Category Archives: culture & value

Shame, how useful?

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This entry on shaming the poor was interesting to me, because I have the NASB translation of Paul’s rebuke of the Corinthians stuck in my head:

What! Do you not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I will not praise you.

Interestingly, the ESV uses the word “humiliate,” rather than “shame.”  I don’t know which might be closer to the Greek original, but the interchangeability of the two words in English is rather revealing.

But I wonder how much usefulness is to be found in shame in the case of people who are actually responsible for the shame they bring on themselves (unlike children).  I won’t deny that it can deter undesirable behavior.  But it seems to me it is just as likely to deter the admission of wrong behavior, to motivate people to cover their behavior, and to even cause them to deceive themselves about it.

And that can only make the problem behavior even worse.

Tyranny of parenting by rational argumentation

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I tumbled this post from Jeff, as you can see in my recently improved sidebar, but I have to blog about the Dabney quotes.  They remind me of the insanity that results from trying to argue with one’s child about various fashion/music/culture choices by a form of alleged presuppositionalism.  If it means that much to you, just forbid it.  Don’t torment a growing mind by talking about how that hairstyle is really based on pagan creation-from-ultimat-chaos myths.  If you need to interfere (and there is often wisdom in not doing so) then just use authority.  Don’t torture logic.

Bill Buckley’s death reminds me

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that a vacuum is being left by the passing of these men from “the Right,” and no leader is coming close to fulfilling it. There is a market. Fox News and the Ron Paul campaign (however poorly it did, it still beat Giuliani to a pulp) prove that.

But there is no one who can unify them. Two or three conflicts in conviction conspire toward fragmentation, depending on how one interprets them:

  • International interventionism v. bringing the troops home
  • “Patriotism” v. liberty
  • “conservatism” v. “libertarianism”

In some cases, these could all be seen as the same thing, but I think they actually result in many different convictions.

In the eighties, in the aftermath of the now returning Carter years, there was enough common cause to pull enough of these different people together. But not anymore. So no one can lead a unified group within them.

This post almost had another title

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But Jennifer made chocolate-covered bananas for the kids and called me upstairs to eat a half that she had reserved for me.

Instead of polemics I got chocolate. It was a profitable trade off. (You all know what I’m thinking about, right?).

So I’m avoiding the embrace of a (possible) tar baby. Great. Are there rules I could adopt in case I don’t have chocolate to pull me into a better mind? Like:

Thou shalt not ever link and respond to someone who declares that everyone who disagrees with him is either ignorant or practicing deception.

The problem is that you feel that not responding counts as an admission of guilt. But surely, given the size and amazing level of stupidity in the Internet, no one can be held accountable for not trying to correct every smear?

Still, I don’t think a command will be enough. You have to remind yourself of wisdom.

Though shalt remember that those who would listen to someone who besmirches the character of those who disagree with him must already be so much in his thrall that they are not going to be corrected by you, no matter what. And the rest already know the man is lacking intelligence

Not sure this if this is helpful or not.

No surprise at all: entrepreneurs are not likely to be capitalists

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This is fine, but any claims to inconsistency or surprise simply don’t make sense.

Entrepreneurs are looking for huge payoffs.  They want locked-in mass markets.  Microsoft will make exponentially more money convincing the UN that poor people need computers and should subsidize their distribution than they will selling their product to free people in a market without any other adjectives.

I realize I could go into Microsoft’s own record here and show that they are as likely to advocate free market capitalism as a Detroit union leader is to advocate the unilateral end to all trade restrictions.  But why pretend that Microsoft is so exceptional.  Read tech business news.  When isn’t some company trying to make their living by taking some other company to court over intellectual property.  The world of global mega-corporations is a world of piracy and viking raids.  It is a world of government contracts.  It is a world where the Chines government is always right and if that means we turn over dissidents, then that is just the cost of doing business.  Except that the large businesses don’t even view it as a cost–it is just a freebie that lets them win favor.

I doubt very much that Gates credits the free market with any part of his success.  He saw opportunities and he took them.  Depending on who you read, some number of these opportunities were chances to break rules as much as prosper by playing by them.

If anything, I suspect Gates simply thinks that the thing itself, the computer and software industry, was simply the result of the inevitable process of progress.  It’s not about capitalism.  It’s not about freedom (beyond all the personal freedoms that statists want subsidized).  It is about Microsoft as the true messiah who brings us into the new era.

But, whatever is going on, opportunism is not capitalism.  If an opportunist appreciates a free market, it is only to the extent that he is in a position to use it.  But the free market limits the opportunity of the ambitious as much as it empowers.  So the opportunist moves on without inconsistency to appreciate whatever else might give him his chance to increase power.

Hat Tip: Bobber’s Del.icio.us links

Jandy pwns FOX on computer game ratings

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Unlike this blogger I do have a gripe about FOXNews, which I consider to be a condensation exclusively of all of Rush Limbaugh’s worst features, minus his talent.

