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"The stream of Time, irresistible, ever moving, carries off and bears away all things that come to birth and plunges them into utter darkness, both deeds of no account and deeds which are mighty and worthy of commemoration. . .Nevertheless, the science of History is a great bulwark against the stream of Time; in a way it checks this irresistible flood, it holds in a tight grasp whatever it can seize floating on the surface and will not allow it to slip away into the depths of Oblivion. "
- Anna Comnena (1083-1153), The Alexiad
"I have taken all knowledge to be my province."
- Francis Bacon, 1592
Saturday, December 18, 2004
Marry or Else!
About a year ago I got into a running conversation with a former (unfortunately) reader of this site. One of the things that came up was the reader's experiences with married friends. Whenever they were out and about, they'd always bring up the topic - "when are you going to marry? You should marry and settle down," ad nausium in the reader's opinion, who was more than a little vexed by the focus on marriage now! I downplayed it at the time, "oh, they just want the best for you, it's not that big a deal, is it?"
Well, yesterday we had our unit Christmas Party, and I get it now. The focus on "you're not married? When are you going to marry? You should find someone to marry!" got uncomfortable. Now, I'd be happy to be married. I think I've mentioned that from time to time. I'd love to find "the right girl", someone with similar interests, complementary to me, cute and all (we all have our dreams). But their "helpful advice" was sort of irritating, and it was uncomfortable trying to explain why I haven't found that person yet or just settled for whomever in order to get the monkey (such questions) off my back. I kept waiting for the conversation to shift. Eventually I managed to make my escape.
Well, that'll be a side-benefit if and when I do find the woman of my dreams, who also wants to be with me (it's not too hard to have one without the other, but that's frustrating, not fulfilling). But I'm not going to marry a random individual just to put a stop to the questions (I might avoid such social events in the future, though. Which'll only make it harder to find that special lady). Now, marry someone just to get out of the barracks? That's more tempting. . .
"I think she was interested in me but my aloof nature scared her off. Ba'sides, Teflon [Billy] likes a little elf in his women."
Brian Van Hoose, KODT Special Eddition #2,
"Baiting the Hook"
(Sorry, just felt like ending with a gratuitious KODT quote. If you don't know KODT, you won't "get it" so don't even try. Reading Brian's bio, linked to above, would help some. Sadly, "Teflon Billy" recently died - for keeps! Oh well, just roll up a new one. . .)
When I was a young child, my parents didn't have a lot of money. We weren't impoverished, but they had to watch their finances closely and save money as a young family working their way into life, into middle class - something a lot of people forget these days, by the way. People who get all disgruntled about "our system" because you don't start at the top and have to make some sacrifices and choices early on, deferred gratification rather than immediate gratification.
We ait a lot of mac & cheese, and a lot of hot dogs. I still like macaroni & cheese, but came to distaste hot dogs. But we always had a jar of pickles in the fridge. My mom would buy cheap-ass pickles so we'd have a jar, but no one wanted to eat them because they were so bad. At least we never ran out of pickles. Thus, the "Pickle Theory of Conservation" was born, and even to this day when we try something, don't like it, but don't throw it away (that Germanic farm-family frugality at work again), we invoke the theory.
Well, here I am, I have a little fridge and all. A couple weeks ago I got some of those pudding cups, pre-made, pre-packaged and all. I decided to try the "fat free" version. Ohmygawd. Ack! Every time I open that sucker looking for something to snack on, I skip over that rot and pick up the yogurt instead. At least I like the taste of the yogurt I bought.
But at least I won't run out of pudding any time soon.
When it comes to China. I've noted before that people who would normally decry any distortion of the workings of the market are willing to rationalize it when engaged in by China. Lets just take this section and examine it:
By contrast, Chinese export workers make textiles, toys, sporting goods and light electronics, i.e., industries the developed countries mostly gave up a long time ago.
