Illustrating egalitarianism

by Chris Bertram on April 12, 2004

TechCentralStation has “a piece by anti-egalitarian political philosopher John Kekes today”:http://www.techcentralstation.com/041204B.html . Kekes probably isn’t responsible for the way the article is illustrated, but it warrants comment. Insofar as any egalitarian thinker can be identified in the text of Kekes’s article, it is semi-egalitarian liberal John Rawls. But the little photomontage that accompanies the piece associates Karl Marx, the IRS, a sinister man in a ski-mask and another sinister hooded and bearded man who is brandishing a pistol.

{ 89 comments }

1

hew diolch 04.12.04 at 11:08 am

Well, yeah, cuz to the true-believer Libertarian, ANY deviation from the doctrine of Social Darwinism inevitably leads to the gulag. (Just ask Eric S. Raymond.) See, the illustrator was only telling it like it is, man, and you guys can’t handle the Truth.

2

\Kieran Healy 04.12.04 at 12:40 pm

Karl Marx, the IRS, a sinister man in a ski-mask and another sinister hooded and bearded man

Sounds like a chunk of the CT lineup.

3

bryan 04.12.04 at 12:51 pm

also Robin Hood.

This is one of the things I really like about modern conservatism, they spend a lot of their time trashing icons that have been viewed positively by generations. I really love how they go after that commie Dickens every chance they get.

4

Russell Arben Fox 04.12.04 at 1:02 pm

Well, at least it wasn’t Karl Marx in a ski mask brandishing a pistol, with Robin Hood in sunglasses laughing manically while processing IRS returns. I mean, they could have gone whole hog. And what are the anti-egalitarians unconsciously saying when they have the dollar bill’s George Washington serenely overlooking it all? Some hang-up with the government monopoly on printing money?

5

humeidayer 04.12.04 at 1:52 pm

Giving axioms and logic to either libertarians or egalitarians is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. :)

6

Charles Copeland 04.12.04 at 1:55 pm

So that’s all you Crooked Timber guys could manage to do? Complain about an article’s illustration rather than engage with its substance.

A Socratic dialogue – with you lot?

7

Factory 04.12.04 at 2:09 pm

“They suppose it just to ignore the requirements of justice.”

Judging from the first paragraph, the article is prolly about as trollish as the illustration. And common sense says that one should not waste one’s time on pursuits that are likely to be fruitless.

8

mg 04.12.04 at 2:12 pm

So that’s all you Crooked Timber guys could manage to do? Complain about an article’s illustration rather than engage with its substance.

I’m no Crooked Timber guy, but I can’t figure out what is the substance there.

Kekes doesn’t seem to object to social spending on some level(namely, 20% of the income, though he says that it’s “more than enough”). What he does object to is full “equality of result”, except, like he himself demonstrates in the first half of the article, nobody wants that anyway.

What’s left is his claim that the media says something that’s not true, but I think he ought to at least cite one example for that claim to be interesting.

9

a lesser mongbat 04.12.04 at 2:21 pm

Great. More TCS crap. The last three articles I’ve been referred to there have been either laughable or outright dumb, and this one was the worst of them. No more TCS for me.

10

Charles Copeland 04.12.04 at 2:41 pm

MG, perhaps you have a point – Kekes takes an ‘extreme’ egalitarian position and ridicules it, something like Hartley in his novel entitled ‘Facial Justice’, where the pretty girls have to have their faces uglified. Just because you’re a little bit in favour of redistribution doesn’t mean you want to go the whole hog.

And at the libertarian end of the spectrum, neither Hayek nor Friedman were entirely opposed to tax-funded anti-poverty measures. The problem is that, to my knowledge, there isn’t any egalitarian philosopher who convincingly argues where to draw the line.

A more compelling argument against egalitarianism is that it just doesn’t work – that it is counter-productive even on it own terms. In the long run, the welfare state creates the very misery it seeks to eliminate – for example, by promoting a population explosion on the part of the cognitively disadvantaged underclass. I’d suggest that both libertarians and egalitarians read their Malthus and Garrett Hardin again (or for the first time).

Try here:
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/malthus/malthus.0.html

And here:

http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/

11

tree 04.12.04 at 3:02 pm

I luv the logic behind the “guys live seven years less than women so should be compensated appropriately.”

Women also only make about $.73 for every dollar men make. Ask them which they’d rather have. Infant mortality is much worse among the poor than the well-to-do. Ask those dead infants’ mothers which they’d rather have. And to top it off, he makes it sound as though we were actually becoming more egalitarian!

Geez, to think that cornell is publishing crap from guys like this!

12

Brian Weatherson 04.12.04 at 3:03 pm

the welfare state creates the very misery it seeks to eliminate – for example, by promoting a population explosion on the part of the cognitively disadvantaged underclass.

Hmmm, I hadn’t realised that the great European welfare states had the highest birthrates in the world. In fact I seem to recall several right-wingers arguing against the European model by appeal to Europe’s low birthrates

It’s good to know that either low birthrates in Europe or high birthrates in Europe will constitute empirical evidence that welfare states don’t work. Saves a bit of expense on the old research fund.

13

Brian Weatherson 04.12.04 at 3:08 pm

By the way, Chris left George Washington off the list of people in the picture. Is he meant to represent that the American founding fathers were evil egalitarians or, since it is his picture off the dollar bill, that government backed money is an evil egalitarian plot?

14

harry 04.12.04 at 3:21 pm

This is an even weaker version of a weak paper he published in Ethics 5 years ago (or so), which was soundly criticised by Dick Arneson if I remember rightly. It is so riddled with errors its hard to know where to start. BUT one bad piece does not make a bad philosopher, and, in fact, his *Against Liberalism* is the best attack I’ve read on the variant of liberalism I basically hold. So Cornell may be justified in publishing his stuff — just not this stuff!

