Dr. Frank's What's-it

Canada is the Berkeley of North America.

Other than Berkeley, that is. It's the other Berkeley of North America.

"plus, she's Canadian, and they don't even vote in our elections. Yet."

Ha. Just remember...We'll always have the war of 1812.

Thanks muchly for the hits!

HugeTim's lasted plaintive bleat at his comments section ('What's wrong with philosophy, anyhow?') merely illustrates the reason it is so very exhausting, arguing with Kids These Days (tm).

As a matter of fact, I have heard of Thomas Aquinas. But has Tim ever heard of Woody Allen? Since the mid-60s, Allen has relied upon a quiver of stock words and phrases to fill out his punchlines. "Nixon". "Mother-in-law". "EST". "Hitler".

And "philosophy major".

Tim, baby! We're not laughing with you! We're laughing AT you! Please broaden and deepen your cultural reference points before arguing with grown ups again.

Kathy-

I'm not real sympathetic to your idea that Africa's troubles are just a matter of failing to take the bone out of its collective nose, but I can see how you reacted the way you did to Tim's pestering.

"Plagues of the Mind," though? Jeez, I think it's kind of ironic for an "official Catholic" (as opposed to the x-mas & Ash Wednesday kind like me, well...I don't even do Ash Wednesday anymore) to be throwing the "anti-scientific-irrationalism" punch...

Spacetoast: what exactly in my posts did you object to?

That mindless tribalism and fatalism, not to mention superstition, are not exactly 21st C ideals, wherever they happen to crop up (such things make the Mafia what it is, too, but Tim raised the spectre of Africa). That African dictators are corrupt? That decades of aid money has accomplished exactly zero?

DeSoto has lots to say about why capitalism hasn't caught on everywhere, too. Is it unseemly of him to ask why some countries get it and some do not?

There simply IS no comparison between a bone in the nose and a man on the moon (I regret to add, I didn't come up with that myself, as I'm sure you are aware -- see http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg121399.html

Many many African people really do lengthen their necks and paint themselves and do all kinds of bizarre body mods. Is there something rude about me daring to point it out in an unsympathetic fashion? Then I am proudly rude!

Spacetoast: what exactly in my posts did you object to?

That mindless tribalism and fatalism, not to mention superstition, are not exactly 21st C ideals, wherever they happen to crop up (such things make the Mafia what it is, too, but Tim raised the spectre of Africa). That African dictators are corrupt? That decades of aid money has accomplished exactly zero?

DeSoto has lots to say about why capitalism hasn't caught on everywhere, too. Is it unseemly of him to ask why some countries get it and some do not?

There simply IS no comparison between a bone in the nose and a man on the moon (I regret to add, I didn't come up with that myself, as I'm sure you are aware -- see http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg121399.html

Many many African people really do lengthen their necks and paint themselves and do all kinds of bizarre body mods. Is there something rude about me daring to point it out in an unsympathetic fashion? Then I am proudly rude!

Kathy-

Of course there is a terrific disparity. And I agree that the salient feature there, in the case of Africa in particular, is a kind of pervasive prerational worldview. But, exactly because I *do* diagnose the thing that way, the notion that the solution is just a matter of Africans "getting with the program" strikes me as completely unrealistic. In fact, I think you can't have it both ways, that is, you can't have it both that Africans are by and large prerational savages, *and* that they could make their troubles go away if they'd just, y'know, quit being prerational savages. Imagine going into some plague-addled medieval village and saying "look everyone, this is the germ theory of disease...got it? Good. Now quit with superstition stuff." It's completely fanciful.

More generally, it's a cliche that "self-made" folks always wonder why other people don't just "get it together" the way they did. Maybe that stereotype fits you. Well, I am not a self-made folk. I have luckily for the most part always had people around to pick me up and dust me off after my zillionth screw-up. Grandiloquently, I am intimately acquainted with man's unbounded capacity for falling flat on his face...over and over again...in exactly the same way...and, as a consequence of that I guess, my deepest views tend to be informed by the idea that idiots with their faces in the dirt ought generally to be picked up, even if you know they're just going to topple over again five seconds later, and even if they are after all idiots. Now, that's not to say that good intentions along those lines can't horribly misfire, or that interference in other people's fuck-ups is always a good or helpful thing...

So, I guess I basically agree with you about what exactly Africa's big problem is. And I even agree with you that the "helping hands" of the UN et al, have aggravated the problem often as not. And I definitely don't have any solutions. What I disagree with you about is your idea that "pulling the bone out of the nose" is just some kind of easy operation that gets randomly neglected by the very people who suffer from "the bone"; on the other hand, what I object to in your posts is that what you call "being rude" I call crowing from the sidelines at a grade-A human tragedy.

heehee- i think there's another flamewar starting in response to the flamewar link.

that was an awesome read, though. now i can't look at hd without giggling uncontrollably, too.

isn't the exchange of ideas fun?

