Democracy

On this patriotic occasion, this fine NYT essay helps us to remember that the U.S. has not, historically, been very democratic.

This shouldn’t be controversial. We all know about the inequalities in political power that have been brought about through the Electoral College, voting restrictions against women and slaves, Jim Crow, etc. We all know about the undue influence of plutocrats and technocrats (though many of us would, perversely, embrace plutocratic or technocratic rule).

What is rightly controversial – what is philosophically very puzzling – is the more basic question of why democracy is desirable (if, indeed, it is desirable). Chesterton gives a famous (and, it must be said, highly contestable) answer: that what people have in common is much more important than what makes them different; and that aspiring to rule is something that people have in common. (Therefore – I am filling in the blanks for him – each person’s aspiration to rule is very important. Therefore: democracy.) So, contrary to Jason Brennan: governance should not be restricted to experts, for expertise is not what people have in common. And, contrary to Dan Moller (and Thoreau): “governing least” is not a worthwhile ideal; for what people typically aspire to is not to govern least but to govern substantially. The ideal that springs from our common humanity is that we should influence and be influenced by one another. “No man is an island.”

But the ideal in this country is that, inasmuch as we can, we should become self-sufficient, noninterfering islands.

But when we enforce this ideal upon one another, don’t we come perilously close to giving lie to it?

How to disqualify your textbook from the Christian college market

Ecuador, one goal; Peru, the last-placed team, two goals. The manner of the defeat left little to be hopeful about.

Due to other results, we’re still in third place. But we were similarly lofty at the beginning of the previous World Cup cycle. I’d say, we’re about to go into another tailspin.

It takes just one really poor game, and we’re in big trouble.

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No libertarian myself, I enjoy reading philosophy by libertarians and classical liberals (and by other fans of liberty-as-noninterference). These writers can be refreshingly plain-spoken. Jason Brennan is like this. So is Michael Huemer. (I assigned a chapter by Huemer when I lectured at Bethel a couple of months ago.) So, I was excited to read Brennan’s endorsement of Huemer’s new self-published book.

The best intro textbook ever, Brennan raves.

So, I gave the textbook a look.

It may be a good book. It may be a good textbook for a secular college. But it could never be used in a conservative Christian college. It has too many swear words, and the acknowledgments page includes this line:

I’d also like to thank … God, if He exists, for creating the universe; and Satan for not maliciously inserting many more errors into the text.

I’ll say this for Huemer: his writing is not obsequious; it doesn’t pander to anyone.

Except, maybe, to the agnostics and the Satanists.

Baths for the kitties

… because Jasper has been harboring fleas. We believe they came into the house via some clothes we inherited from Rick (Rick’s dog, George, recently had fleas).

Ziva has never been bathed. We’re going to postpone that ordeal until we’re sure she has fleas.

No such luck for Jasper, who, last night, suffered his first bath since early kittenhood. He moaned and tried to claw his way out. On the whole, though, he was rather brave. He came out smelling of peppermint and cloves.

Unfortunately, he had fleas again this morning.

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We’ve tried, on several occasions, to vote; but at every polling place, the queue has wrapped around the block. We don’t want to stand out in the cold for a long time with our baby, and the paucity of weekend voting hours makes it hard for us to go stand in line one after the other.

That leaves two options: (1) trying to vote during business hours this week, and (2) voting on Election Day, when more polling stations will be open. Both options are complicated by Karin’s having to manage her workplace – the regular manager will be recovering from surgery – and by my having to care for Samuel.

“A U.S. president has never been elected by a majority of eligible voters,” writes Jason Brennan in Compulsory Voting: For and Against.

In the 1964 election, 61.05 percent of voters cast their ballots for Lyndon Johnson – the largest majority a president has ever enjoyed. Yet, at the same time, because turnout was so low, Johnson was in fact elected by less than 38 percent of all voting-eligible Americans. We call Reagan’s 1984 victory a “landslide,” but less than a third of voting-age Americans actually voted for him. Less than a quarter of eligible Americans voted to reelect Bill Clinton in 1996. In all elections, a minority of the voting-eligible population imposes a president on the majority.

Whether or not you endorse compulsory voting (Brennan doesn’t), it’s hard not to conclude that many of the non-voting majority choose not to vote because they are significantly hindered from voting. Set aside legal disqualifications for criminals, non-citizens, puertorriqueños, those without I.D., etc. The logistical obstacles can still be formidable.

This sort of problem can be grasped in theory; but, as with the stifling of access to health care, transport, and other basic goods, it acquires a more sinister character when it is experienced.

“But can he do the job?”

Were I to become a full-time member of a philosophy department with at least some undergraduates under my care, I’d try to establish a one- or two-credit “professional development” seminar to make sure that those considering grad school could make an informed choice.

Yes, it would have to be a course. A couple of informal sessions wouldn’t suffice. The content ought to be repeated several times, in readings, lectures, and class discussions – and with a megaphone. (Even then, there’d be a real danger that the undergraduates wouldn’t listen carefully enough.)

I’d probably assign this book by the philosopher Jason Brennan. It gives lots of useful, blunt, goal-oriented advice. It tells which parts of one’s soul one would have to sell to get an academic job after grad school. (The part that loves to teach, for instance.) Here is an interview in which Brennan mentions some of the book’s highlights.

Another book, by an ex-professor of anthropology, Karen Kelsky, is also worth looking at, but it’s a brutal downer and not always helpful. One senses that Kelsky is writing with cruel glee, grinding people down with minutae about what to do and not do. Then again, who am I to say? I’m on the outside looking in. Perhaps those tiny details do matter in the job market. My impression, though, is that many of them do not matter. For example, I’ve looked at lots of CVs of successful, recent job seekers, and plenty of them run afoul of Kelsky’s very detailed rules for how to write a CV. But then, maybe that level of detail is dictated by her audience. Maybe a lot of job seekers are desperate enough to want to be told where to dot their i’s and cross their t’s.

What I’d definitely assign is this short address by the philosopher David McNaughton. Brennan and Kelsky assume that the goal is to get the job. McNaughton considers the more important question (raised repeatedly by Dan Hedaya in Joe Versus the Volcano):

I KNOW HE CAN GET THE JOB, BUT CAN HE DO THE JOB?

Or, rather, can the job seeker do the job well; that is, can the careerist philosopher write anything worth reading? On McNaughton’s view, professionalization is stunting, and the profession weeds out lots of potentially valuable contributors.

McNaughton is very down on how academic philosophy is done. Brennan thinks it’s much more workable. Who is more trustworthy? I’ve read around in several of Brennan’s books; I like him, though I tend to disagree with him; but he often sounds like he’s on an ideological mission. I’ve read around in several of McNaughton’s books, too, and encountered moments of disinterested curiosity, and even profundity; and when McNaughton isn’t being profound, he’s at least rubbing shoulders with and expounding authors who are profound. Besides, I’ve always been inclined to agree more with McNaughton’s professional priorities, anyway.

This isn’t to say that I agree with everything McNaughton says. He disparages Michael Dummett’s prose style, and I actually quite enjoy reading Dummett.