by liberal japonicus
Thought I’d crack open a quasi open-thread with two links
This one, from TPM, has some great info about the current energy systems crisis in Texas.
And this one from lifehacker, entitled How to Take Time Off Without Screwing Over Your Coworkers, leads with a picture of Ted Cruz.
Have at it!
“As the Texas blackouts stretch into their third day, misleading narratives about what went wrong have spread far and wide. One particularly pernicious one you may have heard is that wind and solar are to blame for the outages.
But what so many of these assertions lack is a fundamental understanding of Texas’ electric power supply, and its mutual vulnerabilities with the state’s gas systems. We’re facing an energy systems crisis here in Texas, not just an electricity crisis.”
What So Many Of The Misleading Narratives About Texas Miss: The state is facing more than an electricity crisis.
“As the Texas blackouts stretch into their third day, misleading narratives about what went wrong have spread far and wide. One particularly pernicious one you may have heard is that wind and solar are to blame for the outages.
But what so many of these assertions lack is a fundamental understanding of Texas’ electric power supply, and its mutual vulnerabilities with the state’s gas systems. We’re facing an energy systems crisis here in Texas, not just an electricity crisis.”
What So Many Of The Misleading Narratives About Texas Miss: The state is facing more than an electricity crisis.
Ahh, thanks, rushing to get that up. Will go back and fix it.
Ahh, thanks, rushing to get that up. Will go back and fix it.
Seems to me that Senator Cruz (no doubt unintentionally) did exactly the right thing. When you have someone whose contribution to solving any problem is inversely proportional to his proximity, the best you can hope for in an emergency is that he will go away. Which is what he did.
Seems to me that Senator Cruz (no doubt unintentionally) did exactly the right thing. When you have someone whose contribution to solving any problem is inversely proportional to his proximity, the best you can hope for in an emergency is that he will go away. Which is what he did.
Texas has had trouble meeting peak demands for years. Most people don’t notice because it’s industrial use, not residential, that gets throttled when there are shortfalls.
Wind and solar generation take priority. Gas plants have to throttle up and down to balance the load. Like stop-and-go driving, it’s fuel-inefficient and hard on the equipment. So gas plants are underutilized and overexerted. Inefficient fuel use, underutilization of equipment, and increased maintenance make the plants more expensive to operate than they would be if they were running near full load most of the time.
Texas has had trouble meeting peak demands for years. Most people don’t notice because it’s industrial use, not residential, that gets throttled when there are shortfalls.
Wind and solar generation take priority. Gas plants have to throttle up and down to balance the load. Like stop-and-go driving, it’s fuel-inefficient and hard on the equipment. So gas plants are underutilized and overexerted. Inefficient fuel use, underutilization of equipment, and increased maintenance make the plants more expensive to operate than they would be if they were running near full load most of the time.
It’s just disheartening to see the same pattern over and over. Republicans fuck up and blame Democrats. Wash rinse repeat. and this time against the background making Rush Limbaugh out to be the saint that stood up for truthful and forthright speech against the censorship of political correctness. It’s hard not to see rightwingers as assholes I have to keep remembering that I know people who believe all that shit and in a day to day they way they are very nice people that I like.
Of course the same thing could be said about most Hitler supporters.
It’s just disheartening to see the same pattern over and over. Republicans fuck up and blame Democrats. Wash rinse repeat. and this time against the background making Rush Limbaugh out to be the saint that stood up for truthful and forthright speech against the censorship of political correctness. It’s hard not to see rightwingers as assholes I have to keep remembering that I know people who believe all that shit and in a day to day they way they are very nice people that I like.
Of course the same thing could be said about most Hitler supporters.
Gas plants have to throttle up and down to balance the load. Like stop-and-go driving, it’s fuel-inefficient and hard on the equipment.
That’s possible, but in this case, the reliance on natural gas was what caused the problem, not the usage of natural gas to balance the load.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/17/22287130/texas-natural-gas-production-power-outages-frozen
Which should be a call for more wind and solar, rather than the current 17%.
In addition, there are ways to build in these factors
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11573-019-00937-2
https://www.ge.com/power/transform/article.transform.articles.2017.dec.3-forms-of-flexibility-for-evo
Texas apparently did none of these. But a good ‘whatabout’ comment.
Gas plants have to throttle up and down to balance the load. Like stop-and-go driving, it’s fuel-inefficient and hard on the equipment.
That’s possible, but in this case, the reliance on natural gas was what caused the problem, not the usage of natural gas to balance the load.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/17/22287130/texas-natural-gas-production-power-outages-frozen
Which should be a call for more wind and solar, rather than the current 17%.
In addition, there are ways to build in these factors
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11573-019-00937-2
https://www.ge.com/power/transform/article.transform.articles.2017.dec.3-forms-of-flexibility-for-evo
Texas apparently did none of these. But a good ‘whatabout’ comment.
The whataboutery about wind and (the far less significant) solar is absurd.
Much the same happened, on a lesser scale, back in 2011 before either were a significant factor.
There’s a detailed report, which was largely ignored.
https://www.ferc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/08-16-11-report.pdf
The market is dictating the rise of renewables in Texas, and that does have consequences – much of which could be mitigated by connection to a continental grid.
The US has an Easter and a Western interconnect. And Texas, which has stayed aloof from both.
One could argue it’s a salutary display of the limits of libertarianism. And the consequences of global warning.
The whataboutery about wind and (the far less significant) solar is absurd.
Much the same happened, on a lesser scale, back in 2011 before either were a significant factor.
There’s a detailed report, which was largely ignored.
https://www.ferc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/08-16-11-report.pdf
The market is dictating the rise of renewables in Texas, and that does have consequences – much of which could be mitigated by connection to a continental grid.
The US has an Easter and a Western interconnect. And Texas, which has stayed aloof from both.
One could argue it’s a salutary display of the limits of libertarianism. And the consequences of global warning.
Or you could just install a lot of batteries.
If you wait long enough, the market will eventually do that, too.
Or you could just install a lot of batteries.
If you wait long enough, the market will eventually do that, too.
Choices…
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/02/even-power-disasters-are-bigger-in-texas-heres-why/
…when some degree of national power grid regulation began, it was done under the federal government’s constitutional ability to regulate “interstate commerce.” By purposely keeping its grid within the borders of Texas, the state limited the impact of federal standards and regulations. This deep-seated aversion to regulation recently prompted former US Energy secretary and Texas Governor Rick Perry to quip, “Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business.”…
The whole article is excellent – and more even-handed than I have been.
Choices…
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/02/even-power-disasters-are-bigger-in-texas-heres-why/
…when some degree of national power grid regulation began, it was done under the federal government’s constitutional ability to regulate “interstate commerce.” By purposely keeping its grid within the borders of Texas, the state limited the impact of federal standards and regulations. This deep-seated aversion to regulation recently prompted former US Energy secretary and Texas Governor Rick Perry to quip, “Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business.”…
The whole article is excellent – and more even-handed than I have been.
This is also known.
Warm Arctic episodes linked with increased frequency of extreme winter weather in the United States
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-02992-9
This is also known.
Warm Arctic episodes linked with increased frequency of extreme winter weather in the United States
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-02992-9
“Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business.”
Now if we could just keep the Texas politicians out of it too.
“Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business.”
Now if we could just keep the Texas politicians out of it too.
politicians = people having their say.
welcome to democracy
politicians = people having their say.
welcome to democracy
How bout 30 days?
https://www.thedailybeast.com/texas-was-seconds-away-from-going-dark-for-months-says-energy-official?via=newsletter&source=CSAMedition
What’s my bid for 90 days?
In what way are you NOT a politician, Charles?
Is your second floor apartment a sort of libertarian ivory tower unsullied by the affairs of the world.
I live on the 9th floor. The world reached me as the water lines feeding fire alarm sprinkler system in the basement froze and burst, flooding the elevator wells and causing them to go down for two days.
The fire alarm system itself went nuts, going off fully cocked day and night to the extent that the fire department stopped sending its hook and ladder to turn the sucker the off.
Folks, including me, stopped leaving the building. That should make the next real emergency interesting.
I expect to find out parts for the elevators were delayed by their origins in Texas, but I’ll wait for the facts.
There’s not a fucking politician, local, state, or federal, I can think to blame for this purely private sector failure in the face of the elements.
Shit happens.
Apparently not libertarian shit. Or Texas conservative shit.
It’s all gummint shit to virgins.
How bout 30 days?
https://www.thedailybeast.com/texas-was-seconds-away-from-going-dark-for-months-says-energy-official?via=newsletter&source=CSAMedition
What’s my bid for 90 days?
In what way are you NOT a politician, Charles?
Is your second floor apartment a sort of libertarian ivory tower unsullied by the affairs of the world.
I live on the 9th floor. The world reached me as the water lines feeding fire alarm sprinkler system in the basement froze and burst, flooding the elevator wells and causing them to go down for two days.
The fire alarm system itself went nuts, going off fully cocked day and night to the extent that the fire department stopped sending its hook and ladder to turn the sucker the off.
Folks, including me, stopped leaving the building. That should make the next real emergency interesting.
I expect to find out parts for the elevators were delayed by their origins in Texas, but I’ll wait for the facts.
There’s not a fucking politician, local, state, or federal, I can think to blame for this purely private sector failure in the face of the elements.
Shit happens.
Apparently not libertarian shit. Or Texas conservative shit.
It’s all gummint shit to virgins.
“Exceptionally cold weather hitting the United States has provoked an electricity shortage in Texas, with extensive power cuts affecting over 4 million customers. The crisis was a combination of factors as cold weather drove up demand and hampered supply from the gas system and from power plants. The outages are far larger and much longer lasting than the rotating cuts during the exceptionally hot weather in California last August.
The cold weather had three main impacts on the Texas power system that led to this situation:
• Much higher electricity demand: …
• Lower natural gas production: …
• Generation equipment outages: …”
Severe power cuts in Texas highlight energy security risks related to extreme weather events
“Exceptionally cold weather hitting the United States has provoked an electricity shortage in Texas, with extensive power cuts affecting over 4 million customers. The crisis was a combination of factors as cold weather drove up demand and hampered supply from the gas system and from power plants. The outages are far larger and much longer lasting than the rotating cuts during the exceptionally hot weather in California last August.
The cold weather had three main impacts on the Texas power system that led to this situation:
• Much higher electricity demand: …
• Lower natural gas production: …
• Generation equipment outages: …”
Severe power cuts in Texas highlight energy security risks related to extreme weather events
Excellent article and more proof that popping off in the middle of a crisis is almost always a really bad idea. This includes Magness claiming credit for heading off disaster. This is a great time for people at the top to shut up other than to make themselves and all of their records available for public scrutiny.
As the article points out, the trend here is warmer, not colder winters. Winter demand is historically low which is why plants schedule their ‘outages’ during the winter months. Outages are, literally, a portion of a plant shuts down and preventative maintenance takes place over a period of 4-8 weeks. And then another portion and then another portion (called ‘units’ BTW) until the plant is ready to come back fully on line. The preventative maintenance allows for more consistent, high demand delivery in July-September when things heat up–which they do more and more, every year.
You have to balance the certainty of a hot summer against the likelihood of an unprecedented storm. I’ve lived in Houston since 1977. We’ve had three hard freezes since then, and none of them match this one for duration and spread. So, the Count gets this wrong.
It was stupid to reflexively blame renewables (10% of state output) just as it is equally ill-conceived to try to jam this into some kind of anti-private sector or anti-fossil fuel narrative. Wind doesn’t work unless the wind blows, solar requires clear skies and natural gas requires natural gas. If Texas were 100% green and half of that was solar and if the wind didn’t blow night and day, we’d be much worse off. Only the natural gas-fired plants are amenable to a near term, engineering fix and it was our natural gas fired plants that failed to meet demand.
Another thing the article points out is the tendency to fight the last war. As an aside, humans base their future planning on past experience, so fighting the last war isn’t per se wrong. Designing against the absolute worst case isn’t feasible either. So, there even though there is a sweet spot in there somewhere, even that, inevitably, will fall short over enough time.
Excellent article and more proof that popping off in the middle of a crisis is almost always a really bad idea. This includes Magness claiming credit for heading off disaster. This is a great time for people at the top to shut up other than to make themselves and all of their records available for public scrutiny.
As the article points out, the trend here is warmer, not colder winters. Winter demand is historically low which is why plants schedule their ‘outages’ during the winter months. Outages are, literally, a portion of a plant shuts down and preventative maintenance takes place over a period of 4-8 weeks. And then another portion and then another portion (called ‘units’ BTW) until the plant is ready to come back fully on line. The preventative maintenance allows for more consistent, high demand delivery in July-September when things heat up–which they do more and more, every year.
You have to balance the certainty of a hot summer against the likelihood of an unprecedented storm. I’ve lived in Houston since 1977. We’ve had three hard freezes since then, and none of them match this one for duration and spread. So, the Count gets this wrong.
It was stupid to reflexively blame renewables (10% of state output) just as it is equally ill-conceived to try to jam this into some kind of anti-private sector or anti-fossil fuel narrative. Wind doesn’t work unless the wind blows, solar requires clear skies and natural gas requires natural gas. If Texas were 100% green and half of that was solar and if the wind didn’t blow night and day, we’d be much worse off. Only the natural gas-fired plants are amenable to a near term, engineering fix and it was our natural gas fired plants that failed to meet demand.
Another thing the article points out is the tendency to fight the last war. As an aside, humans base their future planning on past experience, so fighting the last war isn’t per se wrong. Designing against the absolute worst case isn’t feasible either. So, there even though there is a sweet spot in there somewhere, even that, inevitably, will fall short over enough time.
I still owe a response in another thread but have been too busy to get to it.
I still owe a response in another thread but have been too busy to get to it.
Still leaves the question why other states don’t have the same problems with their equipment. The recommendations to ‘winterize’ equipment are a decade old by now but since that costs money and came from a federal source it was naturally ignored. And it’s not a question of snow plows at the Cairo airport (designed by the Russians who took that need for granted) but imo more of deliberate stinginess (I assume the weather proofed versions are the standard and those that are not customized).
Still leaves the question why other states don’t have the same problems with their equipment. The recommendations to ‘winterize’ equipment are a decade old by now but since that costs money and came from a federal source it was naturally ignored. And it’s not a question of snow plows at the Cairo airport (designed by the Russians who took that need for granted) but imo more of deliberate stinginess (I assume the weather proofed versions are the standard and those that are not customized).
Note that the small parts of Texas not under ERCOT, and connected to the larger US grid systems, seem to have had far fewer outages.
Note that the small parts of Texas not under ERCOT, and connected to the larger US grid systems, seem to have had far fewer outages.
‘Winterising’ isn’t cheap, and part of Texas’ conscious appeal to business is cheap power.
Though the governor appears to have had a sudden conversion to the idea.
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/18/greg-abbott-winter-storm/
‘Winterising’ isn’t cheap, and part of Texas’ conscious appeal to business is cheap power.
Though the governor appears to have had a sudden conversion to the idea.
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/18/greg-abbott-winter-storm/
McKinney: very glad to see you here, healthy and in fighting form.
As for getting back to us on the question of how the holocaust was planned and then organised in a country at that time widely considered (and not just by themselves) to represent the pinnacle of Western culture and civilisation, take your time.
McKinney: very glad to see you here, healthy and in fighting form.
As for getting back to us on the question of how the holocaust was planned and then organised in a country at that time widely considered (and not just by themselves) to represent the pinnacle of Western culture and civilisation, take your time.
Schubert lieder drove them mad.
Great to see McKT safe and present and the Count wrong again as the universe regains its natural equilibrium.
Schubert lieder drove them mad.
Great to see McKT safe and present and the Count wrong again as the universe regains its natural equilibrium.
The 2011 storm that Nigel linked to was not nearly as severe in duration, temperature and impact on people. As for winterizing, sure, everyone is in favor of that–but to what standard do you winterize and what are you giving up elsewhere?
Having now had the full experience, I’d much rather be without power and water in the winter than the summer. Not bathing in the winter, while unpleasant particularly after 120 straight hours, is nothing compared to not bathing or having AC for half that time with temperatures running as high as 110. Several years back, we had something like 90 consecutive days over 100 degrees. It was brutal, but the grid was up to it.
As I said at the beginning of my initial comment, everyone in a position of responsibility needs to close their mouths, open their records and respond to an in-depth investigation. Our situation does not fit anyone’s preferred narrative, as LJ’s article points out.
The 2011 storm that Nigel linked to was not nearly as severe in duration, temperature and impact on people. As for winterizing, sure, everyone is in favor of that–but to what standard do you winterize and what are you giving up elsewhere?
Having now had the full experience, I’d much rather be without power and water in the winter than the summer. Not bathing in the winter, while unpleasant particularly after 120 straight hours, is nothing compared to not bathing or having AC for half that time with temperatures running as high as 110. Several years back, we had something like 90 consecutive days over 100 degrees. It was brutal, but the grid was up to it.
As I said at the beginning of my initial comment, everyone in a position of responsibility needs to close their mouths, open their records and respond to an in-depth investigation. Our situation does not fit anyone’s preferred narrative, as LJ’s article points out.
McKinney: very glad to see you here, healthy and in fighting form.
As for getting back to us on the question of how the holocaust was planned and then organised in a country at that time widely considered (and not just by themselves) to represent the pinnacle of Western culture and civilisation, take your time.
Thanks and could I get a cite on the bolded part? Seriously, I’m trying to sort through the different contentions and do some research, so that would help.
Great to see McKT safe and present and the Count wrong again as the universe regains its natural equilibrium.
LOL. Thanks, as always Amigo.
McKinney: very glad to see you here, healthy and in fighting form.
As for getting back to us on the question of how the holocaust was planned and then organised in a country at that time widely considered (and not just by themselves) to represent the pinnacle of Western culture and civilisation, take your time.
Thanks and could I get a cite on the bolded part? Seriously, I’m trying to sort through the different contentions and do some research, so that would help.
Great to see McKT safe and present and the Count wrong again as the universe regains its natural equilibrium.
LOL. Thanks, as always Amigo.
Besides cost, a downside to winterization is that it makes it more difficult to keep the plants from overheating in the summer. To prevent overheating, a more likely event in Texas, much of a plant can be in the open air, not enclosed. But that makes it more vulnerable to cold temperatures.
Plants in Texas likely operate on very thin margins. The way the system is set up, a plant doesn’t get paid unless it’s pushing electrons out the door. So plants are in a constant bidding war to sell to ERCOT at the lowest price they can manage.
From Nigel‘s link:
The typical power demand profile in Texas would show a big peak in the summer when most of the state has to run air conditioning 24 hours a day to keep its inhabitants from melting.
My personal demand profile is just the opposite. If I have a fan, I can be comfortable in 92-95º temperatures. Cold is my problem. I use a lot more electricity in winter than in summer. But, then everyone knows that libertarianism is just a front for the Lizard People…
Besides cost, a downside to winterization is that it makes it more difficult to keep the plants from overheating in the summer. To prevent overheating, a more likely event in Texas, much of a plant can be in the open air, not enclosed. But that makes it more vulnerable to cold temperatures.
Plants in Texas likely operate on very thin margins. The way the system is set up, a plant doesn’t get paid unless it’s pushing electrons out the door. So plants are in a constant bidding war to sell to ERCOT at the lowest price they can manage.
From Nigel‘s link:
The typical power demand profile in Texas would show a big peak in the summer when most of the state has to run air conditioning 24 hours a day to keep its inhabitants from melting.
My personal demand profile is just the opposite. If I have a fan, I can be comfortable in 92-95º temperatures. Cold is my problem. I use a lot more electricity in winter than in summer. But, then everyone knows that libertarianism is just a front for the Lizard People…
As far as gas pipelines go, one of the major questions is: How wet is the gas. If you put gas that is not bone dry into a pipeline*, you damn well need insulation, if there is the slightest chance of temperatures dropping below the freezing point. If the problem was indeed freezing inside the tubes then those responsible should be physically hung out to (freeze) dry, chopped up and sold as cheap fuel (with warning labels attached of course).
*and sending wet gas over great distances is a very bad idea in general; short distances can be OK.
As far as gas pipelines go, one of the major questions is: How wet is the gas. If you put gas that is not bone dry into a pipeline*, you damn well need insulation, if there is the slightest chance of temperatures dropping below the freezing point. If the problem was indeed freezing inside the tubes then those responsible should be physically hung out to (freeze) dry, chopped up and sold as cheap fuel (with warning labels attached of course).
*and sending wet gas over great distances is a very bad idea in general; short distances can be OK.
The gas has to travel in pipelines to the plant that filters and drys the gas before it is injected into the transportation lines. Gas travels in the pipelines at about 22 miles an hour. So, it can take a while to get from West Texas to Houston.
The gas has to travel in pipelines to the plant that filters and drys the gas before it is injected into the transportation lines. Gas travels in the pipelines at about 22 miles an hour. So, it can take a while to get from West Texas to Houston.
Designing against the absolute worst case isn’t feasible either.
A bit of a straw guy there, tex. Taking into consideration those “worst possible outcomes” is eminently rational, even if the resources judged necessary to deal with them may not be wholly available. So—backup plan (I believe this was assessed the last time this happened, no?).
These “black swan” events are, according to the science* becoming more likely. Therefore, not taking those probabilities into account when planning energy management (among many other things) is simply negligence and/or untrammeled greed.
Stay warm, sir.
*You know, those moneygrubbers whose only priority is maximizing their grant money.
Designing against the absolute worst case isn’t feasible either.
A bit of a straw guy there, tex. Taking into consideration those “worst possible outcomes” is eminently rational, even if the resources judged necessary to deal with them may not be wholly available. So—backup plan (I believe this was assessed the last time this happened, no?).
These “black swan” events are, according to the science* becoming more likely. Therefore, not taking those probabilities into account when planning energy management (among many other things) is simply negligence and/or untrammeled greed.
Stay warm, sir.
*You know, those moneygrubbers whose only priority is maximizing their grant money.
From McKinney’s home town newspaper:
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Texas-grid-again-faces-scrutiny-over-cold-15955392.php
communist rag.
From McKinney’s home town newspaper:
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Texas-grid-again-faces-scrutiny-over-cold-15955392.php
communist rag.
The way the system is set up, a plant doesn’t get paid unless it’s pushing electrons out the door.
This CNBC article points out that during the spring and fall the Texas grid produces more little baby electrons than they need. Given their deliberate isolation from the national grid, these little tykes wander around unsold, only to die an unwanted and cruel death.
Monsters!
The way the system is set up, a plant doesn’t get paid unless it’s pushing electrons out the door.
This CNBC article points out that during the spring and fall the Texas grid produces more little baby electrons than they need. Given their deliberate isolation from the national grid, these little tykes wander around unsold, only to die an unwanted and cruel death.
Monsters!
Besides cost, a downside to winterization is that it makes it more difficult to keep the plants from overheating in the summer…
Which isn’t true of wind power; that was just cheapskatism.
And given the growing importance of wind in the state, Texas really should connect to the larger national grids.
Besides cost, a downside to winterization is that it makes it more difficult to keep the plants from overheating in the summer…
Which isn’t true of wind power; that was just cheapskatism.
And given the growing importance of wind in the state, Texas really should connect to the larger national grids.
Any powerline across statelines is a shackle in disguise and a potential reduction of shekels in the purse!
Any powerline across statelines is a shackle in disguise and a potential reduction of shekels in the purse!
while Cruz was vacationing, AOC helped raise $1M for Texans.
while Cruz was vacationing, AOC helped raise $1M for Texans.
The way the system is set up, a plant doesn’t get paid unless it’s pushing electrons out the door.
I’m trying to imagine all the positively-charged power plants.
The way the system is set up, a plant doesn’t get paid unless it’s pushing electrons out the door.
I’m trying to imagine all the positively-charged power plants.
Thanks and could I get a cite on the bolded part? Seriously, I’m trying to sort through the different contentions and do some research, so that would help.
I hear you, and will revert. This is something I think I know definitively, and only partly anecdotally from pre-WW2 contemporaries and academics; let’s see if I can find support for it. (If Hartmut has anything to add, either way, that would be interesting too).
Thanks and could I get a cite on the bolded part? Seriously, I’m trying to sort through the different contentions and do some research, so that would help.
I hear you, and will revert. This is something I think I know definitively, and only partly anecdotally from pre-WW2 contemporaries and academics; let’s see if I can find support for it. (If Hartmut has anything to add, either way, that would be interesting too).
My hunch on the discussion of where Germany fits in the hierarchy of “Western” nation states is that it depends on one’s understanding of “The Age of Enlightenment,” and what parts of it you find most compelling.
The Anglo-American focused people will probably look at Locke as the main voice through which to trace a lineage. The Francophiles will lay claim to Diderot, Rousseau, and Voltaire. All of these are in the mix of influences if you see the founding of the US as the historical apotheosis of the Enlightenment ideal and see the roads all leading to representative government.
But there is also an argument to be made for King Frederick II of Prussia as the “enlightened despot” who put Enlightenment ideals into practice at the governmental level, secured religious toleration as principle of the modern nation state, and firmly wedded these ideals to the middle class and the state economy in a way that wasn’t possible in the more classist French and English societies. He was, in many ways, the fulfillment of the Philosopher King ideal that we get in Plato’s Republic. And when you then figure how much of our modern philosophy runs through Kant and Hegel and the German tradition of that time, I don’t think it is at all controversial to say that Germany represents at least one view of an ideal Western state.
And it also creates a sort of rivalry between them and the US for that title, and puts WWII square in the center of the argument as a massive point of inflection.
Just to throw a broad brush, Enlightenment 101 level explanation out there.
My hunch on the discussion of where Germany fits in the hierarchy of “Western” nation states is that it depends on one’s understanding of “The Age of Enlightenment,” and what parts of it you find most compelling.
The Anglo-American focused people will probably look at Locke as the main voice through which to trace a lineage. The Francophiles will lay claim to Diderot, Rousseau, and Voltaire. All of these are in the mix of influences if you see the founding of the US as the historical apotheosis of the Enlightenment ideal and see the roads all leading to representative government.
But there is also an argument to be made for King Frederick II of Prussia as the “enlightened despot” who put Enlightenment ideals into practice at the governmental level, secured religious toleration as principle of the modern nation state, and firmly wedded these ideals to the middle class and the state economy in a way that wasn’t possible in the more classist French and English societies. He was, in many ways, the fulfillment of the Philosopher King ideal that we get in Plato’s Republic. And when you then figure how much of our modern philosophy runs through Kant and Hegel and the German tradition of that time, I don’t think it is at all controversial to say that Germany represents at least one view of an ideal Western state.
And it also creates a sort of rivalry between them and the US for that title, and puts WWII square in the center of the argument as a massive point of inflection.
Just to throw a broad brush, Enlightenment 101 level explanation out there.
Thanks, nous, and your para starting But there is also an argument to be made is certainly part of what I was thinking of (having had this very point made to me again and again by the long-dead, German-born, non-Nazi love of my life who was 16 when WW2 ended). However this, and widely acknowledged, undeniable late-Weimar cultural ferment and creativity, are not enough. I hope (and am pretty sure) I can come up with more for McKinney. We shall see.
Thanks, nous, and your para starting But there is also an argument to be made is certainly part of what I was thinking of (having had this very point made to me again and again by the long-dead, German-born, non-Nazi love of my life who was 16 when WW2 ended). However this, and widely acknowledged, undeniable late-Weimar cultural ferment and creativity, are not enough. I hope (and am pretty sure) I can come up with more for McKinney. We shall see.
As far as gas pipelines go, one of the major questions is: How wet is the gas.
Exactly. Most of 30 years ago the eastern third of Colorado had a near-record cold snap. On the coldest day, metro Denver went to rolling blackouts because natural gas deliveries to the generators were curtailed. The principal cause was water in the gas freezing out within a fairly short distance of the wellhead. Wet gas gets dewatered a whole lot closer to the wellhead these days.
As far as gas pipelines go, one of the major questions is: How wet is the gas.
Exactly. Most of 30 years ago the eastern third of Colorado had a near-record cold snap. On the coldest day, metro Denver went to rolling blackouts because natural gas deliveries to the generators were curtailed. The principal cause was water in the gas freezing out within a fairly short distance of the wellhead. Wet gas gets dewatered a whole lot closer to the wellhead these days.
You have to balance the certainty of a hot summer against the likelihood of an unprecedented storm.
One of the reasons that wind has become so popular in Western Interconnect states is that it doesn’t require cooling water. I keep an eye on Texas to see how they deal with the problem.
Some years back there was a very hot summer and the two nukes near Dallas had to be throttled back because the man-made lake that holds their cooling water got warm enough that the whole plant was less efficient.
I always find it interesting that surface water in Texas all belongs to the state which can pick and choose diversions (and delegate that to other entities). Sometime in the last 20 years there were two dry years in a row and the agency that manages the lower Colorado River* put a bunch of rice farmers out of business by holding back their water access to keep a big power plant near Austin operating.
* The Texas version of the Colorado River, not the AZ/CA/CO/NV/UT/WY Colorado River.
You have to balance the certainty of a hot summer against the likelihood of an unprecedented storm.
One of the reasons that wind has become so popular in Western Interconnect states is that it doesn’t require cooling water. I keep an eye on Texas to see how they deal with the problem.
Some years back there was a very hot summer and the two nukes near Dallas had to be throttled back because the man-made lake that holds their cooling water got warm enough that the whole plant was less efficient.
I always find it interesting that surface water in Texas all belongs to the state which can pick and choose diversions (and delegate that to other entities). Sometime in the last 20 years there were two dry years in a row and the agency that manages the lower Colorado River* put a bunch of rice farmers out of business by holding back their water access to keep a big power plant near Austin operating.
* The Texas version of the Colorado River, not the AZ/CA/CO/NV/UT/WY Colorado River.
I think it would be a lot easier to have McT tell us what he defines as the high points of Western Civilization at the turn of the century rather than try and give him a liberal arts 101 course.
I think it would be a lot easier to have McT tell us what he defines as the high points of Western Civilization at the turn of the century rather than try and give him a liberal arts 101 course.
Just to throw a broad brush, Enlightenment 101 level explanation out there.
People like Haydn, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Liszt, etc., and folks like Martin Luther, Goethe, Rilke, Thomas Mann, etc., also not too shabby examples. Marx and Engels too, whatever one thinks of their legacy.
There’s a lot missing when lists start being made!
McKinney, it did happen there, and it can happen here.
Just to throw a broad brush, Enlightenment 101 level explanation out there.
People like Haydn, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Liszt, etc., and folks like Martin Luther, Goethe, Rilke, Thomas Mann, etc., also not too shabby examples. Marx and Engels too, whatever one thinks of their legacy.
There’s a lot missing when lists start being made!
McKinney, it did happen there, and it can happen here.
sapient: good points all. Those guys were the hinterland of German culture and civilisation, which made Germans and other Europeans etc so sure that Germany represented a (or the) pinnacle. But I hope to provide evidence in due course that that was how Germany was widely regarded at the time. It was certainly why so many Jews never believed it could happen there, until it did, according to multiple survivor accounts I have read and heard over the years.
sapient: good points all. Those guys were the hinterland of German culture and civilisation, which made Germans and other Europeans etc so sure that Germany represented a (or the) pinnacle. But I hope to provide evidence in due course that that was how Germany was widely regarded at the time. It was certainly why so many Jews never believed it could happen there, until it did, according to multiple survivor accounts I have read and heard over the years.
Wet gas gets dewatered a whole lot closer to the wellhead these days.
My instant reaction, when Charles said
was Why aren’t they drying it the wellhead, rather than in Houston??? Glad to see it wasn’t simply a dumbass question.
Wet gas gets dewatered a whole lot closer to the wellhead these days.
My instant reaction, when Charles said
was Why aren’t they drying it the wellhead, rather than in Houston??? Glad to see it wasn’t simply a dumbass question.
Why aren’t they drying it the wellhead, rather than in Houston???
I intended to mean that the gas was dried near the wellhead before being injected into the transport pipelines. If it’s not dried at the wellhead, it’s going to have to travel some distance in a pipe before being dried.
Why aren’t they drying it the wellhead, rather than in Houston???
I intended to mean that the gas was dried near the wellhead before being injected into the transport pipelines. If it’s not dried at the wellhead, it’s going to have to travel some distance in a pipe before being dried.
Natural-gas processing
Natural-gas processing
Cancel culture strikes again!!
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/19/ted-cruz-children-school-470341
Cancel culture strikes again!!
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/19/ted-cruz-children-school-470341
You could also make a case for Vienna and the Austrian Hungarian empire.
But all these “pinnacles of Western culture and civilisation” at the turn of the century rested on very unsteady foundations.
You could also make a case for Vienna and the Austrian Hungarian empire.
But all these “pinnacles of Western culture and civilisation” at the turn of the century rested on very unsteady foundations.
At least for Germany it can be said that it was the very success of integrating Jews into society that spawned modern anti-semitism. The main proponents insisted that it had nothing to do with religion at all, therefore the new name (which was non-sensical as linguists pointed out at the time but without success). Simple progroms were something for backward societies like Poland or Russia. It ‘needed’ a superior ‘enlightened’ society to recognize and to deal with the ‘problem’ (once and for all*).
The modern anti-semites saw themselves as modern, even ‘progressive’, as the avant-garde in the original sense. Austria-Hungary was from that POV too old-fashioned and stuck in the pre-modern mindset (although they came up with the basis for the idea to combine the old-fashioned local progrom with the modern centralized extermination).
*the ‘for all’ with both meanings 1) finally 2) to the benefit of everybody
At least for Germany it can be said that it was the very success of integrating Jews into society that spawned modern anti-semitism. The main proponents insisted that it had nothing to do with religion at all, therefore the new name (which was non-sensical as linguists pointed out at the time but without success). Simple progroms were something for backward societies like Poland or Russia. It ‘needed’ a superior ‘enlightened’ society to recognize and to deal with the ‘problem’ (once and for all*).
The modern anti-semites saw themselves as modern, even ‘progressive’, as the avant-garde in the original sense. Austria-Hungary was from that POV too old-fashioned and stuck in the pre-modern mindset (although they came up with the basis for the idea to combine the old-fashioned local progrom with the modern centralized extermination).
*the ‘for all’ with both meanings 1) finally 2) to the benefit of everybody
But all these “pinnacles of Western culture and civilisation” at the turn of the century rested on very unsteady foundations.
Very true, when you consider a country’s economy, in particular, to be one of the main foundations.
sapient’s list of German high, high culture, and the subsequent developments in the 20th century (the Wikipedia article on Weimar culture gives a superficial, but panoramic view, with supporting bibliography) supports my contention. But what I have not yet proved (although I am trying to find supporting evidence) is that this was a prevailing view outside Germany. It seems self-evident to me, but we shall see.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_culture
But all these “pinnacles of Western culture and civilisation” at the turn of the century rested on very unsteady foundations.
Very true, when you consider a country’s economy, in particular, to be one of the main foundations.
sapient’s list of German high, high culture, and the subsequent developments in the 20th century (the Wikipedia article on Weimar culture gives a superficial, but panoramic view, with supporting bibliography) supports my contention. But what I have not yet proved (although I am trying to find supporting evidence) is that this was a prevailing view outside Germany. It seems self-evident to me, but we shall see.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_culture
The ability for mass murder was not something that only Germans who had turned to Nazism were capable of and if you want to follow the French line, you have this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drownings_at_Nantes
The ability for mass murder was not something that only Germans who had turned to Nazism were capable of and if you want to follow the French line, you have this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drownings_at_Nantes
GftNC,
Not sure what, exactly, your contention is. Perhaps you could restate your hypothesis? I did find this, for what it’s worth.
Carry on.
GftNC,
Not sure what, exactly, your contention is. Perhaps you could restate your hypothesis? I did find this, for what it’s worth.
Carry on.
The ability for mass murder was not something that only Germans who had turned to Nazism were capable of
something something centuries of colonialism something something
The ability for mass murder was not something that only Germans who had turned to Nazism were capable of
something something centuries of colonialism something something
bobbyp: McKinney’s repeated contention is that Western (sometimes he specifies Judeo-Christian, sometimes he specifies capitalist, sometimes he specifies liberal enlightenment) culture and civilisation is superior in almost every way to any others in history. He rejected the idea that the holocaust was a product of a culture and civilisation (Germany) which thought itself, and was thought by others, to be a pinnacle of Western culture and civilisation. He contended that responsibility for the holocaust was the Nazi party’s, not Germany’s, but he asked for evidence of the bolded text above, which was my contention.
Apart from sapient’s list of exemplars of German high and political, philosophical culture, which forms the backbone of my picture of Germany’s place among nations in this regard, and apart from Weimar and other 20th century artistic and other developments, I give McKinney this piece in the Nation, on Wolf Lepenies extended essay The Seduction of Culture in German History which essay may give him what he was asking for. I have not read it, but I am perfectly happy with my characterisation of Germany’s self-image and European image at the time. However, McKinney is researching this subject, so he may be interested enough to do so. From the piece in the Nation:
Germany’s Kultur–its music, its classic and Romantic literature and art, its philosophy, its university system and its science–has been admired and emulated, sometimes envied and feared, but always, if sometimes begrudgingly, recognized as an inalienable part of European civilization. But after the nineteenth-century “Land der Dichter und Denker” (country of poets and thinkers) became the “Land der Richter und Henker” (country of judges and executioners), as Karl Kraus famously put it, the unsettling proximity of German Kultur to barbarism became a standard trope. Auschwitz inmates forced to perform Mozart and Beethoven, Goethe’s Weimar right next to Buchenwald, Adolf Hitler’s Wagner cult and Albert Speer’s megalomaniacal architectural fantasies–this is what reminds us that German Kultur not only failed to stem the tide of fascism but was effortlessly appropriated by the Nazis and thus contributed to Hitler’s rise.
The German tendency to see in culture a legitimate, even noble substitute for parliamentary and democratic politics is the topic of Wolf Lepenies’s extended essay. The story Lepenies tells in The Seduction of Culture in German History is not new. It has been explored with great insight by an earlier generation of historians, many of them German-Jewish émigrés such as Fritz Stern, Georg Mosse and Peter Gay. But it does warrant a new look in our age of “culture wars” and the “clash of civilizations.” Even if Kultur in the sense of apolitical high culture played a greater role in Germany than anywhere else, making the country’s road to modernity unique in some respects (the so-called Sonderweg, or special path), recent historiography has done much to puncture the narrative of German exceptionalism. Culture has served as a substitute for politics in other countries as well: to a certain extent in France after the military defeat of 1871, in Spain after the Spanish-American War of 1898, even in the United States during the post-Vietnam culture wars. Lepenies, a distinguished sociologist, former rector of the Berlin Wissenschaftskolleg and an accomplished man of letters, offers us a series of brilliant vignettes, studded with memorable aphorisms and observations focusing on German, French and American intellectual life across time and disciplines.
From Herder, Weimar classicism and the Romantics on, at first by default, later by choice, Germans understood themselves as a Kulturnation, a nation unified by high culture in the absence of a central state. Once Germany achieved unity and statehood under Bismarck in 1871, this notion of Kultur took on more aggressive connotations. German elites counterposed Kultur to French civilization, German Romanticism and its cult of inwardness to the French Enlightenment and the ideal of the citoyen, German manliness and moral seriousness to French decadence and frivolity. After the failure of the 1848 attempt to bring parliamentary and constitutional rule to Germany, the embrace of Kultur often came with the dismissal of parliamentary politics as somehow un-German, and it underlay Germans’ feelings of superiority over their Western neighbors–an attitude that would merge seamlessly with Nazi racial theory and imperial aggression. It was precisely because Kultur shunned the realm of politics that the cultured elites collapsed so easily and often eagerly when the Nazis staged their rule as a cultural revolution.
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/high-culture-low-politics/
bobbyp: McKinney’s repeated contention is that Western (sometimes he specifies Judeo-Christian, sometimes he specifies capitalist, sometimes he specifies liberal enlightenment) culture and civilisation is superior in almost every way to any others in history. He rejected the idea that the holocaust was a product of a culture and civilisation (Germany) which thought itself, and was thought by others, to be a pinnacle of Western culture and civilisation. He contended that responsibility for the holocaust was the Nazi party’s, not Germany’s, but he asked for evidence of the bolded text above, which was my contention.
Apart from sapient’s list of exemplars of German high and political, philosophical culture, which forms the backbone of my picture of Germany’s place among nations in this regard, and apart from Weimar and other 20th century artistic and other developments, I give McKinney this piece in the Nation, on Wolf Lepenies extended essay The Seduction of Culture in German History which essay may give him what he was asking for. I have not read it, but I am perfectly happy with my characterisation of Germany’s self-image and European image at the time. However, McKinney is researching this subject, so he may be interested enough to do so. From the piece in the Nation:
Germany’s Kultur–its music, its classic and Romantic literature and art, its philosophy, its university system and its science–has been admired and emulated, sometimes envied and feared, but always, if sometimes begrudgingly, recognized as an inalienable part of European civilization. But after the nineteenth-century “Land der Dichter und Denker” (country of poets and thinkers) became the “Land der Richter und Henker” (country of judges and executioners), as Karl Kraus famously put it, the unsettling proximity of German Kultur to barbarism became a standard trope. Auschwitz inmates forced to perform Mozart and Beethoven, Goethe’s Weimar right next to Buchenwald, Adolf Hitler’s Wagner cult and Albert Speer’s megalomaniacal architectural fantasies–this is what reminds us that German Kultur not only failed to stem the tide of fascism but was effortlessly appropriated by the Nazis and thus contributed to Hitler’s rise.
The German tendency to see in culture a legitimate, even noble substitute for parliamentary and democratic politics is the topic of Wolf Lepenies’s extended essay. The story Lepenies tells in The Seduction of Culture in German History is not new. It has been explored with great insight by an earlier generation of historians, many of them German-Jewish émigrés such as Fritz Stern, Georg Mosse and Peter Gay. But it does warrant a new look in our age of “culture wars” and the “clash of civilizations.” Even if Kultur in the sense of apolitical high culture played a greater role in Germany than anywhere else, making the country’s road to modernity unique in some respects (the so-called Sonderweg, or special path), recent historiography has done much to puncture the narrative of German exceptionalism. Culture has served as a substitute for politics in other countries as well: to a certain extent in France after the military defeat of 1871, in Spain after the Spanish-American War of 1898, even in the United States during the post-Vietnam culture wars. Lepenies, a distinguished sociologist, former rector of the Berlin Wissenschaftskolleg and an accomplished man of letters, offers us a series of brilliant vignettes, studded with memorable aphorisms and observations focusing on German, French and American intellectual life across time and disciplines.
From Herder, Weimar classicism and the Romantics on, at first by default, later by choice, Germans understood themselves as a Kulturnation, a nation unified by high culture in the absence of a central state. Once Germany achieved unity and statehood under Bismarck in 1871, this notion of Kultur took on more aggressive connotations. German elites counterposed Kultur to French civilization, German Romanticism and its cult of inwardness to the French Enlightenment and the ideal of the citoyen, German manliness and moral seriousness to French decadence and frivolity. After the failure of the 1848 attempt to bring parliamentary and constitutional rule to Germany, the embrace of Kultur often came with the dismissal of parliamentary politics as somehow un-German, and it underlay Germans’ feelings of superiority over their Western neighbors–an attitude that would merge seamlessly with Nazi racial theory and imperial aggression. It was precisely because Kultur shunned the realm of politics that the cultured elites collapsed so easily and often eagerly when the Nazis staged their rule as a cultural revolution.
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/high-culture-low-politics/
Mid 17th century there were several witch ovens constructed (the most infamous in Neiße ins Silesia) that allowed to burn several dozen witches at once* with a minimum of fuel. Mass executions were nothing new but imo this has a different quality. Obviously the magistrate considered it to be a longterm investment where the fuel savings would quickly redeem the costs.
*the largest single use seems to have been 42 but iirc it had a larger capacity.
Mid 17th century there were several witch ovens constructed (the most infamous in Neiße ins Silesia) that allowed to burn several dozen witches at once* with a minimum of fuel. Mass executions were nothing new but imo this has a different quality. Obviously the magistrate considered it to be a longterm investment where the fuel savings would quickly redeem the costs.
*the largest single use seems to have been 42 but iirc it had a larger capacity.
The Wilhelmian German Empire prominently constrasted German “Kultur” with French “Zivilisation” (the former of course far superior). The German elites also saw themselves as spiritual successors of the ancient Greeks while France favored the Romans*.
The Romans that were defeated at Teutoburg Forest became stand-ins for the French since Napoleon in German literature (and that episode spawned a LOT of literary treatments).
*under Napoleon France called England “the New Carthage” btw.
The Wilhelmian German Empire prominently constrasted German “Kultur” with French “Zivilisation” (the former of course far superior). The German elites also saw themselves as spiritual successors of the ancient Greeks while France favored the Romans*.
The Romans that were defeated at Teutoburg Forest became stand-ins for the French since Napoleon in German literature (and that episode spawned a LOT of literary treatments).
*under Napoleon France called England “the New Carthage” btw.
The Wilhelmian German Empire prominently constrasted German “Kultur” with French “Zivilisation” (the former of course far superior).
Germany came late to the imperialist nation-state party. The ‘old timers’ had all the goodies and ‘timeless’ traditions (conquest, empire, colonial exploitation), and the Germans, high culture notwithstanding, were viewed as brash upstarts with a massive chip on their shoulder. As Hartmut points out, this assertion of superiority became mutual in a very deadly sense in the decades prior to WW1.
