Adding to what Mike said, the Rabbis weren't interested in theological questions the way that Christian theologians were. The Rabbis were mainly concerned with what God expects of people in general and Jews in particular. Most of the Talmud are debates on the meaning and requirements of particular Mitzvah in the Torah. There is very little on the nature of God. This concern with what God expects is also why Judaism doesn't really focus that much on the afterlife beyond it exists.
I don't think it was better earlier. During the Gilded Age and New Deal, many of the corporate elite were similarly short-sighted. It's just that the politics worked out better for the non-elite for various reasons.
There is a certain amount of merit to this argument, Americans have certainly believed that their destiny is more in their control than many other people. Steinbeck once argued that socialism never took off in America because the American poor view themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. At the same time, fatalism isn't unknown in America nor belief that your fate is in your own hands in Europe. The American poor have demonstrated great capacity for fatalism. The socialist movement wouldn't have thrived in Europe if the European working class did not think that economic forces were out of their control.
DRS, I think the reason that there isn't the same moral discussion in other countries, which I presume you mean other Western countries, is because most European and Canadian conservatives conceded that they lost the 1960s. European and European conservatives were no more happy about the social changes of the 1960s than American conservatives.* Small town France and Germany probably saw the student movement through the same lens as small town America saw the hippies. The difference is that other Western conservatives do not believe that they can turn back the clock and undue the changes. Many American conservatives really do seem to think that the 1960s can be reversed if they wage war hard enough.
There was a really fascinating debate on a usenet group that I posted on several years ago about comparing the elite of the past with the poor or middle class of the present and determining how has a better standard of living. The debate ended inconclusively. The more capitalist-oriented side argued that the poor and middle class are better off than say an upper tier Russian aristocrat because of the material goods and better services they have at their disposal. The more liberal/leftist side argued that you can not really compare past and present.
Even when the crime rate was higher, it was generally assumed that letting kids roam about on their own in their free time was not a dangerous liberty to give them. The crime rate is lower now than its ever been and we are more aware of the dangers of sexual predators. Its probably safer for kids to wander about the neighborhood, town, or city by themselves or in a group these days that it was at the turn of the century or in the 1920s but fewer of them have the right to do so.
There lots of men whom I can't believe have girlfriends or wives but apparently more than few women go for these types. Its a well-known phenomena. I suppose the equivalent for heterosexual men would be falling for a femme fatale.
Actually, if we are going to root causes and trend setters than I'd argue that how the Jews were treated in the Middle Ages. Enforced segregation, discrimination, persecution, and all the other tools of modern racism originate in how the Jews were treated before Jewish Emancipation.
I think thats debatable. The European conquests of the Americas were no more or less evil than any other conquest before or since. Its not like the Aztecs and Inca were much better rulers than the Spanish. The reason that Cortes was able to conquer Mexico quickly was because the non-Aztecs hated Aztec rule. The Spanish weren't much of an improvement but they were a slight one.
I think that law kind of works as a default profession for people who are ambitious and driven intelligent but do not want to pursue a career in architecture, business, science, engineering, academics, medicine, and variety of other fields. Maybe they feel they do not have the talents for a particular field like architecture or engineering. They might think that other fields like teaching will not give them the money they want but that they do not have the right mindset for business or finance for some reason. They go to law as a an alternative.
When I entered college, all I knew was that I wanted to major in history. I had no idea what I'd do after graduation. Towards my junior year, I decided that I'd either go to law school or continue on and get a PhD and go into academia. I knew that getting a PhD would take a long time and did not wanted to get to work sooner than latter, so I decided to go to law school.
The main problem with the aftermath of the Beer Hall Putsch was that
the NSDAP leadership got off too lightly. They should have been punished much more severely for attempting a coup d'etat. One of the main problems with the Weimar Republic was that the judiciary was not sympathetic to the regime and would punish the antics of the Far Right much less severely than they deserved.
Last time Anita Sarkessian (sp?) came up on this blog, I noted that the idea of rescuing a damsal in distress is a very old and compelling one for men and women despites its problems. I think that a lot of the problematic tropes in popular culture, video games, comic books, movies, are because the media aims for a broad rather than elite audience. Its given the audience what they want and more than a few men have fantasies about rescuing a girl/woman and getting romance/sex for their efforts. Many women also have romantic and sexual fantasies that are somewhat anti-feminist as the romance novel industry or 50 Shades of Grey demonstrate.
There isn't a good way to deal with this problem. Previous elites attempted to deal with the problem by censorship, by having the creators of culture conform to the proper ideology even if it went against the desires of the masses. Religious elites did this, Communists did this, and even we Americans did this with the Hayes Code and Comics Code. This hasn't worked. The other solution, hoping that people will be responsible about their popular culture consumption is not going to happen.
