- India Moves Toward a Regional Reset Suhasini Haidar, The Hindu
- France’s troubled obsession with India Blake Smith, the Caravan
- How the Soviet Union Secretly Mapped the World Bridgett Kendall, Literary Review
- How Soviet artists imagined life in space Vincze Miklós, io9
Year: 2018
The Intolerance of Tolerance
Just recently I read The Intolerance of Tolerance, by D. A. Carson. Carson is one of the best New Testament scholars around, but what he writes in this book (although written from a Christian perspective) has more to do with contemporary politics. His main point is that the concept of tolerance evolved over time to become something impossible to work with.
Being a New Testament scholar, Carson knows very well how language works, and especially how vocabulary accommodates different concepts over time. Not long ago, tolerance was meant to be a secondary virtue. We tolerate things that we don’t like, but that at the same time we don’t believe we should destroy. That was the case between different Protestant denominations early in American history: Baptists, Presbyterians, and so on decided to “agree to disagree,” even though they didn’t agree with one another completely. “I don’t agree with what you are saying, but I don’t think I have to shut you up. I’ll let you say and do the things I don’t like.” Eventually, the boundaries of tolerance were expanded to include Catholics, Jews, and all kinds of people and behaviors that we don’t agree with, but that we decide to tolerate.
The problem with tolerance today is that people want to make it a central value. You have to be tolerant. Period. But is that possible? Should we be tolerant of pedophilia? Murder? Genocide? Can the contemporary tolerant be tolerant of those who are not tolerant?
Postmodernism really made a mess. Postmodernism is very good as a necessary critic to the extremes of rationalism present in modernity. But in and by itself it only leads to nonsense. Once you don’t have anything firm to stand on, anything goes. Everything is relative. Except that everything is relative, that’s absolute. Tolerance today goes the same way: I will not tolerate the fact that you are not tolerant.
The news cycle vs. current events
The other day, while badgering my fellow Notewriters to blog more often, I mentioned that current events are different from the news cycle, and are still important to dissect and blog about. This distinction between the news cycle and current events was sparked by economist Arnold Kling’s recent post on where he gets the news (found in one of last week’s Nightcaps). Basically, the news cycle is terrible. I rarely pay any attention to it. CNN, a left-of-center media outlet that almost everybody has heard of, has on its front page today (the wee morning hours of 4-23-17) a great example of the news cycle:
- Kellyanne Conway to Dana Bash: OK, you went there
- Conway says asking about her husband’s anti-Trump tweets is a ‘double standard’
- Analysis: Trump’s score-settling creates jarring contrast
- WSJ: Trump to ask North Korea to dismantle nuclear arsenal before talking sanctions relief
- Opinion: Macron’s bromance with Trump will come at a price
- Biographer: Trump has lied since youth
- Melania Trump plans state dinner on her own
- Stelter: One Trump lie is crystal clear
You get the idea, and remember that CNN is a well-established, long-running media outlet. Other media outlets that focus on the news cycle are just as bad, if not worse (at least CNN pretends, most of the time, to wrap its clear bias in a cloth of objectivity). This is a far cry from the concept of “current events.” Current events, in my view, are arguments about ideas, events, or even people that take place between at least two sides in specific time frame. Most of the time, “current events” involve using events (usually) or people (rarely) to defend or attack an idea. You see the difference? Have a better definition?
The news cycle is largely garbage, but it can still be useful, especially for international news. I never visit RealClearPolitics, for example, because it focuses on the news cycle, but I stop by RealClearWorld, which usually conveys the news cycles of other countries, once or twice a day. Even though I’m consuming a news cycle, I’m still learning something because it’s a news cycle about a place very different from my own.
Five or ten years from now, the bullet points from CNN will be useless and forgotten, but the arguments put forth into the stream of current events will be useful and maybe even prized. What baffles me is that the news cycle, while almost universally loathed, is far more popular in terms of consumption than current events. Doesn’t everybody know how to use Google by now?
