Engels proud not to be Icelandic, Marx not Jewish

Engels is proud not to be Icelandic (via Bjarni Ólafsson):

The Dane regards Germany as a country which one visits in order to ‘keep mistresses and squander one’s fortune on them’ (while travelling in Germany, he had a mistress who ran through the better part of his fortune, we read in a Danish school book). He calls the German a tydsk [German] windbag, and regards himself as the true representative of the Teutonic soul — the Swede in turn despises the Dane as ‘Germanised’ and degenerate, garrulous and effete — the Norwegian looks down on the Gallicised Swede and his aristocracy and rejoices in the fact that at home in Norge [Norway] exactly the same stupid, peasant economy is dominant as at the time of the noble Canute, and he, for his part, is treated en canaille [scornfully] by the Icelander, who still continues to speak exactly the same language as the unwashed Vikings of anno 900, swills whale oil, lives in a mud hut and goes to pieces in any atmosphere that does not reek of rotten fish. I have several times felt tempted to be proud of the fact that I am at least no Dane, nor yet an Icelander, but merely a German.

Marx is not Jewish:

But whether this was the case or not, there can be no doubt that Heinrich Marx had attained that humanistic culture which freed him entirely from all Jewish prejudices, and he handed on this freedom to his son Karl as a valuable heritage. There is nothing in the numerous letters Heinrich Marx wrote to his student son which betrays a trace of any specifically Jewish traits, either good or bad.

The New Iraq

Amritas doubts the ability of Iraqis to maintain democracy. I have my doubts too. Having said that, I fully support Bush’s actions in Iraq. Has he made mistakes? Probably. But I don’t know what they are – hindsight is twenty/twenty, and we don’t have it yet. I don’t think that the lessons of Israel in Lebanon are completely applicable in Iraq. The biggest difference is that the US is A LOT more powerful than Israel.

I don’t know whether the US will be successful in creating a democratic Iraq, but I think it would be immoral, given the position that the US is in, not to try. And I’m sure that Iraq will end up being better for it, whatever that may mean.

The Freeholders – part 2

John Ray and Amritas link to my post (The Freeholders). John says:

David's view that Leftists advocate what they do because they do not foresee the ill effects of their policies suggests to me that he has been conned, however. Conservatives point out all the follies way in advance but the Left just will not listen. They don't WANT to know about the consequences of their actions. They just want to feel good by sounding big and kind at the time.

I should make it clear that I’m not talking about pathological cases like Michael Moore, but for the rest I think that this gets into the nature of knowledge – I’ve encountered it many times. I frequently run into people who claim things that I think are absurd. Often they have “evidence” to support their claims – and challenge me to check it out. I don’t, because I don’t have time, and I have so much evidence to support what I think is a contradictory claim that I dismiss it out of hand. But sometimes it turns out that the common wisdom is wrong, and the claims that we dismiss out of hand are right. For example:

For most of the 20th century, peptic ulcers were rarely cured. The reigning theory said that ulcers resulted from psychological stress and dietary factors…

In 1981, Robin Warren, M.D., a pathologist at the Royal Perth Hospital in Western Australia, discovered numerous bacteria living in tissue taken during a stomach biopsy. Over time, he began to notice a pattern in stomach biopsies…

Later that year, Barry Marshall, M.D., joined Dr. Warren in his research, and together they verified the link between the spiral bacterium—later termed Helicobacter pylori—and the presence of peptic ulcers…

Most doctors were not convinced by the findings, and often, Drs. Warren and Marshall met with extreme skepticism and even hostility…

So, in July 1984, Dr. Marshall decided to swallow a large number of the bacteria himself to test his ideas about H. pylori…

For five days, he noticed nothing. Then, he began to experience nausea and vomiting. Although these symptoms resolved on their own after 14 days, an endoscopy on the eighth day revealed that he had developed severe gastritis. Still, Dr. Marshall’s presentations at gastroenterology meetings did little to convince doctors who proceeded to treat ulcer patients with new acid-reducing drugs…

After more evidence accumulated, the National Institutes of Health recommended in 1994 that people with peptic ulcer and H. pylori infection should receive antibiotics as a first-line therapy…

Ten years after compelling evidence was demonstrated! Most people simply dismissed the evidence because it contradicted their pre-conceived notions!

Amritas applies my thesis to Hawaii, with some interesting results. I’m afraid though, that I might have made it sound like the US and Israel are two peas in a pod – they are not, I’d like to talk about it more but I’m afraid I’ll have to push it off to a future post.

Another great blog – Crispus

The first person to leave a comment at the Great Auk is another great blogger: Crispus.

