Once You See It

Posted on Saturday 6 July 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • How issues in politics 100 years ago resemble those of today;
  • How Republicans and Democrats live in radically different universes;
  • What the “genius” of the American Founders were thinking;
  • Zbigniew Preisner’s film score for Damage

Once you see it, or someone points it out to you, you see it everywhere. (This is called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon or more colloquially the frequency illusion, a cognitive bias, a variety of confirmation bias.)

Still, that doesn’t mean a sudden awareness of how everything fits together *isn’t true*. Right? Great scientific breakthroughs have occurred this way.

Two items from today’s NYT.

For all that progressives like to think that we progress, have progressed over the centuries and decades, maybe we don’t, except in isolated pockets that shrivel up and dry over time. A hundred years ago, the issues in current American politics were similar to those of today.

NY Times, Dan Barry, 5 Jul 2024: Divided and Undecided, 2024’s America Rhymes With 1924’s, subtitled “Hearing echoes of Independence Day a century ago, when Americans were clashing over race, religion, immigration and presidential candidates.” (shared link)

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The Supposed God-Shaped Hole, and Others

Posted on Friday 5 July 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Via Jerry Coyne, a long piece at Quillette by Matt Johnson: Liberalism and the West’s ‘Crisis of Meaning’, subtitled “Many liberals are strangely eager to concede that liberal societies are morally and spiritually bankrupt without religion to give life meaning.”

This is an enduring topic, triggered here by a recent David Brooks column in NYT (which I discussed here).

No time to read it just now. But a couple quick comments: some who address this topic think that Christianity is the only thing that can fill this “god-shaped hole” as Coyne puts it; but that’s probably because we here in the West don’t see similar arguments that only Buddhism, to take a random example, can provide the meaning of life (by people who are just as sincere as the Christians are). Second, this worry strikes me as a simple failure of imagination, and a lack of knowledge about the world outside their own tribe. Third, which is to say, this isn’t about religion, or theology, or which of the many of those is correct; it’s basically an issue of psychology and human nature.

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On This July 4th

Posted on Thursday 4 July 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

It’s worth paying attention from time to time what conservatives really want, and more importantly, their rationales.

NY Times, Ruth Graham, 4 Jul 2024: Why a New Conservative Brain Trust Is Resettling Across America, subtitled “Pro-Trump professionals aren’t just talking about remaking Western civilization. Some are uprooting their lives to show that they mean it.”

I’ve addressed this subject — what the “intellectuals” at the Claremont Institute think, and if they have any motivation beyond the dominance of their own particular religion — several months ago, here. Damon Linker, author of that piece, characterized them as “Claremont Catastrophists,” who predicted the end of the world unless they manage to prevail.

This piece seems similar, as it concerns how some of “Claremont’s key figures have been leaving California to find ideologically friendlier climes.” Why?

“A lot of us share a sense that Christendom is unraveling,” said Skyler Kressin, 38, who is friendly with the Claremont leaders and shares many of their concerns. He left Southern California to move to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, in 2020. “We need to be engaged, we need to be building.”

OK, says I, so what? Continue reading →

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Fear of Fiction

Posted on Wednesday 3 July 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

What is fiction, and why are most people attracted to it? This isn’t just about reading books or short stories; what also is the attraction of movies and TV shows that are all about imaginary people facing imaginary problems? Why do people bother? The general consensus, these days, among psychologists and sociologists, is that stories (like play among children) are ways of vicariously rehearsing the challenges one might face in one’s own life. We like to see how others would deal with problem we might have. And it’s related for similar reason to gossip among neighbors, which actually serves a useful function, both to understand others’ problems, and to pass along values of honesty, trust, and shame, as appropriate; a way of demonizing ‘cheaters’ in the unwritten social contract of small groups.

NY Times, essay by Lyta Gold, 1 July 2024: Book Bans Are on the Rise. But Fear of Fiction Is Nothing New., subtitled “Nearly 2,400 years ago, Plato worried that stories could corrupt susceptible minds. Moral panics over fiction have been common ever since.”

Excerpted from a forthcoming book (from a small press publisher, that does some genre books).

I’ll quote the opening para’s:

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It Can Happen Here

Posted on Tuesday 2 July 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

I’m not the first to make this observation. Trump’s rise echoes a famous 1935 novel called (ironically) It Can’t Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis. Wikipedia:

The novel describes the rise of Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, a demagogue who is elected President of the United States, after fomenting fear and promising drastic economic and social reforms while promoting a return to patriotism and “traditional” values. After his election, Windrip takes complete control of the government via self-coup and imposes totalitarian rule with the help of a ruthless paramilitary force, in the manner of European fascists such as Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

Americans brag about their system of checks and balances in our government, but look how quickly some of those balances are being chipped away. Note how in this book’s description, and in authoritarians who have come to power in the last decade or two, how they appeal to “traditional” values.

