Month: September 2009

A reader writes:

You know, I'm gay. I'm a leftist. I came to be a leftist for reasons wholly separate from my sexuality.

 

But for a moment, let's celebrate that there are places in this world — places like Germany — where a gay man can be a fiscal conservative, a proponent of removing nuclear missiles from German soil, and a supporter of the war in Afghanistan.  I may disagree with him, but the fact that he exists routinely, normally, that his sexuality merits no comment…that's downright liberal.

 

Also, he's kinda cute.  In a slightly-older, German Harvey Dent kinda way.

A reader writes:

The emails you have received regarding the theodicy problem

are, I think, very telling. Most striking to me is how few of your correspondents — and none in the set of notes posted just yesterday morning — seem interested in, or even cite with a measure of familiarity, any of the great Christian theologians on the matter: St. Augustine or St. Thomas, Luther or Calvin, Kierkegaard, or even a near contemporary like Reinhold Niebuhr. As far back as Augustine, Genesis was being interpreted in a non-literal or allegorical manner! So to argue over the precise timing of Adam and Eve "eating an apple," as your one correspondent did, is nothing short of bizarre — its genuinely a world of discourse thousands of years out of date. You know this, of course. But its striking how many of your presumably secular or at agnostic correspondents imagine a religious response to evil and suffering only through the terms set by fundamentalists. They counter a stilted argument proffered by fundamentalist theology then go on as if their work is done. This not only is pretty cheap intellectually, but incredibly impoverishing for our public discourse. The best word for it, I think, is ignorant.

I recently spent a great deal of time re-reading Niebuhr (and thus, by extension, Augustine and Kierkegaard) on the problem of sin and

evil.

What was most striking was the way theological language ultimately was descriptive for him, that the account of the Fall was not a literal history of origins but a delineation of the nature of sin and evil. A non-fundamentalist, Christian account of evil will try to hold various notions in tensions with one another: human responsibility and freedom, sin's inevitability but not its necessity, the goodness of creation and the idea that humans were tempted — in short, tries to take in our entire situation and see all the inflections and tensions in how we actually live. It tries to give an actual answer, however provisional and however couched in the language of myth, to a real human perplexity. Theology, in other words, is a set of concepts and terms, a language, that we use to make sense of our situation. To look for literal "truth" in it is misguided. Or rather, it may not be historically accurate but it is true in every moment of existence.

One final point: it is very easy to constantly question a positive vision that someone else puts forward. The non-Christian, the non-theist, can ask question after question about the Christian response to the theodicy problem. But none of your correspondents have give their own account that I find persuasive (in most cases, they give no account of evil). The advantage of the Christian account, so far as I can tell, is that it actually calls evil what it is, and seeks to put it in a larger framework that redeems it. What is evil for the Darwinist? Simply an externality of the struggle of the fittest? For all the pretensions of science, and all their discounting of the mythical understanding of man, do they really expect us to believe that thousands upon thousands of years of evolution — that is, making us fit for this world, adapting to this world — ends in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (or Auschwitz)? If you question the scientist, or the atheist, or sarcastic agnostic who doesn't like Jerry Falwell, I think they would have some problems too. Maybe, ultimately, they simply think evil is a non-sense word. Fine. But after the 20th century I find this the least plausible answer of all.

Open Left pings yours truly. I'm not sure that being a little ahead of public opinion is so damning. The public is assessing events and characters all the time. Look at polling on Iraq and Afghanistan over the last eight years – my own evolution is echoed by those of many, many others. And since I'm paid to think about this stuff all the time, I should probably be criticized for not being ahead of the curve enough. But on the public option, I'm still behind. I don't want to see a stealth government take-over of private health insurance, but I can see the case for a limited public option. Clear restrictions on the buying power of such a program would ease my concern. But if a public option can streamline overhead, pioneer less bureaucracy, and keep the private sector on its toes – as public universities can private ones – I'm not opposed. Why would anyone be? The key is reining in its unfair advantages while encouraging its fair ones.

And if the critical issue becomes affordability of private health insurance, even with subsidies, a public option seems to me to be all the more important as a cost-controller. I have a feeling it will pass, by the way. The logic of the current process – now that the GOP has decided to be purely obstructionist – almost compels it.

Jonah Lehrer explains the science behind Girl Talk, the mash-up genius who blends dozens of songs into his dance tracks:

Let's say you're listening to that catchy Wu-Tang song, with the chorus "And let's start it like this, son, rollin' with this one / And that one, pullin' out gats for fun". Once the acoustic snippet enters working memory, individual neurons in the prefrontal cortex will fire in response to the stimulus – they are the neural representation of the song. Here's where things get interesting: even when the stimulus disappears – you've now started listening to a different song, perhaps that Boston song "Foreplay/Long Time" – those working memory cells continue to fire. They're still holding on to the Wu-Tang clip, which is why working memory is a type of memory. This echo of activity only lasts for a few seconds, but it's long enough so that our thoughts get blended together, as seemingly unrelated sensations overlap.

