As I mentioned previously I was invited to be part of a panel discussing Collapse Fiction at the Potlatch SF Convention held recently in Seattle. I made some preparatory notes about collapse fiction and I am updating it with some specific comments about various works: http://blog.lightingonemorecandle.com/2012/02/considering-sf-societal-collapse-and.html
Prior to the start of the panel I placed a small audio in my shirt pocket for several reasons; first that I a record of actions or emails or other commitments; second it is often good to listen to yourself in order to improve your presentation skills and thirdly just in case I said worth following up on later this would keep track of it. I had expected the recorder to primarily pick up my voice and I was not intending to record the entire panel. I felt the panel was very successful and I was really glad I was able to be on the panel.
Reviewing the audio I found that not only had it picked up my voice but also much of the other comments from the other panelists as well as some of the audience. The audio quality is terrible but just good enough after listening to it multiple time in some sections 4 or 5 times I think I have been able to put together a set of notes covering some of the high points of the hour long session. In general the notes are in order although in a couple of cases when a comment is specific to a previous comment I have placed following rather than out of sequence. I have made my best effort for accuracy and have in a couple of cases used three question marks (???) to indicate uncertainty. In some cases I was able to identify the speaker but in many cases I was unsure so to avoid incorrect attributions I have decided not to identify any speakers. And to answer the obvious question: Do I plan to post the audio? No the quality is very poor so it is really not worthwhile plus I do not know what Potlatch 21 has in place regarding publication of recordings.
It should be obvious but I will make it explicit: These are just my best effort to record the comments, questions and general discussions for that one hour in Seattle. I am not claiming they are accurate. They do not necessarily represent my views. They are here with no promises and no guarantees.
NOTES FROM THE COLLAPSE FICTION PANEL
Many collapse fiction novels do not deal with all of the aftermath issues
Consider how collapse fiction talks about our fears
Is our current society made artificially stable by violence on individuals
but not providing communitarian functions?
How do societies improve on societies as rebuilt?
How is improvement envisioned?
One person mentioned being more interested in an incipient utopia rather than a dystopia.
How does recovery conflict with individual liberties?
Buckminster Fuller book Enough To Go Around
Contrast of endogenous and exogenous impacts.
Contrast with Earth Abides with speaker did not like, felt that Canticle for L
was more hopeful book
What were forces used in rebuilding such as religion, gender roles, military force,
looking toward the stars, etc
In some novels such as Lucifer's Hammer they protagonists get knocked down, bounce, roll, get back up and start rebuilding.
Comment that in one of the Lois McMaster Bujold the society was not based on what we would consider democracy because the people said they had tried that and did not like it.
Many collapse books gloss over the painful transition period, one work with does deal with this is the book Level 7 by Mordecai Roshwald.
Issue of how much we have already used resources.
One solution is to live next to a dump for relatively easy supply of metals such as aluminum in beverage cans.
Some narratives start with an assmption about evolution and change that might no be correct particularly as related to social organization with might not support everyone to the extent desired. Is the way that these narratives sell a particular vision of who to rebuild normal? Just like Hollywood tries to sell a particular concept of romance we need to ask if it was normal would they really need to sell it.
Even rebuilding stories such as in series such as the John Varley Severn Worlds series or Anne McCafferies Pern Series have a nonsustainable 'just keep extracting resources' senario
Some political revolution narratives are the other side of the collapse narrative consider the Suzy McKee Charnas Holdfast series or the Timmel Duchamp Marq'ssan Cycle series.
Some collapse novels have an element of manifest destiny that we can just leave garbage behind. Humorours interjection: Only if there is a cute robot to recycle it.
How do you draw the boundary of the society and what comes after the collapse? Is there a continuity or not. For example Charles Stross novel Saturn's Children in which the biological carbon based humans have died out but the non-carbon based lifeforms have much of the same memetic and cultural heritage.
Some books mentioned about people making their way with different approaches
Parable of The Sower by Octabia Butler
Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
Farnhams Freehold by Heinlein depicts a future based on race relation resentment
At the time people building fallout shelters
Heinlein says you can not keep all genetic eggs in one basket
There are issues with the ruler in the future being depicted as a dark skinned black man who is cannablistic and who wants to have non concentual sex with the white women from the past
Also
Sharing Knive by Bujold
Andre Norton Star Rangers books
Need to consider how we use resources recycable such as aluminum versus use it once such as petroleum.
Don't expect to get rich mining the astrodes due to advances microbiolgical mining on earth mine talings
So in case a collapse starts it is important to protect microbiological labs and knowledge
Nonfiction book Collapse by Diamond
???Dorothy Dunnett in the book ??? used the image of "collapsed like an overtaxed weightlifter"
The second chapter of "The Highway Men" by Ken MacLeod is a very gripping depiction of how through mistaken assumptions and a rush to war a couple of simple misunderstandings can lead to war.
Hierarchy of levels for society analogous to the Maslow Heirarchy for individuals. A society can have a collapse at the memetic and intellectual culture level. This leads us to consider the opening lines of Howl by Allen Ginsberg which depict Ginsberg's conserns about destruction of the best minds of a generation. Yet there were those who viewed this work of Ginsberg along with other works and social commentators such as Lenny Bruce as being a sign of and contributing to social collapse. Issues of perspective and context.
In a collapse books preserved as opposed to electronics which is an issue for ebooks.
Book "Wolf and Iron"
What about when you have resources but not information
Sometimes information is inplicit in a physical object related to usage and construction
Kurt Vonnegut novels depict three types of collapse
Player Piano - Societal issues
Cat's Cradel - End of the world
The Sirens of Titan - About Rebuilding
Interest in societal collapse literature in English speaking world due to the teaching about fall of roman empire. For some in the so called "third world" there is the experience of colonialism. Some third world narratives might read like Science Fiction. Consider novels about the African Holocaust.