Nightcap
- Between property and liability Robin Hanson, Overcoming Bias
- National Health Service S.O.S. James Meek, London Review of Books
- Life lessons from reading Thucydides and hiking at night Miguel Monjardino, City Journal
- Blowing stuff up John Quiggin, Crooked Timber
Eye Candy: Computer games, worldwide
These are the most-owned games on Steam, a digital distribution platform (wiki). This was fascinating to me for a bunch of different reasons. You can come up with your own, I’m sure. Here are the wikis for the games:
- Team Fortress 2 (orange)
- PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (yellow)
- Dota 2 (red)
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (blue)
- Unturned (green)
I have played none of these games…
Nightcap
- The art of everyday politics in imperial China Michael Szonyi, Aeon
- Busting the myth of Global Britain Nick Pearce, New Statesmen
- The Russia-Turkey-Iran Axis is flimsy, at best Dimitar Bechev, American Interest
- Does the West have a vision for the Western Balkans? Mieczysław Boduszyński, War on the Rocks
Nightcap
- A libertarian review of Chappaquiddick Stephen Cox, Liberty Unbound
- The 19th century war on dogs Livia Gershon, JSTOR Daily
- The NBA is thriving because it has embraced individualism Douglas French, National Review
- After reading this, I can’t imagine why… Anar Parikh, Anthro{dendum}
Brazilian senator Gleisi Hoffmann sends weird message to “Arab World”
Earlier this week, Brazilian senator Gleisi Hoffmann, president of the Worker’s Party (of the jailed former president Lula da Silva), sent a message to “the Arab World” through Al Jazeera TV to, in her words, “denounce that Lula is a political prisoner.” Hoffmann blames the Brazilian judiciary system, Globo TV (a major mass media in Brazil), American and European oil companies, and even the US Department of State for Lula’s arrest. At the end of the video, she invites everyone (I assume she means everyone in the “Arab World”) to join her in the fight to free Lula.
Hoffmann’s message is very weird, to say the least. What is she expecting? An Arab intervention in Brazil to free Lula? If that is so, she is committing high treason. To say the least, the Worker’s Party is a bad joke. If Lula needs foreign intervention, then how can Hoffmann say that he enjoys full support in his country? The truth is that Lula is history. I would very much like to stop writing about this. But it seems that, while people like Hoffmann are still in power, there is work to do.
“Top 10 Things That Tipped Off Revolutionary War”
That’s the title of my weekend column over at RealClearHistory. Check it out:
5. The continued quartering of British soldiers. Imagine, for a moment, an Iraqi household being forced to give room and board to an American or a Polish soldier in 2005. That’s not quite what happened in the North American colonies but it’s not a far cry, either. The colonists of North America considered themselves to be British subjects of the Crown, and most were proud to be. (In fact, a little further down the list, you’ll see why the Americans, as rebels, were so adamant about liberalizing citizenship laws.) A much better analogy would be to imagine the LAPD or the Texas National Guard forcing households to give quarter to soldiers. The analogy is better, but the picture is still a frightening one.
Please, read the rest. The other 9 are also good. Heck, you might even learn something new…
Nightcap
- Syria: the knowledge problem Chris Dillow, Stumbling and Mumbling
- Why tribal sovereignty is so important Ryan McMaken Mises Wire
- Seattle baseball fans are eating grasshoppers, not hot dogs Eric Gomez, ESPN
- Art, science, and political economy Peter Boettke, Coordination Problem
The problem with Brazil (and it’s not socialism)
The problem with Brazil is not Luis Inacio Lula da Silva. It’s not the Worker’s Party. It’s not Socialism.
Certainly one of the most important politicians in Brazilian History was Getulio Vargas. Vargas came to power in a coup (that symptomatically most Brazilian historians call a revolution) in 1930. He ended up staying in power, without ever being elected by popular vote, until 1945. Then he peacefully resigned, not without electing his chosen successor, Eurico Gaspar Dutra. Vargas came back to power immediately after Dutra, and committed suicide while in office. Almost all Brazilian presidents from 1945 to 1964 were from Vargas’ close circle.
