Monday Miscellany, 2/26/24

February 26, 2024 By Gene Veith

Censoring both “old climate denial” and “new climate denial”; saving university education; and we’re just tired of superhero movies.

Censoring Both “Old Climate Denial” and “New Climate Denial”

“Climate denial” does not mean denying that we have a climate. Rather, it has become a term used to denigrate those who are skeptical that global warming and other projections of climate change are as big a problem as many environmentalists say it is.

A new organization in the UK called the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which has worked with the federal government in its collusion with Big Tech companies to censor “disinformation” on the internet, is targeting those it is accusing of hating the climate. It is now distinguishing between “old climate denial” and “new climate denial.”

Old climate denial, which is already censored on many platforms, simply denies that climate change is happening or that burning fossil fuels is to blame. New climate denial says that “global heating” (the new term of choice for “global warming,” emphasizing the threat) is harmless, or even beneficial; that scientists who warn about climate change and the climate movement in general can’t be trusted; and that solutions put forward to address “global heating” won’t work.

That last one is the biggest puzzler. What if a solution really won’t work? Is it “hate” to say so? Don’t scientists and engineers need to be able to test, falsify, and argue about their findings? There are lots of proposed solutions, from making everyone buy electric vehicles to injecting particles into the air to block sunlight. Are journalists not allowed to report on the troubles of the electric vehicle industry? Or can environmentalists not object to polluting the air in order to bring down the earth’s temperature? Are all proposed “solutions” to be considered automatically valid and immune to criticism?

I think any needed solutions would be more likely to come out of the free exchange of ideas, untrammeled debate, and open-ended scientific inquiry.

Saving University Education

The Utah state legislature is considering a measure that could go a long way towards reforming higher education. Stanley Kurtz thinks that this new approach could become a model nationwide.

As it is, the so-called “general education” requirements that all students have to take are run out of the various specialized departments. As a result, students end up picking from a vast menu of topics reflecting the arcane research interests and the radical politics of the faculty. No two students will graduate with the same courses, which means that it’s almost impossible to assure that graduates have acquired the knowledge and skills that they need.

The “School of General Education Act” (S.B. 226) would create a separate department with its own dean and its own faculty to teach general education courses. All students would take the same courses, thus creating a true “core curriculum,” which would emphasize the great books and the great ideas of our civilization, as well as the intellectual skills necessary to handle them.

Says Kurtz,

No one political party or ideology has a monopoly on classic general education. No doubt plenty of traditional liberals as well as conservatives will be hired to teach the core curriculum. And while some current faculty will be let go, plenty of adherents of today’s postmodern orthodoxies will surely remain. In other words, no professorial point of view will be excluded from the university. Thus, a happy by-product of the return to traditional general education will likely be greater overall intellectual diversity at UU.

Students, for example, might take the new, required American history survey, focused on more traditional topics, in freshman year, followed if they choose by an elective race/ethnicity/sexuality-focused upper-level U.S. history course in their junior year. In other words, over four years, students will experience a mixture of the new, required classic general-education courses and the older postmodern-style courses already on offer. Students will be able to compare and decide which approach, or combination of approaches, they prefer. The marketplace of ideas will return.

Such a true “core curriculum” grounding each student in the “liberal arts,” in the sense not just of the humanities–as another academic specialty as universities define it today–but in the sense of forming a free citizen (libera), is what Patrick Henry College has, where I was the provost. I can testify and give quantitative data for the effectiveness of this approach in giving students a first-rate education.

One big obstacle to universities adopting this sort of thing is that the specialized departments are dependent on general education courses to subsidize their graduate students, thus advancing their main priority, which is not education but research. And the new Deans of General Education would have a challenge to find faculty adept in teaching the kind of broad-based, interdisciplinary courses that would be called for, since most academics’ skill set is in their narrow specialties.

But there I am, thinking like a college administrator. If Utah would pass such a bill, that state’s universities would hate it, but if the structure were imposed by law, it could create a market for general education teachers–and give a foundation that could equip such teachers whatever their specialties might be–and its academic effectiveness might make it catch on.

