Jann Wenner, the founder and editor in chief of Rolling Stone, interviewed John Lennon in late 1970 (Rolling Stone published the interview, titled "Lennon Remembers," in two parts in early 1971). Wenner asked Lennon, "Do you think you're a genius?" Lennon could have answered that question any number of ways but he chose the best approach--brutal honesty. Here is Lennon's reply:
"Yes. if there is such a thing as one, I am one."
Wenner asked, "When did you first realize it?" Lennon gave this blunt, thoughtful answer:
"When I was about twelve. I used to think, 'I must be a genius, but nobody's noticed' [laughs]. Either I'm a genius or I'm mad, which is it? 'No,' I said, 'I can't be mad, because nobody's put me away; therefore, I'm a genius.' Genius is a form of madness and we're all that way. But I used to be a bit coy about it, like me guitar playing. If there's a thing such as genius, which is just what? What the fuck is it? I am one. And if there isn't, I don't care. But I used to think, when I was a kid, writing me poetry and doing me paintings--I didn't become something when the Beatles made it or you heard about me, I've been like this all me life. Genius is pain, too. It's just pain...Listen, people like me are aware of their genius, so-called, at ten, eight, nine. I always thought I was--why has nobody discovered me? In school, can't they see that I'm cleverer than anybody in this school? That the teachers are stupid, too? That all they had was information, which I didn't need, to give to me? I didn't become aware of it in the Beatle thing. I got fuckin' lost in that, like being in high school or something. I used to say to my auntie, 'You throw my fuckin' poetry out, and you'll regret it when I'm famous!' And she threw the bastard stuff out. I never forgave her for not treating me like a fuckin' genius or whatever I was when I was a child. It was obvious to me! Why didn't they put me in art school? Why didn't they train me? Why would they keep forcing me to be a fuckin' cowboy like the rest of them? I was always different. Why didn't anybody notice me? A couple of teachers would notice me, encourage me to be something or other, to draw or to paint, express meself. But most of the time they were trying to beat me into being a fuckin' dentist or a teacher!"
Wenner asked Lennon if Lennon would take it all back, not be a Beatle and just live a normal life. Lennon declared, "...If I could be a fuckin' fisherman, I would. If I had the capabilities of being something other than I am, I would. It's no fun being an artist. You know what, it's like writing, it isn't fun, it's torture. I read about Van Gogh and Beethoven, any of the fuckers. And I read an article the other day: 'If they'd had psychiatrists, we wouldn't have had Gauguin's great pictures.' I know it sounds silly, and I'd sooner be rich than poor and all the rest of that shit. But the pain, I'd sooner not be--I wish I was...ignorance is bliss or something."
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Is it Ethical to Have a Child?
This world can be a cold, cruel and violent place; millions of babies are born who--because of genes, environment or some toxic combination of both factors--are doomed to suffer mentally, physically and/or emotionally. Is it ethical to bring an innocent, defenseless child into such a world? The answer to that question only seems obvious to people who hold one of two extreme viewpoints--either that life is very beautiful and meaningful or that life is very ugly and meaningless--but if this question is examined in a logical, detached manner it is not at all simple to provide an intelligent and ethically sound answer.
In the April 9, 2012 issue of The New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert reviews three books that discuss the ethics of having children. Christine Overall, author of Why Have Children?: The Ethical Debate, dismisses the notion that because having children is a natural biological function there is no need to justify doing so: "There are many urges apparently arising from our biological nature that we nonetheless should choose not to act upon." Kolbert describes how Overall systematically rejects several of the most common reasons that are offered for having children:
Some people justify the decision to have children on the ground that they are perpetuating a family name or a genetic line. But "is anyone's biological composition so valuable that it must be perpetuated?" Overall asks. Others say that it's a citizen's duty to society to provide for its continuation. Such an obligation, Overall objects, "would make women into procreative serfs."
Still others argue that people ought to have children so there will be someone to care for them in their old age. "Anyone who has children for the sake of the supposed financial support they can provide," Overall writes, is "probably deluded."
Finally, lots of people offer the notion that parenthood will make them happy. Here the evidence is, sadly, against them. Research shows that people who have children are no more satisfied with their lives than people who don't. If anything, the balance tips the other way: parents are less happy. In an instantly famous study, published in Science in 2004, the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman asked nine hundred working women to assess their experiences during the preceding day. The women rated the time they'd spent taking care of their kids as less enjoyable than the time spent shopping, eating, exercising, watching TV, preparing food, and talking on the phone. One of the few activities these women found less enjoyable than caring for their children was doing housework, which is to say cleaning up after them.
But none of this really matters. Procreation for the sake of the parents is ethically unacceptable. "To have a child in order to benefit oneself is a moral error," Overall writes.
The title of David Benatar's book--Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence--makes his opinion very clear. Kolbert explains:
Benatar's title refers to the passage in Sophocles' "Oedipus at Colonus" in which the chorus observes:
Never to have been born is best,
But once you’ve entered this world,
Return as quickly as possible to the place you came from.
It also alludes to an old Jewish saying: "Life is so terrible, it would have been better not to have been born. Who is so lucky? Not one in a hundred thousand."
Kolbert summarizes Benatar's thesis: "Even the best of all possible lives consists of a mixture of pleasure and pain. Had the pleasure been forgone—that is, had the life never been created—no one would have been the worse for it. But the world is worse off because of the suffering brought needlessly into it."
Benatar offers a very harsh conclusion: "One of the implications of my argument is that a life filled with good and containing only the most minute quantity of bad—a life of utter bliss adulterated only by the pain of a single pin-prick—is worse than no life at all." Obviously, if the human race followed his prescription then our species would disappear. Benatar realizes this and has no problem with that conclusion: "Humans have the unfortunate distinction of being the most destructive and harmful species on earth. The amount of suffering in the world could be radically reduced if there were no more" people on Earth.
Bryan Caplan makes the case for the opposing viewpoint in Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent Is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think. Kolbert notes that Caplan's approach is rooted in the economic concept of cost/benefit analysis:
According to Caplan, a professor at George Mason University, the major mistake that parents (or prospective parents) make is overvaluing the present. This is a common enough error. Workers in their twenties and thirties don't save enough money for retirement because it seems such a long way off. Then their sixties roll around, and they wish they'd spent less on S.U.V.s and HDTVs and put more into their 401(k)s.
Couples, he argues, need to think not just about how many children they might want now, when they have better things to do than microwave Similac, but how many they will want to have around when they’re old and lonely and watching "The View."
Not surprisingly for someone who attacks this question from an economics angle, Caplan is certain that he has a formula that precisely calculates the optimal number of children for each couple to have based on the prospective parents' ages, future plans and so forth; Kolbert provides a wry parenthetical comment: "Unfortunately, he does not explain what parents should do if their ideal number of children includes a fraction."
Most people would probably agree that it is not ethical to place someone in a situation that might cause suffering without first getting informed consent from that potential sufferer. An unborn child cannot offer such consent, so from that standpoint it is hard to argue that it is an ethically sound decision to have a child. That brings us to Benatar's argument; clearly, if no one had children the human race would become extinct. Benatar thinks that this would actually lead to less suffering (presumably not just for humans but also for other species that suffer or even become extinct due to the actions of humans). This issue is more complex than the first one but it essentially requires providing an answer to this question: Does the overall amount of happiness in the world equal or exceed the overall amount of suffering? Only if the answer to that question is "yes" can it possibly be justified to ignore the informed consent issue in the interest of preserving the human race, though it could still be asked if the "greater good" of overall happiness supersedes the tremendous amount of individual suffering in the world.
What about the great achievements in art, literature, science and other fields that human geniuses have created? Don't these justify the existence of the human species, don't these bring beauty into the world? Humans have undoubtedly accomplished many great things but we have also inflicted great suffering on other humans and on the planet as a whole--and we have inflicted great suffering on many of the very same geniuses who created our species' greatest works of art, literature and science! Is it in any way fair or justifiable that geniuses such as Vincent Van Gogh suffered for decades and battled suicidal thoughts? Why should geniuses have to pay such a high price--emotionally and financially--while others enjoy the fruits of their talents? The large number of geniuses who have committed suicide indicates that many brilliant people have decided that they agree with the previously cited Sophocles quote; I suspect that many, if not most, people who rank above the 99th percentile in intelligence have at least once seriously considered committing suicide (one could darkly joke that only an idiot thinks that life is worth living!).
