Yesterday I attended a family gathering organized for my big sister's benefit by her daughter. I think there were 14 of us or so spanning three generations and ranging in age from 12 to 90. My sister is in Southern California as is her daughter and her son-in-law and also my son, Tobias. My sister's son was in northern Pennsylvania with his partner. My sister's grandchildren were in Chicago, Toronto, and Germany. My son Patrick and his wife and two children were in San Francisco and of course I was here in North Carolina. We spent a delightful hour together, only calling it a halt when my sister's son, who is recovering from a mild case of Covid, said that he was running down in energy as a result of the virus.
I imagine countless gatherings of this sort took place over the long Thanksgiving weekend. There is no way in the world that we could have assembled everyone physically in the same place for anything less than a wedding or funeral. I complain from time to time about being shut up here in comfortable isolation with Susie and our cat but the advent of zoom has really been a remarkable gift.
When I was a boy, my entire extended family on my father's side lived in New York City and we regularly got together for family gatherings at Christmas, Thanksgiving, and at other times during the year. It was the next generation – mine – that fanned out across the world, making such gatherings impossible.
One of the unexpected benefits of this kind of repeated family gathering over decades is that it gave me the opportunity to see what people are like as they get old. In my family, there seemed to be two sorts of aging: some of my uncles and aunts aged well, remaining interesting, lively, engaged people well into their 80s. Others grew as they aged into caricatures of themselves, as though they were crustaceans growing shells. It taught me a lot about the human condition.
Then I went to bed and spent a restless hour or two worrying about the Georgia runoffs. Regardless of how things turn out there, I am afraid I must get used to the fact that there will be no dramatic exciting groundbreaking changes in the Biden administration. There will be competence and honesty and a genuine concern for the unfortunate and that is certainly not nothing but I am afraid my fantasies that AOC was the wave of the future will not be fulfilled, at least in my lifetime.
Oh, by the way, you will recall that I asked for suggestions of books for my grandson Samuel's birthday presents and then took down my choices from the blog out of concern that he might see them there. Well, it turns out that Samuel reads my blog which is flattering but a trifle unnerving. So much for springing surprises on the kids.
53 comments:
Prof. Wolff,
Given the history of homo sapiens on this Earth – gladiatorial combats to the death in the Coliseum, with thousands of spectators cheering in exultation, the marauding conquests of the Mongol hordes under Genghis Khan and his grandson Kubla, the Hundreds Year War between England and France, the 30 years war between Protestants and Catholics, the devastation wrought by Napoleon, WWI, WWII and the Holocaust, the disregard for human life in Syria and Yemen, and our near escape from institutionalizing fascism in this country, I submit that “competence and honesty and a genuine concern for the unfortunate” in a government is no small achievement, and perhaps the most that we as a species can hope for.
It is not all we can hope for but, alas, it may be all we can get.
Recently my brother and sister-in-law had their fiftieth marriage day. Just like you, more than a dozen households, scattered in Chennai, California and Tennessee, were connected by zoom for an hour long celebration.
Your grandson Samuel had actually commented here a couple of times, and you had responded to one comment by welcoming him to the blog, and I believe that exchange occurred before you put up the post asking for birthday/book suggestions. So I'm not surprised that he was not surprised by the whole thing.
Dr. Wolff,
When I was about 12, my mother drove us up to Tanglewood to see a concert by the Boston Philharmonic. The inn where we stayed advertised itself as having “modren” accommodations. Modren thus entered ordinary usage in our house.
As for modren science, it is crystal clear that a majority of Supreme Court justices are scientifically illiterate when it comes to the epidemiology of communicable diseases. Gorsuch’s concurring opinion is particularly absurd: it doesn't’ support the court’s ruling so much as demonstrate he is ignorant of the rationale behind the NY restrictions.
The wonders of modern science....yeah everyone has to stay home and chat via computer. What a great advance and achievement.
Christopher,
I am no fan of the current conservative S. Ct. majority, nor of Associate Justice Gorsuch, but I disagree with your assessment of the S. Ct. decision in Roman Catholic Diocese v. Cuomo, and particularly with your demeaning remarks regarding Gorsuch. The justices of the S. Ct. – all of the justices of the S. Ct. – are highly intelligent, well educated, knowledgeable individuals, both of the law and general principles of science. To say of the justices in general that they are “illiterate when it comes to the epidemiology of communicable diseases” and that J. Gorsuch is “ignorant of the rationale behind the N.Y restrictions” is utter nonsense.
The Free Exercise Clause of the 1st Amendment protects a fundamental right which is as basic and substantial as the right of free speech. In order to place any restrictions on either right, under long settled constitutional precedents, a state has to demonstrate that the restrictions have to be justified by a compelling state interest. In addition, any restrictions have to be applied in a manner which does not discriminate between religious institutions and secular institutions = that is, the state may not impose more stringent restrictions on a house of worship than are being imposed on secular business in the same location as the houses of worship. Such disparate treatment would violate the Equal Protection Clause. According to Gorsuch and his four colleagues in the majority, that is precisely what Gov. Cuomo and the State of N.Y. was doing, as he states:
“Churches and synagogues are limited to a maximum of 25 people. These restrictions apply even to the largest cathedrals and synagogues, which ordinarily hold hundreds. And the restrictions apply no matter the precautions taken, including social distancing, wearing masks, leaving doors and windows open, forgoing singing, and disinfecting spaces between services.
“At the same time, the Governor has chosen to impose no capacity restrictions on certain businesses he considers ‘essential.’ And it turns out the businesses the Governor considers essential include hardware stores, acupuncturists, and liquor stores. Bicycle repair shops, certain signage companies, accountants, lawyers, and insurance agents are all essential too. So, at least according to the Governor, it may be unsafe to go to church, but it is always fine to pick up another bottle of wine, shop for a new bike, or spend the afternoon exploring your distal points and meridians. Who knew public health would so perfectly align with secular convenience.”
