Too Much Meritocracy?

I’ve previously noted how all western society is divided in three parts (Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres…). The first two are poor and powerless, the white rural lower class and the non-white increasingly suburban lower class. Then there is our aristocracy, the diverse global class.

A cursory glance at economic performance over recent years shows a sharp crash surrounded by moderate growth. Break this down across all of society however and we see that all the new wealth flows to the Starbucks class while everyone else undergoes a prolonged period of misfortune.

The modern era has brought substantial improvements to all of society, presided over by a rich elite. Today’s elite is failing to bring those improvements to the rest of society.

I have already noted how the Starbucks class is singularly focused on what it calls “success” and I have noted how this “success” does not refer to any great achievement but rather the relative security of upper class status paid for by constant pressure and work. Likewise among the elite substance abuse is down and hours working grow at the expense of sleep.

This all seems symptomatic of a widespread desire for a status which is increasingly tenuous and competitive. This makes some sense; more wealth and economic security is present in an upper class which by its diversity is increasingly open. The world is in a desperate competition for the qualifications that confer this desirable membership; thus we have the decline of sleep and substance use for the growth of work. Class membership determined by this hard fought competition is meritocracy.

This meritocracy is deleterious to virtue. The time and energy of our elite citizens maintains their position in the elite rather than being employed for the good of society. Furthermore in diverse Starbucks class society static metrics like parents and place of birth lose meaning while appearance and certain cultural practices lose their meaning since modern politics strive to make these open to everyone. This means that colloquial judgement of elite status rests heavily on a similarity of casual behavior and a similarity of thought process. More diverse people from more diverse backgrounds live in a society with more diverse options while living their lives and thinking thoughts more similar than ever before.

 Charity trips to the tropics while maintaining that homelessness is a lifestyle choice show an elite more selfish and stupid than ever before. Failure to submit to this regime risks one’s elite status. The result of this is that our elite is less capable and less willing to benefit the rest of society as a whole. The Starbucks class has not earned its lattes. We should be fired.

Bashar Assad and the Geneva Illusion

Recently the president committed US troops to an ongoing ground mission in the conflict with ISIS. He has been criticized for both reneging on his promise not to commit ground forces and by the American right for his unwillingness to adopt an overarching strategy. Historians point to the role of “mission creep” weakening the United States in contemporary wars. This  involves slow growth in US commitment as a response to circumstances; thinkers note that it is rarely recognized at the time of decision making.

My regular readers know that I almost always support the actions of president Obama. The current decision however is an unambiguous example of mission creep. The entire approach to the war is a case of a Johnsonian desire to make a problem go away by ignoring it. At the outset of the conflict the president refused to make any commitments; then the UN elite began to fret about massacres and, a recurring theme, WMDs. The president, perceiving a way to avoid the problem, drew a “red line” stating that the use of WMDs would entail a military response. This meant by implication that the president would not have to act or involve himself in the matter so long as this red line was not crossed. Further the administration had to be pretty confident that Bashar Assad would not utilize his gas arsenal; the risk of the US military outweighed any other concerns.

Policy makers did not realize that the threat to the Shiite Assad administration from its largely Sunni subjects comprised a far more deadly threat than the US Air Force. Faced with a deteriorating strategic position, someone pulled the trigger. The president then found himself in a very awkward position. He vacillated between commitment to his word and what he thinks would have been the best decision. Surprisingly Russian president Vladimir Putin, so that he could resurrect Russia's position as a great power, came to the rescue. Putin proposed a compromise deal under which Syria's chemical arsenal would be removed in return for peace.

Nonetheless this deal did nothing to enhance Assad's military position. In a Middle Eastern country made up largely of Sunnis angry with a hostile government, the predictable occurred. They formed a brutal and effective military force. Policy makers, suffering under the Geneva Illusion that world conditions are capable of fulfilling elite western expectations, found themselves confronted with reality. Meanwhile bureaucrats at the Department of Defense had probably delighted in excess at the possibility of weakening an Iranian ally, Assad, during our nuclear negotiations with Tehran.

Now confronted with the growth of ISIS, the US slowly ramped up military operations against the terrorists while refusing to aid the Assad government. Recently Russia interfered again, launching air strikes in support of Assad. Now the president has deployed ground forces.

Western policy makers continue searching for a more appealing third party in the conflict. Inconveniently the Kurds are incapable of ruling the entirety of Syria. Meanwhile the Genevans' moderate Sunnis failed to materialize after the Pentagon managed to find less than 200 potential fighters possessing ideological orthodoxy—this as part of a budgeted $500 million program.