As for Caplan's perspective, if the best case that can be made for having children is provided by an economist who is sure that he knows how to calculate exactly how many children each couple should have, then any sensible person should be inclined to agree with Benatar's verdict!
In the April 9, 2012 issue of The New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert reviews three books that discuss the ethics of having children. Christine Overall, author of Why Have Children?: The Ethical Debate, dismisses the notion that because having children is a natural biological function there is no need to justify doing so: "There are many urges apparently arising from our biological nature that we nonetheless should choose not to act upon." Kolbert describes how Overall systematically rejects several of the most common reasons that are offered for having children:
Some people justify the decision to have children on the ground that they are perpetuating a family name or a genetic line. But "is anyone's biological composition so valuable that it must be perpetuated?" Overall asks. Others say that it's a citizen's duty to society to provide for its continuation. Such an obligation, Overall objects, "would make women into procreative serfs."
Still others argue that people ought to have children so there will be someone to care for them in their old age. "Anyone who has children for the sake of the supposed financial support they can provide," Overall writes, is "probably deluded."
Finally, lots of people offer the notion that parenthood will make them happy. Here the evidence is, sadly, against them. Research shows that people who have children are no more satisfied with their lives than people who don't. If anything, the balance tips the other way: parents are less happy. In an instantly famous study, published in Science in 2004, the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman asked nine hundred working women to assess their experiences during the preceding day. The women rated the time they'd spent taking care of their kids as less enjoyable than the time spent shopping, eating, exercising, watching TV, preparing food, and talking on the phone. One of the few activities these women found less enjoyable than caring for their children was doing housework, which is to say cleaning up after them.
But none of this really matters. Procreation for the sake of the parents is ethically unacceptable. "To have a child in order to benefit oneself is a moral error," Overall writes.
The title of David Benatar's book--Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence--makes his opinion very clear. Kolbert explains:
Benatar's title refers to the passage in Sophocles' "Oedipus at Colonus" in which the chorus observes:
Never to have been born is best,
But once you’ve entered this world,
Return as quickly as possible to the place you came from.
It also alludes to an old Jewish saying: "Life is so terrible, it would have been better not to have been born. Who is so lucky? Not one in a hundred thousand."
Kolbert summarizes Benatar's thesis: "Even the best of all possible lives consists of a mixture of pleasure and pain. Had the pleasure been forgone—that is, had the life never been created—no one would have been the worse for it. But the world is worse off because of the suffering brought needlessly into it."
Benatar offers a very harsh conclusion: "One of the implications of my argument is that a life filled with good and containing only the most minute quantity of bad—a life of utter bliss adulterated only by the pain of a single pin-prick—is worse than no life at all." Obviously, if the human race followed his prescription then our species would disappear. Benatar realizes this and has no problem with that conclusion: "Humans have the unfortunate distinction of being the most destructive and harmful species on earth. The amount of suffering in the world could be radically reduced if there were no more" people on Earth.
Bryan Caplan makes the case for the opposing viewpoint in Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent Is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think. Kolbert notes that Caplan's approach is rooted in the economic concept of cost/benefit analysis:
According to Caplan, a professor at George Mason University, the major mistake that parents (or prospective parents) make is overvaluing the present. This is a common enough error. Workers in their twenties and thirties don't save enough money for retirement because it seems such a long way off. Then their sixties roll around, and they wish they'd spent less on S.U.V.s and HDTVs and put more into their 401(k)s.
Couples, he argues, need to think not just about how many children they might want now, when they have better things to do than microwave Similac, but how many they will want to have around when they’re old and lonely and watching "The View."
Not surprisingly for someone who attacks this question from an economics angle, Caplan is certain that he has a formula that precisely calculates the optimal number of children for each couple to have based on the prospective parents' ages, future plans and so forth; Kolbert provides a wry parenthetical comment: "Unfortunately, he does not explain what parents should do if their ideal number of children includes a fraction."
Most people would probably agree that it is not ethical to place someone in a situation that might cause suffering without first getting informed consent from that potential sufferer. An unborn child cannot offer such consent, so from that standpoint it is hard to argue that it is an ethically sound decision to have a child. That brings us to Benatar's argument; clearly, if no one had children the human race would become extinct. Benatar thinks that this would actually lead to less suffering (presumably not just for humans but also for other species that suffer or even become extinct due to the actions of humans). This issue is more complex than the first one but it essentially requires providing an answer to this question: Does the overall amount of happiness in the world equal or exceed the overall amount of suffering? Only if the answer to that question is "yes" can it possibly be justified to ignore the informed consent issue in the interest of preserving the human race, though it could still be asked if the "greater good" of overall happiness supersedes the tremendous amount of individual suffering in the world.
What about the great achievements in art, literature, science and other fields that human geniuses have created? Don't these justify the existence of the human species, don't these bring beauty into the world? Humans have undoubtedly accomplished many great things but we have also inflicted great suffering on other humans and on the planet as a whole--and we have inflicted great suffering on many of the very same geniuses who created our species' greatest works of art, literature and science! Is it in any way fair or justifiable that geniuses such as Vincent Van Gogh suffered for decades and battled suicidal thoughts? Why should geniuses have to pay such a high price--emotionally and financially--while others enjoy the fruits of their talents? The large number of geniuses who have committed suicide indicates that many brilliant people have decided that they agree with the previously cited Sophocles quote; I suspect that many, if not most, people who rank above the 99th percentile in intelligence have at least once seriously considered committing suicide (one could darkly joke that only an idiot thinks that life is worth living!).
As for Caplan's perspective, if the best case that can be made for having children is provided by an economist who is sure that he knows how to calculate exactly how many children each couple should have, then any sensible person should be inclined to agree with Benatar's verdict!
Friday, March 30, 2012
Defeatist Mentality Leads to Defeat: Why No One Should be Surprised When the Iran-Hamas Axis Destroys Israel
For quite some time, Israel has been run by people who think that they are a lot smarter than they really are; the old stereotype portrayed Jews as being smarter than non-Jews but the people running Israel are doing their very best to completely refute any such notion: in fact, they are willing to die to permanently end this stereotype (or, to be more precise, to condemn Israel's citizens to death--I am quite sure that when the nuclear fire hits Israel the leaders will literally go underground and make their escape). A regular, "dumb" person would react to repeatedly being slapped in the face in his own home by making sure that the slapper never hit him again (actually, a regular "dumb" person would not even have to be slapped repeatedly to offer such a natural response...once would be more than enough)--but instead of thoroughly defeating their bloodthirsty enemies, Israel's "brilliant" leaders develop such innovative strategies as building concrete school desks for little children to hide behind and inventing expensive Iron Dome anti-missile missiles that will bankrupt Israel long before they convince Arab terrorists to stop taking free potshots at Jewish children. This "brilliant" Israeli strategy was preceded by voluntarily surrendering to Israel's enemies the very land from which those enemies are now launching the missiles that those enemies pledged to launch as soon as they received the land; the openly stated goal of Israel's enemies is--as Yasser Arafat repeatedly declared before and after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize--to "liberate Palestine with jihad with blood and with fire," which means that any territory conceded by Israel simply becomes the staging ground for the next attack against Israel. If you want to know why no one should be surprised when Iran and/or its proxy terrorist group Hamas destroys Israel just read Sarah Honig's sad tale of Israel's giddiness in the face of yet another humiliating defeat. Here is a taste of Honig's brilliant diagnosis of what she correctly labels Israel's "cerebral convolutions":
In the Gazan view our aim should have been to entirely disable them from striking again. Since we didn’t accomplish this, they won and we lost. To underscore their contentions they made sure to fire the last salvo--after the ceasefire for which they ironically begged. Thus they had the apparent last word, imparting the impression that they were capable of pummeling us more, if only they wanted to.
It almost doesn’t matter that we reject this interpretation of reality. If they consider themselves undefeated, then for all intents and purposes they indeed weren’t defeated.
Likewise, it’s hardly relevant that we never launched a wide-ranging campaign to crush all Gazan capacity for belligerence. In Gazan eyes if we could crush them, we would have. The very fact that we didn’t set out to do so attests to weakness on our part and to a deterrent strength on theirs.
However, Gazans too misread the situation. It’s not that we’re too weak to take them on, but that we’re scared of winning. This is something that they plainly can’t get their heads around. Nobody in the Mideast can comprehend cerebral convolutions like ours.
