Thursday, February 24, 2011
Changing Lifestyles
For once,this isn't about borrowed thoughts - at least not directly. But with the increasing acceptance of gay "civil unions" if not marriage, it stricks me that polygamy is open for discussion. Polygamy is technically having more than one spouse, regardless of sex (i.e., one woman, two men; or one man, two women). Given the modern economy and the common practice of having 2 working adults in a house, having a third adult to stay home and be a 'house spouse' makes a great deal of sense to me - and even more if there are kids involved. Having a stay-at-home parent is a huge advantange for most kids. Having 2 incomes is a huge advantage for a family. Having 3 adults involved seems to address this well.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Economics
This is a great article from Scientific American on the inability of economist or any stock market experts to succeesfully out guess the future.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=financial-flimflam
That should be evident from history. More interesting, when tested, individuals who know a little about a lots of things did better at forecasting than those that knew a lot about a one thing. I suspect that logic also applies to climate change as well, since we are dealing with the future, and forecasting is best done with humility and an acknowledgement of uncertainty. Something many specialized experts seem to lack.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=financial-flimflam
That should be evident from history. More interesting, when tested, individuals who know a little about a lots of things did better at forecasting than those that knew a lot about a one thing. I suspect that logic also applies to climate change as well, since we are dealing with the future, and forecasting is best done with humility and an acknowledgement of uncertainty. Something many specialized experts seem to lack.
Marxist Economic Theory
Heaven knows I'm no economist, but the history of countries that proported to support Marxist political and economic theory is pretty dismal - as in none have been stable for any reasonable period of time. Based upon that alone, I have to conclude that Marxism is really wrong-headed. Here's an essay that supports that position from more pwersonal experience with Marxist theory that I will ever have.
Marx Is dead
And I don't feel so good myself.
by Sarah A. Hoyt at http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2011/02/marx_is_dead.html#more
When I was in highschool in the seventies (well, it couldn't be helped. It's not like I chose my date of birth. But in my defense, I delayed coming of age till 1980) in Portugal, I studied Marxism and Marxist theory in four classes a year: off the top of my head, the line up I remember is History; Economics; Portuguese; Sociology. (And if you ask why I was taking Sociology in Highschool, it's because the Portuguese system has no electives. They tell you what you're going to study. And Sociology gave them one more chance to teach Marx.)
Of course, we used "Marxist Techniques" in other courses too - anthropology; literary analysis. I seem - vaguely - to remember we used Marxist analysis in biology but I hope to all that's good and holy that I'm wrong about that. (It was a long time ago.) It would be roughly the equivalent of using the rhythm method in literary production. Or perhaps grammatical analysis in music. I mean, you can bend anything in any way, but it makes no sense.
I read somewhere, written by a more literate person - I believe an economist - that the weakest point of the Marxist theories was that Marx, as an economist, was such a bizarre failure he never understood the role of resellers.
This sounds, at gut level, true, since in Portugal, when it much resembled the mythical happy land of Brutopia, also back in the seventies, there was a virtual propaganda war against marker-uppers.
This makes perfect sense, if what you have are classroom Marxists looking at the economy and completely unable to see reality through the fog of what they were taught.
This would only make sense for an academic who has lived in the city his whole life and is NOT aware of where his veggies come from. If you think your pasta grows on trees, you probably can imagine sauntering down to the local park and picking a bushel full. At worst, if you know it has to be made in a factory, you figure you should get it at factory price. Of course.
But the people who transport it have to make money too. Even if the transport is across town to your grocery store. And the people who sell it have to make money too. Unless you buy your pasta at the little corner store of pasta-only, in which case you might as well go to the factory, the supermarket offers you the convenience of shopping for a lot of things under one roof.
Having grown up in a village, where there were general stores, but no supermarkets, at certain times of year one did have to go five or six places to get: meat; fruit; veggies; bread. And if that sounds quaint and wonderful, I'll point out a shopping trip could - and often did - consume all of my mother's morning for half a dozen items. Also, most of those shops were already "resellers" who were marking up the product - meat would come from several sources, so the butcher could sell you beef or lamb or pork or even (hey, this is Europe) horse. Fruit came from the various farms in the region. Ditto veggies.
Now imagine you had to do this for everything you wanted to buy. EVERYTHING. Books? Go to the author. Each author. Even with ebooks, that would get maddening. Pens, go to the factory. Resellers earn their markup. (And never mind most of them are investing in the stuff to resell and taking a huge risk. At the very minimum, even Walmart has to pay for the building and rent, and employees and then make it pay.)
