Maintaing our outrage against Hitler

From First Things:
After printing an evenhanded op-ed on neurology and the paranormal (registration required), the New York Times carries a curious story about science and free will. “Free will does exist, but it’s a perception, not a power or a driving force,” says neurological researcher Mark Hallett. “People experience free will. They have the sense they are free.”
And as for the social and moral consequences of denying free will, the Times found scientists prepared to accept them, as unpleasant as they may be. Harvard’s Dr. Wegner says: “We worry that explaining evil condones it. We have to maintain our outrage at Hitler. But wouldn’t it be nice to have a theory of evil in advance that could keep him from coming to power?” That would be nice. But Wegner never explains how the denial of free will would eliminate Hitlers. For that matter, he can’t say why we should maintain outrage at the evil of Hitler. In the absence of free will, “evil” and “outrage” are emptied of all normative content; they become only preprogrammed brain responses to stimuli.

If Hitler had no free will then isn’t maintaining our outrage against Hitler like the primitive shaking his fist angrily at the sky?

Utopian Narcissism

What is especially disturbing about the political Left is that they seem to have no sense of the tragedy of the human condition. Instead, they tend to see the problems of the world as due to other people not being as wise or as noble as themselves.

Thomas Sowell

Modern Liberation

Some people seem to think that we live in more "liberated" times, when all that has happened is that one set of taboos has been replaced by another and more intolerantly enforced set of taboos.

Thomas Sowell

All The King's Men

Saw the new version of All the Kings Men with Sean Penn, Jude Law and Kate Winslet. The film was a colossal bore. I hated the over dramatic sound track. The main message seemed to be that there is no good, all politicians are corrupt; and you’re better off with your crook in office. I came across a review in Crisis Magazine and this interesting tidbit.

In 1949, John Wayne turned down the original role of Stark, writing a heated letter to his agent explaining why. Wayne felt that the script “smears the machinery of government for no purpose of humor or enlightenment” and “degrades all relationships,” being rife with “drunken mothers; conniving fathers; double-crossing sweethearts; bad, bad, rich people, and bad, bad, poor people.” To Wayne, the film demeaned not only the American system of government but “the American way of life.” These are very serious accusations that apply to the novel as well. Does the story of these two cynical men who fall deeper and deeper into nihilism—living in a world in which, as Stark explains, there’s no morality and “you just make it up as you go along”—have anything useful to say about corruption, apathy, betrayal, or cynicism? Not really, and this is the real problem at the source of Zaillian’s failed script and film.

An Inconvenient Truth

The argument for significant man made global warming has always rested on stridency and alarmist what if thinking than sound reasoning. The most common response to critics of global warming are ad hominems and genetics (fallacy). The genetic fallacy and ad hominems spares one from actually answering any arguments.

I haven’t seen Gore’s documentary yet. I have seen Gore on shows contemptuously dismissing any critic of global warning. The Claremont blog recently mentioned Gore’s video.

According to Gore, there is no credible criticism of manmade global-warming, in scientific journals (none) or out (bogus). Opposition is based either on ignorance, apathy or selfish motives, such as those of the oil and gas companies who employ writers and speakers to divert attention from the "inconvenient truth."

In truth, Gore and his movie reflect the very characteristics which he deplores in his critics: appeal to authority, closed-mindedness and impatience with criticism.

I only mention it now as a point about rhetoric. Science does attempt to respond to critics and seeks out critics. That’s the point of science. Say what you may about Gore, but don’t call his rants scientific.

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese

As a grad of Emory in 1983, Ms. Fox-Genovese was a familiar name. In later life, after she established Women’s studies at Emory she became known for her reproach of the feminist movement. Here is a highlight from the New York Times Orbituary:

Ms. Fox-Genovese, who in her early work supported abortion, though with reservations, would in later years equate it with murder. She would also argue publicly that the women’s movement had been disastrous, and extol the virtues of traditional marriage and family.
In interviews and in her writings, Ms. Fox-Genovese ascribed her political transformation in part to her growing embrace of religion. Reared in a household of secular intellectuals, she converted to Roman Catholicism in 1995.

Touchstone Magazine’s Mere Comments provided a good overview of the woman they called. Lioness.

She has told the story of her conversion in an article in the April 2000 issue of First Things (where she also was a contributing editor), and a reading of that account is a necessary starting place for assessing the background to her change. But anyone who followed the track of her published work knows that the change was not nearly as great as it might have seemed. Looking backward at her pilgrimage, one can say that for Betsey, Marxism and feminism, although clearly heresies, were the kind of heresies that point one toward the truth. For like all heresies, they contained an important piece of the truth, a piece that can be built upon once it is freed from association with falsehood.

May the Lioness be at peace with the Lamb.