I think we that we are going to have to live with the fact that a lot of people have some rather problematic fantasies.
I'm aware of the popularity of Father Coughlin but I'm also aware of the popularity of Rush Limbaugh. Simply because Limbaugh is popular with millions of Americans does not mean he is close to pulling off a coup d'etat.
There were plenty of proto-Fascists in America during FDR's term. They did not work together and the Madisonian system was no more favorable to them than it was to the Socialists at the turn of the century. The attempted coup against FDR was more than a little laughable.
I think that America was not under much danger of falling under a spell of Fascism. Father Coughlin, Huey Long, and the America Firsters had a very large fallowing for sure but the American political system did not give them away to seize power. In contrast, the parliamentary systems of Italy and Germany gave their fascists the ability to seize power by winning one election or at least getting a plurality. Then they attacked the system from witihn.
If American fascists were going to gain power, it would have to be through a direct military coup. The United States military was very discinclined to engage in coup d'etat against any administration and did not have the man power either.
The GOP's continued resistance to universal healthcare is simply the most concrete evidence that they can not govern. I think the evidence is pretty clear that healthcare is one area where socialism really does work and the market does not. Nearly every other country in the developed world has some system of universal, government provided heatlhcare in place be it single-payer, NHS, or the Bismarckian system. Even Switzerland has it.
The Republicans will have none of this. They lie about death panels and Canadians and Europeans flocking to America to receive healthcare despite all evidence to the contrary. To them its the market or nothing unless you are old enough to be on Medicare or a veteran. You can't govern if you do not think the government could do anything right or only exists so you can enrich yourself at the expense of others.
What about Aristotles' Politics and Nichomechean Ethics? Plato tried to create the perfect political and social system in his Republic, it was probably the first work that tried to devise the mechanism for a utopian system. Aristotle realizing that humans are humans tried to figure out what work based on what we are not what we should be.
I'd also argue that the Talmud is the work of principled pragmatists. The Rabbis who wrote it debated about what the mitzvah of the Torah actually mean but at the same time tried to put in enough flexibility so that the letter of the law does not triumph over real life. So while the laws of Shabbat are strict, they can be violated for the sake of helping the sick or aiding a pregnant woman.
We almsot got Federal control over elections during the 1890s in Benjamin Harrison's administration. It was defeated because of GOP infighting. Basically, Rep. Henry Cabot Lodge of Mass., latter famous foe of the League of Nations, introduced a Federal Election Bill in order to prevent the disenfranchisement of African-Americans, who were basically all Republican at the time.
This. There is no evidence that a more statist version of HCR could pass through Congress. More likely, it would have died in committee and HCR kicked down the road for another fifteen years at least.
Zac, Judaism tends to speak of God in the negative. That is speak about God by defining what God is not. Its called negative theology. Its kind of like trying to explain really advanced scientific concepts to people without the background or education to really comprehend them. You have to reduced the complexity of the ideas to a certain extent so lay people can understand. Even very intelligent lay people might need to have certain scientific or mathematic ideas explained to them in the simplest terms possible.
Not all religions are based on around the worship of God or gods. The Dharmic religions are not really concerned with the divine but with a release from the cycle of suffering. Daoism isn't that much concerned with the divine either. Among monotheistic religions, Judaism is not overly concered with the nature of God or the afterlife as Christinaity and Islam are but with living a sanctified life through Halacha.
I'm not looking for an atheist that likes my religion, I'm just want one that will engage in a debate on the actual teachings of my religion rather than the actual teachings of another religion. If your going to subject Judaism to a critical analysis at least do it on Jewish terms rather than Catholic terms.
Most Jews are rather underwhelmed by the God of the Torah is evil argument and find the entire concept puzzling at best and insultingly aggravating at worse. The argument tends to be based off a couple of passages in the Tanakh and ignores large chunks of the rest of it.
On “Some mansplaining on women’s access to the workplace”
Thats only accordign to Kevin Smith. I'm in the George Burns school of thought.
On “Sunday Evening Theism”
Adding to what Mike said, the Rabbis weren't interested in theological questions the way that Christian theologians were. The Rabbis were mainly concerned with what God expects of people in general and Jews in particular. Most of the Talmud are debates on the meaning and requirements of particular Mitzvah in the Torah. There is very little on the nature of God. This concern with what God expects is also why Judaism doesn't really focus that much on the afterlife beyond it exists.
On “Some mansplaining on women’s access to the workplace”
I don't think it was better earlier. During the Gilded Age and New Deal, many of the corporate elite were similarly short-sighted. It's just that the politics worked out better for the non-elite for various reasons.