But you really, really, really cannot study Marx for any length of time without seeing other holes. For instance, take his entire view of power relationships in society. It is clear these are modeled on Academic Relationships, which is why - poor bunny - he got the whole thing upside down and sideways. Marx didn't understand the concept of "mutual benefit." Look, I'm very aware of "mutual benefit." As bad as the publishing world is - and it is, mostly because it is by and large run by people who (often without being aware of it) view the world through a Marxist prism, and therefore think they are supposed to be exploiting others (because it's what everyone in a position of power would do.) - my working for my publishers is always mutually beneficial. (Sometimes more than others, in a direction or another.) Yeah, they get most of the money from a book publication. But, hey, I get money up front, which in many ways allows me to sit here on my behind writing the book instead of having a real job.
Most - even those we wouldn't think - employer/employee relationships are also mutually beneficial. Yes, even in the sweat shops that have now moved to remote third world countries. Look, something you have to be aware of is that your history of the industrial revolution was by and large written by Marxists, or by the sort of academic culture that spawned Marx. And we're seeing the same thing play out now.
You see American liberals wring their hands over the exploitation of child workers, or scream about workers who sleep in their factories and have no days off.
Are there horrible things that happen at that level of industrialization? Oh, deary me, yes. Again remember I come from a country that likes to tell itself it's NOT third world. Out of a class of twelve girls in elementary school, four of us went on to the prep-school (fifth and sixth grade) which allowed us to enter highschool (seventh through twelfth.) The rest? Well, Portugal was one of the first countries in Europe to ban child labor. HOWEVER if your child was mentally retarded (educable mentally retarded, actually) the prohibition was waived so that they could "learn a trade." So, those other ten girls all got doctors (Hello Wisconsin!) to certify they were mentally retarded, so they could work in the textile mills. At the age of ten. Weekends, but no vacation. At least they had fairly clean places to work, and weren't beaten, let alone made to work with machines that might take their hands off - though industrial accidents still happen - and had a forty hour work week. However, if you have a ten year old, imagine him cooped up from nine to five, inside a room, unable to run or play, and having to be answerable to a boss.
And that's under "soft conditions." Of course a lot of the industrial revolution was awful. BUT there are two things they don't tell you.
First, it was MUCH better than the conditions they were living under. How do I know that? Oh, easy. One, because people aren't stupid. No, really, honestly. People are not stupid when it comes to self-interest and survival. And it wasn't all "dispossessed peasants" who joined in the industrial revolution. That was Marx's addled view. People came of their own free will. Because life in the factories was better. The pay, miserable by our standards, was better. Because a family, in aggregate, with everyone working, could have a better life. In Portugal, villages have emptied. I understand the same things are happening in China and India and places now undergoing the process.
The idea that life is better in the villages is the day-dreaming of academics who vacation in villages. Not of the people voting for industrialization with their feet and hands.
Second, there was a population explosion and average life span grew longer.
So, even in those conditions, which were, by our lights, horrible, the employees got a benefit from the employers. As for the employers... Well, my dears, the fact is life was not as good as we have it for anyone. Yeah, some "robber barons" made it spectacularly. But most people with money were one financial disaster away from being at the same level as their workers. There are plenty of stories of riches to rags from that time. So, they took a risk in starting the factory. Just like their workers endured the conditions. And both benefitted to an extent they were comfortable with.
Marx saw only exploitation.
Part of this was because of Marx's understanding of value, which is the pinnacle, or perhaps the foundation on which ALL his misunderstandings rest. It is also the most widely, insinuatingly pervasive of the Marxist concepts in our society.
To Marx value was raw material plus work. The means of producing that work (machinery, etc) were just sort of there. And he made no allowance for invention. (Which is why though Marxist revolutions often recruit intellectuals they're the sort of intellectuals who never had an original idea in their life.) Of course in our day and age, invention and original thought are at least as important as machinery in creating product. Also, the raw material fallacy means all the countries who have nothing else to sell feel "exploited" because we're taking their "value" away. Imbuing raw material itself with value means that it's sort of like stealing national treasure. This has given rise to an entire colonialist-exploitation-theory of history which has held more people in misery in developing countries than the most brazen robber baron could manage. And no one, NOT ONE seems to realize that their raw materials mean absolutely nothing if not used. If someone doesn't have an idea to use it. If the finished product is not good for something. In other words, if you're not producing something that someone else finds useful. (I.e. enough to pay for.) If the relationship isn't MUTUALLY beneficial.
