The Cosmopolitist

Weekend Reading

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:53:00 -0500

“Americans start out at a young age learning classic adages like “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” Our time-honored golden rule has worked in every situation for me - until I got to Afghanistan. In Afghanistan the rule should read, “Do unto the Afghans as the Afghans do unto each other.” We should not expect them to embrace our approach simply because we believe we are efficient problem solvers. They see our approach as hasty and arrogant. We encroached on their culture so we must adapt and learn to collaborate in a more personal way. Our cultures are disparate but we can do this. My men and I have done it.”

—Nate Springer

“I prefer the edge: the place where countries, communities, allegiances, affinities, and roots bump uncomfortably up against one another—where cosmopolitanism is not so much an identity as the normal condition of life. Such places once abounded. Well into the twentieth century there were many cities comprising multiple communities and languages—often mutually antagonistic, occasionally clashing, but somehow coexisting. Sarajevo was one, Alexandria another. Tangiers, Salonica, Odessa, Beirut, and Istanbul all qualified—as did smaller towns like Chernovitz and Uzhhorod. By the standards of American conformism, New York resembles aspects of these lost cosmopolitan cities: that is why I live here.”

—Tony Judt

“A root problem is a liberal snobbishness toward faith-based organizations. Those doing the sneering typically give away far less money than evangelicals. They’re also less likely to spend vacations volunteering at, say, a school or a clinic in Rwanda. If secular liberals can give up some of their snootiness, and if evangelicals can retire some of their sanctimony, then we all might succeed together in making greater progress against common enemies of humanity, like illiteracy, human trafficking and maternal mortality”

—Nicholas Kristof

“Despite the occasional principled libertarian such as Ron Paul, a Christian who equates the Federal Reserve with Satan, the marriage of religious fundamentalists and market fundamentalists is holding. Why? Because, in the favorite word of Church Lady, it is so convenient. The Christian far right hates big government, and so does the commercial right. It may be annoying to socially moderate financial elites that the religious right is so crazed on the subject of gays, guns, and God, but these views do not affect the business elite where it lives.”

—Robert Kuttner

"Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it."

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 02:45:07 -0500

“Geography is just physics slowed down,
with a couple of trees stuck in it.”

- Terry Pratchett

In Defense of "Funny" Cultures

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:13:00 -0500

Tim Rogers’ take on contemporary Japan over at Kotaku is a great example of how people should not write about foreign cultures: with near-total subjectivity.

The piece is a laundry list of things Rogers, having lived in Japan for several years, dislikes about the place. A sampling:

Once, shortly after getting a new job, a coworker announced he was getting up to smoke a cigarette. He asked if I wanted to join him. I said I didn’t smoke. He was surprised. “I thought you said you were in a band?” Just like that: You’re in a band. You must smoke. Well. My excuse that I was just the vocalist, so I needed to keep my throat pure. He mentioned how Kurt Cobain apparently smoked five packs a day. Well. A couple years later, another person learned I didn’t smoke, and acted surprised. “I figured you must smoke because, you know; you play video games.” That’s a real stereotype, man. It exists. In Japan, gamers are smokers. Maybe this impression is born from the fact that breathing in Japanese arcades is pretty much exactly like dunking your head in a bucket of hot water and dead cigarettes. Don’t let the hype fool you: Japanese arcades are great because, you know, video games, though man, there is a hell of a lot of smoking going on in those places, man. Maybe the arcades only exist because people need some excuse to get away from their smoke-averse significant other and puff away.

Later, we read:

Chances are, if you’ve only spent a short time in Japan, you might have found it endearing. You really came to feel like you were in Asia, what with people screaming everywhere, like they would in an epic Chinese marketplace scene in an adventure film. This atmosphere is completely manufactured. Like, the biggest electronics stores actually keep ladders on hand so that certain employees can climb the ladders and scream indecipherable words down at the customers, through megaphones.

