How Not to Write a Novel

Via Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution, here is a list of practical advice on how to write a book from 23 successful authors. The list was compiled by Steven Silberman, author of the famous article "The Geek Syndrome," who is currently working on a book on autism and neurodiversity.

In terms of works of fiction, the best how-to book I have read is How Not to Write a Novel, by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman. This book was recommended to me by my friend Teresa Milbrodt, a creative writing professor (and excellent writer) who blogs at The Continuing Adventures of Walks-Far Woman. My own native genius was the source of another way not to write a novel, which was to simply desist from trying. (For some reason, Mittelmark and Newman neglected to include that bezel of wisdom in their otherwise admirable text.)

To Lecture or Not to Lecture?

My boss Fred Miller recently directed my attention to an article in the journal Science (from 13 May 2011) about the relative effectiveness of two teaching methods. The study pitted senior physics instructors who had received high marks as lecturers against less-experienced post-docs using a method known as "deliberate practice." Deliberate practice involves giving students pretests to assess prior student knowledge, making them work on challenging questions during class meetings, and giving them frequent feedback on the questions they have been working on. In the study, the senior instructors were rated highly in terms of the quality of their lectures, but more learning happened in the classes using deliberate practice.

This study received coverage in an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, which ends with the following words of caution:

Mr. Deslauriers [one of the authors of the study--JSM] cautioned that instructors who wanted to change methods to improve learning in their classrooms would have to spend a fair amount of studying the practices for them to be effectively executed.

This quotation bears keeping in mind. Deliberate practice sounds like a great method, and I plan to use more of it in my teaching next year, but I do thing it will require a fair amount of effort to actually implement effectively. I wonder if there are any books or articles on education methods that provide useful advice on its implementation. Based on my previous dipping into the education literature, practical advice on implementation is much harder to find than the reams of verbiage on abstract theories of learning and teaching.

"The Garden of Flowing Fragrance"

That's the name of the traditional Chinese formal garden at the Huntington in San Marino, California. For those of you who don't know, the Huntington is a former private estate converted into a series of gardens, art galleries, and collections of prints and manuscripts open to the public. I've been going to the Huntington since I was a child, when I remember being particularly fascinated by their collection of illuminated manuscripts (including a copy of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales), early printed works (the most famous being a copy of the Gutenburg Bible). and maps and globes from the age of exploration. This time, what stood out most was a new (to me) exhibit on the history of science --which included such gems as Isaac Newton's own copy of the Principia and Edwin Hubble's copy of Copernicus--and the aforementioned Chinese gardens. I had never before seen a traditional Chinese formal garden, and would have liked to have learned more about the nature of its design, construction, and maintenance, but I was able to take a few pictures of its plants and pavilions while I was there (one of which is shown above).

Emotional Vampires, and How to Deal with Emotionally Explosive People

Last week I read two popular psychology books by Albert J. Bernstein: Emotional Vampires and How to Deal with Emotionally Explosive People. These books both have very cheesy titles, and one of them (Emotional Vampires) relies on a corny metaphor for personality disorders throughout. Moreover, as you will discover if you click on the preceding links, Bernstein's website needs a major makeover! I cannot believe that this is the best picture he has of himself, for example. For someone who is such a clear writer, and who has had so much success as a consultant in the business world, I am surprised that he doesn't have more savvy at promoting himself on his website, which (like the art from his books) has a whole "It came from the 90's" vibe, in the worst possible sense.

However, despite these defects, Bernstein's books are chock full of insight into mood and personality disorders, contain informative summaries of relevant research, and give plenty of practical, hands-on-advice for dealing with emotionally difficult people (or for dealing with yourself, if you should have a personality or mood disorder!). For example, if someone is explosively angry, Bernstein recommends a variety of disarming and defusing interventions, such as calmly introducing yourself and asking to shake their hand, saying that you need a minute to think about what they are saying, or politely asking them to speak more slowly so that you can hear and understand what they are saying.

We tend to think of anger as the "explosive" emotion, but Bernstein also discusses depression and anxiety disorders in his book How to Deal with Emotionally Explosive People. Interestingly, the emotions of sadness and fear have their own corresponding categories of mood disorders (depression and anxiety disorders, respectively), but anger does not; Bernstein associates anger issues with a variety of personality disorders, which are also the main subject of his book Emotional Vampires. Remarkable for a popular work, Bernstein even makes some interesting methodological criticisms of the field of psychology in his book on explosive emotions, and critically discusses the issue of whether people with mood disorders are morally responsible for their behavior. These theoretical discussions are at a pretty rudimentary level, but Bernstein is an insightful and balanced commentator, so they still enhance his books. Bernstein has had a lot of experience working as a consultant in the business world, and his familiarity with dysfunctional behavior in the workplace really comes through. In Emotional Vampires, he even offers insight into why management gurus are so successful, and provides a balanced look at the benefits and drawbacks to their advice. Both of these books are recommended! (By the way, the new edition of Emotional Vampires which is on sale an Amazon.com lacks the cheesy vampiric cover art of the original edition, which in my view is a great improvement.)

Sophora for Health

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been sick with chronic fatigue syndrome since 2006. I wasn't diagnosed correctly until last year, and there aren't a lot of options for treatment. In my previous post on CFS, I mentioned some of the research I had found, including John Chia's theory that multiple pathogens, including viruses, bacteria, and molds, are behind CFS cases. Chia treats CFS cases according to which pathogen he finds in the patient (using blood tests or, for some of his enterovirus cases, biopsies of stomach tissue, since the infection can be hard to spot in the blood). The preferred treatments are antibiotics and antiviral drugs, but in the case of enteroviruses, there aren't yet any effective antiviral drugs which can be prescribed. Chia first tried using interferon to treat his enterovirus cases, with some success, but the costs and side effects of the drug proved prohibitive. Ideally, antiviral drugs effective against enteroviruses will soon be developed (in a phone consultation, Chia told me that a drug currently being developed to treat polio may also be effective against the kinds of enteroviruses he has found in some of his CFS patients). Until then, Chia has been prescribing an over-the-counter herbal supplement called sophora to his patients with enteroviral infections. Sophora is used in China to treat cancer and hepatitis. The root of the sophora plant contains oxymatrine, which appears to modulate the activity of Th1 and Th2 cells (which are important components of the immune system). Chia claims that 52% of his patients treated with sophora have seen an improvement in symptoms. In some cases, this has included a complete remission of symptoms, while in other cases, the imrprovements have been more modest.

I have been taking the Equilibrant brand of sophora since September of last year. (Equilibrant is a product developed by Chia in order to create a pharmaceutical-grade version of sophora, since, as with many herbal supplements, the actual dosage of oxymatrine in other sophora supplements can vary from tablet to tablet.) I decided to blog about this in case any of you have chronic fatigue syndrome, or know someone with chronic fatigue syndrome, since it can be very difficult to obtain effective treatment. In my case, I am still suffering from severe fatigue, but after taking Equilibrant for the last 8 months, several of my other symtpoms have improved dramatically: the myalgia in my muscles has decreased a lot, the digestive problems are much less severe, the circulation problems are much improved, and I get much less frequent flus and colds (previously, I would get sick with opportunistic infections literally every week or so). It seems to take a long time for the sophora to do its work, probably because it doesn't attack the virus directly, but instead merely improves the activity of the immune system; given a large enough viral load, it can take months to notice substantial improvements in symtpoms. Chia told me as much in a phone consultation, but I would have expected either that my CFS symptoms would have stopped improving by now, or that the sophora would have not had any positive effect. Instead, my symptoms still seem to be gradually improving, and this 8 months after the start of treatment.

I didn't want to blog about sophora until I knew for sure whether it was working. Even though I'm not fully recovered, the improvement has been remarkable, and I would recommend the use of sophora to others suffering from CFS, provided that they have reason to believe they are infected with an enterovirus or other pathogen that can't yet be treated through conventional means.

Amis on Hitchens

Martin Amis has written a simultaneously urbane and touching tribute to his friend Christopher Hitchens' rhetorical skills over at the Guardian. Amis praises Hitchens for his ability to create witty retorts and one-liners, but adds that Hitchens' rhetorical flourishes are coupled with a depth of insight usually lacking in those gifted with a quick tongue and a sharp wit:

"A melancholy lesson of advancing years is the realisation that you can't make old friends."

