New York isn’t special
Well, it looks like it’s my turn to rip on the New York Times editorial page. Two days ago the editorial staff put together this piece they call “The Dairy Quandary,” about extra subsidies for dairy farmers. It doesn’t seem like much of a quandary to me; I think they’re really reaching in order to justify conclusions they know can’t be right. They write:
We do not like agricultural subsidies or price supports, and we have opposed dairy subsidy programs. They tend to push farmers in the wrong directions, and they blunt the impact of market forces on farms. But there is a special argument to be made in this case.
What’s the special argument? They heart New York.
Nearly 2.5 million acres in New York state are directly tied to dairy farming. The milk crisis is severe enough to put many farms at risk, raising the potential of abandoned farmland susceptible to development. … This kind of dairy is a relatively benign use of the land, a means of protecting open space, a form of stewardship that is more acceptable than most others. We think it is right to keep the state’s dairy farmers on their farms, even if we are not happy with this way of going about it.
Nice try. There’s nothing different about New York dairy farmers that makes subsidies okay in their case. They’re still getting pushed in the wrong direction, encouraged to keep farming because it’s artificially profitable. Market forces are being blunted just the same. But it’s okay this time, they say, because … open space should be protected? People are using large open fields to produce commodities that are worth less than they cost, but that’s okay because they’re preserving those open fields! Silly me, I thought we had some state and federal organizations that kept an eye on that sort of thing. And, erm, does this really count as preserving open space? Sure, there aren’t any office buildings there, but there are, you know, cows. And the crop fields get sprayed with pesticides. And they’re surrounded by barbed-wire fences. It’s not like New Yorkers get to hike through the dairy farms to appreciate nature. (Also: do they really mean to imply that it’s important to preserve open space in New York, but not in Missouri or Nebraska? I know it might not feel like it from Manhattan, but New York is not that short on open space.)
It gets even stranger when they start parroting arguments from the pro-subsidy handbook:
Feed costs, the recession, a change in consumers’ milk consumption have all played a part in the dairy crisis, which affects organic farms as well as conventional ones. Like most commodity farmers, dairy farmers are essentially locked into the one product they have invested in producing, making it very hard to change quickly.
Right, “like most commodity farmers”—so why suggest that dairy farmers are a special case here? They agree that “[change] will have to come — including a revamping, if not a dismantling, of the maze of dairy price supports.” The bottom line is that that change will feel quick whenever it happens. Subsidies, even short-term ones, just push the timeline out to next quarter, or next year, or a couple years from now. (And when we get there, we’ll need more “short-term” subsidies.) The New York Times editorial board knows the correct policy on farm subsidies, and they should have the courage to advocate for it even when it hits a little closer to home.
Begging the question
Forgive me this trespass into linguistic geekery. I cannot contain myself.
I am all for breaking the rules of grammar and punctuation when it is useful. I split infinitives when doing so creates the emphasis I intend. I begin sentences with conjunctions sometimes, and I don’t mangle my sentences so as not to end on a preposition. I even type my IMs in all lower case because it’s faster (unless I’m talking to one of my old English teachers and I become self-conscious). Rules are nice guidelines, but we shouldn’t be sticklers. I favor precise and clear language over language that conforms to useless rules.
However, it’s because I favor clear language that I believe we should agree on meanings for words and use them accordingly. There is one error in this department that I see over and over again and which drives me crazy. Smart, well-educated, highly literate people make this error. That’s why I have to say something (even if none of those people will ever read this).
Don’t say “begging the question” when you mean “makes one wonder.” To beg the question is to answer a question in a circular way, referring back to the question itself, or assuming the conclusion as a premise. It’s a logical fallacy. Here’s a simple example: “What’s an insane asylum?” “It’s an asylum for the insane.” You see how that doesn’t really help at all? A more realistic example would be something like: “Why do you believe God exists?” “The Bible says so, and it’s infallible.” “But why do you think the Bible is infallible?” “Because the Bible is the word of God!” Speaker 2 here has just answered the question, “Why do you believe God exists?” basically by saying, “God exists.”
I’m not going to name names here, but I’ve seen/heard a lot of people saying things like, “Such and such policy is bad, and it really begs the question of why we elected so and so to take care of it in the first place,” or, “Here’s a really bizarre story, and it begs the question: when did society get to this point?” That is not what it means to beg the question. Stop it. Just say “makes one wonder” or “makes me wonder.” You can even say it “raises the question”—but it doesn’t “beg” it.