15

mg 04.12.04 at 3:24 pm

Charles:

And at the libertarian end of the spectrum, neither Hayek nor Friedman were entirely opposed to tax-funded anti-poverty measures. The problem is that, to my knowledge, there isn’t any egalitarian philosopher who convincingly argues where to draw the line.
How could you argue for any quantitative result without empirical knowledge of, for example, utility of money functions?
Anyway, there’s a level of social spending at which people are starving to death, or dying of preventable diseases or somesuch, and there’s the level of spending at which you’d get higher revenue if you lower the taxes. If they are sufficiently close, I really don’t see how the theoretical problem matters.

About your second argument, I’m really not qualified to evaluate any of these claims, but it seems that in most welfare states’ natural population growth is close to 0, and in some it is negative.

16

sacha 04.12.04 at 3:38 pm

Unfortunately, what seems to pass for philosophy these days in any argument based on broad generalizations, and unrelated to facts. I’m sure there are good writers out there who can support an anti-egalitarian position, but this paper looks to be the product of a high school philosophy class.

Then again, I’m only generalizing this paper, and I have no desire to break it down constructively, as such, I will merely insult him.

“In closing, after it has been proved how wrong any form of egalitarianism is, I would simply like to say that Ayn Rand is my Dominatrix Love Goddess, and I dream of her every night.”

17

Matt Weiner 04.12.04 at 3:43 pm

I was going to try to explain Rawls’ argument about where to draw the line to Charles, but then I noticed “cognitively disadvantaged underclass.” Luverly.

18

Charles Copeland 04.12.04 at 3:48 pm

“Hmmm, I hadn’t realised that the great European welfare states had the highest birthrates in the world. In fact I seem to recall several right-wingers arguing against the European model by appeal to Europe’s low birthrates”

By Crooked Timber standards (at least if today’s postings are representative) you’re a near-genius. OK, my use of the term ‘population explosion’ was perhaps misleading. The problem is more that European welfare states encourage high birth rates on the part of lower-class, low-IQ women – while intelligent females seem to have more or less stopped reproducing altogether. But you’re certainly right in criticising those right-wingers who blame the welfare state for everything. A welfare state in which women were to have on average 2.1 children could survive indefinitely, while a ‘libertarian’ state in which women were to have on average 1 child each would, of course, eventually end up with zero population.

19

harry 04.12.04 at 3:56 pm

A rhetorical tip, Charles: when I’m trying to persuade people I tend to refrain from prefacing every comment with an insult. Just a thought.

20

jdsm 04.12.04 at 4:00 pm

I don’t know anyone who defends equality for equality’s sake. In any case this is just the problem with political philosophy as practiced these dyas. Take any such notion (social justice, freedom etc) and say it is the only thing worth having and you get wildly counter-intuitive results. I could write an article that does the same kind of analysis of freedom to knock down the anarcho-capitalists. Fat lot of point though.

The stupidity of his paper is that simply because equality cannot be shown to be good in-itself, he thinks it can be thrown out completely. I’ve yet to meet anyone who can show anything is good in-itself.

21

drapeto 04.12.04 at 4:22 pm

In the long run, the welfare state creates the very misery it seeks to eliminate – for example, by promoting a population explosion on the part of the cognitively disadvantaged underclass.

will this canard never stop quacking?

in actual fact, the cognitively challenged underclass is so cognitively challenged that women have more children in the mingiest states than in the more generous ones and even when the welfare benefits have been in steep decline.

on the contrary, the one thing we all know makes women have fewer babies is money, with which they entertain themselves with cosmos and blahniks and other amusements far superior to babies. so if you were really interested in reducing fertility, throw money at em.

22

Charles Copeland 04.12.04 at 4:41 pm

Drapeto,

The problem isn’t that of reducing fertility in general. It’s that of reducing fertility of the
uneducable and the uneducated — of what novelist Anna Quindlen has called the “fecund pack animals” of Afghanistan. The policy of a decent society should be to raise the birth rate of intelligent women (or couples), while ensuring that the disadvantaged are incentivised to practice birth control (e.g. via voluntary sterilization, as in post-war Czechoslovakia, where Roma women were given sterilisation bonuses). Another good example is the German Democratic Republic, where college girls were showered with child benefits.

Even the Commies didn’t get everything wrong all of the time, no matter how hard they tried.

23

Ophelia Benson 04.12.04 at 4:45 pm

You’ve overlooked another interesting item in that illustration, even more interesting-amusing than Geo. Washington – the US Capitol building, that notorious center of maniacal egalitarianism.

But of course taxation is theft, you know, so the picture makes perfect sense, really. The gummint GW and the IRS, Robin Hood and Marx and a couple of armed robbers. All the same thing. Yup uh huh.

24

Ophelia Benson 04.12.04 at 4:50 pm

“The policy of a decent society should be to raise the birth rate of intelligent women”

I beg your pardon??

I mean, I get the eugenic reasoning, but speaking as a woman, I can’t help being curious about what you mean by “raise the birth rate.” And if the implications of that trouble you at all – even granting your eugenic goals, do you think they might possibly be in tension with some other valuable goals?

25

Ophelia Benson 04.12.04 at 4:56 pm

Hmm. I see it all now, the bright future, the city on a hill. Roma women and stupid women given incentives to be sterlised, and intelligent women showered with incentives to whelp copiously, which also has the benefit of removing them from the workforce. Hurrah hurrah hurrah. No taxes, no public schools or libraries, stupid women hard at work in the factories and burger joints instead of having children, intelligent women at home with their flocks of children, and intelligent men in charge of it all, as of course they should be. Does that sound like Utopia or what.

26

Charles Copeland 04.12.04 at 5:10 pm

Ophelia,

I mean that society is doomed if smart women stop having kids. Basically, I’m just plagiarising Spengler, so instead I’ll quote him at some length:

“Children do not happen, not because children have become impossible, but principally because intelligence at the peak of intensity can no longer find any reason for their existence … now emerges the Ibsen woman, the comrade, the heroine of a whole megalopolitan literature from Northern drama to Parisian novel. Instead of children, she has soul-conflicts; marriage is a craft-art for the achievement of ‘mutual understanding’. It is all the same whether the case against children is the American lady’s who would not miss a season for anything, or the Parisienne’s who fears that her lover would leave her, or an Ibsen heroine’s who belongs to herself – they all belong to themselves and they are all unfruitful.” (Decline of the West — one of the few readable passages)

And yes – of course having children conflicts with other values, such as having a good time and letting other people do the dirty work of reproducing the species.