The above is a fairly common take….I’m sure there is a great deal more to it. I would ask further about the assertion of the ‘surrender’ of German culture to the nazis. They were not alone. The political right and the political center surrendered as well.
The Wilhelmian German Empire prominently constrasted German “Kultur” with French “Zivilisation” (the former of course far superior).
Germany came late to the imperialist nation-state party. The ‘old timers’ had all the goodies and ‘timeless’ traditions (conquest, empire, colonial exploitation), and the Germans, high culture notwithstanding, were viewed as brash upstarts with a massive chip on their shoulder. As Hartmut points out, this assertion of superiority became mutual in a very deadly sense in the decades prior to WW1.
The above is a fairly common take….I’m sure there is a great deal more to it. I would ask further about the assertion of the ‘surrender’ of German culture to the nazis. They were not alone. The political right and the political center surrendered as well.
Also, I think it worth the effort to tease out how much of “Western Civilization” points toward representative government and the idea of Athens and the Roman senate, and how much of it points towards the other, competing political systems of Greco-Roman antiquity. If one assumes something like the US as the culmination of Greco-Roman civilization, then it focuses on a very small part of the Classics corpus and it reads that corpus through the lens of Enlightenment philosophy.
A historicist reading of Greco-Roman works will give a different view. And historicism leads us directly into the German school of philosophy.
There’s a lot of sifting that’s going unexamined in a breezy deployment of the Western Civ label.
Also, I think it worth the effort to tease out how much of “Western Civilization” points toward representative government and the idea of Athens and the Roman senate, and how much of it points towards the other, competing political systems of Greco-Roman antiquity. If one assumes something like the US as the culmination of Greco-Roman civilization, then it focuses on a very small part of the Classics corpus and it reads that corpus through the lens of Enlightenment philosophy.
A historicist reading of Greco-Roman works will give a different view. And historicism leads us directly into the German school of philosophy.
There’s a lot of sifting that’s going unexamined in a breezy deployment of the Western Civ label.
Mid 17th century there were several witch ovens constructed (the most infamous in Neiße ins Silesia) that allowed to burn several dozen witches at once* with a minimum of fuel.
Geez. Salem had it witch burnings, but at least they were done one by one (AFIK) like civilized people. Due process, baby!
Mid 17th century there were several witch ovens constructed (the most infamous in Neiße ins Silesia) that allowed to burn several dozen witches at once* with a minimum of fuel.
Geez. Salem had it witch burnings, but at least they were done one by one (AFIK) like civilized people. Due process, baby!
its
That’s it for me today – surely a spell has been cast.
its
That’s it for me today – surely a spell has been cast.
Mass executions were nothing new but imo this has a different quality.
Agreed. An early portent of the German urge towards efficiency, which later became so much more impressive (if I can use such a word in this connection).
Mass executions were nothing new but imo this has a different quality.
Agreed. An early portent of the German urge towards efficiency, which later became so much more impressive (if I can use such a word in this connection).
I think GftNC should just tell McTex to do his homework on the Frankfurt School – it’s all there.
I think GftNC should just tell McTex to do his homework on the Frankfurt School – it’s all there.
Salem had it witch burnings
No burnings, they were hung.
Except Giles Corey, who was pressed to death, in an attempt to get him to enter a plea. The issue being, if he entered no plea, the court could not seize his land. So he took the weight and saved his farm for his kin.
“Have you any plea to enter, Mr Corey?”
“More weight”.
Apparently, a true story. “More weight” being a 17th C Puritan New England yeoman farmer way of saying “fnck you, you bastard”.
The Salem witch trials were a vile blend of religious bigotry and paranoia, settling of various family feuds, scapegoating of local oddballs, village vs countryside animus, and simple ordinary greed. As in case of Corey, some of accused held nice farm land, which might be surrendered to the court if they were found guilty.
All of that history is present to me on almost a daily basis. There is a lovely memorial to the witch trial victims in downtown Salem, which is a peaceful and beautiful place to sit and reflect when the weather is good. The farmstead of Rebecca Nurse, hung at age 71, has been preserved as a historical site in Danvers, which was Salem Village at the time. I worked around the corner from the Nurse farm site for several years and would occasionally take a walk there at lunchtime.
The church I attend is the same congregation to which most of the witch trial victims and their accusers belonged. We still say the same covenant, every week, that was first spoken when that congregation was gathered in 1629. Many of the primary documents of that period, and of those trials, are housed in the church basement. The events of the 1690’s are something we consider and discuss, often.
The past is never dead. It’s not even the past.
TBH I’m not sure the Nazi period was that extraordinary. Even the most casual glance at history turns up calamities of similar consequence. The Nazis were just remarkably systematic and calculated about it. They kept records. The rationality of it all is what makes it so hideous, I think.
Human beings are a very strange mix of the wonderful and the horrible. Sometimes all at the same time.
For folks considering the “can it happen here?” question, it’s worth noting that Hitler looked to the US as kind of a role model. We took an entire continent, systematically annihilated an entire race of people to do it, and enslaved an entire other race of people to exploit it. Hitler found that noteworthy.
Salem had it witch burnings
No burnings, they were hung.
Except Giles Corey, who was pressed to death, in an attempt to get him to enter a plea. The issue being, if he entered no plea, the court could not seize his land. So he took the weight and saved his farm for his kin.
“Have you any plea to enter, Mr Corey?”
“More weight”.
Apparently, a true story. “More weight” being a 17th C Puritan New England yeoman farmer way of saying “fnck you, you bastard”.
The Salem witch trials were a vile blend of religious bigotry and paranoia, settling of various family feuds, scapegoating of local oddballs, village vs countryside animus, and simple ordinary greed. As in case of Corey, some of accused held nice farm land, which might be surrendered to the court if they were found guilty.
All of that history is present to me on almost a daily basis. There is a lovely memorial to the witch trial victims in downtown Salem, which is a peaceful and beautiful place to sit and reflect when the weather is good. The farmstead of Rebecca Nurse, hung at age 71, has been preserved as a historical site in Danvers, which was Salem Village at the time. I worked around the corner from the Nurse farm site for several years and would occasionally take a walk there at lunchtime.
The church I attend is the same congregation to which most of the witch trial victims and their accusers belonged. We still say the same covenant, every week, that was first spoken when that congregation was gathered in 1629. Many of the primary documents of that period, and of those trials, are housed in the church basement. The events of the 1690’s are something we consider and discuss, often.
The past is never dead. It’s not even the past.
TBH I’m not sure the Nazi period was that extraordinary. Even the most casual glance at history turns up calamities of similar consequence. The Nazis were just remarkably systematic and calculated about it. They kept records. The rationality of it all is what makes it so hideous, I think.
Human beings are a very strange mix of the wonderful and the horrible. Sometimes all at the same time.
For folks considering the “can it happen here?” question, it’s worth noting that Hitler looked to the US as kind of a role model. We took an entire continent, systematically annihilated an entire race of people to do it, and enslaved an entire other race of people to exploit it. Hitler found that noteworthy.
We took an entire continent, systematically annihilated an entire race of people to do it, and enslaved an entire other race of people to exploit it.
I’m with you on all of it, russell. And — again — “we” is such an interesting word. That sentence reminds me of this poem, and I’m glad I went searching for it, because I had never seen his explanation of how it came about.
Hard to live up to these days, or any days.
We took an entire continent, systematically annihilated an entire race of people to do it, and enslaved an entire other race of people to exploit it.
I’m with you on all of it, russell. And — again — “we” is such an interesting word. That sentence reminds me of this poem, and I’m glad I went searching for it, because I had never seen his explanation of how it came about.
Hard to live up to these days, or any days.
The Nazis were just remarkably systematic and calculated about it.
Or is the difference that the Nazis also, and simultaneously, started a war with all of their neighbors. Which they came rather close to winning.
As a result of which, they got demonized more comprehensively than most similar cases. Who, currently, thinks about Pol Pot? For all that he is closer in time, and killed far more of his countrymen.
The Nazis were just remarkably systematic and calculated about it.
Or is the difference that the Nazis also, and simultaneously, started a war with all of their neighbors. Which they came rather close to winning.
As a result of which, they got demonized more comprehensively than most similar cases. Who, currently, thinks about Pol Pot? For all that he is closer in time, and killed far more of his countrymen.
For folks considering the “can it happen here?” question, it’s worth noting that Hitler looked to the US as kind of a role model. We took an entire continent, systematically annihilated an entire race of people to do it, and enslaved an entire other race of people to exploit it. Hitler found that noteworthy.
Why do you hate America, russell? ;^)
Imagine if the resolve the Nazis had were put to something positive, pulling off something of an economic miracle of sorts by getting enough people go pull in the same direction, without it being based on hatred of scapegoats and a perverse sense of superiority.
For folks considering the “can it happen here?” question, it’s worth noting that Hitler looked to the US as kind of a role model. We took an entire continent, systematically annihilated an entire race of people to do it, and enslaved an entire other race of people to exploit it. Hitler found that noteworthy.
Why do you hate America, russell? ;^)
Imagine if the resolve the Nazis had were put to something positive, pulling off something of an economic miracle of sorts by getting enough people go pull in the same direction, without it being based on hatred of scapegoats and a perverse sense of superiority.
We took an entire continent, systematically annihilated an entire race of people to do it, and enslaved an entire other race of people to exploit it.
To be accurate, the ancestors of some of us did so. We, i.e. those who currently live here, get some benefits from that. But nobody still living was around to see it, let alone actively involved. And ancestry is sufficiently muddled for many of us that even what percentage of your ancestors were complicit can be hard to parse.
In a lot (not all, but a lot) of cases, it seems like those who get most worked up on the subject are mostly just feeling a need to feel guilty. Without reference to whether their ancestors were even on this continent at the time. If they want to donate their own time, money, and effort to what they see as somehow making amends, that’s fine. Admirable even.
But the frequent demand that everybody else do so is hard to take seriously.** Especially since it so often seems to be mostly based on the most superficial kind of racism. I wait, with zero anticipation, for someone to recognize that, if you look at actual ancestry, Barack Obama probably has more “ancestral guilt” than some scum like Ted Cruz. More likely, the denunciation will go the other way.
** Now collectively putting money and effort into helping lift people, all people, out of povetty — that’s something worth doing. But, rwnj propaganda notwithstanding, there’s no need to base doing so on race.
We took an entire continent, systematically annihilated an entire race of people to do it, and enslaved an entire other race of people to exploit it.
To be accurate, the ancestors of some of us did so. We, i.e. those who currently live here, get some benefits from that. But nobody still living was around to see it, let alone actively involved. And ancestry is sufficiently muddled for many of us that even what percentage of your ancestors were complicit can be hard to parse.
In a lot (not all, but a lot) of cases, it seems like those who get most worked up on the subject are mostly just feeling a need to feel guilty. Without reference to whether their ancestors were even on this continent at the time. If they want to donate their own time, money, and effort to what they see as somehow making amends, that’s fine. Admirable even.
But the frequent demand that everybody else do so is hard to take seriously.** Especially since it so often seems to be mostly based on the most superficial kind of racism. I wait, with zero anticipation, for someone to recognize that, if you look at actual ancestry, Barack Obama probably has more “ancestral guilt” than some scum like Ted Cruz. More likely, the denunciation will go the other way.
** Now collectively putting money and effort into helping lift people, all people, out of povetty — that’s something worth doing. But, rwnj propaganda notwithstanding, there’s no need to base doing so on race.
To be accurate, the ancestors of some of us did so.
Well, this site might be of interest
https://slaveryfootprint.org/
This isn’t a gotcha, I was looking at some lists of well designed websites the other day and this came up.
To be accurate, the ancestors of some of us did so.
Well, this site might be of interest
https://slaveryfootprint.org/
This isn’t a gotcha, I was looking at some lists of well designed websites the other day and this came up.
lj, it would be interesting to know what criteria they are using for their calculations. For example, do they assume that any TV regardless of manufacturer or date of manufacture was made by slave labor? That any dairy products were not? That my house . . . I’m not sure what?
Similarly for all the other stuff. It’s a cute conceit. But silly if you stop to think about it.
lj, it would be interesting to know what criteria they are using for their calculations. For example, do they assume that any TV regardless of manufacturer or date of manufacture was made by slave labor? That any dairy products were not? That my house . . . I’m not sure what?
Similarly for all the other stuff. It’s a cute conceit. But silly if you stop to think about it.
Actually, given the supply chain, I’m not so sure that your assumption that there are TV sets out there that are untouched by people who are in some way being exploited. And the idea that there is a some date of manufacture cutoff is also an interesting assumption. I wonder how many people have TVs that use cathode ray tech (and do they still pick up anything?)
Capitalism works in part because it separates us from how things are produced.
Actually, given the supply chain, I’m not so sure that your assumption that there are TV sets out there that are untouched by people who are in some way being exploited. And the idea that there is a some date of manufacture cutoff is also an interesting assumption. I wonder how many people have TVs that use cathode ray tech (and do they still pick up anything?)
Capitalism works in part because it separates us from how things are produced.
Slave-free chocolate. Conversely, a lot of chocolate is not slave-free, and the slaves are children.
Slave-free chocolate. Conversely, a lot of chocolate is not slave-free, and the slaves are children.
Or is the difference that the Nazis also, and simultaneously, started a war with all of their neighbors.
I’m pretty sure the American southwest and most of CA used to be Mexico.
We have also tried it on with Canada, but they kicked our @ss.
To be accurate, the ancestors of some of us did so.
I believe the question that gets raised about this stuff is “can it happen here?”, rather than “is it happening here?”.
And the corollary question is “is there something special about us that makes us immune from that kind of insanity?”.
Unless we are somehow a different breed of human than our ancestors were, I think the answer from history is “no”.
Or is the difference that the Nazis also, and simultaneously, started a war with all of their neighbors.
I’m pretty sure the American southwest and most of CA used to be Mexico.
We have also tried it on with Canada, but they kicked our @ss.
To be accurate, the ancestors of some of us did so.
I believe the question that gets raised about this stuff is “can it happen here?”, rather than “is it happening here?”.
And the corollary question is “is there something special about us that makes us immune from that kind of insanity?”.
Unless we are somehow a different breed of human than our ancestors were, I think the answer from history is “no”.
“To be accurate, the ancestors of some of us did so.”
Well, the “who’s we, kemosabe?” argument works both ways or not at all.
I admit, it is dicey to rationalize collective guilt from the past and our ancestors, as in, “We, America, enslaved an entire race and all of us to this day bear collective guilt.”
But just so, when folks claim “We freed the slaves”, or “We defeated Fascism in Europe” or “We are the shining city on the hill”, or “We invented the vaccine for polio”, why, to quote a character in the movie “Network”, I look askance.
Now, when FOX News figures point out the upside of that enslavement for the black race, I think I can tell who “we” is, or wants to be.
Case in point: the Spanish Flu.
Case in point: the Chinese Flu, which we seem to have made our very American own via the perverse, sick hospitality of say, the Governor of South Dakota and Donald Trump, though I don’t discount that the CCP as well is trying to figure a way to call that the Spanish Flu as well.
I just don’t know how Spaniards live with themselves, for all they’ve done to the rest of us.
In fact, Spaniards rival government as the scapegoat in too many American minds for the catalogue of Russell’s miseries.
And goats seem to be implicated in everything bad as well, at least when mirrors aren’t available for us to peer into.
I don’t keep as mirror in my place for just that reason.
“To be accurate, the ancestors of some of us did so.”
Well, the “who’s we, kemosabe?” argument works both ways or not at all.
I admit, it is dicey to rationalize collective guilt from the past and our ancestors, as in, “We, America, enslaved an entire race and all of us to this day bear collective guilt.”
But just so, when folks claim “We freed the slaves”, or “We defeated Fascism in Europe” or “We are the shining city on the hill”, or “We invented the vaccine for polio”, why, to quote a character in the movie “Network”, I look askance.
Now, when FOX News figures point out the upside of that enslavement for the black race, I think I can tell who “we” is, or wants to be.
Case in point: the Spanish Flu.
Case in point: the Chinese Flu, which we seem to have made our very American own via the perverse, sick hospitality of say, the Governor of South Dakota and Donald Trump, though I don’t discount that the CCP as well is trying to figure a way to call that the Spanish Flu as well.
I just don’t know how Spaniards live with themselves, for all they’ve done to the rest of us.
In fact, Spaniards rival government as the scapegoat in too many American minds for the catalogue of Russell’s miseries.
And goats seem to be implicated in everything bad as well, at least when mirrors aren’t available for us to peer into.
I don’t keep as mirror in my place for just that reason.
This happened just overhead yesterday:
https://digbysblog.net/2021/02/from-the-dont-fly-this-at-home-files/
This happened just overhead yesterday:
https://digbysblog.net/2021/02/from-the-dont-fly-this-at-home-files/
To be accurate, the ancestors of some of us did so.
Just to push back on this a bit more:
My grandfather kept a black man’s knucklebones in his dresser drawer. I don’t even want to know how he came by them, but I also think it’s fairly obvious how he came by them, and why he had them. They were a trophy.
I know and have known, personally, people who were excluded from public places because they are black. In some cases, as a matter of public policy or law. Some are gone now, some are not. Some are still alive, walking among us. Ask around, you probably know some, too.
It’s been not quite 60 years since the landmark civil rights legislation of the 60’s was passed.
And needless to say, we are still screwing native Americans over on a somewhat daily basis, in any of a variety of ways.
This stuff is not that far in the past. People I know, people I am personally related to, participated in it, either as perpetrators or victims. It’s just not that far behind us.
I don’t think the correct response to this is guilt, and I personally don’t feel guilty about it. As you note, I personally didn’t do any of that stuff.
What I do think is an appropriate response is humility, and self-awareness.
“Can it happen here?”. It has happened here.
Did any of us, personally do it? Most likely not.
Are we, personally, now and today, somehow above doing it? Have we evolved, in the space of a generation or two, into people who are incapable of things like that?
I think the answer is no. And I think the correct response is humility and a practice of self-awareness and self-reflection, rather than an attitude of self-congratulation that we are somehow above it all.
I don’t believe we are above it all. I don’t believe anyone is, really, except perhaps the saints among us. And sainthood is, generally, the result of a practice of humility and self-awareness.
Janie, thank you for sharing the Thich Nhat Hanh, it was a blessing.
To be accurate, the ancestors of some of us did so.
Just to push back on this a bit more:
My grandfather kept a black man’s knucklebones in his dresser drawer. I don’t even want to know how he came by them, but I also think it’s fairly obvious how he came by them, and why he had them. They were a trophy.
I know and have known, personally, people who were excluded from public places because they are black. In some cases, as a matter of public policy or law. Some are gone now, some are not. Some are still alive, walking among us. Ask around, you probably know some, too.
It’s been not quite 60 years since the landmark civil rights legislation of the 60’s was passed.
And needless to say, we are still screwing native Americans over on a somewhat daily basis, in any of a variety of ways.
This stuff is not that far in the past. People I know, people I am personally related to, participated in it, either as perpetrators or victims. It’s just not that far behind us.
I don’t think the correct response to this is guilt, and I personally don’t feel guilty about it. As you note, I personally didn’t do any of that stuff.
What I do think is an appropriate response is humility, and self-awareness.
“Can it happen here?”. It has happened here.
Did any of us, personally do it? Most likely not.
Are we, personally, now and today, somehow above doing it? Have we evolved, in the space of a generation or two, into people who are incapable of things like that?
I think the answer is no. And I think the correct response is humility and a practice of self-awareness and self-reflection, rather than an attitude of self-congratulation that we are somehow above it all.
I don’t believe we are above it all. I don’t believe anyone is, really, except perhaps the saints among us. And sainthood is, generally, the result of a practice of humility and self-awareness.
Janie, thank you for sharing the Thich Nhat Hanh, it was a blessing.
To be accurate, the ancestors of some of us did so.
…and all of us are still trying to sort out and deal with the consequences.
To be accurate, the ancestors of some of us did so.
…and all of us are still trying to sort out and deal with the consequences.
…and all of us are still trying to sort out and deal with the consequences.
Just to be clear, I completely agree that all of us need to do so. But I’m thinking we need a bit more focus on what needs to be done there. And a bit less on who (or whose ancestors) should be considered guilty. Not least because we might see less pushback, and so get more done sooner.
…and all of us are still trying to sort out and deal with the consequences.
Just to be clear, I completely agree that all of us need to do so. But I’m thinking we need a bit more focus on what needs to be done there. And a bit less on who (or whose ancestors) should be considered guilty. Not least because we might see less pushback, and so get more done sooner.
Just some thoughts before I go to bed. Russell states it better than I do, but I should say, I tossed that link up not to guilt trip anyone. You do you and I’ll do me as the phrase goes, so process the information however you like. All I’d ask is that people consider that before they go on and on about how capitalism is the greatest bar none system for organizing society. No need for anyone to flagellate themselves, just hold back a bit and maybe hold off saying ‘hey, that’s not me’. The rough equivalent to, I hope, Russell’s call for self-awareness and reflection.
Just some thoughts before I go to bed. Russell states it better than I do, but I should say, I tossed that link up not to guilt trip anyone. You do you and I’ll do me as the phrase goes, so process the information however you like. All I’d ask is that people consider that before they go on and on about how capitalism is the greatest bar none system for organizing society. No need for anyone to flagellate themselves, just hold back a bit and maybe hold off saying ‘hey, that’s not me’. The rough equivalent to, I hope, Russell’s call for self-awareness and reflection.
Thinking about ancestry and the deeds of our forebears only gets at so much of the picture. Culture and economics also matter and bring their own tangles of complicity. I don’t think about it as a matter of blame so much as a matter of awareness and a moral duty to mitigate the ongoing legacy effects and build a better social future.
A dear friend and former professor recently shared this piece with me: Sleepovers in Slave Cabins Are Helping to Create Healing Conversations. The part I think is most relevant to this conversation is…:
“Even as immersed in the subject matter as I thought I was, I knew very little,” he admits. “I had slavery in a box, you know: a [rural] southern plantation. …I wasn’t even thinking about urban slavery and, right there in Charleston, South Carolina, you could find hundreds of slave dwellings within the city limits.”
He also didn’t realize the depths of northern complicity in the institution of slavery. Not only did northerners own enslaved Africans, “they owned the banks, … the insurance companies, … the factories” that financially benefited from the cotton the slaves picked.
I’ve got a lot of other things I am thinking about with this – about my mother’s people who came from Sweden in the middle of the 19th C. to settle in the upper midwest, which absolves them of American guilt in many eyes – about my father’s people who left Massachusetts colony because they didn’t think the elders that russell wrote about were observant enough and wound their dissenter way through the western expansion of the US, never owning slaves, but deeply racist nonetheless, despite finding it abhorrent that one man claim to own another.
But all that is too tangled to tease out, so I’ll just ponder it some more and leave you all to your own meditations.
Thinking about ancestry and the deeds of our forebears only gets at so much of the picture. Culture and economics also matter and bring their own tangles of complicity. I don’t think about it as a matter of blame so much as a matter of awareness and a moral duty to mitigate the ongoing legacy effects and build a better social future.
A dear friend and former professor recently shared this piece with me: Sleepovers in Slave Cabins Are Helping to Create Healing Conversations. The part I think is most relevant to this conversation is…:
“Even as immersed in the subject matter as I thought I was, I knew very little,” he admits. “I had slavery in a box, you know: a [rural] southern plantation. …I wasn’t even thinking about urban slavery and, right there in Charleston, South Carolina, you could find hundreds of slave dwellings within the city limits.”
He also didn’t realize the depths of northern complicity in the institution of slavery. Not only did northerners own enslaved Africans, “they owned the banks, … the insurance companies, … the factories” that financially benefited from the cotton the slaves picked.
I’ve got a lot of other things I am thinking about with this – about my mother’s people who came from Sweden in the middle of the 19th C. to settle in the upper midwest, which absolves them of American guilt in many eyes – about my father’s people who left Massachusetts colony because they didn’t think the elders that russell wrote about were observant enough and wound their dissenter way through the western expansion of the US, never owning slaves, but deeply racist nonetheless, despite finding it abhorrent that one man claim to own another.
But all that is too tangled to tease out, so I’ll just ponder it some more and leave you all to your own meditations.
“Can it happen here?”. It has happened here.
I hope it’s clear from an extrapolation of my contributions that I think this. In fact, I think “it” has happened everywhere, for all values of “it” which include man’s inhumanity to man, based on whichever arbitrary dividing line seemed convenient to the perpetrators wherever.
And I can’t help thinking of John Donne’s famous Meditation 17 from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1623). The famous quotation which follows is often taken to refer mainly to death, but it is clear to me that its application is much wider, and that the most important phrase is the one I have bolded below.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
He might as well (if not using the metaphor of the tolling death knell in the aftermath of his illness and recovery) have said: Any man’s suffering diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore, russell’s comment below seems absolutely right, and proper, to me.
I think the correct response is humility and a practice of self-awareness and self-reflection, rather than an attitude of self-congratulation that we are somehow above it all.
“Can it happen here?”. It has happened here.
I hope it’s clear from an extrapolation of my contributions that I think this. In fact, I think “it” has happened everywhere, for all values of “it” which include man’s inhumanity to man, based on whichever arbitrary dividing line seemed convenient to the perpetrators wherever.
And I can’t help thinking of John Donne’s famous Meditation 17 from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1623). The famous quotation which follows is often taken to refer mainly to death, but it is clear to me that its application is much wider, and that the most important phrase is the one I have bolded below.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
He might as well (if not using the metaphor of the tolling death knell in the aftermath of his illness and recovery) have said: Any man’s suffering diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore, russell’s comment below seems absolutely right, and proper, to me.
I think the correct response is humility and a practice of self-awareness and self-reflection, rather than an attitude of self-congratulation that we are somehow above it all.
I don’t disagree with much that’s been said here, and as I mentioned, I agree that “it can happen here.” We [citizens] should fiercely fight against the possibility that it will. And, yes, humility and self-awareness, never a bad idea.
That said, I don’t think the conquest (and, arguably, genocide) of Native Americans, or slavery, are comparable to the Holocaust, or are the same as the choice that we face now. I’m not arguing for or against putting our historical crimes on a scale of evil – they were evil, and represented our capacity for 1) engaging in and/or tolerating the inhumane treatment of others, and 2) living with, and profiting from, institutions based on the inhumane treatment of others. But people in our history were born with these institutions as part of the package (just as we were born with, and have lived with their legacy). Enlightened people tried to improve things, and in many ways did so, but they were working to move forward from the status quo.
The Holocaust was different because of its context. The Nazis turned their backs on the progress of mainstream humanitarian values, and instead willfully embraced lies and brutality to become less humane.
People who had a cultural tradition of reason, science, beauty, philosophy, education, etc., chose to believe lies and institutionalize murder and cruelty. Obviously, the seeds of Nazism existed in German history, just as racism, etc. exist in ours, but it was a choice rather than a pre-existing circumstance to honor the worst aspects of the society.
That’s what the United States faces now. American history (as all human history) includes atrocities, but the values of the United States, stated in our founding documents as amended to evolve further toward justice, are based on reason (implying truth), and humanitarian principles. If we Americans choose to allow neo-Nazis, neo-Confederates, and their sympathizers (deplorables) to prevail, we are, like the original Nazis, betraying the best of our cultural legacy in favor of the worst. We would be more culpable than our forebears.
I don’t disagree with much that’s been said here, and as I mentioned, I agree that “it can happen here.” We [citizens] should fiercely fight against the possibility that it will. And, yes, humility and self-awareness, never a bad idea.
That said, I don’t think the conquest (and, arguably, genocide) of Native Americans, or slavery, are comparable to the Holocaust, or are the same as the choice that we face now. I’m not arguing for or against putting our historical crimes on a scale of evil – they were evil, and represented our capacity for 1) engaging in and/or tolerating the inhumane treatment of others, and 2) living with, and profiting from, institutions based on the inhumane treatment of others. But people in our history were born with these institutions as part of the package (just as we were born with, and have lived with their legacy). Enlightened people tried to improve things, and in many ways did so, but they were working to move forward from the status quo.
The Holocaust was different because of its context. The Nazis turned their backs on the progress of mainstream humanitarian values, and instead willfully embraced lies and brutality to become less humane.
People who had a cultural tradition of reason, science, beauty, philosophy, education, etc., chose to believe lies and institutionalize murder and cruelty. Obviously, the seeds of Nazism existed in German history, just as racism, etc. exist in ours, but it was a choice rather than a pre-existing circumstance to honor the worst aspects of the society.
That’s what the United States faces now. American history (as all human history) includes atrocities, but the values of the United States, stated in our founding documents as amended to evolve further toward justice, are based on reason (implying truth), and humanitarian principles. If we Americans choose to allow neo-Nazis, neo-Confederates, and their sympathizers (deplorables) to prevail, we are, like the original Nazis, betraying the best of our cultural legacy in favor of the worst. We would be more culpable than our forebears.
I had slavery in a box, you know: a [rural] southern plantation.
A few years ago I commissioned a painting from a local artist as a gift for my wife. I went to the artist’s house, a few miles further up the coast from where I live.
He lived in a house that was built in the 1700’s. We went up to the top floor, where his studio was. We passed by a small room tucked up under the attic.
That was where the slave had lived.
The south has a particular history because its largely agrarian economy depended on commodity cash crops – cotton, tobacco, indigo, rice – that required a lot of manual labor to produce, and so slavery was more deeply bound into its economic and social structure.
But in terms of the history, this is right on the money:
To that list, I’ll add that they largely owned the ships that brought Africans to be sold at Charleston and New Orleans and similar ports of entry, and made up the crews that manned the ships. A lot of northern fortunes were built on the backs of black people.
And any northerner able to afford it was likely to have household slaves to do the grunt work of daily life.
I had slavery in a box, you know: a [rural] southern plantation.
A few years ago I commissioned a painting from a local artist as a gift for my wife. I went to the artist’s house, a few miles further up the coast from where I live.
He lived in a house that was built in the 1700’s. We went up to the top floor, where his studio was. We passed by a small room tucked up under the attic.
That was where the slave had lived.
The south has a particular history because its largely agrarian economy depended on commodity cash crops – cotton, tobacco, indigo, rice – that required a lot of manual labor to produce, and so slavery was more deeply bound into its economic and social structure.
But in terms of the history, this is right on the money:
To that list, I’ll add that they largely owned the ships that brought Africans to be sold at Charleston and New Orleans and similar ports of entry, and made up the crews that manned the ships. A lot of northern fortunes were built on the backs of black people.
And any northerner able to afford it was likely to have household slaves to do the grunt work of daily life.
I admit, it is dicey to rationalize collective guilt from the past and our ancestors, as in, “We, America, enslaved an entire race and all of us to this day bear collective guilt.”
consider the word “slave”.
it ultimately comes from “Slav” (as in Slavic), because the Slavs were an important source of slaves in Europe in the middle ages.
western enslaving western!
can’t get much more western than that.
I admit, it is dicey to rationalize collective guilt from the past and our ancestors, as in, “We, America, enslaved an entire race and all of us to this day bear collective guilt.”
consider the word “slave”.
it ultimately comes from “Slav” (as in Slavic), because the Slavs were an important source of slaves in Europe in the middle ages.
western enslaving western!
can’t get much more western than that.
Collective guilt is considered unacceptable.
Collective benefit from the proceeds of past crimes? A-okay!
Discuss.
Collective guilt is considered unacceptable.
Collective benefit from the proceeds of past crimes? A-okay!
Discuss.
Incidentally, thanks for the info about Salem witches and your church, russell. Interesting! There is so much history in old churches on both sides of the Mason Dixon line.
Incidentally, thanks for the info about Salem witches and your church, russell. Interesting! There is so much history in old churches on both sides of the Mason Dixon line.
The south has a particular history because its largely agrarian economy depended on commodity cash crops – cotton, tobacco, indigo, rice – that required a lot of manual labor to produce, and so slavery was more deeply bound into its economic and social structure.
The critical peculiarity, it seems to me, is that after the Civil War, the South glorified the Lost Cause and the pre-war society. Elsewhere, no matter how deep-seated an individual’s bigotry, they were clear that giving voice to it was not quite the done thing. OK in private, or select groups. But (until very recently) not something you would do publicly without expecting negative repercussions.
The past decade or so, the South’s out-and-proud bigotry has become more widespread. Overall, the country has gotten less so. But those who are now feel much freer about saying so. I diagnose, in significant part, dispair that their views are losing — more accurately, have lost — the battle.
About other subjects than race, too. But race is the one they are most exercised about. At least until a woman successfully wins the Presidency. At which point, hysteria will shift focus to some extent. Because, after all, while they may avoid “uppity blacks” in their immediate family, they can’t avoid women there.
The south has a particular history because its largely agrarian economy depended on commodity cash crops – cotton, tobacco, indigo, rice – that required a lot of manual labor to produce, and so slavery was more deeply bound into its economic and social structure.
The critical peculiarity, it seems to me, is that after the Civil War, the South glorified the Lost Cause and the pre-war society. Elsewhere, no matter how deep-seated an individual’s bigotry, they were clear that giving voice to it was not quite the done thing. OK in private, or select groups. But (until very recently) not something you would do publicly without expecting negative repercussions.
The past decade or so, the South’s out-and-proud bigotry has become more widespread. Overall, the country has gotten less so. But those who are now feel much freer about saying so. I diagnose, in significant part, dispair that their views are losing — more accurately, have lost — the battle.
About other subjects than race, too. But race is the one they are most exercised about. At least until a woman successfully wins the Presidency. At which point, hysteria will shift focus to some extent. Because, after all, while they may avoid “uppity blacks” in their immediate family, they can’t avoid women there.
Collective benefit from the proceeds of past crimes? A-okay!
Collective benefits from slavery would be hard to find. Especially after a civil war as a filter.
Collective benefit from the proceeds of past crimes? A-okay!
Collective benefits from slavery would be hard to find. Especially after a civil war as a filter.
Collective benefits from slavery would be hard to find.
You don’t count the initial industrialization of the North? Which was based, after all, on processing cotton from the plantations in the South.
Collective benefits from slavery would be hard to find.
You don’t count the initial industrialization of the North? Which was based, after all, on processing cotton from the plantations in the South.
The historical evidence seems to show that slavery was a drag on the overall economy, not a boost. And that the US would be a much wealthier country today if it could have avoided slavery.
““The industrial revolution was based on cotton, produced primarily in the slave labor camps of the United States,” Noam Chomsky similarly stated in an interview with the Times. Both claims give the impression that slavery was essential for industrialization and/or American economic hegemony, which is untrue.
• Slavery Was Neither Crucial nor Necessary for the Industrial Revolution …
• Cotton Exports Didn’t Make the United States an Economic Superpower …
• Slavery Delayed Southern Industrialization …
• More Slavery Means Less Prosperity, Even over 100 Years Later …”
No, Slavery Did Not Make America Rich: The historical record of the post-war economy demonstrates slavery was neither a central driving force of, or economically necessary for, American economic dominance.
“To make this case, these scholars invoke three facts. First, the southern states enjoyed relatively faster growth than the free northern states. Second, slavery was immensely profitable to slaveholders. Third, the rapid increases in slave productivity – as measured by cotton picked per slave – meant that cotton output exploded. From this, a causal claim is made: slavery made America rich because increasing slave productivity increased profits and fastened economic growth.
With the exception of whether or not the South grew faster than the North, which is debatable to some degree, there is little to dispute on a factual basis. However, it is impossible to infer that America was made richer from these facts. In fact, when interpreted with the light of economic theory, the second and third facts actually suggest that the reverse is true: America was made poorer because of slavery.”
Slavery Did Not Make America Richer:
“Slavery was, of course, appalling, a plain theft of labor. The war to end it was righteous altogether—though had the South been coldly rational, the ending could have been achieved as in the British Empire in 1833 or Brazil in 1888 without 600,000 deaths. But prosperity did not depend on slavery. The United States and the United Kingdom and the rest would have become just as rich without the 250 years of unrequited toil. They have remained rich, observe, even after the peculiar institution was abolished, because their riches did not depend on its sinfulness.”
Slavery Did Not Make America Rich: Ingenuity, not capital accumulation or exploitation, made cotton a little king.
The historical evidence seems to show that slavery was a drag on the overall economy, not a boost. And that the US would be a much wealthier country today if it could have avoided slavery.
““The industrial revolution was based on cotton, produced primarily in the slave labor camps of the United States,” Noam Chomsky similarly stated in an interview with the Times. Both claims give the impression that slavery was essential for industrialization and/or American economic hegemony, which is untrue.
• Slavery Was Neither Crucial nor Necessary for the Industrial Revolution …
• Cotton Exports Didn’t Make the United States an Economic Superpower …
• Slavery Delayed Southern Industrialization …
• More Slavery Means Less Prosperity, Even over 100 Years Later …”
No, Slavery Did Not Make America Rich: The historical record of the post-war economy demonstrates slavery was neither a central driving force of, or economically necessary for, American economic dominance.
“To make this case, these scholars invoke three facts. First, the southern states enjoyed relatively faster growth than the free northern states. Second, slavery was immensely profitable to slaveholders. Third, the rapid increases in slave productivity – as measured by cotton picked per slave – meant that cotton output exploded. From this, a causal claim is made: slavery made America rich because increasing slave productivity increased profits and fastened economic growth.
With the exception of whether or not the South grew faster than the North, which is debatable to some degree, there is little to dispute on a factual basis. However, it is impossible to infer that America was made richer from these facts. In fact, when interpreted with the light of economic theory, the second and third facts actually suggest that the reverse is true: America was made poorer because of slavery.”
Slavery Did Not Make America Richer:
“Slavery was, of course, appalling, a plain theft of labor. The war to end it was righteous altogether—though had the South been coldly rational, the ending could have been achieved as in the British Empire in 1833 or Brazil in 1888 without 600,000 deaths. But prosperity did not depend on slavery. The United States and the United Kingdom and the rest would have become just as rich without the 250 years of unrequited toil. They have remained rich, observe, even after the peculiar institution was abolished, because their riches did not depend on its sinfulness.”
Slavery Did Not Make America Rich: Ingenuity, not capital accumulation or exploitation, made cotton a little king.
So, stealing land from Native Americans didn’t benefit any current landowners?
So, stealing land from Native Americans didn’t benefit any current landowners?
Reducing the practice of chattel slavery in the South to “a plain theft of labor” has to be one of the most cynical and morally vacuous rhetorical moves I can recall having read anywhere.
Geloso at least acknowledges the work of Sven Beckert in his analysis, but in arguing how America, and especially the South, was impoverished by the practice of slavery, he ignores the way in which finance worked to relocate many of those profits in offshore investments.
But then when I look at his output for AIER and see him arguing the Whale Oil Myth in order to say that the markets saved whales from extinction (while attacking governmental subsidies, naturally), I begin to wonder just how much research is actually involved in writing these pieces.
You’d be better off reading Beckert and then chasing down the critical reviews and citations than trusting Geloso’s wan attempt at engagement here.
Reducing the practice of chattel slavery in the South to “a plain theft of labor” has to be one of the most cynical and morally vacuous rhetorical moves I can recall having read anywhere.
Geloso at least acknowledges the work of Sven Beckert in his analysis, but in arguing how America, and especially the South, was impoverished by the practice of slavery, he ignores the way in which finance worked to relocate many of those profits in offshore investments.
But then when I look at his output for AIER and see him arguing the Whale Oil Myth in order to say that the markets saved whales from extinction (while attacking governmental subsidies, naturally), I begin to wonder just how much research is actually involved in writing these pieces.
You’d be better off reading Beckert and then chasing down the critical reviews and citations than trusting Geloso’s wan attempt at engagement here.
I guess I’m unclear on the point of Charles’ posts.
Whether the southern US might have been more prosperous had they moved away from an agrarian economy based on slave labor or not is kind of beside the point, it seems to me.
They did not do so, and they were as prosperous as they were. And many of them were quite prosperous. And the folks in the north who made spectacular fortunes off of the slave trade were as prosperous as they were, which was likewise quite prosperous.
And the descendants of all of those people have reaped whatever benefits they have reaped from all of that.
I guess I’m unclear on the point of Charles’ posts.
Whether the southern US might have been more prosperous had they moved away from an agrarian economy based on slave labor or not is kind of beside the point, it seems to me.
They did not do so, and they were as prosperous as they were. And many of them were quite prosperous. And the folks in the north who made spectacular fortunes off of the slave trade were as prosperous as they were, which was likewise quite prosperous.
And the descendants of all of those people have reaped whatever benefits they have reaped from all of that.
CharlesWT brings us yet another reason to despise the Confederate aristocracy: … the US would be a much wealthier country today if it could have avoided slavery.
Good ol’ Yankee ingenuity (neo-Confederate version) will ALWAYS find a way to pooh-pooh outrage over a vicious practice whose consequences (not least of which is the Electoral College) the US lives with to this day.
There is no question that a Northern aristocracy profited from financing slavery, transporting slaves, and building an industry based on their produce. Capitalists will capitalize on anything, including such things as the Great Compromise between the stated ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the pigheadedness of conservative/libertarian/states-rights proto-MAGAts who refused to “avoid” slavery.
–TP
CharlesWT brings us yet another reason to despise the Confederate aristocracy: … the US would be a much wealthier country today if it could have avoided slavery.
Good ol’ Yankee ingenuity (neo-Confederate version) will ALWAYS find a way to pooh-pooh outrage over a vicious practice whose consequences (not least of which is the Electoral College) the US lives with to this day.
There is no question that a Northern aristocracy profited from financing slavery, transporting slaves, and building an industry based on their produce. Capitalists will capitalize on anything, including such things as the Great Compromise between the stated ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the pigheadedness of conservative/libertarian/states-rights proto-MAGAts who refused to “avoid” slavery.
–TP
Granted various enterprises, regions, and people benefited from slavery. I’m questioning the idea that there might be an overall collective benefit from slavery. That the country is wealthier because of it.
Granted various enterprises, regions, and people benefited from slavery. I’m questioning the idea that there might be an overall collective benefit from slavery. That the country is wealthier because of it.
I’m questioning the idea that there might be an overall collective benefit from slavery.
I doubt anyone here would disagree. But, as you may have noticed, that point got totally missed. In fact, I’m not sure I can quite see it in your text, even now that I know what’s supposed to be there.
I’m questioning the idea that there might be an overall collective benefit from slavery.
I doubt anyone here would disagree. But, as you may have noticed, that point got totally missed. In fact, I’m not sure I can quite see it in your text, even now that I know what’s supposed to be there.
I’m questioning the idea that there might be an overall collective benefit from slavery.
The premier underlying claim for untrammeled free markets and pure competitive capitalism is that such a social order maximizes social utility, the greatest, most efficient, and best production and distribution of scarce resources.
Yet under conditions that were perhaps “freer” (from government interference) and arguably more “purely competitive” than any time in our history, we chose chattel slavery over free wage labor, and the asserted economic superiority of wage labor did not replace the peculiar institution absent a brutal civil war.
An alternate view can be found here.
I’m questioning the idea that there might be an overall collective benefit from slavery.
The premier underlying claim for untrammeled free markets and pure competitive capitalism is that such a social order maximizes social utility, the greatest, most efficient, and best production and distribution of scarce resources.
Yet under conditions that were perhaps “freer” (from government interference) and arguably more “purely competitive” than any time in our history, we chose chattel slavery over free wage labor, and the asserted economic superiority of wage labor did not replace the peculiar institution absent a brutal civil war.
An alternate view can be found here.
wj,
…..And a bit less on who (or whose ancestors) should be considered guilty.
Well, that is not by any means, the main thrust of “woke culture”. It’s mostly about recognizing and coming to grips with the racism within you, and what to do about it. Even so, you will have to admit that ignorance of the past is widespread.
Not least because we might see less pushback, and so get more done sooner.
The efficacy of this assertion is problematical. If “getting less pushback” is a vital engine of social progress, some examples would help. As for those hurt feelings, I’m always open to new approaches (the ethos of pure communism!).
Heather McGhee offers one up here.
It’s a good approach. I feel you would agree.
wj,
…..And a bit less on who (or whose ancestors) should be considered guilty.
Well, that is not by any means, the main thrust of “woke culture”. It’s mostly about recognizing and coming to grips with the racism within you, and what to do about it. Even so, you will have to admit that ignorance of the past is widespread.
Not least because we might see less pushback, and so get more done sooner.
The efficacy of this assertion is problematical. If “getting less pushback” is a vital engine of social progress, some examples would help. As for those hurt feelings, I’m always open to new approaches (the ethos of pure communism!).
Heather McGhee offers one up here.
It’s a good approach. I feel you would agree.
An alternate view can be found here.
Edward Baptist undermines the thesis of his book, The Half Has Never Been Told, by overestimating the 1836 GDP value of cotton production by a magnitude.
“Coates’s numbers come from Cornell University historian Ed Baptist’s 2014 book The Half Has Never Been Told. In a key passage in the book, Baptist purports to add up the total value of the economic activity that derived from cotton production, which at $77 million made up about 5 percent of the estimated gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States in 1836. Baptist then committed a fundamental accounting error. He proceeded to double and even triple count intermediate transactions involved in cotton production — things like land purchases for plantations, tools used for cotton production, transportation, insurance, and credit instruments used in each. Eventually, that $77 million became $600 million in Baptist’s accounting, or almost half of the entire antebellum economy of the United States.”