I do not use the word “indecipherable” lightly. Very seldom are the words actual words. A friend let me in on this secret. “You know, aside from ‘irasshaimase’, they’re not using actual words, most of the time.” He had prior job experience, see. Apparently, some stores actually demand that employees enlisted as barkers absolutely refrain from using actual words. That’s a little weird. I don’t like knowing things like that.

Look. There are a lot of legitimate cultural complaints one can have about Japan (or any other foreign culture)—specifically ones regarding negative social practices. And Rogers does touch lightly on a few of these, including the destructive drinking habits of salarymen, the social dysfunctions of the young hikikomori, and the domestic subordination of Japanese women. In all these areas and more, Japan has a lot of work to do.

But on the other hand, tradition is tradition. “That’s just how they do things” may sound like a cop-out, but its also a justification for bits of rituals that have slowly materialized over the course of years, decades, or centuries. And these bits, when brought together, make up a unique culture that is objectively different from other cultures. Yes, your cube-mates may chafe when you don’t say “Hello” in the morning. Yes, customer service may seem overly aggressive. And yes, people may smoke more in Tokyo than on Telegraph Hill.

But listen, that’s their culture. It’s different. It’s not “creepy” or “idiotic”, and certainly not “terrifying”. Please. Cannibalism is terrifying. Making a scene in public for the sake of office solidarity is, at least, jarring, and at most…Japanese. “I don’t like pachinko” is not legitimate cultural criticism.

Other parts of this article aren’t even remotely unique to Japan. You’re going to find tons of people who “agree to do things that they obviously hate doing” all over the world. American popular music is arguably equally as repetitive—and its subject matter much more offensive—than J-pop. And copy-cats, imitators, and up-givers are a dime a dozen in our contemporary society.

One advantage of a globalized world is the opportunity to celebrate different cultures while working to improve our own. This article, on the whole, simply denigrates one culture while imagining others’, including our own, as unquestionably superior. Which, as the world grows closer, is exactly the wrong way to look at things.

Via Sammut at Bēhance

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:18:00 -0500

Via Sammut at Bēhance

Rising in the East

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:22:15 -0500

Articles and commentary touting the accelerated rise of Asia in the face of global economic calamity are easy to find. But this WSJ piece in particular tucks away a crucial, nuanced point:

The global financial crisis has accelerated Japan’s increasing orientation toward Asia, economists say. High unemployment and personal debt have made typical American consumers less of a focus for Japanese companies, compared with their increasingly wealthy Asian peers.

Granted, as James Fallows has pointed out, there is lingering uncertainty about China’s true heft due to the inconvenient fact that most Chinese lack basic domestic necessities (running water, for instance) enjoyed by the entire developed world, most notably their South Korean and Japanese neighbors. Regardless, the slow turn of the world’s third-largest economic power towards a billion new consumers is really a huge change worth acknowledging, if not only in the beneficial short-term for China, but also in the detrimental long-term for the United States. If there was ever a way for Japan to avoid another lost decade, this could very well be it.

"When I was a small boy in Kansas, a friend of mine and I went fishing and as we sat there in the..."

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:55:00 -0500

“When I was a small boy in Kansas, a friend of mine and I went fishing and as we sat there in the warmth of the summer afternoon on a river bank, we talked about what we wanted to do when we grew up. I told him that I wanted to be a real major league baseball player, a genuine professional like Honus Wagner. My friend said that he’d like to be president of the United States. Neither of us got our wish.”

- Dwight Eisenhower

Weekend Reading

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 19:31:00 -0500

“Year after year, undergraduates and M.A. students find themselves on fire to do research and to teach. Some of them burn for other things as well, and follow other paths. Some discover that their vocations are not deep enough to last out the process of testing. But many stick it out—and finish—only to find that the completed quest leads into Rats’ Alley. These are the people whom our system is now chewing up.”

