You know, I'm all in favor of progress. Except when it comes at my expense. That's only human I suppose.
Well, I apologize for my RSS feed. While I couldn't incorporate images from Tinderbox before, at least the text was clean and the markup was invisible doing its job as, you know, markup.
Now, with the latest update to version 2.2, I appear to be back to one solid blob of text with all kinds of visible markup not doing very much marking-up.
I hate screwing with this stuff.
I don't know when I'll get around to fixing it, but I apologize for it looking so crappy. Another typical technology SNAFU.
Of these, I believe authority is the most significant in terms of understanding how humans behave in groups. Furthermore, I believe that wealth is a form of authority. In fact, I believe wealth is the most universal form of authority. Before going further, I'd like to review some of my earlier thoughts on authority.
In an earlier piece at my first weblog I defined, rather artlessly I'm afraid, three types of authority. The first is authentic authority. This is authority that is granted to an individual or individuals by those who will be subject to that authority. Any government official or agent exercises this type of authority. It is extended or revoked by other authorities which are ultimately subject to the authority of the electorate.
The second is natural authority. This is authority that is inherent in the individual, usually earned by some effort. A medical doctor is both an authentic authority and a natural authority. His or her license to practice medicine gives them the authority to write prescriptions, but it is the knowledge that he or she possesses that makes them a natural authority on matters of medicine.
The third is inauthentic authority. This is authority which is neither earned, nor granted by those who are subject to that authority. An example of this would be the antiquated notion of the divine right of kings. Many acts of coercion are exercised by inauthentic authorities.
Some people or agencies may exercise some combination of these three types of authority. Parental authority may be exerted as each of the three types, for example. There are parental rights, which require authority to be asserted, which are recognized by law and are therefore a form of authentic authority. Parents, as adults, are presumably more knowledgeable than their children and so they are natural authorities to their children. Parents who, out of ignorance or immaturity or other defect, use physical abuse to coerce their children or punish them are exercising an inauthentic form authority.
The point regarding inauthentic authority is that no free person should submit to inauthentic authority. Or, if the consequences of resistance are too severe, should at least be aware that they are being coerced, and they should make every effort to remove themselves from those circumstances at their earliest opportunity, availing themselves of assistance from other authorities if necessary.
So, if wealth is a form of authority, of what type is it? As with any other form of authority, it can be of any type, or some combination of them. Currency is a kind of wealth, and as authority its aspect is most closely related to authentic authority because its creation is controlled by other authentic authorities. Other kinds of wealth may have aspects more closely related to the other types of authority.
Money is the most universal kind of wealth used as authority, although property is probably a close second. Any time you go to a store and make a purchase the transaction is an exercise of authority. The store has a wrench that you want. Taking it would be stealing, an example of inauthentic authority. But if you have an amount of money equal to the price of the wrench, the store will be happy to give it to you in return for that money. If I want a painter to paint my house, he probably won't be interested in listening to me ask him politely, or even if I demand that he paint my house. He'll probably happily paint my house if I have enough money though.
When two individuals have a disagreement over an issue, they often appeal to the authentic authority of the courts. To make your way to court you must have sufficient authority to secure the services of an attorney, an individual who is both an authentic and a natural authority who will represent your interests in before the authority of the court. But note this: Most of the time your case will be settled "out of court." The issue won't be resolved by the authority of the court, instead it will be resolved by the authority of the other party through the transfer of wealth. The recent settlement of Sun's suit against Microsoft is an example of this.
When an individual seeks the authority of political office, he or she must first exercise a great deal of authority in the form of wealth in order to put their campaign before the voters.
Looking again at the six principles of influence, I think we can draw obvious connections between wealth and reciprocity and scarcity. The annoying guy who tries to wash your windshield when you're parked at a light is relying on reciprocity to effect the transfer of wealth from you to him. He lacks the authority to simply compel you to give him money, but he can rely on a human trait that evolution has provided to us to facilitate our affiliation in groups. If I do something for you, unbidden, reciprocity has now given me a form of authority over you. So I think we can say that reciprocity and authority are closely related.
We know scarcity has an essential role in economics and markets. The scarcer the resource, the greater its value, or wealth, and therefore its utility as a form of authority.
Social proof doesn't have an obvious connection to wealth, but it does have an obvious connection to authority. The greater the number of people doing something, the greater the likelihood that other individuals will be inclined to do it believing, however irrationally, that x number of people "can't be wrong." Indeed, a democracy is a type of social proof as authority. The success of the iPod as a trendy gadget/fashion accessory is due, at least to some extent, to social proof. The success of Microsoft's Windows operating system is perhaps a more apt example. So a person making a purchase decision based on social proof is relying on the authority of large groups and is transferring authority in the form of wealth to the manufacturer of the item being purchased. So there is a connection between social proof, authority and wealth.
Liking can also be related to wealth. If I have a handsome face and a pleasing personality, I think we could reasonably call these "personal assets." They have value, and therefore they are a form of authority. If I'm not a terribly good-looking guy and ill-tempered, then I can use wealth as a form of authority to change your perception of me. I can hire a publicist, a therapist, a plastic surgeon, or I can go on The Swan, and be remade in some more pleasing facsimile of myself. But when I "like" someone, I'm inclined to be more accommodating to them, to exhibit some greater degree of deference than I would to people I don't know or don't like. This is essentially submitting to authority.
Commitment and consistency are more difficult to connect directly to authority or wealth, but I think a case can be made. Consider, for instance, the amount of attention the opponents of Senator John Kerry are directing to his apparent lack of consistency on certain issues, most obviously the Iraq war, "I voted for the $87B before I voted against it," and, more recently the "medals or ribbons" flap. Clearly, we seem to desire at least the appearance of consistency in authorities. In the principles of influence, commitment and consistency are described as relating to individual decisions being congruent with previous decisions. So we seem to be inclined as we either submit to authority, or exercise authority over ourselves, to be consistent with what we've chosen to do in the past. In our leaders, I think we want to believe that we can know where they intend to lead us today, tomorrow and the day after that; and we're inclined to ascribe greater authority to the more committed and consistent individual. Wealth doesn't seem to be directly related to this aspect of authority, other than how it might illustrate consistency or the lack thereof; but I think I've shown commitment and consistency are indeed related to authority.
So, what I have tried to illustrate here is that all six of the principles of influence are really related to authority and, ultimately, wealth. Authority is the single greatest principle of influence, and wealth is the most universal form of authority. Something to keep in mind when you're considering the campaigns of the candidates for president.
Installed Tinderbox 2.2 the other day. Today brings iTunes 4.5 and QuickTime 6.5.1 along with Palm Desktop 4.2.1. NoteTaker 2003 is up to version 1.8.6 as of the other day. There's a new beta of Launchbar 4 out, and WeatherPop is up to version 2.0. iMovie has an incremental update to 4.0.1.
Keeps a guy kind of busy trying to keep up. But it's nice to see so many great applications being developed and maintained on my platform of choice.
If it isn't already, this presidential campaign is likely to be one of the most relentlessly negative in my memory. And if it's not the campaigns themselves that are making me nuts, it's the people who opine about them.
Today it's Dr. David Weinberger, who offered this in closing a recent post, "That is, we are taking the country back not just from the lobbyists, corporations and Republicans. We're taking it back from the campaign marketers. We're taking it back from our own alienation. And that's a good thing."
May I offer a dissenting opinion? No, it's not a "good thing." If anything, it's perpetuating the very condition that it seeks to correct.
Here's a quick disclaimer: This is an easy trap to fall into, and I do it all the time because it feels so good when I do. And pointing this out isn't a lot of fun for me, as much as I enjoy letting the air out of over-inflated, misconstrued and confused notions issued by members of the digerati.
Nobody is taking anything "back."
"Our" country, belongs to each of us, not just the people who happen to agree with us politically.