If patrons of a hardware store, or a liquor store, numbering more than 25 were not at risk of contracting the corona virus given the epidemiological science, then the epidemiological science did not change when applied to houses of worship. And if those at houses of worship were at risk, then so were patrons in hardware stores and liquor stores. And to treat them differently was a clear violation of the Constitution. In fact, even the dissenting justices acknowledge the rectitude of this argument. Their disagreement was procedural, noting that the N.Y. had revised its red and orange zones to treat the houses of worship and essential secular businesses on an equal basis. But this contention did not invalidate the majority’s opinion, because it is a well recognized principle of equitable (i.e., injunctive) relief, that the fact that circumstances have changed in the petitioner’s favor is not a reason not to issue an injunction, since the authorities are always free to revert to the restrictions that violate the law.
While I, myself, am not a religious person, the majority’s opinion was soundly reasoned and correct. And contrary to your condescending view of their intellect, they are not the ignorant idiots you make them out to be.
'my fantasies that AOC was the wave of the future will not be fulfilled'
As communists go, AOC beats Lee Harvey Oswald. I'm kidding, or at least, I hope that AOC represents something really unique and special. A young, dynamic personality, shall we say, who has a modern view of economic theory and social programs, which is sorely needed.
Your 'wave of the future' idea might be about her shocking everyone after overthrowing a powerful incumbent Democrat. Well, I guess that there's zero question that President Donald Trump has moved the Republican Party to the right -- tonally and on things like immigration policy -- over the past few years. What is less well-covered is how far Democrats have tacked to the left in recent years, and how there appears to be some level of unhappiness within the American electorate about the liberalness of the opposition party.
I suppose that my fantasies involving AOC are different, but hooray for fantasies involving AOC..
Let's be honest, who would be paying any attention to AOC if she weren't a fairly attractive young Latina who's highly active on social media? There's not a whole lot more to see beneath the surface there I'm afraid.
Anonymous @8:39
No, her life before being elected to Congress makes clear that's not true.
MS, yesterday you wrote:
The super-wealthy in our society live the lives of the French aristocracy of the 17th and 18th centuries. Unlike the French nobility, they achieved their wealth not by birth, but, for the most part, by hard work and talent (the Kardashians are an exception).
That kind of thinking is a large part of what's wrong with American society. Americans of all stripes, but those Americans who are financially comfortable especially so, embrace the delusion that their wealth is due almost exclusively to their own "hard work and talent," rather than to any advantages of birth.
From that starting point, it becomes quite easy to conclude, as many Americans do—both conservatives and "liberal" elites of the managerial class, that the way things are is just a result of the natural order of things. Ordained by God. Or the outcome of Darwinian evolution. And from there it's a pretty easy slide to: "I earned my money. Why should I have to pay for other people to get an education or be treated for cancer? If they worked harder, managed their money better, and were smarter, they'd be well off too."
The really sad thing is that many of the much larger rest of the population, who aren't so well off, adopt a similar attitude, bewitched by tens of thousands of hours of tv and movie viewing into dreaming that they too will one day join the ranks of the wealthy, perhaps after winning the lottery or receiving an inheritance from an uncle they did not know they had.
Yes, today there are indeed many wealthy Americans, and powerful Americans, who have worked more than European aristocrats of the 17th century. (The bar is so low!) But the notion that they became wealthy and powerful by dint of their smarts and industry with little advantage accruing from the wealth and station of their families is just silly.
As a toddler, Donald Trump was earning $200,000 a year in today’s dollars from his father’s empire. He was a millionaire by age 8. NYT
Kevin Costner - his father, William Costner, was an electrician and, later, a utilities executive at Southern California Edison
Jeff Bridges - the son of actor Lloyd Bridges
Just a quick survey of snippets from Wikipedia bio pages (including some on prominent govt officials who are not super-wealthy, but are certainly super-powerful):
Mark Zuckerberg - parents are a psychiatrist and a dentist
Bill Gates - father was a prominent lawyer, and his mother served on the board of directors for First Interstate BancSystem and the United Way of America. Gates's maternal grandfather was a national bank president.
At 13, he enrolled in the private Lakeside prep school....
Warren Buffett - only son of Congressman Howard Buffett.
Koch Brothers - sons of Fred Chase Koch, a petroleum engineer and business magnate. Their grandfather, Harry Koch ... settled in West Texas, founded the Quanah Tribune-Chief newspaper, and was a founding shareholder of Quanah, Acme and Pacific Railway.
Elon Musk - father is a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, sailor, consultant and property developer.... His maternal grandfather, Dr. Joshua Haldeman [a chiropracter]
Peter Thiel - father worked as a chemical engineer
Jeff Bezos - [Stepfather] Mike worked as an engineer for Exxon.... Bezos's maternal grandfather was a regional director of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in Albuquerque. Gise retired early to his family's ranch near Cotulla, Texas, where Bezos would spend many summers in his youth.
...
Bezos accepted an estimated $300,000 from his parents and invested in Amazon
Larry Page - father ... earned a PhD in computer science from the University of Michigan. BBC reporter Will Smale described him as a "pioneer in computer science and artificial intelligence". Page's father was a computer science professor...and his mother Gloria was an instructor in computer programming
Sergey Brin - father is a retired mathematics professor ... and his mother a researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Pierre Omidyar - father ... is a surgeon who worked as a urologist at Johns Hopkins University.... His mother did her doctorate in linguistics at the Sorbonne
Steve Ballmer - son of a manager at the Ford Motor Company. Ballmer grew up in the affluent community of Farmington Hills, Michigan In 1973, he attended college prep and engineering classes at Lawrence Technological University. He graduated as valedictorian from Detroit Country Day School, a private college preparatory school
Hillary Clinton - father ... managed a small but successful textile business, which he had founded.
