Jesus, Buddha & Socrates Need Help--Part 1: Through the Lens of William (Patrick) Ophuls

 Actually, the title is erroneous. Jesus, Buddha, and Plato don’t need help—we do. Whether one follows the way of salvation set for in the Gospels, the path to enlightenment offered by the Buddha, or the way of wisdom explored by Socrates, unless one dives in head-first via a monastic or hermetic life, one must remain in a sinful and imperfect world. This is the world of politics, of deciding who gets what, when, and how. It’s a world of compromise, imperfection, and—quite often—dirty hands. It’s a world marked by corruption and decay, punctuated with periods of growth in wealth, knowledge, and well-being. The worm is always in the flower. How do these avatars of love and wisdom expect us to live in this imperfect world? 

Jesus, in the traditional view, would have us defer to a world to come. Some argue that his vision was of this world, and that a social upheaval would reveal the Kingdom of God is among us. But a New Heaven and a New Earth have not come to pass. The parousia has not occurred. Life has gone on. Politics has gone on, and Jesus left no theory of politics. Only from the scraps, such as “Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and render unto God what belongs to God”. Any Christian theory of politics arises from scraps of scripture that give us some inkling of how Jesus and his New Testament followers came to think about this world. Only long after the time of Jesus and Paul did Christianity attempt to come to grips with the continuing reality of the world and the need to address the demands of social, political, and economic life. As to politics, the work of St. Augustine and his idea of the City of God and the City of Man, of dividing divine reality from human reality, became the most significant statement of how Christianity would address the demands of this world. Medieval political thinkers developed the theory of the Two Swords—the need for both religious and secular governance—and St. Thomas Aquinas folded Aristotelian thought and its political insights into the Christian worldview. But thoughts of a coherent and compelling union of political insights with Christianity never worked in a fully logical, coherent manner. Finally, Niccolò Machiavelli in Renaissance Florence turned the Christian “Mirror of Princes” literature upside down. Instead of promoting the cultivation of Christian virtues by rulers, Machiavelli called for a divorce of religious ethics from political ethics. Notwithstanding a great deal of resistance and disdain, the divorce occurred. What Machiavelli might have left standing, Thomas Hobbes finished off.

I learned most of what I wrote above by the time I finished college, well versed in both Christianity and the Western political tradition. But what about the Buddhist tradition that has taken hold in the West and that has influenced me? What is the Buddha’s theory of politics? It turns out, like Jesus, he didn’t have a theory of politics. (Plato, creator of “Socrates”, leaves a more ambiguous legacy.)

I had occasion to raise this issue with a man who seemed to be the perfect person to address it: William (Patrick) Ophuls, former Foreign Service officer, Yale-trained political scientist, Northwestern University professor, author of four books on the politics of scarcity and long-term trends in history—and most significantly—a long-time practitioner of Buddhist insight meditation. Ophuls directed me to an essay he’d written entitled “The Politics of Meditation” (contained as an appendix in his book The Buddha Takes No Prisoners). In it, he considers these issues and compels us to think more deeply about them. 

In his essay, Ophuls argues that the Buddha, despite his admonitions against “false speech” and violence, implicitly condones political choices that may—at least to some degree—entail deception or violence. Ophuls recounts Buddha’s encounter with King Pasenadi of Koasala, a warrior-king who made decisions of life and death. But the Buddha did not rebuke him or condemn him; in fact, after the King left, the Buddha remarked to followers “that the monarch’s views were ‘monuments to the Dhamma.’” Ophuls, Patrick (2012-05-29). Buddha Takes No Prisoners: A Meditator's Survival Guide (Kindle Locations 1758-1759). North Atlantic Books. Kindle Edition. Ophuls also points out that Buddha maintained good relations with rulers, which given the significance of his movement (he gained many followers and altered the social fabric) is no small feat. (Contrast these successful dealings with rulers and the Buddha’s long life with the collision course with political authorities, both Roman and Jewish, that Jesus embarked upon from the beginning of his ministry and that led to his execution after only about three years of activity.) Based on Buddha’s remarks and history (and remember that Buddha was the son of a king trained to serve as a king), Ophuls concludes “there indeed exists an implicit politics of dharma— a politics that contradicts many contemporary attitudes and opinions, because the Buddha taught a way of personal liberation, not a political ideology.” Id. 1752-1754. So what does this “implicit” politics of dharma look like? And even if not a “political ideology”, it contradicts “many contemporary attitudes and opinions” (but not all). So how do we practice it? Ophuls does not provide a direct answer, but he goes on to explore the contours of the issue: 

Thus although he was an exponent of nonviolence, the Buddha was not a pacifist as we would understand that term. Nor did he oppose the death penalty.