We’re Just Tired of Superhero Movies

Another comic book movie bites the dust. According to Hollywood Reporter, Madam Web, a Spider-Man spinoff, had the lowest average score on Rotten Tomatoes (a site that averages critical responses) of any superhero movie over the last decade, a mere 13%. Its domestic box office was just $26.2 million despite a prime Valentine Day’s release, and the international sales were just $25.7 million from 61 different countries. The movie cost around $100 million to make.

But this is only the low point of a larger trend. As Hollywood Reporter observes,

Madame Web joins a troubling trend for the superhero genre. Every live-action comic book movie last year underperformed (aside from Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3), regardless of studio. “Superhero fatigue” has evolved from a term used by some corners of the fandom to something reluctantly accepted as industry fact. And it’s coming at a time when Marvel, DC and Sony are all attempting the difficult work of birthing new franchises.

One of those new franchises was going to be a whole series of movies about Madam Web, but now that’s not going to happen.

Let me give Hollywood some free advice that will save them millions of dollars: The public is tired of superhero movies! The public is also tired of remakes, sequels, and franchises. (I have some hopes for Dune 2, which is not so much a sequel as the continuation of a literary saga, but the point remains.)

So many films today consist of little more than what Milton called “tedious havoc.” It’s little wonder that the movie industry is having yet another “rough year.”

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Napoleon Complex

December 13, 2023 By Gene Veith

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I’ve been reading about Napoleon, so I had to see the movie directed by Ridley Scott. What a disappointment!

As other critics have noted, the movie’s portrayal showed no reason why the people of France–or even Josephine–found him so compelling. There is no trace of his vaunted charisma or his powerful and persuasive personality. Joaquin Phoenix is a good actor and he could have chewed up the scenery with a role like that, but his director must have held him back, wanting to portray the Emperor of France and much of Europe as a petulant, sulking bore.

Critics have praised the battle scenes, but I was disappointed even with those. I have never yet seen a film that portrayed 19th century battles with the massed formations and troop movements that were central to early warfare. Instead, we get individuals sword fighting or shooting at each other, which happened, of course, but with no sense of the bigger picture.

The movie’s depiction of the Battle of Austerlitz focused on cannonballs breaking the ice on a vast frozen lake that the Russians and Austrians were standing on, plunging them into the icy waters to drown. That was a cool visual effect, to be sure, that did convey how grisly war can be. Something of that happened at Austerlitz, with troops that were standing on frozen ponds, but it was on a far smaller scale than the movie showed.

But the way Napoleon used his military genius to win the battle despite being outnumbered by two other emperors, was to have the middle of his lines fall back under the allied attack as if they were defeated. Whereupon his two flanks moved to encircle the attackers as the middle turned around to counterattack, resulting in a total defeat of two armies. Showing that would have made great cinema.

The biggest problem of the movie, though, is that it conveyed nothing about why Napoleon was so important and the impact that he had not only on France but on Europe. And we need to come to grips with that today because, in our current illiberal mood on both the right and the left, many are yearning for and opening themselves up to a Napoleonic figure to put things to rights.

The French Revolution degenerated into a chaotic Reign of Terror, but then Napoleon, a young army officer who rose through the ranks on his own merits as opposed to the previously prevailing rights of aristocracy, took power and imposed order. (No society can exist under anarchy. There must be social order.) But Napoleon still believed in the “liberty, equality, fraternity” ideals of the Revolution.

In defending France from the European powers who sought to bring back the Bourbon king, Napoleon defeated them–all pretty much but England–and in the lands that he conquered he imposed the new “liberal” ideals. With the defeat of Austria at the Battle of Austerlitz we just discussed, Napoleon abolished the Holy Roman Empire. (Lutherans should appreciate that!) He basically dismantled what remained of the feudal system throughout Europe. He abolished the privileges of the nobility, making everyone equal before the law. And he drew up a law, the Napoleonic Code, which replaced unwritten customs with a written legal system, one that protected private property, defined contract law, guaranteed civil liberties including religious freedom, provided for the prosecution of crimes, and would serve as the main alternative to England’s “common law” tradition to this very day.