Example the novel Two Thousand Seasons by Ayi Kwei Armah
Roman republic was used as a model for the forming of repubic of the USA so the Roman republic falsly has weight; such as the fall of Roman Empire not analogous to USA
Consider that an electrical generator was redeveloped early in Canticle For Leibowitz
If there is an Intersteller civilization and there is a collapse with lose of interstller communication to what levels would the society fall and then rebuild
It takes only one and half generation to lose knowledge ie organic farming
In reading 1491 we see Catholic monks buring natives books and artifacts so that there would not be a rebuilding.
We already have data recovery, equipment and knowledge issue with computers now. Recovering images from old tapes is an issue.
Novels about rebuilding in terms communitarianism
various books by Kim Stanley Robinson
The Gate to Women's Country by Tepper
Holdfast series including Walk To the End of World by Charnas
Women on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy
Contrast with Lucifer's Hammer which rebuilds as before
Issue with looking for a society which works for everyone is that human nature is human nature.
Poul Anderson Orion Shall Rise
Story by Ursula Le Guin Solitude
What about time length of a few thousand years
The Last and First Men by Stapledon
Foundation Trilogy by Asimov
Time Machine by Wells
To rebuild appears to be a human drive. What about narratives where it is not possible to rebuild.
We who are about to by Joanna Russ we are about to
Book Directive 51 by John Barnes
World War Z by Max Brooks
The Greatwinter Trilogy by Sean McMullen
Sherwood Smith series about advancing glaciers narrowing temperate zone
Narratives tend to be about individuals so that constrains the narrative to about 100 years and what survives us is culture
What collapse fiction has been written recently beside the Hunger Games books
Directive 51 by John Barnes
Paulo Bacigalupi
Scott Westerfeld
The Highway Man by Ken MacLeod
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
Comment about scene in We Who are About To
where a man comments to a woman about having babies to continue civilization and the woman says No. Civilization will continue just fine out there.
Stories by Janet Kagan
Theme of collapse fiction; what have we lost; what can we regain
The idea that something is going to happen and we have no control might lead us to not consider sustainable models. There is the aphorism: No single drop of water feels the blame for the flood.
The Last Letter by Fiona Lehn
In rebuilding a society that is kinder and more sustainable and which will work and continue to work you need to have someone at the elbow of those doing the rebuilding to protect from those who want to grab power. Again and again we see that those with power tend not to give it up.
2012-02-18
Considering SF, Societal Collapse and Rebuilding
I have been asked to be part of a panel on "Collapse Fiction" at the SF (Science Fiction) Potlatch convention in Seattle on February 24-26, 2012.
http://potlatch-sf.org/21/index.php
The description of the panel from the program is:
Being asked to participate on this panel started me thinking of ways to delineate Collapse Fiction and thus this short and most likely incomplete set of questions, issues and categories came to be written as an aid for me in thinking about "Collapse Fiction". I expect to add to and modify this post quite a bit up to the Potlatch convention and following.
Now on to thinking about fiction and collapse.
While the individual types and degrees of social behavior can vary from person to person we list humans are social creatures. I propose for this discussion of societal collapse we consider a simple division of Societal features:
- Interpersonal norms - Trust, honesty and benevolence
- Intellectual - knowledge, technology, science
- Identity - cultural mythology, arts, literature
- Infrastructure - markets, communications
- Physical needs - health, food, water
These are not strictly Hierarchical however I feel there are relationships and support (and overlap) between levels. In particular if the Physical needs are seriously compromised then that contributes to a more rapid breakdown and a difficulty in rebuilding. This has an impact on story structure for example if a marauding army comes through and confiscates the grain is there enough seed grain for the next planting?
And it is useful to contrast these with the classic Maslow Hierarchy of Needs
- Self-Actualization
- Esteem
- Belongingness and Love
- Safety
- Physiological
The implication is not that there is a correspondence between elements of the two lists but rather that it is useful to distinguish the elements as a way to example various fictional works.
Too often I think the issue is constructed as two phased - collapse and then rebuild (Down then Up) a V shaped model. I prefer a more U shaped three phase model of collapse, stabilization, rebuild and that in each of these phases there is a survival component; quite probably with some overlap. Of course each of these phases will not be smooth and linear but rather each will likely be bumpy and non-linear. And of course the slope of the sides of the U are important thus it might be thought of as more of a bowl than a U.
Further we need to realize that the rate of change both during collapse and rebuilding is an important consideration. It raises the question when does simple societal change become so rapid that it becomes societal collapse? And at what point going down the collapse slope it is reasonable to say that there as been a Collapse. This raises the issue of collapse as a Process and collapse as a Condition. For example consider towns and cities which have fallen from their former glory and are now half abandoned?
This of course leads us to consider the systems boundary issue? What defines the society under consideration? Is it a town, a river valley, a provincial area, a federal government, a cultural subgroup, an ethnicity or all humans? And are the factors endogenous (from within the system) or exogenous (from outside the system)? And how can a society change within a novel as still be considered the same society or is the novel about transformation or perhaps the novel is about multiple societies and cultural traditions merging.
There is also the question of perspective when one person sees collapse and another sees positive transformation. This can be the case particularly when consideration the cultural and institutional features; for example a set of religious beliefs and institutions which for some have been the primary defining characteristics of a society might be dying off as modern secular Enlightenment views take hold. Thus the same change can be viewed as either collapse or as rebuilding.
