The recent World Cup revealed a number of reasons that soccer is unlikely to ever catch on in the US.
Perhaps the most obvious reason soccer will have trouble winning the hearts of American sports fans is that it is a constant challenge to how Americans make sense of the world. We know that we are the reason that we are the richest and most powerful nation in the world. Just as the Germans, British, Dutch, Spanish, and Italians before us, we misconstrue our fortune of having been born into such privilege with the fact of our actually being special. American exceptionalism means, of course, that we Americans are exceptional. Regularly unable to beat teams from countries 1% our size, we are reminded that this simply is not so. Fans simply want to cheer. They don't want cognitive dissonance with their color commentary.
Another thing about the game that offends any reasonable American is its inefficiency. You can't use your hands? What are you supposed to do with that half of your body? Given their hands are free, you might expect that the players would at least be texting.
Any self-respecting American is clear that a person needs a goal. Without goals, one's life just meanders from place to place ... like the ball on a soccer field. Everyone should have a goal but apparently no one has told soccer fans. They seem perfectly content to watch 90 minutes of a game that is played, uninterrupted by a single goal.
Finally, one has only to watch a single game to realize why so many of the countries that love soccer are poor. This game never pauses. There is no opportunity for ads that remind fans that after the game they could go shopping. Compare that with any American sport. Even if there is not a single change in pitchers, baseball is good for at least 18 commercial interruptions. The last "five" minutes of football can take 50. Consumers drive the American economy and if we were to become soccer fans, our economy would likely collapse to the level of Argentina's or Cameroon's. It seems to me that the single simplest stimulus to economic growth that these soccer-crazed countries could undertake would be to change the rules so that commercial breaks are taken every 4 to 5 minutes rather than every 45 minutes. Until that happens, we Americans don't just have a right but actually have an obligation to show tepid interest in soccer.
R World (Ron Davison muses aloud)
24 July 2010
19 July 2010
Europe's Great Un-Learning
There are only two states of mind that precede learning, and neither is particularly pleasant. Before you learn something, you are either ignorant or confused; or, put differently, before you get answers you have to question what you know. There were two huge events in the first two centuries of the first economy that created mass confusion and revealed great ignorance, two events that made Europeans question what they knew and opened them up to the Renaissance.
The Black Death, which began in 1348, and the discovery of America created tragedy, hope and cognitive dissonance. Try for a moment to imagine the incessant, near apocalyptic coverage today’s media would give to the discovery of a “new world” populated with people with many of the same social structures as us and yet very different rituals and behaviors, much less a pandemic that killed nearly a third of the population. Imagine what absurd speculation we’d hear on talk shows, the banter between “experts” whose expertise in no way prepared them for this, and the callers who began to question everything. These two events were like gales of destructive creation, destroying so much of what Europeans believed and opening them up to the new.
Saul Alinsky writes that someone pushing for social change will rarely have a majority on his side. Change is too uncertain and people are busy with their own lives. The best one can do is to get the majority feeling like the status quo is so bad that they won’t work to defend it. When that happens, you can make changes. In a sense, the Black Death did at least that, probably not just making Europeans feel ambivalent about the status quo but actually making them ready to actively change it.
The Black Death, which began in 1348, and the discovery of America created tragedy, hope and cognitive dissonance. Try for a moment to imagine the incessant, near apocalyptic coverage today’s media would give to the discovery of a “new world” populated with people with many of the same social structures as us and yet very different rituals and behaviors, much less a pandemic that killed nearly a third of the population. Imagine what absurd speculation we’d hear on talk shows, the banter between “experts” whose expertise in no way prepared them for this, and the callers who began to question everything. These two events were like gales of destructive creation, destroying so much of what Europeans believed and opening them up to the new.
Saul Alinsky writes that someone pushing for social change will rarely have a majority on his side. Change is too uncertain and people are busy with their own lives. The best one can do is to get the majority feeling like the status quo is so bad that they won’t work to defend it. When that happens, you can make changes. In a sense, the Black Death did at least that, probably not just making Europeans feel ambivalent about the status quo but actually making them ready to actively change it.
11 July 2010
The Importance of Pepper
To find a good reason why the waiter might think it would impress your date to offer her freshly ground pepper from what appears to be a small table leg, you’d have to go back centuries to Medieval Europe. (Of course, Freud might have as much to say about what this conveys as any historian. Lasting rituals rarely make sense at only one level.) In medieval times, pepper and other spices were status symbols, highly coveted, exotic, and expensive. So much so that its special place in our diet has carried over into today’s fine restaurants.
