JOLLY DAYS, an artist's journal

There are many revelations in NPRs firing of Juan Williams. Not.

Really, the kerfuffle had all the players in familiar formation. The difference is that Williams is a black man who is also liberal; a circumstance where politically correct cognitive dissonance is raised an order of magnitude.

So the not so revelatory becomes at least a little more interesting.

NPR showed its loyalty to Williams, who had worked for NPR for ten years, by publicly humiliating him. Vivian Schiller, NPRs CEO, chose to fire Williams in a press conference, without prior notice, and then suggested Williams see his “psychiatrist or publicist” — a microexpression of NPRs contempt for Williams. Williams did not tow the company line, after all.

He worked for Fox, which NPR despises. You would think NPR despised Fox for ideological reasons. NPR really hates Fox because Fox does the partisanship thing with more flair, wit and competence.

Although the online high school essay of NPRs ombudsman did not say anything of substance, it did affirm “good journalism”. Now with Nina Totenberg wishing AIDS on legislators, and PBSs’ Gwen Ifill lying to the debate commission about her book deal before hosting a debate, with Schiller herself apologizing for her suggestion Williams see a psychiatrist (he is sick) or a publicist (just another greedy guy), one wonders why good journalism requires Williams to be fired but all that is required from the “journalists” named above is an apology? Shouldn’t the journalists and incompetent CEO all be fired?

If this were a movie Schiller and her crew would be shipped off to their proper home, The View, there to cluck at their intellectual equals in Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg. Williams would take, Putney Swope-like, NPRs CEO job.

But this is real life and not a cut and paste movie. The victim of NPRs behavior is himself often dubious. At least Juan Williams’ views are not predictable; he always appeared to be parsing what was in front of him rather than looking over his shoulder, as partisans are condemned to do in their eternal self-vigilance. But still, I often disagreed with Williams’ analyses, feeling he missed too much.

Williams, in a later interview claimed to have been shocked at the narrowness of NPR. What planet has Williams been on? Why does he think so many of us, still liberals, have such disdain for NPR, PBS and the MSM? The thought police, the Cotton Mathers of the Left (and Right), have been for a long time now, a disturbing and, to borrow from Schiller, a disturbed group in need of psychiatric intervention.

A very interesting discussion with David Brooks @Charlie Rose. Brooks has written a new book and was presumably there to hawk it, but he did not do a very good job. His description sounded like another attempt on his part to write a Michael Lewis / Gladwell / Tom Wolfe book; a book that aspires to coin a catch phrase that becomes a meme, and describes with witty insight the current climate.

Brooks, trying to be a serious thinker and not a thrice weekly columnist, talked about the ideas in his book: the amazing, to him, influence emotion has on thinking as verified by recent science. The unified field theory of human beings: emotion and reason, passion and logic, are One. Not a great revelation, and certainly not needing scientific confirmation as Brooks was providing — although science doesn’t hurt; the Arts have grokked this connection between our various impulses into a Self for as long as there have been the Arts. We are mysterious, complex creatures, often unknown, even to ourselves, or those most close to us. Ghosts in a short-lived dream.

Despite the uninspiring presentation of his book, Brooks’ take on the current political scene displayed his strengths and considered wisdom. He is worried. Brooks speaks to people who are worthy of consideration; Brooks’ parsing of the message from economists and policy makers is that there will be in a few years a fairly dramatic reckoning, as partisanship, debt, and a troubled country hit the wall. Brooks feels a third party is a possibility. The Moderates. (This has to remind you of Jon Stewart’s recently announced “Million Moderates March”, but for real.) Moderate Republicans and Democrats getting together and trying to work out pragmatic solutions; this of course is what the country wants and had wanted when Obama was elected.

Brooks felt the Glenn Beck event in Washington was “religious people asserting their traditional and religious values”. “Norman Rockwell values” is what Brooks called it. This is not what you often hear in the din of media dissing of the Tea Party. Brooks also felt that Obama handed too much power to confrontationalists like Pelosi and Reid. Rose asked whether Obama was a good communicator; Brooks fudged or just did not get it. The problem with Obama, which many in the country now sense, is that the man has no conviction outside of his own self-absorption, and no leadership chops. Obama is a pleasant, cautious, self-referring, careerist, who is not speaking to the fears and doubts of the public. Obama cannot empathize although he is often clearly sympathetic.

