Media, Technology and Society

Shwarzenegger Shows Us How Its Done

Shwarzenegger is, on the global warming issue, a fresh, invigorating breath of air in what is mostly (atleast in US politics) a dense cloud of hypocrisy and myopic thinking. Well done governor. See the implications of the California governors landmark global warming legislation here....

Reflections on "Hegemony or Survival"

I just finished reading an article in the NYT noting that after Venezuelan president (or ruler, depending on how you look at it) briefly held up Noam Chomsky's "Hegemony or Survival" during his excited and hilarious speech at the United Nations recently, sales of this book have skyrocketed. As for Hugo's "standing where the devil stood" speech, it is absolutely fantastic to see someone match the verbal lunacy of good ol' GW with some equally silly allegations that Mr. Bush personifies old man satan himself. The part about the area "smelling like sulphur" was just priceless. Way to lay the proverbial smack down Hugo. I for one, would prefer something entertaining like that to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's more measured, calculating and frankly, scary approach.

In any case, apparently Hugo has prompted a significant rise in sales for Chomsky's several-year old book. Although I haven't yet read this book, the first few pages (which are available free) are very intriguing, and very worrying. Here is the introduction:

"A few years ago, one of the great figures of contemporary biology, Ernst Mayr, published some reflections on the likelihood of success in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. He considered the prospects very low. His reasoning had to do with the adaptive value of what we call "higher intelligence," meaning the particular human form of intellectual organization. Mayr estimated the number of species since the origin of life at about fifty billion, only one of which "achieved the kind of intelligence needed to establish a civilization." It did so very recently, perhaps 100,000 years ago. It is generally assumed that only one small breeding group survived, of which we are all descendants.

Mayr speculated that the human form of intellectual organization may not be favored by selection. The history of life on Earth, he wrote, refutes the claim that "it is better to be smart than to be stupid," at least judging by biological success: beetles and bacteria, for example, are vastly more successful than humans in terms of survival. He also made the rather somber observation that "the average life expectancy of a species is about 100,000 years."

We are entering a period of human history that may provide an answer to the question of whether it is better to be smart than stupid. The most hopeful prospect is that the question will not be answered: if it receives a definite answer, that answer can only be that humans were a kind of "biological error," using their allotted 100,000 years to destroy themselves and, in the process, much else.

The species has surely developed the capacity to do just that, and a hypothetical extraterrestrial observer might well conclude that humans have demonstrated that capacity throughout their history, dramatically in the past few hundred years, with an assault on the environment that sustains life, on the diversity of more complex organisms, and with cold and calculated savagery, on each other as well."

Read more here.

The frightening thing about reading Chomsky's arguments are his powerful intellectual rigour, and the intelligence with which he considers the human condition at present. His view is one of dispassionate rationality, calmly engaged in coming up with persuasive frameworks to describe how we can act irrationally on a massive scale. How is that humans can display impressive intelligence on an individual scale, and yet, when organized within various larger systems (of allegiance, belief, practice, etc), can act in a pathological manner?

Chomsky has described the act of purchasing an automobile as rational on a small scale, and yet, pathological on a wider scale. Perhaps this is just it. The over-arching negative consequences of human behaviour, especially that which takes place within advanced industrial societies, is too externalized from the individual actor. In economics, externalities prevent the individual from knowing the true costs associated with a given action.

While I do entertain considerable hope that the externalities that have so far 'allowed' humans to destroy the environment which sustains the survival of the species, and wage "cold and calculating" war on one another, these disincentives are likely to catch up to all of us - hopefully in time to preserve the opportunity for change. In many areas, there is hope. It is noteworthy that the incidence of global wars and conflicts has declined markedly since 1950. There are indications that the ozone layer is on the mend, after decades of perforation from harmful chemicals which were subsequently banned by international treaty. Why the record of ozone depletion and subsequent restoration is not a powerful symbol for the power of international ageeements such as Kyoto - I have no idea. 

Nonetheless, it is sobering to consider the condition of the species at this point in time. The demonstrated capacity of nation states and global humanity to act irrationally - as a whole - is scary. The supreme arrogance and disdain with which we conduct ourselves on this earth suggests that few of us ever really comprehend our situation. Do we know how insignificant we are as a species? Do we know how precious is our world, based on how rare our planet is?