When Great Britain faced an existential threat from the predations of Adolf Hitler's Nazi armies, Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared:
We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
The Rabin-Peres-Netanyahu-Barak-Sharon-Olmert plan--surrender land to bloodthirsty enemies, set child killers free so that they can kill more innocent, defenseless children, force children to cower behind concrete desks as deadly rockets pummel schoolyards and become giddy when an anti-missile missile that costs $100,000 shoots down one of a nearly endless supply of cheap rockets--falls just a bit short of Churchill's standards.
In the Gazan view our aim should have been to entirely disable them from striking again. Since we didn’t accomplish this, they won and we lost. To underscore their contentions they made sure to fire the last salvo--after the ceasefire for which they ironically begged. Thus they had the apparent last word, imparting the impression that they were capable of pummeling us more, if only they wanted to.
It almost doesn’t matter that we reject this interpretation of reality. If they consider themselves undefeated, then for all intents and purposes they indeed weren’t defeated.
Likewise, it’s hardly relevant that we never launched a wide-ranging campaign to crush all Gazan capacity for belligerence. In Gazan eyes if we could crush them, we would have. The very fact that we didn’t set out to do so attests to weakness on our part and to a deterrent strength on theirs.
However, Gazans too misread the situation. It’s not that we’re too weak to take them on, but that we’re scared of winning. This is something that they plainly can’t get their heads around. Nobody in the Mideast can comprehend cerebral convolutions like ours.
When Great Britain faced an existential threat from the predations of Adolf Hitler's Nazi armies, Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared:
We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
The Rabin-Peres-Netanyahu-Barak-Sharon-Olmert plan--surrender land to bloodthirsty enemies, set child killers free so that they can kill more innocent, defenseless children, force children to cower behind concrete desks as deadly rockets pummel schoolyards and become giddy when an anti-missile missile that costs $100,000 shoots down one of a nearly endless supply of cheap rockets--falls just a bit short of Churchill's standards.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
"The Shah Always Falls" or why Right Makes Might
Fredric Smoler's 2003 American Heritage magazine interview with Ralph Peters titled "The Shah Always Falls" provides an excellent, detailed explanation of the flaws behind so-called "real politik" thinking. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" may superficially sound logical and prudent--until Osama bin Laden decides that defeating the Soviets in Afghanistan is a worthy prelude to taking down the World Trade Center. Peters is right that no matter how powerful he may seem, the Shah (or Saddam Hussein or any other despot) "always falls" and therefore policy decisions should be made based on what is right and what is true to our values as opposed to what seems to be expedient. The whole interview is worth reading but here are some particularly relevant quotes from Peters:
Overvaluing stability is a heritage of the Cold War, over the course of which we rationalized our support of some very cruel regimes and we deposed elected governments we didn't like. You could justify it in terms of the greater struggle. But you can't justify it now.
In countries where there’s a struggle going on for the soul and future of Islam, the jury's still out. I'm actually increasingly optimistic. But I do believe the last couple of centuries demonstrate that cultures that oppress women, that don't have freedom of information, that don't value secular education, that have one dominant religion that infects the state and has power over the state, and whose basic unit of social organization is a clan, tribe, or extended family are just not going to compete with the West and especially with the United States. So I'm extremely pessimistic about the old Islamic heartland.
Freedom of information originates in two things, the movable type printing press and the Protestant Reformation. The latter benefits everybody, irrespective of his or her religion, because it breaks down the idea of there being just one path to the truth. The printing press makes the Reformation possible, because suddenly the one true church can no longer contain heretical movements. Information travels faster than it can be suppressed. And the Protestant Reformation is the seminal event in the rise of the West. It opens the door for the last great Western religion, the secular religion of science. Without that fissure, without that breakdown in the one path to the truth, you can't have science.
Jealousy is a powerful human emotion. Hatred is a tremendous emotional release. Blame is cathartic. At this time in history, the United States is humane, free, rich, and powerful. The Arab Islamic world is just the opposite. Our success is infuriating to people who value their own culture, who love their traditions even though they no longer work, and who look at our enormous success with inchoate envy.
Overvaluing stability is a heritage of the Cold War, over the course of which we rationalized our support of some very cruel regimes and we deposed elected governments we didn't like. You could justify it in terms of the greater struggle. But you can't justify it now.
What I wrote was that the shah always falls in the end, Saddam always turns on you, and the Saudis always betray you. If we support evil, the longterm price is almost always too high. And now we don’t have to. Since 1989, or '91, depending on how you want to date it, we've been the only superpower. We haven't thought about what we've been doing.
*****In countries where there’s a struggle going on for the soul and future of Islam, the jury's still out. I'm actually increasingly optimistic. But I do believe the last couple of centuries demonstrate that cultures that oppress women, that don't have freedom of information, that don't value secular education, that have one dominant religion that infects the state and has power over the state, and whose basic unit of social organization is a clan, tribe, or extended family are just not going to compete with the West and especially with the United States. So I'm extremely pessimistic about the old Islamic heartland.
I personally feel that we've made a grotesque mistake aligning ourselves with the most oppressive of the Arabs, with the Arab world's Beverly Hillbillies. Other Arabs built Damascus, Córdoba, Baghdad, Cairo. The Saudis never built anything. The fact that they came into their oil wealth was a disaster, not for us but for the Arab world, because it gave these malevolent hicks raw economic power over the populations of poor Islamic states, such as Egypt. The line about Al Qaeda that’s absolutely true is that Saudis supplied the money and Egyptians supplied the brains. So Saudi money, spent to support their grotesquely repressive version of one of the world’s great religions, has been a disaster for the Arab world.
*****Freedom of information originates in two things, the movable type printing press and the Protestant Reformation. The latter benefits everybody, irrespective of his or her religion, because it breaks down the idea of there being just one path to the truth. The printing press makes the Reformation possible, because suddenly the one true church can no longer contain heretical movements. Information travels faster than it can be suppressed. And the Protestant Reformation is the seminal event in the rise of the West. It opens the door for the last great Western religion, the secular religion of science. Without that fissure, without that breakdown in the one path to the truth, you can't have science.
In Islam the historical symmetry is chilling. Within 10 years of Gutenberg's invention of movable type, a prince, astronomer, mathematician, and poet, Ulûgh Beg of Samarqand, built a great observatory. He was a genius, their Galileo, but the mullahs murdered him, and I take that moment as the point at which it all started calcifying. There are myriad factors in the Islamic decline, but the decline itself has been irreversible. Muslims never turn it around; they never have their reformation that breaks down the one true path. You're either Sunni or Shiah, or perhaps a Sufi offshoot cult. And the reason Indonesia has a chance is that it’s never signed up for one path.
*****Jealousy is a powerful human emotion. Hatred is a tremendous emotional release. Blame is cathartic. At this time in history, the United States is humane, free, rich, and powerful. The Arab Islamic world is just the opposite. Our success is infuriating to people who value their own culture, who love their traditions even though they no longer work, and who look at our enormous success with inchoate envy.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Is it More Important to Speak the Truth or to Flatter Idiots?
Fritz Zwicky, the Father of Dark Matter, was one of the great scientific minds of the 20th century but you probably have never heard of him--and if you have heard of him it is more likely that you are familiar with the outbursts he directed toward his colleagues than with his scientific theories, even though Zwicky proposed many seemingly outlandish concepts that are now widely accepted, including dark matter, gravitational lensing and supernovas. Zwicky also developed a problem solving technique known as general morphological analysis, which Zwicky described as "simply an ordered way of looking at things."
Zwicky's daughter Barbarina has long been engaged in a one woman campaign to both restore her father's personal reputation and to ensure that he receives the credit he deserves as an accomplished scientist and theoretician. She once declared, "My father’s theories are now being verified as scientific fact so many years after his death. The unbelievable incompetence and ineptitude of his colleagues and their subsequent rage [have] resulted in rabid attempts using literary assault against a decedent" and she has described her father as "a scientific prophet and the sacrificial lamb for the provincial judgment of his colleagues."