To the above we can add the Journalism 4 Ws and an H and adapt them to a typical SF Collapse and Rebuild novel
who - characters in a social setting
what - one or more of collapse, survival, rebuild
where - setting both location and temporal
why - agent or force of nature
how - weapons, climate, famine, disease
Within this conceptual framework in mind I will consider various works and how they fit.
The first novel I would like to mention is Pulling Through by Dean Ing published by Ace Science Fiction in 1983. As many novels between roughly 1950 and 1990 the thing which brings about sudden change is a nuclear war. The system boundary for this novel is northern California primarily in the greater San Francisco Bay area. The exogenous factor that starts the collapse is nuclear weapons hitting San Francisco and other areas. The narrative revolves around Harve Rackham who is a bounty hunter, the young fugitive woman he has just picked up and Harv's sister and her family from the Silicon Valley. Much of the book is involved with the survival of the collapse stage; that is how do you stay alive in the hours, days and weeks following a nuclear exchange. The end of the novel covers some of the stabilization period up through the beginning of the rebuild or as it is labeled in the novel Doomsday plus 176. The original paperback edition has a an end section discussing many of the survival issues as well as plans for a homebuilt radiation detector. This novel along with other stories about the same main character are collected into a single ebook called The Rackham Files which is available from Baen Books but unfortunately the end sections are not included. However the plans for the fallout meter are available for free online:
http://www.ornl.gov/~webworks/cppr/y2001/rpt/112538.pdf
Thus Pulling Through is an example of a collapse novel with an exogenous impact doing massive damage to health and infrastructure with the survival during the collapse as well as the sustaining and rebuilding being due in large part to endogenous resources such as stocking supplies, planning ahead and the personal human resources of ingenuity and perseverance.
UPDATE: 2012-03-03
The panel was a success. I have some notes at
http://blog.lightingonemorecandle.com/2012/03/notes-about-potlatch-panel-on-collapse.html
What I am adding here are comments about specific works. Some of these i mentioned during the panel.
Title: Saturn's Children
Author: Charles Stross
Collapse of human society by humans not reproducing. Human society ends however robot society goes and flourished. If we consider the larger social system to include human society as a subsystem or social subgroup then perhaps we can view this as a partial collapse (aka decline) with a sustaining period and a rebuilding in a new form. If the meme set continues is the gene set that important. Just as we are overcoming prejudise based on race and gender do we also want to over come prejudise based on substrate.
Title: The Higway Men
Author: Ken MacLoed
This short work is after a major war has started. The second chatper is only about 5 pages long and it alone is worth the price if it makes people stop and think about how simple events can get misunderstood and lead to serious problems.
Title: Little Brother
Author: Cory Doctorow
The impact is composed of two events; first one exogenous which is terrorists blowing up the Bay Bridge and second one being the heavy handed, irrational, out of control response by the Department of Homeland Security which can be considered as either endogenous or exogenoous depending on the boundary. lhe sustaining and rebuilding are partially based on knowledge and skills acquired prior to the impact event as well as the actions of the main protaganist and his friends and accomplists so this can be considered as a endogenous rebuilding.
Title: Fire on the Mountain
Author: Terry Bisson
This work is structured as an alternative history retrospective in which the raid on the armory at Harpers Ferry is successful leading to a slave upgrising and war culminatiing in the creation of a new socialist country Nova Africa. Thus we have a an collapse particularly from the slave owning class. The war is won by the group lead by John Brown and Harriet Tubman which grows from the small number of the ferry raid to a large army with the abolistionists, free blacks and runaway slaves joining the ranks. From the perspective of the slave owners this is a societal collapse however ever the perspective of others it can be viewed as the first steps of rebuilding from a society long in collapse.
Title: Howl
Author: Allen Ginsburg
The first fourteen words of Howl set the scene of the author seeing collapse at a culture level impacting society as well as the "best minds". What is interesting is that another part of the society did not recognize the situation as a collapse in Ginsburgs terms; on the contrary this segment of society saw the works of Ginsburg and others such as Lenny Bruce, Jack Kerouac as causing a social degradation. Thus we see an interesting question of perspective.
http://potlatch-sf.org/21/index.php
The description of the panel from the program is:
A Canticle for Leibowitz isn't the only book about societal collapse and rebuilding. Join us for a discussion of other books with similar themes. What other authors have done it well? How is collapse fiction changing as the threats to modern society evolve, from nuclear annihilation in the 1950s to the ecological and political threats of today?
Being asked to participate on this panel started me thinking of ways to delineate Collapse Fiction and thus this short and most likely incomplete set of questions, issues and categories came to be written as an aid for me in thinking about "Collapse Fiction". I expect to add to and modify this post quite a bit up to the Potlatch convention and following.
Now on to thinking about fiction and collapse.
While the individual types and degrees of social behavior can vary from person to person we list humans are social creatures. I propose for this discussion of societal collapse we consider a simple division of Societal features:
- Interpersonal norms - Trust, honesty and benevolence
- Intellectual - knowledge, technology, science
- Identity - cultural mythology, arts, literature
- Infrastructure - markets, communications
- Physical needs - health, food, water
These are not strictly Hierarchical however I feel there are relationships and support (and overlap) between levels. In particular if the Physical needs are seriously compromised then that contributes to a more rapid breakdown and a difficulty in rebuilding. This has an impact on story structure for example if a marauding army comes through and confiscates the grain is there enough seed grain for the next planting?
And it is useful to contrast these with the classic Maslow Hierarchy of Needs
- Self-Actualization
- Esteem
- Belongingness and Love
- Safety
- Physiological
The implication is not that there is a correspondence between elements of the two lists but rather that it is useful to distinguish the elements as a way to example various fictional works.