Bill Clinton - widowed mother left him to be raised by her parents, who owned and ran a small grocery store. In 1950, Bill's mother returned from nursing school and married Roger Clinton Sr., who co-owned an automobile dealership.
Nancy Pelosi - father was a Democratic congressman ... and he became Mayor of Baltimore
Dianne Feinstein - born to Leon Goldman, a surgeon
Gov Gavin Newsom was born in San Francisco, California, to ... William Alfred Newsom III, a state appeals court justice and attorney for Getty Oil.
Gov Andrew Cuomo was born in the Queens borough of New York City to lawyer and later governor of New York Mario Cuomo
Gov Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania - son William Trout Wolf (1921–2016), a business executive. His hometown was named after his ancestor, who was the town's postmaster.
Elena Kagan - second of three children of Robert Kagan, an attorney
Stephen Breyer - son of Irving Gerald Breyer... legal counsel for the San Francisco Board of Education
John Roberts - father worked as an electrical engineer for the Bethlehem Steel Corporation
Neil Gorsuch's parents were lawyers, and his mother served in the Colorado House of Representatives.... In 1981, she was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to be the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.... He attended Georgetown Preparatory School, a prestigious Jesuit prep school,
Brett Kanaugh - father was a lawyer and served as the president of the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association. His mother ... a Maryland Circuit Court judge.
Timothy Geithner - father ... was the director of the Ford Foundation's Asia program in New York during the 1990s, after working for the United States Agency for International Development.... During the early 1980s, Geithner's father oversaw the Ford Foundation's microfinance programs in Indonesia.... Geithner's mother, a Mayflower descendant, belongs to a New England family. Her father, Charles Frederick Moore, Jr., served as vice-president ... for the Ford Motor Company ... advised President Dwight D. Eisenhower, as well as Nelson Rockefeller and George W. Romney
Hank Paulson - son of ... a wholesale jeweler.
Kamala Harris - mother, Shyamala Gopalan, a biologist whose work on the progesterone receptor gene stimulated advances in breast cancer research.... Her father, Donald J. Harris, is a Stanford University professor emeritus of economics
Now, wrt to the businesspeople above in particular, one might argue that most of them came from families that were middle-class, hardly "wealthy," and that it took hard work and talent to their grow massive fortunes from those beginnings. (Although that's not what MS wrote, and I suspect it probably does not fully capture what he thinks.)
The argument reminds me of a recent discussion on Twitter. Someone wrote:
"These 4 companies: Amazon, Apple, Disney, and Google. All of them started in the GARAGES [pictured], below. Today, they [are] collectively worth more than $5 trillion. Lesson: Humble background leads to success, if followed with perservere, longterm thinking, self belief & commitment."
Several commenters wryly replied with tweets like: "It's funny to think I could afford a garage and that I would have time to work in it." (!)
And someone else replied: "Jeff Bezos was a VP at a hedge fund before he started amazon. Sergey's dad had a friend who was a multi-millionaire cosign their initial loan. Disney did propaganda for Hitler and sent the feds in for his employees who unionized. He was given public money to save himself."
Point being that a very large part of America's wealthy who did not inherit almost all of their wealth (unlike, say, the Waltons) did not grow up in families supported by the earnings of janitors, restaurant workers, or taxi (Uber) drivers.
There are a few notable exceptions, but what some of those exceptions who started out financially struggling did to make their fortunes should not be admired or allowed under law (eg Sen Rick Scott).
By the way, even if you're smarter than others, there's no merit in that. Intelligence is partially genetic (no merit there) and partially due to childhood factors such as parents stimulating your development (no merit there), good childhood nutrition (no merit there),
being exposed to new ideas as a child (no merit there), etc.
I would also bet that working in a discipled manner is the result of genetic factors and upbringing, that is, no merit there either.
Eric,
A couple of points:
1. The fact that many wealthy people today got a head start because their parents were already established actors, business people, doctors, lawyers, etc. just begs the question. The parents did not inherit their status or wealth, but had to work hard for it, using whatever talents they were born with.
2. Several of your examples are factually erroneous. Walt Disney grew up dirt poor in Missouri. The fact that he was anti-union (and according to some, anti-Semitic) has absolutely no bearing on how he earned his wealth. Sergey Brin’s parents were Jews in Soviet Russia who were fired from their jobs as academics when they sought to emigrate and lived in severe poverty during the two years they were out of work until they were granted permission to emigrate. Moreover, there are/were a lot of wealthy athletes (Muhammed Ali, Larry Bird), performing artists (Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash), and actors (Jack Nicolson, Steve McQueen) who grew up in poverty or the lower middle class who became wealthy using their talents
.
3. Your comment misses the point I was making, which was that the wealthy, however they acquired their wealth and however liberal their political views, are not going to support any social movement which jeopardizes their wealth and status. They will give lip service to such ideas, but when push comes to shove, the wealthy will not support proposals for significant income redistribution. Groucho Marx once said, “I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor. Rich is better.” They will support liberal causes with donations, but they will not support the kind of massive financial transfer of wealth which will bring the massive number of people living below the poverty line above the poverty line. It is just a matter of human nature and all your moralistic hyper-ventilating is not going to change it.
4. Finally, your assertion that the few exceptions that did become wealthy beginning from humble backgrounds necessarily earned their wealth in some unscrupulous manner is nonsense, and then to say it should be against the law to become wealthy is ludicrous. As Tevye says in Fiddler, looking heavenward when his future son-in-law declares that money is a curse, “May God strike me with this curse, and may I never recover.”
s. wallerstein,
Obviously, all humans – indeed all creatures on Earth - inherit their abilities and frailties in large part due to their genes. If whatever one accomplishes in life is largely attributable to one’s genetic make-up, and therefore not due to one’s merit, then the word “merit” is stripped of all meaning. Even a hunger artist cannot claim any merit. Even animal performers cannot claim any merit for their astounding tricks. So what does the word mean? Only those whose achievements are contrary to their genetic makeup are entitled to the attribution? But what the hell would that mean – Yonkel over there was born deaf, dumb and blind – but he won the gold medal in gymnastics and wrote one of the greatest novels of all time, so yes, Yonkel’s accomplishments are due to merit.
s.w.
