Posted Saturday, July 12
Contemplating a Move

As mentioned Thursday, I'm a beta tester for TypePad. Twiddling, I'm tempted to give up for good the lovingly hand-crafted page you see before you (made with nothing but Adobe GoLive, patience, beer, a cheap scanner, and love.)

See what you think of what the new, full-featured John and Belle Have a Blog might look like.

I'm a bit nervous about comments. What if people leave weird stuff? What should I do? Delete it? Pretend it isn't there?

Ah, well. To quote some guy from an episode of the X-Files: "I think playing D&D all those years taught me a little something about courage."

We'll give it a try.
Posted Friday, July 11
Rescuing Analytic Philosophy From Its Ahistorical Abductors

I'm an analytic philosopher who thinks analytic philosophers tend to be weak on the history side. And I happened to notice, a couple weeks back, that this fine Bernard Williams piece, "Philosophy As A Humanistic Discipline" is available on-line. It contains this choice bit:

There is an enjoyable passage by Collingwood in which he describes how “the old gang of Oxford realists”, as he called them, notably Prichard and Joseph, would insist on translating some ancient Greek expression as “moral obligation” and then point out that Aristotle, or whoever it was, had an inadequate theory of moral obligation. It was like a nightmare, Collingwood said, in which one met a man who insisted on translating the Greek word for a trireme as “steamship” and then complained that the Greeks had a defective conception of a steamship.

Of course the Oxford realists weren't analytic philosophers. But I'm not going to get anywhere trying to draw such fine historical distinctions as that, because my real subject for today is this wretched piece of applied historico-philosophical ignorance (via A & L Daily.)

Do philosophers respect the history of their field? In the heyday of 20th-century analytic philosophy - rigidly designated by its true believers as the ahistorical probe of piecemeal issues in logic and language - you didn't have to look far for the answer.

Should our author ever decide to take up the study of the history of philosophy - a subject for which he evinces, by his manner, the loftiest, most Olympian disdain - he will discover that, as one might have guessed, no major figure from the history of analytic philosophy would accept this designation as even remotely, let alone rigidly correct. I would offer a deductive proof; regrettably, I cannot. The proof is empirical and historical. One simply must go back and look at what they wrote. Spinning out consequences, a priori, from unexamined preconceptions, to suit one's present polemical convenience, is, in the writing of history, no substitute for the study of history.

In short, TOOFIYRAYMIU - pronounced 'too-fee-ray-mew'. Feel free to use it yourself in conversation. It derives from Hobbes' critique of Calvin's report on bats ('The big bug scourge of the skies!') Observes the tiger: "There's only one fact in your report, and you made it up."

Honestly, I can't bear to fisk the whole thing, though it dearly deserves it. For example, we hear how in the recent past philosophic folk at Princeton

frequently referred to major figures from the past as "Locke starred" or "Hume starred" to signal that the version of the philosopher cited wasn't historically accurate. "Locke starred" could be stipulated (for argumentative convenience) to hold a particular theory about color or consent, even though the real Locke didn't. It was a kind of "Do asterisk, don't tell" policy.

This approach, for all its drawbacks, has one undeniable advantage over Romano's own: a respect for history. The folks at Princeton didn't want to say things about Locke that weren't true. Think of the labor that tends to be saved hereby. For example, if Romano had only thought to denounce 'analytic starred' (for rhetorical convenience) I might not be penning this screed. What do I care what is wrong with non-existent schools of philosophy?

And you just know you are going to hear about a small band of rebels courageously mounting a bold attack against the vast Death Star of analytic philosophy's dogmatic ahistorical ignorance. And you do. And you just know Romano isn't going to be able to tell the difference between scholarly hobbyhorses and devastating cavalry assaults. And, bless him, he can't:

The work of "new historians of philosophy" abounds in examples of putative bad history from standard accounts of philosophy.

Imagine that! Academics alleging each other to be in the wrong. Something truly unusual must be up. Let us look closer.

