Whigs One, Tories Nothing

Sapere aude (Dare to know).

— Horace

Yesterday marked a big win for the Whigs.

Virginia’s Supreme Court ruled that the governor can remove the Robert E. Lee Memorial from Richmond's Monument Avenue.

In a seven to zero decision, the court cited testimony from historians who said the statue memorializes nothing but the Jim Crow South, a time and place anathema to the majority of Americans today.

"Values change and public policy changes too," the court concluded.

The 60-foot high colossus will be removed from its pedestal and trucked to a warehouse, according to the governor's office.

Throughout English history, the Whigs have stood for dissent (even the Americans who rebelled against the crown in 1775 were called Whigs).

The Tories, on the other hand, have stood for the natural order (the monarchy and aristocracy).

Yesterday, the Whigs won.

I'm no Tory, but when I read the breaking news about the Virginia Supreme Court's decision (on Facebook), I was saddened—saddened to learn that this particular monument would disappear from its place in public.

I read a slew of the Facebookers' comments below the news story (more than 250 of them) and noticed that the overwhelming majority were gleeful about the court's decision and echoed the historians' testimony.

Silly me, I joined in, expressing my sadness about the decision and saying that the monument shouldn't be erased, but allowed to stand as a cultural reminder of America's troubled past.

My comments unleashed a barrage of repudiations. The sameness of the angry comments was striking. Almost all were misinformed. And almost all were circular arguments that sounded like this:

Everything Southerners ever did was a form of Black suppression. Southerners erected the memorial; therefore, the memorial is a form of Black suppression.

I tried to counter-argue—to no avail—that the Robert E. Lee Memorial was unique among all the Confederate monuments, and a special case worth preserving in situ:

The Lee Memorial was erected in 1890. Lumping it in with all the rest of the Confederate monuments built by White Supremacists in the 20th century disregards its unique nature. Confederate veterans paid for it—raising $52 thousand ($1.5 million in today's money)—not to intimidate Blacks, but because they idolized Lee for his self-sacrificing conduct during the war. At its dedication, the speaker said, "Let this monument, then, teach to generations yet unborn these lessons of his life! Let it stand, not as a record of civil strife, but as a perpetual protest against whatever is low and sordid in our public and private objects."

But—no more than you can fight city hall—you can't argue with an angry Whig mob (just ask George III). It will only respond with Whiggishness.

Whiggishness insists that history represents unfolding progress—progress toward perfect equality, the end of hierarchies, and the triumph of liberal democracy.

Whigs believed this in the 19th century, as did Hegel and Marx.

Whiggishness is also a form of presentism, a foolishness known to historians as the nunc pro tunc (now for then) fallacy.

Presentism projects our current values and ideas onto the past, condemning people who preceded us for not sharing those values and ideas.

Presentism, for example, condemns Union physicians for not knowing germs spread diseases (they thought gases did) and Confederate veterans for idolizing Robert E. Lee (they weren't woke to the fact that, in defending the Confederacy, he was defending slavery).

I'd love to believe Whiggishness were true; but I cannot. History is full of dead ends, mistaken beliefs, failed theories, and lost causes.

It's why I hate to see history—and this particular memorial—erased. 

Sapere aude.

UPDATE, SEPTEMBER 8, 2021: The statue of Lee was removed today.

Don't Let the Bastards Grind You Down

Don't let the bastards grind you down.

— Margaret Atwood

Although brought to its knees by Covid-19, the event industry remains vital—and can be a powerful political voice, when it chooses to be.

It's time for the industry to speak up for women's reproductive rights and boycott Texas.

Trade and pubic show organizers, convention planners, and corporate event marketers should join in solidarity. 

Exhibitors and sponsors should join in, as well. (They no doubt will.)

No events in Texas! None. Not a one.

Leaving/Arriving

You only leave home when home won’t let you stay.

― Warsan Shire

In the past two weeks, over 14,000 Afghan refugees have arrived at Dulles Airport.

They represent one-half of one percent of all Afghan refugees, but differ from most because they're our allies. 

Their loyal service to our troops is now a death warrant at home.

I hope you'll take a moment to donate whatever you can, to help them resettle here.

I want to raise $911 by 9/11 and am using Facebook to do it

Your money will go directly to Lutheran Social Services of the National Capital Area, a nonprofit group doing effective work on the refugees' behalf.

Facebook pays all the processing fees, so 100% of your donation goes directly to the nonprofit.

Wring a little justice from an unjustified war. 

