Won, Too, Three, Fore
1) Quote of the Day: “This wine is too good for toast-drinking, my dear. You don’t want to mix emotions up with a wine like that. You lose the taste.” — Chapter 7, The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
2) Roissy in DC is a brilliant stylist — I know of no blog whose content is so deplorable that is as enjoyable to read — but even his writerly talent cannot prevent occasional glimpses at the self-evident absurdity of his ideas about modern relationships. The latest example is a post where he posits that men are either great boyfriends or great lovers but never both — specifically, take a look under the “sex” subhead to see what he regards as the characteristics of a “great lover” in bed.
3) Helen Rittelmeyer writes:
Apostasy pieces are never about delivering your former comrades from the grip of dreadful error. They’re about showing off how much more enlightened you are, using your misspent youth as a prop for credibility. I’ve read apostate tell-alls that I thought were true, but I’ve never read one that made me think I’d like, or trust, the author if I met him.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell what loyalty demands of you. Whether to turn your klepto brother into the police, whether to make a play for your best friend’s girl after they break up—these are tough questions. But if your old ideological compatriots ever did you a favor, ever took you into their circles or into their confidence, ever gave you a damn cake on your birthday, then you owe it to them not to write the hit piece. You owe them. That’s a no-brainer.
It is a strange kind of loyalty that allows turning on best friends and family members, but that prohibits breaks with former ideological compatriots whose ideas or methods one comes to regard as deeply mistaken. To cite one example of a writer whose allegiances shifted, what would Ms. Rittelmeyer have advised Christopher Hitchens after the September 11 terrorist attacks? To quit writing? To write things he didn’t believe for the sake of his former colleagues at The Nation? To refrain from making what he took to be true, compelling arguments about the best way to preserve Western civilization because to do so would’ve betrayed those who once bought him a cake?
In her post, Ms. Rittelmeyer is reaction to Charles Johnson’s “break with the right,” as described on Little Green Footballs. I found it a weird piece for all the reasons that James Joyner mentions. The incoherence of the post is due to an underlying mistake in the way that Little Green Footballs, and the whole corner of the blogosphere where he operates, understand ideology and political argument: they regard it as a team enterprise, where orthodoxies of thought are to be enforced, positions are taken out of loyalty as often as conviction, and honest disagreement is tantamount to betrayal.
Though I’ve written against loyalty as it is sometimes understood in Washington DC — see here and here — I met some exceptional people during my time in that city, close friends to whom I am incredibly loyal. I imagine they know they can turn to me for help at any time in life, and count on me to cheer their successes and rue their failures. As I think about those people, who are different from one another in many ways, I am aware of one similarity. Despite the fact that I’ve often talked politics with many of them, and that we’ve been on the same side of certain arguments, none of them would dream of being offended were I to honestly disagree with them in print on some matter, or forcefully argue that they are mistaken on some question, even if we formerly agreed about it and I changed my mind.
Nor would I consider them disloyal if they wrote about how I am dead wrong on some issue, or critiqued an argument that I made, or whatever. This is perhaps why my Washington DC friends were almost without exception people who have close friends and fond acquaintances of various ideologies and political inclinations — they haven’t mistaken the fraught virtue of loyalty as one that is properly applied to honestly held beliefs about the best way to govern society. I must say that I prefer that kind of social circle to one where acquaintances never break with one another on matters of ideological orthodoxy, but occasionally report one another to the police and steal one another’s girlfriends!
4) I’m pretty sure that Barack Obama didn’t project more confidence in his speech last night — disappointing Ross Douthat and many others — because he isn’t particularly thrilled by the policy he is implementing. As Kevin Drum put it, “There are two possible reasons for the speech being so unconvincing: either Obama doesn’t know how to deliver a good speech or else Obama isn’t really convinced himself. But we know the former isn’t true, don’t we? You can fill in the rest yourself.”
Unlike most other commentators on the right and left, I am sympathetic to President Obama on this one, and reassured by his doubts, because the fact is that there isn’t any option in Afghanistan that guarantees success, or even makes it likely, whereas every option has huge costs that will prove difficult for the country to bear. There is a school of thought that in such a situation, the Commander in Chief should project confidence, despite reality, because faking it gives success the greatest chance of occurring. Is that true sometimes? I don’t actually know.
But the struggle against terrorism is a lengthy one that transcends Afghanistan, and big shows of unjustified confidence by the president are very likely to undermine our long term ability to fight it, because when the rhetoric isn’t met by reality, the American people feel confirmed in their belief that they’re just being lied to in order to justify endless war. If we’re choosing the best among a bunch of crappy options, better President Obama’s enthusiasm level reflect that than that he unjustifiably inflate American hopes that victory in Afghanistan is just a surge away.
Not to toot my own horn, but I responded to Helen’s take on loyalty at my old personal blog:
http://lhote.blogspot.com/2008/10/every-man-commissar.html
— Freddie · Dec 2, 05:42 PM · #
I think you’ve got exactly the right take on Obama. Sometimes in life, the only way to avoid the worst is to just put your head down and muddle through. It’s not always inspiring or uplifting, but it can be the best possible option.
Mike
— MBunge · Dec 2, 05:49 PM · #
Conor: Would you be willing to agree that there’s a difference between expressing disagreement with your compatriots in public (which I’m very often okay with) and writing an entire piece declaring that you disavow them? And, if you are, would you be willing to agree that the latter is never the classy thing to do?