27

Walt Pohl 04.12.04 at 5:11 pm

I come from a long line of lower-class females. I was the first member of my family to graduate college. I always thought the fact that I was now a successful professional made me the kind of person Hayek and Friedman would hold up as an example of the triumph of capitalism. But instead, it turns out that it’s because thanks to the New Deal, people smarter than me forgot to breed. Thanks FDR! No wonder I’m a liberal in favor of higher taxes — it’s like a thank you note from me to the government.

Ophelia: I’m sure you’ll make a great mother of 10, or however many the children the State will assign you to have.

28

Andrew Boucher 04.12.04 at 5:14 pm

“the welfare state creates the very misery it seeks to eliminate – for example, by promoting a population explosion on the part of the cognitively disadvantaged underclass.”

Hmmm, I hadn’t realised that the great European welfare states had the highest birthrates in the world. In fact I seem to recall several right-wingers arguing against the European model by appeal to Europe’s low birthrates

This strikes me as an incorrect retort. The accusation is roughly that, in a welfare state, the “underclass” will have a higher birthrate than the “overclass” (?). That is, it is claim about different birthrates within a society, not about cross-national comparisons. I could be wrong, but in Europe it is immigrant populations (= “underclass” ?) with the highest birthrate. I guess one could ask whether the difference in birthrates between the underclass and overclasses is substantially different between the U.S. and Europe, in order to detect the influence of a welfare state. Still, given there are so many influences, I doubt anything could be infered even if there were a substantial difference.

Anyway, what is obnoxious about the quote, as others have already pointed out, is its description of the “underclass” as “cognitively disadvantaged” and the implication that poorer people have less right to bear children than others.

29

Charles Copeland 04.12.04 at 5:24 pm

Ophelia writes:

“[I]ntelligent women at home with their flocks of children, and intelligent men in charge of it all, as of course they should be. Does that sound like Utopia or what?”

Ekshelly, speaking as a male, well, yes, sort of. Though as an intelligent woman I would be pretty pissed off. That’s the tragedy — the smarter you lot are, the more likely you are to dislike changing diapers and soccer momming. As a result, Western societies are being swamped by the burqa and hijab brigade. You think we guys are male chauvinist pigs? Wait until Sharia law becomes the law of the land.

Coming soon — the Algerian Republic of France, the Turkish Republic of Germany, the Albanian Republic of Italy, Belgistan ….

30

Ophelia Benson 04.12.04 at 5:29 pm

CC

Yup, I know what you’re saying, I’ve already stipulated that. It’s not as if it’s a novel idea! Nor as if the responses to it will be unpredictable. But I’m not going to let that stop me. Because I forgot to have 15 children, irresponsible selfish lazy whimsical narcissistic slag that I am, so I have lots of spare time to reply to codswallop on blogs. (And edit a busy website, write books, etc.)

“And yes – of course having children conflicts with other values, such as having a good time and letting other people do the dirty work of reproducing the species.”

That’s right. Yup. You betcha. Yes indeedy. The only alternative to full-time breeding is, of course, having a good time. That’s all intelligent women do these days, I’ve noticed it myself. Go to any golf course and all you see are women – the men are all off slaving somewhere while the women, free of childbearing, play all day long. They go to the movies, they watch tv, they play hide and seek and poker, they eat ice cream. A bunch of hedonistic frivolous fun-loving shallow good-time tootsies as never was. I’m embarrassed for my sex. I think you’re absolutely right, it’s about time somebody cracked down and jolly well forced them to start breeding. Because of course they have not the smallest right in the world to decide for themselves what they want to do with their lives, no, they have to obey the imperative of their reproductive equipment on pain of being told they just want to have a good time by – well, by men, the people who won’t be subject to the new eugenic laws, so the very people whose disinterested opinion on the matter is so valuable.

31

Ophelia Benson 04.12.04 at 5:35 pm

Darn, cross post.

No, I don’t think “you guys” are male chauvinist pigs. You personally, yes, obviously, but not all of yiz.

But as for realizing that Sharia is a very great deal worse – absolutely no argument there. But the connection between low childbearing rates for intelligent women and immigration by Muslims escapes me. I thought it was connected to Europe’s need for cheap labour, which would be connected more to the birth rates among the cognitively disadvantaged or whatever you called them, rather than the intelligent women – wouldn’t it?

32

Charles Copeland 04.12.04 at 5:51 pm

Andrew writes:

“what is obnoxious about the quote, as others have already pointed out, is its description of the “underclass” as “cognitively disadvantaged” and the implication that poorer people have less right to bear children than others.”

I like the ‘obnoxious’ smear. What about the ‘racist’ smear, though – you forgot that? And what about the ‘argumentum ad Hitlerum’, just to terminate the discussion. Socratic dialogues are all very well but the time comes to start throwing dirt instead of arguing, doesn’t it?

I make no ‘implication’ that poor people are less entitled to bear children than others. My argument is simply that a well-ordered and decent society does require a minimum average level of cognitive competence on the part of its members. My point is that poor (i.e. less intelligent) people should at least not be encouraged to reproduce at a higher rate than wonderful humanitarian people like ourselves. Unless of course you prefer a White Trash society than a Crooked Timber one.

33

Jon Mandle 04.12.04 at 5:51 pm

Yes, Harry, the original Ethics article was from 1997. There are comments on that article by Sam Freeman (focusing on Rawls) and one by Richard Arneson (focusing on a broader egalitarianism) and then a reply by Kekes here (click on “List of All Symposia”). Needless to say, my former colleague (now retired) John Kekes didn’t accept my comments on that original article.

