Last night at the Old Theater in Oriental, we had a showing of the movie Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
It's among my favorite movies, but I had never seen it on the big screen. When the movie came out in 1964, I was too busy learning how to be a department head on a destroyer to see movies. That spring, I spent some weeks in Norfolk, Virginia learning about nuclear weapons and their control and use.
The previous fall, at 1:00 pm November 22, 1963, I had joined my fellow students in the US Naval Destroyer School at a command performance - a speech by the US Navy's Chief of Naval Personnel. As the Admiral stepped up to the podium, we muttered among ourselves wondering if he knew the president had been shot. He showed no sign of awareness. The speech turned out to be an attack on the defense policies of the Kennedy administration and, in particular, those of Defense Secretary MacNamara and his "whiz kids."
About half way through the speech, the admiral's aid approached the podium and handed the admiral a note. The admiral read it and said, "I regret to inform you that the president has died." He then completed his speech.
After that, I would have to say that nothing in the dialogue of General Jack D. Ripper, General Turgidson, Colonel Bat Guano, or any of the other outrageous characters in the movie seemed impossible. In particular, Major Kong as played by Slim Pickens, was spot on.
There was much about our national obsession with and fear of the Soviet Union and Soviet Communism in those years that was irrational. A movie like this does a great service by revealing absurdities instead of taking them too seriously.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Darwin and the Anarchist Prince
About five years after Charles Darwin published his book On the Origin of Species, a young Russian army officer, Prince Peter Kropotkin, became involved in geographic and biological research in Siberia and Manchuria.
Kropotkin resigned from the Army in 1867, continuing to work as a scientist and also as a revolutionary. Even after arrest and incarceration in St. Petersburg's Peter and Paul Fortress, Kropotkin continued writing important scientific papers.
Later exiled in Western Europe, Kropotkin became prominent as an anarchist, though not of the bomb-throwing kind.
In addition to his activities in anarchist circles, Kropotkin continued writing on scientific subjects.
In 1902, Kropotkin published the book, Mutual Aid: a Factor in Evolution, based on his scientific research of four decades earlier. The conclusion of his book took direct aim at Social Darwinism's claims:
"In the animal world we have seen that the vast majority of species live in societies, and that they find in association the best arms for the struggle for life: understood, of course, in its wide Darwinian sense – not as a struggle for the sheer means of existence, but as a struggle against all natural conditions unfavourable to the species. The animal species, in which individual struggle has been reduced to its narrowest limits, and the practice of mutual aid has attained the greatest development, are invariably the most numerous, the most prosperous, and the most open to further progress. The mutual protection which is obtained in this case, the possibility of attaining old age and of accumulating experience, the higher intellectual development, and the further growth of sociable habits, secure the maintenance of the species, its extension, and its further progressive evolution. The unsociable species, on the contrary, are doomed to decay."
– Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902), Conclusion
In other words, Kropotkin suggests that altruism, so denigrated by Ayn Rand and her followers, plays an important role in the success of the human species.
Interestingly, recent scientific research lends weight to Kropotkin's views. A recent book, Supercooperators: Altruism, Evolution and Why We Need Each Other To Succeed , by Martin A. Nowak, examines the issues. Here is an interesting review of the book.
Even conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks has reported in a recent column about research substantiating the importance of collective achievement as opposed to individual efforts.
Kropotkin resigned from the Army in 1867, continuing to work as a scientist and also as a revolutionary. Even after arrest and incarceration in St. Petersburg's Peter and Paul Fortress, Kropotkin continued writing important scientific papers.
Later exiled in Western Europe, Kropotkin became prominent as an anarchist, though not of the bomb-throwing kind.
In addition to his activities in anarchist circles, Kropotkin continued writing on scientific subjects.
In 1902, Kropotkin published the book, Mutual Aid: a Factor in Evolution, based on his scientific research of four decades earlier. The conclusion of his book took direct aim at Social Darwinism's claims:
"In the animal world we have seen that the vast majority of species live in societies, and that they find in association the best arms for the struggle for life: understood, of course, in its wide Darwinian sense – not as a struggle for the sheer means of existence, but as a struggle against all natural conditions unfavourable to the species. The animal species, in which individual struggle has been reduced to its narrowest limits, and the practice of mutual aid has attained the greatest development, are invariably the most numerous, the most prosperous, and the most open to further progress. The mutual protection which is obtained in this case, the possibility of attaining old age and of accumulating experience, the higher intellectual development, and the further growth of sociable habits, secure the maintenance of the species, its extension, and its further progressive evolution. The unsociable species, on the contrary, are doomed to decay."
– Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902), Conclusion
In other words, Kropotkin suggests that altruism, so denigrated by Ayn Rand and her followers, plays an important role in the success of the human species.
Interestingly, recent scientific research lends weight to Kropotkin's views. A recent book, Supercooperators: Altruism, Evolution and Why We Need Each Other To Succeed , by Martin A. Nowak, examines the issues. Here is an interesting review of the book.
Even conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks has reported in a recent column about research substantiating the importance of collective achievement as opposed to individual efforts.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
The Great Commoner
A couple of weeks ago, Turner Classic Movies showed "Inherit the Wind," a powerful drama with Spencer Tracy as a fictionalized Clarence Darrow-like character and Frederick March as a fictionalized version of William Jennings Bryan.
The setting was the 1925 "Scopes Monkey Trial" in Dayton, TN of a high school biology teacher who taught his students Darwin's theory of evolution.
The drama presents Bryan as a narrow-minded religious fanatic. Bryan was, in fact, a fundamentalist Presbyterian who objected to Darwin's theories as contrary to the Bible. The movie's unflattering and inaccurate caricature of Bryan misrepresented a major source of the man's emotional opposition to evolution.
In a 1905 speech, Bryan objected that "the Darwinian theory represents man reaching his present perfection by the operation of the law of hate, the merciless law by which the strong crowd out and kill off the weak. If this is the law of our development then, if there is any logic that can bind the human mind, we shall turn backward to the beast in proportion as we substitute the law of love. I choose to believe that love rather than hatred is the law of development."
In other words, what had aroused Bryan's ire was the Social Darwinism that had made such claims.
While on the one hand, Bryan was a fundamentalist, he was also a theological and social liberal. He dedicated himself to the Social Gospel, an important school of religious thought emphasizing the need for Christians to serve their fellow man, including giving their lives to public service.
In a word, he believed in altruism.
The setting was the 1925 "Scopes Monkey Trial" in Dayton, TN of a high school biology teacher who taught his students Darwin's theory of evolution.
The drama presents Bryan as a narrow-minded religious fanatic. Bryan was, in fact, a fundamentalist Presbyterian who objected to Darwin's theories as contrary to the Bible. The movie's unflattering and inaccurate caricature of Bryan misrepresented a major source of the man's emotional opposition to evolution.
In a 1905 speech, Bryan objected that "the Darwinian theory represents man reaching his present perfection by the operation of the law of hate, the merciless law by which the strong crowd out and kill off the weak. If this is the law of our development then, if there is any logic that can bind the human mind, we shall turn backward to the beast in proportion as we substitute the law of love. I choose to believe that love rather than hatred is the law of development."
In other words, what had aroused Bryan's ire was the Social Darwinism that had made such claims.
While on the one hand, Bryan was a fundamentalist, he was also a theological and social liberal. He dedicated himself to the Social Gospel, an important school of religious thought emphasizing the need for Christians to serve their fellow man, including giving their lives to public service.
In a word, he believed in altruism.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Altruism and Politics
"Altruism (
/ˈæltruːɪzəm/) is selfless concern for the welfare of others. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures, and a core aspect of various religious traditions, though the concept of 'others' toward whom concern should be directed can vary among religions. Altruism is the opposite of selfishness." - Wikipedia
Altruism is central to the teachings of Jesus as recorded in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) and central to early Christian practices as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles and the epistles of Paul. Altruism is also central to Judaism.
The wealthy and powerful have never believed in altruism. Historically, they claimed immunity due to some variation of divine will. But usually the wealthy and powerful have been big on altruism by ordinary people.
Then along came science.
In the second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, the wealthy welcomed Darwin's theory of natural selection as expounded by certain popularizers ("survival of the fittest"). Social Darwinism was seen as providing scientific justification for why it was meet and proper for wealthy "robber barons" to have accumulated so much wealth. The 1929 crash of Wall Street rather tarnished this claim.
Ayn Rand to the rescue.