I don't have time to go into all the crazy things that idea has caused, because the work=value thing fascinates me even more.
This is an idea SO loony only an exceedingly well educated person could believe it. We've all heard of the famous "if I take a month to polish a dog turd, can I charge by the hour of my labor?" And to that you'll say "But it's only a dog turd. Dog turds have no market value."
Ah, you'd be wrong, my fine, feathered friend. There are industries that use those. But let's suppose for the sake of the argument this is your pet pooch's poop that you just throw away normally. No value. But if I devote a month to polishing it... Let's say I get paid at $7 an hour. That's cheap, as I normally make more than that, but let's suppose I ONLY make that. So...
Seven times eight times twenty, I should be able to charge $560 (update: my older son pointed out I gave you an even better discount, as my mind recoiled from the true value of my labor in polishing the dog turd, which should be: $1120) for my polished dog turd. And cheap at the price, mind, since I'm not charging the residual value of the raw materials and I'm giving you a discount on my labor. Come on! What are you waiting for?
This also discounts things such as human knowledge. Humans get better at tasks they do most often. This is the idea behind training. So, let's suppose what we're making is clay cups. I will undoubtedly take longer to make a clay cup than a master craftsman. I also - hey, I know myself - will end up with a lumpy product full of thumb marks. But I took longer. Therefore it's worth more, right? (Suddenly I understand how certain artsy shops charge for things.)
Now you're laughing and telling me no one believes that. Ah, but you're wrong. First of all people believed that - absolutely believed that, until they were in the place where they set production quotas and all the shoes available for sale were size twenty six and for the left foot.
People STILL believe that. Before people ever read a book of mine, if they find out how much I write, they will inform me that I'm doing hack work. BEFORE reading me. (Yes, I've had people turn around and apologize AFTER reading me.) Or - and this is my favorite - that I don't care about what I do. It never seems to occur to them that before I got to the point I am (Yes, I CAN comfortably write four books in a year, thank you so much) I wrote for fifteen years without being paid a cent, practicing and learning my craft, so that now craft can support me where the sheer "inspiration" fails. As for caring ... No matter how fast I work, novels are HARD. Heck, short stories are hard. I don't think I could physically finish a book I didn't care about. The ones that for whatever reason I feel marginally attached to are an epic battle as is.
Many authors wrote books in a week or less (Rex Stout comes to mind.) A lot of beginners write books that take them ten years and TRUST me, you wouldn't want to read them. (I have done my time in slush piles.) So, why would this idea persist? Ah... good old Marx.
Good old Marx is also responsible for that most insane of ideas, the minimum wage. Dictating a minimum wage people have to be paid is the same as saying that labor has an intrinsic, minimal value. And before you scream I'm cruel or heartless, what the heck do feelings have to do with economics? Economics is the science of value. Value is what someone is willing to pay for something. NOT "but they need this to survive." THAT is an idea that work in itself has a value.
If that were true, we could hire an army of unemployed workers to polish dog turds for the international market. We'd be rich, rich I tell you!
And for the gentleman in the back with the sign calling me a corporate running dog - I'm not proposing to let unskilled people starve (though neither should we keep them so comfortable that they never learn a craft. If someone had paid me a living wage to write that awful first... or second... or third... novel, I'd have had no reason to improve.) THAT is a completely separate mechanism. That falls under charity or, if I can't dissuade you, some sort of government looting-and-redistributing program. (What do you mean it's not looting? They take taxes on the threat of force. ALWAYS. That's looting.) It's a stupid option, but, in moderation, our society can support it. In fact, if we keep it moderate, we would be rich enough to support a lot of it. And it wouldn't distort markets or prevent people from acquiring skills. Yes, even retail involves skill.
The point is the only possible justification for minimum wage IS the Marxist theory of value. The only possible justification for asking rich people to "give back" - which presumes they stole something to begin with - "to the community" is the Marxist theory of value. For that matter, the reason our schools treat truly smart kids (not what they call "gifted" which often just means "shuts up and does as told well." ) as pariahs - because it takes them less effort and less time to accomplish what others take forever to do - is the Marxist theory of value.
Brothers and sisters, I bring you news of great joy: Marx is dead. Let's ensure his theories die also and do not rise again.
