Rice Dumbed Down
Tibor R. Machan
Several years ago I used to attend quite a few presentations at the
Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace?a Stanford University
think tank?by such famous and prominent conservative folks as Alexander
Solzhenitsyn, George P. Shultz, Martin Anderson, and Condoleezza Rice.
They were and some still are very active scholars there.
Dr. Rice, of course, was just confirmed as this country?s Secretary of
State. And what seems to be something worth contemplating is just how much
smarter Dr. Rice appeared when she gave her presentations at those Hoover
meetings than ever since she has joined the administration of George W.
Bush. Especially during her recent confirmation hearings, this scholar,
who could communicate complex ideas in excruciatingly accurate yet clear
terms, sounded like she had been deliberately coached to appear to be a
simpleton. I do not recall specifics now but it was remarkable how often
she resorted to slogans, banalities, clichés and such while she was being
questioned.
In her famous exchange with Senator Barbara Boxer, Dr. Rice spoke like a
not very smart high school student who is being scolded by a principal
instead of a serious specialist in this country?s foreign policy affairs.
And this suggests to me that there is now another trend in government that
is rather disturbing.
It seems that administration officials have an increasingly cynical view
of the citizenry. I don?t know if it is an accurate view but there is
little doubt in my mind that we are being addressed as if we all had
minimal IQs. Why would this be the case?
One hypothesis worth considering is that democracy has run completely
amuck and so everything that officials are expected to discuss and decide
on now has to be given very wide public airing. The public is in on it all
because they are doing everything for the public now, not just addressing
a special range of tasks.
Now at first inspection this may appear to be wonderful. The government
is responding to the demand that it disclose all of its deliberations with
the citizenry. No secrecy, nothing hidden. Sounds good.
But there is another possibility. Today it looks like the government is
so thoroughly involved in the lives of its citizens, there are so many
issues that it meddles in, that it needs to sooth the nerves of everyone
as it explains what it is doing and why. Government, in short, is not a
specialized institution, concerned with certain specific tasks. It is,
instead, quite literary becoming totalitarian, in the sense that the total
range of human affairs is now its concern.
In a democracy when this state affairs has been reached, nothing can be
discussed in the special vocabulary appropriate to the subject at hand.
Everything needs to be discussed in baby talk, since that is the only
common language that everyone can be expected to understand.
It looks like Dr. Rice was being told by the spin doctors in the Bush
administration to speak baby talk during her confirmation: ?Do not use big
words, do not use complex ideas, talk simple, dumb it down good. You are
talking to everyone all at once.?
In a system of government where officials have specific tasks?such as law
enforcement, dealing with foreign policy, exploring the way a constitution
ought to be applied to novel circumstances?there would, I believe, be no
fear of using the often complex language in which those matters need to be
discussed. Every specialty, after all, generates some complex
terminology?that?s one reason people go to colleges and universities, so
as to pick up that special language with which the difficult details of a
field are to be thought about and discussed.
But when everyone?s problems become the problems of government,
government officials aren?t allowed to use the special language of a given
concern but are more and more tempted to talk so as to make themselves
understood by just anyone. This, in turn, leads to the simplification of
complicated matters. But that way lies the road to obscuring issues,
resorting to language that lacks nuance and thus hides from us what really
is transpiring in various government departments.
I am not sure I like Dr. Rice dumbed down.
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Monday, January 24, 2005
Column on Johnny Carson, RIP
Johnny Carson, An American Natural
Tibor R. Machan
Johnny Carson, who died recently, was perhaps the greatest comic
craftsman in American popular entertainment. But this is not to say he was
in any way parochial. Indeed, being a master comic in America is being a
master comic of the modern world, inasmuch as American culture is host to
nearly every other culture in the world and Johnny?s genius was in part to
forge a link with so many millions of Americans.
The first time I wrote about Carson was when TV Guide published a
piece
in which he had been identified as speaking only to Americans. Having come
from Europe and yet finding Carson so able to keep me in stitches night
after night, for years on end, I wrote a letter correcting TV Guide?s
misunderstanding. Then I wrote a farewell column when Carson retired in
1992 and now I wish to focus on one remarkable element of his contribution
to popular culture. Yes, while focused directly on comedy and
entertainment, there was something about Carson that went way beyond
these, namely, his continuous display of self-awareness, of being fully
conscious of himself as he was doing his work and enjoying so much of it.
I recall one occasion when Carson was about to do one of his
stints on
The Tonight Show, one of thousands over the 30 years he dominated late
night television entertainment as the host of The Tonight Show with Johnny
Carson. He was about to use his forehead to break one of those wooden
boards, mimicking a feat of certain martial artists. About to charge
against the board that was being held firmly in front of him by two
experts who appeared as guests on his program, Johnny looked up suddenly
and said, something along the lines of, ?What am I doing?? He went on for
a few seconds in this vein??I am nuts?? ?Whatever has happened to my life
that I am doing such a thing
as this??
I have no idea whether this, as other apparently spontaneous
episodes on
his program, was something that had been scripted but it certainly
appeared to be a very natural, impromptu piece of behavior and was very
funny as well as rather educational. By stepping back for those few
seconds to reflect briefly on the moment, Johnny Carson probably managed
to bring home to millions of his viewers?on this and one many similar
occasions?the significance of something quintessentially and universally
human, namely, self-awareness or reflection, being in the position to
observe and think about oneself and place oneself and what one is doing
within a larger context, indeed, perhaps, within the known scheme of
things.
It is not that Johnny Carson gave some kind of erudite academic
lecture
about the human capacity of self-awareness, certainly not. What he did
without skipping a beat in the comic performance he was embarking upon is
to show how natural and uncomplicated it is for a normal human being to
think about what one is doing, to keep alert and not get totally lost in
the moment even as one is fully engaged in that moment.
Johnny Carson had this capacity, I believe, of carrying on with
his
artistry in a most natural, unforced fashion while also exhibiting the
value of knowing what one is doing, of taking a few steps back and making
sure it all fits. (The few interviews he gave about his work I have
witnessed show
his clear awareness of its nuances and his own interest in an almost
scholarly study of comedy.)
Millions of people who were getting belly laughs night after
night from
this man, the master of comic timing and recovery, were also reminded, in
a relaxed and uncomplicated fashion, of one of the most outstanding
aspects of being a human being: thinking about what one is doing, how it
is to be understood within the larger scheme of reality.
What I personally enjoyed so much about Johnny Carson was his
ability to
put on display an attitude of self-confidence that was never boastful, of
a natural humanity that never fussed a great deal about delivering to us
all something very comforting every night, after we had gone through the
day with its tedium and serious tasks?a solid and reliable dose of genuine
comic relief. Yet mingled with this were probably more important lessons
about our humanity than even Carson had fathomed.
Thanks Johnny!
Tibor R. Machan
Johnny Carson, who died recently, was perhaps the greatest comic
craftsman in American popular entertainment. But this is not to say he was
in any way parochial. Indeed, being a master comic in America is being a
master comic of the modern world, inasmuch as American culture is host to
nearly every other culture in the world and Johnny?s genius was in part to
forge a link with so many millions of Americans.
The first time I wrote about Carson was when TV Guide published a
piece
in which he had been identified as speaking only to Americans. Having come
from Europe and yet finding Carson so able to keep me in stitches night
after night, for years on end, I wrote a letter correcting TV Guide?s
misunderstanding. Then I wrote a farewell column when Carson retired in
1992 and now I wish to focus on one remarkable element of his contribution
to popular culture. Yes, while focused directly on comedy and
entertainment, there was something about Carson that went way beyond
these, namely, his continuous display of self-awareness, of being fully
conscious of himself as he was doing his work and enjoying so much of it.
I recall one occasion when Carson was about to do one of his
stints on
The Tonight Show, one of thousands over the 30 years he dominated late
night television entertainment as the host of The Tonight Show with Johnny
Carson. He was about to use his forehead to break one of those wooden
boards, mimicking a feat of certain martial artists. About to charge
against the board that was being held firmly in front of him by two
experts who appeared as guests on his program, Johnny looked up suddenly
and said, something along the lines of, ?What am I doing?? He went on for
a few seconds in this vein??I am nuts?? ?Whatever has happened to my life
that I am doing such a thing
as this??
I have no idea whether this, as other apparently spontaneous
episodes on
his program, was something that had been scripted but it certainly
appeared to be a very natural, impromptu piece of behavior and was very
funny as well as rather educational. By stepping back for those few
seconds to reflect briefly on the moment, Johnny Carson probably managed
to bring home to millions of his viewers?on this and one many similar
occasions?the significance of something quintessentially and universally
human, namely, self-awareness or reflection, being in the position to
observe and think about oneself and place oneself and what one is doing
within a larger context, indeed, perhaps, within the known scheme of
things.
It is not that Johnny Carson gave some kind of erudite academic
lecture
about the human capacity of self-awareness, certainly not. What he did
without skipping a beat in the comic performance he was embarking upon is
to show how natural and uncomplicated it is for a normal human being to
think about what one is doing, to keep alert and not get totally lost in
the moment even as one is fully engaged in that moment.
Johnny Carson had this capacity, I believe, of carrying on with
his
artistry in a most natural, unforced fashion while also exhibiting the
value of knowing what one is doing, of taking a few steps back and making
sure it all fits. (The few interviews he gave about his work I have
witnessed show
his clear awareness of its nuances and his own interest in an almost
scholarly study of comedy.)
Millions of people who were getting belly laughs night after
night from
this man, the master of comic timing and recovery, were also reminded, in
a relaxed and uncomplicated fashion, of one of the most outstanding
aspects of being a human being: thinking about what one is doing, how it
is to be understood within the larger scheme of reality.
What I personally enjoyed so much about Johnny Carson was his
ability to
put on display an attitude of self-confidence that was never boastful, of
a natural humanity that never fussed a great deal about delivering to us
all something very comforting every night, after we had gone through the
day with its tedium and serious tasks?a solid and reliable dose of genuine
comic relief. Yet mingled with this were probably more important lessons
about our humanity than even Carson had fathomed.
Thanks Johnny!
Saturday, January 22, 2005
Column on L. Summers' Heresy
Confusions from Feminists
Tibor R. Machan
Not very long ago an essay appeared in Professor James P. Sterba?s book,
Morality and Social Justice: Point/Counterpoint (Lanham, MD: Rowman and
Littlefield, 1995), pp. 115-46, by feminist philosopher Alison M. Jaggar,
titled "Toward a Feminist Conception of Moral Reasoning." This piece
argued with great zeal that there are serious differences between the way
women and men think?have to think??about morality. Women stress
cooperation, nurturing, and conciliatory measures in human relations,
whereas men promote competition, aggressiveness, scoring points and so
forth.
This piece was just one of numerous writings in which the differences
between men and women were laid out with firm conviction by certain
feminists scholars. Deborah Tanner, for example, had written numerous
popular and scholarly books?for example, Gender and Discourse, Framing
Discourse, Talking Voices, The Power of Talk?in which she had argued that
there are clear differences between how men and women think and talk.
When a few days ago Harvard President Lawrence Summers made reference to
?innate differences? between men and women that could account for why
women aren?t as well represented in some of the sciences as are men, all
hell broke loose. The National Association of Women called for him to
resign his presidency, while others slammed him and denounced the fact
that a man with such prejudices could be leading a top educational
institution in America.
All of this brings to mind for me how when Bill Clinton cavorted with
Monica Lewinsky, hardly a peep was heard from feminists, including NOW,
about the matter, despite the fact that his conduct represented the
starkest example of some men using their power over not just women but
young, inexperienced women in positions of subservience. The Commander in
Chief of the United States of America hitting on an office intern! It
couldn?t get worse. Yet feminists were mostly silent during the entire
episode.
They were also silent about the anti-egalitarian theories of Jaggar,
Tanner, and many others who insisted that women are, in fact, different
from men in how they think and talk and conduct themselves. But now that
Lawrence Summers repeats this kind of view, he is being singled out for
condemnation. Why so?
This appears to be an token of the type of thinking that would have it
that only Jews are allowed to make jokes about Jews, only blacks may talk
kid about blacks, and so forth and so on. If a man states that women
differ from women in this or that respect, that?s heresy. If a bunch of
women says so, it must be the result of science and analysis.
Bunk. Common sense, in its admittedly rough and ready form, has always
revealed that men and women are different in certain crucial enough
respects. The question is, ?In just what respects and why so?? It is no
good saying, ?Society made them different,? because then that needs to be
explained. And answering that ?Men have managed to conspire to keep women
different?say, in steering them away from the sciences, politics, business
and so forth??doesn?t work either because that, too, begs the question:
?How did men manage such a feat unless there is something inherently
different between the sexes, even if that is that men are meaner, women
are kinder??
When questions surrounding male and female attributes are politicized, of
course, nothing much good comes of it all. Not only do some of the most
vociferous civil libertarians forget their principles?as the feminists
forgot their because Bill Clinton was a politicians they liked?but
rational investigation of interesting issues suffers.
Summers?whose exact words on this topic are nearly impossible to find via
Google, by the way, because, presumably, he had spoken out of the
limelight?made a suggestions, not much different from what Jaggar and
Tanner and many other women and even some feminist men had made. For some
Summers? suggestion merely served as an opportunity to beat up on a
prominent male in our culture. Too bad. It will probably retard research
for some time to come.
Tibor R. Machan
Not very long ago an essay appeared in Professor James P. Sterba?s book,
Morality and Social Justice: Point/Counterpoint (Lanham, MD: Rowman and
Littlefield, 1995), pp. 115-46, by feminist philosopher Alison M. Jaggar,
titled "Toward a Feminist Conception of Moral Reasoning." This piece
argued with great zeal that there are serious differences between the way
women and men think?have to think??about morality. Women stress
cooperation, nurturing, and conciliatory measures in human relations,
whereas men promote competition, aggressiveness, scoring points and so
forth.
This piece was just one of numerous writings in which the differences
between men and women were laid out with firm conviction by certain
feminists scholars. Deborah Tanner, for example, had written numerous
popular and scholarly books?for example, Gender and Discourse, Framing
Discourse, Talking Voices, The Power of Talk?in which she had argued that
there are clear differences between how men and women think and talk.
When a few days ago Harvard President Lawrence Summers made reference to
?innate differences? between men and women that could account for why
women aren?t as well represented in some of the sciences as are men, all
hell broke loose. The National Association of Women called for him to
resign his presidency, while others slammed him and denounced the fact
that a man with such prejudices could be leading a top educational
institution in America.
All of this brings to mind for me how when Bill Clinton cavorted with
Monica Lewinsky, hardly a peep was heard from feminists, including NOW,
about the matter, despite the fact that his conduct represented the
starkest example of some men using their power over not just women but
young, inexperienced women in positions of subservience. The Commander in
Chief of the United States of America hitting on an office intern! It
couldn?t get worse. Yet feminists were mostly silent during the entire
episode.
They were also silent about the anti-egalitarian theories of Jaggar,
Tanner, and many others who insisted that women are, in fact, different
from men in how they think and talk and conduct themselves. But now that
Lawrence Summers repeats this kind of view, he is being singled out for
condemnation. Why so?
This appears to be an token of the type of thinking that would have it
that only Jews are allowed to make jokes about Jews, only blacks may talk
kid about blacks, and so forth and so on. If a man states that women
differ from women in this or that respect, that?s heresy. If a bunch of
women says so, it must be the result of science and analysis.
Bunk. Common sense, in its admittedly rough and ready form, has always
revealed that men and women are different in certain crucial enough
respects. The question is, ?In just what respects and why so?? It is no
good saying, ?Society made them different,? because then that needs to be
explained. And answering that ?Men have managed to conspire to keep women
different?say, in steering them away from the sciences, politics, business
and so forth??doesn?t work either because that, too, begs the question:
?How did men manage such a feat unless there is something inherently
different between the sexes, even if that is that men are meaner, women
are kinder??
When questions surrounding male and female attributes are politicized, of
course, nothing much good comes of it all. Not only do some of the most
vociferous civil libertarians forget their principles?as the feminists
forgot their because Bill Clinton was a politicians they liked?but
rational investigation of interesting issues suffers.
