Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Cancel culture redux: think tank fires VP for funny tweet that offended Repugs

Story here.  I thought that was a pretty good joke, actually, and Mr. Wilkinson should not have apologized.  But for God's sake, everyone on Twitter posts jokes that fail or tweets something off the cuff they later regret.  Shame on the Niskanen Center.

(Longtime readers may recall Mr. Wilkinson from when he was more of a "free market" utopian:  see, e.g., here or here.)

UPDATE:  This is amusing.  Hypocrisy, thy name is Jerry Taylor!

ANOTHER:  Philosopher Jerry Dworkin (UC Davis) writes:  "I also was involved years ago with a critical correspondence with him [Wilkinson] about libertarian issues.  I was pleasantly surprised by his definite shift to more reasonable views at Nikansen. This latest firing is abysmal. That Taylor tweet is hilarious in light of his actions."

The East Timor genocide

Indonesia was the immediate perpetrator, the U.S. was one of many international supporters.  45 years ago.   Worth remembering.

UPDATE:  Dr. Roger Albin (Michigan) writes:  "An excellent complement to the link you posted on the East Timor genocide is Geoffrey Robinson’s The Killing Season, a first-rate monograph on the slaughter that brought the Suharto regime to power.  It contains abundant documentation of American complicity in the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Indonesians."

How the Wokerati talk: a guide

This was a rare gem from one of the old metablogs; it's a shame the author can't be given credit for their guide to the special (mis)use of language by the "woke":

The vocab is hard to keep up with. Should we start a running glossary?

"Problematic": adj. (of arguments) false; (of pratices) must be banned; (of utterances) must be retracted and apologised for; (of tweets) must be deleted;

"Free speech": n. a problematic concept [see above]

"Censorship": n. the alleged suppression of problematic ideas, a largely mythical practice. [compare "silence"]

"Silence": v. (1) to ignore, not talk about. (2) to disagree with (3) to discuss a marginalized individual [see below] in terms they would prefer not to be discussed

"erase": v. synonym for silence

"identity": n. an (esp. marginalised) individual's conception of themself. NB all other definitions, such as those which have been explored by philosophers over the past two millennia, are problematic [see above]

MLK's philosophy of "Personalism"

Interesting essay by philosopher Aaron Preston (Valparaiso), about an aspect of King's thought I was not familiar with.

Another perspective on the open letter on academic freedom opposing the anti-Stock letter

Philosopher Teresa Marques (Barcelona) writes with an interesting observation:

The importance of this letter is not the in-fighting among factions in philosophy, but the broader conflict of rights at issue, and threats to academic freedom in universities around the world across a range of academic areas. The letter has been signed by more than 450 people, from clinicians and psychologists to sociologists, chemists, historians, surgeons, journalists, school teachers, etc., and by people based in more than 30 countries. Had it been open to signatories a bit longer it would have reached more people in Latin America, the south of Europe (although there were already 10 people based in Spain who signed it), and Eastern Europe. I've been contacted by many people who wanted to sign it and were surprised to see it closed.

Trump, social media, the future of democracy

A good piece of writing by journalist Ross Barkan; an excerpt:

Many on the left cheered Trump’s banishment from social media and the quick move by Amazon to dump Parler, the right-wing Twitter-like app, from its cloud computing services. Greg Bensinger, a member of the New York Times editorial board, praised the decisions from Facebook and Twitter, calling for “more direct, human moderation of high-profile accounts; more prominent warning labels; software that can delay posts so that they can be reviewed before going out to the masses, especially during moments of high tension; and a far greater willingness to suspend or even completely block dangerous accounts like Mr. Trump’s.”

This was general consensus. The problem wasn’t that the ban had come—it was that it had come so late. Trump, of course, had four years to incite violence and hatred from his Twitter account. Imagine what would have happened if the tech elites in Silicon Valley decided to neuter him back in 2017. Imagine the weakness of that presidency....

The U.S. Capitol police has a history of racial and other problems

This is pretty pathetic.