. . . .

How could this be? How could the Buddha, who made nonharming the foundation of his morality, seemingly condone the king’s violence? The answer is simple, if unpalatable to contemporary sensibilities: men are not angels, so government is a necessary evil; but government rests on coercion; ergo, those who govern must be willing and able to use violent means to keep the peace and defend the realm. The Buddha’s praise of King Pasenadi tacitly acknowledged that those who rule must employ force when necessary.

Id. 1754-1755; 1759-1763

Ophuls also describes the actions of Hadrian upon his appointment as Trajan’s successor: Hadrian directed the assassination of three would-be rivals who would likely have fomented civil war in order to challenge Hadrian’s claim. Many lives and great losses would have resulted from another Roman civil war—three lives to allow two decades of peace and prosperity. A fair trade or an unmitigated evil deed? Along similar lines, Ophuls recounts the tale of the Bhagavad Gita and Arjuna’s lament at the death and destruction that he has asked to rain upon his teachers and kinsman. Krishna rebukes Arjuna and directs him to follow his karma, his destiny. From this line of thought, Ophuls concludes: 

So the Buddha’s penetrating intelligence took in the whole panorama of human existence, seeing it in a dispassionate light and from an ecological perspective. Different personalities at different stages of spiritual development have divers social roles and responsibilities. Only a minority is called to be ordained as a monk or nun— and therefore to a vow of absolute nonharming in this lifetime. And a good thing too, because if the majority tried to devote their lives to full- time spiritual practice, then who would grow the crops, tend the cows, and weave the cloth?

Id. 1774-1778

Ophuls enjoins us to follow our karma. If we are called to serve as monks, we must follow a monk’s ethic; if called to rule, we must follow a ruler’s ethic. The “good” is thus not defined by the act itself, but by its intention—the how and why of an action count more than the physics of the action. Ophuls writes: 

To put it another way, the key to morality is volition; it is intention, not the deed itself, which creates karma. Hence, the karmic fruit of executions motivated by cruelty or vengeance will be quite different from those motivated by a sincere desire to preserve civil society from criminal depredation. This does not mean that there is no karma attached to being a ruler— as King Pasenadi, who had attained some wisdom precisely by fulfilling his royal dharma, himself acknowledged. But it does mean that we cannot apply absolute standards to the relative world. From the absolute standpoint proclaimed by the Buddha, the relative world is just what it is: radically imperfect. To try to perfect it is futile and will only entangle us in suffering.

Id. 1787-1792

Bringing his focus back to the contemporary world, Ophuls notes that the insights of the meditation cushion often seem inapplicable to the world of the marketplace and politics. As he so aptly notes, “the Buddhist perspective on politics is not easily reconciled with the political ideology of Berkeley.” Id. 1800-1801. He goes on: “[I]f you wish, you may continue to vote the straight Democratic ticket and to revile wicked Republicans at every opportunity (or vice versa). You can also oppose war, because violence is always bad, while approving abortion, because sometimes it is not (or vice versa). And so forth. But these are worldly positions, not spiritual truths, and your attachment to them will cause suffering in exact proportion to the degree of your attachment.” Id. 1801-1804. Here we see Buddhism meeting political realism, skepticism, and a dash of American pragmatism. We can only work the edges, the intentions. We come to appreciate that logical consistency is rarely found in politics. Although he does not write it, he might have also noted Emerson’s adage that “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds”, thereby revealing how we are truly caught between the Scylla and Charybdis of unworkable logical consistency and self-serving inconsistency. 

Because Buddha and Buddhism eschew any political ideology (certainly a form of mental attachment), we must lighten-up about our political views. Ophuls writes: “[W]e need to let go of all fixed or partisan political views. For a mind stuffed with obstinate opinions and driven by obscure obsessions will not see the world as it truly is: indelibly marked by anatta, anicca, and dukkha. Id. 1804-1806. We have no models for such probity and insight that can serve us as political models, Ophuls concludes. The sangha (community of Buddhist monks) cannot provide a model because of its otherworldly orientation. Ophuls argues, “the dharma is not, nor can it ever be, political in the usual sense—that is, concerned with reconciling contending interests, instead of fostering wisdom and virtue”. Id. 1825-1826. 

