Chris Bertram

Out to see the Welsh National Opera’s magnificent performance of Parsifal last night in Bristol. It was brilliantly conducted by Anthony Negus who brought out the shimmering beauty of the music. There were — as there always are — problems with the production, which both accentuated the specifically Christian aspects of the libretto and included absurdities such as Kundry towering over Parsifal in an enormous red dress (about 10 feet high!) in Act 2. But that shouldn’t diminish what was a very powerful experience both musically and dramatically — I’d single out, despite the red dress — the sexual tension of Act 2 as especially well done. As for individual performances: Sara Fulgoni as Kundry and Alfred Reiter as Gurnemanz both shone. (Spotted in the audience: Bryan Magee.)

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One of the drawbacks of “Development as Freedom”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385720270/junius-20 is that it really is very repetitive and very similar points supported by the same examples and quotations recur less than 100 pages apart. In several places, though, he makes a good and important about markets and the freedom to transact:

bq. In recent discussions, the focus in assessing the market mechanism has tended to be on _results_ it ultimately generates, such as the incomes or utilities yielded by markets. This is not a negligible issue ….. But the more immediate case for the freedom of market transaction lies in the basic importance of that freedom itself. We have good reasons to buy and sell, to exchange, and to seek lives that can flourish on the basis of transactions. To deny that freedom in general would be in itself a major failing of society. This fundamental recognition is _prior_ to any theorem we may or may not be able to prove … in showing what the culmination outcomes of markets are in terms of incomes, utilities and so on. (p. 112)

William Dalrymple has “a review of a collection of Patrick Leigh Fermor’s writing”:http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/travel/0,6121,1105876,00.html — “Words of Mercury”:http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0719561051/junius-21 — in the Guardian. This contains, for the first time, Leigh Fermor’s own account of the SOE’s abduction of the German commander on Crete, General Kriepe, and, within it, one of the best wartime anecdotes:

bq. … the climax comes not as the general’s staff car is stopped at night by a British SOE party dressed in stolen German uniforms, nor as the Cretan partisans help smuggle the general into the Cretan highlands and thence to a waiting British submarine; but instead as “a brilliant dawn was breaking over the crest of Mount Ida” : “We were all three lying smoking in silence, when the General, half to himself, slowly said: ‘Vides ut alta stet nive candidum Socrate’. It was the opening lines of one of the few Horace odes I knew by heart. I went on reciting where he had broken off … The General’s blue eyes swivelled away from the mountain-top to mine – and when I’d finished, after a long silence, he said: ‘Ach so, Herr Major!’ It was very strange. ‘Ja, Herr General.’ As though for a moment, the war had ceased to exist. We had both drunk at the same fountains long before; and things were different between us for the rest of our time together.”

If there were a list of Crooked Timber suggested Christmas presents, Leigh Fermor’s “A Time of Gifts”:http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140049479/junius-21 , his account of his wanderings on foot across pre-war Europe (or at least the first volume of that unfinished trilogy) would be one of my recommendations.

I’ve been reading Amartya Sen’s magnificent “Development as Freedom”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385720270/junius-20 this week. A more bloggable books would be hard to find: startling facts and insights jostle one another on every page. Even when you already know something, Sen is pretty good at reminding, underlining and making you think further about it. So this, for example on the life prospects of African Americans:

bq. Even though the per capita income of African Americans in the United States is considerably lower than that of the white population, African Americans are very much richer in income terms than the people of China or Kerala (even after correcting for cost-of-living differences). In this context, the comparison of survival prospects of African Americans vis-a-vis those of the very much poorer Chinese or Indians in Kerala, is of particular interest. African Americans tend to do better in terms of survival at low age groups (especially in terms of infant mortality), but the picture changes over the years.

bq. In fact, it turns out that men in China and in Kerala decisively outlive African American men in terms of surviving to older age groups. Even African American women end up having a survival pattern for the higher ages similar to that of the much poorer Chinese, and decidedly lower survival rates than then even poorer Indians in Kerala. So it is not only the case that American blacks suffer from _relative_ deprivation in terms of income per head vis-a-vis American whites, they are also _absolutely_ more deprived than low-income Indians in Kerala (for both women and men), and the Chinese (in the case of men), in terms of living to ripe old ages.

Shocking, for the strongest economy on earth to create these outcomes (which, as Sen reminds us, are even worse for the black male populations of particular US cities).

UPDATE: Thanks to Noumenon for “a link to this item”:http://noumenon.typepad.com/noumenon/2003/12/sen_relative_po.html . I closed the comments thread because I didn’t want to spend my weekend fighting trolls. But email suggests that there are some people who have worthwhile things to say so I’m opening it again (though I won’t be participating myself).