Ian Hunter, of the University of Queensland, in Australia, criticizes the interpretation of Samuel Pufendorf as a second-rate water carrier for Kant rather than as the founder of a quite un-Kantian secular civil ethics.

Well, that's it! I'm burning my Quine - for it contains no Pufendorfian civil ethics!! Grow a sense of proportion, guy, even if you can't muster a scintilla of genuine interest in the interesting history of analytic philosophy. Geeze. (With apologies to prof. Hunter and his respectable hobby horse.)

Romano is obviously interested in a few contemporary trends and ideas; shiny stuff has caught his eye. And so he piously butchers history in the service of folks no one will remember in ten years - like Pritchard and Joseph with their trireme. And like analytic philosophers too often do.

Wouldn't it be better just not to? Isn't that a good idea?
Posted Friday July 11
Like Starving Beasts!

I have to apologize to the Instapundit. I accused him of baselessly claiming that lefties are opposed to the outsourcing of IT jobs. Oh, I was ironic:

Unless there is some well known, lefties-hate-IT-jobs-moving-to-Bangalore Zeitgeist that I've just missed out on [we are way out in Singapore, honey. - ed.], I think we have to say this is a cheap shot.

Well, who's laughing now. Recently Salon saw fit to address this issue, first with a sky-is-falling attack on outsourcing (White Collar Sweatshops!), followed by a tepid defense. Now letters have come in attacking the defense. A representative sample:

The reality is far different. We live in a world that is, for the most part, finite [except for the infinite bits, apparently]. With an exploding world population and limited resources the planet is heading towards disaster at a dizzying pace. Sorry if most of you folks out there don't want to hear that, but it's true. And when the resources start to run out, countries are going to start to fight over them. Like starving beasts.

The outsourcing of white-collar work is only the logical extension of a very old trend. The problem is that after losing much of our manufacturing base the "information economy" and foreign investment were the only two factors propping up our economy. Now, the U.S. is turning increasingly into a rogue nation and the IT/IS sector is starting to go. It amazes me that Mr. Behlendorf is worried about the political climate of other countries when democracy in the U.S. is disappearing right before our very eyes. What about political stability right here at home?

Not to mention this:

Oh, and forget the crap about helping the educated Indians too. What India needs is some capital that will stay there and build up an actual, native middle class, not a gypsy army of worldwide conditional workers.

I somehow thought that having well-paying technical jobs which serve as seedbeds for homegrown indian IT companies was a good thing for India. I sure know better now.

Anyway, I retract my complaint. (While noting that I'm sure plenty of Buchanan types could be found to tout the virtues of protectionism from the right. OK, one-quarter point for me, then.)
Posted Friday, July 11
The Verneblogging Continues

Well, everyone seems to agree that the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is terrible. Even the comic itself is only OK, in my opinion. It would be much better if the art didn't suck, and given that it's a graphic novel...you see the problem. It's one of those things that sounds better when a friend describes it to you than when you actually read it.

(Human cloning research should be accelerated so that Alex Ross can do all the art for everyone with a good idea for a comic book. That is the only thing that could improve the incomparable Astro City.)

So, fine. The movie is bad. Is that any reason to take unjustified swipes at H. Rider Haggard? From the Washington Post review:

The seven [literary characters dramatized in the film] are Twain's Tom Sawyer, Wilde's Dorian Gray, Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and chum Hyde (they count as one), Stoker's vampire, Verne's Nemo, Wells's Invisible Man, and, last but still least, H. Rider Haggard's Quatermain. Quick, lit majors, which author does not belong?

The answer is Haggard, who was a routine Empire hack with a really cool name; the others, with much less cool names (though "Mark Twain" is pretty cool) are all great writers, and to see them trashed in this illiterate saga of destruction seems almost an act of cultural desecration. Is nothing sacred?