Ophuls suggests that the Buddha’s ideal of the political would be like that of Socrates in Plato’s Republic: “[L]et wisdom and virtue reign over humankind. However, like Socrates, the Buddha knew very well that philosophers would not be kings nor kings philosophers, so this ideal state of affairs—hard enough to achieve within the sangha itself—could not be imposed on entire societies.” Id. 1811-1813. What Ophuls does not say (and what I find implicitly troubling in his book title, Plato’s Revenge) is that Plato, at least in the Republic, is profoundly anti-political. Whether Plato intended the Republic as only a thought-experiment or as an actual political blueprint, he, along with Buddha and Jesus, leaves us without a working political theory. We have to continue to construct our political understanding in light of these profound insights but without explicit guidance. For more explicit guidance, we must turn elsewhere. 

Ophuls opines on further on the limits of politics from a Buddhist perspective, writing that: 

A further blow to idealism in politics is the deeply conditioned nature of existence. Because everything arises dependent on the arising of other things, social and political reality is the product of a long chain of causes and conditions. These causes and conditions produce very different realities at different times and places, and these distinct realities place strict limits on what is possible. Thus wisdom and virtue cannot be imposed by fiat on a recalcitrant world. Nor can we specify the one best political system for all people, everywhere, at all times, because what is appropriate at a given time and place depends on circumstances.

1826-1830

As an example of his assessment, he notes that

 “contemporary belief to the contrary notwithstanding, liberal democracy is no panacea. Without the right intellectual, cultural, and social foundation, it will fail. Imposing its trappings in defiance of conditions creates a sham democracy at best; at worst, it produces rampant corruption, ethnic conflict, and a host of other evils.”

Id. 1831-1833

Ophuls moves to a conclusion stating: 

So it may be that the best and noblest political act is to forget politics and to devote ourselves primarily to training our minds in wisdom and our hearts in compassion , even as we continue to live as householders . The above is not a call to apathy or passivity. But the Buddha’s way is to be clearly aware of the world as it actually is— not as we conceive it to be or would like it to be— and then to respond accordingly. For instance, since dukkha is intrinsic, we are never going to get rid of worldly suffering, only mitigate it to some degree . As Jesus said, “The poor ye shall always have with you,” so don’t look to Caesar to end poverty (or any other social evil) anytime soon. There is no political remedy for what ails this world, and if we imprudently try to inflict one, the inevitable result will be more of the inquisitions, gulags, revolutions, reigns of terror, and wars-to-end-all-wars that disfigure human history.

Id. 1835-1842

Add the unreality of annata (non-self), the workings of karma, and the realities of entropy and political decay, and Ophuls seems to be saying “fogetaboutit”. He writes: “Politics is also a vast and utterly impersonal process indelibly marked by dukkha, anicca, and anatta—a process that we poorly understand and can only pretend to manage, except at the margins”. Id. 1850-1852. Ophuls concludes: “Better to devote ourselves to acquiring wisdom and virtue instead of contending for wealth and power, even vicariously. This way, and this way alone, is the real political revolution and the sole remedy for human suffering.” Id. 1853-1855

But while Ophuls denigrates the possibilities for satisfactory action in politics, his actions betray his words. He has written four books about politics and social change. Ask Keynes: ideas, whether for good or ill, deeply affect us, and I doubt Ophuls would have taken the time and effort to write his books about politics if he hadn’t intended to effect political thinking and political action. And as he writes above, we can hope to affect politics “at the margins”. Is marginal control worth it? Yes, it is. Politics is about the future of the nitty-gritty world that we share outside our immediate family and friends, and one that effects our well-being and all of those with whom we share this Earth. So while Ophuls correctly notes that liberal democracy won’t work for all polities, it works for some (and for some better than others). Thus, it is worthwhile to struggle against the corruption of American democracy by the dominance of Big Money. Will we perfect it? No, but we can correct it and thereby create something better for our future. 