Marx Is dead
And I don't feel so good myself.
by Sarah A. Hoyt at http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2011/02/marx_is_dead.html#more
When I was in highschool in the seventies (well, it couldn't be helped. It's not like I chose my date of birth. But in my defense, I delayed coming of age till 1980) in Portugal, I studied Marxism and Marxist theory in four classes a year: off the top of my head, the line up I remember is History; Economics; Portuguese; Sociology. (And if you ask why I was taking Sociology in Highschool, it's because the Portuguese system has no electives. They tell you what you're going to study. And Sociology gave them one more chance to teach Marx.)
Of course, we used "Marxist Techniques" in other courses too - anthropology; literary analysis. I seem - vaguely - to remember we used Marxist analysis in biology but I hope to all that's good and holy that I'm wrong about that. (It was a long time ago.) It would be roughly the equivalent of using the rhythm method in literary production. Or perhaps grammatical analysis in music. I mean, you can bend anything in any way, but it makes no sense.
I read somewhere, written by a more literate person - I believe an economist - that the weakest point of the Marxist theories was that Marx, as an economist, was such a bizarre failure he never understood the role of resellers.
This sounds, at gut level, true, since in Portugal, when it much resembled the mythical happy land of Brutopia, also back in the seventies, there was a virtual propaganda war against marker-uppers.
This makes perfect sense, if what you have are classroom Marxists looking at the economy and completely unable to see reality through the fog of what they were taught.
This would only make sense for an academic who has lived in the city his whole life and is NOT aware of where his veggies come from. If you think your pasta grows on trees, you probably can imagine sauntering down to the local park and picking a bushel full. At worst, if you know it has to be made in a factory, you figure you should get it at factory price. Of course.
But the people who transport it have to make money too. Even if the transport is across town to your grocery store. And the people who sell it have to make money too. Unless you buy your pasta at the little corner store of pasta-only, in which case you might as well go to the factory, the supermarket offers you the convenience of shopping for a lot of things under one roof.
Having grown up in a village, where there were general stores, but no supermarkets, at certain times of year one did have to go five or six places to get: meat; fruit; veggies; bread. And if that sounds quaint and wonderful, I'll point out a shopping trip could - and often did - consume all of my mother's morning for half a dozen items. Also, most of those shops were already "resellers" who were marking up the product - meat would come from several sources, so the butcher could sell you beef or lamb or pork or even (hey, this is Europe) horse. Fruit came from the various farms in the region. Ditto veggies.
Now imagine you had to do this for everything you wanted to buy. EVERYTHING. Books? Go to the author. Each author. Even with ebooks, that would get maddening. Pens, go to the factory. Resellers earn their markup. (And never mind most of them are investing in the stuff to resell and taking a huge risk. At the very minimum, even Walmart has to pay for the building and rent, and employees and then make it pay.)
But you really, really, really cannot study Marx for any length of time without seeing other holes. For instance, take his entire view of power relationships in society. It is clear these are modeled on Academic Relationships, which is why - poor bunny - he got the whole thing upside down and sideways. Marx didn't understand the concept of "mutual benefit." Look, I'm very aware of "mutual benefit." As bad as the publishing world is - and it is, mostly because it is by and large run by people who (often without being aware of it) view the world through a Marxist prism, and therefore think they are supposed to be exploiting others (because it's what everyone in a position of power would do.) - my working for my publishers is always mutually beneficial. (Sometimes more than others, in a direction or another.) Yeah, they get most of the money from a book publication. But, hey, I get money up front, which in many ways allows me to sit here on my behind writing the book instead of having a real job.
Most - even those we wouldn't think - employer/employee relationships are also mutually beneficial. Yes, even in the sweat shops that have now moved to remote third world countries. Look, something you have to be aware of is that your history of the industrial revolution was by and large written by Marxists, or by the sort of academic culture that spawned Marx. And we're seeing the same thing play out now.
You see American liberals wring their hands over the exploitation of child workers, or scream about workers who sleep in their factories and have no days off.
Are there horrible things that happen at that level of industrialization? Oh, deary me, yes. Again remember I come from a country that likes to tell itself it's NOT third world. Out of a class of twelve girls in elementary school, four of us went on to the prep-school (fifth and sixth grade) which allowed us to enter highschool (seventh through twelfth.) The rest? Well, Portugal was one of the first countries in Europe to ban child labor. HOWEVER if your child was mentally retarded (educable mentally retarded, actually) the prohibition was waived so that they could "learn a trade." So, those other ten girls all got doctors (Hello Wisconsin!) to certify they were mentally retarded, so they could work in the textile mills. At the age of ten. Weekends, but no vacation. At least they had fairly clean places to work, and weren't beaten, let alone made to work with machines that might take their hands off - though industrial accidents still happen - and had a forty hour work week. However, if you have a ten year old, imagine him cooped up from nine to five, inside a room, unable to run or play, and having to be answerable to a boss.
