Archive for March, 2009

Book review: Don Quixote

Monday, March 30th, 2009
Once again my character flaws and artistic deficiencies surfaced as I read a supposedly great fictional work, Don Quixote, by Cervantes.  I say “great” because it is included in The Great Books of the Western World, and I say “supposedly” because for the life of me I don’t understand what people see in it.
It is true that the character of Don Quixote, the delusional knight errant, has a certain childlike charm in his innocence and naivete.  His undying love for his “lady” Dulcinea was certainly noble, almost divine (I was reminded of Hosea’s redemptive devotion to Gomer).  I laughed aloud at the cleverness in the first few pages.  However, after about two or three “adventures” in which he mistook windmills for giants, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., there overtook me a dread boredom with the one-trick nature of the narrative.  It was as if I were watching a 3-hour epic comedy in which the only “laugh” in scene after scene after scene was the hero getting a pie in the face.  The law of diminishing returns made the book much longer than it was funny.  My favorite line in the whole thing was on page 260: “Enough has been written already about Don Quixote” – but that was only halfway through the tale.
If there was a greal moral or life lesson on wisdom or virtue, truth or goodness or beauty, it was lost on me.  Maybe I missed it in my petulant boredom.  Maybe I am just too morose.  I now wish I had just watched the Broadway play instead of reading the book.  To hear Robert Goulet singing, “The Impossible Dream,” would have done my soul more good in four minutes than Cervantes’ actual book did in four months.
I beg the forgiveness of you who love art and understand fiction.
Now, moving from the trivial to the sublime…on to Bacon, Descartes, and Spinoza! 

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A strange and dangerous game

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

The Lord had already pronounced this judgment on the house of King Jeroboam: “I raised you up from among the people and made you a leader over my people Israel.  …You have done more evil than all who lived before you.  …Because of this, I am going to bring disaster on the house of Jeroboam.  I will cut off from Jeroboam every last male in Israel – slave or free.  I will burn up the house of Jeroboam as one burns dung, until it is all gone.  Dogs will eat those belonging to Jeroboam who die in the city, and the birds of the air will feed on those who die in the country.  The Lord has spoken!”  (I Kings 14:7-11)

It might have been reasonable for Baasha to assume that he was God’s agent in fulfilling this prophecy when he came to power: “As soon as he began to reign, he killed Jeroboam’s whole family.  He did not leave Jeroboam anyone that breathed, but destroyed them all, according to the word of the Lord…”  (I Kings 15:29)

Oddly, though, the Lord pronounced this familiar judgment against the house of Baasha: “I lifted you up from the dust and made you leader of my people Israel, but you walked in the ways of Jeroboam and caused my people Israel to sin and to provoke me to anger by their sins.  So I am about to consume Baasha and his house, and I will make your house like that of Jeroboam son of Nebat.  Dogs will eat those belonging to Baasha who die in the city, and the birds of the air will feed on those who die in the country.”  (I Kings 16:2-4)

Then there is this strange, inspired commentary: “Moreover, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Jehu son of Hanani to Baasha and his house, because of all the evil he had done in the eyes of the Lord…becoming like the house of Jeroboam – and also because he destroyed it.”  (I Kings 16:7) 

It is understandable that Baasha would come under God’s judgment for doing something that God had forbidden: following the infamous example of Jeroboam’s national idolatry.  What is surprising is that he also came under God’s judgment for doing something that God had decreed: purging the land of Jeroboam’s descendants.

Apparently the Lord wants to accomplish His own will in His own way, and for us to presume that we can appoint ourselves to be the agents of His wrath is to play a strange and dangerous game.

“If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.  Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord.  On the contrary, ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.  In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.’  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”  (Romans 12:17-21)

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Bonuses and balderdash

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

With all of the grandstanding and political posturing going on in Washington over the AIG bonuses, you would think that we were in the home stretch of an election cycle.  That’s usually when the anointed class gets all righteous about money, spending, and thrift. 

However, this whole thing is a tempest in a teacup.  It’s diversionary.  The furor over corporate bonuses is causing us, the little people, to take our eye off the ball: government spending.  Question: Where, after all, did AIG get the $165 million (with an “m”) to pay out in bonuses?  Answer: From the $170 billion (with a “b”) given to them by the federal government.

As Newt Gingrich (whom I wish were electable so he could run for president) so aptly points out:

“So now everyone is outraged, and rightly so. But the lavish executive bonuses being paid with taxpayer funds are just the beginning of the story.

“So far, the American taxpayers are on the hook for $170 billion to AIG – that’s an astounding $1,224 per taxpayer.

“What else could we have done with all this money?

“$170 billion would pay for more than doubling the Navy’s fleet of aircraft carriers.

