I had a graduation party with the kids from my Catholic elementary school, since we're all still friends. There was a lot of food left over, so we took home a veggie tray and some cheese. No one in my family likes radishes, though, so we didn't know what to do with them. I didn't really worry about it.
My brothers, benevolent friends to animals that they are, decided to throw them to the rabbits in our yard.
Wait, not to the rabbits. At the rabbits.
I didn't know about it until I heard them talking last night about how Joey hit three of them.
And of course they defended themselves.
"No, Laura, it's not sociopathic."
"The rabbits need food!"
"We're not throwing them hard, really. They slow down because of the air resistance, and they're never high enough for acceleration due to gravity to have much of an effect."
"The rabbits aren't hurt, they're happy! Happy because they love radishes!"
"You just want the rabbits to starve."
"Laura, why do you hate bunnies?"
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
Economics and Ethics: A Rant
Mac asked us to keep the blog alive, so I guess I'll share. This is one of those topics that's been bothering me for a while, but that I really can't talk to people in Wilson about with any depth. Be careful what you wish for, I guess.
In the mid-1700s, Francis Hutchenson, one of Adam Smith's instructors at Glasgow, wrote A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy. In the section entitled "The Principles of Oeconomics and Politics," we get a few chapters on marriage and divorce, roles within a household (parent/child, master/servant) and the duties and responsibilities of household members. Otherwise, the section is pretty much devoted to politics. It's only when you get to the section entitled "Elements of the Law of Nature" that you get anything about property, money, and prices. These, apparently, were not a part of "oeconomics."
Hutchenson wasn't being dense. "Oeconomics," as it was understood until about the 1750, mostly had to do with household management, politics, or even management in a more general sense. Xenophon's Oikonomikos was fundimentally a work of ethics, and it is worth noting that Adam Smith himself was primarily a moralist. Economics was not a science, it was a field concerned with obtaining "the good life," starting at the home and later branching out into a larger, national sense on the level of the state.
What's struck me as I read more about modern economics is the almost total reversal that's taken place when we talk about the role of ethics in economic analysis. Economists have an almost painfully self-conscious desire to be scientists, and part of this desire to avoid nonscientific analysis is an attempt to aviod the kind of moral baggage that their forerunners attached to their analyses. Aside from the pure silliness that comes with a man studying social constructs trying to present himself on the same level of material objectivity as, say, a chemist (really, guys? really?), it has some implications that really disturb me.
Economics is all about choice. And in a context where (1) alternatives are pretty loaded, morally (for example, the choice between feeding the poor through social programs or letting them starve until the market corrects itself) and (2) alternatives are laid out with at least the hypothetical expectation of implimentation ("There is no such thing as a free abstraction"), even the apparent lack of preference on the part of the economist represents a moral choice in and of itself. In other words, by presenting "aid the needy" and "let them eat cake" as equally valid alternatives, their respective consequences described without comment, the economist has made an ethical statement, and a fairly disturbing one at that.
Economists try to run from this problem with a weird kind of number fetishism (under the assumption, I suppose, that numbers speak for themselves and therefore do not require an analysis that isn't completely factual), but all that it has really accomplished is to have made the field one of incomplete analysis. So, for example, we talk about GDP because it is easily measured, but we are less comfortable talking about the actual standard of living of the citizenry. We talk about production levels in a capitalist system, but we are less comfortable talking about waste (in contexts other than efficiency within production). These are important issues, but recieve little attention.
As much as I loathe his ideology and his propagandistic techniques, in this sense I really do have a deep respect for Milton Friedman. Friedman did not simply say, "the market is self-correcting, unless its normal fluctuations are impeded by state intervention," but actually went further, interpreted that conclusion as one that implies a certain ideology, and defended the logical ethical conclusions of that ideology. (A less repugnant example of an economist who is also willing to moralize might be someone like Galbraith or Stiglitz, but TASP nostalgia made Friedman hard to resist.)
Economics needs ideologues. Writing that almost makes me cringe, and you can bet that you will never hear me say that about another field as long as I live. But I think it's incredibly important. Fuck "political economy," fuck "social science." We need a "moral economy." Economists are and have always been closely linked to questions of social organization and policy-making. Scientists and mathematicians can tell us how to get where we are going, but they cannot tell us where we must go. For that, we need moralists, we need a vision. In a field so closely linked to politics, it is unspeakably irresponsible to shirk this responsibility.
