Robin Williams Jr., -- RIP

Professor Robin Williams Jr., ("Robin M. Williams Jr., a noted sociologist and a former president of the American Sociological Association who offered insights into racism and the behavior of men in war, died here on June 3.") was a teacher of mine back in 1962-3. He wasn't the greatest lecturer I had, but he was interesting and gave me some insights into American society I still use. The course was on American society, which was also the title of a book of his. It's no longer in print but I recommend it.

What I remember--the observation that we pass laws and act in symbolic ways to reaffirm norms, like the law against prostitution with the periodic crackdowns--the actions don't really attack prostitution, they say that we "good people" don't approve of it. That's true today, though I've learned over the years that symbols do matter perhaps more than I got from his class.

Another observation fit in with my future career--the idea that the New Deal delegated governmental power partially in an attempt to co-opt groups, as giving farm programs to an agency run in part by locally elected committees, the agency I ended up working for later. Local control became big during the War on Poverty, but it's gradually faded. Even the Republicans have abandoned it during the Bush administration

Libraries, Schools, and Electronically Generated Books

Came back from the Reston library today, passing Dogwood elementary school, which has a very high proportion of Hispanic students. I wonder whether the book/education industry is making good use of computers these days. How costly is a print-on-demand machine? How hard would it be to generate personalized books for kids with their names inserted--if advertisers and magazines can do it to generate interest, why not education? How about books with Spanish and English interleafed--one page English, the facing Spanish (or whatever language--lots of them in the Fairfax system?)

Visual Acuity and Immigrants

Just finished "Farmworker's Daughter" by Castillo Guilbault, who grew up in California during the 50's and 60's. It's well written and evocative of that time (not that I'm familiar with the area or with being Hispanic). One thread of her memoir is the distinctions her mother made among people, both race (Yaqui Indians versus not, shades of brown) and class/culture. Her mother took pride in her gentility, even though she was married to a farmworker.

I'd generalize that specialists always make distinctions that generalists don't. When people grow up in an area, they and their neighbors are specialists, making distinctions more or less well-founded. So-and-so isn't just a farmer, he owns a particular farm with particular animals and has a history on the farm. When "outsiders" come in, they can't make these distinctions because they don't have the background knowledge so their eyes can't see what the natives see. But the "insiders" also make generalizations about the outsiders--back in the 50's many in the south would see newcomers or media as "Yankees" and probably troublemakers.

So too in immigration. We now talk of "Asian Americans", lumping together as one group people from many disparate countries. And we talk of "Hispanics/Latinos", lumping together people who speak different versions of Spanish or, perhaps, no Spanish at all (i.e., Brazilians and Indians). And immigrants will make generalizations about the "natives", being more likely to see blacks and whites as Americans and less likely to make racial distinctions than natives.

A similar process takes place when we visit the past, which is a foreign place. Our eyes fail us as we blur out differences. For example, would you be surprised to learn that Illinois had many German-language newspapers between the Civil War and WWI? I was.

Anxiety in Professorial Ranks--Stanley Renshon

Just finished reading "The 50% American : immigration and national identity in an age of terror"
by Stanley Allen Renshon. He's a professor and it's a scholarly work, lots of footnotes and citations. He points to the prevalence of nations who permit dual citizenship (most do) and argues it's a danger, leading people to fail to identify with the U.S. He sees immigrants, particularly Hispanics, as retaining allegiance to their country of origin and failing to assimilate. He's concerned about "multiculturalism", arguing that we need one national culture that is dominant. As I said, it's scholarly and makes a reasonable argument, though I'm not convinced. I'd offer these points:

• It's a rather ahistorical picture. He's not conscious of the extent to which the U.S. has already had experience in navigating between the Scylla of individual/subcultural rights and the Charybdis of national culture and rules. The flag saluting of Jehovah's Witnesses, the peyote use of native Americans, the off-the-grid culture of the Amish (including aversion to higher ed), the hasidic Jews in NY, the question of parental rights of Christian Scientists to forego treatment, etc. etc. True we don't come close to the experience that a land like India has had with multicultures, but I'm confident we can navigate in the future.
• While the tone is scholarly, there's a current of anxiety about American culture that pops out regularly--the culture wars, the crassness of popular culture, etc. etc. The anxiety is shared by others who'd oppose immigration as currently operative. This leads to an irony. On the one hand, Renshon says that immigrants have too strong and too cohesive of a (family) culture which poses a threat to the U.S. On the other, he points with alarm to the erosive effects of a free-market system of catering to individual tastes that supposedly dissolves our former culture. It's difficult to have it both ways.
• But Renshon does offer some good suggestions to help immigrants acculturate, orientation sessions, English as a second language classes, etc. While I'm a bit dubious about the payoff from such efforts, there is a purpose to symbols. Perhaps an eventual compromise immigration bill would benefit by including some of these measures. They constitute a better response to the concerns of those who would restrict immigration than just dismissing their concerns.