P.S. I like David Frum’s take: http://www.frumforum.com/come-back-charles-johnson
— Helen · Dec 2, 06:03 PM · #
“Would you be willing to agree that there’s a difference between expressing disagreement with your compatriots in public (which I’m very often okay with) and writing an entire piece declaring that you disavow them?”
So, neo-nazis, Al-Qaeda leaders, champions of Apartheid, communists and others should never “disavow” their former compatriots after seeing the light? Really?
Mike
— MBunge · Dec 2, 06:25 PM · #
I agree with Mike, you put things well on the confidence. I don’t particularly like this direction, but I do appreciate that he’s not faking it.
— GregSanders · Dec 2, 06:32 PM · #
My question is why Conor’s broad alignment with the right doesn’t earn him the protection that loyalty is supposed to. Why is Helen’s takedown of Conor permissible, given Helen’s own vision of loyalty?
— Freddie · Dec 2, 06:51 PM · #
Helen,
Yes, I liked that David Frum piece too — thanks for drawing my attention to it. I do agree that there is a difference between public disagreement with compatriots and “writing an entire piece declaring that you disavow them.” Perhaps what we disagree on is rooted partly in how we see what Charles Johnson did. Is he properly termed “a compatriot” of James Dobson or Robert Stacy McCain or Pat Buchanon? Insofar as I know, he wasn’t personal friends with these people. He wasn’t privy to their secrets, or included in their weddings, or any such thing.
What is it about Charles Johnson exactly that creates an obligation of loyalty to sundry figures on the right who he once took to be in his political coalition, and who he now regards not to be? On the separate question of whether he treated them fairly in his post, I think he did not, but for reasons of inaccuracy, not loyalty. Put another way, were everything he said in the post true, why shouldn’t he have said it? Out of loyalty owed for what reason?
But I think we agree on the following — that some apostasy statements do reflect badly on their authors, and that forcefully expressing honest disagreement publicly can be honorable, whereas gratuitous or self-serving score settling isn’t.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Dec 2, 06:55 PM · #
Rittelmeyer has a way of making extremely narrow points sound like grand philosophical claims simply by being extremely vehement. In light of her comment above, the point seems to be that disagreeing with your ideological compatriots is okay (see her approving cite of Frum’s ecumenicalism) and even leaving is okay. It’s just that should you leave, you shouldn’t write a specific piece detailing why your former compatriots are so wrong. And you really shouldn’t, it’s not merely rude, but a gross violation of pre-political loyalty norms.
This line strikes me as a little silly: surely a writer is allowed to detail their new views if they have changed, and to describe how they got there. And while it’s probably rude and self-important to lay out a ten-point brief on Why My Side Left Me, that exists on one end of continuum with more anodyne statements like I Used To Believe X But Recent Evidence Has Convinced Me Of Y. So the ranting about the damn cake and the klepto brother and how it’s a no-brainer is all a bit hyperbolic.
But that’s just the thing – when you consider Rittelmeyer’s remarks in the context of the great internet tradition of hyperbole, it sounds much less like she’s trolling.
— Trevor Austin · Dec 2, 07:04 PM · #
What happened to Charles is the same thing that happened to John Cole and the same thing that happened to me.
You have a belief system….of….interlocking structures that support your world view.
For Cole Shiavo was the break…..his belief system crumbled.
For me, it was when I saw GW lie about stem cells on national tv….he rubbed my nose in it, it was so flagrant, so offensive, and so obvious to anyone with scientific training….he forced me to see he was lying.
I suspect….that for Charles it was creationism.
Once the break occurs, all the other system flaws that you were in denial about become glaringly obvious.
If your belief system is coherent and consistant, it is quite stable….but a single break in the structure…a failpoint….the whole thing caves in.
— matoko_chan · Dec 2, 07:44 PM · #
and I can’t speak for Charles or John….but for me it is a uneasy combination of abject shame that I ever bought into “conservative” crapology, and righteous fury that my erstwhile memetic shield-comrades are either so stupid or so dishonest as to continue to embrace it.
— matoko_chan · Dec 2, 07:56 PM · #
“For me, it was when I saw GW lie about stem cells on national tv….he rubbed my nose in it, it was so flagrant, so offensive, and so obvious to anyone with scientific training….he forced me to see he was lying.”
Which lie would that be?
— SDG · Dec 2, 08:43 PM · #
Helen (and Conor),
The book “Witness” is all I ever had to read to know you are wrong about loyalty. If I could go back in time I think I’d like Chambers and I know I would trust him.
— Arminius · Dec 2, 09:38 PM · #
SDG
2006 stem cell expansion veto
lie #1— aSCs are equivalent—even superior to eSCs.
lie #2— we are doing eSCR on the approved lines.
Two lies.
No one did HUMAN stem cell research of any sort until 2005 when Johns Hopkins solved the mouse feeder-cell contamination problem. When the “blessed” eSC lines were regrown, they were devolved and useless.
aSCR and eSCR are complimentary, not competitive. aSCs are useless for disease modelling and have insufficient telomere length to be useful for anti-senescense research.
— matoko_chan · Dec 2, 09:49 PM · #
It is a strange kind of loyalty that allows turning on best friends and family members, but that prohibits breaks with former ideological compatriots whose ideas or methods one comes to regard as deeply mistaken.
The element missing from this comparison is “in aid of what?” If your boyhood chum is Kim Jong Il, and ‘turning on him’ takes the form of tyrannicide to liberate North Korea, that’s one thing. Public apostasy rarely aims that high.
