Wouldn't Integration Be Loverly?

One more reason we should've been born a hundred years earlier: in 1911 the lower classes of London consisted mainly, I assume, of lovable Cockney flower-sellers with amusingly deadbeat fathers. Nowadays London's poor are too busy burning down and looting the city to take part in linguistic bets wagered by gentlemen of means.

To what should we attribute these riots? The problem, as it looks from this armchair several thousand miles away, is a generation of young people who have grown up without any attachment to their own communities. Admittedly, this is a problem throughout Europe, where children of immigrants have found neither acceptance nor employment in their adopted societies. (Xenophobes will point out that many immigrants have shown no desire to integrate, which is probably fair — to an extent. But the level of frustration shewn in the U.K. and elsewhere suggests that at least some have tried and been rebuffed.) We are beginning to see the effects of decades of inept immigration policy: immigrants are allowed into countries where there are neither jobs nor opportunities for advancement (i.e., education and integration programs — consider Germany's failed Multikulti policies) for them. Deprived of the means to help themselves, utterly dependent on the welfare state, is it any wonder that so many children of immigrants have grown to hate the societies of Europe in which they find themselves?

The real sticky wicket, now, is what to do with such a systemic problem. Political and economic enfranchisement is never immediately achieved; it must be the result of education, of viable employment, of real communities. Once these are gone — as is the case, in the urban ghettoes of both the U.K. and this country — well, nobody is quite sure how to get them back. Thoughts?

The Anything-but-Silent Scream

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum (pictured above with his lovely daughter - the one clutching "Religious Cult Abby" of American Girl Dolls fame - and son - the one barely disguising his disappointment after yet another unsuccessful Harry Potter audition) has made some pretty persuasive arguments in his public career. None as persuasive (well, maybe this one) though, as this week's gem, in which he claims that a 'culture of abortion' is responsible for income shortfalls in Medicare and Social Security.

His argument goes something like this - stop me if you think it's too charitable. Part of the problem with the Social Security shortfall is that there aren't enough payers-in to cover the payers-out, so Social Security payouts have to rely on the 2.3 trillion dollar trust fund in order to cover the difference. A long-term version of this problem will eventually exhaust the trust fund, leading either to increased pay-ins (taxes) or reduced payouts (benefits). On Santorum's argument, the legalization of abortion in the U.S. has disrupted demographic trends in such a way that, had abortion remained illegal, there would presently be enough (or, somewhere nearer enough) payers-in to cover the retirement of the Baby Boom generation. Now, since 1973, over 45 million fetuses have been aborted legally in the US. Suppose conservatively (or, liberally, I don't know) that making abortions illegal would've bought, say, 30 million (plus their children...) tax payers out of the woodwork - and no other costs. Then, presumably, there'd be enough payers-in to cover the payers-out, since the number of payers-out is (theoretically) fixed. And if we can cover the shortfall of payers-in, Social Security is saved.

Okay, Senator, not bad. Given the value of Social Security and Medicare (assumed by a Republican?!), the fact that any event that makes it less likely that those programs will persist is a prima facie reason in favor of illegalizing or protecting against that event. Legalized abortion is such an event, and now we've got on our hands a prima facie reason to illegalize abortion. Santorum FTW!

But, naturally, this argument is stupid - at least for those with ideological commitments like Santorum's. The argument doesn't work without the assumption that damage to Social Security generates a prima facie reason against some event, or in favor of eliminating it. But then, imagine any event that reduces the number of payers-in to Social Security, and you've got a prima facie reason against it or in favor of eliminating it. Disability from manual labor? Unemployment? Retirement? Death? The decision to have fewer than two children? All of these events reduce the number of payers-in to Social Security, and so, on Santorum's view, there's at least one prima facie reason each in favor of ending these events. But, Republicans aren't in favor of reducing unemployment or monitoring workplaces in order to reduce disability, and they'll never get Democrats to go along with their "Two Pregnancy Minimum" bill. So, since the prima facie reasons against abortion doesn't generate a motivation to shift our position on (most of) these laws in order to 'save' Social Security, why would this reason against abortion motivate us more?

(Please, Senator, please: run for President.)

A Discerning Ear for Taste

In the last six months, I've cottoned to the varied expressions of musical arts in a way that I've never cottoned to them before. I've made opera a monthly excursion, and I make a point to read at least a few articles about the composer and libretto of the performance I'm attending (so far, for the curious: Verdi's "A Masked Ball", G&S's "The Mikado", and just two weeks ago Puccini's "Girl of the Golden West"). I bought a new, entry-level high-fi sound system (for the curious, Vienna Acoustic's Haydn monitors, a Marantz P8003 integrated solidstate, and some very-fine-indeed cable on loan from a benefactorial professor), with abuncha CDs from as many genres with which to acquaint myself. I now try to acquire electronic copies of scores for the performances that I listen to, in order that I can learn to read through the performance, much in the way that the composer wrote it and the conductor (and musicians, for that matter) read it.

In all, the experience has been, if not cheap, unadulteratedly wonderful. And doubly so for the fact that I cannot foresee its end. My life, in short, is happier. And that, because I have a deeper appreciation - which is simply to say, a more deeply moving experience - of music every time I listen.