Too often I think the issue is constructed as two phased - collapse and then rebuild (Down then Up) a V shaped model. I prefer a more U shaped three phase model of collapse, stabilization, rebuild and that in each of these phases there is a survival component; quite probably with some overlap. Of course each of these phases will not be smooth and linear but rather each will likely be bumpy and non-linear. And of course the slope of the sides of the U are important thus it might be thought of as more of a bowl than a U.
Further we need to realize that the rate of change both during collapse and rebuilding is an important consideration. It raises the question when does simple societal change become so rapid that it becomes societal collapse? And at what point going down the collapse slope it is reasonable to say that there as been a Collapse. This raises the issue of collapse as a Process and collapse as a Condition. For example consider towns and cities which have fallen from their former glory and are now half abandoned?
This of course leads us to consider the systems boundary issue? What defines the society under consideration? Is it a town, a river valley, a provincial area, a federal government, a cultural subgroup, an ethnicity or all humans? And are the factors endogenous (from within the system) or exogenous (from outside the system)? And how can a society change within a novel as still be considered the same society or is the novel about transformation or perhaps the novel is about multiple societies and cultural traditions merging.
There is also the question of perspective when one person sees collapse and another sees positive transformation. This can be the case particularly when consideration the cultural and institutional features; for example a set of religious beliefs and institutions which for some have been the primary defining characteristics of a society might be dying off as modern secular Enlightenment views take hold. Thus the same change can be viewed as either collapse or as rebuilding.
To the above we can add the Journalism 4 Ws and an H and adapt them to a typical SF Collapse and Rebuild novel
who - characters in a social setting
what - one or more of collapse, survival, rebuild
where - setting both location and temporal
why - agent or force of nature
how - weapons, climate, famine, disease
Within this conceptual framework in mind I will consider various works and how they fit.
The first novel I would like to mention is Pulling Through by Dean Ing published by Ace Science Fiction in 1983. As many novels between roughly 1950 and 1990 the thing which brings about sudden change is a nuclear war. The system boundary for this novel is northern California primarily in the greater San Francisco Bay area. The exogenous factor that starts the collapse is nuclear weapons hitting San Francisco and other areas. The narrative revolves around Harve Rackham who is a bounty hunter, the young fugitive woman he has just picked up and Harv's sister and her family from the Silicon Valley. Much of the book is involved with the survival of the collapse stage; that is how do you stay alive in the hours, days and weeks following a nuclear exchange. The end of the novel covers some of the stabilization period up through the beginning of the rebuild or as it is labeled in the novel Doomsday plus 176. The original paperback edition has a an end section discussing many of the survival issues as well as plans for a homebuilt radiation detector. This novel along with other stories about the same main character are collected into a single ebook called The Rackham Files which is available from Baen Books but unfortunately the end sections are not included. However the plans for the fallout meter are available for free online:
http://www.ornl.gov/~webworks/cppr/y2001/rpt/112538.pdf
Thus Pulling Through is an example of a collapse novel with an exogenous impact doing massive damage to health and infrastructure with the survival during the collapse as well as the sustaining and rebuilding being due in large part to endogenous resources such as stocking supplies, planning ahead and the personal human resources of ingenuity and perseverance.
UPDATE: 2012-03-03
The panel was a success. I have some notes at
http://blog.lightingonemorecandle.com/2012/03/notes-about-potlatch-panel-on-collapse.html
What I am adding here are comments about specific works. Some of these i mentioned during the panel.
Title: Saturn's Children
Author: Charles Stross
Collapse of human society by humans not reproducing. Human society ends however robot society goes and flourished. If we consider the larger social system to include human society as a subsystem or social subgroup then perhaps we can view this as a partial collapse (aka decline) with a sustaining period and a rebuilding in a new form. If the meme set continues is the gene set that important. Just as we are overcoming prejudise based on race and gender do we also want to over come prejudise based on substrate.
Title: The Higway Men
Author: Ken MacLoed
This short work is after a major war has started. The second chatper is only about 5 pages long and it alone is worth the price if it makes people stop and think about how simple events can get misunderstood and lead to serious problems.
Title: Little Brother
Author: Cory Doctorow
The impact is composed of two events; first one exogenous which is terrorists blowing up the Bay Bridge and second one being the heavy handed, irrational, out of control response by the Department of Homeland Security which can be considered as either endogenous or exogenoous depending on the boundary. lhe sustaining and rebuilding are partially based on knowledge and skills acquired prior to the impact event as well as the actions of the main protaganist and his friends and accomplists so this can be considered as a endogenous rebuilding.
Title: Fire on the Mountain
Author: Terry Bisson
This work is structured as an alternative history retrospective in which the raid on the armory at Harpers Ferry is successful leading to a slave upgrising and war culminatiing in the creation of a new socialist country Nova Africa. Thus we have a an collapse particularly from the slave owning class. The war is won by the group lead by John Brown and Harriet Tubman which grows from the small number of the ferry raid to a large army with the abolistionists, free blacks and runaway slaves joining the ranks. From the perspective of the slave owners this is a societal collapse however ever the perspective of others it can be viewed as the first steps of rebuilding from a society long in collapse.
Title: Howl
Author: Allen Ginsburg
The first fourteen words of Howl set the scene of the author seeing collapse at a culture level impacting society as well as the "best minds". What is interesting is that another part of the society did not recognize the situation as a collapse in Ginsburgs terms; on the contrary this segment of society saw the works of Ginsburg and others such as Lenny Bruce, Jack Kerouac as causing a social degradation. Thus we see an interesting question of perspective.
