Of the reconciliation deal, one anonymous reader writes, and only writes:

It is a statistical fact that the wicked work harder to reach hell then the righteous do to enter heaven.

I recognized it immediately as a quote of American humorist Josh Billings. In this context I assume it to be a disapproval of Fatah's declared peace with Hamas, suggesting their 'hard work' in forming a unity government is an evil thing, speeding their delivery to 'hell.' To this, I will repsond to our reader with another one of Billings's aphorisms:

As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.

The truth is: this is an encouraging step forward for the Palestinians. It is at least that. Hamas was going to be around, perhaps longer, if the emnity between the two leaderships dragged on. There is no Palestinian state without this deal, and there is no peace without such a state. It's no surprise that Ban Ki-moon, presiding over the UN vote this September, is jumping for joy while Avigdor Lieberman is dropping what marbles he had left. This will very likely push the Islamists into at least tacit acceptance of Israel's existence, as Hamas leaders know that they will be torn apart if they muck up this chance to achieve Palestinian statehood.

Euronews.

I can't say that I expected reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah to be signed, sealed and delivered hours after I stepped aboard my flight out of the Holy Land, but it appears that the talks in Cairo were uncharacteristically constructive. Somehow the issue of security must have been overcome, which was what killed the talks in Cairo in 2009. The elections are a comin', with individuals from each party running as independents. Fatah will most likely come out on top given Hamas's stumble and fall in recent polls. Again, this is all encouraging.

Egypt will continue to be a deal broker, and the next item of the day is a prisoner swap. Gilad Shalit, and around 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, will see the sunlight sooner than later.

I've just reread the first Billings quote with a different emphasis. Is it possible the commenter was talking about Israel as the hard working fellow destined for unpleasantness? Well, we can do a post on that next time 'round.

Labels: Abbas, avigdor lieberman, Fatah, gilad, Hamas, haniyeh, Israel, josh billings, Palestine, reconcilation, shalit, unity deal

Labels: Fatah, Hamas, march 15, reconcilation, unity deal, Youth Movement

Labels: America, literature, United States

Labels: Arabs, Ayn Rand, Israel, Palestine

 Unknown said on April 22, 2011 at 3:21 AM  

She CANNOT be serious.

 Brendan James said on April 22, 2011 at 3:00 PM  

It seems like all of that is consistent with her philosophy, which would have us credit and support the more “industrious” and productive belligerent in any case.

"Because [Israel] is the advanced, technological, civilized country amidst a group of almost totally primitive savages..."

The dichotomy of “moochers” and “producers” you brought up earlier can easily be recast into this dichotomy of “civilized people” and “primitive savages."

Of course, as soon as she’s pressed on that position, Rand reels back and says, "no, no I hate them because they're all terrorists." Which allows me to continue thinking of her as an intellectual lightweight as well as a nasty bitch.

 Unknown said on April 22, 2011 at 11:52 PM  

It's a Social Darwinist (I'm not too informed with Objectivism so I won't make any claims about it) idea that it's every man, or civilization, for himself, and that morality or justice somehow doesn't factor in. So in Social Darwinist terms, let the weak suffer and let the strong manipulate and take advantage of them. The Social Darwinists somehow did not account for human enlightenment and reason as part of the progress of man, and that using it to create systems of justice is part of our evolutionary cred. Surprisingly, they want to approach everything from a selfish standpoint, as if we are all in the jungle fighting for survival. The point now is to go beyond mere survival: it's to endorse human happiness, which means not letting most of the world's population suffer because it might mean they are "mooching" off the excessive profits of the few.

 Brendan James said on April 23, 2011 at 12:16 AM  

I wouldn’t scoot off to the topic of Social Darwinism yet, which is a slightly different kettle of fish.

Rand would actually say that she *has* taken morality and human happiness into account in her philosophy, but has recast them. She claims to create a new morality supposedly demonstrable by logic.

In her own words, she says that her morality is based on quality of life as a standard of value. Rand believes this to mean that "the highest moral purpose is to achieve personal happiness."

To move the discussion to Ryan: many non-Randians believe that his budget plan is worth considering simply because it asks us to confront the problem of entitlement programs instead of just claiming we need to “cut spending.” At the same time, I know that Ryan has gone public with his admiration of Ayn Rand; shall we poke around to see if there are actually pieces of his proposal that would put her philosophy in action?

 Anonymous said on April 23, 2011 at 12:27 AM  

Yes, there is a definite difference between Objectivism and Social Darwinism. Though it sounds strange, Social Darwinism actually stressed altruism a lot more, which Objectivism denounces.