That leaves two groups capable of governing Syria: ISIS and the Assad government. At one point we could have possibly tried to moderate and reach a peaceful accommodation with ISIS however our current military operations have made this impossible. That leaves the Shiite administration. Having reached a nuclear deal with Tehran we no longer need  fear implications from that area. What’s more concerning is the goodwill president Putin has built up amongst Assad’s followers.

US diplomats have proposed a resolution that would initially leave Assad in the presidency to be followed by elections for a successor. Predictably this has not gone over well in Moscow. A better course would be to find a way to remove Assad himself while supporting a replacement whom the world perceives as more liberal. Then we must remove Assad without losing any more loyalty from his followers and pushing them closer to Moscow. One option is a covert assassination, blamed on ISIS. This is the most attractive solution but suffers from the drawback that any mistakes would gravely worsen the situation. Likewise a US ally, perhaps Israel or Turkey, could kill Assad by airstrike. Again it might be hard to distance ourselves from responsibility. Perhaps the best approach would be to directly work with Iran.  Tehran given its relationship with the Syrian government might bring Assad into a non-consensual retirement while elevating one of his generals. The Iranians might be persuaded to do this if it were seen as the best way to maintain Shiite control over Syria. Similarly Iran would want to cooperate in propping up our allied Shiite led government in Baghdad as would Shiites in Syria. Israel could be bought off with more weapons. Meanwhile our Geneva Illusion sufferers at the State Department could do what they do best: soothe Saudi Arabia.

Sex Slaves and the Press

ISIS Soldiers in Iraq (wikipedia)

Recently I read an investigative story about ISIS terrorists practice of turning captured Yazidi women* into sex slaves. The article was well written although the revelation was unsurprising given the current situation; violent, energetic young men with a penchant for beheadings are exactly the sort one would expect to be involved in mass rape.

What was more surprising is how nearly every major newspaper was soon

thereafter running a similar article. This is what one might expect for an issue that is sudden and prominent. The ISIS sex slave practice however was not very new and there had doubtless been rumblings about long before the original article.  What’s more the use of sex slaves is only one of many sordid undertakings that warrant detailed examination.

 In this case a little bit of depth and attention in a key place caused a massive explosion in the established media that saw far more readers exposed to the story. This suggests that by planting one very particular tale in a key place-see Cecil the Lion-it is possible to dramatically increase media exposure. Considering that seven billion of us spend copious time thinking about a relatively small total number of public issues that it is possible to spread or cover up any given issue based on controlling an initial trigger like the original sex slaves investigation. Perhaps less important than whither a secret leaks is whither anyone pays attention.

*I use the term women here loosely as it seems that the terrorists were abusing Yazidi females from a very young age.

Middle Eastern Crazies: The US Congress

I remember my frustration back in 2008. Republican presidential nominee John McCain condemned his opponent, then-Senator Barack Obama, for suggesting diplomacy was a feasible way to halt Iran's nuclear program.

During this year's tranche of diplomacy there was much head scratching amongst western thinkers about the potential for the Ayatollah Ali Khamanei or hardliners in the Revolutionary Guard to derail the deal. Embarrassingly the only party that threatens to kill the current agreement is the United States Congress.

Congressional Republicans' instragence poses a question just as relevant now and as in 2008. What end do Iran hawks think they will gain by killing the current deal? The present agreement does not prevent the United States from taking military action if it becomes necessary. Likewise Iran's agreement not to build a nuclear weapon, however ingenuine is at least as good as doing nothing while the Islamic Republic continues atomic work. Obviously the deal ends sanctions against Iran but these sanctions serve no purpose besides compelling Iran to accept such an agreement in the first place. Some opponents mutter about a better deal. Whatever their opinion of the President and Secretary of State John Kerry hey cannot seriously believe that the administration agreed to a worse deal than they thought they could get.

If Iran shows good faith then the current agreement will end the issue of nuclear proliferation in the Middle east for a generation. If Iran continues development then the president will be presented with the same choice as he would if congress rejects the bargain: bomb or acquiesce. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

I'm sharing the Biannual Newsletter via blog this year.

-JS

Hello All

It's that time of year again, summer solstice. For those of you who haven't received one of these before the intro is brief. Every year I send out two newsletters, on summer and winter solstice, to everybody I know. Please don't feel obliged to respod.

