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Arguing
With The Argument Culture
In "We Do
Understand," William Saletan quotes the following sentence from Deborah Tannen's
The Argument Culture : "Disputation was rejected in ancient China as
incompatible with the decorum and harmony cultivated by the true sage."
Professor Tannen might be
surprised to learn that one of the most well-known introductory books on
ancient Chinese thought is called Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical
Argument in Ancient China . Indeed, I think most students of ancient China
would agree that if there ever was a disputatious intellectual culture, it was
that of China in the Warring States period (circa 479-221 B.C.). (Note the name
of the era, Dr. Tannen.)
In other
words, Tannen's is pretty much the most egregiously misleading generalization
about ancient China that I have ever read.
--C.J.
Fraser University of Hong Kong
Librarian
Says "Keep Quiet"
I cannot recall a more
gratuitous grouse than Sarah Kerr's questioning, in an otherwise estimable
piece, of the "reader-friendliness" of the Library of America's Gertrude Stein
volumes ("What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate").
The dimensions of the
library's books are perfect, their typeface is elegant and eminently readable
without being precious, and most refuting of Kerr's odd complaint, their pages
are of a thickness that affords pliability and easy separation while
maintaining economy in bulk and weight. One of the many marvels of the series
is that vast collections of authors' works are assembled in volumes so
exquisite yet portable. Even Benjamin Franklin's 1,600 page tome is easily
handled.
It should
be noted of the library's treatments of Mark Twain and Henry James, which Kerr
covets for Gertrude Stein, that their thinnest volumes comprise 1,029 and 845
pages, respectively. If slightness in a Library of America volume is a mark of
esteem, Kerr can be assured that the two svelte books she reviewed, at under a
thousand pages each, accord Gertrude Stein a measure of honor beyond mere
inclusion in the series.
-- Paul Coleman ,
university librarianWest Texas A&M UniversityCanyon, Texas
The
Morals of the Story
In
"The Theory
of Everything," his review of E.O. Wilson's latest book, Steven Pinker
writes:
I was not persuaded that
moral statements can be reduced to psychology, as if the disapproval of murder
were just another human taste like the preference for sweet over bitter foods.
(Even a die-hard Ionian might think that our moral sense evolved to grasp a
logic of morality that is outside our minds in the same sense that our number
sense evolved to grasp mathematical truths that are outside our minds.)
One difference between
mathematical truths and moral truths is that grasping the former provides an
obvious survival advantage. We should expect an evolved number sense to discern
mathematical truths fairly well; we should not be so optimistic about the
accuracy of an evolved moral sense.
The
evolutionary process will favor those moral intuitions that best spread the
genes responsible for them--quite independent of whether they induce behavior
that is objectively Good.
-- Maurile
Tremblay
Comic
Relief
Jacob
Weisberg's theory (in "Betty
and Monica") that the cartoon he reprinted came from Maureen Dowd's column
is high flattery for one of us, but it is inaccurate. I usually come up with my
own ideas, but I am, like most cartoonists, very happy that Dowd can't
draw.
-- Jeff Danzigerwww.danzigercartoons.com
Social
Insecurity
Like most articles and
studies discussing Social Security privatization, Jodie T. Allen's "Can Newt Gingrich Save Social
Security?" takes at face value claims that if retirement insurance funds
are invested in private securities, a continuing rate of return well above that
on federal bonds may be obtained.
While that has surely been
true in the past, and should continue to be for some years yet, the argument
almost certainly will break down precisely when the money would be required.
The rise in the stock market in recent years has been in no small part due to
baby boomers' accelerating investment of their retirement funds there (see, for
example, James Surowiecki's "The Planet Hollywood
Syndrome" on the effects of excess money on Wall Street). However, when
they begin to withdraw from the market en masse, a parallel fall in prices will
occur as the supply of people who must sell begins to outstrip the number of
people wishing to buy at a historically high cost. The first to retire might
enjoy considerable returns on their investments, but those at the trailing end
of the baby boom might see their gains disappear while the market
overcorrects.
Putting
Social Security funds in the market only makes these effects worse, as that
money must at some point be withdrawn, no matter what, to meet obligations
(similar arguments might be applied to bonds, real estate, or anything else
Social Security money might be invested in). Some form of privatization might
substantially aid the first to retire, but later retirees--precisely those
people whom the current system is also most likely to shortchange--get left
behind. Any prudent plan to invest Social Security funds in private markets
must have some way to address these risks; none that I know of do.
-- Jeffrey
Newman Oakland, Calif.
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