Iron and Blood

If you believe that history is personality driven then the history of Germany from Bismarck to today is largely dependent on the leadership of Bismarck.  If you believe (as I do) that history is a mix of personality and events then the history of Germany is STILL dependent on his leadership.  He was a powerful dynamic man.

Otto von Bismarck quotes

Otto von Bismarck

Anyone who likes sausage and respects the law shouldn’t watch either one being made

People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, and before an election.

There is a providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children, and the United States of America.

The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood

not really

To state a simple dichotomy as though it is a great revelation does not make it profound.  It means that you know how to speak bullshit.

“The wise man, grasshopper, is the one who is not the fool.”

“To be frugal is to value value.”

Yeah?  So?

It’s very poor rhetoric and not worth the attention.  Smile at the fake guru and keep on moving.

Self-Negating

Yesterday afternoon I went to the elementary school to do my regular Wednesday afternoon tutoring.  Sitting in the cafeteria waiting for the bell to ring, this announcement came over the P.A.

There will be no afternoon announcements.

I was tickled to death.  I love stuff like this and it is what gave me the idea for The Un Post.

The school secretary who made the unannouncement might as well have said,

This announcement is to announce that there will be not be an announcement.

It is what is called a Meta Reference that negates itself by the sheer fact of its presence.

See Also

Intentionally Blank Page.

Establishing a Baseline

In any discussion or debate there must be a baseline of communication.  There must be a common language.  Of course the participants must speak the same actual language or have adequate interpretation to be fundamentally understood.  we can take that as a given; that in order for two speakers to be understandable they must know at the coarsest, minimal level that they are able to simply identify each others’ words and to make sense of the grammar and the syntax.

So, therefore we have our first baseline at its most basic–either a shared language of nationality, or, barring that, adequate interpretation.  Beyond that it gets considerably more sticky.

Nouns are the easiest and provide the most common shared language.  We all know that a dog is a dog and not a cat and that a tree is not a horse.  Verbs are more problematic and often require explanation.  “To run” may mean a mode of locomotion for a human or an animal, or it may be used to describe the motion of a liquid.  It may even be used to describe the action of an individual competing for political office.

Once we get beyond any differences there, we are ready to begin discussing the most difficult task of establishing baseline communication; differentiating and defining concepts and principles.

We get into our largest difficulties when we assume that others are operating under the same definitions that we hold on abstract topics.  Religion and politics are the two biggest offenders in this category.  It is primarily because the concepts in these two fields are so abstract and because personal sentiments run so high on the extremes of both topics, that we need to carefully lay down a baseline of definitions.

Atheism and Fundamentalism, Democracy and Communism, Islamic and Christian, Socialism and Capitalism are all diametrically opposed concepts in politics and religion.  for each concept there are adherents.  There are Atheists, Fundamentalists, Democrats, and Communists.  The world is full of Muslims, Christians, Socialists and Capitalists.  Each of these concepts (ideologies, beliefs, etc) is heavy with definitions.  Even among adherents within the same group there may likely be widely varying opinions of what it means to be an adherent of the group.

Very few people see their beliefs as absolute.  Of course there are a few proud extreme fundamentalists as well as radical atheists.  But they are a very small minority.  The reason why it appears that there are so many of the extreme or “fringe element” is because they are usually the loudest, most bothersome, and sometimes most willing to use violence to get their point across.

If you know you are going to debate someone who is prone to making their point violently, you should go armed.  If they pull a Glock you don’t want to get  caught with notepad, pen and a stack of index cards.

What makes these concepts so hard to define is that their defenders invest so much faith in their definitions that they are unwilling tp compromise even a little and even for the sake of discussion or debate.  This is truly a shame, albeit understandable.  It’s a shame because when debaters can’t agree on definitions, when a baseline of communication can’t be established, then all reasonable debate either never gets a chance to begin, or it comes to a screeching halt.  Discussion become a Shouting Match that dissolves into nay-saying.

In international diplomacy we find poor communication at its most dangerous.  A tense situation becomes tenser.  Intransigence becomes entrenched.  Animosity grows and in the end, war may ensue which, after all, is but diplomacy by other means.  In that case the debate may hinge upon Might determining Right.  But, at what human cost?