—Anthony Grafton

“Kim Jong Il once told Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton’s secretary of state, that the bombast in honour of himself and his late, great father, Kim Il Sung, was so much nonsense. Bruce Cumings, an historian, wonders what Mr Kim can be thinking, “standing there in his pear-shaped polyester pantsuit, pointy-toed elevator shoes, oversize sunglasses of malevolent tint, an arrogant curl to his feminine lip…and a perpetual bad-hair day? He is thinking, get me out of here.”’

—Banyan

“But sip a Lagavulin 16 Years. It’s an Islay malt, so it engulfs you with peat, though as the smoke clears, you get a long, sweet finish, something like mille-feuille. Now try a square of Valrhona Jivara. Malt, caramel and vanilla ooze across your tongue, and there’s still just enough peat on your palate to dim the sugar and keep things manly. In an evening of whisky and chocolate tasting, this was the combo that got my guinea pigs oinking with glee.”

—Nicholas Coldicott

"I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy...."

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:24:00 -0500

“I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.”

- John Adams

Health and Federalism

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 01:13:00 -0500

The Corner notes that despite the White House’s comments, the Republican Health Coverage proposal has been available online for months. But there’s a big problem with it. And it lies with the states.

Stepping back, while Republicans have asserted—for a long time—that they’ve had a usable plan of their own on the table, there is not a single mention in their proposal regarding universal coverage to all citizens who lack it. (Which has always been the president’s core goal for a health care plan.)

The closest we find is in Division B, Title 2:

PAYMENTS TO STATES. — FOR PREMIUM REDUCTIONS IN THE SMALL GROUP MARKET. — If the Secretary determines that a State has reduced the average per capita premium for health insurance coverage in the small group market in year 3, in year 6, or year 9 (as defined in subsection (c)) below the premium baseline for such year (as defined paragraph (2)), the Secretary shall pay the State an amount equal to the product of — (i) bonus premium percentage (as de-fined in paragraph (3)) for the State, market, and year; and (ii) the maximum State premium payment amount (as defined in paragraph (4)) for the State, market, and year.

So basically, their primary incentive mechanism for reduction in uninsured citizens is…financial gifts to states. The bill then tasks the states with “reducing the average per capital premium for health insurance coverage in the individual market.” If a state somehow manages to cut the cost of private insurance plans in their state, they get a reward. In the form of federal dollars. This is as close as it gets to “expanding coverage.”

The rest of the bill deals mostly in boilerplate, like tort reform (which is included in a watered-down form in the current bills), a reduction of funding for comparative effectiveness research, and a reiteration of party commitment to…Medicare.

What’s really more interesting, however, is the concept of a federalism that is meant to somehow coexist with two overtly anti-federalist proposals: 1) the expansion of insurance companies’ influence across state lines, which would inevitably (as evidenced by the evolution of American telecommunication, communications service, and retail industries over the past 20-30 years) lead to less competition due to intra-industry mergers and acquisitions, and 2) the intrusion of state governments into local free markets. The contradition is totally unresolved in this bill. Yet it’s meant to be the crux of a novel insurance coverage program. How is this supposed to work? And, when all is said and done, how would this leave the states, other than overburdened and quite possibly bankrupt?

Via Sullivan

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:02:00 -0500

Via Sullivan

"Whoever attends a performance of [Beethoven’s] Ninth Symphony and then sits down to draw a..."

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:56:00 -0500

“Whoever attends a performance of [Beethoven’s] Ninth Symphony and then sits down to draw a wallpaper pattern is either a con man or a degenerate.”

- Loos

Via Ffffound

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 04:01:00 -0500

Via Ffffound

Is Avatar Racist?

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 02:43:00 -0500

A friend points us to Newitz at io9, who says:

These are movies about white guilt. Our main white characters realize that they are complicit in a system which is destroying aliens, AKA people of color - their cultures, their habitats, and their populations. The whites realize this when they begin to assimilate into the “alien” cultures and see things from a new perspective. To purge their overwhelming sense of guilt, they switch sides, become “race traitors,” and fight against their old comrades. But then they go beyond assimilation and become leaders of the people they once oppressed. This is the essence of the white guilt fantasy, laid bare. It’s not just a wish to be absolved of the crimes whites have committed against people of color; it’s not just a wish to join the side of moral justice in battle. It’s a wish to lead people of color from the inside rather than from the (oppressive, white) outside.