Summers?whose exact words on this topic are nearly impossible to find via
Google, by the way, because, presumably, he had spoken out of the
limelight?made a suggestions, not much different from what Jaggar and
Tanner and many other women and even some feminist men had made. For some
Summers? suggestion merely served as an opportunity to beat up on a
prominent male in our culture. Too bad. It will probably retard research
for some time to come.
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Column on Creationism v. Darwinism
Schools, Government, and Creationism
Tibor R. Machan
No matter how often you point this out, those in the mainstream simply
ignore the issue even though it is central to the controversy. Ever since
the Scopes ?monkey? trial back in 1926, there has been this on-going,
unending battle between secularists and fundamentalist Christians about
whether Darwin?s evolutionary theory should be taught as established fact
in government schools. (Oddly, few talk about whether Einstein, Bohr or
Heisenberg ought to be part of the curriculum. Nor whether the Big Bang
should be included in astrophysics. Nor seems there to be much fuss about
genetics and other sciences. But with evolutionary biology I suppose
things are most directly testy, so people get more excited.)
But the real problem is that government schools exist. The delusion that
you can get religion and values out of education is part of what lulls so
many people into the misguided belief that government education is just
fine. No one would admit this about a government ministry which the US
Constitution explicitly prohibits. Yet schools are rife with lessons about
controversial matters that touch on religion and other matter about which
members of the citizenry are deeply divided. And in a free country there
ought to be no official pressure on them to conform. Yet demanding that
they agree either with the Creationists or with the Darwinists is imposing
pressure on them they cannot escape without considerable cost they ought
not to have to bear.
Suppose government/public schools teach Darwin but one objects and does
not elect to subject one?s children to such teaching. In order to escape,
one must do double jeopardy now?pay the property taxes for the government
school and then pay tuition to the private/religious school of one?s
choice. Or suppose it?s the other way?or, indeed, some way not today in
the limelight. All are surely rank injustice.
It is interesting that the major supporters of government education,
modern liberals, often complain when their taxes go to projects with which
they disagree. During the Vietnam War era they often advocated tax
resistance because their funds were being sent to support a war they found
morally objectionable. And more recently some have proposed similar
measures vis-à-vis Bush?s war in Iraq.
Yet, they see nothing wrong with forcing fundamentalists to pay for
government schools that teach what fundamentalists consider an
abomination. And this includes not only Darwinism but, often, sex
education and other value-laden topics to which children of parents who
object should not be subjected.
In this respect the ACLU, too, is two-faced, as are the pro-choice
people, who endorse choice when it comes to killing a fetus but will not
defend it when it comes to spending one?s wealth as one wishes or not
paying women the same as men in the same job. How come choice is such a
fine thing when the lives of fetuses are at stake but not in most other
areas in which they insist political correctness must rule?
This also points up just how inconsistent many modern liberals are when
it comes to the right to private property. For many of them?certainly some
of their most prolific proselytizers?government really owns all the wealth
in society, not individuals. (This is argued by New York University
Professors Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel in their book, The Myth of
Ownership, Oxford UP 2002.) Taxation, therefore, is not any kind of
confiscation but resource-management by government that properly owns all
the wealth in society.
Yet, folks of the same ilk take part in tax protests when they don?t like
how the government uses the taxes it takes from us. Well, why
protest?government is merely managing things as it sees fit and no one has
any say in the matter once a decision has been reached.
Well, the same can be said about protesting the teaching of either Darwin
or Creationism in government schools. The very institution implies that
there is nothing to protest?they got the power! To remedy it all, let?s
then take it from them and support teaching as we choose, in the varieties
of schools we could have if government didn?t usurp this area of social
life.
Tibor R. Machan
No matter how often you point this out, those in the mainstream simply
ignore the issue even though it is central to the controversy. Ever since
the Scopes ?monkey? trial back in 1926, there has been this on-going,
unending battle between secularists and fundamentalist Christians about
whether Darwin?s evolutionary theory should be taught as established fact
in government schools. (Oddly, few talk about whether Einstein, Bohr or
Heisenberg ought to be part of the curriculum. Nor whether the Big Bang
should be included in astrophysics. Nor seems there to be much fuss about
genetics and other sciences. But with evolutionary biology I suppose
things are most directly testy, so people get more excited.)
But the real problem is that government schools exist. The delusion that
you can get religion and values out of education is part of what lulls so
many people into the misguided belief that government education is just
fine. No one would admit this about a government ministry which the US
Constitution explicitly prohibits. Yet schools are rife with lessons about
controversial matters that touch on religion and other matter about which
members of the citizenry are deeply divided. And in a free country there
ought to be no official pressure on them to conform. Yet demanding that
they agree either with the Creationists or with the Darwinists is imposing
pressure on them they cannot escape without considerable cost they ought
not to have to bear.
Suppose government/public schools teach Darwin but one objects and does
not elect to subject one?s children to such teaching. In order to escape,
one must do double jeopardy now?pay the property taxes for the government
school and then pay tuition to the private/religious school of one?s
choice. Or suppose it?s the other way?or, indeed, some way not today in
the limelight. All are surely rank injustice.
It is interesting that the major supporters of government education,
modern liberals, often complain when their taxes go to projects with which
they disagree. During the Vietnam War era they often advocated tax
resistance because their funds were being sent to support a war they found
morally objectionable. And more recently some have proposed similar
measures vis-à-vis Bush?s war in Iraq.
Yet, they see nothing wrong with forcing fundamentalists to pay for
government schools that teach what fundamentalists consider an
abomination. And this includes not only Darwinism but, often, sex
education and other value-laden topics to which children of parents who
object should not be subjected.
In this respect the ACLU, too, is two-faced, as are the pro-choice
people, who endorse choice when it comes to killing a fetus but will not
defend it when it comes to spending one?s wealth as one wishes or not
paying women the same as men in the same job. How come choice is such a
fine thing when the lives of fetuses are at stake but not in most other
areas in which they insist political correctness must rule?
This also points up just how inconsistent many modern liberals are when
it comes to the right to private property. For many of them?certainly some
of their most prolific proselytizers?government really owns all the wealth
in society, not individuals. (This is argued by New York University
Professors Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel in their book, The Myth of
Ownership, Oxford UP 2002.) Taxation, therefore, is not any kind of
confiscation but resource-management by government that properly owns all
the wealth in society.
Yet, folks of the same ilk take part in tax protests when they don?t like
how the government uses the taxes it takes from us. Well, why
protest?government is merely managing things as it sees fit and no one has
any say in the matter once a decision has been reached.
Well, the same can be said about protesting the teaching of either Darwin
or Creationism in government schools. The very institution implies that
there is nothing to protest?they got the power! To remedy it all, let?s
then take it from them and support teaching as we choose, in the varieties
of schools we could have if government didn?t usurp this area of social
life.
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Column on Revisiting the Death Penalty
Revisiting the Death Penalty
Tibor R. Machan
California?s governor wouldn?t give in, nor would the US Supreme Court,
so Donald Beardslee, who killed two women in 1981 over a drug deal?while
supposedly suffering from brain damage?was put to death by lethal
injection on January 19th. As reported in the media, Beardslee's defense
attorney claims that he had brain injury stemming from ?several accidents
during his life,? and, furthermore, in prison ?he was diagnosed as having
schizophrenia.? A former warden reportedly has said that ?Beardslee should
have been granted clemency because he was a model inmate.? But none of
this saved the man from California?s death penalty.
For several decades I have opposed this public policy measure, mainly
because it is grossly imprudent. Of course, some people may well deserve
to die for their evil deeds, murder, rape, treason, or something else
that?s totally intolerable in a civilized society. Nor do I think it is
barbaric to kill criminals, since I do not think it is barbaric to kill in
self-defense and the death penalty may at times defend us from a vicious
murderer who may well kill again.
But there are ways to guard against this. What there is no way to guard
against is the occasional application of the death penalty to someone who
doesn?t in fact deserve it. In short, the probability of a mistake is
significant. So no one ought to risk it because it will at times
perpetrate a great wrong.
This is all about us, yes, not about the criminal. We need to be careful
not to kill people who should not be killed and since there is a chance of
doing this when the penalty is death, we should desist.
There is also the factor of cost. With all the appeals and other
administrative maneuvers associated with every death penalty
sentence?Beardslee lingered in prison for over two decades?the expense is
out of this world, far greater than what life without parole costs. Yet
this is secondary. What should matter most is that a mistake is
irreversible.
Does the death penalty deter people? The late Professor Ernest van den
Haag of the Fordham University School of Law, with whom I used to argue
about this matter, held that view for several decades until near the end
of his life he changed his mind. He still wanted those who deserve it to
be put to death but not because this would work to discourage most
prospective murderers. In the main, murderers, other than professional or
contract killers, do not kill as a result of rationally calculating the
pros and cons. They have usually given up control by the time they kill,
although this isn?t inevitable and in most cases they could have walked
away, done something else. It?s not all that different from when ordinary
folks resort to yelling or violence?they had it in them to abstain but let
go of themselves and resorted to improper ways.
So, a murderer is most likely to be beyond weighing odds, which means
that the threat of the death penalty isn?t likely to do much to dissuade
him or her from going ahead with the deed. And the studies pertaining to
this matter seem to show just that?deterrence is a mere hope and works in
but the rarest cases. So what is left? Death for the sake of retribution,
so van den Haag concluded.
OK, that?s not a bad reason but, given the risks, it cannot carry the
day. There are better options, period.
Some have argued that the death penalty is justified revenge, the
perfectly understandable collective venting of the raw emotion in the face
of a grave wronging of someone. It is a civilized revenge because it is
moderated by due process of law. It isn?t done hastily but deliberately.
Again, there is something to this but it doesn?t offset the major
objection?one can go very wrong with this and there is no remedy. Someone
mistakenly placed in prison for even most of his or her life could at
least be compensated for a mistake. Such a person could then lead a very
rewarding if short life, once the mistake has been established (for
example, via DNA testing). But if there is an execution, this option is
closed. And there need not have been such an irreversible policy?no reason
for it exists given the other options that are available.
There is a lot that?s wrong with the world and this part is really very
simple to repair, with no loss to anyone?life behind bars, with no chance
of parole, surely is almost worst for most than dying.
Tibor R. Machan
California?s governor wouldn?t give in, nor would the US Supreme Court,
so Donald Beardslee, who killed two women in 1981 over a drug deal?while
supposedly suffering from brain damage?was put to death by lethal
injection on January 19th. As reported in the media, Beardslee's defense
attorney claims that he had brain injury stemming from ?several accidents
during his life,? and, furthermore, in prison ?he was diagnosed as having
schizophrenia.? A former warden reportedly has said that ?Beardslee should
have been granted clemency because he was a model inmate.? But none of
this saved the man from California?s death penalty.
For several decades I have opposed this public policy measure, mainly
because it is grossly imprudent. Of course, some people may well deserve
to die for their evil deeds, murder, rape, treason, or something else
that?s totally intolerable in a civilized society. Nor do I think it is
barbaric to kill criminals, since I do not think it is barbaric to kill in
self-defense and the death penalty may at times defend us from a vicious
murderer who may well kill again.
But there are ways to guard against this. What there is no way to guard
against is the occasional application of the death penalty to someone who
doesn?t in fact deserve it. In short, the probability of a mistake is
significant. So no one ought to risk it because it will at times
perpetrate a great wrong.
This is all about us, yes, not about the criminal. We need to be careful
not to kill people who should not be killed and since there is a chance of
doing this when the penalty is death, we should desist.
There is also the factor of cost. With all the appeals and other
administrative maneuvers associated with every death penalty
sentence?Beardslee lingered in prison for over two decades?the expense is
out of this world, far greater than what life without parole costs. Yet
this is secondary. What should matter most is that a mistake is
irreversible.
Does the death penalty deter people? The late Professor Ernest van den
Haag of the Fordham University School of Law, with whom I used to argue
about this matter, held that view for several decades until near the end
of his life he changed his mind. He still wanted those who deserve it to
be put to death but not because this would work to discourage most
prospective murderers. In the main, murderers, other than professional or
contract killers, do not kill as a result of rationally calculating the
pros and cons. They have usually given up control by the time they kill,
although this isn?t inevitable and in most cases they could have walked
away, done something else. It?s not all that different from when ordinary
folks resort to yelling or violence?they had it in them to abstain but let
go of themselves and resorted to improper ways.
So, a murderer is most likely to be beyond weighing odds, which means
that the threat of the death penalty isn?t likely to do much to dissuade
him or her from going ahead with the deed. And the studies pertaining to
this matter seem to show just that?deterrence is a mere hope and works in
but the rarest cases. So what is left? Death for the sake of retribution,
so van den Haag concluded.
OK, that?s not a bad reason but, given the risks, it cannot carry the
day. There are better options, period.
Some have argued that the death penalty is justified revenge, the
perfectly understandable collective venting of the raw emotion in the face
of a grave wronging of someone. It is a civilized revenge because it is
moderated by due process of law. It isn?t done hastily but deliberately.
Again, there is something to this but it doesn?t offset the major
objection?one can go very wrong with this and there is no remedy. Someone
mistakenly placed in prison for even most of his or her life could at
least be compensated for a mistake. Such a person could then lead a very
rewarding if short life, once the mistake has been established (for
example, via DNA testing). But if there is an execution, this option is
closed. And there need not have been such an irreversible policy?no reason
for it exists given the other options that are available.
There is a lot that?s wrong with the world and this part is really very
simple to repair, with no loss to anyone?life behind bars, with no chance
of parole, surely is almost worst for most than dying.
Monday, January 17, 2005
Column on an American Tragedy
An American Tragedy
Tibor R. Machan
Tragedies are morality plays wherein trying to do the right thing ends
people in terrible troubleÂ?just think of Antigone by Sophocles or Romeo
and Juliet by Shakespeare.
We have an ongoing tragedy afoot in our country. It has to do with the
relationship between our political tradition and the dominant moral
viewpoint. In the political realm everyone is supposed to have the
unalienable right to, among other things, the pursuit of happiness. No,
not to happiness but to pursuing it. None can have a right to happiness
since happiness is something one needs to achieve in lifeÂ?it cannot be
given or secured by government.
Still, having the basic human individual right to the pursuit of
happiness very firmly suggests that there is something proper about such a
pursuit. It is perfectly fine for people to focus on becoming happy.
Usually, this is done by means of pursuing various worthy and fulfilling
objectives, such as finding a rewarding career, seeking a joyful family
life, engaging in pleasant hobbies, and seeking to make sure, as a
citizen, that the country remains free.
Unfortunately, there is in the moral climate of the countryÂ?in what most
priests, ministers, writers, politicians, professors, pundits and such
teach and preachÂ?a contrary message. This message says, in effect, that it
is quite wrong to seek to be happy. The morality that plays well among
those who talk about such things most often is altruism.
As the philosopher W. G. Maclagan made clear, Â?Â?AltruismÂ? [is] assuming a
duty to relieve the distress and promote the happiness of our
fellows....Altruism is to ... maintain quite simply that a man may and
should discount altogether his own pleasure or happiness as such when he
is deciding what course of action to pursue.Â? (pp. 109-110). (Â?Self and
Others: A Defense of Altruism,Â? Philosophical Quarterly 4 [1954]:
109-127.) As usually presented, by ministers or priests or in fiction,
altruism means ranking looking out for others in first place in oneÂ?s list
of moral duties and casting aside oneÂ?s own happiness as negligible. As
the novelist Graham Greene put it, Â?None of us has a right to forget
anyone. Except ourselves.Â? (Looser Takes All [Penguin, 1993, p. 51].)
Now what does this come to? A flat out denunciation of the pursuit of
happiness. To engage in such a pursuit is widely deemed to be morally
wrong. So, the American FounderÂ?s put in place an ideal of politics that
too many of AmericaÂ?s moralists consider wrong. And since they are
entrusted with working out the moral issues of how people ought to live,
what principles they ought to follow in their lives, they are clearly
perpetrating a tragic conflict between the politics and the morality of
the country.
And it shows. Just the other day a letter writer in one of the newspapers
I read every morning made a big deal of how terrible it is that people
enjoy the movie Sideways. This lighthearted fluff is about two rather
unruly young men, neither exactly admirable, touring a region of
CaliforniaÂ?s wine countryÂ?not the usual Napa Valley but the Central
CoastÂ?while one of the sows his wild oats one last time, in, as I say, a
somewhat roguish fashion. The letter writer condemned the movie for
seemingly promoting such an endeavor and mentioned that in contrast to
such a terrible movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding should be embraced as far
more admirable, morally worthy.