40 Years of Social Change--Seven Days in May

Watched the movie "Seven Days in May" last night, describing an attempted coup in DC, and noticed these indicators of social change:

• lots of smoking (the Surgeon General's report came out just after the movie was released)
• lots of drinking--offering liquor to one's guest was common
• lots of WASP males. There was a black security guard and a mother and child in Dulles airport who had the one speaking part ("No, I didn't see him.") One black male in the press corps. No Hispanics, no Asians. There were identifiable Catholics--nuns in black habits.
• an "emancipated woman" (the great Ava Gardner so describes herself, sardonically, as she's the discarded mistress of the villain (Burt Lancaster).
  
• an empty White House--compared to "West Wing", the President had a small staff (one main aide).
• formality--still some hats and the press corp was dressed formally for the press conference. Travelers at Dulles were also formally dressed.
• few fliers. Dulles, which had just opened, was practically empty.

The country has changed.

Establishment Pundit Acknowledges The Seer--All Hail Kevin Drum

David Broder today notes an article the Washington Monthly ran back in 2004 containing predictions by various experts on what the second Bush term would be like:

"The one commentator who got it exactly right was Kevin Drum, who runs the magazine's blog. 'What do we have to look forward to if George W. Bush is elected to a second term?' he asked. 'One word: scandal.'"

A Liberal's Dilemma--Kevin Drum

Kevin Drum comments on Mr. Beinart's recent book:

"So what is it that Beinart really wants from antiwar liberals? The obvious answer is found less in policy than in rhetoric: we need to engage more energetically with the war on terror and criticize illiberal regimes more harshly.

Maybe so. But this is something that's nagged at me for some time. On the one hand, I think Beinart is exactly right. For example, should I be more vocal in denouncing Iran? Sure. It's a repressive, misogynistic, theocratic, terrorist-sponsoring state that stands for everything I stand against. Of course I should speak out against them.

And yet, I know perfectly well that criticism of Iran is not just criticism of Iran. Whether I want it to or not, it also provides support for the Bush administration's determined and deliberate effort to whip up enthusiasm for a military strike. Only a naif would view criticism of Iran in a vacuum, without also seeing the way it will be used by an administration that has demonstrated time and again that it can't be trusted to act wisely.

So what to do? For the most part, I end up saying very little. And Beinart is right: there's a sense in which that betrays my own liberal ideals. But he's also wrong, because like it or not, my words — and those of other liberals — would end up being used to advance George Bush's distinctly illiberal ends. And I'm simply not willing to be a pawn in the Bush administration's latest marketing campaign.

I don't have a very good answer" [He asks for comments, most of which prove a bit disappointing to me.]

Seems to me there's several answers:

1. Be faithful to the facts as you see them. Facts can compel one to speak out (see Martin Luther) regardless of who is helped or hurt.
   
2. Realize that the emotions of debate are good and useful. For example, to my mind Kevin overstates the villainy of the Bush administration out of emotion. That motivates him to probe the situation for facts that counter the Bush policy. Even though he mostly agrees with Bush on the nature of the Iranian regime, he's likely to come up with different facts and have different blind spots than Mr. Cheney.
   
3. Maximize your impact. Where 1 and 2 would argue for a liberal to speak out on Iran, this could be seen as cover for cowardice. For example, the cases of both Iran and North Korea are very difficult. So liberals can take potshots at Bush policies that appear mistaken, but there's really no obvious alternative, so why should liberals struggle to find one? It's not written in the heavens that a liberal should have a solid policy alternative to every issue. (For one thing, the lack of a policy is a policy--kick the can down the road and hope that events change the situation. Death, after all, is certain, even for our foes.)

One Nation, One Language?

What does history teach about the need for a nation to have a common/national/official language?

As always with history's lessons, the message is mixed. One could argue, I suppose, that the worst war in U.S. history was not caused by language--that the South and North didn't speak different languages. And if we look north to Canada while we've seen signs over the years of strains caused by two official languages, they've survived pretty well with much less bloodshed than we. And if we look south to Mexico and beyond, we're reminded that multiple (native) languages can cause problems, but don't necessarily mean division.

Personally I'd look to economics. Whenever two people with no language in common get together, they try to trade, either goods or sex. (Simply follow GI's in foreign countries.) To oversimplify, as long as our immigrant population is part of the U.S. economy, they'll become "Americans", regardless of whether they become citizens or not.

Are Economists Exceptionally Christian?

Alex Tabarrok has an article claiming that economists mostly support immigration and outlining reasons why hereTCS Daily - Why Ruin the World's Best Anti-Poverty Program?: His points include:

"Economists are probably also more open to immigration than the typical member of the public because of their ethics -- while economists may be known for assuming self-interested behavior wherever they look, economists in their work tend not to distinguish between us and them. We look instead for policies that at least in principle make everyone better off. Policies that make us better off at the price of making them even worse off are for politicians, not economists."

Somehow this seems "christian" to me, in the old golden rule sense.

Flash--Pope Foresees the Future

Today's News from MSNBC - MSNBC.com: "Pope begins pilgrimage to successor's homeland"