Andrew Hagen

Are you befuddled by today’s events? Are you left in despair? Do you wonder why the world seems to be falling apart and yet no one seems to care? Have you noticed how Republicans are insane and Democrats are also insane, but in a different way? Does this leave you feeling powerless and hopeless?

If any of those statements apply to you, then you should know you aren’t alone. I feel that way, too.

Yet, there is cause for hope. The origin of hope is understanding. We must comprehend this mixed up modern world.

Alain Finkielkraut’s 1995 book, The Defeat of the Mind, can provide the beginning of a diagnosis. (*) The blog Hassagot touches on the book. (†)

Finkielkraut is terribly pessimistic about the future of the West. His book is an intellectual odyssey that intentionally avoids solidifying into a hardened point by which he may pierce to the heart of the matter. Finkielkraut says the life of the mind is abandoned in the West. He says the mind is defeated; it has lost the war. Yet, what if the mind is defeated in only a single battle? What if the war is not lost?

So we must presume, and so we must work to reinvigorate the life of the mind in our civilization.

And so we come to the end, barbarism replaces culture. In the shadow of the great word, intolerance and infantile behavior increase. When it is not cultural identity restricting the choices an individual can make, using threats of high treason to silence expressions of doubt, irony, and reason—it is the entertainment industry, the creation of the technological age, that reduces great works of art to drivel. The life of the mind has quietly moved out of the way, making room for the terrible and pathetic encounter of the fanatic and the zombie.

Finkielkraut, p. 135.

Updated.

The argument continues over the Crusades, terrorism, Christendom, and Islam.

In his New York Times review of Fighting for Christendom: Holy War and the Crusades, Hugh Kennedy writes: (*)

Christopher Tyerman’s book [. . . ] has no time for bogus links between crusaders and modern Muslim jihadists: ‘’The idea that the modern political conflicts in the Near East or elsewhere derive from the legacy of the Crusades or are being conducted as neo-crusades . . . is deceitful'’ and ‘’there is nothing old-fashioned, still less ‘medieval,’ about the techniques, recruitment or ideology of Al Qaeda. The devious polemical association between ‘crusaders’ and ‘Jews’ is historical nonsense.'’

This vigorous argument is an important corrective for anyone who would argue for the long-term inevitability of conflict between Christianity and Islam. Tyerman is especially good on the preaching of the Crusades, and the showmanship and manipulation often used by propagandists. Both he and [another author] discuss at length how a religion so obviously pacifist as early Christianity could be distorted into a justification for aggression and mayhem.

Hugh Kennedy vastly overstates the import of that “corrective.”

My argument on the inevitability of conflict between Christendom and Islam (the civilization) concerns the irreconcilable doctrines of Christianity and Islam (the religion). (†) Of course Tyerman’s vigorous argument as summarized by Kennedy does not correct my argument, and therefore it is not a corrective to “anyone” who would argue the inevitability of the conflict.

Writing in the New York Times about the plethora of bizarre stories emanating from the State of Florida, Abby Goodnough reports: (*)

California used to be the capital of cultural, political and environmental crises, the place that baffled and mesmerized with its vivid goings-on. . . .

Paradise is hard to sustain. . . in a place with so many ethnic, age and class groups coexisting in ever more crowded communities. Nearly 1,000 people move to Florida each day, and the churning mix of blacks, Hispanics, retirees from other states, urban liberals, suburban moderates and conservative-leaning rural residents make for a volatile place with deep divisions and conflicting priorities.

“We have more intense collisions between gray hairs and brown hairs, Midwest people and Northeast people, money and nonmoney,” said James Twitchell, a professor of English and advertising at the University of Florida. “The barriers are not very high, so the collisions can occur as if you’re on one of those little electric cars at the fair, banging into things.”

Apparently diversity is not a political virtue after all.

Is Florida a bellwether for social chaos that might spread to the rest of the country? Can the problems with too much diversity detected by the New York Times extend to racial, ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity?

The problem with diversity is that, when combined with the need for some semblance of societal order, diversity can grow out of control and eventually threaten truly important political principles, including liberty and equality. Diversity should be kept to moderate levels.

US Senator Lamar Alexander and conservative libertarian blogger Spoons endorse a national ID card. (*) Spoons writes:

The only people who stand to lose privacy with a National ID card are illegal aliens, terrorists, and criminals who operate with aliases.

In his column, Senator Alexander states his belief that the bulking up of state-issued driver’s licenses will not work for lack of uniformity.

Of course we will lose some legitimate privacy with these cards, despite what Spoons bravely says. And of course, we need national ID cards. Our country is now at the brink of 300 million people. Streams of immigrants, legal and illegal, from every culture and corner of the Earth, continue entering the USA with no end in sight. There are many anecdotal signs of heightening social chaos. We must maintain order. The day when we could have avoided this reduction of our privacy passed long ago when diversity became a recognized political virtue, and equality was redefined to mean “diversity.”

The best we can hope for are federal laws that limit the use of national ID cards.

One federal law should state that the national ID card cannot be required to buy or sell anything, with such exceptions as the law may allow. These exceptions would include the buying of such items as high explosives and the boarding of airplanes, where it even may be mandatory. Producing the ID to buy firearms will be an issue.

Citizens should be required to produce their national ID card as rarely as is possible.

The Wal-Mart controversy is sketched, and a suggestion for activists is given.

Wal-Mart opponents plan to form a coalition of groups, from labor unions to environmentalists, to more effectively fight against what it sees as the abuse of power by one of the nation’s largest corporations. (* permalink) (†)

Wal-Mart maintains a public relations web site at walmartfacts.com. (‡)

The critique of Wal-Mart centers on low wages for its employees and aggressive non-labor cost cutting that puts pressure on vendor and supplier companies to cut their employees’ wages as well. That runs counter to Henry Ford’s conception of paying his workers enough to buy Model T’s.

William Anderson of the Mises Institute undermines the Ford analogy, however, by arguing that Ford intended the high wage payments not to be humanitarian but to increase the efficiency of his plants. (§)

Taking a different approach, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich has suggeted that the real problem with Wal-Mart may be that it is just too big. Wal-Mart is so big that it distorts the democratic political process of the country, Reich fears. (**) That falls flat, however, in the face of Wal-Mart’s dreaded clout having little noticeable effect nationally.

Instead, Wal-Mart’s clout is most powerful in certain neighborhoods and communities. Wal-Mart’s power within a number of certain small communities is such that it reminds one of company towns. (††)

During the industrial revolution in America, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, company towns, such as those operated by the Pullman company, preyed upon the helpless by charging exorbitant prices, exploiting labor, and generally abusing their power. (‡‡)

Wal-Mart does not operate any company town that I know of, but its market power in certain local areas tends toward the monopolistic.

Wal-Mart opponents cannot rely merely on old models of activism. They must use their brains to address the reality of Wal-Mart, a powerful company with a powerful new business model that has many unfortunate side effects, many or all of which are avoidable. We need new thinking.