"It is only those who hope to transform human beings who end up by burning them, like the waste product of a failed experiment."

"This has always been the central absurdity of 'moral', as opposed to 'political' censorship: If the stuff does indeed have a tendency to deprave and corrupt, why then the most depraved and corrupt person must be the censor who keeps a vigilant eye on it."

While Amis is generous in his praise for his friend, he also doesn't shy away from a few criticisms that seem to hit the mark. Remarkably for a writer with Amis' reputation, he (justly) accuses Hitchens of violations of literary decorum in the latter's insertion of low-brow (if punchy) verbal attacks against his opponents:

Here are some indecorous quotes from the The Quotable Hitchens. "Ronald Reagan is doing to the country what he can no longer do to his wife." On the Chaucerian summoner-pardoner Jerry Falwell: "If you gave Falwell an enema, he'd be buried in a matchbox." On the political entrepreneur George Galloway: "Unkind nature, which could have made a perfectly good butt out of his face, has spoiled the whole effect by taking an asshole and studding it with ill-brushed fangs." The critic DW Harding wrote a famous essay called "Regulated Hatred". It was a study of Jane Austen. We grant that hatred is a stimulant; but it should not become an intoxicant.

As deft verbal attacks, Hitchens' barbs are effective, but they violate Amis' formulation of literary decorum, which demands (inter alia) that a writer match his content with his style. Amis seems correct that, when having a serious argument on topics such as politics or religion, the potty-mouth language and low-brow humour is best left behind (though perhaps to be used later in a different context. . .).

I enjoyed reading Amis' essay, both for the wit and wisdom of Hitchens himself, and for the just criticisms that Amis makes of his friend's literary conduct and character. I was also intrigued by Amis' brief discussion of literary decorum, which brought to mind Cicero's classic discussions of eloquence, and the recurring interest in Cicero as a model for rhetoric and prose by later generations of scholars and thinkers in the West--from the Renaissance at least down to the period of the Enlightenment (when writers such as David Hume were directly inspired by Cicero's Latin prose in crafting their own literary creations using early modern vernaculars). I will close with Amis' statement of the principle of literary decorum, which is far too sloppy to satisfy an analytic philosopher, but succeeds in providing a useful starting point for anyone who cares to think seriously about this matter:

In literature, decorum means the concurrence of style and content – together with a third element, which I can only vaguely express as earning the right weight. It doesn't matter what the style is, and it doesn't matter what the content is; but the two must concur. If the essay is something of a literary art, which it clearly is, then the same law obtains.

Well said!

Sugar: The Bitter Truth

Last night, a few friends and I did one of our semi-regular "Movie Nights." We started with Transcendent Man, a documentary about inventor and tech prognosticator Ray Kurzweil. This was interesting, but I would have liked to see more in depth arguments both for and against Kurzweil's singularity thesis, instead of relatively insubstantial sound bites from Kurzweil and his detractors. For example, the documentary could have shown some of the mathematical models Kurzweil uses to make his predictions, and the objections of the critics could have been explained in terms of the particular models he is using.

After the Kurzweil doc, we then watched "Sugar: The Bitter Truth," a youtube video of a presentation given by Robert Lustig about the harmful effects of eating sucrose and fructose. I first learned about this video after reading an article by Gary Taubes in the April 13th issue of the New York Times Magazine. According to Lustig, a professor of clinical pediatrics at University of California San Fransicso, consumption of sucrose and fructose (but not glucose) is behind a lot of the health problems of modern societies, including the increased rates of obesity, type II diabetes, and heart disease. Lustig claims that the harmful effects of sucrose and fructose are due to the way that these molecules are metabolized by the liver, and in his presentation he goes into considerable detail about the biochemistry of sucrose and fructose metabolism. He also presents a lot of compelling evidence linking sugar consumption to chronic ailments such as type II diabetes and heart disease. This aroused considerable interest in my friend Scott Hevner, who teaches biology, and Hadgu Hadgu, who is planning on pursuing a career in public health. I think we were all a bit surprised by how compelling Lustig's presentation was, given the controversial nature of his claims. I for one will be looking for more information about the health effects of sugar, and I have already decided to consume less fructose and sucrose as a preventive measure: even though the jury is still out among experts about the health effects of sugar, there seems to be enough evidence about its ill effects to be cautious.

The Theory and Practice of Religion

In his post from April 7th, John Gfoeller said:

Intellection can only take a person so far. Then one must make a choice: to choose a religion –which is a package deal– or not; and then to put that decision into practice. If religion is like a vehicle, then only so much can be learned from studying it. After a certain point, a person should pick a vehicle and make the journey.

John made a similar point in his post from April 12th:

Religion isn’t a set of points of points of propositional logic. Religion is a way of life, a set of beliefs and tools for addressing the ultimate issues of our shared experience of life.

And the issue came up again in his post from April 14th:

Religion is a way of life. It is a set of beliefs, practices, community, and spirituality that expresses and reinforces a shared encounter of life and life’s ultimate issues. It is not mostly about data and thinking. It is about how to live.

It seems that you are analyzing religion solely or mostly in terms of philosophy. I think that approach can only yield partial results because philosophy is only part of religion.

Yet, religion is its own thing. It is not a branch of philslophy (although sometimes it can be philosophy in action or as applied to life). Religion — like art, sport, love, etc. — is its own sui generis phenomenon with its own purpose and process. Philosophy can be part of religion, but that is not necessary for religion to function. Hence, analyzing religion in terms of philosophy alone is like trying analyze art or sport or love in terms of philosophy alone. The result will only be partially accurate.

Consider, for example, that most members of religion (now and in the past) have not known much (or any) of the philosophical side of their religions. Yet, they practiced those religions.

I agree that religion is a way of life and not just a belief system. Since in my previous posts I was focusing on the doctrinal side of Buddhism, it probably seemed that I was reducing the religion to its set of beliefs. But I did not intend to be suggesting that.

While I agree that a religion is more than just a set of beliefs, I do think that beliefs are an essential part of a religion. For example, Christians are supposed to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, and I don't think this is an optional or insignificant part of being a Christian, even though it is not the whole shebang. Similarly, Buddhism is in part a set of beliefs about karma, rebirth, and the end of suffering, even though it is also a code of conduct and a way of life.

Because beliefs are part of the essence of religion, it seems irresponsible to adopt a religion if one doesn't share its beliefs, or at least its core beliefs. How one defines the core is a tricky question, but not an impossible one to anwser; a Christian who denied that the genealogies of Jesus given in the Gospels are historically accurate probably still counts as a Christian, but one who denies that Jesus is the Messiah almost certainly does not, for example. Similarly, a person who denies that the Buddha could fly through the air or walk on water (as described in the sutras of the Pali Canon) may still count as a Buddhist, but if he denies that the Buddha was enlightened, then he almost certainly does not.

Having said that, John is right to focus on the practical side of religion, for if doctrines are the bones and sinews of a religion, then practice is its flesh--that from which a person derives spiritual sustenance, if you will. Yet for all that, the flesh and the bones are something of a package deal. And if you can't stomach the bones, then you should stay away from the religion.

Groups and Independence of Judgment

I am separating my responses to a previous post by John Gfoeller, in order to keep the length of the posts manageable. (My previous responses to his first post are here and here; I have also responded once to his second post, here; my original post which started the dialogue is here.)

In his post, John makes a third point in response to my earlier post on spiritual traditions:

You are concerned about preserving your objectivity and your autonomy as an individual within a community.

My friend, mankind is a social species. We live our lives in terms of each other, and we are defined in large part by our relationships. Objectivity (like personal autonomy) is largely an illusion.

Again I speak as an outsider; I am not a Buddhist. But, I imagine that if you join the Buddhist religion, it will in fact shape your views. And that is not bad; that is a product of your choice to practice a religion; indeed, that is the purpose of adopting a religion. You will still be highly intelligent; you will still be a thinker and a philosopher and a scholar and a PhD., and an instructor at a university. You would lose your perspective as a secular outsider looking at religion from afar. Instead, you would be religious. Hence, what you would lose from one perspective, you would gain in experience from the other perspective.
You will not become a robot or an automaton, but you will be what you choose to affiliate yourself with and practice.