34

Carleton 04.12.04 at 6:14 pm

Kekes should write for the Onion because it pure satire he’s spewing. As early as the second paragraph he attaches to the Straw-man a reductio ad absurdum argument:

“Here is a consequence of egalitarianism. According to the Statistical Abstract of the United States, men’s life expectancy is on the average about 7 years less than women’s. There is thus an inequality between men and women. If egalitarians mean it when they say that “it would be a better state of affairs if everyone enjoyed the same level of social and economic benefits,” or that “how could it not be an evil that some people’s prospects at birth are radically inferior to others,” then they must find the inequality between the life expectancy of men and women unjust. As they say, “those who have been favored by nature … may gain from their good fortune only in terms that improve the situation of those who have lost out.””

You gotta love this crank….

35

Charles Copeland 04.12.04 at 6:19 pm

Thanks for calling me an MCP, Ophelia – it’s been ages since I’ve received such a compliment. The trouble is, people always think I’m joking or trolling no matter how often I try to convince them that I’m a Right Wing Bastard. And look, I’m not arguing that the lower orders should have no kids at all – it’s just that the toffee-nosed Noras and the Nanas aren’t having enough. One reason why the demand for immigrant labour is high is, of course, that those ‘having it all’ smart women who are out there actualising themselves in office jobs or whatever need somebody to look after their offspring, clean the house, do the ironing, etc. But yes – you’re right, we do need more indigenes who can get thru life without a college education. However, we don’t need more trailer trash, skinheads, tattoed sluts etc.

So the first step towards a more decent society would be, of course, to eliminate child benefits for children born outside of wedlock. Well, I suppose I’ll just have to dream on …

36

Robin Green 04.12.04 at 6:23 pm

Charles Copeland, you are implying that people like me, who are poor, must be poor because they are stupid. I think that my mathematics tutor who was surprised that I was not going to do a PhD in mathematics, would disagree.

Have you ever heard of structural unemployment? Have you heard about the working poor in America who have to rely on soup kitchens? Did you ever think that there might just possibly be reasons for people to be poor other than lack of sheer goddamned intelligence, aptitude and grit?

Every new obnoxious statement that you come out with makes you sound more like a Nazi. Or a troll.

37

kevin 04.12.04 at 6:25 pm

” My point is that poor (i.e. less intelligent) people”

Cause, God knows, the market works perfectly only those who are stupid end up poor.

One wonders what CC’s annual income is …

Seriously, though, on the off chance that CC isn’t just a particularly obnoxious troll, the very premise of this is dumb. First, the idea that intelligence is a direct result of genetics is not one that is universally accepted, from what i understand. Second, even if we stipulate the first point, there is still quite a bit of genetic variation in children — geniuses give birth to morons quite often, and moron give birth to geniuses. Third, it is possible to be smart and not be wealthy. Some people choose to accept less pay (at, say a local DA’s office) in order to do what they consider good work. Fourth, money does not reward intelligence, it rewards a particular set of skills that are valuable in a particular societal and market context at a given moment in time. Not a lot of call for blacksmiths, these days. Fifth, the market does not allocate resources entirely on merit — people looking out for their own means that some people are going to be good at gaming the system. CEOs of large companies have created a system in which other CEOs decided what they should be paid and in which they take almost no personal risk. Compare that to, say, a brain surgeon — a job that requires greater intelligence but pays less and carries greater personal financial risk.

I could go on, but I this is just silly, and its obviously silly with even a few moments thought. Even this son of poor people could see that …

38

Robin Green 04.12.04 at 6:30 pm

Oh now that just tops it off!

“One reason why the demand for immigrant labour is high is”

Er excuse me [i]just[/i] a minute? What the f*** has immigrant labour got to do with this discussion? Oh wait let me guess, those nasty subhuman niggers and towelheads have too many children, and anyway they should all clear off back to where they came from. That’s the implication of your offtopic mentions of immigrants. Yes, I knew it. You are, in fact, a fascist.

39

Bernard Yomtov 04.12.04 at 6:31 pm

Hard to believe that this guy could write anything worth being taken seriously. He begins by atacking an ideology no one holds. Then he describes various public policies, like progressive income taxes, as having egalitarianism as their objective. Then he provides a vague tax example to support some point or other. Then…

40

Ophelia Benson 04.12.04 at 6:44 pm

Not at all, CC. I recognize the authentic note under the trollery. That is, you are assiduously pulling everyone’s chain, but you also mean it.

“One reason why the demand for immigrant labour is high is, of course, that those ‘having it all’ smart women who are out there actualising themselves in office jobs”

How dare they, eh? God damn women. Thinking they actually have some right to decide for themselves what they are going to do with their lives, their time, their genitals, their reproductive equipment, instead of letting Charles Copeland tell them what to do. What on earth gets into women these days? I can never figure it out. They just can’t seem to get it into their heads, pretty little or otherwise, that men (like CC for example) don’t have to ask permission to decide how to live their lives, but women do. Obviously. Because they get pregnant, or can get pregnant, therefore they can never, ever, under any circumstances, belong to themselves, they have to belong to either a man, or men in general. For the good of the birth rate, and eugenics, and so on. But will they listen? They will not. They have the almighty nerve to think they are people even as men are people, and that once they are grown up they no longer have to ask permission or get approval for what they do with their lives. Well. That simply cannot be allowed, so let’s all get together and sneer at them (all together now) for wanting to [mimsy voice] “fulfill themselves” and “have it all” and – you know, actually be people, as opposed to infant-harvesting devices.

41

DJW 04.12.04 at 6:49 pm

I really can’t imagine why Ophelia and others are expending their energy on this fellow. I did laugh out loud when I read this:

The trouble is, people always think I’m joking or trolling no matter how often I try to convince them

The day I find myself making arguments that large groups of well educated people (on the subject matter in question) refuse to even consider the possibility that my entirely ernest arguments could possibly be serious is the day I at least explore the possibility that I may be barking up the wrong tree.