Rand (born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum in Russia in 1905), was an atheist novelist, playwright and philosopher who immigrated to the United States in 1926. A 1924 graduate of Petrograd State University in Petrograd, Russia (later Leningrad and now St. Petersburg), she developed a following in this country for her ideas, expressed in two novels and a series of "philosophical" writings.
In short, Rand's philosophy inveighed against altruism and in favor of "rational egoism," i.e. selfishness. She has many followers, prominently including Congressman Ron Paul, Senator Rand Paul, former chairman of the Fed Alan Greenspan, and more recently most adherents of the Libertarian Party and the Tea Party movement. Her particular talent was in "her ability to turn upside down traditional hierarchies and recast the wealthy, the talented, and the powerful as the oppressed."
The wealthy and powerful responded by adopting her right-wing romantic fantasies as their own, and pursuing them as a political program. Here. in their admiring view, was an intellectual underpinning to replace Darwinism as a justification for their wealth.
/ˈæltruːɪzəm/) is selfless concern for the welfare of others. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures, and a core aspect of various religious traditions, though the concept of 'others' toward whom concern should be directed can vary among religions. Altruism is the opposite of selfishness." - WikipediaAltruism is central to the teachings of Jesus as recorded in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) and central to early Christian practices as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles and the epistles of Paul. Altruism is also central to Judaism.
The wealthy and powerful have never believed in altruism. Historically, they claimed immunity due to some variation of divine will. But usually the wealthy and powerful have been big on altruism by ordinary people.
Then along came science.
In the second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, the wealthy welcomed Darwin's theory of natural selection as expounded by certain popularizers ("survival of the fittest"). Social Darwinism was seen as providing scientific justification for why it was meet and proper for wealthy "robber barons" to have accumulated so much wealth. The 1929 crash of Wall Street rather tarnished this claim.
Ayn Rand to the rescue.
Rand (born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum in Russia in 1905), was an atheist novelist, playwright and philosopher who immigrated to the United States in 1926. A 1924 graduate of Petrograd State University in Petrograd, Russia (later Leningrad and now St. Petersburg), she developed a following in this country for her ideas, expressed in two novels and a series of "philosophical" writings.
In short, Rand's philosophy inveighed against altruism and in favor of "rational egoism," i.e. selfishness. She has many followers, prominently including Congressman Ron Paul, Senator Rand Paul, former chairman of the Fed Alan Greenspan, and more recently most adherents of the Libertarian Party and the Tea Party movement. Her particular talent was in "her ability to turn upside down traditional hierarchies and recast the wealthy, the talented, and the powerful as the oppressed."
The wealthy and powerful responded by adopting her right-wing romantic fantasies as their own, and pursuing them as a political program. Here. in their admiring view, was an intellectual underpinning to replace Darwinism as a justification for their wealth.
Friday, April 8, 2011
No Shutdown, But We Still Have a Problem
The good news is that we apparently won't have a government shutdown (at least as of 10:39 p.m. April 8, 2011).
The bad news is that the result is a reduction in government spending.
The worse news is that the deal is based on a lie - that the Great Recession and resulting unemployment resulted from budget deficits and national debt. The assurances that reducing spending will bring back prosperity is worse than a lie. It is a destructive lie.
Reduced spending has the potential to bring our very weak recovery to a screeching halt and initiate a new round of economic decline.
I don't like to sound pessimistic. Under normal circumstances, the budget wrangling would be very important, but not dangerous.
After all, the key issue of any political dispute is "who benefits" and "who pays?"
That is the heart of politics. And it affects everyone's welfare.
Where were the deficit hawks when Reagan and Bush I quadrupled the national debt? Where were they when Bill Clinton left behind a budget surplus and a plan to pay off that debt within a decade?
Were they not listening when Dick Cheney asserted that "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter."
Actually, no Democrat believes that deficits don't matter. It is just that there is a time to cut expenditures and a time to spend more.
If we want jobs, now is the time to spend more.
When the economy recovers, we need to reduce both public and private debt.
The bad news is that the result is a reduction in government spending.
The worse news is that the deal is based on a lie - that the Great Recession and resulting unemployment resulted from budget deficits and national debt. The assurances that reducing spending will bring back prosperity is worse than a lie. It is a destructive lie.
Reduced spending has the potential to bring our very weak recovery to a screeching halt and initiate a new round of economic decline.
I don't like to sound pessimistic. Under normal circumstances, the budget wrangling would be very important, but not dangerous.
