Words on Foodies

by DRMT Posted on May 5, 2013

From L.V. Anderson’s review of Alison Pearlman’s Smart Casual: The Transformation of Gourmet Restaurant Style in America:

Pearlman notes that food-focused publications have increasingly covered issues related to environmentalism, labor, and politics over the last decade—but only “as problems to be solved not by collective political action but by individual shopping choices—in other words, consumption.” If consumption is virtuous, only those with the economic means to consume discriminately can have virtue. Which is how restaurant menus became infected with the elite farm brand-names and modernist amuse-bouches that proclaim how much less accessible they are than the food of the masses. The less accessible, the better.

It’s a point that doesn’t get articulated well enough, often enough, although I’m not sure I’d endorse the review as a whole.

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Teaching Democracy in Beijing

by DRMT Posted on October 15, 2012

Over at The American Prospect, I have a piece up based on the research I did while studying political liberalism in China (courtesy of a fellowship from the U.S. Fulbright program). As part of my research, I interviewed liberal scholars, teachers, and writers in various cities around China, learning a lot about the intellectual landscape of Chinese liberalism. I also saw how, despite the constraints placed on public debate in China, these thinkers manage to have earnest political conversations with each other, students, and readers in print and online:

For Liu Yu, serious discussion of fundamental political principles is key to China’s future. “In a way, China now is like the 18th century of America or Europe,” she says. “You’re at a crossroads, you’re in a place of encountering all different possibilities.” She worries that the Internet, often considered the home of Chinese liberal dissent, is more conducive to rumors and polarizing disagreement than real debate. In China’s academic circles, discussions abound over how China’s political institutions could improve. The ideas on the chalkboard range from complete laissez-faire capitalism to new forms of communism, including institutions inspired by traditional Chinese thinkers like Confucius or Mencius that don’t easily fall into Western political categories of left- or right-wing.

Liu Yu is one of two professors featured in the article; I’m currently working on publishing more of the interviews other material I have from my research, and will be sure to post here as I do.

 

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The International Standing of Western Liberals

by DRMT Posted on August 25, 2012

Lilia Shevtsova has an essay in The American Interest arguing that American liberals, and Western liberals in general, are no longer a model for liberal reformers around the world:

The way liberal democracies are currently trying to revitalize themselves raises some concerns and doubts. There are two “cures” under discussion within the Western community. First, the West has to find ways to deal with entrenched interests and their own plutocracies while at the same time rewriting social contracts to make the welfare state economically effective again. Second, liberal democracies have to figure out how far they want their power to extend in the outside world: whether they should limit its reach in order to tackle domestic problems (as per Obama’s popular “time to focus on nation building here at home” rhetoric), or expand it….Whereas the thinking of the 1970s emphasized a normative dimension and the interdependence of domestic and foreign policy, Western policymakers today are mainly trying to update internal politics—brushing aside interdependence with the international environment—and debating how to maintain the geopolitical and societal status quo.

There’s a high ratio of sweeping diagnoses to concrete examples, but it’s an interesting read. Shevtsova is focused mainly on Russia, but this passage in particular reminded me of many parallels to discussions I had with Chinese liberals:

Hopes of a leader-reformer taking over the Kremlin and reforming Russia are dominant in Western media and literature. Even the most astute Western observers believe that Russia can be modernized from the top down. Are they aware that they are only repeating (subconsciously, I hope) Kremlin’s mantras? …There is another premise that may explain the revival of Western Realpolitik: the belief that the West is a unique civilization that emerged as a result of specific historical circumstances, and that liberal democracy can’t be replicated by other civilizations. … What are the reasons behind this determinism? A lack of understanding and awareness of what is happening outside of the Western world? An attempt to make reality fit an artificial paradigm? Frustration with the neocon era? I can tell you how it looks from the outside. It looks, first and foremost, like doubt that liberal democracy could appeal to the non-democratic world, and secondly, like a condescending attitude toward nations supposedly unable to accept liberal democratic principles.

In China, “specific historical circumstances” is a mainstay of the Communist Party’s ideological defense against Western pressure for democratic and rule-of-law reforms. What was interesting to me was the realization that while Western liberals emphasize pluralism, and so can be sympathetic to the argument that we should “let countries pick their own path,” the experience of many Chinese thinkers is that such an argument is inherently illiberal. Most of the Chinese thinkers I talked with argued that you could apply universalized ideas like rights and democracy while still respecting the Chinese context; they also pointed out that the Communist Party is itself at least nominally based on a system of thought imported from the West.

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Richard Posner vs. Leisure Time

by DRMT Posted on August 19, 2012

Richard Posner has a review at the New York Times responding to How Much is Enough?, a book by Robert and Edward Skidelsky that makes the argument that society would be better off if we used our wealth to dramatically cut work hours and increase leisure time:

The Skidelskys have an exalted conception of leisure. They say that the true sense of the word is “activity without extrinsic end”: “The sculptor engrossed in cutting marble, the teacher intent on imparting a difficult idea, the musician struggling with a score, a scientist exploring the mysteries of space and time — such people have no other aim than to do what they are doing well.” That isn’t true….