An Objectivist Leonard Peikoff: "The man who spread the notion that capitalism means death for the weak was the system’s leading nineteenth-century champion, Herbert Spencer; capitalism, he held, permits only the ‘survival of the fittest.’

This ‘defense’ of laissez-faire has been incomparably more harmful than anything uttered by Marx. The wrong arguments for a position are always more costly than plain silence, which at least allows a better voice to be heard if such should ever speak out."

Wasserman, the Boston Globe.

Nearly finished writing a piece on Palestinian reconciliation. At the moment, Abbas is walking tall.

All of this will have to be resolved where it began: members of the international community, notably the United States, will have to meddle. Contrary to the conventional wisdom that the Arabs hate the meddling of the West, the Palestinians want and need the Middle East Quartet (US, UN, Russia and the EU) in order to unify Gaza and the West Bank. Meddling can actually make peace as easily as it can break it. A glance in any direction—toward either expanding settlements in the West Bank or leveled buildings in Gaza—convinces most here that the Netanyahu government prefers a divided, and therefore feeble, Palestinian leadership. It is up to the great powers to, as Afif Safieh has phrased it, impose a solution whether Israel likes it or not. Every Palestinian I've met sure would.

And as it happens, Israeli citizens would like it, quite a bit: the last opinion poll of the Israeli public revealed that it is ready to end the unprompted spouts of al-Qassam rockets and negotiate a truce with the Hamas government.

So, to the simplistic question, “cui bono?” one could start by answering, “Israel.”

For Hamas it would be both an immediate victory and a long term defeat: in the immediate sense a unity government would allow Fatah to do all the things that Hamas is ideologically prohibited from doing, e.g. negotiating with Israel, while Hamas reaps all the practical benefits of a government that normalized Israeli-Palestinian relations. Although Hamas would not directly participate in peace negotiations with Israel, it has indicated that it would be willing to be part of a Palestinian coalition government with Fatah under which Fatah would negotiate the actual treaty.

However, rather than promising a permanent, and more potent, threat to Israel, throwing Hamas onto the world stage and bringing on the next election cycle could be the very thing that sends them packing. Either that, or the moderates in their group would finally win out, and the group would become just another Turkish-style political party with an Islamic inflection. With their popularity already plummeting, one would not expect the majority of Palestinians to continue to support a faction that promises them perpetual war rather than realistic compromise.

And obviously Fatah would be pretty psyched, retaining more power within the Palestinian Authority and continuing to receive endorsement from the IMF, World Bank and, depending on what happens in September, the United Nations.

Packing up for Britain in a few days.

Labels: Abbas, Fatah, Gaza City, Hamas, Israel, Middle East Quartet, unity deal

Labels: Edna St Vincent Millay, Lament, Poem

Spent the evening at a vigil for Vittorio Arrigoni at Bethlehem's March 15 Youth Coalition "unity" tent. There were calls for perseverance and there were calls for blood. There were tears for Vittorio and for Juliano Mer Khamis, from those that knew them and those who did not.

The parents of Rachel Corrie, the American student who was crushed to death by an IDF bulldozer during the second Intifada, arrived halfway through the proceedings. Her mother spoke and quoted Coretta Scott King, gently urging everyone to remember that while at this moment "the pain is sharp and overwhelming, the cause we are fighting for is larger than the grief caused by the death of our loved one.”

A colleague of mine delivered a eulogy in short bursts, as another speaker translated her words from across the circle of mourners. “Vittorio was a big person, in every sense of the word. He was a tall, strong man. He used big words. He had a big smile. And a big heart.”

“He did his work under the banner: ‘Stay Human.’ For him this meant to always be struck by injustice, to be moved by it, and to act against it. We will not be deterred from continuing the work that he did—certainly not by this crime, which does not at all represent the Palestinian people.”

A doctor in the crowd, a native of Palestine who spoke to us all in English, ended his tribute to Vittorio with a crackling voice as he began to talk about the recent murder of another famous peace activist, his friend Juliano Mer. He suddenly spoke very slowly, and the candle in his hands started to quiver: “We will continue to do our best, to end all the violence here...to win ourselves a normal life,” until his features withered and he began to sob, “so we can finally stop things like this, from happening anymore.”

Finally, one man, when he was asked to speak, did so without tears: “I am not going to be as nice as everyone else here. I am not going to light a candle. I want blood.”

“In the second Intifada, anyone around who killed a fighter or a resistance figure, they would be hanging from a street lamp the next day. That is what happened. That is what the murderers of these men deserve. And that is what they will get.”

It is another dark night here. I’ll be at the bar.

Labels: assasination, Juliano Mer Khamis, vigil, Vittorio Arrigoni

Labels: Juliano Mer Khamis, kidnap, Mohamed bin-Mosliemah, Vittorio Arrigoni

A good disucssion of Rand and the Right at the Dish.