The Guardian has “an obituary for Hans Hotter”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/obituary/0,12723,1105316,00.html , the great Wagnerian singer, who has expired at the age of 94. A sad day for all of us happily infected with the Wagner virus. The obit has the following nice anecdote:

bq. When he made a first visit to London after peace had been declared, he saw a headline in the Evening Standard proclaiming “Hotter In London”, and it took him a few minutes to realise that the newspaper was referring to the weather, not to him.

I’m suprised that none of the blogs that deal with British left sectariana have linked to “George Monbiot’s column yesterday”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1102779,00.html . I know George says daft things from time to time (and there’s a factual error about the Royal Society in this very column) but pointing out the genealogy of Spiked!, the Institute of Ideas, LM Magazine etc etc and the links between the various swivel-eyed neolibertarian technoenthusiasts who are the former Revolutionary Communist Party seems like a public service that should be performed every so often. (Especially now they all have “proper jobs” writing columns for the Times and fronting think tanks.)

The London Times now syndicates Randy Cohen’s The Ethicist columns from the NYT Magazine. I was appalled to read “today’s muddled effort”:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-7-925338,00.html :

bq. IN MY CAR, the back seats by the doors have lap belts and shoulder harnesses, but the middle seat has only a lap belt. My two children, aged three and seven, ride in the car, and occasionally we pick up another child. Ethically, who should sit in the middle, less safe, seat — one of my children or the friend?

bq. You should put your own kids in the shoulder belts, if their size and the law allow (and, if they’re very young, in child safety seats in the back). While all children have a claim on your compassion and concern, your primary responsibility is to your own: particular relationships entail particular ethical obligations.

I confess that I never thought of anything beyond which kid would fit best and separating the ones most likely to fight if seated adjacently to one another myself. But Cohen’s reasoning here is entirely wrongheaded. Sure, there are times when it is right to put your own children first (such as reading bedtime stories), but when you are _in loco parentis_ for other people’s the duty is, if anything, when it comes to avoiding real harms, to take special care of theirs. And beyond that, duties of justice quite generally don’t permit us to favour those close to us over strangers (there isn’t a stronger duty to repay a debt to a close relation than to a distant one or to an non-relative).

Norman Geras tells me that he has finally given up on blogger and moved his blog to typepad “here”:http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/ . Please adjust your links.

Via “PoliticalTheory.info”:http://www.politicaltheory.info/ I came upon a “report from a US think-tank called Demos on the disenfranchisement of felons in the United States”:http://www.demos-usa.org/demos/Pubs/punishing_at_the_polls.pdf (PDF). This varies significantly from state to state, and, unsurprisingly, blacks are far more likely to be denied the vote than whites. Just out of curiosity I took some numbers from the report and fed them into Excel to generate a rank ordering of states by the proportion of persons (from the total population rather than the electorate) denied voting rights on these grounds. The table is below the fold:

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BBC Radio 3 is devoting the entire day to “a celebration of Hector Berlioz on his bicentenary”:http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/classical/berliozday.shtml. Some great music and much commentary on the life of a man who Ken Russell described (about an hour ago) as the most cinematic of composers.

Welcome to “Punishment Theory”:http://punishmenttheory.blog-city.com/ , a new blog on philosophy and the criminal law featuring some eminent scholars.

Apologies to those of you who followed my first four posts on Michael Otsuka’s “Libertarianism Without Inequality”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0199243956/junius-20 (“1”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/000687.html, “2”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/000722.html , “3”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/000756.html , “4”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/000810.html ). For various reasons — mainly pressure of work — I’ve taken a while to get around to chapter 5 (though I’ve actually read the whole book now). Some comments on that chapter are below the fold. I’ll try to comment on the two remaining chapters over the next week. (Comments are welcome from those who have read or are reading the book).

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“Harry Hatchet”:http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/ has “a piece on the Guardian website”:http://politics.guardian.co.uk/egovernment/comment/0,12767,1099845,00.html on British political blogs. He’s kind enough to mention CT among others.

There’s an “interesting piece in yesterday’s Guardian”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1098522,00.html about a BMA debate on the sale of organs for transplant. Leading the charge for this is, predictably enough, John Harris:

bq. With the backing of some of Britain’s leading transplant surgeons, he will say thousands of lives could be saved by establishing “an ethical market” in live organs. Under current law the only organs used are those donated free of charge, usually by a relative, or taken from a cadaver.

Live donors running the risks of surgery to provide the organ or tissue should receive payment tax free and without consequent loss of state benefits, Prof Harris will say. They and their families should also have high priority for a subsequent transplant, should the need arise. (…..)

Prof Harris will argue that the NHS should be the monopoly buyer of donated organs….

Today the Guardian has a couple of interesting letters responding to the proposal and worrying about its social effects.