Here an example of what s/he writes:

Yesterday religious and city leaders rallied on the steps of City Hall in support of school vouchers, saying it's the best option for their kids' future. The Black Ministers' Council of New Jersey head calls public schools a "fraud." The head of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders calls school choice a "moral issue" where blacks and Hispnics must unite.

School choice advocates say tax dollars should follow a child to the schools of their choice, not the school itself. They say school choice would drive reform in public education through competition. The Black Ministers' Council says what stands in their way are the Democrats, who have strong ties to teachers' unions. Advocates are right on all three counts.

In my opinion compulsory education without school choice is a form of slavery. We force children to go to a particular building at a particular time, and sit and listen to a particular person telling them what to do. The only way to get out of bondage is to buy your freedom, if you can afford it. It is immoral, and should be illegal.

Of course, like many immoral activities, it has serious negative consequences from a practical point of view too. For example, you cannot have a state education monopoly and still have separation of church and state. The national education system has created a state religion, one which advocates a broad religious agenda. What am I talking about, I hear you say. Let me ask you this: If the schools aren’t teaching religion, why is it that so many religious people are against it?

UPDATE: Just in case I didn’t make myself clear: Something that contradicts a religious principle must also be a religious principle, at least according to the religion in question. For example, you can’t teach sex-education without conveying some kind of moral attitude toward it. What kind of moral attitude do you teach? That’s a religious question. Of course, schools try to avoid the issue by trying not to teach morals at all, just teaching “the facts”. That raises a couple of questions: First, do you really want your children not to be taught morals? Most parents, given the choice, would choose to teach their kids some kind of moral system, but of course they have no choice. Second, by avoiding teaching morals, you in effect teach children to have no morals – the message they get is that morals are optional, and that they can choose to do without. After all, the school apparently does without.

UPDATE: It has been pointed out to me that the same case can be made for regarding compulsory education as slavery even with school choice. I suppose that’s true, however, the justification for compulsory education is that it is in the best interests of the child. Children are not free; they are wards of their parents or guardians, and to lesser extent wards of the state. I agree that in extreme cases the state should be able to intervene for the good of the child – but such cases should be as extreme as possible. Telling the parent that the child has to go to some school, that the parent can choose, is less extreme than telling the parent that the child has to go to a particular school, and therefore is without question more correct. (It remains a question whether parents should be told at all – I think they should be.)

Icelandic blogger

Just discovered a great new blog (via John Ray): Great Auk, by Bjarni Ólafsson. He’s from Iceland – a country even smaller (in population) and more exotic (in my opinion) than Israel.

Welcome to the blogosphere, from your alphabetic neighbor!

The Freeholders

I had a eureka moment reading this essay by John Ray. Not that I agree with his conclusions, though I do share his revulsion for the elitism that he describes. I disagree with his conclusions on no evidence other than my own personal experience. I grew up among a population that was overwhelmingly liberal, and I feel that I know those particular people quite well. I think that their views were primarily formed by a lack of understanding of feedback systems – an unwillingness to believe that secondary effects can in the long run be more important than primary effects, what is sometimes called the Law of Unintended Consequences. In other words, if there is a problem, then we (the government) should solve it.

Not that conservatives have any more understanding of feedback systems. What saves them from error is an abhorrence of government interference, a love of liberty. This is a moral stand which I find eminently justifiable, but there is no denying that liberty inevitably leads to inequality. Inevitably, given the liberty to choose, some people will make mistakes, and others will succeed. The beauty of this from a systems point of view is that as a secondary effect (the primary effect is success or failure) negative behavior results in negative feedback, and positive behavior results in positive feedback. (As an aside, I think that parents tend to be much more aware of secondary effects with respect to their children – they don’t want to spoil them.)

However, I am uncomfortable with the words “liberal” and “conservative”, “left” and “right”. With respect to policy, the American left and right have switched sides several times in its history. I have argued before that the real split is between the forces of ferment and stasis, and that those groups will switch sides every two generations. In the 1970s the left wanted to spread democracy, and in the 1870s the left wanted free trade…

That’s when I had my eureka moment. Why did the left want low tariffs in the 1870s? Because the average American was a farmer (agricultural subsidies were not yet invented), and knew very well that free trade enriched him – he could buy more, more cheaply. Tariffs enriched big business. It wasn’t until the average American became an employee of big business that he began to see free trade as a threat (at least in his own industry), which put him in agreement with big business. Who then is left to support free trade? Only those, of whatever background, who feel sure enough, and entrepreneurial enough, to value the opportunity of free trade more than they fear its hazards.