Asserting that we're taking it "back" is at the same time asserting that somehow it has been taken "from" us, and that is simply not the case. Authoritymay have been "taken" from us, (more likely, we "lost" it) but the country sure hasn't. But it's much less emotionally satisfying, much less dramatic, to assert that we want to take authority away from the people and groups that have it.
Right now, I think we have quite enough real drama in the world without adding to it by our emotional appeals. But drama is a way of attracting attention, and attention is often confused with authority, because authority relies on attention. More, much, much more, on that in an upcoming post guaranteed to cure insomnia.
That reference to our own alienation is nice and deliciously satisfying too. Though somehow, I don't think it's really going to happen. I think voter turnout will likely be higher, but it won't be so high as to suggest that significant numbers of citizens have thrown off their sense of alienation, if indeed they are aware they are experiencing one.
I'm good, you're bad. I'm rational, all the rest of you are nuts. It's "us" against "them." Except there is no "them," there's only "us." But one form of authority is identifying all the other "thems." And where would we be without authority?
Where indeed?
I must become the change I wish to see in the world.
This is the view from my back patio. It's screened-in, so the image is kind of dirty. It keeps the bugs out, so it's easier to enjoy sitting out there, but it does muddy the view a bit.
Back when Userland initially released Radio, I paid for a one-year license. I really don't know how long they would host the weblog on their servers, but I never renewed and the site has been there for a couple of years. When I re-did this weblog to turn it into Groundhog Day, I added a link to the beginning of my Radio weblog, and from there I could pretty much read everything I wrote in Radio.
Well, I noticed the other day that when you click on the Radio Days link in the Archive, my old weblog doesn't load. The URL changes to http://radio.weblogs.com/0100059/2002/01/11.html from http://radio.weblogs.com/0100095/2002/01/11.html, almost like a re-direct. I know it worked before, because I've used it a couple of times.
So what do I do about this? I suppose I'll try to contact Userland. If the site is no longer available, that's fine. But they should do something other than forward me to Russ Lipton! I suspect something is broken at their end, but what do I know?
Had my second "mid-term" for second degree black belt last night. Probably next June I'll be testing for it. I've pretty much got my form down, other than the really fine points that are very important; but mostly now I'm working on conditioning. I should work on not eating too.
Had a little trouble with the focus on the lower one, but that is some kind of red, isn't it? Yikes! I guess Nature says, "When you've got it, flaunt it," too.
I took Karma in for her annual vaccinations yesterday. Foolishly, I scheduled both Mandy and Karma for the same visit. Fortunately, Caitlin was home for an aborted "take your kid to work" date with mom, so she was able to assist me in seeing to the public health needs of our resident critters.
Mandy was trouble-free, well behaved and calm. She nevertheless made at least one of the other patrons nervous, as she opined "She looks mean." Mandy looks BIG, because she is big. (She's also beautiful.) For many people big=mean when it comes to dogs. I suppose it's understandable, but it's still kind of sad; and on my bad days, it pisses me off.
I bought a new cardboard kitty-carrier because the one I had used for several years finally became unserviceable last year. I don't really ever travel with the cats, other than to take them to the vet, so spending money on something a bit more substantial never seemed to make sense.
Karma was equally well behaved after she got over the initial stress of being in the box. She took her shots well, and the indignity of the anal thermometer as well.
The bill came to $130.00 for all the vaccinations, the tests, a year's supply of heartworm pills, and a box of Frontline flea treatment for Mandy-size dogs. Free cats and dogs are definitely not free, as in money or beer.
On the way out, Caitie was carrying Karma in the kitty-carrier, while I had Mandy on the leash. I heard a kind of cardboardy-sound, like a box opening, turned around to see Karma sitting on the parking lot looking confused. Fortunately, Caitlin's 11-year-old synapses were firing faster than her ancient father's and Karma's confused ones. Just as Karma began to bolt, Caitlin grabbed her by the hind legs. We got them both in the car and made it home without further incident.
I was really lucky Caitie was around to help me, because I'm quite certain I'd still be at the base searching for my cat if she hadn't been there.
Even more disconcerting, when I returned home from work yesterday, Karma was down hard. I've never noticed her having an adverse reaction to a vaccination before, so I was a little concerned. I wondered if perhaps they had given her a shot intended for Mandy, and vice versa. There wasn't much I could do. She was conscious, if lethargic and without an appetite, so I figured I'd just wait and see. This morning she wasn't much better, but this evening she's up and eating, so that's a good sign. She's not 100% yet, because she's not standing here on the keyboard as I type this.
I'm still a bit at a loss to understand my affection for the cats in my life, but there it is. There are deeper mysteries I suppose.
Politics is just so depressing, if you don't happen to be an ideologue of the persuasion of the ideology in power. Fortunately, there is a little more to life than men with vision reshaping the face of the globe in the pattern of their religious beliefs, whether from mountain caves or marble halls.
I managed to install the Pioneer DVR-107 in the G4 on Sunday. I was reviewing the instructions again, and noticed the arrows pointing to the location of the spare screws was different from where I expected them to be when I had looked at it earlier. (I expected them to be in the holes where they secure the drive itself. But those holes don't seem to be threaded, which isn't unusual after you think about it.) So after removing the entire optical drive chassis again, I turned it around to look at the side you don't see when you've just got the cpu opened up, and there were the screws! This was a good thing, because the ones I had purchased at the hardware store were the wrong kind.
I had to fuss around a bit with how the power cable was supposed to be routed, managed to figure that out and got everything put back together. Fired up System Profiler and it properly identified the drive and noted it was Apple-supported.
So the first thing I burned was a data DVD of MP3s from iTunes, which would ordinarily play in my DVD player, if it were a CD. I stuck it in the DVD player, and it didn't recognize it. There's an alternative using an Applescript to create a "movie" and burn it with iDVD, but I haven't tried that yet. I did burn several CDs with it, and it worked flawlessly. So that's all good news.
I note with pleasure Apple's announcement of speed-bumped iBooks and Powerbooks. You can also now order your Powerbook with 128MB of VRAM, which will be a nice improvement for game players; although I hasten to add that the present generation of games being written for the Mac, at least the 3D ones, tax even the fastest G4s.
Yesterday I stopped by Books-a-Million on my way home and bought Woodward's Plan of Attack. I suppose I'll write more about that later. I always like reading the epilogue first, though I kind of wish I hadn't. In it, Woodward offers an account of a celebratory party at the Vice President's house for a few of his closest personal friends and fellow ideologues in which they congratulate themselves on their great victory in Iraq. I almost puked when one of the party-goers offered a toast to the president for his courage. Conspicuous by its absence, but totally unremarkable given the backgrounds of these individuals, was any acknowledgment or appreciation of the men and women in uniform who had to manifest real, physical courage to implement the "vision" of "courageous" politicians. In the epilogue, Woodward mentions that Bush realized this decision might cost him his presidency, and seems to wish to leave one with the impression that this is to be taken as some measure of the moral courage of the man. Let's contrast losing the presidency with losing one's life, the life of a son or a daughter, a father or a mother, or even a limb. Anyone care to assert losing the presidency is a greater loss? And how to measure the loss of whatever is lost when one must take a life, or many lives, in the performance of one's duty, in the service of the vision of an ideologue? Anyone care to help me out with that?
Irony: The Fifth Fundamental Force of the Universe
It's kind of interesting how the conservative ideologues, rightly so perhaps, used to beat up the liberal ideologues about how the welfare state actually serves to perpetuate dependency and poverty. The conservatives believed people had to work their way out of poverty, had to earn what they received, in order to become truly independent, productive citizens. There's a great deal of truth to that. Not the whole picture, certainly, but it's truer than many liberal ideologues cared to admit, or still care to admit.
Yet those same conservatives, or perhaps it's only the neo-conservatives, somehow believe you can hand a country their democracy, and not make them earn it themselves.
