Today's Election Thought

"The advance planning and sense stimuli employed to capture a $10 million cigarette or soap market are nothing compared to the brainwashing and propaganda blitzes used to ensure control of the largest cash market in the world: the Executive Branch of the United States Government."

--Phyllis Schlafly, 1964

Month of New Subjects - Latitudinalism

Ever heard of Baron de Montesquieu? It is to him that the United States ultimately owes our balance-of-powers form of government, so it would make sense to include him in a book on the creation of American society. It wasn't this excerpt that was included, however. Tonight I read his philosophy of the differences in people in different climates.

Taking "political correctness" to its extreme, we are not actually supposed to acknowledge or talk about actual racial differences, but they do exist. For instance, I am of northern European descent (think glow-in-the-dark-pale). Andy is of Irish/German/etc. etc. etc. descent (we're rather more like mutts in America), so he looks different than I do. Certain diseases are more predominant in different ethnicities, and these ethnicities are based on where our ancestors came from and are probably formed by adaptations to our natural climate. I think we're all fine up to this point.

Taking this as a really BIG springboard, he asserts that the behaviors of the people are affected by their native climates and the effect of the climate on the bodily humours, stating "If we travel towards the North, we meet with people who have few vices, many virtues, and a great share of frankness and sincerity. If we draw near the South, we fancy ourselves entirely removed from the verge of morality." Maybe he foresaw nude beaches?

He goes on to state that it's good for the blood for people in cold climates to drink but not in hot climates, and that people of the north are less capable of pain--which I will remember next time I step on a knitting needle--yet cold and phlegmatic. Then he really gets nasty, calling the Indians "pusillanimous" (which I had to look up--it means "cowardly"), the Japanese "stubborn and perverse," and the English "apt to commit suicide most unaccountably."

Besides not being able to fathom how someone writing in 1748 could come up with this idea--and ignore all the other possibilities that would contribute to patterns of behavior, like religions and history, I do not understand what it has to do with American sociology. America doesn't figure in to his essay at all, and even when he was writing Americans would have some shared behavioral characteristics even without much shared ancestry. And did this essay influence anyone anywhere?

Up until now, much of my reading has been influenced by the assimilation of so many of the ideas into my philosophical concepts. Social Contract Theory not only makes sense to me--it is the only thing I have ever known, so I can't fully imagine anything else. Plato's theories are so well known that I think most people would know what "Philosopher Kings" and the "allegory of the cave" mean. Most college students encounter Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Machiavelli, Confucius, Rousseau and Hobbes in an Introduction to Ethics class, so these are sort of old ideas. Baron Montesquieu and his whole "latitude determines attitude" idea is completely new to me.

It is also hard to truly understand the concept of a hereditary monarchy and/or divine right of kings--partly because it's rather drummed in to every American child's head at an early age that King George III of England is the bad guy in the story of our revolution, partly because Americans are so distrustful of leaders that presidential term limits were added to our constitution, partly because we are a classless society, and partly because so many sons of famous industrialists were inept businessmen that it's a pretty big cliche in our history.

It has also been difficult to read the philosophers who believe that governments/people/businesses will naturally behave in an "honorable" manner. Thomas Paine writes, "In the early ages of the world, according to the scripture chronology there were no kings; the consequence of which was, there were no wars;" Ha! I believe in striving for honor/integrity/honesty and trying to instill them as values, but I think Hobbes was more correct--we agree to laws to protect us from others. The last politician on a national level whom I believed was even capable of acting in an honorable manner was Jimmy Carter. I think he made a pretty lousy president in all honesty, but I greatly admire him as a person. Do I believe government ever acts in the best interest of its people or with any actual sense or "right" and "wrong?" Nope. Do I think companies will behave in an honorable manner? Small ones, yes. Large ones, not likely. The mortgage industry wasn't regulated. Did those companies act honorably? No. Our past is riddled with company towns, corporate trusts that drove out the competition & controlled prices, slave labor, child labor, unsafe working conditions, sexual harassment, unsafe products, share cropping, scams and cons, embezzlement --you name it, we've done it. And yet I believe capitalism is truly a great system--as is our government in many ways--but it's no use asking any of it to be perfect. At the base of everything are people, and people are inherently not perfect so we are by nature not capable of perfection.