It's true that mankind is a social species, and that it is pretty difficult, if not impossible, for a person to flourish in isolation from other people. It does not follow, though, that a person should join a spiritual tradition, if this requires sacrificing independence of judgment.

It should be noted that not all groups require members to sacrifice their independence of judgment, even if the group must make collective decisions which conflict with the judgments of some of its members (as long as the individual is permitted to remain with the group with his dissenting opinion). The benefits of interaction with others, and with membership in groups to which one is committed (and, perhaps, for which one is willing to sacrifice one's own individual well-being), are indeed important, but this does not entail that one should join groups which require one to sacrifice one's freedom of thought or independence of judgment. Note that it may well be in the interest of the group for its members to retain independence of judgment, and also note that it may be unpleasant, indeed a major burden, for an individual to accept independence of judgment, for this requires great responsibility on his part.

The issue of objectivity is separate from the issue of group membership. I don't think that objectivity is an illusion, at least not in an unqualified way. Indeed, if there is no such thing as objectivity in any sense, then it is difficult to have meaningful discussions with others. Rational discourse seems to presuppose an objective basis for resolving disagreements and harmonizing judgments.

Note that independence of judgment does not imply that a person is not shaped by the views of others. Far from it. Independence of judgment simply implies that a person believes in accordance with the best evidence and arguments available to him (and this can include deferring to expert opinion when the person has good reason to believe that someone else is a qualified expert in a particular field). Much of the information an individual uses to form his judgment will indeed come from other people. And the principle of independence of judgment does not presuppose that individuals are better at forming beliefs than groups. Not at all. The principle merely presupposes that groups of people whose members work together to form beliefs but who retain independence of judgment will generate more reliable beliefs on average than groups of people whose members work together to form beliefs without independence of judgment. Groups whose members retain independence of judgment benefit from the multiple sources of information and analysis, and in fact are able to make use of more information than groups with more rigid belief-formation structures.

An individual forms the most accurate beliefs not by not being influenced by others, but by being influenced by others through the mediation of his own critical judgment. Of course, individuals using their own judgment will make mistakes all the time, but the polycentric approach to belief formation is still better than the imposition of beliefs in a top-down manner by appeals to tradition, authority, or solidarity.

It's easy for us to get hung up on dichotomies like individual vs. group or autonomy vs. solidarity, when a more nuanced analysis often reveals that these pairs are not true contradictories. I think that the intellectual autonomy of an individual is compatible with many forms of solidarity, for example, and that solidarity actually works best in the contect of intellectual autonomy. Similarly, I think that individuals flourish when they are part of flourishing groups, and that groups flourish when they give sufficient liberty to their individual members. John is right to attack the view that individuals need to steer clear of groups of any kind, but that's not the view that I am defending. Individuals need groups as sources of information and to challege and expand their thinking, but groups need to give their members sufficient indepencence of judgment for individuals to benefit maximally from membership in the group, and for the group as such to benefit maximally from its members.

Buddhist Inquiry

In a post on his blog, my friend John gave a response to my blog post on spiritual traditions. John has made a total of three replies to my series of posts on his blog; here, I am responding to another he point he made in his first post (as you can see, I am pretty far behind).

In the post on spiritual traditions, I criticized the methodology used by Buddhists (and others) for generating and testing beliefs. John's response is that the Buddhist method is actually the same (or nearly the same) as that of natural science, namely rational inquiry and controlled experimentation:

Buddhism is primarily a mystical religion with a strong intellectual support. Prince Siddhartha Gautama reported to have achieved an ineffable state of consciousness that we term “enlightenment.” He further reported that this state of consciousness eliminates suffering and produces a host of other benefits. And, he taught a set of beliefs and practices (the Dharma) whereby others can achieve this same state of consciousness also. Hence, there is in Buddhism an emphasis on monasticism as the most complete means for achieving this state of consciousness. Hence too, there is an emphasis on independent inquiry to prove or disprove those statements. In that regard, Buddhism can be regarded as a 2,500 year long investigation –by many people from different times, places and cultures — to prove or disprove Siddharth Gautama’s claims and methodology. The results have been quite a lot of adaptation for local conditions and for different personality traits, but a consistency nevertheless: his claims and his methodology work for those who choose to employ them.

So, on the one hand, Buddhism certainly has its own methodology. On the other hand, that methodology is rational inquiry and controlled experimentation to prove or disprove Siddhartha Gautoma’s claims.

And, there is no obligation to make this inquiry into the Buddha’s claims — especially if one does not find those claims to be particularly credible. For example, I remember reading one such account. The Buddha had just become enlightened, and he was on his was to the city of Benares to tell his friends of this when he came upon a forest monk. They said hello to each other, and then (as was the custom among monks) the forest monk made a polite inquiry into which school of thought the Buddha practiced. The Buddha replied with enthusiasm (perhaps too much enthusiasm?), “I’ve just become enlightened !” The forest monk replied, “Hmm. Maybe.” And then he left. :-) .

I object strongly to the claim that the method used by Buddhists to generate and test beliefs is rational inquiry and controlled experimentation. This claim is often made by those who attempt to portray Buddhism as a rational religion or as otherwise compatible with the worldview of scientific naturalism. In part, these rationalist defenses of Buddhism have their origin in Sri Lankan Buddhist apologetics from the late 19th century, when Sri Lankans were attempting to counter assertions by Christian missionaries that Buddhism, unlike Christianity, was incompatible with modern science (an odd argument for the missionaries to be making, to be sure). (David McMahan's The Making of Buddhist Modernism is an excellent history of this trend within Buddhist thought and apologetics.)

Now, it's true that, from the Buddhist point of view, knowledge is only salvific if one sees the truth of it oneself. It's not enough to simply know the four noble truths as abstract propositions, for example; one is supposed to be able to see these truths directly, by gaining penetrating insight into the nature of samsara and nirvana. This is at least part of the reason why Buddhists often talk about the importance of seeing the truth of things for oneself. It's also true that the Buddha was surprisingly tolerant of questioning or dissent among his followers, at least in comparison to some other religious figures. While, on the one hand, he explicitly condemns (with little argument, and much name-calling) the so-called 62 wrong views, on the other hand, he was open-hearted enough to ask on his deathbed if any of his followers had any doubts (DN 16), or wished to ask any questions relating to the dharma he had taught.

But neither of these facts implies that Buddhism employs a methodology based on reason and controlled experimentation. One is only supposed to put the four noble truths and other parts of the dharma to the test in that one is supposed to see the truth of them in one's own experience. A Buddhist cannot reject any part of the dharma (or at least, the core of the dharma, such as the four noble truths, karma, rebirth, no-self, and so on) and remain a Buddhist. That is why the Buddha spent so much of his time disputing with brahmins and others who disagreed with his views, such as in his dialogue with Khemaka, who denied the doctrine of no-self. Like members of other religions, Buddhists seem to presume that the Buddha is infallible, at least with respect to beliefs and assertions relevant to the religion itself. Buddhists will thus, in practice, and despite their protestations to the contrary, only use reason and experience to try to justify what the Buddha taught, and to explain away apparent objections or inconsistencies. There is no internal mechanism within Buddhism for carefully testing and revising theories based on new evidence or new analyses of old evidence, unlike in the empirical sciences. If one uses reason or experience to reject a doctrine taught by the Buddha, then one is no longer a Buddhist. Of course, individual Buddhists have the power to question the beliefs of their religion, just like memebrs of any other religion, and the culture of Buddhism may be somewhat more tolerant of this than the culture of other religions (though I dispute that this is the case in most, perhaps all, traditional Buddhist sects), but, at the end of the day, one's beliefs have to remain consistent with those of the Buddha if one wishes to remain a Buddhist. This is in contrast with the empirical sciences, in which one can question the beliefs of other scientists, even and especially the founders of one's discipline, and still count as a scientist. I therefore conclude that they have different methodologies for testing beliefs.