In a few weeks I plan to visit an exhibit at a local science exhibition in Vancouver called "bodyworlds" featuring human cadavers in all their complexity and splendour:

"From entire bodies posed to highlight specific anatomical features to side-by-side comparisons of healthy and diseased organs, BODY WORLDS 3 is a stunning exhibit featuring almost 200 authentic human specimens". See more...

One of the conclusions people have made upon viewing this exhibit is, not just the horror of what human bodies look like when they have been damaged by cigarettes, alcohol and other substances, but also the startling conclusion that our differences - are skin deep. All of the concepts that we organize ourselves with as a species, religion, kinship structures, economic systems, nation states, etc, are all located within our consciousnesses.

There are alternate ways of organizing our world and our species. Perhaps we can see our societal structures for what they are - see them as artificial, as 'constructed'. Far too often, we label ourselves according to nationality, religion, gender, ethnicity. These labels are often necessary, of course. However, we often fall into the trap of believing these labels to be inherent and natural. We forget that concepts such as nationality, ethnicity and others, have a history. They didn't always exist, or atleast not as we currently understand them. Perhaps some day, we will grow beyond these barriers and differences, and act rationally as a species.

Think of it this way. Do you see "America" or "Canada" from the view of the International Space Station? No. You see a continent. You see a world of water. Borders are meaningless.

Think of how our planet looks 1,000,000 kilometres out into space. Do you see Israel and Palestine? Are those conflicts meaningful? No, they're pathetically insignificant. In fact, the whole world becomes insignificant. We, become insignificant. We're a tiny, tiny drop of sand in a big, big beach. As Carl Sagan noted in his book by the same name, things look a lot different when you see our world as a pale blue dot amidst an infinite cosmos.

I can't help but invoke utopian narratives such as Star Trek as inspiration for what a species behaves like once it has had its small consciousness expanded. In the age of the "federation" classifications according to nationality on Earth are insignificant. The rationality of personal wealth maximization is no longer "the guiding force" behing human activity (well, for societies within the global capitalist order). Instead, the species is important, and the way the human species behaves is important. How "earthlings" treat other species on their home planet is important, especially when it comes to relating to other species from other worlds. Perhaps it would help if we were to realize we were not "alone" in the extraterrestrial sense. In such an albeit impossibly unlikely case, we would be forced to reckon with how we "appear" as a species. Perhaps being forced to accept responsibility not as individuals, or nations, but as humans, we might act towards a good which goes far beyond our narrow self-interests.

In an economic sense, if "the good of the species," which inherently depends upon the welfare of other species - can become an individual preferences, than the selfish pursuit of this good can result in a better future for all. I still believe that rational self-interest explains more of human behaviour than do other theories. Yet, this theory does not have to bind us all to selfish material maximization. "Rationality" need not involve materialism, but rather 'other goods'. These other goods, generally neglected in the current order of things, need to become central again.

Consider the concept of 'honour'. For many, the desire to be recognized and honoured among peers outweighs incentives around material maximization. It is not difficult to conceive of how a society can reorganize itself to create incentives for an individuals rational self interest, which if pursued, don't destroy the earth, but rather preserve it, as well as human society. This concept is highlighted in a utopian novel by 19th century author Edward Bellamy, who argues for non-capitalist system of labour and incentives.

Well, there's a lot to consider. The future need not be hopeless, but it is certainly better to be "safe" than "sorry". It is in that sense that everyone should read Hegemony and Survival, especially if you are on the right. Everyone who is not clued in about climate change should inform themselves. Pick up a science journal. Visit davidsuzuki.org. Enlighten yourself. There is no excuse for ignorance.

In the broader sense of evolutionary survival, it is still an open question as to whether it is better to be smart than stupid. Personally, I would place my bet on a) bacteria b) ants or c) cockroaches. Humans would be a distant 10 the 24th power, or perhaps an even smaller number if we're still driving SUVs in a decade.

Is Feminism Dead? Can't Women Choose What Careers they Want?

"My husband is an aerospace engineer. Of the approximately 400 engineers that he graduated with back in the 80’s, two were women. And I’m sure that if you look at graduating classes everywhere you will find disproportionate levels of males and females in pretty much every area of study, because we live in a free country where people get to choose their careers, and it just so happens that men and women tend to choose differently. That is the reality.

Unfortunately, well-meaning liberals are not known for considering reality when they meddle with government policy. They look around at the disproportionate levels of men and women in various careers and they conclude that it is the tyranny of men, not the choices made by women, that is responsible for the imbalance they see. So in the aerospace industry, for instance, companies that want to do business with the government must often meet minimum quotas of female employees. This leads to disproportionately high salaries and lowered standards for women in that profession. And so it goes.