Let's see here. Jules Verne is sacred, while H. Rider Haggard is a "routine Empire hack"? Sacred? Jules Verne had a lot of interesting ideas, but on the whole his novels fall squarely into the camp of things that are more sucessful as a précis to be embroidered by your own imagination than as actual novels whose words you have to read one by one. Not to put to fine a point on it, but he was really not a very good writer, in the actual writing department. Let's see: 54 novels, 5 short story collections, countless other short stories, not to mention some essays, plays, libretti for comic operas(!), and poems. Is it entirely plausible that being so numerous, these things should also be of the highest quality?

You may read H. Rider Haggard online here. I would tell you to go read the whole thing but it might presume too much on your time. Hmm, and looking down the list I see it is perhaps suspiciously long. Not 54 novels long, though! Anyway, She is a great read, and Haggard a competent crafter of thrilling tales. That he is Imperially-minded I readily concede. Is Verne completely innocent of French chauvinism? I would take Haggard over Verne any day for the purposes of actual reading (I grant Verne has beaucoup historical significance). For further Verneblogging, go here and here.
Posted Thursday, July 10
Beta Testing for TypePad

The good folks behind MoveableType, have, in their wisdom, selected me (and some others) to beta test their new service, TypePad - which is basically MoveableType for Dummies (and not so dummies.). But I can't tell you much more (signed a non-disclosure wossname.) If anyone cares to visit the course blogs I'm building using this slick tool, disclosures of your observations to me in the days to come would be most welcome. Go ahead, kick the tires. Post comments. (Should have all the bells and whistling clanging and blowing by tomorrow.) I've got a Nietzsche blog, where I will be writing things about Nietzsche, starting today. And I've got my Reason and Persuasion blog - that's my intro philosophy module. I'll be thinking hard about Plato, starting today, and J.S. Mill whenever anything smart first pops into my head.
Posted Thursday, July 10
Signs of Liberalization in Singapore

But only for medicinal purposes so far.
Posted Thursday, July 10
Free to be you and me, lah

Since I have been sick, I have been letting my husband do all the heavy lifting on this blog, while I lie around reading the Chronicles of Amber. No more! With the magic of "linking" I can just send you all elsewhere to read something while apparently posting myself.

Viz. this fairly informative debate over at Samizdata about whether Singapore is an authoritarian country (in the comments thread of a triumphal post on the virtues of the Anglosphere.) Is it surprising that Lee Kwan Yew could be a hero to libertarians? This, in a country in which, if you are a cog in some criminal enterprise (say the bookkeeper for an illegal lottery), and some other member (unbeknownst to you) possesses a gun, but does not use it, you can get...the death penalty! Well, it just goes to show that staunch anti-communism and nearly total economic freedom will get you a long way with some libertarians.

If you average out the pro and con posts you will get the idea that Singapore is astonishingly well run, Lee Kwan Yew is an unparallelled genius, probably the government should lessen its meddling in the markets for continued good performance, and in general Singapore is a rich, clean, nice, semi-demi-hemi-authoritarian country. Mmmm...OK, that seems about right. I would only add that the government is genuinely popular to a degree I would have considered very implausible before moving here, and that they do appear to be lightening up on the social side of things. Hopefully this trend will continue and accelerate under the (very capable-seeming) BG Lee. Questions about his surname should perhaps be referred to Adam Bellow.
Posted Wednesday, July 9
Extraordinarily Popular Illusions and the Madness of Crowds
-or-
"Is that a dragon in your pocket,
or are you just happy to see me?"
Henry Farrell and I like arguing about fantastic fiction. I'll rise to the bait of his Byatt-on-Rowling post. What do I think of Byatt's blast? First, some kind words. Byatt has for some time been a booster of Terry Pratchett's critical stock. And here again - by way of damning Rowling by comparison - she sings the praises of this tremendous author whose wit is metaphysical, who creates an energetic and lively secondary world, who has a multifarious genius for strong parody as opposed to derivative manipulation of past motifs, who deals with death with startling originality. Who writes amazing sentences.

I will add only that I think the major barrier to Pratchett's proper critical recognition is not perennial Pottermania but ugly covers. It is hard to believe such a light as Pratchett's could hide, book after book, under bushels of lousy troll art. (Then the guy died but they found another guy who could draw lots of trolls just as badly.)