I’ve watched Brooks over the years because I respect his attempt to approach things fairly; he seemed unusually tentative, slurring his words, not listening to himself — often being corrected by Rose as to missed referents. Brooks didn’t seem his old self. Unlike most public figures who often become wind-up toy versions of themselves after a few years in the roiling spotlight, Brooks seems more modest and self-deprecating than ever before. This is appealing, surprising, and somehow, disturbing.

Well, WaPo said, snidely, that Michelle Rhee and Kevin Johnson have “downsized their wedding”. Possible conflict of interest in the guest rolls apparently.

Now this would only be of interest if you were following Rhee’s enormously impressive battles to improve the D.C. school system, as it has been presented, segment by segment, on Lehrer (PBS Nightly? What is the name of that show?).

Rhee is so filled with the spirit you root for her and feel her sincerity. The unions are worried about jobs and Rhee is worried about the kids. That’s probably not completely fair to many teachers in that system, but watching the drama play out on the PBS show, it does feel that way.

The reason this news snippet is of interest is that it was astonishing how much support Rhee was getting from the mayor. The man backed her 100%. It was admirable and courageous — very treacherous to go against public unions. It turns out now, it was also a thing of the heart.

Sometimes such emotional connections, frowned on at the workplace, don’t sabotage, but make things possible.

You can find online a study guide to Cognitive Biases.

The descriptions of the biases themselves leads one to think of comedy. Seinfeld could have done, (and by indirection often did), storylines illustrating these irrational paths we all follow in trying to arrive at a rational decision.

Here are some of the biases which could be attributed to those engaged in the partisan wars — apply this to whatever affinity group you wish — they will fit like a glove:

Outgroup homogeneity bias
Individuals see members of their own group as being relatively more varied than members of other groups.
False consensus effect
The tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which others agree with them.
Just-world phenomenon
The tendency for people to believe that the world is just and therefore people “get what they deserve.”
Hyperbolic discounting
The tendency for people to have a stronger preference for more immediate payoffs relative to later payoffs, where the tendency increases the closer to the present both payoffs are.
Negativity bias
Phenomenon by which humans pay more attention to and give more weight to negative than positive experiences or other kinds of information.
Illusion of control
The tendency for human beings to believe they can control or at least influence outcomes that they clearly cannot.
Framing
Using an approach or description of the situation or issue that is too narrow. Also framing effect – drawing different conclusions based on how data is presented.
Moral credential effect
The tendency of a track record of non-prejudice to increase subsequent prejudice.
Bias blind spot
The tendency not to compensate for one’s own cognitive biases.
Bandwagon effect
The tendency to do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same. Related to groupthink and herd behaviour.
Wishful thinking
The formation of beliefs and the making of decisions according to what is pleasing to imagine instead of by appeal to evidence or rationality.
Reactance
The urge to do the opposite of what someone wants you to do out of a need to resist a perceived attempt to constrain your freedom of choice.
Disregard of regression toward the mean
The tendency to expect extreme performance to continue.
Overconfidence effect
Excessive confidence in one’s own answers to questions. For example, for certain types of question, answers that people rate as “99% certain” turn out to be wrong 40% of the time.
Authority bias
The tendency to value an ambiguous stimulus (e.g., an art performance) according to the opinion of someone who is seen as an authority on the topic.

So, we are irrational creatures. Not out of ill intentions, but out of heuristics: the mental shortcuts we use to make decisions. The best we can do is to find the particular errors to which we are most prone and try and compensate.

Social function clicks in though. If you are struggling to be fair and objective and others seem unconcerned, but out of ego are pursuing their irrational goals, you have lost some edge in the argument. But then your own thinking was similarly distorted, so you may be wrong as well and it is ego that drives the argument, on both sides.

This is why the arts deal with ambiguities and not declarations of conceptual truth in trying to express the human condition.

There is no objectivity, in the humanities or even in the sciences, where at one time, it seemed, science was the sole oasis of objectivity.

In a recent op-ed David Brooks compares careerist automatons of a certain age with Elena Kagan.