Not only are the core beliefs of Buddhism not revisable (from the Buddhist point of view), it seems inaccurate to describe Buddhists as using a method of "controlled experimentation". John may be thinking here of the self-discovery and inquiry that occurs during and as a result of Buddhist meditation practice. I would disagree that this counts as controlled experimentation, however. Whatever one learns as a result of meditation, it's really no better than anecdotal evidence, unless one is scientifically studying meditators. Now, anecdotal evidence can be very useful--after all, we use it every day, and in fact life would probably be impossible without it. But controlled experimentation, at least as it is understood by empirical scientists, is a far cry from any of the "experiments" conducted by Buddhists during meditation or dialogue. Scientific experiments are quantified, and controls are in place so that only one variable is manipulated at a time. This is the reverse of the case with the information one learns from meditation. Now, this is not to knock meditation--I think it is potentially very beneficial, but a method of controlled experimentation it is not, nor even of rational inquiry.

So far I have focused on how Buddhists don't do a good job subjecting their views to impartial testing procedures. Buddhists also do not adopt a rational means of generating the core beliefs of their tradition. Like other religions, the core beliefs of Buddhism are generated based on the fact that they're stated in the scriptures by the founder or his immediate disciplies, and are therefore regarded as true (and non-provisionally true at that). Now, Buddhists may offer further evidence and search for arguments in support of these beliefs after the fact, in order to reduce the doubts of the faithful or to convince unbelievers of the error of their ways, but this is not the same as generating beliefs through sustained, impartial empirical inquiry, nor subjecting theories generated in this way to further tests using truly controlled experiments. It's something of an insult to scientists to suggest that they are using the same method used by Buddhists who are engaged in apologetics or even Buddhists who are earnestly attempting to discover and experiences the (presumed) truths of their religion for themselves.

I could go on, and indeed I may in a later post, but for now I would simply like to recommend Donald Lopez's book on a related topic, entitled Buddhism and Science. I have only started to read the book, but Lopez provides a compelling account about the perceived relationship between Buddhism and modern science, which gives insight into the reason why many westerners and Asian Buddhists have sought to portray Buddhism as compatible with science, when in many ways it is not.

Disputers of the Dharma

John Gfoeller has posted a response to my post about the Buddhist doctrine of rebirth. The substance of our debate is whether the Buddhist view is compatible with scientific naturalism; I argue that it is not.

John makes a number of points, and I don't know if I will have time or space to reply to them all, at least for now. (I still have yet to reply to all of the points he made on his first post, and here I am commenting on his second!)

The first point John makes is that there is diversity in Buddhists' interpretation of the doctrine of rebirth. He concludes that the Buddhist doctrine of rebirth can be interpreted in a way that is consistent with the worldview of scientific naturalism. I accept his premise, but deny his conclusion.

In other words, all Buddhists are required to accept the teaching of rebirth, but Buddhists seem to interpret that idea in different ways. Therevadans and Secularists seem to have the most strict view of no-self (anatman). Some Mahayanists and the Tibetans have the least emphasis on anatman — to the point where I wonder aloud if they really believe in a permanent self in everything but name. And there are views between those two poles.

It is true that Theravada and Mahayana Buddhists vary in their interpretation of both the no-self and rebirth doctrines. I should first note that there are secular Buddhists rooted in both Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism, so I don't think it is correct to imply that they are necessarily closer to the Theravada view on these issues.

In terms of the no-self doctrine, many Mahayana Buddhists accept the notion of Tathagatagarbha or Buddha Nature, which, depending on the interpretation, is either simply the potential all beings have to become enlightened, or a sort of substantial Buddha principle present in all beings. The latter interpretation of Tathagatagarbha does seem in tension with the no-self doctrine (anatman), because it makes the Buddha Nature into a kind of cosmic self similar to the Hindu notion of Atman. But the interpretation of Tathagatagarbha is a separate issue from the interpretation of the doctrine of rebirth. Rebirth neither entails nor is entailed by Tathagatagarbha.

In terms of rebirth, both Mahayana Buddhists and Theravada Buddhists agree that there are karmic links between the ephemeral states that make up a "person" across different lifetimes. I put the term 'person' into scare quotes here because, according to Buddhists, the person can only be said to exist when using a conventional level of discourse, in which the continuity of the person is understood not in terms of a single persistent substance, but rather as a matter of the degree of relatedness of different physical and psychological states; at the ultimate level of discourse, persons do not exist, only metaphysical atoms (from the Theravada point of view, as described in the Theravada Abhidhamma) or the indivisible flow of emptiness or shunyata (from the Mahayana point of view, as described for example in Nagarjuna's The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way).

The Mahayana interpretation of rebirth (in fact, there are several) is not influenced solely or even primarily by the Tathagatagarbha doctrine. A bigger influence is the Mahayana doctrine of seed or store consciousness (which is supposed to be what provides the metaphysical connection between a karmic act and its fruit). But the key issue with respect to the doctrine of rebirth is whether there is significant causal connectedness between the conscious states of organisms across different lifetimes, and on this view Theravada and Mahayana Buddhists are in complete agreement. Secular Buddhists from both traditions may attempt to deny this interpretation of rebirth, but in doing so they are making a radical departure from tradition, and in effect denying rebirth altogether.

Put more formally, then: How to interpret the mechanism by which the causality of contingent consciousness operates in Buddhist theory? On the one hand, all Buddhists believe that consciousness is caused by other moments of consciousness; in other words, consciousness is the anatman because it is contingent upon a complex process of dependent origination. On the other hand, all Buddhists believe that the mechanism for that process is rebirth through (at least) five different states of reality / consciousness: gods, man, animals, hungry ghosts, demons. How to interpret all that? How to reconcile the two a priori Buddhist beliefs of no-self and rebirth?

I attempted to explain in my previous post how Buddhists reconcile no-self and rebirth. The key is to realize that no-self is just as difficult to reconcile with the continuity of a person within a single lifetime as it is to reconcile with the continuity of a person between lifetimes. In both cases, the metaphysical glue which holds the transient physical and psychological states together into a conventional person is: karmic causation. This is true both from the Mahayana and the Theravada points of view. What makes the future person the same as the past person (from a conventional point of view) is that the karma of the particular past states in question leads to fruit which is experienced in and through the particular future states in question.

Again: The answer seems to be in different emphases in understanding rebirth itself. Theravadans and Secularists seem to deemphasize rebirth into other forms of consciousness. Theravadans (at least, in the monasteries) acknowledge rebirth in other realms of existence, but they instead emphasizes enlightenment in this lifetime. Secularists either reject the other realms or interpret them as metaphors for psychological states of awareness in this life; and either way they emphasize Dhamma as a philosophy and enlightenment as a possibility — in this life. Some Mahayanists and the Tibetans seem to greatly emphasize rebirth in other states of reality / consciousness. I mention again the Pure Land sect (and the Tibetans) as virtually believing in a permanent self (that reincarnates) in everything but name. And, again, there are points of emphasis in between these two poles.

It's true that secular Buddhists are more likely to radically reinterpret the doctrine of rebirth, precisely because it is inconsistent with the modern scientific worldview, but a reinterpretation of rebirth which denies karmic causation across lifetimes amounts to a denial of the doctrine, not merely an alternative interpretation of it.

I should note that only some Theravada Buddhists emphasize enlightenment in this lifetime; traditionally, very few did, and many Theravada Buddhists still deny that enlightenment is even possible in the current state of the world. The Theravada interest in intensive meditation practice, which may have been the source of John's view about their focus on enlightenment in this life, has only become strong again since the late 19th century (the website Access to Insight has a lot of useful information on the recent history of Theravada Buddhism; another useful work is Richard Gombrich's classic Precept and Practice, which is about the history of Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka). Theravada Buddhists, even the ones who practice meditation intensively, perhaps with the intention of achieving enlightenment in this lifetime (which is not always the case among ardent meditators, whether Theravada or Mahayana), believe in rebirth just as much as do Mahayana Buddhists. John seems to assume that the more one believes in rebirth, the more one must believe in a soul or self which is reborn, but as I have tried to indicate, on the Buddhist view this is just not the case. The Pali Canon is adamant both in its denial of all forms of self or soul theory, and in its denial of annihilationism, which is the view that the person ends absolutely at death. The mechanism for the continuity between lives is karma, not a soul, and this is so both from the Theravada and from the Mahayana point of view.

Therefore, while all Buddhists must accept the idea of rebirth, there is substantial variety in Buddhism for interpreting that idea.

This is true, but it does not prove that the doctrine of rebirth on any of its interpretations is consistent with the worldview of scientific naturalism, which is what John was seeking to establish. And I have tried to show that the notion of karmic causation across lifetimes, which is inconsistent with scientific naturalism, is what all of the interpretations of the doctrine of rebirth have in common.