I know more TASPers than myself are going into Econ, or planning to, at least. For fuck's sake, don't become one of those assholes who creates elaborate models to determine the impact of a 0.1% change in the interest rate. Don't sit around in a pressed suit and ask a table full of identically-dressed balding men whether we're bulls or bears. You, of all people, need to be the ones to shape our world, or to at least have the spine to try.
In the mid-1700s, Francis Hutchenson, one of Adam Smith's instructors at Glasgow, wrote A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy. In the section entitled "The Principles of Oeconomics and Politics," we get a few chapters on marriage and divorce, roles within a household (parent/child, master/servant) and the duties and responsibilities of household members. Otherwise, the section is pretty much devoted to politics. It's only when you get to the section entitled "Elements of the Law of Nature" that you get anything about property, money, and prices. These, apparently, were not a part of "oeconomics."
Hutchenson wasn't being dense. "Oeconomics," as it was understood until about the 1750, mostly had to do with household management, politics, or even management in a more general sense. Xenophon's Oikonomikos was fundimentally a work of ethics, and it is worth noting that Adam Smith himself was primarily a moralist. Economics was not a science, it was a field concerned with obtaining "the good life," starting at the home and later branching out into a larger, national sense on the level of the state.
What's struck me as I read more about modern economics is the almost total reversal that's taken place when we talk about the role of ethics in economic analysis. Economists have an almost painfully self-conscious desire to be scientists, and part of this desire to avoid nonscientific analysis is an attempt to aviod the kind of moral baggage that their forerunners attached to their analyses. Aside from the pure silliness that comes with a man studying social constructs trying to present himself on the same level of material objectivity as, say, a chemist (really, guys? really?), it has some implications that really disturb me.
Economics is all about choice. And in a context where (1) alternatives are pretty loaded, morally (for example, the choice between feeding the poor through social programs or letting them starve until the market corrects itself) and (2) alternatives are laid out with at least the hypothetical expectation of implimentation ("There is no such thing as a free abstraction"), even the apparent lack of preference on the part of the economist represents a moral choice in and of itself. In other words, by presenting "aid the needy" and "let them eat cake" as equally valid alternatives, their respective consequences described without comment, the economist has made an ethical statement, and a fairly disturbing one at that.
Economists try to run from this problem with a weird kind of number fetishism (under the assumption, I suppose, that numbers speak for themselves and therefore do not require an analysis that isn't completely factual), but all that it has really accomplished is to have made the field one of incomplete analysis. So, for example, we talk about GDP because it is easily measured, but we are less comfortable talking about the actual standard of living of the citizenry. We talk about production levels in a capitalist system, but we are less comfortable talking about waste (in contexts other than efficiency within production). These are important issues, but recieve little attention.
As much as I loathe his ideology and his propagandistic techniques, in this sense I really do have a deep respect for Milton Friedman. Friedman did not simply say, "the market is self-correcting, unless its normal fluctuations are impeded by state intervention," but actually went further, interpreted that conclusion as one that implies a certain ideology, and defended the logical ethical conclusions of that ideology. (A less repugnant example of an economist who is also willing to moralize might be someone like Galbraith or Stiglitz, but TASP nostalgia made Friedman hard to resist.)
Economics needs ideologues. Writing that almost makes me cringe, and you can bet that you will never hear me say that about another field as long as I live. But I think it's incredibly important. Fuck "political economy," fuck "social science." We need a "moral economy." Economists are and have always been closely linked to questions of social organization and policy-making. Scientists and mathematicians can tell us how to get where we are going, but they cannot tell us where we must go. For that, we need moralists, we need a vision. In a field so closely linked to politics, it is unspeakably irresponsible to shirk this responsibility.
