Year: 2019

Ok, Americans – here is your Eurovision Guide

Joakim Book Culture, Current Events , , , ,

“Euro-what?” I hear you ask. Great! Set your coffee aside for a few minutes and indulge in a much-required and long-overdue cultural enlightenment.

Eurovision Mania is on, so you better get with it!

Eurovision Song Contest, or “Eurovision”, is an annual music competition that’s been running since 1956 and every year sees some 40 countries participating. And it’s massive. Every participating country selects an original song – usually through some kind of nationally televised show – with an associated live performance and all those entries get to perform in front of tens of thousands of ecstatic Eurovision fans from across the globe.

In short, it’s basically American’s Got Talent merged with The Voice – but structured a bit like Miss U.S.A – with tons more glitter, spex, showtime and glamour and with twice(!) the audience of SuperBowl. Beat that, ‘Murica.

Yes, that’s some 200 million people lining up their Saturday nights (and the preceeding Tuesday and Thursday too, for semi-finals) for this:

The winner is lavished in eternal fame and glory, and their country’s broadcasting company gets the honor of splashing out on next year’s event. As Israel’s Netta and her song ‘Toy’ won last year’s competition in Libson, Portugal, the 64th version of Eurovision is held in Tel Aviv, Israel, beginning today!

Is Israel European?

Perhaps not, but that’s never stopped Eurovision before. Actually, the event is organized by European Broadcasting Union (EBU), an alliance of public service media companies – and includes associate members such as Australian, Algerian, Jordanian and Lebanon organizations. Thus, the geographical boundaries for entries into Eurovision is somewhat flexible – which is why Australia has competed in the competition since 2015!

That’s also the reason Brexit won’t affect the UK’s participation in Eurovision, thank god!

So, what is this thing – and why have I never heard of it?

Depending on who you ask, Eurovision could be anything between a fabulous celebration of European unity through culture and music, or a dull, wasteful affair of pretty freaky performances. No doubt among the competition’s 1500 entries, it has seen its fair share of strange, quirky, silly and outrageous performances (just google some of them). But it also contains the fanciest, most extravagant dresses and costumes imaginable,  friendly rivalry, great music and an outburst of colors. Indeed, a bit like the SuperBowl, the half-time entertainment has been at least as interesting as most of the performances. This year it is even rumored that Madonna is making an appearance!

In other words, across the Atlantic, Eurovision mania has descended and will be this week’s Big Thing. Indeed, at 10 pm local time (3 p.m ET), the first semi-final begins, and the winner usually emerges after a rather complicated voting procedure sometime Saturday night (6 p.m ET).

As for American’s (un)surprising ignorance of the event, it’s even become somewhat of a Youtube phenomena of introducing this long-standing pan-European institution to shockingly unaware Americans and recording their reactions. Some of them are pretty spot-on (“this is the cheesiest of music shows!”). Without passing judgment on the worldy outlooks of Americans, y’all aren’t exactly – erm let’s say – well-versed in the going-ons of places beyond your coasts.

In the Eurovision case, not for lack of trying: in the last few years, Logo actually broadcasted the event, but couldn’t muster more than 50,000-75,000 viewers and so the greatest of European non-sports events won’t be on American TV this year. Hardcore fans (list of international broadcasters) are probably best served by a youtube live-stream.

Of course, the skimpy American coverage by outlets like the New York Times isn’t exactly helping either; their angle of the “Israel-Palestine dispute” compleeeeetely miss the point of Eurovision. The event’s apolitical nature is another thing that makes Eurovision so great: politics is strictly, explicitly, unavoidably relegated to the sidelines. As in political messages and even song lyrics with too definitive political flavors are censured or expelled. For instance, Iceland’s participants this year, the controversial band Hatari, is already challenging this sacred line of No Politics Beyond This Point by their frequent pro-Palestine stunts. Allegedly, they have already been issued a final warning by the organizers; one more political stunt and they’re disqualified.

In sum: Eurovision is the biggest, fanciest, most extravagant and entertaining music event you’ve never heard of. Get on the train. A great start is by watching the recap of this year’s 41 entries.