"
There is a certain amount of merit to this argument, Americans have certainly believed that their destiny is more in their control than many other people. Steinbeck once argued that socialism never took off in America because the American poor view themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. At the same time, fatalism isn't unknown in America nor belief that your fate is in your own hands in Europe. The American poor have demonstrated great capacity for fatalism. The socialist movement wouldn't have thrived in Europe if the European working class did not think that economic forces were out of their control.
"
DRS, I think the reason that there isn't the same moral discussion in other countries, which I presume you mean other Western countries, is because most European and Canadian conservatives conceded that they lost the 1960s. European and European conservatives were no more happy about the social changes of the 1960s than American conservatives.* Small town France and Germany probably saw the student movement through the same lens as small town America saw the hippies. The difference is that other Western conservatives do not believe that they can turn back the clock and undue the changes. Many American conservatives really do seem to think that the 1960s can be reversed if they wage war hard enough.
"
There was a really fascinating debate on a usenet group that I posted on several years ago about comparing the elite of the past with the poor or middle class of the present and determining how has a better standard of living. The debate ended inconclusively. The more capitalist-oriented side argued that the poor and middle class are better off than say an upper tier Russian aristocrat because of the material goods and better services they have at their disposal. The more liberal/leftist side argued that you can not really compare past and present.
"
There was a interesting article about this in a British newspaper a couple of years ago.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-462091/How-children-lost-right-roam-generations.html
Even when the crime rate was higher, it was generally assumed that letting kids roam about on their own in their free time was not a dangerous liberty to give them. The crime rate is lower now than its ever been and we are more aware of the dangers of sexual predators. Its probably safer for kids to wander about the neighborhood, town, or city by themselves or in a group these days that it was at the turn of the century or in the 1920s but fewer of them have the right to do so.
On “Fox News Woman takes Fox News Frat Boys to the Woodshed – and it is AWESOME!!!”
There lots of men whom I can't believe have girlfriends or wives but apparently more than few women go for these types. Its a well-known phenomena. I suppose the equivalent for heterosexual men would be falling for a femme fatale.
On “On the Nature of Evil: A Question for the Hive Mind”
Actually, if we are going to root causes and trend setters than I'd argue that how the Jews were treated in the Middle Ages. Enforced segregation, discrimination, persecution, and all the other tools of modern racism originate in how the Jews were treated before Jewish Emancipation.
"
I think thats debatable. The European conquests of the Americas were no more or less evil than any other conquest before or since. Its not like the Aztecs and Inca were much better rulers than the Spanish. The reason that Cortes was able to conquer Mexico quickly was because the non-Aztecs hated Aztec rule. The Spanish weren't much of an improvement but they were a slight one.
On “Why Does Everyone Want to Go to Law School?”
Law and law school revolves around thinking in the box.
"
I think that law kind of works as a default profession for people who are ambitious and driven intelligent but do not want to pursue a career in architecture, business, science, engineering, academics, medicine, and variety of other fields. Maybe they feel they do not have the talents for a particular field like architecture or engineering. They might think that other fields like teaching will not give them the money they want but that they do not have the right mindset for business or finance for some reason. They go to law as a an alternative.
When I entered college, all I knew was that I wanted to major in history. I had no idea what I'd do after graduation. Towards my junior year, I decided that I'd either go to law school or continue on and get a PhD and go into academia. I knew that getting a PhD would take a long time and did not wanted to get to work sooner than latter, so I decided to go to law school.
On “On the Nature of Evil: A Question for the Hive Mind”
1. The Holocaust
2. The Atlantic Slave Trade
3. Stalin's dictatorship in the Soviet Union since he had so many imitators after him like Mao and Pol Pot.
On “The Principled Pragmatic Reader”
The main problem with the aftermath of the Beer Hall Putsch was that
the NSDAP leadership got off too lightly. They should have been punished much more severely for attempting a coup d'etat. One of the main problems with the Weimar Republic was that the judiciary was not sympathetic to the regime and would punish the antics of the Far Right much less severely than they deserved.
On “Driving Blind: The Humanities Die and Superman Returns”
Last time Anita Sarkessian (sp?) came up on this blog, I noted that the idea of rescuing a damsal in distress is a very old and compelling one for men and women despites its problems. I think that a lot of the problematic tropes in popular culture, video games, comic books, movies, are because the media aims for a broad rather than elite audience. Its given the audience what they want and more than a few men have fantasies about rescuing a girl/woman and getting romance/sex for their efforts. Many women also have romantic and sexual fantasies that are somewhat anti-feminist as the romance novel industry or 50 Shades of Grey demonstrate.