Spices were ideal for trade. They didn’t spoil and were light in weight. Essentially, foreign trade meant spice trade and the foreign lands from which the spices came were so remote as to be shrouded in mystery. By at least one estimate the average European never traveled more than 5 miles from home during his entire life (although given the lack of pedometers this would have to be considered a very rough estimate) and places as remote as Asia were idealized. To medieval Europeans, America was unknown but Atlantis was real, as was Paradise. And yes, by Paradise they meant the Garden of Eden. Spices were so aromatic, so rare, and so special that they were thought to come from there. (It seems reasonable to assume that trader who were happy to enhance demand for their product would make little effort to clarify that pepper actually came from India and the Maluku Islands in Indonesia.) Medieval Europeans believed that “pepper … grew on a plain near Paradise [and that] ginger and cinnamon” had been carried by the Nile straight from Paradise.
European food had yet to be infused with so many of the exotics to come from later stages of world trade, and spices were coveted for the simple fact that they enhanced the taste of food. Given the trade route was so long, spice prices were high and the products were essentially reserved for the elites. “In fact, pepper frequently took the place of gold as a means of payment.” And as with any highly priced item, spices conveyed status, a literal display of good taste.
But in the 1400s, the long trade routes were getting hit with tariffs by new rulers, and growing wealth among Europeans meant increased demand. As a result, spice prices went up 30x. If a person could find better trade routes to India, a way to avoid the tariffs levied in the Middle East, he would be rich. A taste for spices drove explorers to find a new continent. Columbus, who ventured out into unknown seas in search of it, would have known that America was truly a land of great wealth if he knew that it was a place where waiters came to your table and offered you as much fresh ground pepper as you wanted.
-------
Mostly drawn from Wolfgang Schivelbusch, translated from German by David Jacobson, Tastes of Paradise: A social history of stimulants, and intoxicants [Vintage Books, New York, NY, 1993]
Spices were ideal for trade. They didn’t spoil and were light in weight. Essentially, foreign trade meant spice trade and the foreign lands from which the spices came were so remote as to be shrouded in mystery. By at least one estimate the average European never traveled more than 5 miles from home during his entire life (although given the lack of pedometers this would have to be considered a very rough estimate) and places as remote as Asia were idealized. To medieval Europeans, America was unknown but Atlantis was real, as was Paradise. And yes, by Paradise they meant the Garden of Eden. Spices were so aromatic, so rare, and so special that they were thought to come from there. (It seems reasonable to assume that trader who were happy to enhance demand for their product would make little effort to clarify that pepper actually came from India and the Maluku Islands in Indonesia.) Medieval Europeans believed that “pepper … grew on a plain near Paradise [and that] ginger and cinnamon” had been carried by the Nile straight from Paradise.
European food had yet to be infused with so many of the exotics to come from later stages of world trade, and spices were coveted for the simple fact that they enhanced the taste of food. Given the trade route was so long, spice prices were high and the products were essentially reserved for the elites. “In fact, pepper frequently took the place of gold as a means of payment.” And as with any highly priced item, spices conveyed status, a literal display of good taste.
But in the 1400s, the long trade routes were getting hit with tariffs by new rulers, and growing wealth among Europeans meant increased demand. As a result, spice prices went up 30x. If a person could find better trade routes to India, a way to avoid the tariffs levied in the Middle East, he would be rich. A taste for spices drove explorers to find a new continent. Columbus, who ventured out into unknown seas in search of it, would have known that America was truly a land of great wealth if he knew that it was a place where waiters came to your table and offered you as much fresh ground pepper as you wanted.
-------
Mostly drawn from Wolfgang Schivelbusch, translated from German by David Jacobson, Tastes of Paradise: A social history of stimulants, and intoxicants [Vintage Books, New York, NY, 1993]
10 July 2010
When the American Discovered Europe
Europeans discovered America but Americans also discovered Europe, a rarely mentioned story.
Pocahontas’s father sent one of his tribe back to England with the Pilgrims and gave him a stick, telling him to put a notch in the stick each time he saw a new Englishmen. The chief wanted to know what he was dealing with.
When the poor Indian pulled into the harbor he was flabbergasted by the crowds of people around the docks. He took one look at the crowds, looked down at his stick, looked back at the crowds and then simply threw his stick into the water.