The Statistical Errors of the Reparations Agenda
An alternate view can be found here.
Edward Baptist undermines the thesis of his book, The Half Has Never Been Told, by overestimating the 1836 GDP value of cotton production by a magnitude.
“Coates’s numbers come from Cornell University historian Ed Baptist’s 2014 book The Half Has Never Been Told. In a key passage in the book, Baptist purports to add up the total value of the economic activity that derived from cotton production, which at $77 million made up about 5 percent of the estimated gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States in 1836. Baptist then committed a fundamental accounting error. He proceeded to double and even triple count intermediate transactions involved in cotton production — things like land purchases for plantations, tools used for cotton production, transportation, insurance, and credit instruments used in each. Eventually, that $77 million became $600 million in Baptist’s accounting, or almost half of the entire antebellum economy of the United States.”
The Statistical Errors of the Reparations Agenda
Am I missing the place in this conversation where anyone made any claims about American GDP related to slavery?
What we were discussing was how the North and the UK was financially complicit in the slave economy – this to contest the idea that capitalism and the legacy of wester civilization were uniquely liberatory.
All that the arguments about GDP prove is that capitalism has no morals and views the slavery question entirely through the lens of economic utility. That whole line of discussion is irrelevant for any part of the topic except for the appropriate size of any reparations.
As if this discussion had anything whatsoever to do with the size of the US economy before or after slavery.
Am I missing the place in this conversation where anyone made any claims about American GDP related to slavery?
What we were discussing was how the North and the UK was financially complicit in the slave economy – this to contest the idea that capitalism and the legacy of wester civilization were uniquely liberatory.
All that the arguments about GDP prove is that capitalism has no morals and views the slavery question entirely through the lens of economic utility. That whole line of discussion is irrelevant for any part of the topic except for the appropriate size of any reparations.
As if this discussion had anything whatsoever to do with the size of the US economy before or after slavery.
After I did one of those cartoon triple takes at seeing Charles quote Noam Chomsky, I was trying to figure out where this arose as well. It seemed to stem from the website that suggested we gain some benefit from people suffering to bring us iphones, goods sold in Walmart, cheap food, [fill in blank], and the mention of ‘slave’ on that website seems to have set the ball rolling.
It seemed (to climb on my hobby horse) a tribute to white fragility, god forbid that we somehow benefited from slavery. But the alternative, that people would choose to do things that would be so obviously wounding to themselves, suggests that people who don’t want to admit the possible financial benefits of slavery have got a pretty dark view of humanity as essentially sadistic, getting their jollies by inflicting pain and suffering on others. That is some dark sh*t if you ask me. I mean, I know there are sadists in the world, but to set up a whole society around it seems pretty sick. But of course, that helps rhetorically, because if the people who did it were totally sick, it automatically relieves those of us who are not sick from any blame.
Related is this story from the Atlantic from June 2017
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/lolas-story/524490/
And some other related articles
https://pacificties.org/what-you-should-know-about-my-familys-slave/
https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2017/06/slavery-in-the-family/527775/
https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-05-19/five-things-consider-if-you-are-reading-my-family-s-slave
https://www.rappler.com/voices/rappler-blogs/atlantic-family-slave-alex-tizon-feast
https://r3.rappler.com/views/imho/170316-we-are-all-tizons-shakira-sison
After I did one of those cartoon triple takes at seeing Charles quote Noam Chomsky, I was trying to figure out where this arose as well. It seemed to stem from the website that suggested we gain some benefit from people suffering to bring us iphones, goods sold in Walmart, cheap food, [fill in blank], and the mention of ‘slave’ on that website seems to have set the ball rolling.
It seemed (to climb on my hobby horse) a tribute to white fragility, god forbid that we somehow benefited from slavery. But the alternative, that people would choose to do things that would be so obviously wounding to themselves, suggests that people who don’t want to admit the possible financial benefits of slavery have got a pretty dark view of humanity as essentially sadistic, getting their jollies by inflicting pain and suffering on others. That is some dark sh*t if you ask me. I mean, I know there are sadists in the world, but to set up a whole society around it seems pretty sick. But of course, that helps rhetorically, because if the people who did it were totally sick, it automatically relieves those of us who are not sick from any blame.
Related is this story from the Atlantic from June 2017
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/lolas-story/524490/
And some other related articles
https://pacificties.org/what-you-should-know-about-my-familys-slave/
https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2017/06/slavery-in-the-family/527775/
https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-05-19/five-things-consider-if-you-are-reading-my-family-s-slave
https://www.rappler.com/voices/rappler-blogs/atlantic-family-slave-alex-tizon-feast
https://r3.rappler.com/views/imho/170316-we-are-all-tizons-shakira-sison
While few call for the return of slavery, the much more efficient child labor still has its adherents. And they still try to have SCOTUS declare child labor laws to be unconstitutional per se and praise child labor as liberating.
OK, in particular RW evangelicals try to paint black slavery as (spiritually) liberating in hindsight too but they rarely call for its reintroduction.
As for prosperity: depends on how one weighs it. If the main thing is that a few guys get filthy rich (i.e. measure by the maximum individual value) slavery was extremly profitable by the standards of its time (we always get reminded [often by the above guys who want child labor and debtors prisons with forced labor back] that even the lower classes enjoy a higher standarad of living now than the kings of old, so we have to be careful about the standards applied).
If we go for the average and compare it to the theoretically possible, things look different of course. But by that view the Romans could have landed on the moon in the 3rd century had the technological development not been stymied by the near unlimited availability of slave labor* (who needs a steam engine, if one can work slaves to death en masse for less?).
*e.g. Caesar’s gallant exploits in Gaul flooded the Mediterranean markets with more than a million new slaves sending the prices tumbling down uncontrollably (“Madam, this slave will bring your groceries home for free and you can keep him too” seems but a slight exaggeration).
While few call for the return of slavery, the much more efficient child labor still has its adherents. And they still try to have SCOTUS declare child labor laws to be unconstitutional per se and praise child labor as liberating.
OK, in particular RW evangelicals try to paint black slavery as (spiritually) liberating in hindsight too but they rarely call for its reintroduction.
As for prosperity: depends on how one weighs it. If the main thing is that a few guys get filthy rich (i.e. measure by the maximum individual value) slavery was extremly profitable by the standards of its time (we always get reminded [often by the above guys who want child labor and debtors prisons with forced labor back] that even the lower classes enjoy a higher standarad of living now than the kings of old, so we have to be careful about the standards applied).
If we go for the average and compare it to the theoretically possible, things look different of course. But by that view the Romans could have landed on the moon in the 3rd century had the technological development not been stymied by the near unlimited availability of slave labor* (who needs a steam engine, if one can work slaves to death en masse for less?).
*e.g. Caesar’s gallant exploits in Gaul flooded the Mediterranean markets with more than a million new slaves sending the prices tumbling down uncontrollably (“Madam, this slave will bring your groceries home for free and you can keep him too” seems but a slight exaggeration).
As for benefits, should we be grateful for nazi experiments on KZ prisoners concerning sulfonamides or the treatment of severe hypothermia? We still profit from both (and the US government still tries to keep it out of the public eye that the perpetrators got protected after the war in exchange for their expertise by blocking any research access to the relevant documents).
As for benefits, should we be grateful for nazi experiments on KZ prisoners concerning sulfonamides or the treatment of severe hypothermia? We still profit from both (and the US government still tries to keep it out of the public eye that the perpetrators got protected after the war in exchange for their expertise by blocking any research access to the relevant documents).
Maybe I’m late, but I can’t let this go:
He rejected the idea that the holocaust was a product of a culture and civilisation (Germany) which thought itself, and was thought by others, to be a pinnacle of Western culture and civilisation. He contended that responsibility for the holocaust was the Nazi party’s, not Germany’s, but he asked for evidence of the bolded text above, which was my contention.
The notion that the Holocaust was some sort of massive, inexplicable, aberration caused by one political movement at one particular time, is just wrong.
There was more than a millenium of Christian antisemitism behind it. Read Luther. Study the history of the Vatican’s treatment of Jews – Pope Paul IV established a ghetto in Rome in 1555, about 40 years after the first one, in Venice. When Pius XI remonstrated with Mussolini over some antisemitic legislation Mussolini’s answer was that it was no worse than the church’s treatment of the Jews. Ritual murder accusations were a convenient way of creating local saints, and stimulating tourism.
Closer in time to the Nazis, both Czarist Russia and Poland, like most of Eastern Europe, were intensely antisemitic.
Do I need to say all this? Nazism grew in a fertile field.
Maybe I’m late, but I can’t let this go:
He rejected the idea that the holocaust was a product of a culture and civilisation (Germany) which thought itself, and was thought by others, to be a pinnacle of Western culture and civilisation. He contended that responsibility for the holocaust was the Nazi party’s, not Germany’s, but he asked for evidence of the bolded text above, which was my contention.
The notion that the Holocaust was some sort of massive, inexplicable, aberration caused by one political movement at one particular time, is just wrong.
There was more than a millenium of Christian antisemitism behind it. Read Luther. Study the history of the Vatican’s treatment of Jews – Pope Paul IV established a ghetto in Rome in 1555, about 40 years after the first one, in Venice. When Pius XI remonstrated with Mussolini over some antisemitic legislation Mussolini’s answer was that it was no worse than the church’s treatment of the Jews. Ritual murder accusations were a convenient way of creating local saints, and stimulating tourism.
Closer in time to the Nazis, both Czarist Russia and Poland, like most of Eastern Europe, were intensely antisemitic.
Do I need to say all this? Nazism grew in a fertile field.
Wanted to comment on something that I find interesting. Following on GftNC’s quote, Hartmut noted the divide between German Kultur and French “Zivilisation” (I love how the z gives you that sense of gitanes and runny cheese) and I find it interesting that the German strengths are generally reflective of a masculine bent (fine German engineering! Science! Alles klar?) while French strengths are more feminine, I think (I was at a dinner party when I lived in France and when the hostess brought out the souffle, everyone started applauding and saying magnifique, tres bien!) So the whole Germans take on the rest of the world not once but twice seems a bit overdetermined…
Wanted to comment on something that I find interesting. Following on GftNC’s quote, Hartmut noted the divide between German Kultur and French “Zivilisation” (I love how the z gives you that sense of gitanes and runny cheese) and I find it interesting that the German strengths are generally reflective of a masculine bent (fine German engineering! Science! Alles klar?) while French strengths are more feminine, I think (I was at a dinner party when I lived in France and when the hostess brought out the souffle, everyone started applauding and saying magnifique, tres bien!) So the whole Germans take on the rest of the world not once but twice seems a bit overdetermined…
Do I need to say all this? Nazism grew in a fertile field.
As far as I am concerned you don’t need to say it, and I would be surprised if you need to say it for the benefit of any of our regular commenters either. Regarding McKinney, we shall see whether his views evolve when he comes back on this subject. It seems to me that he is taking it seriously.
Do I need to say all this? Nazism grew in a fertile field.
As far as I am concerned you don’t need to say it, and I would be surprised if you need to say it for the benefit of any of our regular commenters either. Regarding McKinney, we shall see whether his views evolve when he comes back on this subject. It seems to me that he is taking it seriously.
I find it interesting that the German strengths are generally reflective of a masculine bent (fine German engineering! Science! Alles klar?) while French strengths are more feminine
We all have our blind spots. For example, this view of what fields are masculine and feminine was definitely common in the early and middle 20th century. But today, the portion of STEM graduates are women is vastly higher than it was then. Not that gender stereotypes have disappeared. But in some parts of the world they have faded substantially.
I find it interesting that the German strengths are generally reflective of a masculine bent (fine German engineering! Science! Alles klar?) while French strengths are more feminine
We all have our blind spots. For example, this view of what fields are masculine and feminine was definitely common in the early and middle 20th century. But today, the portion of STEM graduates are women is vastly higher than it was then. Not that gender stereotypes have disappeared. But in some parts of the world they have faded substantially.
I’m sure that bernard is aware of Raul Hilberg, but if anyone isn’t, if you want to talk about the Holocaust, you have to be familiar with the arguments he made. Wikipedia for him
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raul_Hilberg
and his book
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Destruction_of_the_European_Jews
this about where to place the book in the historical record and the intellectural issues related to it
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/conscious-pariah/
but this link, by his daughter, is one I like.
https://www.haaretz.com/.premium-lessons-from-my-father-a-holocaust-scholar-1.5269350
I’m sure that bernard is aware of Raul Hilberg, but if anyone isn’t, if you want to talk about the Holocaust, you have to be familiar with the arguments he made. Wikipedia for him
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raul_Hilberg
and his book
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Destruction_of_the_European_Jews
this about where to place the book in the historical record and the intellectural issues related to it
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/conscious-pariah/
but this link, by his daughter, is one I like.
https://www.haaretz.com/.premium-lessons-from-my-father-a-holocaust-scholar-1.5269350
But rarely were a state’s recources and a complex bureaucracy employed for a systematic extermination of not only the group itself but also the descendants of ex-members (i.e. of baptized Jews). All previous examples I can come up with had the intent to ‘merely’ expell them (see the Spanish Inquisition and its generations long quest for crypto-Jews and ‘new Christians’).
But even Hitler thought (and wrote it down in Mein Kampf) that the one-dop-rule used in the US went too far (e.g. in Virginia the 1/16th cut-off put into law in 1910 was declared to be still too lenient in 1924).
Pre-20th century I have to go back to AEthelred the Badly Counseled or to Mithiridates of Pontos to find an actual summary killing order organized by the state to be executed at a secretly pre-planned date.
The Armenian genocide served as an actual inspiration for Hitler (again noted in Mein Kampf) who also took the lesson from it that he would easily get away with it (despite the Turks losing the war and the Armenians being Christians).
But rarely were a state’s recources and a complex bureaucracy employed for a systematic extermination of not only the group itself but also the descendants of ex-members (i.e. of baptized Jews). All previous examples I can come up with had the intent to ‘merely’ expell them (see the Spanish Inquisition and its generations long quest for crypto-Jews and ‘new Christians’).
But even Hitler thought (and wrote it down in Mein Kampf) that the one-dop-rule used in the US went too far (e.g. in Virginia the 1/16th cut-off put into law in 1910 was declared to be still too lenient in 1924).
Pre-20th century I have to go back to AEthelred the Badly Counseled or to Mithiridates of Pontos to find an actual summary killing order organized by the state to be executed at a secretly pre-planned date.
The Armenian genocide served as an actual inspiration for Hitler (again noted in Mein Kampf) who also took the lesson from it that he would easily get away with it (despite the Turks losing the war and the Armenians being Christians).
It wasn’t systematic extermination, but same thinking
https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Manzanar_Children's_Village/
It wasn’t systematic extermination, but same thinking
https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Manzanar_Children's_Village/
I find it interesting that the German strengths are generally reflective of a masculine bent
The Fatherland, after all.
So then what do we do with Mother Russia?
Admittedly, wikipedia indicates that it’s much more complicated than this. (What isn’t?)
Related: I can stand the word “homeland,” as it was was force-fed into our American lingo about ourselves after 9/11. It carries horrible echoes in any number of directions, but I won’t sidetrack the thread by trying to list them.
I find it interesting that the German strengths are generally reflective of a masculine bent
The Fatherland, after all.
So then what do we do with Mother Russia?
Admittedly, wikipedia indicates that it’s much more complicated than this. (What isn’t?)
Related: I can stand the word “homeland,” as it was was force-fed into our American lingo about ourselves after 9/11. It carries horrible echoes in any number of directions, but I won’t sidetrack the thread by trying to list them.
Homeland and heartland are fighting it out to see who’s worse.
Homeland and heartland are fighting it out to see who’s worse.
what JamieM and hsh said.
what JamieM and hsh said.
JanieM!
damn my fingers.
JanieM!
damn my fingers.
damn my own fingers: “I can stand” -> “I can’t stand”
damn my own fingers: “I can stand” -> “I can’t stand”
Presumably “heartland” carries some of the same creepy current (racist) implications as “la France profonde”?
Presumably “heartland” carries some of the same creepy current (racist) implications as “la France profonde”?
Well, fwiw, the Wikipedia entry for la France profonde has this “see also” list.
See also
Pure laine
Deep England
Deep South
Middle America
The Discovery of France
Heartland (United States)
Well, fwiw, the Wikipedia entry for la France profonde has this “see also” list.
See also
Pure laine
Deep England
Deep South
Middle America
The Discovery of France
Heartland (United States)
Do I need to say all this? Nazism grew in a fertile field.
…and those fields certainly did not all of a sudden go fallow in 1945.
Do I need to say all this? Nazism grew in a fertile field.
…and those fields certainly did not all of a sudden go fallow in 1945.
At least you have not to deal with Heimatfilm
(or worse, its Rule 34 variety).
(The subvariant Bergfilm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_film should not be thrown in with its horrible relatives though. It has some actual merit and the photography is still breathtaking).
At least you have not to deal with Heimatfilm
(or worse, its Rule 34 variety).
(The subvariant Bergfilm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_film should not be thrown in with its horrible relatives though. It has some actual merit and the photography is still breathtaking).
Meanwhile, this.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-trump-tax-returns/2021/02/22/05053b14-751c-11eb-8115-9ad5e9c02117_story.html
“the court denied Trump’s motion in a one-sentence order with no recorded dissents.” The thing about life tenure is that people just won’t stay bought.
Meanwhile, this.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-trump-tax-returns/2021/02/22/05053b14-751c-11eb-8115-9ad5e9c02117_story.html
“the court denied Trump’s motion in a one-sentence order with no recorded dissents.” The thing about life tenure is that people just won’t stay bought.
The Discovery of France
chiming in for a moment to ignore the topic under discussion and say that this ^^^ is a great book.
Robb has a couple of other books out, all worth reading.
The Discovery of France
chiming in for a moment to ignore the topic under discussion and say that this ^^^ is a great book.
Robb has a couple of other books out, all worth reading.
One warning on bobbyp’s link: the piece is from 1999. I didn’t notice that at first and was very surprised to read that Baltimore Country Club had “No Dogs, No Coloreds, No Jews” signs posted less than 30 years ago. “In the 90s! What?” No, more like 1970 or so, which is far less surprising, if no more acceptable.
(I should have been tipped off by the mention of a shooting at a Jewish daycare “in August.” I just assumed I was clueless and that there was so much other stuff in the news that I missed it somehow.)
One warning on bobbyp’s link: the piece is from 1999. I didn’t notice that at first and was very surprised to read that Baltimore Country Club had “No Dogs, No Coloreds, No Jews” signs posted less than 30 years ago. “In the 90s! What?” No, more like 1970 or so, which is far less surprising, if no more acceptable.
(I should have been tipped off by the mention of a shooting at a Jewish daycare “in August.” I just assumed I was clueless and that there was so much other stuff in the news that I missed it somehow.)
See also
Pure laine
Deep England
Deep South
Middle America
The Discovery of France
Heartland (United States)
Well, while we’ve all heard of the Deep South, Middle America, the Heartland, and la France Profonde has always been a talismanic expression to certain kinds of Frenchmen (and presumably women), I have never heard the expression “Deep England”, or indeed “The Discovery of France” (except for the book of the same name, which is where I think I got the fascinating info about cagots, the “untouchables” of France). As for Pure laine, I was entirely unfamiliar with this particular meaning, while having seen “Pure new wool” on countless sweater labels. Fascinating stuff.
See also
Pure laine
Deep England
Deep South
Middle America
The Discovery of France
Heartland (United States)
Well, while we’ve all heard of the Deep South, Middle America, the Heartland, and la France Profonde has always been a talismanic expression to certain kinds of Frenchmen (and presumably women), I have never heard the expression “Deep England”, or indeed “The Discovery of France” (except for the book of the same name, which is where I think I got the fascinating info about cagots, the “untouchables” of France). As for Pure laine, I was entirely unfamiliar with this particular meaning, while having seen “Pure new wool” on countless sweater labels. Fascinating stuff.
The thing about life tenure is that people just won’t stay bought.
A more realistic take here.
The thing about life tenure is that people just won’t stay bought.
A more realistic take here.
‘heartland’ bugs me a lot more than ‘deep south’.
the ‘deep south’ isn’t claiming superiority over me (though maybe when used by northerners, it’s a bit of a slur).
but ‘heartland’ is trying to imply that Missouri is the true definitive heart of America, therefore everyone else is an appendage or something.
f that
‘heartland’ bugs me a lot more than ‘deep south’.
the ‘deep south’ isn’t claiming superiority over me (though maybe when used by northerners, it’s a bit of a slur).
but ‘heartland’ is trying to imply that Missouri is the true definitive heart of America, therefore everyone else is an appendage or something.
f that
Echoing cleek. In fact, I vaguely remember a conversation right here on this very blog long ago, on this very same topic, more or less, where I expressed appropriate outrage that anyone would have the overweening gall to suggest that Brooklyn isn’t quintessentially American….thinking of my immigrant grandmother, who grew up there from the age of about nine years old, along with so many others.
Echoing cleek. In fact, I vaguely remember a conversation right here on this very blog long ago, on this very same topic, more or less, where I expressed appropriate outrage that anyone would have the overweening gall to suggest that Brooklyn isn’t quintessentially American….thinking of my immigrant grandmother, who grew up there from the age of about nine years old, along with so many others.
I must say I’d never heard of “deep south” being used either as a slur, or as a mark of superiority, either. As for Brooklyn not being “quintessentially American”, or NYC not being part of “the real America”, I have never forgotten Jon Stewart doing a bit on it (possibly after a typically disgusting usage by Sarah Palin), in which after 9/11 he said that Osama bin Laden must have been really pissed off to discover that he had attacked a fake America instead of the real thing.
I must say I’d never heard of “deep south” being used either as a slur, or as a mark of superiority, either. As for Brooklyn not being “quintessentially American”, or NYC not being part of “the real America”, I have never forgotten Jon Stewart doing a bit on it (possibly after a typically disgusting usage by Sarah Palin), in which after 9/11 he said that Osama bin Laden must have been really pissed off to discover that he had attacked a fake America instead of the real thing.
I must say I’d never heard of “deep south” being used either as a slur, or as a mark of superiority, either.
sometimes it gets used as a kind of dismissive shorthand for “poor, racist, backwater”.
I must say I’d never heard of “deep south” being used either as a slur, or as a mark of superiority, either.
sometimes it gets used as a kind of dismissive shorthand for “poor, racist, backwater”.
Huh. Thanks cleek. I always associated it with elaborately good manners (kids saying Yes Maam or No Sir), a particularly charming accent (to an English person) and Spanish moss. And racism, I guess. We live and learn…
Huh. Thanks cleek. I always associated it with elaborately good manners (kids saying Yes Maam or No Sir), a particularly charming accent (to an English person) and Spanish moss. And racism, I guess. We live and learn…
Echoing cleek.
echoing Janie.
live where you want, live however you want, do your thing.
but America is bigger than you. it contains multitudes. that’s what is good about it.
Echoing cleek.
echoing Janie.
live where you want, live however you want, do your thing.
but America is bigger than you. it contains multitudes. that’s what is good about it.
References to “the heartland”, it always seemed to me, reflected a desire to return to the (imagined) society of a century or more ago. At least, as it was imagined to be for WASPs.
It wasn’t like that then either. But the disinterest in fact when fantasy is available was growing even a half a century ago, when the whole “real America” nonsense really got rolling.
References to “the heartland”, it always seemed to me, reflected a desire to return to the (imagined) society of a century or more ago. At least, as it was imagined to be for WASPs.
It wasn’t like that then either. But the disinterest in fact when fantasy is available was growing even a half a century ago, when the whole “real America” nonsense really got rolling.
Deep South
Deep South
Reel America
Reel America
Deep South, perhaps like Deep State, is a deep misunderstanding.
Heartland is a meaningless category. Ask the coastal elites, yet another meaningless category thought up by certain paranoid-for-a-purpose types, who moved to the coasts from their hometowns in the middle of the country.
To work mostly.
Maybe it’s just a hankering for saltwater.
How come there are no coastal elites along the Gulf Coast?
Is America the only country in the world wherein the folks living on the coasts are considered “elite”, whatever that is?
Limbaugh made the term “coastal elite” a gratuitous insult. So insulting that he landed in Palm Beach, the brick.
Lotta coast everywhere.
Deep South, perhaps like Deep State, is a deep misunderstanding.
Heartland is a meaningless category. Ask the coastal elites, yet another meaningless category thought up by certain paranoid-for-a-purpose types, who moved to the coasts from their hometowns in the middle of the country.
To work mostly.
Maybe it’s just a hankering for saltwater.
How come there are no coastal elites along the Gulf Coast?
Is America the only country in the world wherein the folks living on the coasts are considered “elite”, whatever that is?
Limbaugh made the term “coastal elite” a gratuitous insult. So insulting that he landed in Palm Beach, the brick.
Lotta coast everywhere.
Huh. Thanks cleek. I always associated it with elaborately good manners (kids saying Yes Maam or No Sir), a particularly charming accent (to an English person) and Spanish moss. And racism, I guess.
Can’t always assume the racism. Yes, I know that Deep South = Red. But Deep South also = larger proportion of African-Americans, which makes the vibe multidimensional. In Deep Southern cities, there’s a lot of the charm and less of the racism.
I’m from the South, and love the South. I applaud Virginia every year (because we have an election here every year) for turning blue. Yes, that’s in large part thanks to Northern Virginia government workers and immigrants. But in that sense too, Virginia (formerly the capital of the Confederacy) is creating an America in an image that makes me happy.
Huh. Thanks cleek. I always associated it with elaborately good manners (kids saying Yes Maam or No Sir), a particularly charming accent (to an English person) and Spanish moss. And racism, I guess.
Can’t always assume the racism. Yes, I know that Deep South = Red. But Deep South also = larger proportion of African-Americans, which makes the vibe multidimensional. In Deep Southern cities, there’s a lot of the charm and less of the racism.
I’m from the South, and love the South. I applaud Virginia every year (because we have an election here every year) for turning blue. Yes, that’s in large part thanks to Northern Virginia government workers and immigrants. But in that sense too, Virginia (formerly the capital of the Confederacy) is creating an America in an image that makes me happy.
My old man was born and raised in GA. his people are in and around Statesboro.
There is something to this:
And I’d say that, if you live in the South, chances are that you actually have more contact with black people on a daily basis than someone who lives up north. Which contributes to making the interactions more about the people in question, and less about what color they are.
All of that said, based on my own family experience spending time in the deep south when I was a kid, say, 50 or 55 years ago, things were not so great for black people then.
They are better now. But, depending on how you measure ‘long’, it hasn’t been that long.
And no, I don’t forget that it’s been not quite 50 years since white folks in Boston freaking rioted rather than have their kids go to school with black kids.
Some day, we’ll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun. Maybe. We’re not there yet.
My old man was born and raised in GA. his people are in and around Statesboro.
There is something to this:
And I’d say that, if you live in the South, chances are that you actually have more contact with black people on a daily basis than someone who lives up north. Which contributes to making the interactions more about the people in question, and less about what color they are.
All of that said, based on my own family experience spending time in the deep south when I was a kid, say, 50 or 55 years ago, things were not so great for black people then.
They are better now. But, depending on how you measure ‘long’, it hasn’t been that long.
And no, I don’t forget that it’s been not quite 50 years since white folks in Boston freaking rioted rather than have their kids go to school with black kids.
Some day, we’ll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun. Maybe. We’re not there yet.
There’s always a new way down.
Yes, I am a pessimist.
There’s always a new way down.
Yes, I am a pessimist.
Huh. Thanks cleek. I always associated it with elaborately good manners (kids saying Yes Maam or No Sir), a particularly charming accent (to an English person) and Spanish moss. And racism, I guess. We live and learn…
definitely all that. probably mostly all that.
also, when southerners use it, they sometimes say it with great pride – that rebel, f-you-Yankee, pride.
maybe it’s that any regional label can get used positively and negatively, depending on who is using it.
Huh. Thanks cleek. I always associated it with elaborately good manners (kids saying Yes Maam or No Sir), a particularly charming accent (to an English person) and Spanish moss. And racism, I guess. We live and learn…
definitely all that. probably mostly all that.
also, when southerners use it, they sometimes say it with great pride – that rebel, f-you-Yankee, pride.
maybe it’s that any regional label can get used positively and negatively, depending on who is using it.
maybe it’s that any regional label can get used positively and negatively, depending on who is using it.
Not just regional.
For example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlaw_motorcycle_club#One_percenter
Much like some people now proudly label themselves as “deplorables” through various means.
maybe it’s that any regional label can get used positively and negatively, depending on who is using it.
Not just regional.
For example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlaw_motorcycle_club#One_percenter
Much like some people now proudly label themselves as “deplorables” through various means.
This is clearly the market operating as it should…
His Lights Stayed on During Texas’ Storm. Now He Owes $16,752.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/20/us/texas-storm-electric-bills.html
This is clearly the market operating as it should…
His Lights Stayed on During Texas’ Storm. Now He Owes $16,752.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/20/us/texas-storm-electric-bills.html
Deep South — just another way to structure “us and them,” or “they’re not the real _____” (fill in the blank).
Illustrative (if in a lighthearted way), and maybe I’ve told this story before…..but what the heck:
When my son was a junior in college he brought nine friends home for Thanksgiving – and a very diverse group they were, too, including several from the South, a couple who weren’t American, and a wide range of “races.” Almost everyone made something special for the meal — on top of us home folks making all the usual T-day stuff. A skinny, homesick freshman from Texas, who had somehow weaseled his way onto the trip even though the rest of the friends barely knew him, made me almost cry by talking about how if he were home in Texas, he’d be eating his grandma’s tamales that day.
It was the most memorable Thanksgiving I ever had.
After dinner the young people sat around having a friendly but quite fierce argument about where the “true” South began (and as a corollary, where the best barbecue was made). I remember being unsurprised by an argument about barbecue, but, as a Yankee, bemused by the gradations of southernness and how much they seemed to matter.
Deep South — just another way to structure “us and them,” or “they’re not the real _____” (fill in the blank).
Illustrative (if in a lighthearted way), and maybe I’ve told this story before…..but what the heck:
When my son was a junior in college he brought nine friends home for Thanksgiving – and a very diverse group they were, too, including several from the South, a couple who weren’t American, and a wide range of “races.” Almost everyone made something special for the meal — on top of us home folks making all the usual T-day stuff. A skinny, homesick freshman from Texas, who had somehow weaseled his way onto the trip even though the rest of the friends barely knew him, made me almost cry by talking about how if he were home in Texas, he’d be eating his grandma’s tamales that day.
It was the most memorable Thanksgiving I ever had.
After dinner the young people sat around having a friendly but quite fierce argument about where the “true” South began (and as a corollary, where the best barbecue was made). I remember being unsurprised by an argument about barbecue, but, as a Yankee, bemused by the gradations of southernness and how much they seemed to matter.
This is clearly the market operating as it should…
The service these people bought functioned exactly as specified. Whether or not people this dumb/ignorant should have been allowed to buy service like this is a different question.
This is clearly the market operating as it should…
The service these people bought functioned exactly as specified. Whether or not people this dumb/ignorant should have been allowed to buy service like this is a different question.
Were there any alternatives? Given how much effort and bribery went into the system, I’d not be surprised, if the only other choice was no service at all. But thatÄs just speculation on my part.
Were there any alternatives? Given how much effort and bribery went into the system, I’d not be surprised, if the only other choice was no service at all. But thatÄs just speculation on my part.
where the “true” South began
I say the true south is wherever grits is on the menu.
prove me wrong.
where the “true” South began
I say the true south is wherever grits is on the menu.
prove me wrong.
Texas’ so-called “deregulation” has the minor saving grace of being better than California’s. Deregulation that, early on, left the state a big, fat sitting duck for Enron.
Texas’ so-called “deregulation” has the minor saving grace of being better than California’s. Deregulation that, early on, left the state a big, fat sitting duck for Enron.
prove me wrong.
https://www.clementinesca.com/menu
Grits on the menu, right here in coastal northern California. Nobody, but nobody, would call the San Francisco Bay Area part of the true South.
Q.E.D.
prove me wrong.
https://www.clementinesca.com/menu
Grits on the menu, right here in coastal northern California. Nobody, but nobody, would call the San Francisco Bay Area part of the true South.
Q.E.D.
The service these people bought functioned exactly as specified. Whether or not people this dumb/ignorant should have been allowed to buy service like this is a different question.
Whether people this corrupt/greedy should have been allowed to sell service on this basis is yet another question.
As I understand it, the fundamental problem was a supply constraint, due to weather-related breakdowns at generating plants and the lack of grid interconnection. In “econ-speak” the supply curve shifted dramatically to the left. This was not because of any increase in the cost of generation, but because of the structure of the market and the lack of preparedness of the utilities.
In market dreamland what should happen is that prices shoot up, attracting other suppliers, and the prices quickly come back down.
But that didn’t happen, because it couldn’t, for basic physical reasons.
Alternatively, customers could use less, leaving supply for others, but there’s a limit as to how low you can go, and it’s not clear that shifting the available power around was either easy to do or any kind of an adequate solution.
So no, the market didn’t actually work like it “should have,” no matter what the Kennedy School’s Prof. Hogan says.
The service these people bought functioned exactly as specified. Whether or not people this dumb/ignorant should have been allowed to buy service like this is a different question.
Whether people this corrupt/greedy should have been allowed to sell service on this basis is yet another question.
As I understand it, the fundamental problem was a supply constraint, due to weather-related breakdowns at generating plants and the lack of grid interconnection. In “econ-speak” the supply curve shifted dramatically to the left. This was not because of any increase in the cost of generation, but because of the structure of the market and the lack of preparedness of the utilities.
In market dreamland what should happen is that prices shoot up, attracting other suppliers, and the prices quickly come back down.
But that didn’t happen, because it couldn’t, for basic physical reasons.
Alternatively, customers could use less, leaving supply for others, but there’s a limit as to how low you can go, and it’s not clear that shifting the available power around was either easy to do or any kind of an adequate solution.
So no, the market didn’t actually work like it “should have,” no matter what the Kennedy School’s Prof. Hogan says.
I say the true south is wherever grits is on the menu.
Sort of like the South ends and the Southwest begins where people quit arguing about barbecue styles and start arguing about pepper superiority and Mexican food styles.
I say the true south is wherever grits is on the menu.
Sort of like the South ends and the Southwest begins where people quit arguing about barbecue styles and start arguing about pepper superiority and Mexican food styles.
“Fort Worth is where the West begins and Dallas is where the East peters out” —Amon Carter
“Fort Worth is where the West begins and Dallas is where the East peters out” —Amon Carter
“Texas’ so-called “deregulation” has the minor saving grace of being better than California’s. Deregulation that, early on, left the state a big, fat sitting duck for Enron.”
Now, there’s a selling point.
Stick to barbecue.
Gotta say, that sentence has the most psychedelic (I must be seeing things) two instances of of the word “deregulation” I’ve ever come across in a libertarian utterance.
Next, there’ll be a Texas bumper sticker reading “Texas, where the the tax hikes AND the hats come bigger and more often”.
Perhaps a billboard at the border “UN Troops eat free in Texas.”
Keep the government outta my Medicare, especially when deregulating it.
“Texas’ so-called “deregulation” has the minor saving grace of being better than California’s. Deregulation that, early on, left the state a big, fat sitting duck for Enron.”
Now, there’s a selling point.
Stick to barbecue.
Gotta say, that sentence has the most psychedelic (I must be seeing things) two instances of of the word “deregulation” I’ve ever come across in a libertarian utterance.
Next, there’ll be a Texas bumper sticker reading “Texas, where the the tax hikes AND the hats come bigger and more often”.
Perhaps a billboard at the border “UN Troops eat free in Texas.”
Keep the government outta my Medicare, especially when deregulating it.
So no, the market didn’t actually work like it “should have”
True ‘dat. In fact, there is no actual “market” that functions according the all the assumptions built and/or smuggled into so-called “classic free market micro-economics”. They are legion, and when examined closely…utterly laughable.
It gets worse in macro. Trust me.
So no, the market didn’t actually work like it “should have”
True ‘dat. In fact, there is no actual “market” that functions according the all the assumptions built and/or smuggled into so-called “classic free market micro-economics”. They are legion, and when examined closely…utterly laughable.
It gets worse in macro. Trust me.
As I understand it, the fundamental problem was a supply constraint, due to weather-related breakdowns at generating plants and the lack of grid interconnection.
Start with the natural gas production system. Much of it froze up solid — literally. The producers declared force majeure and said they wouldn’t meet their contracts. Generators had to shut down because they had no fuel. If gas production had come even close to meeting demand, most of the problem would have been avoided.
Interconnection is, IMO, being way overplayed. At the worst point, Texas supply was short some 30-40 GW of generation. There is no way on earth that much interstate transmission is ever going to be built to connect Texas. Or in this particular case, where neighboring states were subject to the same weather and were struggling to meet their own needs, that 30-40 GW of spare capacity would have been available.
As I understand it, the fundamental problem was a supply constraint, due to weather-related breakdowns at generating plants and the lack of grid interconnection.
Start with the natural gas production system. Much of it froze up solid — literally. The producers declared force majeure and said they wouldn’t meet their contracts. Generators had to shut down because they had no fuel. If gas production had come even close to meeting demand, most of the problem would have been avoided.
Interconnection is, IMO, being way overplayed. At the worst point, Texas supply was short some 30-40 GW of generation. There is no way on earth that much interstate transmission is ever going to be built to connect Texas. Or in this particular case, where neighboring states were subject to the same weather and were struggling to meet their own needs, that 30-40 GW of spare capacity would have been available.
In market dreamland what should happen is that prices shoot up, attracting other suppliers, and the prices quickly come back down.
But that didn’t happen, because it couldn’t, for basic physical reasons.
In particular, there’s the little detail that it takes a while to build more power generation capacity. Of course, in dreamland you could see the demand coming and build to be ready. But when everything is driven by quarterly results, that’s difficult . . . even assuming you are willing to accept the science that might warn you a demand spike (actually several) is in prospect.
In market dreamland what should happen is that prices shoot up, attracting other suppliers, and the prices quickly come back down.
But that didn’t happen, because it couldn’t, for basic physical reasons.
In particular, there’s the little detail that it takes a while to build more power generation capacity. Of course, in dreamland you could see the demand coming and build to be ready. But when everything is driven by quarterly results, that’s difficult . . . even assuming you are willing to accept the science that might warn you a demand spike (actually several) is in prospect.
Some claim that ERCOT came within minutes of the whole grid collapsing before starting rolling blackouts. Then some of the substations they shut down supplied gas wellheads, pumps, and gas processing plants. If the grid had collapsed, it would have taken weeks or months to get it up and running again.
The deregulation allowed retail customers to freely pick whoever they wanted to front their electric usage. But the politicians, bureaucrats, and their cronies made sure that they could keep their fingers in the pie.
Some claim that ERCOT came within minutes of the whole grid collapsing before starting rolling blackouts. Then some of the substations they shut down supplied gas wellheads, pumps, and gas processing plants. If the grid had collapsed, it would have taken weeks or months to get it up and running again.
The deregulation allowed retail customers to freely pick whoever they wanted to front their electric usage. But the politicians, bureaucrats, and their cronies made sure that they could keep their fingers in the pie.
Since the subject has come up again.
“Anyone can look at Texas and observe that fossil fuel resources could have performed better in the cold. If those who owned the plants had secured guaranteed fuel, Texas would have been better off. More emergency peaking units would be a great thing to have on hand. Why would generators be inclined to do such a thing? Consider, what would be happening if the owners of gas generation had built sufficient generation to get through this emergency with some excess power? Instead of collecting $9,000 per MWH from existing functioning units, they would be receiving less than $100 per MWH for the output of those plants and their new plants. Why would anyone make tremendous infrastructure that would sit idle in normal years and serve to slash your revenue by orders of magnitudes in extreme conditions?
The incentive for gas generation to do the right thing was taken away by Texas’s deliberate energy-only market strategy. The purpose of which was to aid the profitability of intermittent wind and solar resources and increase their penetration levels. I don’t believe anyone has ever advanced the notion that fossil fuel plants might operate based on altruism. Incentives and responsibility need to be paired. Doing a post-mortem on the Texas situation ignoring incentives and responsibility is inappropriate and incomplete.”
Assigning Blame for the Blackouts in Texas
Since the subject has come up again.
“Anyone can look at Texas and observe that fossil fuel resources could have performed better in the cold. If those who owned the plants had secured guaranteed fuel, Texas would have been better off. More emergency peaking units would be a great thing to have on hand. Why would generators be inclined to do such a thing? Consider, what would be happening if the owners of gas generation had built sufficient generation to get through this emergency with some excess power? Instead of collecting $9,000 per MWH from existing functioning units, they would be receiving less than $100 per MWH for the output of those plants and their new plants. Why would anyone make tremendous infrastructure that would sit idle in normal years and serve to slash your revenue by orders of magnitudes in extreme conditions?
The incentive for gas generation to do the right thing was taken away by Texas’s deliberate energy-only market strategy. The purpose of which was to aid the profitability of intermittent wind and solar resources and increase their penetration levels. I don’t believe anyone has ever advanced the notion that fossil fuel plants might operate based on altruism. Incentives and responsibility need to be paired. Doing a post-mortem on the Texas situation ignoring incentives and responsibility is inappropriate and incomplete.”
Assigning Blame for the Blackouts in Texas
According to the story, the price cap was raised to $9 per kWhr last Wednesday, and prices were at that level for five days, with one resident being charged $16,752 for “keeping the lights on”.
Well, if $16,200 of that was for the peak price period, that would be 1800kWHr, 360 kWHr per day for five days, 15kW being used 24 hours a day. Which is vastly more than I can imagine using on lighting.
I’m sympathetic to someone who has their savings wiped out by unforeseen charges. But could they not have turned the dials down and some lights off in the middle of an electricity supply crisis?
According to the story, the price cap was raised to $9 per kWhr last Wednesday, and prices were at that level for five days, with one resident being charged $16,752 for “keeping the lights on”.
Well, if $16,200 of that was for the peak price period, that would be 1800kWHr, 360 kWHr per day for five days, 15kW being used 24 hours a day. Which is vastly more than I can imagine using on lighting.
I’m sympathetic to someone who has their savings wiped out by unforeseen charges. But could they not have turned the dials down and some lights off in the middle of an electricity supply crisis?
Why would anyone make tremendous infrastructure that would sit idle in normal years and serve to slash your revenue by orders of magnitudes in extreme conditions?
are you trying to make the case for government owned utilities?
because rationalizing the suffering of millions by applauding the wondrous revenue electricity producers scored is doing it.
Why would anyone make tremendous infrastructure that would sit idle in normal years and serve to slash your revenue by orders of magnitudes in extreme conditions?
are you trying to make the case for government owned utilities?
because rationalizing the suffering of millions by applauding the wondrous revenue electricity producers scored is doing it.
Which is vastly more than I can imagine using on lighting.
It’s been a long time since I lived in Texas, but crappy insulation and resistive electric heating piles up the kWh’s in a hurry.
Which is vastly more than I can imagine using on lighting.
It’s been a long time since I lived in Texas, but crappy insulation and resistive electric heating piles up the kWh’s in a hurry.
I often feel like I live in a sieve, not an apartment. In summer it doesn’t matter much. In winter, the bill shoots up and I’m still cold.
I often feel like I live in a sieve, not an apartment. In summer it doesn’t matter much. In winter, the bill shoots up and I’m still cold.
One of the interesting questions that will be asked soon in the Texas courts is whether the natural gas companies were legally entitled to declare force majeure, or if not, how much liability they’ll be on the hook for. Texas law requires companies to have practiced “reasonable diligence” in order to prevent the problem. There will be a lot of public pressure for the courts to say, “The same thing happened in 2011 and you took no action is not reasonable.”
One of the interesting questions that will be asked soon in the Texas courts is whether the natural gas companies were legally entitled to declare force majeure, or if not, how much liability they’ll be on the hook for. Texas law requires companies to have practiced “reasonable diligence” in order to prevent the problem. There will be a lot of public pressure for the courts to say, “The same thing happened in 2011 and you took no action is not reasonable.”
As I understand it (McKinney and other lawyers feel free to correct me), force majeure requires that the events that keep you from fulfilling a contract are unforeseeable. And it’s pretty hard to argue convincingly that this event was not foreseeable. I understand that they have to try, since they’ve got nothing else. But I have trouble seeing anyone being persuaded.
As I understand it (McKinney and other lawyers feel free to correct me), force majeure requires that the events that keep you from fulfilling a contract are unforeseeable. And it’s pretty hard to argue convincingly that this event was not foreseeable. I understand that they have to try, since they’ve got nothing else. But I have trouble seeing anyone being persuaded.
Some claim that ERCOT came within minutes of the whole grid collapsing before starting rolling blackouts….
That would be ERCOT that claimed that.
It might even be true.
Some claim that ERCOT came within minutes of the whole grid collapsing before starting rolling blackouts….
That would be ERCOT that claimed that.
It might even be true.
wj,
In construction contracts the force majeure clause generally lists those circumstances over which neither party has any control over (war, epidemics, etc.), thus relieving them from any liability (time and cost) that may arise as it relates to the agreement.
The Texas utilities could reasonably have both foreseen a freeze ocurrance (it happened before!), and taken measures (not all that expensive from what I see) to deal with this not zero probability. The costs could have been pro-rated into customer utility bills.