But I still would have trusted the description of the game if she hadn’t set the record straight.

It always horrifies when I realize how shows I like are catering to much younger viewers. During the last season of Veronica Mars and Gilmore Girls I had to shut off the TV really fast lest I be tormented by some kind of girl pajama party that would “discuss” the shows and advertise clothing for that age bracket. As far as I am concerned, the show should have never solicited that demographic.

But, that being said, I notice no one at FOXNews reported that children were being exposed to sex, drinking, liberalism, adultery, and law-breaking of various kinds. Video games are somehow attractive for these sorts of hysterical and mostly inaccurate attacks. (Sometimes the attacks are accurate but the game itself is such a loser that the attention of the media is the worst thing that could possibly happen. If they had left it alone, no one would have played it.)

Thorough cultural revolution

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Reading Ozment is forcing me to realize what a comprehensive transformation took place in Northern European culture, which we know as the Protestant Reformation.  Our understanding, I fear, is quite anemic.

For instance, the economic system was a huge part of what the Reformation was about.  There were thousands and thousands of people in the town and cities of Germany who had the right and expectation to simply live off others.  In fact, the role of beggar and monk were more or less on a continuum.  The Reformation preachers and pamphleteers taught that these people were hurting the common working stiff.  If beggars or monks were able-bodied, then they needed to work.  Society should help those who were unable to work–something that could be done much more easily if others were producing rather than demanding their own handouts.

I’m not saying the Reformation affected the economy.  I’m saying economic and political change was the Reformation.

The reason to give up on television

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Dark Angel - Season 1Max Headroom tried, but Dark Angel – The Complete First Season was the best cyberpunk TV season ever. Since Firefly never got a complete season, arguably DA was simply the best sci-fi season ever–the only competition possible would be from Battlestar Gallactica. Second Season was quite different though no less superb (I’m not showing you the cover because it is seriously ugly. I thought for awhile that S2 must have involved a change in actress. I have to assume someone in charge of design had a serious grudge against Alba). I could see readers being thrown a bit as the plot twisted from a more conventional near-future scenario into a more ancient-conspiracy type story with a strong kingdom of the animals feel to it (and one of the DVD commentaries leads me to suspect that 9/11 led the creative team to want to replace the freedom v. feds theme with a bad guy that could leave the feds looking better–which I think was a sad development).

But it was simply great. Especially since a lead protagonist was the Pacific Northwest itself. The future Seattle portrayed and the whole scenario was superb on many levels.

Yet it got cancelled. Why? Did it not get good ratings? Actually the first season, Tuesday night, got fine ratings. The second season was played in a Friday night death slot but still got reasonable ratings. In fact, the Fox Network initially picked it up.
So what was the problem?

Well, Joss Whedon wanted Fox to do Firefly.

But Mark, Firefly was a fantastic show. You’re telling me that Fox had a chance to air two incredibly brilliant shows? Why is that bad?

It is bad, because they were both “high budget” and Fox wouldn’t do both. They picked up Firefly instead.

Oh, that’s too bad. But you’re not declaring a preference for Cameron over Whedon are you? Because then we would have to take away your blog name and kick you out of the fan club and everything.

Right. Because Fox was sooooo loyal to Whedon, airing all of ten out of thirteen shows, and only changing the show time more often than the number of episodes.

No, what we got was two dead scifi shows that were both better than almost any other dramas on television.

That is the reason to give up television. No matter how many advantages that TV series have over movies, the fact remains that no movie-goer is kicked out of the theatre before the story is over. I’m just sick of getting interested in dramas that obviously have a multi-season story arc die before their time for completely bogus reasons.

Sheriff: SWAT Team Necessary Because Man Is a “Self-Proclaimed Constitutionalist”

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From the Reason blog.

My political take-away: more evidence of the country in the handbasket going you know where.

My personal take-away: be really nice and compliant to officials unless you want to be terrorized at gun point.  The “triumph” of getting away with rudeness is just not worth the risk.  Face it: we’re slaves.  So be a smart slave.

hat tip

At risk of sounding like a conspiratorial homeschooler

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even though I don’t homeschool….

As Ron Paul pointed out, the real conspiriacy is a conspiriacy of ideas.  My point is that there is a conspiracy of incentives.

It isn’t just “the public school establishment” that opposes homeschooling.  The entire corporate culture of the Western world thrives on making deals to get access to mass markets on the best terms possible.  Offering expensive medication to the few that will be diagnosed is not enough for the mental “health” pharma industry (for example).  No.  They are much better off with mandatory “screening” and diagnosing and proscribing in public schools.  The more children are allowed to opt out, the less they have to win.

And what is true of the pharmacracy is true of many other corporations.

Here is the inspiration for this post.