Pocahontas’s father sent one of his tribe back to England with the Pilgrims and gave him a stick, telling him to put a notch in the stick each time he saw a new Englishmen. The chief wanted to know what he was dealing with.
When the poor Indian pulled into the harbor he was flabbergasted by the crowds of people around the docks. He took one look at the crowds, looked down at his stick, looked back at the crowds and then simply threw his stick into the water.
2010: The Year of the Slacker?
Tomorrow's world cup final pits Spain against the Netherlands. Institutionalized siestas vs. legalized marijuana, which should make 2010 the year of the slacker. Maybe the lesson for the rest of us is that if we want to succeed it wouldn't hurt to relax a little.
Now that I've written this long post, I think I'll go take a nap.
Now that I've written this long post, I think I'll go take a nap.
08 July 2010
NBA News! (Just like ESPN)
I get so many requests for more sports coverage here at R World. I try to be responsive to my reader, so here goes.
Business idea: little green hat labeled, "NBA Salary Cap." The optional t-shirt could read, "Doing my bit to support the home team: I kept my salary under $20 million this year."
I'm shopping a book on this topic now, but few people realize how close Obama came to making a package deal of the Russian - American spy for spy swap and simply trading LeBron James and Chris Bosh to Brazil for soccer players Kaka and Fabiano to raise our world standing.
LeBron James will get about $240,000 per game (or more than $8,000 per point at the rate he scores.) If he played just one game per year, his income would put him in the top 2% of Americans.
It's a pity that James did not sign with the Houston Rockets. He missed a major marketing opportunity there. It's hard to believe that anyone could have a cooler nickname than VonBron James.
Shaq is still active? I find this sort of amazing and mostly heartening. He must be in his 50s by now and the thought of him still playing at that age inspires me. It's amazing that a guy over 300 pounds who runs and jumps could have a career last longer than 98% of the rappers from his era.
I just love the fact that a guy whose nickname is King James took one hour to announce that he was playing for the Heat. He must use really old English to take that long to express something so simple. I could understand it taking an hour to tell his grandmother, for instance, but not to tell basketball fans.
"Grandma, I'm going to play for the Heat."
"What?"
"I've decided to play for the Heat."
"You've decided to play in the heat?"
"The team. The team is the heat."
"Why is it that every generation thinks they gotta make up new slang? Your grandpa would say, 'The team is so cool.' You say 'heat.' Well at least you are not as crude as your daddy and his friends. They'd have said, 'the team is the s**t.' There is no excuse for that."
"No. Grandma. I'm going to play for the Miami Heat."
"When you get to be my age, son, the Miami heat is reason enough NOT to play. A boy from Cleveland, like you, is likely to melt down there."
And on goes the conversation ...
Demetri Martin: “I used to like to watch sports a lot, but not as much anymore, ‘cause I’m always disappointed. I’d always rather see the actual animals fighting than the teams with those names. Colts vs Bears — yeah! Wizards vs Heat — freaking awesome! Magic vs Jazz — that’s a little too gay for me, I’m gonna pass on that one.”
Stay tuned for when LeBron takes on Harry Potter. Maybe Demetri Martin will do the color commentary.
Business idea: little green hat labeled, "NBA Salary Cap." The optional t-shirt could read, "Doing my bit to support the home team: I kept my salary under $20 million this year."
I'm shopping a book on this topic now, but few people realize how close Obama came to making a package deal of the Russian - American spy for spy swap and simply trading LeBron James and Chris Bosh to Brazil for soccer players Kaka and Fabiano to raise our world standing.
LeBron James will get about $240,000 per game (or more than $8,000 per point at the rate he scores.) If he played just one game per year, his income would put him in the top 2% of Americans.
It's a pity that James did not sign with the Houston Rockets. He missed a major marketing opportunity there. It's hard to believe that anyone could have a cooler nickname than VonBron James.
Shaq is still active? I find this sort of amazing and mostly heartening. He must be in his 50s by now and the thought of him still playing at that age inspires me. It's amazing that a guy over 300 pounds who runs and jumps could have a career last longer than 98% of the rappers from his era.
I just love the fact that a guy whose nickname is King James took one hour to announce that he was playing for the Heat. He must use really old English to take that long to express something so simple. I could understand it taking an hour to tell his grandmother, for instance, but not to tell basketball fans.
