Month: December 2008

Here are the phrases that Reuel Marc Gerecht just used to describe, among other things, stress positions as photographed above and waterboarding, a technique universally regarded as torture since the Middle Ages:

"pain-inflicting soliciting techniques,"
“aggressive interrogation”
"physically coercive questioning"
"exceptional methods"
"harsh services"
"the skills of our Jordanian friends"

The word "torture" is used – but only for non-Americans and not for the Jordanians (the Neocon Golden Rule is: if we do it, it’s not torture; if they do it, it’s a war crime). You can read some of the techniques of the Jordanians here.

For Reuel Marc Gerecht, beating the soles of people’s feet until they bleed and forcing prisoners to walk through vinegar on them, or the use of Gestapo and Communist methods of long-time standing and stress positions of the kind once used on John McCain: none of this is torture. Wouldn’t you like to see Gerecht tell John McCain to his face he wasn’t actually tortured? And opposition to torture is described thus:

Winning the hearts and minds of foreigners by remaining true to our nobler virtues is now seen as the way to defeat our enemies while preserving our essential goodness.

These are words that can only written by someone with contempt for the inviolable principles of human dignity that led to the founding of the West. Such notions – the notions that Americans fought and died for for centuries – are, in Gerecht’s mind, for the weak and pusillanimous. And so the brutality of the Middle East gets imported directly back into the blood-stream of the American constitution.

Such is the price of empire in such a place.

"We are trying to get through to our government officials some conception of what they are doing to us.

When, as happens in case after case, a man who has lived for years an honorable, honest, productive, useful life, respected and properly so by those around him, relied upon, given responsibilities and trusts which he has consistently shouldered and met—when such a man is suddenly called irresponsible, untrustworthy, unstable, reckless, poor judgment and the like, has his integrity impugned, all because in his most personal private life he is unconventional—when this happens, he is justifiably outraged, at the very least.   When we ask the Defense Department for the connection between his harmless acts and this assault upon his honor, his reputation, his record, all that he is, we get mealy-mouthed rationalizations and evasions which say nothing.

We have our sensitivities.  We have our feelings.  We are human beings.  You walk roughshod over those feelings and sensitivities, with hobnailed boots, as if we were somehow less than human—which is, of course, precisely the way all too many of you think of us.      And so we are very intentionally needling, goading, prodding, in an effort to get through to you and make you realize the wrongs which you are perpetuating upon us, in the hope that you will realize what  you are doing. 

You callously destroy people, needlessly, and then forget about them," – gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny, defending a homosexual’s right to get a security clearance from the Pentagon, August 19, 1969.

I love and revere Frank’s candor and conviction. It is contagious. And soon we will end this pernicious and irrational persecution of gay servicemembers once and for all.

A reader writes:

I am a bit confounded that you would state:

[The essence of fundamentalism] is the assertion that every single aspect in the bewilderingly expansive and contradictory and over-determined texts we call the Bible are literally true in every particular and every injunction should be applied today as literally as possible.

You then go on to demonstrate in the very same post the inaccuracy of that statement with regard to divorce. In other venues you have remarked on the failure of fundamentalist to provide the Biblically prescribed punishments for breaking these strictures.

Clearly, the actual literal acceptance of the scriptures is not a tenet of fundamentalist Christian ideology. On the other hand, the claim that that is the basis of their moral code is such a tenant. Furthermore, fundamentalists accept on faith that they are adhering to the Bible literally — no facts nor examples need be applied. Indeed, proof of any particular fundamentalist’s actions contrary to Biblical injunction is proof not of that person’s sins, but of the lack of faith of the critic.

The activities and thoughts actually recognized as sins by such fundamentalists are as you have pointed out not biblically determined. Instead the determination of what is a sin is handled by a more personal filter, which is however based in the Levitical tradition of dividing people into ‘us’ and ‘them’ and proscribing ‘them’ activities while prescribing ‘us’ activities.

As such, fundamentalism is not a theological practice, rather it is a cultural one.

On the other hand, there is a theological aspect of fundamentalism, which is as Larison stated, that everyone is fallen, and furthermore, that people prefer their fallen state (or as he would put it, people have a predisposition to act contrary to our true nature). In this case, the *true*nature* of people is not heterosexual per se, rather it is to exist in a state of grace. The argument against homosexual activity being that it interferes with a person’s attraction to the divine.