A suppressed premise of Rittelmeyer’s argument is that apostasy articles are ineffective instruments of persuasion. Further, this lack of efficacy is well understood. Thus, the act of public apostasy rarely represents a sincere effort to redress a wrong, or to bring former colleagues out of error. Rather it is an act of personal personal positioning which is simultaneously a) self-indulgent, and b) tacky. Loyalty demands that you not betray a bond, or its memory, in such a gauche fashion.
— Ben A · Dec 2, 10:36 PM · #
Ben A, in my case it is both therapeutic and cathartic. I get to expiate my folly and warn off others.
But then….I dont consider myself a betrayer…..I was betrayed.
Could I have my virgin vote back please?
— matoko_chan · Dec 2, 11:00 PM · #
That’s just because we all know that Obama was just chomping at the bit to get into Afghaneeeston and fight the good war, like he said he was back when Iraq was the bad war. How could he possibly be thrilled (or thrilling) when it isn’t all out fighting to win (like he wanted to, formerly)? We all know that Barack Hussein Obama, in his heart of hearts, is a fighting man. After all, we’ve seen him in action against Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Joe the Plumber…
So he included an option to guarantee failure—18 month withdrawal timetable. That’s probably reassuring to at least one party in the Afghan conflict.
— jd · Dec 2, 11:05 PM · #
“So he included an option to guarantee failure—18 month withdrawal timetable.”
JD, that’s not even a remotely feasible interpretation of the July 2011 timeline: That date is set as the time the U.S. will begin the “transfer of authority” for security operations to the Afghan government. That does not mean that U.S. forces will necessarily even begin physically withdrawing from the theater at that time, especially since the “conditions on the ground” (to quote President Obama, who in turn was channeling his inner President Bush) will dictate what form that takes.
To put it plainly, the “transfer of sovereignty” occurred in Iraq in 2004 and the “transfer of security” started in 2008, and we still have over 100,000 troops there. To parse the July 2011 date as meaning “withdrawal,” or even that withdrawal will necessarily START at that time, is to be either dishonest or dumb.
— Erik Vanderhoff · Dec 2, 11:29 PM · #
“So he included an option to guarantee failure—18 month withdrawal timetable.”
How many names are on the Vietnam memorial primiarily because of thinking like the above?
Mike
— MBunge · Dec 3, 12:41 AM · #
“It is a strange kind of loyalty that allows turning on best friends and family members, but that prohibits breaks with former ideological compatriots whose ideas or methods one comes to regard as deeply mistaken.”
Not necessarily. Recall that the sequence is Caina – Antenora – Ptolemaea – Judecca.
— Petellius · Dec 3, 12:57 AM · #
I didn’t say it; the community organizer in chief said it. And he didn’t say it to make us warmongers happy. He was throwing a bone to the left wing base, whom he apparently thinks is stupid enough to believe him. Or maybe they’re just satisfied that he keeps blaming everything on Bush.
I know perfectly well that nothing the man says resembles what he will actually do. What’s funny is how many people actually might have voted for him thinking he was going to get us out of Iraq. Well, it’s too late for that, because we won that one against his better judgment. Now he has to talk like he’s still the anti-Bush, while doing everything Bush did. How’s that Gitmo closing going?
— jd · Dec 3, 04:29 AM · #
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— hanyu · Dec 3, 07:49 AM · #
I think it mught be instructive to look at the common theme that turned Cole, Johnson, and yours truly. Schiavo, creationism, and stem cell research are discussions where one side (the other side) is rooted in incontrovertable scientific fact. The conservative position on science is often simply WRONG. Schiavo was a human carrot, creationism/IDT is anti-scientific crapology, and I illustrated how Bush and Rove glibly lied about eSCR to manipulate the low information republican base.
6% of scientists are republicans…..9% are conservative.
There is a reason that conservatism appears to be deeply anti-scientific……it is.
Conservatism resists experimentation in progress…but advances in scientific knowledge are ALREADY tested….that is how science works.
Now this was not a problem while nonhispanic caucs made up the majority of the electorate…..half the electorate is on left side of the bell curve and therefore more permeable to conservative memes. But in 2028 grouped minorities achieve parity with non hispanic caucs. A goodly portion of minorities have conservative tendencies….but are inaccessible as GOP voters because of the GOP base’s ingrained traditional racism.
— matoko_chan · Dec 3, 02:12 PM · #
Hey M.(that’s Mike)Bunge: Is there a coherent question in there somewhere?
— jd · Dec 3, 03:22 PM · #
“Hey M.(that’s Mike)Bunge: Is there a coherent question in there somewhere?”
jd, I think the question is perfectly coherent to anyone capable of thinking about it. How many Americans died in Vietnam after it became clear that there was no practical way to achieve “victory” but the war continued because, frankly, of people like you whose understanding of military strategy extends no further than a game of “Risk” and can therefore only consider questions of war and peace by how big or small they make your penis feel.
Mike
— MBunge · Dec 3, 04:50 PM · #
matoko_chan,
You say, “Schiavo was a human carrot”. Interesting viewpoint on what it means to be human. I say this quote proves there is good reason for conservatives to be nervous and/or skeptical of putting the scientists in charge. I suggest you start taking philosophical ideas more seriously (start with some of the work of the President’s Council on Bioethics under Kass’ tenure as Chairman or try “Embryo: A Defense of Human Life” by George and Tollefsen.)
— Arminius · Dec 3, 04:58 PM · #
Mike,
What’s your evidence that “there was no practical way to achieve ‘victory’”? And why the scare quotes — do you think Ho Chi Minh and the Communist takeover of Vietnam was good for the Vietnamese and/or America’s interests in South Asia?
— Arminius · Dec 3, 05:02 PM · #
“What’s your evidence that “there was no practical way to achieve ‘victory’”?”
