A Birthday Thank-You to My Mother

Posted on by under Memorials and Obituaries

Today would have been my mother’s 96th birthday.  (She died at 91.)

The other day, while indulging in my usual frustration over how my college students are so often ignorant of so many things that I was familiar with well before high school, it occurred to me that a substantial portion of those things were material I learned not in school or even through my own reading, but from my mother – not in any didactic setting, but informally.  For example, I first learned about Versailles and Pompeii through my mother’s recollections of her own school projects on those topics; the mnemonic “SPA” (to recall the chronological order of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle) she likewise recalled from her school days.

Continue reading →

The Banality of Injustice

Posted on by under Uncategorized

In Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt famously described Eichmann as embodying “the banality of evil.” I think of contemporary American life as embodying the banality of injustice, as witness the video below. Warning: it’s eighteen minutes long, and absolutely devoid of dramatic interest. That’s precisely what makes it an instance of the banality of injustice.

Continue reading →

Cancelling China (2)

Posted on by under cancel culture, moralism

In part 1 of this mini-series, I mentioned David Potts’s comments on China from an earlier post, promising to respond more directly to them. DP’s comments on China fall into three parts: a condemnation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on grounds of its systematic disrespect for human rights; an accusation of hypocrisy against activists for their relative indifference to China’s human rights record; and a skeptical shrug of the shoulders about collective action against China.

I put my summary response to his argument this way in part 1:

Either his remarks are meant to rebut my claims or not. If they are, I don’t see how they do; if they’re not I don’t see why they’re there.

I’m going to focus here on the first of these conditionals, assuming that his remarks were intended to rebut my claims, and arguing that they don’t. Continue reading →

Mearsheimer on Ukraine

Posted on by under Uncategorized

Though I realize that this lecture is currently in vogue among people on the extreme Right of American politics, I highly recommend it anyway. I’ve previously cited Mearsheimer and Walt’s work on Israel, and Mearsheimer’s now-famous lecture on Ukraine has the same clear-eyed quality about it. It is not a defense of Putin, and not to be construed as apologetics for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But it puts things in context far, far better than anyone is doing in the mainstream media. The title is a little misleading, and probably best interpreted as asking, “What is the explanation for the part of the Ukraine crisis that is not Russia’s fault?” The lecture was given in 2015, hence doesn’t directly address the 2022 invasion. But if you listen carefully, you’ll hear Mearsheimer predict and explain the invasion in the same breath. (Here is the print version of Mearsheimer’s lecture in PDF.)  

Continue reading →

The Psychopath Disarmed: Trump, 2021-2022

Posted on by under Uncategorized

Now that Ukraine is under Russian attack, it’s worth mulling over the immortal reaction of our former President to an act of naked military aggression:

BUCK: Mr. President, in the last 24 hours we know Russia has said that they are recognizing two breakaway regions of Ukraine, and now this White House is stating that this is an “invasion.” That’s a strong word. What went wrong here? What has the current occupant of the Oval Office done that he could have done differently?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, what went wrong was a rigged election and what went wrong is a candidate that shouldn’t be there and a man that has no concept of what he’s doing. I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, “This is genius.” Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine. Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful.

So, Putin is now saying, “It’s independent,” a large section of Ukraine. I said, “How smart is that?” And he’s gonna go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s strongest peace force… We could use that on our southern border. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re gonna keep peace all right. No, but think of it. Here’s a guy who’s very savvy… I know him very well. Very, very well.

By the way, this never would have happened with us. Had I been in office, not even thinkable. This would never have happened. But here’s a guy that says, you know, “I’m gonna declare a big portion of Ukraine independent,” he used the word “independent,” “and we’re gonna go out and we’re gonna go in and we’re gonna help keep peace.” You gotta say that’s pretty savvy. And you know what the response was from Biden? There was no response. They didn’t have one for that. No, it’s very sad. Very sad.

BUCK: Do you think the southern border is just gonna continue to deteriorate?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yeah.

Continue reading →

MERELY NON-IDEAL VS. OBJECTIONABLE RESPONSES TO SOCIAL INJUSTICE

Posted on by under cancel culture, moralism

Suppose I’m a judge in state (government) S1 and, in the judicial system of this state, due to cultural and institutional factors that do not prominently include explicit bigotry or anything like this, those in the non-dominant ethnic groups are twice as likely to get a death sentence than are those in the dominant ethnic group. If I’m in this position, it seems morally objectionable for me not to speak out and do something (or this or that specific thing) about the situation or my connection to it. It is not just that speaking out and doing something (or some particular thing like organizing for change or quitting) is morally best, morally ideal, apt for moral praise (as supererogatory acts are).

Continue reading →

The End of History (for Physics)?

Posted on by under Uncategorized

In a trio of blog posts from 2010 (see here, here, and here), Sean Carroll defends the striking claim that, as far as concerns the basic physical principles that underlie the phenomena of everyday life, physics has been completed.

[T]here’s no question that the human goal of figuring out the basic rules by which the easily observable world works was one that was achieved once and for all in the twentieth century.

That’s right: “once and for all.” If asked for the basic, underlying story about why a table is solid or why the sun shines or what happens when a person flexes a muscle, modern science gives its answers in terms of “the particles of the Standard Model, interacting through electromagnetism, gravity, and the nuclear forces, according to the principles of quantum mechanics and general relativity.” One hundred years ago, explanations by this story (i.e., body of theory) could not be given, because this story did not exist. “But—here’s the important part—one thousand years from now, you will hear precisely that same story.”

I think Carroll is right, and I think the philosophy of structural realism can help to illuminate why. The purpose of what follows is to explain these points.

Continue reading →

Policy of Truth on Facebook

Posted on by under Uncategorized

In a belated attempt to join the twenty-first century, I’ve created a Policy of Truth Facebook page. This will allow me to promote PoT on Facebook, presumably winning it a wider audience, and potentially sparing my Facebook friends my constant harping on philosophical and political topics that alienate and bore them, when what they’re really interested in is gossip, chit-chat, and the latest photos of me being attacked by my housemate’s rooster. The resulting division of labor will doubtless intensify the alienation and boredom of PoT readers, while carving out a dedicated, private space for consumers of rooster-attack porn.

Here’s the link:

https://www.facebook.com/Policy-of-Truth-100848625870706

User name: @PolTrue.

Cancelling China (1)

Posted on by under cancel culture

In his post critiquing my original post on cancellation, David Potts has a long passage about the politics of our dealings with the People’s Republic of China (the PRC). Instead of quoting it at length right now, I mention it as preface to what I want to say about China in this post; I’ll respond directly to DP’s comments in part 2 of this post. For now, suffice it say that one of the things I find puzzling is how DP’s discussion of China relates to, or rebuts, anything I’ve said in defense of cancellation. Either his remarks are meant to rebut my claims or not. If they are, I don’t see how they do; if they’re not, I don’t see why they’re there. But let me save the development of that thought for part 2. For now, I want to say something more directly about the idea of cancelling the PRC. The tl;dr here is: I’m all in. The PRC is on my list of countries that badly need to be cancelled. Continue reading →