To free marketeers, this is an externality, and devil take the hindmost. To those shivering in their homes? Well, not so much.
This is just another example (there are way too many of them) of privatising the profits and socializing the costs.
This reminds me of some of the more outrageous claims asserted during the healthcare debate. Those who said we would be better served with high deductibles and skimpy coverage (more risk-less cost!) vs. a system that would cover all at some basic level.
wj,
In construction contracts the force majeure clause generally lists those circumstances over which neither party has any control over (war, epidemics, etc.), thus relieving them from any liability (time and cost) that may arise as it relates to the agreement.
The Texas utilities could reasonably have both foreseen a freeze ocurrance (it happened before!), and taken measures (not all that expensive from what I see) to deal with this not zero probability. The costs could have been pro-rated into customer utility bills.
To free marketeers, this is an externality, and devil take the hindmost. To those shivering in their homes? Well, not so much.
This is just another example (there are way too many of them) of privatising the profits and socializing the costs.
This reminds me of some of the more outrageous claims asserted during the healthcare debate. Those who said we would be better served with high deductibles and skimpy coverage (more risk-less cost!) vs. a system that would cover all at some basic level.
I often feel like I live in a sieve…
In the Pac NW back in the days (1950’s and 60’s) when my house was built, contractors didn’t even bother to use building insulation since hydropower was so inexpensive. Electric baseboard heat was ubiquitous. It was either that or a messy coal/fuel oil furnace.
ProBono: If my math is correct, a 48″ 1,500 watt electric baseboard heater running full out 24/7 will demand 36kWHr. Now imagine a Texas McMansion with 10 of these things.
I often feel like I live in a sieve…
In the Pac NW back in the days (1950’s and 60’s) when my house was built, contractors didn’t even bother to use building insulation since hydropower was so inexpensive. Electric baseboard heat was ubiquitous. It was either that or a messy coal/fuel oil furnace.
ProBono: If my math is correct, a 48″ 1,500 watt electric baseboard heater running full out 24/7 will demand 36kWHr. Now imagine a Texas McMansion with 10 of these things.
Grits on the menu, right here in coastal northern California.
Yeah, but that’s coastal elitist foodie grits. It’s probably stone-ground from fair-trade organically grown landrace strains of maize, processed by hand in artisanal batches.
🙂
I’m tempted to say the true south is anyplace with a Waffle House, but they’re all over the place now, too.
When I was a kid, we had grits every weekend, when my old man would cook breakfast. But that was uncommon, most folks didn’t even know what it was. It wasn’t something you’d ever see up north outside of maybe a soul food restaurant. Now, it’s available most places.
Same with barbecue. One of my favorite things about going to see my old man’s family in GA was barbecue pork sandwiches. We’d go to a roadside joint with a big barbecue pit and eat our fill. It was outstanding. And part of what made it so was that it was a treat, it wasn’t something you could get north of maybe DC.
TBH, for me personally, the true south is anyplace I can get fried chicken as good as my aunt Melba’s. The fried chicken at the late lamented Bob the Chef’s in the South End here in Boston came as close as anyplace north of DC that I’ve ever found, but fried chicken ain’t horse shoes or hand grenades, so close don’t count.
And speaking of coastal Northern CA, RIP Lawrence Ferlinghetti, last man standing of the Beat Generation. The man thought everyone should be able to read, write, and enjoy poetry, right there in the vernacular, even without a MA in English. Thanks for the words, Mr Ferlinghetti, hope you hear the voices you left behind.
Grits on the menu, right here in coastal northern California.
Yeah, but that’s coastal elitist foodie grits. It’s probably stone-ground from fair-trade organically grown landrace strains of maize, processed by hand in artisanal batches.
🙂
I’m tempted to say the true south is anyplace with a Waffle House, but they’re all over the place now, too.
When I was a kid, we had grits every weekend, when my old man would cook breakfast. But that was uncommon, most folks didn’t even know what it was. It wasn’t something you’d ever see up north outside of maybe a soul food restaurant. Now, it’s available most places.
Same with barbecue. One of my favorite things about going to see my old man’s family in GA was barbecue pork sandwiches. We’d go to a roadside joint with a big barbecue pit and eat our fill. It was outstanding. And part of what made it so was that it was a treat, it wasn’t something you could get north of maybe DC.
TBH, for me personally, the true south is anyplace I can get fried chicken as good as my aunt Melba’s. The fried chicken at the late lamented Bob the Chef’s in the South End here in Boston came as close as anyplace north of DC that I’ve ever found, but fried chicken ain’t horse shoes or hand grenades, so close don’t count.
And speaking of coastal Northern CA, RIP Lawrence Ferlinghetti, last man standing of the Beat Generation. The man thought everyone should be able to read, write, and enjoy poetry, right there in the vernacular, even without a MA in English. Thanks for the words, Mr Ferlinghetti, hope you hear the voices you left behind.
Ferlinghetti! No! (/although 101 is admittedly a good innings).
A Coney Island of the Mind was an absolute touchstone for me. I know I have posted this before, but if not now, when?
I Am Waiting
BY LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI
I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the Second Coming
and I am waiting
for a religious revival
to sweep thru the state of Arizona
and I am waiting
for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored
and I am waiting
for them to prove
that God is really American
and I am waiting
to see God on television
piped onto church altars
if only they can find
the right channel
to tune in on
and I am waiting
for the Last Supper to be served again
with a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth
without taxes
and I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed
and I am anxiously waiting
for the secret of eternal life to be discovered
by an obscure general practitioner
and I am waiting
for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting
to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and tv rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
and I am awaiting retribution
for what America did
to Tom Sawyer
and I am waiting
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting
for Aphrodite
to grow live arms
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again
youth’s dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
and I am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder
Ferlinghetti! No! (/although 101 is admittedly a good innings).
A Coney Island of the Mind was an absolute touchstone for me. I know I have posted this before, but if not now, when?
I Am Waiting
BY LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI
I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the Second Coming
and I am waiting
for a religious revival
to sweep thru the state of Arizona
and I am waiting
for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored
and I am waiting
for them to prove
that God is really American
and I am waiting
to see God on television
piped onto church altars
if only they can find
the right channel
to tune in on
and I am waiting
for the Last Supper to be served again
with a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth
without taxes
and I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed
and I am anxiously waiting
for the secret of eternal life to be discovered
by an obscure general practitioner
and I am waiting
for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting
to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and tv rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
and I am awaiting retribution
for what America did
to Tom Sawyer
and I am waiting
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting
for Aphrodite
to grow live arms
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again
youth’s dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
and I am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder
Re: grits
http://www.bumpyroadfarm.org/
Tallahassee is definitely southern, not quite coastal elites (although at one time in recent years I heard it stated that it allegedly had the highest % of car radios tuned to NPR during commuting hours).
Re: grits
http://www.bumpyroadfarm.org/
Tallahassee is definitely southern, not quite coastal elites (although at one time in recent years I heard it stated that it allegedly had the highest % of car radios tuned to NPR during commuting hours).
The traditional alternative if you happen to be in the area. I would list the drive out Centerville Road to Bradley’s + store visit as in the top 3 of things to do for an out of town visitor. Their grits and corn meal are good, the smoked country sausage is the best I have encountered. Most visits home to mom I’ll go out there and load up on several pounds to portion away in the freezer.
https://www.bradleyscountrystore.com/
The traditional alternative if you happen to be in the area. I would list the drive out Centerville Road to Bradley’s + store visit as in the top 3 of things to do for an out of town visitor. Their grits and corn meal are good, the smoked country sausage is the best I have encountered. Most visits home to mom I’ll go out there and load up on several pounds to portion away in the freezer.
https://www.bradleyscountrystore.com/
The Texas utilities could reasonably have both foreseen a freeze ocurrance (it happened before!), and taken measures (not all that expensive from what I see)…
We need to be careful when we say “utility” because in Texas, for the most part, there are no vertically-integrated utilities. There are generators, and consumers, and companies that operate transmission and distribution networks to connect those first two groups. Then there are suppliers of fuels like coal and natural gas. Such arrangements can be made to work. The poster child for it is the PJM ISO.
There’s little that a generator can do to deal with “My gas supplier cut deliveries in half,” which seems to me to be the biggest problem Texas had. Once the supply is unstable enough, generators and demand centers start automatically disconnecting from the grid to protect themselves from damage. See, eg, the 2003 Northeastern blackout that got big because of the cascade of generators and demand centers taking themselves offline.
Given that, then one part of the solution is the natural gas industry has to spend a sh*tload of money winterizing and reducing their dependency on electricity (part of the cascade was positive feedback). So, de-water and dehydrate gas at or very close to the wellhead. Run the pumps in lots of places off your own gas rather than electricity. Modify your treatment plants. Perhaps do a lot of cross-connections in the pipeline network so that generators can switch sources.
The Texas utilities could reasonably have both foreseen a freeze ocurrance (it happened before!), and taken measures (not all that expensive from what I see)…
We need to be careful when we say “utility” because in Texas, for the most part, there are no vertically-integrated utilities. There are generators, and consumers, and companies that operate transmission and distribution networks to connect those first two groups. Then there are suppliers of fuels like coal and natural gas. Such arrangements can be made to work. The poster child for it is the PJM ISO.
There’s little that a generator can do to deal with “My gas supplier cut deliveries in half,” which seems to me to be the biggest problem Texas had. Once the supply is unstable enough, generators and demand centers start automatically disconnecting from the grid to protect themselves from damage. See, eg, the 2003 Northeastern blackout that got big because of the cascade of generators and demand centers taking themselves offline.
Given that, then one part of the solution is the natural gas industry has to spend a sh*tload of money winterizing and reducing their dependency on electricity (part of the cascade was positive feedback). So, de-water and dehydrate gas at or very close to the wellhead. Run the pumps in lots of places off your own gas rather than electricity. Modify your treatment plants. Perhaps do a lot of cross-connections in the pipeline network so that generators can switch sources.
(/although 101 is admittedly a good innings)
Yes. Sorry to see him go, but 101 is a damned good run.
Priest, those grits sources look great. I will check them out!
(/although 101 is admittedly a good innings)
Yes. Sorry to see him go, but 101 is a damned good run.
Priest, those grits sources look great. I will check them out!
Plumbers are now overemployed for a bit.
Plumbers are now overemployed for a bit.
Plumbers are now overemployed for a bit.
Are plumbers and pipefitters in Texas unionized much?
Plumbers are now overemployed for a bit.
Are plumbers and pipefitters in Texas unionized much?
Russell, Bradley’s site is decently set up for e-commerce/shipping, etc. The Bumpy Road folks is a smaller operation, I have only been able to get their products at a local fresh seafood market, and not regularly. But there was the one time they had small packages of smoked grits. Only got one because I didn’t know what to expect. Wish I bought all they had, haven’t seen it since. But the shrimp and grits that I made with them was fantastic.
Russell, Bradley’s site is decently set up for e-commerce/shipping, etc. The Bumpy Road folks is a smaller operation, I have only been able to get their products at a local fresh seafood market, and not regularly. But there was the one time they had small packages of smoked grits. Only got one because I didn’t know what to expect. Wish I bought all they had, haven’t seen it since. But the shrimp and grits that I made with them was fantastic.
Native American cultural appropriation…
“Three-quarters of the grits sold in the U.S. are bought in the South, in an area stretching from Lower Texas to Washington, D.C., that is sometimes called the “grits belt”. The state of Georgia declared grits to be its official prepared food in 2002. A similar bill was introduced in South Carolina to name it the official state food, but it did not advance. Nevertheless, South Carolina still has an entire chapter of legislation dealing exclusively with cornmeal and grits.”
Grits
Native American cultural appropriation…
“Three-quarters of the grits sold in the U.S. are bought in the South, in an area stretching from Lower Texas to Washington, D.C., that is sometimes called the “grits belt”. The state of Georgia declared grits to be its official prepared food in 2002. A similar bill was introduced in South Carolina to name it the official state food, but it did not advance. Nevertheless, South Carolina still has an entire chapter of legislation dealing exclusively with cornmeal and grits.”
Grits
Delurking to add some nuance to the force majeure question … “unforeseeable” is not often the focus force majeure arguments. In my experience, it is the fight over whether performance was truly “impossible” or merely “really expensive”.
Force majeure clauses typically list out the triggering events (e.g., fire, flood, storm, act of God, governmental authority, labor disputes, war) which automatically makes them “foreseeable”.
Where the concept “unforeseeable” comes up is in the catch-all that force majeure clauses generally contain. Here’s an example:
“Should either Party be prevented or hindered from complying with any obligation created under this Agreement, other than the obligation to pay money, by reason of fire, flood, storm, act of God, governmental authority, labor disputes, war **or any other cause not enumerated herein but which is beyond the reasonable control of the Party whose performance is affected,**”
Interestingly, this has come up before in Texas energy cases (see TEC Olmos, LLC v. ConocoPhillips Co., No. 01-16-00579-CV, 2018 WL 2437449, (Tex. App. 31 May 2018)) and the upshot is that “unforeseeable” will be applied to force majeure catchall clauses in Texas and crazy market conditions that could be managed through option contracts or futures contracts or insurance will be deemed “foreseeable”.
Delurking to add some nuance to the force majeure question … “unforeseeable” is not often the focus force majeure arguments. In my experience, it is the fight over whether performance was truly “impossible” or merely “really expensive”.
Force majeure clauses typically list out the triggering events (e.g., fire, flood, storm, act of God, governmental authority, labor disputes, war) which automatically makes them “foreseeable”.
Where the concept “unforeseeable” comes up is in the catch-all that force majeure clauses generally contain. Here’s an example:
“Should either Party be prevented or hindered from complying with any obligation created under this Agreement, other than the obligation to pay money, by reason of fire, flood, storm, act of God, governmental authority, labor disputes, war **or any other cause not enumerated herein but which is beyond the reasonable control of the Party whose performance is affected,**”
Interestingly, this has come up before in Texas energy cases (see TEC Olmos, LLC v. ConocoPhillips Co., No. 01-16-00579-CV, 2018 WL 2437449, (Tex. App. 31 May 2018)) and the upshot is that “unforeseeable” will be applied to force majeure catchall clauses in Texas and crazy market conditions that could be managed through option contracts or futures contracts or insurance will be deemed “foreseeable”.
a 48″ 1,500 watt electric baseboard heater running full out 24/7 will demand 36kWHr. Now imagine a Texas McMansion with 10 of these things.
People heat McMansions with electricity? I am so naïve.
a 48″ 1,500 watt electric baseboard heater running full out 24/7 will demand 36kWHr. Now imagine a Texas McMansion with 10 of these things.
People heat McMansions with electricity? I am so naïve.
People heat McMansions with electricity?
LOL…I may have gone a bit overboard.
If you lived in a place where winters are “mild” and you have fierce summer heat, why would you bother to put in a gas furnace and the associated expensive ductwork? You might go electric forced air, but that too would be a significant up front cost (tin benders make good money).
I found this little squib interesting. (For HSH, it’s from 2017)
People heat McMansions with electricity?
LOL…I may have gone a bit overboard.
If you lived in a place where winters are “mild” and you have fierce summer heat, why would you bother to put in a gas furnace and the associated expensive ductwork? You might go electric forced air, but that too would be a significant up front cost (tin benders make good money).
I found this little squib interesting. (For HSH, it’s from 2017)
i buy grits (and more importantly, Sea Island Red Peas!) from Geechie Boys. they’re in SC.
i buy grits (and more importantly, Sea Island Red Peas!) from Geechie Boys. they’re in SC.
Cost of ‘freedom’…
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/540271-texass-deregulated-electricity-market-raised-cost-to-consumers-by-28
…Texas’s deregulated electricity market has raised costs to consumers by $28 billion since 2004, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis published Wednesday.
The analysis found that consumers purchasing power from the deregulated electricity market have paid significantly more than state residents whose sources were traditional electric utilities….
Cost of ‘freedom’…
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/540271-texass-deregulated-electricity-market-raised-cost-to-consumers-by-28
…Texas’s deregulated electricity market has raised costs to consumers by $28 billion since 2004, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis published Wednesday.
The analysis found that consumers purchasing power from the deregulated electricity market have paid significantly more than state residents whose sources were traditional electric utilities….
Sea Island Red Peas!
Sea Island Red Peas!
If you lived in a place where winters are “mild” and you have fierce summer heat, why would you bother to put in a gas furnace and the associated expensive ductwork?
How are you proposing to handle fierce summer heat in a McMansion w/o ductwork for central air conditioning?
If you lived in a place where winters are “mild” and you have fierce summer heat, why would you bother to put in a gas furnace and the associated expensive ductwork?
How are you proposing to handle fierce summer heat in a McMansion w/o ductwork for central air conditioning?
Pollo et al,
Thanks for the education on force majeure.
Pollo et al,
Thanks for the education on force majeure.
The internet is a hotbed of duct-work arguments these days.
The internet is a hotbed of duct-work arguments these days.
a series of arguments about tubes
a series of arguments about tubes
Grits! Cornbread! Biscuits! Country ham and redeye gravy! BBQ! You have no idea how seductive and exotic the idea of the Deep South is to many foreign foodies, and others (despite some negative connotations).
I have had a fantasy about driving through the South over a few weeks or months, probably with a really cool, good, muso friend of mine who has an interesting friend who lives in the Mississippi delta. We’ve talked about doing it; I don’t think he’s all that serious about it, but I am!
My fantasy was seriously exacerbated by the documentary Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, which I loved and recommended to this friend. He loved it too. I don’t know if or how USA residents would be able to view it, but this is the Wikipedia link.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Searching_for_the_Wrong-Eyed_Jesus
If my fantasy is ever realised, you’ll hear about it.
Grits! Cornbread! Biscuits! Country ham and redeye gravy! BBQ! You have no idea how seductive and exotic the idea of the Deep South is to many foreign foodies, and others (despite some negative connotations).
I have had a fantasy about driving through the South over a few weeks or months, probably with a really cool, good, muso friend of mine who has an interesting friend who lives in the Mississippi delta. We’ve talked about doing it; I don’t think he’s all that serious about it, but I am!
My fantasy was seriously exacerbated by the documentary Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, which I loved and recommended to this friend. He loved it too. I don’t know if or how USA residents would be able to view it, but this is the Wikipedia link.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Searching_for_the_Wrong-Eyed_Jesus
If my fantasy is ever realised, you’ll hear about it.
It may be available in some way on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0RUjNSuCYI
(it features Harry Crews, whom I had never heard of, but was a writer previously admired by my friend).
It may be available in some way on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0RUjNSuCYI
(it features Harry Crews, whom I had never heard of, but was a writer previously admired by my friend).
How are you proposing to handle fierce summer heat in a McMansion w/o ductwork for central air conditioning?
In my day, central air was something ‘rich’ people had. We relied on opening doors and windows to let the bugs in, or used noisy swamp coolers.
But yes, where did those ducts go? My bad. But never fear, mitsubishi is here.
How are you proposing to handle fierce summer heat in a McMansion w/o ductwork for central air conditioning?
In my day, central air was something ‘rich’ people had. We relied on opening doors and windows to let the bugs in, or used noisy swamp coolers.
But yes, where did those ducts go? My bad. But never fear, mitsubishi is here.
I am sure y’all are grateful that I have not weighed in about grits, as that is a topic where my ignorance is total. Just one of many, I might add.
So thank your lucky stars.
But jambalaya….ummmm!
I am sure y’all are grateful that I have not weighed in about grits, as that is a topic where my ignorance is total. Just one of many, I might add.
So thank your lucky stars.
But jambalaya….ummmm!
I think I had grits once. I know I’ve seen them. Who wants to talk about scrapple, cream chipped beef, or pork roll?
I think I had grits once. I know I’ve seen them. Who wants to talk about scrapple, cream chipped beef, or pork roll?
white hots, beef on weck and garbage plates!
white hots, beef on weck and garbage plates!
We used to get scrapple every year growing up. Comes of raising pigs, and being determined to use everything. Like bacon, it’s a little bit about the flavor and a little bit about the salt.
We used to get scrapple every year growing up. Comes of raising pigs, and being determined to use everything. Like bacon, it’s a little bit about the flavor and a little bit about the salt.
But jambalaya….ummmm!
Yes, I did spend a week in New Orleans years ago with an old friend, and tried many of the famous specialties. My problem was I don’t like green bell peppers (love red, yellow and orange), and they are a pretty much non-negotiable ingredient in many of their famous dishes. But I adored basic things like boiled crawfish, and po’boys.
I always thought scrapple was the same as brawn, but that is held together with meat jelly, whereas I believe scrapple has a carb component to hold it together. And it seems to be not dissimilar to the French Tete de Veau. This kind of nose-to-tail eating, or of cucina povera (pretentious, moi?) is often completely delicious. I am all in for trying scrapple, wherever I might find it, and generally all in for trying many other Pennsylvania Dutch specialities.
Meanwhile, I’m off to look up white hots, beef on weck and garbage plates, on the assumption cleek hasn’t just made them up to tease the Brits!
But jambalaya….ummmm!
Yes, I did spend a week in New Orleans years ago with an old friend, and tried many of the famous specialties. My problem was I don’t like green bell peppers (love red, yellow and orange), and they are a pretty much non-negotiable ingredient in many of their famous dishes. But I adored basic things like boiled crawfish, and po’boys.
I always thought scrapple was the same as brawn, but that is held together with meat jelly, whereas I believe scrapple has a carb component to hold it together. And it seems to be not dissimilar to the French Tete de Veau. This kind of nose-to-tail eating, or of cucina povera (pretentious, moi?) is often completely delicious. I am all in for trying scrapple, wherever I might find it, and generally all in for trying many other Pennsylvania Dutch specialities.
Meanwhile, I’m off to look up white hots, beef on weck and garbage plates, on the assumption cleek hasn’t just made them up to tease the Brits!
Hmm, I’m wrong about Tete de Veau, which I thought was more or less identical to brawn, but it seems not to be made from the scraps etc. A French equivalent is apparently fromage de tête, tête pressée, tête fromagée (which translates as “cheesed head”) or pâté de tête.
Hmm, I’m wrong about Tete de Veau, which I thought was more or less identical to brawn, but it seems not to be made from the scraps etc. A French equivalent is apparently fromage de tête, tête pressée, tête fromagée (which translates as “cheesed head”) or pâté de tête.
Creamed chipped beef on toast. In military chow halls, more likely ground beef. And unaffectionately known as shit on a single.
Creamed chipped beef on toast. In military chow halls, more likely ground beef. And unaffectionately known as shit on a single.
Hmm. Well, beef on weck sounds interesting, and I guess white hots might be OK if from a reputable manufacturer (I feel the same about regular hot dogs). But as for garbage plates, I remain (uncharacteristically, but I hope eloquently) silent. But for the record, I once paid a hefty penalty in a charity fundraiser rather than do the forfeit I’d incurred, which was to eat a Pot Noodle, and to this day I have never eaten one.
Hmm. Well, beef on weck sounds interesting, and I guess white hots might be OK if from a reputable manufacturer (I feel the same about regular hot dogs). But as for garbage plates, I remain (uncharacteristically, but I hope eloquently) silent. But for the record, I once paid a hefty penalty in a charity fundraiser rather than do the forfeit I’d incurred, which was to eat a Pot Noodle, and to this day I have never eaten one.
shingle. Although a single was more than enough.
shingle. Although a single was more than enough.
p.s. I rather think russell’s hacking knot has been totally, and comprehensively, eclipsed.
p.s. I rather think russell’s hacking knot has been totally, and comprehensively, eclipsed.
First had beef on weck and scrapple because college friends were from the relevant regions. Never had a white hot (or if I did, it didn’t seem remarkable enough to remember). Never heard of a garbage plate. Did have chipped beef now and then growing up.
Strangest food I ever ate (and that includes my five weeks in China, where I was often eating I knew not what) was czernina, at Polish Fest in Milwaukee. A Polish-American friend dared me to try it without knowing what was in it. I tried it, and I didn’t think much of it. Turns out it’s otherwise known as duck’s blood soup.
I’ve had blood sausage and it was okay, and I wouldn’t have minded the soup, except that it had raisins in it. I really don’t like raisins, and the combination of flavors was just weird. (Wikipedia doesn’t mention raisins as an ingredient, but it does mention other dried fruits.)
First had beef on weck and scrapple because college friends were from the relevant regions. Never had a white hot (or if I did, it didn’t seem remarkable enough to remember). Never heard of a garbage plate. Did have chipped beef now and then growing up.
Strangest food I ever ate (and that includes my five weeks in China, where I was often eating I knew not what) was czernina, at Polish Fest in Milwaukee. A Polish-American friend dared me to try it without knowing what was in it. I tried it, and I didn’t think much of it. Turns out it’s otherwise known as duck’s blood soup.
I’ve had blood sausage and it was okay, and I wouldn’t have minded the soup, except that it had raisins in it. I really don’t like raisins, and the combination of flavors was just weird. (Wikipedia doesn’t mention raisins as an ingredient, but it does mention other dried fruits.)
PS my friend thought I would be grossed out by the idea of eating blood, and would refuse to try the soup if I knew. But my Italian grandpa used to fry beef blood, so that was no big issue for me.
Raisins, though…. Or liver. Get outa here.
PS my friend thought I would be grossed out by the idea of eating blood, and would refuse to try the soup if I knew. But my Italian grandpa used to fry beef blood, so that was no big issue for me.
Raisins, though…. Or liver. Get outa here.
GFTNC, you should definitely tour the south. Eat the food, listen to the music, hang out with the people. It’s a beautiful part of the world.
You could start in Pennsylvania, actually, and have some scrapple, then head south from there.
I love scrapple, and it was a breakfast favorite when I lived in Philly. It is a food about which one should not ask too many questions.
My wife worked for a few years consulting with a French company, and spent about two weeks a month in France for about a year. She went all over, including into the fabled France profonde, and on one occasion was offered tete de veau. It is, basically, a calf’s head, on a plate, with or without bone. She and her translator/companion had the salad.
On vacation in Italy a couple of years ago, my wife and I went to a small local restaurant in Montone, in Umbria. They advertised traditional Umbrian cuisine. Employing my extremely limited tourist Italian, I vaguely recognized lamb as one of the offerings, and asked for that. Our waitress, a lovely young woman who was assigned to us because of her excellent command of English, asked “Oh, you like the lungs and heart?”. I went for the grilled boar.
I’m gonna order me some stone ground grits tonight!
Bon apetit, y’all.
GFTNC, you should definitely tour the south. Eat the food, listen to the music, hang out with the people. It’s a beautiful part of the world.
You could start in Pennsylvania, actually, and have some scrapple, then head south from there.
I love scrapple, and it was a breakfast favorite when I lived in Philly. It is a food about which one should not ask too many questions.
My wife worked for a few years consulting with a French company, and spent about two weeks a month in France for about a year. She went all over, including into the fabled France profonde, and on one occasion was offered tete de veau. It is, basically, a calf’s head, on a plate, with or without bone. She and her translator/companion had the salad.
On vacation in Italy a couple of years ago, my wife and I went to a small local restaurant in Montone, in Umbria. They advertised traditional Umbrian cuisine. Employing my extremely limited tourist Italian, I vaguely recognized lamb as one of the offerings, and asked for that. Our waitress, a lovely young woman who was assigned to us because of her excellent command of English, asked “Oh, you like the lungs and heart?”. I went for the grilled boar.
I’m gonna order me some stone ground grits tonight!
Bon apetit, y’all.
Hmmmm…. Scrapple, when I had it as a child, was pork skin, with some remaining fat. Period.
But I get the impression that you all are talking about something a bit different. We get “countries divided by a common language” even without involving the Brits.
Hmmmm…. Scrapple, when I had it as a child, was pork skin, with some remaining fat. Period.
But I get the impression that you all are talking about something a bit different. We get “countries divided by a common language” even without involving the Brits.
It is a food about which one should not ask too many questions.
Which is what my grandma said about Genoa salami, which we, her grandchildren, would have eaten in large quantities had we been allowed. My dad insisted that we always at least have some bread with it.
Grandma’s (almost) exact words: “Yous wouldn’t eat it if yous knew what goes into it.” 😉
We either didn’t believe her or didn’t care. I could still eat salami in large quantities, and sometimes do, just as a treat.
It is a food about which one should not ask too many questions.
Which is what my grandma said about Genoa salami, which we, her grandchildren, would have eaten in large quantities had we been allowed. My dad insisted that we always at least have some bread with it.
Grandma’s (almost) exact words: “Yous wouldn’t eat it if yous knew what goes into it.” 😉
We either didn’t believe her or didn’t care. I could still eat salami in large quantities, and sometimes do, just as a treat.
wj: “Scrapple, also known by the Pennsylvania Dutch name Pannhaas or “pan rabbit”, is traditionally a mush of pork scraps and trimmings combined with cornmeal and wheat flour, often buckwheat flour, and spices. The mush is formed into a semi-solid congealed loaf, and slices of the scrapple are then pan-fried before serving.” (Wikipedia)
I remember it as being a bit greenish. But I haven’t had it for decades.
wj: “Scrapple, also known by the Pennsylvania Dutch name Pannhaas or “pan rabbit”, is traditionally a mush of pork scraps and trimmings combined with cornmeal and wheat flour, often buckwheat flour, and spices. The mush is formed into a semi-solid congealed loaf, and slices of the scrapple are then pan-fried before serving.” (Wikipedia)
I remember it as being a bit greenish. But I haven’t had it for decades.
We either didn’t believe her or didn’t care. I could still eat salami in large quantities, and sometimes do, just as a treat.
Me too.
I’ve eaten a lot of weird stuff, growing up and travelling in the far east (snake, sea slugs, jellyfish etc), and don’t have that much of an “ugh” reflex, except the strong taboo feeling about eating cat or dog.
I love most offal, (including blood sausages etc) except overcooked liver. It has to be pink in the middle, or else in a pate. I can even enjoy some preparations of brains, although after a few delicious but rich bites, I do get a bit weirded out by the thought (no joke intended).
As far as haggis is concerned, the best thing about it is a reliably-sourced story I may have told you before, but hopefully you will bear with its repetition. Since Burns Night is celebrated all round the world by nostalgic Scots, the haggis is always piped in and greeted by the Burns poem which includes the line Great chieftain o’ the puddin’ race!
At a Burns Night celebration in Germany, the printed program included a German translation of the poem, with an English version translated back from the German alongside, in which this line as given as:
Mighty fuhrer of the sausage people!
This gives me great pleasure.
We either didn’t believe her or didn’t care. I could still eat salami in large quantities, and sometimes do, just as a treat.
Me too.
I’ve eaten a lot of weird stuff, growing up and travelling in the far east (snake, sea slugs, jellyfish etc), and don’t have that much of an “ugh” reflex, except the strong taboo feeling about eating cat or dog.
I love most offal, (including blood sausages etc) except overcooked liver. It has to be pink in the middle, or else in a pate. I can even enjoy some preparations of brains, although after a few delicious but rich bites, I do get a bit weirded out by the thought (no joke intended).
As far as haggis is concerned, the best thing about it is a reliably-sourced story I may have told you before, but hopefully you will bear with its repetition. Since Burns Night is celebrated all round the world by nostalgic Scots, the haggis is always piped in and greeted by the Burns poem which includes the line Great chieftain o’ the puddin’ race!
At a Burns Night celebration in Germany, the printed program included a German translation of the poem, with an English version translated back from the German alongside, in which this line as given as:
Mighty fuhrer of the sausage people!
This gives me great pleasure.
Mighty fuhrer of the sausage people!
Cracked me up.
Mighty fuhrer of the sausage people!
Cracked me up.
If you are already headed through the South, just extend the trip far enough to make it to New Mexico for some authentic New Mexican cuisine. I’ve eaten all manner of regional Mexican, but I think New Mexican is the most distinctive. And New Mexican apple pie (with hatch chilis, piñon streusel, and cheese in the crust) is the pinnacle of apple pie as far as I’m concerned.
If you are already headed through the South, just extend the trip far enough to make it to New Mexico for some authentic New Mexican cuisine. I’ve eaten all manner of regional Mexican, but I think New Mexican is the most distinctive. And New Mexican apple pie (with hatch chilis, piñon streusel, and cheese in the crust) is the pinnacle of apple pie as far as I’m concerned.
Excellent! I’m off to bed now, to dream of a road trip round the South. Good night all.
Excellent! I’m off to bed now, to dream of a road trip round the South. Good night all.
Excellent referred to Janie. But I was in New Mexico in about 1993, and ate a lot of good food in Santa Fe. I liked it (didn’t stay in Santa Fe, but out in the country), despite its touristification.
Excellent referred to Janie. But I was in New Mexico in about 1993, and ate a lot of good food in Santa Fe. I liked it (didn’t stay in Santa Fe, but out in the country), despite its touristification.
I was in college in Santa Fé in the early 90s and that may have been peak tourist-y. With any luck you managed to find a couple of the local secrets, like the dearly departed Dave’s Not Here (named after the Cheech & Chong skit, and for the same reasons), which had the best chili rellenos (breaded) I have ever had. Plaza Cafe is still (there, and a local mainstay with affordable food despite being right on the Plaza).
I stayed a night in Santa Fé a couple years ago on the way back from visiting family in CO – first time since college – and it seemed to be more run down and reduced than I remember it being in ’91 when I first got there. Still tourist-y, but more niche in its tourism and more impoverished overall.
Food is still great, though, and the sunsets are still fantastic over the Jemez mountains.
I was in college in Santa Fé in the early 90s and that may have been peak tourist-y. With any luck you managed to find a couple of the local secrets, like the dearly departed Dave’s Not Here (named after the Cheech & Chong skit, and for the same reasons), which had the best chili rellenos (breaded) I have ever had. Plaza Cafe is still (there, and a local mainstay with affordable food despite being right on the Plaza).
I stayed a night in Santa Fé a couple years ago on the way back from visiting family in CO – first time since college – and it seemed to be more run down and reduced than I remember it being in ’91 when I first got there. Still tourist-y, but more niche in its tourism and more impoverished overall.
Food is still great, though, and the sunsets are still fantastic over the Jemez mountains.
Garbage plates! I almost forgot about them. I had a few late at night when I was working just outside of Rochester, NY. I recall them being like a bunch of stuff you’d eat at a cookout, whether hot or cold, thrown hastily into a pile on a large paper plate. Lots of food for little money, best eaten drunk.
Garbage plates! I almost forgot about them. I had a few late at night when I was working just outside of Rochester, NY. I recall them being like a bunch of stuff you’d eat at a cookout, whether hot or cold, thrown hastily into a pile on a large paper plate. Lots of food for little money, best eaten drunk.
That apple pie description is incredible nous and everyone is cordially invited to move to the anteroom for a thread about it and other recipes.
That apple pie description is incredible nous and everyone is cordially invited to move to the anteroom for a thread about it and other recipes.
Story about Lauren Underwood; interesting throughout.
https://www.elle.com/culture/a35524502/lauren-underwood-is-the-future/
…Underwood was eventually escorted to an undisclosed location, but what should have been a safe space was anything but when she realized the room was crammed full of Republicans who refused to put on masks. It was “the most direct superspreader exposure I had ever been in,” says Underwood, 34. “After all those months of being so careful with COVID…” (She has a heart condition called supraventricular tachycardia and is sure that if she got the virus, “I’d be symptomatic, and it would be rough.”)
For four hours, Underwood and other members were told they couldn’t leave. No bathroom breaks, no food—“you just had to sit there,” she says. She had someone text her sister to say, “I’m with Lauren. She’s in an undisclosed location without her phone. She’s safe.” The sergeant at arms came in after about two hours and said, “We haven’t yet secured the Capitol. We are waiting for reinforcements to arrive.” What? How is this possible? Underwood thought….
…“I believe, even with my constituents who are the most ardent supporters of the MAGA philosophy, that they can respect and understand what it means to pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States and what it means to uphold the Constitution,” Underwood says. “While they may disagree with how I choose to exercise that oath, we have not gone so far that we cannot have a conversation.”…
…Unlike some candidates running in purple districts, she didn’t campaign on being a moderate because, well, she isn’t. She ran on an openly liberal agenda, embracing affordable and accessible health care—drawing on her experience as a registered nurse and a former senior advisor at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services—as well as public education, paid leave, and affordable child care…
…When she went door-to-door, farmers would tell her no Democrat had knocked on their doors in 10 years. And what Underwood says she heard “loud and clear,” from those ruby- red rural parts of her district to the more moderate suburbs, is that both sides felt like no one cared. “No one was showing up for them. No one understood what was going on with their families. No one understood their fears or hopes,” she says. “And so when we literally physically showed up and talked to them, listened and were responsive, and engaged them on the issues that mattered to them, we were able to earn their support.”
The conversations often had very little to do with politics or which side of the aisle she sits on. “I will show up in the smallest town. I have towns with less than 100 households, and we show up and talk to them…
…When the Black Lives Matter movement took hold this summer, Underwood was heartened by the rallies in her district. “I’ve lived in this community my whole life and growing up, I never had a Black teacher. There was only one other Black kid in my class. So to see our communities step up—I mean, every town and city had a protest, a rally, a march, something—I was so touched.”
But she didn’t dare participate…
Story about Lauren Underwood; interesting throughout.
https://www.elle.com/culture/a35524502/lauren-underwood-is-the-future/
…Underwood was eventually escorted to an undisclosed location, but what should have been a safe space was anything but when she realized the room was crammed full of Republicans who refused to put on masks. It was “the most direct superspreader exposure I had ever been in,” says Underwood, 34. “After all those months of being so careful with COVID…” (She has a heart condition called supraventricular tachycardia and is sure that if she got the virus, “I’d be symptomatic, and it would be rough.”)
For four hours, Underwood and other members were told they couldn’t leave. No bathroom breaks, no food—“you just had to sit there,” she says. She had someone text her sister to say, “I’m with Lauren. She’s in an undisclosed location without her phone. She’s safe.” The sergeant at arms came in after about two hours and said, “We haven’t yet secured the Capitol. We are waiting for reinforcements to arrive.” What? How is this possible? Underwood thought….
…“I believe, even with my constituents who are the most ardent supporters of the MAGA philosophy, that they can respect and understand what it means to pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States and what it means to uphold the Constitution,” Underwood says. “While they may disagree with how I choose to exercise that oath, we have not gone so far that we cannot have a conversation.”…
…Unlike some candidates running in purple districts, she didn’t campaign on being a moderate because, well, she isn’t. She ran on an openly liberal agenda, embracing affordable and accessible health care—drawing on her experience as a registered nurse and a former senior advisor at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services—as well as public education, paid leave, and affordable child care…
…When she went door-to-door, farmers would tell her no Democrat had knocked on their doors in 10 years. And what Underwood says she heard “loud and clear,” from those ruby- red rural parts of her district to the more moderate suburbs, is that both sides felt like no one cared. “No one was showing up for them. No one understood what was going on with their families. No one understood their fears or hopes,” she says. “And so when we literally physically showed up and talked to them, listened and were responsive, and engaged them on the issues that mattered to them, we were able to earn their support.”
The conversations often had very little to do with politics or which side of the aisle she sits on. “I will show up in the smallest town. I have towns with less than 100 households, and we show up and talk to them…
…When the Black Lives Matter movement took hold this summer, Underwood was heartened by the rallies in her district. “I’ve lived in this community my whole life and growing up, I never had a Black teacher. There was only one other Black kid in my class. So to see our communities step up—I mean, every town and city had a protest, a rally, a march, something—I was so touched.”
But she didn’t dare participate…
Thanks, Nigel. I found it inspiring. We need many more Lauren Underwoods.
Thanks, Nigel. I found it inspiring. We need many more Lauren Underwoods.
Yes, that is good reading. And an indication of what can be achieved if the Dems up their ground game in states where they have been MIA.
Yes, that is good reading. And an indication of what can be achieved if the Dems up their ground game in states where they have been MIA.
an indication of what can be achieved if the Dems up their ground game in states where they have been MIA.
When you consider how various Democratic proposals poll when not labeled by party, it seems like a lot of quite red areas could be in play with a bit of effort. A lot of that stuff, including some things where I’m personally underwhelmed by the specifics of what is proposed, directly addresses real problems for those voters. And the GOP is offering nothing of substance as an alternative. So it could be huge . . . IF Democratic candidates can up their ground game.
Still won’t reach the Trump cultists, of course. But they’re really less than 1/3, probable less than 1/4, of the voting population. And even some of them are more driven by the sense that he is finally someone who cares. (He doesn’t, not even a little. But at least he puts up a front.) Show up in person and, who knows how many you can peel off.
an indication of what can be achieved if the Dems up their ground game in states where they have been MIA.
When you consider how various Democratic proposals poll when not labeled by party, it seems like a lot of quite red areas could be in play with a bit of effort. A lot of that stuff, including some things where I’m personally underwhelmed by the specifics of what is proposed, directly addresses real problems for those voters. And the GOP is offering nothing of substance as an alternative. So it could be huge . . . IF Democratic candidates can up their ground game.
Still won’t reach the Trump cultists, of course. But they’re really less than 1/3, probable less than 1/4, of the voting population. And even some of them are more driven by the sense that he is finally someone who cares. (He doesn’t, not even a little. But at least he puts up a front.) Show up in person and, who knows how many you can peel off.
Behold the Golden… Aaaaargh!
https://www.thedailybeast.com/golden-statue-of-donald-trump-unveiled-at-hellish-looking-cpac-meeting
Behold the Golden… Aaaaargh!
https://www.thedailybeast.com/golden-statue-of-donald-trump-unveiled-at-hellish-looking-cpac-meeting
This is even more fun:
Not unlike the comments characterizing the previous Presideny to a cranky 3-year-old being a slur on 3-year-olds.
This is even more fun:
Not unlike the comments characterizing the previous Presideny to a cranky 3-year-old being a slur on 3-year-olds.
I love the fairy godmother wand and the flip-flops.
I love the fairy godmother wand and the flip-flops.
Since neither of the current threads is unequivocally Open, I’m choosing this one to again post a link to Ian Leslie’s The Ruffian. I have no connection with him, and was only referred to his blog by a friend who thought I’d be interested. And I always do find something interesting in it, and I’m constantly aware of how much of it connects to the interests and concerns of many ObWi commenters, so here is the latest (very US-centred) issue:
https://ianleslie.substack.com/p/tough-talk?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=cta
Since neither of the current threads is unequivocally Open, I’m choosing this one to again post a link to Ian Leslie’s The Ruffian. I have no connection with him, and was only referred to his blog by a friend who thought I’d be interested. And I always do find something interesting in it, and I’m constantly aware of how much of it connects to the interests and concerns of many ObWi commenters, so here is the latest (very US-centred) issue:
https://ianleslie.substack.com/p/tough-talk?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=cta
Western Fault for Hitler/Holocaust
Ok, this is going to be a long one, and as I sit down to finally bring all of my thoughts together, my main thought is “what’s the point, the chances of moving anyone’s needle are close to nil?” Put differently, I’m preparing a case for a jury that I will never persuade. But since I said I would, I will. Here goes:
Background Statement: there were many comments before and after I signed off temporarily from the “Openish Thread” by me and others. I am writing this as if the reader has refreshed on my previous comments. If you haven’t and if what I say seems out of context, you’ll have to return to my earlier comments because there is only so much on person can do or say. Finally, I intentionally absented from ObWi the morning of 2/21/21 because I already had enough to deal with.
The Issue: The Value or Not, Comparatively and Objectively, of Modern Western Liberal Democracy (MWLD) and the Study of Western Civilization and the Western Canon from which MWLD Evolved.
The Protagonists: Modern Traditional Western Liberals vs. the Frankfurt School et al
Preliminary, Overarching Point: the farther one goes left on the spectrum, the more “west” and “white” become conflated.
In fact, MWLD has been embraced throughout the world without regard to local culture or ethnicity. It is a state of mind and a state of being that is, or should be, universally available and applicable to all who want it. The left’s color/geography conflation is one of the core flaws with its antipathy toward MWLD and his antecedents.
McKTex’s Basic Premise (refined in light of comments through 2/21/21 at 8:55 a.m. CST):
The Western Canon is the product of Western Civilization as it developed over a period of 2500 or so years, out of which Western Liberal Democracy (WLD) and then, post WWII (but uniquely informed by certain US Civil War events), Modern Western Liberal Democracy (MWLD) arose. I say, without reservation or qualification, MWLD is, comparatively, superior to any other known and applied societal/governmental system.
Essential elements of MWLD include:
1. Free market capitalism cabined by a focused and balanced statutory and regulatory regime;
2. Equality before the law regardless of race, sex, etc, the Rule of Law, including a variety of enumerable individual rights which the state must respect.
3. A general, often difficult to describe notion of individual liberty/freedom (marry who you want, get in the car and go where you want to go, read what you want, choose your profession or other manner of making a living, hang out with who you please, and so on).
4. People can take it or leave it, as they please, i.e. in a MWLD, the freedom to believe is virtually unlimited so you can take issue with any or all of it and the state is powerless to act.
As others have noted, WLD (19th Century and later) stood on shaky ground. Whether, on balance, 19th Century WLD was superior to Islamic theocracy, the Ottoman Empire, Chinese feudalism or what have you is beside the point because time, as it always does, marched on. We have to deal with the here and now. Historical, comparative atrocity, as I have documented in earlier comments, disproves any pronounced, uniquely Western proclivity for mass violence/atrocity, and I will further cement this point with modern examples of atrocity below. History likewise shows the West to be, on balance, clearly superior in terms of righting its own ship and doing better for the world.