This struck me as odd because My Big Fat Greek Wedding embodied one of
the most despicable human tendencies and made it all look so innocent and
quaint, namely, ethnic prejudice. If you recall, in that movie the father
of the young woman is fiercely insistent that she find a Greek mate. No
one else will do. And this is treated as merely amusing.
Now that attitude is truly disgusting. As if virtue resided only within
Greeks (or whatever group one prefers). As if those who donÂ?t belong could
not be worthy, decent, lovable. Such ethnic prejudice is, in fact, morally
vicious.
But this letter writer found the mild pursuit of pleasure in Sideways
morally awful, while regarding the blind and pointless ethnic loyalties in
the other film admirable.
It is very, very sad, indeed, that too many Americans consider the desire
for a pleasant and happy life something lowly while admiring it when
people embrace loyalties that are irrational and arbitrary and, as in the
case of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, spawning unhappiness for young people.
Tibor R. Machan
Tragedies are morality plays wherein trying to do the right thing ends
people in terrible troubleÂ?just think of Antigone by Sophocles or Romeo
and Juliet by Shakespeare.
We have an ongoing tragedy afoot in our country. It has to do with the
relationship between our political tradition and the dominant moral
viewpoint. In the political realm everyone is supposed to have the
unalienable right to, among other things, the pursuit of happiness. No,
not to happiness but to pursuing it. None can have a right to happiness
since happiness is something one needs to achieve in lifeÂ?it cannot be
given or secured by government.
Still, having the basic human individual right to the pursuit of
happiness very firmly suggests that there is something proper about such a
pursuit. It is perfectly fine for people to focus on becoming happy.
Usually, this is done by means of pursuing various worthy and fulfilling
objectives, such as finding a rewarding career, seeking a joyful family
life, engaging in pleasant hobbies, and seeking to make sure, as a
citizen, that the country remains free.
Unfortunately, there is in the moral climate of the countryÂ?in what most
priests, ministers, writers, politicians, professors, pundits and such
teach and preachÂ?a contrary message. This message says, in effect, that it
is quite wrong to seek to be happy. The morality that plays well among
those who talk about such things most often is altruism.
As the philosopher W. G. Maclagan made clear, Â?Â?AltruismÂ? [is] assuming a
duty to relieve the distress and promote the happiness of our
fellows....Altruism is to ... maintain quite simply that a man may and
should discount altogether his own pleasure or happiness as such when he
is deciding what course of action to pursue.Â? (pp. 109-110). (Â?Self and
Others: A Defense of Altruism,Â? Philosophical Quarterly 4 [1954]:
109-127.) As usually presented, by ministers or priests or in fiction,
altruism means ranking looking out for others in first place in oneÂ?s list
of moral duties and casting aside oneÂ?s own happiness as negligible. As
the novelist Graham Greene put it, Â?None of us has a right to forget
anyone. Except ourselves.Â? (Looser Takes All [Penguin, 1993, p. 51].)
Now what does this come to? A flat out denunciation of the pursuit of
happiness. To engage in such a pursuit is widely deemed to be morally
wrong. So, the American FounderÂ?s put in place an ideal of politics that
too many of AmericaÂ?s moralists consider wrong. And since they are
entrusted with working out the moral issues of how people ought to live,
what principles they ought to follow in their lives, they are clearly
perpetrating a tragic conflict between the politics and the morality of
the country.
And it shows. Just the other day a letter writer in one of the newspapers
I read every morning made a big deal of how terrible it is that people
enjoy the movie Sideways. This lighthearted fluff is about two rather
unruly young men, neither exactly admirable, touring a region of
CaliforniaÂ?s wine countryÂ?not the usual Napa Valley but the Central
CoastÂ?while one of the sows his wild oats one last time, in, as I say, a
somewhat roguish fashion. The letter writer condemned the movie for
seemingly promoting such an endeavor and mentioned that in contrast to
such a terrible movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding should be embraced as far
more admirable, morally worthy.
This struck me as odd because My Big Fat Greek Wedding embodied one of
the most despicable human tendencies and made it all look so innocent and
quaint, namely, ethnic prejudice. If you recall, in that movie the father
of the young woman is fiercely insistent that she find a Greek mate. No
one else will do. And this is treated as merely amusing.
Now that attitude is truly disgusting. As if virtue resided only within
Greeks (or whatever group one prefers). As if those who donÂ?t belong could
not be worthy, decent, lovable. Such ethnic prejudice is, in fact, morally
vicious.
But this letter writer found the mild pursuit of pleasure in Sideways
morally awful, while regarding the blind and pointless ethnic loyalties in
the other film admirable.
It is very, very sad, indeed, that too many Americans consider the desire
for a pleasant and happy life something lowly while admiring it when
people embrace loyalties that are irrational and arbitrary and, as in the
case of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, spawning unhappiness for young people.
Friday, January 14, 2005
Column on Governments and Disasters
Disasters and Governments
Tibor R. Machan
I have resisted writing about tsunami because, well, it is such a
horrible catastrophe that it seemed tacky to rush in a write about it.
Now, closer to home, we have the much smaller scale but to some people no
less disastrous events of the recent heavy rains in Southern California.
One of my colleagues sent me a post this time saying, Â?You might consider
doing a column on the recent mudslides in La Conchita [Ventura County]
that appear to have taken as many as 20 lives--three children.Â? He want on
to observe that Â?Authorities pleaded with people to leave, citing the
imminent threat posed by the mountain, which had slid several times
before. They chose to stay.Â?
In light of this, my colleague asks, Â?What is the proper balance between
a paternalistic state and individual liberty? Does the State have a
responsibility to warn peopleÂ?if that?Â?as many people feel it failed to do
in Indonesia? Or should it literally remove people from their homesÂ?as
they did in Florida prior to the Hurricane and forbade them from returning
until it was Â?safe.Â? Similarly, the Coast Guard has a right to move people
from their boats if they feel the crafts are unsafe. I know where you will
come down, but I think it worthy of comment, because the theme cuts across
so many public policy areas (seat belts, smoking, motorcycle helmet
laws)Â?as you well know.Â?
Let me get to the principle at issue first. In a free society it isnÂ?t
the role of government to get involved in such matters. Governments have
as their task to secure our rights and whatever needs to be done to do
this properly. As to disaster aversion, warning or relief, there should
and probably would be private alert groups, subscribed to by businesses
and individuals, not much different from how people buy insurance even
when they do not get to use it. Or how they buy security systems for their
homes and cars. The task of government is to keep the peace, etc., not to
solve our problems with rain, earthquake and such.
Of course, this is a Â?best world scenario,Â? which isn't likely to emerge
since people are too willing to fall prey to the temptation to take short
cuts, to try to make use of governmentsÂ? strong arm methods to address
problems, even if this means dragging others in and burdening them with
the costs.
All too many folks who purchase homes in high risk areas expect to be
bailed out not by their own expensive insuranceÂ?which might then
discourage them to buy thereÂ?but by government enforced
wealth-redistribution methods. (One bloke on the Los Angeles CBS all news
radio station, KNX, a member of their staff, who lost everything in La
Conchita, admitted that he knew the risks but had hopes that he could
dodge them!)
In our world, where so many millions of people relinquish their
responsibility for their own actions and lives, leaving it to
othersÂ?bureaucrats, politicians, police, the Coast Guard, etc.Â?to bail
them out, all one can do is hope that some of these disasters, which
governments simply cannot prevent and from which governments cannot rescue
people, will teach some hard lessons that will in time be utilized.
Even the tsunami catastrophe appears to have been preventable, had the
benefits of modern technology been put to proper use. There are in the
Pacific Ocean ample preparations afoot for just such disasters but they
were not deployed in the Indian Ocean. Nor were communication networks in
place to alert people in the various coastal regions when, in fact, just a
bit of warning, once the tsunami commenced, could have prevented the death
of thousands.
Where the idea of individual responsibility more firmly ingrained in the
minds of people around the globe, and proper sanctions in place when such
responsibilities are neglectedÂ?when homes are badly built, on infirm
grounds, or resorts badly secured against impending natural
calamitiesÂ?many of the horrors we have been witnessing of late would
probably have been averted. Instead, things are left to be dealt with by
othersÂ?by people in government who are no miracle makers and whose
attention is by no means focused on othersÂ? interests.
Tibor R. Machan
I have resisted writing about tsunami because, well, it is such a
horrible catastrophe that it seemed tacky to rush in a write about it.
Now, closer to home, we have the much smaller scale but to some people no
less disastrous events of the recent heavy rains in Southern California.
One of my colleagues sent me a post this time saying, Â?You might consider
doing a column on the recent mudslides in La Conchita [Ventura County]
that appear to have taken as many as 20 lives--three children.Â? He want on
to observe that Â?Authorities pleaded with people to leave, citing the
imminent threat posed by the mountain, which had slid several times
before. They chose to stay.Â?
In light of this, my colleague asks, Â?What is the proper balance between
a paternalistic state and individual liberty? Does the State have a
responsibility to warn peopleÂ?if that?Â?as many people feel it failed to do
in Indonesia? Or should it literally remove people from their homesÂ?as
they did in Florida prior to the Hurricane and forbade them from returning
until it was Â?safe.Â? Similarly, the Coast Guard has a right to move people
from their boats if they feel the crafts are unsafe. I know where you will
come down, but I think it worthy of comment, because the theme cuts across
so many public policy areas (seat belts, smoking, motorcycle helmet
laws)Â?as you well know.Â?
Let me get to the principle at issue first. In a free society it isnÂ?t
the role of government to get involved in such matters. Governments have
as their task to secure our rights and whatever needs to be done to do
this properly. As to disaster aversion, warning or relief, there should
and probably would be private alert groups, subscribed to by businesses
and individuals, not much different from how people buy insurance even
when they do not get to use it. Or how they buy security systems for their
homes and cars. The task of government is to keep the peace, etc., not to
solve our problems with rain, earthquake and such.
Of course, this is a Â?best world scenario,Â? which isn't likely to emerge
since people are too willing to fall prey to the temptation to take short
cuts, to try to make use of governmentsÂ? strong arm methods to address
problems, even if this means dragging others in and burdening them with
the costs.
All too many folks who purchase homes in high risk areas expect to be
bailed out not by their own expensive insuranceÂ?which might then
discourage them to buy thereÂ?but by government enforced
wealth-redistribution methods. (One bloke on the Los Angeles CBS all news
radio station, KNX, a member of their staff, who lost everything in La
Conchita, admitted that he knew the risks but had hopes that he could
dodge them!)
In our world, where so many millions of people relinquish their
responsibility for their own actions and lives, leaving it to
othersÂ?bureaucrats, politicians, police, the Coast Guard, etc.Â?to bail
them out, all one can do is hope that some of these disasters, which
governments simply cannot prevent and from which governments cannot rescue
people, will teach some hard lessons that will in time be utilized.
Even the tsunami catastrophe appears to have been preventable, had the
benefits of modern technology been put to proper use. There are in the
Pacific Ocean ample preparations afoot for just such disasters but they
were not deployed in the Indian Ocean. Nor were communication networks in
place to alert people in the various coastal regions when, in fact, just a
bit of warning, once the tsunami commenced, could have prevented the death
of thousands.
Where the idea of individual responsibility more firmly ingrained in the
minds of people around the globe, and proper sanctions in place when such
responsibilities are neglectedÂ?when homes are badly built, on infirm
grounds, or resorts badly secured against impending natural
calamitiesÂ?many of the horrors we have been witnessing of late would
probably have been averted. Instead, things are left to be dealt with by
othersÂ?by people in government who are no miracle makers and whose
attention is by no means focused on othersÂ? interests.
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Column on the "danger" of too many choices
The Issue of Choice
Tibor R. Machan
Barry Schwartz, a professor of psychology at Swarthmore
College, is the author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More
Is Less (2003), has once again penned an Op Ed piece for The New York
Times, his second in so many years, reiterating his theme that too much
choice is bad for people. This time he has jumped on the bandwagon of the
opponents of any measure of Social Security privatization, in part because
he thinks people are best off with fewer choices. As Schwartz puts it,
There is now accumulating evidence that choice isn't always good. Whether
people are choosing jam in a grocery store, essay topics in a college
class, or even potential partners in an evening of "speed dating," the
more options they have, the less likely they are to make a choice. In
other words, increasing options induces people to opt out of choosing
altogether, and this comes into play when people decide how to invest
their money for retirement.
When the good professor first aired this in an Op Ed in The Times, I
contacted him to explain that the plentitude of selections do not have the
purpose of providing each person with more and more of them. Rather, they
are to serve all the variety of people who would take advantage of all the
alternatives.
Consider this. You go to the supermarket which is brimming with
selections. Are they all to serve you? Surely not. Many of us patronize
two or three isles or sections, hardly ever even looking at the rest. But
the store accommodates thousands of customers and the greater the
selection, the more all these customers are accommodated.
Now consider some measure of privatization of Social SecurityÂ?an idea
that is now so watered down, by the Bush Administration itself, that the
Â?choicesÂ? involved are like those given by parents to toddlers, fiercely
Â?guided,Â? we might say. There are millions and millions of people who are
coerced to be part of the Social Security Ponzi scheme (named after 1920s
financial charlatan Charles Ponzi) and the system is not far from
bankruptcy. The returns on what one must put into it are about twice as
low than what one is likely to reap from investing in the stock market.
(Schwartz complains about this point, claiming there is no guarantee the
market will pay this; but then there is no guarantee in anything,
including any government scheme.) So, with a small percentage of what is
confiscated from us now at our disposal to investÂ?but in a great variety
of ways that the multitude of us is likely to utilizeÂ?there is a chance
that some of the money will not be wasted as it is routinely now.
VoilaÂ?bankruptcy at least postponed!
The idea of choice here is that of all the people involved, some set of
options will suit some of them, some will suit others. They need not all
cope with the task of choosing from every option thatÂ?s out there, as per
SchwartzÂ?s scenario.
The professorÂ?s evidence for the harmfulness of choiceÂ?or that people get
stymied with too many selections facing themÂ?is entirely misleading.
Anytime we choose, we do so selectively, from a small fraction of all the
alternatives that exist. But the more alternatives do exist, the more
people are being well served.
The problem, of course, is the professorÂ?s failure to appreciate human
nature. People are, as human beings, individuals, with very different
needs, objectives, goals, preferences, and wants. Sure, there are some
basic needs we all have, but those tend to be very general ones and can be
satisfied in a variety of ways. We all need food and clothing and
transportation but not the same kind by any means.
We also can use putting away for our old age, at least many of us can,
but exactly how we ought to do this will vary. Some may need to start to
do so early in life, some only later. Some, whose services are widely and
steadily wanted and who are good at keeping up the work may need not worry
about this at all, not in the systematic fashion that involves insurance
programs.
Unfortunately too many people are like Professor SchwartzÂ?they do not see
just how important individual differences are and even fail to see that
similar needs can be satisfied in a great variety of ways. So they keep
insisting on the one-size-fits all approach, which tends to support
various coercive public policies, all in the name of helping us out.
Tibor R. Machan
Barry Schwartz, a professor of psychology at Swarthmore
College, is the author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More
Is Less (2003), has once again penned an Op Ed piece for The New York
Times, his second in so many years, reiterating his theme that too much
choice is bad for people. This time he has jumped on the bandwagon of the
opponents of any measure of Social Security privatization, in part because
he thinks people are best off with fewer choices. As Schwartz puts it,
There is now accumulating evidence that choice isn't always good. Whether
people are choosing jam in a grocery store, essay topics in a college
class, or even potential partners in an evening of "speed dating," the
more options they have, the less likely they are to make a choice. In
other words, increasing options induces people to opt out of choosing
altogether, and this comes into play when people decide how to invest
their money for retirement.
When the good professor first aired this in an Op Ed in The Times, I
contacted him to explain that the plentitude of selections do not have the
purpose of providing each person with more and more of them. Rather, they
are to serve all the variety of people who would take advantage of all the
alternatives.