These [are] bright students [at elite universities] who had been formed by the meritocratic system placed in front of them. They had great grades, perfect teacher recommendations, broad extracurricular interests, admirable self-confidence and winning personalities…If they had any flaw, it was that they often had a professional and strategic attitude toward life.

Perfectly smooth and sanded, without a fissure or crack of interest — nothing to disconcert. Pure calculation and skillset, not much in the way of depth. Brooks says this recent instantiation of the 1950s, with its conformist impulses and happy surface, is disturbing. He says of Kagan,

What we have is a person whose career has dovetailed with the incentives presented by the confirmation system, a system that punishes creativity and rewards caginess. Arguments are already being made for and against her nomination, but most of this is speculation because she has been too careful to let her actual positions leak out.

In this sense, the same criticisms could have been levied against George Bush The Father. In his many high ranking offices, almost comical in its aggregate status — culminating in the presidency — it was often noted that Bush “never left a track in any office he ever held”.

If the system wants a certain type, the factories which produce those types, the universities, crank them out. This is like saying the sky is blue.

In his appearances on Inside Washington Evan Thomas has always been a square shooter. He doesn’t seem to have an agenda, is pretty much immune to the trendy conformity of partisan opinion, and so can reasonably be listened to as an honest broker. He seeks to tell the truth without a fluorish and appears to have little need for contention. Thomas just wants to offer his take.

Thomas is the author of one of two books under review @NYT about Teddy Roosevelt.

The reviewer, a distinguished historian, applauds Thomas’ book,

In his absorbing narrative of men who found duty or fulfillment or personal meaning in a war for empire — and of other men, like William James, who feared that such a quest would rot the nation’s soul — Thomas has illuminated, in a compulsively readable style, a critical moment in American history. This is a book that, with its style and panache, is hard to forget and hard to put down.

The men in question are the aforementioned Teddy Roosevelt, W.R. Hearst and the patrician snob Henry Cabot Lodge. The review points out that the motives of these men were different in their desire for war with Spain over Cuba, and uniformly, their motives were without merit and the war a disturbing trumped up affair.

In Roosevelt’s case (for whom “just about any war would do”), Cuba offered an irresistible means for ego gratification, masculinity enhancement and self-promotion. With politicians pumping for action and journalists inventing tear-inducing atrocities, the nation was primed for war — just so long as it was thrilling, brief and involved little danger.

I had always admired Roosevelt as one of the few who were true scholars among American presidents. Overqualified by resume and exceptionally capable, I thought. This review by Ronald Steel reminds me of the hagiographic haze often conferred on historical figures.

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Update:

Thomas was just on Charlie Rose. I only caught part of it but it was quite good.

Even in the segment I saw though there was much to consider: Thomas noted that he did admire Roosevelt but again asserted Teddy Roosevelt’s war lover persona. He thought it might have something to do with TR being a sickly child and maybe relations with father…

Charlie Rose in theorizing about why Obama was so ineffectual — lost in the shuffle of partisan shouting — said Obama was too reasonable. Thomas seemed to agree.

It isn’t that Obama is too reasonable, but that he is incapable of leadership, as has been true of many recent presidents; a point Thomas did make at one point, although he didn’t parse it accurately: it isn’t the “detriment” of reasonableness, it is Obama’s inability to connect. That empathic connection great leaders have with the public is simply missing.

Pelosi celebrates the passage of a health care bill as though it were The Health Care Bill that was advertised by Obama. Without a public option, and with the spectacle of a wilting, shoddy process to enact this legislation, it is a cynical, or delusional assertion, that this is something to celebrate.

Obama was elected on a wave desiring change and, Not Bush. Obama said he would remove partisanship but had not a clue how to fulfill the slogan. I don’t think Obama has yet convinced anyone of anything — in America, or internationally. While the media has attempted to explain away Obama’s lack of conviction the pattern is apparent.

Everyone knew health care was broken — that health insurance was a 20% add-on to every payment a patient made. Obama needed to sell the idea, to convince people (of what they originally believed), and counter the “socialism” nonsense. He finally gave up as one mistake after another was made.