Fritz Zwicky had no patience or toleration for people who had an unprofessional attitude and/or were simply incompetent. In the Discover article cited above, Richard Panek describes the blunt rebukes Zwicky directed toward many prominent figures:
Later on, he vowed to write an autobiography, to which he had already given a title: Operation Lone Wolf. Instead, in 1971 he self-published a Catalogue of Selected Compact Galaxies and of Post-Eruptive Galaxies. He might have found an academic press willing to publish it—his previous six-volume catalog of galaxies was indispensable—if not for the introduction. In 23 score-settling pages, Zwicky called his colleagues "scatterbrains," "sycophants and plain thieves" who "have no love for any of the lone wolves who are not fawners and apple polishers," who "doctor their observational data to hide their shortcomings and to make the majority of the astronomers accept and believe in some of their most prejudicial and erroneous presentations and interpretations of facts," and who therefore publish "useless trash in the bulging astronomical journals."
Zwicky reportedly called various astronomers "spherical bastards" because "they are bastards every way I look at them." Barbarina Zwicky insists that some of the tales of her father's outbursts are exaggerated and that the real story is "Mediocrities felt very uncomfortable around him because they knew that they couldn't meet that standard. It's like in the light of God—man can’t stand in the light of God, almost. It's not quite that. Obviously he wasn’t a God figure."
Zwicky's trenchant attitude and comments remind me of the Edgar Allan Poe quote that I chose as one of four epigraphs for each of my three websites: "The most 'popular,' the most 'successful' writers among us (for a brief period, at least) are, 99 times out of a hundred, persons of mere effrontery--in a word, busy-bodies, toadies, quacks." Poe did not hesitate to call out the various fools who populated the writing profession during his time and after he died one of the fools who he eviscerated tried--with some success--to smear Poe's reputation as both a man and a writer. Ultimately, though, truth won out: Poe is widely recognized as a great literary figure, while his antagonist's name is deservedly forgotten.
I have run into more than my share of the "toadies" and "quacks" that Poe described; Zwicky's "spherical bastards" phrase is certainly an apt description of the rogues gallery of fools I have encountered during my writing career:
Ming Wong
Henry Abbott, Kelly Dwyer, Basketbawful, John Krolik
Kellex (this bonehead--Kellen Barranger is apparently his real name, though he understandably is reluctant to sign his real name to his work--totally botched his transcription of a Pat Croce conference call and then went nuts when I tried to help him out, spewing insults at me)
Mike Kurylo
The Slam/SlamOnline crew
Brett Ballantini
Neil Paine
Kevin Pelton
It is easy to be "successful" in the writing business; all you have to do is, as Poe put it, be a "toady" and kiss up to various influential people: actual writing talent and critical thinking skills are not required or, in many cases, even desirable. However, I think that this kind of "success" is ultimately fleeting and meaningless; the only true, lasting success is to be an artist and a craftsman, someone who creates work of enduring quality.
***************
I would be remiss if I did not mention the names of several talented people of integrity who I have had the pleasure of working with in this field, including Sam Amico, Roland Lazenby, Tariq Ali, Jorge Sierra, Roland Beech and Jonathan Hilton.
Zwicky's daughter Barbarina has long been engaged in a one woman campaign to both restore her father's personal reputation and to ensure that he receives the credit he deserves as an accomplished scientist and theoretician. She once declared, "My father’s theories are now being verified as scientific fact so many years after his death. The unbelievable incompetence and ineptitude of his colleagues and their subsequent rage [have] resulted in rabid attempts using literary assault against a decedent" and she has described her father as "a scientific prophet and the sacrificial lamb for the provincial judgment of his colleagues."
Fritz Zwicky had no patience or toleration for people who had an unprofessional attitude and/or were simply incompetent. In the Discover article cited above, Richard Panek describes the blunt rebukes Zwicky directed toward many prominent figures:
Later on, he vowed to write an autobiography, to which he had already given a title: Operation Lone Wolf. Instead, in 1971 he self-published a Catalogue of Selected Compact Galaxies and of Post-Eruptive Galaxies. He might have found an academic press willing to publish it—his previous six-volume catalog of galaxies was indispensable—if not for the introduction. In 23 score-settling pages, Zwicky called his colleagues "scatterbrains," "sycophants and plain thieves" who "have no love for any of the lone wolves who are not fawners and apple polishers," who "doctor their observational data to hide their shortcomings and to make the majority of the astronomers accept and believe in some of their most prejudicial and erroneous presentations and interpretations of facts," and who therefore publish "useless trash in the bulging astronomical journals."
Zwicky reportedly called various astronomers "spherical bastards" because "they are bastards every way I look at them." Barbarina Zwicky insists that some of the tales of her father's outbursts are exaggerated and that the real story is "Mediocrities felt very uncomfortable around him because they knew that they couldn't meet that standard. It's like in the light of God—man can’t stand in the light of God, almost. It's not quite that. Obviously he wasn’t a God figure."
Zwicky's trenchant attitude and comments remind me of the Edgar Allan Poe quote that I chose as one of four epigraphs for each of my three websites: "The most 'popular,' the most 'successful' writers among us (for a brief period, at least) are, 99 times out of a hundred, persons of mere effrontery--in a word, busy-bodies, toadies, quacks." Poe did not hesitate to call out the various fools who populated the writing profession during his time and after he died one of the fools who he eviscerated tried--with some success--to smear Poe's reputation as both a man and a writer. Ultimately, though, truth won out: Poe is widely recognized as a great literary figure, while his antagonist's name is deservedly forgotten.
I have run into more than my share of the "toadies" and "quacks" that Poe described; Zwicky's "spherical bastards" phrase is certainly an apt description of the rogues gallery of fools I have encountered during my writing career:
Ming Wong
Henry Abbott, Kelly Dwyer, Basketbawful, John Krolik
Kellex (this bonehead--Kellen Barranger is apparently his real name, though he understandably is reluctant to sign his real name to his work--totally botched his transcription of a Pat Croce conference call and then went nuts when I tried to help him out, spewing insults at me)
Mike Kurylo
The Slam/SlamOnline crew
Brett Ballantini
Neil Paine
Kevin Pelton
It is easy to be "successful" in the writing business; all you have to do is, as Poe put it, be a "toady" and kiss up to various influential people: actual writing talent and critical thinking skills are not required or, in many cases, even desirable. However, I think that this kind of "success" is ultimately fleeting and meaningless; the only true, lasting success is to be an artist and a craftsman, someone who creates work of enduring quality.
***************
I would be remiss if I did not mention the names of several talented people of integrity who I have had the pleasure of working with in this field, including Sam Amico, Roland Lazenby, Tariq Ali, Jorge Sierra, Roland Beech and Jonathan Hilton.
Friday, January 20, 2012
The Fire Next Time: Let No One Say that the Next Holocaust Came Without Warning
"God gave Noah the rainbow sign/No more water, the fire next time"--lyric from the old Negro spiritual "Mary Don't You Weep" and epigraph to James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time
After the Holocaust, many people pleaded a variety of forms of ignorance ranging from "How could anyone have predicted this could happen" to "How could anyone have known this was happening?"--but the truth is that Adolf Hitler plainly stated his ideology and his goals on many occasions prior to the Holocaust and it is inconceivable that the millions of Europeans of various nationalities living next to teeming ghettoes, smoke gushing crematoria and/or pits filled with gunshot-riddled bodies (the victims of Hitler's mobile killing squads, the preferred method of extermination before the Nazis perfected the more efficient method involving gas chambers) did not know the fates of their Jewish neighbors.
Iran intends to build and/or acquire nuclear weapons and then to use those weapons first to destroy the State of Israel and then to terrorize the United States, Europe and any other "infidel" entities who the Iranian mullahs perceive to be their enemies. Much like Hitler made no secret about his plans, Iranian leaders have publicly stated on numerous occasions that Israel is a "cancer" that must be "wiped off of the map" and that even if a million Israeli Arabs are killed in the process that is an acceptable loss to achieve Israel's destruction. Iran has been similarly blunt about its feelings regarding the United States. The Europeans have been useful idiots (to borrow a phrase often attributed to Lenin) for Iran for decades but they should not be under any illusions regarding Iran's ultimate plans for them if Iran succeeds in destroying Israel and weakening the United States.
Everyone should read the following two essays so that (1) no one can truthfully say that there was no way to know Iran's plans and (2) maybe someone will figure out how to embolden the U.S. government to take the necessary actions to prevent Iran from achieving its genocidal aims:
This Holocaust will be different by Benny Morris.
Morris concludes:
BUT THE Iranians are driven by a higher logic. And they will launch their rockets. And, as with the first Holocaust, the international community will do nothing. It will all be over, for Israel, in a few minutes--not like in the 1940s, when the world had five long years in which to wring its hands and do nothing. After the Shihabs fall, the world will send rescue ships and medical aid for the lightly charred. It will not nuke Iran. For what purpose and at what cost? An American nuclear response would lastingly alienate the whole Muslim world, deepening and universalizing the ongoing clash of civilizations. And, of course, it would not bring Israel back. (Would hanging a serial murderer bring back his victims?)