U.S. military leaders make clear where they stand

A bulwark, for now, against much worse.

An interesting essay on Trump, fascism, "big lies," and the future

A good piece of writing by historian Timothy Snyder (Yale), that many of you may have already seen, but if not, it's worth reading, even though it overemphasizes the racist aspects of all this (as real as it is, racism is largely epiphenomenal [type-epiphenomenal, for my philosophy readers!]).   An excerpt from later in the essay:

Trump’s coup attempt of 2020-21, like other failed coup attempts, is a warning for those who care about the rule of law and a lesson for those who do not. His pre-fascism revealed a possibility for American politics. For a coup to work in 2024, the breakers [Repugs like Josh Hawley, who would be glad to undermine the whole democratic system] will require something that Trump never quite had: an angry minority, organized for nationwide violence, ready to add intimidation to an election. Four years of amplifying a big lie just might get them this. To claim that the other side stole an election is to promise to steal one yourself. It is also to claim that the other side deserves to be punished.

Informed observers inside and outside government agree that right-wing white supremacism is the greatest terrorist threat to the United States. Gun sales in 2020 hit an astonishing high. History shows that political violence follows when prominent leaders of major political parties openly embrace paranoia.

 

God bless Denmark

A new Danish children's show about a man with a very long penis that can do all sorts of (non-sexual) things.  Somehow I suspect PBS in America won't pick this one up.

Democrats win both Senate seats in Georgia...

...which is good news, assuming the man in the viking hat cedes control:

"The Capitol seems to be under the control of a man in a viking hat." -- Mark Leibovich, Chief National Correspondent, NYT

Georgia miracle?

The Democrats have claimed one of the two open Senate seats in Georgia, and are ahead in the other race as well by a very slim margin.   With total control of Congress and the Executive, the Democrats cab accomplish some important things (e.g., adding a public option to the Affordable Care Act, which should have been done originally, but was opposed by the whore of the insurance industry, Senator Lieberman [a Democrat!], of Connecticut).   But even with just one of the two seats, the Biden Administration is in a much better position, since they need only flip one Republican Senator to get things done, and there are several possibilities, most obviously Maine's Susan Collins, who has been friendly with Biden since their time together in the Senate.

Of course, the anticipated mischief by the Fascist Caucus today in Washington is significant primarily for what it portends for the future, none of which is good, and some of which is possibly chilling.

Canadian citizens and permanent residents: please sign this petition to help those in Canada suffering from ALS

The petition is here, and this news article gives some context.   The petition closes tomorrow, so time is of the essence.   A dear friend is suffering with ALS; the availability of experimental treatments is quite literally a life and death matter.

An intelligent discussion of "systemic racism"

This essay usefully disentangles causal mechanisms; here's the key bit:

[T]he term [systemic racism] conflates at least three distinct types of mechanisms, all of which work together to contribute to racial disparities as a system-level output...

Type 1: First there’s racism as we generally understand it—prejudice and discrimination based on ideas of racial superiority and inferiority. Racist ideologies, originating as justifications for the dehumanization and exploitation of blacks, shaped laws and decision-makers in our criminal justice system for centuries. While the Civil Rights Act struck down most (but not all) overtly racist laws, the racists in the system didn’t disappear overnight. But racial attitudes have certainly changed over time, and explicit racism may play less of a role today in sustaining systemic racial bias....

The Dunning-Kruger effect: just statistical noise?

With a whole blog category devoted to the phenomenon ("the less they know, the less they know it"), it would be disappointing if this is true.   But I'm sure it isn't, so there!

"In Search of Beethoven"

The greatest musical genius of them all was born 250 years (and 10 days) ago.  You will, I promise, have a very pleasant Sunday watching this well-done documentary:

 

Two recent books skeptical of meritocracy

Philosopher Agnes Callard (Chicago) comments.

Some observations about Twitter, esp. philosophy-related Twitter

Max Noichl, a graduate student at the University of Vienna, made a map of philosophy tweeters (based on followers and retweets) which is making the rounds on Twitter.  I'm not really sure what it means, but it looks neat!  (Mr. Noichl offers some explanation here.)