America's Zen Masters

There have been numerous moral failures among those instrumental in bringing Zen Buddhism to the United States and among those placed in positions of leadership. Hakuun Yasutani was a racist and an outspoken supporter of Japanese imperialism. Taizan Maezumi was an alcoholic who engaged in adulterous affairs with his female students; he died of drowning in a bath after a drinking binge. Richard Baker, the dharma heir of Shunryu Suzuki, lived an extravagant lifestyle and engaged in numerous affairs with his students while abbot of the San Franciso Zen Center. More recently, Eido Shimano resigned as head of the Zen Studies Society as a result of an adulterous affair, and Dennis Genpo Merzel was disrobed and resigned from White Plum Asanga as a result of sexual misconduct.

While these moral failings are deeply disturbing, not all of America's Zen masters have fallen so low. Indeed, several American Zen masters are among the most important and unique voices in the recent history of Zen. I have already blogged about Charlotte Joko Beck, who was a student of Taizan Maezumi. Joko's focus on applying the insights of Zen meditation to everyday work and relationships has, to my mind at least, revolutionized the practice of Zen. Indeed, in recent decades Joko has abandoned much of the traditional rituals and other formal aspects associated with Zen, in a sense having transcended the tradition altogether.

Another American Zen master is Toni Packer (pictured above), a former student of Phillip Kapleau. Born in Switzerland, she now teaches at Springwater, a meditation and retreat center in upstate New York. Like Joko, Packer has moved beyond the Zen tradition in which she was trained, and instead fosters a less formal and more open approach to meditation practice (at least in part due to the influence of Jiddu Krishnamurti). Packer's talks are a model of profound clarity and simplicity.

American masters such as Joko and Toni Packer have succeeded in liberating Zen from much of its cultural baggage, focusing instead on the bare, unadorned practice of meditation, the lack of separation between meditation and everyday life, and the attainment of liberating insight outstide of pre-conceived doctrines. They have at once broadened Zen and widdled it down to its essential core. It is no longer Zen that they practice and teach, it is something much more immediate, much less a matter of conceptual and cultural artifice. Theirs is a truly human spirituality, and one that is flexible and can grow, with the changing knowledge base of civilizations, and with the unique insights of individual practitioners.

Do we really know what enlightenment is, or if it is? And if the Buddha found enlightenment outside of Buddhism, why can't someone else? Before there was the Buddha or Confucius or Lao Tzu, the Way was there already, waiting to be discovered. And so it remains.

Born Again

John Gfoeller recently posted a detailed response to my previous post on The Problem of Traditions . I won't respond to all of the points he raised in this post, but I would like to comment on his remarks about the relationship between Buddhism and the doctrine of reincarnation:

First, to the best of my knowledge, Buddhism does not believe in reincarnation. Buddhism believes in “anatman” — no (permanent) soul. Hence, Buddhism doesn’t believe in reincarnation because it doesn’t believe in a permanent soul that could reincarnate.

Rather, Buddhism believes in rebirth — which is a much more flexible concept.

At its most minimal interpretation, rebirth seems to mean a transference of consequences from one life to others’ lives. In other words, Buddhism teaches that a person is simply a temporary aggregate of various elements, and person simply dies when those elements come apart. No soul survives. Yet, the consequences of the person’s life continue in the lives of others. And, those consequences (directly or indirectly) can result in another person being born. And that is rebirth. This seems to be the interpretation preferred by Theravada Buddhism and by secular Buddhism.

It's true that, in English at least, the term 'reincarnation' is sometimes used to refer specifically to the view that there is a permanent soul or self which embodies different beings, and the term 'rebirth' is sometimes used to refer specifically to the Buddhist view that there is continuity between lives but no permanent soul or self. I am of course familiar with these uses of the terms 'rebirth' and 'reincarnation' in the English literature on Buddhism, but I didn't feel the need to introduce them in my original post, because the distinction between reincarnation and rebirth is not actually essential to the point I was making, and since in my view it's a somewhat artifical way of marking the distinction (though admittedly useful).

The Buddhist doctrine of continuity between lives is different from the view that a permanent soul incarnates in different bodies, but I don't think it is more flexible. I reject both views, because there is no good reason to believe that the thoughts, words, and actions of one life are uniquely and closely causally connected to the thoughts, words, actions, and experiences of other lives, past or present. Both views conflict with the view of living organisms we have from the natural sciences.

The Buddhist view of rebirth is puzzling to many, because if there is no permanent soul to connect different lives, then how is rebirth even possible? From the Buddhist point of view, the connection between lives is basically the same as the connection within a life. If there is no permanent soul, what connects the 'me' of yesterday with the 'me' of today? The answer is the causal connections between physical and psychological states. If I strike a person in anger today, then this has an effect on my future psychological states; and my current states and actions, while they affect a great many other beings, have a bigger effect on, that is to say they are more closely causally connected to, the future 'me' than they are to any other being. It is the nature and degree of the causal connections that forms the basis of a person's conventional identity over time, even though there is no single substance or set of substances which persist between any two moments (let alone over a lifetime, or between lifetimes). So, if the Buddhist can solve the problem of the identity of a conventional 'person' over a lifetime, he can solve the problem of the identitiy of a reborn or reincarnated 'person' over several lifetimes.

Note that the kind of causal connectedness required for continuity of a person is more than just the loose causal connection between persons that John mentioned in his post. Rebirth connects the lives of different organisms as closely, as least with respect to the law of karma, as different states of a single person's life are connected. The fact that I have influenced other people, including future people, and the fact that I may cause people to be born, is not enough to establish the truth of the Buddhist doctrine of rebirth, on howsoever minimal an interpretation. Rebirth entails a unique and close causal connection between the karmic states of different living creatures. Theravada Buddhists are as clear on this point as Mahayana Buddhists. And denying rebirth in this robust form is one of the sixty-two wrong views condemned by the Buddha in the Pali Canon. Now, a secular Buddhist could offer a looser view of causal connectedness between lives of the sort John suggests, but we should be clear that this amounts to a radical reinterpretation of the Buddhist tradition.

The Problem of Traditions

As someone who has practiced Buddhist meditation off and on for several years, and who has been interested in both Buddhist and Daoist philosophy (as well as the philosophy of other philosophical traditions, such as Neoplatonism), I have done a lot of thinking about whether to self-identify as a Buddhist or Daoist, or as a member of a particular Buddhist or Daoist sect or organization. Two of my friends who practice meditation or other spirital exercises, Phil Dickinson and John Gfoeller, have each identified with a particular tradition (Zen Buddhism, in the case of Phil, who is a regular at the Toledo Zen Center, and Orthodox Christianity, in the case of John), which has given me further cause for reflection.

There are several advantages to identifying with a spiritual tradition (or whatever one wishes to call it; the word "spiritual" is after all pretty vague and confusing). One advantage is access to a literary and intellectual tradition that can serve as a source of insight, inspiration, and guidance. Another set of advantages is access to the social, psychological, and material support that people affiliated with the tradition can provide.

Despite these (quite considerable) advantages, I think that there are three weighty disadvantages to identifying with a spiritual tradition. The first is that one is usually expected to adopt all of the beliefs of the tradition, and, in the case of every tradition I am familiar with, at least some of these beliefs are false. The Buddhist doctrine of reincarnation, for example, is a core doctrine of Buddhism--pace Stephen Batchelor and other Buddhists who claim that one can be agnostic or skeptical about reincarnation and still count as a Buddhist, the Pali Canon is quite adamant in its opposition to schools of philosophy which deny the doctrine of reincarnation (on the grounds that this makes mincemeat of the doctrine of karma and its fruit, and thus removes the justification for ethical conduct--a lousy argument, by the way, but not one that I can deal with here). The problem is that the doctrine of reincarnation is inconsistent with the worldview of scientific naturalism, and is therefore overwhelmingly likely to be false. Even Buddhist psychology, which a lot of scientific naturalists (such as Owen Flanagan) seem pretty comfortable with, contains views which conflict with the contemporary scientific understanding of the human mind, such as (according to Buddhists such as the Dalai Lama) an implicit mind-body dualism, and (in the Theravada Abhidhamma) an analysis of mental states into various combinations of psychological atoms. It seems pretty foolish to identify with a tradition that asserts even one false belief, let alone a whole slew of them.

