digital digs

scenes from America's fourth republic classroom

On Salon, Michael Lind offers a historical perspective on the dawning of America's fourth republic.The first goes from Washington to the Civil War. The second then up to the Depression. And the third until 2004 (read the article, he explains). Basically they are all about 70 odd years long. Lind suggests each period begins with the centralization of government power and ends with a swing back partially in the other direction. Think of the difference of FDR-Johnson vs. Nixon-Bush. Lind offers an industrial-economic pattern behind these shifts that is fairly recognizable. The shift to steam power and railroads in the mid-19th century. The shift to electricity and internal combustion in the 1930s. And now? A green economy? Maybe.

Lind writes:

It remains to be seen what energy sources -- nuclear? Solar? Clean coal? -- and what technologies -- nanotechnology? Photonics? Biotech-- will be the basis of the next American economy. (Note: I'm talking about the material, real-world manufacturing and utility economy, not the illusory "information economy" beloved of globalization enthusiasts in the 1990s, who pretended that deindustrialization by outsourcing was a higher state of industrialism.)

Not surprisingly I am less derisive of the "information economy" than Lind. I don't know how Lind imagines that the nanotechnologies industry will operate outside of an information economy. Yes. Somewhere there will need to be nanotechnology factories. But that's not going to work like the automobile industry. If energy prices rise this may create some advantage for local/national production because of the costs of transporation on a global scale, but I wouldn't really count on that, b/c the raw materials for automobiles, for example, will still need to be transported globally anyway. On the other hand, one advantage of the green economy is that it requires a necessary local element. The windmills need to be where the wind is.

rhetoric of a new America

Certainly much talk about the historic election results. On CNN, one of the Republican commentators referred to his own party as a "Southern party," so much talk about they need to do. Also conversation about whether the Dem landslide means the nation has moved leftward. Predictably all the right-wingers who were decrying Obama as the "most liberal" member of the senate, even socialist, are now saying that he won b/c he adopted traditionally Republican values: tax cuts, etc. Also similar talk that Dems winning in Congress are also more centrist, though certainly that was not what was being said about them a week ago!

Who can believe any of this self-serving analysis?

This is what I see that's interesting, though predictable, in CNN's exit polls. Nationally, whites voted 55-43 for McCain, so non-whites won this election for Obama. Even more specifically, whites over 30 voted approx. 57-41 for McCain, while whites under 30 voted 54-44 for Obama. Some how I doubt that there's ever been a presidential election where the clear choice of whites over 30 was not elected. And not only was not elected but lost by a significant margin.

The exit polls reproduce the divides of the elections of recent memory remain intact. White, less educated, Christian, older, rural men and women make the vast majority of Republican voters. Of these, education is probably the least determining fact. That is if a voter has all the other characteristics, s/he's voting republican for the most part, regardless of education (though those with postgrad education vote Dem). On the flipside, urban, non-white, less religious or non-Christian, younger voters are the Dems. it would seem that the primary difference is that there are now more of these kinds of voters in a larger number of states (like VA, NC, FL, CO). But that doesn't explain everything. It doesn't explain Iowa, for example.

The big question now might be whether or not this election means that we have moved to the left as a nation. Were the right-wing pundits correct last week when they were saying how liberal the Dems are or are they correct today when they are saying that the Dems won by masquerading as or turning into Reps?

Or maybe, in our most pollyanna moment, we imagine moving beyond binary politics.

As I've written earlier, I don't believe that democray is a rational process. Politics are affective. Trying to deduce a rational interpretation that says what an election "means," to assume that a rational message is sent from voters, is misleading. And this is not in anyway a slam against American voters. It is instead a position on what human behavior is like, especially on such a scale. I include myself in this. I cannot imagine any realistic conditions under which I would vote differently. Is it rational of me to say there is absolutely nothing one candidate could have done or said to persuade me? I don't think so.