Consider this. You go to the supermarket which is brimming with
selections. Are they all to serve you? Surely not. Many of us patronize
two or three isles or sections, hardly ever even looking at the rest. But
the store accommodates thousands of customers and the greater the
selection, the more all these customers are accommodated.
Now consider some measure of privatization of Social SecurityÂ?an idea
that is now so watered down, by the Bush Administration itself, that the
Â?choicesÂ? involved are like those given by parents to toddlers, fiercely
Â?guided,Â? we might say. There are millions and millions of people who are
coerced to be part of the Social Security Ponzi scheme (named after 1920s
financial charlatan Charles Ponzi) and the system is not far from
bankruptcy. The returns on what one must put into it are about twice as
low than what one is likely to reap from investing in the stock market.
(Schwartz complains about this point, claiming there is no guarantee the
market will pay this; but then there is no guarantee in anything,
including any government scheme.) So, with a small percentage of what is
confiscated from us now at our disposal to investÂ?but in a great variety
of ways that the multitude of us is likely to utilizeÂ?there is a chance
that some of the money will not be wasted as it is routinely now.
VoilaÂ?bankruptcy at least postponed!
The idea of choice here is that of all the people involved, some set of
options will suit some of them, some will suit others. They need not all
cope with the task of choosing from every option thatÂ?s out there, as per
SchwartzÂ?s scenario.
The professorÂ?s evidence for the harmfulness of choiceÂ?or that people get
stymied with too many selections facing themÂ?is entirely misleading.
Anytime we choose, we do so selectively, from a small fraction of all the
alternatives that exist. But the more alternatives do exist, the more
people are being well served.
The problem, of course, is the professorÂ?s failure to appreciate human
nature. People are, as human beings, individuals, with very different
needs, objectives, goals, preferences, and wants. Sure, there are some
basic needs we all have, but those tend to be very general ones and can be
satisfied in a variety of ways. We all need food and clothing and
transportation but not the same kind by any means.
We also can use putting away for our old age, at least many of us can,
but exactly how we ought to do this will vary. Some may need to start to
do so early in life, some only later. Some, whose services are widely and
steadily wanted and who are good at keeping up the work may need not worry
about this at all, not in the systematic fashion that involves insurance
programs.
Unfortunately too many people are like Professor SchwartzÂ?they do not see
just how important individual differences are and even fail to see that
similar needs can be satisfied in a great variety of ways. So they keep
insisting on the one-size-fits all approach, which tends to support
various coercive public policies, all in the name of helping us out.
Column on Pride in one's Heritage (sans typo)
What Should we be Proud of?
Tibor R. Machan
In our local paper itÂ?s big news and I donÂ?t like it. I am talking about
how Santa Ana mayor Miguel Pulido, who moved to Orange County from Mexico
City, is proud of his heritage. He tells it up front: Â?I am very proud of
my heritage and my backgroundÂ?Â? although he adds that Â?sometimes it is
misunderstood.Â?
In fact, although Pulido isnÂ?t gung ho about his hailing from Mexico, it
is noted about him that when someone in school called him Â?Mike,Â? he
insisted on being called Â?Miguel.Â? OK, you are the boss about your nameÂ?I
myself have fully manufactured the pronunciation of my last name but for
opposite reasons. I wanted to become an American as much as I could,
without wishing at all to hide where I came from. (So Â?Machan,Â? while
sounding nothing like it in Hungarian, now sounds Â?McCannÂ? in English,
whereas Â?TiborÂ? is out and out Hungarian.)
But why the fuss? Well, I am always hoping people will take language
seriously and Â?being proud of somethingÂ? very much suggests that you had
something to do with bringing it about. Like the firm you built or
painting you created or novel you wrote, provided, indeed, that they have
merit, are worthy achievements.
But what then with such expressions, Â?I am very proud of my daughterÂ?s
achievementsÂ?? Well, yes, what about them?
Here the trick is that many parents firmly believe they mold their
children into who they are, especially when they turn out to be pretty
good people. But is this really a good idea? Are our children fashioned by
us? Are they our creations, like one of our paintings or poems? Are they
sculpted by us?
I am very hesitant to sanction this kind of understanding of parenting,
including my own. Sure, parents do have an influence on their kids, good
and bad. But that goes only so far. It is a distinctive attribute of human
beings that they are substantially self-made. They have free will and
within certain limits they take over their own development pretty early in
their lives. Parents know this only too well, as they often observe their
own offspring turning out to be very different from what they had hoped
and worked for them to become. No doubt, there are all sorts of subtle
influences they do exert, probably mainly by setting an example for how to
be a human being, for good or for ill. But in time even that is largely up
to the child, whether to pay attention to the parentsÂ? way of doing things
or to, say, some rock or movie starÂ?s. Or they will become captivatedÂ?an
interesting term(!)Â?by a scientist, an accountant or drug dealer. It is
all really not very predictable and that is, indeed, what makes human
beings so interesting and scaryÂ?you never quite know what they will choose
to do and be.
So, the expression Â?I am very proud of youÂ? is a bit fishy. Perhaps it
should be rephrased to Â?I am very glad about how you turned our or who you
have chosen to become.Â? A mouthful but more to the point, I think.
So what about being proud of Â?my heritage and my backgroundÂ?? I, for
instance, was born and raised in Hungary and my background includes two
fanatical athletic parents, one of whom happened to be an avid supporter
of the Nazis and a virulent anti-Semite.
Now, I suppose if the mayor should be proud of his heritage, I ought to
be ashamed of at least part of mine. But thatÂ?s nonsenseÂ?I feel absolutely
no shame for my fatherÂ?s vices, nor for the virtues of my mother or
grandparents, whatever they were. Fact is, we can, strictly speaking, only
be proud of what we have done, of who we are not what we are. I am a male,
Caucasian, hailing from Hungary, 6Â? 2Â?, etc., and so forth. None of this
is anything I am or should be proud of. I like some of it, yesÂ?some of
what I picked up from Hungary, like their cooking, the gypsy music they
played a lot, and many more subtle things I am pleased about. But then I
Â?picked upÂ? a lot of stuff since then, the blues, jazz, the English novel,
American court room drama and you name itÂ?but none of it is anything I
achieved, so none of it makes or should make me proud. What makes me proud
has to do with whatever worthy stuff I have created, achieved, thatÂ?s all.
Same with what I feel shame for, my own failings.
I do think if we stuck to this for what we are proud and ashamed of, we
could come closer to avoiding all that ethnic and racial pride and hatred
that has wrought such hell on earth upon the human race.
Tibor R. Machan
In our local paper itÂ?s big news and I donÂ?t like it. I am talking about
how Santa Ana mayor Miguel Pulido, who moved to Orange County from Mexico
City, is proud of his heritage. He tells it up front: Â?I am very proud of
my heritage and my backgroundÂ?Â? although he adds that Â?sometimes it is
misunderstood.Â?
In fact, although Pulido isnÂ?t gung ho about his hailing from Mexico, it
is noted about him that when someone in school called him Â?Mike,Â? he
insisted on being called Â?Miguel.Â? OK, you are the boss about your nameÂ?I
myself have fully manufactured the pronunciation of my last name but for
opposite reasons. I wanted to become an American as much as I could,
without wishing at all to hide where I came from. (So Â?Machan,Â? while
sounding nothing like it in Hungarian, now sounds Â?McCannÂ? in English,
whereas Â?TiborÂ? is out and out Hungarian.)
But why the fuss? Well, I am always hoping people will take language
seriously and Â?being proud of somethingÂ? very much suggests that you had
something to do with bringing it about. Like the firm you built or
painting you created or novel you wrote, provided, indeed, that they have
merit, are worthy achievements.
But what then with such expressions, Â?I am very proud of my daughterÂ?s
achievementsÂ?? Well, yes, what about them?
Here the trick is that many parents firmly believe they mold their
children into who they are, especially when they turn out to be pretty
good people. But is this really a good idea? Are our children fashioned by
us? Are they our creations, like one of our paintings or poems? Are they
sculpted by us?
I am very hesitant to sanction this kind of understanding of parenting,
including my own. Sure, parents do have an influence on their kids, good
and bad. But that goes only so far. It is a distinctive attribute of human
beings that they are substantially self-made. They have free will and
within certain limits they take over their own development pretty early in
their lives. Parents know this only too well, as they often observe their
own offspring turning out to be very different from what they had hoped
and worked for them to become. No doubt, there are all sorts of subtle
influences they do exert, probably mainly by setting an example for how to
be a human being, for good or for ill. But in time even that is largely up
to the child, whether to pay attention to the parentsÂ? way of doing things
or to, say, some rock or movie starÂ?s. Or they will become captivatedÂ?an
interesting term(!)Â?by a scientist, an accountant or drug dealer. It is
all really not very predictable and that is, indeed, what makes human
beings so interesting and scaryÂ?you never quite know what they will choose
to do and be.
So, the expression Â?I am very proud of youÂ? is a bit fishy. Perhaps it
should be rephrased to Â?I am very glad about how you turned our or who you
have chosen to become.Â? A mouthful but more to the point, I think.
So what about being proud of Â?my heritage and my backgroundÂ?? I, for
instance, was born and raised in Hungary and my background includes two
fanatical athletic parents, one of whom happened to be an avid supporter
of the Nazis and a virulent anti-Semite.
Now, I suppose if the mayor should be proud of his heritage, I ought to
be ashamed of at least part of mine. But thatÂ?s nonsenseÂ?I feel absolutely
no shame for my fatherÂ?s vices, nor for the virtues of my mother or
grandparents, whatever they were. Fact is, we can, strictly speaking, only
be proud of what we have done, of who we are not what we are. I am a male,
Caucasian, hailing from Hungary, 6Â? 2Â?, etc., and so forth. None of this
is anything I am or should be proud of. I like some of it, yesÂ?some of
what I picked up from Hungary, like their cooking, the gypsy music they
played a lot, and many more subtle things I am pleased about. But then I
Â?picked upÂ? a lot of stuff since then, the blues, jazz, the English novel,
American court room drama and you name itÂ?but none of it is anything I
achieved, so none of it makes or should make me proud. What makes me proud
has to do with whatever worthy stuff I have created, achieved, thatÂ?s all.
Same with what I feel shame for, my own failings.
I do think if we stuck to this for what we are proud and ashamed of, we
could come closer to avoiding all that ethnic and racial pride and hatred
that has wrought such hell on earth upon the human race.
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Column on Sen Boxer & Democracy
Senator Boxer and American Democracy
Tibor R. Machan
California Senator Barbara Boxer, leading the effort of the Democrats in
Congress to hold up the confirmation of the Electoral College vote on
January 6, claimed that the absolutely core principle of America is
democracy. Because, she claimed, the last two presidential elections had
threatened the democratic process, it was necessary to call attention to
this fact in both the United States House and Senate by this delay.
Leave aside for a moment that every time Democrats lose an important
vote, they complain not that people didnÂ?t vote for them but that the vote
wasnÂ?t honest. This was true in California back in early 70s when
Democrats wanted to pass a law burdening the oil companies but lost. Bill
Press, who lead the effort, claimed widespread deception which mislead
voters. In Florida, back in 2000, it was all about a bias based on a
technical feature of the voting machines.
According to journalism Professor at U. C. Berkeley and Bard College,
Mark DannerÂ?writing for the January 13, 2005, issue of The New York Review
of Books, and author of The Road to Illegitimacy: One ReporterÂ?s
Adventures in the 2000 Florida Vote Recount (Melville House, 2004)Â?the
2004 presidential election went as it did not because of the difficulties
faced by poor voters in Ohio, which was BoxerÂ?s pitch. But he, too, had an
excuse. According to this sophisticated analyst, the basic trick the
Republicans perpetrated is to put the trumped up fear of death into too
many people. The concerted effort by the Right Wing to portray Bush as a
war president and Kerry as a wimp did the trick.
But it was a trick. Danner didnÂ?t discuss that more voters in America
agreed with Mr. Bush than with Mr. Kerry. He didnÂ?t debate the substance.
He merely pointed a finger, following the DemocratsÂ? refrain, at the
subversion of democracy.
For my money, democracy is a minor political virtue. It is completely
derivativeÂ?based on the far more important principles associated with the
American political tradition of the individualÂ?s right to liberty.
Democracy follows this rightÂ?one is free, so one is free to take part in
politics. But what is far more important is what should be part of
politics. And that is where constitutionalism comes into the picture.
Based on the American political tradition, a constitution spells out the
limits of politics, of political power, of what governments are permitted
to do. This is the revolutionary part of AmericaÂ?curtailment of the scope
of politics in a community.
In most of human history prior to the American Revolution (and in too
many countries today), the scope of governmentÂ?of politicsÂ?had been
virtually unlimited. There had been efforts to limit it, for instance, via
the Magna Carta, but the philosophy that defined the principles why
government must be limited in its scope of power had to await the American
FounderÂ?s adoption of classical liberal thinking, such as that of John
Locke, and the ensuing statement of this in the Declaration of
Independence.
Senator Boxer just doesnÂ?t get it, unfortunately. It is this limitation
of the scope of government that is the centerpiece of AmericaÂ?s political
system, not democracy.
Strictly speaking, if the government is properly limited by a
constitution of individual rights, it doesnÂ?t even make all that much
practical difference whether democracy is in effect or, say, monarchy. If
the king has no power, there is no threat but if a democratically elected
Congress has unlimited power, democracy is uselessÂ?it can become a tyranny
as easily as a one party system can.
I am not one of those who thinks AmericaÂ?s experiment with individual
liberty has been a roaring success so far, quite the contrary. Slavery,
conscription, and innumerable other elements of that history have made
freedom only a dream rather than a reality for too many people. But this
had been understood by many and there had been a clear cut effort to
remedy matters. But with the likes of Boxer in the U. S. Senate any
further remedies are not very likely.
Tibor R. Machan
California Senator Barbara Boxer, leading the effort of the Democrats in
Congress to hold up the confirmation of the Electoral College vote on
January 6, claimed that the absolutely core principle of America is
democracy. Because, she claimed, the last two presidential elections had
threatened the democratic process, it was necessary to call attention to
this fact in both the United States House and Senate by this delay.
Leave aside for a moment that every time Democrats lose an important
vote, they complain not that people didnÂ?t vote for them but that the vote
wasnÂ?t honest. This was true in California back in early 70s when
Democrats wanted to pass a law burdening the oil companies but lost. Bill
Press, who lead the effort, claimed widespread deception which mislead
voters. In Florida, back in 2000, it was all about a bias based on a
technical feature of the voting machines.
According to journalism Professor at U. C. Berkeley and Bard College,
Mark DannerÂ?writing for the January 13, 2005, issue of The New York Review
of Books, and author of The Road to Illegitimacy: One ReporterÂ?s
Adventures in the 2000 Florida Vote Recount (Melville House, 2004)Â?the
2004 presidential election went as it did not because of the difficulties
faced by poor voters in Ohio, which was BoxerÂ?s pitch. But he, too, had an
excuse. According to this sophisticated analyst, the basic trick the
Republicans perpetrated is to put the trumped up fear of death into too
many people. The concerted effort by the Right Wing to portray Bush as a
war president and Kerry as a wimp did the trick.
But it was a trick. Danner didnÂ?t discuss that more voters in America
agreed with Mr. Bush than with Mr. Kerry. He didnÂ?t debate the substance.
He merely pointed a finger, following the DemocratsÂ? refrain, at the
subversion of democracy.
For my money, democracy is a minor political virtue. It is completely
derivativeÂ?based on the far more important principles associated with the
American political tradition of the individualÂ?s right to liberty.
Democracy follows this rightÂ?one is free, so one is free to take part in
politics. But what is far more important is what should be part of
politics. And that is where constitutionalism comes into the picture.
Based on the American political tradition, a constitution spells out the
limits of politics, of political power, of what governments are permitted
to do. This is the revolutionary part of AmericaÂ?curtailment of the scope
of politics in a community.
In most of human history prior to the American Revolution (and in too
many countries today), the scope of governmentÂ?of politicsÂ?had been
virtually unlimited. There had been efforts to limit it, for instance, via
the Magna Carta, but the philosophy that defined the principles why
government must be limited in its scope of power had to await the American
FounderÂ?s adoption of classical liberal thinking, such as that of John
Locke, and the ensuing statement of this in the Declaration of
Independence.