Friends and colleagues like Leslie Green at Oxford and Queen's, and Eric Posner here at Chicago, used Twitter for awhile, but then gave up (Green later returned, but, wisely, doesn't engage).   I don't abandon the medium because I know some folks now follow the blog through Twitter links (my main activity on Twitter), and some of those I follow also post interesting material.   Prompted by the new Twitter map, herewith some observations about this strange medium:

1.  Putting aside those already famous, "success" on Twitter (i.e., lots of followers) seems to track three things:  actual expertise (e.g., about infectious diseases, about criminal law) which one shares on Twitter on a regular basis in long threads; championing a political or partisan cause on a regular basis, which attracts a flock of like-minded partisans; or extensive tweeting and extensive engagement with others (e.g, retweeting, responding, entering "dialogues" on Twitter).   There are outlier cases (e.g., Scott Shapiro, the funniest academic on Twitter, with his serial shticks), but most of the Twitter users with substantial followings (e.g., 30k or more followers) seem to fall into at least one of these categories, and sometimes more than one.

2.  Blocking nuisance Twitterati is, itself, a nuisance.  Twitter basically has all the worst features of an unmoderated comment thread on a blog or anywhere else in cyberspace, and so all the laws of cyber-dynamics apply.  "Condescension from below" is the primary form of expression for the average active Twitter user which, combined with the Dunning-Kruger effect, makes for a mess.

"Killology" and "sheepdogs"

Philosopher Susanna Siegel and a Harvard colleague comment.  If there were any doubts that large parts of America are nuts, this essay will eliminate them.

Differing perceptions of affirmative action

We noted after the election the fact that a solidly blue state like California, which voted nearly 2-1 for Biden over Trump, also rejected affirmative action by decisive margins.   Philosopher Thomas Mulligan makes an interesting point in this op-ed about attitudes towards affirmative action (supported by research like this):

Whites oppose affirmative action because they believe it violates merit-based hiring. Blacks support affirmative action because they believe it enables merit-based hiring, by nullifying racial bias and other forms of disadvantage.

Despite appearances, when it comes to affirmative action, there is no moral disagreement. Both Blacks and whites believe that the best-qualified applicant should be hired. What we disagree about is a factual question: Does real-world affirmative action enable, or detract from, our shared moral goal?

I suspect the answer to that last question varies by profession (and region of the country).  In two academic fields I know most about (law and philosophy) it has reached the point where it tends to detract from merit-based hiring, but there are other professions (e.g., law enforcement, especially in some parts of the country) where the available evidence suggests it remains important to "nullify racial bias" as Mulligan puts it.  (I take no position on whether merit-based hiring is a worthy moral goal:  sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't, but that's a different topic.)

The lost language of "Rotwelsch"

This is interesting, if not our standard fare around here.

Berggruen Prize abandons any pretense of being interested in philosophy

This year's prize makes it official, but it was clear enough from last year's.  This is what happens when intellectuals are hostage to fickle rich people with money to burn.

(Thanks to Steven Hales for the pointer.)

"How Race Politics Liberated the Elites"

Some interesting points in this essay (and some less plausible ones); an excerpt:

In The Revolt of the Elites, Christopher Lasch spelled out in greater detail the role that claims of racial and sexual oppression play in securing release from allegiance to the nation — not just for those who identify as its victims, but for those with the moral sensitivity to see victimisation where it may not be apparent, and who make this capacity a touchstone of their identity. It becomes a token of moral elevation by which we recognise one another, and distinguish ourselves from the broader run of citizens. Both Lasch and Arendt argue that black Americans serve a crucial function for the white bourgeoisie. As the emblem and proof of America’s illegitimacy, they anchor a politics of repudiation in which the idea of a common good has little purchase.