This is interesting, but a bit off. There are two distinct but separate race-related issues in the film: 1) a colonizer vs. colonized theme, and 2) a black vs. white theme.

Regarding colonization, Newitz assumes too much. While the film does use role reversal of the main character as a crucial turning point, it is not due to Sully’s “guilt” of the forest people’s (the “Na’vi“‘s) destruction at the hands of humanity. Indeed, the disaster has yet to even occur; Sully takes up an opposing cause in an attempt to prevent it from happening. Simply put, nobody’s doling out reparations here.

The black vs. white theme is a bit more complicated, and prevalent. The first issue is that Cameron made the misguided creative decision that the forest people should physically resemble African people. Uncannily, in fact. Which, for an American audience, quickly calls to mind modern-day racial tensions. Making the fact that a white character single-handedly(!) “saves” an African-looking race from elimination certifiably cringe-worthy.

But is this “racist”? There is certainly some glorification of limited and incremental colonization, as well as a bit of military fetishism (but only a bit—any compliments here are pretty backhanded). But does it promote the “idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to rule others”? Considering the film’s ending, which outright suggests that racial integration is basically impossible…it’s a tough sell.

Rather, as mentioned in the previous post, the film’s greatest offense is its pathetic predictability. These awkward racial undertones simply exacerbate its badness.

Film Review: Avatar

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 19:26:00 -0500

“Movies will never be the same” is the trailer tagline for this effects-soaked drama from the future. But in reality, a bit more modesty would have been appreciated—and appropriate.

James Cameron’s latest is undoubtably entertaining (even more so in 3D). Its foreign lands are brilliant and luminous. Each rich, untouched natural space is breathtaking in its detail, and simply getting to witness the characters effortlessly bound through them is arguably be worth the price of admission.

But the beauty mostly ends there. The plot—that of an intergalactic colonizing power deciding between nurturing and destroying (for great potential profit) a race of forest people—is disappointingly formulaic. For all the unexpectedness that flourishes in the backdrops of Cameron’s world (known as “Pandora”), the bland interactions of the humans and aliens against them seem hopelessly mismatched. While certainly exciting at times, there is no overarching sense of suspense; after nearly three hours, it ends precisely as you would expect Hollywood to end it.

And despite the objection that a strong plot isn’t that essential in a film that leverages an unmatched amount of special effects, the story does matter. A lot. Ever since the emergence of fully-animated features pioneered by the likes of Pixar which depend on, and are complimented by, strong storylines, it is no longer necessary to have to choke down a tepid plot as an excuse for visual-only entertainment. Said otherwise, Avatar is no Titanic. Or The Abyss. Or Ratatouille—one of so many effects-driven films with an equally compelling and original storyline—for that matter. James Cameron can do better. And we should demand as much from him with his next creative endeavor.

"One major cost the conventional American media bears in order to achieve its veneer of objectivity..."

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 13:21:00 -0500

“One major cost the conventional American media bears in order to achieve its veneer of objectivity is tolerance of a pretty ridiculous level of policy ignorance”

- Yglesias

Laws and Landmines

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:22:00 -0500

Turns out the U.S. will continue to NOT take part in the International Mine Ban Treaty. Why? Partly due to the actual difficulty of ratifying international treaties.

First, the facts of the Mine Ban Treaty: conceived in 1997, 156 signatories, 37 non-signatories (including China, India, Russia). Now, while the treaty has been in existence for nearly twelve years, the U.S. has never signed it (even though they were a party in its creation) as it would conflict with official policy. As noted:

The United States refuses to sign the treaty because it does not offer a “Korean exception”, as landmines are said to be a crucial component of the U.S. military strategy in South Korea. According to the US government, the one million mines along the DMZ between North and South help maintain the delicate peace by deterring a North Korean attack.

