State of the Discussion

Speaking for the scientists here, you liberal arts types get screwed. The dirty little secret of graduate school in the sciences is that you get paid to do it (tuition + stipend). Sure, it's a pittance ($15-25K), but you'll have a car, roommate and you'll eat more ramen and less meat than you'd like, but you can live on it and you won't accumulate massive piles of debt like law students.

(I took out a couple of student loans in grad school (~$22K), but that was basically for quality of life, not actual tuition/food, etc.)

Once you leave grad school, you can either go get a job (much better money, but a tough time finding a job these days) or you can go for a postdoc. The physicists and the chemists have been better at clearing out their backlogs of postdocs and the like than the biologists, who toil for years without finding jobs in either academia or industry. You can't blame it on academia, totally -- it's the industrial job market that just can't absorb the new entry-level folks.

I've always worried about academia basically being a pyramid scheme, where folks are recruited to teach students. What will the students do when they've graduated? Why, teach, of course! Who will they teach? Why, students, of course...

This is all well said. You'll forgive a certain overly sensitive attitude from those of us who went to Direction State U. It's certainly true that there are many disengaged and disinterested students. There are very many others who are very much engaged, and passionate, and find themselves rather constantly marginalized as intellects and as students. I also tend to find that disengagement and disinterest are commodities found at all levels of the academy. But as I said-- I'm overly sensitive.

As I tried to say, but probably failed to say, you're in a tough position-- because, as you say, you should be honest with people and try to put them on the right path. The point wasn't that you are self-serving or hypocritical, only that it can't fail to seem that way sometimes to people who want very badly to be in your shoes. And that's an impediment to reform; grad students can placate themselves by saying "Oh, he's just being a grouch from within the world he criticizes; so I'll just ignore it." In other words, the people best equipped to honestly judge the situation are the ones who tend to be ignored out of a sense of petty resentment or professional envy.

At the end of the day, it's the responsibility of the administrations of the universities to have the integrity not to pressure departments to take on more than a certain minimum number of grad students; the departments to not take on more grad students than they have a reasonable expectation could possibly find some sort of related employment; and the students, to take truly discriminating accounting of the job prospects beyond "I really and truly love it". Many people really and truly love X academic subject and still have had to let go of professorial dreams. I did, although not, it's true, entirely.

Oh, no, not at all. But you make a very important point about passion-following and just seeing what happens at the other side of 6 years, which is not always accompanied by a realistic assessment of what might be available. I don't know how one assesses that to begin with, of course, and I am unaltered in my pursuit. Anyway, very good post.

“from a humanitarian and democracy promotion standpoint, intervention has produced far more failures than successes.”

Now there is something we can work with. I don’t know if you ordinary gentleman are up to it, but perhaps a series of pieces each focusing on a specific intervention by the United States, and letting everyone post their points as to the benefits and detriments that it produced. We then could see what it is about each that folks believe were beneficial (tactically and morally), and that may expose where the differences in measuring these operations exist. Perhaps a far too ambitious task, but a thought.

For while you claim “the historical record of the United States demonstrates” the overwhelming failure of intervention, I see that as history on its very head. While I would surely not get on board with supporting every (or even most) foreign interventions, the equally silly belief that a state in America’s position should only invest militarily in the direct defense of its territory, has unmistakably been proven to be foolish historically, and naive in my opinion.

It is my opinion that the historical record of the United States demonstrates that, from a humanitarian and democracy promotion standpoint, intervention has produced far more failures than successes.

"this is a conversation that remains evidence-resistant."

How so? If you mean to say that arguing for intervention is “evidence resistant” while taking the opposite view is backed by a scientific outlook, I would like to know why.

Freddie, you are confusing a few points.

If you come to foreign relations from a purely “realist” perspective, then you would accept that a state will act as a state does, regardless of the moral character or social makeup that exists within the nation. That was the point of my first comment concerning the amorality of actions on the world stage. If one does prescribe to that worldview, then states will push for more influence and power on the world stage. I don’t happen to subscribe to such a position, and like yourself, believe that human morality dictates the direction a state should take. Your understanding of history on a few points is incorrect however.

I am unsure how you can say that “Yes, South Korea is in better shape than many other places in the world, and yes, South Korea was the beneficiary of American rebuilding. But to say that American rebuilding efforts caused South Korea’s ascension is to make a frankly enormous leap from correlation to causation.” An enormous leap? I don’t know many military or political scientists who would say South Korea would have survived the invasion from the North without continued American military support. If we disagree on that point, then I think there isn’t much more to say on this.

Now your second point, that Korean society posses a number of cultural strengths that have helped it achieve its level of success, is a better one. But this doesn’t change the very glaring point that those aspects of Korean culture would not have flourished had it not been for continued American military support (one can make the case that the military is no longer needed perhaps, but that’s for another day). Even as someone like yourself, who is opposed to intervention, surely you can take from Korea that there are benefits to having a stronger state protect a smaller one, and both import and allow democratic society to take form?

Perhaps there are some who believe that intervention ‘causes’ democratic transformation, something I do not believe. But to argue that a more powerful state can not help create the necessary environment (sometimes through force) for that democratic system to develop seems patently incorrect.

"The free market is a better tool than government intervention even culturally."

A point that bears much, much more emphasis. Sanctions in my mind have about the worst track record imaginable in fostering liberalism in other nations. In many ways, they usually seem to strengthen existing regimes by giving them a scapegoat for all of the country's problems even as the profit opportunities inherent in black markets give the sanctions a sieve-like quality even when they are globally enforced (and I can't imagine anything more purely symbolic than unilateral sanctions). I suppose you could argue that they were eventually successful with respect to Libya, but I'm really skeptical of that argument. And even if you grant that argument, the failures outnumber the successes by a massive margin.