I know more TASPers than myself are going into Econ, or planning to, at least. For fuck's sake, don't become one of those assholes who creates elaborate models to determine the impact of a 0.1% change in the interest rate. Don't sit around in a pressed suit and ask a table full of identically-dressed balding men whether we're bulls or bears. You, of all people, need to be the ones to shape our world, or to at least have the spine to try.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Empty White Chairs
It seems as if the blog has died a little of late. I assume this has something to do with end-of-year formalities. I hope everyone is having fun at their wild shindigs and graduation ceremonies. Mine was destroyed by rain.
The graduating class was divided into groups, with one third graduating in the auditorium, and the rest of us in the gym. The orchestra, choir and band didn't get to play, because there wasn't enough room, so they used a recording of Pomp & Circumstance instead. Our commencement speaker, a friend of mine who is apparently a fabulous writer, had to record her speech earlier in the day, to be played in the auditorium. We in the gym got the real thing, and it was moving. I almost cried. There was a pall over the whole night. We could only have three guests per graduating student, so none of the younger students got to see us graduate, and for those whose families flew out to see the graduation, I imagine that graduation was not the best day ever.
Empty white chairs will be all that I remember of that night. The day before graduation, my friends and I went out to the football field, where graduation is normally held. They'd already put out the chairs for the graduating class, so there were rows and rows of empty white chairs facing an empty, blue-carpeted platform. Behind it were the risers for the choir and a stack of orchestra chairs. Tammy (my friend) wouldn't let any of us step on the blue carpet. She told us that we would have to wait until tomorrow night.
The next morning, we had to wake up unfortunately early for graduation practice, where they laid out the protocol in the event of rain. We all sat in uncomfortable white chairs, waiting while Mr. Gehrman, our principal, filled us in on Plan B. As it turns out, Plan B became the Plan. After a series of whirlwind visits to the junior classes, the senior AP English class went to Mrs. White's Golden Rule Cafe for Soul Food Day with our teacher. By the way, yams are delicious. As we came back from Soul Food Day, we passed by the stadium again. I saw the rows of empty white chairs again, and I think it was then that I decided they ought to be significant in some way, an unfulfilled promise to the graduating class of '08. Don't hate, oh-eight.
By this time, it was drizzling slightly. There were texts being buzzed around town, filled with inspirational cries of rebellion: "The class of '08 started together, the class of '08 will end together!" Viva la revolucion. Obviously, despite the fervor with which it seems the entire class of '08 opposed Plan B, the uprising failed. By the time I got to school for the graduation, I didn't hear any kind of dissent against what was now, officially, the Plan.
Ironically enough, at graduation time, there was no rain whatsoever. It looked like things might be clearing up. They didn't. In fact, things got much worse in the course of graduation. It was probably a good thing that we stayed inside. Marcos de Niza High School had theirs outside, and from all accounts, everyone was miserable. As it turned out, the post-graduation felicitations were much more heartfelt than might have been expected. Having been driven apart by Fate, we were far more inclined to cling to each other. The hugs were tighter, the smiles were bigger, and the laughs were louder.
Obviously, since I'd already decided that the empty white chairs were significant, I made sure to study them before we left. They were still sitting out on the field, empty, wet and soaking. I stole one for my friend Woody.
The rest of the night was filled with celebrations of a more traditional sort, and I forgot all about being a high school graduate. On the way back from Chris Lue Sang's graduation shindig, we noticed that the stadium lights were still on at our school, so we swung by again (Incidentally, I have no idea why the lights were on in the first place, if they weren't planning on having the graduation out there). The chairs were still there, and they were still being beaten by the rain. With the lights blazing, and the empty bleachers waiting for an audience, there was a definite air of expectancy. I would like to think they're still waiting, transported into a different dimension, for the class of '08 to return and graduate.
Anyway, I just thought you all should know what happened on my graduation night. Tell me all about yours! Or if it hasn't happened yet, then tell me about something else equally fascinating. Forgive me if my prose waxes obnoxious. These are just some thoughts that have been running through my head of late. You all need to show me how to write better. Try writing something in the blog, so I can have some examples. The blog must be revived! Viva la blog!