But here is the oddest thing about the book: There is virtually no discussion of how people, their incomes halved, might be expected to employ the vastly greater leisure that the authors want them to have. Besides the sentence I quoted about the musician, sculptor, teacher and scientist — and the description is of their work, not of their leisure activities — there is a suggestion that a good leisure activity is letting one’s mind wander “freely and aimlessly,” and a list of three recreations — “playing football in the park, making and decorating one’s own furniture, strumming the guitar with friends” — offered to refute any contention that the authors’ conception of leisure is “narrowly highbrow.”

Posner himself offers some feeble arguments (“Nations would be defenseless, with soldiers who were on duty only 20 hours a week”), but in general it’s a pretty good takedown. I’m sympathetic to arguments that cultural or economic factors pull a bit hard in the “work” direction over other activities whose value is less monetizable; but the Skidelskys show some of the hazards in being on my side of the fence. I find it plausible to focus on the tight constraints people face in choosing working and lifestyle arrangements that suit their preferences; the Skidelskys argument is at best underdeveloped, but implies that people’s preferences and values are themselves incorrect. As Posner says, they’re right to say that we could have incomes equivalent to those of the 1920s by working fewer hours; most of us just want more.

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Fed Chairman Just Wants Us To Be Happy

by DRMT Posted on August 7, 2012

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is the latest to jump on the Gross National Happiness bandwagon:

The ultimate purpose of economics, of course, is to understand and promote the enhancement of well-being.  Economic measurement accordingly must encompass measures of well-being and its determinants…Interestingly, income and wealth do contribute to self-reported happiness, but the relationship is more complex and context-dependent than standard utility theory would suggest. Other important contributors to individuals’ life satisfaction are a strong sense of support from belonging to a family or core group and a broader community, a sense of control over one’s life, a feeling of confidence or optimism about the future, and an ability to adapt to changing circumstances.

Bernanke points to all the usual culprits: Bhutan, the OECD Better Life Index, behavioral economists like Daniel Kahneman. He’s previously advocated for more attention to well-being per se (as opposed to economic indicators) in a commencement speech a couple years ago; it’s nice to hear a high-placed U.S. official make happiness a theme, as its gotten increasing attention from foreign governments but has mostly been consigned to academia here.

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Sidney Rittenberg on Participating in the Cultural Revolution

by DRMT Posted on August 7, 2012

Danwei has an interview with Sidney Rittenberg, the first American citizen to join the Chinese Communist Party. Rittenberg lived in China from 1944 to 1975, and spent the time alternating between serving as an adviser to China’s leaders and serving time in prison. Reflecting on his active participation in the Cultural Revolution:

I only got to take part in the first (and worst) 14 months of the Cultural Revolution, but I saw it as a great democratic uprising which was creating a new, lively, democratic form of Socialism. People elected their own leaders, formed their own political organizations, published their own opinions – it seemed like a marvelous new world, while it lasted. I was thrilled to be a part of it, and didn’t realize that it was conceived as a stage in the establishment of a “total dictatorship of the proletariat,” in Mao’s words. I thought he was the great liberator, who was really introducing a vibrant  democratic society.

It’s a good reminder that economic and political motivations don’t always pull in the same direction. There are a lot of people today, particularly in the West, who refer to China’s government as “Communist” as if that were a synonym for authoritarian. There are also plenty of people in China whose main problem with the government is that it isn’t Communist enough, with its anti-democratic features a secondary complaint (or not a complaint at all). It’s interesting to see the tension between democratic and communist values at play in Rittenberg’s account—and the idea that democratic governance was a motivating force behind at least some of the players in the Cultural Revolution is new to me.

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Abortion: Not Just to Rally the Base Anymore

by DRMT Posted on August 2, 2012

In a new piece over at The American Prospect, I look at how the political winds have shifted enough that we now have a Democratic political candidate (i.e. President Obama) using abortion as a wedge issue to attack a Republican. In recent years, abortion politics has mostly been a tactic to rally the base, but it looks like the Obama team is trying to change that. And they might be successful:

For most Americans, the abortion question is not all-or-nothing—it’s about where one draws the line. Opinion polling on abortion is highly sensitive to phrasing; despite a majority of the country identifying as “pro-life,” polls also consistently show that a majority of respondents supports access to abortion in at least some circumstances. Politicians have been walking this tightrope for years—“I’m personally pro-life but believe in a woman’s right to choose”; “I believe the issue should be left up to the states to decide”; “Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.” With the GOP moving further to the right, a wider space has opened for Democrats to pick up abortion moderates. As Ed Kilgore wrote in Washington Monthly earlier this year, if a woman’s right to choose continues to be eroded around the country, it could become more likely that the quiet pro-choice sentiments of the American majority will emerge as a political force.

It’s not in the article, but I also just saw a new poll that has Obama doing more than 20 points better than Romney among women in Ohio, one of the states in which Obama’s new abortion-centered ad is airing.