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. The Second Earl of Liverpool SJD Green, Law & Liberty
  2. Multilateralism is cooperative, not imperial Ankit Panda, Diplomat
  3. Should we worry about deplatforming? Arnold Kling, askblog
  4. Eating someone Lori Marino, Aeon

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. Ayn Rand and international politics Edwin van de Haar, NOL
  2. Seeing the Gothic in Notre Dame blaze Cynthia Houng, JHIBlog
  3. So let it be unwritten Irfan Khawaja, Policy of Truth
  4. The persistence of poverty Robin Hanson, Overcoming Bias

“People perish for cold metal”

Brandon Christensen History , , , , ,

The interrogators did not write up charge sheets because no one needed their papers. And whether or not a [prison] sentence would be pasted on was of very little interest. Only one thing was important: Give up your gold, viper! The state needs gold and you don’t.

This is all from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago. There’s more:

If you in fact had no gold, then your situation was hopeless. You would be beaten, burned, tortured, and steamed to the point of death or until they finally came to believe you. But if you had gold, you could determine the extent of your torture, the limits of your endurance, and your own fate.

It’s a good book, so far, but trying to compare the Soviet Union after World War I and a brief civil war to the present-day United States is a bridge too far. The only Americans today who might share the Gulag experience are the black ones, and even then their situation is less of a gulag archipelago and more of a traditional oppressed ethnic minority.

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. The stoic grief of the Gold Star Mothers John McKay, American Conservative
  2. “My body, my choice” Ilya Somin, Volokh Conspiracy
  3. “Frontier” history has gotten much better, no thanks to David McCullough Rebecca Onion, Slate
  4. The loss of a symbol of civilization Nick Nielsen, The View from Oregon

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. Winning over the Upper Silesians Stefanie Woodard, H-Borderlands
  2. The Holy Roman Union Dalibor Rohac, American Interest
  3. Talking about the Jews Simcha Gross, Marginalia
  4. Herbert Spencer and Social Darwinism Alberto Mingardi, Law & Liberty

Epistemological anarchism to anarchism

Bill Rein Culture, Liberty, Philosophy , , , , ,

I’ve been working on a paper — since I’ve long tabled the idea of a future in academia, or scholarship, I have only a few projects I want to get done in substitution — to expand the work of Paul Feyerabend into a political philosophy. Feyerabend’s primary discipline was the philosophy of science and epistemology, where he considered his central thesis to be “methodological” or “epistemological anarchism.”

His dialogues, essays, and lengthier expositions of (sometimes called) “epistemological Dadaism” can be roughly summed up as

For any scientific conclusion C, there is no one route from empirical premises P.

“Scientific” here being widely inclusive and contemporary with social standards, as a function of Feyerabend’s opposition to positivism. The hubbub of observation statements, empirical tests, auxiliary hypotheses, inferences, axioms, etc. that govern a research programme are only one possible set of multiple that have historically yielded similarly sanctified discoveries. For any B, there is no single route from A. Describing the scientific method as a route of Popperian falsification, for instance, cuts out Galileo, or cuts out Einstein, he would argue.

Feyerabend swore off the doctrine of political anarchism as a cruel system, although he was often inspired by revolutionary anarchists like Bakunin. Even still, his philosophy lends support for social power decentralization in general — even with sometimes grotesque deviations like his support for government suppression of academic inquiry.

I’ll be working on the paper on this, but in lieu of that, I think the primary connection between Feyerabend’s work on epistemology and a potential work in political science is the support of his epistemological thesis — for any scientific conclusion C, there is no one route from empirical premises P — for a broader methodological statement, namely, that for any outcome C, there is no one route from starting point A. For politics, this could mean:

For any social-organizational outcome O, there is no one route from given state of nature N.

Where “route” can clearly apply to ranges of government involvement, or zero government involvement. Feyerabend’s writings do not support this liberal of a reading in general, but in a constrained domain of social organization and especially knowledge-sharing (he was keen on dissolving hierarchies for their disruption of information), there might be a lot of connection to unearth.

This is, again, part of a larger project to bring Feyerabend more into the liberty spectrum — his writings are hosted on marxists.org, after all — or at least on the radar for inspiration. I’ll be posting more, and hopefully defending it, in the future.