There isn't a good way to deal with this problem. Previous elites attempted to deal with the problem by censorship, by having the creators of culture conform to the proper ideology even if it went against the desires of the masses. Religious elites did this, Communists did this, and even we Americans did this with the Hayes Code and Comics Code. This hasn't worked. The other solution, hoping that people will be responsible about their popular culture consumption is not going to happen.
I think we that we are going to have to live with the fact that a lot of people have some rather problematic fantasies.
On “The Principled Pragmatic Reader”
I'm aware of the popularity of Father Coughlin but I'm also aware of the popularity of Rush Limbaugh. Simply because Limbaugh is popular with millions of Americans does not mean he is close to pulling off a coup d'etat.
There were plenty of proto-Fascists in America during FDR's term. They did not work together and the Madisonian system was no more favorable to them than it was to the Socialists at the turn of the century. The attempted coup against FDR was more than a little laughable.
"
I thought you were supposed to drink Tod hot?
"
I think that America was not under much danger of falling under a spell of Fascism. Father Coughlin, Huey Long, and the America Firsters had a very large fallowing for sure but the American political system did not give them away to seize power. In contrast, the parliamentary systems of Italy and Germany gave their fascists the ability to seize power by winning one election or at least getting a plurality. Then they attacked the system from witihn.
If American fascists were going to gain power, it would have to be through a direct military coup. The United States military was very discinclined to engage in coup d'etat against any administration and did not have the man power either.
On “On Conservative Strawmen”
The GOP's continued resistance to universal healthcare is simply the most concrete evidence that they can not govern. I think the evidence is pretty clear that healthcare is one area where socialism really does work and the market does not. Nearly every other country in the developed world has some system of universal, government provided heatlhcare in place be it single-payer, NHS, or the Bismarckian system. Even Switzerland has it.
The Republicans will have none of this. They lie about death panels and Canadians and Europeans flocking to America to receive healthcare despite all evidence to the contrary. To them its the market or nothing unless you are old enough to be on Medicare or a veteran. You can't govern if you do not think the government could do anything right or only exists so you can enrich yourself at the expense of others.
On “The Principled Pragmatic Reader”
What about Aristotles' Politics and Nichomechean Ethics? Plato tried to create the perfect political and social system in his Republic, it was probably the first work that tried to devise the mechanism for a utopian system. Aristotle realizing that humans are humans tried to figure out what work based on what we are not what we should be.
I'd also argue that the Talmud is the work of principled pragmatists. The Rabbis who wrote it debated about what the mitzvah of the Torah actually mean but at the same time tried to put in enough flexibility so that the letter of the law does not triumph over real life. So while the laws of Shabbat are strict, they can be violated for the sake of helping the sick or aiding a pregnant woman.
On “Voter Fraud Wheels A’ Spinning”
We almsot got Federal control over elections during the 1890s in Benjamin Harrison's administration. It was defeated because of GOP infighting. Basically, Rep. Henry Cabot Lodge of Mass., latter famous foe of the League of Nations, introduced a Federal Election Bill in order to prevent the disenfranchisement of African-Americans, who were basically all Republican at the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lodge_Bill
On “Jacobinning”
This. There is no evidence that a more statist version of HCR could pass through Congress. More likely, it would have died in committee and HCR kicked down the road for another fifteen years at least.
On “Sunday Morning Atheism”
Zac, Judaism tends to speak of God in the negative. That is speak about God by defining what God is not. Its called negative theology. Its kind of like trying to explain really advanced scientific concepts to people without the background or education to really comprehend them. You have to reduced the complexity of the ideas to a certain extent so lay people can understand. Even very intelligent lay people might need to have certain scientific or mathematic ideas explained to them in the simplest terms possible.
Not all religions are based on around the worship of God or gods. The Dharmic religions are not really concerned with the divine but with a release from the cycle of suffering. Daoism isn't that much concerned with the divine either. Among monotheistic religions, Judaism is not overly concered with the nature of God or the afterlife as Christinaity and Islam are but with living a sanctified life through Halacha.
"
I'm not looking for an atheist that likes my religion, I'm just want one that will engage in a debate on the actual teachings of my religion rather than the actual teachings of another religion. If your going to subject Judaism to a critical analysis at least do it on Jewish terms rather than Catholic terms.
Most Jews are rather underwhelmed by the God of the Torah is evil argument and find the entire concept puzzling at best and insultingly aggravating at worse. The argument tends to be based off a couple of passages in the Tanakh and ignores large chunks of the rest of it.
"
Pithy but largely correct.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.