On topic: This is really embarrassing. I, like Harry, found Against Liberalism to be a pretty strong book. That they share an author is difficult to phathom (haven’t read the Ethics piece. I think it’s a wonderful idea that academic conservatives contribute to wider social discourses and debates, but I really wish they would do so while maintaining reasonably high standards rather than lowering themselves to the standards of, say, TCS. Of course, if this is the same argument he made in Ethics, he may not see the difference.

But if this argument is even similar to an Ethics article, how the hell did it get published? Don’t they have really high standards and an acceptance rate of below 5%?

It’s becoming clear I’ll have to go read the earlier essay and find out for myself.

42

Matt Weiner 04.12.04 at 6:50 pm

Here’s the quote from Anna Quindlen, apparently:
“It is possible in Afghanistan for women to be treated like little more than fecund pack animals precisely because gender fear and ignorance and hatred have been codified and permitted to hold sway. In this country, largely because of the concerted efforts of those allied with the women’s movement over a century of struggle, much of that bigotry has been beaten back, even buried.”
In other words, Quindlen wasn’t saying that Islamic women are uneducated and uneducable, as Copeland implies. Quite the opposite–they are educable, but have not been educated because of prejudice.
I think it’s well past time for that bigoted libelous motherfucking asshole Copeland to be driven off with a barrage of obscenties. Is Davies around?

43

Charles Copeland 04.12.04 at 6:59 pm

It’s back to Kekes — being called a ‘Nazi’, a ‘fascist’ and an MCP just lowers the tone of Crooked Timber. I just imagine what fun I’d have here if I really was a troll. Talk about turkey-shooting … have you guys never heard of the ‘silent treatment’, if you really DO consider some commenter to be a stormtrooper?

Bernard Yomtov goes over the top when he says of Kekes that it’s “[h]ard to believe that this guy could write anything worth being taken seriously.” But — although I’ve been a fan of Kekes for many years — I agree that Bernard certainly has a point when he states that Kekes “begins by attacking an ideology nobody holds”. Kekes just can’t resist an argument ad absurdum or a straw man. However, I think that an even weaker feature of Kekes’ contribution to TCS is his argument that “[a] decent society should do what it can to alleviate their [i.e. that of ‘innocent victims’ – CC] suffering. … What is objectionable is that some people, through no fault of their own, lack the basic necessities of nutrition, health care, education, housing, and so forth. They are our fellow citizens, and because of that we feel compassion for their plight.”

What has being ‘fellow citizens’ got to do with it? Why feel more compassion with a ‘fellow citizen’ than with a non-citizen? Is it not just as ‘objectionable’ to discriminate against people on grounds of citizenship as on the grounds of race, gender, or ethnic origin? I think this is a point where egalitarians often get somewhat confused as well. They’re sort of for universal ethics and against it at the same time. Of course, the problem is that if egalitarians really think this through and start calling for the equality of man regardless of citizenship they end up like libertarians – when they try to get elected, they lose their deposit.

44

Tom Runnacles 04.12.04 at 7:12 pm

Alongside ‘Against Liberalism’, I rather liked Kekes’ ‘The Morality of Pluralism’ – he’s a decidedly odd writer, but has his interesting moments in among the provocations.

None the less, I am wondering why TCS feels the need to run what’s basically a rehash of what is by now a very old paper, particularly one that received such a sound trashing at the time, as Harry points out upthread.

45

Thorley Winston 04.12.04 at 7:18 pm

Tree wrote:

Women also only make about $.73 for every dollar men make.

IIRC it is actually about $.98 when you compare men and women in the same occupations, with the same qualifications (education and years of experience), and with the same amount of work (men generally work more hours per week and more years over the time of their career than their female counterparts).

46

Brett Bellmore 04.12.04 at 7:29 pm

Why in the world is it so hard to accept that, while not everyone who’s poor is stupid, stupid people DO tend to end up poor? And even more so, stay poor if they start out that way. So they’re going to be over-represented among the poor. If the poor breed more than the wealthy, and if stupidity is at least partially genetic, we’re breeding for stupidity.

Evolution doesn’t care about your liberal sensibilities. So you’d better care about it.

47

Charles Copeland 04.12.04 at 7:37 pm

Brett,

Crooked Timber will find you guilty of heresy for stating the obvious.

48

Yuval Rubinstein 04.12.04 at 7:47 pm

Here’s the link to Arneson’s rebuttal of Kekes:

http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Philosophy/bears/9803arne.html

49

JP 04.12.04 at 7:55 pm

I sure hope that Charles Copeland isn’t procreating.

50

Ophelia Benson 04.12.04 at 8:07 pm

Yo, CC –

I didn’t actually call you a MCP – I merely answered your initiating question on the matter.

You think we guys are male chauvinist pigs?

I never use the phrase myself, it’s stupid, banal and worn out. So nobody is lowering the tone by calling you that, since you’re the one who brought it up in the first place. Fight clean.

51

Charles Copeland 04.12.04 at 8:08 pm

Sorry, I missed Ophelia’s latest assault. Ophelia writes:

“Thinking they [=women – CC] actually have some right to decide for themselves what they are going to do with their lives, their time, their genitals, their reproductive equipment, instead of letting Charles Copeland tell them what to do. What on earth gets into women these days? I can never figure it out.”

When it comes to the argument ad absurdum, you’re certainly as dab a hand at it as Kekes. No doubt there are, at one end of the spectrum, such males as those you satirise still alive and kicking (and not only in the Islamic community)– just as, at the other end of the spectrum, we have those feminazis who’re in favour of cutting up men. But do you seriouly think I want women to have four children every three years? You must be joking.

Did it ever strike you that there might be men and women who are neither in favour of absolute sterility or absolute fecundity? I mean people who are genuinely concerned about the self-extermination of Western Civ in a demographic catastrophe? Is this of absolutely no concern to you? Just live the good life and die? Rest and relax while Western homo contracipiens is replaced by the Islamic homo progenitivus species?

