fiddler

by Doctor Science

At Crooked Timber, John Holbo asked Should We Fight For ‘Social Justice’?

If someone tells me they need ‘social justice’ to mark some crucial distinction, I’m happy to entertain the possibility. Analytically, my complaint is that the term is vaguely redundant; redundancy never killed anyone dead. But why burden yourself with redundancy that seems mostly to provide Glenn Beck and co. with fodder for dismissals that are lazy even by their standards?

Much of the ensuing discussion got into details about Hayek, Rawls, etc. that are above (or something) my head.

But I was reminded of something I wrote in the comments of a discussion at ObiWi in June 2006:

My gut reaction to discussion of the “patterned view” of justice versus the “process view” is to go all Jewish-prophet-y and say, “Justice will come when you pay less attention to your damned stuff, and more to other people!”

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by Doctor Science

It turns out that Marty Peretz is pretty much a bigot

But, frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims. And among those Muslims led by the Imam Rauf there is hardly one who has raised a fuss about the routine and random bloodshed that defines their brotherhood. So, yes, I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse.

A lot of people are upset about it, but as far as I’m concerned it’s news like “Water, Continued Wet.”

Meanwhile, science fiction writer Elizabeth Moon thinks

Muslims fail to recognize how much forbearance they’ve had …I feel that I personally (and many others) lean over backwards to put up with these things, to let Muslims believe stuff that unfits them for citizenship, on the grounds of their personal freedom. It would be helpful to have them understand what they’re demanding of me and others–how much more they’re asking than giving.

This is, frankly, considerably more surprising and upsetting than Marty Peretz being a jerk (water, wet), for me and for a bunch of other people.

I hope that David Moles is right, and that Moon — who I would have described as a writer of great insight and sensitivity — is

only repeating what the media’s been telling her — what our climate of bigotry and willful ignorance has been telling her.

I had been planning to make a pre-Yom Kippur post about the Book of Jonah, which is read during the afternoon services, but I’ve changed my mind. A major part of the several services throughout the more-than-24-hours of Yom Kippur is spent listing and regretting sins, especially those that are collective (everything is in the plural, what *we* have done) and that are sins of speech: lies, gossip, deadly silence. To atone, we have to speak rightly; I will do some small part now.

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by Doctor Science

'Cause we love peace and motherhood.

As you may recall, in early August The Atlantic published an article by Jeffrey Goldberg about how Israel and Iran are getting "to the point of no return" because of Iran's nuclear program. The article got a lot of online and other media attention, so much that The Atlantic put together an online debate that ran August 16-25.

I made an effort to be one of the people reading and commenting on the debate there. You can read my daily extracts here:

• Days 1-2: who's driving this bus, Israel or the US?.
  
  
• Day 3: would a strike work? realism at the White House?.
• Day 4: the Long Game and containment.
  
  
• Day 5: how threatening is the threat?.
• Days 6-7 (or so): If force is the answer, what is the question?.
  
  
• Day 8: Should we give peace a chance?.

Those links doubtless qualify as "tl;dr" for non-masochists. The highlights of the discussion, for me:

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