The quality of life we live is this world has improved because of politics (and despite it, too). The quality of life has also declined because of political decisions. But with all of the ups and downs, we enjoy a better quality of life than our ancestors. Humanity has progressed. It could fail miserably, and our current civilization certainly will and must undergo some profound changes. Those changes could go completely awry, or, as Ophuls implies in Plato’s Revenge, a changed world could retain a worthwhile quality of life with the right models of politics, ethics, and economics. We don’t know how our decisions will play out, but we will be making decisions that will shape our future, and the most important of those decisions will be made in the political arena. So while Platonists focus on the lure of appearances, Buddhist monks on Mara, and Christian monks on the “Kingdom come”, we have to live our lives in this world. 

Generation after generation, we have attempted to make life better: better by less pain, better by less violence, and better by more opportunities to explore human potential. Social and political change is a very messy process with many instances of backsliding. It’s also a process fraught with ethical dilemmas and traps that can increase our own delusion, hatred, and clinging. That’s why we must constantly seek guidance—wisdom. 

From this work by Ophuls and my other readings about Buddhism, I conclude that Buddhism has no political theory. It has no doctrine of political ethics. Yet it remains relevant to political actors because of its profound insights into human reality. As a master ethic based on the deepest insights into the human mind, the insights of Buddhism have the ability to profoundly effect any decision, whether personal or political. It doesn’t provide rules; it provides insight. While I’d like clear rules and bright lines, I find none. But my more mature self (such as it is—or isn’t) appreciates the importance and reality of the lack of timeless guidelines or fixed rules. Reality and the Buddha impose freedom and choice upon us, and we must embrace it. 

In a future essay, I’ll explore a Christian outlook on these issues. By exploring, we learn.  

E.J. Dionne in London on London (and the other cities)

Interesting follow-up to the last post (on Goldstone). Here we have Dionne talking the politics of all of this (in GB). We (democracies) have a problem having an adult debate. Yes, condemn, arrest, and punish. Stop rioting, but riots don't just grow on trees, they grow out of bad conditions. No rioting here on Magowan Ave. Wonder why not? We can't condone or reward, but we (and I say "we" because it can happen here) or the Brits would be dumb not to address causes. We'll see.

Niall Ferguson: Technology as a Two-Edged Sword

Niall Ferguson notes that while technology gets some credit for recent democratic uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East, it's not all about sweetness and light. The bad guys (terrorists) use it also, for instance, to recruit, train, plan, and act. Technology make take us to heaven, or to hell (or remain in a sort of purgatory, like watching most television).

Bryan Caplan on Amy Chua on Markets & Democracy: Not Always a Great Couple?

Very nerdy.

Caplan provides a brief description of Chua's World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability. Chua argues that while ethnic minorities often are economic leaders in a society, and are thereby subject to resentment, they benefit most from market reforms.However, because of resentment, they suffer when majority voters promote punitive policies toward them. Caplan challenges her assumptions. However, either way, its a brief reminder that markets and democracy isn't all sweetness and light when it roles in. Think of the North African nations: whither will they go? (I don't know if they have much in the way of ethnic minorities, however.) Thought-provoking.

Mark Lilla on Obama's Sales Problem; or The Passions

I found this a very interesting article. It follows my interest in persuasion, both as a professional concern (ever try to convince 8 or 12 strangers to come to a unanimous conclusion about some disputed point?) and personal (to paraphrase Sartre: hell is having no persuasive influence over people). I think Lilla is right about Obama; indeed, Obama has been poisoned, as are most persons who go through law school. We try to think all about rational argument. Nonsense! Oh, it's the icing on the cake, the flower of the plant, but only that. Persuasion is truly effective at much deeper levels. Obama should remember that he was elected by passion, misdirected or misunderstood as it may have been. For instance, Obama did not run as any kind of radical, at least in policy, although in person, as an African-American, he personally embodied huge change. But in policy? No, he has always been relatively centrist and conciliatory.

Anyway, the article, and the brief intellectual history are all worthwhile. How do you deal with Plato's triumvirate vying for power in each of us? Still, more than a couple of millenia on, a really key question.

Krugman on Bush Tax Cuts: Don't Cut a Deal!