2012-02-07
Some link gathering
I will often click on a link in a browser because it is something that I expect to want to look at later when I hope to have more time. Occasionally these links and other documents to which they point form interesting and unusual juxtapositions. And I cover a few of these juxtapositions here.
Glenn Greeenwald has an article on the attack drones from the USA targeting those who might be rescuers and/or mourners:
http://www.salon.com/2012/02/05/u_s_drones_targeting_rescuers_and_mourners/singleton/
Additional discussion at:
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/02/04/obama-terror-drones-cia-tactics-in-pakistan-include-targeting-rescuers-and-funerals/
Killing children and any helpful bystanders who come to the aid of injured people is not a really good way to gain the good will of people around the world and to encourage the social connections which help develop a better society.
I think that having a well educated populace with knowledge of social sciences, arts, physical and biological sciences is an aid in developing a rich and more tolerant social environment. So what was the results of the actions of the government of the USA in Iraq both prior to and after the invasion? According this article it has not been good:
http://costsofwar.org/article/education-universities-iraq-and-us
And we all remember Obama getting the Peace Prize. Well it looks like there are now some concerns that Prize has not always been justified or was too political.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/nobel-peace-prize-jury-investigation-15488435#.TzGC2N5SSE0
And in an interesting development we see that PFC Bradley Manning has been nominated:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29077
All of this might lead to a serious and public discussion about the Peace Prize, who gets it and why. If that conversation has a difficult time starting with those who award the Prize then perhaps a way to jumpstart the discussion is to ask them to consider if Manning is more deserving of the prize than Obama.
Glenn Greeenwald has an article on the attack drones from the USA targeting those who might be rescuers and/or mourners:
http://www.salon.com/2012/02/05/u_s_drones_targeting_rescuers_and_mourners/singleton/
Additional discussion at:
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/02/04/obama-terror-drones-cia-tactics-in-pakistan-include-targeting-rescuers-and-funerals/
Killing children and any helpful bystanders who come to the aid of injured people is not a really good way to gain the good will of people around the world and to encourage the social connections which help develop a better society.
I think that having a well educated populace with knowledge of social sciences, arts, physical and biological sciences is an aid in developing a rich and more tolerant social environment. So what was the results of the actions of the government of the USA in Iraq both prior to and after the invasion? According this article it has not been good:
http://costsofwar.org/article/education-universities-iraq-and-us
And we all remember Obama getting the Peace Prize. Well it looks like there are now some concerns that Prize has not always been justified or was too political.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/nobel-peace-prize-jury-investigation-15488435#.TzGC2N5SSE0
And in an interesting development we see that PFC Bradley Manning has been nominated:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29077
All of this might lead to a serious and public discussion about the Peace Prize, who gets it and why. If that conversation has a difficult time starting with those who award the Prize then perhaps a way to jumpstart the discussion is to ask them to consider if Manning is more deserving of the prize than Obama.
2012-01-29
On orientation, choice, nature, same-sex marriage and government
Recently Cynthia Nixon (star of various TV, movie and stage productions including Sex and the City) made some remarks about being gay or straight and the question of if it was was choice or not. Nixon said that her current situation in a gay relationship was a choice. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/magazine/cynthia-nixon-wit.html
Instead of the question of whether being gay a choice or are people born with a specific orientation; I want to focus on a higher order question: what does it matter in the same-sex marriage discussion?
It is probably worth noting that given the extent of human variation in so many areas there is likely no single answer. It is an interesting question to help understand humans just as understanding being introvert or extrovert. But it touches the issue of how are lesbians and gay persons are treated socially and legally in our society and the history related to that is very sad. One of the ways that people fought for same-sex marriage was to compare sexual orientation to race and claim that the same logic that defeated the legal restrictions on inter-racial marriage meant that legal restrictions on same-sex marriage should also be eliminated. However if sexual orientation is a choice is this argument still valid?
I think that is the wrong question. The proper question is should the government be involved with same-sex marriage one way or the other? The answer is No. What we need is to get the government out of marriage; same-sex, opposite-sex or whatever. I wrote about this a couple of years ago http://www.alf.org/marriagemoulton.php
Instead of the question of whether being gay a choice or are people born with a specific orientation; I want to focus on a higher order question: what does it matter in the same-sex marriage discussion?
It is probably worth noting that given the extent of human variation in so many areas there is likely no single answer. It is an interesting question to help understand humans just as understanding being introvert or extrovert. But it touches the issue of how are lesbians and gay persons are treated socially and legally in our society and the history related to that is very sad. One of the ways that people fought for same-sex marriage was to compare sexual orientation to race and claim that the same logic that defeated the legal restrictions on inter-racial marriage meant that legal restrictions on same-sex marriage should also be eliminated. However if sexual orientation is a choice is this argument still valid?
I think that is the wrong question. The proper question is should the government be involved with same-sex marriage one way or the other? The answer is No. What we need is to get the government out of marriage; same-sex, opposite-sex or whatever. I wrote about this a couple of years ago http://www.alf.org/marriagemoulton.php
2012-01-25
Loving Photos
In 1967 the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) had the case of Loving versus the state of Virginia concerning the Virginia anti-miscegenation law. The SCOTUS ruling that the law was unconstitutional was important because Richard Perry Loving and Mildred Loving faced prison time which would have been bad both for them as well as their children. I almost left off the prior sentences because I assumed that everyone would know about the Loving case however I decided to include just in case someone had forgotten. Now to the point of this post; you can see an interesting set of photos about the Loving family at:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2088040/Photographs-Lovings-interracial-marriage-time-banned-16-states.html
based on the exhibit at the International Center of Photography http://www.icp.org/
This is just one more reminder about why the government needs to stop defining marriage and since I have written on this elsewhere I will just provide a link:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160321064725/http://www.alf.org/marriagemoulton.php
And this should serve as a cautionary reminder that the misguided opinion that in the hierarchy of government (city, county, state/provincial, federal) that individual liberty is necessary better served at a lower level. This opinion is demonstrably false. The situation is complex and nuanced which makes simplistic formulas and slogans not only inaccurate but detrimental to the quest for liberty.