The second problem with identifying with a spiritual tradition is methodological in character. Even if a spiritual tradition happened to assert only true doctrines, there is still a problem with the methodology that members of traditions are expected to employ in generating and maintaining their beliefs. As fas as I can tell, if one is a Buddhist, and insofar as one is a Buddhist, one is supposed to believe in the doctrines of Buddhism, or ar least the core doctrines of Buddhism, at least in part simply because they are a part of the tradition, and not based solely on the fact that they have been confirmed through subsequent careful and impartial investigation and analysis. Even though Buddhists pay a lot of lip service to the notion that one should test out all Buddhist doctrines for oneself to see if they are true, the expectation is that one will in fact confirm each and every one of those doctrines, and if one does not, then one has simply made some kind of mistake or missed something that one will discover later. A Buddhist who uses his own experience to reject the doctrine of reincarnation, or who is even willing to use his own experience to reject the doctrine of reincarnation, is no longer a Buddhist. Simply put, spiritual traditions do not encourage (and in many cases do not permit) their members to use scientific or other impartial and careful methods to put their traditions' doctrines to the test. Identifying with a tradition seems, at least in the vast majority of cases, to involve adopting an attitude of deference to the doctrines of the tradition, or at least its core doctrines, and to foresaking a commitment to subject the doctrines of the school to a critical and impartial testing and evaluation. And this just smacks of an abandonment of free thought and rational judgment, from my point of view--even if all of the doctrines of the tradition happened to be true.

A third problem with identifying with a spiritual tradition has to do with the nature of identification itself (rather than with the nature of spiritual traditions as such). When one identifies with something, one's ego becomes bound up with it, and it is difficult if not impossible to view the thing objectively. One becomes biased in favor of the spiritual tradition with which one has identified, such that even if one were trying to maintain a critical view towards the doctrines of the tradition (and thus even if one abandoned spiritual traditions' flawed methodology for generating and testing beliefs), in all likelihood one's judgment would still be skewed solely due to the fact that one had identified with the tradition in question, and regarded it as one's own. Just as people are biased towards sports teams and political parties with which they dientify, and just as they are biased towards their friends and family members in disputes with strangers, they are likely to be biased with respect to the doctrines and practices of the spiritual traditions which they call their own.

It is for these three reasons, and perhaps for others that I have overlooked, that I have decided not to identify with Buddhism, Daoism, or any other spiritual tradition. Such an act seems too dangerous from an epistemological point of view.

On the other hand, there are costs to not identifying with a tradition, such as the diminished access to the psychological, social, and material benefits that one could receive from fellow members of the tradition. For example, if one is a member of a church, one might receive psychological support from one's fellow members after the death of a loved one, one probably receives the opportunity to participate in shared projects such as fundraisers and charitable works (which fulfills one's need for social interaction, which is part of a flourishing human life), and one might receive financial assistance from the church in a time of hardship or a job offer from a fellow church member in a time of unemployment. These are considerable benefits, and it's a shame that they are so often bundled with the disadvantages of identification with a spiritual tradition that I described above.

This leads to the question of whether it is possible, at least in principle, to form groups or organizations that retain the benefits of affiliation with spiritual traditions while avoiding some of the drawbacks. This is a topic for a separate post, but such groups would combine solidarity with the principles of equality and liberty, such that individual members could use their own judgment to form beliefs, based on the best information and chains of reasoning they can find from others or develop themselves, while at the same time contributing to and benefiting from the shared psychological, social, and material resources of the group. Such groups would combine the virtues of intellectual autonomy with those of fellowship and shared commitment.

It is an open question whether it is psychologically possible for people in such an alternative organization to retain the same amount and quality of fellowship and commitment that are found in conventional organizations, while jettisoning the usual uncritical acceptance of core doctrines. And to the extent that committing oneself to a group involves identifying oneself with the group, then it may not be possible to avoid the third problem with identifying with spiritual traditions, even if one is able to avoid the first two problems. But forming alternative spiritually affiliated groups or organizations which do not compromise intellectual autonomy and critical thinking still seems like an attractive proposition.

Singapore, Efficiency, and Monopoly

The economist has a profile of the government of Singapore and why it should be taken as a model for the West. The main point is that Singapore is successful not because of a heavy-handed industrial policy or because of its authoritarian restrictions on civil liberties (which, to be fair, have lessened of late), but rather because it provides quality governance at a low price (the state consumes only 19% of GDP). The efficiency of Singapore's government is what attracts foreign capital and labor. The article ends by recommending that Western nations adopt some of Singapore's methods which don't involve sacrificing liberty, such as firing teachers who don't perform well or paying civil servants more (to attract talent away from the private sector).

I don't know enough about Singapore to comment of the specifics of the article, but the focus on government efficiency got me thinking about the benefits of increasing competition between governments. One of the reasons why government is often inefficient is because it lacks sufficient competitive pressure. What's interesting is that most people have a healthy fear of business monopoly power (indeed, perhaps an excessive fear, given the difficulty of maintaining a monopoly or cartel in even imperfectly free markets), but they lack a corresponding fear of government monopoly power. In part because it is costly for people to move to a different country, most governments don't feel the pressure of competition to retain their base of residents, citizens, and corporate bases of operation. Choosing which government to pay taxes to is not like choosing a cell phone company, it's more like "choosing" a family, in that most cases one is simply born into it. If this were the case with cell phone companies, we wouldn't expect them to provide a very efficient product. Market power, whether in the form of a cartel or a monopoly, tends to increase the price and decrease the quality of a good or service, compared to cases where firms are forced to compete with rivals for market share. Why should the case of government be any different?

We tend to think that democracy works to constrain the inefficiency of governments, because bad governments can be thrown out of power. To a certain extent this is probably true, and it may explain, at least in part, why the government of modern parliamentary democracries is so much better than most governments throughout history (in terms of levels of crime, corruption, infrastructure, and so on). But there are still massive inefficiencies even in "good" governments such as those of Japan, South Korea, Europe, and North America. To begin to understand why, imagine an analgous case of non-government monopoly plus democracy. Let's say that Walmart is granted a monopoly on all retail stores through an act of Congress (historically, most monopolies are only created and maintained through government action, although that's a topic for a different post). We would of course expect Walmart to restrict supply, raise prices, and lower quality, in order to increase their profits. Why does the monopoly give Walmart the power to do this? In the absence of the monopoly, Walmart would lose customers if they increased prices and lowered quality. The only way they can continue to get customer dollars is by providing a product that is about as good and that costs about as much as those of other firms. (In fact, even if there are no other firms in the market, as long as it's possible for another firm to enter the market and seize market share, that still provides an incentive for Walmart to keep their prices relatively low and their quality relatively high, so that they don't risk losing market share to such a firm in the future; this is the disciplining effect of potential competition, as opposed to actual competition with firms currently in a market.)

Now suppose people get fed up with the Walmart molopoly and try to improve matters by replacing its current corporate government with a nationally-elected assembly. Would we expect as much benefit from democratizing a still-monopolistic Walmart as we would from simply exposing Walmart to more competition? Probably not. Sure, politicians would tend not to be re-elected if they passed laws that greatly and obviously hurt the Walmart consumer, but there are all kinds of inefficiencies that would remain. Two important sources of government inefficiency are the lack of voter decisiveness and the externalization of the costs of voting.

When a consumer decides to buy from a different firm, his choice is decisive; once he makes up his mind, he either reaps the reward of higher quality or lower price, or suffers the cost of lower quality or higher price. The case is different with democratic government, becuase a voter only gets the government he votes for if he happens to be in the majority; his vote does not decisively determine the government he receives (and, in fact, the chance that a single vote will sway an election is close to zero). Moreover, the costs of bad government are not internal to those who voted for it, but are externalized to all taxpayers, regardless of who they voted for. As Bryan Caplan has argued in his The Myth of the Rational Voter, these two factors (lack of decisiveness and externalization of costs) makes it cheaper for voters to hold irrational beliefs about the quality and cost of their favored policies or parties. A consumer with an irrational bias about a product at least feels the pinch in his pocketbook, and therefore has a standing reason to revise the irrational bias. A voter with an irrational bias about a party or policy does not receive the same feedback, both because his vote is not decisive, and because the costs of the policy or party he supports are in any case distributed throughout all of society, which makes it much cheaper for him to support a bad policy or party if he gets even a mild feeling of pleasure for doing so (or avoids the pain of having to change his mind and abandon a cherished belief or party affiliation). Irrationality is cheaper for voters than for consumers, and we should therefore expect voters to be more irrational than consumers, and to vote for less efficient policies. This is as true with a democratically run Walmart monopoly as it is true with democratically run governments.