It's just a an aspect of the seductive blindness of ideology. If I believe that what I wish to do is for the "good," then it doesn't matter if it's "right."
The "insta" style of blog-punditry often involves a kind of "irony-gotcha," where some entity one would normally expect not to be aligned with right-wing ideologues makes some assertion that supports the arguments or the premises of the pro-quagmire crowd. That assertion is then linked by the "insta"-style blogger, with a capsule summary of what is asserted, followed by some feigned comment of disbelief. "Imagine that...," or, "Who'd a thunk it?"
Pithy, that.
I suppose it's entertaining to the true-believers, but I just find it an irritating example of intellectual laziness. Which is the kind of thing that gets us into these messes in the first place.
You don't see them offering any glib ironic expressions about the fact that almost a year after the president declared the end of major combat operations we're shipping home more soldiers, marines and government contractors in body bags than at any time during "major combat operations." I guess that's because all the neo-cons and pro-quaqmire zealots foresaw that this is how Iraq treats its "liberators," so it doesn't bear mentioning.
One thing I came to learn recently is that you can't "save" anyone. The most you can do is offer some form of limited help. Do more, and you'll eventually be resented because people really do want to save themselves. Do a lot more, and you're not helping at all, you're actually perpetuating the problem, though sometimes its appearance changes. I'm beginning to believe the same thing is true for countries and cultures. We didn't "save" Japan and Germany, we pretty much destroyed them. How things turned out after that has more to do with the natures of those two cultures than our significant aid. And frankly, most of us are already sorely taxed just to "save" ourselves, it's just that most of us don't know it.
But I guess this is how we learn about our own limitations. That is, if we're open to learning about them, which isn't usually the case until we've suffered enough to realize something is not working the way we thought it did. It's not clear just how much suffering we'll endure in this current episode before we decide to pay attention. We're still in love with our view of ourselves as liberators, delivering the "Almighty's gift" to an ungrateful world. Hopefully we'll begin to wake up before our beneficence turns to righteous anger and hatred and we begin doing things we'll come to regret later. Not much chance of that happening is there?
Principles are for individuals. Ideologies are for members of social organisms. Within a social organism, pecking order is determined on the basis of authority. Acquiring and exercising authority stimulates the reward centers of our brains, and so people are motivated to seek authority. Individuals with authority are motivated to seek more, usually through the exercise of their authority. Such exercise is guided by the belief system of the individual, either principle or ideology, depending on the nature of the individual.
Poor man wanna be rich
Rich man wanna be king
And a king ain't satisfied
Till he rules everything
Bruce Springsteen
Ideology is more attractive than principle, because ideology is about doing good, while principle is merely about doing what is right. They are not always the same things, which is why we supposedly learned as children:
I intended to install the Pioneer DVR-107 this morning, but there's been a bit of a snag. The drive didn't ship with any mounting screws. There were supposed to be four in the optical drive chassis inside the computer, but they weren't there. I don't know if I used them when I installed one of the two additional hard drives inside the computer (they usually come with their own screws), or if they disappeared when I had the G4 in for warranty work on the combo-drive. Either way, it's probably not wise to install it without the screws so I'm going to have to visit a hardware store to get a few more.
Why is this blogworthy? It's probably not, but there you go. At least it's not a cat post.
Okay, I don't think the country music thing is going to become a habit. But it was nice. I'm also back to being only moderately content being me. Must be a dopamine thing.
I was quite pleased with how the audio turned out coming from a tape on decidedly non-audiophile gear. I had a Panasonic walkman-like cassette player connected the the Griffin iMic and recorded the audio using Final Vinyl 1.12. It's not as easy as ripping a CD by any means, but it's not hard. Maybe tedious is the right word. You have to mark the individual tracks, but that's about the toughest thing.
Unfortunately, I had forgotten that I have my Mac set up to announce the time on the half hour, so in the middle of one of Tammy's numbers you here my Mac say, "It's 3:30." Oh well, it's an artifact! I'm too lazy to go back and cue up that song and record just that one.
There are moments, which I treasure, when there's nobody I'd rather be than me.
Hasn't always been that way. In fact, it mostly hasn't been that way. It's been something of a pleasant surprise to discover them at this point in my life.
I'm tellin' ya, you don't want to be listening to Tammy Wynette while knocking back a cold one!
I Have This Strange Urge to Buy a Pickup Truck and a Harley
You know, forget your crack cocaine and your crystal meth, there's got to be a law against cold beer and Tammy Wynette.
I'm converting some cassette tapes into CDs for a friend of mine because all of her Windoze PC buddies lack the cojones to undertake something so technologically daunting. But I've got to tell you, this isn't a job for kids.
As a rule, I'm not a country music kind of guy. It's probably an ideology thing or something, but I just tend to keep C&W at arm's length or greater. But Tammy Wynette... God. What can I say? (Insert visual from Blues Brothers here.) I'm tellin' ya, you don't want to be messing with this stuff!
Jesus, the next thing you know, I'll be watching NASCAR.
It's becoming disconcertingly obvious to me that this is an itch that's not going to be scratched quickly.
If we look at the operational dimensions of uncertainty with respect to how they might apply to the political dimensions of uncertainty, we may conclude that the approach the Democratic party took was that of restraint. If we are of the opinion that our present involvement in Iraq is seriously flawed in some or all aspects, hindsight allows us to see how this is an example of the potential for risk attendant to restraint in the face of uncertainty.
Although its utility may be uncertain, in keeping with the theme of the day, I'll indulge in a bit of retrospective prognostication. What if the Democrats had mounted a significant opposition to the administration's plans for Iraq? In this exercise, I'll propose that the Democratic party would have abandoned the restraint approach, and instead would have invested all of its political resources in mounting a concerted opposition to the conflict. What might have been the outcome?
Possibly, though I think least likely, Saddam Hussein might still be in power in Iraq. I think it is safe to say that the nature of the debate would have been very different, and that the administration would have been compelled to present a stronger case for pursuing regime change by force. I think it's possible that a stronger political opposition would have increased the weight of opinion of the military professionals in terms of what it would take to achieve a successful outcome in Iraq. If Democrats had taken those opinions seriously and more vigorously used them against the administration's protests of "uncertainty," I think an outcome for war very likely might have included the higher force levels initially proposed by the people most familiar with what it takes to achieve success.
I think it is likely that war would have still been the outcome for two reasons. First, because there were strong proponents within the administration who, for ideological reasons or not, were committed to this course of action. Second, I believe that, whether rightly or wrongly, the majority of the American people were willing to embrace the notion of a preemptive war, believed that Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, and would support the administration over the objections of any Democratic opposition.
Ironically, the administration chose middle approaches to both the political case for war, and in its operational approach to its conduct; that is, in both the political dimension of uncertainty and in the operational dimension. In some ways, this was the worst of all possible worlds for this conflict. We had an administration that was not being compelled by a vigorous political opposition to make its strongest case for war, and in that vacuum it appears the administration was most concerned about preserving that lack of opposition rather than answering one should it arise. As a result, it focused its planning on the most optimistic, and I believe grossly unrealistic expectations (For all of their protests that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were not interested in establishing expectations, they certainly seemed to have a few.) of what it was likely to encounter in Iraq, in at least the post-war phase, for fear of generating an opposition where one did not already exist. Having abandoned the restraint approach, the administration did not embrace an approach that assured victory, but rather one that assured the least possible opposition. I think such an error in priorities can only come about because of distorted ideological reasoning, where it's more important to be seen as being right, than in getting something done.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda... It's difficult to say how things might have been different had we gone into Iraq with a larger force. I happen to believe that establishing a strong security environment and disarming the population, even leaving aside the question of disbanding the military, would have gone a long way toward creating the kind of environment where political institutions and solutions could be created. Instead, we have differing groups using violence to create uncertainty and chaos to exploit for their own aims. Any solution to the Iraq problem is going to involve creating a more robust security environment, and the effort to do that now is going to cost more in lives, resentment from the Iraqi people, and in political and monetary capital.