Thank you. Carry on.
Health care and crazy people
I am far from the only one who is kind of baffled by the recent spurt of crazy nutjobs showing up at town hall meetings and likening the Democratic health care plan to some sort of secret Nazi plot. Lots of people have tried to explain it, and I think a lot of the explanations have a bit of truth to them. There is a segment of society (largely white, rural, religious, etc.—typical Republican base) that is losing the power that they recently had, and they’ve bought into a mythology where they’ve always had that power and deserve to retain it. (It’s the “real America” stuff, along with older things like praise for “the heartland.”) To some extent, any remotely liberal policy Obama chose to start out his administration pushing for would have led to claims that he was “stealing our country” and things of that sort.
I think, though, that health care reform—particularly the way it’s being done now—is an issue particularly favorable to conspiracy theorists and nutjobs. That’s because it’s incredibly complicated. In some ways, if Obama was actually proposing nationalized or single-payer healthcare, it’d be better in this respect. Those are huge changes to the system, but at least they’re straightforward and easy to understand. Instead, what we’re getting is a messy patchwork system of fixes for the status quo. People are confused. Telling a crowd of people that you’re going to set up a “health care exchange” doesn’t really clear up the confusion. Saying that instead of a public option you’ll have a “health care cooperative” doesn’t help either. These phrases are stand-ins for complicated, messy policy proposals. Even if someone was willing to take the time to explain it, they’d be incapable, because there are several different plans floating around and no final proposal. Each plan differs on huge issues of policy. The same piece of policy might be good in one plan and bad in another, depending on what other policy decisions are made elsewhere in the bill.
I understand the general outlines of the proposals, but I definitely don’t understand all the details. Even I am not willing to put in the time necessary to understand things well enough to make a truly intelligent judgment on the matter. I support the reforms for two simple reasons. First, I know very well that the current system is awful. Second, I trust those proposing the reforms much more than I trust the opponents. Those reasons aren’t going to be enough to win over enough of the population to push borderline senators into voting yes. Democrats need to agree on some plan that at least 55 of them in the Senate are ready to vote for. Then, they need to consolidate all the proposals, come up with more clear ways to explain what they’re proposing, and really go out campaigning for it. If the public doesn’t know what’s going on, some are going to tune out, some are going to revert to partisan predispositions, and some are going to go batshit insane. That is not a good way to make policy.
Not so grand a bargain
I haven’t written in a while, but I promised Z that I’d start up again. I think a good way to start is to talk about Robert Wright’s New York Times op-ed from Saturday, which bothered me in a lot of ways. The title is “A Grand Bargain Over Evolution,” and the goal is to propose a “common ground” between science/atheism and religion over evolution. Very little that he says is actually wrong, but all of it is missing the point. He proposes that the religious concede that evolution is fact. He then points out that many believe evolution is a process that is bound to yield intelligent beings with an idea of morality. He says that atheists should concede that this realization of moral sense being built into a natural process can reasonably be seen as evidence that the universe was created by a supernatural being who wanted those laws of morality to be known.
My biggest problem is with the idea of a “bargain” in the first place. I have no problem with a bargain in the sense of agreeing to disagree. I can easily reach that kind of understanding (and do) all the time with individual people. I also have no problem with (and very much support) the idea of a political compromise, where government stays out of the religion-atheism debate and guarantees the right of everyone to make the decision for themselves. I am not, however, okay with the idea of a bargain over the facts. If I claim the sky is blue, and you claim it is red, we don’t decide to just split the difference and agree that it’s purple. You don’t bargain over what is true. You debate and give logical reasons and do research and try to figure out what the real answer is. This article asks us to believe something because it’s a nice middle position. I have trouble any time I’m asked to believe something for any reason other than that it’s probably true.
Wright also makes it clear that he does not fully understand the atheist argument, which is surprising considering that he just wrote a book on the history of religious belief. He states the grand compromise he proposes this way:
Believers could scale back their conception of God’s role in creation, and atheists could accept that some notions of “higher purpose” are compatible with scientific materialism. And the two might learn to get along.
Of course the idea of a “higher purpose” is compatible with scientific materialism. Atheists believe in morality, after all. I am not sure why he thinks this is a concession. He makes himself a little more clear later on:
[Atheists] could acknowledge, first of all, that any god whose creative role ends with the beginning of natural selection is, strictly speaking, logically compatible with Darwinism.
