Psybertron Asks

Time for this debate to focus on the real issue.

It’s about social mores having authority over individual freedoms when it comes to sexual modesty.

End of.

• Yes some religions, and more to the point some sects of some religions (Islam for sure, but don’t forget sects of Judaism, Christian Amish and Orthodox and the like), apply more extreme traditions on what counts as immodest. Hijab, niqab, a whole range of head-scarves, hair-styles, unflattering dress and cosmetic codes, applied to (mainly) women at different stages of sexual and marital maturity.
• And yes, some religious social traditions are more dominated by male patriarchal authority. In some extreme cases, that domination amounts to total suppression of women, but here the focus on female modesty is from the male hetero-gender perspective, and there are social codes for male dress too. The sexes are different – get used to it.
• And yes, some less secular and counter-intuitively more religiously-tolerant secular societies (like the UK), privilege some religious over other social traditions. A price for tolerance.
• And yes, in most “western” societies we see the eyes and face generally as part of trust in society’s interactions – personal identity sure, but more subtle than that. Some societies the eyes are a big enough window on the soul, in some we prefer the whole facial body language. (BTW as a counter-example I’ll let you into a secret, my secret stash of hard-drive “porn” includes a fair number of sexy-eyes-through-the-veil images – purely in the interests of research you understand.) But don’t forget, males in crash-helmets or black balaclavas entering some institutional contexts make us nervous too.

I heard a very interesting interview with a selection of UK Moslem women, with reassuringly varied views on their own “preferences” for head-wear, and takes on how much this had to do (if anything) with respect for their religious social traditions – I think on BBC R4 Sunday ? What was intriguing was how quickly amongst the diversity of opinion, the debate converged on “the woman’s right to choose” vs “authority”. Sadly the journalist involved didn’t pick up on the main point.

Yes, in free societies, individual freedoms are very precious, but “paramount” is fashionably over-used rhetoric. All our individual freedoms are quite rightly limited by appropriate social mores. Social mores that may have quite murky traditional histories, religious traditions or otherwise and with dubious if complex Darwinian origins and mechanisms.  Modesty of pubescent single females, and male rites of passage are common aspects of such moral traditions. Think school dress codes, think sloppy underwear-exposing dress fashions, think both genders.

Modesty is a good thing. If overly-modest dress gets in the way of interpersonal identity and trust, then both parties need the good manners to respect the other. I think this is one reason why even moderate but passionate Moslems get so frustrated at the individual freedom argument being added to the polarized anti-religion debates. The point about “good manners” is being missed and people with good manners may be too polite to point that out. Think FFS.

Good to hear the latest climate change publication – heavily vetted and verified before publication.

My position remains totally unchanged – Anthropogenic Global Warming is common sense, so anything we can do to minimise our negative impact on the cosmos the better, so recycle, reuse, minimising resource waste, minimising energy degradation, etc is good – as it always was.

The good thing about the latest publication is the same; the fact that it’s reception may damp down the total waste of the scientistic vs political dogma wars. The wasteful war far outweighs the value of the science involved – real and valuable science, but let’s nevertheless maintain a sense of proportion.

A post primarily to recommend a read I’ve not yet completed: Orientations, the autobiography of Sir Ronald Storrs, described by T E Lawrence as “The first of us …. always first, and the great man among us.” Conversely, Storrs a man with as good a handle on the flawed genius – “my little genius” – that was Lawrence as any could.

I’m reading it after Lawrence In Arabia by Scott Anderson, another highly recommended read for anyone with any interest in the 20th century history of the middle-east. Frankly, is there anyone in the 21st century not interested?

Storrs interacted – corresponded, met and worked – with everyone – the list of royalty, aristocracy, premiers, politicians, generals, diplomats, adventurers, artists and thinkers is a name-droppers who’s who of 20th century history, worth the read for that alone – but Storrs is no name dropper. Tremendous wit and insight. By way merely of example, a wonderful exposition of his equally wonderful relationship with the much-maligned Kitchener. In our context here you need to know he was in 1917 the first British Governor of Jerusalem (and the putative Palestine, after Balfour, but before the British Mandate) immediately after Allenby had ended 80 years of Turkish rule there. The holy city of the holy land shared with the three Abrahamic religions. Fancy the job? But Storrs had similar periods of responsibility, not to mention power, in London, Cairo, Baghdad and Cyprus too.

Fascinating career, of a fascinating person, in a fascinating period of history – in his own words.

Local petitions were no less ingenuous. I had been appointed not three days before I received from an Orthodox [Christian] Arab an appeal clearly intended to combine a recognition of British conventions with a delicate personal flattery. “I do beseech Your Excellency to grant my request, for the sake of J. Christ, Esq. : a gentleman whom Your Honour so closely resembles.”

So many good anecdotes in the historical narrative. Go read.

=====

I recall where and when I first saw a copy of Orientations, and dipped into it.

I was working in Alexandria and the hotel, like many do, had a small library in the guest lounge. And, also like most such libraries, it was in general not very inspiring, a pretty random collection of donated travel guides and fictions, new and old, English, French and Arabic, but hey, this was Alexandria the home of libraries, where the new Alexandria library was nearing completion.