And that's under "soft conditions." Of course a lot of the industrial revolution was awful. BUT there are two things they don't tell you.
First, it was MUCH better than the conditions they were living under. How do I know that? Oh, easy. One, because people aren't stupid. No, really, honestly. People are not stupid when it comes to self-interest and survival. And it wasn't all "dispossessed peasants" who joined in the industrial revolution. That was Marx's addled view. People came of their own free will. Because life in the factories was better. The pay, miserable by our standards, was better. Because a family, in aggregate, with everyone working, could have a better life. In Portugal, villages have emptied. I understand the same things are happening in China and India and places now undergoing the process.
The idea that life is better in the villages is the day-dreaming of academics who vacation in villages. Not of the people voting for industrialization with their feet and hands.
Second, there was a population explosion and average life span grew longer.
So, even in those conditions, which were, by our lights, horrible, the employees got a benefit from the employers. As for the employers... Well, my dears, the fact is life was not as good as we have it for anyone. Yeah, some "robber barons" made it spectacularly. But most people with money were one financial disaster away from being at the same level as their workers. There are plenty of stories of riches to rags from that time. So, they took a risk in starting the factory. Just like their workers endured the conditions. And both benefitted to an extent they were comfortable with.
Marx saw only exploitation.
Part of this was because of Marx's understanding of value, which is the pinnacle, or perhaps the foundation on which ALL his misunderstandings rest. It is also the most widely, insinuatingly pervasive of the Marxist concepts in our society.
To Marx value was raw material plus work. The means of producing that work (machinery, etc) were just sort of there. And he made no allowance for invention. (Which is why though Marxist revolutions often recruit intellectuals they're the sort of intellectuals who never had an original idea in their life.) Of course in our day and age, invention and original thought are at least as important as machinery in creating product. Also, the raw material fallacy means all the countries who have nothing else to sell feel "exploited" because we're taking their "value" away. Imbuing raw material itself with value means that it's sort of like stealing national treasure. This has given rise to an entire colonialist-exploitation-theory of history which has held more people in misery in developing countries than the most brazen robber baron could manage. And no one, NOT ONE seems to realize that their raw materials mean absolutely nothing if not used. If someone doesn't have an idea to use it. If the finished product is not good for something. In other words, if you're not producing something that someone else finds useful. (I.e. enough to pay for.) If the relationship isn't MUTUALLY beneficial.
I don't have time to go into all the crazy things that idea has caused, because the work=value thing fascinates me even more.
This is an idea SO loony only an exceedingly well educated person could believe it. We've all heard of the famous "if I take a month to polish a dog turd, can I charge by the hour of my labor?" And to that you'll say "But it's only a dog turd. Dog turds have no market value."
Ah, you'd be wrong, my fine, feathered friend. There are industries that use those. But let's suppose for the sake of the argument this is your pet pooch's poop that you just throw away normally. No value. But if I devote a month to polishing it... Let's say I get paid at $7 an hour. That's cheap, as I normally make more than that, but let's suppose I ONLY make that. So...
Seven times eight times twenty, I should be able to charge $560 (update: my older son pointed out I gave you an even better discount, as my mind recoiled from the true value of my labor in polishing the dog turd, which should be: $1120) for my polished dog turd. And cheap at the price, mind, since I'm not charging the residual value of the raw materials and I'm giving you a discount on my labor. Come on! What are you waiting for?
This also discounts things such as human knowledge. Humans get better at tasks they do most often. This is the idea behind training. So, let's suppose what we're making is clay cups. I will undoubtedly take longer to make a clay cup than a master craftsman. I also - hey, I know myself - will end up with a lumpy product full of thumb marks. But I took longer. Therefore it's worth more, right? (Suddenly I understand how certain artsy shops charge for things.)
Now you're laughing and telling me no one believes that. Ah, but you're wrong. First of all people believed that - absolutely believed that, until they were in the place where they set production quotas and all the shoes available for sale were size twenty six and for the left foot.
People STILL believe that. Before people ever read a book of mine, if they find out how much I write, they will inform me that I'm doing hack work. BEFORE reading me. (Yes, I've had people turn around and apologize AFTER reading me.) Or - and this is my favorite - that I don't care about what I do. It never seems to occur to them that before I got to the point I am (Yes, I CAN comfortably write four books in a year, thank you so much) I wrote for fifteen years without being paid a cent, practicing and learning my craft, so that now craft can support me where the sheer "inspiration" fails. As for caring ... No matter how fast I work, novels are HARD. Heck, short stories are hard. I don't think I could physically finish a book I didn't care about. The ones that for whatever reason I feel marginally attached to are an epic battle as is.