So what would be the point?
Still, the second holocaust will be different in the sense that Ahmadinejad will not actually see and touch those he so wishes dead (and, one may speculate, this might cause him disappointment as, in his years of service in Iranian death squads in Europe, he may have acquired a taste for actual blood). And, indeed, there will be no scenes like the following, quoted in Daniel Mendelsohn's recent The Lost, A Search for Six of Six Million, in which is described the second Nazi action in Bolechow, Poland, in September 1942:
A terrible episode happened with Mrs. Grynberg. The Ukrainians and Germans, who had broken into her house, found her giving birth. The weeping and entreaties of bystanders didn't help and she was taken from her home in a nightshirt and dragged into the square in front of the town hall.
There... she was dragged onto a dumpster in the yard of the town hall with a crowd of Ukrainians present, who cracked jokes and jeered and watched the pain of childbirth and she gave birth to a child. The child was immediately torn from her arms along with its umbilical cord and thrown--It was trampled by the crowd and she was stood on her feet as blood poured out of her with bleeding bits hanging and she stood that way for a few hours by the wall of the town hall, afterwards she went with all the others to the train station where they loaded her into a carriage in a train to Belzec.
In the next holocaust there will be no such heart-rending scenes, of perpetrators and victims mired in blood (though, to judge from pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the physical effects of nuclear explosions can be fairly unpleasant).
But it will be a holocaust nonetheless.
The Mortal Threat From Iran by Mark Helprin.
Helprin explains the only course of action that can prevent the doomsday scenario described by Morris:
Much easier before Iran recently began to burrow into bedrock, it is still possible for the U.S., and even Israel at greater peril, to halt the Iranian nuclear program for years to come. Massive ordnance penetrators; lesser but precision-guided penetrators "drilling" one after another; fuel-air detonations with almost the force of nuclear weapons; high-power microwave attack; the destruction of laboratories, unhardened targets, and the Iranian electrical grid; and other means, can be combined to great effect.
Unlike North Korea, Iran does not yet possess nuclear weapons, does not have the potential of overwhelming an American ally, and is not of sufficient concern to Russia and China, its lukewarm patrons, for them to war on its behalf. It is incapable of withholding its oil without damaging itself irreparably, and even were it to cease production entirely, the Saudis—in whose interest the elimination of Iranian nuclear potential is paramount—could easily make up the shortfall. Though Iran might attack Saudi oil facilities, it could not damage them fatally. The Gulf would be closed until Iranian air, naval, and missile forces there were scrubbed out of existence by the U.S., probably France and Britain, and the Saudis themselves, in a few weeks.
It is true that Iranian proxies would attempt to exact a price in terror world-wide, but this is not new, we would brace for the reprisals, and although they would peak, they would then subside. The cost would be far less than that of permitting the power of nuclear destruction to a vengeful, martyrdom-obsessed state in the midst of a never-subsiding fury against the West.
Any president of the United States fit for the office should someday, soon, say to the American people that in his judgment Iran—because of its longstanding and implacable push for nuclear weapons, its express hostility to the U.S., Israel and the West, and its record of barbarity and terror—must be deprived of the capacity to wound this country and its allies such as they have never been wounded before.
Relying solely upon his oath, holding in abeyance any consideration of politics or transient opinion, and eager to defend his decision in exquisite detail, he should order the armed forces of the United States to attack and destroy the Iranian nuclear weapons complex. When they have complied, and our pilots are in the air on their way home, they will have protected our children in their beds—and our children's children, many years from now, in theirs. May this country always have clear enough sight and strong enough will to stand for itself in the face of mortal threat, and in time.
Let no one who fails to act now dare to offer poignant eulogies after an Iranian-created mushroom cloud floats over the charred remains of a major American city or over a large portion of the tiny state of Israel!
After the Holocaust, many people pleaded a variety of forms of ignorance ranging from "How could anyone have predicted this could happen" to "How could anyone have known this was happening?"--but the truth is that Adolf Hitler plainly stated his ideology and his goals on many occasions prior to the Holocaust and it is inconceivable that the millions of Europeans of various nationalities living next to teeming ghettoes, smoke gushing crematoria and/or pits filled with gunshot-riddled bodies (the victims of Hitler's mobile killing squads, the preferred method of extermination before the Nazis perfected the more efficient method involving gas chambers) did not know the fates of their Jewish neighbors.
Iran intends to build and/or acquire nuclear weapons and then to use those weapons first to destroy the State of Israel and then to terrorize the United States, Europe and any other "infidel" entities who the Iranian mullahs perceive to be their enemies. Much like Hitler made no secret about his plans, Iranian leaders have publicly stated on numerous occasions that Israel is a "cancer" that must be "wiped off of the map" and that even if a million Israeli Arabs are killed in the process that is an acceptable loss to achieve Israel's destruction. Iran has been similarly blunt about its feelings regarding the United States. The Europeans have been useful idiots (to borrow a phrase often attributed to Lenin) for Iran for decades but they should not be under any illusions regarding Iran's ultimate plans for them if Iran succeeds in destroying Israel and weakening the United States.
Everyone should read the following two essays so that (1) no one can truthfully say that there was no way to know Iran's plans and (2) maybe someone will figure out how to embolden the U.S. government to take the necessary actions to prevent Iran from achieving its genocidal aims:
This Holocaust will be different by Benny Morris.
Morris concludes:
BUT THE Iranians are driven by a higher logic. And they will launch their rockets. And, as with the first Holocaust, the international community will do nothing. It will all be over, for Israel, in a few minutes--not like in the 1940s, when the world had five long years in which to wring its hands and do nothing. After the Shihabs fall, the world will send rescue ships and medical aid for the lightly charred. It will not nuke Iran. For what purpose and at what cost? An American nuclear response would lastingly alienate the whole Muslim world, deepening and universalizing the ongoing clash of civilizations. And, of course, it would not bring Israel back. (Would hanging a serial murderer bring back his victims?)
So what would be the point?
Still, the second holocaust will be different in the sense that Ahmadinejad will not actually see and touch those he so wishes dead (and, one may speculate, this might cause him disappointment as, in his years of service in Iranian death squads in Europe, he may have acquired a taste for actual blood). And, indeed, there will be no scenes like the following, quoted in Daniel Mendelsohn's recent The Lost, A Search for Six of Six Million, in which is described the second Nazi action in Bolechow, Poland, in September 1942:
A terrible episode happened with Mrs. Grynberg. The Ukrainians and Germans, who had broken into her house, found her giving birth. The weeping and entreaties of bystanders didn't help and she was taken from her home in a nightshirt and dragged into the square in front of the town hall.
There... she was dragged onto a dumpster in the yard of the town hall with a crowd of Ukrainians present, who cracked jokes and jeered and watched the pain of childbirth and she gave birth to a child. The child was immediately torn from her arms along with its umbilical cord and thrown--It was trampled by the crowd and she was stood on her feet as blood poured out of her with bleeding bits hanging and she stood that way for a few hours by the wall of the town hall, afterwards she went with all the others to the train station where they loaded her into a carriage in a train to Belzec.
In the next holocaust there will be no such heart-rending scenes, of perpetrators and victims mired in blood (though, to judge from pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the physical effects of nuclear explosions can be fairly unpleasant).
But it will be a holocaust nonetheless.
The Mortal Threat From Iran by Mark Helprin.
Helprin explains the only course of action that can prevent the doomsday scenario described by Morris:
Much easier before Iran recently began to burrow into bedrock, it is still possible for the U.S., and even Israel at greater peril, to halt the Iranian nuclear program for years to come. Massive ordnance penetrators; lesser but precision-guided penetrators "drilling" one after another; fuel-air detonations with almost the force of nuclear weapons; high-power microwave attack; the destruction of laboratories, unhardened targets, and the Iranian electrical grid; and other means, can be combined to great effect.
Unlike North Korea, Iran does not yet possess nuclear weapons, does not have the potential of overwhelming an American ally, and is not of sufficient concern to Russia and China, its lukewarm patrons, for them to war on its behalf. It is incapable of withholding its oil without damaging itself irreparably, and even were it to cease production entirely, the Saudis—in whose interest the elimination of Iranian nuclear potential is paramount—could easily make up the shortfall. Though Iran might attack Saudi oil facilities, it could not damage them fatally. The Gulf would be closed until Iranian air, naval, and missile forces there were scrubbed out of existence by the U.S., probably France and Britain, and the Saudis themselves, in a few weeks.