A couple of more thoughts occurred to me as I was not sleeping last night.
It's probably worthwhile to think about the political dimensions of uncertainty and how they helped shape the initial expression of political will in the United States. The aspect of this conflict that was most outside of my own paradigm for conflict between the United States and another nation was its discretionary and preemptive nature. Ultimately, all wars are discretionary, but most U.S. conflicts have been based upon a casus belli, or a "cause" for conflict. (This breaks down a bit with some modern "peacekeeping" actions, but it is still valid for most other uses of force.) Many times, these are manufactured or blown out of proportion, but at least they provide a familiar context that shapes the expectations of the political actors in shaping political will. Political actors must include voters, though most immediately it refers to the executive and legislative branches of government. All previous "causes" for conflict between the U.S. and another nation were, to my recollection, acts of violence against the United States, its citizens or its national interests. The attacks of 9/11 were a casus belli for attacking Afghanistan, and that was a classic example of what had been the model for conflicts involving the United States. With Iraq, the Bush administration took advantage of the uncertainty created by the paradigm-busting 9/11 attacks to create a new model for U.S. involvement in armed conflict.
The executive branch of government has the advantage of taking the initiative, the legislative branch must, of necessity, be reactionary. Although the administration enjoyed majorities in both houses of Congress, committing U.S. forces to a conflict generally requires broader political support than the type of majorities present in the House and the Senate. And ordinarily, one could expect the members of the opposition party, in this case the Democrats, to be skeptical of the administration's course of action, and to offer some kind of opposition to it. That didn't seem to happen in this case. The Democratic party was little more than a weaker sister of the Republican party when it came to endorsing the administration's plans for Iraq. This raises a question that hasn't been addressed, other than obliquely by pointing out Democratic party's putative nominee voted to support the use of force against Iraq, even though he subsequently maintained he was opposed to the war. Why were the Democrats AWOL in the debate leading up to this conflict?
I think the answer must involve political uncertainty. The Democratic party has been suffering a number of political reverses in recent decades, culminating in one-party rule in the United States for the first time in my, admittedly brief, memory. This slide must cause uncertainty in the minds of Democratic leaders in terms of their relationship with the electorate. So the first consideration in confronting the administration would be to not make their political situation any worse, by doing anything that might further alienate voters. On top of that, George Bush's performance immediately after 9/11 and the success in Afghanistan created the impression that the president was a strong, successful leader, and America loves winners. I think most Democrats in power had a difficult time finding an upside to opposing a popular leader who was seen as forceful and successful.
The administration exploited this opposition vacuum by managing its information behind the veil of "uncertainty." While the administration was making what has since proven to be a false case for war, it was also making sure it was not going to provide any information which might offer some basis to be against it, thus preserving the political uncertainty of Democrats. In many respects, the Democrats were willing accomplices to this duplicity. There was no real mystery behind how much this war would cost, at least in dollars to within a reasonable approximation, certainly within an order of magnitude. I think anyone who has been even slightly acquainted with the costs of modern combat operations could have foreseen that the cost of the conflict would be much closer to $80B than $8B, for example. But the Democrats ceded their role as the opposition party in the face of uncertainty and doubt regarding their own political situation.
Ideologues do not suffer from uncertainty. Ideology offers a way through uncertainty. "Stay the course." The devil, as always, is in the details. And ideologies, while offering attractive "visions," are notoriously weak in offering details - hence the trope of "uncertainty."
We are in a very difficult mess right now, and it would probably be helpful to understand how we got here as we try to determine how best we might find our way out. Ideologues aren't troubled to think about that, they have their beliefs to hold out in front of them like a talisman to ward off "evil" and "evil-doers." The rest of us are going to have to try to think of something, because we'll get no help from the ideologues.
One of the things that really struck me in the James Fallows piece I linked to the other day, which I hope you've read although I expect you haven't, is the mention of Rumsfeld's interest in uncertainty and the limits of knowledge.
It seems to me as though the Secretary of Defense didn't quite understand how one goes about coping with uncertainty. I think he seized upon it as a basis for being evasive when it served his purposes to be evasive, but he never really thought about the operational dimensions of uncertainty.
Perhaps I'm just a lot less intelligent than the Secretary of Defense, but it seems to me that uncertainty and the limits to knowledge suggest two general approaches to a given course of action.
The first approach is restraint. If we don't know, then perhaps we should wait until we have better knowledge, a more complete picture. It is readily apparent that in many situations, waiting increases risk and that the potential for an adverse outcome may be greater waiting for better data than by proceeding in the face of uncertainty.
If restraint is not appropriate because of considerations of risk, then it seems to me the second general approach would be to plan for a most likely worst case and ensure a level of effort sufficient to counter any reasonably foreseeable contingency. The disadvantage of this approach is that resources are often constrained, and some are much more so than others. Since this was a "war of choice" or a discretionary war, among the constrained resources would naturally be political will, and it is political will that determines, to a significant degree, the amount of all other resources to be committed to action.
It seems to me that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz used the idea of uncertainty to finesse the management of political will as a resource. I think it is clear that had anyone gone on record with reasonable estimates about the costs of the war, or if anyone had actually suggested committing the level of forces America's professional soldiers anticipated, that political will would be much more constrained than physical resources. Political will is a resource that is not only constrained, but often difficult to acquire and easily lost. I think they counted on the fact that once we were committed, national prestige would help conserve political will in the face of most conceivable outcomes, even adverse ones. I think that that was a reasonable expectation, if ultimately a cynical one.
I think our experience thus far points out the most serious weakness of a doctrine of preemption. In the face of uncertainty, political will is the most constrained resource; and efforts to marshall and maintain political will often come at the expense of committing sufficient physical resources to ensure that the issue is never in doubt. I think it remains uncertain whether or not there was any level of force that could have been applied that would have guaranteed we would not be facing the particular difficulties we face today; but I think it is reasonable to believe that the situation might be significantly different today if we had had sufficient forces to make an effective effort at disarming the Iraqi population and ensuring a sound security situation which would serve to reduce uncertainty in the minds of Iraqis who are now wondering where their future leads.
Talking tech, even if it's Apple tech, is less fraught with grief and stress than anything else worth mentioning today, so I'll do that for a bit.
Hurray for Apple! $46M isn't big bucks in terms of profit, but it's not chump change either. I've been an Apple user for twenty three years, and for twenty two of those years I've had to endure people telling me Apple was doomed. The only relief has been that Apple consistently seemed to defy those expectations, even as they danced ever so close to the precipice from time to time. Well, that and the videos of Steve Ballmer rallying his troops at Microsoft events. I'm guessing he never saw the movie Patton. Anyway, it's good to see Apple turning a profit because nobody else does what Apple does, quite the way Apple does it; and I happen to think the world is a better, more interesting place for it. Not a lot better, but some non-zero quantity better. One could argue that Microsoft has done more to make the world a better place, but certainly not more interesting, at least in any sort of a pleasant way.
While I'm gushing about Apple, let me note that the specs on the new eMacs are quite nice. Sure, it's not a gamer's machine, nor is it a "pro-sumer" powerhouse, but it's the kind of machine you could give to your parents and feel good about it. Even more so than the one that I gave to my parents a while ago. If money was no object, my "bedroom Mac" would be the new low-end eMac. (Well, let's be really honest here. If money was truly no object, then the 20" iMac would be my "bedroom Mac." Unfortunately, money is very much an object, but we can all dream can't we? Ashcroft hasn't invoked the Spanish Inquisition about that yet, has he?)
In Geekish news closer to Groundhog Central, my Pioneer DVR-107 arrived today, courtesy of Terrence, the UPS man. I'll probably wait to install it this weekend. It's a fairly trivial affair to effect the physical installation, but I'm sure there will be software issues to work through, and I prefer to be well-rested. I'll probably go buy some media tomorrow, so I can establish the success or failure of my endeavors.