Of course, concern with the survival of civilised society is a value judgment. If you don’t care, you don’t. But if you do care, like I do, then you try to use your instrumental reason and come up with some kind of answer. Actually, I’m not really suggesting you ‘don’t care’ – I reckon that you’d also like civilised society to keep on ticking. But you haven’t given a lot of thought on how to go about doing it. Instead, you’ve attacked a straw man who (outside the Islamic world and other fundamentalisms) hardly exists except in your imagination.

52

Ophelia Benson 04.12.04 at 8:11 pm

As for why I’m wasting energy – I did say, I did acknowledge that it’s a silly way to spend time. But I just feel like mocking the things he says about women. I don’t know why, exactly. Maybe because I think they’re a little bit stupider than he even intends? That he means them to be irritating but not idiotic? So it’s worth pointing out that they are in fact idiotic? That’s probably it.

53

Charles Copeland 04.12.04 at 8:17 pm

Ophelia,
My apologies. I didn’t mean to include you in the same class as the spittle-flecked guys who called me a Nazi etc. — for once at least you are perfectly right. Mea culpa. But you might ‘fight clean’ as well, by not insinuating that I have ridiculous last-to-leave-the-saloon-bar views on women’s role in society.

Back to Kekes: anybody like to comment on what I wrote about discrimination on the grounds of citizenship being in much the same category as discrimination on grounds of race, etc?

54

matt 04.12.04 at 8:19 pm

I hesitate to enter here, since my experience is any time the comments hit more than 20 or so they are bound to be a waste of time. But, I’ll add my voice to those who say that, while this article is _very, very weak_ Kekes in general isn’t a dope and some of his stuff is quite good. Especially lately, though, he’s had an annoying tendency to argue against positions that no one clearly holds and to be immune to evidence against his claims. If he could show that the absurd positions he argues against were implications of positions people actually hold, that would be quite interesting and important. But, he doesn’t do that, because he now rarely actually bothers to engage w/ the actual positions of those who would call themselves egalitarians. That he’d associate w/ the TCS folks is pretty shameful, too. Personally he’s quite a decent guy, and one I’ve benefited from talking to, but this piece is an emberassment.

55

Ophelia Benson 04.12.04 at 8:24 pm

Straw man, CC?

And yes – of course having children conflicts with other values, such as having a good time and letting other people do the dirty work of reproducing the species.

One reason why the demand for immigrant labour is high is, of course, that those ‘having it all’ smart women who are out there actualising themselves in office jobs or whatever need somebody to look after their offspring, clean the house, do the ironing, etc.

That’s no straw man. That’s you sneering at women for wanting what I’ll wager you take for granted for yourself. “Having a good time,” “actualising themselves” – I didn’t invent those sneers, they belong to you. Straw man nothing. That’s your crop, not mine.

56

Andrew Boucher 04.12.04 at 8:30 pm

Charles writes: “That’s the tragedy — the smarter you lot are, the more likely you are to dislike changing diapers and soccer momming.” I don’t think this is true. Intelligence has very little to do with what one finds fulfilling. Intelligent people can like to raise children as much as posting to Crooked Timber, even more so. (I won’t claim to be intelligent but I do have four kids…)

Charles also writes: “My argument is simply that a well-ordered and decent society does require a minimum average level of cognitive competence on the part of its members. My point is that poor (i.e. less intelligent) people should at least not be encouraged to reproduce at a higher rate than wonderful humanitarian people like ourselves.” I would agree that they should not be encouraged, if you will agree that they should not be discouraged.

But I would also suggest that a well-ordered and decent society requires not just cognitive competence but people with humility, compassion, and moral decency. Indeed, cognitive competence allied with a lack of moral decency, is probably far more destructive to a well-ordered and decent society than the contrary. Not all rich people lack moral decency, of course, but a lack of moral decency may help to become rich.

57

bryan 04.12.04 at 8:30 pm

‘Why in the world is it so hard to accept that, while not everyone who’s poor is stupid, stupid people DO tend to end up poor’

because most people that have bred through the history of the world have been poor. Thus we have been breeding for stupidity since the dawn of humanity. Luckily the followers of Ayn Rand have come around in the last few decades to indicate we may finally be succeeding.

Ophelia, look just accept it, your destiny as a highly intelligent female is to breed with men of the right wing (especially those of them whom have achieved the dazzling intellectual heights of George Bush, a rich and obviously brilliant man) thereby saving western civilization from the underclass by spawning an ever more aspirant brood of geniuses.

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Ophelia Benson 04.12.04 at 8:30 pm

Cross post again.

Okay, CC. An apology always makes me call off the dogs.

But surely you see what prompted the hyperbolic mockery. Women are not just out there having fun.

59

Thorley Winston 04.12.04 at 8:31 pm

Why in the world is it so hard to accept that, while not everyone who’s poor is stupid, stupid people DO tend to end up poor?

I do not think that it is so much that poor people are “stupid” but rather that there are certain risky behaviors – sex outside of marriage (unplanned pregnancy and STDs), drug and alcohol use (and abuse), and dropping out of secondary school – that carry predictable consequences which can lead to chronic poverty particularly for a person who is already of more moderate economic means.

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Charles Copeland 04.12.04 at 8:43 pm

Ophelia,

Either you’ve got a poor sense of humour, or I’ve got an even poorer one. I am not ‘sneering’ at women, though I suppose I sometimes express myself in a way that could be misinterpreted as ‘sneering’. Leave me out of it and look at the arguments instead. Even if I were a member of the Nineteenth Hole fraternity, what difference would that make to my core argument as such – namely that if society is to survive, women have to most of the dirty work. It wasn’t my idea — don’t blame me for nature being the way it is. And I reckon it is tough to be an intelligent woman and to have to choose between career and motherhood. Some manage, most don’t — since men, other things being equal, will normally prefer a woman who lacks ambition to one who prefers making a career. At least, that’s what the feminists say.