Yet again I am limited by technology from producing a very fine product but I do have a few interesting thoughts for you on the Tim Hunt scandal and Charlie Baker's mishandling of the MBTA.

I myself have slowly made my way through an extremely challenging six months. By January I had finally recovered from the broken leg I mentiones last December. In February I contracted appendicitis and after a weekend in the hospital I opted to treat it with antibiotics instead of surgery.

Meanwhile political conditions soured at my dear Trinity College. A sort of left wing radicalism very similar to that in the Tim Hunt article has created a dangerous climate around campus. Many have been purged. Other selfish individuals have tried to use the chaos. Meanwhile the College, its student life, and traditions have become casualties of this politics.

I am enjoying the summer weather and I hope to spend some time in Boston even as I spend the summer in Toronto where we are hosting the Pan American games. I wish you all the best.

Your Friend,

Jeffrey
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Charlie on the M(B)TA
        In the midst of last winter’s horrible blizzard an evil legend emerged. It sounds something like this:
The MBTA (Boston’s transit system, colloquially called ‘the T’)is horribly broken. It was over expanded by politicians more interested in ribbon cuttings than routine maintenance. They allowed the T to become inefficient and fall under the control of malevolent unions. Now only Charlie Baker, the new Republican governor, can fix the mess.
This legend has dominated then popular consciousness and has been accepted even in traditionally Democratic circles. Nonetheless it could not be further from the truth.
The T has been the primary focus of Massachusetts’ last two Democratic governors, Michael Dukakis and Deval Patrick. It was under the administration of the former in the 1980s that the core subway network was last expanded with the extension of the Red Line from Harvard Sq to Alewife. Meanwhile reports constantly attest to the T’s efficiency. It has about the same tax-fare revenue mix for ordinary service funding yet charges consistently lower fares than its peers around the continent.
Not only has the system failed to expand adequately to match the region’s growth but the T has been consistently underfunded by a series of GOP administrations and conservative Democrats (Speaker DeLeo I’m looking at you). At the turn of the millennium the T was laden with billions of dollars of debt and other obligations as a financing gimmick related to the Big Dig construction project. Meanwhile the funding legislation passed then was based on incredibly unrealistic projections of tax revenue. It is for this reason the T has accumulated a large maintenance backlog.
No attempt to fix this was made until the election of Governor Patrick who restructured the T making it subservient to the new Mass DOT board. He also attempted to fix the T’s funding problems but was partially stymied by the state legislature. Although the new revenue provided was inadequate to fully fund the T’s maintainence, it was enough to finally place an order to replace the ancient train cars operating on both the Red and Orange lines the latter of which is severely impeded at rush hour by a lack of functional cars.
Come this winter’s crazy weather the T suffered greatly. Naturally the above ground portions of the system were largely shut down due to the remarkable level of snow. In a once in a century storm it is only natural to have a once in a century shutdown. Most of the other problems on the underground portion of the network were due to the failure of the old Red and orange line cars, cars which are due to be replaced by the end of the decade. In essence the only real problems suffered by the T occurred on account of its slow recovery from republican governors.
Governor Baker seized upon public frustration to push his agenda. He forced out the MBTA general manager and compelled the resignation of all of Governor Patrick’s appointees to the Mass DOT board, a structure designed so that one governor could not suddenly influence it like that. Baker has also pushed the nlegislature to allow him to raise fares, appoint a control board reporting directly to him, and bring in outside non-union staff. The Governor has also not requested significantly more money despite the ongoing maintenance backlog and has also cancelled a number of Governor Patrick’s expansion plans such as commuter rail to Fall River and New Bedford. This certainly doesn’t seem like an attempt to fix the T rather it seems like an attempt to undo the work of past Democratic governors.
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The Apology
The British scientist Sir Tim Hunt really ought to drink his hemlock more peacefully. With the present stink some in society just might be prompted to doubt his public lynching. That would make for a terrible five minutes hate.

This and many other such occurances teach us two main lessons. The first concerns the limits of thought about individual rights during the Enlightenment and middle twentieth century. These systems construed a need to preserve individuals rights by protecting them from state punishment. This approach is no longer applicable to the cosmopolitan anarchy of the present millennium. What is indisputable is that Tim Hunt has been utterly ruined on account of his individual speech. The problem is that speech is only protected against the state. This protection is worth nothing in practical application because, just as if there were no such right, an individual is sure to be irreperably harmed because of what he says.