There is a G5 in my foreseeable future. I'm not quite sure when, there are a couple of variables waiting to be resolved, but soon. Ideally, I'd like to wait until Apple announces a speed-bump, and at the rate we're both going, that doesn't seem to pose a problem. Maybe a birthday present to myself. We'll see.
I finally managed to insert a photo-cartridge in my (near-ancient) Lexmark Z52 printer last weekend. I printed out some pictures from my iPhoto collection for Maria to insert into a picture frame Caitlin bought her for Easter. At the highest quality settings, I was quite pleased. But I'm thinking about getting a new printer, having seen what Maria's HP 1350 can do. I've got a Canon Canoscan 650 scanner of the same vintage as the Z52, and there's never enough desktop real estate to properly situate a printer and a scanner to make them both convenient, but those compact all-in-one units look promising. Target has an HP 2170 on sale for $85.00, which is only about $30.00 more than the price of the ink cartridges in it. I've got some pictures from my dad that I need to scan, and my Canoscan is fairly low resolution by today's standards, plus setting it up so it's physically usable, to say nothing of being "convenient" to use, is a chore. The 2170 might be a reasonable solution if it works at least as well as my current equipment. It's hard to find any reviews of the 2170, so I'm not sure. CNet had some comments on the 2175, which would appear to be a close relative, and they were mixed. Research and analysis (and indecision) continues.
From time to time, I struggle with these funks. I'm very much relieved to know that I'm much better at coping with them now than I have been at other times in my life.
It's wrong to give in to despair because we are led by fallible human beings - albeit more fallible than usual it seems. We will always have imperfect leaders.
We have finite resources of time and attention. If we give our attention over to the difference between the way things are, and the way we would like them to be, then we forego the opportunity to give our attention to the way things are right here, and what the best thing is we can do at this moment. We surrender to our own suffering, which is an ego-centric thing to do. "Woe is me, the president is a blathering fool."
If I allow myself to become sullen and despairing because the president can't utter an original, coherent thought to save his life, a fact over which I have absolutely no influence or power, then everyone else I encounter here and now (most assuredly, not the president) encounters a sullen and despairing individual whose attention is on something that is not immediately here or now.
There will always be things that I think are wrong, over which I have no control. It's that Covey 7 Habits "circle of influence/circle of concern" thing.
Live in the moment. Give your attention to what is before you right here, right now. Do your best.
The rest is not up to you.
I must become the change I wish to see in the world.
I listened to a portion of the president's news conference last night, and I have to wonder if the source of my despair is an ideological bias of my own, or if he is genuinely as bad as he sounded?
As I listened, I tried to imagine how those sympathetic to him heard his words. I kept thinking they would describe his words as "simple," and "direct," his manner, "folksy," perhaps, "plainspoken." But it is possible to be articulate and even eloquent speaking in a plainspoken manner, and the president was neither.
Then I imagined that perhaps his tongue-tied speech and vacuous answers would merely be waved away by his supporters, who would suggest that he disarms his opponents this way; and that his inability to articulate complex thoughts masks a keen political intelligence that his opponents underestimate at their peril.
I've heard all these things before, but I find I simply can't agree with them.
Tony Blair, as eloquent and articulate a leader as we've seen in more than a generation, made some remarks about Iraq over the Easter weekend. One thing he said did disappoint me, and suggests to me that he's becoming an ideologue, if he wasn't one already. He said, "They know it is a historic struggle. They know their victory would do far more than defeat America or Britain. It would defeat civilisation and democracy everywhere. They know it, but do we? The truth is, faced with this struggle, on which our own fate hangs, a significant part of Western opinion is sitting back, if not half-hoping we fail, certainly replete with schadenfreude at the difficulty we find."
First, I disagree that a failure in Iraq, which remains a possibility that can't be ignored, would seal the fate of civilization everywhere - that strikes me as a bit of arch hyperbole; but it was his reference to those whose opinions differ with his being "replete with schadenfreude at the difficulty we find."
I'm as human as the next guy, and I admit to taking a certain amount of satisfaction when blow-hard ideologues find their cherished illusions coming up against the hard rocks of reality, but there's no opportunity for that when lots of good people are dying because of it. It seemed like a pretty cheap shot which would otherwise be out of character for him.
It's difficult to know what to say or even what to think about Iraq. Something tells me that I should just have faith that "everything is exactly the way it is supposed to be," and that "everything happens for a reason." That perhaps some good will come from this, somehow. But it's hard to see how. I wonder how much it might be a good thing for Bush to win reelection, so if Iraq turns into an utter disaster it is unequivocally tied to the Republican ideologues and neo-cons, so that we may not be yoked to their arrogant and egotistical visions and policies ever again. And if it turns out well, then perhaps I am wrong and they should receive the credit for it. I don't think that I'll find that a compelling argument for voting for him in November.
I hope everyone had a pleasant Easter Sunday. Mine got off to an early start when I headed over to Casa Mia around 0730 to hide plastic eggs filled with candy for Caitlin to search for. We weren't planning on doing that this year, but Caitie said she was looking forward to it and so in the spirit of over-indulgence that has marked most of my parental career, I filled and hid eggs. She recovered all but four, and I never remember where I put them all. So they'll turn up throughout the summer, with melted gooey treats sticking to the insides.
Hiding eggs makes for a pretty early start to the day, so after Caitie got up and did her search and recovery thing, I turned my attention to other things I could do.
Caitlin had managed to persuade her mother to buy a couple of those inexpensive game CDs you see everywhere for the Windows platform. This particular one is some kind of 3D Frogger-clone by an outfit called Cosmi. I tried installing it for Caitlin, but every time it launched, it complained about not being able to figure out what kind of screen we had and promptly quit. Piece o'crap. The box maintained it was XP-compatible, but I guess that doesn't mean it'll actually run.
So, feeling stupid, as working with Windows applications often makes me feel, I turned my attention to the much less challenging issue of getting the HP laptop to print to the HP printer hooked up to the Apple PowerMac G4. Here's an area where perhaps Scoble could be of some help.
When you use the Windows XP wizard to add a network printer, and the printer is connected to a Mac, the wizard comes back with an alert that the "server" in the printer (presumably, this is the Mac, masquerading as a print-server) doesn't have a driver to load into the XP machine. It then allows you to choose from a list of printers already supported by XP. A quick search through the dozens of HP printers XP supports reveals the OfficeJet 6110 is not among them. So then you can click on a button that says "I have a disk" (or words to that effect), and you get to try to locate the driver on the CD that came with the printer. Well, that was another effort in futility. So many folders, even some with "drvr" in them, but nothing that XP really thought was a driver.
So then I figured I'd just run the installer from the CD. Sounds reasonable right? Except that didn't work either. The installer showed a little progress bar window that made it all the way to 27% and proceeded to sit there doing nothing, and appeared content to do so for the remainder of the life of the laptop. My guess is it got stuck because it went to look for an HP6110, but couldn't find one connected to the computer. Oh well.
So, I turned to Google and found the answer at Mac OS X Hints. It turns out, if you want to use a printer that is connected to a PowerMac on a Windows network, you have to tell Windows it is a Postscript printer; and that means just selecting one of Apple's Postscript printers in the list of printers XP supports. I re-ran the wizard and when it gave me the option to select a driver, I picked an Apple Color LaserWriter, and voila! We could print!
Now, to the Scoble part. How much trouble would it be, in the spirit of cross-platform, interoperable, non-monopolistic benevolence, to add a few words to the wizard to the effect that if you're trying to add a printer that is connected to a Macintosh on the network, select an Apple LaserWriter driver, or, better still, to just select a default one for the user? I don't think that's asking a lot. Fortunately, it did involve using a Mac, so finding a solution from the community of Macintosh users was simple and straightforward. I might also add that Apple could be just as forthcoming with its assistance in the Applecare Knowledge Base, which is usually otherwise quite helpful.
