tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40269204111145759232024-03-08T08:09:05.622-08:00Achilles ShruggedBenquohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018942513297966320noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4026920411114575923.post-89925600645717362492007-10-11T13:09:00.000-07:002007-10-11T13:11:01.767-07:00Comment of the DayFrom <a href="http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2007/10/my-secret-fear.html">this Marginal Revolution post</a>:<br /><br /><p></p><blockquote><p>Your mechanics has a poster of a half dress woman in the wall.His vocabulary only reach 100 words, and cant use 3/4 of them in front of a woman.Still he knows how to make your car ignite on again.And you ,a phd , if your car stop ,will have to call the dropout you dispice because you dont even know wher the breake release is located.His knowledege is wider than yours, more useful but of low status.So you begin to think iq dont measure what Williamson refered as idiosincratic knowledege ,it cant no be expressed in words still is knowledge.Of course an aristocrat that never worked in his life, Wittestein,know nothing about it. </p> <p class="posted">Posted by: <a rel="nofollow" href="mailto:elmazodelajusticia@hotmail.com">jean</a> at Oct 11, 2007 10:43:54 AM</p></blockquote><p class="posted"></p><br />That's just awesome.Benquohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018942513297966320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4026920411114575923.post-71115705336348035402007-08-17T07:49:00.001-07:002007-08-17T08:15:24.017-07:00The Hungry ArgumentI'm more than half way through <span style="font-style: italic;">The Hungry Soul</span>, by Leon Kass, <span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">M.D.</span></span> (and he's not going to let us forget it). The basic argument is the same kind of sloppy pseudo-Aristotelian nonsense we see in the more honestly irrational religious/conservative public intellectuals (e.g. the Intelligent Design crowd, the Don't Tinker with the Successful Institution of Marriage crowd, etc.)<br /><br />Kass promises in his Introduction that his conclusions about morality and the good will be drawn from universal human conventions -- conventions like the abhorrence of cannibalism. Yet in Chapter 3, Host and Cannibal, we discover than many major civilizations engage in cannibalism. Kass, of course, informs us that this is degrading and inhuman, but doesn't seem to notice that the widespread practice of cannibalism is a major piece of evidence against his thesis. He regards it as an illustrative example, when in fact it has to be explained away very convincingly if the idea that an abhorrence of cannibalism is essentially human.<br /><br />Similarly, we learn in Chapter 4 that the <span style="font-style: italic;">natural </span>direction of progress in table manners is toward more decorum, because in Europe, there was a change from eating with one's hands to eating with utensils. We learn later that China and Japan (which acquired these customs under a Classical and Feudal system, respectively, and were certainly more primitive than Europe in <span style="font-style: italic;">some </span>respects until recently -- e.g. industrialization, etc.) are "farther along" because, like Chimpanzees, they eat with sticks instead of sophisticated metal tools. (Kass, of course, does not mention the Chimpanzees.) When eating practices move in the other direction, this is not evidence against Kass's thesis -- instead, it is a sign of cultural decadence, when people can eat ice cream shamelessly in public.<br /><br />Nor are the howlers restricted to things Kass <span style="font-style: italic;">really, really wants </span>to be true. In Chapter 1, we learn that to an animal, food is material and only material, and its form or kind is <span style="font-style: italic;">ignored</span>. We also learn that a rabbit recognizes the form of the carrot (because it seeks <span style="font-style: italic;">any</span> carrot, and therefore seeks a kind). Later, Kass brings up Rousseau's observation that animals are often incapable of seeing beyond the form of food to the nourishing underlying material -- a cat may starve in the presence of fruit, or a pigeon in the presence of meat.<br /><br />In Chapter Three, we learn that cannibalism is natural for many animals (the example of certain tadpoles is given), but also that cannibalism is an uniquely human sin, by which we can be worse than the animals.<br /><br />His argument for the existence of forms is pretty good anyway, though.Benquohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018942513297966320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4026920411114575923.post-47524594690894086782007-02-22T13:48:00.000-08:002007-03-05T21:41:24.156-08:00Hobbesians for Liberty<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Anyone who seriously believes in liberty should confront the powerful argument against it in Hobbes' <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Leviathan</span>. The essential argument is correct, but radically incomplete.<br /><br />Essentially, Hobbes argues that prior to (i.e., without) government, there can be not property, and no definite rights. Anyone has the power to kill or steal from anyone else (since our vigilance is finite -- anyone can be killed while sleeping), so no rational person would ever accumulate wealth or plan for the future. There would be nearly zero value to anything not immediately consumed. To avoid this "nasty, brutish, and short" life, people agree to cede authority to a single sovereign, commanding absolute obedience, and forfeit their "rights" over one another. A single recognized power is then able to enforce contracts and protect members of the commonwealth from predators, thieves and murderers. Arbitration by a third party avoids the partiality inherent in a situation where each person is the judge in his own case. This allows property rights to have a practical and nearly objective meaning, rather than being vulnerable to the subjective whim of whichever party decides to enlarge his property at the expense of another.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Since the state of nature -- the war of all against all prior to government -- is so bad because of the impossibility of property, no one is justified in disobeying the sovereign unless his own life is directly threatened.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Unfortunately (as Locke points out in far too many words), the Hobbesian Sovereign is the judge in his own case. Insofar as he threatens the properties and liberties of his subjects, he reduces the extent to which Sovereignty is an improvement over the state of nature. This constitutes the argument, on Hobbesian grounds, for liberty. Liberty is the <em>maximal</em> fulfillment of sovereignty, while absolute tyranny is the <em>minimal</em> fulfillment thereof.