"Grandma, I'm going to play for the Heat."
"What?"
"I've decided to play for the Heat."
"You've decided to play in the heat?"
"The team. The team is the heat."
"Why is it that every generation thinks they gotta make up new slang? Your grandpa would say, 'The team is so cool.' You say 'heat.' Well at least you are not as crude as your daddy and his friends. They'd have said, 'the team is the s**t.' There is no excuse for that."
"No. Grandma. I'm going to play for the Miami Heat."
"When you get to be my age, son, the Miami heat is reason enough NOT to play. A boy from Cleveland, like you, is likely to melt down there."
And on goes the conversation ...
Demetri Martin: “I used to like to watch sports a lot, but not as much anymore, ‘cause I’m always disappointed. I’d always rather see the actual animals fighting than the teams with those names. Colts vs Bears — yeah! Wizards vs Heat — freaking awesome! Magic vs Jazz — that’s a little too gay for me, I’m gonna pass on that one.”
Stay tuned for when LeBron takes on Harry Potter. Maybe Demetri Martin will do the color commentary.
04 July 2010
The Slow Spread of Democracy (say, aren’t those peasants armed with voter pamphlets?)
The American Revolution didn't just happen once. In fact, it is still happening.
In 1689, England's Glorious Revolution shifted authority from crown to constitution. British Parliament essentially hired monarchs (William & Mary) and told them that they could have subjects but would - like everyone else - be themselves subject to the constitution.
About a hundred years later the Americans decided that if they had a constitution they wouldn't even need a monarch. It's worth remembering that George Washington was the first president in the history of the world. But of course it never occurred to the founding fathers, who thought that all men were created equal, that anyone other than white, property-owning, Protestant males should be able to vote.
The Revolution of 1776 was a beautiful thing but it didn't really change the the rights of most Americans. It took 34 more years before people (well, property-owning white males) of any religion could vote. It took 74 years before even white males who didn't own property could vote. 144 years before women could vote and 148 years before Native Americans were considered real Americans and also able to vote. 189 years later, minorities' voting rights were ensured. And it took nearly 200 years before the 18 year olds considered old enough to die for their country were considered old enough to vote for their leaders. (And it is probably no coincidence that since then we've not had a draft.)
The real limit to change is always the collective imagination. For all of their vision, it is not the least obvious that our founding fathers could conceive of an 18 year old black female casting the vote that might elect the next president.
Social progress is often a bet on the person who has yet to prove himself. By definition it almost has to be. Before 1920, women could not prove that their vote mattered for the simple reason that it did not.
A couple of centuries later, democracy is still spreading. Right here within our borders. Now that's a revolution.
In 1689, England's Glorious Revolution shifted authority from crown to constitution. British Parliament essentially hired monarchs (William & Mary) and told them that they could have subjects but would - like everyone else - be themselves subject to the constitution.
About a hundred years later the Americans decided that if they had a constitution they wouldn't even need a monarch. It's worth remembering that George Washington was the first president in the history of the world. But of course it never occurred to the founding fathers, who thought that all men were created equal, that anyone other than white, property-owning, Protestant males should be able to vote.
The Revolution of 1776 was a beautiful thing but it didn't really change the the rights of most Americans. It took 34 more years before people (well, property-owning white males) of any religion could vote. It took 74 years before even white males who didn't own property could vote. 144 years before women could vote and 148 years before Native Americans were considered real Americans and also able to vote. 189 years later, minorities' voting rights were ensured. And it took nearly 200 years before the 18 year olds considered old enough to die for their country were considered old enough to vote for their leaders. (And it is probably no coincidence that since then we've not had a draft.)
The real limit to change is always the collective imagination. For all of their vision, it is not the least obvious that our founding fathers could conceive of an 18 year old black female casting the vote that might elect the next president.
Social progress is often a bet on the person who has yet to prove himself. By definition it almost has to be. Before 1920, women could not prove that their vote mattered for the simple reason that it did not.
A couple of centuries later, democracy is still spreading. Right here within our borders. Now that's a revolution.
01 July 2010
A little Bukowski for Your Morning
about the PEN conference
take a writer away from his typewriter
and all you have left
is
the sickness
which started him
typing
in the
beginning.
- Charles Bukowski
take a writer away from his typewriter
and all you have left
is
the sickness
which started him
typing
in the
beginning.