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. The communist who explained history Corey Robin, New Yorker
  2. On China’s new naval base in Cambodia Charles Edel, War on the Rocks
  3. Why Trumpist populism is so popular Emmanuel Todd, City Journal
  4. How the Soviets learned to think freely Jennifer Wilson, New Republic

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. Tyler Cowen interviews Karl Ove Knausgård
  2. Jonathan Rosen and Tarun Tejpal interview V.S. Naipaul
  3. Francesca Pellas interviews Jhumpa Lahiri
  4. Noah Benjamin-Pollak interviews Ken Liu

RCH: The strangest riot in American history

Brandon Christensen History, Links , , , , ,

Thus the Astor Place, like every other theater in the United States, was unable to make itself too exclusive. Its founders, like those who founded the republic itself, had to find a way to live with an equality that was democratic in nature. Democratic equality was, and is, a different monster than the equality Europeans had been grappling with since Late Antiquity (the tail end of the Roman Empire). The old equality was based on Christianity and on the feudalistic property rights regimes that undergirded Europe. Democratic equality, on the other hand, is based on notions of self-rule and on capitalistic property rights. Basically, in Western culture, free men and money replaced piety and honor when it came to mutual understandings of equality.

Please, read the rest.

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. Let us now turn to the criticisms of Rothbard’s anarchism David Gordon, Power & Market
  2. Why Sri Lanka? Vishal Arora, the Diplomat
  3. Sincere religious belief can still be plain old bigotry John Holbo, Crooked Timber
  4. The real “trap” created by two-earner culture Ross Douthat, New York Times

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. How Java’s eccentric saints challenge Islamism Tim Hannigan, Asian Review of Books
  2. Advice from medieval monks Jamie Kreiner, Aeon
  3. The Jews in China Noah Lachs, Times Literary Supplement
  4. Conservativism is about reform, not stasis Timothy Goeglein, Modern Age

Liberalism in International Relations

Bruno Gonçalves Rosi Liberty, Philosophy , ,

Besides Realism, Liberalism is one of the greatest schools of knowledge in International Relations. Just like Realism, it is not easy to define Liberalism, for liberals come in many shapes and colors. However, I believe we can point to some core characteristics of liberals in International Relations.

One of the difficulties we find when discussing liberalism in International Relations is the same difficulty we have with Liberalism in general. Different from Marxism, for example, Liberalism is a very broad intellectual tradition, with many different thinkers. Sometimes I ask my students “who is the most important Marxist thinker?”. I hope they will answer Marx! And then I ask “who is the most important liberal thinker?”. Besides that, Liberalism went through a major transformation between the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the ways to make a distinction between the old and the new liberalism is to talk of classical liberalism and modern liberalism. Classical liberalism is very similar to what we call conservatism (or even Realism!). Modern Liberalism is often associated with the Democratic Party in the US.

In any case, I believe that the central tenet of liberalism is the defense of liberty. Liberals (especially classical liberals) believe that if individuals are set free from outside constraints, the natural result is progress. In other words, Liberals have great faith in the possibility of change – positive change. This contrasts with the general pessimism of Realists.

In very practical terms, although they agree with Realists that the International System is anarchic, Liberals see more space for cooperation between states towards a more pacific and prosperous World. Where Realists see competition, Liberals see at least the potential for cooperation. One of the ways that states can cooperate with one another is through shared values. These values can be fleshed into international organizations, such as the UN or the WTO.

In sum, liberals agree on a lot with Realists but have much more hope for international cooperation. I must say that I really want them to be right, but think that they are wrong. Realists seem to have a very strong point when they show how much the anarchy in the international system stops greater cooperation. And Liberals themselves are not waiting for a World government that will somehow solve that. I’m not saying that cooperation and progress are impossible or that they are undesirable. I’m just saying that I’m not convinced that they can happen the way Liberal Theory of International Relations describes.

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. Freedom isn’t free Robin Hanson, Overcoming Bias
  2. The embarrassment of riches Brian Doherty, Reason
  3. American hegemony and imperial control Emma Ashford, War on the Rocks
  4. On prison nurseries Naomi Schaefer Riley, National Affairs

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. “Experimenting with Social Norms” in small-scale societies Pseudoerasmus
  2. Reading Karl Marx in Beijing Fabio Lanza, Jacobin
  3. Which works better: democracy or dictatorship? Branko Milanovic, globalinequality
  4. Grappling with the meaning of martyrdom Scott Beauchamp, Law & Liberty