It is true that Iranian proxies would attempt to exact a price in terror world-wide, but this is not new, we would brace for the reprisals, and although they would peak, they would then subside. The cost would be far less than that of permitting the power of nuclear destruction to a vengeful, martyrdom-obsessed state in the midst of a never-subsiding fury against the West.
Any president of the United States fit for the office should someday, soon, say to the American people that in his judgment Iran—because of its longstanding and implacable push for nuclear weapons, its express hostility to the U.S., Israel and the West, and its record of barbarity and terror—must be deprived of the capacity to wound this country and its allies such as they have never been wounded before.
Relying solely upon his oath, holding in abeyance any consideration of politics or transient opinion, and eager to defend his decision in exquisite detail, he should order the armed forces of the United States to attack and destroy the Iranian nuclear weapons complex. When they have complied, and our pilots are in the air on their way home, they will have protected our children in their beds—and our children's children, many years from now, in theirs. May this country always have clear enough sight and strong enough will to stand for itself in the face of mortal threat, and in time.
Let no one who fails to act now dare to offer poignant eulogies after an Iranian-created mushroom cloud floats over the charred remains of a major American city or over a large portion of the tiny state of Israel!
Labels:
Benny Morris,
Iran,
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
Mark Helprin
Friday, December 30, 2011
Helen DeWitt's Scathing Critique of the Publishing Business
In the preface to Dan Visel's interview with Helen DeWitt, DeWitt offers a raw and heartfelt lamentation about the cruel, inefficient structure of the book publishing business:
"So we really have no chance of being contemporaries of our own contemporaries, even if we want to--if we stick with the conventional publishing model. Books I wrote or started last year, five years ago, 10 years ago, might get into the public domain in 2012, 2022, or never. The determining factor is not the quality of the books; it's the extent to which Helen DeWitt can marshal the social skills, the obstinacy, the willingness to suspend writing indefinitely to wheel and deal, to get the f------ into print."
I've only had one brief foray in the book publishing business so far--I wrote a chapter for the anthology Basketball in America and then had to fight tooth and nail for years so that I and the other chapter contributors could receive the (small) royalties that the book's editor had promised to share with us; the issue was not the money (regardless of whether it had been a small amount or a small fortune) but the principle: not everyone can be smart or talented but everyone has the ability to be loyal and to keep one's word--and there is nothing worse than a betrayer, someone whose deeds do not match his words or who is, as I like to put it, with you win or tie. The anthology editor promised that the other contributors would receive an equal share of the royalties and I would have pursued him to the ends of the Earth (and the end of time) whether the amount in question was two cents or $2 million.
Though DeWitt has had much more interaction with book publishers than I have, her frustrating experiences with editors--and with the general nonsense pervading the writing business--mirror many of the experiences I have had with magazine editors and website editors. One of my ideas was stolen without attribution or compensation, I have had a strange, nonsensical and offensive title attached to one of my articles, I have had a strong lead sentence butchered beyond recognition for no conceivable reason and I have submitted accurate copy only to have inaccurate information included in the text (I have also been berated, in vulgar and threatening tones, for simply telling the truth about such matters--not that empty words from cowards could for one second stop me from telling the truth).
Like DeWitt, I have had editors enthusiastically praise my work and make promises of future assignments only to inexplicably fail to follow through on those commitments. Those situations are even more baffling when one considers the commercial success enjoyed by people who simply do not possess the most basic writing skills and people whose work is the very definition of "hack job." This is not a new problem--more than 150 years ago, Edgar Allan Poe declared, "The most 'popular,' the most 'successful' writers among us (for a brief period, at least) are, 99 times out of a hundred, persons of mere effrontery--in a word, busy-bodies, toadies, quacks."--but it is frustrating as both a writer and a reader to have one's senses assaulted by garbage and to know that a lot of people are being well compensated to produce that garbage.
In the Visel interview, DeWitt explains why the current publishing model makes it difficult for quality writers to be fairly compensated for their work:
"A painter is not expected to hand in a painting and then set aside a year or so to a) changing it in light of comments from the gallerist and b) waiting for the gallerist's staff to touch it up before deciding whether all the alterations can be allowed to stand. (The painting is not thought deficient in value if untouched-up by the gallerist, the receptionist, the gallerist's girlfriend.) A painter can paint. Do we think that any painter, regardless of ability, is automatically superior to any writer? I don't think so, but we have a system of production that presupposes that position, and the result is one with crippling financial consequences for writers."
Painters and other visual artists often face daunting obstacles, too; as I noted nearly two years ago, pottery maker extraordinaire George Ohr had boundless confidence--he declared "When I am gone, my work will be praised, honored, and cherished. It will come."--but when he died he was considered an eccentric and his contributions to the art world were not recognized for quite some time. The 37 year old Vincent Van Gogh sold just one canvas prior to committing suicide. Suicidal thoughts are a frequent companion for writers and artists during their lonely journeys through this deeply flawed world (at the height of her despair, DeWitt sent an email dispassionately describing how her body should be disposed of after her suicide but her Jerzy Kosinski-style attempt to end her life with a sedative-aided asphyxiation failed).
What does all of this mean? An old episode of the "Simpsons" springs to mind: I don't remember the dialogue verbatim but, after a typical half hour of mayhem, Homer Simpson tried in vain to articulate some explanation or meaning for what had just happened but his precocious daughter Lisa mused that perhaps everything just happened randomly with no underlying cause and no deeper meaning. Lisa's answer seems to describe not just the bizarre business model of the publishing world but also the bizarre and tragic state of the world in general, a place where one billion people are starving at the same time that a small group of people enjoy unimaginable material wealth.
"So we really have no chance of being contemporaries of our own contemporaries, even if we want to--if we stick with the conventional publishing model. Books I wrote or started last year, five years ago, 10 years ago, might get into the public domain in 2012, 2022, or never. The determining factor is not the quality of the books; it's the extent to which Helen DeWitt can marshal the social skills, the obstinacy, the willingness to suspend writing indefinitely to wheel and deal, to get the f------ into print."
I've only had one brief foray in the book publishing business so far--I wrote a chapter for the anthology Basketball in America and then had to fight tooth and nail for years so that I and the other chapter contributors could receive the (small) royalties that the book's editor had promised to share with us; the issue was not the money (regardless of whether it had been a small amount or a small fortune) but the principle: not everyone can be smart or talented but everyone has the ability to be loyal and to keep one's word--and there is nothing worse than a betrayer, someone whose deeds do not match his words or who is, as I like to put it, with you win or tie. The anthology editor promised that the other contributors would receive an equal share of the royalties and I would have pursued him to the ends of the Earth (and the end of time) whether the amount in question was two cents or $2 million.
Though DeWitt has had much more interaction with book publishers than I have, her frustrating experiences with editors--and with the general nonsense pervading the writing business--mirror many of the experiences I have had with magazine editors and website editors. One of my ideas was stolen without attribution or compensation, I have had a strange, nonsensical and offensive title attached to one of my articles, I have had a strong lead sentence butchered beyond recognition for no conceivable reason and I have submitted accurate copy only to have inaccurate information included in the text (I have also been berated, in vulgar and threatening tones, for simply telling the truth about such matters--not that empty words from cowards could for one second stop me from telling the truth).
Like DeWitt, I have had editors enthusiastically praise my work and make promises of future assignments only to inexplicably fail to follow through on those commitments. Those situations are even more baffling when one considers the commercial success enjoyed by people who simply do not possess the most basic writing skills and people whose work is the very definition of "hack job." This is not a new problem--more than 150 years ago, Edgar Allan Poe declared, "The most 'popular,' the most 'successful' writers among us (for a brief period, at least) are, 99 times out of a hundred, persons of mere effrontery--in a word, busy-bodies, toadies, quacks."--but it is frustrating as both a writer and a reader to have one's senses assaulted by garbage and to know that a lot of people are being well compensated to produce that garbage.