- Charles Bukowski
30 June 2010
Afghanistan Confusion
Petraeus has been confirmed as the war commander for the mission in Afghanistan. Poor guy.
From the outset we've confused war, occupation, and development. The real question is whether we want to stay there for decades until the country develops to a point of government stability beyond that of, say, Mexico. The war is over. The development has barely begun, and won't be by next August.
Everyone thinks that Obama was mad at McChrystal. If I were Petraeus, I would think that he was mad at me. What an appointment.
From the outset we've confused war, occupation, and development. The real question is whether we want to stay there for decades until the country develops to a point of government stability beyond that of, say, Mexico. The war is over. The development has barely begun, and won't be by next August.
Everyone thinks that Obama was mad at McChrystal. If I were Petraeus, I would think that he was mad at me. What an appointment.
27 June 2010
Contemplating a New Worldview? Excerpt from Mindwalk
Sadly, the movie Mindwalk, based on Fritjof Capra's writing, is not yet available on DVD. Here are some excerpts that you could watch if you're interested in a world view that might be more effective for our times than the Cartesian model from centuries ago.
How Smart Phones Got So Smart
I think that I'm just going to wait another decade for the Dick Tracy watch.
25 June 2010
Committing to Possibility
“What is possible is not independent of what we believe to be possible. “
- Neil MacCormick
“If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!”
-- Soren Kierkegaard
“The nature of a breakthrough is for you to stand on what you’ve gotten, what you’ve loved, what’s been important to you, what’s touched you, what’s inspired you, what’s turned your life on; to stand on that value you’ve already created for yourself and look out at the possibility for being alive that opens up, like a freedom, in front of you.”
- Werner Erhard
"It’s daunting how many possibilities there are in life for everyone of us. But rather than face that I might be a failure or success – I think both of them are terrifying – people find diversions.”
- Tim Allen
23 June 2010
McChrystal leaves White House after meeting
I guess that's news. You know, that McChrystal left the White House after his meeting.
But still, I can't help but think it'd be more newsworthy if it read,
McChrystal moves into White House after meeting
That seems like a story offering more legitimate cause for speculation.
But still, I can't help but think it'd be more newsworthy if it read,
McChrystal moves into White House after meeting
That seems like a story offering more legitimate cause for speculation.
22 June 2010
Investment Strategies of Party Loyalists
Here is a curious little chart I created to compare stock market performance by party between the time that Teddy Roosevelt took office and yesterday's close.
Imagine that you have two rabidly political families whose allegiance to their party is so strong that each time one of their own take the presidency, they put all their money into the market (as measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Average). And each time a president from the opposing party takes office, they sell their stocks and put their money under a mattress.
The simple question this answers is, Who would fare better? As you can see in the chart below, the Democratic faithful would have done much better in the last 110 years. Much better. While the Republican family would have grown their $100,000 to $509,720, the Democratic family would have grown their $100,000 to $2,796,037, about 5.5X more. (click on the chart below to make it bigger)
Of course you could say that the market does what the market does and the parties - much less the president - have little to do with it. Or you could point out that the best policy would be to invest during administrations of presidents whose last name start with a "C" (Coolidge and Clinton) or "R" (Reagan and Roosevelt), regardless of party.
You decide what to make of it. Today I'll just offer the numbers. Discuss it among yourselves.
Imagine that you have two rabidly political families whose allegiance to their party is so strong that each time one of their own take the presidency, they put all their money into the market (as measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Average). And each time a president from the opposing party takes office, they sell their stocks and put their money under a mattress.
The simple question this answers is, Who would fare better? As you can see in the chart below, the Democratic faithful would have done much better in the last 110 years. Much better. While the Republican family would have grown their $100,000 to $509,720, the Democratic family would have grown their $100,000 to $2,796,037, about 5.5X more. (click on the chart below to make it bigger)
Of course you could say that the market does what the market does and the parties - much less the president - have little to do with it. Or you could point out that the best policy would be to invest during administrations of presidents whose last name start with a "C" (Coolidge and Clinton) or "R" (Reagan and Roosevelt), regardless of party.
You decide what to make of it. Today I'll just offer the numbers. Discuss it among yourselves.