That is exactly one of the points Rawls makes in TOJ in rejecting "desert" as a basis or justification for reward.
My own inclination is to think that luck plays a significant role in many cases. I'm willing to give people credit for hard work and good ideas, even if they are ultimately a result of factors such as upbringing and parentage, but luck is, to use Rawlsian terms, the arbitrary and contingent factor par excellence.
You can even see luck at work in the narrow rarefied precincts of academia: success requires talent, sure, but luck helps. Picking a mentor whose star suddenly rises, choosing a dissertation topic that becomes unexpectedly "hot," having the right combination of factors align at the right time, that all helps. (And being youngish and physically attractive, as well as smart, when you go on the job market doesn't hurt either, esp these days when a lot of people have personal web sites with their photos. Personally I never bothered to figure out how to take a decent photo of myself and upload it to the web, but in my case I'm pretty sure it would not have made much or any difference.)
LFC,
Sorry, but I don’t get it. Is one supposed to feel guilty for one’s genetic make-up which has made it possible for one to achieve success? The use of the word “desert” is derived from “deserved,” so one’s achievements due to a superior genetic make-up are not deserved??? And what are supposed to be the analytical consequences of this? That if your achievements are due in large part to the outrageous good fortune of your genetic make-up, then your good fortune is not deserved and you have some sort of obligation to share the bounty which that undeserved good fortune has blessed you with with those who have not had the good fortune to have a comparable genetic make-up. And what percentage of one’s wealth is attributable to one’s undeserved good fortune as a result of one’s fortuitous genetic make-up? 20%? 30%? 80%? Am I the only one who finds this reasoning insane?
Post-script:
No one who has achieved success in this world – no one - has done so based on their intellectual and/or athletic and/or artistic skills, attributable to their genetic make-up, alone. (Yeah, yeah, I can hear the mumbling, what about Trump? But even in his case, he was willing to put in the time on efforts, e.g., tweeting, which others were not, who failed to appreciate the value of tweeting to reach one’s audience.) It was the very bright scientist who put in the extra hours at the lab, or who read more peer reviewed scholarly articles, who succeeds; it is the actor who shows up for every audition, who forces herself to lose or gain weight for a desired role, who succeeds; it is the athlete who practices making hoop shots until 2 A.M., the left tackle who stays after everyone else has left practice and puts in that extra two hours on the tackling dummy, etc., who succeeds. Genetic make-up alone is not sufficient to succeed. It takes true grit, something that not all people have. And if you respond that even that true grit is attributable to your genetic make-up, or to your disciplined upbringing, and therefore you did not achieve success due to personal merit, and your success is “undeserved,” then you have entered the land of absurd reasoning, and made an argument for eliminating the Nobel Prize, the Oscars, the Pulitzer Prize, etc.
LFC was stating a sensible thought and MS is sitting on his couch drinking a little too much wine and imploring us to not hate him because he's beautiful. This blog is rich.
MS
You're confusing a couple of things, I think. I must be brief right now bc I have other things to do.
First, it is not at all insane to think that anyone's success is largely "undeserved". Rawls makes exactly this argument, as I mentioned.
Second, it does not follow that one has to eliminate all prizes and forms of recognition. The consequences lie rather in areas of public policy having to do directly with distribution and redistribution.
Now I suppose it is possible to mount some philosophical defense of "desert". Nozick probably did that after a fashion, and some others have also. But your use of the word "insane" is just out of place here.
“Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Samuel Beckett
Meritocracy is a myth made up by the winners of this world to make the losers feel even worse about losing. It's bad enough to lose, but with the myth of meritocracy the losers have to feel bad about losing because they didn't "deserve" to win. That's really rubbing it in, adding insult to injury.
Since we're citing scripture, let me cite scripture.
"I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, not yet favour to men of skill, but time and chance happeneth to them all".
Thus spake Yahweh.
LFC,
Far be it from me to criticize John Rawls and take issue with the predicate of his Theory of Justice. I would have thought that on a blog of this nature we pay homage to the quality of the reasoning, not the prestige of the author. But if a claim that one’s achievements are primarily due to one’s genetic make-up are therefore is some sense fortuitous and therefore undeserved, then, yes, I take issue with that premise and call it insane, absurd, ridiculous, or whatever other adjective you wish to use. And I daresay a large part of the world’s population – both literate and illiterate – would agree with me. In fact, some of the greatest literature is about how hard work, diligence, and dedication, in combination with the protagonist’s God given (i.e., genetic) talents were the basis for one’s deserved, meritorious success. And to argue otherwise is, I submit, a case of sour grapes.
LFC has a good point. Luck does play a role. For example, in the old Congo, which is now Zaire, the people finally overcome Belgium rule, and democratically elect Lumumba as their leader. Even though this is a democratic election the U.S. is not too happy with it as Congo had resources (Uranium, to name one) and they feared independent Congo might go the way of Cuba and become communist. So Ike, Dulles, and company arrange a hit on this new leader to get him out of there. Well, that never came to be because Belgium was still giving them fits and supporting the seceding Katanga, and the new leader was killed by the rebel forces. And Mobutu eventually took over and became a classic dictator, the U.S. was happy again, etc. But when Lumumba was in office, he had to make a choice of who would lead the africanized army and with a few great choices before him he chose Mobutu, and the rest is history. So that choice could have gone either way and Mobutu got the straw. So I see what LFC means with the luck thing. In the world of ding an sich, the noumenal world, its all arbitrary if one really thinks of it. And whats with America trying to off a democratically elected leader to schmooz a dictator. Chew on that one for a while.