MWLD: Key Historical Milestones
The MWLD began with the end of WWII. The Holocaust and other widespread atrocities were sui generis, not the logical end product of pre-WWII WLD. The world, i.e. every literate society with radio and newspapers, was seeing the utter, inconceivable devastation that had been wrought by the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese. One effect of seeing just how horrible supposedly modern human beings could be was the West to look within. The West, and in particular the United States, had its own set of hard, domestic questions that would not go away and that demanded answers. The ‘land of the free and the home of the brave’ could not be reconciled with Jim Crow, desegregation, ‘separate but equal’, women as second class citizens and any number of other problematic present and recent historical facts. Either we were lying to ourselves about who we were and what we stood for or we needed to be honest with ourselves and fix what was clearly broken. In principal, we seemed sound; in practice, no so much. It’s still a work in progress, but I maintain that one has to be willfully blind in order to miss the extraordinary progress made just in my lifetime.
MWLD was born in the United States. This makes sense for several reasons, not the least of which, the US was the last industrial, democratic power standing at the end of WWII, and was also the loudest voice, if not actor, for freedom and democracy. Further and essentially, the US was a functioning constitutional democracy, meaning that our constitution both circumscribed certain state action in favor of the individual and, in more limited instances, compelled it. But mostly, the constitution acts as a brake on what the state can do.
MWLD would not exist today but for the US Constitution. No other governing regime had anything like the 14th and 15th post Civil War Amendments. These Amendments, cap stoning the already unique Bill of Rights, served as the modern criteria by which the US was compelled, legally and morally, to judge itself and make its own high-minded principals universal and not rhetoric. “Equal protection under the law”, as an inviolable, fundamental individual right, enforced by the state against the state, had no meaningful historical precedent.
Then, history kicked in. In 1947, Truman desegregated the armed forces. Three years later, when N Korea invaded S Korea and the UN authorized force to repel the invasion, for the first time in the history of the country, African American men fought and died with white men in integrated, regularly formed military units. If one were to pick the beginning point of desegregation in the US, the Korean War would be as good a place as any.
In the same year the Korean War ended, the Supreme court handed down Brown v Board of Education, reversing Plessy v Ferguson and holding “equal means the same” and extending the 14th Amendment to all state action. Ten years later, Congress passed the Civil Rights Acts including Title VII and Title IX. Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence and the women’s rights movement in the 60’ and 70’s, which began in the US, https://www.britannica.com/event/womens-movement, set the benchmark for the rest of the world at a time when the choices were basically binary: the evolving MWLD or the Sino/Soviet model. Today, gay marriage is taken for granted and, anti-racist hyperbole notwithstanding, the US and Europe are exemplary in their respect and accommodation of diversity, all of which traces as I’ve laid very out very generally above, back to the US constitutional foundation post WWII.
Meanwhile, since 1945, the Soviet model failed, the Sino model has repeatedly demonstrated is endless awfulness while MWLD is embraced around the world and is not longer a “white” or a “European” concept; rather, its simply recognized by huge swaths of humanity as the best basic model on which to organize relatively free, open and productive societies.
Western Hegemony, Hitler and the Frankfurt School
Here’s are some questions: what are the specific negative effects of Western Hegemony? That is, is something of equal or greater *value* being excluded by Western hegemony? If so, what? Plus: who, outside the US and European West, is even complaining about Western Hegemony? What schools of thought, worldviews, etc. should sit alongside MWLD and the modern Western Canon?
Parenthetically, I do not expect substantive, specific responses to these questions.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the last couple of weeks thinking about this and reading up on the topic. One of the first things I noticed is that none of the critics of Western Hegemony have anything unkind to say about that other uniquely Western perspective: Marxism. There are zero complaints from the anti-Western Hegemonists about Marxist Hegemony. None, zero, zilch and nada. Indeed, the Frankfurt School is a Marxist-Hegelian endeavor that, if I’m reading it right, is the source of modern ‘critical’ studies. It is passing strange to me that anti-Western Hegemonists are silent in the face of a worldview that violently suppresses dissent and nonconformity yet remains endlessly hostile to the one liberating force in the world that has done so much for so many. I haven’t found any evidence of an identifiable, conflicting worldview anywhere other than critical studies, which is fundamentally, a 1930’s German (all white and male) split with Leninism in favor of Hegel. Intramural Marxist debate about how many workers can gloriously dance of the edge of a sickle is meaningless outside that bubble.
Western Fault for the Holocaust
Here is some irony for you: when things got too warm in Germany for the Frankfurt School, did they flee to the Worker’s Paradise? Um, no. They came here, to the USA.
Next are some historical facts which apparently did not get on the Frankfurt School’s cause-and-effect radar screen: Japan invaded China in 1931. Or in 1937. You can get different dates. Thereafter, Japan invaded a bunch of other countries. Nazi Germany, friend and admirer of the West, invaded Poland, Austria, France and Norway plus began a war against Great Britain plus declared war on the US all before invading the Soviet Union and, to be completely precise, before the US declared war on Nazi Germany.
The West—and mainly the US—put paid to Japan. Had the West—and mainly the US—sought accommodations with Hitler, WWII on the Eastern Front would have had a different ending. Also, the peace loving peoples of the Soviet Union invaded Poland in 1939 and Finland in 1940. But, you know, the West sucks, because of 19th century slavery and European colonialism.
Does anyone remember the population of Cambodia in 1968? In 1972? How many Uyghurs are there in the PRC today? How many were there ten years ago?
Yes, Western Hegemony, it’s the worst.
The Origins of the Holocaust
Suggested reading: Mein Kampf and the Wannsee Protocol. Hitler was a vicious anti-semite as was most of the Nazi leadership. The SS attracted like-minded creatures and carried out the systematic extermination of Jews and other “subhumans”. It’s not a mystery. The historical facts were not hidden away, waiting for the grandkids of Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, Herbert Marcuse etc. to read the runes of the past, jiggle and ignore the obvious evidence and find out that Marxism’s implacable enemy—the Western Liberal Tradition—was actually at fault for Hitler’s rise and the Final Solution. The Bolshevik Revolution and mass slaughter in the peace-loving Soviet Union had nothing whatsoever to do with the rise of the far right in Germany.
In the late 19th Century—a time when single digits of any countries population went to college—Germany was viewed as one of the high points in the West. However, that changed with WWI. You have to look at all of history, not just the parts that fit your happy place.
Final Note
I’m probably out for while. I’m transitioning my law practice this year and it will require a lot of time. Y’all be well.
Western Fault for Hitler/Holocaust
Ok, this is going to be a long one, and as I sit down to finally bring all of my thoughts together, my main thought is “what’s the point, the chances of moving anyone’s needle are close to nil?” Put differently, I’m preparing a case for a jury that I will never persuade. But since I said I would, I will. Here goes:
Background Statement: there were many comments before and after I signed off temporarily from the “Openish Thread” by me and others. I am writing this as if the reader has refreshed on my previous comments. If you haven’t and if what I say seems out of context, you’ll have to return to my earlier comments because there is only so much on person can do or say. Finally, I intentionally absented from ObWi the morning of 2/21/21 because I already had enough to deal with.
The Issue: The Value or Not, Comparatively and Objectively, of Modern Western Liberal Democracy (MWLD) and the Study of Western Civilization and the Western Canon from which MWLD Evolved.
The Protagonists: Modern Traditional Western Liberals vs. the Frankfurt School et al
Preliminary, Overarching Point: the farther one goes left on the spectrum, the more “west” and “white” become conflated.
In fact, MWLD has been embraced throughout the world without regard to local culture or ethnicity. It is a state of mind and a state of being that is, or should be, universally available and applicable to all who want it. The left’s color/geography conflation is one of the core flaws with its antipathy toward MWLD and his antecedents.
McKTex’s Basic Premise (refined in light of comments through 2/21/21 at 8:55 a.m. CST):
The Western Canon is the product of Western Civilization as it developed over a period of 2500 or so years, out of which Western Liberal Democracy (WLD) and then, post WWII (but uniquely informed by certain US Civil War events), Modern Western Liberal Democracy (MWLD) arose. I say, without reservation or qualification, MWLD is, comparatively, superior to any other known and applied societal/governmental system.
Essential elements of MWLD include:
1. Free market capitalism cabined by a focused and balanced statutory and regulatory regime;
2. Equality before the law regardless of race, sex, etc, the Rule of Law, including a variety of enumerable individual rights which the state must respect.
3. A general, often difficult to describe notion of individual liberty/freedom (marry who you want, get in the car and go where you want to go, read what you want, choose your profession or other manner of making a living, hang out with who you please, and so on).
4. People can take it or leave it, as they please, i.e. in a MWLD, the freedom to believe is virtually unlimited so you can take issue with any or all of it and the state is powerless to act.
As others have noted, WLD (19th Century and later) stood on shaky ground. Whether, on balance, 19th Century WLD was superior to Islamic theocracy, the Ottoman Empire, Chinese feudalism or what have you is beside the point because time, as it always does, marched on. We have to deal with the here and now. Historical, comparative atrocity, as I have documented in earlier comments, disproves any pronounced, uniquely Western proclivity for mass violence/atrocity, and I will further cement this point with modern examples of atrocity below. History likewise shows the West to be, on balance, clearly superior in terms of righting its own ship and doing better for the world.
MWLD: Key Historical Milestones
The MWLD began with the end of WWII. The Holocaust and other widespread atrocities were sui generis, not the logical end product of pre-WWII WLD. The world, i.e. every literate society with radio and newspapers, was seeing the utter, inconceivable devastation that had been wrought by the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese. One effect of seeing just how horrible supposedly modern human beings could be was the West to look within. The West, and in particular the United States, had its own set of hard, domestic questions that would not go away and that demanded answers. The ‘land of the free and the home of the brave’ could not be reconciled with Jim Crow, desegregation, ‘separate but equal’, women as second class citizens and any number of other problematic present and recent historical facts. Either we were lying to ourselves about who we were and what we stood for or we needed to be honest with ourselves and fix what was clearly broken. In principal, we seemed sound; in practice, no so much. It’s still a work in progress, but I maintain that one has to be willfully blind in order to miss the extraordinary progress made just in my lifetime.
MWLD was born in the United States. This makes sense for several reasons, not the least of which, the US was the last industrial, democratic power standing at the end of WWII, and was also the loudest voice, if not actor, for freedom and democracy. Further and essentially, the US was a functioning constitutional democracy, meaning that our constitution both circumscribed certain state action in favor of the individual and, in more limited instances, compelled it. But mostly, the constitution acts as a brake on what the state can do.
MWLD would not exist today but for the US Constitution. No other governing regime had anything like the 14th and 15th post Civil War Amendments. These Amendments, cap stoning the already unique Bill of Rights, served as the modern criteria by which the US was compelled, legally and morally, to judge itself and make its own high-minded principals universal and not rhetoric. “Equal protection under the law”, as an inviolable, fundamental individual right, enforced by the state against the state, had no meaningful historical precedent.
Then, history kicked in. In 1947, Truman desegregated the armed forces. Three years later, when N Korea invaded S Korea and the UN authorized force to repel the invasion, for the first time in the history of the country, African American men fought and died with white men in integrated, regularly formed military units. If one were to pick the beginning point of desegregation in the US, the Korean War would be as good a place as any.
In the same year the Korean War ended, the Supreme court handed down Brown v Board of Education, reversing Plessy v Ferguson and holding “equal means the same” and extending the 14th Amendment to all state action. Ten years later, Congress passed the Civil Rights Acts including Title VII and Title IX. Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence and the women’s rights movement in the 60’ and 70’s, which began in the US, https://www.britannica.com/event/womens-movement, set the benchmark for the rest of the world at a time when the choices were basically binary: the evolving MWLD or the Sino/Soviet model. Today, gay marriage is taken for granted and, anti-racist hyperbole notwithstanding, the US and Europe are exemplary in their respect and accommodation of diversity, all of which traces as I’ve laid very out very generally above, back to the US constitutional foundation post WWII.
Meanwhile, since 1945, the Soviet model failed, the Sino model has repeatedly demonstrated is endless awfulness while MWLD is embraced around the world and is not longer a “white” or a “European” concept; rather, its simply recognized by huge swaths of humanity as the best basic model on which to organize relatively free, open and productive societies.
Western Hegemony, Hitler and the Frankfurt School
Here’s are some questions: what are the specific negative effects of Western Hegemony? That is, is something of equal or greater *value* being excluded by Western hegemony? If so, what? Plus: who, outside the US and European West, is even complaining about Western Hegemony? What schools of thought, worldviews, etc. should sit alongside MWLD and the modern Western Canon?
Parenthetically, I do not expect substantive, specific responses to these questions.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the last couple of weeks thinking about this and reading up on the topic. One of the first things I noticed is that none of the critics of Western Hegemony have anything unkind to say about that other uniquely Western perspective: Marxism. There are zero complaints from the anti-Western Hegemonists about Marxist Hegemony. None, zero, zilch and nada. Indeed, the Frankfurt School is a Marxist-Hegelian endeavor that, if I’m reading it right, is the source of modern ‘critical’ studies. It is passing strange to me that anti-Western Hegemonists are silent in the face of a worldview that violently suppresses dissent and nonconformity yet remains endlessly hostile to the one liberating force in the world that has done so much for so many. I haven’t found any evidence of an identifiable, conflicting worldview anywhere other than critical studies, which is fundamentally, a 1930’s German (all white and male) split with Leninism in favor of Hegel. Intramural Marxist debate about how many workers can gloriously dance of the edge of a sickle is meaningless outside that bubble.
Western Fault for the Holocaust
Here is some irony for you: when things got too warm in Germany for the Frankfurt School, did they flee to the Worker’s Paradise? Um, no. They came here, to the USA.
Next are some historical facts which apparently did not get on the Frankfurt School’s cause-and-effect radar screen: Japan invaded China in 1931. Or in 1937. You can get different dates. Thereafter, Japan invaded a bunch of other countries. Nazi Germany, friend and admirer of the West, invaded Poland, Austria, France and Norway plus began a war against Great Britain plus declared war on the US all before invading the Soviet Union and, to be completely precise, before the US declared war on Nazi Germany.
The West—and mainly the US—put paid to Japan. Had the West—and mainly the US—sought accommodations with Hitler, WWII on the Eastern Front would have had a different ending. Also, the peace loving peoples of the Soviet Union invaded Poland in 1939 and Finland in 1940. But, you know, the West sucks, because of 19th century slavery and European colonialism.
Does anyone remember the population of Cambodia in 1968? In 1972? How many Uyghurs are there in the PRC today? How many were there ten years ago?
Yes, Western Hegemony, it’s the worst.
The Origins of the Holocaust
Suggested reading: Mein Kampf and the Wannsee Protocol. Hitler was a vicious anti-semite as was most of the Nazi leadership. The SS attracted like-minded creatures and carried out the systematic extermination of Jews and other “subhumans”. It’s not a mystery. The historical facts were not hidden away, waiting for the grandkids of Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, Herbert Marcuse etc. to read the runes of the past, jiggle and ignore the obvious evidence and find out that Marxism’s implacable enemy—the Western Liberal Tradition—was actually at fault for Hitler’s rise and the Final Solution. The Bolshevik Revolution and mass slaughter in the peace-loving Soviet Union had nothing whatsoever to do with the rise of the far right in Germany.
In the late 19th Century—a time when single digits of any countries population went to college—Germany was viewed as one of the high points in the West. However, that changed with WWI. You have to look at all of history, not just the parts that fit your happy place.
Final Note
I’m probably out for while. I’m transitioning my law practice this year and it will require a lot of time. Y’all be well.
Good on you, McKinney, for trying to engage with this. I would only say, as I have before, that when you say things like
Does anyone remember the population of Cambodia in 1968? In 1972? How many Uyghurs are there in the PRC today? How many were there ten years ago?
you are not arguing with anybody here, but with some other lefties who live in your head, and fiercely defend and argue for the superiority of Marxism, the USSR, the PRC and (possibly given the above) the Khmer Rouge.
Your view of the superiority of MWLD is as you say very widely held, and with some reason, and if there is pushback against it, that seems only fair as there should always be examination of widely held and usually unquestioned worldviews.
As far as the USA being the cradle, and guardian, of rule of law and constitutional safeguards is concerned, I can only say that at the moment (and to the extent that this was ever true) its status seems in a worrying condition. I don’t need to overstress this: you saw it yourself, very recently.
You have to look at all of history, not just the parts that fit your happy place.
Good on you, McKinney, for trying to engage with this. I would only say, as I have before, that when you say things like
Does anyone remember the population of Cambodia in 1968? In 1972? How many Uyghurs are there in the PRC today? How many were there ten years ago?
you are not arguing with anybody here, but with some other lefties who live in your head, and fiercely defend and argue for the superiority of Marxism, the USSR, the PRC and (possibly given the above) the Khmer Rouge.
Your view of the superiority of MWLD is as you say very widely held, and with some reason, and if there is pushback against it, that seems only fair as there should always be examination of widely held and usually unquestioned worldviews.
As far as the USA being the cradle, and guardian, of rule of law and constitutional safeguards is concerned, I can only say that at the moment (and to the extent that this was ever true) its status seems in a worrying condition. I don’t need to overstress this: you saw it yourself, very recently.
You have to look at all of history, not just the parts that fit your happy place.
Your view of the superiority of MWLD is as you say very widely held, and with some reason, and if there is pushback against it, that seems only fair as there should always be examination of widely held and usually unquestioned worldviews.
I believe in the superiority of MLD. (I’ll drop the W to indicate that liberal democracy can be universal, and that it’s not an inevitable result of Western culture.) I just don’t think that the US has lived up to its principles as closely as McKinney does, or faithfully as we should. Racial disparity in the criminal justice system, which incarcerates more people than any other industrialized nation, is one glaring example of this.
I believe in the strength of our Constitution, but also recognize its flaws, many of which were included in an attempt to accommodate slavery. Acknowledging and correcting that would go a long way toward making our democracy closer to its ideal.
Unfortunately, we the people currently have a lot of bad actors whose belief in equality and MLD is suspect. Our adherence to principles that we recognize as superior is a constant struggle. People within our system betray our principles, and we don’t always prevail over their sabotage.
Your view of the superiority of MWLD is as you say very widely held, and with some reason, and if there is pushback against it, that seems only fair as there should always be examination of widely held and usually unquestioned worldviews.
I believe in the superiority of MLD. (I’ll drop the W to indicate that liberal democracy can be universal, and that it’s not an inevitable result of Western culture.) I just don’t think that the US has lived up to its principles as closely as McKinney does, or faithfully as we should. Racial disparity in the criminal justice system, which incarcerates more people than any other industrialized nation, is one glaring example of this.
I believe in the strength of our Constitution, but also recognize its flaws, many of which were included in an attempt to accommodate slavery. Acknowledging and correcting that would go a long way toward making our democracy closer to its ideal.
Unfortunately, we the people currently have a lot of bad actors whose belief in equality and MLD is suspect. Our adherence to principles that we recognize as superior is a constant struggle. People within our system betray our principles, and we don’t always prevail over their sabotage.
Y’all be well.
Back atcha!
Y’all be well.
Back atcha!
Historical, comparative atrocity, as I have documented in earlier comments, disproves any pronounced, uniquely Western proclivity for mass violence/atrocity
there’s a lot of straw here.
nobody here has said proclivity for violence is unique to the West.
what many of us keep saying, in many different ways, is that the west, just like all those nasty inferior cultures, has been very violent, and horrific, and terrible. so bringing up instances where Asians were terrible to each other as solid proof that Asian culture is inferior while No-True-Scotsmannign western atrocities just isn’t convincing.
the history of the west is just as violent and terrible as anyone else’s.
this begs the question of the superiority of free market capitalism. its myriad failures and general amorality raise doubts.
2. Equality before the law regardless of race, sex, etc, the Rule of Law, including a variety of enumerable individual rights which the state must respect.
it’s a great ideal. still waiting for a full implementation.
Historical, comparative atrocity, as I have documented in earlier comments, disproves any pronounced, uniquely Western proclivity for mass violence/atrocity
there’s a lot of straw here.
nobody here has said proclivity for violence is unique to the West.
what many of us keep saying, in many different ways, is that the west, just like all those nasty inferior cultures, has been very violent, and horrific, and terrible. so bringing up instances where Asians were terrible to each other as solid proof that Asian culture is inferior while No-True-Scotsmannign western atrocities just isn’t convincing.
the history of the west is just as violent and terrible as anyone else’s.
this begs the question of the superiority of free market capitalism. its myriad failures and general amorality raise doubts.
2. Equality before the law regardless of race, sex, etc, the Rule of Law, including a variety of enumerable individual rights which the state must respect.
it’s a great ideal. still waiting for a full implementation.
McT, that’s one impressive post. Perhaps what one should expect from someone in your profession, but still. Impressive.
Best of luck with transitioning your practice. Those sorts of efforts, even when they go exceptionally smoothly, are always a strain.
P.S. who, outside the US and European West, is even complaining about Western Hegemony?
There have been constant complaints, from East Asia, from South Asia, and probably from Africa (although I’m not in a position to hear as many of those). Complaints about the hegemony of Western (and/or American) culture displacing the local culture. But I suspect this is just more of what we also see here: an older generation exasperated by their children’s taste in music, clothing, etc.
McT, that’s one impressive post. Perhaps what one should expect from someone in your profession, but still. Impressive.
Best of luck with transitioning your practice. Those sorts of efforts, even when they go exceptionally smoothly, are always a strain.
P.S. who, outside the US and European West, is even complaining about Western Hegemony?
There have been constant complaints, from East Asia, from South Asia, and probably from Africa (although I’m not in a position to hear as many of those). Complaints about the hegemony of Western (and/or American) culture displacing the local culture. But I suspect this is just more of what we also see here: an older generation exasperated by their children’s taste in music, clothing, etc.
I believe in the superiority of MLD. . . ., I just don’t think that the US has lived up to its principles as closely as McKinney does, or faithfully as we should.
I thought that McKinney was pretty explicit that we hadn’t lived up to our ideals. He just said that we have made significant progress, in our lifetimes, towards doing so. For all that we still have a ways to go.
I believe in the superiority of MLD. . . ., I just don’t think that the US has lived up to its principles as closely as McKinney does, or faithfully as we should.
I thought that McKinney was pretty explicit that we hadn’t lived up to our ideals. He just said that we have made significant progress, in our lifetimes, towards doing so. For all that we still have a ways to go.
Here is some irony for you: when things got too warm in Germany for the Frankfurt School, did they flee to the Worker’s Paradise? Um, no. They came here, to the USA.
I am not at all a scholar of marxism and have only so much Venn overlap in my studies with marxism, but the account of Western Marxism that McKinney gives seems highly idiosyncratic and uninterested in actually trying to understand either the philosophical disconnects between Western Marxism and Marxism-Leninism, or the practical circumstances.
Most of the Frankfurt School figures that ended up in the US had gone into exile in France or Scandinavia looking for a place that was not getting blown up and was not actively rounding up people of Jewish descent. That place had, for a period of time, been Paris, but then, you know, blitzkrieg made that a bit hard and the Atlantic was a more secure buffer.
They didn’t go to the Soviet Union because they opposed the Soviet Union on a fundamental level. When you say that there is no complaint against Marxist Hegemony from Critical Theorist, you are failing to understand that the Frankfurt School Marxism is itself an attack on Marxist Hegemony.
Criticism of Marxist Hegemony is woven all through the actual works of the Frankfurt School at a fundamental level.
Here is some irony for you: when things got too warm in Germany for the Frankfurt School, did they flee to the Worker’s Paradise? Um, no. They came here, to the USA.
I am not at all a scholar of marxism and have only so much Venn overlap in my studies with marxism, but the account of Western Marxism that McKinney gives seems highly idiosyncratic and uninterested in actually trying to understand either the philosophical disconnects between Western Marxism and Marxism-Leninism, or the practical circumstances.
Most of the Frankfurt School figures that ended up in the US had gone into exile in France or Scandinavia looking for a place that was not getting blown up and was not actively rounding up people of Jewish descent. That place had, for a period of time, been Paris, but then, you know, blitzkrieg made that a bit hard and the Atlantic was a more secure buffer.
They didn’t go to the Soviet Union because they opposed the Soviet Union on a fundamental level. When you say that there is no complaint against Marxist Hegemony from Critical Theorist, you are failing to understand that the Frankfurt School Marxism is itself an attack on Marxist Hegemony.
Criticism of Marxist Hegemony is woven all through the actual works of the Frankfurt School at a fundamental level.
They didn’t go to the Soviet Union because they opposed the Soviet Union on a fundamental level.
What was practiced in the Soviet Union bore little resemblance to anything Marx favored. Communist China ditto. A brilliant bit of marketing and misdirection, it’s true. But nothing like the real thing.** Perhaps part of the reason German Marxists didn’t go there.
** Whether real Marxism is even possible with real human beings, at least in numbers above a dozen unrelated individuals, is questionable. Not unlike a true libertarian “society.” Beautiful fantasies, but in the real world? Perhaps there is a reason we never see them happen.
They didn’t go to the Soviet Union because they opposed the Soviet Union on a fundamental level.
What was practiced in the Soviet Union bore little resemblance to anything Marx favored. Communist China ditto. A brilliant bit of marketing and misdirection, it’s true. But nothing like the real thing.** Perhaps part of the reason German Marxists didn’t go there.
** Whether real Marxism is even possible with real human beings, at least in numbers above a dozen unrelated individuals, is questionable. Not unlike a true libertarian “society.” Beautiful fantasies, but in the real world? Perhaps there is a reason we never see them happen.
** Whether real Marxism is even possible with real human beings, at least in numbers above a dozen unrelated individuals, is questionable. Not unlike a true libertarian “society.” Beautiful fantasies, but in the real world? Perhaps there is a reason we never see them happen.
See also most organized religions.
All voluntary political associations struggle with the challenges associated with Dunbar’s Number:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number
…especially when we also prove susceptible to seeing the world through the lens of a non-iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma much of the time when thinking about interactions with people beyond the limits of our own social group.
Don’t know how much weight we can put on Dunbar’s Number as a verifiable principle, but it certainly feels to me like it says something real about social experience.
** Whether real Marxism is even possible with real human beings, at least in numbers above a dozen unrelated individuals, is questionable. Not unlike a true libertarian “society.” Beautiful fantasies, but in the real world? Perhaps there is a reason we never see them happen.
See also most organized religions.
All voluntary political associations struggle with the challenges associated with Dunbar’s Number:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number
…especially when we also prove susceptible to seeing the world through the lens of a non-iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma much of the time when thinking about interactions with people beyond the limits of our own social group.
Don’t know how much weight we can put on Dunbar’s Number as a verifiable principle, but it certainly feels to me like it says something real about social experience.
If y’all would like me to front page this, I can.
I am pretty sure that this reply was started by my wondering why the West isn’t blamed for the Holocaust. As such, McT argues a purely intentionalist line against what are primarily functionalist interpretations. As I noted, the field has moved towards a synthesis, and this article might be of interest to those who really want to examine history. Even if you don’t, you may want to read it in light of Trump’s CPAC speech
https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1115&context=history-in-the-making
I think it takes too many pains to incorporate the intentionalist side, but for those not up to reading the whole thing, the two paragraphs. I’d argue that ‘modernity’ can be replaced, for all intents and purposes, by ‘MWLD’, but that is just me.
There are many who would allocate the Holocaust as the defining moment of the twentieth century, and to a point they would be right, even if that perspective is a bit short sighted. It would be more accurate to assign that allocation to World War II as a whole. The many theaters of war forever shifted our view of humanity, and shows just how destructive we as citizens of the world can be. This is largely a product of humanity’s progress into modernity, as the regard for human life has been continually devalued. One need only look to the atrocities of war, whether it is the Holocaust, Operation Barbarossa, Stalinist Russia, the Atomic bombs or the actions of the Japanese in China. Simply, World War II was largely an assault on humanity.
This concept of modernity and humanity’s ever vigilant search for a higher dose of it has led to people being only seen as numbers. “The Nazi regime turned people into numbers, some of which we can only estimate, some of which we can reconstruct with fair precision. It is for us as scholars to seek these numbers and to put them into perspective. It is for us as humanists to turn the numbers back into people. If we cannot do that, then Hitler has shaped not only our world, but our humanity.” The legacy of modernity and the quest to keep progressing should not be defined by the loss of humanity, because the legacies of evil overshadow those in the past, but the present and future’s appeal to humanity. Why is it easier for us to turn our humanity over to a statistic, rather than to strive as a collective entity, united in our humanity to exist? In the immortal words of Abraham Lincoln, “with malice towards none and charity for all”?39 If it is possible to move in that direction, we can begin to assure ourselves that humanity, in the face of modernity, has not been defined by someone as malevolent as Adolf Hitler.
I also thought it was amusing that Japan enters McT’s essay in “Western fault for the Holocaust” on the back of a seriously messed up timeline (no, seriously, when exactly did Japan ‘invade a lot of countries’?) and McT’s assertion that somehow, there were tons of accomodations for Japan and none for Hitler, which gave me the suggestion that Japan was responsible for the whole mess. Japan has its own issues with China and Korea, but thinking of them as the reason for the Holocaust is a rather unique take on history.
Anyway, if you want me to front page it, drop a comment.
If y’all would like me to front page this, I can.
I am pretty sure that this reply was started by my wondering why the West isn’t blamed for the Holocaust. As such, McT argues a purely intentionalist line against what are primarily functionalist interpretations. As I noted, the field has moved towards a synthesis, and this article might be of interest to those who really want to examine history. Even if you don’t, you may want to read it in light of Trump’s CPAC speech
https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1115&context=history-in-the-making
I think it takes too many pains to incorporate the intentionalist side, but for those not up to reading the whole thing, the two paragraphs. I’d argue that ‘modernity’ can be replaced, for all intents and purposes, by ‘MWLD’, but that is just me.
There are many who would allocate the Holocaust as the defining moment of the twentieth century, and to a point they would be right, even if that perspective is a bit short sighted. It would be more accurate to assign that allocation to World War II as a whole. The many theaters of war forever shifted our view of humanity, and shows just how destructive we as citizens of the world can be. This is largely a product of humanity’s progress into modernity, as the regard for human life has been continually devalued. One need only look to the atrocities of war, whether it is the Holocaust, Operation Barbarossa, Stalinist Russia, the Atomic bombs or the actions of the Japanese in China. Simply, World War II was largely an assault on humanity.
This concept of modernity and humanity’s ever vigilant search for a higher dose of it has led to people being only seen as numbers. “The Nazi regime turned people into numbers, some of which we can only estimate, some of which we can reconstruct with fair precision. It is for us as scholars to seek these numbers and to put them into perspective. It is for us as humanists to turn the numbers back into people. If we cannot do that, then Hitler has shaped not only our world, but our humanity.” The legacy of modernity and the quest to keep progressing should not be defined by the loss of humanity, because the legacies of evil overshadow those in the past, but the present and future’s appeal to humanity. Why is it easier for us to turn our humanity over to a statistic, rather than to strive as a collective entity, united in our humanity to exist? In the immortal words of Abraham Lincoln, “with malice towards none and charity for all”?39 If it is possible to move in that direction, we can begin to assure ourselves that humanity, in the face of modernity, has not been defined by someone as malevolent as Adolf Hitler.
I also thought it was amusing that Japan enters McT’s essay in “Western fault for the Holocaust” on the back of a seriously messed up timeline (no, seriously, when exactly did Japan ‘invade a lot of countries’?) and McT’s assertion that somehow, there were tons of accomodations for Japan and none for Hitler, which gave me the suggestion that Japan was responsible for the whole mess. Japan has its own issues with China and Korea, but thinking of them as the reason for the Holocaust is a rather unique take on history.
Anyway, if you want me to front page it, drop a comment.
lj, you’re absolutely correct about what started it. I just ran with it (and my theme of Germany as one of the high points of then Western civilisation) when McKinney said the holocaust was the responsibility of the Nazi party, not Germany. byomtov’s point that plenty of Europe collaborated enthusiastically with the genocide was a follow-on, which I guess McKinney deals with by starting his MWLD after WW2. I don’t know what to say about McK’s obsession with contrasting MWLD with all previous civilisations, nor his obsession with Marxism, which as far as I can see (pace bobbyp) is these days, in all its various permutations, pretty much a busted flush. It seems as if the Cold War state of mind which insists on this binary is very hard to shift, once firmly in place, and having heard Trump last night insisting that Biden and the Dems’ “socialism” is leading inevitably to “communism”, it’s clear there’s still plenty of gas in that particular tank, and with people a great deal less informed, and more easily manipulable, than McKinney. Sigh.
lj, you’re absolutely correct about what started it. I just ran with it (and my theme of Germany as one of the high points of then Western civilisation) when McKinney said the holocaust was the responsibility of the Nazi party, not Germany. byomtov’s point that plenty of Europe collaborated enthusiastically with the genocide was a follow-on, which I guess McKinney deals with by starting his MWLD after WW2. I don’t know what to say about McK’s obsession with contrasting MWLD with all previous civilisations, nor his obsession with Marxism, which as far as I can see (pace bobbyp) is these days, in all its various permutations, pretty much a busted flush. It seems as if the Cold War state of mind which insists on this binary is very hard to shift, once firmly in place, and having heard Trump last night insisting that Biden and the Dems’ “socialism” is leading inevitably to “communism”, it’s clear there’s still plenty of gas in that particular tank, and with people a great deal less informed, and more easily manipulable, than McKinney. Sigh.
For Trump (and, AFAICT, CPAC generally) “socialism” just means “evil” and “communism” is simply an alternative was to say “super-evil”. Any relation to the actual beliefs which constitute either of those is entirely coincidental.
For Trump (and, AFAICT, CPAC generally) “socialism” just means “evil” and “communism” is simply an alternative was to say “super-evil”. Any relation to the actual beliefs which constitute either of those is entirely coincidental.
Yeah, Manchurian Candidate still hasn’t lost its relevance as far as the GOP is concerned:
“One of your mother’s more endearing traits is her tendency to refer to anyone who disagrees with her about anything as a Communist.”
Yeah, Manchurian Candidate still hasn’t lost its relevance as far as the GOP is concerned:
“One of your mother’s more endearing traits is her tendency to refer to anyone who disagrees with her about anything as a Communist.”
Interesting article, lj. So, if I may simplify, the author attributes the savagery of the Holocaust largely to the “intentionality” of one Adolph Hitler (the spark) as viewed through a modified synthesis of “functionalism” and intentionalism”, correct?
Yet it seems common in “the west” to turn this on its head when contemplating the disaster that was 20th century state socialism does it not, as the horrors of the Soviet Union under Stalin or China under Mao take on a wholly functionalist tinge to shift the blame for these atrocities on “marxism” and not the intentionality of the actors?
Also, pointing the finger at “modernity” is a well established canon, as the release of the power of carbon has magnified both the best and the worst in humanity. Marx might have been on to something here, but subject for a different discussion.
And of course, it goes without saying that the Enlightenment is also to blame (/sarcasm).
Interesting article, lj. So, if I may simplify, the author attributes the savagery of the Holocaust largely to the “intentionality” of one Adolph Hitler (the spark) as viewed through a modified synthesis of “functionalism” and intentionalism”, correct?
Yet it seems common in “the west” to turn this on its head when contemplating the disaster that was 20th century state socialism does it not, as the horrors of the Soviet Union under Stalin or China under Mao take on a wholly functionalist tinge to shift the blame for these atrocities on “marxism” and not the intentionality of the actors?
Also, pointing the finger at “modernity” is a well established canon, as the release of the power of carbon has magnified both the best and the worst in humanity. Marx might have been on to something here, but subject for a different discussion.
And of course, it goes without saying that the Enlightenment is also to blame (/sarcasm).
Well, enlightenment gave rise to ‘scientific’ racism since the old religious justification was not considered valid anymore but to get rid of the prejudices themselves was naturally a no-go (stop hating the Jews? you must be kidding!).
Well, enlightenment gave rise to ‘scientific’ racism since the old religious justification was not considered valid anymore but to get rid of the prejudices themselves was naturally a no-go (stop hating the Jews? you must be kidding!).
One of the first things I noticed is that none of the critics of Western Hegemony have anything unkind to say about that other uniquely Western perspective: Marxism.
One of the first things I notice about McKinney’s diatribes is the remorseless return to this theme. It is, simply, a part of an unceasing “historical” attempt to tie the US “left” such as it is, to the worst aspects (many) of marxism in practice, as it’s avowed practitioners implemented upon seizing state power in several nations during the 20th century (note: Tex never admits that these socialists also did some good things, but whatever). This inevitably leads to unloading a big guilt trip on “woke” liberals, who, by any measure, are not marxists by any stretch of the imagination, intellectually or politically. It is pure guilt by association.
Nobody should take such bleatings seriously.
One of the first things I noticed is that none of the critics of Western Hegemony have anything unkind to say about that other uniquely Western perspective: Marxism.
One of the first things I notice about McKinney’s diatribes is the remorseless return to this theme. It is, simply, a part of an unceasing “historical” attempt to tie the US “left” such as it is, to the worst aspects (many) of marxism in practice, as it’s avowed practitioners implemented upon seizing state power in several nations during the 20th century (note: Tex never admits that these socialists also did some good things, but whatever). This inevitably leads to unloading a big guilt trip on “woke” liberals, who, by any measure, are not marxists by any stretch of the imagination, intellectually or politically. It is pure guilt by association.
Nobody should take such bleatings seriously.
I am not, remotely, a historian, but it’s a topic of interest to me. I read stuff, more or less randomly following one shiny tidbit of information or other, down one rabbit hole or other.
What seems blindingly clear to me, from my spotty and slapdash exposure to the history of humans, is that we have an enormous capacity to visit hell upon the heads of each other.
This seems to be so across every imaginable combination of culture, ethnicity, geography, religion, economic and social organization, climate, historical period, whatever. Humans will slaughter other humans, in as large a number as they can manage, if there’s something in it for them. And then they’ll invent 1,000 reasons why it was justified.
If anybody can show evidence to the contrary, I’d love to see it.
I personally prefer modern liberal democracy to pretty much anything else I can think of, but I would be unsurprised if that was in no small part because I was raised in it. My guess, and it’s only a guess, is that if you were to described MLD to a random sampling of humans over the last 10,000 years of settled human history and ask their opinion, they might prefer what they were raised in.
There would be, no doubt, obvious exceptions. But I’m also pretty confident that a lot of folks would respond with something like “yeah, but you’re telling me anybody can be king? that’s insane! what if all the goatherds got together and we ended up with a goatherd for king? who’s gonna fight the Vandals, a goatherd?”.
Right?
MLD makes sense for us, now. Literacy is high in most places, technology has reduced the need for most people to spend their lives in plain old physical labor, most people have at least a rudimentary education. It’s a good fit, now, for us.
And to head off the expected rejoinder, no, all of those good things are not the unique and inevitable fruit of MLD.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and assert that the main reason MLD didn’t emerge at other historical points in time is that it wasn’t a good fit, then, for those people. Culture and all of the institutions that arise from culture are adaptive, and evolve into forms that suit their times and situations. And what people come up with always has upsides and downsides.
I’ll also say that a capitalist economy and free trade generally (those are not the same thing) have brought us many many material benefits, but you can enjoy those benefits while also being mindful of their downsides.
I’ll close here by calling out modern China as a counter-example to MLD. I probably wouldn’t enjoy living in China. It is an authoritarian state. Notably, as kind of aside, it’s kind of a capitalist authoritarian state, with enormous state intervention into the economy and into people’s lives. But it’s not a society that most people who grew up in the West would probably prefer to live in.
China has also brought its people from fairly widespread poverty, to a place where there is a significant middle class, in about one generation.
So were you to ask the average Chinese person if they would prefer MLD, my guess is that a lot of them would say “no”.
Chauvinism is a form of hubris. As a general principle, it is IMO to be avoided, and I recommend avoiding it. It’s fine to be proud of your culture and your society, it’s a slippery slope to say it’s the best, now or ever. In my opinion.
I am not, remotely, a historian, but it’s a topic of interest to me. I read stuff, more or less randomly following one shiny tidbit of information or other, down one rabbit hole or other.
What seems blindingly clear to me, from my spotty and slapdash exposure to the history of humans, is that we have an enormous capacity to visit hell upon the heads of each other.
This seems to be so across every imaginable combination of culture, ethnicity, geography, religion, economic and social organization, climate, historical period, whatever. Humans will slaughter other humans, in as large a number as they can manage, if there’s something in it for them. And then they’ll invent 1,000 reasons why it was justified.
If anybody can show evidence to the contrary, I’d love to see it.
I personally prefer modern liberal democracy to pretty much anything else I can think of, but I would be unsurprised if that was in no small part because I was raised in it. My guess, and it’s only a guess, is that if you were to described MLD to a random sampling of humans over the last 10,000 years of settled human history and ask their opinion, they might prefer what they were raised in.
There would be, no doubt, obvious exceptions. But I’m also pretty confident that a lot of folks would respond with something like “yeah, but you’re telling me anybody can be king? that’s insane! what if all the goatherds got together and we ended up with a goatherd for king? who’s gonna fight the Vandals, a goatherd?”.
Right?
MLD makes sense for us, now. Literacy is high in most places, technology has reduced the need for most people to spend their lives in plain old physical labor, most people have at least a rudimentary education. It’s a good fit, now, for us.
And to head off the expected rejoinder, no, all of those good things are not the unique and inevitable fruit of MLD.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and assert that the main reason MLD didn’t emerge at other historical points in time is that it wasn’t a good fit, then, for those people. Culture and all of the institutions that arise from culture are adaptive, and evolve into forms that suit their times and situations. And what people come up with always has upsides and downsides.
I’ll also say that a capitalist economy and free trade generally (those are not the same thing) have brought us many many material benefits, but you can enjoy those benefits while also being mindful of their downsides.
I’ll close here by calling out modern China as a counter-example to MLD. I probably wouldn’t enjoy living in China. It is an authoritarian state. Notably, as kind of aside, it’s kind of a capitalist authoritarian state, with enormous state intervention into the economy and into people’s lives. But it’s not a society that most people who grew up in the West would probably prefer to live in.
China has also brought its people from fairly widespread poverty, to a place where there is a significant middle class, in about one generation.
So were you to ask the average Chinese person if they would prefer MLD, my guess is that a lot of them would say “no”.
Chauvinism is a form of hubris. As a general principle, it is IMO to be avoided, and I recommend avoiding it. It’s fine to be proud of your culture and your society, it’s a slippery slope to say it’s the best, now or ever. In my opinion.
Things I am actively researching as a result of this thread:
The role of the telegraph in the American Civil War and the various European wars of the 19th C. (testing the notions of modernity and of globalism – I wrote a grad school paper about Dracula that focused on the idea of Dracula as a network information threat along these lines).
A lateral step from this: how the Civil War dead were memorialized and the cultural ties of this to religion (to compare to a similar survey I did for Europe between the Napoleonic Era and The Great War – such a huge change in how cultures think about the war dead).
A historically embedded reading of socialism and its many factions and arguments (especially looking for the ties to Modern Western Social Democracies as opposed to Marxist Leninist states).
Books and articles about Johann Gottfried Herder and other German Romantics and the influence of their idea of Volkscharakter and whatnot upon German Nationalism.
As with writing a dissertation, I expect that this will lead to a lot of interesting reading in lieu of productive writing, so don’t expect much in the way of reporting back.
Things I am actively researching as a result of this thread:
The role of the telegraph in the American Civil War and the various European wars of the 19th C. (testing the notions of modernity and of globalism – I wrote a grad school paper about Dracula that focused on the idea of Dracula as a network information threat along these lines).
A lateral step from this: how the Civil War dead were memorialized and the cultural ties of this to religion (to compare to a similar survey I did for Europe between the Napoleonic Era and The Great War – such a huge change in how cultures think about the war dead).
A historically embedded reading of socialism and its many factions and arguments (especially looking for the ties to Modern Western Social Democracies as opposed to Marxist Leninist states).
Books and articles about Johann Gottfried Herder and other German Romantics and the influence of their idea of Volkscharakter and whatnot upon German Nationalism.
As with writing a dissertation, I expect that this will lead to a lot of interesting reading in lieu of productive writing, so don’t expect much in the way of reporting back.
You have to look at all of history, not just the parts that fit your happy place.
This is a rich little dollop of condescension of “pot, meet kettle” variety. Then again, it’s not actually fair to the kettle in this case, unless we’re talking about the straw kettle in McKinney’s head.
You have to look at all of history, not just the parts that fit your happy place.
This is a rich little dollop of condescension of “pot, meet kettle” variety. Then again, it’s not actually fair to the kettle in this case, unless we’re talking about the straw kettle in McKinney’s head.
FWIW, my happy place doesn’t seem to show up in the historical record.
🙁
FWIW, my happy place doesn’t seem to show up in the historical record.