I agree Freddie. And by "pro-America" I think I mean, pro-the-idea-of-America, not pro-everything-we-do. Kind of like what I mean when I say that I am "pro-Israel." And no, I am not referring to purposeful action on the part of America toward Iran. The free market is a better tool than government intervention even culturally. Propaganda will never be as effective as the accidental influence of trade.

One major point of disagreement here, Freddie. While Western culture exports may not lead directly to liberalization or freedom, they do start to plant seeds. Where much of these exports may be trash tv and pop music, somewhere in that flood will be real philosophy and literature. Somewhere in all that pop culture, you'll also get some notion of freedom of speech, of these other basic values we hold dear. It may not happen quickly, but that's not to say it won't happen at all. Sure Kim Jong Il isn't "westernized" by his cowboy movies. But the influence of western culture in Iran, contra to your claim, actually has made a difference. The Iranian people are not the mullah-revering, anti-American mobs so often portrayed on the news. It's a young country and very pro-America in many regards, very modern, very black-market-liberalized. All the more reason, I say, to not bomb the hell out of them.

ED Kain:
I don't get it. Weren't you the guy who was all about advancing debate etc etc? Exactly how does calling me a simplistic idiot (or one who spews nonsense whilst having his head in the sand) do that? Do you imagine you're being arch and sarcastic?

Why don't you humor me, then? Come up with a bunch of examples of our meddling—not counting the '53 coup in Iran. Because I can't. I'm taking "meddle" to mean unwarranted intervention. I could easily reel off twenty examples of the top of my head with respect to Latin America but I can't with respect to the Arab/Muslim world. When and where have we meddled, aside from when we discovered, drilled for, refined, and distributed the oil in the region, and in the process made them rich? Wait! I remember one. 1956. The invasion of Egypt by France, GB, and Israel. They were on the road to Cairo and Nasser was all set to commit suicide with his entire cabinet. We told them to back off or else, thereby handing Nasser a mammoth propaganda victory. Is that the kind of meddling you mean? If that's what you mean, then sure, we've meddled a lot, like when we provided support for the jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan or supported the UN humanitarian mission in Somalia. But usually "meddling" has a negative connotation. So… what are you talking about.

Then again, this question of meddling is only a side-point. We agree that it's not really relevant to understanding the jihadist's aims, even if it were true. It's just that I'm tired of hearing this "backlash" meme. It's false and it's ass-backwards because they attacked us in the first place for reasons of their own.

I mentioned many of your errors of fact and interpretation. Like your idea that Iraq was a stable nation prior to the invasion and that it was contained by the oil-for-food scam. Like your idea that "the world, and the Middle East, have gotten along just fine without democracy for centuries." These alone would allow me to return the insults you have leveled at me, but I won't. You see, I'm interested in advancing the debate.

As for

It must be nice to have such a cut and dry, simplistic, one-sided perspective with which to rationalize and condense all the world’s nuance. It allows you to say such absurdly simplistic things. If only they were like us there’d be no war. We’d all live in peace and harmony. Right, the West has gotten along so well. We never warred amongst ourselves, right? Oy vey…

I don't think you really know how to use sarcasm very well. It just comes off as childish. For one thing, I don't believe that peace and harmony are possible, ever. I just said that if they accepted the principles of pluralism, sovereignty of the nation-state and so forth, we could negotiate with them in good faith—therefore there would be no war. Why is this so simplistic for you? It means that they do not share our values and that to imagine that they do will cause all kinds of problems, like thinking that "jihad in general is just an overly aggressive, globalist form of nationalist expansionism." It can't be anything like that because they do not deposit loyalty in the nation-state. They want to map the world with Islamic law, according to their own words. This has nothing to do with nationalistic expansion.

I really have no idea how to "overcome the notions that gave rise" to Islamism. I don't think I proposed any policy whatsoever. For sure, I never said that "implementing democracy in the region" was the way. I don't believe that it's as simple as "implementing democracy" or denying that we can ever "implement democracy." I believe that the idea of "government of the people...etc etc" is an important starting point—meaning, anti despotism. But there are no magic policies. Politics has been called the "art of the possible." We need artists of the possible to know where, when, how to "implement" and when, where, and how not to. To me, it's a practical question, not a question of finding the correct formula. As a personal matter, I don't come down on either the idealist or the realist side for this very reason.

The avian fettucine avatar is not a live option for anyone, as far as I know. For cultural and historical reasons, the Christian God is much more likely to be one in our place and time.

I think this is exactly correct, but isn't this precisely what the FSM is used to point out? That it obviously isn't a live option for religious belief while Christianity is: but why? What is the fundamental difference? Which Will answers by pointing to cultural and historical reasons and you answer by pointing out that psychology and plausibility aren't always in the realm of the rational, but neither of those, to me, are compelling reasons why the Christian God is more likely to actually exist than the FSM.

Even atheists have unanswered questions . . .

***
Even?

Not believing in some god doesn't mean you think you know all the answers.

That territory is usually claimed by the religious.

Nance

I don't have much to add to this discussion, but I did want to add that William James is responsible for one of my favorite quotes of all time. It's from his essay "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life":

"Wherever such minds exists, with judgments of good and ill, and demands upon one another, there is an ethical world in its essential features. Were all other things, gods and men and starry heavens, blotted out from this universe, and were there left but one rock with two loving souls upon it, that rock would have as thoroughly moral a constitution as any possible world which the eternities and immensities could harbor… We, on this terrestrial globe, so far as the visible facts go, are just like the inhabitants of such a rock. Whether a God exist, or whether no God exist, in yon blue heaven above us bent, we form at any rate an ethical republic here below."