This illegitimacy transcends any particular historical facts about slavery and segregation. Indeed it transcends America, as one can surmise by the ease with which American grievance politics has been exported throughout the Western world. In this we sometimes see the use of American historical references that have been weirdly transposed, as when a house once lived in by Rosa Parks was relocated from Detroit to Berlin, the financial seat of the European Union. (Under the empire of Christendom, the market for material relics from the Passion of Christ was similarly global; they left the holy land and ended up in various seats of earthly power.) Most recently, the transatlantic festival of George Floyd attests to the fact that it isn’t simply America that stands accused.

Now ZAS Berlin is flat out lying about the no-platforming of Professor Stock

Here on Twitter they have the audacity to claim: 

@ZASBerlin

Replying to

@Docstockk

ZAS had to retract the abstract because it did not fit to the scientific theme of the workshop (oppressive speech & communication) and contained language that was inconsistent with the values of the ZAS. We regret that the abstract went online.

11:38 AM · Dec 10, 2020·Twitter Web App

This is really shameless dissembling:   as we saw, Professor Stock's abstract was squarely on the theme of the session on "Bodies, Gender Identity, and Misogyny"; contained no inappropriate language (though apparently expressed a verboten point of view); and, in any case, Professor McCready has admitted to complaining about Professor Stock's participation which resulted in her being no-platformed (Professor McCready has now deleted her tweet confessing her role in this; being an innocent fellow, I didn't bother to take a screen shot, but I quoted it accurately in the prior post).  [ADDENDUM:   The Wayback Machine captured Professor McCready's tweet here.)

Historian of logic...and personal secretary and bodyguard toTrotsky

An interesting life.

Another ominous sign for New York's post-COVID future

Goldman Sachs looking to move some of its operations to Florida or Texas.

"Good jobs"

Interesting paper prepared by the political philosopher Joshua Cohen, now at Apple University (and part-time at Berkeley as well).

Artist sues Vermont Law School to prevent destruction of murals depicting the underground railroad

The murals were deemed "offensive" by benighted students flexing their muscles, and the school caved, hence the lawsuit. As Nietzsche observed:  the "secret desire to be tyrants is [often] wrapped up in virtuous words!"

Here is the image in question (not sure it will all fix here, but enough will):

GPT-3 bot posts on Reddit for a week, and no one realized it was a bot

This may tell us more about Reddit than AI, however.

(Thanks to Blake Myers for the pointer.)

Hobbes on Trump

Political theorist David Lay Williams (DePaul) comments.

I talk about the Supreme Court and legal realism...

...at Brain in a Vat.  I enjoyed this discussion a lot, and also learned a bit about South African constitutional law.

Google, Twitter have been targetting the left for censorship well before high-profile cases like Alex "I'm as as crazy as I seem" Jones

A useful documentation of the systematic attempt to push in to cyber-oblivion left-wing websites, including the World Socialist Web Site that took the lead in exposing the mistakes in the NYT's 1619 Project.

(Thanks to Christopher Morris for the pointer.)

University of Chicago "responds" to the tantrum about Professor Abbot's views on diversity

The University responds correctly.   I'm sure it was triggered by this, which President Zimmer does not mention, also correctly.  Here is an excerpt from the President's response which should be copied and pasted into every President's response to tantrums from the right or baby left (i.e., the "hurt feelings" left):

[T]he University does not limit the comments of faculty members, mandate apologies, or impose other disciplinary consequences for such comments, unless there has been a violation of University policy or the law. Faculty are free to agree or disagree with any policy or approach of the University, its departments, schools or divisions without being subject to discipline, reprimand or other form of punishment.

That said, no individual member of the faculty speaks for the University as a whole on any subject, including on issues of diversity. In turn, the University will continue to defend vigorously any faculty member’s right to publish and discuss his or her ideas.

There's still more work to do at the University of Chicago, as I'll blog about soon, but I am pleased the President lived up to my expectations in this case.

(Thanks to Jerry Coyne for the pointer.)

Amy Coney Barrett, newest member of the super-legislature...