Luckily there is a solution to this first problem. Anti-discrimination laws prohibit private actors from harming individuals based on attributes like race or gender. It would be easy to extend this to speech.

The second issue that the Tim Hunt saga brings to the fore is that of the crazy lynch mob culture present in our society. It is understandable that the media sometimes makes a circus of silly things but this case is on another level entirely. The Nobel laureate scientist supposedly make a quip about women at a conference in South Korea. He claims his remarks were taken out of context.

Now apparently all that happened is that a man uttered a vague complaint about the other sex—something all women and men have done from the dawn of time and will continue to do until the extinction of the human race. Is anyone not guilty of the same?

Yet even if Tim Hunt had forcefully made the case for the banning of women from science and stuck to his position through all the backlash there would be no reason for what has occured. Particularly in academia but also life in general there is a need for new, contraversial, and unpopular viewpoints. This world has seen many days where a man would be similarly faulted for suggesting women be allowed into labs. I am not sure of the conditions by which he was fired from University College London but I had been under the impression that this was the purpose of tenure. Is this not the purpose of a university? And who either in the academy or life will have confidence to air an unpopular viewpoint after what has happened? And who can be sure that after some joke he too will not be ruined. Society has been very wicked indeed.

Compromise-The UTSU Board Reform Meeting

Last Wednesday three students, Ryan Gomes, Natalie Petra, and Nish Chankar hosted a meeting to work towards developing a new structure for the UTSU Board of Directors. This was necessary because of recent structural changes to the student union.

Last year the UTSU began taking steps to transition to an organizational structure under the new Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act (CNCA). The old structure which apportioned seats for election to various colleges and faculties would no longer be tenable without a number of tweaks. Meanwhile many of the colleges and faculties have been deeply dissatisfied by the corruption within the UTSU and have held referenda resulting in which students expressed their desire to leave the union.

The CFS Party controlled UTSU executive saw an opportunity and acted to push through a new self-serving structure. They would create "constituency directors", elected by UofT at wide with portfolio's focusing on different campus groups. The idea was quite clever; opposition to a gay or a female students constituency director would make the opponent look hostile to those groups rather than a constitutional structure. This would allow the CFS Party to eliminate the dissenting groups' directorships under the pretense of social justice.

The plan almost worked however, at the UTSU annual general meeting this October, the CFS  Party's opponents managed to deny their opponents the 2/3 majority necessary to make the changes. Thus the justification for the recent meeting.

After hours of discussions with stake holders such as UTSU execs Yolen Bollo-Kamara, Cameron Wathey, and Najiba Ali Sardar, the group came up with a new plan. The so called "Hybrid Proposal" would in effect allow for some college and professional faculty representation while also creating a significant number of equity/other directorships.

The students at the meeting deserve a lot of credit for coming up with a framework acceptable to many hostile parties. Nonetheless the Hybrid Model represents a setback for opponents of the current CFS controlled union. It is likely that once the new system is hammered out, representatives from the dissenting bodies would make up a smaller proportion of the board than under the previous model. By comparison failure to pass a new structure would leave the Union in legal limbo-an unfortunate situation but still one of the few options on the table that might force the UofT administration to overcome their qualms and take meaningful steps towards fee diversion. Despite all the effort, the CFS Party's opponents should not accept any deal that would dilute college and faculty representation on the Board.

A Boston Olympics?

It's official; Boston has been selected by the US Olympic Committee to make the country's bid for the 2024 Olympics.
If Boston is selected by the International Olympic Committee the region will host a massive influx of people within a decade. The Olympics could provide that catalyst for much needed infrastructure and transit funding which otherwise would be hard to achieve in light of a Republican governor and the Commonwealth's recent budget difficulties.
If selected the city will benefit remarkably since most of the new facilities will be useful in the long term. The Olympic village will serve as dorms at UMASS Boston which has been desirous of converting away from its existence as a commuter campus. This dual use will make the buildings easier to fund while also helping spark a renewal of the surrounding area necessary for a center of student life.
Likewise the aquatic center could also become a part of one of the region's many universities. Recent speculation suggests that Tufts is the most probable candidate. The Olympic stadium, once renovated, could serve the Revolution MLS team which is currently looking for a new facility closer to downtown.
The Olympics also would help establish Boston as a destination for tourists and major firms that too often skirt the city en route to New York and Washington. Already Massachusetts, after countless years of loosing congressional seats to reapportionment, has progressed to the top half of the nation in population growth. Bringing home the Olympics could turn old New England into a premier center of growth for the first time in centuries.