dinesh D'Souza
Notice something interesting about the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings? Atheists are nowhere to be found. Every time there is a public gathering there is talk of God and divine mercy and spiritual healing. Even secular people like the poet Nikki Giovanni use language that is heavily drenched with religious symbolism and meaning.
The atheist writer Richard Dawkins has observed that according to the findings of modern science, the universe has all the properties of a system that is utterly devoid of meaning. The main characteristic of the universe is pitiless indifference. Dawkins further argues that we human beings are simply agglomerations of molecules, assembled into functional units over millennia of natural selection, and as for the soul--well, that's an illusion!
To no one's surprise, Dawkins has not been invited to speak to the grieving Virginia Tech community. What this tells me is that if it's difficult to know where God is when bad things happen, it is even more difficult for atheism to deal with the problem of evil. The reason is that in a purely materialist universe, immaterial things like good and evil and souls simply do not exist. For scientific atheists like Dawkins, Cho's shooting of all those people can be understood in this way--molecules acting upon molecules.
If this is the best that modern science has to offer us, I think we need something more than modern science.

What a fucking non-sequitur.

I mean, apart from the fact that it's not Dawkins' job to give his condolences to every man and his dog, I don't recall him ever saying that the universe is necessarily meaningless. Even if Dawkins did say that, most atheists are happy to admit that people's lives can have as much meaning as any individual cares to get out of it.

And surely the problem of evil is a no-brainer for atheists. The Christian has to explain that God gave us free will because that makes the world a (net) better place, and then has to fumble over why children are born with birth defects and other painful things unrelated to free will. Atheists have never asserted that there exists an all-powerfull, all-knowing, all-good being who could stop those things if he wanted. The atheist simply has to reply, "Some people enjoy doing bad things to others." There's probably an evolutionary explanation out there for most forms of anti-social behaviour (I'm sceptical of most of the explanations that have been offered so far) but with or without it, we should just try to stop it happening. Likewise natural disasters, accidents just happen. Somethings nobody can anticipate, it's sad but you just have to work through it.

There is no problem of evil if you're a atheist.

Doxastic Voluntarism

2007-04-10T15:34:00.000-04:00

Don't know how long this video will stay on YouTube but I'd love to see footage of this woman when somone tells her that her rant is online for all the world to see.

But seriously, why do you think it is that some people go around assuming that it's a choice to believe or disbelieve? And that the opposite choice is morally wrong, not just a matter of opinion. Isn't it more plausible to just assume that the evidence strikes different people in different ways? (Sure, you can run Pascal's Wager but most intellectually honest religious people would admit that that's doing violence to one's epistemic apparatus.)

Happy Eostre!

2007-04-07T13:32:00.000-04:00

I don't think I need to make an annual event of ranting about how Easter is based on a pagan spring festival. There's plenty of information to be found online. Suffice to say that this explanation is even more plausible when you're living in the northern hemisphere and all the supermarkets also sell toy duckies, chicks and all sorts of pastel coloured, spring themed cookies, M&Ms etc.

The Most Hated Family in America

2007-04-07T13:22:00.000-04:00

Did anyone see that episode of Michael Moore's The Awful Truth in which he followed around a preacher named Fred Phelps who spends his time picketing the funerals of gays, reminding them that "God hates fags"?

Well, now there's a BBC2 doco available online all about his daughter, the next generation of homophobe activist.

If I hadn't heard of them before, I would have thought it was a mockumentary. It's really quite unbelievable, they even go so far as to say that they hate the USA because it is so permissive towards gays. Wow.

Theology in the Blogosphere

2007-03-28T22:59:00.000-04:00

There's currently a debate on the existence of god(s) over at Craig's blog. (Thanks for the tip, Lara.)

The interesting thing is that everyone is using pseudonyms. Try to guess who I am. Go on, try!

The Chaser's Back!

2007-03-28T10:08:00.000-04:00

I'm currently downloading the new episode of The Chaser's War on Everything. (I feel very lucky that the ABC provides such good video podcasts for expats like me. Thanks, Aunty!)

It's such a shame it wasn't airing during the NSW election, but I understand that they did a few stunts that we'll finally get to see. Apparently they have become so well known that they were considered a major security threat during Cheney's visit:

"We have long been vying with al-Qaeda to get the number-one ranking on the security briefing," said Julian Morrow, executive producer and one of The Chaser team, when he learned of his security status. "If we finally knock them off the perch, it is about time."

I'm looking forward to the Federal election coverage. I still crack up when I remember last election when The Chaser Decides did a thing on The Greens, with the slogan "ease your middle-class guilt"!