I find it rather ironic that you would quote scripture to bolster your argument, given your avowed disaffection for organized religion.
In any case, you are misinterpreting the quote from Ecclesiastes. The point of the quote is that one cannot rely on one’s genetic make-up – your strength, your swiftness, etc. – to succeed, but that only by putting your faith in Yahweh can you overcome the vagaries of chance. Since based on your past comments you do not believe in the existence of Yahweh, I am at a loss to understand why you have excavated this quote to support your position.
In any event, putting the existence of Yahweh aside, what the quote points out is that one’s genetic talents are not enough to guarantee success, but that chance and luck also play a role. But, as Seneca stated, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
LFC
How do you overcome Rawls’ point that even our capacity for hard work etc. is a result of genetics and nurturing? I agree with you that most people don’t see it that way, but that doesn’t overcome the merit of his point. As a practical matter, somewhere along the line we are held responsible—age 18, say, or 21. But when we make that first decision for which we are held responsible—whenever that is—all we have to make it with is what came to us before that point by way of genetic endowment and nurturing. And we have done nothing to “deserve” either.
To me, the social benefit of our being aware of this problem is similar to the social benefit of the veil of ignorance: first, we shouldn’t be too fast to pat ourselves on the back for our ability to work hard or our intelligence; second, public policy would likely be much better if we all were to ask ourselves how whether we would support or oppose a given proposal if we didn’t know in advance how it would affect us.
To quote again from Ecclesiastes, and using this comments section as strong evidence, "All is vanity and striving after the wind"
In science, the validity of a theory is demonstrated by conducting empirical experiments and comparing the data of the results with the data which the theory predicted. If they diverge, then reality proves the inadequacy of the theory. Thus, the validity of Einstein’s theory of relativity was proved by empirical observations of the perihelion of Mercury.
The purpose of scientific theories is to explain the reality which we perceive and measure. The purpose is entirely descriptive, not prescriptive. The aim is not to change reality, which would be a fool’s errand. A theory can be used to alter a future reality based on an understanding of the current reality, e.g., using our understanding of climate change to avoid its future catastrophic effects for mankind. But this is not changing the physical forces which determine that reality, it is influencing those physical forces in the most optimal manner to avoid consequences we regard as adverse.
How do the goals of a theory of justice compare with the goals of a scientific theory? Are they not similar? That is, the theory of justice begins with the premise that there is an inequality of justice in the world and offers an explanation of how that has occurred, with an eye to reducing the inequality. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that a large part of the inequality in the world is attributable to the fortuitous differences in the genetic make=up of the individuals in the world, with the smarter, the stronger, those born in families with a stability, whose parents have already achieved a degree of economic success which they use to advance the future success of their offspring, as compared with those born who are less smart and/or less athletic and//or less innately talented, and/or living in poverty with less stable home lives, and therefore, in order to counter these fortuitous inequalities, the individuals who fortuitously benefit from being smarter, stronger, born to wealthier families, etc., should share their good fortune who, there but for the fortune go I, have been dealt a less promising hand of cards. This is the descriptive part of the theory which corresponds to the descriptive aspect of a scientific theory.
But this is not enough for a theory in the social sciences to be accorded with the same degree of approval that a scientific theory is accorded, that is, using the descriptive understanding of how the world works to prescribe a program which, in light of that understanding, will remedy the problem which inspired the devising of the theory to begin with, recognizing the reality that the theory has succeeded in unveiling in the descriptive phase. I do not see Rawls’ Theory of Justice as doing that. That is, it proposes solutions that run counter to the very reality which the descriptive phase unveiled; it proposes solutions which will be resisted by the very forces which created the reality of inequality of justice to begin with. And what good is a theory which offers proposals which are unrealistic, ineffective, and have no likelihood of success, since they require a change in human nature which the descriptive phase demonstrated are responsible for the inequality? People who have succeeded by virtue of the fortuitous fact that their genetic make-up, their home environment, the location of where they were born, are not going to acknowledge that their success is purely a matter of chance and therefore undeserved, and they should be willing to recognize this unfair advantage and be willing to sacrifice some percentage of their undeserved fortune to those less fortunate in order to redress the inequality that pure chance has provided them.
(Continued)
American law takes a different approach and seeks to even the playing field by equalizing opportunity – by, for example, outlawing discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religions, gender; by authorizing universities and employers to use affirmative action if the goal is to increase diversity, without using quotas. Granted, increasing opportunity does nothing to remove the inequalities due to differences in genetic make-up, but if efforts to remove such inequalities run counter to human nature, what is the point in expounding such remedies when they are unachievable by virtue of the realities which the descriptive phase of the theory has demonstrated exist? The law may also fall short in fulfilling a complete equalization of opportunity, but it holds out the promise of greater success than proposals which disregard the realities of human nature.
David Palmeter
I am basically in agreement with you.
Incidentally, an interesting addition to Eric's list, above, would be Clarence Thomas. Born to a poor mother and with a father who abandoned the family, he ended up being raised mainly by his grandfather, who was a strong personality, a disciplinarian, and started and ran his own successful business in the Jim Crow South.
Mike Tyson
LFC,
I’m sorry, the life story of Clarence Thomas proves Eric’s point – that the success of successful people in America is attributable to the fact that they, or their parents, enjoyed the fortuitous advantage that their social status or genetic make-up afforded them? The fact that Clarence Thomas came from a broken home, was raised by a grandfather who, despite Jim Crow segregation, was able to establish a successful business, which then proved Clarence Thomas with an education that others were not afforded, who, through his hard work as an undergraduate student (after a number of missteps which almost derailed his college education), and then, with the assistance of affirmative action got admitted to one of the best law schools in the country, became the head of the EEOC and then Supreme Court Justice – this all proves that success in America – all success in America – is attributable to the privileges of birth???