...delivers for her constituents, i.e., religious conservatives.   This is why she was chosen, it had nothing to do with intelligence or legal competence:  it was so she would exercise her power as a super-legislator on behalf of issues dear to religious conservatives, public health or the general welfare be damned.   Governor Cuomo should declare the Court mistaken, and ignore the ruling. After all, if Justice Ginsburg had not died, this case would have come out the other way, as everyone knows.  Her appointment in Samarra should not change constitutional law, a proposition even conservatives who profess commitment to the rule of law might agree upon.

On the changing demographics of who is voting Democratic and Republican in the US

Two interviews with David Shor, one at Politico, one at New York Magazine (thanks to Benj Hellie for flagging the latter).  Shor doesn't seem to know much about the empirical literature on voter behavior, but there are still many interesting observations.  Some highlights from the first interview:

Politics is fundamentally about splitting the country in half. And if college-educated white people are 4 percent of the electorate, like they were in the immediate post-World War II era, you can’t do that. But if they are 38 or 40 percent, suddenly you can. So, it’s unsurprising that as the education share has gone up, we’ve seen this happen.

If you think mechanically about the reinforcing currents that caused this, as college-educated white people enter the Democratic Party and become an increasingly large share of the Democratic Party while the reverse happens to Republicans, that naturally is going to influence who wins party primaries and what kind of people win internal party fights. In practice — given the fact that college-educated whites donate at disproportionate rates and volunteer at disproportionate rates — I think it’s going to be very hard for Democrats to resist the pull of catering to their preferences, which is naturally going to lead to losing votes among people who aren’t them: not just non-college educated whites, but, as we as we saw this cycle, also non-white voters....

There is a broader trend, though, that as college-educated white people become a larger share of the Democratic coalition and a larger share of the Democratic voice, they do pull the party on cultural issues. Non-college educated white people have more culturally in common with working-class Black and working-class Hispanic voters. So, it should be unsurprising that as the cultural power of college-educated white people increases in the Democratic Party, non-white voters will move against us.

The Governor of California should resign

What a disgrace.  It's pretty easy not to have a dinner in a restaurant while people are dying from an infectious disease and you're requiring everyone else to not do this.   He should be crucified for this selfish stupidity.

On Brentano, the teacher

Linguist John Goldsmith (Chicago) comments.

ADDENDUM:  Two caveats:  (1) Professor Goldsmith treats "continental philosophy" as equivalent to 20th-century philosophy in the phenomenological tradition, which is an idiosyncratic usage, even if phenomenology was very important to one strand of philosophy on the European Continent in the 20th-century (it was largely irrelevant to the Marxian traditions in philosophy in the 20th-century); (2) what he calls "the Law of Dynasties" is almost certainly a sociological artifact, as he briefly suggests it might be, and there are many dramatic exceptions (e.g., Frege or Nietzsche).

The "Be Kind" mantra on the "left"

Philosopher Kathleen Stock (Sussex) comments.  We encountered related nonsense in philosophy cyberspace a few years back from Jenny Saul & co. at their now defunct blog:  as the late John Gardner remarked, "'be nice' is truly the new slogan of the vindictive and intolerant."

"Benford's law" and the election results

In right-wing crazy land, one of the "ideas" floating around is that Benford's Law shows that there's something suspicious about the electoral results in Chicago for Biden.  This is a nice, patient explanation of why this is all nonsense, as one might have suspected:

 

The human need for art in desperate circumstances

Philosopher Sarah Fine (King's College, London) comments.

Far more rural whites thought Trump cared about "people like them" than thought Biden did

Is it because they're racist?  Some no doubt are, but it turns out the majority also want to create pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, make police legally accountable for misconduct, and view white supremacists as a threat, among other striking findings.

As expected, state Republican leaders won't get involved with (illegal) efforts to change the slate of the electors

Political self-preservation triumphs over criminality!

Did suburbanites tired of Trump put Biden over the top?