Telling Lies for God

2007-03-25T23:43:00.000-04:00

Fred Nile is probably the most abhorrent figure in Australian politics today. I still haven't got over the 2004 Federal election when he described making the age-of-consent for homosexual sex equal with heterosexual sex as "good news for paedophiles"! (A Greens policy that the Labor government picked up and passed.) As nasty as that deception was, their policy was just maintaining the status quo, as it is when they want to restrict marriage to heterosexual couples and exempt religious schools from anti-discrimination laws. But this election they became worse than ultra-conservative, they became openly regressive, particularly Nile's suggestion of a moratorium on Muslim immigration in favour of taking in more Christians. I can't believe that he can say that with a straight face. This clearly puts him in the same league as One Nation yet the major parties won't distance themselves from him the way they agreed to preference Pauline last. Such is the nature of religion in Australia, although few Australians practice it with any sincerity, it still lends a gloss of respectability to xenophobia.

When I saw this video before the NSW election last weekend I just found it funny. But now it has more of a bitter taste because the Christian Democrats have increased their vote statewide and even out-polled the Greens in a few seats around where I used to live. It doesn't make any immediate difference because they won't take any lower-house seats and they're getting no new upper house seats. But it's indicative of a trend towards an American style fusion of religion and politics and that's terrifying.

One man, one vote

2007-03-19T16:42:00.000-04:00

My ballot papers still haven't arrived and the NSW election is this Saturday; I'm worried that I might not get a chance to vote!

It's a shame that I'm not in the right electorate to vote for my old friends Joel or Wade.

Addendum - 2007-3-25
I've just discovered why still I haven't received my ballot papers in the mail:

Please note that registration as an overseas elector does not mean that you will automatically be sent ballot papers. Electors will still have to vote either in person at an Australian Diplomatic Post which provides full consular services or by applying for a postal vote.

Oh, well! I'll just have to remember to apply for a postal ballot as soon as the federal election is called, later this year.

More hated than the gays

2007-02-20T17:28:00.000-05:00

This statistic has been out for a while, but I've only now found a nice graphic.

Although I like to hear about how much Americans hate me, I think we need to separate some of the prejudices operating here. The prejudices against blacks and hispanics are simple racism, they have nothing to do with things people can change. But politics is about electing the people whose beliefs you share. If the elector thinks that the candidate's religious beliefs would adversely affect their performance, then of course they shouldn't vote for them. I certainly wouldn't vote for Sheik Hilaly. Of course not all religious positions are full-blown theocracy but many forms of religion will affect the laws of the land in some way. I've never heard Tony Abbott give a secular reason for his opposition to abortion. (Then again, I've never heard a coherent religious argument either.)

If it were true that any atheist politician would try to stop religious people practising their beliefs (or if it were true that a god is necessary for ethics) then these statistics would be justified. What this graphic really shows is ignorance about atheism.

Jesus Camp

2007-01-29T09:54:00.000-05:00

Cameron mentioned this movie, Jesus Camp, in his comment. Haven't seen it yet but it looks very interesting. I was out of town when it came here but the uni library has ordered the DVD. (Assuming I don't just buy it.)

I like the comment at the beginning, "There's two kinds of people in the world: people who love Jesus and people who don't." It's just so true. I really like dichotomies so I'll have to add it to my list along with "You either love liquorice or you hate it." I just wonder whether she realises that Muslims also love Jesus (as a prophet, they just don't think he was the son of God).

Update - 30th January

There's another doco coming out on HBO soon, called "Friends of God". There's another clip from the doco available here featuring the Australian Creationist Ken Ham, one of the most famous Young Earth Creationists around today. (His creationist propaganda centre in Queensland shut up shop around the time of Sir Joh's fall from grace. Ham then headed to the greener pastures of Kentucky where he is currently building a Creation Museum. N.B. Unlike those other Young Earth Creationists, he doesn't call it "Creation Science", which is far more honest.)

Even better, another clip featuring Ted Haggard, claiming that Evangelical Christians have more sex than anyone else. He sounded like he was talking about men having sex with their wives but, as we now know, what he really meant was married men having sex with male prostitutes while snorting meth.

Doonesbury on Creationism

2007-01-22T23:46:00.000-05:00

A new one:

And an old one:

And while we're at it, another one by someone else:

This last one's a bit ironic because I'm currently employed reconstructing alchemy experiments!

Labels

2007-01-09T10:24:00.000-05:00

We do not have a term for a person who rejects astrology, nor do we need one. If legions of astrologers sought to bend our public policy to their pseudo-science, we wouldn’t need to dub ourselves “non-astrologers” to put them in their place. Words like “reason,” “evidence,” and “commonsense” would suffice. So it should be with religion.
Sam Harris

Once Lara asked me, in front of a room full of Christians, whether I was an atheist or an agnostic. I answered "atheist" because I was using Bertrand Russell's "for all intents and purposes" definition of atheism, which allows for philosophical agnosticism.

I still agree with Russell Hanson's objection to agnosticism as a non-position. So, if someone pushed me on the distinction, I'd want to argue that atheism can be used in a weak sense as a contrast to polytheism and monotheism, ie that I worship zero gods.

But, overall, I agree with Sam Harris. It's easier to just omit the labels altogether. I've never been one to write "atheist" under "other religion"; I'm much happier to just tick "none". (Although it's always tempting to write "Jedi"!)