Uh, the fact that the single most powerful nation that had ever existed had tried for many years to achieve such “victory” and was unable to do so? I mean, sure, we could’ve nuked North Vietnam or some such thing…but that’s what the “practical” qualifier was there for.
Mike
— MBunge · Dec 3, 06:28 PM · #
Arminius, I said nothing about “putting scientists in charge”.
I am explaining how conservatives with strong scientific training become apostates.
I don’t feel any need to be “loyal” to people that I regard as explicitly and deliberately dishonest. They are not in my tribe.
Leon Kass is a joke.
Never cite him around real scientists….it makes you look foolish.
“Kass frequently makes his case using appeals to “human dignity” (and related expressions like “fundamental aspects of human existence” and “the central core of our humanity”). In an essay with the revealing title “L’Chaim and Its Limits, “ Kass voiced his frustration that the rabbis he spoke with just couldn’t see what was so terrible about technologies that would extend life, health, and fertility. “The desire to prolong youthfulness,” he wrote in reply, is “an expression of a childish and narcissistic wish incompatible with devotion to posterity.” The years that would be added to other people’s lives, he judged, were not worth living: “Would professional tennis players really enjoy playing 25 percent more games of tennis?” And, as empirical evidence that “mortality makes life matter,” he notes that the Greek gods lived “shallow and frivolous lives”—an example of his disconcerting habit of treating fiction as fact. (Kass cites Brave New World five times in his Dignity essay.)
Kass has a problem not just with longevity and health but with the modern conception of freedom. There is a “mortal danger,” he writes, in the notion “that a person has a right over his body, a right that allows him to do whatever he wants to do with it.” He is troubled by cosmetic surgery, by gender reassignment, and by women who postpone motherhood or choose to remain single in their twenties. Sometimes his fixation on dignity takes him right off the deep end:
Kass says: Worst of all from this point of view are those more uncivilized forms of eating, like licking an ice cream cone—a catlike activity that has been made acceptable in informal America but that still offends those who know eating in public is offensive. … Eating on the street—even when undertaken, say, because one is between appointments and has no other time to eat—displays [a] lack of self-control: It beckons enslavement to the belly. … Lacking utensils for cutting and lifting to mouth, he will often be seen using his teeth for tearing off chewable portions, just like any animal. … This doglike feeding, if one must engage in it, ought to be kept from public view, where, even if we feel no shame, others are compelled to witness our shameful behavior.
In a country that claims separation of church and state, yet where mormon and catholic churches operate more as PACs or extortionists, and where one of the two main political parties has degenerated to represent a single politcal demographic, White Evangelical Christian, poseurs like Kass should be publically tarred and feathered as bad examples of religion convolved with junk-science, and ridden out of town on a rail.
— matoko_chan · Dec 3, 07:01 PM · #
Surely “being human” is more than just being an inert yet living mass that, coincidentally, has human DNA? Surely being alive is more than a matter of just breathing, right? Especially when that breath is made possible only by machine? Even Volta could make a frog’s leg twitch when a battery was applied. Was that proof that the frog, though bifurcated, was “alive”?
— Chet · Dec 3, 07:24 PM · #
matoko_chan,
Thanks for quoting some critics of Kass to me — I had no idea that there were actually people out there who might disagree with Kass’ philosophical views. As for those specific criticisms you quote, well, my advice to you stands. Pick up a couple of books of philosophy (moral, political, etc.) and then we can discuss whether or not “Leon Kass is a joke”. And for the record, while I don’t agree with everything Kass has to say (can you say that about any writer?), I find I learn more about the human condition from reading him that most contemporary writers.
— Arminius · Dec 3, 07:47 PM · #
Especially when that breath is made possible only by machine?
Don’t know if you meant to suggest that Schiavo was breathing with help from a machine, but in case you did mean to suggest that, you’re incorrect.
As for the rest, I understand the argument that Schiavo’s husband was legally entitled to make treatment decisions for her (based on his understanding of what she would have wanted), that the case had already been decided by the Florida courts, etc., but I’m really disconcerted by the suggestion (and I’ve seen it lots of places) that it was okay to kill Terri Schiavo because she was a “human carrot,” a life unworthy of life, etc., that she was somehow post-human.
Tell me something. If some stranger had gone into Schiavo’s room and shot her repeatedly in the head, what — if any — charges should have been filed? Cruelty to carrots?
— Kate Marie · Dec 3, 07:58 PM · #
It was ok to disconnect her from food and water because she was already dead. I think that’s what’s being missed – Terri was a dead person, had been for years.
Trespassing and unlawful discharge of a firearm. Improper disposal of a corpse, maybe.
— Chet · Dec 3, 08:03 PM · #
Ah, I see. All righty then.
— Kate Marie · Dec 3, 08:47 PM · #
Welcome back, Kate. (BTW.) You been lurking this whole time? Missed you, a little.
— Chet · Dec 3, 09:13 PM · #
Arminius……Kass is not a scientist.
It is simply not possible to use him to refute science.
I have told you why some conservatives become apostates, and why those that do feel no residual loyalty for those who they view as liars and poseurs.
Helen understands…..the act of lying about scientific fact severs tribal bonds of loyalty for some of us.
— matoko_chan · Dec 3, 11:37 PM · #
that it was okay to kill Terri Schiavo
oh please…the eeg was flat-lined, and she had lost 80% of her neocortex.
she was braindead already.
the lady was a carrot.
Arminius….
Pick up a couple of books of philosophy (moral, political, etc.)
lol
Western First Culture intellectuals bore me….I pretty much read them all in undergrad.