Brazilians to this day are still taught that Vargas was a hero, persecuted by an evil opposition. Initially, Vargas was some kind of Brazilian positivist. He was anti-liberal because liberalism is weak and slow. We need a strong technical government, able to identify problems and come with solutions fast. However, while in office, he became “the father of the poor,” a defensor of the lower classes. Nothing could be farther from the truth, of course, but that’s how Vargas is remembered by many.
One of my favorite interpretation of Brazil comes from Sergio Buarque de Holanda. According to Holanda, the problem with Brazil is that Brazilians are cordial. What he means by that is this: using Weber’s models of authority, he identified that Brazilians were never able to support a Legal-Rational authority. Vargas was seen as “a father.” not a president. The country is seen as a big family. Lula used a very similar vocabulary and tried to reenact Vargas’ populism.
As I mentioned, Holanda’s interpretation is Weberian. Weber’s most famous book is The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. The problem with Brazil is that it never went through a protestant reformation. And because of that, it never developed the “spirit of capitalism” that Weber describes. Brazil is still, to a great degree, stuck with traditional and charismatic forms of authority.
To be sure, Brazil has many features of a modern liberal state. Since late 18th century Portugal tried to copy these from more advanced nations, especially England. Brazil followed suit. But you can’t have the accidents without the substance. Unless Brazil actually goes through a transformation in its soul, it will never become the modern liberal state many want it to be. Quoting Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, “An ignorant people will always choose Rosas.”
Nightcap
- A profile of new NY Fed Chairman John Williams Tate Lacey, Alt-M
- How to win a trade war Oliver Roeder, FiveThirtyEight
- The road to Iranian democracy Luma Simms, Law and Liberty
- Where Arnold Kling gets his news Arnold Kling, askblog
Brazilian Senator Aécio Neves close to jail
Brazilian Senator Aécio Neves is close to the jail. He is charged with corruption and obstruction of justice.
Aécio Neves is one of the main leaders of PSDB, the party that, especially since 1994, has been the main electoral opposition to the Worker’s Party (PT) of Luis Inacio Lula da Silva. Fernando Henrique Cardoso, president from 1995 to 2002, is also in the PSDB. Neves was presidential candidate in the last elections, in 2014, and was really close to defeating Dilma Rousseff, the candidate of PT that was later impeached.
The Aécio Neves trial is extremely symptomatic in Brazilian politics. There are no popular manifestations in his favor. No political analyst is claiming that he is innocent and being unjustly accused. In other words, the contrast between Aécio Neves and Lula, recently sent to jail under a lot of noise, couldn’t be greater.
A popular phrase in Brazil is very telling. The translation to English loses the rhyme, but here it goes: when Lula was facing trial, some militants of PT carried signs saying “Lula is my friend, you mess with him, you mess with me.” Former Aécio voters later carried signs saying “Aécio is not my friend, if you mess with him I couldn’t care less.” As usual, the right is right.
“Horrors Didn’t End When Bataan Death March Did”
That’s the title of last week‘s Tuesday post over at RealClearHistory. I’ve been so busy I forgot to share it here. Check it out:
Camp O’Donnell was no relief from the Death March of Bataan. In it, disease spread like wildfire and starvation was rampant. The Japanese, who were fighting Americans elsewhere and Filipino guerrillas close by, had no empathy for their prisoners. The prisoners who survived the harsh march from Bataan had another 3 ½ years of hard manual labor in prison camps to look forward to, if they survived the horrific conditions of the camps.
As the Allies began slowly retaking the Philippines from Japanese forces, these prisoners of war were shipped from one of the 70 prisoner camps on the archipelago to China and Japan itself to continue their slave labor for the Empire. The Japanese shipped these prisoners to the mainland on unmarked vessels, a violation of the Geneva Conventions, and it’s possible that the American and British Navies may have inadvertently sunk a number of these vessels.
Please, read the rest.
Nightcap
- Syria’s humanitarian disaster is fast becoming a global crisis Bob Seely, CapX
- Trump is celebrating torture, not tolerating it Andrew Sullivan, Daily Intelligencer
- The brutal legacy of childhood trauma Junot Díaz, New Yorker
- Which countries get the most sleep? James Tozer, 1843
Notes On Liberty 