In the Visel interview, DeWitt explains why the current publishing model makes it difficult for quality writers to be fairly compensated for their work:
"A painter is not expected to hand in a painting and then set aside a year or so to a) changing it in light of comments from the gallerist and b) waiting for the gallerist's staff to touch it up before deciding whether all the alterations can be allowed to stand. (The painting is not thought deficient in value if untouched-up by the gallerist, the receptionist, the gallerist's girlfriend.) A painter can paint. Do we think that any painter, regardless of ability, is automatically superior to any writer? I don't think so, but we have a system of production that presupposes that position, and the result is one with crippling financial consequences for writers."
Painters and other visual artists often face daunting obstacles, too; as I noted nearly two years ago, pottery maker extraordinaire George Ohr had boundless confidence--he declared "When I am gone, my work will be praised, honored, and cherished. It will come."--but when he died he was considered an eccentric and his contributions to the art world were not recognized for quite some time. The 37 year old Vincent Van Gogh sold just one canvas prior to committing suicide. Suicidal thoughts are a frequent companion for writers and artists during their lonely journeys through this deeply flawed world (at the height of her despair, DeWitt sent an email dispassionately describing how her body should be disposed of after her suicide but her Jerzy Kosinski-style attempt to end her life with a sedative-aided asphyxiation failed).
What does all of this mean? An old episode of the "Simpsons" springs to mind: I don't remember the dialogue verbatim but, after a typical half hour of mayhem, Homer Simpson tried in vain to articulate some explanation or meaning for what had just happened but his precocious daughter Lisa mused that perhaps everything just happened randomly with no underlying cause and no deeper meaning. Lisa's answer seems to describe not just the bizarre business model of the publishing world but also the bizarre and tragic state of the world in general, a place where one billion people are starving at the same time that a small group of people enjoy unimaginable material wealth.
Labels:
Edgar Allan Poe,
George Ohr,
Helen DeWitt,
Vincent Van Gogh
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Caroline Glick Declares that Netanyahu's Deal is "A Pact Signed in Jewish Blood"
The title of Caroline Glick's newest Op-Ed piece for the Jerusalem Post--A Pact Signed in Jewish Blood--speaks for itself. Glick rightly declares that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's deal to release over 1000 terrorists to obtain the freedom of illegally abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit speaks volumes about Netanyahu:
At best, Netanyahu comes out of this deal looking like a weak leader who is manipulated by and beholden to Israel’s radical, surrender-crazed media. To their eternal shame, the media have been waging a five-year campaign to force Israel’s leaders to capitulate to Hamas.
At worst, this deal exposes Netanyahu as a morally challenged, strategically irresponsible and foolish, opportunistic politician.
Those are harsh--but quite correct--words from someone who used to work for Netanyahu and who defended Netanyahu publicly long after I came to the conclusion that the smooth-speaking Netanyahu can serve Israel well as a representative to the U.N. but is completely ill-suited for the task of being Prime Minister. Glick concludes:
What Israel needs is a leader with the courage of one writer’s convictions. Back in 1995, that writer wrote: "The release of convicted terrorists before they have served their full sentences seems like an easy and tempting way of defusing blackmail situations in which innocent people may lose their lives, but its utility is momentary at best.
Prisoner releases only embolden terrorists by giving them the feeling that even if they are caught, their punishment will be brief. Worse, by leading terrorists to think such demands are likely to be met, they encourage precisely the terrorist blackmail they are supposed to defuse."
The writer of those lines was then-opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu wrote those lines in his book, Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and International Terrorists.
Israel needs that Netanyahu to lead it. But in the face of the current Netanyahu’s abject surrender to terrorism, apparently he is gone.
I don't know what happened to the Netanyahu who wrote those words or the Netanyahu who once brilliantly presented Israel's case to the U.N. and to biased media members across the globe but Israel will rue--and might not survive--the day that it elected Netanyahu to the country's highest office.
At best, Netanyahu comes out of this deal looking like a weak leader who is manipulated by and beholden to Israel’s radical, surrender-crazed media. To their eternal shame, the media have been waging a five-year campaign to force Israel’s leaders to capitulate to Hamas.
At worst, this deal exposes Netanyahu as a morally challenged, strategically irresponsible and foolish, opportunistic politician.
Those are harsh--but quite correct--words from someone who used to work for Netanyahu and who defended Netanyahu publicly long after I came to the conclusion that the smooth-speaking Netanyahu can serve Israel well as a representative to the U.N. but is completely ill-suited for the task of being Prime Minister. Glick concludes:
What Israel needs is a leader with the courage of one writer’s convictions. Back in 1995, that writer wrote: "The release of convicted terrorists before they have served their full sentences seems like an easy and tempting way of defusing blackmail situations in which innocent people may lose their lives, but its utility is momentary at best.
Prisoner releases only embolden terrorists by giving them the feeling that even if they are caught, their punishment will be brief. Worse, by leading terrorists to think such demands are likely to be met, they encourage precisely the terrorist blackmail they are supposed to defuse."
The writer of those lines was then-opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu wrote those lines in his book, Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and International Terrorists.
Israel needs that Netanyahu to lead it. But in the face of the current Netanyahu’s abject surrender to terrorism, apparently he is gone.
I don't know what happened to the Netanyahu who wrote those words or the Netanyahu who once brilliantly presented Israel's case to the U.N. and to biased media members across the globe but Israel will rue--and might not survive--the day that it elected Netanyahu to the country's highest office.
Labels:
Benjamin Netanyahu,
Caroline Glick,
Gilad Shalit,
Hamas,
Israel
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Only Three Israeli Cabinet Members Dissented from Netanyahu's Prisoner Exchange Deal
Israel's Cabinet voted 26-3 to approve the disastrous, evil deal that will exchange more than 1000 terrorists for Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier illegally abducted by the Hamas terrorist group. The three dissenters were Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon and Minister of National Infrastructure Uzi Landau. Lieberman explained his vote by citing "the grave repercussions the deal will have on Israel." Landau declared, "Let there be no doubt--the public and the government are both praying for Gilad's safe return...But this deal is a triumph for terror and it's detrimental to Israel's security and deterrence."
Neville Chamberlain has become infamous for signing the disastrous Munich Agreement with Adolf Hitler and proclaiming that he had assured "peace in our time" when in fact Chamberlain's perfidy had paved the way for World War II and the Holocaust.
The so-called "Oslo II Accords" (also known as the "Taba Agreement" or the "Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip") divided Judea/Samaria and Gaza into three entities: one jurisdiction controlled entirely by Israel, one jurisdiction controlled entirely by the Palestinian Authority and one jurisdiction controlled jointly by Israel and the PA. The PA responded to the Israeli concessions not by building up the infrastructure in the areas under PA control but rather by greatly increasing the frequency and severity of PA-sponsored terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians; that predicable outcome is precisely why most Israelis did not support Oslo II and why the Israelis voted for Knesset members who had publicly indicated that they would never approve such a lopsided deal--but Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin "cleverly" found a way to circumvent the will of the Israeli people: Rabin bribed Knesset members Gonen Segev and Alex Goldfarb with Mitsubishi cars and cabinet posts in exchange for betraying the voters who elected them precisely to halt Rabin's plan to further weaken Israel. Segev and Goldfarb's names should live in infamy, though I doubt that many people outside--or perhaps even inside--Israel know who they are.
Just like Chamberlain's name has become synonymous with appeasement and the names of Segev and Goldfarb should have become synonymous with corruption, when the terrorists Israel is about to release resume killing innocent Jewish men, women and children no one should forget the names of those who approved this deal. Here are the names of the 26 Israeli Cabinet members who supported Prime Minister Netanyahu's disastrous deal with Hamas:
Neville Chamberlain has become infamous for signing the disastrous Munich Agreement with Adolf Hitler and proclaiming that he had assured "peace in our time" when in fact Chamberlain's perfidy had paved the way for World War II and the Holocaust.
The so-called "Oslo II Accords" (also known as the "Taba Agreement" or the "Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip") divided Judea/Samaria and Gaza into three entities: one jurisdiction controlled entirely by Israel, one jurisdiction controlled entirely by the Palestinian Authority and one jurisdiction controlled jointly by Israel and the PA. The PA responded to the Israeli concessions not by building up the infrastructure in the areas under PA control but rather by greatly increasing the frequency and severity of PA-sponsored terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians; that predicable outcome is precisely why most Israelis did not support Oslo II and why the Israelis voted for Knesset members who had publicly indicated that they would never approve such a lopsided deal--but Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin "cleverly" found a way to circumvent the will of the Israeli people: Rabin bribed Knesset members Gonen Segev and Alex Goldfarb with Mitsubishi cars and cabinet posts in exchange for betraying the voters who elected them precisely to halt Rabin's plan to further weaken Israel. Segev and Goldfarb's names should live in infamy, though I doubt that many people outside--or perhaps even inside--Israel know who they are.