But back to Byatt:

Auden and Tolkien wrote about the skills of inventing "secondary worlds." Ms. Rowling's world is a secondary secondary world, made up of intelligently patchworked derivative motifs from all sorts of children's literature - from the jolly hockey-sticks school story to Roald Dahl, from "Star Wars" to Diana Wynne Jones and Susan Cooper. Toni Morrison pointed out that clichés endure because they represent truths. Derivative narrative clichés work with children because they are comfortingly recognizable and immediately available to the child's own power of fantasizing.

No. I explained about that already. I am the first to admit that Rowling's style has no sparkle. But as a world builder, Rowling has one truly original trick of perspective - one illusion that is all hers - that doesn't deserve to be derided and cast off as derivative 'patchwork'. (And I'm the first to manage Orwell on Potter to good effect.)

The rock on which Byatt's complaint breaks apart, it seems to me, is that it is hard to fault a children's book writer for writing for children. And it is hard to fault a children's book writer for writing for children and managing, thereby, to appeal to adults. (If you simply must fault the adults for arrested development, leave Rowling clean out of it. She didn't arrest them.)

Byatt tries to hang Rowling for lacking a compensating seriousness. But why should one need to compensate for - for what? for lacking seriousness? (A thing I grant is well and good in its place, but must it be everywhere?) And Rowling's magical world has no place for the numinous. I do see what Byatt means. Then again, sometimes one has an apple and wants an orange. Why blame the apple?

It seems to me it is precisely Rowling's one good, original trick to infuse the inherently narrow and unrelentingly down-to-earth, child's-eye view school-story genre with a whimsical cosmic significance. Billy Bunter joins the fellowship of the ring. The fact that this utterly - um, unnuminous - incongruity generates only constant, low-level chuckles without erupting into sheer parody of one sort or another is an accomplishment. It surely wasn't obvious this was possible until Rowling did it. (At any rate, this is what the thing is, not another thing. It may leave you cold, but it isn't a weak failure to be something other than it is.)

What is likely to confuse the issue is that Rowling is an incredibly lucky writer. It is tempting to think she has done something underhanded or illicit - pandered in some way, compromised her art - to achieve her preposterous level of success. It doesn't seem to me to be so. Rowling is not a tremendous writer, as Pratchett secretly is. But she is an unpretentious writer.

Why Pottermania, then? I suspect it really is a sheer fluke - one of those tipping-point wossnames. Solid books got on a roll and kept on. Why should they do that? Well, I wouldn't be the one to ask. But I think it is fair to observe that, just as Potter is fictional comfort food - as Byatt and others have observed - Pottermania is a sort of comfort mania. The businessman on the train and the 9-year old child see each other reading the same thumping great 800-page brick, and see each other seeing each other, etc., etc., and they smile. And it is all quite innocent. Pottermania - mostly for adults, but also for children - was a blind hit on what proved a rich vein of nostalgia, or willingness to yearn for a sort of bygone, organic entertainment culture that no doubt never was. So people were pleased to talk themselves into liking Harry. The experience of finding oneself a part of this quite spontaneous literary eruption - it wasn't a slick gimmick; it just happened - was rather like having an owl fly in the window and invite you into a magical world full of other people equally astonished to be invited into a magical world. The unexpected company was just as appealing, if not more so, than the magic. So the fact of everyone liking to like Harry is analogous to everyone liking to like reading The Night Before Christmas on the night before Christmas - which is a thing that has relatively little to do with the inherent literary merits of The Night Before Christmas.

Which is not to defend Pottermania, qua cultural phenomenon. I am merely pointing out that the only thing that could possibly be really bothering Byatt - seriously - has nothing essentially to do with Rowling or her books. Or so it seems to me.
Posted Tuesday, July 8
Learned Lumber

On the occasion of being blogrolled into the lumber room by Crooked Timber, this couplet from Alexander Pope springs to mind:

The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,
With loads of learned lumber in his head.