The Ancients and Eastern intellectuals are still interesting to me…..and of course Third Culture intellectuals.
— matoko_chan · Dec 4, 12:02 AM · #
Of course, it’s a lie that Schiavo was “flat-lined” or “brain dead,” and I assume you know that, because you’re a Third World intellectual and scientist, and one expects such people to understand the definition of brain death.
Schiavo was never “flat-lined” — until, you know, she died of dehydration.
That’s you all over, Matoko — a lie, and no heart.
— Kate Marie · Dec 4, 01:21 AM · #
Chet, thanks.
Yes, I’ve been lurking. De-lurking went against my better judgment, but I’m weak.
— Kate Marie · Dec 4, 01:24 AM · #
It’s a lie that Schiavo even had a brain, just about. In her vegetative state her brain tissue had completely degenerated leaving only CS fluid.
I’m hoping you can add to the discussions around here, which have largely been dominated by jd’s knee-jerk idiocy and KVS’s lawyerly prevaricating, but you must know you’re on your weakest footing when you talk about definition-of-life issues. It’s too bad that’s the opening you chose to come out of lurkerdom.
— Chet · Dec 4, 01:39 AM · #
Seriously, people. I thought you all were the science-types. Can you explain to me why a brain-dead or “flat-lined” person needed to be dehydrated to death? Look up a definition of brain death and get back to me.
— Kate Marie · Dec 4, 03:13 AM · #
Here.
— Kate Marie · Dec 4, 03:21 AM · #
matoko_chan,
I’m probably a masochist for continuing this discussion, but we seem to be talking past one another. First of all, I’m not suggesting you take Dr. Kass’ advice when doing your scientific research, or even when evaluating the research of others — as a doctor he is probably less qualified than the appropriate specialists (molecular biologists? chemists?) to comment on that research. However, what I am saying is that science cannot answer certain moral or philosophical questions — for example, contra to what Chet thinks, science cannot decide what makes us human (also, as a scientist, concerned with facts, its nice to read that Chet didn’t know Terri could breathe). Science can perhaps tell us something about a person’s brain tissue, or their brain activity — but we still have to decide what those facts mean in the context of how that person will be treated by those of us who have healthy brains.
Second, with respect to President Bush’s two “lies” about stem cells, can you please direct me to the exact language from his veto and the exact research that contradicts this language. I could start Googling, but you seem to be an expert on the subject so I’m sure you’ll be able to quickly provide the references.
— Arminius · Dec 4, 03:32 AM · #
I was a Roissy reader for a while. The vitriol is bracing. But the dosage should be kept very small. He’s the the Mad Dog 20/20 of blogs.
I quit cold turkey when the racism veered away from his preference for white girls into general characterizations of non-white (male and female) as inferior animals. Pretty revolting. And his comments number in the hundreds, most of them fans. Yech.
But he’s quite a writer. And I heard Hitler was a pretty decent painter.
— Instafaggot · Dec 4, 03:49 AM · #
Because, unfortunately, with a functional brainstem regulated by an implanted thalamic stimulator, basic body function could probably continue indefinitely, and it’s illegal in most states to push euthanasiac drugs.
But look at the CT scan. There was a hole where her brain used to be. Don’t pretend that we can’t map brain location to function. We know that the part of the brain where humanness resides – where self resides – had long since been digested by her own body. If the legal definition of “death” isn’t broad enough to cover that, it’s a legal problem – not an argument for keeping mindless tissue alive.
— Chet · Dec 4, 04:21 AM · #
Look at that CT scan and tell me there was something there that merited a decades-long campaign to persecute Michael Schiavo, violating multiple court orders affirming Terri’s end of life instructions, two-plus unconstitutional legislative acts, a subpoena from Congress to place her under “witness protection” (!), 5 federal suits, and the complete destruction of the Republican party as a serious movement in American politics.
There’s nothing there but a hole. Of course that’s not “brain death” – a brain has to exist to be dead.
— Chet · Dec 4, 04:28 AM · #
Look, Chet, I’ve made no argument about what measures the facts of the case warranted. I’ve simply said that Schiavo wasn’t “flat-lined” or brain dead; she certainly wasn’t legally dead. I can’t be sure, but somewhere in there you appear to concede that I’m correct.
Beyond that, yes, I do believe that Terri Schiavo was a living human being. I’ll second Arminius’s assertion that science cannot determine what makes us human, but I might rephrase that by saying science cannot determine what gives us the moral status of personhood (since that is a moral/philosophical question), while Science’s definition of what’s human is much closer to mine than to yours (based on the statements you’ve made in these comments). I think there are very, very few scientists, for instance, who would argue that Terri Schiavo (in her PVS) wasn’t a human being.
— Kate Marie · Dec 4, 05:11 AM · #
Can Terri Schiavo decide? For herself, at least? Can she decide the conditions under which she believed her life was worth continuing and when it was not? Conservatives believed that no, she wouldn’t be allowed.
I notice that neither you nor Arminus shy away from using scientific facts in service of your own position on the nature of human life, at the same time you make the claim that “science can’t decide” (as though anything or anybody was being asked to decide besides us, the humans who have to live these lives.)
Nobody would argue that a dead person isn’t a human being, either. But none of those scientists would argue that she was alive, that Terri Schiavo didn’t die on that day in 1990. Terri Schiavo was a human being up to and past the day she died. What was killed in the hospital was not human, because it was not Terri Schiavo.