Next up: Adam Smith on the division of labor from The Wealth of Nations. AND another try at The Shining. We started watching it last night, but it got too late & we shut it off before it got to the keep-you-awake-all-night parts. Andy has never seen it before. I've seen it a couple times and it still scares me, so if I'm back on here at 2:00 AM, you'll know why!

2 more days left in the month, then I'm going to read something light and mindless and with a plot!!!!! Any suggestions?

Election Thought For The Day

"The ballot is stronger than the bullet."

--Abraham Lincoln


True, but rather ironic all the same.

Month of New Subjects - Social Contract Theory

Starting with John Locke, who was writing during arguably one of the most turbulent eras in England's history--the deposing of King James II in favor of his daughter and her husband, just after the country had sort of settled down after the whole beheading of Charles I/Cromwell's reign/the Restoration saga--basically argues much of what would later show up in America's Declaration of Independence: basically that governments cannot exist without the consent of the governed. I think he was probably taking pot shots at the ever-popular King James II who was trying to impose an absolute monarchy on the people who had beheaded his father for many of the same reasons, which is very interesting to read while we have a president with the same sort of intellect. Thank heavens we have term limits--I'm not sure we're up to beheadings just yet. Not to say we're absolutely above such things--if we were faced with the prospect of 4 more years--or heaven forbid, the rest of his life--of Georgie Junior as president......let's just say that tips from the Borgia book of entertaining might become EXTREMELY popular in Washington D.C......

Thomas Hobbes also seems to believe in social contract theory (not positive about his views on bumping off rulers), but his writing is more about why people would want government in the first place--to protect them from each other, which is largely true I think. Much of his essay is really hard to get through, but I did enjoy this:

For such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; Yet they will hardly believe there be mnany so wise as themselves: For they see their own wit at hand, and other mens at a distance. But this proveth rather that men are in that point equall, than unequall. For there is not ordinarily a greater signe of the equall distribution of any thing, than that every mand is contented with his share. [sic]

Now I'm partway through Rousseau's Social Contract. The most interesting points so far:

"I feel that, however feeble the influence my voice can have on public affairs, the right of voting on them makes it my duty to study them." (Take THAT uninformed voters!!!)

"The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty."

I've been thinking about this second point and can't decide if I believe his assertion or not. Look at how thoroughly people were controlled in Nazi Germany and in communist Russia--it was through "strength," certainly, but also through alienation and. Can we really say that any leader in modern society could convince people to do something out of duty? In America, we can't even get most of our population to vote.

Next up: Thomas Paine and Barnon de Montesquieu

Today's Election Thought

"I feel that, however feeble the influence my voice can have on public affairs, the right of voting on them makes it my duty to study them."

--Jean Jacques Rousseau, 1762

A Thought For Election Season

"The [purpose] of government is the good of mankind; and which is best for mankind, that the people should be always exposed to the boundless will of tyranny, or that the rulers should be sometimes liable to be opposed when they grow exorbitant in their use of their power, and employ it for the destruction, and not the preservation, of the properties of their people."

--John Lock, On Civil Government

Creature Features - The Blob

With tango & everything else, we've sort of gotten away from our horror-flick "marathon" but last night we made white chocolate martinis and sat down to watch The Blob. Since this was our 4th or 5th movie, before starting the movie we placed a bet on how many times the heroine would scream. I said 6, Andy said 4.

So far, I'd say this one takes top honors as the strangest "horror" films I've ever seen. For one, it starts with a rather catchy theme song, and I'm not even positive the movie was trying to be scary. Kitschy, perhaps, but we suspect it was just something to go see in a drive-in theater so teenagers in the 1950's could make out. I thought that after my experiences learning to make jelly this year, I might find oozing carnivorous grape jelly somewhat frightening, but nothing. Perhaps if it had been pumpkin butter.......

And it turns out, neither of us even came close. The annoyingly-helpless female of the movie screamed exactly once.

Next up: Standly Kubrick's "The Shining." Lots of screaming from the annoying female in that movie--and generally from me every time I watch it.....Or maybe we'll just watch the Simpson's spoof..........