What it suggests is that, but for the presence of his grandfather in his life, he likely would not have succeeded. And that supports the broader point about the importance of circumstances outside one's own control. The young Clarence Thomas could not wave a magic wand and conjure a strong father figure and authority figure out of thin air. It was luck that the grandfather happened to be there. Does this mean Thomas deserves absolutely no credit for his own success? A difficult question. My position is slightly less absolutist on this than some, in that I am comfortable giving him some credit, but a limited amount. I would say the same about anyone basically, I think.
MS,
Not yet having had a productive conversation with you yet, I am disinclined to respond. But, WTF. I am not alone is decrying the scientific illiteracy of the court’s majority. Jeffrey Sachs titled his op-ed as follows: “Supreme.Court’s scientifically illiterate decision will cost loves.”
People at religious services stay there for a long time, typically converse with each other before and after services, recite prayers aloud, and sing. The 25 people circulating through a liquor or hardware store get what they need and leave, rarely greet or converse with other patrons, never sing or recite prayers together, and leave within a few minutes. If Gorsuch, or you, do not get the important epidemiological difference between church services and liquor stores then there is no wonder why the pandemic is out of control. There is, contrary to claims made in the decision, a considerable body of literature already on church services being the source of covid outbreaks. And it being a communicable disease, transmission is orders of magnitude more likely during church services than during a commercial exchange in a liquor store. Hence it is not discriminatory when more stringent rules are applied to churches, etc. It is rational based on the evidence.
Thanks for citing one of the more revealing paragraphs of Gorsuch’s decision. Acupuncture is a medical treatment, treatments don’t last all afternoon, and no one is “exploring their meridians”. Gorsuch is simply using ridicule to make an argument he can’t make on the merits. In NYC, and other urban areas, many people commute to work on bikes, and many people have jobs that depend on bikes, so in fact bike repair shops are essential. Kavanaugh states NY’s restriction “are not tailored to the circumstances given the 1st Amendment interests at stake.” NY’s covid restrictions were created to meet the circumstances of being the most densely populated area in the country and so its restrictions on a practice with the highest likelihood of casing disease transmission is in fact rational. (Having seen Kavanaugh perform at length, as I am sure you did as well, it would be wise not to overstate the intelligence of the court as a whole.)
What I do know about the court’s majority in this case is that, like Alito, they believe that the practitioners of Protestant fundamentalism suffer from the slings and arrows of outrageous criticism by the larger society. That claim, I suspect, is as delusional as the belief that the earth is 6,000 yrs old. But both are fervently held. Further, the conservative majority in this case uncritically assumed that delusion to be true and that secular authorities were being biased.
If the conservative majority was intellectually honest, their decision would have included a discussion of this question: during a pandemic, wherein lies the balance between one’s liberty to attend religious services conflict with my right not to be harmed by their exercise of their liberty? If, however, they had that discussion, the decision would have been different.
You conclude with this: “contrary to your condescending view of their intellect, they are not the ignorant idiots you make them out to be.”
I wrote “It is crystal clear that a majority of Supreme Court justices are scientifically illiterate when it comes to the epidemiology of communicable diseases.” There is no way to conclude I think them to be ignorant idiots from what I said, but you go there anyway.
LFC,
I vehemently disagree with you. Yes, Clarence Thomas benefited from the fortuitous fact that his grandfather provided a strong role model, but his grandfather’s success in the light of the oppression of living in the Jim Crow South was not due to luck or fortune – it was due to hard work and diligence in the face of overwhelming odds, it was due to true grit. And later, when Clarence Thomas faced ridicule because of his Gullah dialect, he worked to overcome it – which took true grit. And his studious devotion to learning the law at Yale, despite the significant odds against him, speak to his credit and not to the vagaries of fortune. Henry Louis Gates’ PBS program, “Finding Your Roots,” is filled week after week with stories of people who overcame great adversity to succeed in life despite the odds, who then were able to provide a less perilous future for their children, and they in turn for their children. They deserve an acknowledgement of their merit over and beyond their genetic make-up, which your perspective would deny them. There are more things in heaven and earth than your philosophy accounts for.
Christopher Mulvaney, Ph.D.,
Neither you nor Prof. Sachs, for whom I have a good deal of respect as an economist, are attorneys or, apparently, know anything, or care, about constitutional law. (As an aside, Prof. Sachs’ father, Ted Sachs, whom I knew, was a prominent labor lawyer in Detroit.)
Neither you, nor Prof. Sachs, understand the rationale of the majority decision. When the Equal Protection Clause is violated, especially with respect to a fundamental 1st Amendment right such as freedom of speech or of religion, the disparity can be corrected in one of two ways – by removing the disparity by making the more rigorous conditions which apply to the fundamental right the same as the less rigorous conditions which apply to the non-fundamental right; or making the less rigorous conditions which apply to the non-fundamental as rigorous, or more rigorous, than those which apply to the fundamental right. The majority was not making a judgment as to which direction the disparity had to be corrected. But the existence of the disparity was per se unconstitutional. Had Gov. Cuomo restricted the number of patrons in liquor stores, bicycle shops, etc. to the same degree as the restrictions on the houses of worship, that would have removed the unconstitutional disparity. The majority was not maintaining that that the removal of the disparity had to be accomplished by making the restrictions on the houses of worship more lenient to equal the less rigorous restrictions on the secular businesses. The epidemiological data was the same for both entities, but Gov. Cuomo ignored the fact that the epidemiological evidence could be accorded the precautions they called for without violating the Constitution.