Pelosi decided it could be done, as she felt she knew better than the majority, and didn’t care if the product was watered down, so she discarded Obama’s quit-out, and pushed it — and succeeded! I’m glad she did, even in its truncated form; I hope the bill turns out to be a new beginning. What you really want to see is an end to health insurance for profit. The idea that government bureaucracies are worse than health insurance corporate bureaucracies is an idea that never made much sense. If government bureaucracies falter, then make them better. Corporate bureaucracies want to make money — it is actually their fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders — so their efficiencies are those derived from greed. It is delusional to trust business to do it better; remember that many argued that we trust the markets to self-correct prior to the financial crash.

In the NYT, Ross Douthat reviews a book about the nutcase brigade. The conspiracy theorists who seem to be outnumbering the normative like a toxic wave. The internet doesn’t help: meme=dumb mostly; the internet is a perfect medium for me-too-ism. How the cranks find each other is something of a mystery, or it had been, until the internet made it easy.

From JFK assassination fantasies (hello, Ollie Stone), to 9/11 conspiracy crazies — all political persuasions are infected, at their tattered, stinking edges.

… the ideological fringes are forever blurring into one another: Pat Buchanan can sound a lot like Gore Vidal, “truthers” and “birthers” often share common fixations, and both the far left and far right seem equally inclined to circle around, eventually, to pointing fingers at the Jews.

One of the nice things about David Brooks of the NYT is his modest, benevolent demeanor. Brooks seeks the moderate and speaks in euphemisms but has hardcore convictions. It sounds like a slight thing, but if the arena is partisan politics, it is really, really welcome. Pretty, pretty, pretty good, as Larry David would say. You wonder how Brooks, with his personality, saw raucous politics as a good fit? I’m glad he did. He is one of the few who seem to be trying to tell the truth, or better, to be honest.

In this brief online discussion with Dick Cavett Brooks has become infected by the negativity in the air. He went on a trip across America, talked to “average” folks, and found everyone was down. They hate Washington and don’t feel the optimism of people in India and China. A small, anecdotal sample, but still.

Brooks says,

It’s true I see no way we will avoid a fiscal catastrophe, and I hear smart economists debating how bad the catastrophe will be: Rome or merely Spain? Can this be true? Is the nation of perpetual youth really on the path to old age?

The root of current despair isn’t the financial crisis, as Brooks seems to think. The financial crisis is a manifestation of a larger infection; the attitudes and ambitions of those who drove the financial crisis were derived from the value system we see all around us.

It does feel the system is broken, from many ends, and there are many in addition, who want exceptional America to not be exceptional at all. What do they think will replace the American presence in the world’s imagination and who will attend the pragmatic demands? Many who conduct the public life of America have forgotten basic values — they are too busy chasing money and status (awards). I’m not referring to Brooks here, but the media culture as a whole (movies, TV, celebrity culture, journalism, op-ed commentary, politicians) and its values, whose mindset we have adopted as early cultures believed in household gods.

Obama’s White House is hardly different than Jimmy Carter’s depressing administration—zero leadership. As an example, Hillary Clinton is “insulted” by the timing of Israel’s settlement announcement, but China in Tibet, Turkey in Cyprus, home grown terrorism pathologized and sanitized by the administration, making terrorists into the equivalent of drug dealers, all to honor politically correct defaults, and thereby, cluelessly, enabling the deplorable, have somehow escaped her grasp of what is truly an insult to intelligence and simple decency. Think of Iran’s jerking America and the UN around, while they oppress the protesters in Tehran—does that insult Clinton and Obama? True insult is volitional, not an awkward mistake.

The media have tainted the waters out of careerist motives, saying what has been said before, with alacrity. The media doesn’t present what is, fully, but seeks defaults, outlines, to fill in. And those outlines have been defined by the momentum of years of unbalanced presentation. The tag line for most newscasts is a reassuring aw-gee story that is meant to make the public feel good about itself. But everything that preceded betrays their hypocrisy—that is, the way the information is presented: the angle of the story, the shallowness of understanding, the poisonous, tendentious voice overs, the mind numbing slogans. “The mood in the White House, Brian, is…”

The sense of can-do hope and generous good will that is the best of America has been eroded badly. Brooks is right there. Freeman Dyson, as well, wrote in one piece sometime back, that he felt America was in decline. Not a dip, but a steady slip…downward.