So take a look at the photos for a visual reminder of a historic case.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2088040/Photographs-Lovings-interracial-marriage-time-banned-16-states.html
based on the exhibit at the International Center of Photography http://www.icp.org/
This is just one more reminder about why the government needs to stop defining marriage and since I have written on this elsewhere I will just provide a link:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160321064725/http://www.alf.org/marriagemoulton.php
And this should serve as a cautionary reminder that the misguided opinion that in the hierarchy of government (city, county, state/provincial, federal) that individual liberty is necessary better served at a lower level. This opinion is demonstrably false. The situation is complex and nuanced which makes simplistic formulas and slogans not only inaccurate but detrimental to the quest for liberty.
So take a look at the photos for a visual reminder of a historic case.
2012-01-18
Concerning SOPA and PIPA
Today is January 19, 2012 and a lot of blogs are either providing information about SOPA and PIPA or going black. I have decided that the best approach for this small blog is to go the informational route.
There are several good informational sources such as https://www.eff.org/.
I have already contacted the Congressperson from the Congressional district in which I reside as well as both Senators. If you do not know the names and contact info for these persons you can find assistance at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CongressLookup.
Hopefully SOPA and PIPA will be stopped.
There are several good informational sources such as https://www.eff.org/.
I have already contacted the Congressperson from the Congressional district in which I reside as well as both Senators. If you do not know the names and contact info for these persons you can find assistance at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CongressLookup.
Hopefully SOPA and PIPA will be stopped.
2011-12-28
Ron Paul for POTUS? NO!
Ron Paul a member of the USA Congress from Texas is as I write riding fairly high in the polls in his attempt to obtain the Republican Presidential nomination. I have long had an interest in Libertarian political theory and thus have spent a modest amount of time examining the political background of Ron Paul since some people have referred to Ron Paul as a Libertarian. So what about Ron Paul and his run for the Presidency?
First let us consider if Ron Paul is qualified to be POTUS (President of the USA). In a purely technical sense Ron Paul is qualified to be POTUS since he meets the requirements specified in the Constitution. But what of the practical requirements for the position? POTUS is an executive position as well as a policy position. Certainly policy will typically change from administration to administration as each new POTUS establishes new policy directions and brings in new people. And many people focus primarily in the policy pronouncements that they think a candidate represents however we must not forget that the office of POTUS is an executive position.
There has been controversy about items published in the Ron Paul newsletters in the 1980s and 1990s about issues relating to race, homosexuality and HIV/AIDS. Many of these passages are vile and offensive. They have been published on a variety of website and I will not take the space to publish them again. As best I can determine from looking at various sources the position that Ron Paul has taken concerning the contents of the newsletter appears to be a waffle between sometimes claiming the newsletters were written by others without his direct oversight or at other times claiming that he wrote the text but that it is all being taken out of context. Then in either case claiming that this has all been covered before so no further discussion is needed. Well I am not buying this; I think more disclosure is needed. Clear and unambiguous disclosure. This is one aspect of getting an evaluation of executive capability. If a person writes something and publishes it then they need to take responsibility for it. If a person made a poor choice and delegated a writing assignment to someone else then make sure that what goes out is reviewed. Yes something things go wrong and yes we all make mistakes. However at the point the mistake is discovered the thing to do is be completely honest and ask for forgiveness. However we have not exactly got that; what seems to be the situation is that Ron Paul is now distancing himself from the statements but there is still no clear explanation of what happened on various occasions. So Ron Paul did not demonstrate competence at being chief executive over something as simple as a newsletter. Based on the evidence I have seen thus far I do not think that Ron Paul is qualified for a high executive office such as POTUS.
At this point someone I expect will ask but what about policy? Isn't Ron Paul good on policy? Well let us consider Ron Paul's policy positions. On the issue of foreign wars Ron Paul has one of the better records among national politicians. And for that he should be given credit. The issue which usually gets raised next is the Federal Reserve. Financial reform of the Federal Government is a good and lofty goal however my estimation is that it would take close to 30 years to unwind the complex web we have now. I am concerned that Ron Paul and his supporters have under-estimated the complexity and difficulty of the task. But for at least raising the issue and keeping a focus on the Federal Reserve and other financial components of the Federal government he again deserves credit.
The next policy issue that is raised is about the War on Drugs. Isn't Ron Paul against the War on Drugs? Well it appears that Ron Paul is against the War on Drugs at a Federal level. At a state level it is a bit murkier. Ron Paul has said that in his opinion drug prohibition is not effective but given his inclination to push many issues down to the states my understanding is that as POTUS he would not be in favor of Federal laws overturning drug prohibition if done at the state level but this is not clear. And this brings us to a crucial point; what else does Ron Paul want to be the exclusive to the states and what his view of the Constitution particularly the 14th amendment?