So not only can Maria now print to the 6110 from her laptop, so can Chris from his XP box upstairs. There was much rejoicing. High-fives all around.
My faith in myself as the master my domain, illusory as that notion is, restored, I turned my attention to more mundane matters. (As if that were possible.) I spent the next hour or so blowing the leaves off the back patio, which had completely disappeared. Blowing leaves off of patios sounds simple, but nothing is ever as simple as it sounds. Suffice to say, I got it done. And 15 minutes later, mother nature was well on her way to demonstrating the futility of man's existence. But I also cleaned off the table and chairs, and raised the umbrella. When my hearing returned to my right ear, I also enjoyed listening to the sound of the monster wind chimes I hung last year.
I did a few other chores, and baked a loaf of bread to take with us to Melissa's house, as she was hosting Easter dinner for us and her brother-in-law, Andy. Dinner was great, and we had a nice time at Pat and Mel's. I took everyone home and then headed back here and pretty much went right to bed. Not a bad day. Except for the part where I was working with Windows XP.
In other news, my refurb'ed Airport card arrived with the adapter on Saturday, and I installed that in the iMac. The only hardware thing left to do is to replace the PRAM battery. I'm thinking of installing some modest lighting inside after I get the case opened up, but I haven't made up my mind. The iMac is now in my bedroom with the Keyspan IR remote control. I haven't had much opportunity to play with it as the world's most expensive and sophisticated alarm clock, but I'll tinker with it throughout the week.
I ordered a Pioneer DVR-107, DVD-burner for my G4MDD. This is an OEM model, so it comes without software, but it was only $105.00. I was skeptical about owning a DVD-burner because I don't make any of my own videos, and copying DVDs is more hassle than just buying them. But for backing up data, I figure it's probably worth having. My iPhoto and iTunes libraries are huge, and I do back them up to another HD, but it's probably best to have them on something I can store separately. I'm curious to see if I can burn an iTunes playlist to a DVD, and if my DVD player will see it as a playlist of MP3s. That way, I can burn a sizable portion of my MP3 collection to DVD, and have it available to play from my entertainment center, without having to buy some kind of network device to interface with my primitive, low-tech entertainment solution.
So I don't like labels like "conservative" or "liberal" applied to me, isn't calling someone an ideologue doing the same thing?
I don't think so. The point is, one doesn't argue with ideologues, at least about topics that touch on their ideology. So being able to identify ideologues can help to conserve cognitive resources for more useful purposes; like maintaining one's self-control and suppressing the overwhelming urge to punch them in the nose.
And understanding the particular weaknesses of ideologues, especially when it comes to matters like crafting strategies and policies to address complex issues over many years, can be useful when making decisions at election time. Unless, of course, one already happens to be an ideologue.
Of course, it sort of raises the question of whether constantly criticizing and mocking the ideological thinking and policies of ideologue leaders isn't a form of ideological thinking itself. That's actually two different questions, with two different answers.
Ideologues aren't immune to criticism, indeed they are often extremely sensitive to it; because they believe they are doing "good," and they want to be perceived that way and to receive approval. I think this explains much of the Bush administration's response to its critics, especially when one recalls that ideology takes precedence over principle, so "slime and defend" is appropriate in their own eyes.
But while ideologues are largely immune to having their thinking changed, their actions can be influenced by criticism. The testimony of the National Security Advisor, even the creation of the 9/11 commission illustrate that point. So criticism of ideologues as ideologues, or at least as exhibiting ideological thinking is legitimate, as indeed would be criticism of non-ideologues. It just tends to take a lot more criticism to make a difference with an ideologue.
But mocking them is a different issue. It's natural to wish to mock someone out of frustration and anger when one feels powerless. But that same impulse can drive one toward ideological thinking as well. In general, I think we regard mocking someone as a "bad" thing to do. It means not treating them with the same respect we would expect for ourselves. And when we do something "bad," we seek to justify our behavior and that drives us toward being "right" and doing "good" as justifications, and then we become trapped in our own ideological thinking. In part, this series of posts is part of my effort to assess my own vulnerability to ideological thinking, which I know I've exhibited from time to time, and to try to discover for myself how I might better avoid the risk. Perhaps it may be useful for the reader as well.
It seems to me, sometimes, that we are a nation of ideologues. The whole red versus blue states thing, shows like Crossfire, conservative talk radio and now liberal talk radio, warbloggers and peacebloggers. If that's true, how did we get here?
First, I don't really know if it's true. I strongly suspect that it is, at least for the portion of the nation that bothers to vote. But if it is, I think I have some idea of why it happens to be this way.
I believe that the capacity for ideological thinking is present in every human being, and indeed it exists because it has been "selected for" by evolution. Ideological thinking is a good way to unify the actions of large groups of people in competition with other large groups or nature. And people working together for common goals, when they happen to be the right ones, enjoy a survival advantage. But I believe it is only recently that technology has allowed so many ideologue authorities to marshall that capacity to much greater effect than ever before in our history.
There's something thrilling about conflict. Play an online first-person shooter sometime. My guess is, you'll find it "fun." "Fun" is a physiological reaction in the brain. It's dopamine and reward centers. It's stimulating. We usually enjoy increased levels of stimulation, otherwise, we become "bored."
Ideological thinking stimulates those processes within the brain that give us a sense of reward, or perhaps just "stimulation." For the most part, we lead safe, comfortable, mundane existences. But when we're able to introduce drama into our lives, by identifying perceived "threats," then our lives become more stimulating, maybe even more "meaningful." Ideological thinking exploits this. Ideologues always have opponents, the best kind are other ideologues but anyone will do. Ideologues are always trying to do "good," which makes their ideological thinking "meaningful." And today there are so many channels by which this stimulation can reach us, and we can even participate in it, that we're likely drenched in dopamine all the time. There are probably physiological and psychological consequences to that as well, but that takes me well past whatever little I actually know about mind-body physiology.
And we're vulnerable to this aspect of our human nature because we are not the rational, cognitive thinkers we all would like to believe we are. We're not that far removed from the laboratory rat that keeps hitting the lever to get the hit of cocaine. Most of what we do is behavior governed by non-thinking, largely emotional processes within our bodies. And for the vast majority of the time, it works exceedingly well, so we're never inclined to think there is anything "wrong" with the way we behave. We're blind to our own behavior.
So what makes me so damn smart, eh? Well, it's when your behavior doesn't work, it's when your dopamine levels are so low that life is pretty much meaningless, that you begin to take an interest in the behavior that you call your "life."
As usual, I'm an authority on nothing - I'm making all this shit up. I urge you, I encourage you, I implore you, I insist you... do your own thinking.
I immediately went to Version Tracker to locate and download the latest driver for the device. I probably should have checked that out before I ordered it because several users identified problems with the driver in Panther. Indeed, the driver should support a system-level command to increase, decrease or mute the system sound volume. That appears to be broken in 10.3.3.
I was able to resolve the issue to my satisfaction by using the configuration editor, even though that isn't a terribly intuitive application. I confess I haven't read the manual, so it can't be that hard to figure out. I discovered that after editing a configuration file to change what the buttons on the remote do for a given application, you have to save the configuration file to disk and then quit and relaunch the "mapper" application that watches for and interprets the commands from the remote. The configuration editor includes menu commands to quit and relaunch the mapper, so it's fairly convenient in that respect.
Fortunately both iTunes and the DVD Player app include keyboard commands for raising and lowering the volume. I've also configured a couple of the buttons to start and stop the Visualizer feature for iTunes.
So, basically it works, but some of the system-level features which would ordinarily work across applications are broken. Not a huge deal.