I have never seen even the most extreme and combative atheist fail to concede this. A creator-only god is logically compatible with any scientific evidence that could ever be produced, and this is fully conceded by atheists. In fact, even a much more active god is logically compatible with all scientific evidence that could ever be produced. You want to believe God created humans in their current form? Fine. You just also have to believe that God created fossils of various early humanoid species in such a way as to create an apparent link between them and other early apes. It seems to me like a really strange thing to believe, but it’s not logically inconsistent.
The point atheists make is that, while the religious view is logically consistent, there’s no reason to favor it over the non-religious view. We have every reason to believe that logical consequences of the laws of physics govern the events we see around us. Sure, those could be explained by any one of thousands of different possible religious beliefs, but why would we choose to believe any one of these supernatural explanations over any other, let alone over the simple straightforward explanation we can see in the world every day? Atheists don’t claim to disprove religion—they just claim that given the existence of these numerous logically consistent worldviews, the one that doesn’t posit the existence of a random supernatural being without any evidence of its existence is the one that is most reasonable to hold. Wright never even references this argument, and it’s hard to convince people to change their minds when you can’t even prove you understand what they already believe.
Think before you speak
An interesting story was brought to my attention by this Penny Arcade comic. Typically, Penny Arcade is about video games and the gaming community (of which I consider myself to be on the periphery), though they do occasionally cover topics of more general interest. This is one of these occasions, and the topic is the Think B4 You Speak campaign which aims to stop people from using the word “gay” as a derogatory term. There’s a news post that goes with the comic that explains what the cartoonists were thinking when they drew this.
I gather from that news post that Tycho is in favor of GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, which is running the campaign along with the Ad Council) and groups like it, and in favor of their general goal of tolerance of and respect for people regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. I am, as well. I say this up front because I’m wary of being misunderstood (or encouraging readers to misunderstand someone else) on a sensitive topic like this.
The Think B4 You Speak campaign includes some print ads and some radio and TV ads. Three of the print ads they have on their site are structured in the same basic way: a teenager’s face fills most of the background, and text covers their face, saying:
- That’s so “jock who can complete a pass but not a sentence.”
- That’s so “cheerleader who like, can’t like, say smart stuff.”
- That’s so “gamer guy who has more videogames than friends.”
An inset at the bottom of the ad says, “Think that’s mean? How do you think ‘that’s so gay’ sounds? Hurtful. So, knock it off.”
Tycho’s reaction?
…Bigots and stupid kids speak this way expressly to promulgate the root concepts or to provoke a reaction. Telling them to “knock it off,” as this campaign hilariously does, is like exposing your belly to these wolves.
Lexically speaking, the word Gay is a battleground of warring meanings, uses, and baggage. The fact that the slur has retained its power – for all parties involved – is evidence that the conflict is ongoing, and that its destiny is not yet established. I have tremendous support for them in their aim: the wresting of language, which is identity, from the unworthy foe. If you want to hunt this kind of game, though, you need bigger ordnance.
This criticism is an important one. The ads come off as almost wimpy, merely pointing out that people’s feelings are hurt. That’s often the goal, “to provoke a reaction,” to make people feel insulted. The target audience may just think: “So what?”
My take on this campaign, however, would come from a slightly different angle. You might recall what I wrote about the Spread the Word campaign (against the word “retarded” as an insult), basically explaining that there is a negative quality to mental retardation that leads to its use in a derogatory context. For most people who use “gay” to mean “bad” or “stupid,” homosexuality itself is a negative quality. (Sure, there are some people who say it unthinkingly, but my sense is that they are a minority. I don’t know of any statistics on this; maybe I’m wrong. The lines given to the character of Gabe in the comic strip do illustrate basically what I imagine to be typical. He knows what he’s talking about when he says “gay.”) If you go back and read over those poster slogans, you’ll see that they all do refer to negative qualities: being unintelligent or illiterate or unliked by others. They didn’t choose to stop at, “That’s so cheerleader” or “That’s so jock” or “That’s so gamer”—they had to add extra phrases to make the statements actually sound insulting.