I have given and want to continue to give the Obama Administration every benefit of the doubt on most issues. I appreciate that to get things done with Congress or foreign nations (not to mention family!), you sometimes have to make deals that are less than ideal. However, sometimes you have to just say NO! So I see the need to stand firm on several upcoming issues: the Bush tax cuts for the uber-wealthy, DADT repeal, and ratification of the new START treaty. On the tax cuts, the subject of the post today, Democrats, led by the President himself, should make it clear: Republicans would rather raise taxes on everyone than let the very richest suffer a modest tax increase. Republicans would let unemployment benefits expire for those hardest hit by their recession. I agree with Krugman, and I learned from Bill Clinton. On this, it's time to draw the line in the sand. BTW, I sent the following message this morning to Senator Harkin (Grassley, of course, is hopeless).

Dear Senator Harkin,
I strongly urge you to work to repeal the Bush tax cuts for highest tax brackets. I understand that the Administration and the Republicans are looking at a deal, but the deal is a bum one for U.S. fiscal policy, for deficit reduction, for the health of programs supporting those most in need, and for the soul and spine of the Democratic Party. I urge you to resist such a deal. Of course, Congress should extend unemployment benefits, but not at the price of Republican blackmail.

Thanks for your attention to this and for your work on our behalf.

Steve Greenleaf

Walt: Too Secure? A Message to the Senate

I may just send this link to my U.S. senators, especially Senator Grassley, whom I fear may be playing the anything-to-defeat-Obama tune that many, if not most, Senate Republicans seem willing to play. How sad!

The Republican attitude here gives us an understanding of what "playing politics" means. First, it means trying to gain electoral advantage and ignoring the real work of political decision-making. Because most voters can be fooled by posturing, or really believe in the posture taken, Republicans can claim the need for a "strong defense", when in fact, as Walt argues, it goes the other way. Second, the "playing" in "playing politics" demonstrates a childishness in the actions taken. Of course, both sides do it on occasion, but we expect--or should expect--most to rise above it.* I don't have a problem with genuine differences of opinion and perception, but many instances we're seeing either intentional cynincism or group delusion at work.

*Play can be a good thing for adults, I should add. I play--volleyball, basketball, etc.--all the time. I go to "plays", but this is different.)

Walt & Colleagues: Cut Defense Budget

Stephen Walt and other foreign policy realists, among others, are saying the plainly obvious: we have to cut the defense budget in order to get our national fiscal house in order. When it seems the nation is completely daft on this issues, it's reassuring to see those who think most deeply on this topic speak some sense. One only hopes that the newly minted deficit hawk Republicans pay attention to this.

Dave Brooks on the Deficit Reduction Commission

Dave Brooks takes a look at this issue from the big picture, and he makes important points. While Krugman goes for the details, Brooks does a good job of trying to see the big picture. I wold hasten to note, however, the Krugman has expressed a very real appreciation of the danger of the deficit, and he's not moved by the fear of bond markets that Brooks, like Niall Ferguson,share. Both express a fear of market collapse. Nonetheless, I think Brooks joins the debate. In the end, to reduce this deficit, we're going to have to do some things differently. Cut defense spending significantly would be a great start. Maintaining slightly higher taxes on the wealthiest would also be fine by me. Ending breaks for economic interests that don't serve the general welfare would work for me. A higher retirement age for Social Security? Perhaps for some. Anyway, we should engage in a vigorous public debate on these issues and take steps to reduce the deficit, but not by hurting those at the lowest end of the economic spectrum.

Friedman, Shiller, etc. Miscellaney

Tom Friedman provides a persuasive and succinct description of the Tea Party Movement as a political phenomena. The Tea Party strikes me as having no coherent set of ideas or platform, just a populist outpouring against the world as it is. I think that Obama has the ability and aspirations to reach out and accomplish what Friedman wants, and what he sees as the real problems behind the Tea Kettle party phenomena, but the body politic does seem to be really mired in limited--if not downright stupid--thinking.

In the NYT today, Friedman opens with a quote from Lewis Mumford. This alone merits a shout-out, as Mumford was a great American humanist (for lack of a more specific term), and long-time favorite of mine. In Friedman's article a quote from Mumford is taken from his impressionistic account of history, and more specifically, that of the declining Roman empire. I think that we have to be careful of the "we're the new Rome" stuff, but still, it's a thought-provoking piece, and it allows Friedman to trumpet an important message. Friedman floats the idea of a third-party, a tried and true perspective in American politics (and one that can influence events, but not since the Republican Lincoln, have none have gained power at the presidential level). The problem, as I see it, is that Obama gets criticized for acting too conciliatory and non-partisan. What perspectives or attitudes could a, for instance, Bloomberg add to the national dialogue? If anything, maybe Obama and the Democrats need to act more boldly and move more to the left. Anyway, thanks for quoting Mumford, Tom.