But rationality is over-rated. It's a good faith but ultimately insufficient attempt to explain agency. And the left-right binary is just another part of that Cartesian mapping of political consciousness. Not that such matters are likely to drift into the mainstream any time soon, but I think that if you want to understand the new America, you'll have to move to a post-Cartesian, post-rational mapping of the political subject.

spread the wealth; build the wealth

Two interesting reports, both of which I came to through the Creative Class blog, that connect well with our current political discourse. Of course both candidates are promising everyone in America above-average incomes, b/c they believe, quite rightly, that Americans can't handle the truth and are quite happy to slay the messenger. But I digress.

A new UN Report (reported here in the Vancouver Sun) indicates that "Major U.S. cities including New York, Washington, Atlanta and New Orleans have levels of economic inequality that rival cities in Africa." No, the poor in the US obviously aren't as poor as the poor in Africa. But the difference between the poor and the wealthy is as wide. That jives with this OCED report (from AP) that also reports on inequality. This report notes that social mobility is lowest in countries with high inequality such as the United States, United Kingdom, and Italy. Richard Florida has noted that this kind of inequality seems common in US cities where the creative economy is taking off.

10 seconds of exigency

So I'm loading groceries into my car this afternoon, and this senior citizen pulls his car up behind me and rolls down his window. He eyes the Obama sticker on the back of my car and says something like, "You know your man Obama has ties to terrorists. Maybe you should think that over." I just blew him off, told him to feel free to think whatever he wanted. After all, am I going to get into some political dialogue and/or argument with some old man in a parking lot?

I don't think so.

But I'm curious about the motivation. We've all seen bumper stickers and shirts with various slogans that we might take issue with. How many times have you felt the need to say something? What's going on in the mind there? Does the guy think he's honestly going to change my mind this way? If so, did he consider what might be the best argument he could offer with his ten seconds? Not that it would have mattered anyway.

Of course I don't think purpose was on his mind. This is just verbal diarrhea, a need to express some frustration at a worldview he can't understand.

the pro-american world vs. purple states

You've probably read about Palin's remarks about the "pro-American" parts of the US. Of course she tried to clarify that statement, but everyone knows what she's talking about. And while I would use the term "pro-American," we can all recognize the serious ideological divides in our nation. The Republicans are playing divisive politics right now with comments like this and McCain's accusation that Obama is playing at "class warfare." I recognize the strategy; it's an effort to energize the conservative base. Meanwhile the Obama and Biden have been sticking more to the idea of everyone coming together, something we've since since 2004 from Obama. I recognize that strategy too. And I think both sides believe in the claims that lie behind those strategies. I wish I could believe that we could come together. My skepticism regarding that possibility is one of any number of reasons why I wouldn't make a good president.

If you look at the polling, you will see nothing surprising. Across most of the South and the Plains, the Reps have double-digit leads. The Dems have similar leads in the NorthEast, the West coast, and across most of the Mid-West. So are these really different ideological universes? The opposing view has been this idea of "purple states" (purple state maps),  that the mixture of left and right in America is more pronounced than what the red-blue state story would tell. I guess that depends on your viewpoint. Even if you live in the country in a deeply red state, say 2/3 McCain, one of your neighbors is voting Democrat. But is that person voting Obama because they share ideological perspectives with the majority of urbanites? Or you can switch it around, does the Manhattanite voting Republican share an ideology with the rural Texan? I would think not.

So the patriotism line is a rallying call for a particular ideology of course that claims to celebrate the American individual (as long as those individuals think like me: if not then they hate America and are terrorists). On Larry King last night some conservative talking head called Obama a Marxist. King asked if that meant that Republicans were fascists. Of course not was the reply, b/c Republicanism is about the individual. This was the obvious retort but King didn't go there.

Now I don't expect or desire to live in a country were everyone share the same ideology. There have likely only been a few short periods when Americans came together like that: Pearl Harbor, 9/11, etc. But then soon afterward we were divisive again.