🙁
an unceasing “historical” attempt to tie the US “left” such as it is, to the worst aspects (many) of marxism in practice, as it’s avowed practitioners implemented upon seizing state power in several nations during the 20th century
I note a certain similarity in the routine practice of US liberals in tying conservatism to the worst practices (likewise many) of the reactionaries and fascist-wannabes here who claim to be conservatives. (Yes, I know, whataboutism at its worst who claim to be conservatives. C’est la guerre. 😉
an unceasing “historical” attempt to tie the US “left” such as it is, to the worst aspects (many) of marxism in practice, as it’s avowed practitioners implemented upon seizing state power in several nations during the 20th century
I note a certain similarity in the routine practice of US liberals in tying conservatism to the worst practices (likewise many) of the reactionaries and fascist-wannabes here who claim to be conservatives. (Yes, I know, whataboutism at its worst who claim to be conservatives. C’est la guerre. 😉
nous,
sounds like a good trip. enjoy the scenery!
nous,
sounds like a good trip. enjoy the scenery!
Humans will slaughter other humans, in as large a number as they can manage, if there’s something in it for them.
With the caveat that “something in it for them” may be entirely psychological, with no concrete reality whatsoever. Indeed, there may be serious concrete costs.
Humans will slaughter other humans, in as large a number as they can manage, if there’s something in it for them.
With the caveat that “something in it for them” may be entirely psychological, with no concrete reality whatsoever. Indeed, there may be serious concrete costs.
(especially looking for the ties to Modern Western Social Democracies as opposed to Marxist Leninist states).
In this regard, you might find interesting the vote by the German Social Democrats (SPD) for war credits in 1914.
(especially looking for the ties to Modern Western Social Democracies as opposed to Marxist Leninist states).
In this regard, you might find interesting the vote by the German Social Democrats (SPD) for war credits in 1914.
I note a certain similarity in the routine practice of US liberals in tying conservatism to the worst practices (likewise many) of the reactionaries and fascist-wannabes here who claim to be conservatives.
Yes, but the libruls are right and the right is wrong! 😉
I note a certain similarity in the routine practice of US liberals in tying conservatism to the worst practices (likewise many) of the reactionaries and fascist-wannabes here who claim to be conservatives.
Yes, but the libruls are right and the right is wrong! 😉
I note a certain similarity in the routine practice of US liberals in tying conservatism to the worst practices
since what is known as ‘conservatism’ doesn’t make much of an effort to distance itself from those practices, i’m not sure it’s tying as much as pointing out
I note a certain similarity in the routine practice of US liberals in tying conservatism to the worst practices
since what is known as ‘conservatism’ doesn’t make much of an effort to distance itself from those practices, i’m not sure it’s tying as much as pointing out
Notably, as kind of aside, it’s kind of a capitalist authoritarian state, with enormous state intervention into the economy and into people’s lives.
Socialism with Chinese Characteristics looks more like fascism than it does socialism. There’s not a lot in the way of government-provided social services and safety nets. People are largely dependent on family and friends when they get into difficulties.
China has also brought its people from fairly widespread poverty, to a place where there is a significant middle class, in about one generation.
After the current government, with Mao at its head, plunged the whole of China into abject poverty with Mao’s great leap backward and cultural devolution. Early on, the decrease in poverty came from taking some of the brakes off people’s entrepreneurial inclinations and allowing foreign investments into the country. Only after the populace created some wealth did the government began to create infrastructure and some other modernizations. Even today, just a few miles outside the modern first-tier cities, you encounter third-world levels of poverty. Some of the reductions in poverty the government claims to have accomplished were just lowering the bar of what is considered poverty.
Notably, as kind of aside, it’s kind of a capitalist authoritarian state, with enormous state intervention into the economy and into people’s lives.
Socialism with Chinese Characteristics looks more like fascism than it does socialism. There’s not a lot in the way of government-provided social services and safety nets. People are largely dependent on family and friends when they get into difficulties.
China has also brought its people from fairly widespread poverty, to a place where there is a significant middle class, in about one generation.
After the current government, with Mao at its head, plunged the whole of China into abject poverty with Mao’s great leap backward and cultural devolution. Early on, the decrease in poverty came from taking some of the brakes off people’s entrepreneurial inclinations and allowing foreign investments into the country. Only after the populace created some wealth did the government began to create infrastructure and some other modernizations. Even today, just a few miles outside the modern first-tier cities, you encounter third-world levels of poverty. Some of the reductions in poverty the government claims to have accomplished were just lowering the bar of what is considered poverty.
Rubin has had it with your shenanigans:
Rubin has had it with your shenanigans:
what is known as ‘conservatism’ doesn’t make much of an effort to distance itself from those practices
Oh, conservatism does. It just doesn’t have the same megaphone that the rabid reactionaries do.
Ironically, since they want government control of huge parts of society, a megaphone funded in major part by wealthy libertarians.
what is known as ‘conservatism’ doesn’t make much of an effort to distance itself from those practices
Oh, conservatism does. It just doesn’t have the same megaphone that the rabid reactionaries do.
Ironically, since they want government control of huge parts of society, a megaphone funded in major part by wealthy libertarians.
Oh, conservatism does. It just doesn’t have the same megaphone that the rabid reactionaries do.
the reactionaries own the label, these days.
and they’ll cancel you if you try to infringe on their anti-intellectual property.
Oh, conservatism does. It just doesn’t have the same megaphone that the rabid reactionaries do.
the reactionaries own the label, these days.
and they’ll cancel you if you try to infringe on their anti-intellectual property.
“anti-intellectual property” — what a delightful formulation!
“anti-intellectual property” — what a delightful formulation!
Looking for what real conservatives are like? Check this out:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/vanita-gupta-biden-justice-department/2021/03/01/cec4c74c-79f1-11eb-b3d1-9e5aa3d5220c_story.html
(Naturally the CPAC types hate her.)
Looking for what real conservatives are like? Check this out:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/vanita-gupta-biden-justice-department/2021/03/01/cec4c74c-79f1-11eb-b3d1-9e5aa3d5220c_story.html
(Naturally the CPAC types hate her.)
McTex on Marxism, the Frankfurt School and exceptionalism – I would like to it’s say so bad it’s funny, but this type of ignorance paired with deep seated narcissism is so widespread that our political future seems very grim indeed. My only hope is that it’s an age thing and our woke kids will slowly turn around the tanker.
McTex on Marxism, the Frankfurt School and exceptionalism – I would like to it’s say so bad it’s funny, but this type of ignorance paired with deep seated narcissism is so widespread that our political future seems very grim indeed. My only hope is that it’s an age thing and our woke kids will slowly turn around the tanker.
Well, guess there is some life in this topic yet. Though it might be like this story
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/feb/28/horse-racing-gordon-elliott-cooperating-investigation-social-media-image
Because the story has this
an image circulating widely on social media, which shows the trainer sitting on a dead horse on his gallops,
I googled the picture to try and figure out what was ‘on his gallops’ and if anyone wants to explain what that means, it might serve as a useful visual reference.
I’m glad GftNC explicitly noted McT’s defining the period of MWLD after the Holocaust, which I was thinking, but thought it would be a bit ott. It does, however, reveal a lawyerly bent, ‘ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client is not guilty because these events occurred before the time I have conveniently stipulated!’ How does it go?
You have to look at all of history, not just the parts that fit your happy place.
Yeah, right.
About nous’ dive into the telegraph, from this
https://www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/the-telegraph.html
By contrast, the Confederacy failed to make effective use of the South’s much smaller telegraph network for several reasons. Before the war, many operators working on southern lines were northerners. After secession, most returned to their northern homes. Officials of the Confederacy’s largest telegraph company, the Southern Telegraph Company, balked at cooperating with military and civilian officials.
Funny how when one kicks people out, it tends to bite them on the ass.
The telegraph also prevented the Nez Perce from escaping to Canada
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40487055?seq=1
People do people stuff, tech makes it easier for them to do it, so I’m not sure if the answer is to stop making tech or stop making people….
Of course, the US Civil War was a foreshadowing of a lot of other things, like concentration camps and IEDs
Funny how starting the clock after WWII avoids a lot of this….
Well, guess there is some life in this topic yet. Though it might be like this story
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/feb/28/horse-racing-gordon-elliott-cooperating-investigation-social-media-image
Because the story has this
an image circulating widely on social media, which shows the trainer sitting on a dead horse on his gallops,
I googled the picture to try and figure out what was ‘on his gallops’ and if anyone wants to explain what that means, it might serve as a useful visual reference.
I’m glad GftNC explicitly noted McT’s defining the period of MWLD after the Holocaust, which I was thinking, but thought it would be a bit ott. It does, however, reveal a lawyerly bent, ‘ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client is not guilty because these events occurred before the time I have conveniently stipulated!’ How does it go?
You have to look at all of history, not just the parts that fit your happy place.
Yeah, right.
About nous’ dive into the telegraph, from this
https://www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/the-telegraph.html
By contrast, the Confederacy failed to make effective use of the South’s much smaller telegraph network for several reasons. Before the war, many operators working on southern lines were northerners. After secession, most returned to their northern homes. Officials of the Confederacy’s largest telegraph company, the Southern Telegraph Company, balked at cooperating with military and civilian officials.
Funny how when one kicks people out, it tends to bite them on the ass.
The telegraph also prevented the Nez Perce from escaping to Canada
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40487055?seq=1
People do people stuff, tech makes it easier for them to do it, so I’m not sure if the answer is to stop making tech or stop making people….
Of course, the US Civil War was a foreshadowing of a lot of other things, like concentration camps and IEDs
Funny how starting the clock after WWII avoids a lot of this….
Post-WWII is McKinney’s happy place, and he doesn’t have to take his own advice, any more than he has to argue with the people here instead of the versions in his head.
I really admire those of you who can be anything but snarky about it. Like nous, choosing to make lemonade and actually learn something, even if it’s not the lessons McKinney intended.
Post-WWII is McKinney’s happy place, and he doesn’t have to take his own advice, any more than he has to argue with the people here instead of the versions in his head.
I really admire those of you who can be anything but snarky about it. Like nous, choosing to make lemonade and actually learn something, even if it’s not the lessons McKinney intended.
Funny how starting the clock after WWII avoids a lot of this….
There’s a certain hope among many Americans (including Obama-style progressives, but I really don’t like to label people, because then we start talking about whether Obama is a Republican-lite, blah, blah), that the last several centuries have brought about an evolution in political values (the arc …). For example, the fact that the Civil War was won by the Union, and that slavery ended as a direct result of the blood that was shed [obviously backtracking hugely with the end of Reconstruction], that WWI was a first attempt at ending Empire (didn’t actually happen obv., and arguably the rise of fascism and totalitarian Communism was also a result) and that WWII conquered European fascism and laid bare the evils of anti-Semitism and racism, resulting (slowly) in more emphatic civil rights efforts …
Better is good. We’re not always on the trajectory towards better (keep going two steps back, then having to try to catch up with three steps forward), but there’s a clear choice in most Western democracies of doing better towards good, and doing worse towards fascism. The people in democratic countries have an easier path than, say, the people in China. The people in America have more political agency, therefore they are more culpable for the wrongs of their government.
Honestly, starting the clock somewhere should show some evolution towards a more humane perspective. Europeans conquered the Americas. During that time they were drawing and quartering people, and torturing them in dungeons. They improved. ISIS was crucifying people fairly recently. Where we start the clock doesn’t matter so much as that wherever we start it, it should show that we’re doing better over time.
The US is not doing consistently better, although thank goodness for November 2020.
Funny how starting the clock after WWII avoids a lot of this….
There’s a certain hope among many Americans (including Obama-style progressives, but I really don’t like to label people, because then we start talking about whether Obama is a Republican-lite, blah, blah), that the last several centuries have brought about an evolution in political values (the arc …). For example, the fact that the Civil War was won by the Union, and that slavery ended as a direct result of the blood that was shed [obviously backtracking hugely with the end of Reconstruction], that WWI was a first attempt at ending Empire (didn’t actually happen obv., and arguably the rise of fascism and totalitarian Communism was also a result) and that WWII conquered European fascism and laid bare the evils of anti-Semitism and racism, resulting (slowly) in more emphatic civil rights efforts …
Better is good. We’re not always on the trajectory towards better (keep going two steps back, then having to try to catch up with three steps forward), but there’s a clear choice in most Western democracies of doing better towards good, and doing worse towards fascism. The people in democratic countries have an easier path than, say, the people in China. The people in America have more political agency, therefore they are more culpable for the wrongs of their government.
Honestly, starting the clock somewhere should show some evolution towards a more humane perspective. Europeans conquered the Americas. During that time they were drawing and quartering people, and torturing them in dungeons. They improved. ISIS was crucifying people fairly recently. Where we start the clock doesn’t matter so much as that wherever we start it, it should show that we’re doing better over time.
The US is not doing consistently better, although thank goodness for November 2020.
The US is not doing consistently better, although thank goodness for November 2020.
As you noted, we do a fair amount of 3 steps forward, two steps back. Which is to say, it’s a noisy signal. Anybody arguing for trends has to take a baseline at least a couple dozen times the step size in order to avoid confusing noise with signal.
Step 1: figure out what the (average!)** step size is. My swag would be half a generation; say 10 years.
** Always assuming that the steps actually have a length. Maybe they have some kind of size, i.e. how much progress (and how do we put a number on that?)), but nothing like a regular length.
The US is not doing consistently better, although thank goodness for November 2020.
As you noted, we do a fair amount of 3 steps forward, two steps back. Which is to say, it’s a noisy signal. Anybody arguing for trends has to take a baseline at least a couple dozen times the step size in order to avoid confusing noise with signal.
Step 1: figure out what the (average!)** step size is. My swag would be half a generation; say 10 years.
** Always assuming that the steps actually have a length. Maybe they have some kind of size, i.e. how much progress (and how do we put a number on that?)), but nothing like a regular length.
I really admire those of you who can be anything but snarky about it. Like nous, choosing to make lemonade and actually learn something, even if it’s not the lessons McKinney intended.
As lj notes, McKinney’s training is in finding the most persuasive narrative to support the side. Mine is in New Historicism, modern rhetoric, and a bit of anthropology. I tend towards trying to understand and identify the culture and context that creates a particular moment and then work from there to build bridges to our own moment and context.
I mean, sure, Hitler and his anti-semitism played its role in shaping the German moment of the Holocaust, but so did Schmitt’s catholicism and political theology, and Herder’s Romanticism. Those roots go deep and they bind together the transition from medieval and renaissance paradigms of nations to enlightenment and modern paradigms of nation states and the ways of understanding one’s position within a society change accordingly.
You can’t understand enlightenment (etc.) thinking from a modern mindset. You have to do the work of translation.
I really admire those of you who can be anything but snarky about it. Like nous, choosing to make lemonade and actually learn something, even if it’s not the lessons McKinney intended.
As lj notes, McKinney’s training is in finding the most persuasive narrative to support the side. Mine is in New Historicism, modern rhetoric, and a bit of anthropology. I tend towards trying to understand and identify the culture and context that creates a particular moment and then work from there to build bridges to our own moment and context.
I mean, sure, Hitler and his anti-semitism played its role in shaping the German moment of the Holocaust, but so did Schmitt’s catholicism and political theology, and Herder’s Romanticism. Those roots go deep and they bind together the transition from medieval and renaissance paradigms of nations to enlightenment and modern paradigms of nation states and the ways of understanding one’s position within a society change accordingly.
You can’t understand enlightenment (etc.) thinking from a modern mindset. You have to do the work of translation.
Not to channel Donald (but wish he were here!), I wonder what roots support anti-Palestinian sentiment in Israel.
People need to resist whatever in their culture leads them to be horrible. That includes me.
Not to channel Donald (but wish he were here!), I wonder what roots support anti-Palestinian sentiment in Israel.
People need to resist whatever in their culture leads them to be horrible. That includes me.
People need to resist whatever in their culture leads them to be horrible.
I don’t want to pick a fight here, but while one possible reading of the Civil War is that slavery was ended at great cost, another reading is that slavery created the opportunity to go to war and after that, industrialization took it the rest of the way, which is perhaps why Reconstruction failed and we went thru another problematic half century, thus allowing Northerners to argue for their moral superiority (and allowed the Lost Cause mythology to take root, which is why you can see confederate flags in places where they really shouldn’t be, though I’d argue that they shouldn’t be anywhere except in a museum with a detailed explanation, not on the back of someone’s pick up truck)
https://www.wnyc.org/story/how-did-confederate-flag-come-north/
https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-confederate-flag-pride-racism-patriotism-20181024-story.html
https://beltmag.com/ohio-confederate-flag-apologists-history/
Resisting things in our culture means resisting readings of history that may be drawn too sharply, imho.
People need to resist whatever in their culture leads them to be horrible.
I don’t want to pick a fight here, but while one possible reading of the Civil War is that slavery was ended at great cost, another reading is that slavery created the opportunity to go to war and after that, industrialization took it the rest of the way, which is perhaps why Reconstruction failed and we went thru another problematic half century, thus allowing Northerners to argue for their moral superiority (and allowed the Lost Cause mythology to take root, which is why you can see confederate flags in places where they really shouldn’t be, though I’d argue that they shouldn’t be anywhere except in a museum with a detailed explanation, not on the back of someone’s pick up truck)
https://www.wnyc.org/story/how-did-confederate-flag-come-north/
https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-confederate-flag-pride-racism-patriotism-20181024-story.html
https://beltmag.com/ohio-confederate-flag-apologists-history/
Resisting things in our culture means resisting readings of history that may be drawn too sharply, imho.
Resisting things in our culture means resisting readings of history that may be drawn too sharply, imho.
Sure. People are complicated. There’s an argument to be made that history is an interesting hobby, but maybe doesn’t mean much because we each can reject it all and start all over. But that means that we shouldn’t complain about when people begin their timeline, right?
When slavery was going on here (early 18th c), England had atrocious child labor in the textile industry (5 year olds and up) and Ireland had a famine, meaning that lot of people died or had permanently horrible lives at the hands of other people. Not as bad as slavery? Depends on what kid you were maybe. Probably no horrible medical experiments on them and such, and there wasn’t a legacy of racial hatred.
One thing about historical narratives
(and mythology in general) is that we can buy into a story that inspires us in a direction that helps us to be more humane. Or we can see it all as a horrifying tragedy that will eventually lead to our apocalyptic undoing. Or we can treat it as a series of anecdotes of peculiar people with weird circumstances that we may or may not have to deal with again. Whatever floats boats.
I was talking today to someone who is horrified at an anti-vaxxer, some family member who she has to deal with. All the atrocities and wars are bad. Man’s inhumanity to man – it’s all disgusting and can only be explained by … sociopathology? But’s what’s to make of these weird ass people who are resisting the science on viruses?
Shrug. I like to believe inspiring narratives from stuff, but some things resist inspiring stories.
Resisting things in our culture means resisting readings of history that may be drawn too sharply, imho.
Sure. People are complicated. There’s an argument to be made that history is an interesting hobby, but maybe doesn’t mean much because we each can reject it all and start all over. But that means that we shouldn’t complain about when people begin their timeline, right?
When slavery was going on here (early 18th c), England had atrocious child labor in the textile industry (5 year olds and up) and Ireland had a famine, meaning that lot of people died or had permanently horrible lives at the hands of other people. Not as bad as slavery? Depends on what kid you were maybe. Probably no horrible medical experiments on them and such, and there wasn’t a legacy of racial hatred.
One thing about historical narratives
(and mythology in general) is that we can buy into a story that inspires us in a direction that helps us to be more humane. Or we can see it all as a horrifying tragedy that will eventually lead to our apocalyptic undoing. Or we can treat it as a series of anecdotes of peculiar people with weird circumstances that we may or may not have to deal with again. Whatever floats boats.
I was talking today to someone who is horrified at an anti-vaxxer, some family member who she has to deal with. All the atrocities and wars are bad. Man’s inhumanity to man – it’s all disgusting and can only be explained by … sociopathology? But’s what’s to make of these weird ass people who are resisting the science on viruses?
Shrug. I like to believe inspiring narratives from stuff, but some things resist inspiring stories.
Oops – meant early 19th c. re industrial revolution, slavery, child labor, famine. So easy to lose track of time.
Oops – meant early 19th c. re industrial revolution, slavery, child labor, famine. So easy to lose track of time.
I guess it was the lucky kids who got to be powder monkeys on British naval vessels in the Napoleonic era. Never looked to see if the French and Spanish did the same.
I guess it was the lucky kids who got to be powder monkeys on British naval vessels in the Napoleonic era. Never looked to see if the French and Spanish did the same.
Children not working is a modern and first-world luxury. In other times and other places, it’s how people survived.
Children not working is a modern and first-world luxury. In other times and other places, it’s how people survived.
I guess it was the lucky kids who got to be powder monkeys on British naval vessels in the Napoleonic era.
Gawd. Just a quick google tells me that was thing well into the mid-19th century. (Thanks, Priest – had no idea about it.) Life was gruesome back then, and didn’t get a whole lot better for awhile. That doesn’t in any way excuse or mitigate slavery or the horrifying racism that happened and still exists.
But better is good. Otherwise, why do we bother to go on?
I guess it was the lucky kids who got to be powder monkeys on British naval vessels in the Napoleonic era.
Gawd. Just a quick google tells me that was thing well into the mid-19th century. (Thanks, Priest – had no idea about it.) Life was gruesome back then, and didn’t get a whole lot better for awhile. That doesn’t in any way excuse or mitigate slavery or the horrifying racism that happened and still exists.
But better is good. Otherwise, why do we bother to go on?
Children not working is a modern and first-world luxury. In other times and other places, it’s how people survived.
That’s true, CharlesWT, but do you have an opinion about it, other than “spoiled first world children”?
My opinion (weird to offer it in 2021): It’s ugly to exploit children (who are slaves until they can manage independence). Less horrible in a family situation, where they are cared for at the same time as working on a family enterprise from which they benefit. Not great in a factory, where they are purely a commodity.
Children not working is a modern and first-world luxury. In other times and other places, it’s how people survived.
That’s true, CharlesWT, but do you have an opinion about it, other than “spoiled first world children”?
My opinion (weird to offer it in 2021): It’s ugly to exploit children (who are slaves until they can manage independence). Less horrible in a family situation, where they are cared for at the same time as working on a family enterprise from which they benefit. Not great in a factory, where they are purely a commodity.
This is interesting. Teaching civics? I think we have to believe in the promise of our government to inculcate “civic responsibility”. Otherwise, what’s the point?
This is interesting. Teaching civics? I think we have to believe in the promise of our government to inculcate “civic responsibility”. Otherwise, what’s the point?
Even the children working in factories may have made the difference of whether and much they and their families had to eat. No doubt, especially toward the end of the sweatshop period, more than a few children were exploited by business and their families who could have gotten by without their labor.
Some years ago there was a brouhaha about child labor in plants in Bangladesh producing products sold in the US. The plants got rid of the child labor and some of the children ended up begging on the streets or in the sex trade. If you’re going to take away someone’s least worse option, you need to be prepared to give them something as good or better.
In the US, children still work in family businesses and agriculture. I follow a couple of farmers’ YouTube channels. During harvest last year, one of the farmers’ ten-year-old son was operating half a million dollars worth of equipment. Of course, the tractor had an air-conditioned cab, power steering, and was a lot safer than the tractors I operated as a kid.
Even the children working in factories may have made the difference of whether and much they and their families had to eat. No doubt, especially toward the end of the sweatshop period, more than a few children were exploited by business and their families who could have gotten by without their labor.
Some years ago there was a brouhaha about child labor in plants in Bangladesh producing products sold in the US. The plants got rid of the child labor and some of the children ended up begging on the streets or in the sex trade. If you’re going to take away someone’s least worse option, you need to be prepared to give them something as good or better.
In the US, children still work in family businesses and agriculture. I follow a couple of farmers’ YouTube channels. During harvest last year, one of the farmers’ ten-year-old son was operating half a million dollars worth of equipment. Of course, the tractor had an air-conditioned cab, power steering, and was a lot safer than the tractors I operated as a kid.
When cotton mills first sprang up in Lowell MA two hundred years ago, the mill owners had a bright idea: let’s staff them with farmers’ daughters from the surrounding area.
To persuade the farmers, the capitalists created “The Lowell System”: prim, proper boarding houses for the Mill Girls, supervised by respectable matrons to protect their virtue, enforce their piety, and encourage their self-improvement through enlightening lectures.
It was a noble experiment in what might be called benevolent exploitation. But it didn’t last — although many of the boarding houses, good solid brick buildings, still stand in downtown Lowell.
It didn’t last because even civic-minded capitalists from the finest old aristocratic families of Boston could not resist exploiting cheaper labor. French-speaking immigrants from Canada replaced the Mill Girls, to be replaced in their turn by waves of Irish, Italians, Greeks, and other wretched refuse from some teeming shore — people willing to live in shanties because nobody was about to demand decent housing, let alone enlightening lectures, for them.
It seems to me that child labor could be less repugnant, given a bit of human decency among capitalists. But human decency costs money, and as we all know “job creators” never quite have enough money for such frivolities.
–TP
When cotton mills first sprang up in Lowell MA two hundred years ago, the mill owners had a bright idea: let’s staff them with farmers’ daughters from the surrounding area.
To persuade the farmers, the capitalists created “The Lowell System”: prim, proper boarding houses for the Mill Girls, supervised by respectable matrons to protect their virtue, enforce their piety, and encourage their self-improvement through enlightening lectures.
It was a noble experiment in what might be called benevolent exploitation. But it didn’t last — although many of the boarding houses, good solid brick buildings, still stand in downtown Lowell.
It didn’t last because even civic-minded capitalists from the finest old aristocratic families of Boston could not resist exploiting cheaper labor. French-speaking immigrants from Canada replaced the Mill Girls, to be replaced in their turn by waves of Irish, Italians, Greeks, and other wretched refuse from some teeming shore — people willing to live in shanties because nobody was about to demand decent housing, let alone enlightening lectures, for them.
It seems to me that child labor could be less repugnant, given a bit of human decency among capitalists. But human decency costs money, and as we all know “job creators” never quite have enough money for such frivolities.
–TP
brouhaha about child labor
While dealing with the complicated problems in developing countries is difficult and attempts to do so may not always have the intended result, describing an issue about child labor as a “brouhaha” is a bit sickening in its dismissiveness. I mean, WTF?
brouhaha about child labor
While dealing with the complicated problems in developing countries is difficult and attempts to do so may not always have the intended result, describing an issue about child labor as a “brouhaha” is a bit sickening in its dismissiveness. I mean, WTF?
What hsh said.
For that matter, the whole libertarian project is kind of sickening in its dismissiveness of the mucky difficulties of actual reality. Child labor, slave labor (which was also waved away by a similar vocabulary trick in this thread IIRC), you name it. Just a failure of people to make proper contracts, I guess.
What hsh said.
For that matter, the whole libertarian project is kind of sickening in its dismissiveness of the mucky difficulties of actual reality. Child labor, slave labor (which was also waved away by a similar vocabulary trick in this thread IIRC), you name it. Just a failure of people to make proper contracts, I guess.
Also what TP said!
Also what TP said!
i want to say : i do appreciate the effort McTx put into that comment.
i don’t really agree with all of it, but i’m sure it took a lot more work than anything i’ve ever written in a blog comment.
i want to say : i do appreciate the effort McTx put into that comment.
i don’t really agree with all of it, but i’m sure it took a lot more work than anything i’ve ever written in a blog comment.
I agree with you, cleek, which explains my (probably condescending) Good on you, McKinney, for trying to engage with this.
The thing is, I do believe that McKinney has been sufficiently shaken by recent events (1/6 etc, and the reaction of much of his social circle to it) that it has forced him to reconsider certain (but only certain) of his assumptions. Such as that you, lj and nous are just far lefty woke SJWs, for example. But the fact that he is so much less steeped in all the historical, political, intellectual background than so many of you (not me – I’m ferociously ignorant about much of it) means he did have to put in quite a lot of work and reading to try and justify his frequently repeated claims about the superiority of MWLD etc. He is a lawyer, so the fact that while laying out this piece he moved towards e.g. setting a very convenient start date for his theory, is par for the course. He builds what seems a superficially convincing argument, if a) you don’t know much about the history, and, more importantly, b) you suffer from the same reflexive, unquestioning superiority complex about Western civilisation that he does. It’s comforting – I can see that. And hugely reinforced by most American (and probably Western) culture, except among those people who like to question received wisdom, like so many here at ObWi.
In my opinion, the people who question received wisdom are the interesting ones. Until you really look at generally unexamined assumptions, you have, to quote Donald Rumsfeld, a bunch of unknown unknowns.
Apart from that, my own view is very much russell’s @01.10 above. Including, but not limited to:
Chauvinism is a form of hubris. As a general principle, it is IMO to be avoided, and I recommend avoiding it. It’s fine to be proud of your culture and your society, it’s a slippery slope to say it’s the best, now or ever
I agree with you, cleek, which explains my (probably condescending) Good on you, McKinney, for trying to engage with this.
The thing is, I do believe that McKinney has been sufficiently shaken by recent events (1/6 etc, and the reaction of much of his social circle to it) that it has forced him to reconsider certain (but only certain) of his assumptions. Such as that you, lj and nous are just far lefty woke SJWs, for example. But the fact that he is so much less steeped in all the historical, political, intellectual background than so many of you (not me – I’m ferociously ignorant about much of it) means he did have to put in quite a lot of work and reading to try and justify his frequently repeated claims about the superiority of MWLD etc. He is a lawyer, so the fact that while laying out this piece he moved towards e.g. setting a very convenient start date for his theory, is par for the course. He builds what seems a superficially convincing argument, if a) you don’t know much about the history, and, more importantly, b) you suffer from the same reflexive, unquestioning superiority complex about Western civilisation that he does. It’s comforting – I can see that. And hugely reinforced by most American (and probably Western) culture, except among those people who like to question received wisdom, like so many here at ObWi.
In my opinion, the people who question received wisdom are the interesting ones. Until you really look at generally unexamined assumptions, you have, to quote Donald Rumsfeld, a bunch of unknown unknowns.
Apart from that, my own view is very much russell’s @01.10 above. Including, but not limited to:
Chauvinism is a form of hubris. As a general principle, it is IMO to be avoided, and I recommend avoiding it. It’s fine to be proud of your culture and your society, it’s a slippery slope to say it’s the best, now or ever
Some of the people from the podcast I linked to last week (I think it was last week) write about economic narratives. The phrase they use to describe the sort of arguments that CharlesWT passes on here is Capitalist Realism (or as Michelle prefers, Big Swinging Dick Realism). It’s the finance bro answer to both Victorian Realism novels (Eliot and Dickens, with their widows and orphans and workhouses), and Social Realism in film and photography. These other realisms tend to focus on workers or marginalized people in society and on their material conditions, deploying sympathy and identification as a counter to the moralism with which people in their society justified their suffering. Big Swinging Dick Realism directly attacks that sympathy, not with moralism, but with fatalism and an embrace of hegemonic masculinity.
Go big or go home, ya urchins.
Some of the people from the podcast I linked to last week (I think it was last week) write about economic narratives. The phrase they use to describe the sort of arguments that CharlesWT passes on here is Capitalist Realism (or as Michelle prefers, Big Swinging Dick Realism). It’s the finance bro answer to both Victorian Realism novels (Eliot and Dickens, with their widows and orphans and workhouses), and Social Realism in film and photography. These other realisms tend to focus on workers or marginalized people in society and on their material conditions, deploying sympathy and identification as a counter to the moralism with which people in their society justified their suffering. Big Swinging Dick Realism directly attacks that sympathy, not with moralism, but with fatalism and an embrace of hegemonic masculinity.
Go big or go home, ya urchins.
…an image circulating widely on social media, which shows the trainer sitting on a dead horse on his gallops…
I googled the picture to try and figure out what was ‘on his gallops’ and if anyone wants to explain what that means, it might serve as a useful visual reference.
‘Gallops’ here are tracks for exercising racehorses. These gallops are not far from me.
…an image circulating widely on social media, which shows the trainer sitting on a dead horse on his gallops…
I googled the picture to try and figure out what was ‘on his gallops’ and if anyone wants to explain what that means, it might serve as a useful visual reference.
‘Gallops’ here are tracks for exercising racehorses. These gallops are not far from me.
Pro Bono, another horse-racing vocabulary question, since you popped up to answer that one.
One of my favorite novels is Jane Smiley’s Horse Heaven, which is set in the world of thoroughbred racing. It’s a wonderful, often funny, sprawling tale of humans and horses, six or seven storylines woven together to an appropriately happy ending.
Jane Smiley owns horses herself (I’m sure I’ve written this here before) and wrote a non-fiction book called A Year at the Races about thoroughbreds. It’s not a topic I ever cared about — but she makes it fascinating.
The trainers and owners in the story often talk about “works.” A particular horse’s “works” were good (or not) on any given day. It’s pretty clear from context that the word means something like “workout,” but I haven’t been able, on a casual search, to find a more specific definition online. The story is set in the US, mostly at California race tracks but sometimes on the east coast as well. The grand finale is in France. I don’t know how much the lingo differs in our countries separated by a common language, but … is “works” a term you’re familiar with?
Pro Bono, another horse-racing vocabulary question, since you popped up to answer that one.
One of my favorite novels is Jane Smiley’s Horse Heaven, which is set in the world of thoroughbred racing. It’s a wonderful, often funny, sprawling tale of humans and horses, six or seven storylines woven together to an appropriately happy ending.
Jane Smiley owns horses herself (I’m sure I’ve written this here before) and wrote a non-fiction book called A Year at the Races about thoroughbreds. It’s not a topic I ever cared about — but she makes it fascinating.
The trainers and owners in the story often talk about “works.” A particular horse’s “works” were good (or not) on any given day. It’s pretty clear from context that the word means something like “workout,” but I haven’t been able, on a casual search, to find a more specific definition online. The story is set in the US, mostly at California race tracks but sometimes on the east coast as well. The grand finale is in France. I don’t know how much the lingo differs in our countries separated by a common language, but … is “works” a term you’re familiar with?
Children not working is a modern and first-world luxury. In other times and other places, it’s how people survived.
Just to be clear, that’s a modern, first-world and urban (or suburban) luxury. Kids on farms do attend school like urban kids. But after school and weekends, they work.
Children not working is a modern and first-world luxury. In other times and other places, it’s how people survived.
Just to be clear, that’s a modern, first-world and urban (or suburban) luxury. Kids on farms do attend school like urban kids. But after school and weekends, they work.
there’s a kid, probably 9, who works the take-out window of our local Chinese restaurant.
i just assume doing that is less boring for him than sitting around doing nothing while his parents work in the back.
there’s a kid, probably 9, who works the take-out window of our local Chinese restaurant.
i just assume doing that is less boring for him than sitting around doing nothing while his parents work in the back.
My oldest had shoulder surgery to repair a torn labrum at the end of December. It’s really put a dent in the free labor I’m used to having at my disposal. Stupid labrum!
My oldest had shoulder surgery to repair a torn labrum at the end of December. It’s really put a dent in the free labor I’m used to having at my disposal. Stupid labrum!
My oldest had shoulder surgery to repair a torn labrum at the end of December. It’s really put a dent in the free labor I’m used to having at my disposal. Stupid labrum!
Surely there has to be a neighborhood kid in better health that you can bring in at a fraction of the cost of your own. And if nothing else, the fear of being supplanted might get a bit more work out of the entitled brat. Everybody’s labrum hurts sometimes.
My oldest had shoulder surgery to repair a torn labrum at the end of December. It’s really put a dent in the free labor I’m used to having at my disposal. Stupid labrum!
Surely there has to be a neighborhood kid in better health that you can bring in at a fraction of the cost of your own. And if nothing else, the fear of being supplanted might get a bit more work out of the entitled brat. Everybody’s labrum hurts sometimes.
JanieM,
This seems to give a hint of the answer to your query.
https://www.equibase.com/static/workout/
Have a good day.
JanieM,
This seems to give a hint of the answer to your query.
https://www.equibase.com/static/workout/
Have a good day.
But after school and weekends, they work.
Like these lucky duckies?
But after school and weekends, they work.
Like these lucky duckies?
Bobby, care to try again on that link? Thanks
Bobby, care to try again on that link? Thanks
Pro bono, thanks! It’s always hindsight, I see in Merriam Webster has it here
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gallop
but I was so convinced that it had to be a piece of equipment that I missed that. And when I googled the picture (pretty horrific and the guy’s explanation comes off quite Ted Cruz-ish), I still had in mind some sort of equipment. Funny how something like that fixes our minds and makes it impossible to see other possibilities.
Which is as good an intro to thanking McT for his take on MWLD (which reminds me of WMD, so something like Mass Weapons of Legal Destruction)
Speaking both of these topics (horses and lack of knowledge) I love this by George R R Martin about his early difficulties in writing about horses.
https://clickhole.com/when-i-started-writing-game-of-thrones-i-didn-t-know-1825123843/
I’d also offer this as evidence that the horses knew and wanted to give Martin a hard time
https://www.cbr.com/george-rr-martin-horse-ruined-sex-scene/
Pro bono, thanks! It’s always hindsight, I see in Merriam Webster has it here
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gallop
but I was so convinced that it had to be a piece of equipment that I missed that. And when I googled the picture (pretty horrific and the guy’s explanation comes off quite Ted Cruz-ish), I still had in mind some sort of equipment. Funny how something like that fixes our minds and makes it impossible to see other possibilities.
Which is as good an intro to thanking McT for his take on MWLD (which reminds me of WMD, so something like Mass Weapons of Legal Destruction)
Speaking both of these topics (horses and lack of knowledge) I love this by George R R Martin about his early difficulties in writing about horses.
https://clickhole.com/when-i-started-writing-game-of-thrones-i-didn-t-know-1825123843/
I’d also offer this as evidence that the horses knew and wanted to give Martin a hard time
https://www.cbr.com/george-rr-martin-horse-ruined-sex-scene/
Bobby, care to try again on that link? Thanks
Upon review, and in the spirit of my New Year’s resolution, I have decided to defer. I did find your comment a bit off-putting insofar as there was an implied dig on urban kids as lazy shirkers as opposed to hard-working minor age rurals.
But maybe I am wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time.
Bobby, care to try again on that link? Thanks
Upon review, and in the spirit of my New Year’s resolution, I have decided to defer. I did find your comment a bit off-putting insofar as there was an implied dig on urban kids as lazy shirkers as opposed to hard-working minor age rurals.
But maybe I am wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time.
No dig intended. Just a note that, even today, if your family is rural you almost certainly are expected to do farm work. Certainly from the time you are a teenager. And you’ll likely have chores even earlier. (Doesn’t take any particular strength, after all, to feed and water the chickens. But it’s got to be done regularly.)
I’m sure there are urban kids who work as well. but with rural kids it’s pretty much universal.
No dig intended. Just a note that, even today, if your family is rural you almost certainly are expected to do farm work. Certainly from the time you are a teenager. And you’ll likely have chores even earlier. (Doesn’t take any particular strength, after all, to feed and water the chickens. But it’s got to be done regularly.)
I’m sure there are urban kids who work as well. but with rural kids it’s pretty much universal.
I have a cousin-in-law whose first entry on his social security record for payroll taxes was when he was ten years old. He emptied wastebaskets and did other light janitorial work at an office his mother worked at. I got paid off the books for farm work by neighboring farmers at about that age until I finished high school.
I have a cousin-in-law whose first entry on his social security record for payroll taxes was when he was ten years old. He emptied wastebaskets and did other light janitorial work at an office his mother worked at. I got paid off the books for farm work by neighboring farmers at about that age until I finished high school.
Let’s be real. A child doing a few hours of work per week at a family enterprise is one thing. A child feeding chickens is one thing.
A child doing dangerous farm work is another. A child doing factory work for many hours a day (depending on the tolerance for reasonable workdays) is another.
I think I may have brought this subject up when I mentioned England in the 18th Century. Kids worked very long days doing many kinds of hazardous labor. That kind of thing goes on now. To the extent that kids are losing their lives doing dangerous work, that’s horrifying.
If you did that as a kid, I’m really glad you survived it, and it’s a testament to your fortitude, but please don’t force it on other kids.
I have no problem with teenage kids working part-time in a job that doesn’t jeopardize their health. It’s probably a good thing (something I’ve encouraged) unless it screws up school for them, in which case it’s not a good thing.
Let’s be real. A child doing a few hours of work per week at a family enterprise is one thing. A child feeding chickens is one thing.
A child doing dangerous farm work is another. A child doing factory work for many hours a day (depending on the tolerance for reasonable workdays) is another.
I think I may have brought this subject up when I mentioned England in the 18th Century. Kids worked very long days doing many kinds of hazardous labor. That kind of thing goes on now. To the extent that kids are losing their lives doing dangerous work, that’s horrifying.
If you did that as a kid, I’m really glad you survived it, and it’s a testament to your fortitude, but please don’t force it on other kids.
I have no problem with teenage kids working part-time in a job that doesn’t jeopardize their health. It’s probably a good thing (something I’ve encouraged) unless it screws up school for them, in which case it’s not a good thing.
Having lost the last joint and tip off my right index finger doing farm work while in 8th grade, I’m not sure I’d endorse the thesis that family farm work isn’t dangerous. Even if it’s just a few hours a week.
Having lost the last joint and tip off my right index finger doing farm work while in 8th grade, I’m not sure I’d endorse the thesis that family farm work isn’t dangerous. Even if it’s just a few hours a week.
I guess the link I provided is further evidence of that. I was talking about feeding the chickens as opposed to the kind of work that puts kid into danger. I don’t approve of the latter, despite the fact that your character (which may be attributable to all of that) is beyond reproach, wj.
I guess the link I provided is further evidence of that. I was talking about feeding the chickens as opposed to the kind of work that puts kid into danger. I don’t approve of the latter, despite the fact that your character (which may be attributable to all of that) is beyond reproach, wj.
My most serious injury while doing farm work was breaking my right arm just above the wrist. I somehow managed to not acquire any serious injuries while operating a half dozen different tractors and attached equipment.
My most serious injury while doing farm work was breaking my right arm just above the wrist. I somehow managed to not acquire any serious injuries while operating a half dozen different tractors and attached equipment.
My most serious injury while doing farm work was breaking my right arm just above the wrist.
Not a good thing?
Glad you survived, and I did things for my family too, although nothing that would have sent me to the hospital.
I’m glad you’re okay with your childhood. I’m not in favor of forcing under-aged people to risk life and limb. Obviously, it’s complicated when there’s no alternative to that except death, in which case sure. But that’s the point of a safety net, which I believe in and you do not.
My most serious injury while doing farm work was breaking my right arm just above the wrist.
Not a good thing?
Glad you survived, and I did things for my family too, although nothing that would have sent me to the hospital.
I’m glad you’re okay with your childhood. I’m not in favor of forcing under-aged people to risk life and limb. Obviously, it’s complicated when there’s no alternative to that except death, in which case sure. But that’s the point of a safety net, which I believe in and you do not.
My parents were neither very good a forcing or motivating. So, most of the work I did was work I wanted to do. Either because I liked doing it and/or I like the pocket money I got from it. Operating tractors could be a kind of fun.
My parents were neither very good a forcing or motivating. So, most of the work I did was work I wanted to do. Either because I liked doing it and/or I like the pocket money I got from it. Operating tractors could be a kind of fun.
A riding lawn mower is a kind of tractor. When I was a kid, I would have paid you to let me mow your lawn with your riding mower.
What in the name of Ayn Rand Paul that has to do with whether or not capitalists who “create jobs” for children in poor countries should have the human decency to provide better-than-slavery conditions to their job consumers is beyond me.
–TP
A riding lawn mower is a kind of tractor. When I was a kid, I would have paid you to let me mow your lawn with your riding mower.
What in the name of Ayn Rand Paul that has to do with whether or not capitalists who “create jobs” for children in poor countries should have the human decency to provide better-than-slavery conditions to their job consumers is beyond me.
–TP
The ten-year-old farm kid I mentioned above probably had a blast driving the 300-400 hp tractor towing a huge grain cart. His job was to pace a combine while it unloaded into the cart. Then unload the cart into a semi-truck trailer and return to the combine for the next load.
The ten-year-old farm kid I mentioned above probably had a blast driving the 300-400 hp tractor towing a huge grain cart. His job was to pace a combine while it unloaded into the cart. Then unload the cart into a semi-truck trailer and return to the combine for the next load.
There’s about 1/2 million kids in the U.S. engaged in full time and dangerous agricultural work who would not, by any stretch, describe their work as “having a blast”. As a topper, a not inconsequential number of them deal of them die as a result.
There’s about 1/2 million kids in the U.S. engaged in full time and dangerous agricultural work who would not, by any stretch, describe their work as “having a blast”. As a topper, a not inconsequential number of them deal of them die as a result.
Ya know, I spent a few summers picking cherries starting when I was 12. Probably got exposed to some pesticides in the process (not that living next to the orchards didn’t do that automatically). All my cousins picked apples for the orchard across the street. Three of them got cancer later in life and one of them died from his.
We worked alongside migrant families, but only for a couple weeks when the local orchards were rushing to get their fruit to the local cannery. The migrants and their kids were at it for months, following the growing season north. We’d get them in the local school in the late spring for a couple weeks before the school year ended and they hit the orchards with their parents. There were kids there a lot younger than 12, helping their parents pick or watching the really young kids. None of them were allowed on a ladder or given their own belt and pail, but they were picking whatever they could reach from the ground and putting it into their parents’ pails.
I sometimes wonder what those kids health looked like later in life – how many developed problems from prolonged environmental exposure to pesticides, and how many had any access to health care.
