Four Saints in Three Acts

A new recording! From the excellent BMOP!

Slate Star Codex

Destroys the "Trump is a racist" meme.

Sunstein, I salute you

Cass Sunstein, on fighting groupthink.

A little Lekeu

Lekeu was 21 in 1891. He died three years later.

NBC on the job!

Here.

Should voters be allowed to pick Mary Ann?

There is a clear division between those who would pick Ginger and those who would pick Mary Ann. In most polls Mary Ann wins. But this is problematic. Are voters making a rational choice? Mary Ann voters describe her as more stable, low-maintenance, kind. Ginger on the other hand is described as manipulative, selfish, demanding. But these are illusions. After all, we know nothing about either except what they look and sound like. They are fictional roles played by actresses.The highly educated should be able to see this. And indeed they favour Ginger. Ginger, most agree, gives off more signs of female arousal. This might explain why Ginger polls better with the young, especially 17 year old boys. And Scots prefer Ginger, perhaps due to her colouring. So then: the highly educated, the adolescents, and the Scots favour Ginger.
My question is, should people be allowed to pick Mary Ann?

Trump's Rude Rhetoric

A common lament I hear is that, since Trump is such a rude, crass boor, his supporters can only be drawn to his policy positions. This is usually followed by a highly selective list of his alleged positions and the conclusion that those people must be awful in so many ways. I think this is quite wrong. Trump's main appeal is his persona. Seeing it simply as crass rude boorishness misses something important that other people see.

If you are like me you do not know in person any Trump supporters. I suggest that says more about you (and me) than about Trump. I  suggest it means there are some class determined reactions (and possibly some class prejudice) at work. In particular I think that the perception of Trump as just a rude boor is class dependent. I want to explain that here.

I will begin (naturally) with Jane Austen. If you read her novels you discover that in her time the word "condescending" was a compliment. This is because she lived in a hierarchical class society. If one person of a higher standing deigned -- and that is the right word -- to allow familiarity with a person of a lower standing that was considered kind and giving -- that was it was to condescend. In the English class system there's a lot of bowing and scraping, and tugging the forelock. A person of lower status was expected to acknowledge the higher standing of others. Tradesman use the trade entrance. And there is one kind of behaviour I will come back to: apologizing. People of lower status were expected to apologize for incommoding their betters, and would often apologize for things we would never think deserve an apology now (just watch Downton Abbey). The person of higher standing had the *right* to expect an apology, and an apology was often a sign of deference, not an acknowledgment of having done wrong. Apology, deference, and status are intertwined.

And we no longer see condescending as a good thing. It infuriates, and it invites puncturing, don't you think?

Consider what is called an "honour culture". In these each person (especially men) have honour that they must at all costs defend. This is the prime directive in an honour culture: you must accept no slight to it. This is what leads to duels.

Most honor cultures are hierarchical. And in such an action that would be seen as a slight by a peer (or an inferior) might be accepted from a superior. You can bend the knee to the king. But if a peer acts as if he were a superior, and demands a symbol of deference, that would be a an attack upon your honour. Hence, again, duels. And there's an odd thing about duels: participants often did not really seek to harm each other, and only demanded that honor be satisfied. The duel was not about redressing harm but protecting honor.

All this seems like odd anachronistic piffle to most of us; these are not things people like us do. That's our class's upbringing. Not everyone shared it.

There is in America a broad rigourously egalitarian subculture, often called Jacksonian. It is mostly lower and lower middle class. It is a culture of bar fights over an insult. It is also a culture with some complex rules about apologies. A demand for an apology can be seen as demand for deference. That must be resisted, even if an apology is warranted by a wrong done. It could be tricky to negotiate the apology, so you often have an intercessor. You've seen movies where a woman asks a man, who clearly owes an apology, to do it "for her", and he does. Or where a minister intervenes and gets both an apology and a token of respect in return. These are examples of taking the stink off, making plain the apology is not an act of submission.

And in an egalitarian culture, "condescending" is not a compliment.