Now, you'd be right if you guessed the following two things (though, it'd be odd if 'guess' accurately characterized how you came to believe them): first, I have what, at one time, could've been described as a relatively extensive musical education; second, I didn't listen to much music before now, apart from whatever was on the local public radio station. The first, I won't detail, except to say that I can read music and play more than a few (but far fewer than many) piano scales. The second, though, may require some explanation. I didn't listen to music as a child in no small part, I suppose, because when I was at the age when children come to want to listen constantly to music, my family just didn't have any on. So, I never knew what music my parents took to, until much older, and I had little acquaintance with any popular music until I was of an age to find it distasteful. Or rather, maybe a theory of popular music enjoyment has to begin at a time when one accepts unquestioningly the soundness of popular music as a form of artistic expression. This, I think it's obvious, never happened for me. Consequently, I never listened to popular music when I was young, and by the time I was in middle school and therefore old enough to begin enjoying the pop-y ballads and whatever was on the radio, I just didn't enjoy it.

All of this resulted in an odd, but interesting, feature of my musical outlook (or whatever): I don't have preferences. Or at least, I don't have genre-, instrument-, singer-, or whatever specific preferences - which is to say that I don't prefer things in any of the ways that I recognize a lot of other people as preferring music. A few examples. Out of hand, for example, I don't dislike rap. And I don't, out of hand, enjoy classic rock. I don't hate Cher, or Madonna, or Lady Gaga. Just as I don't love Dire Straits, the Beatles, or Willie Nelson. And it's this way for everything. Or, almost everything. There are some styles at the boundaries of what count as music that I find myself having an impossible time appreciating. Hardcore punk (or "Screamo" as it's aptly nicknamed) grates my audial sensibilities in a very unappealing way. It frightens me, for one. And how, as an expression of art, it differs from an expression of rage is almost never obvious. But that's a different post. My point here stands: even with Screamo, I think I could appreciate whatever is supposedly good in it, if someone would just point to what I'm not seeing.

Anyway, I don't think it's so interesting that my musical tastes turned out this way - it seems natural, after all, given what I was working with. So, what has been interesting about all of this? Watching other people talk about their tastes, that's what's been interesting. As near as I can tell, most people have little room in their lives for music that doesn't come after whatever they like now. Which is an impolite way of passive-aggressively saying: lots, and lots, of people hate lots and lots of music for, as near as I can tell, absolutely no reason. "I just don't like how it sounds," is the most common declamation. What's odd about that reaction, though, is how unimpeachable its utterers take it to be. Really? I mean, saying that you don't a piece of music because you don't like how it sounds is just saying that you don't like piece of music because you don't like that piece of music. Which, for those keeping score out there, isn't a reason at all.

So, what gives? I mean, that this tautologous expression, and its variants, get treated as unimpeachable reasons for rejecting certain songs, certain genres, has to say something about the culture of music appreciation, doesn't it? My guess is that these sorts of phrases, aren't treated as reasons, per se, justifying why people don't like a certain song or whatever. Rather, when a person uses a phrase like, "I just don't like how it sounds" in what's normally the 'justification slot' in a critical conversation, what he's really doing is invoking a certain kind of critical etiquette. What kind? The kind that restricts the acceptable response from the questioner (the one who asked, "Why don't you like this song?") from further pressing the respondent for reasons justifying his distaste.

If this response really is just an invocation of etiquette, and how I've described it really is how the etiquette works, I think it would go a long way towards explaining why it appears that "I just don't like how it sounds" gets treated as an unimpeachable justification of distaste. To illustrate, suppose that that response really were an unimpeachable reason. How could the questioner reply to it? Well, he couldn't. After all: the reason is unimpeachable. Now, suppose, as I do, that "I don't like how it sounds" is just an invocation of a rule of etiquette that prevents the questioner from politely pressing the respondent any further. How might the questioner respond? If he wants to maintain polite conversation, as conversations about musical taste most usually are, the respondent can say nothing further - just as he can say nothing further in the case of the unimpeachable reason.

It's probably a lot harder to say just why we've developed this etiquette. My rough-and-ready stab is that most people who listen to music have biases that they don't want to investigate - genres, artists, what have you that they haven't really appreciatively listened to, and for no good reason. But being a biased consumer of anything is kind of embarrassing, and we develop etiquette for efficacious reasons - which include avoiding embarrassment. So, it's my guess that this sort of etiquette is a cover for an otherwise embarrassing bias. A bias which the etiquette allows us to treat in the same way that we treat those things we've listened to appreciatively and rejected.

I wonder, though, how common is this kind of experience with other people's musical preferences? My limited sense is that it's pretty common, because almost everyone listens to music and there's an intense social pressure (for reasons I have no clue about) to be able to say whether one likes or dislikes whatever he's listened to. But then, perhaps it's less common than I think - and indeed, more isolated that I've experienced. Thoughts?

How Free Is Free Speech?

As you may be aware, the universally-despised nutcases from the Westboro Baptist Church are defending their right to free speech before the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, over at FPR, Mr Fox suggests that maybe we should restrict this particular sort of free speech, even though we all admit that the only harm it causes is to make some people who are already having a bad day — viz., the bereaved family of a dead soldier — have a rather worse day.

It's true that I've always felt a bit uncomfortable around die-hard 1st-Amendment supporters; perhaps that's because I've never felt the inclination to express anything that anybody would care to stop me from saying. But at the same time, it seems a bit ominous to restrict the exercise of free speech when it has no deleterious effect on anybody's well-being (except feelings, which the law rarely takes into account), or even on anyone's reputation (as libel and slander might).

Ought we to fight to the death — like Voltaire is said to have proposed — for the right of these deluded, hateful people to say what they want? Or are some things simply not worth fighting for?