Ya know, I spent a few summers picking cherries starting when I was 12. Probably got exposed to some pesticides in the process (not that living next to the orchards didn’t do that automatically). All my cousins picked apples for the orchard across the street. Three of them got cancer later in life and one of them died from his.
We worked alongside migrant families, but only for a couple weeks when the local orchards were rushing to get their fruit to the local cannery. The migrants and their kids were at it for months, following the growing season north. We’d get them in the local school in the late spring for a couple weeks before the school year ended and they hit the orchards with their parents. There were kids there a lot younger than 12, helping their parents pick or watching the really young kids. None of them were allowed on a ladder or given their own belt and pail, but they were picking whatever they could reach from the ground and putting it into their parents’ pails.
I sometimes wonder what those kids health looked like later in life – how many developed problems from prolonged environmental exposure to pesticides, and how many had any access to health care.
A boy and his tractor.
A boy and his tractor.
“MWLD had its origin in the US, post WWII.”
Some exceptional exceptionalism going on there, perhaps with a dose of No True Scotsmanism stirred in.
This is a somewhat sketchy list, and covers only universal suffrage, but it gives a flavour of how ridiculous that claim is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_suffrage
“MWLD had its origin in the US, post WWII.”
Some exceptional exceptionalism going on there, perhaps with a dose of No True Scotsmanism stirred in.
This is a somewhat sketchy list, and covers only universal suffrage, but it gives a flavour of how ridiculous that claim is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_suffrage
At least it wasn’t made in Texas, which has too much power over American supply chains, especially those feeding tacky conservative grift to genocidal republicans:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-ridiculous-golden-trump-statue-at-cpac-was-actually-made-in-china-says-report?via=newsletter&source=CSAMedition
Sit it down on Trump’s golden shitter and place the the exceptional grotesque combo in the Smithsonian American End-Times Enema wing of the Smithsonsian.
At least Elvis had the foresight and good sense to drop dead on his.
At least it wasn’t made in Texas, which has too much power over American supply chains, especially those feeding tacky conservative grift to genocidal republicans:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-ridiculous-golden-trump-statue-at-cpac-was-actually-made-in-china-says-report?via=newsletter&source=CSAMedition
Sit it down on Trump’s golden shitter and place the the exceptional grotesque combo in the Smithsonian American End-Times Enema wing of the Smithsonsian.
At least Elvis had the foresight and good sense to drop dead on his.
Maybe I’m missing something, but the equivalence of a kid doing chores and working side jobs in American farms or mom-and-pop businesses vs. Bangladeshi kids working in sweatshops so they don’t starve escapes me.
Maybe I’m missing something, but the equivalence of a kid doing chores and working side jobs in American farms or mom-and-pop businesses vs. Bangladeshi kids working in sweatshops so they don’t starve escapes me.
Maybe I’m missing something…
What you’re missing is that Charles is ignoring everything people say except to keep reverting to irrelevant sentimentalities about unrelated topics that he pretends (or believes?) are related because they too have the word “boy” or “child” in them.
This is more of a nod to what other people are saying than I’ve seen in a lot of conversations with libertarians online. Usually they just disappear when things get real.
Maybe I’m missing something…
What you’re missing is that Charles is ignoring everything people say except to keep reverting to irrelevant sentimentalities about unrelated topics that he pretends (or believes?) are related because they too have the word “boy” or “child” in them.
This is more of a nod to what other people are saying than I’ve seen in a lot of conversations with libertarians online. Usually they just disappear when things get real.
@Nigel — yes, and this is the guy who lectured the rest of us on not reasoning from our happy place.
Some things simply don’t penetrate.
@Nigel — yes, and this is the guy who lectured the rest of us on not reasoning from our happy place.
Some things simply don’t penetrate.
For most countries that have obtained some level of first-world living standards, there has been a transition period of sweatshops with children working in them. For the countries in which the industrial revolution started, that period was close to two hundred years. In recent times, some countries have made that transition in as little as a generation or so.
When first-world standards are pressed on developing countries, people’s lives can be made worse, not better.
For most countries that have obtained some level of first-world living standards, there has been a transition period of sweatshops with children working in them. For the countries in which the industrial revolution started, that period was close to two hundred years. In recent times, some countries have made that transition in as little as a generation or so.
When first-world standards are pressed on developing countries, people’s lives can be made worse, not better.
When first-world standards are pressed on developing countries, people’s lives can be made worse, not better.
true as a blanket statement.
in the case of children working in factories which are dangerous even for adults…?
When first-world standards are pressed on developing countries, people’s lives can be made worse, not better.
true as a blanket statement.
in the case of children working in factories which are dangerous even for adults…?
Maybe I’m missing something, but the equivalence of a kid doing chores and working side jobs in American farms or mom-and-pop businesses vs. Bangladeshi kids working in sweatshops so they don’t starve escapes me.
According to Kristian(TM) conservatives kids are property (as were slaves). Child labor laws are thus an infringement on private property rights. From that POV all makes sense.
Maybe I’m missing something, but the equivalence of a kid doing chores and working side jobs in American farms or mom-and-pop businesses vs. Bangladeshi kids working in sweatshops so they don’t starve escapes me.
According to Kristian(TM) conservatives kids are property (as were slaves). Child labor laws are thus an infringement on private property rights. From that POV all makes sense.
in the case of children working in factories which are dangerous even for adults…?
Presumably, the children and their guardians consider it their least worse option.
“Child labor was once ubiquitous. Take, for example, ancient Rome. As Mary Beard noted in her 2015 book SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, “Child labour was the norm. It is not a problem, or even a category, that most Romans would have understood. The invention of ‘childhood’ and the regulation of what work ‘children’ could do only came fifteen hundred years later and is still a peculiarly Western preoccupation.” Today, fewer than 10 percent of children worldwide have to work for a living. By and large, those that do, live in poor countries. Economic growth, which was key to eliminating child labor in the developed world, can achieve the same outcome in the developing one.”
Growth Is the Ultimate Weapon in Ending Child Labor: The total number of child laborers fell from 246 million in 2000 to 152 million in 2016.
in the case of children working in factories which are dangerous even for adults…?
Presumably, the children and their guardians consider it their least worse option.
“Child labor was once ubiquitous. Take, for example, ancient Rome. As Mary Beard noted in her 2015 book SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, “Child labour was the norm. It is not a problem, or even a category, that most Romans would have understood. The invention of ‘childhood’ and the regulation of what work ‘children’ could do only came fifteen hundred years later and is still a peculiarly Western preoccupation.” Today, fewer than 10 percent of children worldwide have to work for a living. By and large, those that do, live in poor countries. Economic growth, which was key to eliminating child labor in the developed world, can achieve the same outcome in the developing one.”
Growth Is the Ultimate Weapon in Ending Child Labor: The total number of child laborers fell from 246 million in 2000 to 152 million in 2016.
In recent times, some countries have made that transition in as little as a generation or so.
Why? Can we shorten that, perhaps to no time at all?
Presumably, the children and their guardians consider it their least worse option.
Tending the fields may have been the least-bad option for slaves who would be whipped if they didn’t tend the fields. That doesn’t mean slavery was acceptable. It’s how exploitation works.
The children and their “guardians” (is this The Handmaid’s Tale?) may not be within a situation of their choosing, even if they have to make choices within that situation. The children may even be in a situation their “guardians” have imposed on them. Also, too, we (me and the people who agree with me on this point) also don’t generally consider children to be capable of consenting to such things, but maybe that’s a peculiarly Western preoccupation that you can just waive aside … you know, because of its Western peculiarity.
In recent times, some countries have made that transition in as little as a generation or so.
Why? Can we shorten that, perhaps to no time at all?
Presumably, the children and their guardians consider it their least worse option.
Tending the fields may have been the least-bad option for slaves who would be whipped if they didn’t tend the fields. That doesn’t mean slavery was acceptable. It’s how exploitation works.
The children and their “guardians” (is this The Handmaid’s Tale?) may not be within a situation of their choosing, even if they have to make choices within that situation. The children may even be in a situation their “guardians” have imposed on them. Also, too, we (me and the people who agree with me on this point) also don’t generally consider children to be capable of consenting to such things, but maybe that’s a peculiarly Western preoccupation that you can just waive aside … you know, because of its Western peculiarity.
I just invented “also, too, also.” Take that, Sarah Palin!
I just invented “also, too, also.” Take that, Sarah Palin!
…another horse-racing vocabulary question…
Sorry JanieM, I don’t know much about horse racing, I just happen to have some local knowledge.
…another horse-racing vocabulary question…
Sorry JanieM, I don’t know much about horse racing, I just happen to have some local knowledge.
the equivalence of a kid doing chores and working side jobs in American farms or mom-and-pop businesses vs. Bangladeshi kids working in sweatshops so they don’t starve escapes me.
My, quite possibly incorrect, perception is that the loudest voices on the subject object to children working at all. No nuance regarding part vs full time. No nuance regarding how hazardous the job is. Just blanket outrage.
I see the sort of comments made here about our own experience working at a young age as a counter to that.
the equivalence of a kid doing chores and working side jobs in American farms or mom-and-pop businesses vs. Bangladeshi kids working in sweatshops so they don’t starve escapes me.
My, quite possibly incorrect, perception is that the loudest voices on the subject object to children working at all. No nuance regarding part vs full time. No nuance regarding how hazardous the job is. Just blanket outrage.
I see the sort of comments made here about our own experience working at a young age as a counter to that.
So, since the conversation has turned towards whether or not children should be allowed to choose to labor, my question to focus this a bit more would be – if the children of farmers are expected to lend a hand in the field and this is seen as unproblematic, then where and on what grounds is the line drawn between that child and the child of a sex worker?
To be clear, I am not arguing in favor of allowing children to choose sex work or against children in agricultural work. I’m looking for clearly articulated arguments for a differential standard from a libertarian standpoint.
So, since the conversation has turned towards whether or not children should be allowed to choose to labor, my question to focus this a bit more would be – if the children of farmers are expected to lend a hand in the field and this is seen as unproblematic, then where and on what grounds is the line drawn between that child and the child of a sex worker?
To be clear, I am not arguing in favor of allowing children to choose sex work or against children in agricultural work. I’m looking for clearly articulated arguments for a differential standard from a libertarian standpoint.
I see the sort of comments made here about our own experience working at a young age as a counter to that.
I understand where you are coming from here, wj, but I would take pains to point out that exactly those kinds of idyllic recollections are commonly trotted out in opposition to agricultural child labor restrictions in this country, much less Bangladesh.
As for the 3rd world, see Loomis’ book Out of Sight for alternative policies when it comes to the exploitation of workers. Raising their pay to enable some modicum of a decent standard of living would still leave them as the low cost producers….but apparently, that is not good enough for the freebooters of our oh so great capitalist system of “global free trade”. But you know, paying a few bucks more for your shirt would be a terrible imposition on our 1st world freedumbs.
I see the sort of comments made here about our own experience working at a young age as a counter to that.
I understand where you are coming from here, wj, but I would take pains to point out that exactly those kinds of idyllic recollections are commonly trotted out in opposition to agricultural child labor restrictions in this country, much less Bangladesh.
As for the 3rd world, see Loomis’ book Out of Sight for alternative policies when it comes to the exploitation of workers. Raising their pay to enable some modicum of a decent standard of living would still leave them as the low cost producers….but apparently, that is not good enough for the freebooters of our oh so great capitalist system of “global free trade”. But you know, paying a few bucks more for your shirt would be a terrible imposition on our 1st world freedumbs.
My, quite possibly incorrect, perception is that the loudest voices on the subject object to children working at all.
absolutists are always the loudest!!!!!!!!!!
My, quite possibly incorrect, perception is that the loudest voices on the subject object to children working at all.
absolutists are always the loudest!!!!!!!!!!
exactly those kinds of idyllic recollections
Don’t know about the others, but “idyllic” is definitely not the word I would apply to my recollections. I remember things like being out in freezing rain, because my chores had to get done. Or cutting, raking, and baling hay with raging hay fever (I’m seriously allergic to grass, hay, etc.). I got some positive benefits from all this, like a strong sense of responsibility — if you don’t feed and water the animals, they die; gets the message across. But idyllic it wasn’t.
exactly those kinds of idyllic recollections
Don’t know about the others, but “idyllic” is definitely not the word I would apply to my recollections. I remember things like being out in freezing rain, because my chores had to get done. Or cutting, raking, and baling hay with raging hay fever (I’m seriously allergic to grass, hay, etc.). I got some positive benefits from all this, like a strong sense of responsibility — if you don’t feed and water the animals, they die; gets the message across. But idyllic it wasn’t.
if you don’t feed and water the animals, they die
I remember walking about a quarter-mile on a muddy road with a 100lb bag of corn across my shoulders. 🙂
if you don’t feed and water the animals, they die
I remember walking about a quarter-mile on a muddy road with a 100lb bag of corn across my shoulders. 🙂
Don’t know about the others, but “idyllic” is definitely not the word I would apply to my recollections.
OK..granted. So perhaps we should address the question posed by nous above (from any perspective, much less the libertarian one).
What about this?
Today’s added bonus: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/03/global-apparel-and-their-supply-chains
Don’t know about the others, but “idyllic” is definitely not the word I would apply to my recollections.
OK..granted. So perhaps we should address the question posed by nous above (from any perspective, much less the libertarian one).
What about this?
Today’s added bonus: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/03/global-apparel-and-their-supply-chains
No question, the agriculture exceptions in the child labor laws need to be revisited. And, mostly, eliminated.
No question, the agriculture exceptions in the child labor laws need to be revisited. And, mostly, eliminated.
I’ve been impressed with Save the Children’s organizational work on behalf of at-risk children worldwide. I think that their commitment to child welfare and to diversity of representation within the organization are apparent. I think that both these links are productive for this discussion and for thinking through my questions – especially the reports linked on the right hand side of the pages:
https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/our-thematic-areas/child-protection/protection-children-harmful-work
https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/library/childrens-rights-and-business-principles-crbp
I’ve been impressed with Save the Children’s organizational work on behalf of at-risk children worldwide. I think that their commitment to child welfare and to diversity of representation within the organization are apparent. I think that both these links are productive for this discussion and for thinking through my questions – especially the reports linked on the right hand side of the pages:
https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/our-thematic-areas/child-protection/protection-children-harmful-work
https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/library/childrens-rights-and-business-principles-crbp
This reminds me of discussions about the working conditions of staff in restaurants, when everybody trots out the few months they waited tables while attending college.
Needless to say, there is a huge difference if you’re doing a bit of work to help out or supplement your income when young, while having the perspective of a college degree and a middle class life in front of you, and doing that type of work full time and possibly for life.
This reminds me of discussions about the working conditions of staff in restaurants, when everybody trots out the few months they waited tables while attending college.
Needless to say, there is a huge difference if you’re doing a bit of work to help out or supplement your income when young, while having the perspective of a college degree and a middle class life in front of you, and doing that type of work full time and possibly for life.
I guess the next thing, the next double down, for they never stop, in the conservative movement’s goal of halting all governance by anyone but evil, wrecking crew, subhuman insurrectionist them, is to start calling in bomb threats, while of course dismissing all murder via bombs as nothing to see here.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/cancel-culture-jordan-cheers-capitol-threat-canceling-house-vote-and-stalling-dem-agenda
It will never stop until savage hell is visited upon the the entire anti-American, fascist conservative movement, with no doubt about its disappearance from the face of this Earth.
America does not go forward until their demise is achieved.
Elections do not matter.
I guess the next thing, the next double down, for they never stop, in the conservative movement’s goal of halting all governance by anyone but evil, wrecking crew, subhuman insurrectionist them, is to start calling in bomb threats, while of course dismissing all murder via bombs as nothing to see here.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/cancel-culture-jordan-cheers-capitol-threat-canceling-house-vote-and-stalling-dem-agenda
It will never stop until savage hell is visited upon the the entire anti-American, fascist conservative movement, with no doubt about its disappearance from the face of this Earth.
America does not go forward until their demise is achieved.
Elections do not matter.
I remember walking about a quarter-mile on a muddy road with a 100lb bag of corn across my shoulders.
Uphill both ways?
🙂
At least part of the question about child labor in offshore sweatshops is: how much more would you be willing to pay for what you wear? Or for your electronic gizmos?
We – first world people – get the upside of all of that. Would we give it up?
OT – I’m curious to see how the day plays out. In the bizzaro QAnon universe, today is supposed to be the day on which the glorious reign of DJT is restored.
Mostly I’m hoping nobody gets killed.
I remember walking about a quarter-mile on a muddy road with a 100lb bag of corn across my shoulders.
Uphill both ways?
🙂
At least part of the question about child labor in offshore sweatshops is: how much more would you be willing to pay for what you wear? Or for your electronic gizmos?
We – first world people – get the upside of all of that. Would we give it up?
OT – I’m curious to see how the day plays out. In the bizzaro QAnon universe, today is supposed to be the day on which the glorious reign of DJT is restored.
Mostly I’m hoping nobody gets killed.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/mike-pence-vote-suppression-trump-riot-authoritarianism.html
Like Danton giving a thumbs-up to Robespierre as the former kneeled beneath the blade honed by the latter, fake Christian authoritarian fascist republican Pence revels in his near murder and martyrdom at the hands of killer Trump:
https://alphahistory.com/frenchrevolution/execution-of-danton-1794/
America is in grave, mortal danger.
These genocidal scum will kill.
I wonder if Pence will demand his wife be in the room as he and the Trump subhumans murders their enemies … to maintain his smug fake virtue.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/mike-pence-vote-suppression-trump-riot-authoritarianism.html
Like Danton giving a thumbs-up to Robespierre as the former kneeled beneath the blade honed by the latter, fake Christian authoritarian fascist republican Pence revels in his near murder and martyrdom at the hands of killer Trump:
https://alphahistory.com/frenchrevolution/execution-of-danton-1794/
America is in grave, mortal danger.
These genocidal scum will kill.
I wonder if Pence will demand his wife be in the room as he and the Trump subhumans murders their enemies … to maintain his smug fake virtue.
McKTex has a point about MLDs, in that countries which describe themselves as Liberal Democracies avoid some of the worst crimes committed by countries which call themselves Marxist or Socialist.
But that renders extraordinary his election of the USA as the shining example of an MLD. In the USA the very word “liberal” can be pejorative. And the USA explicitly disavows democracy, allowing politicians to draw electoral boundaries, or close polling stations to their advantage. Consistent with not being an MLD, less than twenty years ago it adopted torture as government policy.
His fêting of the USA makes more sense when one reads his list of four properties of ‘MWLD’s*. Being liberal and a democracy are not required. Instead, the most important requirement is:
1. Free market capitalism cabined by a focused and balanced statutory and regulatory regime
Like Western Civilization in Gandhi’s eyes, free-market capitalism might be a good idea. But it doesn’t exist in the USA, or in any MLD. The USA is rightly seen as a land of opportunity, but on a large scale it and the MLDs operate a system of crony capitalism, in which the government feeds the rich with monopolies, bestowed in the name of IP rights, subsidies, and government contracts.
*One wonders which countries the ‘W’ is intended to exclude.
McKTex has a point about MLDs, in that countries which describe themselves as Liberal Democracies avoid some of the worst crimes committed by countries which call themselves Marxist or Socialist.
But that renders extraordinary his election of the USA as the shining example of an MLD. In the USA the very word “liberal” can be pejorative. And the USA explicitly disavows democracy, allowing politicians to draw electoral boundaries, or close polling stations to their advantage. Consistent with not being an MLD, less than twenty years ago it adopted torture as government policy.
His fêting of the USA makes more sense when one reads his list of four properties of ‘MWLD’s*. Being liberal and a democracy are not required. Instead, the most important requirement is:
1. Free market capitalism cabined by a focused and balanced statutory and regulatory regime
Like Western Civilization in Gandhi’s eyes, free-market capitalism might be a good idea. But it doesn’t exist in the USA, or in any MLD. The USA is rightly seen as a land of opportunity, but on a large scale it and the MLDs operate a system of crony capitalism, in which the government feeds the rich with monopolies, bestowed in the name of IP rights, subsidies, and government contracts.
*One wonders which countries the ‘W’ is intended to exclude.
cancel the GOP.
https://twitter.com/mattmfm/status/1367470576256897031
cancel the GOP.
https://twitter.com/mattmfm/status/1367470576256897031
and drop Greg Abbott down a well
https://twitter.com/UltimatePyroJ/status/1367534699774685185
and drop Greg Abbott down a well
https://twitter.com/UltimatePyroJ/status/1367534699774685185
Found this post on LinkedIn. Reproducing it in full here as well.
I see the occasional comment to the effect that, if you don’t like the wages at Walmart (for example), don’t work there. But that assumes that an alternative employer, e.g. Costco, is actually available locally. Sometimes, that might be true. But in general…?
Found this post on LinkedIn. Reproducing it in full here as well.
I see the occasional comment to the effect that, if you don’t like the wages at Walmart (for example), don’t work there. But that assumes that an alternative employer, e.g. Costco, is actually available locally. Sometimes, that might be true. But in general…?
Comparing Costco and Walmart is comparing apples and not so apples.
Comparing Costco and Walmart is comparing apples and not so apples.
Yes, but in America, Wal Mart workers are free to sell their bodies to Costco workers while, of course, observing the religious accounting insensibilities of Hobby Lobby management and trying not to limp where Amazon management’s stopwatches can see them.
Yes, but in America, Wal Mart workers are free to sell their bodies to Costco workers while, of course, observing the religious accounting insensibilities of Hobby Lobby management and trying not to limp where Amazon management’s stopwatches can see them.
Costco 275000 employee
Walmart 2.2 million employees
If you raised the avg pay per employee for wmt by $5 an hour that would 11 million dollars an hour, or, if you assume 20 hours per week per employee over 50 weeks, about 11 billion dollars per year. Walmart profit in 2020 was 14 billion.
That just gets the average to $15.If you make the minimum $15 they lose money.
Costco is a membership based bulk distributor, Walmart is a brick and mortar retailer competing with essentially everyone. It is an inaccurate comparison.
Costco 275000 employee
Walmart 2.2 million employees
If you raised the avg pay per employee for wmt by $5 an hour that would 11 million dollars an hour, or, if you assume 20 hours per week per employee over 50 weeks, about 11 billion dollars per year. Walmart profit in 2020 was 14 billion.
That just gets the average to $15.If you make the minimum $15 they lose money.
Costco is a membership based bulk distributor, Walmart is a brick and mortar retailer competing with essentially everyone. It is an inaccurate comparison.
Every day low prices leads to every day low wages and full Medicaid and food stamp rolls, which is what we are prepared to do to keep Wal Mart workers from selling their bodies in Bangladesh, when there is a ready market right here.
Every day low prices leads to every day low wages and full Medicaid and food stamp rolls, which is what we are prepared to do to keep Wal Mart workers from selling their bodies in Bangladesh, when there is a ready market right here.
Employees on food stamps (subsidized by you)
Or government subsidized by Walmart. Without their Walmart jobs, they would be making even greater demands on the government.
Employees on food stamps (subsidized by you)
Or government subsidized by Walmart. Without their Walmart jobs, they would be making even greater demands on the government.
Manufacturing and retail robots kitted out with all of the advanced sex robot features are going to close off lots of employment opportunities and their down market alternatives as well.
Manufacturing and retail robots kitted out with all of the advanced sex robot features are going to close off lots of employment opportunities and their down market alternatives as well.
Thanks, wj.
There’s also the comparison of McDonald’s workers in in the US vs Denmark, the latter being unionized, making 20$+ per hour and having 5 weeks paid holidays.
Thanks, wj.
There’s also the comparison of McDonald’s workers in in the US vs Denmark, the latter being unionized, making 20$+ per hour and having 5 weeks paid holidays.
But clearly, if the same wages were paid in the US, McDonald’s would be unprofitable and have to close down. Clearly.
But clearly, if the same wages were paid in the US, McDonald’s would be unprofitable and have to close down. Clearly.
Higher prices and fewer stores.
Higher prices and fewer stores.
handwaving and superstition
handwaving and superstition
Higher prices and fewer stores.
Thus making food with actual nutritional value more price competitive. Tragic.
Higher prices and fewer stores.
Thus making food with actual nutritional value more price competitive. Tragic.
Fewer jobs and higher food prices in low-income areas. Tragic.
Fewer jobs and higher food prices in low-income areas. Tragic.
wj:
Marty:
Something isn’t adding up here.
wj:
Marty:
Something isn’t adding up here.
Walmart and Costco have different business models. Walmart hires 10s of thousands of employees to stock thousands of miles of shelves. Something Costco’s business requires on a very much smaller scale.
Walmart and Costco have different business models. Walmart hires 10s of thousands of employees to stock thousands of miles of shelves. Something Costco’s business requires on a very much smaller scale.
Walmart hires twice as many employees as they need to stock the store so that they can keep them at less than half time so that they don’t need to pay for benefits.
Is that the business model that you mean?
Walmart hires twice as many employees as they need to stock the store so that they can keep them at less than half time so that they don’t need to pay for benefits.
Is that the business model that you mean?
If you have been to both Walmart and Costco stores, it’s easy to see that Costco uses fewer, higher-skilled employees. Should Walmart convert to Costco’s model and fire a million or so employees?
If you have been to both Walmart and Costco stores, it’s easy to see that Costco uses fewer, higher-skilled employees. Should Walmart convert to Costco’s model and fire a million or so employees?
Fewer jobs and higher food prices in low-income areas. Tragic.
average McD’s cashier in the US makes $16.27/hr.
Fewer jobs and higher food prices in low-income areas. Tragic.
average McD’s cashier in the US makes $16.27/hr.
“Higher skilled” = better trained and given opportunities to professionalize.
Most of the people I worked with at Walmart had worked at other stores where they had greater responsibilities. They weren’t being paid less because they were less skilled, they were being underutilized and underscheduled to lower payroll.
“Higher skilled” = better trained and given opportunities to professionalize.
Most of the people I worked with at Walmart had worked at other stores where they had greater responsibilities. They weren’t being paid less because they were less skilled, they were being underutilized and underscheduled to lower payroll.
Sounds like it would be good if walmart was replaced by 8 or so costco equivalents
Sounds like it would be good if walmart was replaced by 8 or so costco equivalents
It’s kind of shocking to me that business models based on paying people so little that they have to go on public relief are seen as something that is, remotely, acceptable.
It’s kind of shocking to me that business models based on paying people so little that they have to go on public relief are seen as something that is, remotely, acceptable.
business models based on paying people so little that they have to go on public relief
It’s not seen as “remotely acceptable.” It’s seen as positively virtuous. Tempered only by the detail that any and all public relief is seem, by the same people, as intrinsically evil.
business models based on paying people so little that they have to go on public relief
It’s not seen as “remotely acceptable.” It’s seen as positively virtuous. Tempered only by the detail that any and all public relief is seem, by the same people, as intrinsically evil.
Fewer jobs and higher food prices in low-income areas. Tragic.
1. offered absent any academic research to substantiate the claim.
2. assumes prices cannot be raised (we raised the min wage significantly in Seattle, and I still have to wait in line at Burger King).
3. assumes jobs at mcD’s are socially useful (noted by somebody above).
4. Assumes jobs elsewhere cannot be created and thus might be tipping over into ‘lump of labor fallacy’ (which see) territory.
If resources (teen labor) are idle, there are ways to put them to use. This is only a secret to those unashamedly pushing an ideological agenda.
Fewer jobs and higher food prices in low-income areas. Tragic.
1. offered absent any academic research to substantiate the claim.
2. assumes prices cannot be raised (we raised the min wage significantly in Seattle, and I still have to wait in line at Burger King).
3. assumes jobs at mcD’s are socially useful (noted by somebody above).
4. Assumes jobs elsewhere cannot be created and thus might be tipping over into ‘lump of labor fallacy’ (which see) territory.
If resources (teen labor) are idle, there are ways to put them to use. This is only a secret to those unashamedly pushing an ideological agenda.
Should Walmart convert to Costco’s model and fire a million or so employees?
Walmart’s margins have been declining for a decade. Maybe they should consider it, no? 🙂
As for those thousands of employees, looks like a good number of them have been moved over to Amazon warehouses to be fully utilized under sweatshop conditions.
ONE BIG UNION! ONE BIG STRIKE!
Should Walmart convert to Costco’s model and fire a million or so employees?
Walmart’s margins have been declining for a decade. Maybe they should consider it, no? 🙂
As for those thousands of employees, looks like a good number of them have been moved over to Amazon warehouses to be fully utilized under sweatshop conditions.
ONE BIG UNION! ONE BIG STRIKE!
We were just talking about the Amazon anti-union activities in our union grievance committee meeting. Amazon is one huge Unfair Labor Practice at the moment.
Nothing like using Alexa to spy on labor, eh?
https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dp3yn/amazon-leaked-reports-expose-spying-warehouse-workers-labor-union-environmental-groups-social-movements
We were just talking about the Amazon anti-union activities in our union grievance committee meeting. Amazon is one huge Unfair Labor Practice at the moment.
Nothing like using Alexa to spy on labor, eh?
https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dp3yn/amazon-leaked-reports-expose-spying-warehouse-workers-labor-union-environmental-groups-social-movements
1. offered absent any academic research to substantiate the claim.
OK.
” • The overwhelming majority of papers analyzing the U.S. estimate a negative effect on employment [i.e., fewer jobs or hours] of minimum wage hikes (79.3 percent of them). In fact, more than half of all papers have a negative impact that is statistically significant at the 10 percent level or more.
• The negative impact is stronger for teens, young adults, and less-educated workers, and especially strong for directly affected workers (those who see their wage rate increase automatically through the policy).
• There is no evidence of these impacts becoming less negative in studies from more recent years.
…
Where this results in higher prices of basic necessities (food, clothing, etc.), low‐wage workers—i.e., the very people minimum wages are intended to help—are disproportionately harmed. For example, one recent study found that McDonald’s restaurants passed on (through higher food prices) almost 100 percent of higher minimum wages, thus reducing workers’ “real” wage gains once the higher cost of living is considered.”
Let’s Talk About a $15 Minimum Wage: As Thomas Sowell has said, ‘There are no solutions, there are only tradeoffs.’
1. offered absent any academic research to substantiate the claim.
OK.
” • The overwhelming majority of papers analyzing the U.S. estimate a negative effect on employment [i.e., fewer jobs or hours] of minimum wage hikes (79.3 percent of them). In fact, more than half of all papers have a negative impact that is statistically significant at the 10 percent level or more.
• The negative impact is stronger for teens, young adults, and less-educated workers, and especially strong for directly affected workers (those who see their wage rate increase automatically through the policy).
• There is no evidence of these impacts becoming less negative in studies from more recent years.
…
Where this results in higher prices of basic necessities (food, clothing, etc.), low‐wage workers—i.e., the very people minimum wages are intended to help—are disproportionately harmed. For example, one recent study found that McDonald’s restaurants passed on (through higher food prices) almost 100 percent of higher minimum wages, thus reducing workers’ “real” wage gains once the higher cost of living is considered.”
Let’s Talk About a $15 Minimum Wage: As Thomas Sowell has said, ‘There are no solutions, there are only tradeoffs.’
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/3/4/2019369/-After-recklessly-lifting-restrictions-Texas-governor-falsely-calls-asylum-seekers-COVID-risk
As with other wheelchair-bound villains doing EVIL … Dr. Strangelove, Mr. Potter, Hector Salamanca*, any number of Mafia killers suddenly gone lame and incontinent the week before their court appearances come to mind, the racist genocidal republican Abbott of Texas takes the cake down to the cake deconstruction yard after licking the icing off with his forked tongue.
No doubt, the Biden invasion of dark immigrants also have solar panels strapped to their backs and wind-power propellers attached to the top of their sombreros and turbans and Mao caps to subvert the gridless Texas energy grid.
No doubt, Abbott’s erstwhile second in command will issue an “addendumb” that bar flies in Texas each take a nursing home resident to crowded, unventilated bars for two-for-one Covid Tuesdays, and then rush them off to church to spread the contagion among the “we’re saved and you are not” crowd.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilCripple
*Kudos to Salamanca, however, for finding redemption with violence against a greater evil.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB82rvwACJk
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/3/4/2019369/-After-recklessly-lifting-restrictions-Texas-governor-falsely-calls-asylum-seekers-COVID-risk
As with other wheelchair-bound villains doing EVIL … Dr. Strangelove, Mr. Potter, Hector Salamanca*, any number of Mafia killers suddenly gone lame and incontinent the week before their court appearances come to mind, the racist genocidal republican Abbott of Texas takes the cake down to the cake deconstruction yard after licking the icing off with his forked tongue.
No doubt, the Biden invasion of dark immigrants also have solar panels strapped to their backs and wind-power propellers attached to the top of their sombreros and turbans and Mao caps to subvert the gridless Texas energy grid.
No doubt, Abbott’s erstwhile second in command will issue an “addendumb” that bar flies in Texas each take a nursing home resident to crowded, unventilated bars for two-for-one Covid Tuesdays, and then rush them off to church to spread the contagion among the “we’re saved and you are not” crowd.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilCripple
*Kudos to Salamanca, however, for finding redemption with violence against a greater evil.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB82rvwACJk
Hsh, your right. I misread. So wmt could get to $15 minimum for only a few billion.
Hsh, your right. I misread. So wmt could get to $15 minimum for only a few billion.
“Thus making food with actual nutritional value more price competitive. Tragic.”
This is pretty elitist.
“Thus making food with actual nutritional value more price competitive. Tragic.”
This is pretty elitist.
“As Thomas Sowell has said, ‘There are no solutions, there are only tradeoffs.’”
Sowell’s books cost too much. If he sold them by weight, maybe they could be considered a bargain.
As it is, Atlas Shrugged already serves as my doorstop.
Since 2006, McDonald’s has increased its annual stock dividends by over 500% and reduced its share count via buybacks and such by over 33%. It’s share price is up some many hundreds of percent as well.
Any shortfall in their employees’ real wages vis a vis the rising cost of a Big Mac with fries can be well made up by McDonald’s investors eating where they sh*t for a change.
What are the tradeoffs Sowell would like to put on the fucking table, or is his tradeoff that he is going to stop eating at the restaurant out of some ideological grudge that the person handing him his meal might be living too fucking large?
I make much of my commie shocialist living as an investor in the stock market.
Too much.
“As Thomas Sowell has said, ‘There are no solutions, there are only tradeoffs.’”
Sowell’s books cost too much. If he sold them by weight, maybe they could be considered a bargain.
As it is, Atlas Shrugged already serves as my doorstop.
Since 2006, McDonald’s has increased its annual stock dividends by over 500% and reduced its share count via buybacks and such by over 33%. It’s share price is up some many hundreds of percent as well.
Any shortfall in their employees’ real wages vis a vis the rising cost of a Big Mac with fries can be well made up by McDonald’s investors eating where they sh*t for a change.
What are the tradeoffs Sowell would like to put on the fucking table, or is his tradeoff that he is going to stop eating at the restaurant out of some ideological grudge that the person handing him his meal might be living too fucking large?
I make much of my commie shocialist living as an investor in the stock market.
Too much.
“This is pretty elitist.”
Hey, pork belly and associated pork fat accoutrements are on every upscale restaurant’s menu on both elitist coasts.
Like beets … and grits.
Since Cambodia and Pol Pot’s Kymer Rouge were dragged into the conversation a few days ago, let me remind haters of the elites and the credentialed in America that all individuals who wore eyeglasses in Cambodia, intellectuals, university professors and students, former government employees and their students, journalists, and the merely myopic minions were slaughtered and buried in mass graves, their eyeware gathered in huge middens to rid the country of “elites”.
That enemies list sounds nearly identical to the enemies list frequently cited by a group of killers whose organizational title rhymes with CPAC.
I notice hardly any of those evil ones last week wore eyeglasses as they squinted at their high toned dinner chits.
“This is pretty elitist.”
Hey, pork belly and associated pork fat accoutrements are on every upscale restaurant’s menu on both elitist coasts.
Like beets … and grits.
Since Cambodia and Pol Pot’s Kymer Rouge were dragged into the conversation a few days ago, let me remind haters of the elites and the credentialed in America that all individuals who wore eyeglasses in Cambodia, intellectuals, university professors and students, former government employees and their students, journalists, and the merely myopic minions were slaughtered and buried in mass graves, their eyeware gathered in huge middens to rid the country of “elites”.
That enemies list sounds nearly identical to the enemies list frequently cited by a group of killers whose organizational title rhymes with CPAC.
I notice hardly any of those evil ones last week wore eyeglasses as they squinted at their high toned dinner chits.
“Thus making food with actual nutritional value more price competitive. Tragic.”
This is pretty elitist.
It’s elitist to think it would be good if people generally had food that provided something beyond raw calories? Somehow it seems more elitist to say that the workers don’t need anything beyond calories which will allow them to be semi-healthy enough to work. (With sufficient opioids, of course.)
“Thus making food with actual nutritional value more price competitive. Tragic.”
This is pretty elitist.
It’s elitist to think it would be good if people generally had food that provided something beyond raw calories? Somehow it seems more elitist to say that the workers don’t need anything beyond calories which will allow them to be semi-healthy enough to work. (With sufficient opioids, of course.)
Colon cancer is a heartland value.
Colon cancer is a heartland value.
all individuals who wore eyeglasses in Cambodia
First good argument I’ve seen for contact lenses. 😉
all individuals who wore eyeglasses in Cambodia
First good argument I’ve seen for contact lenses. 😉
The overwhelming majority of papers….
LOL. That claim is so much bullpoopy.
Thomas Sowell is a pathological liar.
You can do better.
The overwhelming majority of papers….
LOL. That claim is so much bullpoopy.
Thomas Sowell is a pathological liar.
You can do better.
From the conclusion of the paper cited by charles above:
“Strong price pass-through is consistent with our finding of no effect of higher labor costs due to minimum wages on restaurant closures and with the evidence that higher minimum wages do not speed up the introduction of labor-saving technology. We cannot reject non-zero employment elasticities, but our McDonald’s evidence, based on highly consistent comparisons across time and space, is in line with the growing literature suggesting that recent minimum wage increases did not affect employment in the non-tradable sector, including restaurants and retail, a sector that employs the majority of minimum wage workers in the US.”
In plain english, the wage increase (if any) is passed on to customers.
Cry me a river, Tommy Sowell.
From the conclusion of the paper cited by charles above:
“Strong price pass-through is consistent with our finding of no effect of higher labor costs due to minimum wages on restaurant closures and with the evidence that higher minimum wages do not speed up the introduction of labor-saving technology. We cannot reject non-zero employment elasticities, but our McDonald’s evidence, based on highly consistent comparisons across time and space, is in line with the growing literature suggesting that recent minimum wage increases did not affect employment in the non-tradable sector, including restaurants and retail, a sector that employs the majority of minimum wage workers in the US.”
In plain english, the wage increase (if any) is passed on to customers.
Cry me a river, Tommy Sowell.
Let’s raise the price of all food so those poor people can starve not being able to afford Whole Foods OR McDonald’s.
Just so we are clear on the elitist comment, raising food prices doesn’t make poor people healthier, just hungrier. There is no magic crossover where healthy food suddenly becomes economical.
Let’s raise the price of all food so those poor people can starve not being able to afford Whole Foods OR McDonald’s.
Just so we are clear on the elitist comment, raising food prices doesn’t make poor people healthier, just hungrier. There is no magic crossover where healthy food suddenly becomes economical.
Another summary of the research around the $15 minimum:
https://journalistsresource.org/economics/15-minimum-wage-research/
Which, unlike the Cato “study” doesn’t link primarily to other Cato op-eds, Bloomberg pieces, NY Mag, and substacks, but actually links to published and peer reviewed journal articles.
It also actually takes seriously and presents some of the dissenting voices.
Another summary of the research around the $15 minimum:
https://journalistsresource.org/economics/15-minimum-wage-research/
Which, unlike the Cato “study” doesn’t link primarily to other Cato op-eds, Bloomberg pieces, NY Mag, and substacks, but actually links to published and peer reviewed journal articles.
It also actually takes seriously and presents some of the dissenting voices.
Marty – is the assumption that you are making that if the low-wage workers’ wages double, that their food costs will also double, leaving them in the exact same circumstances? That seems to be the argument you are making.
If not, please qualify. If so, then please cite an example of where this has happened.
Marty – is the assumption that you are making that if the low-wage workers’ wages double, that their food costs will also double, leaving them in the exact same circumstances? That seems to be the argument you are making.
If not, please qualify. If so, then please cite an example of where this has happened.
It would seem that, even if food costs do double, other core living costs do not necessarily do the same. Am I wrong?
In that case, workers would still be better off. Just with food as a larger share of their total costs.
It would seem that, even if food costs do double, other core living costs do not necessarily do the same. Am I wrong?
In that case, workers would still be better off. Just with food as a larger share of their total costs.
I’m a little ticked off that CEOs, attorneys, doctors, and Wall Street types have caused so much food inflation every year in high-end restaurants with their annual wage increases.
And they don’t have to wear hair nets and dumb paper hats to boot.
Besides:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2528903/Mcdonalds-website-advises-staff-NOT-eat-fast-food.html
I’m a little ticked off that CEOs, attorneys, doctors, and Wall Street types have caused so much food inflation every year in high-end restaurants with their annual wage increases.
And they don’t have to wear hair nets and dumb paper hats to boot.
Besides:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2528903/Mcdonalds-website-advises-staff-NOT-eat-fast-food.html
It would seem that, even if food costs do double, other core living costs do not necessarily do the same. Am I wrong?
A blanket increase in the minimum wage can increase costs all the way up the supply chain causing a cumulative effect.
It would seem that, even if food costs do double, other core living costs do not necessarily do the same. Am I wrong?
A blanket increase in the minimum wage can increase costs all the way up the supply chain causing a cumulative effect.
A McDonalds meal is $5 or $6 bucks, depending on what sandwich you pick. For that money you can get the makings of a good meal, probably a couple of meals, at a grocery store.
Poor people don’t need McDonalds. They need access to decent food.
A McDonalds meal is $5 or $6 bucks, depending on what sandwich you pick. For that money you can get the makings of a good meal, probably a couple of meals, at a grocery store.
Poor people don’t need McDonalds. They need access to decent food.
Trade-offs between “stockholder value” and worker compensation are verboten. Ask any Cato scholar.
Just for clarity, C-level executives are not “workers”. Their compensation can come out of stockholder value, no problem.
–TP
Trade-offs between “stockholder value” and worker compensation are verboten. Ask any Cato scholar.
Just for clarity, C-level executives are not “workers”. Their compensation can come out of stockholder value, no problem.
–TP
They need access to decent food.
You can lead a horse to water…
They need access to decent food.
You can lead a horse to water…
If we deregulate the price of water as desired, the horse will lead us away from water.
If we deregulate the price of water as desired, the horse will lead us away from water.
A blanket increase in the minimum wage can increase costs all the way up the supply chain causing a cumulative effect.
Sure. IF all, or at least most, of the supply chain is paying minimum wzge, and so will also see increased costs. But some living costs (housing comes to mind) do not.
A blanket increase in the minimum wage can increase costs all the way up the supply chain causing a cumulative effect.
Sure. IF all, or at least most, of the supply chain is paying minimum wzge, and so will also see increased costs. But some living costs (housing comes to mind) do not.
So if you could clear $15/hour after taxes, and had zero living expenses, after over 42 years of labor you could spend your accumulated savings for one Tom Brady rookie football card.
So if you could clear $15/hour after taxes, and had zero living expenses, after over 42 years of labor you could spend your accumulated savings for one Tom Brady rookie football card.
I will take no offense if anyone corrects my math.
I will take no offense if anyone corrects my math.
I will take no offense if anyone corrects my math.
Well, OK…but which year?
I will take no offense if anyone corrects my math.
Well, OK…but which year?
one Tom Brady rookie football card
Well, OK…but which year?
Am I missing the joke here?
one Tom Brady rookie football card
Well, OK…but which year?
Am I missing the joke here?
You can lead a horse to water…
Unless, of course, the water has been redlined, in which case the horse is SOL.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-choices-health/food-access/
Food access is a big problem for many low income families, and a lack of transportation compounds this difficulty.
You can lead a horse to water…
Unless, of course, the water has been redlined, in which case the horse is SOL.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-choices-health/food-access/
Food access is a big problem for many low income families, and a lack of transportation compounds this difficulty.
You can surround people with healthier food. But if they’re not willing and able to put in the additional time and effort preparing it. And like the taste, it’s not going to do them much good.
“But of course things didn’t work out that way. As many business owners in these neighborhoods and other food-desert skeptics have pointed out, the problem wasn’t that they simply hadn’t thought to offer more wholesome items. The problem was that these items just didn’t sell. You can lead human beings to Whole Foods, but you can’t make them buy organic kale there.
The USDA just admitted as much, with a new report on food deserts published in its magazine, Amber Waves. Highlights from the article note that proximity to supermarkets ‘has a limited impact on food choices’ and ‘household and neighborhood resources, education, and taste preferences may be more important determinants of food choice than store proximity.'”
Five Years and $500 Million Later, USDA Admits That ‘Food Deserts’ Don’t Matter: You can lead people to Whole Foods, but you can’t make them buy organic kale.
You can surround people with healthier food. But if they’re not willing and able to put in the additional time and effort preparing it. And like the taste, it’s not going to do them much good.
“But of course things didn’t work out that way. As many business owners in these neighborhoods and other food-desert skeptics have pointed out, the problem wasn’t that they simply hadn’t thought to offer more wholesome items. The problem was that these items just didn’t sell. You can lead human beings to Whole Foods, but you can’t make them buy organic kale there.