21 June 2010
Reality is Diverse
to be nobody but yourself -
in a world which is doing its best,
night and day,
to make you everybody else -
means to fight the hardest battle
which any human being can fight .
never stop fighting.
e.e. cummings
It is really just in the last generation that we've become aware of how diverse was the world of Christianity in the 3 to 4 centuries after Christ's death. The Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi Library, among other finds, have revealed various gospels and epistles that never made it into what we know as the Bible. Most of these were obviously not written by any of Christ's original disciples or by Paul and for this reason alone were omitted from inclusion in the approved canon. (But it is worth noting that most serious scholars today think that other forgeries did make it in. For instance, 2 Timothy seems to have been written in the second century after Christ and most certainly not by Paul.)
In the fourth century, the canon was defined and various and competing ideas about Christ were consolidated into a (mostly and sort of) uniform view in the form of the Bible. Soon, the church that owned this "true" view even used torture and death to enforce this pure view. Most people look at the Inquisition as evil but I think that the evil originated when the church decided that God could not tolerate diversity of thought and sought to make uniform the theology and teachings that professed to represent his views. Surely God loves uniformity. This might seem reasonable. It does not seem to be backed up by evidence.
This notion that God's will obviously tends towards the uniform does, I think, miss an important suggestion from nature. (I say suggestion because it may or may not be a "lesson.") Nature suggests that the creator loves diversity. There are about 1.75 million species on the planet. Some have bones and some do not. Some breath under water and some drown in water. Some walk around and some are rooted. Some are really cute and some are hideous. Some are peaceful and some are dangerous. Some are huge and some are too small to see. It's not obvious that you can draw many conclusions from nature other than the fact that nature loves diversity. The life form that works depends on so many things that one would be at a loss to predict them all in advance. Diversity, it seems to me, is the lesson of nature.
As communities become more developed and free, a similar thing seems to happen with the human population. That is, diversity seems to spring up. We have goths and hippies, the driven and the laid back, the flirtatious and the prudes, the athletic and the slothful, the intellectuals and the disinterested. The list goes on. It may well be that we have something akin to 1.75 million species of humans.
Ultimately, the Church was forced to use force to try to squelch this great diversity of people. To this day, Protestant churches reject Catholicism but tend to accept the central claim that diversity is wrong (although the diversity of ways that they reject the notion of allowing diversity does, itself, create a fair bit of diversity, from Mormons to Baptists to Presbyterians to Anglicans to Jehovah's Witnesses, to ...). It could be that they are right. It could be. But then how to explain the motives of the creative force behind the massive diversity of nature? And how to explain how attempts to make human life all one way led to one of the Darkest and most violent periods of history when the Church largely ruled the West between the collapse of the Roman Empire and the rise of the modern, secular nation-state?
The more I look across time and communities, the more convinced I am that one of the simplest measures of advancement is how many kinds of people can make their place in the world. It seems to me that diversity is not just a wonderful thing in nature - it works in communities too. And that suggests to me that the Church's attempt to go against this trend meant it was destined to become evil. Next time someone says that they know what is best, ask for who. Some things that make people feel alive really are universal: oxygen, for instance. Other things that make people feel alive really are true for just a minority of folks: live jazz, for instance. Reality is diverse. Any explanation of it ought to accommodate rather than deny this, it seems to me.
in a world which is doing its best,
night and day,
to make you everybody else -
means to fight the hardest battle
which any human being can fight .
never stop fighting.
e.e. cummings
It is really just in the last generation that we've become aware of how diverse was the world of Christianity in the 3 to 4 centuries after Christ's death. The Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi Library, among other finds, have revealed various gospels and epistles that never made it into what we know as the Bible. Most of these were obviously not written by any of Christ's original disciples or by Paul and for this reason alone were omitted from inclusion in the approved canon. (But it is worth noting that most serious scholars today think that other forgeries did make it in. For instance, 2 Timothy seems to have been written in the second century after Christ and most certainly not by Paul.)
In the fourth century, the canon was defined and various and competing ideas about Christ were consolidated into a (mostly and sort of) uniform view in the form of the Bible. Soon, the church that owned this "true" view even used torture and death to enforce this pure view. Most people look at the Inquisition as evil but I think that the evil originated when the church decided that God could not tolerate diversity of thought and sought to make uniform the theology and teachings that professed to represent his views. Surely God loves uniformity. This might seem reasonable. It does not seem to be backed up by evidence.