Donate now.

And thanks!

10 New Rules for Answering Customer Surveys

If you want a booming business, you have to create raving fans.

— Ken Blanchard

Want to turn a raving fan into a raging one?

Send him another goddamn survey.

"What’s the deal with so many companies sending surveys after you interact with them?" David Meerman Scott recently asked. "It is crazy for a company to do this."

I think it's worse than crazy.

I think it's psychopathic.

In their quest to "engage" us, marketing and customer-service managers have so abused the survey, they've turned a valid instrument into a vicious irritant.

It's time for customers to strike back.

Here are the 10 new rules for answering customer surveys:

1. Drop everything and respond to every survey immediately, regardless of the time-investment. Senders will think you're serious. You might even win a prize.

2. Regardless of your name and gender, always identify yourself as "Semolina Pilchard."

3. When asked to describe yourself, always answer "I Am The Walrus."  

4. Answer every Likert scale question in the negative. ("Never," "Very poor," "Not at all important," "Strongly disagree," etc.)

5. For all other types of rating questions, answer by choosing the worst rating. (For example, "Extremely unprofessional," "Extremely dissatisfied," "Not at all helpful," etc.)

6. Regardless of its purpose, answer every multiple-choice question "None of the above" or "Other." When asked to specify "Other," always answer "Everybody's got one."

7. Answer all binary scale questions "No."

8. Regardless of its purpose, answer every open-ended (write-in) question "Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allen Poe." The only exceptions are the two questions below.

9. When ask to supply "Additional comments," always answer "Comments, comments, comments, comments."

10. When asked to suggest improvements, always answer "Send me money, not surveys."

"Each time you contact a customer you should be providing something of value," David Meerman Scott says.

Rule 10 reinforces his sage advice.

So go ahead: apply these rules to your next survey.

You'll love the results.

Alone. Unread. And Ready to Die.

Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope.

— Kofi Annan

This week, CNBC reporter Donie O'Sullivan conducted a brief interview with a Trump supporter—and a true American nihilist. 

O'Sullivan asked if the man whether he planned to get vaccinated.

"Our days are numbered," he said. "It don't matter."

A cohort of killjoys like this man walks among us.

Perhaps Covid-19 is a divine instrument that will rid us of all the nihilists like him; I often wonder.

In any event, I place the blame for rampant nihilism in America today not on globalization, urbanization, or declining church attendance, but on the source of so many social woes: illiteracy.

When people read, they take hope—hope in progress, hope in their fellows, hope in their leaders, hope in themselves. They "read to know they're not alone," as writer William Nicholson says.

Today there's a hope gap among America's illiterate. 

They're alone, unread, and ready to die.

"It don't matter" is their worldview, and on that ground they can justify anything: shooting their enemies; trafficking in drugs; swindling their customers; trafficking in teenage girls; spreading Covid-19; you name it. 

"It don't matter."

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, one-fifth of the US population is functionally illiterate. And they're not all immigrant peasants, as conservatives insist. Among the 43 million illiterates in the US, 15.5 million are White (14.5 million are Latino; and 13 million are Black or "other").

Illiteracy affects our entire society:

• Illiterates are sickies. The Milken Institute reports that illiteracy results in $238 billion in excess healthcare costs every year, a dollar amount equaling the annual healthcare costs for 47 million Americans.
  
  
• Illiterates are sponges. The National Council for Adult Learning reports that illiteracy costs $225 billion in crime, joblessness, and loss of tax revenue due to joblessness, every year. Add that to the healthcare costs and we're wasting over half a trillion dollars annually on them.
  
  
• Illiterates are criminals. In addition, the US Department of Justice reports that 75% of prison inmates are illiterate. (Criminals can't read, so we throw the book at 'em.)

And then there's politics.

How many right-wing nihilists are nihilists because they're illiterate?

No study exists to answer the question. 

But studies do exist that show that right wing people are out of touch with factual reality:

• Four in 10 Republicans believe the flu is more deadly than Covid-19, although Covid-19 is over 11 times more deadly (Brookings).

• Six in 10 Republicans believe Biden "stole" the presidential election (Reuters).

• Three in 10 Republicans believe Qanon's conspiracy theories (Survey Center on American Life).

Are these right-wingers out of touch because they don't or won't or can't read? 

I think so. 

They're alone, unread and ready to die, because "it don't matter."

When people read, they find hope.

When they don't, they are hopeless—in both senses of the word.

NOTE: Embedded links in my posts lead to sources and other good stuff.