The Kabuki theater today shown on YouTube, of a health care “summit”, was far more compelling than I thought it would be. Stripped of the TV news video editor and voice over partisan commentator the public witnessed a display of raw political reality. Or at least as real as politics ever gets, being that they were all on public display and in performance mode.

Health care is such an important issue you wish there were statesmen somewhere to be found instead of the placeholders who populate our political-media-complex. I was surprised how emotional it was. Even if detached at first, these politicians have been at this issue for a long time, and their emotions have been drawn close to the surface.

Obama did a good job playing his part. He wanted to show the public that he “had tried” and the Republicans are all negative all the time. The Republicans helped by having nothing to offer. Obama made some very effective points when he wasn’t playing politics by trying to appear not to be playing politics.

Obama’s continual reference to Republican “talking points” was Obama’s own talking point. Obama’s patronizing response to McCain that “we aren’t campaigning anymore” failed to engage McCain’s points (one of which found Obama in agreement). It was pure deflection on Obama’s part. McCain pointed out that Obama had promised a transparent process but instead let Pelosi et al. aggregate the bill, which, along with Obama’s 11 pages of modifications, was being presented for debate a year after Obama’s promise, as a fait accompli.

Add to that the visible disdain manifest in Obama’s addressing all these more experienced public figures by their first names and you were left with the impression, once again, that Obama is tone deaf — his bubble of self regard making it impossible for him to understand how he comes across.

McCain made the telling point that the bill had been so larded with special deals that it was a disgrace. The Republicans in general made some good points, especially about the doubletalk embedded in the budgetary underpinnings of the health care bill. Unfortunately, Republicans had only, “start again” to offer — a cynical, deplorable tactic. Harkin for the Dems was quite effective in presenting the real world consequences of our current health care system.

So the Dems will barrel through with what is called a “reconciliation” vote, in unintended irony, and hope the health care bill doesn’t permanently discredit them.

David Brooks was on Charlie Rose last night. As usual, it is worthwhile considering his ideas.

David Brooks is good provocative. He is not interested in provoking for the cheap thrill of a partisan’s toxic smirk. Brooks is interested in ideas. His presentation is very easy to take. Like an old style liberal, who is understanding and open to discussion and modest presentation. Current proxies for liberalism are understanding only as regards certain religions, ethnicities, social classes or a particular gender. Not liberal at all. Liberalism can be said to be societal morality, but a morality that discriminates using such filters has no moral standing. Be understanding towards all or be a bigot.

Brooks’ appearance on Charlie Rose was provocative in the good way. He is writing a book on the brain, so he has applied recent findings to his interest in political matters. It sounds as though the filter he is using is behavioral economics.

As I understand it, this discipline confirms what you know intuitively. We are not exactly rational creatures. The current Cult of Rationalism, a religion of sorts, asserts we can understand everything. Little likelihood our species will ever even come close. The fear is of encroaching irrationality and the madness that ensues. People are rationally mad though. Lots of educated fools out there.

Brooks was positive about Obama; Brooks described himself as 30 degrees to the Right of Obama. He is clearly aware that Obama is drifting, but places this drift in the context of an intelligent man who is cautiously trying to make the correct decision. Whether that is truly Obama, or a projection of Brooks himself, isn’t really clear, but it is reassuring to think that about Obama.

As an aside, Brooks was wrong that “we like broccoli for emotional reasons”. Recent studies have shown some people have receptors in their tongues which register a bitterness others do not. It’s machinery: DNA, not brain function centered in emotions. Brooks is also probably wrong that brain research will give us much of an answer to public policy disputes. He said such research settles certain disputes: are we rational creatures?, for example. But those are academic, sophomoric discussions and don’t really touch the public. Ivory tower stuff. The counter argument is that the black swan phenomenon is based on just such human-as-rational-player assumptions. So maybe something useful will result from this research. I still doubt it.

The arts have always known, and even better, expressed, that we are emotional, irrational creatures; often act against our own best interests and are subject to the most pesky of character flaws that result in death, destruction, unhappiness, and all sorts of pandemonium. Brooks reminds me of the recent apotheosis of DNA and the “key to life”, we got the answer celebrations; it is one thing to understand the workings of the machinery of evolution, or of the crown jewel, the brain, but being able to draw any pragmatic benefits from that knowledge posits an enormously optimistic leap.