— Chet · Dec 4, 05:19 AM · #
Nobody would argue that a dead person isn’t a human being, either. But none of those scientists would argue that she was alive, that Terri Schiavo didn’t die on that day in 1990.
Funny thing, that Uniform Determination of Death Act, by which standard Terri Schiavo was definitely alive, was approved by the American Medical Association. Is that not a group of scientists? I’m confused.
— Kate Marie · Dec 4, 05:29 AM · #
You’re confused that you think the AMA ratified the UDDA in response to Terri Schiavo? I don’t understand.
— Chet · Dec 4, 05:42 AM · #
By the standard of the UDDA — according to the definition of death contained therein — Terri Schiavo was not dead — that is, alive — until she died of dehydration after her feeding tube was removed. If that is not true, can you show me how the UDDA standards are consistent with an argument that Terri Schiavo was already dead in her persistent vegetative state?
— Kate Marie · Dec 4, 05:55 AM · #
This is what the UDDA — approved by the AMA — says, Chet:
1. [Determination of Death]. An individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead. A determination of death must be made in accordance with accepted medical standards.
How on earth does that definition fit with your claim that scientists in general would have considered Schiavo already dead?
— Kate Marie · Dec 4, 05:59 AM · #
Also it strikes me that the AMA is a group of doctors, not a group of scientists.
I thought you said science couldn’t determine who was alive and who was dead? Who was a person and who was not? You’ve got me all turned around, now.
— Chet · Dec 4, 05:59 AM · #
No, I explicitly rephrased Arminius’s formulation by saying science couldn’t determine what gives us the moral status of personhood, because that is a moral/philosophical question.
Seriously, though is it now really your position that medical doctors are not scientists?
— Kate Marie · Dec 4, 06:07 AM · #
Chet,
You say,
“But look at the CT scan. There was a hole where her brain used to be. Don’t pretend that we can’t map brain location to function. We know that the part of the brain where humanness resides – where self resides – had long since been digested by her own body. If the legal definition of “death” isn’t broad enough to cover that, it’s a legal problem – not an argument for keeping mindless tissue alive.”
So you are essentially making the point I’ve been making all along. Whatever science can or cannot tell us about a human brain, it is still other human beings (legal scholars, philosophers, politicians, voters,etc.) who have to decide what those scientific facts mean and how we will make laws that deal with those facts.
As for whether or not Terri was “mindless tissue”, this is where the rubber hits the road so to speak, as there are obviously deep moral and philosophical issues around what to do with a person in PVS. It should be noted, however, that just because a CAT scan shows upper brain function to be “destroyed” (or is it damaged beyond repair?) there are other parts of the brain, which is why we have a definition of PVS in the first place:
“A vegetative state is absence of responsiveness and awareness due to overwhelming dysfunction of the cerebral hemispheres, with sufficient sparing of the diencephalon and brain stem to preserve autonomic and motor reflexes and sleep-wake cycles.”
Again, should we keep a person alive in PVS? That is the real question and despite your claims for science being about to pinpoint the human soul (”[w]e know that the part of the brain where humanness resides – where self resides”) I don’t think we are in agreement on this subject. For example, why not kill elderly people who suffer from dementia or advanced Alzeihmer’s? These diseases have “destroyed” (damaged beyond repair) the part of their brain “where self resides” — they are obviously no longer the same people they once were? I could go on, but I think you get the idea.
Finally, you also make some factual claims about Terri’s wishes and what happened during the fight by her parents to keep her alive. I don’t have time to check on all your factual claims about the case details here, but one of your statement is obviously hyberbole (efforts to keep her alive resulted in “the complete destruction of the Republican party as a serious movement in American politics”).
— Arminius · Dec 4, 05:17 PM · #
Of course it is. Doctors are not scientists. Why would they be? Scientists are obligated to discern truth by means of empirical testing; doctors are obligated to heal by whatever means they can, including by treatments known not to be effective (homeopathy, acupuncture, altie medicine, doctors even use the placebo effect) but that might provide a psychological palliative effect to the patient.
I would have thought it was manifest that doctors are not scientists. That’s why so many of them promote alternative medicine and/or are intelligent design creationists.
I don’t think I ever disputed that humans have to make the decision. Science is not a thing that can make decisions, after all. The question is, how will we be guided in our decision? It seems quite obvious to me that the guidance of science is superior to the guidance of religion or law, and that it should win out when in conflict with those, nearly every time.
They may very well have changed into other people, but Terri “changed” into nobody at all. Even someone with dementia still has relevant brain function; it’s just functioning differently.
You think that’s hyperbole? I think you can trace the complete dissolution of Republican power – remember, you guys were supposed to be the “permanent majority” – to the Republican overreach on Terri Schiavo. But I can accept disagreement on this issue.
— Chet · Dec 4, 05:35 PM · #
So these people are not scientists, Chet. For that matter, neither are the people who administer and interpret CAT scans, so I’m not sure by what scientific authority you claim any knowledge of the state of Schiavo’s brain. Can you point me to some of the non-M.D. scientists who examined her?
— Kate Marie · Dec 4, 05:53 PM · #
Defining/determining the moral status of personhood is a moral/philosophical question, Chet. Your comments suggest that you think sciene has some definitive scientific answer to that question. It doesn’t. In fact, science can’t really address the question of whether any person has the right to life, let alone who is to be granted the status of personhood.
— Kate Marie · Dec 4, 06:02 PM · #
Chet says,
“It seems quite obvious to me that the guidance of science is superior to the guidance of religion or law”. I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. How does science tell us anything (besides the obvious fact that there are biological inequalities between people) about a statement like this one:
“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
?!