Many authors wrote books in a week or less (Rex Stout comes to mind.) A lot of beginners write books that take them ten years and TRUST me, you wouldn't want to read them. (I have done my time in slush piles.) So, why would this idea persist? Ah... good old Marx.
Good old Marx is also responsible for that most insane of ideas, the minimum wage. Dictating a minimum wage people have to be paid is the same as saying that labor has an intrinsic, minimal value. And before you scream I'm cruel or heartless, what the heck do feelings have to do with economics? Economics is the science of value. Value is what someone is willing to pay for something. NOT "but they need this to survive." THAT is an idea that work in itself has a value.
If that were true, we could hire an army of unemployed workers to polish dog turds for the international market. We'd be rich, rich I tell you!
And for the gentleman in the back with the sign calling me a corporate running dog - I'm not proposing to let unskilled people starve (though neither should we keep them so comfortable that they never learn a craft. If someone had paid me a living wage to write that awful first... or second... or third... novel, I'd have had no reason to improve.) THAT is a completely separate mechanism. That falls under charity or, if I can't dissuade you, some sort of government looting-and-redistributing program. (What do you mean it's not looting? They take taxes on the threat of force. ALWAYS. That's looting.) It's a stupid option, but, in moderation, our society can support it. In fact, if we keep it moderate, we would be rich enough to support a lot of it. And it wouldn't distort markets or prevent people from acquiring skills. Yes, even retail involves skill.
The point is the only possible justification for minimum wage IS the Marxist theory of value. The only possible justification for asking rich people to "give back" - which presumes they stole something to begin with - "to the community" is the Marxist theory of value. For that matter, the reason our schools treat truly smart kids (not what they call "gifted" which often just means "shuts up and does as told well." ) as pariahs - because it takes them less effort and less time to accomplish what others take forever to do - is the Marxist theory of value.
Brothers and sisters, I bring you news of great joy: Marx is dead. Let's ensure his theories die also and do not rise again.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Learning
I have always been a fan of continuing to learn all your life. Several in my family laughed at me for taking a World History class at the local Jr. College, but I'm enjoying it. Another great way to teach yourself stuff you need to know, want to know, or just think you should know, is the online Khan Academy (http://www.khanacademy.org/). The subject range is a little limited - focused mostly upon math & such, but it certainly takes you step by step through how to it. I have found the statistics sections helpful. I recommend it.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Weapons and Government
Here's a borrowed thought from George Orwell (a Conservative's favorite Liberal and a Liberal's favorite Conservative)
"It is a commonplace that the history of civilisation is largely the history of weapons. In particular, the connection between the discovery of gunpowder and the overthrow of feudalism by the bourgeoisie has been pointed out over and over again. And though I have no doubt exceptions can be brought forward, I think the following rule would be found generally true: that ages in which the dominant weapon is expensive or difficult to make will tend to be ages of despotism, whereas when the dominant weapon is cheap and simple, the common people have a chance. Thus, for example, tanks, battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical weapons, while rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon--so long as there is no answer to it--gives claws to the weak."
This was written in the late 1940's, but is as good an explanation as any I know for the 2nd Amendment.
"It is a commonplace that the history of civilisation is largely the history of weapons. In particular, the connection between the discovery of gunpowder and the overthrow of feudalism by the bourgeoisie has been pointed out over and over again. And though I have no doubt exceptions can be brought forward, I think the following rule would be found generally true: that ages in which the dominant weapon is expensive or difficult to make will tend to be ages of despotism, whereas when the dominant weapon is cheap and simple, the common people have a chance. Thus, for example, tanks, battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical weapons, while rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon--so long as there is no answer to it--gives claws to the weak."
This was written in the late 1940's, but is as good an explanation as any I know for the 2nd Amendment.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Latin is good for you
Thursday, 3rd February 2011
Forget Mandarin. Latin is the key to success
Toby Young 6:41pm
As promised, here is an extended version of an article from the skills supplement in this week’s issue of the Spectator.
On the face of it, encouraging children to learn Latin doesn’t seem like the solution to our current skills crisis. Why waste valuable curriculum time on a dead language when children could be learning one that’s actually spoken? The prominence of Latin in public schools is a manifestation of the gentleman amateur tradition whereby esoteric subjects are preferred to anything that’s of any practical use. Surely, that’s one of the causes of the crisis in the first place?