Before you declare that women are underrepresented anywhere, whether it be a profession, a management position or the legislature, find out what the pool of available candidates looks like. If only 10% of the candidates for public office are women, for instance, then it would be silly to expect them to represent 50% of the elected body. I know you said in a previous post that you’ve gotten lazy about your research and that’s fine, but in this case opining without researching the facts has lead you to falsely blame your fellow males for what you perceive as terrible injustices towards women.

By the way, what evidence do you have that ‘conservatives’ are responsible for keeping women down? It is chauvinism, not conservatism, that is the real problem for women, and my own experience is that chauvinism has no favorite political ideology."

Perhaps you are right Carol. To be sure, it is possible that any given ratio of women to men in a profession reflects some kind of inherent preference which escapes all environmental influences which might exist. Perhaps there is some inherent, built-in system which regulates the preferences and capabilities of women and explains how they disproportionately end up in careers in the retail and service professions - careers which pay dramatically less than say, aerospace engineering.

However, to use an extreme example, consider the status of women in the Taliban regime of Afhganistan before the US/Nato coalition displaced them from power. One could use Saudi Arabia for another example. Both regimes have very gendered policies in terms of the way women are generally expected to behave by the male religious and political elite of that given society. Let's also assume, that over time, this system comes to be accepted, or 'naturalized' by the very women whom the system oppresses.

So, on the face of it, both the men and the women accept this system as "normal". To an outsider, the fact that women are prohibited from driving or hold no political office might seem obvious evidence of discrimination. To those within the society, they might say that is the women "choose" to stay home and 'provide for their husbands and children'. Or they might say that the Koran instructs them to live in this manner, or that it is men that should decide what women want. This is familiar patriarchal thinking, with long associations with not just orthodox Islam, but also with many Christian traditions. Significant numbers of Christian social conservatives outline preferences that women stay at home and raise a traditional family, deferring to the guidance of their husband where applicable. Of course, this traditional family comes at the expense of a career and so on. Let us recall that it has been mere decades since women were technically the property of males within a family structure. To be fair, not everything about holding a career is wonderful and great, but lets not pretend that social conservatives do not have a particular idea of how women, as women, fit into the societal structure.

In the case of the 'extreme' example I've used - Saudi Arabia, or the Taliban - the west clearly looks at women under these situations and labels them oppressed. This is reasonably because in comparison to western women, these women neither exercise nor 'CAN' exercise freedoms exercized by women in western, liberal democracies.

If, overnight, women in Saudi Arabia were somehow allowed to drive, or hold political office, it might take some time before the representation among women among the driving or political class equated with men. In the interim time, at any point before equality was achieved, people might say, well, what we have now is real 'choice' and all the women that might ever want to be politicians or drivers have chosen their path. Any further effort to achieve equality is silly.

Possibly, they are right. However, they could also be incorrect as well. Social attitudes and preferences, held by both men and women, take time to change. It may take generations before women are brought up in environments in which they can imagine being drivers or politicians, and in which, they can overcome social and gender barriers, often within the family, towards being a driver or a politician. Their husbands might prefer less intellectual women, or women who can't drive and are therefore more dependent upon them - and so on and so on.

The point is, any sitaution where parity is not achieved in any significant arena in a democratic society, whether politics or aerospace engineering - may have more of a basis in the socializing and conditioning of career preferences of women than in anything else.

It is because of the ease with which some argue that any system of oppression is 'chosen' by women that organizations such as Status of Women and many other organizations which advocate on behalf of women's rights exist. Yes, conservatives will inevitably sniff at these organizations and the implicit notion that individuals' choices are structured by often unrecognized environmental factors, and that any over-arching goal for society (e.g. equality) smacks of being "forced into choices." That said, when the goals are as valid as equality, surely we can all benefit from this type of 'social engineering'. Is there such a thing as taking equality too far, in say, the sense of political representation. Can women representing approximately 50% of individuals in the vital areas of political and economic power be taken too far? Equality in the areas where it matter is a valid goal, whether or not every woman wants to participate in these areas or not. We as a society can, and should strive to remove barriers towards the attainment of this goal, not question whether the goal is worth setting in the first place - or should be forgotten after having only been partially achieved.