This notion that God's will obviously tends towards the uniform does, I think, miss an important suggestion from nature. (I say suggestion because it may or may not be a "lesson.") Nature suggests that the creator loves diversity. There are about 1.75 million species on the planet. Some have bones and some do not. Some breath under water and some drown in water. Some walk around and some are rooted. Some are really cute and some are hideous. Some are peaceful and some are dangerous. Some are huge and some are too small to see. It's not obvious that you can draw many conclusions from nature other than the fact that nature loves diversity. The life form that works depends on so many things that one would be at a loss to predict them all in advance. Diversity, it seems to me, is the lesson of nature.
As communities become more developed and free, a similar thing seems to happen with the human population. That is, diversity seems to spring up. We have goths and hippies, the driven and the laid back, the flirtatious and the prudes, the athletic and the slothful, the intellectuals and the disinterested. The list goes on. It may well be that we have something akin to 1.75 million species of humans.
Ultimately, the Church was forced to use force to try to squelch this great diversity of people. To this day, Protestant churches reject Catholicism but tend to accept the central claim that diversity is wrong (although the diversity of ways that they reject the notion of allowing diversity does, itself, create a fair bit of diversity, from Mormons to Baptists to Presbyterians to Anglicans to Jehovah's Witnesses, to ...). It could be that they are right. It could be. But then how to explain the motives of the creative force behind the massive diversity of nature? And how to explain how attempts to make human life all one way led to one of the Darkest and most violent periods of history when the Church largely ruled the West between the collapse of the Roman Empire and the rise of the modern, secular nation-state?
The more I look across time and communities, the more convinced I am that one of the simplest measures of advancement is how many kinds of people can make their place in the world. It seems to me that diversity is not just a wonderful thing in nature - it works in communities too. And that suggests to me that the Church's attempt to go against this trend meant it was destined to become evil. Next time someone says that they know what is best, ask for who. Some things that make people feel alive really are universal: oxygen, for instance. Other things that make people feel alive really are true for just a minority of folks: live jazz, for instance. Reality is diverse. Any explanation of it ought to accommodate rather than deny this, it seems to me.
18 June 2010
Caption Contest (Because it's Friday)
Alternative captions:
What Santa's elves do on their summer vacation.
Godzilla was seen making the exact same moves just before he attacked Tokyo.
The buzz in the playroom was that his were the world's most dangerous diapers. The buzz, of course, coming from those whose mouths weren't full of chewy toys.
15 June 2010
Progress
Regular readers know that I'm stupidly optimistic about the future but still have bouts of frustration when it appears that so few voters and policy makers get how much is at stake (for good or bad). I had to smile to see this report about the two Bills (Gates and Clinton) who do seem to realize how much difference a person can make.
This from Gates' post:
To read the whole post ...
http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Thinking/article.aspx?ID=121
This from Gates' post:
It’s pretty amazing to realize that 50 years ago, more than 20 million children died before their fifth birthday. Last year, it was fewer than 9 million. I think this is one of the greatest accomplishments of the last hundred years.
But 9 million children dying unnecessarily each year is still 9 million too many. That’s why we need to continue our efforts.
To read the whole post ...
http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Thinking/article.aspx?ID=121
11 June 2010
The Unfortunate Eye-Glazing Tendency of Economic Development
Economic development sounds like such a dry and abstract topic. That’s unfortunate. Economic development can mean the difference between a mother crying as her child goes off to college or crying as her child dies in her arms. Poverty brings with it so much grief and prosperity so much possibility. The potential for a human life is vastly different at higher and lower stages of economic development.
As I would define it, no topic has such a pervasive influence on the lives of people. Economic development is not just a matter of getting more goods but of giving people more options. At its most dramatic, economic development gives people the option to eat rather than starve. At its more nuanced, in developed countries, it gives people options about how to define their own lives. In the poorest countries, it can mean life. In the richer countries, it can give meaning to life.
As I would define it, no topic has such a pervasive influence on the lives of people. Economic development is not just a matter of getting more goods but of giving people more options. At its most dramatic, economic development gives people the option to eat rather than starve. At its more nuanced, in developed countries, it gives people options about how to define their own lives. In the poorest countries, it can mean life. In the richer countries, it can give meaning to life.
10 June 2010
Sell Your Gold Now
Gold is a lousy investment. Oh, I know it has gone up lots of late - outperforming real estate and stocks by a wide margin. But it is a lousy investment just in the sense that it does nothing for productivity or the economy. It is the natural resources equivalent of putting your money under your mattress. And my belief is that, in the long-run, for something to be a good investment in terms of returns, it has to be a good investment in terms of generating wealth. Gold at best stores wealth; it doesn't create it.