After all, the key issue of any political dispute is "who benefits" and "who pays?"
That is the heart of politics. And it affects everyone's welfare.
Where were the deficit hawks when Reagan and Bush I quadrupled the national debt? Where were they when Bill Clinton left behind a budget surplus and a plan to pay off that debt within a decade?
Were they not listening when Dick Cheney asserted that "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter."
Actually, no Democrat believes that deficits don't matter. It is just that there is a time to cut expenditures and a time to spend more.
If we want jobs, now is the time to spend more.
When the economy recovers, we need to reduce both public and private debt.
Euro vs. the Dollar
My graduate professor of international economics, George N. Halm, used to illustrate the phenomenon of runaway inflation (hyperinflation) by telling what life was like when he was a teenager in Germany after World War I.
Professor Halm's mother, a widow, lived on a government pension. Each category of pension was paid on a different day of the week, with widows coming on Friday. By Friday, the value of the pension, which was set on Monday, had dropped out of sight. Even so, he hopped on his bicycle, collected his mother's pension at the pension office and raced around town buying as many household necessities as he could before the value of the money dropped too much farther. The operative principal was to spend the money before it disappeared.
How could shopkeepers know how much to charge? They created an informal price index system. For example, the price of a haircut was indexed to the price of breakfast rolls each morning.
Clearly it was impossible to live that way, and understandably Germans remain paranoid about inflation.
Still, they overdo it. A modest amount of inflation allows price adjustments without triggering deflation. Because of the way the Euro zone was established, the interest rate for the zone is set by the European Central Bank, which is essentially the German Central Bank. They are about to raise the interest rate in the Euro Zone to make sure there is zero inflation in Germany, despite the high probability that this will destroy economic activity in several smaller countries.
It will also place added pressure on the US economy by, among other things, driving up the international price of oil.
Professor Halm's mother, a widow, lived on a government pension. Each category of pension was paid on a different day of the week, with widows coming on Friday. By Friday, the value of the pension, which was set on Monday, had dropped out of sight. Even so, he hopped on his bicycle, collected his mother's pension at the pension office and raced around town buying as many household necessities as he could before the value of the money dropped too much farther. The operative principal was to spend the money before it disappeared.
How could shopkeepers know how much to charge? They created an informal price index system. For example, the price of a haircut was indexed to the price of breakfast rolls each morning.
Clearly it was impossible to live that way, and understandably Germans remain paranoid about inflation.
Still, they overdo it. A modest amount of inflation allows price adjustments without triggering deflation. Because of the way the Euro zone was established, the interest rate for the zone is set by the European Central Bank, which is essentially the German Central Bank. They are about to raise the interest rate in the Euro Zone to make sure there is zero inflation in Germany, despite the high probability that this will destroy economic activity in several smaller countries.
It will also place added pressure on the US economy by, among other things, driving up the international price of oil.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Shutdown?
As of today (April 7, 2011), it looks like we are bound to have a government shutdown.
According to the polls, most Americans recognize that it is the Republicans in the House of Representatives, many of whom have never served in public office before at any level of government, who are driving toward this train wreck.
My concern is not just the adverse effect of a shutdown on my personal situation (my US Navy retirement check is likely to be delayed, and possibly my Social Security check), but more importantly the damage it will do to the economy.
In fact, I am disappointed that no one is explaining that any reduction in government spending is likely to bring our weak recovery to a halt and might even start another downward spiral.
The reason is that we are in a liquidity trap. I have explained this phenomenon before.
If I were of a mind to believe in conspiracies rather than mere incompetence, I would suspect the Republicans in Congress intend to wreck the economy and blame the president.
According to the polls, most Americans recognize that it is the Republicans in the House of Representatives, many of whom have never served in public office before at any level of government, who are driving toward this train wreck.
My concern is not just the adverse effect of a shutdown on my personal situation (my US Navy retirement check is likely to be delayed, and possibly my Social Security check), but more importantly the damage it will do to the economy.
In fact, I am disappointed that no one is explaining that any reduction in government spending is likely to bring our weak recovery to a halt and might even start another downward spiral.
The reason is that we are in a liquidity trap. I have explained this phenomenon before.
If I were of a mind to believe in conspiracies rather than mere incompetence, I would suspect the Republicans in Congress intend to wreck the economy and blame the president.
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