Civil Wars

It is possible for highly intelligent people to have a useful but mistaken theory, and we don't have to pretend otherwise to show respect for these people.

— Daniel Dennett

I've given up arguing with reactionaries; I can hardly anymore argue with liberals.

Mistaken theories abound nowadays. 

If you're struggling like me to stay civil, take the advice of Tufts University philosopher Daniel Dennett.

"Just how charitable are you supposed to be when criticizing the views of an opponent?" he asks in Intuition Pumps.

Dennett offers four rules, based on research in behavioral psychology:

1. Restate your opponent's position clearly, vividly, and fairly—so much so, your opponent thanks you.
   
   
2. List any points of agreement, unless they're points of widespread agreement (such as, "Politicians aren't always candid").
   
   
3. Describe what you've learned from your opponent.
   
   
4. Rebut you opponent only after you've taken Steps 1, 2 and 3.

This four-step process warms your opponent, so she listens to you. You might actually advance your discussion.

And if she doesn't warm to you, remember what Oscar Wilde said: "In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane."

The Tent Angel

Navigating the streets of downtown Washington, DC, you might think the Boy Scout Jamboree is in town.

But the hundreds of tents pitched on every square inch of public land house the homeless, pushed out of shelters by Covid-19.

They're the work of one man, nicknamed "The Tent Angel."

Arnold Harvey is a 58-year-old veteran who grew up dirt poor. He promised God that, if his life ever improved, he’d help others.

His life did improve. Today he's a trash truck driver with a pretty home in the Maryland suburbs.

As he makes his nightly rounds of DC in his trash truck, Harvey drops off new camping gear whenever he spots a homeless person.

He started a tiny nonprofit called "God’s Connection Transition" a decade ago, to seek in-kind donations, so he's learned how to acquire things. 

When the pandemic hit in March, Harvey went to his local Costco and struck a deal: he'd take all the tents shoppers returned opened.

Now he delivers them in the dark to DC's homeless.

“When we get someone a tent, everything gets better,” Harvey told The Washington Post.

Suddenly homeless people are visible, and other angels come to their aid.

“I guess people don’t always see them sleeping in the grass,” Harvey said. “But you can’t ignore a tent."

Illogical

The avant-garde and the rearguard, the devout and the secular, the learned elite and the lay public all seem to want to enlist nature on their side, everywhere and always.

— Lorraine Daston

Racist claims offend most 21st century ears, no matter their source. They're not only boorish, but, as Spock would say, most illogical.

So I was surprised to hear a racist claim voiced this week during an interview on NPR.

Brandon Keith Brown, a Black classical conductor, was asked to expand on his recently penned article, "It's Time To Make Orchestras Great Again—By Making Them Blacker."

Brown argued that Whites, by design, exclude Blacks from participation in classical music, because they fear Blacks' innate performative superiority.

Were they included, Blacks would soon "dominate concert halls," as they came to "dominate basketball courts" soon after they were admitted to the NBA, Brown said.

Most illogical.

Also most illogical: the fact that NPR sanctioned Brown's claim by airing it.

The network would never permit, for example, a White biker to claim Blacks purposely exclude Whites from dirt biking the streets because they fear Whites' innate stunt-driving talents.

Racist claims like this ("Whites are better stunt drivers than Blacks") commit what philosophers call the "naturalistic fallacy."

This logical fallacy places races on a par with individuals, attributing their talents to entire races and creating convenient distinctions ("Black," "White," etc.) as if they were established by nature's law. 

It's pseudo-science to claim, "Whites are better stunt drivers than Blacks." A scientific statement would never encompass an entire class, but would be empirically about individuals and attribute a range of talents to some Whites and some Blacks.

Considering the network insists its mission is to "create a more informed public," I find NPR's willingness to broadcast eristic, disrespectful and toxic claims simply, well, fascinating.

The Mike and Joe Show

News policy is a weapon of war.
It's purpose is to wage war and not to give out information.

— Joseph Goebbels

For 40 years, the scientists at CDC have issued a weekly "morbidity report" to help doctors combat disease. Since April, the weekly report itself has been doctored by a Trump lackey named Michael Caputo.

A GOP flack at war with the "deep state," Caputo has no science creds; he's merely a low-end buildup boy—and an unseemly one, at that. 

After leaving a PR job in the army, Caputo linked up with Ollie North, helping spread American lies in Central America. He then studied advanced propaganda under Roger Stone and packed off to Moscow for six years to aid Vladmir Putin and his crooked friends. Caputo has spent the past 20 years peddling Tea Party candidates and staging paltry stunts designed to help Trump buy the Buffalo Bills at a rock-bottom price.

Now, as Trump's assistant secretary of public affairs for Health & Human Services, he's again doing the Emperor's bidding by cooking the books on Covid-19.

By way of self-justification, Caputo told Politico last week, “Our intention is to make sure that evidence, science-based data drives policy through this pandemic—not ulterior deep state motives in the bowels of CDC."

Critics attribute Caputo's propagandist style to his mentor, but it owes more to Joseph Goebbels than Roger Stone.

While Hitler waged war, his propaganda minister kept a 20-volume diary in which he formulated his playbook. 