Senator Boxer just doesnÂ?t get it, unfortunately. It is this limitation
of the scope of government that is the centerpiece of AmericaÂ?s political
system, not democracy.
Strictly speaking, if the government is properly limited by a
constitution of individual rights, it doesnÂ?t even make all that much
practical difference whether democracy is in effect or, say, monarchy. If
the king has no power, there is no threat but if a democratically elected
Congress has unlimited power, democracy is uselessÂ?it can become a tyranny
as easily as a one party system can.
I am not one of those who thinks AmericaÂ?s experiment with individual
liberty has been a roaring success so far, quite the contrary. Slavery,
conscription, and innumerable other elements of that history have made
freedom only a dream rather than a reality for too many people. But this
had been understood by many and there had been a clear cut effort to
remedy matters. But with the likes of Boxer in the U. S. Senate any
further remedies are not very likely.
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Column on Sontag's Anti-Americanism
Death of an Anti-American
Tibor R. Machan
Susan Sontag died a few days ago, at age 71, succumbing to cancer, which
she has been battling for a long time. She was a very prominent New York
intellectual, a novelist and essayist and a leading member of the American
Left. Despite her frequent brillianceÂ?for example, when she remarked, to
the consternation of many of her pals on the Left that Â?Communism is
successful fascismÂ?Â?Sontag was also pretty confused when it came to an
understanding of human affairs.
In particular, shortly after the devastating terrorist attack on the
World Trade Center, Sontag penned these lines for The New Yorker magazine:
Â?Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a Â?cowardlyÂ? attack on
Â?civilizationÂ? or Â?libertyÂ? or Â?humanityÂ? or the Â?free worldÂ? but an
attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a
consequence of specific American alliances and actions? How many citizens
are aware of the ongoing American bombing of Iraq? And if the word
Â?cowardlyÂ? is to be used, it might be more aptly applied to those who kill
from beyond the range of retaliation, high in the sky, than to those
willing to die themselves in order to kill others. In the matter of
courage (a morally neutral virtue): whatever may be said of the
perpetrators of Tuesday's slaughter, they were not cowards.
There is great deal thatÂ?s off in these remarks, not the least involving
the history of the bombing of Iraq. Sontag contends, by implication, that
this was some kind of arbitrary American indulgence in aggression against
an innocent country, whereas a consideration of the context would
demonstrate that this is far from how the matter ought to be understood.
But that is only one, and not the most important, problem with SontagÂ?s
comment.
While it is generally bad form to criticize the recently deceased, in
this case I think it is worth noting that even to someone like me, who
considers AmericaÂ?s Middle East foreign policy flawed, the kind of
tribalism SontagÂ?s remark illustrates is a very serious problem. Sontag is
among those, after all, who would complain bitterly about such policies as
ethnic profiling in the wake of terrorism, and rightly so. But why is such
profiling wrong?
Because it lumps people together on the basis of what are, after all is
said and done, superficial attributes. Being an Arab or a Middle Eastern
or American should not be held against someone. It is not color or ethnic
background or even nationality that should qualify someone for moral or
legal scrutinyÂ?it must be their actual conduct. And thatÂ?s true also about
how people need to respond to injustices done to them.
Even assuming the United States government has acted wrongly toward people
in Iraq or Saudi Arabia or some other place around the globe, so that
something may be done in response, there is absolutely no justification in
sacrificing innocent Americans, including many children, while doing so.
Â?An attack on the worldÂ?s self-proclaimed superpowerÂ? may under no
circumstances involve lashing out at just any American, especially not
against civilians and children.
Those working at the New York World Trade Center were not some
Â?self-proclaimed superpowerÂ? but a great number of specific individuals
whose complicity in any wrong-doing of the American government needed to
be established before any harm might have been justly inflicted on them.
The terrorists were indeed cowardly for going after essentially
defenseless civilians and children simply because nearly all of them were
Americans. Furthermore, given that in their belief system they would be
rewarded with many blessings in the wake of their terrorists deeds, any
talk of great courage is arguably off base.
But SontagÂ?s ill-chosen remarks illustrate very well to what extent many
on the American Left embrace a collectivist view of human social life.
They view America as some kind of entity, of which the citizens are bits
and pieces, so if one is aggrieved by some of those bits, any others can
be made to suffer in response. For those who think this way, America is
like a person, so if the person hits you with arms, your hitting back at
the head or back is just fineÂ?they are all of one piece. It doesnÂ?t matter
that American citizens do not all agree with the American governmentÂ?s
policies in the Middle East. It doesnÂ?t matter that many of the victims of
the terrorists where kids who couldnÂ?t by any stretch of the imagination
be held responsible for what the government does and has done.
No, for collectivists a society is one great bodyÂ?as Marx said, Â?an
organic whole.Â? America is a large organism and those abroad are another
organism. It is then the former body that mistreats the latter, so the
latter may strike back at any part of the former.
Susan Sontag may have been a decent novelists and essayist, a good
wordsmith. But her thinking, as illustrated by her response to 9/11, shows
that she really was a quintessential anti-American, given her complete
rejection of one of the central tenets of American civilization, namely,
individualism. Only individuals who have been shown to have committed a
wrong against others may be punished for that wrong, not their neighbors,
relatives or children. Her failure to see this makes the late Susan Sontag
a perfect example of the LeftÂ?s fundamental anti-Americanism, even if one
were to admit that American foreign policy leaves a lot to be desired.
Tibor R. Machan
Susan Sontag died a few days ago, at age 71, succumbing to cancer, which
she has been battling for a long time. She was a very prominent New York
intellectual, a novelist and essayist and a leading member of the American
Left. Despite her frequent brillianceÂ?for example, when she remarked, to
the consternation of many of her pals on the Left that Â?Communism is
successful fascismÂ?Â?Sontag was also pretty confused when it came to an
understanding of human affairs.
In particular, shortly after the devastating terrorist attack on the
World Trade Center, Sontag penned these lines for The New Yorker magazine:
Â?Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a Â?cowardlyÂ? attack on
Â?civilizationÂ? or Â?libertyÂ? or Â?humanityÂ? or the Â?free worldÂ? but an
attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a
consequence of specific American alliances and actions? How many citizens
are aware of the ongoing American bombing of Iraq? And if the word
Â?cowardlyÂ? is to be used, it might be more aptly applied to those who kill
from beyond the range of retaliation, high in the sky, than to those
willing to die themselves in order to kill others. In the matter of
courage (a morally neutral virtue): whatever may be said of the
perpetrators of Tuesday's slaughter, they were not cowards.
There is great deal thatÂ?s off in these remarks, not the least involving
the history of the bombing of Iraq. Sontag contends, by implication, that
this was some kind of arbitrary American indulgence in aggression against
an innocent country, whereas a consideration of the context would
demonstrate that this is far from how the matter ought to be understood.
But that is only one, and not the most important, problem with SontagÂ?s
comment.
While it is generally bad form to criticize the recently deceased, in
this case I think it is worth noting that even to someone like me, who
considers AmericaÂ?s Middle East foreign policy flawed, the kind of
tribalism SontagÂ?s remark illustrates is a very serious problem. Sontag is
among those, after all, who would complain bitterly about such policies as
ethnic profiling in the wake of terrorism, and rightly so. But why is such
profiling wrong?
Because it lumps people together on the basis of what are, after all is
said and done, superficial attributes. Being an Arab or a Middle Eastern
or American should not be held against someone. It is not color or ethnic
background or even nationality that should qualify someone for moral or
legal scrutinyÂ?it must be their actual conduct. And thatÂ?s true also about
how people need to respond to injustices done to them.
Even assuming the United States government has acted wrongly toward people
in Iraq or Saudi Arabia or some other place around the globe, so that
something may be done in response, there is absolutely no justification in
sacrificing innocent Americans, including many children, while doing so.
Â?An attack on the worldÂ?s self-proclaimed superpowerÂ? may under no
circumstances involve lashing out at just any American, especially not
against civilians and children.
Those working at the New York World Trade Center were not some
Â?self-proclaimed superpowerÂ? but a great number of specific individuals
whose complicity in any wrong-doing of the American government needed to
be established before any harm might have been justly inflicted on them.
The terrorists were indeed cowardly for going after essentially
defenseless civilians and children simply because nearly all of them were
Americans. Furthermore, given that in their belief system they would be
rewarded with many blessings in the wake of their terrorists deeds, any
talk of great courage is arguably off base.
But SontagÂ?s ill-chosen remarks illustrate very well to what extent many
on the American Left embrace a collectivist view of human social life.
They view America as some kind of entity, of which the citizens are bits
and pieces, so if one is aggrieved by some of those bits, any others can
be made to suffer in response. For those who think this way, America is
like a person, so if the person hits you with arms, your hitting back at
the head or back is just fineÂ?they are all of one piece. It doesnÂ?t matter
that American citizens do not all agree with the American governmentÂ?s
policies in the Middle East. It doesnÂ?t matter that many of the victims of
the terrorists where kids who couldnÂ?t by any stretch of the imagination
be held responsible for what the government does and has done.
No, for collectivists a society is one great bodyÂ?as Marx said, Â?an
organic whole.Â? America is a large organism and those abroad are another
organism. It is then the former body that mistreats the latter, so the
latter may strike back at any part of the former.
Susan Sontag may have been a decent novelists and essayist, a good
wordsmith. But her thinking, as illustrated by her response to 9/11, shows
that she really was a quintessential anti-American, given her complete
rejection of one of the central tenets of American civilization, namely,
individualism. Only individuals who have been shown to have committed a
wrong against others may be punished for that wrong, not their neighbors,
relatives or children. Her failure to see this makes the late Susan Sontag
a perfect example of the LeftÂ?s fundamental anti-Americanism, even if one
were to admit that American foreign policy leaves a lot to be desired.
Sunday, December 26, 2004
Column on Bill Cosby vs. Kenny
Kenny vs. Bill Cosby
Tibor R. Machan
You may recall that Bill Cosby produced some aftershocks last May when he
admonished poor blacks to advance themselves instead of wasting their time
and money on trivial pursuits. This admonition was followed by a lot of
discussion and the repercussions still havenÂ?t died down.
In a recent event where CosbyÂ?s remarks were discussed with a group who
at first sight seemed to be among those he was addressing, some of them
came back at Cosby with pointed rebuttals. Reportedly one young man,
Kenny, 17, Â?a onetime stick-up man,Â? advanced the following Â?argumentÂ?:
"Cosby is ... talking about me holding up my end of the bargain. Listen
.... I robbed 'cause I was hungry. If he's going to put food on my table,
if he's going to give me time to pursue education vigorously, then fine.
But if he's not, then I'm going to hold up my end of the bargain and make
sure I get something to eat."
For a 17 year old this response may seem quite cogent only, actually, it
smacks too much of an excuse and I hope Cosby and his sympathizers
consider that before they cave in. I am not black but when I was about 17
I was out on the street myself, homeless, a high school flunkout. I
actually had a small place in a black neighborhood in Cleveland, what they
used to call a ghetto, and it would have been very simple for me to yield
to the temptation to enter a career of crime. One of my friends, also a
Hungarian refugee, did exactly thatÂ?I remember bailing him out of jail
with a tiny sum of cash I amassed from my job as a busboy. (I couldnÂ?t
keep this job because I was under age but I went on to become a short
order cook, with the glamorous task of preparing house salads in some
diner in Cleveland.)
Now I cannot be sure about this, since to be one would need to have
pretty intimate knowledgeÂ?rarely available to sociologists and social
commentators, not excluding Bill CosbyÂ?but I suspect that Kenny had a few
options besides becoming a stick-up man. I recall that even when I was
younger, living in Munich, I had jobs such as welding, brick laying,
cleaning on pigeon shit from a church steeple and baby sitting. At no time
did it seem to me necessary to turn to robbery, burglary, or sticking up
people. It was part of my general framework of thought, back then, that
with some perseverance and a little luck one can find something with which
to earn a buck or so.
The point, I think, of CosbyÂ?s remarks wasnÂ?t that every single solitary
young person will necessarily be able to make it on his or her own when
faced with poverty and deprivation. One usually needs a little help from
friends and neighbors or even total strangers when faced with such
emergencies. But the first requisite to get out of such a situation
without worsening matters is to have as oneÂ?s frame of reference the basic
principle that turning on other people is simply not an option. That, I
think, is a must. Once it sinks in, there will open up a world of more or
less promising opportunities one can attempt to exploit.
Kenny, I think, is probably reaching for some kind of rationalization
here, although, as I noted, this is not possible to established from just
a brief news report. But why is the report given in the first place, given
how it is impossible to judge from it whether there is any justification
for what Kenny is telling us all?
The reason is that KennyÂ?s story is exactly the sort that many experts in
social science tell and against which Bill Cosby and others with a richer
imagination about how people, even those who are quite unfortunate in
life, can advance themselves. Yes, there are those in dire straits who
need a decisive leg up, but then what they probably need is to learn to
ask for this in the right places. And there are thousands of such places
in America, so KennyÂ?s story just doesnÂ?t cut it even in the worst
circumstances. (Notice how he so smoothly wants Cosby to put food on his
table!) Instead, I suspect, Kenny and his ilk are brought up encouraged to
think that stick-ups are a valid option for people when they are facing
difficulties in making ends meet.
That, I think, is the central message Bill Cosby was trying to
communicate. Stop it with such ideas already!
Tibor R. Machan
You may recall that Bill Cosby produced some aftershocks last May when he
admonished poor blacks to advance themselves instead of wasting their time
and money on trivial pursuits. This admonition was followed by a lot of
discussion and the repercussions still havenÂ?t died down.
In a recent event where CosbyÂ?s remarks were discussed with a group who
at first sight seemed to be among those he was addressing, some of them
came back at Cosby with pointed rebuttals. Reportedly one young man,
Kenny, 17, Â?a onetime stick-up man,Â? advanced the following Â?argumentÂ?:
"Cosby is ... talking about me holding up my end of the bargain. Listen
.... I robbed 'cause I was hungry. If he's going to put food on my table,
if he's going to give me time to pursue education vigorously, then fine.
But if he's not, then I'm going to hold up my end of the bargain and make
sure I get something to eat."
For a 17 year old this response may seem quite cogent only, actually, it
smacks too much of an excuse and I hope Cosby and his sympathizers
consider that before they cave in. I am not black but when I was about 17
I was out on the street myself, homeless, a high school flunkout. I
actually had a small place in a black neighborhood in Cleveland, what they
used to call a ghetto, and it would have been very simple for me to yield
to the temptation to enter a career of crime. One of my friends, also a
Hungarian refugee, did exactly thatÂ?I remember bailing him out of jail
with a tiny sum of cash I amassed from my job as a busboy. (I couldnÂ?t
keep this job because I was under age but I went on to become a short
order cook, with the glamorous task of preparing house salads in some
diner in Cleveland.)
Now I cannot be sure about this, since to be one would need to have
pretty intimate knowledgeÂ?rarely available to sociologists and social
commentators, not excluding Bill CosbyÂ?but I suspect that Kenny had a few
options besides becoming a stick-up man. I recall that even when I was
younger, living in Munich, I had jobs such as welding, brick laying,
cleaning on pigeon shit from a church steeple and baby sitting. At no time
did it seem to me necessary to turn to robbery, burglary, or sticking up
people. It was part of my general framework of thought, back then, that
with some perseverance and a little luck one can find something with which
to earn a buck or so.
The point, I think, of CosbyÂ?s remarks wasnÂ?t that every single solitary
young person will necessarily be able to make it on his or her own when
faced with poverty and deprivation. One usually needs a little help from
friends and neighbors or even total strangers when faced with such
emergencies. But the first requisite to get out of such a situation
without worsening matters is to have as oneÂ?s frame of reference the basic
principle that turning on other people is simply not an option. That, I
think, is a must. Once it sinks in, there will open up a world of more or
less promising opportunities one can attempt to exploit.
Kenny, I think, is probably reaching for some kind of rationalization
here, although, as I noted, this is not possible to established from just
a brief news report. But why is the report given in the first place, given
how it is impossible to judge from it whether there is any justification
for what Kenny is telling us all?