So.... spacetoast's objections to the Africa-pick-yourself-up theory have nothing to do with Africa and everything to do with him- (or her-) self. You know, space, maybe if there hadn't been someone always available to pick you up "after the zillionth screwup" you wouldn't have had, well, a zillion screwups, but maybe only a million or so until you finally got it through your thick head that your problems are due to something _you_ keep doing wrong, and therefore only you can end them. This attitude may also work in the case of many of Africa's problems -- most of which are the result of ingrained cultural attitudes, and not because rich, white people are stingy. I'm just sayin.'

(flame, flame)

Andrea-

I agree that there is a substantive argument to be had about whether/what-kind-of intervention is right, in terms of Africa in particular, and in terms of other peoples' miseries in general. I said so explicitly. I don't pretend that "getting involved" is ever obviously the right or best thing to do. But I gather from your comments about my "zillion screwups" that we agree that at least part of the criterion for deciding whether and in what way to interfere ought to be something like "what would be the case otherwise." I'm glad we agree on that.

But look, I gave two distinct answers to Kathy's question about where I parted company with her. One was about the degree of difficulty of breaking the grip of that doggone prerational worldview. The other was a statement of my own general feelings about helping people. I separated those two answers out, so don't you go conflating them and then accusing me of doing that.

"... not because rich, white people are stingy."

Dunno who you're talking to here.

Andrea,

I gather from former-lefty-Catholic-current- firebreathing-reactionary Kathy that she grew up poor in Canada, and now believes everyone should just suffer and die until they realize that all their problems are their own fault (maybe she's really a very aggro Scientologist; hey Kathy, do you feel causative about your life? Are you clear yet? How's your havingness?)

Was Kathy's family living off the grid in Saskatchewan, or did they themselves benefit from Canada's social welfare system? Did Doug and Bob's "extorted tax dollars" pay for the "a-hole behaviour" (note the British spelling -- Canadians are soooo cute!) of her mom, thus supporting her own upbringing? Seems a little problematic to ridicule the system responsible for your own health care and education.

Also, I notice more debate downthread over there about abortion. Why aren't Catholics as motivated to advocate the Church's positions on abolishing the death penalty, or nuclear disarmanent, or workers' right to organize unions? I'm pretty sure papal bulls have been issued on all these topics too -- I mean, JP II even forgave Mehmet Ali Agha (sp?) for shooting him! I'm not Catholic and I'm pro-choice, but I'm just wondering if there's a reason other than expediency/the US political atmosphere for always talking about abortion and virtually never mentioning the other issues.

Kathy, I'm fully willing to discuss the Woody Allen movies I've seen, but I don't see the relevance.

Look, guys, of course Africans need to take responsibility for their problems and do what they can to address them themselves.

But, first, Jesus calls us to forgive seventy times seven times, and he calls for us, who have two cloaks, to give to those who have none.

Secondly, do you deny that the West has exploited Africa and other places in a thousand ways over the past two centuries? Do you deny that we, too, therefore have responsibility for the problems of Africa? (e.g. http://www.africainsight.org/misperceptions/metro.php)

Thirdly, do you consider Jesus pre-rational? That term really disturbs me. Pre-scientific, fine, but pre-rational?

Nick, my father took off when I was three years old, and my high school drop out mom, who was a painfully shy teetotaller, went to, of all things, bartending school and worked six days a week at a bar. She never accepted welfare or, come to think of it, used the medical system until she died of cancer 18 months ago. So I figure between her income taxes of 50 years minus her year of cancer treatment, she and the govt came out pretty much even.

And since I went to Catholic school, we did pay for my high school tuition.

Plenty of Catholics are involved with the disarmament, death penalty and the unions. Perhaps you haven't heard of the Catholic Worker movement, the French worker-priest phenomenon of the previous century, or Pax Christi to name three off the top of my head. That may be because the media would rather portray Catholics as abortion clinic bombers. It makes for better copy/stories. Or it may be because you're not very well informed.

Andrea: I wanna bear all your children!!

And Tim: if you didn't 'get' my last jab at you, your are dimmer than I imagined. You. Are. The. Living. Punchline. Of. A. Joke. Do? You? Un? Der? Stand? Now?

Sheesh. I need to go have a lie down...

