One more good catch by Paul (you can tell I’ve been stuck on Geek Press for a while this morning)–an essay by Dan Dennett on postmodernism and truth.
Here is a story you probably haven’t heard, about how a team of American researchers inadvertently introduced a virus into a third world country they were studying.(1) They were experts in their field, and they had the best intentions; they thought they were helping the people they were studying, but in fact they had never really seriously considered whether what they were doing might have ill effects. It had not occurred to them that a side-effect of their research might be damaging to the fragile ecology of the country they were studying. The virus they introduced had some dire effects indeed: it raised infant mortality rates, led to a general decline in the health and wellbeing of women and children, and, perhaps worst of all, indirectly undermined the only effective political force for democracy in the country, strengthening the hand of the traditional despot who ruled the nation. These American researchers had something to answer for, surely, but when confronted with the devastation they had wrought, their response was frustrating, to say the least: they still thought that what they were doing was, all things considered, in the interests of the people, and declared that the standards by which this so-called devastation was being measured were simply not appropriate. Their critics, they contended, were trying to impose “Western” standards in a cultural environment that had no use for such standards. In this strange defense they were warmly supported by the country’s leaders–not surprisingly–and little was heard–not surprisingly–from those who might have been said, by Western standards, to have suffered as a result of their activities.
These researchers were not biologists intent on introducing new strains of rice, nor were they agri-business chemists testing new pesticides, or doctors trying out vaccines that couldn’t legally be tested in the U.S.A. They were postmodernist science critics and other multiculturalists who were arguing, in the course of their professional researches on the culture and traditional “science” of this country, that Western science was just one among many equally valid narratives, not to be “privileged” in its competition with native traditions which other researchers–biologists, chemists, doctors and others–were eager to supplant. The virus they introduced was not a macromolecule but a meme (a replicating idea): the idea that science was a “colonial” imposition, not a worthy substitute for the practices and beliefs that had carried the third-world country to its current condition. And the reason you have not heard of this particular incident is that I made it up, to dramatize the issue and to try to unsettle what seems to be current orthodoxy among the literati about such matters. But it is inspired by real incidents–that is to say, true reports.
Also via Paul–a satellite image that shows very clearly the ancient outline of the Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan–the one believed to taken out the dinosaurs.
I just heard a segment on Fox News in which they pointed out how the misleading language of both politicians and pundits has distorted the discussion, similar to this post of mine a few weeks ago.
They specifically called out the phrases “unilateral,” “rush to war,” and “ally,” and pointed out that many of the so-called “peace protests” often turn violent. They also called Reuters on their continuing refusal to call a terrorist a terrorist.
I just heard a segment on Fox News in which they pointed out how the misleading language of both politicians and pundits has distorted the discussion, similar to this post of mine a few weeks ago.
They specifically called out the phrases “unilateral,” “rush to war,” and “ally,” and pointed out that many of the so-called “peace protests” often turn violent. They also called Reuters on their continuing refusal to call a terrorist a terrorist.
I just heard a segment on Fox News in which they pointed out how the misleading language of both politicians and pundits has distorted the discussion, similar to this post of mine a few weeks ago.
They specifically called out the phrases “unilateral,” “rush to war,” and “ally,” and pointed out that many of the so-called “peace protests” often turn violent. They also called Reuters on their continuing refusal to call a terrorist a terrorist.
Supposed leftist Mark Grueter has an interesting essay on the “self-righteous dupes” who would keep Saddam in power.
Most of the same people that oppose a war against Saddam opposed the war in Afghanistan, as well as the war on terrorism in general. And they are making very similar arguments in all cases, which, when simplified amount to something like, ?a war will do much more harm than any good.? However, their dire predictions about Afghanistan were shown to be false. The campaign did not create a humanitarian catastrophe, scores of people did not starve to death (6 million was the estimate); millions of refugees did not pour over the border; it did not become a ?quagmire.? (Refer to any of the literature coming out of the Left, in September and October 2001 especially, for examples of these claims). Civilian casualties were avoided whenever possible, in part because of the precision technology mastered over years of massive military budgets. Noam Chomsky and his co-thinkers like to cite a former professor of mine, Marc Herold, who calculated that US bombings have killed 3,000 Afghani civilians (?at least?) and counting. Herold derived this figure from a collection of European and Arab newspaper reports. The presumed and often stated objective of this tally is to demonstrate moral equivalence between the 9/11 incident and US retaliation.
All other non-Pentagon, usually left-leaning efforts to add up the numbers have yielded much lower results (approximately 1,000 was the highest). And there is an important moral and intellectual distinction between premeditated killing, which is murder, and unintentional killing or killing in self-defense, which is not. The long-term effect of the raid will almost certainly end up saving many more lives (and provide improved lives for millions more) in the long run than those that were taken away. This is grim business for sure, but as long as the ?principled? Left refuses to engage in this complex, necessary debate it cannot have an impact on actual policy. In this sense Hitchens is correct – the Left is ?irrelevant.?
He once again exposes the current left as not so much for anything, as against Amerikkka.