Historically speaking, the most unique thing about the United States is that the average American was a freeholder – someone who farmed his own land (Hawaii is the exception, which in this case really does prove the rule). In Europe, indeed in most of the world, the average person did not own the land he worked. In other words, the pre-industrial European economic system had more in common with big business and big labor, in contrast to the pre-industrial American economic system which empowered the individual and encouraged entrepreneurship.

And I think maybe that’s why Israel feels so much more like the US than like Europe. The cultural background of most Israelis is not as freeholders. Jews in both Europe and the Arab lands were outcasts from the agricultural system. They were, of course, barred from the aristocracy, but neither could they submit to being tenant farmers. Thus they were driven to the economic margins, they were the shoemakers, the tailors, and the petty merchants. A lucky few were doctors and bankers. But in poverty and in wealth, they were masters of their own fate – virtual freeholders.

The overall impression I get of Europe is of a kind of docility – Europeans expect to be taken care of, and exploited. Israelis, on the other hand, are known for their chutzpah (huspa). Americans are known for being brash. Europeans are afraid of conflict and chaos, knowing how easily it can degenerate into death and destruction. Israelis and Americans have developed cultural norms of a freeholding society – norms that protect individual freedom while preserving order.

Only a tiny fraction of the Western world now works in agriculture. The vast majority work in business big and small, whether in Israel, Europe, or America. But it seems to me that the cultural memory of our freeholding or peasant past is a major determinant of our worldviews today.

Trackback from trying to grok, CLASS:

My class this weekend was pretty good. We all thought it would focus on the current terrorist events, but instead the prof mostly lectured about terrorism in the 70s and 80s. It was interesting because I didn't know that much...

Sports objectives

Steven Den Beste answers a question about playing fair in sports. Specifically, how should a parent teach his children to play sports. He answers this question first by asking the parent what his objectives are:

Objective 1: Win as many games as possible. Nothing else matters.

If this is the objective, then Greg's question is easy to answer. You use whatever tactics are necessary to win. You instruct your players to play dirty whether the other team does or not. You encourage them to game the referees and teach them the fine points of doing so, and make them practice it.

Objective 2: Turn your kids into saints, who always act correctly irrespective of the consequences. Motives and choices are more important than results. The goal is to raise kids who never sin. (We'll call this "idealistic honor".)

Again, the answer to Greg's question becomes obvious. Tell your kids to not do those kinds of things, no matter whether the opponent does them or not. That will probably mean they'll lose more games, but winning and losing are unimportant. What's important is that they act correctly.

Objective 3: Teach the kids lessons about life so that they grow up to be honorable men who survive and prosper in a world where many are not honorable. (We'll call this "practical honor".)

Surprisingly (to me) Steven chooses Objective 2. Since I am a parent, I think about these kinds of questions. Here are my objectives (with respect to playing sports):

1. War is usually not the right model for viewing life. A transactional model is usually better: neither side should play unless both sides feel that they “win” something. In business this is called the win-win scenario, in economics it’s called a Pareto-optimal solution. Lesson: Look for the win-win scenario – if you can’t find it, walk away.

2. Don’t take things too seriously when they’re not. Lesson: Playing sports is not serious enough to merit cheating.

3. The truth will out – anyone who cheats will lose their reputation, even if they win the game. Lesson: Don’t cheat unless it’s the right thing to do. (Which it’s not, in sports.)

As Steven says, you won’t know what to do unless you know your objectives. I want to teach my kids to always remember their life objectives, and not to get caught up in the formal objectives of sports, or the transient objectives of their current circumstance – in other words, to keep things in perspective.

How odd of God to choose the Jews

Amritas takes on Cynthia Ozick’s article about the new anti-Semitism: The Modern ‘Hep! Hep! Hep!’. I’m impressed by his stamina; it is something of a mystery to me why someone so unconnected to the subject should nevertheless take it on. I, much closer to the subject, thoroughly share his reaction:

I honestly didn't want to read this article. My reaction to it was like my early reaction to Little Green Footballs. Too much anti-Semitism concentrated in one place.

I have a long list of should-reads and should-sees on the subject, which I never seem to get around to. I have never read Diary of Anne Frank, for example, nor have I seen Schindler’s List. (Though I did see Life is Beautiful, one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen. I saw it in Italian with Hebrew subtitles.) Although three generations removed from relatives who perished in the Holocaust, I still have trouble approaching the subject.

Among other things, Cynthia Ozick asks the eternal question: Why the Jews? I know the answer to that question, but before I answer it we should ask a related question: Is there anything unique about anti-Semitism?