That's the hypothesis here, and it doesn't bode well for Democrats going forward; an excerpt:

Biden was able to hit the numbers he needed in the crucial highly educated suburbs, but many of these traditionally Republican voters split their tickets down ballot, voting for the Republican in the US Senate and House of Representatives. Despite polls showing clear gains for Biden among white non-college-educated voters in the rural midwest, Democratic gains here were minimal, and in some places, like much of rural Wisconsin, Trump actually increased his margin after it had seemed like Democrats had hit rock bottom in 2016. With the hugely increased turnout, Trump actually netted more votes out of much of the rural midwest than in 2016.

Most concerningly, Democrats hemorrhaged votes among non-white working-class voters. Exit polls show Trump winning more non-white voters than any Republican in a generation. This was most apparent among Cuban American voters in Miami-Dade county, who of course have their own idiosyncratic politics. But losses among Latino voters could also be seen in huge margins in the Rio Grande valley, one of the most impoverished regions in the country, in Osceola county, Florida, and up and down the map from El Centro, California, to Lawrence, Massachusetts. Early returns also show consistent gains for Republicans among black voters across the board. Even in the crucial states Biden was able to flip, Trump reduced Democratic margins in Detroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphia. These results should be setting off alarm bells among Democrats.

It's hard to undo election results...

...but Trump is, as usual, doing a lot of damage that may come back to haunt us in the future.

The problem with polls

It's not "shy" Trump voters lying to pollsters, it's that the Trump voters aren't the kind of folks who respond to questions from pollsters (what I've been saying all along!):

[I]t turns out that people who answer surveys are really weird. They’re considerably more politically engaged than normal. I put in a five-factor test [a kind of personality survey] and they have much higher agreeableness [a measure of how cooperative and warm people are], which makes sense, if you think about literally what’s happening.

They also have higher levels of social trust. I use the General Social Survey’s question, which is, “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people?” The way the GSS works is they hire tons of people to go get in-person responses. They get a 70 percent response rate. We can basically believe what they say.

Lord Kilclooney of Northern Ireland refers to Senator and VP-Elect Kamala Harris as "the Indian"

Old habits die hard.   But seriously:  what happens if the Mick loses his peerage over this?  Who gets it?  An Indian? A Colored?  A Yid?

Important philosophers/scientists who are theists and who weren't raised in religious households?

A mathematician elsewhere writes:

Are you aware of many (any?) good modern philosophers or scientists who are ardent theists, but who didn't have some kind of childhood religious indoctrination?  In my circle (mostly mathematicians), I haven't yet found such an example.  

I cannot think of any, although I can think of several philosophers who are atheists who were raised in religious households.   Readers?

ADDENDUM:  Just to clarify:  we're looking for cases of people who had no religious upbringing who ended up becoming theists.  People who converted from one religion to another are not relevant in this context. Thanks.

And now for a different perspective

My esteemed former philosophy colleagues from Texas, Daniel Bonevac and Robert  C. Koons, discuss the election here.  They are a bit to my right, hence their different take (scroll into the comments).

(Thanks to a mutual friend who flagged this for me.)

Hume and Trump

When Hume observed that, "It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger," he was not thinking of a Trump humiliated. Let us hope the military professionals will be alert over the next three months.

Speaking of "fake news"...

...stories like this purporting to offer evidence-free explanations for Biden's victory are a staple of our media, and no one seems remotely embarrassed about running them.  Why did Biden win?  Here are some possible explanations:  (1) hatred of Trump sent people to the polls to vote against him; they would have voted for anyone other than Trump; (2) anger about the pandemic and the economy sent people to the polls to vote against him; they would have voted for any challenger; (3) Republicans and Democrats showed up, voted for their party's candidate, and then the "independent" voters (i.e., those who can't tell the differnce between night and day) showed up and voted on instinct or whim, and it broke for Biden, just barely.

Those three scenarios are at least as plausible (indeed, I'd venture more plausible) than the fictional NYT narrative according to which Biden won because he "campaigned as a sober and conventional presence, concerned about the 'soul of the country.' He correctly judged the character of the country."