But dig a little deeper and you’ll find plenty of evidence that this particular dead language is precisely what today’s young people need if they’re going to excel in the contemporary world.
Let’s start with Latin’s reputation as an elitist subject. While it’s true that 70 percent of independent schools offer Latin compared with only 16 per cent of state schools, that’s hardly a reason not to teach it more widely. According to the OECD, our private schools are the best in the world, whereas our state schools are ranked on average 23rd.
No doubt part of this attainment gap is attributable to the fact that the average private school child has advantages that the average state school child does not. But it may also be due to the differences in the curriculums that are typically taught in state and private schools.
Hard as it may be to believe, one of the things that gives privately-educated children the edge is their knowledge of Latin. I don’t just mean in the obvious senses – their grasp of basic grammar and syntax, their understanding of the ways in which our world is underpinned by the classical world, their ability to read Latin inscriptions. I mean there is actually a substantial body of evidence that children who study Latin outperform their peers when it comes to reading, reading comprehension and vocabulary, as well as higher order thinking such as computation, concepts and problem solving.
For chapter and verse on this, I recommend a 1979 paper by an educationalist called Nancy Mavrogenes that appeared in the academic journal Phi Delta Kappan. Summarising one influential American study carried out in the state of Iowa, she writes:
“In 1971, more than 4,000 fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade pupils of all backgrounds and abilities received 15 to 20 minutes of daily Latin instruction. The performance of the fifth-grade Latin pupils on the vocabulary test of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills was one full year higher than the performance of control pupils who had not studied Latin. Both the Latin group and the control group had been matched for similar backgrounds and abilities.”
Interestingly, Mavrogenes found that children from poor backgrounds particularly benefit from studying Latin. For a child with limited cultural reference points, becoming acquainted with Roman life and mythology opens up “new symbolic worlds”, enabling him or her “to grow as a personality, to live a richer life”. In addition, spoken Latin emphasises clear pronunciation, particularly of the endings of words, a useful corrective for many children born in inner cities. Finally, for children who have reading problems, Latin provides “experience in careful silent reading of the words that follow a consistent phonetic pattern”.
This was very much the experience of Llewelyn Morgan, an Oxford Classicist and co-author of a recent Politeia pamphlet on why Latin should be taught in primary schools. “Those kids are learning through Latin what I did: what verbs and nouns are, how to coordinate ideas in speech and writing, all the varieties of ways of saying the same thing,” he says. “I did not and could not have learned that through English, because English was too familiar to me. It was through Latin that I learned how to express myself fluently in my native language.”
Now, you might acknowledge that Latin has these benefits, but argue there’s nothing special about it. Why not learn Mandarin instead? Not only would that have the same transformative effect, it would have the added value of being practical.
But just how useful is Mandarin? All very well if you go to China, but Latin has the advantage of being at the root of a whole host of European languages. “If I’m on an EasyJet flight with a group of European nationals, none of whom speak English, I find we can communicate if we speak to each other in Latin,” says Grace Moody-Stuart, a Classics teacher in West London. “Forget about Esperanto. Latin is the real universal language of Europeans.”
Unlike other languages, Latin isn’t just about conjugating verbs. It includes a crash course in ancient history and cosmology. “Latin is the maths of the Humanities,” says Llewelyn Morgan, “But Latin also has something that mathematics does not and that is the history and mythology of the ancient world. Latin is maths with goddesses, gladiators and flying horses, or flying children.”
No doubt some people will persist in questioning the usefulness of Latin. For these skeptics I have a two-word answer: Mark Zuckerberg. The 26-year-old founder of Facebook studied Classics at Phillips Exeter Academy and listed Latin as one of the languages he spoke on his Harvard application. So keen is he on the subject, he once quoted lines from the Aeneid during a Facebook product conference and now regards Latin as one of the keys to his success. Just how successful is he? According to Forbes magazine, he’s worth $6.9 billion. If that isn’t a useful skill, I don’t know what is.
Filed under: Economy (435 more articles) , Education (212 more articles) , Employment (66 more articles) , Higher education (41 more articles) , International politics (332 more articles) , Social mobility (18 more articles) , Spectator (165 more articles)
Forget Mandarin. Latin is the key to success
Toby Young 6:41pm
As promised, here is an extended version of an article from the skills supplement in this week’s issue of the Spectator.