As for “overreach on Terri”, it is quite obvious both that
a) there were many other factors contributing to Republican loses in 2006 and 2008
and;
b) the Republican party is already starting to rebound from those losses.
Finally, with respect to some of the other Schiavo case specifics, check out this article:
http://www.christendomreview.com/Volume001Issue002/lydia_mcgrew_01.html
— Arminius · Dec 4, 06:15 PM · #
No, they’re scientists. Why would you think they weren’t scientists? Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol Greider have PhD’s in molecular biology, and Jack Szostak has a PhD in biochemistry. Did you notice that not a single one of them is a doctor or physician? None of them hold an MD?
Why did you think they were doctors? Because they won the Nobel Prize in medicine? That makes me think that you haven’t understood the claim, or don’t know what Nobel Prizes are given for.
Science informs the practice of medicine, certainly, but a working doctor using medicine to cure sick people isn’t using the scientific method in any sense; therefore he’s not a scientist.
Sure. That’s exactly what kind of question it is. What I can’t understand is why you seem to feel it’s so obvious it need not be stated that science can’t answer a moral or philosophical question.
A common reaction to a claim that can’t be rebutted.
— Chet · Dec 4, 06:32 PM · #
I thought we all agreed to naturalize our epistemology.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Dec 4, 07:05 PM · #
You’re right about the recipients I cited, Chet. I was careless. But there are plenty of MD’s who have won Nobel prizes.
What I can’t understand is why you seem to feel it’s so obvious it need not be stated that science can’t answer a moral or philosophical question.
Scientists can attempt to answer moral and philosophical questions, just like the rest of us, but they can’t prove their answers scientifically. Can you point me, for instance, to the scientific proof of the existence of a right to life? A scientific proof of the existence of rights in general? A scientific proof that we shouldn’t murder one another?
— Kate Marie · Dec 4, 07:24 PM · #
So what? There’s nothing about having an MD that would prevent you from doing science, and therefore being a scientist. (A large number of those research MD’s have PhD’s, as well.) But being a doctor – treating people with medicine – is not doing science, just like engineering is not doing science.
“Proof”? You really have no idea how science works, do you? Proof’s a thing for liquor.
— Chet · Dec 4, 07:31 PM · #
Oh, come on, Chet. You’re always the one complaining about word games. Would you prefer I say “evidence” before you answer? All righty, then, can you point me to the scientific or empirical evidence/theories for the existence of a right to life? You seem to believe that science can definitively answer questions about who ought to be considered a person. It can’t. It can certainly address questions about what a human being is, but the answers to those questions tend to cut against you, Chet.
Once again, did you find that non-M.D. scientist who examined Schiavo? How can you base your opinion of her case on a CT scan that was performed and interpreted by one of those non-scientist doctors?
— Kate Marie · Dec 4, 08:16 PM · #
None, which suggests that the “right” is really just a cultural construction we mutually agree on, to some extent – like the rules of Monopoly (which I cannot find “scientific evidence” of, either.) But I can accumulate scientific evidence that human society operates better with some conception of the right to life than without, and with certain conceptions rather than with others.
“Ought”? It seems to me that science can answer a great deal about who is and isn’t a person, no “ought” about it.
Again I think you’re not understanding the claim being made. Science informs the interpretation of CT scans. Doctors interpreting CT scans along those guidelines are not doing science. Just like, even though science developed the principles that make your computer possible, you’re not doing science just by posting on TAS.
— Chet · Dec 4, 08:23 PM · #
The electro-encephalagram was flatlined— showed zero brain activity.
Schiavo’s body was simply removed from life support, if you like.
The body could not swallow— autonomous reflex function had failed at the brainstem level.
Chet is right, the majority of Schiavo’s brain tissue had been necrotized into fluid.
Arminius, again….conservatives that become apostates due to conflict with scientific fact, like Johnson, Cole, and myself, are not going to hold to Helen’s virtue of loyalty.
We regard our onetime shieldcomrades as the apostates…..apostates of truth.
— matoko_chan · Dec 4, 08:24 PM · #
KVS, what do you mean “we,” kemosabe?
— Kate Marie · Dec 4, 08:29 PM · #
Johnson, Cole and I actually believe our onetime memetic comrades should reform and educate the base instead of pandering.
E.D. banned me for adopting that position.
Like Purple says in Diamond Age……
There are many shades of gray in the World, and many times when the hidden way is best….but some things are purely evil and must be fought to the death.
— matoko_chan · Dec 4, 08:40 PM · #
Chet, you’re conflating “personhood” (which is a moral category) and “human being.” Science can tell us a lot about who is a human being, but it can’t tell us anything definitive about who is a “person.”
But I can accumulate scientific evidence that human society operates better with some conception of the right to life than without, and with certain conceptions rather than with others.
Does science define what “better” means? Does science provide evidence that Hitler’s or Pol Pot’s conceptions of “better” are worse than your conceptions of “better?”
I’m tired of going around about doctors. You don’t have to think of them as scientists, but it’s clear that Schiavo was legally and “clinically” not dead, according to the standard set forth by the UDDA. For someone who once argued that the birthdates on our driver’s licenses demonstrate that “life” begins at birth, I don’t see how you can easily dismiss that official classification of Schiavo’s condition.
— Kate Marie · Dec 4, 08:48 PM · #
A ‘right to life’ is meaningful only if 1) a ‘right to life’ describes a true fact of nature 2) ‘a right to life’ is not a true fact of nature, but the meme performs work in the world merely because ‘it’ is a widely held belief; or 3) ‘it’ is a right defined and protected by the interested State.