61

bryan 04.12.04 at 8:52 pm

“My argument is simply that a well-ordered and decent society does require a minimum average level of cognitive competence on the part of its members.”

cognitive competence sounds sort of funny the more one says it.

I would however like to see a minimum average, no matter in what.

62

Paul 04.12.04 at 8:53 pm

my core argument as such – namely that if society is to survive, women have to most of the dirty work.

I’ll bet this argument didn’t convince Mom when she told you to pick your socks off the floor, either. Did it, Charles?

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Ophelia Benson 04.12.04 at 8:59 pm

Nope, you’re right, CC, I wasn’t addressing your argument at all, I was specifically addressing the things you said about women. But hey, it’s a busy blog, I knew a lot of people would pounce on the argument, I wanted to take on the rhetoric. We each have our own little job to do. For some it’s to have babies, for others it’s to tackle arguments, for still others it’s to examine rhetoric.

64

Tom Runnacles 04.12.04 at 9:04 pm

Yuval R.,

Thanks for posting the link to the Arneson piece. I remember reading it at the time and thinking it pretty much ate Kekes’ lunch, and I don’t see any reason to change that view after a brief revisit in the present.

65

gemma 04.12.04 at 9:09 pm

Worst.
Thread.
Ever.

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bryan 04.12.04 at 9:12 pm

gemma, go to Matthew Yglesias’ blog and look at the current LGF thread.

67

Charles Copeland 04.12.04 at 9:17 pm

Ophelia, you and rhetoric?

I suggest you have a look at the “Woolly Thinker’s Guide” at Butterflies and Wheels — an excellent egghead site you might benefit from familiarising yourself with. Particularly the sections ‘clumsy sarcasm’, ‘histrionics’ and ‘moral one-upmanship’. You’ll find it here:

http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/rhetoric.php

68

gemma 04.12.04 at 9:22 pm

I meant worst thread I’ve read so far on CT.

No thanks, bryan, I have no interest in dipping my foot back into the cesspool that is the LGF comments section (or into Democratic Underground, for that matter).

Ugh.

69

sacha 04.12.04 at 9:32 pm

Can anything save this thread? Probably not.

But one point I’d like to make, is that intelligence is largely considered non genetic, barring certain mental disablities. More to the point, what we usually consider intelligence is much more a factor of motivation, discipline, and good old fashion luck then it is raw cognitive power. Which is to say, that basically, most people have about the same intelligence potential, if not the same actual level of intelligence.

As for attempting to confer different levels of intellect on racial groupings (which I find extremely distressing to even discuss), I’d like to paraphrase Hume.

I one of his smaller essays concerning the general equality of men, he made a note that “Perhaps, of all the races of men, Negroes are the only disadvantaged, as I have never seen nor heard any form of civilization ever attributed to them”. Hopefully, we can all agree, that black people these days are readily throwing off this stereotype.

And as for the ethnicity that generally includes the Muslim/Middle Eastern part of the world, I’d just like to remind everyone that after the fall of Rome and before the Rennaissance, they were single handidly supporting the pillars of the western philosophic tradition.

But then, maybe even towelheads can do philosophy.

70

adario 04.12.04 at 10:11 pm

Here is a good backgrounder on Tech Central Station, in case nobody mentioned it:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0312.confessore.html

Meet the Press
How James Glassman reinvented journalism–as lobbying.

On closer inspection, Tech Central Station looks less like a think-tank-cum-magazine than a kind of lobbying practice. Which makes sense: Four of the five co-owners of TCS are also the co-owners of the DCI Group, the Washington public affairs firm founded by Republican operative Thomas J. Synhorst. TCS’s fifth owner is Charles Francis, who is also a senior lobbyist at DCI and is listed on TCS’s phone directory. And as it happens, three of TCS’s sponsors–AT&T, General Motors, and PhRMA–have also retained DCI for their lobbying needs. (Both DCI’s spokeswoman and TCS’s chief executive officer declined to be interviewed for this article. However, after I requested comment, the Web site was changed. Where it formerly stated that “Tech Central Station is published by Tech Central Station, L.L.C.,” it now reads “Tech Central Station is published by DCI Group, L.L.C.”)

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adario 04.12.04 at 10:15 pm

I don’t if that was the best graf to excerpt. I should’ve inserted some ellipses.

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Chuck the Obscure 04.12.04 at 10:23 pm

Sacha writes:

“As for attempting to confer different levels of intellect on racial groupings (which I find extremely distressing to even discuss) …”

Whatever about racial groupings, the scientific community doesn’t deny that mean IQ differs considerably from country to country and correlates closely with GDP (though it’s not easy to determine the relative role of nature and nurture in this connection). Here’s a World IQ Map you may find interesting to examine:

http://www.globalidiot.net/IQworldmap.html

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BIgMacAttack 04.12.04 at 10:44 pm

I actually liked Keke’s article and Arneson’s reponse.[The response was better]

Both were short and good.

I am glad ‘everyone’ seems to feel the position Keke’s criticizes is a strawman.

And yet it seems to me that very often, very many people act as if that strawman is true.

74

Brett Bellmore 04.12.04 at 11:21 pm

“But one point I’d like to make, is that intelligence is largely considered non genetic, barring certain mental disablities.”

News to me, AND to the researchers who’ve done the twin studies. Intelligence certainly isn’t as simply inheritable as eye color, but the contribution is scarcely insignificant.

It seems to be very much like traits such as height; Really bad enviroments trump genes, but given a minimally decent enviroment, the genes dictate the result. To put it more bluntly, chew lead paint chips as a child, and it doesn’t matter if your father was Einstein, but all the Head Start in the world won’t get you into Harvard if don’t have the right genes.

75

Ophelia Benson 04.13.04 at 12:20 am

Charles

oh, dear Charles

please please please

tell me you weren’t joking.

Please tell me you were serious about advising me to read the rhetoric guide at that excellent egghead site that I might benefit from familiarising myself with –

please, please, please.