The reason is that KennyÂ?s story is exactly the sort that many experts in
social science tell and against which Bill Cosby and others with a richer
imagination about how people, even those who are quite unfortunate in
life, can advance themselves. Yes, there are those in dire straits who
need a decisive leg up, but then what they probably need is to learn to
ask for this in the right places. And there are thousands of such places
in America, so KennyÂ?s story just doesnÂ?t cut it even in the worst
circumstances. (Notice how he so smoothly wants Cosby to put food on his
table!) Instead, I suspect, Kenny and his ilk are brought up encouraged to
think that stick-ups are a valid option for people when they are facing
difficulties in making ends meet.
That, I think, is the central message Bill Cosby was trying to
communicate. Stop it with such ideas already!
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Column on Taking Stock at Year's End
Taking Stock of America
Tibor R. Machan
It is a tradition to take stock at yearÂ?s end, so I am going to follow,
seeing it is useful to do this now and then. After a hectic year, with a
very nasty election campaign behind us, with a war that is utterly futile
and yet keeps raging along thousands of miles away, it may serve a purpose
to remind ourselves of what is really so great about AmericaÂ?or at least
its promise.
How can I do this without thinking of my own history which involved
coming to these shores from communist Hungary, after a brief stay in
Germany, way back in the 50s? The contrast back then was stark, at least
when one considers the ideas that defined the two societies.
Communists believed that government needed forcibly to prepare the
population for a revolutionary change, one that would remake human nature
from its individualist phase to a fully mature collectivist emancipation.
They thought the idea of individual liberty is a shallow bit of
self-delusion, one that can serve a mere temporary purpose of boosting the
economic power of a society. After that socialism would take over, with
government managing everything for some vague notion of the general good.
In time communism would arrive, in which everyone automatically work for a
common goal, the supposed public interest.
Such a one-size-fits-all vision is what the few genuine commies cooked
up, while opportunists, who made up the bulk, simply used this phony idea
to get control of society and oppress everyone for their own purposes,
ones that amounted to nothing more noble than those of the Mafia. In
contrast, what was associated with America, even if the reality fell far
short of it, had to do with the truly revolutionary idea that individual
human beings matter mostÂ?not society, not the tribe, not the ethnic group.
This notion, that you, I, they, everyone in fact, matters most, not
collectively but individually, was the main message of the American
Founders when they so enthusiastically affirmed the discovery that every
individual person has unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness. Those rights, and what followed from them, would become, in
a just society, legally protected obstacles to all who would attempt to
rule other peopleÂ?s lives. They would, if properly heeded and firmly
secured, serve as the inviolable borders around every human beingÂ?s life
so that it is he or she who governs that life, not others with the sorry
excuse that they are being helpful and mean to do good for those they
undertake to boss about.
There is no other contrast that is more stark in the history of political
thought than that between those who want to rule others, with a myriad of
excuses that at times sound tempting, and those who would unwaveringly
acknowledge everyoneÂ?s fundamental sovereignty. Even when we find some
folks who lack the full capacity to be sovereign, they would gain support
from volunteers, not from political bosses who would invariably abuse the
power over the helpless so as to impose their idea of how everyone ought
to live.
In this American vision of societyÂ?the one most folks identify with this
country as being unique to it (for America also involves lots of bad
habits from the Old World)Â?the legal authorities have one primary job,
namely, to secure our rights. Like referees at a game, they are to stick
only to that job and whatÂ?s needed to do it right, but not venture out on
various missions of power venting.
This idea is the special contribution of America to the history of world
politics, and some of it could even be experienced here and there, used to
actually set people free. Even African Americans, who at first didnÂ?t
benefit much from these notions, eventually found their liberty affirmed
specifically because of what the FounderÂ?s made clear in the Declaration
of Independence: No one is to rule another, not for good or for ill,
without that otherÂ?s consent.
This idea has always been true but for too long tragically suppressed by
the monsters and petty tyrants who loved running roughshod over the rest
of us. And today the idea is once again becoming neglected.
In our recent presidential campaign the idea that people ought to be free
to run their own lives, for better or for worse, however fortunate or
unfortunate they may be, gained hardly any airing. Even President George
W. BushÂ?s invocation of the concept of the Â?ownership societyÂ? amounted to
little more than empty rhetoric.
Such is the sad state of affairs at the end of 2004 and beginning of
2005. Perhaps with a few more thousand outspoken citizens making it
abundantly clear that it is indeed American individualism that requires
vigilant defense, the revolutionary vision of the American founders could
be rekindled. It certainly deserves to be.
---------------------
Machan teaches business ethics at Chapman University, Orange, CA. He is
research fellow at the Hoover Institution and advises Freedom
Communications, Inc., on libertarian issues. His most recent book is
Objectivity (Ashgate, 2004).
Tibor R. Machan
It is a tradition to take stock at yearÂ?s end, so I am going to follow,
seeing it is useful to do this now and then. After a hectic year, with a
very nasty election campaign behind us, with a war that is utterly futile
and yet keeps raging along thousands of miles away, it may serve a purpose
to remind ourselves of what is really so great about AmericaÂ?or at least
its promise.
How can I do this without thinking of my own history which involved
coming to these shores from communist Hungary, after a brief stay in
Germany, way back in the 50s? The contrast back then was stark, at least
when one considers the ideas that defined the two societies.
Communists believed that government needed forcibly to prepare the
population for a revolutionary change, one that would remake human nature
from its individualist phase to a fully mature collectivist emancipation.
They thought the idea of individual liberty is a shallow bit of
self-delusion, one that can serve a mere temporary purpose of boosting the
economic power of a society. After that socialism would take over, with
government managing everything for some vague notion of the general good.
In time communism would arrive, in which everyone automatically work for a
common goal, the supposed public interest.
Such a one-size-fits-all vision is what the few genuine commies cooked
up, while opportunists, who made up the bulk, simply used this phony idea
to get control of society and oppress everyone for their own purposes,
ones that amounted to nothing more noble than those of the Mafia. In
contrast, what was associated with America, even if the reality fell far
short of it, had to do with the truly revolutionary idea that individual
human beings matter mostÂ?not society, not the tribe, not the ethnic group.
This notion, that you, I, they, everyone in fact, matters most, not
collectively but individually, was the main message of the American
Founders when they so enthusiastically affirmed the discovery that every
individual person has unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness. Those rights, and what followed from them, would become, in
a just society, legally protected obstacles to all who would attempt to
rule other peopleÂ?s lives. They would, if properly heeded and firmly
secured, serve as the inviolable borders around every human beingÂ?s life
so that it is he or she who governs that life, not others with the sorry
excuse that they are being helpful and mean to do good for those they
undertake to boss about.
There is no other contrast that is more stark in the history of political
thought than that between those who want to rule others, with a myriad of
excuses that at times sound tempting, and those who would unwaveringly
acknowledge everyoneÂ?s fundamental sovereignty. Even when we find some
folks who lack the full capacity to be sovereign, they would gain support
from volunteers, not from political bosses who would invariably abuse the
power over the helpless so as to impose their idea of how everyone ought
to live.
In this American vision of societyÂ?the one most folks identify with this
country as being unique to it (for America also involves lots of bad
habits from the Old World)Â?the legal authorities have one primary job,
namely, to secure our rights. Like referees at a game, they are to stick
only to that job and whatÂ?s needed to do it right, but not venture out on
various missions of power venting.
This idea is the special contribution of America to the history of world
politics, and some of it could even be experienced here and there, used to
actually set people free. Even African Americans, who at first didnÂ?t
benefit much from these notions, eventually found their liberty affirmed
specifically because of what the FounderÂ?s made clear in the Declaration
of Independence: No one is to rule another, not for good or for ill,
without that otherÂ?s consent.
This idea has always been true but for too long tragically suppressed by
the monsters and petty tyrants who loved running roughshod over the rest
of us. And today the idea is once again becoming neglected.
In our recent presidential campaign the idea that people ought to be free
to run their own lives, for better or for worse, however fortunate or
unfortunate they may be, gained hardly any airing. Even President George
W. BushÂ?s invocation of the concept of the Â?ownership societyÂ? amounted to
little more than empty rhetoric.
Such is the sad state of affairs at the end of 2004 and beginning of
2005. Perhaps with a few more thousand outspoken citizens making it
abundantly clear that it is indeed American individualism that requires
vigilant defense, the revolutionary vision of the American founders could
be rekindled. It certainly deserves to be.
---------------------
Machan teaches business ethics at Chapman University, Orange, CA. He is
research fellow at the Hoover Institution and advises Freedom
Communications, Inc., on libertarian issues. His most recent book is
Objectivity (Ashgate, 2004).
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
Column on FDA Myths
Mythmaking about the FDA
Tibor R. Machan
Merrill Goozner is the director of the Integrity in Science project at
the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Ralph Nader inspired
organization guided by, among others, the legendary Michael Jacobson who
has been the driving force of this group from its inception. Along with
other organizations, such as the Public CitizenÂ?s Health Research Group
and its main man, Dr. Sidney M. Wolfe, CSPI is in the business of
encouraging our government to live up to this wonderful insight by H. L.
Mencken: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace
alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an
endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary" (Minority Report,
[Johns Hopkins Univ Press, 1997]).
In his recent Op Ed essay for The New York Times (December 21, 2004),
Goozner advances some of the classic myths about government. First, he
tells us, Â?To make rational choices, doctors and consumers need the F.D.A.
and other agencies to be independent arbiters of not just the safety and
efficacy of new drugs and devices, but of their relative medical
usefulness and economic viability.Â? He continues his myth-perpetuation by
announcing that Â?the medical oversight system needs a new ethicÂ?one that
scrupulously adheres to a standard that says its studies and decisions
have been made entirely free of commercial bias and conflicts of interest.Â?
No sooner does our true believer in the power of government to solve all
our pharmacological problems, he does give a hint as to why it is all the
dream: Â?Sadly, that is very far from the situation today. Drug and device
companies sponsor most clinical trials; F.D.A. advisory panels are larded
with scientists tied to private companies; corporate user fees help
finance the F.D.A. that is conducting reviews; doctors get most of their
medical information either from sales representatives of drug companies or
corporate-sponsored continuing medical education; and the companies are
given primary responsibility for post-marketing safety surveillance of
their own products.Â?
Goozner mentions these obstacles to the possibility of impartiality and
objectivity of government policy making as if they were something only in
place �today.� And thus he charges ahead enthusiastically with the naïve
notion that Â?To break these ties, there needs to be an independent arm of
F.D.A. that contracts with independent clinicians and scientists for the
final testing of all new drugs and medical devices.Â? He proposes that
Â?After a company submits its drug application based on safety and early
efficacy trials, this arm would design the protocols to learn not just if
the new drug is effective versus a placebo, but how it compares to other
therapies and how it can be most effectively used. At the same time, the
F.D.A. agency would need an adequately financed post-marketing system that
would follow through on a drug's safety, using information and financing
independent of the drug manufacturers.Â?
These are all pseudo-noble notions and while they fall way short of
justifying what the F.D.A. is supposed to be doing at its idealistic best,
there is an omission in GooznerÂ?s discussion that amounts to out and out
malpractice: He fails to discuss either the very famous argument of
economist Sam Peltzman, of the University of Chicago, concerning the drug
lag problem or the Nobel Prize winning idea of Professor James M. Buchanan
of George Mason University called Â?public choice theory.Â?
Anyone who still has the temerity to propose that government is the
solution to problems associated with drug manufacturing and marketing has
the moral and professional obligation to discuss these two basic
objections to such an idea. The drug lag argument shows that even
following the intentions of the legislators who created the Food and Drug
Administration, the results are going to be disastrous. Yes, one can
always call up such rare victories as the banning of thalidomide (though
even this one is no slam dunk when the details are considered). But as
Aristotle taught us some 2600 years ago, Â?one swallow does not a summer
make.Â?
In fact, the F.D.A.Â?s policies produce even greater health hazards than
anyone could imagine it averting. The reason is pretty simple: By
insisting on certain types of tests for drugs that are being slated for
manufactureÂ?routinely requiring the impossible of proving a negative (Â?No
one will be put at risk from this drugÂ?)Â?Americans are often prevented
from gaining access to very effective means to fend off life threatening
diseases. The country thus lags behind many others and only those rich
enough to visit these others are able to overcome this obstacle to their
likely medical recoveries.
The merits of this argument are, of course, in the details. Yet it has
gained considerable credibility over the last five or so decades and
anyone who promotes greater powers for the F.D.A. needs to discuss it. The
same holds for BuchananÂ?s theory of public choice, one he developed with
Gordon Tullock in their book, The Calculus of Consent (University of
Michigan Press, 1962). In 1985 Buchanan received the Nobel Prize in
economics for this work and anyone who is proposing that outfits such as
the F.D.A. can escape the inherent problem of bias would have to address
his work.
Contrary to the suggestion by all those who propose to solve problems via
governmentÂ?namely, that all we really need is better people and more
stringent rulesÂ?public choice theorists argues that inherent in the
process of government regulation we invariably find the triumph of vested
interest. Bureaucrats, including the most honorable scientists who might
be hired to work in government agencies, are inclined to bolster their own
special purposes and goalsÂ?some call this their Â?selfish interestsÂ?Â?and
the way the welfare state works there simply is no way to curtail any of
this. The dynamics of the nearly unbound democratic system are such that
government must respond to those in the constituency who exert the most
clout. This is the most natural way of its operation. So it is sheer
fantasy to hope that new people or rules will manage to circumvent it all.
But, instead of at least hinting at such problems with his proposal, Mr.
Goozner charges ahead zealously, failing to raise any of the well
established skeptical concerns with what he wishes for, holding out the
myth of government regulators as Â?independent arbiters.Â?
Never mind that even at it most ideal conception, government regulation
is a violation of due process because it intrudes on peopleÂ?s lives,
imposing major burdens on those who have not hurt anyone at allÂ?a form of
impermissible prior restraint in a free country. Even the utilitarian
consideration that F.D.A. type operations have innate flaws fails to
receive acknowledgment in Mr. GooznerÂ?s proselytizing.
To return to an old theme of mine, isnÂ?t it interesting that when
journalists and pundits peddle their deadly wares, there is no requirement
for warning labels!
Machan teaches business ethics at Chapman University, Orange, CA. He is
research fellow at the Hoover Institution and advises Freedom
Communications, Inc., on libertarian issues. His most recent book is
Objectivity (Ashgate, 2004).
Tibor R. Machan
Merrill Goozner is the director of the Integrity in Science project at
the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Ralph Nader inspired
organization guided by, among others, the legendary Michael Jacobson who
has been the driving force of this group from its inception. Along with
other organizations, such as the Public CitizenÂ?s Health Research Group
and its main man, Dr. Sidney M. Wolfe, CSPI is in the business of
encouraging our government to live up to this wonderful insight by H. L.
Mencken: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace
alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an
endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary" (Minority Report,
[Johns Hopkins Univ Press, 1997]).
In his recent Op Ed essay for The New York Times (December 21, 2004),
Goozner advances some of the classic myths about government. First, he
tells us, Â?To make rational choices, doctors and consumers need the F.D.A.
and other agencies to be independent arbiters of not just the safety and
efficacy of new drugs and devices, but of their relative medical
usefulness and economic viability.Â? He continues his myth-perpetuation by
announcing that Â?the medical oversight system needs a new ethicÂ?one that
scrupulously adheres to a standard that says its studies and decisions
have been made entirely free of commercial bias and conflicts of interest.Â?
No sooner does our true believer in the power of government to solve all
our pharmacological problems, he does give a hint as to why it is all the
dream: Â?Sadly, that is very far from the situation today. Drug and device
companies sponsor most clinical trials; F.D.A. advisory panels are larded
with scientists tied to private companies; corporate user fees help
finance the F.D.A. that is conducting reviews; doctors get most of their
medical information either from sales representatives of drug companies or
corporate-sponsored continuing medical education; and the companies are
given primary responsibility for post-marketing safety surveillance of
their own products.Â?
Goozner mentions these obstacles to the possibility of impartiality and
objectivity of government policy making as if they were something only in
place �today.� And thus he charges ahead enthusiastically with the naïve
notion that Â?To break these ties, there needs to be an independent arm of
F.D.A. that contracts with independent clinicians and scientists for the
final testing of all new drugs and medical devices.Â? He proposes that
Â?After a company submits its drug application based on safety and early
efficacy trials, this arm would design the protocols to learn not just if
the new drug is effective versus a placebo, but how it compares to other
therapies and how it can be most effectively used. At the same time, the
F.D.A. agency would need an adequately financed post-marketing system that
would follow through on a drug's safety, using information and financing
independent of the drug manufacturers.Â?