But most importantly, we shouldn't imagine that democracy is a rational process. If you have a preference for McDonalds over BK or Coke over Pepsi or Bud over Miller, are these rational choices? Or would it be more accurate to say that they are affective responses? That one feels better. If you thought that the election of Bush in 2004 was irrational, if Obama gets elected this time around, do you think it will be b/c Americans suddenly became rational? And you can flip that around if you are coming from the other political perspective. What % of American voters do you think can give a reasonable accounting of the candidate's policies and offer a logically functional argument for why they prefer one over the other?

You know it can't be more than 10% or so. Besides even the experts can't say with much certainty what, if anything, will work to fix our economic and political woes. So how can anyone make a rational choice between plans? No, the election has to be pure ideology and affect. And I absolutely do not mean to suggest that we should abandon the democratic process! I just mean that we can't expect the process to be rational.

politics, advertising, and the 24/7 news cycle

Campbell Brown, one of CNN's anchors, offers the following observation: McCain and Obama will spend $30M between now and election day on advertising. If they really cared about Americans then shouldn't they be donating that money to feed the hungry or something?

And I wonder what kind of cynical political hash would be made of such a move? But more to the point, this self-righteous contention conveniently overlooks the complicity of CNN, other news networks, and the rest of the media (new and old) who feed off of all this garbage. Like many, I've been following the news more closely of late, partly because the election and partly because of our economic situation. How many times do they come on and say "Americans don't care about Bill Ayers or Joe the Plumber"? And then the next sentence is a story about this kind of negative campaigning. Negative campaigning gets most of the attention.

Who is so obtuse as to not see this formula. Here's 30 minutes about negative campaigning and people's reactions and some polling data (as if an election were a horse race). Then we hear voters say, "I don't know enough details about the candidates' economic plan." Well how 'bout we spend those 30 minutes of news time doing some actual reporting and investigating?

Understanding money and debt

I won't pretend to be an expert in economics but here is a fairly straightforward, if lengthy, video about the evolution of money and the concept of debt. Toward the end the video gets less historical/documentary and more polemic, but it is also prescient, since this was uploaded Feb 2007.

Let me know what you think.

how bizarre is this vp choice?

Anyone who reads this blog knows I have never written about politics in the conventional sense, but I must admit to being flummoxed by this one. I guess the strategy here is fairly obvious. The GOP wants to go after the disaffected Hillary voter, particularly women, who have regularly voted democrat. So they decide to nominate a woman for VP. OK, what other qualifications:

• someone in the party
• someone more socially conservative than McCain (b/c he's got problems on the right)
• someone not associated with the current admin (sorry Condi)
• and someone who can pass the vetting process

Mix together and stir. The result? Sarah Palin. Age 44. BA Univ of Idaho in Journalism. Former sports reporter. Former mayor of Wasilla. Of course you'll hear all this.

Now here's the thing I don't get. All the GOP ink spilled on Barak's experience. McCain would be the oldest person ever elected as president. He may be in perfect health right now. But honestly, you have to say there's a reasonable chance he could be seriously incapacitated or even die in office. This woman is ready to be president? What, did she take a class on being president at Idaho? Being Gov. of a population of 650,000 folks in Alaska for two years makes you ready? Can she name any of the leaders in China? Does she have a sense of who is likely to be the next president in Pakistan?

Just as point of comparison, the population of Alaska is roughly the same as that of the metropolitan area of Syracuse, NY. Our county executive, Joanie Mahoney, is a female republican. Why not nominate her for VP? She's about the same age as Palin and has a law degree from SU. She was a criminal prosecutor for a while. That's got to beat being a sports reporter in Anchorage.

But really this strategy does not make sense. Are HIllary voters really going to vote for someone who is pro-life? Are they going to vote for someone who supports the teaching of creationism in schools?

I could see if McCain had nominated a social moderate woman, someone closer to his own politics, that this might have worked. But I don't see how you attract HIllary voters and social conservatives with the same choice. I guess we'll see.

Should the web be nationalized?

On TechCrunch today the question of whether or not to nationalize the internet. Some debate over there but mostly your typical web-geek, libertarian knee-jerk response. No government regulation of anything for those folks! I think they'd abolish traffic signals if they could. But the point is that this position is fundamentally deluded.