Yet that doesn’t make the Obama administration’s announcement any less surprising—many were expecting a turnabout on par with the more prominent (albeit unsatisfied) promise to close Guantánamo.

But, as Drezner says, would a policy reversal even be possible? After all, a massive 67 Senate votes are needed to ratify any international treaty. Which isn’t a terribly bad rule; in theory, choosing to adhere to an international treaty could effect a great deal of future foreign policy legislation, moreso than any single law passed internally. A greater consensus should be required.

The real question is, could another type of defense mechanism replace the land mine in the DMZ? Finding an answer could be good news for both defense contractors otherwise worried about military cutbacks (hawks), as well as for anti-landmine types (the rest of the world). Until then, though, there probably won’t be much change to look forward to.

Deep Thought

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:19:00 -0400

Health care reform could be Obama’s Saddam Hussein.

Friday night, everybody. Via JaviC

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:23:00 -0400

Friday night, everybody. Via JaviC

"- Do you mean to tell me that you’re thinking seriously of building that way, when and if you..."

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:21:00 -0400

“- Do you mean to tell me that you’re thinking seriously of building that way, when and if you are an architect?
- Yes.
- My dear fellow, who will let you?
- That’s not the point. The point is, who will stop me?”

- The Dean and Howard Roark

Evolution Denial

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:24:00 -0400

Razib Khan points out that a healthy number of prominent politicians—potential U.S. presidential candidates, no less—are “rather frank Creationists”. Maybe the biggest problem is how this isn’t shocking to a lot of people.

He notes:

Creationism doesn’t really have the same valence as abortion as a “culture war” issue, but, it is useful in being a distinctive marker for social conservative candidates. Mitt Romney is now notionally as pro-life as the social conservatives, but it seems unlikely that he’ll flip his position on evolution since he expressed himself so explicitly in the 2008 debates.

And in a follow-up post, he adds:

Obviously a particular combination of policies and beliefs would lead to different assessments of a candidate’s viability to different individuals. Many of Ron Paul’s enthusiastic supporters backed him not because of 100% agreement with all his views, including his skepticism of evolution, but because of core substantive agreement with is policy prescriptions. On the other hand, some weird beliefs probably would serve as a way to filter out genuine loonies who rely on non-mainstream sources of knowledge.

For all the observant things said here, its unfortunate that his very last point is made so casually. Not due to fault on behalf of the author, but rather due to the reality that Creationism doesn’t live under the larger tent of “loonie-worthy concepts” in the greater public consciousness. Said otherwise, it’s incredible that Creationism isn’t a disqualifying factor in mainstream American politics.

Recently, researchers discovered Ardi, one of our 4 million-year-old bipedal ancestors. So, as yet another piece of evidence added to the theory of evolution, it is more than clear that the misinforming power of Creationism is eating away at what should be a straightforward, science-based history of humanity on Earth. Yet such a belief still stands front-and-center on politicians’ public platforms.

One of Khan’s commenters says “I don’t…grant that mormonism is that crazy; catholicism’s transubstantiation isn’t weird because it is widely held.” A good point—that wide acceptance of an idea can lead to cultural normalization.

However, with transubstantiation (the Catholic belief that the Eucharist is actually the body of Jesus Christ), the concept doesn’t necessary contradict decades of scientific research. If you choose to believe that you are consuming God, that is your choice. In the same way—it should be mentioned—that the idea of Intelligent Design doesn’t necessarily contradict the theory of evolution. If you believe that God “chose” a certain branch from the tree of humanity to become man as we know it today, that is fine. (Just don’t pretend it’s a scientific, since you can never actually test that belief of yours.)

But the problem with Creationism? It tries to contradict an exhaustively strong scientific theory. With no evidence to present on its own behalf. Such blatant denialism should have no place in a voting booth.