So imagine now you are part of this  egalitarian honour culture and someone whom you think condescending demands of you an apology for something trivial, or without even a real harm he has suffered. Where you see the deamnd as a demand for deference. How do you react? You react "Hell, no!" And if the demand is made repeatedly, or with insults, how do you react? Hell no with an insult back. And how do you react if someone who claims to be on your side is treated that way? Hell no. Duelling is passe.

Many voters see attacks on Trump, and the demands that he apologize, as being just like this: illicit demands for deference. They see him saying "hell no!" And they like it. He is defending his honour, and by extension theirs, from what are percieved as attacks upon it by condescending poseurs.

Let's consider a notorious example, one where everyone of my class simply condemns Trump immediately: his showdown with Megyn Kelly. You can see how someone might think a woman who makes millions mostly on the basis of her looks, and who is part of the media, might be seen as pampered and superior by some. And then she demands of Donald Trump an apology *for something not done to her*. Can some voters have seen that as an illicit demand for an apology-as-deference, a tactic? She asserting the right to demand an apology, when she suffered no harm herself. And especially when they don't find much of what Trump said that unusual or outrageous in the first place? And the Kelly case is one of the worst for Trump, there are many where his behaviour is less egregious and the demands for apology as loud. The culture is awash in PC demands for apologies and symbolic penance. There's a lot of stuff that deserves a loud Hell no! and Trump is the only guy saying it. Further demands that he apologize for doing *that* just feed the cycle.

So that's my theory. People like me, products of our upbringing, have a hard time understanding why anyone could like Trump, because we only see one way of reading his behaviour.  There is another, I think millions see it that way, and that that is key to his appeal. His policies are secondary.

Jerry Coyne exemplifies what I am arguing against here. After lamenting Trump's boorishness he wonders about what can drive his (awful, awful) supporters: "one can only guess that they share his views." Well, which views? Trump has broken records in GOP primaries. Did he do it by supporting gay marriage and transgender bathrooms? By condemning the foreign policy of the last Republican president? His long-standing support for public health care or his support of funding Planned Parenthood? This is the way to a Republican's heart? Politics is rarely about policy; I don't see that it must be here.

Oily Elton John

I wouldn’t normally link this, but Reggae Dwight won a court order preventing me from doing so. 

Elbonia

The most important part of the video isn't the Prime Minister elbowing a woman he disagrees with. It is the Liberal caucus applauding after he does so.

Sgambati

Whom I had never heard of, but his first symphony is pleasant.

More Mertens

Often a Bird.

More Moran

The Lithuanian Spin.

LK on computers, a history.

A computer will never  beat a chess master  beat a chess grandmaster  translate a language  drive a car  diagnose a disease  win at Go shit.

Patience

Having reconciled myself to Trump as the GOP nominee I find I am not depressed.

Oh for sure I think we will get a bad president, be it Trump or Sanders or Clinton. And bad presidents matter. So why am I not depressed?

Because Trumpism and Bernieism make me hopeful. Not because the candidates have good policies or good ideas, or would make good leaders. Because it shows Americans are pushing back on those who see themselves as the Eloi, and the rest as Morlocks; because of the growing rejection of PC and its mau-mauing; because of the anger at insider deals and law-is-for-peasants; because of an assertion of pride.

A great rejection is brewing. It is still inchoate, it still hasn't found the right spokesmen, but it's there and it won't be going away.

Harper Lee

Petrassi's Piano Concerto.

Hindemithian.

Bonus. Often a Bird, Wim Mertens.

My Low Hanging Fruit Platform

1. End the war on drugs. Immediately. Repeal the laws, stop the interdictions, stop actions abroad, release everyone in jail for simple possession.

2. Ban public sector unions. Honor existing union contracts until they expire.

3. School vouchers for all.

4. Body cameras for all cops. Make single party recording legal.

5. Destroy ISIS

Okay, 5 isn’t low hanging fruit. But there it is. Ken B in ’16.

My guess is the next president does none of these things. 

Zinoviev Speaks Out!

Here.