The clearest example of the views of Ron Paul on these issues can be seen in the bill he sponsored in 2011 HR958 which it did not pass although he has sponsored similar bills in the past
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.958:
I will quote HR958 in part just so no-one thinks this is somehow being taken out of context:
So let us look at the the first item listed in HR958 which relates to "the free exercise or establishment of religion". I suspect that most people will recognize those words as representing the part of the first amendment covering what is commonly known as "the separation of church and state". What Ron Paul is proposing is that states could if they wanted have Bible reading in their schools and other similar actions and the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the USA) or Federal Courts could not hear the case. What Ron Paul proposes has so many flaws it is difficult to know where to begin. The problem that is glaringly obvious is that this proposed law would not stand up when challenged in the SCOTUS. Another problem is that mixing religion with government has historically been a bad idea; it often leads to the majority religion gaining advantages over minority religions or the non-religious. Historically although not perfectly the USA has been a country of religious liberty and I can not understand why Ron Paul appears to want to throw that away.
Now consider the next part of HR958 about "sexual practices, orientation, or reproduction". What is that about? Well probably many things but let us start with the Lawrence v Texas case where the SCOTUS overturned a Texas statute making consensual homosexual activity between consenting adults a crime. HR958 would be allow states to pass laws making homosexual activity between consenting adults a crime. Another thing that HR958 might be about is the Griswold v Connecticut case. That is the case where in 1965 the SCOTUS overturned a Connecticut law which outlawed birth control. Think about this for a moment. In Connecticut in the early 1960s Estelle Griswold and C. Lee Buxton were arrested and convicted of opening a birth control clinic in New Haven, Connecticut. Ron Paul seems to have this continual refrain about putting policy issues back to the state level but what he fails to realize how the would diminish individual liberty. Or maybe he just does not care? Or maybe he actually wants to return the era before Griswold decision? It is difficult to say.
And in the third part of the text from HR958 that I quote above we find reference to "the right to marry without regard to sex or sexual orientation". Of course this looks like an attempt to let states outlaw same-sex marriage. Since the SCOTUS has not ruled that state laws restricting marriage to one man and one woman are unconstitutional then why is it included? My guess is that some conservatives are looking ahead. There are obvious equal protection and other problems with restricting marriage to just one man and one woman. Those who are attempting to claim any sort of rational basis for outlawing same-sex marriage are finding that their arguments are not standing up to scrutiny. I do not have space to discuss same-sex marriage further however at: http://alf.org/marriagemoulton.php I have a short essay on the topic.
There is more that I could write on HR958 and on other topics related to the policy positions of Ron Paul but I think what I have written thus far is sufficient to make my point that Ron Paul has some policy positions that I think are simply wrong and ultimately would be corrosive to the structure of civil society.
Based on what I have covered above and other items which space does not permit it is my judgment that Ron Paul does not have the necessary executive ability to be POTUS and further Ron Paul has advocated policies which show poor judgment and thus from a policy perspective is not a good candidate for POTUS.
At this point I suspect someone is jumping up and saying "But Ron Paul is a Libertarian".
Let us consider the claim "Ron Paul is a Libertarian". Of course this does depend on what definition of Libertarian one uses. However I will state firmly that I do not consider Ron Paul a Libertarian, he is in my opinion a Conservative who sometimes takes positions which are sort of Libertarian. But just having some Libertarian positions is not enough. There are certain positions which Ron Paul appears to hold such as those I have discussed in relation to HR958 that as far as I am concerned exclude Ron Paul from the category of Libertarian.
Of course much of what I have written here depends on a particular definition of Libertarian and I realize that others will have definitions which differ from mine and which they might claim are better or at least just as good. And there are those who claim that the term Libertarian should be a "big tent" term where many views are welcome. I have come to disagree with the "big tent" view. Having a "big tent" is fine for a social gathering however having a "big tent" for the definition of term has a serious downside. Before long the term can become so broad that it can accommodate many contradictory positions. And even worse it can become so watered down that little if any serious thought is required of those who claim its banner. I think we are long past the time for having a serious discussion on what is means to be a Libertarian. Perhaps this short essay will get it started.
First let us consider if Ron Paul is qualified to be POTUS (President of the USA). In a purely technical sense Ron Paul is qualified to be POTUS since he meets the requirements specified in the Constitution. But what of the practical requirements for the position? POTUS is an executive position as well as a policy position. Certainly policy will typically change from administration to administration as each new POTUS establishes new policy directions and brings in new people. And many people focus primarily in the policy pronouncements that they think a candidate represents however we must not forget that the office of POTUS is an executive position.
There has been controversy about items published in the Ron Paul newsletters in the 1980s and 1990s about issues relating to race, homosexuality and HIV/AIDS. Many of these passages are vile and offensive. They have been published on a variety of website and I will not take the space to publish them again. As best I can determine from looking at various sources the position that Ron Paul has taken concerning the contents of the newsletter appears to be a waffle between sometimes claiming the newsletters were written by others without his direct oversight or at other times claiming that he wrote the text but that it is all being taken out of context. Then in either case claiming that this has all been covered before so no further discussion is needed. Well I am not buying this; I think more disclosure is needed. Clear and unambiguous disclosure. This is one aspect of getting an evaluation of executive capability. If a person writes something and publishes it then they need to take responsibility for it. If a person made a poor choice and delegated a writing assignment to someone else then make sure that what goes out is reviewed. Yes something things go wrong and yes we all make mistakes. However at the point the mistake is discovered the thing to do is be completely honest and ask for forgiveness. However we have not exactly got that; what seems to be the situation is that Ron Paul is now distancing himself from the statements but there is still no clear explanation of what happened on various occasions. So Ron Paul did not demonstrate competence at being chief executive over something as simple as a newsletter. Based on the evidence I have seen thus far I do not think that Ron Paul is qualified for a high executive office such as POTUS.