Indeed, even the dissenters agreed that the original restrictions violated the Constitution, but took the position that since the restrictions had been revised to remove the disparity, there was no need to issue the preliminary injunction. The majority disagreed, citing, as I stated in my original comment rebutting your comment, that it is standard procedure to enter an injunction in order to pretermit the possibility that the governing entity will reinstate the original disparity.
Your accusation that you are unable to have a productive conversation with me may be more attributable to your taking positions on issues which have legal implications when you know nothing about the law, and appear to count that as a badge of honor. And when someone asserts that the justices on the Supreme Court are “scientifically illiterate,” it is pretty much calling them idiots, and, regardless, is inaccurate.
I have to say, MS, that from the way you respond to people you disagree with you'd make a dreadful teacher.
Anonymous,
I make a dreadful teacher because I ruffle the feathers of commenters on this blog with whose opinions I disagree? In none of the above comments did I resort to ad hominem insults, something I have been accused of in the past. And if I am to act as a teacher, regarding the law, for example, am I to be criticized for correcting the misapprehensions of those who know nothing about the law?
By the way, I taught both Occupational Health Law and American With Disabilities Act law to physicians enrolled in a Masters program at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and received uniformly high evaluations for my pedagogical skills. But they did not complain that their feelings were being hurt when I told them a legal analysis they offered was off the mark.
No, it's not because you ruffle feathers, it's because you express contempt for those who disgree with you.
Religious expression is explicitly protected in the bill of rights, so it is harder to legally interfere with it than, say, the ability of people to get their bikes fixed or purchase their boxed wines at the corner store.
The right to bear arms is also explicitly protected. ;)
MS,
You have a firm grasp of at least one obvious fact: I am not a lawyer, or constitutional law expert, and neither is Dr. Sachs. There is another obvious fact: you are not an expert in social and political theory. A legal judgement, irrespective of whether it is properly decided, can be subjected to types of textual analysis that have nothing to do with legal reasoning, such as hermeneutics, and ideological critique. These are valuable approaches to understanding any document, legal or otherwise. Dr. Wolff’s online lectures on ideological critique are a tour de force and i encourage you to watch them.
For reasons that should be obvious even to lawyers, but apparently wasn’t in the scope of the majority’s awareness, there is no epidemiological equivalent between liquor stores and religious services. If you can’t reason to why that is the case, then read up on the epidemiology of communicable diseases. Understand that Covid-19 is a highly contagious virus, that how long you are in contact with an infected non-symptomatic person will affect the level of your viral load, which affects the severity of your infection. I have not heard of super-spreader events occurring in liquor stores, but there are multiple accounts of these events resulting from religious services.
You will notice that I didn't’ contest your discussion of the the court’s process, and you didn’t substantively contest my points. That the court decided the case properly is not of interest to me, and apparently anything other than that is outside your’s. I don’t count ignorance of anything as badge of honor, and I state it only to be forthright. I know when I have expertise and when I don’t. Consider acknowledging the same.
I’ll ignore your posts and encourage you to do likewise.
In any event, my initial judgement was correct.
Christopher Mulvaney, Ph.D.
Your original comment about the decision in RCD v. N.Y. was that it was wrongly decided, that the justices who joined the majority opinion were ignorant regarding the epidemiology related to the contagiousness of the corona virus and simply allowed their pro-religious fervor to override science and common sense. You made demeaning remarks about their intelligence because you, given your superior intellect, knew better.
The only way to analyze the rectitude of a legal decision is based on the law, something which you admit you know next to nothing about. I explained in my response to you that under Constitutional precedent, government cannot impose stricter restrictions on religious observance than on secular practices without a compelling state reason. It is established law that concerns for public health can in fact constitute a compelling reason for imposing disparate conditions on religious observances vs. secular practices. The justices were fully aware of these precedents and took them into account in their decision. You write about the justices as if they are so ignorant, so caught up in a medieval religious frenzy that they did not know what a super spreader event is, that they were oblivious to the ubiquitous reports regarding the extreme contagiousness of the virus. The majority did not disregard the epidemiology. They just reaffirmed that under the law the epidemiology did not override the Constitutional requirement of equal treatment, so that the secular practices could not be treated more leniently than the religious observances. The constitutional solution was to impose the same degree of strictness on the businesses which were in the same epidemiological zone as were imposed on the religious observances. This is both a sound scientific and constitutional resolution of the issue – a resolution which the dissenting justices agreed with, but which they maintained had become moot.
You write: “What I do know about the court’s majority in this case is that, like Alito, they believe that the practitioners of Protestant fundamentalism suffer from the slings and arrows of outrageous criticism by the larger society. That claim, I suspect, is as delusional as the belief that the earth is 6,000 yrs old. But both are fervently held. Further, the conservative majority in this case uncritically assumed that delusion to be true and that secular authorities were being biased.” Where did you get this nonsense from? Do you know what Alito’s personal views are on religion? Can you point to anything in any decision he has written that indicates he believes in a literal reading of the Bible, that he believes the Earth is 6,000 years old? You cannot. But you have this disdainful bias against Alito and his four conservative colleagues because you believe you are more sophisticated and learned than they.
I am not a big fan of the conservative justices, but when I evaluate their opinions, I evaluate them on their legal and factual merit, not on a sense of superior intellect. I opposed Kavanaugh’s nomination because I believed he did sexually assault Prof. Blassey Ford when they were teenagers and that he committed perjury during the nomination hearing regarding the reason he wrote the anti-abortion memo when he was in the Bush Attorney General’s Office. But none of this has any bearing on the legal merit of any of his decisions. But you, knowing virtually nothing about the law, insist that your opinion regarding the validity of the decision in R.C.D. v. N.Y. is correct because it is informed by your superior knowledge of hermeneutics and ideological critique.