If you invest in real estate development or stocks, you actually put money into a general fund that can be used to create new jobs, new homes, and new products. By contrast, when you put your money into gold you divert money into a nothing more than speculation. (Unless you're betting on gold fillings make a big comeback.)
My guess? Gold will go the way that real estate did over the last few years: the "sure" investment that proves itself as susceptible to bubbles and busts as any.
Gold prices have recently dropped, but they're still high. I say sell now and put your money into something that actually creates something of value. Long-term, that is the only sensible play. For you or the economy that you ultimately depend on for prosperity.
If you invest in real estate development or stocks, you actually put money into a general fund that can be used to create new jobs, new homes, and new products. By contrast, when you put your money into gold you divert money into a nothing more than speculation. (Unless you're betting on gold fillings make a big comeback.)
My guess? Gold will go the way that real estate did over the last few years: the "sure" investment that proves itself as susceptible to bubbles and busts as any.
Gold prices have recently dropped, but they're still high. I say sell now and put your money into something that actually creates something of value. Long-term, that is the only sensible play. For you or the economy that you ultimately depend on for prosperity.
09 June 2010
The End of Men?
Excerpts from the Atlantic, The End of Men by Hanna Rosin ..
Earlier this year, women became the majority of the workforce for the first time in U.S. history. Most managers are now women too. And for every two men who get a college degree this year, three women will do the same.
Of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most in the next decade in the U.S., all but two (janitors and computer engineers) are occupied primarily by women.
Women now hold 51.4 percent of managerial and professional jobs—up from 26.1 percent in 1980. They make up 54 percent of all accountants and hold about half of all banking and insurance jobs. About a third of America’s physicians are now women, as are 45 percent of associates in law firms—and both those percentages are rising fast.
Women now earn 60 percent of master’s degrees, about half of all law and medical degrees, and 42 percent of all M.B.A.s. Most important, women earn almost 60 percent of all bachelor’s degrees—the minimum requirement, in most cases, for an affluent life. In a stark reversal since the 1970s, men are now more likely than women to hold only a high-school diploma.
In 1970, women contributed 2 to 6 percent of the family income. Now the typical working wife brings home 42.2 percent, and four in 10 mothers—many of them single mothers—are the primary breadwinners in their families.
In 1970, 84 percent of women ages 30 to 44 were married; now 60 percent are.
A 2008 study attempted to quantify the effect of this more-feminine management style. Researchers at Columbia Business School and the University of Maryland analyzed data on the top 1,500 U.S. companies from 1992 to 2006 to determine the relationship between firm performance and female participation in senior management. Firms that had women in top positions performed better, and this was especially true if the firm pursued what the researchers called an “innovation intensive strategy,” in which, they argued, “creativity and collaboration may be especially important”—an apt description of the future economy.
Earlier this year, women became the majority of the workforce for the first time in U.S. history. Most managers are now women too. And for every two men who get a college degree this year, three women will do the same.
Of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most in the next decade in the U.S., all but two (janitors and computer engineers) are occupied primarily by women.
Women now hold 51.4 percent of managerial and professional jobs—up from 26.1 percent in 1980. They make up 54 percent of all accountants and hold about half of all banking and insurance jobs. About a third of America’s physicians are now women, as are 45 percent of associates in law firms—and both those percentages are rising fast.
Women now earn 60 percent of master’s degrees, about half of all law and medical degrees, and 42 percent of all M.B.A.s. Most important, women earn almost 60 percent of all bachelor’s degrees—the minimum requirement, in most cases, for an affluent life. In a stark reversal since the 1970s, men are now more likely than women to hold only a high-school diploma.
In 1970, women contributed 2 to 6 percent of the family income. Now the typical working wife brings home 42.2 percent, and four in 10 mothers—many of them single mothers—are the primary breadwinners in their families.
In 1970, 84 percent of women ages 30 to 44 were married; now 60 percent are.
A 2008 study attempted to quantify the effect of this more-feminine management style. Researchers at Columbia Business School and the University of Maryland analyzed data on the top 1,500 U.S. companies from 1992 to 2006 to determine the relationship between firm performance and female participation in senior management. Firms that had women in top positions performed better, and this was especially true if the firm pursued what the researchers called an “innovation intensive strategy,” in which, they argued, “creativity and collaboration may be especially important”—an apt description of the future economy.
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