GQ has a new profile of the artist, Gregg Gillis, here.

A reprise of the debate on the costs and benefits of cap and trade. Bjorn Lomborg has a challenging op-ed today as well. He finds the drastic promises of carbon cuts implausible to say the least. But a small but gradually increasing carbon tax would be neither utopian nor impractical.

Do yourself a favor and read Dave Weigel's full account of the just-concluded “How to Take Back America” conference. Headed by Phylis Shlafly, this year's attendance was twice the previous record. Its main focus: Obama's transformation of America as Hitler transformed Germany.

“Kitty has pointed out the parallels between the slow, incremental Hitler takeover of Austria and some of the things that are happening today,” said Schlafly, asked about Werthmann’s “How to Recognize Living Under Nazis and Communists” session. “She’s an expert on that. I see what [Obama] is doing as absolute socialism, as government ownership of the means of production.”

The liberal fascism argument is alive and well on the right. Huckabee showed up, as did neocon Frank Gaffney. The opening speaker was Christianist retired Lt Gen William Boykin, who had in uniform declared the war on terror to be a war between Islam and Christianity. Weirdly, he doesn't credit torture with preventing a second terror attack. His theory is more complex:

“It’s only because of intercessory prayer that we haven’t been hit again since September 11,” said Boykin. “Pray for America for 10 minutes a day. If we can mobilize millions of prayer warriors that can pray for 10 minutes a day, we can open the gates of heaven.”

Of course, the gays were just behind the Nazis and the Muslims in destroying America:

In the halls and from the stages of the conference, there were constant warnings of fascist, anti-Christian campaigns to break down American morals and sovereignty. Rev. Rick Scarborough, a pastor who advised Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign, pounded the podium at his Friday afternoon speech, warning that the president’s pro-gay agenda was endangering Christians who spoke out against gay rights.

“The day the president put his hand on the bible,” said Scarborough, “his minions were changing official White House Website to reflect a whole new understanding of civil rights, to refer to homosexuals.” The Bible, said Scarborough, called these people “sodomites, which no one wants to talk about because it reminds them of their behavior.”

Some activists followed this up with a breakout session on “How to Counter the Homosexual Extremist Movement,” where they learned about transgender awareness days at public schools. And some went to “How to Stop Feminist and Gay Attacks on the Military,” where they were informed that upwards of 200,000 active duty members of the military might quit if “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” is repealed.

It appears we sent a cardboard cutout to conduct our foreign policy:

(Hat tip: BF)

Bruce Bartlett calls Ron Paul's attempt to audit the fed a "crackpot idea":

Whatever one thinks of the Fed's policies in recent years–and there certainly are grounds for criticism–there is no reason whatsoever to believe that undermining its independence and putting the Congress in control of monetary policy–Ron Paul's goal–would improve matters at all. Indeed, there is every reason to believe that full congressional control of monetary policy would be a disaster. Instead of getting Switzerland-like stability, as Paul foolishly imagines, the more likely result would be Zimbabwe-like hyperinflation.

Tehran Bureau explains:

Today was the first day of the new academic year for Iranian universities. There were demonstrations at Tehran University, where students chanted slogans against the government. Slogans chanted included: We are Neda [Agha Soltan], we are Sohrab [Erabi], we are all one voice! […] Imprisoned students must be freed! The coup government must resign! Oh Hossein [the 3rd Shiite Imam and a most revered figure in Iran], Mir Hossein [Mousavi]! If Karroubi is arrested, Iran will explode!

Several more clips are available at TB's new online home, Frontline.

George Packer reports from Berlin, where Angela Merkel was just re-elected:

Germany held an election yesterday, though you might not have noticed if you don’t live there. I barely noticed, and I’ve been in Berlin for the past three weeks. True, there are posters of candidates’ faces on streetlamps around the city—charmingly un-slick posters like those of a race for county commissioner in central Ohio. The photo of Angela Merkel, with her pudgy smile, makes the German chancellor look like a grade-school principal. But even compensating for my American-level expectation of political drama, there has been a distinct lack of excitement in the air. After a candidates’ debate, the headline in a German tabloid wisecracked, “Yes We Gahn” (to get the joke, you’d need to know that gahn means yawn, which had to be explained to me).

Of course, boring politics in Germany is always good news. In successful countries, politics is always boring. It's life that's interesting.