Robert Shiller in the NYT today takes about "animal spirits" (again) in describing how attitudes effect economic outlooks and performance. Yea, Keynes, who wrote in English (although he spoke mathematics very fluently) seems to have his pulse on our situation. Another instance of human behavior not following the guidelines that mainstream economics says that we should.

Finally, a quick note: an article in the NYT about an upcoming series on PBS on religion in America. You cannot understand America if you don't have some grasp of its religious history and its current manifestations in their incredible variety. Sounds promising.

Wills and Obama & Afghanistan

I just read a new NYRB blog entry by Garry Wills really laying into President Obama for Obama's decision to send more troops to Afghanistan. http://blogs.nybooks.com/post/265874686/afghanistan-the-betrayal. The piece is painful to read. I fear greatly that Wills is correct in thinking that further efforts in Afghanistan will remain futile, wasting lives and resources. However, most troubling, is the sense of betrayal. To some extent I'm not sympathetic, in that Obama emphasized the need to take care of business in Afghanistan during the campaign. Yet, the situation only looks worse and worse. Worse yet, Wills reaction—and he's certainly not alone in this— looks like a reaction that could divide Obama supporters and give an opening to the Right—and the only Right remaining is the kooky right. Thoughts of LBJ and Viet Nam haunt me and many like me. This is not good. I will give Obama the benefit of the doubt, hoping that my fears will not be realized and that we will be on track to leave sooner rather than later, with a minimal loss of life. At this point, I can only hope. I cannot pull the plug on supporting Obama, his intentions and abilities are not those of Bush, but I do fear. I do fear.

Anti-Obama Demonstrators: What Motives?

I read about Jimmy Carter's interview where he seems to be back speaking truth to power. In this case, he offers his opinion that much of the vehement opposition to Obama comes from racism. Put simply, some cannot accept a Black president. Seeing and hearing what I have of late, I'm inclined to agree with him, at least this is a factor. I respect libertarianism, philosophical anarchism, free market economics, and traditionalists. However, many protesters strike me as clearly irrational—Obama is not a Nazi, not a Communist, and not a Kenyan, etc. On cannot locate a coherent argument in much of the popular discontent.

Reflecting on the above, I have developed the following hypothesis: Civilization (and its cultural carrier, education) represents the project of overcoming –or fast-forwarding—evolution. Our "gut—most primitive—instincts promote us to distrust the Other. This could be the result of a survival trait. The Other is a competitor in a harsh, Malthusian environment. Thus, in the words of contemporary psychology, we see the difference between System 1(fast, down-and-dirty heuristics) and System 2 (reflective and reasoning). Thus, the Socratic project (Socrates as the proto-type of reasoning man in the West) and his Axial Age counter-parts represent forces working in favor of System 2 (Reason). However, Socrates and his ilk have not triumphed after 2000 plus years. We find that each generation must pass through its own learning sequence; indeed, each individual must do so, and not all make it. Thus, physical and cultural evolution must undergo a constant recapitulation for the Socratic project of reason to succeed. (I would posit Buddha as perhaps the best-known Eastern counter-part of Socrates and the tradition of reason.)

The bloody and genocidal 20^th century demonstrates how tenuous the sway of reason and rationality are upon us. A part of the Socratic project must include a measure of liberty and liberality. Plato's mistake—pointed out by the likes of Hayek and Popper—arises from thinking that reason ("Reason") compels a particular answer to any problem—but it doesn't, it can't. An answer cannot be compelled because we don't have the resources of time, computing power, and insight to know for sure the "right" answer to most problems. Freedom to explore and toleration of exploration by others becomes a hallmark of modernity. Liberty and liberalism must include a public space in the sense defined by Hannah Arendt: space to literally and figuratively interact, explore, and create.

So what's all this to do with Obama and the racism manifesting against him? Racism seems to me a cultural artifact of System 1, now deeply ingrained in some sub-cultures. It represents the primitive instinct of distrust and aggression toward the Other. However, while the distrust of the Other comes from the primitive (shall we say reactionary?), racism as a manifestation exists only as a cultural creation. Racial differences that seem so stark to some are in fact trivial biologically. As a social (or cultural) creation, race is huge; as biology, it's next to nothing. However, think of the education (formal and informal), intelligence, and open-mindedness that one needs in order to weigh and judge from such a perspective.