The USDA just admitted as much, with a new report on food deserts published in its magazine, Amber Waves. Highlights from the article note that proximity to supermarkets ‘has a limited impact on food choices’ and ‘household and neighborhood resources, education, and taste preferences may be more important determinants of food choice than store proximity.'”
Five Years and $500 Million Later, USDA Admits That ‘Food Deserts’ Don’t Matter: You can lead people to Whole Foods, but you can’t make them buy organic kale.
You can surround people with healthier food. But if they’re not willing and able to put in the additional time and effort preparing it.
You all make the claim that McD’s has to pay it’s people the lowest possible wages, otherwise their product will cost more. That’s arguable, see also John Schnatter’s adventures in costing out health insurance coverage for all of his employees. But let’s assume your claim is correct for now.
wj observes that an increase in the cost of McD’s would make healthier alternatives seem less expensive in comparison.
Marty says that sounds elitist.
I point out that McD’s is actually not that cheap for what you get, and that the same $$$ will get you better food at the grocery store. Assuming there is a grocery store available, where by ‘grocery store’ we mean a place that primarily sells unprepared food to take home and cook.
You observe that some folks can’t be arsed to cook.
So the argument now appears to be: McD’s can’t be expected to pay their people better because then their food would cost more and that would put it out of reach of people who are poor but who can’t be bothered to cook.
Do I have it right?
What’s weird in all of this, to me, is that wj’s comment is ‘elitist’, but the idea that poor people are just too lazy to make their own dinner is not.
You can surround people with healthier food. But if they’re not willing and able to put in the additional time and effort preparing it.
You all make the claim that McD’s has to pay it’s people the lowest possible wages, otherwise their product will cost more. That’s arguable, see also John Schnatter’s adventures in costing out health insurance coverage for all of his employees. But let’s assume your claim is correct for now.
wj observes that an increase in the cost of McD’s would make healthier alternatives seem less expensive in comparison.
Marty says that sounds elitist.
I point out that McD’s is actually not that cheap for what you get, and that the same $$$ will get you better food at the grocery store. Assuming there is a grocery store available, where by ‘grocery store’ we mean a place that primarily sells unprepared food to take home and cook.
You observe that some folks can’t be arsed to cook.
So the argument now appears to be: McD’s can’t be expected to pay their people better because then their food would cost more and that would put it out of reach of people who are poor but who can’t be bothered to cook.
Do I have it right?
What’s weird in all of this, to me, is that wj’s comment is ‘elitist’, but the idea that poor people are just too lazy to make their own dinner is not.
‘household and neighborhood resources, education, and taste preferences may be more important determinants of food choice than store proximity.'”
so, if you are raised in a culture of non-cooking, you won’t cook yourself. sounds like a cycle that isn’t worth maintaining. maybe, if the *handwaving and superstitions* are right, having less fast food around wouldn’t be the worst thing?
‘household and neighborhood resources, education, and taste preferences may be more important determinants of food choice than store proximity.'”
so, if you are raised in a culture of non-cooking, you won’t cook yourself. sounds like a cycle that isn’t worth maintaining. maybe, if the *handwaving and superstitions* are right, having less fast food around wouldn’t be the worst thing?
We sort of got focused on McD, and yes fast food for a Mom or Dad working two jobs may not always be cheaper, but it is often what you have time for between $7 an hour jobs.
Because it .I got have gotten missed, my original comment was meant to point out that comparing Costco and. WMT doesn’t make much sense. I wwwill also add that I think $15 an hour doesn’t make Walmart go out of business, but it does have a big cost that has to be paid by what,IMO, are the people least able to pay. Although, making more would help wmt workers, there are lots of working poor making $15 that would just get the cost increase. On lots of stuff, not just food.
So there is a trade off that isn’t clear in terms of the net gain.
We sort of got focused on McD, and yes fast food for a Mom or Dad working two jobs may not always be cheaper, but it is often what you have time for between $7 an hour jobs.
Because it .I got have gotten missed, my original comment was meant to point out that comparing Costco and. WMT doesn’t make much sense. I wwwill also add that I think $15 an hour doesn’t make Walmart go out of business, but it does have a big cost that has to be paid by what,IMO, are the people least able to pay. Although, making more would help wmt workers, there are lots of working poor making $15 that would just get the cost increase. On lots of stuff, not just food.
So there is a trade off that isn’t clear in terms of the net gain.
oh look, a Trump-appointed State Dept aide and Trump campaign employee was one of the seditious scumbags. man, that antifa has some deep cover.
oh look, a Trump-appointed State Dept aide and Trump campaign employee was one of the seditious scumbags. man, that antifa has some deep cover.
What’s weird in all of this, to me, is that wj’s comment is ‘elitist’, but the idea that poor people are just too lazy to make their own dinner is not.
“elite” simply means “disagrees with Republicanism”. as does “socialist”, “terrorist” and “scientist”.
What’s weird in all of this, to me, is that wj’s comment is ‘elitist’, but the idea that poor people are just too lazy to make their own dinner is not.
“elite” simply means “disagrees with Republicanism”. as does “socialist”, “terrorist” and “scientist”.
Walmart workers’ food costs would decline by 50% if they took a 50% wage cut for the good of the company and the shareholders.
Squeeze the workers of their hundreds of suppliers too.
My invested money works for me. My money breaks its back for me. It skips lunch for me. It doesn’t demand health insurance and gummint handouts.
If it did, I’d get rid of it and it can go out and start walking the streets.
I’m fucking sick and tired of working people of getting in the way of my financial returns.
What we need in this country is some real leadership with spine, like Brazil’s, so we can get to the violent part the sooner the better:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/bolsonaro-tells-people-to-stop-whining-after-brazils-worst-day-of-coronavirus-deaths
“a Trump-appointed State Dept aide and Trump campaign employee”
But, your Honor, Nancy Pelosi’s head struck and assaulted my bullets from across a crowded room. AOC was a hockey puck coming right at my hockey stick.
Execute the Trumper. Then start in on the Proud vermin and the Oaf Keepers.
Walmart workers’ food costs would decline by 50% if they took a 50% wage cut for the good of the company and the shareholders.
Squeeze the workers of their hundreds of suppliers too.
My invested money works for me. My money breaks its back for me. It skips lunch for me. It doesn’t demand health insurance and gummint handouts.
If it did, I’d get rid of it and it can go out and start walking the streets.
I’m fucking sick and tired of working people of getting in the way of my financial returns.
What we need in this country is some real leadership with spine, like Brazil’s, so we can get to the violent part the sooner the better:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/bolsonaro-tells-people-to-stop-whining-after-brazils-worst-day-of-coronavirus-deaths
“a Trump-appointed State Dept aide and Trump campaign employee”
But, your Honor, Nancy Pelosi’s head struck and assaulted my bullets from across a crowded room. AOC was a hockey puck coming right at my hockey stick.
Execute the Trumper. Then start in on the Proud vermin and the Oaf Keepers.
I point out that McD’s is actually not that cheap for what you get, and that the same $$$ will get you better food at the grocery store.
True. I can eat pretty healthy 3-4 days on the cost of one McD’s order.
You observe that some folks can’t be arsed to cook.
With jobs and kids, a lot of people may feel too time-constrained to do much food preparation. Or, if they have the time, they may feel too tired. It would be easy to fall into a pattern of fast food and over-processed food that can be nuked.
so, if you are raised in a culture of non-cooking, you won’t cook yourself.
I suspect that in the past year, more than a few millennials have learned to do a bit of cooking.
I point out that McD’s is actually not that cheap for what you get, and that the same $$$ will get you better food at the grocery store.
True. I can eat pretty healthy 3-4 days on the cost of one McD’s order.
You observe that some folks can’t be arsed to cook.
With jobs and kids, a lot of people may feel too time-constrained to do much food preparation. Or, if they have the time, they may feel too tired. It would be easy to fall into a pattern of fast food and over-processed food that can be nuked.
so, if you are raised in a culture of non-cooking, you won’t cook yourself.
I suspect that in the past year, more than a few millennials have learned to do a bit of cooking.
it is often what you have time for between $7 an hour jobs.
no doubt.
here is a comparison of prices at Walmart and Costco.
The business models are different, the shopping experience is different. Costco is oriented toward selling products in bulk, so it might be hard to do your shopping there if you don’t have space to store stuff. A lot of Costco’s stuff is their store brand, which is generally OK but might not be your favorite.
So the two are not directly comparable, in some ways.
But Costco has found a way to sell basic household goods at prices that are competitive with Walmart, while paying their people better and providing an attractive set of benefits.
So, it looks like it’s possible to pay your people well without incurring a big cost that would have to be paid by the people least able to pay. Walmart just doesn’t choose to do it that way.
We need a reset. We need to stop accepting the idea that paying millions of people wages that are so low that those people have to seek public assistance to survive is an acceptable business model.
It’s not.
We’re not talking about a mom-and-pop place hiring a teenager to help out at peak times. Walmart is probably the biggest retail operation in the country.
If Walmart was required to pay $15/hour and that made it impossible for them to continue under their existing business model, they’d either have to change their business model or close the doors.
If they closed the doors, somebody else would take their place. Sam Walton’s truly valuable insight was that lots of places were underserved in terms of retail. That cat is now out of the bag, and if Walmart can’t fill that need without paying people peanuts, then I’m quite sure somebody else will figure out a way to do it.
That’s the beauty of the market. Right?
We need to stop accepting the idea that it’s fine to pay people less than what is necessary to live on.
Want to get rid of the welfare state? Pay people more. It is not rocket science.
it is often what you have time for between $7 an hour jobs.
no doubt.
here is a comparison of prices at Walmart and Costco.
The business models are different, the shopping experience is different. Costco is oriented toward selling products in bulk, so it might be hard to do your shopping there if you don’t have space to store stuff. A lot of Costco’s stuff is their store brand, which is generally OK but might not be your favorite.
So the two are not directly comparable, in some ways.
But Costco has found a way to sell basic household goods at prices that are competitive with Walmart, while paying their people better and providing an attractive set of benefits.
So, it looks like it’s possible to pay your people well without incurring a big cost that would have to be paid by the people least able to pay. Walmart just doesn’t choose to do it that way.
We need a reset. We need to stop accepting the idea that paying millions of people wages that are so low that those people have to seek public assistance to survive is an acceptable business model.
It’s not.
We’re not talking about a mom-and-pop place hiring a teenager to help out at peak times. Walmart is probably the biggest retail operation in the country.
If Walmart was required to pay $15/hour and that made it impossible for them to continue under their existing business model, they’d either have to change their business model or close the doors.
If they closed the doors, somebody else would take their place. Sam Walton’s truly valuable insight was that lots of places were underserved in terms of retail. That cat is now out of the bag, and if Walmart can’t fill that need without paying people peanuts, then I’m quite sure somebody else will figure out a way to do it.
That’s the beauty of the market. Right?
We need to stop accepting the idea that it’s fine to pay people less than what is necessary to live on.
Want to get rid of the welfare state? Pay people more. It is not rocket science.
With jobs and kids, a lot of people may feel too time-constrained to do much food preparation. Or, if they have the time, they may feel too tired.
I am absolutely sure that this is so.
Pay people more. Then maybe they only need one job. Maybe only one job for the whole household.
In all of the public discussion about anything touching on economics, the thing that never seems to be questioned is the idea that employers are entitled to pay the folks that work for them the smallest amount that they can possibly get away with.
Every other aspect of the common public and economic life of the nation is required to shift and adapt as needed to accommodate that apparently axiomatic proposition.
Let’s question that.
With jobs and kids, a lot of people may feel too time-constrained to do much food preparation. Or, if they have the time, they may feel too tired.
I am absolutely sure that this is so.
Pay people more. Then maybe they only need one job. Maybe only one job for the whole household.
In all of the public discussion about anything touching on economics, the thing that never seems to be questioned is the idea that employers are entitled to pay the folks that work for them the smallest amount that they can possibly get away with.
Every other aspect of the common public and economic life of the nation is required to shift and adapt as needed to accommodate that apparently axiomatic proposition.
Let’s question that.
Here we are again, arguing about how to apportion the leavings. I’m pretty sure the earth, even now, provides enough for everyone. And no, I don’t have any proof.
But millions, if not at this point billions, of people don’t have enough to live on because other people grab more than their share and wall the goodies off. Part of the entire point is to make sure there are other people they can lookdown on and sneer at. Dick-measuring contest? I suspect that’s an inadequate metaphor, ha ha. Who needs a dick that big, I ask you? But then who “needs” a fortune that big?
Here we are again, arguing about how to apportion the leavings. I’m pretty sure the earth, even now, provides enough for everyone. And no, I don’t have any proof.
But millions, if not at this point billions, of people don’t have enough to live on because other people grab more than their share and wall the goodies off. Part of the entire point is to make sure there are other people they can lookdown on and sneer at. Dick-measuring contest? I suspect that’s an inadequate metaphor, ha ha. Who needs a dick that big, I ask you? But then who “needs” a fortune that big?
“We need a reset. We need to stop accepting the idea that paying millions of people wages that are so low that those people have to seek public assistance to survive is an acceptable business model.”
We need more than that. We need the same people who don’t want to raise the minimum wage, and other folks’ wages as well, except their own, of course, in order to maintain the Walmart-type business model, to stop, as in shut their mouths, also trying to eradicate the welfare state and the safety net … and unions via their public policy ideologies.
And it would help if filthy republican conservatives stopped using the words “parasites” and “takers”, especially in a heavily armed society.
How dumb can you get?
Presumably, if the minimum wage was no longer a thing and Medicaid and Food Stamps were sharply curtailed, WalMart workers would have no choice but to quit their jobs and look for higher paying jobs, right?
Yeah, right. Cut that sentence after “no choice”.
Assume the position. I understand the key is to relax.
“Want to get rid of the welfare state?”
Well, Charles did say that Bangladesh has to be prepared to do something to keep their minors from resorting to trafficking their bodies if legal child labor is curtailed.
But I don’t think his heart was in it.
Best just to lock the fire doors from the outside on their places of employment and hope for the best.
Republicans … scum … want American school teachers to sell their bodies during the summer breaks too, instead of laying about dropping Costco grapes down their gullets while reclining on subsidized chaise lounges as they await vaccination.
“We need a reset. We need to stop accepting the idea that paying millions of people wages that are so low that those people have to seek public assistance to survive is an acceptable business model.”
We need more than that. We need the same people who don’t want to raise the minimum wage, and other folks’ wages as well, except their own, of course, in order to maintain the Walmart-type business model, to stop, as in shut their mouths, also trying to eradicate the welfare state and the safety net … and unions via their public policy ideologies.
And it would help if filthy republican conservatives stopped using the words “parasites” and “takers”, especially in a heavily armed society.
How dumb can you get?
Presumably, if the minimum wage was no longer a thing and Medicaid and Food Stamps were sharply curtailed, WalMart workers would have no choice but to quit their jobs and look for higher paying jobs, right?
Yeah, right. Cut that sentence after “no choice”.
Assume the position. I understand the key is to relax.
“Want to get rid of the welfare state?”
Well, Charles did say that Bangladesh has to be prepared to do something to keep their minors from resorting to trafficking their bodies if legal child labor is curtailed.
But I don’t think his heart was in it.
Best just to lock the fire doors from the outside on their places of employment and hope for the best.
Republicans … scum … want American school teachers to sell their bodies during the summer breaks too, instead of laying about dropping Costco grapes down their gullets while reclining on subsidized chaise lounges as they await vaccination.
Sam Walton’s truly valuable insight was that lots of places were underserved in terms of retail.
Sam Walton was a public benefactor? Seriously? I mean, I guess I believe you, but I’ve never heard that angle on it. And there’s this, which is the opposite effect:
Once a Walmart location opens, the lower prices, concentration, and selection of merchandise in its stores tend to draw consumers away from local retailers. With less foot traffic and declining sales, local retailers see their profits fall, forcing them to make cost-cutting decisions. Such strategies, however, may not be enough to keep such businesses open as Walmart continues to operate profitably while local retailers’ losses mount. In time, Walmart might choose to relocate its store to another location, but the impact of its initial arrival may continue to last well afterward.
Sam Walton’s truly valuable insight was that lots of places were underserved in terms of retail.
Sam Walton was a public benefactor? Seriously? I mean, I guess I believe you, but I’ve never heard that angle on it. And there’s this, which is the opposite effect:
Once a Walmart location opens, the lower prices, concentration, and selection of merchandise in its stores tend to draw consumers away from local retailers. With less foot traffic and declining sales, local retailers see their profits fall, forcing them to make cost-cutting decisions. Such strategies, however, may not be enough to keep such businesses open as Walmart continues to operate profitably while local retailers’ losses mount. In time, Walmart might choose to relocate its store to another location, but the impact of its initial arrival may continue to last well afterward.
Deep in the cold, black heart of Texas:
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/03/does-the-governor-know-who-killed-the-wal-mart-cashier
All those guns. For what?
Deep in the cold, black heart of Texas:
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/03/does-the-governor-know-who-killed-the-wal-mart-cashier
All those guns. For what?
That’s the beauty of the market. Right?
Except when it comes to wages apparently.
Want to get rid of the welfare state? Pay people more. It is not rocket science.
Or the government schools could get their act together and educate people to something close to their abilities.
Well, Charles did say that Bangladesh has to be prepared to do something to keep their minors from resorting to trafficking their bodies if legal child labor is curtailed.
We should let Bangladesh and other developing nations in on the secret. To obtain first-world living standards, mandate a $15 an hour minimum wage.
That’s the beauty of the market. Right?
Except when it comes to wages apparently.
Want to get rid of the welfare state? Pay people more. It is not rocket science.
Or the government schools could get their act together and educate people to something close to their abilities.
Well, Charles did say that Bangladesh has to be prepared to do something to keep their minors from resorting to trafficking their bodies if legal child labor is curtailed.
We should let Bangladesh and other developing nations in on the secret. To obtain first-world living standards, mandate a $15 an hour minimum wage.
Solely on the question of poor people who either don’t want to, or don’t know how to cook, and are therefore prey to unhealthy fast food, we have had a few years of discussion of that here. A couple of campaigners made some headway: Jamie Oliver with a series and campaign called Ministry of Food (he also campaigned and made a TV series about healthier school food) and a rather wonderful person called Jack Monroe, who for a desperately poverty-stricken time in the 2010s fed herself and her son on £10 per week, and wrote about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Monroe
She was resourceful, and knew a lot about food and how to cook, which was how she was able to do it (unlike the people Oliver met in his various campaigns – many of whom were completely ignorant about raw ingredients, and unable for example to say what a leek was when shown one). She’s also resolutely non-elitist about ingredients (which you have to be when cooking on such an incredibly tight budget), and even now that she is more financially secure she still writes cookbooks like Tin Can Cook showing how to make good food from (very) cheap ingredients. And when I say “good food”, I have read high-end food critics’ reviews of eating with her, which were extremely favourable. Her experience of poverty shows: she never underestimates e.g. the possibility that high energy prices might mean that lengthy cooking is out of the question.
What seems very clear is that, as with so many other urgent needs like Civics, education is the missing ingredient. People need to be taught how to cook (Jack Monroe comes from a Greek-Cypriot background, so her food awareness was probably quite different from English working class people), as well as how the democratic process works.
On Oliver’s Ministry of Food site
https://www.jamiesministryoffood.com/
In the “Evidence” section, it says:
COOKING SKILLS ARE A MAJOR PREDICTOR OF PEOPLE’S ABILITY TO MAKE HEALTHY FOOD CHOICES
Our Ministry of Food Programme has been the subject of extensive evaluations by Deakin University, the University of Leeds, and the University of Melbourne. These evaluations shows that the programme has significant positive effects on dietary behaviour, food choice and cooking confidence.
We can clearly demonstrate that the programme significantly increases participants’ cooking confidence in key skill areas.
The programme increases frequency of cooking at home from scratch and increases vegetable consumption by up to 1.4 portions a day. Research also shows a decrease in spend on takeaways by an average of £5 per week.
Other qualitative recorded outcomes include improvement in mental health, improved independence and confidence, improved social capacity and improved motivation to access employment.
Solely on the question of poor people who either don’t want to, or don’t know how to cook, and are therefore prey to unhealthy fast food, we have had a few years of discussion of that here. A couple of campaigners made some headway: Jamie Oliver with a series and campaign called Ministry of Food (he also campaigned and made a TV series about healthier school food) and a rather wonderful person called Jack Monroe, who for a desperately poverty-stricken time in the 2010s fed herself and her son on £10 per week, and wrote about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Monroe
She was resourceful, and knew a lot about food and how to cook, which was how she was able to do it (unlike the people Oliver met in his various campaigns – many of whom were completely ignorant about raw ingredients, and unable for example to say what a leek was when shown one). She’s also resolutely non-elitist about ingredients (which you have to be when cooking on such an incredibly tight budget), and even now that she is more financially secure she still writes cookbooks like Tin Can Cook showing how to make good food from (very) cheap ingredients. And when I say “good food”, I have read high-end food critics’ reviews of eating with her, which were extremely favourable. Her experience of poverty shows: she never underestimates e.g. the possibility that high energy prices might mean that lengthy cooking is out of the question.
What seems very clear is that, as with so many other urgent needs like Civics, education is the missing ingredient. People need to be taught how to cook (Jack Monroe comes from a Greek-Cypriot background, so her food awareness was probably quite different from English working class people), as well as how the democratic process works.
On Oliver’s Ministry of Food site
https://www.jamiesministryoffood.com/
In the “Evidence” section, it says:
COOKING SKILLS ARE A MAJOR PREDICTOR OF PEOPLE’S ABILITY TO MAKE HEALTHY FOOD CHOICES
Our Ministry of Food Programme has been the subject of extensive evaluations by Deakin University, the University of Leeds, and the University of Melbourne. These evaluations shows that the programme has significant positive effects on dietary behaviour, food choice and cooking confidence.
We can clearly demonstrate that the programme significantly increases participants’ cooking confidence in key skill areas.
The programme increases frequency of cooking at home from scratch and increases vegetable consumption by up to 1.4 portions a day. Research also shows a decrease in spend on takeaways by an average of £5 per week.
Other qualitative recorded outcomes include improvement in mental health, improved independence and confidence, improved social capacity and improved motivation to access employment.
“Cooking” is the human ur-skill, preceding stuff like ‘wheels’, agriculture, domesticating animals, probably knapping flint, and coinciding with “fire”.
I’ve known friends, one a lawyer, another a rather famous internet person, who had to be shown how to cook pasta; in their 40’s. I’m sure they’ve learned some since then, but still.
The way things are going now, I’m seriously considering learning how to knap flint.
“Cooking” is the human ur-skill, preceding stuff like ‘wheels’, agriculture, domesticating animals, probably knapping flint, and coinciding with “fire”.
I’ve known friends, one a lawyer, another a rather famous internet person, who had to be shown how to cook pasta; in their 40’s. I’m sure they’ve learned some since then, but still.
The way things are going now, I’m seriously considering learning how to knap flint.
Except when it comes to wages apparently.
What are the conditions for an efficient market?
Do they apply to the relationship between employers and employees? When do they, and when do they not?
Sam Walton was a public benefactor? Seriously?
I’m not sure I’d take it that far.
Sam Walton recognized an underserved market, and figured out a way to serve it. So, kudos for the entrepreneurial insight, but not so much for the business model.
It’s not the only possible model that could fill that niche. If paying people enough to live on without public assistance means Walmart can’t return enough to their owners to make it worth doing, then perhaps another business model is called for.
Except when it comes to wages apparently.
What are the conditions for an efficient market?
Do they apply to the relationship between employers and employees? When do they, and when do they not?
Sam Walton was a public benefactor? Seriously?
I’m not sure I’d take it that far.
Sam Walton recognized an underserved market, and figured out a way to serve it. So, kudos for the entrepreneurial insight, but not so much for the business model.
It’s not the only possible model that could fill that niche. If paying people enough to live on without public assistance means Walmart can’t return enough to their owners to make it worth doing, then perhaps another business model is called for.
“enough” — there’s our problem right there.
“enough” — there’s our problem right there.
“Cooking” is the human ur-skill, preceding stuff like ‘wheels’, agriculture, domesticating animals, probably knapping flint, and coinciding with “fire”.
Meaning it CAN be learned by pretty much anybody. Not that everybody can figure it out for themselves.
Once upon a time, high schools included something called Home Ec (Home Economics). Which taught stuff like that. It got dropped, I think, when educators decided they should focus exclusively on academics — that is, stuff you needed in order to get into college. Which was a mistake.**
Me, the most long-term valuable class I had in high school was something called General Business. (“General” being the least academic of the 3 tracks of classes we had.) Taught a bunch of stuff about business and finance (including personal finance) that never appeared elsewhere.
** Which is not to say that academics shouldn’t be available to everyone. Just that they aren’t appropriate for everyone.
“Cooking” is the human ur-skill, preceding stuff like ‘wheels’, agriculture, domesticating animals, probably knapping flint, and coinciding with “fire”.
Meaning it CAN be learned by pretty much anybody. Not that everybody can figure it out for themselves.
Once upon a time, high schools included something called Home Ec (Home Economics). Which taught stuff like that. It got dropped, I think, when educators decided they should focus exclusively on academics — that is, stuff you needed in order to get into college. Which was a mistake.**
Me, the most long-term valuable class I had in high school was something called General Business. (“General” being the least academic of the 3 tracks of classes we had.) Taught a bunch of stuff about business and finance (including personal finance) that never appeared elsewhere.
** Which is not to say that academics shouldn’t be available to everyone. Just that they aren’t appropriate for everyone.
People need to be taught how to cook (Jack Monroe comes from a Greek-Cypriot background, so her food awareness was probably quite different from English working class people), as well as how the democratic process works.
in New York state, kids all had to take ‘Home Economics’ in middle school. i learned to:
1. make blueberry pancakes from scratch
2. make an animal-shaped pillow from a pattern (mine was a shark)
two things i’ve never done since.
learning to cook was something i did on my own because i wanted to duplicate the flavors of the dishes my mother and her mother made.
People need to be taught how to cook (Jack Monroe comes from a Greek-Cypriot background, so her food awareness was probably quite different from English working class people), as well as how the democratic process works.
in New York state, kids all had to take ‘Home Economics’ in middle school. i learned to:
1. make blueberry pancakes from scratch
2. make an animal-shaped pillow from a pattern (mine was a shark)
two things i’ve never done since.
learning to cook was something i did on my own because i wanted to duplicate the flavors of the dishes my mother and her mother made.
LOL.
Learning to cook was something I did on my own because, at the time, I didn’t have much money, but I wanted to eat.
I can relate to the thing about having kids and jobs and responsibilities of all kinds and just not having the time or energy, and I also understand that people can get into patterns where basic self-care and life skill stuff like cooking are just not part of the package.
But the actual skill set of buying ingredients and making a palatable meal out of them is not that hard to acquire.
LOL.
Learning to cook was something I did on my own because, at the time, I didn’t have much money, but I wanted to eat.
I can relate to the thing about having kids and jobs and responsibilities of all kinds and just not having the time or energy, and I also understand that people can get into patterns where basic self-care and life skill stuff like cooking are just not part of the package.
But the actual skill set of buying ingredients and making a palatable meal out of them is not that hard to acquire.
@cleek — interesting that everyone had to take Home Ec. From the gender POV, I think that’s an advancement of sorts. When I as in high school, boys took shop and girls took home ec, but it wasn’t required either way. Was there a shop class at any level in your district? I took an adult ed shop class at the local high school here twenty years ago, so I know they have a pretty good shop up there.
I don’t think anyone ever tested what my small Catholic high school would do if someone had tried to take the “wrong” class (girl in shop, boy in home ec) — it was just unthinkable.
I skipped home ec because 1) the home ec teacher was my homeroom teacher and a shirttail relative, and I knew her all too well already; 2) anything she could have taught me I was already learning at home except sewing, which I was allergic to, even though, or maybe because, my mom was a very good seamstress. I look upon that attitude with some regret these days.
@cleek — interesting that everyone had to take Home Ec. From the gender POV, I think that’s an advancement of sorts. When I as in high school, boys took shop and girls took home ec, but it wasn’t required either way. Was there a shop class at any level in your district? I took an adult ed shop class at the local high school here twenty years ago, so I know they have a pretty good shop up there.
I don’t think anyone ever tested what my small Catholic high school would do if someone had tried to take the “wrong” class (girl in shop, boy in home ec) — it was just unthinkable.
I skipped home ec because 1) the home ec teacher was my homeroom teacher and a shirttail relative, and I knew her all too well already; 2) anything she could have taught me I was already learning at home except sewing, which I was allergic to, even though, or maybe because, my mom was a very good seamstress. I look upon that attitude with some regret these days.
Back to the original topic of Texas, here’s a fascinating look at the city of Round Rock. Which came thru the storm with no power outages and no boil water notices. How? Because a decade ago they took the decision to make sure they had the infrastructure in place: back up generators, training, etc. And were willing to spend the money to make it happen.
The article also talks about how all those people and companies moving to Texas are changing it. It keeps not going purple yet at the state level. But the local scene is changing already.
Back to the original topic of Texas, here’s a fascinating look at the city of Round Rock. Which came thru the storm with no power outages and no boil water notices. How? Because a decade ago they took the decision to make sure they had the infrastructure in place: back up generators, training, etc. And were willing to spend the money to make it happen.
The article also talks about how all those people and companies moving to Texas are changing it. It keeps not going purple yet at the state level. But the local scene is changing already.
But the actual skill set of buying ingredients and making a palatable meal out of them is not that hard to acquire.
My son started making two types of meals for himself at around the age of seven: boiled spaghetti with garlic butter was one; baked chicken with baked potatoes was the other. I’m pretty sure my memory is accurate on that, though from this vantage point I wonder if I wasn’t the one who poured the boiling water off the spaghetti for him.
This came about in part because he was a big eater, and I didn’t cook meals often enough for him. By the time he was nearing his teens he could polish off a pound (uncooked) of spaghetti as a sort of quick snack between proper meals.
He wasn’t big on vegies…which was a problem, but not a hard one to solve. Lots of vegies are as easy to boil briefly as spaghetti, and even easier to eat raw.
The point is, putting together a basic, decent meal isn’t all that hard. Some people aren’t used to seeing it done, and/or don’t do it — as Snarki’s story illustrates — but that doesn’t mean it isn’t pretty easy to learn.
But the actual skill set of buying ingredients and making a palatable meal out of them is not that hard to acquire.
My son started making two types of meals for himself at around the age of seven: boiled spaghetti with garlic butter was one; baked chicken with baked potatoes was the other. I’m pretty sure my memory is accurate on that, though from this vantage point I wonder if I wasn’t the one who poured the boiling water off the spaghetti for him.
This came about in part because he was a big eater, and I didn’t cook meals often enough for him. By the time he was nearing his teens he could polish off a pound (uncooked) of spaghetti as a sort of quick snack between proper meals.
He wasn’t big on vegies…which was a problem, but not a hard one to solve. Lots of vegies are as easy to boil briefly as spaghetti, and even easier to eat raw.
The point is, putting together a basic, decent meal isn’t all that hard. Some people aren’t used to seeing it done, and/or don’t do it — as Snarki’s story illustrates — but that doesn’t mean it isn’t pretty easy to learn.
Was there a shop class at any level in your district?
yeah. but that was in HS.
i learned how to fix a lamp – something i have done a few times!
i don’t know if HomeEc is still a requirement. it was like ~35 years ago when i had to take it.
could be, like wj said, phased out for more test prep.
Was there a shop class at any level in your district?
yeah. but that was in HS.
i learned how to fix a lamp – something i have done a few times!
i don’t know if HomeEc is still a requirement. it was like ~35 years ago when i had to take it.
could be, like wj said, phased out for more test prep.
In order to cook at home you also need to have working appliances, cookware, and a store with fresh ingredients close enough to make cooking feasible (which is challenging if one is working three part time gig jobs to make enough to pay for basics and for the benefits that you have to cover on your own.)
Urban areas have food deserts and cheap apartments often have only rudimentary kitchens.
Those things are also obstacles.
In order to cook at home you also need to have working appliances, cookware, and a store with fresh ingredients close enough to make cooking feasible (which is challenging if one is working three part time gig jobs to make enough to pay for basics and for the benefits that you have to cover on your own.)
Urban areas have food deserts and cheap apartments often have only rudimentary kitchens.
Those things are also obstacles.
Received my initial Moderna Covid-19 vaccination today.
Via Kaiser. Briskly efficient and a relief.
Second shot April 2.
One side effect is that I temporarily feel more bi-partisan and would like to announce that Governor Cuomo of New York must immediately step down from the Governorship and then jump headfirst off the Brooklyn Bridge.
Received my initial Moderna Covid-19 vaccination today.
Via Kaiser. Briskly efficient and a relief.
Second shot April 2.
One side effect is that I temporarily feel more bi-partisan and would like to announce that Governor Cuomo of New York must immediately step down from the Governorship and then jump headfirst off the Brooklyn Bridge.
Those things are also obstacles.
Here’s another: There is a subset of ideologues who claim that large swaths of the population want to be poor.
WalMart-industrial retailing + industrialized agriculture: The overlap of the venn diagram of true believers in “free enterprise” and rural types who lament the loss of the “small town way of life” is surprisingly large. Hard to believe, I know.
Those things are also obstacles.
Here’s another: There is a subset of ideologues who claim that large swaths of the population want to be poor.
WalMart-industrial retailing + industrialized agriculture: The overlap of the venn diagram of true believers in “free enterprise” and rural types who lament the loss of the “small town way of life” is surprisingly large. Hard to believe, I know.
The pillow I sewed was a skateboard. Boys and girls both took shop and home ec in my school in AZ in 7th and 8th grade. In HS in NJ, those were both purely elective and anyone could take them. For me, all that history started in 1980. I liked the cooking part of home ec because we got to eat. I already knew how to cook, though.
The pillow I sewed was a skateboard. Boys and girls both took shop and home ec in my school in AZ in 7th and 8th grade. In HS in NJ, those were both purely elective and anyone could take them. For me, all that history started in 1980. I liked the cooking part of home ec because we got to eat. I already knew how to cook, though.
Governor Cuomo of New York must immediately step down from the Governorship and then jump headfirst off the Brooklyn Bridge.
Y U want to pollute waterways???? That’s what landfills are for!
Governor Cuomo of New York must immediately step down from the Governorship and then jump headfirst off the Brooklyn Bridge.
Y U want to pollute waterways???? That’s what landfills are for!
In HS, it was just cooking AFAIK, rather than the full home ec, and there was a good mix of boys and girls – because food. There was metal and wood shop, which were de facto (almost?) entirely male, not by rule.
The only electives I recall taking in HS were typing, art, Latin, and computers. Don’t be impressed by Latin. It was a go-at-your-own pace class for people who didn’t need the credits.
In HS, it was just cooking AFAIK, rather than the full home ec, and there was a good mix of boys and girls – because food. There was metal and wood shop, which were de facto (almost?) entirely male, not by rule.
The only electives I recall taking in HS were typing, art, Latin, and computers. Don’t be impressed by Latin. It was a go-at-your-own pace class for people who didn’t need the credits.
yeah, turns out Cuomo sucks. oh well.
The overlap of the venn diagram of true believers in “free enterprise” and rural types who lament the loss of the “small town way of life” is surprisingly large.
Jesus and his invisible hand want ownership to consolidate in the hands of the very few. too many shopkeepers spoils the town. everyone who isn’t a commie knows that.
yeah, turns out Cuomo sucks. oh well.
The overlap of the venn diagram of true believers in “free enterprise” and rural types who lament the loss of the “small town way of life” is surprisingly large.
Jesus and his invisible hand want ownership to consolidate in the hands of the very few. too many shopkeepers spoils the town. everyone who isn’t a commie knows that.
yeah, turns out Cuomo sucks. oh well.
That Cuomo sucks has been the take amongst lefties for more than a few years. But maybe we just made a lucky guess.
yeah, turns out Cuomo sucks. oh well.
That Cuomo sucks has been the take amongst lefties for more than a few years. But maybe we just made a lucky guess.
i’m sure y’all predicted this current situation.
i’m sure y’all predicted this current situation.
It’s funny. I saw a headline a couple days ago from Faux News about Trevor Noah “changing his tune” (or something to that effect) on Cuomo. You either get criticized for not coming down hard enough on one of the people on “your side,” or you get criticized for changing your position. The only way to avoid such criticism is never to say anything good about a Democrat.
It’s funny. I saw a headline a couple days ago from Faux News about Trevor Noah “changing his tune” (or something to that effect) on Cuomo. You either get criticized for not coming down hard enough on one of the people on “your side,” or you get criticized for changing your position. The only way to avoid such criticism is never to say anything good about a Democrat.
The only way to avoid such criticism is never to say anything good about a Democrat.
opposition’s gotta oppose.
The only way to avoid such criticism is never to say anything good about a Democrat.
opposition’s gotta oppose.
Urban areas have food deserts and cheap apartments often have only rudimentary kitchens.
Those things are also obstacles.
Absolutely, but I think the former is a much bigger problem than the latter. The former is systemic and (as this discussion keeps hitting on) in some sense deliberately created, and it would require a massive set of systemic changes and the political will to remedy.
As for the latter, it’s possible to cook pretty well with only a rudimentary kitchen. (Depending, obviously, on what you mean by rudimentary.) I’ve cooked plain but decent meals with only a pot, a spoon, and a campstove, for weeks at a time. But even that relied on access once a week or so to an actual grocery store.
Urban areas have food deserts and cheap apartments often have only rudimentary kitchens.
Those things are also obstacles.
Absolutely, but I think the former is a much bigger problem than the latter. The former is systemic and (as this discussion keeps hitting on) in some sense deliberately created, and it would require a massive set of systemic changes and the political will to remedy.
As for the latter, it’s possible to cook pretty well with only a rudimentary kitchen. (Depending, obviously, on what you mean by rudimentary.) I’ve cooked plain but decent meals with only a pot, a spoon, and a campstove, for weeks at a time. But even that relied on access once a week or so to an actual grocery store.
one fun thing about cooking videos is seeing a lot of the Asian chefs do everything on a single induction burner – or sometimes on a single flame burner with a little butane tank attached – a camp stove, basically. that’s all they have in their apartments.
one fun thing about cooking videos is seeing a lot of the Asian chefs do everything on a single induction burner – or sometimes on a single flame burner with a little butane tank attached – a camp stove, basically. that’s all they have in their apartments.
one fun thing about cooking videos is seeing a lot of the Asian chefs do everything on a single induction burner – or sometimes on a single flame burner with a little butane tank attached – a camp stove, basically.
Best food ever is Chinese breakfast food cooked outside with one chef/one burner/long line. Yum.
That said, cooking is intimidating for a lot of people, and as JanieM said, ingredients are key. It’s easy for me to cook because I’ve done it all my adult (and teenage) life – it was an inherited habit, and nutritional consciousness is second nature. I’ve travelled a lot and love all kinds of food. I have no food allergies. I’ve never been without good sources of food, or money to buy food (except for maybe a very brief time in college, when my parents would have helped if I’d told them). In other words, I am supremely privileged. Some folks have little access, time to learn, or experience. It’s great that people are out there trying to change that.
one fun thing about cooking videos is seeing a lot of the Asian chefs do everything on a single induction burner – or sometimes on a single flame burner with a little butane tank attached – a camp stove, basically.
Best food ever is Chinese breakfast food cooked outside with one chef/one burner/long line. Yum.
That said, cooking is intimidating for a lot of people, and as JanieM said, ingredients are key. It’s easy for me to cook because I’ve done it all my adult (and teenage) life – it was an inherited habit, and nutritional consciousness is second nature. I’ve travelled a lot and love all kinds of food. I have no food allergies. I’ve never been without good sources of food, or money to buy food (except for maybe a very brief time in college, when my parents would have helped if I’d told them). In other words, I am supremely privileged. Some folks have little access, time to learn, or experience. It’s great that people are out there trying to change that.
Sorry – revision to previous comment: There’s no best food ever. Vietnamese breakfast of pho and other soups – maybe that’s best. Or maybe a good ole southern breakfast. Or Ukrainian borscht. Delicious food is a gift – so necessary, so various, so divine.
Sorry – revision to previous comment: There’s no best food ever. Vietnamese breakfast of pho and other soups – maybe that’s best. Or maybe a good ole southern breakfast. Or Ukrainian borscht. Delicious food is a gift – so necessary, so various, so divine.
If you want to talk about urban areas and food, take a look at what Ron Finley does
https://ronfinley.com/
https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/story/2020-07-10/gardening-with-gangsta-gardener-and-masterclass-teacher-ron-finley
I don’t know why people constantly return to this idea that there is one thing to do to fix things and feel vindication when they find that the one thing doesn’t solve the problem. It must be sad to live with such a cramped, narrow viewpoint of how the world works.
If you want to talk about urban areas and food, take a look at what Ron Finley does
https://ronfinley.com/
https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/story/2020-07-10/gardening-with-gangsta-gardener-and-masterclass-teacher-ron-finley
I don’t know why people constantly return to this idea that there is one thing to do to fix things and feel vindication when they find that the one thing doesn’t solve the problem. It must be sad to live with such a cramped, narrow viewpoint of how the world works.
Porridge* is the best non-leisurely breakfast, and one of the few things which cook perfectly well in a microwave.
*I used to work a few days a year on the East Coast. And the floor canteen served porridge, except that no one knew what I meant when I asked for it. Eventually I learned to say “oatmeal” instead.
Porridge* is the best non-leisurely breakfast, and one of the few things which cook perfectly well in a microwave.
*I used to work a few days a year on the East Coast. And the floor canteen served porridge, except that no one knew what I meant when I asked for it. Eventually I learned to say “oatmeal” instead.
@Pro Bono: Heh. For a lot of my life I thought “porridge” was some kind of thin soup, not cereal. I’m sure that was because I only ever encountered the word in books, and the books (Dickens, let’s say) assumed everyone knew what it meant. 🙂
And I, for my part, assumed I knew what it meant from context, and didn’t look it up. Which is weird, because I wore out a dictionary looking things up when I was twelve or so.
@Pro Bono: Heh. For a lot of my life I thought “porridge” was some kind of thin soup, not cereal. I’m sure that was because I only ever encountered the word in books, and the books (Dickens, let’s say) assumed everyone knew what it meant. 🙂
And I, for my part, assumed I knew what it meant from context, and didn’t look it up. Which is weird, because I wore out a dictionary looking things up when I was twelve or so.
And to compound the possible misunderstandings, most people don’t know that “gruel”, as referenced in almost all pre 19th or 20th century literature, is actually very, very runny porridge!
And to compound the possible misunderstandings, most people don’t know that “gruel”, as referenced in almost all pre 19th or 20th century literature, is actually very, very runny porridge!
The higher-priced spread goes on strike.
“Even at room temperature, some Canadians claim, their butter now won’t soften and spread. And, like a nation of Connor Roys, Canadians are waving their hands and dropping F-bombs as they attempt to get to the bottom of the problem, which they’ve dubbed “Buttergate.”
The first to point out the problem was Sylvain Charlebois, senior director of Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab, who tweeted about hard butter in December. Then, last month, popular Canadian food author and columnist Julie Van Rosendaal also suggested something is amiss with Canada’s butter. She speculated the country’s now unspreadably hard butter could be the result of tariff changes or changed farming practices.”
Hard Butter Mystery Riles Canada: Is it the cow feed? Dairy regulations? A mass delusion?
The higher-priced spread goes on strike.
“Even at room temperature, some Canadians claim, their butter now won’t soften and spread. And, like a nation of Connor Roys, Canadians are waving their hands and dropping F-bombs as they attempt to get to the bottom of the problem, which they’ve dubbed “Buttergate.”
The first to point out the problem was Sylvain Charlebois, senior director of Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab, who tweeted about hard butter in December. Then, last month, popular Canadian food author and columnist Julie Van Rosendaal also suggested something is amiss with Canada’s butter. She speculated the country’s now unspreadably hard butter could be the result of tariff changes or changed farming practices.”
Hard Butter Mystery Riles Canada: Is it the cow feed? Dairy regulations? A mass delusion?
You guys are lucky. Over here ‘porridge’ is known as “Haferschleim” (oat slime).
You guys are lucky. Over here ‘porridge’ is known as “Haferschleim” (oat slime).
To reduce the slime effect I bring the water to a boil before adding the oats.
To reduce the slime effect I bring the water to a boil before adding the oats.
I grew up on good old Quaker Oats, which are rolled if I’m not mistaken.
In adulthood, I discovered steel cut, specifically McCann’s, which were a revelation, an ‘aha’ moment.
You can’t be in a hurry, but if you have the time, it’s worth the wait.
I grew up on good old Quaker Oats, which are rolled if I’m not mistaken.
In adulthood, I discovered steel cut, specifically McCann’s, which were a revelation, an ‘aha’ moment.
You can’t be in a hurry, but if you have the time, it’s worth the wait.
Hard Butter Mystery Riles Canada: Is it the cow feed? Dairy regulations? A mass delusion?
Have they considered the possibility that it’s freaking cold in Canada?
Hard Butter Mystery Riles Canada: Is it the cow feed? Dairy regulations? A mass delusion?
Have they considered the possibility that it’s freaking cold in Canada?