“$170 billion would pay for a four-year education at a public university for more then two million Americans.

“$170 billion would cover the electricity bill of every household in America for an entire year.”

So, all this tut-tut-tutting by the spendthrifts in Congress and in the White House over the AIG bonuses is, well, balderdash!

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What’s So Great About Christianity?

Thursday, March 12th, 2009
I would recommend Dinesh D’Souza’s What’s So Great About Christianity? for two groups of people: for Christians (to bolster their confidence) and for atheists (to demonstrate the reasonableness of Christian faith and the bankruptcy of atheism as a worldview).

Just about anything by D’Souza (Illiberal Education, The End of Racism, What’s So Great About America?) is worth reading: well-reasoned, well-researched, well-written.  To wit, the opening chapter of this book, “A Note on the Interpretation of Scripture,” which begins with the common-sense statement: “In this book the Bible is read in a traditional way – that is, to discover what it actually states and means.” 

D’Souza posits that Christianity gave rise to the political theory of limited government that has produced such wonderful liberty in the West (i.e., “render unto Caesar…render unto God…”).  Then he outlines the Christian theological basis for science (debunking the church’s persecution of Galileo along the way!).  He spends several chapters (and IMHO, the high point of the book) discussing how the best of Western philosophy (namely, Kant) lends support to Christian doctrines of heaven, hell, and the afterlife.  Then D’Souza touches on how Christianity addresses the issues of suffering and of morality, along the way showing that the so-called cruelty of the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Salem witch trials has been way overblown.

Here are a few notable quotes:

“Atheism is a bit like homosexuality: one is not sure where it fits into a doctrine of natural selection.”

On the arrogance of scientists: “Indeed in no other field do people go around congratulating themselves so much on how rational they are…”.

On skepticism: “Poor Hume seems to have forgotten to read his own book.”

“Scientific laws are not ‘laws of nature.’  They are human laws, and they represent a form of best-guessing about the world.”

“If the only way to find out about God was through reason…getting into heaven would be like getting into Harvard.  …Reason is aristocratic, but faith is democratic.”

“Five hundred years after the Inquisition, we are still talking about it, but less than two decades after the collapse of ‘godless Communism,’ there is an eerie silence about the mass graves of the Soviet Gulag.  Why the absence of accountability?  Does atheism mean never having to say you are sorry?”

“If you are confronted by a relativist who insists that all morality is relative, go ahead and punch him in the face.  If he does not respond, punch him again.  At some point he will protest, “That’s not right.  You shouldn’t have done that.”

“It is not religion that is the opiate of the people, but atheism that is the opiate of the morally corrupt.”

“It is chiefly because of sex that most contemporary atheists have chosen to break with Christianity.  …It may well be that if it weren’t for that single commandment against adultery, Western man would still be Christian!”

“Consider this: why do we experience suffering and evil as unjust?  If we are purely material beings, then we should no more object to mass murder than a river objects to drying up in a drought.”

D’Souza writes like a true Christian.  However, some believers will take him to task for giving up too much in places to evolutionary science and to philosophy and even to other religions, but this is a very fine book nevertheless.

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Student of the Week

Friday, March 6th, 2009

This morning on the way to work, I pulled up behind a car with the following bumper sticker: “My grandchild was Student of the Week at Pasco Elementary School.”

Grandchild? 

Are ya kiddin me?

First, the Student of the Week award means…well, I honestly don’t know what in the world it means.  My severely retarded granddaughter was a Student of the Week at her school last year.  She can’t feed herself, dress herself, or walk upright, but somehow she received this “award.”

Don’t get me wrong: I love her, and she deserves care and compassion as a needy human being, but Student of the Week?  In what sense is this an ”award”?  How does one qualify?  How special do you think the next Student of the Week felt?

Second, are public schools so desperate for love and affection that they print inane bumper stickers for grandparents to drum up support?  Wouldn’t our education funds be better spent on, oh, say, really good books to make kids smarter?

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Rock, Paper, Scissors

Thursday, March 5th, 2009
Yes, that’s right: a book by Len Fisher, the same author as “How to Dunk a Doughnut.”  In my current reading project (I call it “anti-logic”), I’m taking a break from the Great Books and from serious geo-political issues, and poking around in some road-less-traveled titles.  This one’s not quite a whimsical as the title might suggest: the subtitle is “Game Theory in Everyday Life.”  The premise of the book is that “game theory is all around us,” from family life to dinner parties to baseball bleachers to crowded sidewalks to corporate boardrooms to international politics, and if we could figure out ways to make cooperation more attractive and self-interest less attractive (through strategic rewards and punishments), every level of human relationship would be more pleasant.  (He admits that the best way to do this is by moral persuasion, but he doesn’t hold out a lot of hope for universal acceptance of that road, so…game theory gives us a less religious/philosophical, yet self-enforcing, alternative.)