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Unfortunately, there are many Libertarian or Liberty-sympathetic thinkers who have not thought this through, and assume unreflectively that markets and property can best occuir without any government interference. Anarcho-libertarianism ignores the fact that government is instituted and maintained logically prior to the possibility of a market.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Markets presuppose property.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Property presupposes enforcement of property rights.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Enforcement presupposes government.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">America's recent misadventure in Iraq also stems from a failure to apprehend liberty's true basis in a strong civil order. "Freedom" in the sense that we want to propagate it is not a positive institution to be enforced directly, but neither is it merely the spontaneous result of a lack of a strong government. Rather, it is the <em>artificially</em> level environment that results from a strong government <em>declining</em> to intrude into its citizens' lives, and repelling other governments. Anarchy -- at least as it has been practiced -- is merely a fertile ground for the seeds of <em>new rules</em> to be sown.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Remember, though, as Hume said about morality: though property rights and freedom of expression are artificial, this does not mean they are arbitrary. Rather, they are best political arrangement possible, as dictated by human nature. They have to be invented, but so did the internal combustion engine. That doesn't mean a horse is a better means of transportation.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">On the Left, the confusion of corporations with governments because of their like possession of power, fails to distinguish what sort of power that is. Tyler Cowen made a similar argument once. If Classical Liberals cannot think straight about government, then we cannot coherently argue the case for liberty.</span>Benquohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018942513297966320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4026920411114575923.post-86323129542472388522007-02-04T10:24:00.000-08:002007-02-04T10:33:08.502-08:00First Strike<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">He made his first strike.</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Second, too. He missed his third</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">strike, and hit the ball.</span>Benquohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018942513297966320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4026920411114575923.post-49500936405705663242007-02-04T10:22:00.000-08:002007-02-04T10:23:22.986-08:00To My Oldest Friend<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Two journeyed in a lifeless desert land</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Remembering their safer greener past</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">From which they’d glimpsed bright lights across the sand.</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">They went to find these lights; each willed it so —</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">True friends share compasses – but they diverged,</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Each thinking his the truest way to go.</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">But many times their choice-twinned paths recrossed</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">And each shared what he’d learnt since they’d met last.</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Both still saw lights, and neither one was lost.</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">There were no farewell words, nor any greetings</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">(Companionship was present but submerged –</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Their aim was shared between their place-shared meetings)</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">For good things never have a pleasant end.</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">And each is proud to call the other “friend.” </span>Benquohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018942513297966320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4026920411114575923.post-70051017044555802672007-02-04T10:20:00.000-08:002007-02-04T10:32:40.783-08:00There In No Heaven While You Live On Earth<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">A poem from a little while back, which I had posted on my old blog, is here for my own archival purposes.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">This villanelle won 1st place in the Grade 11-12 Poetry category of the </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://www.friendsoffergusonlibrary.org/lit_comp_winners2004b.htm"> Stamford Literary Competition. </a><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">All else, despair! Her smile exceeds your worth.</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">What other source of pleasure shall I seek?</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">There is no Heaven while you live on Earth.</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">All men desire their happiness from birth.</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">All learn of love, and most, for love, shall seek.</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">All else, despair! Her smile exceeds your worth.</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">See, eyes; hear, ears. Her face: her joy bring forth!</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Can I call up the curving of your cheek?</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">There is no Heaven while you live on Earth.</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">But even if her grin is common mirth,</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">And that reserved for me is not unique,</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">All else, despair! Her smile exceeds your worth.</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">If all your sweet light steps cross Gaea’s girth</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">To help another scale Olympus’ peak,</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">There is no Heaven while you live on Earth.</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I value you in plenty and in dearth.</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">And when I, moonlike, at her joy can peek,</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">All else, despair! Her smile exceeds your worth.</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">There is no Heaven while you live on Earth.</span>Benquohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018942513297966320noreply@blogger.com0