I've discovered that using Speakable Items pretty much requires you to be right in front of the computer, so that's kind of out for learning the time. The Keyspan remote could be configured to run a script that would speak the time to me, though I'd have to do all that myself, it's not an "out of the box" feature. But then there's the issue of locating the remote in the dark. Another semi-geeky solution (to what is essentially a non-problem anyway) would be to buy another PowerMate (or use the one I already have, but seldom use - but where's the fun in that?), and get a USB extension cord to connect it to the iMac. Then I could put the PowerMate on the night-stand and just mash the big button when I wanted the Mac to speak the time. It has that cool throbbing blue LED to make it easy to locate in the dark.
I've been listening to iTunes on the iMac and I'm still impressed with how good that little box sounds when it's running with an iSub subwoofer. I don't have a terribly sophisticated "ear" for audio, but it still sounds pretty damn good to me.
Another personality aspect that helps identify the ideologue is the insistence on being right, and since ideologues believe themselves to be doing "good," all others who disagree with them are either ignorant or "bad." I think one would be hard pressed to identify an ideologue who has ever admitted to being wrong on a subject that was part of their core ideology.
The requirement, the necessity, to be "right," (as in "correct") comes from the belief that one is doing "good." If one adheres to a set of beliefs that purportedly describe the best way to order a society, or to solve a particular problem confronting society, there seems to be some implicit requirement to take action; even if that action is only repeating the major points of the ideology over and over and over again to the unpersuaded, the skeptical, or those who disagree.
Ideologues require authorities to legitimize their adherence to their beliefs. All human beings have some innate wish to either become, or more commonly, follow authority. Being an authority is a rewarding experience. I speak from personal experience. I don't know how we'll set up the experiment, but when we get around to measuring the dopamine levels of people who are in positions of authority, I think we'll find they are higher than those of people who don't enjoy the same privilege. When I went from being the XO of JOHN HANCOCK to simply being a 3-digit code on a group staff (someone three tiers from the top of the hierarchy), I felt like I should have been issued a prescription to Prozac. There was a noticeably physical/emotional component to the change in status.
Ideologues in positions of authority are motivated to maintain their positions, as indeed are all persons who are in positions of authority; and given that, to me, an ideologue is someone whose ideological belief system takes precedence over their own set of principles, it is principle that suffers when authority is challenged. The debate about the quality of the intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war is a reflection of this characteristic. It was in the nature of the pro-war ideologues to characterize ordinary intelligence reports in ways that promoted their arguments for the necessity of the war. Principle would suggest that whatever information we would choose to share with the American people and the world would be accompanied by the same caveats and qualifications that professional analysts used in preparing their briefings. But to an ideologue, those sorts of things only muddy the water and distract from the immediate requirement to "do good." So the qualifications are stripped from the reporting and the analysis and the information is presented to the public with the voice of "authority" as Secretary of State Colin Powell did before the United Nations. I wish to note at this point that I do not regard the Secretary of State as an ideologue, but he works for one.
Of course, being an ideologue doesn't make one, axiomatically, wrong. In fact, when ideologues get it right, I suppose history regards them as men and women of "vision." The problem, as I see it, with ideologues is that their certainty comes at the expense of a respect for uncertainty, and an acute sensitivity to criticism or the differing opinions of others, even if they are essentially seeking the same goals. A ready example comes from my least favorite ideologue, Paul Wolfowitz. In testimony before Congress, Army General Eric Shinseki testified that the occupation of Iraq would require "several hundred thousand troops." Assistant Secretary of Defense, and architect of the Iraq war, Wolfowitz publicly slapped down the opinion of a career military professional by declaring his estimate was "wildly off the mark." I leave it as an exercise for the reader to conclude who was more wildly off the mark.
I've never welcomed labels like "conservative" or "liberal" applied to myself. I remain a registered independent, the Florida primary rendered irrelevant to me by Kerry's string of victories. I don't like to belong to groups who think they have a monopoly on good ideas; although I must admit I am a Macintosh user, and we generally have better ideas than our Windows counterparts. So, I'm all too human in that respect.
I'm a skeptic about ideologies. I wouldn't make a good libertarian, there are a lot of ideologues in that crowd. I work with a guy who is an ideologue, of a rather extreme sort. He regards "liberals" as "the enemy within." He often makes obtuse references to the tree of liberty being refreshed by the blood of patriots, a Jefferson quotation if I'm not mistaken, in the context of some kind of armed conflict with "the enemy within." He's otherwise a perfectly rational guy, competent in his job and a decent sort of fellow most of the time. We started to get into a discussion one day and after a couple of exchanges he started saying something like, "You liberals..." and I laid into him about reducing every argument to a label, and if he was just going to call me names there was no point in talking to him. We never talk about politics anymore. He doesn't know how to have a conversation or a discussion with Dave Rogers, he only knows how to hurl charges against "liberals," or receive validation from like-minded ideologues. He listens to Rush Limbaugh every day, religiously, and he receives an e-mail newsletter that he forwards to me from time to time with rather provocative quotations. His office-mate is a libertarian and he listens to some libertarian talk radio show in the morning. They get into some pretty interesting arguments. The libertarian is in favor of gay marriage and against the war on drugs. He's also against taxation and any form of federal assistance to anyone.
What frustrates me the most is that an ideologue who is not himself an authority within the ideology kind of surrenders his ability to think critically. He is content to be titillated by the humor of Rush Limbaugh, or the venom of worse ideologue authorities of the sort who publish the newsletter my co-worker reads. Arguments consist of the recitation of what are little more than "talking points," which are themselves over-simplifications of complex issues. One of the issues the libertarian and the conservative share some agreement on is the "death tax." It's a very simple issue for them, and it's based on a "principle." The suggestion that there may be adverse consequences for democracy from an increasing concentration of wealth is swept aside by a rigid, unquestioning adherence to a "principle." No need to think when a "principle" is involved. In this case, though, the "principle" under consideration is not the kind of idea that guides the choices or actions of individuals, rather it is the type of intellectual abstraction that serves the needs of members of a group, rather than, and often at the expense of, the individual.
Howard Kurtz remarked today on some of the responses to Ted Kennedy's speech yesterday: "One caller to Laura Ingraham's radio show said he's providing 'aid and comfort to the enemy' in Iraq, 'bordering on treason.'" This is an example of the distorted thinking of an ideologue, to suggest that criticism, even harsh criticism, borders on treason. Unfortunately this is all too typical. This is not to suggest that ideologues are unique to the conservative end of the spectrum, there are ideologues for any brand of ideology you care to name.
Well, it's late and I've scratched this itch enough for one night. More to follow.
Whatever had glitched up QuickTime this morning seems to have resolved itself following a reboot after the latest security update. I saw the Thunderbirds trailer. I'm not sure I'll like the movie, but I've always loved the ships.
How ironic is this? I'm running OS X and I'm pretty damn sure I have all the QuickTime updates installed, and I can't play a trailer from Apple's own QuickTime trailer site.
What is an ideology? To me, it is a set of beliefs that comprise a kind of theory of how a given society should be ordered. The object of the conditional is typically believed to be some realization of the good.
So what is the good? As it relates to ideology, it is some outcome that is to be preferred to most, if not all, other outcomes. In general terms, it usually relates to the material success of the greatest number, although not always, and "material success" is a broad enough description to encompass differences within a given society that may raise questions about its validity. At its root, material success suggests members of the society get to eat and reproduce.
So again, an ideology seems to me to be a system of beliefs that comprise a theory of how a given society should be ordered to promote the greatest good for the greatest number. How the good is defined may vary, but it generally can be boiled down to some type of material success.
What are principles, and how are they related to an ideology? It seems to me that a principle is an idea that suggests something about what the good is, as it relates to the individual. Principles are less than a theory. While an ideology can almost be thought of as a series of if...then statements, which can be subjected to some type of logical analysis and perhaps "proof;" a principle is more like an axiom, a statement for which its truth value can perhaps be observed, but not necessarily derived from analysis. For instance, as a principle, we might say that it is always best to tell the truth. While there are clearly many examples we can show that "prove" this statement to be true, there are equally many examples where we can show that it may be false. It all comes down to what the good is, as it relates to "always best."