NY Times, 1 Jul 2024: Trump Amplifies Calls to Jail Top Elected Officials, Invokes Military Tribunals, subtitled “A post that Mr. Trump circulated on Sunday called for Liz Cheney to be prosecuted by a military court reserved for enemy combatants and war criminals.” [shared link]

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More About Regression Toward the Mean

Posted on Monday 1 July 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Thought for the day. On the other hand, rather than thinking we must be living in the worst of times (see last Wednesday’s post), perhaps we are merely experience regression toward the mean. I’ve mentioned this notion several times. The idea is that democracy, and science, are exceptional in world history. While progressives like to think humanity is on an upwards path toward a better, more egalitarian, future, a future better-informed about the nature of reality and overcoming tribal instincts of nationalism and religion that actively deny that reality (in science fiction, that was portrayed by the original Star Trek), perhaps that is not realistic. Perhaps that future will never be attained, except only temporarily, before returning to than mean, based ultimately on human nature, established over millions of years, and which cannot easily be swayed.

On the other hand, humanity *has* advanced, overall, in recent centuries. Our politics and our understanding of the world, and thus our ability to control it, are far better here in the 21st century than they were, say, 500 years ago. We no longer accede to the divine right of kings; we no longer believe in demons and spirits to explain the natural world.

Well, some of us don’t. Others still do. There is no consensus among the entire world, or national, population. Case in point.

The big news today Continue reading →

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The Debate, and the Continuing Christian Insurgence

Posted on Sunday 30 June 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

  • Comments about the debate between Biden and Trump three days ago, on Thursday;
  • Items about Christian Insurgence in Oklahoma schools, and David Barton;
  • And how humans are wired to believe anything their parents or culture tells them to believe, up to a point, when the native intelligence of our species sets in, and young humans begin to question everything.

I cringed at the debate the other night, between Biden and Trump, and thought it was a disaster for Biden. I covered my eyes at times; I could barely watch. At the same time, as many have pointed out, Biden looked like a feeble old man, but at least he discussed policies and accomplishments, whereas Trump lied in virtually everything he said, as if he’s lived in some alternate world in which global leaders respected *him* until January 6th (!) before Biden took over and ruined everything. Some people, especially those who do not follow the news outside of partisan sources, will believe anything, anything he says. And CNN did not fact-check-challenge him. Do you want an old man who’s good some days and not others, but who has the right values and tells the truth, or a slick con-man who can play his audience to accept a constant stream of lies? A couple major news sources have called for Biden to step down; at least one, based on his lies, has called for Trump to step down. How did we get to this place?

But I’m not inclined to pursue this any farther.

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Hectic Week

Posted on Saturday 29 June 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

In my retirement I’m getting very accustomed to routine days with no urgent tasks awaiting me. I read the paper, I do a chore or two for Locus Online or sfadb.com, have lunch and take a nap, then read a book for two or three hours in the afternoon, and finally write a blog post, sometimes a book write-up but often simply commentary about what I saw in the paper or online during the day. Then dinner, and TV (Jeopardy, then whatever), until 9 or 9.30pm. Early to bed, early to rise (typically awake by 6 or 6:30am).

This past week has seen one interruption to that routine almost every day. So I’m behind on blog posts, writing up Pinker, and reading anything at all.

Last Saturday was the Locus Awards, which I’ve already discussed.

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You Are Here

Posted on Thursday 27 June 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

If you know how to look, you can see amazing things, far vaster and more impressive than anything imagined by our ancient ancestors. But you have to know how, and be willing to.

This is an image from an article in the magazine New Scientist, which I don’t subscribe to and so can only read the opening of; discovered via Google News.

New Scientist, 26 Jun 2024: This mind-blowing map shows Earth’s position within the vast universe, subtitled “See the circle of galaxy clusters and voids that surround us in this map of the nearby cosmos, extending 200 million light years in each direction”

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Are We Living in the Worst of Times?

Posted on Wednesday 26 June 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Or is it only human nature to think so?

  • A Scientific American piece about the denial of reality. Maybe the evidence suggests we *are* living in the worst of times.
  • Short pieces about MAGA infighting and accusations, economists warning about Trump’s policies, FRC about their privilege, casual Republican threats of violence, unintended consequences of the Texas abortion ban, and a GOP candidate (who lost yesterday) apparently living in the 14th century.

Scientific American, Marianne Cooper & Maxim Voronov, 18 Jun 2024: We’ve Hit Peak Denial. Here’s Why We Can’t Turn Away From Reality, subtitled “We are living through a terrible time in humanity. Here’s why we tend to stick our heads in the sand and why we need to pull them out, fast”

Well… I’m beginning to think that Continue reading →

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