That would be so funny, it would make my week, my month, my year.

But no doubt it’s far too good to be true, and you’re just saying Physician heal thyself.

But if so, sorry, I can’t, sarcasm is my specialty, I’ve just co-written a whole book of the stuff. And I’m sorry but your sarcasms about women deserve no better.

76

adm 04.13.04 at 1:09 am

ugh, another case of people discussing a philosophical position and philosophy without having the slightest notion of what technical philosophers have had to say (i.e., stuff that gets published in Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs, etc).

First, every serious egalitarian (whether they are *real* egalitarians like Temkin and Cohen (and perhaps Dworkin) or Prioritarians like Parfit, Nagel, Crisp, and many others) is only interested in “inequalities that result from no fault or choice of the individuals disadvantaged”. That is, egalitarians only care about correcting for bad (brute) luck.

Second, any egalitarian with a brain in her head is a pluralist about value. No one seriously thinks that equality is the only ideal; egalitarians just hold that one way a situation can be better or worse is in virtue of inequality. Thus egalitarians are not committed to maiming the beautiful or burdening the strong.

77

Charles Copeland 04.13.04 at 7:40 am

Ophelia,

What’s your problem? B&W is a fine site and I’ve recommended it to umpteen email buddies. We can’t get enough of this analytical philosophy stuff — there’s no such thing as an overdose of B&W. I’d also recommend my occasional email buddy Keith-Burgess Jackson’s ‘Analphilosopher.com’ to you, although he’s got a Pete Singer thing about animal rights. And he occasionally writes for TCS, which will presumably turn you off.

Have a nice day.

78

DJW 04.13.04 at 7:52 am

Well, Ophelia, it would appear that if this post is to be taken at face value, you get your wish. Congrats.

Charles, next time you head over to B & W, take a look around and see who posts in the blog and authors much of the rest of the site.

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a 04.13.04 at 8:24 am

“sarcasm is my specialty, I’ve just co-written a whole book of the stuff”

Studying birds doesn’t mean you know how to fly.

80

hew diolch 04.13.04 at 9:26 am

nice troll, charles. i think you finally tipped your hand with that last bit o’ chum, though. (mixed metaphors, anyone?)

81

Alex Fradera 04.13.04 at 3:03 pm

‘The cognitively disadvantaged’ is too nebulous. What do you mean? Are they those with pathological defects rendering them retarded? Those that would not be competent to work in business or medicine, given the appropriate education or opportunity? Those who be seeing a Nobel prize?
If it’s the first, you can’t even pretend to apply that to the poor at large. The second seems to fly in the face of the phonomena of social mobility, which does exist even if hampered by inequity. If the third is all you’re left with, one would be tempted to say ‘so what’, but could equally follow that up with the question: is exceptional talent the result of heredity? If so, what would be the strong instances: music? maths? writing?

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Alex Fradera 04.13.04 at 3:06 pm

Sorry, should be “won’t be seeing a Nobel prize in their lifetime”.

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Ophelia Benson 04.13.04 at 3:20 pm

Ha! Looks as if you’re right, Djw.

Oh thankyougod, thankyouthankyouthankyou. I’m so happy.

(No problem at all Charles. That’s a terrific endorsement.)

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Charles Copeland 04.13.04 at 4:33 pm

Ophelia – a rapid Google check does reveal that you yourself have something to do with B&W – congratulations: worth a couple of dozen babes unborn, I suppose, even by my tragic-realist-secular-restorationist standards.

The ‘Fashionable Dictionary’ entry on Ayn Rand is brilliant — as is the one on Margaret Mead, so obviously you guys have read your David Freedman. The definition of the ‘Horst Wessel song’ as ‘rumoured to be the song some sociobiologists most like to sing’ is, however, a bit on the cheap side (unless I didn’t dig some form of recursive sarcasm).

Amazing how highly intelligent people can have blind spots, though — especially when you mention the term ‘self-actualisation’ in a skeptical context.

Did you check out KBJ at Analphilosopher, BTW?:
http://analphilosopher.blogspot.com/

KBJ is an ex-feminist who saw the light and now, inter alia, writes for TCS.

Anyway, here’s another little website present for you (though you’ve probably been there, done that, already), the Postmodernist Generator:

http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern/

Bye for now — got to get back to the ironing or the lucky girl who married me will tear me to pieces.

P.S.: Alex, by ‘cognitively disadvantaged’ I meant ‘low IQ’, but I didn’t want to frighten the horses at Crooked Timber too much, so I used a euphemism instead. I’d love to answer your question in detail but this thread is going on far too long, so perhaps some other time the subject comes up …. cheers, Charles.

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Ophelia Benson 04.13.04 at 5:34 pm

Thanks Charles. Yep I do have something to do with B&W. I wrote the Rhetoric Guide you urged me to have a look at. Thanks for Ayn Rand and Margaret Mead comments; I wrote those too. (Derek Freeman, I think you mean? The Mead book?) Horst Wessel – I wondered about that one too, but maybe what you didn’t dig is the fact that the epithet ‘Nazi’ does get thrown at sociobiologists.

A reader has also recommended KBJ to me, but he wasn’t to my taste. We’re critical of the left but from within the left, not from the right. Some of the basic assumptions are different.
(I also found him a bit heavy-handed, frankly.)

Yup, seen Generator, thanks.

(By the way, since you like the Dictionary – it’s a book now, much expanded from the site version. Will be out in October.)

86

mandarin 04.13.04 at 6:35 pm

…sarcasm is my specialty, I’ve just co-written a whole book of the stuff.

Sure you have.

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mandarin's little dog 04.13.04 at 8:39 pm

Whuf!

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bryan 04.14.04 at 11:33 am

“sarcasm is my specialty, I’ve just co-written a whole book of the stuff”

well isn’t that ironic.

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Ophelia Benson 04.14.04 at 3:57 pm

Nope. It’s zany-madcap-humour. No, it’s parody. No it’s double-irony. No, I was right the first time, it’s zany-madcap.

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