Some Things are Nonnegotiable

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.

― George Orwell

In The New York Times this week, conservative columnist David Brooks observes that the gospel of woke has already reached the remainder shelves, its freshness expired.

The proof, he says, lies in the fact that corporate America has co-opted it.

Corporations have the uncanny ability to productize progressive ideologies, Brooks says, "taking what was dangerous and aestheticizing it."

He cites the example of a nearly laughable pamphlet for math teachers, A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction.

The pamphlet urges teachers to shun "racism in mathematics."  

"White supremacy culture shows up in math classrooms when there is a greater focus on getting the 'right' answer than understanding concepts and reasoning," the pamphlet says.

"Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuates objectivity," and objectivity is racist.

Objectivity is racist, the pamphlet insists, because it's paternalistic, provoking fear and self-hatred among math students unaware of the correct answers.

Brooks might find this stuff silly and harmless; I don't. 

There are tens of thousands of teachers imbibing this swill.

Mathematical truth—what philosophers call realism—is apodictic, immutable and—as harsh as it sounds—nonnegotiable. 

Mathematical truth may be the last bastion of white supremacy, but I'll defend it to the end. 

Otherwise, truth is only that which is trouble-saving.

Do you want your grandkids crossing bridges engineered by snowflakes unable to add two plus two?

Not me.

Inimitable

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.

— T.S. Eliot

There's theft and there's appropriation. 

Theft is like porn: you know it when you see it. I recently sent an article to the editor of Successful Meetings; the following week, my article—poorly recast—appeared under a staff writer's byline. 

That's theft.

Andy Warhol, on the other hand, made imitation boxes of Brillo, not for display in grocery stores, but in art galleries. 

That's appropriation.

Whole books have been written about Bob Dylan's penchant for appropriation.

He's appropriated melodies from folk singers, blues players, country artists, and English balladeers; lyrics from novelists, playwrights, scriptwriters, and fellow composers; and paintings from other painters.

Critics are quick to call Dylan's borrowings theft, but even Shakespeare was hardly above appropriation, as T.S. Eliot noted.

"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal," Elliot wrote of Shakespeare. 

"Bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion."

Dylan has appropriated from plenty of others; but he's welded what he's taken "into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn."

His way of welding makes him inimitable.

NOTE: Bob Dylan turns 80 this month. He resumes touring in June. A retrospective of his paintings opens in November. His archives opens to the public next May.

Money for Jam

I believe in everything until it's disproved.

— John Lennon

French jam-maker Bonne Maman is cashing in on a myth, thanks to a law professor's tweet.

Michael Perino claimed in February Bonne Maman's founders helped Parisian Jews survive the Holocaust by hiding them from the Nazis.

His proof? A remark by a nameless old lady he met in a New Jersey supermarket.

The tweet caused social mentions of Bonne Maman ("Granny's" in English) to surge.

Reporters who've fact-checked Perino have come up dry. 

But Perino has defended the claim, saying, "What possible reason would this woman have to go out of her way to lie?"

The professor should know better. He's making what philosophers call the "appeal to ignorance."

The appeal to ignorance—a logical fallacy—insists a claim must be true because we don't know any facts that would make it false.

Two prime examples of the fallacy are the claims, "Hilary is a secret sex-slave trafficker" and "Santa Claus is coming to town." 

You can insist either claim is true because there are no facts that disprove the claim; but you'd be wrong from the logical point of view. And there are plenty of facts suggesting the two claims are false.

Speaking of facts, as it turns out Bonne Maman's founders (whose descendants have refused to comment) didn't live in Paris during World War II; nor are they considered "righteous gentiles" by Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Center.

And yet people want to believe. As philosopher William James said, "your belief will help create the fact."

Above: Bonne Maman by Robert Francis James. Oil on canvas board. 8 x 10 inches.

Kick the Bucket

Bucket: an open-topped, roughly cylindrical container.

Gambrel: a frame used by butchers for hanging carcasses.

— Collins Dictionary

When KFC founder Colonel Harlan Sanders died 40 years ago, a pal of mine joked, "He must have kicked the bucket."

Kick the bucket comes not from American chickens, but British pigs.

According to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, a bucket is 18th-century British slang for a gambrel.

"When pigs are killed," Brewer's says, "they are hung by their hind-legs on a bucket, with their heads downwards. To kick the bucket is to be hung on the bucket by the heels."

Farmers (and city folk) would soon apply the gruesome expression to anyone who died.

The first known appearance of kick the bucket can be found in the August 1775 edition of The London Magazine: Or, Gentleman’s Monthly Intelligencer.

"My old mess-mate, Tom Bowline, met me at the gangway, and with a salute as hearty as honest, damned his eyes, but he was glad that I had not kicked the bucket."

Pictured above: A bucket. A gambrel.

Reform Schools

Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism.

― Samuel Butler

Nearly half the Trumpsters, says CNN, are refusing vaccination. These unbaptized threaten herd immunity.

So I think it's time to quarantine them, for all our sakes.

The most effective quarantine, in my opinion, would be reform schools.

I know I sound like Mao (he made extensive use of reform schools to intern nonbelievers, and his attempts at "cultural cleaning" earned him a shady reputation).

But what choice do we have? We believers simply must stand up to nonbelievers—even if it means they're inconvenienced by a brief getaway to the gulags.

Besides, reform schools can provide terrific classrooms where we can reeducate the Trumpsters. Critical race theorists can teach all the courses. They'll love that.

Trump, after all, is a fascist strongman, and the longer I watch his adherents' antics, the more ready I become to abandon my nice guy attitude.

Think about it: Trumpsters aren't aggrieved; they're evil; and there are only two ways to deal with collective evil.

The first is nonviolence. 

In his 1960 essay "Pilgrimage to Nonviolence," Martin Luther King described how he dealt with Jim Crow injustice through nonviolence (satyagraha). Nonviolence relies on guilt to overwhelm an opponent. It "reaches the opponent and so stirs his conscience that reconciliation becomes a reality," King wrote.

But Trumpsters, like psychopaths, are guiltless; and so we must turn to the second way to deal with collective evil: violence.

Sure, the nice guy in you might object, but recognize violence gets a bum rap. A little surgically applied now and then can work wonders. Just ask Mao.

Unlike my friends—who're preparing to flee to Europe—I'm ready to see the Trumpsters rounded up and packed off to reform schools. The sooner, the better.

You with me?

POSTSCRIPT: Happy Birthing People Day.