I think I'll fit right in.
Posted Tuesday, July 8
Nepotism Begins At Home

You've probably read this and this and this already, but I thought they looked good together.

And now Kieran Healy has posted on this timely topic. He points out that all of Bellow's arguments apply, mutatis mutandis, to affirmative action. So conservatives who back Bellow ought to back AA. I hope Bellow will be consistent enough to note that the best way to keep his first two golden rules - don't embarrass me; don't embarrass yourself; pass it on - is to make 'secrecy' one's watchword. So we should expect our society to become not just less equal but less open.
Posted Monday, July 7
A Rose (#327 in 2002) by Any Other Name

This NYT article on trends in baby naming really hit home.The author quite properly limits her scope:

Perennials like Michael or Sarah are not, to my mind, the nub of the issue. They don't explain why so many people seeking more adventurous names seem to hit upon the same ones.

This is just right, because there is really no mystery in why a lot of people get named John or Mary. But I felt zinged when the author questioned an expert about whether she had picked too up-and-coming a name for her unborn girl:

Had we accidentally picked the next Zoe? ''Nope,'' she said. ''I think you're safe.''

If this is your first time at John and Belle have a blog, click here.

Grinding teeth...actually, John and I worried about this, but it was too late by then: we were fixated on the name Zoë. (See - she has a dieresis in her name. It's totally different. Plus the middle names Snowden and Drewry -take that, countless other Zoe's!) And I suppose, given the massive popularity of John and the unpopularity of Belle (never making into the top 1000 in the last decade, though it fared better back in the day) it's perhaps fitting that our daughter lies somewhere between the two extremes.

All our other potentials have been similarly rocketing up the charts (you can track a given name's changing popularity here.) I was particularly shocked by the rise of Grace, which has a certain sweet, old-fashioned appeal and was the name of my step-mother's mom, a very wonderful woman. It's the number 15 name for girls in the whole country?! I guess I have to scratch it off the list.

If we want to get wacky, though, we can always give any new baby a family name from my side of the family. We have a few books to choose from (self-published by various geneaolgically minded great-uncles), with stirring titles. I think the Wainwright one is Those Who Came Before Us. Good girl names are thin on the ground, those Mayflower types having gone for things like Chastity and (yes, I'm serious) Pain. Pain Holbo...I think I'll pass.

Guys got better names, like Experience. Hands down the coolest guy name, though, is Sparhawk Mayhew. Sparhawk. Just roll it around on your tongue (it's a contraction of Sparrowhawk - all clear now? I don't know, he was from Nantucket.) I think it's too D&D for a real life boy, though, unless he's born with exceptional Charisma.

My family is also big on the whole last-name-as-first-name thing one reads about in the Preppy Handbook. Yes, Stuyvesants (II-V), I'm talking to you. And cousins Townsend and Walker. This seems fine to me, and I'm trying to sell names like Blanchard (girl) and Wainwright (boy, obviously) as first names - hey, he could be called Wain! I don't think John's buying it.
Posted Sunday, July 6
Master-Blaster

Our iBook's mighty external adjunct, the 120 GB HD known as 'Master-Blaster', has (sniff) died. Or, rather, Blaster has died. Master is OK. (It's a partitioning thing. But don't ask me to explain what that means.) Which is unfortunate, because, as their names imply, Blaster is the larger of the pair, containing mucho iMovie files, our whole 25 GB iTunes library. (That's a lot of CD's to put in again, one by one.) Master is just an crummy little emergency system boot, basically.

But it does rather take one back to Thunderdome. Max and his whistle. Master weeping over dead Blaster. I expect our version of the whistle is young Zoë, who has previously shut down the system by means other than those manufacturer recommended. Like Max, she is a kind soul and never really intended to kill the gentle giant.

I've got Norton Utilities on the job. So far, no pulse.

Oh, and I just remembered Belle and I came up with a Thunderdome-theme restaurant scheme a couple years back. 'Two men order, one man eats!' was going to be our gimmick.