You can see this in the global-trade data. Chinese exports have been penetrating European, Japanese and U.S. markets at a headline growth rate of 35% per year--but total Asian exports have not. Overall Asian market share has in fact grown very slowly, which means that for each additional dollar industrialized consumers spend on Chinese imports, imports from the rest of Asia actually fall.
So the fact that China's currency manipulations are, according to the author, resulting in a siphoning of trade & jobs not from developed countries, but from other developing countries that might have filled the market if it weren't for the artificially pegged value of the Yuan makes it ok? No principled free-marketeer would accept that just because it isn't "our" oxen that are being (directly) gored it is something we shouldn't worry about. The fact is that such distortions of the market do affect not just those people in other developing countries that might have found work in those industries were it not for China's mercantilistic policies, but ourselves as well, and that the longer these distortions go on, the worse their impact on the functioning of the global market.
And remember, Doc: There's No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.
Will 2005 be marked as the year democracy took root in the Arab world? It's certainly possible.
We'll have to see how elections go among the Palestinians. Note that "democracy" does not mean "moderates win, extremists lose". Nor does it mean, as the EU sometimes seems to think when it comes to candidates they don't like winning in countries like Austria "candidates that suit our tastes win". The Palestinians might elect Abbas, who we can work with might win - to the extent to which Fatah has the system somewhat "sewed up".
It's even less likely that a completely open vote in Saudi Arabia would produce an outcome we would find acceptable. But democracy, and a truly democratic attitude among the populace, will likely only take root if it is given a chance. No democracy springs up fully-formed to resemble what we have now. It took us not a few stages along the way to get to universal enfranchisement.
Now, the idea of limited constitutional government deriving its powers from the consent of the governed (as opposed to paternalistic government granting some freedoms to the governed) is an Anglo-American phenomenon. We might hope that Arab democrats will adopt a similar outlook, but they are far more likely to build something that resembles that of Continental European or East Asian Democracy.
That's livable. As long as they don't try to impose that outlook on us, we shouldn't try to force our version on them, either. Attempts to persuade and convince, on the other hand, are fair game. As for the rejoinder that we're forcing democracy itself on Iraq, and arm-twisting the Palestinians into it, that's along the lines of how we forced it on Japan and Germany. But we didn't compel them to adopt our version, with checks-and-balances and the like. The ideologically-driven war against the West & America in particular launched by the fascist dictatorships compelled only three outcomes: their victory, their utter destruction, or their transformation. It's similar in the case of the war launched by Arabic-Islamic fascism. But I digress. . .
If the Arabic world begins to change, if we someday look back and see 2005 as the year democratic institutions took root in the Middle East, then we will have won, but the Arab world will have won, just as Japan emerged a winner in the wake of its democratic transformation. It will have happened with far less of a cost in human life than many other scenarios I can imagine.
Now, lets just hope it also takes place in the Persian World, that is, in Iran as well.
Well, he's not wrong about everything, at least. I'm dubious about the UN's Panel on "Threats, Challenges, and Change", or at least the program for reform they proposed and Annan endorsed in this piece he wrote for The Economist last week. How it would work in practice is likely to amount to "more of the same", at best.
But he does make a very striking observation, one that we should all remember when people treat the War on Terror as the West's, or America's, or a "rich man's" problem:
"According to the World Bank, the attacks of September 11th 2001 cost more than $80 billion and pushed 11m people in developing countries into poverty. The economic fallout from a nuclear terrorist attack would dwarf these numbers. Given the relationship between poverty and infant mortality, we would count the cost of a nuclear terrorist attack in a rich country in two terrible death tolls: in the attacked city, and in poor nations all over the world."
That's striking. 11 million people in developing countries impoverished by the Sept. 11th attacks. For those who rationalize terror as a way for the poor and dispossessed to get back at the rich who "exploit" them, that's a shameful statistic.
Terror attacks on such a scale are a global problem, and should be treated seriously. Unfortunately, those who claim to be the champions of the world's poor tend to treat it as just another cause for dramatic displays of rhetorical angst against the West as a whole and America in particular, rather than as a threat to the welfare of the very people they claim to be most concerned about.