As a sometime amateur Lawrence scholar, I noticed the name Storrs on the spine of one blue-bound volume, though to be honest at that time I didn’t really appreciate the depth and significance of the connection. The aristocratic and clergy Cust / Storrs family heritage in the early chapters didn’t initially inspire or trigger much further connection to my interest, despite checking that the index did indeed include many Lawrence references later, one amongst the enormous list of names (see above).

I had noticed the book just a couple of days before the end of the assignment, and snatched only a couple of brief introductory reads, but with the promise of the later references, and being the kind of random hotel library it was, I thought – I may as well take it, might be interesting, they probably wouldn’t miss it. However, the staff had been so good to us, I felt just taking it wasn’t the thing to do. So I asked at reception if they’d mind if I took it, or if they wanted I could pay for it, add it to my bill as it were. “No sir, he replied. We have so few worthwhile books in our library so far, we really wouldn’t want to let it go.” Oh well, I thought no more about it.

Until I came across all the Storrs / Lawrence references in the Anderson book.

Just a holding link to this piece by Julian Baggini, where both head and heart are needed to recognise the value of something arithmetically expensive. (Hat tip to David Morey on FB a week or two ago. Significant on balance because Julian is one I’ve criticised before, but increasingly I see I can agree with him.)

I’ve adopted the term “scientism” for the subject – the problem topic – of my agenda here in maybe the last 5 years or so? Previously I’ve called it scientific fundamentalism, or maybe obsessive objective reductionism, Maxwell’s scientific neurosis, things of that ilk, since I started this blog 13 years ago. Before that I never really gave it a name – it was just a nagging doubt that there was a deep problem going unrecognised in the whole of human life, well beyond science. A problem I had difficulty even articulating, until the blog gave me a vehicle in which to practice. Scientism’s become the fashionable term for the problem, particularly since the more “shrill” new-atheist humanists – supported by celebrity scientists and comics – turned it into a front-page and social-media war. Amen to that.

Interestingly it was one of those “wow” moments of revelatory epiphany where I first used the term in 2008. (Good guess, 5 years ago.) I was actually using the term against myself, having previously been pursuing the problem of science within science, and recognising that as the error in itself.

This piece “Crimes Against Humanities” by Leon Wieseltier in New Republic I first looked at when tweeted by Tiff Jenkins a couple of weeks ago, and tweeted a positive holding response. Decided to do a thorough read again today. Essentially I agree with every word in Wieseltier’s piece, and have only one reservation.

As Wieseltier says, Pinker’s (baseless, and breathtakingly arrogant) argument can be summed up as:

There is nothing wrong with the humanities that the sciences cannot fix.

[And, my later references to Pinker’s piece, here and here.]

Wieseltier says a lot more – both assertions and reference arguments – so I’d recommend a thorough read and digest by anyone taking the debate seriously. As I say, I really have only one reservation – Wieseltier’s idea of casting humanities and science into distinct “domains” is too much like Gould’s “non-overlapping magisteria” much rejected by Dennett (with whom I mostly agree, like I mostly agree with Pinker and Harris). The boundaries of science and the humanities are indeed porous and open to cross-border investigations, as the definitions of the border evolve on both sides. Good fences make good neighbours, they say, so yes “working” definitions of boundaries are useful if not essential, but simply drawing them up as some kind of cease-fire line is not the solution, an agreement to disagree about the value of the other. Mutual human respect must be shared well into “enemy” territory both sides of the line. (A large part of Wieseltier’s argument is to point how little science seems to actually respect the wisdom, intelligence and intentions of those on the humanities side of the divide.)

Science was originally conceived as nature by those natural philosophers that pre-date science itself and the human pursuit of knowledge has gone hand in hand with the evolution of science . And indeed human nature is by definition part of nature, but that does not make the humanities in  any way a subset of science as if science were by definition an explication for the whole of nature. Science simply has no privileged position when it comes to knowledge of humanity within the cosmos, not even the overview of all applied empirical knowledge. In my view rather than seeing science and the humanities as mutually exclusive domains, they must be seen as complex interlinked patterns in the whole of nature. That whole may never be a single unifying theory of everything, certainly not in any causally reductive sense. To be unifying any “theory” needs to encompass more than science.

Particularly interesting, taking the topic beyond any science vs humanities “defensive” debate, well beyond any science vs religion “offensive” war, is that amongst the enlightened, the problem of scientism is recognised within scientific academia itself. Some scientists may believe that the philosophy of science is dead, without value, and that science is self-describing toward potential completion, but philosophers of science see that what science is missing are “values”. Ditto in hard to classify realms like economics. We all do well to remember:

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Interesting that the press cynics are taking the line, once they’ve got over the concept that Russia may be sincere, is that securing Syria’s chemical weapons might not be “feasible” anyway. Mad thinking. If it weren’t feasible to locate (most of) them with any (reasonable) certainty, then how would any kind of targeted strike have been any more feasible, without significant risk of accidentally releasing them in collateral damage. Keeping stockpiles, like civilians, near likely targets would have been Syria’s greatest deterrent.