In the end, we will have to battle racism and other forms of prejudice for a long time to come. However, I do believe that the tide continues to turn, and the world changes for the better. But it is all so tenuous!

Addendum with a couple of quick points:

• Jimmy Carter improves with age. I think that he's now 85! Happy birthday, Jimmy!
  
• Dave Brooks in his NYT article "No, It's Not All About Race" counters the racism argument by saying it's all native populism. Part right, I think (as usual).
  
• Frank Rich in the NYT "Even Glen Beck Gets It Right Twice a Day" has the most insightful take in my opinion.
  
• After writing all of the above, Stephen Colbert weighed-in on the issue "The Word: Blackwashing" and skewered it the way only he can. Interestingly, the audience groaned more than laughed at Stephen's extreme take, which tells me that he was hitting some nerves.

Garry Wills on the Entangled Giant

Garry Wills just published a piece in the NY Review of Books, "Entangled Giant", on how the Obama Administration continues some of the policies and attitudes of the Bush Administration. How discouraging! How frightening! Wills argues that since the Second World War that we have been in a perpetual state of war that has eroded the Constitution (that quaint old document),that has seen the growing ascendency of the executive branch, and that begins to buy into ideas like the theory of the unitary executive. Wills sees the Obama Administration surrendering to the inertia of past practices, the inertia of a government so big and powerful that no one can completely control it. I fear that Wills may be correct, all of my hopes for Obama notwithstanding. The only way to prevent a further slide will come from those willing to speak up in opposition. I'm not talking about becoming a pacifist or sit down strikes, but making principled arguments to overcome this terrible inertia. For those who may not have a sense of what I'm writing about, read Jane Mayer's The Dark Side about the abuses of the Bush Administration. The book made me both ashamed (of what my country did) and frightened (for what it might do, even to its own citizens). Tyranny can become real, and I'm not a right-wing nut—far from it!

Number crunching & rational actors in political science

I've critiqued economists who believe in purely rational actors and markets, but this is not to critique number crunching in general. Indeed, a recent NYT Magazine article on an NYU political scientist is quite tantalizing. An article by Clive Thompson titled "Can Game Theory Predict When Iran Will Get the Bomb?" focuses on the work of Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, who trained at Michigan and developed his ideas based on the work of William Striker at Rochester University. Bueno de Mesquita claims quite a track record forecasting events using an acute analysis of the players in the decision-making and an analysis of their levels of interest and commitment and power. Also, he uses a theory of coalitions. It seems that this works very well. I must say that I'm happy to learn that Bueno de Mesquita doesn't make forecasts by percentages: it either happens (his particular forecast) or it doesn't.

I was very interested to learn that he interviews players and learns as much about them as possible before making any predictions (i.e., feeding data into his proprietary program). Thus, a very human element remains. It appears that a computer can perform calculations of coalitions and run scenarios that no single human mind could manage. So be it. But how does one filter out "the passions"? I can understand that reason and interests sort themselves out over the long run, but the passions can hit like a sudden summer thunderstorm: brief but forceful. Perhaps those are the forecasts that don't work out--or that suffer from the random event. Query: how would his prediction about approval of a health care reform bill be affected by Ted Kennedy's death? (Apparently forecasting Clinton's effort was a miss for him.) So, in the end, I admire the work but I still believe that we can go wrong placing too much emphasis on the predictable based on induction. Too many Black Swans swim around in reality ready to appear out of nowhere.

McNanmara: Man of Compassion?

I came across a very interesting piece by legal and international relations scholar Phillip Bobbitt recently. He wrote a piece for the NYT about Robert McNamara "Calculus and Compassion". In it, he relates how his uncle, none other than Lyndon Johnson, described McNamara as the most compassionate man in his cabinet. A far cry from the public that later came to demonize McNamara during his tenure as Secretary of Defense. However, it doesn't surprise me, as a viewer of "The Fog of War", the documentary about McNamara directed by Errol Morris. The film is poignant, and McNamara a sympathetic figure. (Thanks to my friend F for watching it with me this summer after McNamara's death, along with a viewing of "Thirteen Days"). I highly commend the film ("Fog of War") and the column for a consideration of this complex, and in some ways, tragic figure.