Among the proverbs therein:

"Not every item of news should be published; rather must those who control news policies endeavor to make every item of news serve a certain purpose."

"I regard myself as responsible for the morale of the German people. From that fact I derive the right to keep out of the German press everything that is harmful or even fails to be useful."

"The Minister formulates the principle for the immediate future that in enemy reports anything that could be dangerous to us must be immediately denied. There is no need at all to examine whether a report is factually correct or not."

Unless Caputo is fired for doctoring the CDC's reports—an unlikely event—it's certain he will next turn to publicizing "alternative facts" about the virus, using $300 million of taxpayers' money he has appropriated from the CDC's operating budget.

You might call these alternative facts "bald-faced lies." 

Caputo prefers to call them "best practices." 

Goebbels would have called them "poetic facts."

In November 1944, as Germany's defeat began to look certain, Goebbels' assistant Rudolph Semmler observed that his boss "has introduced a new expression into the vocabulary of propaganda. 

"He is now using the phrase 'poetic truth' in contrast to—or rather in amplification of—the 'concrete truth.' We should describe things as they might have happened.

"Many events, he said, could not be understood unless we embroidered them a little with the 'poetic truth' and so made them understandable to the German people."

So stay tuned for The Mike and Joe Show.  

Gaslighting you with best practices.

UPDATE, SEPTEMBER 15,2020: According to breaking news reports, Michael Caputo went off his rocker yesterday. Rumors had it that Goebbels also suffered a nervous breakdown in December 1938, while writing a book he planned to title, Adolph Hitler—A Man Who Is Making History. 

UPDATE, SEPTEMBER 16, 2020: Michael Caputo left HHS today on extended medical leave. Congress is investigating his abuse of power.

UPDATE, SEPTEMBER 26, 2020: Michael Caputo has been diagnosed with Stage IV cancer. While Goebbels never suffered cancer, he loved to discuss the subject with Hitler.

UPDATE, NOVEMBER 18, 2020: Michael Caputo's dream has been smashed by Congress.

UPDATE, DECEMBER 16, 2020: Emails reveal Caputo had been pushing the herd immunity theory on CDC officials. Journalists uniformly react with scorn.

UPDATE, MARCH 19, 2021: A federal investigation has revealed that, before joining HHS as assistant secretary of public affairs, Caputo had been working for Russian state propagandists on Trump's behalf.

UPDATE, APRIL 9, 2021: Congressional investigators have released emails proving Caputo altered data from the CDC to conform with Trump's claims that Covid-19 was harmless.

UPDATE, APRIL 12, 2021: Forensic News has revealed Caputo failed to disclose to the Justice Department a lavish gift he had accepted from Russian agents just weeks before he was appointed to his role at HHS. "The failure to report his gift to the Justice Department has raised numerous questions about the true purpose of Caputo’s work, given his concurrent work with Russian spies."

The Unbearable Power of Stupid

Stupid is a great force in human affairs.

— P. J. O'Rourke

Human history is rife with stupid. 

Stupid's sway is sometimes unbearable.

In warfare, medicine, governance, engineering and product design, stupid can be tragic; but in big business the sway of stupid can be the stuff of comedy, as these four Hollywood tales make clear:

Too slow

In 1939, Eddie Mannix, an executive at MGM, insisted "Somewhere over the Rainbow" slowed the opening of The Wizard of Oz and offered a brilliant idea during the edit: cut the song. But the film's two producers threatened to quit, if the three-minute song were removed, and Mannix relented.

"Somewhere Over the Rainbow" won that year's Oscar for best original song and became Judy Garland's signature tune.

Too long

In 1961, Martin Rankin, an executive at Paramount, insisted Breakfast at Tiffany's was running too long during the edit, and offered a brilliant idea: cut "Moon River." But the director, actor, and composers objected so strenuously, Rankin relented.

The two-and-one-half minute "Moon River" earned the composers the Oscar for best original song that year and ranks today as Number 4 in the American Film Institute's list of top film songs.

Too weird

In 1985, a cadre of Columbia executives signed a 35-page memo insisting the title of director Joel Schumacher's new film was weird, and offered a brilliant idea: change St. Elmo's Fire to The Real World. Schumacher, uncertain he'd win his way, in turn instructed the film's composers to omit from the theme song's lyrics any reference to the movie's title. But the composers ignored him.

"I thought the title fit in the song," lyricist John Parr said. "In the movie, St. Elmo's is a bar. But to me St. Elmo's Fire is a magical thing glowing in the sky that holds destiny to someone. It's mystical and sacred. It's where paradise lies, like the end of the rainbow."

"St. Elmo's Fire" hit Number 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 Chart after the film's release, and remains a favorite 35 years later.

Too boring

In 1989, Disney chairman Jeffery Katzenberg insisted the three-minute ballad "Part of Your World" was "boring," and offered a brilliant idea: cut the song from The Little Mermaid. But Katzenberg relented when the two directors, the lyricist, and the animator hit the ceiling.

"Part of Your World" is today considered a classic Disney tune and the film's hallmark song. It's also thought to have inaugurated the "Disney Renaissance" and Disney's "Broadway Age."

P. J. O'Rourke is right.

Stupid is indeed a great force—maybe the greatest—in human affairs.