Feel free to ignore my comments if you wish. But I will not hesitate to take issue with comments you submit when I believe they are poorly reasoned and not supported by the facts, regardless the effect on your ego. And no, your initial judgment was not correct.
MS
I wrote two sentences critical of the majority’s understanding of epidemiology. But you, who is compelled to correct the errant understanding of commentators on this blog, must ride in on your white horse with the “truth.” You are always correct, and those who have offended your legal, or other, sensibilities are alway wrong. And woe unto us foolish enough to disagree. We will be subject to a torrent of verbiage that signifies nothing in the end.
You are like every pro-Trump supporter with whom I have ever had a conversation, if it can be called a conversation. First, the Trumpista gets offended by what I said or wrote, and blathers on with a screed on how Trump is right. If I should persist in my criticism, their tone gets angrier and they become more insistent that they are right. The next stage is to mischaracterize what I said or wrote and go full bore on personal attacks. It fits you to a T.
You fail to understand reasoning when it is not your own, but you are nonetheless certain the offending reason is wrong. Not understanding something, you typically ridicule it. Example: I stated there are other ways to analyze a SCOTUS ruling besides what lawyers learn during their professional education, namely hermeneutics and ideological critique (there are others I didn’t mention). Perhaps my knowledge of these approaches is superior to yours, but that is not a claim I made. I claimed only that there are other ways under the sun to analyze texts. You insist if it’s a legal text, there isn’t. That’s foolish.
As to your penchant for mischaracterization, an example. There is no doubt that Alito believes the SCOTUS decision that upheld same-sex marriage and other trends in civil society have fueled intolerance against those who believe in traditional marriage, and traditional sexual mores. “For many today, religious liberty is not a cherished freedom. It is often just an excuse for bigotry and can’t be tolerated, even when there is no evidence that anybody has been harmed ….The question we face is whether our society will be inclusive enough to tolerate people with unpopular religious beliefs.” (Alito’s speech to the Federalist Society 11/12/20) To answer your question as to where I get this nonsense from - the horse’s mouth. You might try keeping current with the news.
I did not say Alito believed in the young earth b.s. I said, and you freakin’ quoted it, that his belief that fundamentalists are subjected to bigotry is as delusional as that theory is. So, to correct your willful misrepresentations once again, I did not claim to know Alito’s personal religious beliefs. What I am clear on are the biases, and even delusions, that he and other members of the conservative majority hold.
As to his thoughts on pandemic related restrictions: “The pandemic has resulted in previously unimaginable restriction on individual liberty. The covid crisis has served as a sort of constitutional stress test and in doing so it has highlighted disturbing trends that were already in evidence before the pandemic struck.” You can reach your own conclusion as to the links between his views on religious liberty and the pandemic. I do know what Alito thinks on some important issues because I have read what he has said. Try it.
In conclusion, nothing you say would ever have any sway over my ego. To think otherwise is the height of arrogance, an unpleasant trait which you possess in spades. I have a full complement of well functioning defense mechanisms. Read Sigmund or Anna Freud to understand that topic.
By now i am sure I have said several things that will offend your sensibilities. If you are compelled to launch another screed, go ahead and waste your time
I am going to make one point and then let this dialogue with you go, because, yes, it is a waste of my time. You wrote: “That claim, I suspect, is as delusional as the belief that the earth is 6,000 yrs old. But both are fervently held. Further, the conservative majority in this case uncritically assumed that delusion to be true and that secular authorities were being biased.” You first used the word “claim” to refer to Alito’s assertion that the conservative right is under attack from the liberal left. You then used the phrase “delusional” to refer to “the belief that the earth is 6,000 yrs. old ... “ You proceeded to use the phrase “that delusion” – not the phrase “that claim” – and attributed “that delusion” to the “conservative majority,” The antecedent of the phrase “that delusion” was “the belief that the earth is 6,000 yrs. old.” I did not distort your words; I interpreted the exact words you used.
Where you got the idea that I align myself with Trump and his maniacal supporters is beyond me.
MS
One out of two ain’t bad. I can admit when you are right, just so ya know. My construction of that sentence was in error. No sooner than you get something right, you blow it. I did not say you are, were, or align yourself, with Trump supporters, I said “you are like” Trump supporters with respect to how a discussion tends to proceed. The ‘like’ makes it a simile.
Chrisopher J. Mulvaney, Ph. D.,
Oh my God, the lengths you will go to in distorting the English language in order to preserve your ego from an acknowledgement that you were wrong. Is seems to me that saying person X is like person Y with regard to Y’s views is equivalent to saying that X’s views align with Y’s views. I would have thought that an expert in hermeneutics and ideological critique would have known that.
I have a question for you: Have you embroidered the letters Ph. D. on the back of all of your sport and suit jackets just to let people who are approaching you from the rear how intelligent and educated you are?
Oh my God, the lengths you will go to in order to preserve your ego. As i think I said, it's your contemptuousness, your disdain for others, that makes it impossible to have a conversation with you. You, of course, don't regularly proclaim your legal expertise. I suppose you have that emblazoned on your forehead?
PS I feally enjoyed AJH's statistical analysis of your prolixity.
Anonymous,
He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool, shun him.
He who knows, and knows that he knows, and shows contempt for those who know not, but pretend to know, is wise, follow him.
Ancient Chinese proverb
Noting the 'Is meritocracy good or bad?' debate here, and that the term itself was coined in 1958 by the sociologist Michael Dunlop Young in his satirical essay The Rise of the Meritocracy. Also, if we contrast it with hereditary aristocracy, then you tell me. Apparenently, the point for some, is that the fortuitous windfall of external events os such that the world *isn't* meritocratic. I was told as a child that life isn't fair. The belief that merit rather than luck determines success or failure in the world is demonstrably false. I do tire, though, of the idea that there is no justifying the status quo. Hey, fee the United States, Trump's wall isn't keeping you in.
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