Number one cannot be disproved. It is also a primitive belief fraught with extrapolative perils.
Poulos might defend number two with his ‘postmodern utility of conservative affectations,’ but I don’t; that’s the easy way out.
Number three doesn’t exist for fetuses (yet). So number three cannot be the basis of appeal. You’re left with number one or number two (i.e., number two).
And Kate, the ‘we’ is us: humans, sentients, room temp philosophers. Compelled by reason, we’ve naturalized epistemology (this was the big story this past century). The upshot: ‘when life begins’ cannot be a philosophical or moral question without also being a scientific question. There are no merely philosophical questions; there are no merely moral categories. Not anymore, not ever again. Instead, there are meaningful questions, whose terms reduce to or are constrained by empiricism, and there are meaningless questions, whose terms are irreducible and inoperative.
In other words, you gain nothing by defining the question as a philosophical or moral question. Science just comes in the back door rather than the front. Not believing this is just another case of number two.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Dec 4, 09:02 PM · #
That said, there is a coherent argument for a right to life; it’s a sophisticated self-interest argument from the State’s perspective, at room temp, reposed in the architectonic space.
Same goes for ‘life begins at conception’.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Dec 4, 09:15 PM · #
Anywho, yet another half-hour wasted. Thanks, TAS!
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Dec 4, 09:27 PM · #
And you’re conflating “human being” with “human body.”
Do we need it to? I feel it can, but I don’t see “better” or “worse” as being so ambiguous that we need to be informed as to their meaning.
I doubt theirs were different than mine or yours, frankly; they differed merely in the means they thought were best to achieve those conceptions. But neither Hitler nor Pol Pot were Martians; a good day for Hitler surely would not be much different than a good day for you or I.
Doubtless. As I said before, these are failures of legal and medical guidelines to keep up with the science.
Try not to rewrite history, ok? It’s the position of the pro-lifers that society has settled on a definition of life that begins at conception. The fact that the law recognizes a completely different beginning of life, and that even pro-lifers mark their age from their date of birth, indicates that this is not so at all. That’s all I said, then.
— Chet · Dec 4, 10:43 PM · #
This raises a question for me……can one be scient and remain a conservative?
That is, if cultivating the appearance of belief in false memes (like Palin’s oblique birtherism) is part of the conservative ethos.
Should false memes get equal time even when they are patently untrue?
The problem is the flattening of information….when ToE was actually controversial, perhaps conservatism had legs. I think conservatism vs science is an obsolete argument.
Dr. Manzi seems to manage reconciling science and conservatism…. but he is a creature of extra-ordinary grace.
And the rarest of outliers.
— matoko_chan · Dec 6, 01:55 AM · #
I think the exchange about the Terry Schiavo case illustrates the problems with attaching political positions to people and then claiming that loyalty to the people implies a duty of loyalty to the position. Loyalty to a position in this case has meant an increasing detachment from the facts. Medical fact: the autopsy of Terry Schiavo demonstrated pretty conclusively she had lost the ability to interact in any normal way with the people around her and the world. She could not function as a human being and had no realistic hope of regaining her abilities. Legal reality: her human rights included the right to refuse pointless medical treatment that merely violated her dignity, and the courts, all the way up to the Florida Supreme Court, found testimony, by her husband and others, that she had made her wishes known credible. Political fact: the Republican-dominated congress of the time passed a law giving federal courts jurisdiction in the Schiavo case. This law arguably violated a) the constitutional prohibition on ex post facto legislation and bills of attainder, b) the jurisdiction of the State of Florida and the Florida court system, c) the rights of Michael Schiavo, and d) the autonomy of Terry Schiavo, insofar as it thwarted her wishes as determined by the courts. At the same time, many legislators and activists (some influenced by a heavily edited video) argued, against all the medical evidence, that Terry Schiavo had not suffered irreversible brain damage.
The actions of the Republican Congress in the Schiavo case violated almost every conservative tenet, from respect for the constitution (section 9 and amendment 1), respect for the rule of law and the courts, respect for the scientific and medical truth, respect for limits on government, particularly the limit on responding to popular appeals with force majeure, respect for individual autonomy, and, not least, respect for the privacy of a family. This case did crystallize a growing alienation from the Republican Party felt by many people, and thus, it seems to me, should count as a major disaster (and blunder) by the conservative movement. It seems to me that a rational and politically effective assessment would recognize that, possibly even learn from it, and move on. Instead, it seems to me, some contributors here find it necessary to redefine the issue, from the factual question of whether the courts correctly determined the expressed wishes of Terry Schiavo not to undergo medical intervention to keep her alive in an irreversible vegetative state, to the philosophical question of whether her condition cancelled her essential humanity. That discussion may have some interest, but it certainly doesn’t reflect what I and my sources remember about the controversy at the time.
I would suggest that the more positions conservatives define as essential matters of personal loyalty, the faster we can expect the American conservative movement to decline.
— John Spragge · Dec 6, 02:25 PM · #
And what Spragge said is true of the conservative position on birtherism, stem cell technology, and creationism/IDT, and “life” at conception as well other contemporary scientific and legal issues.
respect for the scientific and medical truth
If tribal loyalty trumphs the law and the truth as Ms. Rittelmeyer suggests, then I think the conservative party is doomed to eternal rump status.
— matoko_chan · Dec 6, 06:42 PM · #
The way I see it…..is that conservatism can either reform……or you can simply give up on the college-educated vote like you have given up on the black vote.
;)
— matoko_chan · Dec 6, 07:05 PM · #