From the monthly archives:
Have you seen this yet? Terrible yellow eyes. It’s an art project with various folks contributing Where The Wild Things Are -inspired works. It’s a lot of fun. This one, for example, by Alina Chau (whose blog is here):
I think this one might be my favorite, however. (By Adam Volker.) Which do you like best?
Happy 4th of July! Since I’ve been pondering creative rights and copyright extension, I’ll take this patriotic occasion to remind you of that famous scene in Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles in which Cap travels back in time only to have the design for his uniform become the original inspiration for the US flag. Cap is upset. Why should Betsy Ross get credit, after all? A creative continuum conundrum. (via Bully.)
A different ethics/etiquette question. My Plato book will be out in paper form in a month or so. When I made the deal with my publisher to let the e-stuff go free (which might reasonably be deemed a serious drag on the paper market) I promised to take it upon myself to work the e-angle fairly aggressively, marketing-wise. And now I ask myself: where do I draw the line between marketing and spamming? Normally I wouldn’t even consider sending an email to 200+ people I don’t know. That’s spam. But sending a bunch of philosophers I don’t know a short email telling them, simply, that there’s an Intro Plato text available free – just click – isn’t so obnoxious. Is it? Spamming means: not giving a damn that you are putting a huge number of people to the mild inconvenience of deleting something they don’t want. Maybe we need a theory of ‘just marketing’, on the lines of ‘just war’: it’s ok to send a mass email so long as you have taken reasonable precautions to exclude those with non-consumer status from the target zone. But that’s a bit vague. Suppose you were in my position. I’ve committed to being an aggressive e-marketer, which of course is in my own self-interest as well: how can I wage an aggressive but just e-marketing campaign?
A couple of weeks ago, I gave a public lecture in Bristol on the subject of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his continued relevance to modern society and political philosophy. Undoubtedly mileages will vary on that question, but anyone who wants to hear my take on it can “listen to a podcast”:http://www.bris.ac.uk/philosophy/podcasts_html/WhyRousseauMatters.mp3 . (The lecture is included as part of the “Philosophy at Bristol” series which you can access “via its blog”:http://eis.bris.ac.uk/~plajb/blog/ or at “iTunes”:itpc://eis.bris.ac.uk/~plajb/blog/atom.xml .)
I asked this question over at the Monkey Cage, a political science blog that I also contribute to, and was greeted with a resounding silence (political theorists perhaps being disinclined to read heavily pol-sci oriented blogs). So I’m asking it here. What exactly is happening at the journal, Political Theory? I understand that the editor, Mary Dietz, has been asked to step down, and that Mark Bevir has been asked to step in, but beyond that I know nothing – all sorts of rumours and claims of coups, decisions-by-fiat etc are swirling around at the “Political Theory Rumor Mill”:https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=21008160&postID=9135623259230578337&pli=1 but there isn’t much in the way of solid information. Anyone know what’s happening?
Having knocked Mark “digital barbarism” Helprin around in a trio of posts – in one of which I remarked that the guy should probably listen to EconTalk to learn that libertarians are actually skeptical about the merits of copyright extension – I am duty-bound to report that Helprin was just a guest on EconTalk. [click to continue…]
“Politico”:http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24441.html
For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post has offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, non-confrontational access to “those powerful few” — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and — at first — even the paper’s own reporters and editors.
The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff.” …
“Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate,” says the one-page flier. “Underwrite and participate in this intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth. … Bring your organization’s CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama administration and congressional leaders.” …
The flier says: “Spirited? Yes. Confrontational? No. The relaxed setting in the home of Katharine Weymouth assures it. What is guaranteed is a collegial evening, with Obama administration officials, Congress members, business leaders, advocacy leaders and other select minds typically on the guest list of 20 or less. …
“Offered at $25,000 per sponsor, per Salon. Maximum of two sponsors per Salon. Underwriters’ CEO or Executive Director participates in the discussion. Underwriters appreciatively acknowledged in printed invitations and at the dinner. Annual series sponsorship of 11 Salons offered at $250,000 … Hosts and Discussion Leaders … Health-care reporting and editorial staff members of The Washington Post … An exclusive opportunity to participate in the health-care reform debate among the select few who will actually get it done. … A Washington Post Salon … July 21, 2009 6:30 p.m. …
“Washington Post Salons are extensions of The Washington Post brand of journalistic inquiry into the issues, a unique opportunity for stakeholders to hear and be heard,” the flier says. “At the core is a critical topic of our day. Dinner and a volley of ideas unfold in an evening of intelligent, news-driven and off-the-record conversation. … By bringing together those powerful few in business and policy-making who are forwarding, legislating and reporting on the issues, Washington Post Salons give life to the debate. Be at this nexus of business and policy with your underwriting of Washington Post Salons.”
The Washington Post’s news division seems quite upset at the way that the event was described in the promotional materials, and has now said that it won’t be participating. But this kind of event is not unusual in Washington DC, even if the marketing isn’t usually quite as crass and direct.
I’ve made a number of rather harsh comments about Michael Walzer on CT in the recent past, motivated by his twin tendencies to a) reinvent the wheel with respect to international humanitarian law and b) produce arguments which seem to be tailored like a Versace evening gown to fit round the voluptuous curves of Israeli foreign policy. In this article in the New York Review of Books, however, he revisits the issue of “human shields” and although I still find it frustrating that he’s not referencing the legal literature at all, it’s clear that he’s not simply playing the more-in-sorrow-than-anger apologetics game. His specific contention is that a country in a “human shields” situation has a duty to have as much concern for foreign noncombatants as if they were its own citizens; I’m not sure that I agree with this because IIRC Walzer has a particular standard for noncombatant status that I don’t agree with[1], but it’s clear that he’s not shaping his views round the “facts on the ground”. I therefore, to the extent that I have previously suggested he had turned into a simple partisan hack, and without qualifying my opinions of the actual past articles concerned (which I maintain were bad), apologise.