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A New Office for Your City: Municipal Philosophers

by DRMT Posted on July 18, 2012

The tiny, ethnically Greek town of Corigliano d’Otranto in Italy has created a new position: an officially designated “Municipal Philosopher,” who hangs around City Hall for philosophical consultation between 3pm and 7pm on Fridays:

Lupo [the first one to hold the office-DT] engaged clients in Socratic dialogue and did not “dwell on their past, but their present and their perspectives on the future”.

Much of her work was about getting people to think clearly, listen to each other and formulate questions that bore on the subject in hand, the mayor said. The bosses of some local companies had been in touch with the council to see if the municipal philosopher could come and speak to their employees, she said.

Beginning her work last September, before the post became official, Lupo had so far seen about 500 people at the town hall, either on an individual basis or in groups. She charged €15 (£12) a session for her services, so her appointment had not involved any additional cost to taxpayers, the mayor said.

It may be about 200 spots down on the list of what American cities need right now, but who wouldn’t want some free (to the taxpayers) philosophical consultation? The idea reminds me a bit of the American Philosophical Practitioners Association, a group of philosophically educated individuals who help clients resolve issues that are more philosophical than psychological in nature. Maybe they could offer their services for free at local city halls; if Corigliano d’Otranto is any indication, at least it’d gin up some publicity.

(ht Leiter Reports)

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T.M. Scanlon on Polarization and the Want to Feel Justified

by DRMT Posted on July 17, 2012

There’s a wonderful, very long interview with philosopher T.M. Scanlon posted recently at The Utopian. Scanlon is one of the most respected living philosophers, and has lots to say, but one thing that struck me in particular was his discussion about how, at times, our desire to feel like our actions are justifiable to others doesn’t make us act better, but instead makes us revise our ideas of “right” and “wrong” to be more in line with our actions:

The Utopian:

In What We Owe To Each Other you write at one point:

“The combined blows of the civil rights movement and the movement that arose in reaction to the war in Vietnam shattered these illusions beyond repair. Different people reacted to this in different ways, some by protesting against the war and working for civil rights, others by vehemently denying that the charges of injustice at home and criminality abroad had any foundation. What these reactions had in common was a deep sense of shock and loss; both testify, I believe, to the value people set on the belief that their lives and institutions are justifiable to others”.

When I read that I wondered to what degree that was autobiographical. But I guess it actually wasn’t?

Tim Scanlon:

No, no. It’s entirely a piece of armchair social science. I guess I should be ashamed of it. But nonetheless it seemed to me to make sense of what was happening around me. And I put it in there because I was trying to say that I thought a lot of people really do care about the thing that I’m identifying as central to morality – even though they don’t think of it that way.

Look: this is an explanation for why people react. If people care about justifiability to others, this doesn’t necessarily operate only as something that motivates them to do better, morally speaking. In a certain way, caring about morality can be a reason for doing things that are in some way worse. It’s a version – but not the same thing – as what you were saying earlier about wanting to minimize the cases in which you’re doing something wrong. This isn’t doing that by choosing a different style of action; it’s doing that by changing your view about what is right and wrong.

That’s a very familiar kind of denial. But it seems to me, as an observer of the country, that that’s a lot of what’s going on. That people want to believe that they got what they got honestly and fairly. That somehow they’re particularly, distinctively entitled to what they have, and that their institutions are just. This means a lot to people. And people who want to deny this seem to them to be people who, as they say, hate America.

There are plenty of political points to be made about polarization here (and also about the claims Scanlon makes in that last paragraph), but I mostly think it’s a cautionary tale for—well, everyone. Sometimes rationalizing is easier than doing what’s right, and the impulse to think about right and wrong can make that easier.

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How we deal with hate speech

by DRMT Posted on June 15, 2012

Over at The American Prospect I’ve written a review of Jeremy Waldron’s new book The Harm in Hate Speech. It’s a good book for making you reconsider some of the sacred cows in the liberal approach to freedom of speech. It’s also a great model of a book that consciously fits into a broader conversation, as Waldron engages with a few different authors throughout the whole work. After reading it, you get the feeling that you’ve just been exposed to several books’ worth of arguments and ideas.

There are some strange parts, though, as I mention:

When discussing the 2005 controversy in which a Danish newspaper published cartoons depicting Muhammad as a bomb-throwing terrorist, Waldron says “where there are fine lines to be drawn the law should generally stay on the liberal side of them.” Yet Waldron describes how it would be defamatory to publish a statement saying “Tea Party politicians cannot be trusted with public funds,” or “Tea Party politicians are dishonest,” ignoring arguments mentioned elsewhere in the book that speech about elected officials should be given the widest freedoms. And in an interesting but underdeveloped chapter, Waldron draws an analogy between defamatory speech and pornography, arguing that sexualized images—including television, billboard, and subway advertising—undermine society’s assurance of equality to women. What he seems to suggest is that it would be more legitimate to outlaw lingerie ads or broad statements about political leaders than to prohibit the Danish cartoons—a strange vision of “balance,” and not one that errs on the side of liberalism.

It would’ve been nice to see him work a bit more on drawing lines and other, more concrete questions his arguments raise. Still, it’s good to be reminded that conversations about hate speech shouldn’t end with “but that’s the price we pay for having the First Amendment.”

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