Image by joshik72.

Labels: American Right, Ayn Rand, Objectivism, the Dish

 Unknown said on April 21, 2011 at 7:30 PM  

Her view of economics divided the world into a contest between "moochers" and "producers."

http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/150680/the_truth_about_gop_hero_ayn_rand/?page=2

Have you read William Graham Sumner's 'What Social Classes Owe to Each-other'? Both Rand and Sumner advocate for what some refer to as "Inverted Marxism." I've read Sumner, not Rand, but from what I've read about her she seems to have the same attitude as Sumner towards economics. The same view, it seems, as Paul Ryan.

 Brendan James said on April 21, 2011 at 8:04 PM  

To me, the problems of Randian anarcho-capitalism are innumerable.

At the moment I’m writing about law and order: In Rand’s ideal society, with every social good decided by the market and supplied by private firms, we would see things like police forces catering to the largest market, i.e. the majority ethnicity, religious group and/or social class—you can imagine what sort of justice would be enforced in this reality. Michael Taylor tackled some of these problems quite well.

The idea that this scheme would provide public goods such as social order and justice dissolves after a couple of simple thought experiments.

To be germane, I’ve posted a clip of Rand on the Palestinian question above. We can continue this chat up there, if you like.

Labels: Allan Bloom, Ark Music Factory, Charles Hamilton, classicist, Nihiline, Plato, Rousseau

The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted.—Mark the music.

             ~Lorenzo, The Merchant of Venice, Act V, Scene I

In a televised defense of his 1987 treatise on education, The Closing of the American Mind, Allan Bloom felt pressured enough to declare, "I am not a snob!" One of the chapters of the book that had earned him charges of stuffy obscurantism was his critique of popular music; Bloom was a committed classicist and held the position that pop music stunts intellectual and emotional growth, satisfying the human soul about as much as Pot Noodle satisfies the appetite. Jagger, Lennon and Prince provide “premature ecstasy” and therefore destroy the imagination.

In line with the book's overarching thesis, Bloom decided that the decline of music as a society’s spiritual and cultural vocabulary has contributed to the strangling of American liberal education. Calling upon the Greeks for support, Bloom asserts that music in its essence is barbaric—but whereas classical works fuse music’s raw energy with a higher principle or expression, rock music, in its vulgarity, keeps the minds of our generation primitive, and its hearts empty.

This was and remains a serious charge. Anyone doubting the impact of music on the human personality has a bone to pick with Aristotle, Rousseau and Nietzsche: to invite music is to tap into a world of enthusiasm and passion, so the form in which you digest your Corybantic prescription is of the utmost importance.

So in 2011, when Gaga still trumps Grieg, I wonder whether it’s worth revisiting Bloom’s ideas about music and the philosophical project. I invite to the table Mr. Frank Zappa.

A few months after Bloom released The Closing of the American Mind, Zappa wrote a critique in New Perspectives Quarterly titled, “On Junk Food for the Soul.” Zappa, it should be noted, completely dismisses the metaphysical theories of Nietzsche and Plato, which happen to constitute the thrust of Bloom’s argument. He’s not being fair to Bloom in this regard, but after some cheap shots, F.Z. does actually challenge Bloom on legitimate grounds: he takes issue with the idea that only classical music is in touch with higher ideals that allows it to satisfy coarse passion without succumbing to its excesses. Bach in all his religiosity and Beethoven in his humanity were, at the end of the day, artists getting paid.

So basically, the people who are recognized as the geniuses of classical music had hits. And the person who determined whether or not it was a hit was a king, a duke, or the church or whoever paid the bill…The content of what they wrote was to a degree determined by the musical predilections of the guy who was paying the bill.

Today, we have a similar situation in rock n' roll. We have kings, dukes, and popes: the A&R guy who spots a group or screens the tape when it comes in; the business affairs guy who writes the contract; the radio station programmers who choose what records get air play.

In this way Zappa states a truth that I must agree is completely glossed over by Bloom: all sponsored music is produce. Classical music holds no virtue over contemporary music in this regard, a reality that does a great deal of damage to the notion that concert music’s survival should somehow convince us of a more genuine and successful synthesis of thymos and rationality.