The graduating class was divided into groups, with one third graduating in the auditorium, and the rest of us in the gym. The orchestra, choir and band didn't get to play, because there wasn't enough room, so they used a recording of Pomp & Circumstance instead. Our commencement speaker, a friend of mine who is apparently a fabulous writer, had to record her speech earlier in the day, to be played in the auditorium. We in the gym got the real thing, and it was moving. I almost cried. There was a pall over the whole night. We could only have three guests per graduating student, so none of the younger students got to see us graduate, and for those whose families flew out to see the graduation, I imagine that graduation was not the best day ever.
Empty white chairs will be all that I remember of that night. The day before graduation, my friends and I went out to the football field, where graduation is normally held. They'd already put out the chairs for the graduating class, so there were rows and rows of empty white chairs facing an empty, blue-carpeted platform. Behind it were the risers for the choir and a stack of orchestra chairs. Tammy (my friend) wouldn't let any of us step on the blue carpet. She told us that we would have to wait until tomorrow night.
The next morning, we had to wake up unfortunately early for graduation practice, where they laid out the protocol in the event of rain. We all sat in uncomfortable white chairs, waiting while Mr. Gehrman, our principal, filled us in on Plan B. As it turns out, Plan B became the Plan. After a series of whirlwind visits to the junior classes, the senior AP English class went to Mrs. White's Golden Rule Cafe for Soul Food Day with our teacher. By the way, yams are delicious. As we came back from Soul Food Day, we passed by the stadium again. I saw the rows of empty white chairs again, and I think it was then that I decided they ought to be significant in some way, an unfulfilled promise to the graduating class of '08. Don't hate, oh-eight.
By this time, it was drizzling slightly. There were texts being buzzed around town, filled with inspirational cries of rebellion: "The class of '08 started together, the class of '08 will end together!" Viva la revolucion. Obviously, despite the fervor with which it seems the entire class of '08 opposed Plan B, the uprising failed. By the time I got to school for the graduation, I didn't hear any kind of dissent against what was now, officially, the Plan.
Ironically enough, at graduation time, there was no rain whatsoever. It looked like things might be clearing up. They didn't. In fact, things got much worse in the course of graduation. It was probably a good thing that we stayed inside. Marcos de Niza High School had theirs outside, and from all accounts, everyone was miserable. As it turned out, the post-graduation felicitations were much more heartfelt than might have been expected. Having been driven apart by Fate, we were far more inclined to cling to each other. The hugs were tighter, the smiles were bigger, and the laughs were louder.
Obviously, since I'd already decided that the empty white chairs were significant, I made sure to study them before we left. They were still sitting out on the field, empty, wet and soaking. I stole one for my friend Woody.
The rest of the night was filled with celebrations of a more traditional sort, and I forgot all about being a high school graduate. On the way back from Chris Lue Sang's graduation shindig, we noticed that the stadium lights were still on at our school, so we swung by again (Incidentally, I have no idea why the lights were on in the first place, if they weren't planning on having the graduation out there). The chairs were still there, and they were still being beaten by the rain. With the lights blazing, and the empty bleachers waiting for an audience, there was a definite air of expectancy. I would like to think they're still waiting, transported into a different dimension, for the class of '08 to return and graduate.
Anyway, I just thought you all should know what happened on my graduation night. Tell me all about yours! Or if it hasn't happened yet, then tell me about something else equally fascinating. Forgive me if my prose waxes obnoxious. These are just some thoughts that have been running through my head of late. You all need to show me how to write better. Try writing something in the blog, so I can have some examples. The blog must be revived! Viva la blog!
Friday, May 9, 2008
Who does this remind YOU of?
So I was watching Across the Universe the other day for the 500th time and for those of you haven't seen it, well...it's your loss. Anyway, I was watching it and then it occured to me that Bono's lines in this scene bear an uncanny resemblance to a certain "theosopher's" insightful words we had the pleasure of listening to on the peace sign that one memorable evening. Or maybe not....it just reminded me of it. My memory may actually be screwed up and I could actually be completely wrong and you'll all read this and watch this and be like what the fuck is she talking about but maybe this was my way of getting all of you to watch part of this movie or perhaps just my way of saying, "Hey!" So here you go...sorry the quality is quite poor. I was excited that I managed to find this scene on youtube in the first place. Oh and I hope everyone's APs and IBs and such are going well. And you don't have to watch the whole thing just that one part.
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