And one more thing, Nick. Your argument doesn't make sense. So: if a thief stole my money, kept half for himself then bought me a really crappy present with the other half, I have no right to complain about either the theft or the quality or very galling existence of the unwanted 'gift'? The expression adding insult to injury comes to mind. Taxes aren't voluntary, last time I checked.

And Tim: Spacetoast said 'pre-rational', not me. And last time I checked, Jesus was born in the Middle East, not Africa (the cont. we were talking about) -- unless you're (egads) a Black Studies minor, on top of everthing else...

Tim, yeah, I introduced the term 'prerational'. I intended it as a characterization of a "worldview" not of individuals...cognitive ethologists debunked the idea that "savages" can't draw inferences (like we westerners can) a while ago. You're probably right that, "pre-scientific" would've worked just about as well, but to me that kind of implies that it's just a matter of not having the right information, and I think it's more complicated than that.

Kathy-

I think your explanation for why it seems like more Catholics are interested in abortion than those other issues is a pretty lame one, and citing ad hoc groups doesn't help. We could list various gay/lesbian specialty groups and say, "well, see, Catholics are pro-gay, you're just a dupe for the big bad left-wing media." Nope. Try again.

And (egad) get off your high horse, Church dogma is no more historically respectable on the biography of Jesus (if there was such a Jesus) than "Black Studies" scholarship.

eek! That should be 'ethNologists'...with an 'n'.

I'm Catholic.

Go Kucinich!

Kathy,

I echo Spacetoast on your examples of Catholic Worker, Pax Christi, Phil Berrigan, et al. I am actually well informed on this issue: I've been involved in the peace movement for over 10 years, and personally know a number of christian peace activists (that is, peace activists whose activism is intrinsically involved with their personal sense of their faith), some Catholic, others not. Even the Catholic Church, which is only one part of the world christian community, is an enormous and diverse organization, from Mel Gibson and Opus Dei to liberation theology. Obviously, if Dorothy Day had gotten to be Pope, the Church would emphasize different issues, but I don't think there's any way to dispute my assertion that the Church in this country is much more active about its anti-abortion position than its anti-death penalty, anti-nuke, or pro-worker positions. One example: no woman can get an abortion at a Catholic hospital, but dozens, if not hundreds of those same Catholic hospitals have hired union busters to attack their employees when they try to organize a union, in direct contradiction of Church teaching. At the very least, I'm curious if the Church, to your knowledge (and I know you don't practice any more, so I understand that you're not speaking for the Church or Catholics in any way) has any advice when the only anti-abortion candidate in an election supports the death penalty and nuclear weapons.

Your thief analogy only makes sense in a non-democratic system. The whole point of democracy is that we all get a say in government policy, sometimes directly through ballot propositions and sometimes indirectly through elected office holders. Even the "big goverenment" that "steals" money from Canadians or US citizens was created through the democratic process (imperfect, esp. here, but that's maybe another discussion), and directly in response to the injustices of the capital market oligopoly that results from an unregulated (and untaxed) economy. I can't talk in detail about Canadian history, but in the US "big government" wasn't imposed on us as part of some big conspiracy -- it evolved as a solution to the enormous social ills that plagued our society for decade after decade once we industrialized, and in large part the New Deal was designed to forestall actual revolution in response to the Depression. The private economy proved itself incapable of solving these problems, so the people took matters into their own hands rather than waiting for the "invisible hand" to start acting on their behalf.

Public institutions aren't perfect by a long shot, but they're accountable to voters. Private for-profit institutions are accountable to money. There's a big difference here, and I don't think it's possible to have genuine democracy when money is the only determinant of power in a society.

Hi everyone!
I'm new and this is my first post (hoorah!).
have just spent ten minutes (probably longer) reading through all your posts.
Do you people agree on anything?
I know that the whole point of this organisation is to get you to discuss certain topics and opinions but sometimes it can turn into an argument. Plus, I'm pretty young and have no idea what half of those words mean. Could it be because state schools are not substantial enough and too over-crowded to educate the majority of students properly?
I do realize that everyone here is very clever and smart,as well as opinionated, so you don't have to listen to me if you don't want to.
I guess I'm just a regular, normal, boring person.
In my opinion, the most exciting thing that happens to me in everyday life, is at school where you wish each lesson would end. And then when it does, you just think 'Uh oh. Another 55 minutes to go again'.
Anyway, I'm drifting away from the real reason for this post which was : What do you think of Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, the Cuban revolutionary.
Do you think that his doings affected life today?

PS. I think Kathy needs to loosen up a bit. I mean, sure, voice your opinions. But surely if you want your opinions to be heard, you have to listen to others as well and look at it from their side of view, instead of continually arguing with them about every opinion they say.
The more you talk, the less people are going to listen.