These are all pseudo-noble notions and while they fall way short of
justifying what the F.D.A. is supposed to be doing at its idealistic best,
there is an omission in GooznerÂ?s discussion that amounts to out and out
malpractice: He fails to discuss either the very famous argument of
economist Sam Peltzman, of the University of Chicago, concerning the drug
lag problem or the Nobel Prize winning idea of Professor James M. Buchanan
of George Mason University called Â?public choice theory.Â?
Anyone who still has the temerity to propose that government is the
solution to problems associated with drug manufacturing and marketing has
the moral and professional obligation to discuss these two basic
objections to such an idea. The drug lag argument shows that even
following the intentions of the legislators who created the Food and Drug
Administration, the results are going to be disastrous. Yes, one can
always call up such rare victories as the banning of thalidomide (though
even this one is no slam dunk when the details are considered). But as
Aristotle taught us some 2600 years ago, Â?one swallow does not a summer
make.Â?
In fact, the F.D.A.Â?s policies produce even greater health hazards than
anyone could imagine it averting. The reason is pretty simple: By
insisting on certain types of tests for drugs that are being slated for
manufactureÂ?routinely requiring the impossible of proving a negative (Â?No
one will be put at risk from this drugÂ?)Â?Americans are often prevented
from gaining access to very effective means to fend off life threatening
diseases. The country thus lags behind many others and only those rich
enough to visit these others are able to overcome this obstacle to their
likely medical recoveries.
The merits of this argument are, of course, in the details. Yet it has
gained considerable credibility over the last five or so decades and
anyone who promotes greater powers for the F.D.A. needs to discuss it. The
same holds for BuchananÂ?s theory of public choice, one he developed with
Gordon Tullock in their book, The Calculus of Consent (University of
Michigan Press, 1962). In 1985 Buchanan received the Nobel Prize in
economics for this work and anyone who is proposing that outfits such as
the F.D.A. can escape the inherent problem of bias would have to address
his work.
Contrary to the suggestion by all those who propose to solve problems via
governmentÂ?namely, that all we really need is better people and more
stringent rulesÂ?public choice theorists argues that inherent in the
process of government regulation we invariably find the triumph of vested
interest. Bureaucrats, including the most honorable scientists who might
be hired to work in government agencies, are inclined to bolster their own
special purposes and goalsÂ?some call this their Â?selfish interestsÂ?Â?and
the way the welfare state works there simply is no way to curtail any of
this. The dynamics of the nearly unbound democratic system are such that
government must respond to those in the constituency who exert the most
clout. This is the most natural way of its operation. So it is sheer
fantasy to hope that new people or rules will manage to circumvent it all.
But, instead of at least hinting at such problems with his proposal, Mr.
Goozner charges ahead zealously, failing to raise any of the well
established skeptical concerns with what he wishes for, holding out the
myth of government regulators as Â?independent arbiters.Â?
Never mind that even at it most ideal conception, government regulation
is a violation of due process because it intrudes on peopleÂ?s lives,
imposing major burdens on those who have not hurt anyone at allÂ?a form of
impermissible prior restraint in a free country. Even the utilitarian
consideration that F.D.A. type operations have innate flaws fails to
receive acknowledgment in Mr. GooznerÂ?s proselytizing.
To return to an old theme of mine, isnÂ?t it interesting that when
journalists and pundits peddle their deadly wares, there is no requirement
for warning labels!
Machan teaches business ethics at Chapman University, Orange, CA. He is
research fellow at the Hoover Institution and advises Freedom
Communications, Inc., on libertarian issues. His most recent book is
Objectivity (Ashgate, 2004).
Monday, December 20, 2004
Column on the Cost of Risk-taking
Footing the Bill for Risk Takers
Tibor R. Machan
Waiting for the feature film to come on the screen, I sat through
innumerable ads. (These days one no longer can go to the movies to get
away from them and then one must also payÂ?so I rarely go.) One of these
featured a surfer who proudly announced that heÂ?s broken his foot several
times, as well as injuring his knees and his back. He seemed rather
pleased with himself for all this, smiling as he made his confession.
Or at least is should have been a confession. For years from now, when he
will be old, he will have innumerable medical problems as a result of all
this risky play. My own mother, who was a vigorous athlete from age
14thÂ?she fenced and swam and skiedÂ?now, at 85, is feeling pain in her
lower extremities and frankly blames it on her early athletic prowess (and
on my father, another fanatic, who forced her into much of thisÂ?he was her
coach from age 14 on).
But, of course, in the wonderful welfare state in which we live there is
nothing much to regret. Not only will everyone be taken care of by various
state and federal "insurance" programsÂ?all of them coercive wealth
redistribution schemes without any means testingÂ?but perhaps by then all
the sports equipment manufacturers and athletic clubs, maybe even
university athletic departmentsÂ?will be ripe for massive law suits by the
government to pay up for all the ailing old folks who will need to be
taken care of. (This will be required, given that the state coffers will
soon be bankrupt from all this Â?freeÂ? medical service everyone has a
Â?basic rightÂ? to.)
This is indeed the consequence of collectivismÂ?we are all in the same
boat, whether or not we individually chose to be in it. If you do not
engage in risky behavior and thus spare yourself from injury and later
innumerable trips to the doctor, it is almost irrelevant. Funds will still
be extorted from you so as to take care of the ailments of your fellows.
The precedent for this is set in law and public policy now. People who
smoked for decadesÂ?with the warning labels starting them in the face and
the news about tobacco being bad for you all around (I knew it back in
Hungary in the 1950s)Â?could not only win huge legal judgments in their or
their kinÂ?s favor but their medical costs, covered by the states, were
used as grounds for bilking the tobacco firms out of billions of dollars.
Now the targets are the various food producers, who are allegedly making
us all fat and causing all the medical expenses related to obesity. And
the gun manufacturers are constantly fending off the lawyers these daysÂ?in
TV dramas and at the movies they are losing the legal battles more and
more frequently.
Reality is sure to follow soon, given the incredible legal-cultural
climate in which individual responsibility is dead, except when it comes
to corporate executives who are, of course, responsible for every bad
thing, including inclement weather and huge icebergs blocking penguins
from their food. (I will never understand how the major media never, ever
focus on this rank inconsistencyÂ?we are all victims, but people in
business never are. Maybe they were brainwashed at the Harvard Business
School!)
Alas, asking for coherence or consistency in these matters is probably
futile, what with so many vested interests lined up to get in on the game.
Sometimes I wonder what if the people who ran the Auschwitz or Dachau
death camps had themselves some competent lobbyists they might have kept
their jobs since, well, they had a right to job security, didnÂ?t they?
Sure, their Â?public serviceÂ? was so transparently vicious to the rest of
humanity that this wouldnÂ?t have worked well, but with the lesser evils
done by our bureaucrats, they can insist that aiding along the petty
tyrannies of the welfare state should never be interrupted.
Anyway, I just wish the folks who make a mess of their livesÂ?and if I do,
that should include meÂ?wouldnÂ?t get the chance to dump the cost of it all
on the rest of us.
Tibor R. Machan
Waiting for the feature film to come on the screen, I sat through
innumerable ads. (These days one no longer can go to the movies to get
away from them and then one must also payÂ?so I rarely go.) One of these
featured a surfer who proudly announced that heÂ?s broken his foot several
times, as well as injuring his knees and his back. He seemed rather
pleased with himself for all this, smiling as he made his confession.
Or at least is should have been a confession. For years from now, when he
will be old, he will have innumerable medical problems as a result of all
this risky play. My own mother, who was a vigorous athlete from age
14thÂ?she fenced and swam and skiedÂ?now, at 85, is feeling pain in her
lower extremities and frankly blames it on her early athletic prowess (and
on my father, another fanatic, who forced her into much of thisÂ?he was her
coach from age 14 on).
But, of course, in the wonderful welfare state in which we live there is
nothing much to regret. Not only will everyone be taken care of by various
state and federal "insurance" programsÂ?all of them coercive wealth
redistribution schemes without any means testingÂ?but perhaps by then all
the sports equipment manufacturers and athletic clubs, maybe even
university athletic departmentsÂ?will be ripe for massive law suits by the
government to pay up for all the ailing old folks who will need to be
taken care of. (This will be required, given that the state coffers will
soon be bankrupt from all this Â?freeÂ? medical service everyone has a
Â?basic rightÂ? to.)
This is indeed the consequence of collectivismÂ?we are all in the same
boat, whether or not we individually chose to be in it. If you do not
engage in risky behavior and thus spare yourself from injury and later
innumerable trips to the doctor, it is almost irrelevant. Funds will still
be extorted from you so as to take care of the ailments of your fellows.
The precedent for this is set in law and public policy now. People who
smoked for decadesÂ?with the warning labels starting them in the face and
the news about tobacco being bad for you all around (I knew it back in
Hungary in the 1950s)Â?could not only win huge legal judgments in their or
their kinÂ?s favor but their medical costs, covered by the states, were
used as grounds for bilking the tobacco firms out of billions of dollars.
Now the targets are the various food producers, who are allegedly making
us all fat and causing all the medical expenses related to obesity. And
the gun manufacturers are constantly fending off the lawyers these daysÂ?in
TV dramas and at the movies they are losing the legal battles more and
more frequently.
Reality is sure to follow soon, given the incredible legal-cultural
climate in which individual responsibility is dead, except when it comes
to corporate executives who are, of course, responsible for every bad
thing, including inclement weather and huge icebergs blocking penguins
from their food. (I will never understand how the major media never, ever
focus on this rank inconsistencyÂ?we are all victims, but people in
business never are. Maybe they were brainwashed at the Harvard Business
School!)
Alas, asking for coherence or consistency in these matters is probably
futile, what with so many vested interests lined up to get in on the game.
Sometimes I wonder what if the people who ran the Auschwitz or Dachau
death camps had themselves some competent lobbyists they might have kept
their jobs since, well, they had a right to job security, didnÂ?t they?
Sure, their Â?public serviceÂ? was so transparently vicious to the rest of
humanity that this wouldnÂ?t have worked well, but with the lesser evils
done by our bureaucrats, they can insist that aiding along the petty
tyrannies of the welfare state should never be interrupted.
Anyway, I just wish the folks who make a mess of their livesÂ?and if I do,
that should include meÂ?wouldnÂ?t get the chance to dump the cost of it all
on the rest of us.
Friday, December 17, 2004
Column on SS Privatization
Social Security Abolition vs. Gradualism
Tibor R. Machan
Human beings often want to improve matters, including how they solve
problems. Some of their efforts could use drastic improvement. When a
goodly portion of America tolerated slavery, this was something that
needed drastic changeÂ?it had to be abolished somehow. The social security
system isnÂ?t so severely tyrannical, but it, too, needs to be gotten rid
of. On a personal level, too, there can be demands for different degrees
of change. If one is a thief or molester of children, this requires
drastic change, no two ways about it; if one smokes or eats too much, the
change to moderation is needed but not so urgently.
How does one go about changing these kinds of things in oneÂ?s life and
society? Some believe that nothing but cold turkey will do, in any of
these cases. I disagree.
In personal matters it is often best to go cold turkey, but that, too,
can depend on oneÂ?s personality, temperament and even medical situation.
When it is a matter of violating other peopleÂ?s rights, cold turkey is a
must, that is clear. When it is a matter of becoming more virtuous,
conscientious in going about oneÂ?s life, a gradual approach is certainly
not out of the question.
There are those who believe that in matters of political reform only the
abolitionist approach will suffice. Thus, for example, they insist that be
it slavery or social security, there is no room for gradualismÂ?both must
be instantly abolished. Well, sadly, this is a mere dream.
Unfortunately institutional malfeasance brings about massive dependence.
Slavery, once established, became entrenched and in order to rid the
country of it, there needed to be a process of disengagement. Abolition
was, of course, the right goal. But there was no way to simply halt it.
Too many people had all sorts of rationalizations for hanging on to the
practice and they needed to be dealt with without catastrophic measures.
Indeed, many argue that the a war was not the right way to handle itÂ?the
slave holders could have been bought out or some other policy of bringing
about change might have been tried so as to save the thousands and
thousands of lives lost in the war.
Once an institution gains a loyal constituency in a society, however evil
it may be, it will require cumbersome disengagement and there is rarely
some policy of pushing a button that can switch things from bad to good,
from wrong to right. ItÂ?s a bit like going from sickness to
healthÂ?convalescence, recovery, cure and the rest all require time.
Social security abolition is even more difficult to deal with because so
many people sincerely believe it is OK to coerce people to put money away
for their retirement. Never mind that the scheme is also fraught with
fraud. The fact the millions of people accept it as legitimate and that
hundreds of pundits and politicians rationalize it around the countryÂ?not
to mention all those employed to administer and are thus economically
wedded to itÂ?makes instant reform impossible.
However, the gradual approach is also very risky and could amount to no
change at all. Already, in the case of social security, we get word from
President George W. Bush that severe restriction will accompany his meager
privatization measures, should they go through. Â?You canÂ?t take it
[Â?retirement nest eggsÂ?] to the racetrack and hope to really increase the
returns.Â? He added, Â?ItÂ?s not there for the lotteryÂ?.People are not going
to be allowed to take their money for their retirement account and take it
to Vegas and shoot dice.Â?
Now this is outrageous by standards the American founders set out in the
Declaration of Independence, where they spoke of our unalienable right to
liberty. Who is President Bush to speak of Â?allowingÂ? anyone to do this or
that with his or her money? All this talk about an Â?ownership societyÂ? is
evidently bunk. People will continue to be treated like children or
invalids.
Sadly, this is standard fare these daysÂ?political thinkers around
universities and the media accept that government is in charge of us. Yes,
it is a kind of modern day serfdom, one that denies our sovereignty. But
because of its widespread acceptance, there is no way to put a stop to it
suddenly.
So those who love liberty may just have to put up with the gradual,
imperfect approach of semi-privatizationÂ?just as they need to put up with
school vouchersÂ?in order to make some headway toward the proper goal of
ridding our society of the paternalism that the social security system
represents.
Tibor R. Machan
Human beings often want to improve matters, including how they solve
problems. Some of their efforts could use drastic improvement. When a
goodly portion of America tolerated slavery, this was something that
needed drastic changeÂ?it had to be abolished somehow. The social security
system isnÂ?t so severely tyrannical, but it, too, needs to be gotten rid
of. On a personal level, too, there can be demands for different degrees
of change. If one is a thief or molester of children, this requires
drastic change, no two ways about it; if one smokes or eats too much, the
change to moderation is needed but not so urgently.
How does one go about changing these kinds of things in oneÂ?s life and
society? Some believe that nothing but cold turkey will do, in any of
these cases. I disagree.
In personal matters it is often best to go cold turkey, but that, too,
can depend on oneÂ?s personality, temperament and even medical situation.
When it is a matter of violating other peopleÂ?s rights, cold turkey is a
must, that is clear. When it is a matter of becoming more virtuous,
conscientious in going about oneÂ?s life, a gradual approach is certainly
not out of the question.
There are those who believe that in matters of political reform only the
abolitionist approach will suffice. Thus, for example, they insist that be
it slavery or social security, there is no room for gradualismÂ?both must
be instantly abolished. Well, sadly, this is a mere dream.
Unfortunately institutional malfeasance brings about massive dependence.
Slavery, once established, became entrenched and in order to rid the
country of it, there needed to be a process of disengagement. Abolition
was, of course, the right goal. But there was no way to simply halt it.
Too many people had all sorts of rationalizations for hanging on to the
practice and they needed to be dealt with without catastrophic measures.
Indeed, many argue that the a war was not the right way to handle itÂ?the
slave holders could have been bought out or some other policy of bringing
about change might have been tried so as to save the thousands and
thousands of lives lost in the war.
Once an institution gains a loyal constituency in a society, however evil
it may be, it will require cumbersome disengagement and there is rarely
some policy of pushing a button that can switch things from bad to good,
from wrong to right. ItÂ?s a bit like going from sickness to
healthÂ?convalescence, recovery, cure and the rest all require time.