Fisher makes extensive use of the Nash Equilibrium (formerly called the Nash Trap), named for John Nash (yes, the schizophrenic genius whose life was portrayed in A Beautiful Mind).  The NE reveals that cooperation is the most beneficial strategy for all - unless someone gets greedy, which collapses the delicate balance of the equilibrium and causes everybody to lose ground.

He devotes an entire chapter to a strategy he calls “I cut and you choose.”  It attempts fairness between two competitors by allowing one person to divide whatever is in dispute and the other person to take the first portion.  This puts pressure on the “cutter” to be as fair and equitable as possible in dividing.  “I cut and you choose” can apply to desserts, chore lists, inheritances, and even the UN Conventions on the Law of the Sea.

One chapter discusses “The Seven Deadly Dilemmas.”  They are: The Prisoners’ Dilemma, The Tragedy of the Commons, The Free Rider, Chicken, The Volunteer’s Dilemma, The Battle of the Sexes (it’s not what you think), and Stag Hunt.   Most of them are variations on the NE.  The basic idea is that as long as most people in a group cooperate on a common project, there can be a few cheaters with no great loss to anyone.  However, when the number of cheaters reaches a critical mass, the overall loss becomes too great and threatens the entire group.  He concludes: “The real issue is not just getting individuals to change…it is getting a whole group of people to do this in a coordinated manner…and not change their minds again.”

The namesake chapter of the book actually takes the child’s game seriously.  It has been used to determine between two law firms where a deposition should be held and between two elite auction houses, Sotheby’s and Christie’s, as to which would sell an expensive art collection.  It also takes place among certain segments of the populations of animals, such as lizards and bacteria, to maintain ecological balance between subspecies.  It also comes into play in committee meetings.

Fisher ends by offering 10 strategies for improving human cooperation:
  1. Cooperate until you are cheated, then…fight fire with fire.
  2. Involve more people.  That makes cheating more complicated, and thus more difficult.
  3. Set up “reciprocity.”  People tend not to cheat people they have to face again.
  4. Restrict your own future options (burn your bridges).
  5. Offer trust.  It’s a powerful tool.
  6. Create a Nash Equilibrium.
  7. Create cooperative coalitions.
  8. Be aware of the Seven Deadly Dilemmas.
  9. Divide goods, tasks, etc., to reduce envy.
  10. Divide large groups into smaller ones.
The book is actually much more interesting than this review, because it is sprinkled liberally with delightful anecdotes, ranging from a boyhood incident of shooting fireworks down the hall into his nanny’s bedroom (accidentally, sort of) to a traffic jam in Italy that took three days to untangle.

Oh, and by the way, “scissors” tends to be played less than the other two options (29% of the time), and “rock” tends to be people’s favorite, so I’d say that the next time you’re in a high-stakes RPS game, ”paper” is the best choice.

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Gut feelings

Thursday, March 5th, 2009
This is the last in my personal reading project exploring “anti-logic” (after The Black Swan and Rock, Paper, Scissors).  This one is the most fundamentally anti-logic book of the bunch.  Says the author: “Logic and related deliberate systems have monopolized the Western philosophy of the mind for too long.”  He’s not an intellectual anarchist; he simply wants to give intuition its due.  In fact, he maintains that gut feelings are more to be trusted than rational processes when two conditions obtain:
  1. When something is difficult to predict
  2. When there is relatively little information to go on
Sounds fairly redundant and circular when you actually write it down, right?

What are gut feelings, or intuitions, or hunches?  Are they:
  1. God’s voice?
  2. Lucky guesses?
  3. Sixth sense?
They are judgments we make:
  1. That appear quickly in consciousness
  2. Whose underlying reasons we are not fully aware of
  3. That are strong enough to act upon
Their subconscious rationale consists of two components:
  1. Simple rules of thumb (heuristics)
  2. Evolved capacities of the brain
The book claims to explicate the hidden rules of thumb underlying gut feelings and to evaluate when they are likely to succeed or fail.  In my opinion, he does better on the first goal than the second.  The heuristics include:
  1. If a person looks longer at one alternative, it’s the one he wants.
  2. Treat the other person the way he has treated you.
  3. If you recognize one choice, but not the other, choose the one you recognize.
  4. Do what the majority of your peers do.
The second half of the book, applying gut feelings to medical decisions, moral decisions, and social decisions, is not convincing.

Overall, it was entertaining, but I would recommend that you borrow my copy and not buy your own.

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