At this point someone I expect will ask but what about policy? Isn't Ron Paul good on policy? Well let us consider Ron Paul's policy positions. On the issue of foreign wars Ron Paul has one of the better records among national politicians. And for that he should be given credit. The issue which usually gets raised next is the Federal Reserve. Financial reform of the Federal Government is a good and lofty goal however my estimation is that it would take close to 30 years to unwind the complex web we have now. I am concerned that Ron Paul and his supporters have under-estimated the complexity and difficulty of the task. But for at least raising the issue and keeping a focus on the Federal Reserve and other financial components of the Federal government he again deserves credit.
The next policy issue that is raised is about the War on Drugs. Isn't Ron Paul against the War on Drugs? Well it appears that Ron Paul is against the War on Drugs at a Federal level. At a state level it is a bit murkier. Ron Paul has said that in his opinion drug prohibition is not effective but given his inclination to push many issues down to the states my understanding is that as POTUS he would not be in favor of Federal laws overturning drug prohibition if done at the state level but this is not clear. And this brings us to a crucial point; what else does Ron Paul want to be the exclusive to the states and what his view of the Constitution particularly the 14th amendment?
The clearest example of the views of Ron Paul on these issues can be seen in the bill he sponsored in 2011 HR958 which it did not pass although he has sponsored similar bills in the past
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.958:
I will quote HR958 in part just so no-one thinks this is somehow being taken out of context:
The Supreme Court of the United States and each Federal court--
(1) shall not adjudicate--
(A) any claim involving the laws, regulations, or policies of any State or unit of local government relating to the free exercise or establishment of religion;
(B) any claim based upon the right of privacy, including any such claim related to any issue of sexual practices, orientation, or reproduction; or
(C) any claim based upon equal protection of the laws to the extent such claim is based upon the right to marry without regard to sex or sexual orientation; and
(2) shall not rely on any judicial decision involving any issue referred to in paragraph (1).
So let us look at the the first item listed in HR958 which relates to "the free exercise or establishment of religion". I suspect that most people will recognize those words as representing the part of the first amendment covering what is commonly known as "the separation of church and state". What Ron Paul is proposing is that states could if they wanted have Bible reading in their schools and other similar actions and the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the USA) or Federal Courts could not hear the case. What Ron Paul proposes has so many flaws it is difficult to know where to begin. The problem that is glaringly obvious is that this proposed law would not stand up when challenged in the SCOTUS. Another problem is that mixing religion with government has historically been a bad idea; it often leads to the majority religion gaining advantages over minority religions or the non-religious. Historically although not perfectly the USA has been a country of religious liberty and I can not understand why Ron Paul appears to want to throw that away.
Now consider the next part of HR958 about "sexual practices, orientation, or reproduction". What is that about? Well probably many things but let us start with the Lawrence v Texas case where the SCOTUS overturned a Texas statute making consensual homosexual activity between consenting adults a crime. HR958 would be allow states to pass laws making homosexual activity between consenting adults a crime. Another thing that HR958 might be about is the Griswold v Connecticut case. That is the case where in 1965 the SCOTUS overturned a Connecticut law which outlawed birth control. Think about this for a moment. In Connecticut in the early 1960s Estelle Griswold and C. Lee Buxton were arrested and convicted of opening a birth control clinic in New Haven, Connecticut. Ron Paul seems to have this continual refrain about putting policy issues back to the state level but what he fails to realize how the would diminish individual liberty. Or maybe he just does not care? Or maybe he actually wants to return the era before Griswold decision? It is difficult to say.
And in the third part of the text from HR958 that I quote above we find reference to "the right to marry without regard to sex or sexual orientation". Of course this looks like an attempt to let states outlaw same-sex marriage. Since the SCOTUS has not ruled that state laws restricting marriage to one man and one woman are unconstitutional then why is it included? My guess is that some conservatives are looking ahead. There are obvious equal protection and other problems with restricting marriage to just one man and one woman. Those who are attempting to claim any sort of rational basis for outlawing same-sex marriage are finding that their arguments are not standing up to scrutiny. I do not have space to discuss same-sex marriage further however at: http://alf.org/marriagemoulton.php I have a short essay on the topic.
There is more that I could write on HR958 and on other topics related to the policy positions of Ron Paul but I think what I have written thus far is sufficient to make my point that Ron Paul has some policy positions that I think are simply wrong and ultimately would be corrosive to the structure of civil society.
Based on what I have covered above and other items which space does not permit it is my judgment that Ron Paul does not have the necessary executive ability to be POTUS and further Ron Paul has advocated policies which show poor judgment and thus from a policy perspective is not a good candidate for POTUS.
At this point I suspect someone is jumping up and saying "But Ron Paul is a Libertarian".
Let us consider the claim "Ron Paul is a Libertarian". Of course this does depend on what definition of Libertarian one uses. However I will state firmly that I do not consider Ron Paul a Libertarian, he is in my opinion a Conservative who sometimes takes positions which are sort of Libertarian. But just having some Libertarian positions is not enough. There are certain positions which Ron Paul appears to hold such as those I have discussed in relation to HR958 that as far as I am concerned exclude Ron Paul from the category of Libertarian.
Of course much of what I have written here depends on a particular definition of Libertarian and I realize that others will have definitions which differ from mine and which they might claim are better or at least just as good. And there are those who claim that the term Libertarian should be a "big tent" term where many views are welcome. I have come to disagree with the "big tent" view. Having a "big tent" is fine for a social gathering however having a "big tent" for the definition of term has a serious downside. Before long the term can become so broad that it can accommodate many contradictory positions. And even worse it can become so watered down that little if any serious thought is required of those who claim its banner. I think we are long past the time for having a serious discussion on what is means to be a Libertarian. Perhaps this short essay will get it started.
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