Blogs Epitomize Lazy Writing and Research

I was just reading a post by Matt Good on why the Afghanistan mission is a terrible, contemptible exercise in hegemony, blah, blah, blah, with an academic term thrown in, blah. Certainly, there was a strong opinion being demonstrated, as well as some kind of articulation (sorry, I'm as guilty as any of throwing in academic terms to spice up otherwise lazy writing) about why Canadian participation in the NATO forces there is useless and morally ignorant. Good argued that part of the reason why the Canadian forces and their Afghan army partners face a losing battle is that the "Taliban are better funded". This may be true. Intuitively, there might be some connection between a reported bumper crop in illicit Opium this year and funding for the Taliban. That said, there's no reference included, and thus, the statement that the Taliban are better funded than the Afghan army remains an unsupported statement. Is it true? We don't know. Can we bet that Mr. Good has done his research and actually has a credible source to back up this claim?

I admit that part of what draws me to Blog in the first place are the economics of effort vs. some kind of published comment about what's on my mind. The effort required to produce any kind of online statement is very low. Someone can opine about politics, economics, military strategy, gender, social structure, music, and on millions of other topics without having performed any significant study on an issue, or having any writing or critical thinking ability. The blogosphere is literally chock full of opinions, but very, very, few real arguments. What I am writing, and most of what I have written on my blog is generally opinion. When I first started writing, several of my articles were substantiated, but I've become much more lazy of late.

Realizing all of this, I know how terribly weak most of what I write is as an argument - as something someone might consider as something to sway a person's view on a subject, or develop an evidence-supported opinion (when I refer to "opinion" generally, I mean one which is not directly supported by evidence). Does Matt Good know how weak his arguments are? An argument can absolutely be made along exactly the same lines as he has outlined, but it would necessarily include a discussion of the merits and arguments that he dismisses out of hand.

Is the Canadian mission in Afghanistan a hegemonic exercise? Is it a doomed effort? What is the concept of hegemony, and can it be properly applied to the military actions of a couple thousand troops? What does it mean to "support the troops"?

I would contend that ideally, one can "support the troops" regardless of whether one agrees in the mission in question or not. One can affirm the dignity, honour and sacrifice made by each and every soldier while still believing the mission to be flawed, or entirely justified. Armies as we know them, generally cannot function without a strong sense of order, discipline and heirarchal control. Military forces are normatively neutral, with a potential to be used in unjustified conflicts (the German wermacht in WWII) or justified conflicts (the allied armies in WWII). Matt Good's argument that he "supports the troops" by wanting to see them returned to Canada with all limbs attached is, while touching, as problematic as many American conservatives view that "supporting the troops" implies complete subversion to the Bush administration justification and policy with regard to the Iraq war.

While most of the time I look at the blogosphere as a positive development - hey, its better to have millions of dogmatic monkeys typing on keyboards instead of on TV remotes - the frequency with which online posts are made (my own included) with little attention to what a balanced, academic argument would actually involve - threatens to send me scurrying back to my university library searching for an academic journal in which to bury my face....reading actual....arguments....with evidence....and references.

Here's a question for you. How much persuasive value should we attach to discourse outside that which takes place within academic journals? How does being peer-reviewed and needing to rigorously substantiate an argument lead to the development of understanding on an issue? 

Bush "I am the Law!" Admits to Secret CIA Prisons

First of all, I'm surprised he admitted to this travesty in the first place. What will he do next? Admit that his administration conspired to produce fake WMD evidence?

In what will no doubt go down in history as one of the most unassailable defenses of state-sponsored and completely illegal methods of detaining and extracting information from suspected terrorists, Bush admitted to the presence of secret CIA prisons. Bush's defense? I...uh...promise that if I hadna authorized secret torture and imprisonment, well, uh, the terrorists woulda...uh...attacked amarica.

I am no fan of turning a blind eye to extremists and the plots they inevitably concoct - however, the  stunning disregard for basic legal principles Mr. Bush displays is contemptible. Why not charge the individuals in question? If there is evidence, present it and make a charge! If these steps had been taken, there wouldn't be this uproar over Mr. Bush approving what are in essence, dictatorial actions with dictatorial justifications. Dictators, by definition do away with courts and legislatures when they "get in the way" of the "best interests of the nation". I'm not saying Mr. Bush is a dictator, but his machiavellian streak needs to end, before his popularity dives further.

That having been said, it is unlikely Bush comes up with any of the policy that he announces, so when I impugn Bush, I'm essentially criticizing the administration officials who have the vision and strategic sensibility required to formulate policy of this kind - however illegal.