The Holocaust was unique. Not that genocide is unique, by any means, but never before or since has one people taken as its existential mission the extermination of another. Nor has one people ever taken such pains to document its inhumanity toward another, or pursued its homicidal mission with such methodical efficiency. The number of Jews murdered by the Nazis was more than the current Jewish population of Israel.

You could argue that the Holocaust is a unique case, as indeed it is, which says more about the Nazis than it does about anti-Semitism. You could say that bigotry and prejudice are more than common, they are universal – the world is full of oppressed peoples. Not just oppressed peoples, but the bones of extinct and dying peoples – the Caribs, the Tasmanians, the Cornish, etc., etc. We Jews have no monopoly on suffering, but there is something unique about anti-Semitism. The Jews are persecuted not as loathsome underclass, but as a rival power – despite the fact that our numbers are microscopic, and our power is tiny.

Why is that? I do not like to dwell on our history as a persecuted people. I do not believe that it is good for us to define our identity negatively. We Jews were not put on Earth to be oppressed, but to play a positive role in the world. What makes anti-Semitism unique, and the answer to the question, “Why the Jews?” is that despite the odds, throughout history, Jews have picked themselves up after burying their dead, and not only survived, but thrived.

UPDATE: The name of this post has been attributed variously to Ogden Nash, and William Norman Ewer.

Reading Hebrew

The Hebrew alphabet consists of 22 consonants, vowels being indicated by “points” – diacritical marks that appear under or around the letters, when written. But usually, people don’t bother writing them at all. How then is Hebrew read, without vowels?

One answer that I often hear is that in Hebrew, vowels aren’t important. This is often corroborated with an example from English: ts nt vry hrd t ndrstnd nglsh thts nt wrttn wth vwls! The sentence would get even easier to read if English had a letter for a glottal stop, which in English, like Hebrew, begins every word that starts with a vowel, and if we used “y” and “w” to indicate “i”, “o” and “u” sounds.

The reason for this is that English words typically have a lot more consonants than vowels, and the chances of two different English words having the same sequence of consonants is low. When it does happen, the words can usually be distinguished by context. But for Hebrew, this is much less the case. Take a look at some Hebrew text, and you will see that the ratio of vowels to consonants is much higher. In fact, it is worse than that. In Hebrew morphology, one word can usually be changed into several others, just by changing the vowels!

How then can Hebrew be read without vowels? Part of the answer is that when Hebrew is written unpointed (without vowel diacritics), the letters “y” and “w” are inserted for “i”, “o”, and “u”. Also “h” is used at the end of a word to indicate “a” or “e”. This still leaves a high degree of vowel ambiguity. The real reason that the system works is that only two things are needed to uniquely identify a Hebrew word: root and pattern. You can always identify a word’s root because roots consist of consonants alone. And it turns out that the degree to which vowels are indicated is enough to disambiguate almost all patterns – the little ambiguity that remains can easily be determined by context, much the way English speakers disambiguate the words to, too, and two.

I was wondering about all this in relation to my last three posts on dyslexia. Does the Hebrew writing system make it easier or harder to read? A lot of people seem to have jumped to the conclusion that it’s harder. But look again at the list of potential problems. Hebrew is written phonetically, it’s just missing some (redundant) information – the information that is written is not misleading, as it sometimes is in English. On the other hand, leaving out redundant information results in words that are significantly shorter, facilitating whole-word recognition. In addition, the nature of the Hebrew language itself works to keep words short. Hebrew compounds are written as separate words, and there are no morphological processes that result in infinitely expanding words, as there are in English. In fact, every new Hebrew learner has had the experience of struggling to figure out a particularly opaque word just to discover that it's English. Today, when I read Hebrew, foreign loan words stick out like sore thumbs – they seem like long strings of random letters.

Non-dyslexic orthography

What would be the ultimate non-dyslexic orthography? Taking the opposites of the list below, it would:

1. Have very different shaped letters

2. Have phonetic spelling

3. Result in short words

4. Result in graphs that facilitate whole-word recognition

5. Be written top-down

It would seem to me that Korean addresses all of these issues – except, perhaps, the first. Each graph represents a syllable, which would tend to shorten words. But the graphs can be sounded-out – they are constructed from phonetic elements. The arrangement of the elements within the graph is two-dimensional, creating a kind of picture that capitalizes on spatial perception (as opposed to putting the characters in a single line, which is one-dimensional). Finally, Korean can be written top-down, avoiding potential left-right problems.

I wonder if there are fewer Korean dyslexics?

I wonder if a Korean-like writing system can be devised which corrects its one problem, the similarity of many of the graph elements?

It would then be no problem to write a program to display any English text in this orthography. In fact, it can be encoded as a font and use existing software!