On the face of it, encouraging children to learn Latin doesn’t seem like the solution to our current skills crisis. Why waste valuable curriculum time on a dead language when children could be learning one that’s actually spoken? The prominence of Latin in public schools is a manifestation of the gentleman amateur tradition whereby esoteric subjects are preferred to anything that’s of any practical use. Surely, that’s one of the causes of the crisis in the first place?
But dig a little deeper and you’ll find plenty of evidence that this particular dead language is precisely what today’s young people need if they’re going to excel in the contemporary world.
Let’s start with Latin’s reputation as an elitist subject. While it’s true that 70 percent of independent schools offer Latin compared with only 16 per cent of state schools, that’s hardly a reason not to teach it more widely. According to the OECD, our private schools are the best in the world, whereas our state schools are ranked on average 23rd.
No doubt part of this attainment gap is attributable to the fact that the average private school child has advantages that the average state school child does not. But it may also be due to the differences in the curriculums that are typically taught in state and private schools.
Hard as it may be to believe, one of the things that gives privately-educated children the edge is their knowledge of Latin. I don’t just mean in the obvious senses – their grasp of basic grammar and syntax, their understanding of the ways in which our world is underpinned by the classical world, their ability to read Latin inscriptions. I mean there is actually a substantial body of evidence that children who study Latin outperform their peers when it comes to reading, reading comprehension and vocabulary, as well as higher order thinking such as computation, concepts and problem solving.
For chapter and verse on this, I recommend a 1979 paper by an educationalist called Nancy Mavrogenes that appeared in the academic journal Phi Delta Kappan. Summarising one influential American study carried out in the state of Iowa, she writes:
“In 1971, more than 4,000 fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade pupils of all backgrounds and abilities received 15 to 20 minutes of daily Latin instruction. The performance of the fifth-grade Latin pupils on the vocabulary test of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills was one full year higher than the performance of control pupils who had not studied Latin. Both the Latin group and the control group had been matched for similar backgrounds and abilities.”
Interestingly, Mavrogenes found that children from poor backgrounds particularly benefit from studying Latin. For a child with limited cultural reference points, becoming acquainted with Roman life and mythology opens up “new symbolic worlds”, enabling him or her “to grow as a personality, to live a richer life”. In addition, spoken Latin emphasises clear pronunciation, particularly of the endings of words, a useful corrective for many children born in inner cities. Finally, for children who have reading problems, Latin provides “experience in careful silent reading of the words that follow a consistent phonetic pattern”.
This was very much the experience of Llewelyn Morgan, an Oxford Classicist and co-author of a recent Politeia pamphlet on why Latin should be taught in primary schools. “Those kids are learning through Latin what I did: what verbs and nouns are, how to coordinate ideas in speech and writing, all the varieties of ways of saying the same thing,” he says. “I did not and could not have learned that through English, because English was too familiar to me. It was through Latin that I learned how to express myself fluently in my native language.”
Now, you might acknowledge that Latin has these benefits, but argue there’s nothing special about it. Why not learn Mandarin instead? Not only would that have the same transformative effect, it would have the added value of being practical.
But just how useful is Mandarin? All very well if you go to China, but Latin has the advantage of being at the root of a whole host of European languages. “If I’m on an EasyJet flight with a group of European nationals, none of whom speak English, I find we can communicate if we speak to each other in Latin,” says Grace Moody-Stuart, a Classics teacher in West London. “Forget about Esperanto. Latin is the real universal language of Europeans.”
Unlike other languages, Latin isn’t just about conjugating verbs. It includes a crash course in ancient history and cosmology. “Latin is the maths of the Humanities,” says Llewelyn Morgan, “But Latin also has something that mathematics does not and that is the history and mythology of the ancient world. Latin is maths with goddesses, gladiators and flying horses, or flying children.”
No doubt some people will persist in questioning the usefulness of Latin. For these skeptics I have a two-word answer: Mark Zuckerberg. The 26-year-old founder of Facebook studied Classics at Phillips Exeter Academy and listed Latin as one of the languages he spoke on his Harvard application. So keen is he on the subject, he once quoted lines from the Aeneid during a Facebook product conference and now regards Latin as one of the keys to his success. Just how successful is he? According to Forbes magazine, he’s worth $6.9 billion. If that isn’t a useful skill, I don’t know what is.
Filed under: Economy (435 more articles) , Education (212 more articles) , Employment (66 more articles) , Higher education (41 more articles) , International politics (332 more articles) , Social mobility (18 more articles) , Spectator (165 more articles)
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