There are not modern markets without government regulation. Let me throw some "P" words at you: private property, police, prisons. The market without governments is the one where I don't pay my mortgage and I walk into the supermarket and take whatever I want. A sizable chunk of our economy is founded on copyright and patents. Try doing that without a government. I believe the libertarian mental error lies in the belief in certain "natural rights" that governments might restrict but by definition cannot provide. Somehow they imagine private property is a natural right I think.

But private property can't be a natural right. Clubbing any sucker who steps into territory you think is yours might be a "natural prerogative," but since the concept of ownership doesn't even extend to ever culture... but I digress. The point is that modern markets, at least, function on rights of ownership. Those are defined by the government, and they are secured by govt institutions. So what can be owned and what rights an owner may have are issues regulated by the government. The bottom line is that the issue can never be whether or not to have government regulation, but rather what kind of regulation you want.

Of course in the global economy, national governments are only players. Even within the national economy the government is turned inside-out and made part of the market by giant corporations, industries, and other deep-pocket interests. I totally understand complaints about bureaucracy and inefficiency but part of it is the mockery the market has made of the government.

Personally, I would like to see web access be fast, cheap/free, and broadly accessible. I also want to have as much freedom as possible in my use of that access. Now it's hardly the most important social issue in the world, but it's not unimportant either. Sadly though everyone pretty much agrees on these goals, we enter an ideological debate over how to get there. And the debate has nothing to do with the internet. Those who are opposed to govt regulation are opposed to it in virtually every instance.

Why can't we frame the debate in a different way? Why not start by talking about what actually needs to be done and then start figuring out who might be best to do those things? Maybe some things might be better done by the govt and others by private interests.

Here's my strictly personal perspective. What would it take for all my students to have high-speed internet access for their online courses? Most do, but not all. Some don't have access where they live. Clearly there's little or no commercial incentive to reach them. But if the govt is going to go out and lay that wire (or pay for it to be laid in some way--tax breaks, grants, whatever) so that those folks can become paying customers of TimeWarner or Verizon or whoever will provide them access, as a citizen I want something in return from those corporate interests.

googled brains

As Jeff notes, many will write about Nick Carr's Atlantic Monthly piece. The article's title suggested more trolling than actually goes on, which is good (that said, it's a little sad that so many "respectable" publications feel like they need to troll to get attention). Then again, maybe I'm missing something.

Carr makes some cogent observations: "We can expect as well that the circuits woven by our use of the Net will be different from those woven by our reading of books and other printed works." He also notes, "Yet, for all that’s been written about the Net, there’s been little consideration of how, exactly, it’s reprogramming us. The Net’s intellectual ethic remains obscure."

So, yes, I agree the network shapes our cognition. I share Carr's concern that we ought to be mindful of our thoughts. However, I don't think the need for mindfulness comes from the development of internet technologies. I view mindfulness as a more basic virtue. Maybe it is harder to be mindful today, maybe not. I'm not sure how to measure the task of mindfulness.

I would say that as significant as the effect of networks might be on our brains, there has also been a significant impact on how we understand our brains. Carr mentions this, speaking about the shifting metaphors we apply to the brain. I suppose one might say all understandings are metaphors, inasmuch as one is willing to state "my love is a red rose" and "the speed of light is 180,000 miles per second" are both metaphorical statements. I don't think that's super-useful most of the time. So let's say that we understand our brains in a new way as well.

As I'm writing this, I came across Jon Udell's response to Carr as well. I think we are coming from largely the same perspective. We are seeing change. Yes, we should give thought to that change. No, we should not simply assume that change is bad (nor do I think Carr means to suggest that). Finally we can remember that when we think about "our brains on books" or "on writing," we can recall that those were not natural states either. We know all this business from Ong and so on.

In the end, the Atlantic piece is some typical mainstream magazine writing with a slightly provocative and misleading title that reminds us that we need to continue to be mindful of how we spend our time and our thoughts.

Yep.