We find the problem with coming to agreement on definitions at its most intractable when discussing religion.  With religion we have concepts so abstract as to defy definition even among believers.  We deal with super nature which, by definition, has no rational, scientific method of discourse available.  The only answer available to “What is your proof of the existence of God?” is “Because He told me so.”  This answer stops “rational” discourse cold simply because it is not rational.  The scientific method cannot be applied and no empirical evidence is available.  Fundamental knowledge thereafter becomes “revelatory.”

Less subject to disagreement on baselines is political discourse.  Here we are dealing with the pseudo-science of political and social science and associated “co” fields (anthropology, economics, et. al. )  Here definitions are previously well defined and commonly accepted.  The problems here, though, begin when normative values are assigned to major theories of government.  What is the best method of micro or macro rule?  What is the best system of economics?  These questions are fundamentally unanswerable until the unidirectional nature of history makes it apparent by making one form universally dominant over the others.

Once we have defined all the terms that are definable, once we have agreed upon the basic language of discourse, then we can be satisfied that we have established an adequate baseline of xommunication and the debate proper may begin.  With this baseline in place and the rules of play inscribed we are free to argue the fine points of our issues such as, What role does the supernatural play in the lives of humans?” and “Is history truly unidirectional?”

That’s all I have for now.

and we thank you for your support.

Cornelius E. Spots

The End of History and the Last Man

The End of History and the Last Man

This will begin a series of essays and commentaries on The End of History and the Last Man[1] by noted political scientist Francis Fukuyama.  Continuance of the series will depend on popularity of them in this blog.  Popularity will be judged on post views and comments left.  No small percentage will be given to comments given.  It is my hope that this will stimulate interest in the subject and conversation on what has been presented here.  Footnotes are provided for appropriate citation and may be followed by clicking on the footnote number within the text.  This first post will be by way of introduction to the topic and the man.

 Francis Fukuyama is a Bernard L. Schwartz professor of international political economy at John Hopkins University and is a member of the President’s Council for Bioethics.  He has twice served on the Policy Planning Staff of the U.S. Department of State.  In 1981-82 he was a member of the U.S. delegation to the Egyptian-Israeli talks on Palestinian autonomy.  It is also noteworthy and will be mentioned later, that he was a student of political scientist Samuel P. Huntington.

In The End of History, Fukuyama argues that the evolution of political ideology has come to an end with the widespread acceptance of Liberal Democracy.  He notes with importance that a shared definition of “history” is prerequisite to the most basic understanding of his thesis.  The end of history is not the end of time, nor is it the end to events of greater and/or lesser political importance.

Rather, he argues that “liberal democracy constitutes the endpoint of mankind’s ideological evolution and the final form of human government, and as such constitutes the end of history[2].”

Hegel and Marx both viewed history in a similar light and posited that there would come a point in which mankind’s longings for political satisfaction would be met.  For Marx it was the communist state.  For Hegel it was the liberal democratic state.  We may relapse into authoritarian forms of government but the inexorable trend toward liberal democracy is just that, inexorable and will eventually ideologically overwhelm all other philosophies of government.  The reasons he gives for this advance are dependent on two variables;

• Economics, and
• The ’struggle for recognition.”

We. In the west, have become extremely pessimistic about the possibilities presented by this belief.  Our pessimism is based on the horrors and atrocities we witnessed in the 20^th century.  And no less, perhaps, by the upsurge in international terrorism most poignantly demonstrated in the September 11^th attacks on the World Trade Center in NYC and the Pentagon in Washington D.C.  However the lessons we should have taken from these tragic events is that, fundamentally there are glaring contradictions and weaknesses in seemingly strong dictatorship, be they of the Left or the Right.

Much commentary and criticism comes from Fukuyama’s acquaintaincship with Samuel Huntington, in light of Huntington’s own work, The Clash of Civilizations and the remaking of the world Order.  Huntington speaks of a much different theory that Fukuyama presents.  Huntington postulates that far from being the end of history, what we see emerging in the political world order is conflicting cultures and ideologies clashing along geographic “fault lines.”

In the following essays here in the Aerie, we will concentrate on Fukuyama’s end of history hypothesis, that liberal democracy is not only here to stay, but that it encapsulates the pinnacle of human desire for government.

c.e.s.

The two links here for Samuel Huntington will take you to two separate locations.

---

[1] Frances Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992).  Second paperback edition.

[2] Ibid.  xi

Abortion

A hot blog here posted the scenario:

Did you know you can stump anti-abortionists with one simple question? Just ask them this: If abortion was illegal, what should be done with the women who have illegal abortions?