Just like Chamberlain's name has become synonymous with appeasement and the names of Segev and Goldfarb should have become synonymous with corruption, when the terrorists Israel is about to release resume killing innocent Jewish men, women and children no one should forget the names of those who approved this deal. Here are the names of the 26 Israeli Cabinet members who supported Prime Minister Netanyahu's disastrous deal with Hamas:
- Vice Premier, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Development of the Negev and Galilee and Minister of Regional Cooperation Silvan Shalom
- Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Ehud Barak
- Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Eli Yishai
- Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Intelligence Dan Meridor
- Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon
- Communication Minister Moshe Kahlon
- Culture and Sports Minister Limor Livnat
- Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar
- Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan
- Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz
- Housing and Construction Minister Ariel Atias
- Immigrant Absorption Minister Sofa Landver
- Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer
- Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch
- Justice Minister Prof. Yaakov Ne'eman
- Minister of Government Services to the Public Michael Eitan
- Minister of Public Diplomacy and the Diaspora Yuli Edelstein
- Minister of Minority Affairs Avishay Braverman
- Minister of Religious Affairs Yakov Margi
- Science and Technology Minister Daniel Hershkowitz
- Social Affairs Minister Isaac Herzog
- Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov
- Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz
- Minister of Social Affairs and Israel’s Heritage Meshulam Nahari
- Minister Benny Begin
- Minister Yossi Peled
It is particularly sad and disgraceful that Begin and Edelstein did not dissent. Begin, the son of former Prime Minister Menachem Begin, has long been a beacon of reason who was not afraid to criticize suicidal Israeli governmental policies; Edelstein is a former refusenik who should know from personal experience that no good can come from dealing with bloodthirsty extremists. These 26 Israeli Cabinet Ministers have signed death warrants for countless innocent Jewish men, women and children--and when the Hamas murderers execute those death warrants Benjamin Netanyahu and these 26 Ministers should be held accountable for setting terrorists free.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Netanyahu's Shalit Deal Recklessly Endangers Innocent Israelis
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly reached an agreement with the Hamas terrorist group to release over 1000 terrorists from Israeli jails in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who was illegally abducted on June 25, 2006 by Hamas and who has been denied visitation by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The terrorists slated for release by Israel include hundreds who were sentenced to life in prison--in other words, killers who are directly responsible for attacks that killed and maimed thousands of innocent civilians. This is a disastrous, evil decision that will have horrifying--and quite predictable--consequences. Israel has made similarly lopsided exchanges several times and on each such occasion the released terrorists have subsequently killed many innocent men, women and children. Perhaps the most infamous exchange happened in May 1985--the so-called Jibril Deal--when Israel released 1150 prisoners to get back three soldiers; one of those 1150 prisoners--Ahmed Yassin--then founded Hamas. Thus, the Jibril Deal led to the Shalit kidnapping--and many other horrors--and the Netanyahu Deal will inevitably lead to future horrors.
In a December 9, 2009 article, Jeff Jacoby declared:
Few Israeli policies have been as counterproductive or morally questionable as the lopsided prisoner exchanges it has entered into with terrorist organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the PLO. Time and again, Israel has paid for the freedom of a few POWs--sometimes just the remains of a few POWs--by releasing hundreds of violent detainees, many of them complicit in the deaths of civilians. And time and again, the newly freed terrorists have picked up where they left off. Yassin is only the most notorious example. According to Israeli journalist Nadav Shragai, "about 50 percent of the terrorists freed for any reason--including those set free in one-sided 'goodwill gestures'--returned to the path of terror, either as a perpetrator, planner, or accomplice." An analysis by the Almagor Terror Victims Association in 2007 found that at least 30 attacks in the preceding five years had been committed by prisoners freed in deals with terrorist groups. More than 175 men, women, and children died in those attacks; many others were severely injured.
Some of the most infamous, heartrending terrorist attacks against Israel--including the March 27, 2002 Passover attack on the Park Hotel that killed 35 and wounded hundreds more--were perpetrated by prisoners who were released by Israel in exchanges or as "goodwill gestures." Nasser Abu Hameid, who had been imprisoned for five murders, was released by Israel in September 1999 as part of the Sharm el-Sheikh Agreement; he subsequently participated in the mutilation of the corpses of Israeli reserve soldiers Vadim Norzitz and Yossi Avrahami--non-combatants who took a wrong turn into Ramallah on October 12, 2000 and were literally torn apart limb from limb simply because they were Jews--and he murdered several Israelis in various terrorist attacks, including the roadside shooting of Rabbi Binyamin Kahane and Kahane's wife Talia.
Jacoby concluded his article with these prescient words:
In a December 9, 2009 article, Jeff Jacoby declared:
Few Israeli policies have been as counterproductive or morally questionable as the lopsided prisoner exchanges it has entered into with terrorist organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the PLO. Time and again, Israel has paid for the freedom of a few POWs--sometimes just the remains of a few POWs--by releasing hundreds of violent detainees, many of them complicit in the deaths of civilians. And time and again, the newly freed terrorists have picked up where they left off. Yassin is only the most notorious example. According to Israeli journalist Nadav Shragai, "about 50 percent of the terrorists freed for any reason--including those set free in one-sided 'goodwill gestures'--returned to the path of terror, either as a perpetrator, planner, or accomplice." An analysis by the Almagor Terror Victims Association in 2007 found that at least 30 attacks in the preceding five years had been committed by prisoners freed in deals with terrorist groups. More than 175 men, women, and children died in those attacks; many others were severely injured.
Some of the most infamous, heartrending terrorist attacks against Israel--including the March 27, 2002 Passover attack on the Park Hotel that killed 35 and wounded hundreds more--were perpetrated by prisoners who were released by Israel in exchanges or as "goodwill gestures." Nasser Abu Hameid, who had been imprisoned for five murders, was released by Israel in September 1999 as part of the Sharm el-Sheikh Agreement; he subsequently participated in the mutilation of the corpses of Israeli reserve soldiers Vadim Norzitz and Yossi Avrahami--non-combatants who took a wrong turn into Ramallah on October 12, 2000 and were literally torn apart limb from limb simply because they were Jews--and he murdered several Israelis in various terrorist attacks, including the roadside shooting of Rabbi Binyamin Kahane and Kahane's wife Talia.
Jacoby concluded his article with these prescient words:
But to knowingly risk the lives of civilians in order to protect soldiers is to turn the social contract inside out. The state's first duty to its citizens is to protect their lives and liberties; that is what justifies the creation of a military in the first place. Releasing hundreds of terrorists may mean that Shalit comes home safely, but it almost certainly condemns other Israeli citizens to death. The plight of Shalit and his family is heartbreaking and tragic. Yet it cannot be right to win his freedom by risking the lives of the very civilians he, like every soldier, is sworn to protect.
In 1976, Israeli troops flew 2,000 miles to rescue Jewish hostages being held in Uganda's Entebbe airport, a spectacular feat that electrified the world. Jonathan Netanyahu, the mission commander (and brother of Israel's current prime minister), died in that operation. He made the supreme sacrifice in the service of his nation, as soldiers so often have. Before the Israelis agree to a reckless deal with Hamas, perhaps they should reflect on Entebbe, and pause to ask themselves: What would Jonathan do?
Prime Minister Netanyahu has bodyguards and elite security services to protect him. Who will protect the innocent Jewish children who are going to be slaughtered by the terrorists Netanyahu is releasing? Just as importantly, who will hold Netanyahu responsible for the blood on his hands when such preventable atrocities predictably and inevitably happen? During Netanyahu's earlier term as Prime Minister in the 1990s he agreed to give away 80% of Hebron even though this exposed the city's Jewish residents to sniper attacks from Arab terrorists--and on March 26, 2001 an Arab sniper killed 10 month old Shalhevet Pass by shooting her in the head as she sat in her baby stroller. Netanyahu has yet to be held accountable for recklessly ceding control over most of Hebron and he has no right to set free terrorists who have blood on their hands and who will eagerly seek opportunities to spill even more innocent blood.
Labels:
Benjamin Netanyahu,
Gilad Shalit,
Hamas,
Israel,
Jibril Deal
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