[1] Also, he operates to a standard based on efforts taken to “minimise” noncombatant casualties whereas I think it’s very important to insist on the Geneva Conventions’ standard of “not excessive relative to the concrete definite military objective”. The difference being that under the Geneva standard, but seemingly not Walzer’s, you can have situations where even “minimised” casualties are still “excessive”, meaning that you’re just not allowed to do the military thing. I think that Walzer’s NYRB piece implies that he’d actually agree with the Geneva standard in practical applications, but it’s much clearer.
We’ve had various versions of the case for and against the use of (micro)economic rational actor models in the social sciences lately, so I thought I would weigh in with my version of the case against. It has three main elements
[click to continue…]
I’m just back from an excellent Rousseau Association conference at UCLA to find, now I’ve tuned back in to CT, that we’ve been discussing sociology v economics as theories of society. Funny, because one of the the things that came up in LA was the old Robert Nisbet thesis about the conservative origins of sociology. The idea is that sociology has its origins in the counter-enlightenment attempts of Burke, de Maistre, Saint Simon etc to theorize about social order in the light of the Revolution. It turns out that I’ve long since lost or given away my copy of _The Sociological Tradition_, so I haven’t been back to the original, but I’m curious as to what the thinking is on the Nisbet thesis today. I’m perfectly fine with the use of methods drawn from economics in the social sciences (and with other approaches too) but it is worth noting that most economics involves a straighforwardly rationalistic and enlightenement attitude to the social world, one that the Burkean tradition disputes as being inadequate to social understanding.
We’ve been very happy over the last few weeks to have a number of guest posts from Michèle Lamont who’s been visiting us virtually while travelling around physically, often to places with limited Internet access. I’ve put a list of her posts over the fold, for easy reference.
Among other things, I’ve particularly enjoyed the way in which Michèle has brought some actual evidence and intellectual rigour to the kinds of interdisciplinary and metadisciplinary discussions that go on all the time at a place like CT. From us at CT, thanks Michèle and our hopes that your foray into blogging has been enjoyable and enlightening.
I’ve been a bit remiss in not covering the “recent shenanigans”:http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/22acb81a-64f6-11de-a13f-00144feabdc0.html in Italy:
Appearing on a billionaire’s luxury ship in the Bay of Naples on Monday, nine days before he hosts a Group of Eight summit, Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister, rejected reports that his government risked falling apart over his personal life. “My government is probably the most safe and secure in the west,” he said. He specifically rejected “foreign” press reports questioning its stability in the wake of allegations by escorts that they had been paid by a businessman to attend parties at the prime minister’s residences and that one had sex with him on the night of the US elections in November.
My acquaintance with Italian society and politics is mostly second-hand these days, and Berlusconi certainly been extraordinarily good at “turning bad publicity into good”:https://crookedtimber.org/2006/02/18/follies-berlesque/#more-4337 in the past, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the one that finally sinks him. Cavorting with eighteen year old starlet wannabes was probably a mild net positive for Berlusconi, allowing him to project an image of continued virility etc. Over-excited Czech prime ministers bedecked with young women at his private villa not so good – but more awkward than genuinely embarrassing. However the most recent allegation – that he had sex with a prostitute (who claims to have recorded the whole thing) seems to me to directly undermine the image that he wants to project of a debonair and charming, ladies’ man, making him sound like a bit of a loser. Certainly, Berlusconi himself “seems worried”:http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE55M5OH20090623.
“I have never paid a woman,” Berlusconi said in an interview with the Chi weekly owned by his Mondadori publishing empire. I’ve never understood what satisfaction there is other than that of conquering (a woman),” he told the magazine, according to excerpts sent to Reuters ahead of publication on Wednesday.
I’m predicting (cautiously, and with fingers crossed) that he will be gone within 3 months.
[As an aside, my favorite bit of the story is that the prostitute (who was allegedly paid by a businessman to attend the party), seems not to have asked Berlusconi himself for money “because she was more keen on favors to obtain building permits.”]
To conclude this guest blogging, I end on a light note and reflect on what I did during my summer vacation. At this writing, I am on my way back from “Serenissima Venizia” where I took a well-deserved break with my family. Those who remain fond of Death in Venice and other classical representations of this jewel of a city would certainly, like me, be disappointed by the place. One is hard-pressed to find more than a few virgin back alleys that do not cater to pizza-eating tourists. Piazza San Marco is elbow-to-elbow, even in comparison to Florence or Rome. The locals cannot be seen congregating anywhere, except for the younger ones who meet behind the Rialto fish market in the early evening (and the market location is probably very appropriate, although meat appears to be more in fashion than fish). The other locals who deal with tourism seem to be in a permanent state of enervation/aggravation. Moments on the “vaporeto” (the public transportation system) away from the crowds may be the closest one can get to “serene.” This left me very nostalgic about what Venice was thirty years ago when I first saw it as a back-pack carrying student. Then the place was unique and strange enough – unstandardized enough –that it was still possible to enter in a bordello by mistake (one of my fondest memories of this first trip). [click to continue…]