In general, principles may be used by individuals to help govern the choices they make as they live their lives. While principles and ideologies relate to both individuals and societies, I think in general it can be said that principles most closely relate to individuals while ideologies most closely relate to societies.
This can also be reflected in ideas about authority. Principles help govern and promote the authority of the individual, while ideologies promote certain individuals in societies as authorities. What the hell am I talking about?
If I have a set of principles that I embrace as the set of governing ideas that shape the choices of my life, then that reinforces my own authority over myself. If I have done an adequate job of examining my principles and choosing them carefully, observing the results and consequences of their use in my life, then I am promoting my own authority over myself. If I lack a set of principles, then I am subject to the influence of whoever I may regard as an authority other than myself.
In an ideology, the "system" of beliefs has to be promoted, maintained and refined against challenges from competing ideas and ideologies. Not all individuals are equally suited to perform that task adequately, so an authority structure emerges. If one is to subscribe to a particular ideology, then one also generally accepts the authority of certain figures within that ideology.
What is an ideologue? In general, an ideologue is anyone who is an advocate of a particular ideology; but that's too general a definition for me. To me, an ideologue is someone for whom the set of beliefs that make up a particular ideology either trump or replace a set of principles, which would otherwise govern the choices of the individual.
Why would someone choose to be an ideologue, in my sense of the term? Because an ideology is supposed to promote an idea of the good. I think that in our own minds, we desire to see ourselves as good. Acting on principle requires acting on one's own authority, and it is not always clear whether or not one is acting in such a way that promotes the good, therefore it is sometimes difficult to unambiguously see ourselves as good. We also know there is safety in numbers, which is part of the idea of social proof as a principle of influence. If conventional authorities tell us that a particular ideology is "good," and we, along with large numbers of others, subscribe to that ideology, then we can more easily persuade ourselves that we too are good. And there is no fundamental contradiction here that makes this untrue in all cases.
So, what is the downside to being an ideologue, assuming a given ideology does, in fact, promote some notion of the good. There are a number of traps. First among these is disagreement about the nature of the good. I think it would be safe to say that we believe it is good to treat all people with respect, and that such a belief is very likely to be among the set of principles of all good people. But an ideologue puts promoting the beliefs of their ideology before the ideas of their own principles. For example, many Macintosh users are ideologues in the sense that they believe the Macintosh operating system is a better way of computing than the Windows operating system. This is complicated by the fact that many Macintosh users perceive, rightly in my opinion, that Microsoft's un-principled, highly ideological behavior disadvantaged Macintosh users in the marketplace. As a result, many Macintosh users think nothing of showing disrespect to Microsoft employees or Windows users. So while treating other individuals with respect would seem to be a fundamental principle we could all adhere to, it gets tossed aside when we assume our roles as adherents to a particular ideology. The same sort of behavior can be observed in many other areas where people have competing ideas about a better way to do things. Open source versus closed source, Ford versus Chevy, organic food versus industrial agriculture, etc. etc. etc.
Most of these examples are rather trivial, if unfortunate. What isn't trivial is when the power of nations or religions gets bound up in ideological conflicts.
One of the clearest signs of an ideologue is a consistent history on a particular issue. We generally regard consistency as a virtue. In part, it helps us deal with uncertainty about the future because consistency suggests how a particular individual may behave in some future circumstance. Demonstrated inconsistency promotes doubt and uncertainty.
I've gone about as far as I care to go with this tonight. Getting up in the wee hours of the morning like this does little to promote my good humor and even temper for the rest of the day. I'm going to return to this, but I just want to tie up a loose end or two here.
Not all people who have principles adhere to them at all times. It's hard, because of the way we're built biologically. Most of the time our behavior is simply behavior. It is not the result of an immediate cognitive choice, it's the result of a programmatic script. Nature likes to conserve resources, and it hasn't endowed us with the cognitive resources to make deliberative choices about every source of stimulus we encounter during the course of our lives. We can re-write the programs, we can learn to maximize our cognitive resources, we can do better, but I don't think we'll ever be perfect. Ideologies as systems of belief actually work well with limited cognitive resources and promote the success of groups, which is why we so often behave as ideologues, even if we aren't genuine ideologues.
Even people of principle embrace ideologies, but real people of principle are seldom genuine ideologues. They can exhibit the behavior of an ideologue from time to time, but they lack the consistency that marks the true ideologue.
Even ideologues can sometimes act from principle. This is more likely if the action relates to some issue which is not close to the beliefs of the ideology. Being an ideologue does not axiomatically make someone a bad person. But some bad people are ideologues, and being an ideologue often means abandoning good principles.
Inconsistency is not a reliable indicator of being a principled person, as consistency is a reliable indicator of an ideologue. But a principled person may often appear inconsistent, I might even go so far as to say, will always appear inconsistent, but I want to think about that some more.
This is going somewhere. I don't know that I'll be able to change anyone's mind about anything. Mostly, I just want to sort it out for myself. I think I should be able to go back to sleep now.
It's April 6th, so I've purchased and watched TheMatrix Revolutions.
Had a nice video chat with Al Hawkins last night. I'm afraid anyone who makes the mistake requesting a video chat with me probably gets more than they bargained for. I'm not noted for my reticence. Sorry about that, Al.
I've been thinking a bit about ideology, ideologues, principles and ethics, especially the ethics of ignorance (inspired by AKMA's ethics of signification). I think there's a case to be made that there's too much of the former and not enough of the latter; and that the former does not require the latter. Indeed, the latter often gets in the way of the former. More to follow if I can ever get these thoughts untangled and down on paper. Or silicon. Or ferrous-oxide. Or something.
I've been spending some time getting my vintage 1999, iMac DV/400 back up and running. The PRAM battery is dead, so I'll need to crack the shell and replace the battery. I've opened it up before when I installed a 60GB HD in it, so it's not too hard. Just lots of screws to keep track of, and one has to pay attention to the various tabs and seams of the shell to ensure everything is together tight before screwing it back together.
Some time ago I learned that an iMac of that series will support up to 1GB of RAM. At the time it was being manufactured, 256MB was the largest DIMM you could get so the documentation indicated 512MB was the maximum amount of RAM it could use. But before I knew all that, I had upgraded the RAM to 512MB, and now PC100 RAM is pretty darn expensive. It'd set me back nearly $200.00 to bump it up another 512MB. I'm not sure it's really worth it, under the circumstances; but I am thinking about it.
I did order a refurb'ed Airport card and the adapter necessary to install it in the iMac. Eventually, this box will go into my bedroom to be a kind of entertainment center/alarm clock. I'm wondering if Speakable Items will work well enough with the built-in mic and me several feet away from it. I don't have an alarm clock and I don't wear a wrist watch these days, so some mornings I just kind of lie there wondering if it's worth getting out of bed to see what time it is. I don't have any problem waking up in the morning, the two cats make sure I'm up and moving no later than 6:30 and usually much sooner than that. But if I can make it work, it'd be kind of cool to use Speakable Items to say, "Computer, what time is it?" and have it answer. I'm such a nerd.
I also ordered a Keyspan IR Remote Control to hook up to the thing. That way I can use it to control iTunes or the DVD player app without getting my dead ass out of the rack. If money were no object, I'd order an LCD projector to connect to the external VGA connector, and a Bluetooth wireless keyboard. An LCD projector is probably out of the question unless I win the lottery, and I'd rather do my typing on the 19" monitor connected to the G4, so I doubt it'd be worth the money to connect a wireless keyboard to the iMac, but the thought of the blue gumdrop with only a power cord connecting it appeals to me.
I also pulled out the original installation CDs and installed a factory configuration onto one of my HD partitions. I just wanted to recall what the exper