Anyway, full marks to France, Russia, and now UK & US falling into line, in taking the “securing and removing / disposing of the chemical weapons” proposal to the UN. Gaffe? How dumb do the press think international diplomats are? The politicians may says things off agreed scripts, but the ideas will be in real discussions. It’s win, win, win, win, lose, win. As good as it gets.

Putin gets to be the hero.

France gets to repair relations with US.

US and UK get their objectives, both moral and self-interested, without needing to take credit (or responsibility for the consequences).

The plan gets proper UN airing, even if debate can never reach reach unanimous agreement, allied majority is seen to have done right thing before attempting tough action. Being hard to achieve doesn’t make it wrong.

Syria gets message, takes note and makes public statement (and actions) of its responsibilities to comply.

World gets action with minimal WW3 risk, but can escalate if cooperation stalls or mission fails.

UK and US (and France) were right to (a) threaten a forcible strike against Assad’s use of chemical weapons, and (b) right to try to get government buy-in to exercise that right – both of which are quite separate from the actual order to act, if and when needed. Even talking softly, the diplomats need their governments to carry a big stick, one that will actually be used if attention to responsibilities waivers.

[Beyond Doubt][Bashing Heads Together]

PS – John Humphreys is past his sell-by date on BBC R4 Today. Just not up to “grown-up” politics and 21st century living.

 

 

OK, so there is some element of faddish fashion in here, but more variety is a good thing. And we need to get the facts straight is it “high fibre, protein rich and gluten free” or is it “pure protein” compared to (say) rice or wheat? Guess it depends on the form – whole-grain, milled, ground, etc. Clarity would help. But, the issue to highlight is the international economics intervention angle, not actually mentioned. Juts a thought, given this example.

So market opportunity for producers (anywhere) and sellers to cash in on. Good? But, the market price for South American produced quinoa means the poorer locals can no longer afford what used to be their staple food. Bad? Even if increased production closer to consumer markets brings the cost down, the price will still be at the consumer market production-cost prices. So what to do? Ban exports from original producer countries? No.

It’s an opportunity to make the original economy wealthier, provided interventions (say subsidies, incentives and levies in pricing and importing) simply regulate the transition until the locals can work up the benefits of having a valuable crop on their hands, in their own purchasing ability, as well as their export production capability. Meantime, anywhere else that can and wants to grow it, does so at global market supply and demand conditions.

How did Rudd let this tosspot win?

Syria continues to be the main story. Glad to see Putin has stepped up to it too. And, confirming Russia is not averse to supporting physical action, with UN processes, provided the case is “beyond doubt”.

Not forgetting what may be lost in translation, “beyond doubt” is not realistic, it’s scientistic (*). There needs to be a judgement based on what evidence can be trusted. Beyond reasonable (*) doubt surely. Talking of which, the Assad regime needs to do more, to take the chemical weapons seriously. If they deny direct intentional responsibility for the attack, they do need to be seen to act responsibly in addressing what actually happened. Denial is no case to be trusted, quite the opposite.

Despite juvenile incompetence of Cameron / Milliband, it’s good that western allies do establish their political case for authority to act – quite independent of specific plans to act.

It will be major progress (not just for Syria) if Putin genuinely tries to invoke UN here, and US recognise the value. Fingers crossed. I’m sure playing the hero fits Putin’s psyche to a tee. Go for it. [Update 9 Sept – as predicted … Russia taking the lead in getting the chemical weapons out of the equation – force and/or verification, UN needed, but initiative from Russia is as good as any.]

[(*) Scientistic because that’s my agenda, not war and politics. As the tag-line says, it’s about what we “know” and how we make and justify decisions to act, everywhere in life. Reasonable doubt and certainty are matters of human judgement (trust and faith) not science, not arithmetic of naive democracy. Jeez, heard another politician, a US representative, saying his opinion was based on the weight of opposition in his mailbag – forget the maths, use your moral judgement.]

The wisest strategy? Engaging in military attack against Syria to make the point about chemical weapons against civilians being unacceptable behaviour? The risk is hitting the Assad regime hard and giving the advantage to even less desirable terrorist rebels, maybe even allowing the weapons of atrocity to fall into their hands, right?

So don’t.

Make the objective to bash both heads equally hard, disable both their offensive capabilities with minimal human collateral and … if not entirely successful in one wave and the prospect of boots on the ground returns? … make the mission a smash and grab (Entebbe style) to seize the offending weapons (even one batch thereof, to show we intend to if we can) and get out fast. Leaving the chastened parties behind to “sort yourselves out like civilised humans”. If you have to redraw borders to satisfy religio-tribal family differences, get on with it – we’re still watching you.

We don’t choose sides, aim for a regime change, we simply level and civilise the playing field. And we can (should be) blue-helmets, not another imperfect nationally allied self-interest. Maybe we even suggest the Russians and/or Chinese do the smash and grab, with perhaps greater local cooperation ?

Hopefully Obama is already on the phone to Putin.

[And what’s the worst that could happen?]

Time to get creative, not cowardly.