It’s actually shortly after this point that Zappa and Bloom converge. Both disdain the music business. Bloom, eager to wipe the smirks off of those raging against the machine, describes it as "perfect capitalism, supplying to demand and helping to create it." Zappa echoes the charge from his own corner: “Record companies have people who claim to be experts on what the public really wants to hear. And they inflict their taste on the people who actually make the music.” Roger Waters, to his horror, might have also found himself in agreement with Bloom, as the latter's argument that entertainment has become the chief end of contemporary society is the main theme of Waters’ (excellent) solo album, Amused to Death. In the title track, Waters writes of an alien anthropologist who discovers the skeletons of our species “grouped ‘round our TV sets,” left only to conclude that we had “amused ourselves to death.” Though he cited Neil Postman as an inspiration for the album, Waters is speaking Bloom’s language throughout.

But to reconvene with Zappa I have to part company with Bloom on the matter of classical music’s superiority in form, essence and effect. From a purely technical standpoint, of course concert music (which is still written today, after all) is more involved, complex and, for the composer, difficult to produce. But Bloom is not speaking of musicality or the art of composition so much as he is addressing what the medium of music has to give—once the pomp and permanence of the classics is debunked by Zappa, we face a level playing field. Consult your own hearts, but I know that I catch just as staggering a feeling of sublimity when listening to Waits’ “Grapefruit Moon” as I do when listening to Beethoven’s Sonata No. 23.

While Bloom does identify with those who feel connected to contemporary music early in the chapter, it does not undo what eventually turns up as his most embarrassing passage: his haughty insistence that "people of future civilizations will wonder at [the phenomenon of rock music] and find it as incomprehensible as we do the caste system, witch burning, harems, cannibalism and gladiatorial combats." Bloom does not specify whether or not he is talking about the spectacle of American Gladiator or its Mediterranean predecessor, which I believe might have injected some seriousness into this otherwise ludicrous sentence.

With that in mind, it is my opinion that in his discussion of the contemporary recoil from Plato and the young generation’s ferocious defense of pop music’s authenticity, Bloom ends up beautifully articulating what philosophy demands of its students:

"Yet if a student can—and this is most difficult and unusual—draw back, get a critical distance on what he clings to, come to doubt the ultimate value of what he loves, he has taken the first and most difficult step toward the philosophic conversion. Indignation is the soul's defense against the wound of doubt about its own; it reorders the cosmos to support the justice of its cause. It justifies putting Socrates to death."

In drinking the Kool-Aid, one is merely sweetening the hemlock.

Labels: Allan Bloom, classical, Closing of the American Mind, education, music, pop, Zappa

Mubarak taking a page from the Bluth playbook:

Ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak went into intensive care in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, shortly after suffering a heart attack during questioning by prosecutors on Tuesday, state media reported.

The state-owned daily Al-Ahram, citing sources in Sharm Ash-Sheikh, said on its website that Mubarak had gone to hospital "under the pretext of being unwell in order to avoid facing questioning."

If prosecutors enter his hospital room only to find a kippah and an adrenaline shot, we'll know to look out for a staircar on the streets of Cairo.

"In the audio message aired on the pan-Arab television network Al-Arabiya, Mubarak complained he was the victim of a smear campaign."

"Great. I'm gonna get a lethal injection because my son won't eat a potato."

Labels: Arrested Development, Bluths, George Sr, Mubarak

Labels: Baskerville Express, comments, name change, Update

 Anonymous said on April 12, 2011 at 11:24 AM  

Enjoy the new name and layout. Could use some more posts about literature, and you should update more, even if you're busy in the territories.

 Brendan James said on April 12, 2011 at 3:33 PM  

Today I uncovered an exchange between Frank Zappa and Allan Bloom, over the role and state of music in the 20th century. I'll try and scribble a bit about that tonight. Be there.

Labels: Abasan, casualties, ceasefire, Hamas, Khan Younis, missile, Negev, Rafah

 Farid said on April 11, 2011 at 11:11 AM  

Were you too tired to mention the fact that Hamas'"targeting" of the school bus resulted in no casualties, while there have been 19 dead Palestinians since Thursday? Hamas has issued a statement saying that it did not intend to hit a school bus, while Israel as usual does not issue any statement concerning the civilians that it kills.
-farid

 Brendan James said on April 11, 2011 at 11:41 AM  

To correct your first non-point, the anti-tank missile wounded two people, a teen and the driver. The former is wounded critically. We call those casualties.

As for the question of intentionality: if you read Sami Abu Zuhri's statement to Reuters you'll find it is not an apology but simply a claim that Hamas was "unaware" that the bus carried children. You can believe that if you like; I am inclined to view the remark (and the recently announced truce) as backpedaling after Israel’s brutal response, which you correctly point out as disproportionate and catastrophic.

Labels: Alex, H2, Hebron, sterile zone

Labels: Arna's Children, assassination, death, Freedom Theatre, Jenin, Juliano Mer Khamis, murder, refugee camp

Labels: graffiti, H2, Hebron