In addition, there are other sources of inefficiency in government apart from lack of voter decisiveness and the externalization of the costs of voting, such as the fact that many unelected civil servants lack adeqaute accountability. Therefore, even though it makes sense to doubt that markets are perfectly efficient, there is good reason to believe that governments are even less efficient than markets. Opponents of the efficient markets hypothesis should also oppose the efficient government hypothesis.

So how does Singapore manage to do such a good job? It's probably a matter of the incentives facing the rulers. Singapore is not very democratic (they have a virtual one-party system, and lots of power is concentrated in the office of prime minister, of which Singapore has had only three since 1959). Usually this is a bad thing, but in the case of Singapore the rulers for some reason have felt the need to attract foreign capital and labor, which put a check on the normal tendency for authoritarian governments to simply feather their own nests at public expense. A ruler can make himself wealthy through corrupt governance, but he can't make a nation wealthy through corrupt governance. The centralization of power in Singapore has made it possible for the government to plan for the future and to commit to a consistent policy over the long-run, but centralization of power is not itself enough for government efficiency, in the absence of the incentives to rule well which the government of Singapore seems to have faced. The key thing is that, in the case of Singapore, what saved the day was not democratic competition within a polity, but competition for labor and capital between polities. In order to attract foreign wealth and labor, Singapore had to provide firms and workers reasons to move to and do business in Singapore.

To my mind, this is the only way we will see sustained improvements in the quality of government over time: if governments lose their monopoly character and become increasingly competitive. Libertarian anarchists, such as Murray Rothbard, David Friedman , and Roderick Long, propose a market for services normally provided by the state, with competing firms providing protection and other state services within the same geographic territory, and with no state having monopoly on any good or service provided within that territory. This might work, but I think it is unlikely ever to happen, given that states will probably never give up their monopoly privileges over their territories, at least not willingly. A much more plausible route to competitive governance is for there to be competition between states which retain monopolies over their territories, but which are disciplined by their efforts to attract freely-moving labor and capital from other states. A glimpse of this scenario may be found in the behavior of the government of Singapore; what's needed now is for more states to feel the pressure to attract individuals and firms through providing efficient government. This doesn't seem likely to happen, but on the other hand, if it happened in Singapore, it might happen elsewhere as well.

But what about democracy? What about the power of the people? And what about the authoritarian character of Singapore--should this really be a model for other states? First of all, it is not the authoritarian character of Singapore or the conservatism of its laws which have produced success; it is the fact that the rulers have actually felt a need to provide good government. In fact, insofar as firms and individuals benefit from liberty as much from the services provided by government, there is a reason for Singapore to respect liberty insofar as this attracts firms and individuals--and this may explain why Singapore has become less conservative and authoritarian in recent years.

With regards to democracy, it is over-rated as a political ideal. Empowering people is important, indeed essential, but democracy is a lousy way to give power to the people. It is more important to give people the power to choose between states than it is to give people the power to vote. The former is decisive, and internalizes costs and benefits; the latter is not decisive, and externalizes costs and benefits, and as a power is therefore pretty thin gruel.

Khan Academy

I just found out about the Khan Academy, a website that has free video lectures on math and science and software with practice exercises. Salman Khan recently did a TED talk about how he got into education and how his site works. People are saying "this is the future of education" and for once I am on the bandwagon. Khan emphasizes how his site can complement in-class instruction, but he is really understating the radical implications of his approach. First, it clarifies how poorly the field of education has been performing for some time. Second, adopting khan academy lectures and exercises in the classroom radically redefines the role of the teacher, from someone who focuses on giving static lectures to the entire class to someone who focuses on giving targeted interaction to particular students based on real-time data about their performance. Third, given the availability of free peer tutors via Khan's website, the need for traditional education institutions seems to deline at the margin.

How resistant will primary, secondary, and higher ed institutions be to this new approach to education? Khan seems to be accumulating data that might give objective evidence for the effectiveness of his methods; how much will such evidence (assuming it exists) matter in public debates over education? My prediction: traditional education institutions and their employees, from the public school district to the four year university, will dig in their heels to resist re-hauling the education system on Khanian lines. I hope I am wrong.

Article on Transcendental Meditation in the New York Times

There was an article on transcendental meditation published Friday, March 18th in the New York Times. Evidently, there has been a mini-revival of interest in TM among some celebrities, including David Lynch (who has been practicing TM since the 1970s), Russell Brand, and Moby. The article includes several celebrity testimonials about the value of TM, including this one by Brand:

“Transcendental Meditation has been incredibly valuable to me both in my recovery as a drug addict and in my personal life, my marriage, my professional life,” Mr. Brand said of the technique that prescribes two 15- to 20-minute sessions a day of silently repeating a one-to-three syllable mantra, so that practitioners can access a state of what is known as transcendental consciousness. “I literally had an idea drop into my brain the other day while I was meditating which I think is worth millions of dollars.”

The article also says the following about David Lynch's experiences with TM:

I was not into meditation one bit,” Mr. Lynch said, in his laconic Missoula, Mont., drawl that years of living in Los Angeles has failed to dilute. “I thought it was a fad. I thought you had to eat nuts and raisins, and I didn’t want any part of it.”

Mr. Lynch was persuaded by his sister, Martha, when he began having marital difficulties with the first of his four wives, Peggy, in the early ’70s. “I had a whole bunch of personal anger that I would take out on her,” he said. “I think I was a weak person. I wasn’t self-assured. I was not a happy camper inside. Two weeks after I started, my wife comes to me and says, ‘This anger, where did it go?’ I felt a freedom and happiness growing inside. It was like — poooft! — I felt a kind of smile from Mother Nature. The world looked better and better. It’s an ocean of unbounded love within us, so it’s real hard to get a conflict going.” (Still, a year later, the couple divorced.)

I'm a fan of meditation, but such anecdotes don't really tell us much about what, if anything, meditation is good for. We don't know, for example, whether Brand's meditation was the cause of his recovery from drug addiction, or whether Moby's meditation was what enabled him to give up drinking (as he is quoted as claiming in the article), because it's possible for people to lie or to simply be mistaken about such things.

But that's not my main concern with this article. It's more troubling that the author focuses on the benefits of TM, without going into its darker side. TM was founded as a business venture by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi; in order to practice TM, you have to pay for special training sessions, in which a teacher gives you a secret mantra that you have to recite when you are meditating, and which you aren't supposed to share with anyone else. The abbreviation TM suits the business well, since they have vigorously asserted ownership over their intellectual property, for example having trademarked the term "Transcendental Meditation" itself. The TM movement has also authored studies which purport to offer scientific evidence for the health and other benefits of TM. What's disturbing to me about TM is that they seem to be ripping people off, by charging for what anyone can practice for free (mantra meditation), and by claiming, whether implicity or explicitly, that TM has some kind of special benefits not attainable through any of the various "freeware" meditation practices that are also available.

The very occasion of the New York Times article is a recent fundraiser organized by David Lynch, for the purpose of providing scholarships to pay for TM lessons for those who can't afford it. This all sounds very noble, until you realize that the only reason such a fundraiser is necessary in the first place is because of the greed and puffed-up claims of the TM movement itself. Now, I am a great admirer of Lynch's work, and am fascinated by the apparent relationship between Lynch's meditation practice and his creative output, but I believe he is doing people a great disservice by leading people to TM, when so many other, equally effective meditation practices (such as zazen or Vipassana) are available for free. On the other hand, I did learn from the article that George Lucas's Yoda character may have been based on Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, which fact alone probably made the article worth reading.

There's probably a lot of dirt on the dear old Maharishi, but my favorite is the story that he made sexual advances towards Mia Farrow and other women who traveled with the Beatles to his ashram in 1968. Sexual impropriety seems unfortunately common among people with spiritual authority (there are numerous cases from the world of Zen, for example), and to me this is another reason for being weary of gurus, especially those who charge unreasonable sums for magical mantras. If only the Maharishi could live up to the noble Yoda, who was created in his image! Now there's a guru I can't imagine charging money in exchange for teaching Jedi mind tricks, nor making a pass at Leia when Luke wasn't looking.