Social security abolition is even more difficult to deal with because so
many people sincerely believe it is OK to coerce people to put money away
for their retirement. Never mind that the scheme is also fraught with
fraud. The fact the millions of people accept it as legitimate and that
hundreds of pundits and politicians rationalize it around the countryÂ?not
to mention all those employed to administer and are thus economically
wedded to itÂ?makes instant reform impossible.
However, the gradual approach is also very risky and could amount to no
change at all. Already, in the case of social security, we get word from
President George W. Bush that severe restriction will accompany his meager
privatization measures, should they go through. Â?You canÂ?t take it
[Â?retirement nest eggsÂ?] to the racetrack and hope to really increase the
returns.Â? He added, Â?ItÂ?s not there for the lotteryÂ?.People are not going
to be allowed to take their money for their retirement account and take it
to Vegas and shoot dice.Â?
Now this is outrageous by standards the American founders set out in the
Declaration of Independence, where they spoke of our unalienable right to
liberty. Who is President Bush to speak of Â?allowingÂ? anyone to do this or
that with his or her money? All this talk about an Â?ownership societyÂ? is
evidently bunk. People will continue to be treated like children or
invalids.
Sadly, this is standard fare these daysÂ?political thinkers around
universities and the media accept that government is in charge of us. Yes,
it is a kind of modern day serfdom, one that denies our sovereignty. But
because of its widespread acceptance, there is no way to put a stop to it
suddenly.
So those who love liberty may just have to put up with the gradual,
imperfect approach of semi-privatizationÂ?just as they need to put up with
school vouchersÂ?in order to make some headway toward the proper goal of
ridding our society of the paternalism that the social security system
represents.
Mencken quote re. practical politics
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
- H.L. Mencken (From: Minority Report, H. L. Mencken's Notebooks, Knopf, 1956. These have numbers in square brackets corresponding to the numbers in the book. http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/mencken.htm)
- H.L. Mencken (From: Minority Report, H. L. Mencken's Notebooks, Knopf, 1956. These have numbers in square brackets corresponding to the numbers in the book. http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/mencken.htm)
Monday, December 13, 2004
Column on Boston Legal
"Boston Legal" equals Boston Unjust
Tibor R. Machan
Having from my early childhood been a fan of court room dramasÂ?I had read
45 Perry Mason novels before I ever left Hungary at age 14Â?I have a hard
time denying myself the pleasures of a good legal squabble. So, I have
watched Law & Order since it started and even stuck with The Practice
until it turned into little more than a soap opera where law was but a
side show.
Now I am giving Boston Legal a try and my patience is being seriously
tested. In addition to finding one of the central characters, Alan Shore
played by James Spader, mostly annoying while also somewhat admirable,
there is a bigger issue for me. I am now and have for a couple of decades
been teaching business ethics courses in which I try to impress upon my
students that the profession is actually quite honorable, no need at all
to apologize for it and its primary goals, namely, profit. (If it were not
so, business ethics would indeed be an oxymoron.)
You see, in Boston Legal the firm for which Shore works represents many
big corporations and one way that he is made out to be a hero is that he
repeatedly denounces these firms for having profit as their major
objective. In a recent case a drug company was funding an experimental
study with a promising new drug but, alas, the doctor who designed the
study got too eager and introduced a significant bit of deception that
ultimately hurt mainly her alone and disappointed several dozen others who
had to stop taking an experimental drug. Sure, the hope was to demonstrate
that the drug the subjects were using would do millions of people a lot of
good; but the subjects were not told the truth and thought they were
actually in a different experimental program. It all came out in the wash,
in the end, with the doctor who perpetrated the deception suffering most
but looking merely a little morally shady, while the corporation that
funded the study end up looking terrible. Why? Because David E. Kelley,
the creator of and major writer on Boston Legal, made sure that viewers
were told via Alan Shore that the company was motivated only Â?by greed.Â?
As if he had actually known the owners, managers, investors, employees who
made up the firm.
Still, Alan Shore being the hero of the show, it made little difference
that he hadnÂ?t a clue about the motivation of the companyÂ?for all he could
tell, the money the company would make of the drug would be spent on
saving the spotted owl or feeding children in Bangladesh. But, no, the
showÂ?s writer, David E. KelleyÂ?famous for creating and writing for many of
TVÂ?s legal showsÂ?just had to stick it to big corporations. Never mind that
Boston Legal is broadcast on ABC-TV, itself certainly a huge corporation,
that makes it possible for Kelley to peddle his prejudices across the land.
In fact, of course, the general task of businesses is indeed to achieve
significant measures of prosperity for those who own them through the
production of goods and services that the buying public will value. This,
then, makes it possible for these owners to devote their earnings from the
firmÂ?s business to whatever they deem has merit, including contributing to
innumerable philanthropic objectives, as well as to sending their children
to good schools, taking decent vacations, purchasing health insurance, and
so forth. Again, neither the fictional Alan Shore, nor the actual David E.
Kelley has a clue just what such the prosperity the company achieves will
go to help support. Somehow that is of no concern to them. Bashing big
business is.
Back in the 80s television personality and attorney Ben Stein narrated an
hour long documentary, HollywoodÂ?s Heavies. It demonstratedÂ?as well as
such programs can do such a thingÂ?that Hollywood writers systematically
discriminate against corporate managers. Most crimes were committed by
them on their programs and movies and none of them ever managed to come
off as a hero. The movie Wall Street is perhaps the paradigm instance of
this but there are many more.
To this day Hollywood hasnÂ?t changed. As if they were part of a Ralph
Nader Chorus. I have no idea why, although several reasons come to mind
that may well explain it. But I would have to know these people
betterÂ?David E. Kelley, in particularÂ?to venture an educated guess as to
why the very institution that allows them to prosper and to back all kinds
of goals and causes is hated by them so much. LetÂ?s just say, whatever
explains it, the outcome is plainly unjust.
Tibor R. Machan
Having from my early childhood been a fan of court room dramasÂ?I had read
45 Perry Mason novels before I ever left Hungary at age 14Â?I have a hard
time denying myself the pleasures of a good legal squabble. So, I have
watched Law & Order since it started and even stuck with The Practice
until it turned into little more than a soap opera where law was but a
side show.
Now I am giving Boston Legal a try and my patience is being seriously
tested. In addition to finding one of the central characters, Alan Shore
played by James Spader, mostly annoying while also somewhat admirable,
there is a bigger issue for me. I am now and have for a couple of decades
been teaching business ethics courses in which I try to impress upon my
students that the profession is actually quite honorable, no need at all
to apologize for it and its primary goals, namely, profit. (If it were not
so, business ethics would indeed be an oxymoron.)
You see, in Boston Legal the firm for which Shore works represents many
big corporations and one way that he is made out to be a hero is that he
repeatedly denounces these firms for having profit as their major
objective. In a recent case a drug company was funding an experimental
study with a promising new drug but, alas, the doctor who designed the
study got too eager and introduced a significant bit of deception that
ultimately hurt mainly her alone and disappointed several dozen others who
had to stop taking an experimental drug. Sure, the hope was to demonstrate
that the drug the subjects were using would do millions of people a lot of
good; but the subjects were not told the truth and thought they were
actually in a different experimental program. It all came out in the wash,
in the end, with the doctor who perpetrated the deception suffering most
but looking merely a little morally shady, while the corporation that
funded the study end up looking terrible. Why? Because David E. Kelley,
the creator of and major writer on Boston Legal, made sure that viewers
were told via Alan Shore that the company was motivated only Â?by greed.Â?
As if he had actually known the owners, managers, investors, employees who
made up the firm.
Still, Alan Shore being the hero of the show, it made little difference
that he hadnÂ?t a clue about the motivation of the companyÂ?for all he could
tell, the money the company would make of the drug would be spent on
saving the spotted owl or feeding children in Bangladesh. But, no, the
showÂ?s writer, David E. KelleyÂ?famous for creating and writing for many of
TVÂ?s legal showsÂ?just had to stick it to big corporations. Never mind that
Boston Legal is broadcast on ABC-TV, itself certainly a huge corporation,
that makes it possible for Kelley to peddle his prejudices across the land.
In fact, of course, the general task of businesses is indeed to achieve
significant measures of prosperity for those who own them through the
production of goods and services that the buying public will value. This,
then, makes it possible for these owners to devote their earnings from the
firmÂ?s business to whatever they deem has merit, including contributing to
innumerable philanthropic objectives, as well as to sending their children
to good schools, taking decent vacations, purchasing health insurance, and
so forth. Again, neither the fictional Alan Shore, nor the actual David E.
Kelley has a clue just what such the prosperity the company achieves will
go to help support. Somehow that is of no concern to them. Bashing big
business is.
Back in the 80s television personality and attorney Ben Stein narrated an
hour long documentary, HollywoodÂ?s Heavies. It demonstratedÂ?as well as
such programs can do such a thingÂ?that Hollywood writers systematically
discriminate against corporate managers. Most crimes were committed by
them on their programs and movies and none of them ever managed to come
off as a hero. The movie Wall Street is perhaps the paradigm instance of
this but there are many more.
To this day Hollywood hasnÂ?t changed. As if they were part of a Ralph
Nader Chorus. I have no idea why, although several reasons come to mind
that may well explain it. But I would have to know these people
betterÂ?David E. Kelley, in particularÂ?to venture an educated guess as to
why the very institution that allows them to prosper and to back all kinds
of goals and causes is hated by them so much. LetÂ?s just say, whatever
explains it, the outcome is plainly unjust.
Saturday, December 11, 2004
Friday, December 10, 2004
Column David Brudnoy, RIP
David Brudnoy, RIP
Tibor R. Machan
Boston, Mass., will never be the same. David Brudnoy, its most
intelligent and high spirited talk show personality, who broadcast from
WBZ-AM, died of skin cancer, at age 64, on December 9th, after a career
in various branches of journalism and media work.
I have a very special spot in my heart for David, who was the first one
to review my very first book, The Pseudo Science of B. F. Skinner, just
after it appeared in 1974, in the pages of National Review, where he was
an editor at the time. We became friends shortly thereafter, sometimes
linking up at one or another of the many libertarian-conservative
conferences.
David was a loyal champion of human liberty all his life, moving
gradually from attempting to educate Republicans and conservatives about
how they ought to be more principled in their defense of the FoundersÂ?
vision, to eventually embracing the libertarian alternative outright. He
taught several courses at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and
indeed he was kind enough to invite me to lecture in one of his classes on
the nature of human rights when I was still teaching back in Fredonia, New
York. (Incidentally, such an invitation did a young professorÂ?s career a
world of good, given how the academy is mired in the nearly blind worship
of prestige!)
It was after I gave this lecture to a bunch of top of the line Harvard
students that I figured out the main difference between my students back
in Fredonia and those at CambridgeÂ?self-confidence. None at Harvard began
a question to me, following my presentation, with Â?This may be a stupid
question.Â? They all Â?knewÂ? their questions had merit, whereas my students,
who asked questions of equal substance, always tended to apologize.
Later, when David became the host of his own radio programÂ?in addition to
being a reviewer on, I believe, BostonÂ?s PBS television stationÂ?he made
absolutely no bones about his devotion to human liberty. Despite being in
the center of modern liberal, welfare statist academic (as well as public)
opinion, David pulled no punches but championed free minds and free
markets on the air whenever he could.
So when I began to get some more of my work published in books, David
immediately took the opportunity to have me on his program and the two of
us went at discussing the fallacies of statism. His audience was vastÂ?in
the end reaching 38 states and Eastern CanadaÂ?and he and his guests would
receive calls from every nook and cranny of the country. It was a delight
to sit across from him in the studio and interact with a pretty formidable
radio audience comprised of both severe critics and enthusiastic
supporters of the free society.
David had a style about him that was both firm and gracious, so those
with whom he disagreed seemed very rarely to get mad at him even though he
shut some of them off once they proved to be insufferably thickheaded. He
was openly gay from I cannot remember what year and suffered from AIDS
without, however, succumbing to the illness even after a couple of very
close calls. As a gay man, libertarian, and highly cultured individual he
was also a cosmopolitan and someone who believed that individual liberty
is for everyone, including for homophobes who would not extend the same
civilized attitude toward him.
Although David grew up close to the budding conservative movement led by
William F. Buckley, Jr., he wasnÂ?t bitter about how so many millions of
supposedly pro-American conservatives betrayed their loyalty to the
FounderÂ?s vision by urging homophobic laws and regulations or the war on
drugs everywhere. David detested, mostly philosophically, such
duplicitousness, yet dealt with those exhibiting it most cordially. (It
must have been agonizing for his adversaries to be treated so decently,
when they often lashed out at him with open venom.)
David BrudnoyÂ?s memoirs, Life Is Not A Rehearsal (Bantam, 1997), is a
wonderful, racy and cheerful account of his adventuresome life. It conveys
how one can fare well even in a world in which all too many people wish
one ill.
Tibor R. Machan
Boston, Mass., will never be the same. David Brudnoy, its most
intelligent and high spirited talk show personality, who broadcast from
WBZ-AM, died of skin cancer, at age 64, on December 9th, after a career
in various branches of journalism and media work.
I have a very special spot in my heart for David, who was the first one
to review my very first book, The Pseudo Science of B. F. Skinner, just
after it appeared in 1974, in the pages of National Review, where he was
an editor at the time. We became friends shortly thereafter, sometimes
linking up at one or another of the many libertarian-conservative
conferences.
David was a loyal champion of human liberty all his life, moving
gradually from attempting to educate Republicans and conservatives about
how they ought to be more principled in their defense of the FoundersÂ?
vision, to eventually embracing the libertarian alternative outright. He
taught several courses at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and
indeed he was kind enough to invite me to lecture in one of his classes on
the nature of human rights when I was still teaching back in Fredonia, New
York. (Incidentally, such an invitation did a young professorÂ?s career a
world of good, given how the academy is mired in the nearly blind worship
of prestige!)
It was after I gave this lecture to a bunch of top of the line Harvard
students that I figured out the main difference between my students back
in Fredonia and those at CambridgeÂ?self-confidence. None at Harvard began
a question to me, following my presentation, with Â?This may be a stupid
question.Â? They all Â?knewÂ? their questions had merit, whereas my students,
who asked questions of equal substance, always tended to apologize.
Later, when David became the host of his own radio programÂ?in addition to
being a reviewer on, I believe, BostonÂ?s PBS television stationÂ?he made
absolutely no bones about his devotion to human liberty. Despite being in
the center of modern liberal, welfare statist academic (as well as public)
opinion, David pulled no punches but championed free minds and free
markets on the air whenever he could.
So when I began to get some more of my work published in books, David
immediately took the opportunity to have me on his program and the two of
us went at discussing the fallacies of statism. His audience was vastÂ?in
the end reaching 38 states and Eastern CanadaÂ?and he and his guests would
receive calls from every nook and cranny of the country. It was a delight
to sit across from him in the studio and interact with a pretty formidable
radio audience comprised of both severe critics and enthusiastic
supporters of the free society.
David had a style about him that was both firm and gracious, so those
with whom he disagreed seemed very rarely to get mad at him even though he
shut some of them off once they proved to be insufferably thickheaded. He
was openly gay from I cannot remember what year and suffered from AIDS
without, however, succumbing to the illness even after a couple of very
close calls. As a gay man, libertarian, and highly cultured individual he
was also a cosmopolitan and someone who believed that individual liberty
is for everyone, including for homophobes who would not extend the same
civilized attitude toward him.
Although David grew up close to the budding conservative movement led by
William F. Buckley, Jr., he wasnÂ?t bitter about how so many millions of
supposedly pro-American conservatives betrayed their loyalty to the
FounderÂ?s vision by urging homophobic laws and regulations or the war on
drugs everywhere. David detested, mostly philosophically, such
duplicitousness, yet dealt with those exhibiting it most cordially. (It
must have been agonizing for his adversaries to be treated so decently,
when they often lashed out at him with open venom.)
David BrudnoyÂ?s memoirs, Life Is Not A Rehearsal (Bantam, 1997), is a
wonderful, racy and cheerful account of his adventuresome life. It conveys
how one can fare well even in a world in which all too many people wish
one ill.
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