This is the theological doctrine of fundamentalism, as the fundamentalist view of Christ is that He is Saviour. In order to be saved, one must be in peril. To have a continuous relationship with a saviour, one must be continuously in peril.

An evil act perpetrated by someone as yet unknown. I hope it’s a loon and not in any way politically motivated. In a free society, words and criticism, while sometimes bruising, are always protected. The resort to violence of any kind is, of course, horrifying and inexcusable – especially when targeting people exercising their first amendment rights.

Seattle, Washington, 10.30 pm, last night.

A reader writes:

There is something both utterly stupid and yet very comforting about rick-rolling. As long as people will choose to be this dumb, irrational, and do it with such gusto, there’s hope for humanity.  We will never totally bow to totalitarian impulses as long as people continue to want to do such useless but uncontrollable things.  OK, I’d better stop.  I’m full of sh*t….  :-)

I recall Orwell’s remark that England would never become a fascist state because the English would instinctively respond to the sight of goose-stepping … by giggling. I think the relationship between humor and decency – and democracy – is under-rated.

Gladwell tackles the difficulty of selecting the right person for a job. A paragraph about teaching:

Hanushek recently did a back-of-the-envelope calculation about what even a rudimentary focus on teacher quality could mean for the United States. If you rank the countries of the world in terms of the academic performance of their schoolchildren, the U.S. is just below average, half a standard deviation below a clump of relatively high-performing countries like Canada and Belgium. According to Hanushek, the U.S. could close that gap simply by replacing the bottom six per cent to ten per cent of public-school teachers with teachers of average quality. After years of worrying about issues like school funding levels, class size, and curriculum design, many reformers have come to the conclusion that nothing matters more than finding people with the potential to be great teachers. But there’s a hitch: no one knows what a person with the potential to be a great teacher looks like. The school system has a quarterback problem.

Jonah Lehrer adds his own thoughts. Frank Wilson is unimpressed:

Teaching, like writing, requires a certain amount of talent. Mastering a subject does not mean necessarily that you will be any good at teaching it. Teaching is also, to some extent, a performance art. And you either have the knack of performing or you don’t. Probably the only way to determine if someone is any good at teaching is the same way you find out if somebody can act: auditions, rehearsals, actual performances. Otherwise, as Gladwell finally gets around to telling us: "A prediction, in a field where prediction is not possible, is no more than a prejudice."

So the point of this article would appear to be this: You can’t predict how a college quarterback will perform in the pros or how aspiring teachers will perform in the classroom. But you’ll know whether they can perform, once you see … how they perform. I’ll bet that’s right.

A great comment on Larison’s blog:

I think it’s   worth mentioning that a large part of the election campaign was fought over   just this issue. Obama presented himself as a genuinely pragmatic politician   who was not primarly concerned with ideology, but with what would work, and   that he could appeal across ideological divides to come to agreements on what   worked that would be good for the country.

McCain and many conservatives were accusing Obama of presenting a false   facade, that he was actually a socialist, a communist, a terrorist, a leftist   ideologue who was hiding his real ideological extremism behind this fake   veneer of pragmatism, and that once elected he would show his true colors, and   try to turn the country into a Muslim, socialist paradise for Bill Ayers and   al Qaeda terrorists.

The electorate rejected McCain’s version of Obama, and accepted Obama’s own   self-description. Those who are surprised by Obama’s appointments thus far are   those who for some reason mistakenly believed in McCain’s criticism.

   

One of   the best examples of Obama’s pragmatism is his appointment of Chu as energy   secretary. Imagine that, and actual expert scientist in charge of energy   research and development! Rather than a politician or military official or a   “green” progressive environmentalist, Obama picked a guy who actually knows   science. Is this being “centrist”, or is it being pragmatic in the real sense   of the word.

I think the truth that is coming out, and which you have avoided seeing as   best you can, is that Obama really is, by nature, a pragmatist, in the most   basic sense of the word, and that ideology is not what makes him tick. That   doesn’t mean he has no ideological biases, but that the forms and changes his   ideology based on actual observation, analysis, and testing of those ideas, in   what is loosely a scientific matter, and not even a purely political form of   pragmatism.

 

Appleyard wants to rehabilitate the word "fine."