The point of this whole thing, as I understand it, isn’t just to stop people from insulting people. It’s to teach people that “gay” shouldn’t be an insult. To achieve that, you need to show that it’s just a descriptor, a part of some people’s identities. Maybe the posters would be better if they said things like, “Ugh, that’s so 27-year-old guy from Michigan.” Really basic, using innocuous qualities, but obviously intending to convey disgust. Then the point you’re making is a bit more clear: how would you like it if someone used your identity as an insult?
Of course, none of this erases the deeply held beliefs that many people have about homosexuals being condemned to hell. And there will probably always be some straight people who feel squeamish about homosexuality, simply because the orientation is unappealing to them. I think the best that society can hope for from this campaign and others like it is to establish that some things are off limits. You might personally be happy that you’re not a different religion or of a different ethnic background, because some of their traditions and customs don’t appeal to you, but that doesn’t make it okay to mock people who do belong to those groups. We need this rule to apply to sexuality as well.
It’s not clear that this campaign, as it is, is counterproductive, though… maybe at worst, just unproductive. Tycho wrote that “the conflict is ongoing, and that its destiny is not yet established.” This is the next phase of the conflict, the next statement in the social dialogue. It doesn’t have to end the conflict, but there’s nothing wrong with strategizing in the meantime about the most effective next step.
Inside an abortion clinic
You have to read this breathtaking piece from Esquire. It’s eight pages long, but please, bookmark it and read it when you have the time. It’s about Dr. Warren Hern, who is apparently the last American doctor specializing in late abortions. The reporter spent some time shadowing him, not long after the murder of Dr. George Tiller, another late abortion provider as well as Dr. Hern’s friend. It’s very vivid, and lends a perspective I think we should all have when we’re talking about abortion law. Take this excerpt, for example:
The patients can be upsetting too. They’re under terrible stress, of course, but sometimes they come in very angry. One had conjoined twins and would have died giving birth, but she exploded when he told her she couldn’t smoke in the office. And some treat him with contempt and disgust [Z's note: italics here indicates quotation of Dr. Hern], usually the ones who have been directly involved in antiabortion activities. They hate all abortion except for their special case. One even said they should all be killed. Only fourteen, she came with her mother. What brings you here? he asked. I have to have an abortion. Why? I’m not old enough to have a baby. But you told the counselor we should all be killed? Yes, you should all be killed. Why? Because you do abortions. Me too? Yes, you should be killed too. Do you want me killed before or after I do your abortion? Before.
He told her to leave. Her mother was very upset. But he isn’t an abortion-dispensing machine. He’s a physician. He’s a person.
Or this:
The abortionist comes in, remembers that the U. S. marshals don’t like him to use this room because the window is too exposed, and walks right back out. You follow, asking about the patients who were supposed to see Dr. Tiller.
The patient I just finished was very unhappy to see me. I think they are very antiabortion. She had a fetal abnormality, and she and her husband are just devastated. Stuff like that.
What kind of fetal abnormalities are we talking about?
One was Down syndrome, another was a lethal brain abnormality along with a lethal heart abnormality. Another one had a catastrophic — we’re not talking about cleft lip, we are talking about cleft face. There was no face.
The takeaway message, I think, is that this is an immensely complicated issue with no easy, pleasant solutions. No normal person enjoys the prospect of an abortion on its own, but many different people still find Dr. Hern’s services invaluable. If you consider yourself pro-choice, you should read this to get a feel of the reality of the situation. An abortion isn’t a magic spell that makes a fetus disappear; it can be devastating and tragic for everyone involved. If you consider yourself pro-life, you should read this to understand the difficult places that women, that couples, find themselves in when they go to see abortion doctors and how they are helped by these doctors. You should understand how the hateful anti-abortion rhetoric fuels the fire of violence, and forces doctors and their families and employees to live in constant fear.
I’m sorry to leave you with mostly these big blockquotes, but I just can’t add much to this article. It speaks for itself. Go read it, whoever you are.
Back, with gratuitous advertising
Hello again! I’m back to blogging again. I missed you; how’ve you been?
While I sift through my list of post ideas and put together some real articles for the coming days, here’s a video for you. This makes me smile every time I see it on TV. I don’t plan to put real ads on this site any time soon, but Intel deserves some extra buzz for this fantastic campaign. As fellow thinking people, I thought you’d get a kick out of it as well. Isn’t it nice to see marketing that emphasizes how smart can be cool and exciting?
(It makes me want to work for them, actually, more than it makes me want to buy Intel products.)