Government Contracts vs. Free Market Competition

Alex Taborrok had a recent blog post over at Marginal Revolution where he criticizes an argument for public trash collection made by Arnold Kling. Here is Kling's argument:

Surely, if we all lived in small mountain communities we would need less government. But imagine purely private trash collection in an urban area. If you pay for somebody to collect the trash in front of your house, then instead of paying for my trash to be removed, my strategy is to put my trash in front of your house and free ride on your trash collection.

Taborrok's reply, in brief, is that there are cases of successful private trash collection, including in his own Fairfax, Virginia:

I know because my neighborhood has two private, competing garbage collectors and the service is better than I have ever experienced in any other neighborhood. I get two trash collections a week (three counting yard matter such as leaves and cuttings), they take everything including recycling, the price is low and they work on government holidays. Most of Fairfax County has private trash collection. In fact, around the United States and the world private trash collection is quite common and there are typically substantial cost savings, on the order of 20-30%.

I agree with Tabarrok, in that private trash collection, at least in some contexts, does not constitute a public good problem. (Even if it did, the state is not necessarily the best solution; we must always compare imperfect free market and other imperfect consensual solutions to the imperfect state-based solutions of offer.) I am more interested, though, in the point Tabarrok makes in his following paragraph:

It is important to note that cost savings come from creating competition rather than from privatization per se–substituting a private monopoly for a public one is not very helpful but creating and maintaining a competitive environment can work wonders.

A common mistake is made by both pro-business and anti-free market factions (the latter is actually a species of the former, though most people don't realize this): a "privatization" scheme in which the government pays a private contractor to perform a service will not, in general, lead to much or any improvements in the price or quality of the service. But this is not because of a failure of the free market.

A moment's contemplation should make this clear: when the government uses tax money to pay a private company for a service, this is not a free market transaction. Free markets only exist when buyers are not coerced into paying for products (which does not fit the case of taxpayers), and when sellers are free to enter the market at any time and seize market share from rival firms (which does not fit most or any government contracting schemes). That is, a free market involves competition, and that's the only reason why free markets often contribute to the common good. Take away competition, and you have the same kinds of high prices and low quality that often characterize services provided by the most obvious monopoly of all, which is government.

The fact that "pro-business" factions often push for privatization schemes of this nature should not cloud our judgment. Government contracting is not a substitute for genuine free markets, because the same kinds of incentives are not in place. Most pro-business groups are perforce anti-free-market, since the free market is never in the interest of a particular firm. The best outcome for a firm is if it receives subsidies and protections from the government, not if it has to cover all its own expenses and compete on an even footing with rival firms. It's true that people in general are benefitted by free markets, but from the perspective of a particular firm, competition is not the best situation to be in, but rather protection, subsidy, and, if possible, sweet, sweet monopoly. Support for genuine free markets is therefore a radically "anti-business" position, but this does not seem to be widely understood. (Reading Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations may help, since the godfather of the free market is excoriating in his attacks on the business interests of his day, who had paid off people in the government to restrict competition.)

Unfortunately, this is often obscured in debates over privatization. The failures of government contracting are then often blamed on the free market. What is interesting about most debates over privatization is that genuinely free market positions are never even considered: the choice is often between government provision of a good or service and provision of a good or service by a private firm on a government contract. Neither of these supports the common good.

Liberal Libertarians

There's a growing trend among libertarians to self-identify as liberals and to distance themselves from political conservatism. This trend has precedents; the economist Friedrich Hayek wrote an essay in 1960 entitled "Why I Am Not a Conservative," for example. As a previous blog post of mine might indicate, although I consider myself a libertarian, there are several things about libertarianism, at least as it is commonly understood, which I find problematic. Specifically, many libertarians are committed at the level of ethical theory to an axiomatic principle of liberty or to a theory of natural rights; this puts them in opposition to consequentialist ethical analysis, which I regard as important, particularly with respect to questions of social justice--a concept which many libertarians, including even good old Hayek, regard with suspicion or skepticism. Openness to taking social justice seriously is part of what makes for a genuinely liberal strain of libertarian; other parts include cosmopolitanism, a secular worldview (or at least a secular approach to politics), opposition to war and militarism, opposition to the war on drugs, and support for the rights of gays and other people regarded as deviant or inferior by most conservatives.

Will Wilkinson, who has been an outspoken liberal libertarian for some time now, recently blogged about Bleeding Heart Libertarians, itself a new group blog by libertarian philosophers with an interest in neoclassical liberalism, combining libertarianism with contemporary liberalism, and libertarian social justice. Special mention should go to one of the blog's contibutors, Roderick T. Long, who has been an energetic advocate of "left libertarianism" for some time now.

On a related note, Peter Jaworski, a faculty member in the philosophy department at Bowling Green State University (where I currently teach part-time), recently blogged about the liberal libertarian phenomenon, including a discussion of the ethical issues underlying questions of social justice, and why an ethical principle of social justice does not by itself provide the justification for a welfare state.

Personally, my libertarian political beliefs have been a constant source of frustration and embarassment. Culturally, I am much more liberal than conservative, so most of my friends have been liberal, and as a consequence they have been either intolerant of or at least uncomfortable with my libertarianism, should I ever bring it up. Libertarianism is simply not acceptable among liberal social circles. As is often the case when it comes to political beliefs, a libertarian is usually regarded by liberals as being, not just ignorant or mistaken in his political beliefs, but downright morally defective on account of them. It's very difficult to have a rational conversation with anyone about politics (or religion, for that matter), even with someone who is very intelligent and relatively broad-minded. This probably has something to do with the way the human mind works--specifically, the psychology of group-based identity, or in-group / out-group thinking (about which there has been a lot of fascinating psychological research in the last ten years). A person with divergent political beliefs is regarded not just as wrong, but as a threat to the faction with which we identify, and by extention a threat to ourselves and those we care about. You can imagine the political disagreements among our hunter-gatherer ancestors as often being a matter of life and death, and it still feels that way today, even when our life is not in fact at stake.

In any event, I'm glad that there are other libertarians out there of a decidedly liberal bent--in terms of their cultural proclivites, political views, and even aspects of their ethical theory (insofar as most conservative libertarians seem to be defend theories of natural rights). I regard libertarianism as a progressive political philosophy, and I hope that more people in the general public will start to view it that way as well, even if they continue to disagree with it.

Conspiracy Theories

The Wall Street Journal had a recent article about the clash between patients and scientists over the cause of chronic fatigue syndrome. Evidently, some patients with CFS accuse the CDC of deliberately obstructing or delaying the publication of data showing a link between CFS and viruses such as XMRV. I personally doubt the CDC or anyone else has deliberately suppressed any information. If anything, it is the CFS patients who seem one-sided in their advocacy of a link between XMRV and CFS, given that some studies have failed to show a connection. As I indicated in a previous post, there is some evidence of a connection between CFS and chronic infections of several kinds, but the data is still spotty and I don't think anyone knows for sure what is causing cases of CFS. In addition, focusing too much on particular viruses like XMRV may direct attention away from the possible role played by other viruses, such as EBV, CMV, HHV-6, and enteroviruses, much less other pathogens such as bacteria and parasites.

Regarding the bacterial and parasitic infections, it is even possible that some CFS cases are due to infections caused by tick bites. Another recent article on msnbc's website discusses the increase in hard-to-diagnose (and often hard-to-treat) tick-born infections, and some of these have symptoms similar to CFS (including severe fatigue and "brain fog"). Since CFS is a syndrome, and not a disease with a specific etiology, it's not yet possible to say how many different types of infections or other conditions are behind CFS cases. When patients cling to one theory of CFS and attack scientists researching the syndrome, one fears that this will only hinder the pace of research. On the other hand, I haven't seen many scientists discuss the possibility of multiple infectious agents behind CFS cases, and this may represent a bias on their part which is also holding back the research. Too many people, patients and scientists included, seem to be looking for a single cause of the syndrome. I wish more studies were structured to test CFS patients for multiple pathogens using the best assays currently available.