I’m not going to credit the blog from which this came because for one thing by the time I got to see the post it already had 375 comments.  I was going to weigh in but mob scenes just aren’t my style.  He doesn’t need my support.  I see his blog on the front page all the time.

But, for another reason, I think the guy is a faker.  He claims to be a religious sceptic but from my previous research he is anything but.

He claims to be a “former” Christian searching for truth.  My observation of his rhetoric is that this is a cover to protect himself from attacks that are “faith” based.  If you claim to be a “former” believer and are now just “sceptical” then you have some claim to innocence for attacks against those people who claim belief.  “I used to be one of you, so I understand.  Please give me room for my doubt.  But that is not the way he comes across to those of us who are discerning.

Let’s go back to the scenario he proposed.  You answer it too.  I welcome comments of all types from any position you might hold, but first I will give you my answer to;

Did you know you can stump anti-abortionists with one simple question? Just ask them this: If abortion was illegal, what should be done with the women who have illegal abortions?

It’s easy enough for me.  I am not what one may consider an anti-abortionist.  Neither am I pro abortion.  Do I believe it is murder?  No.  “Murder” is a legal term.  It is a word used in the law to describe unlawful taking of life.  At the present time, being legal, you cannot call it murder.  BUT, you can call it “killing.”

Killing is done by the government with lawful executions.  Killing is done by soldiers during war.  Killing is done when the “plug is pulled” in hospital rooms.  Killing is done by persons acting in defense of self or others.

This begs the question I realize but is important to set up my response.  It begs the question because the scenario set up by the other blogger is “What IF abortion is made illegal.”  that, then, would make it murder, not killing.

The answer to which I am not stumped is that any person who is violation of the law should be punished by the law.  That seems pretty simple to me.  Do you punish them with life in prison?  No.  But we don’t punish all murders with capital punishment or life in prison anyway.  And you have to distinguish between the person performing the abortion and the person upon whom the abortion is performed.

There are different levels of complicity (guilt).  This is recognized in non-abortion related “murder.”  Second degree, manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, etc. etc.  Then you have persons charged with being accessories to murder.  It gets complicated and not nearly as simple as the poser would have you believe.

The point of the post I saw this in was not to look at it legalistically as it would naturally be if abortion were ever again made illegal (which it won’t).  The point was to make right-to-lifers look stupid.  And THAT my friend is gross stereotyping and bigotry of a Liberal stripe.

What do YOU think?

P.S.  Oh why not and what the hell, here is the link.  Now I can’t be blamed not giving fault credit where it is due.  Draw your own conclusions.

http://unreasonablefaith.com/2009/01/21/how-to-stump-anti-abortionists-with-one-question/

P.P.S.  Do we punish illegal drug-users to the same extent that we do the poeple who provide the illegal drugs?  Not to the same extent that we did about 40 years ago (which coincidentally is about the same time that abortion was legalized).  Why?  That’s a rhetorical question. Answer it if you feel so inclined.

I Love the Rhetoric

RHETORIC:

noun: The art of speaking or writing effectively.  The study of rules and principles of composition.  The study of speaking or writing as a means of communication.

The key word in the preceding definition is art.

I am sitting in front of my television waiting for Barack Obama to be sworn in and make his first inaugural address.  I am waiting for the speech and enduring with some enjoyment the ceremony.  Something inside of me, I dare say “Patriotism”, is stirred somewhat by the tradition and the ceremony.

Oh Shit!  I missed it.  I tuned in too late.  Oh well, I’ll catch it somewhere on the web.

Anyway, I tuned in for more than the ceremony.  I mainly tuned in for the speech.  Now, the commentators are going on about it.  So much of reality is governed by the speeches and the writing of our government and our representatives (“representative” equals “politician” equals “rhetorician.”  Good or Bad)

Bush sucked at it.  Public communication just wasn’t his style.  Public communication is a great deal on what we base our judgements of government.  You can make arguments on whether or not he was a good president based on his actions and his policies and you CANNOT escape the rhetoric.  It is impossible.  It’s about public perception.  It colors everything else.  The worse the rhetoric, the more we notice the speaker and not his ideas.  There is a disjoint.  The better the rhetoric the more we see the ideas.  The speaker (writer) becomes the vehicle for the expression not the focus.

Bush sucked.

Clinton was very good.

Reagan was Great.

Oh well, I missed it live.  I’ll catch it later.  I’ll let you know my impressions.