When Napoleon lost much of his army in a futile attempt to conquer Russia in winter, he was deposed and went into exile on the Mediterranean island of Elba. But after nine months, he escaped, went back to France, and was embraced again by the public and by the army, sending the restored Bourbon king running off again and recommencing his wars.

When he was finally defeated by British and Prussian forces at Waterloo, Napoleon was once again sent into exile, this time to an island farther away, St. Helena, a thousand miles west of Africa in the Atlantic, this time guarded by 2000 British troops. Six years later, he died at the age of 51.

But after his death, there was little interest in restoring the Holy Roman Empire or in rebuilding the feudal system. And pretty much every country that had been put under the Napoleonic Code kept it. And still follow it to this very day.

Napoleon was complex, as is his legacy. He was a liberal dictator, an absolute ruler who promoted freedom, someone who seized power for himself and then used it to impose the rule of law. He was an individual who changed entire cultures and social systems according to his will. He was a great leader by every definition, but he led thousands of his followers into death and slaughtered thousands more. Historians estimate that he was responsible for the deaths of between three and six million people.

Napoleon embodies the deceiving dream that a strong ruler will save us, that a brief and temporary state of tyranny is all we need to solve our problems and usher in a social utopia, that we can conquer people in order to help them, that we can dominate people for their own good. He embodies the political temptation of dictatorship for a good end. Napoleon was complex, but we must beware lest we develop our own Napoleon complex.

Portrait of Napoleon by Robert LeFevre (1850) via PICRYL, Public Domain

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Why Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Seminars Don’t Work

September 28, 2023 By Gene Veith

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One of the rituals of today’s employee training sessions, continuing education activities, manager retreats, and student orientations is the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Seminar. Research is showing, though, that the DEI training is not working to eliminate racism and other kinds of bias in the workplace. Rather, it seems to be making it worse.

Two social scientists, including one whose research is highlighted in the typical DEI curriculum, explains why that is so in an article published in the Wall Street Journal (behind a paywall) entitled Why DEI Training Doesn’t Work—and How to Fix It.

To sum it up, the approach DEI seminars typically use is first to make participants feel guilty by exposing their hidden prejudices. Then they make participants fearful about losing their jobs and breaking the law for those prejudices that have been exposed. What this does is make participants angry, defensive, and more biased.

I’ll let the authors, Mahzarin Banaji and Frank Dobbin, explain:

Most training programs fall short on two fronts. First, they use implicit-bias education to shame trainees for holding stereotypes. Trainers play gotcha. . . ., Instead of training people about research that finds that bias is pervasive, trainers use the test to prove to trainees that they are morally flawed. People leave feeling guilty for holding biases that conflict with American values.

“Gotcha” isn’t going to win people over. The approach is disrespectful, and misses the main takeaway from implicit bias research: Everyone holds biases they don’t control as a consequence of a lifetime of exposure to societal inequality, the media and the arts. . . .

The second problem with most trainings is that they seek to solve the problem of bias by invoking the law to scare people about the risk of letting bias go unchecked. . . .Trainees leave scared that they will be punished for a simple mistake that may land their company in court. . . .

Trainings with this one-two punch—you are biased and the law will get you—backfire. The research shows that this kind of training leads to reductions in women and people of color in management.

Why would diversity training actually make things worse? Making people feel ashamed can lead them to reject the message. Thus people often leave diversity training feeling angry and with greater animosity toward other groups. . . . And threats of punishment, by the law in this case, typically lead to psychological “reactance” whereby people reject the desired behavior.

For these two authors, racism and other kinds of bias are not individual vices. Rather, they are “systemic,” being so pervasive that individuals cannot help but be biased. They recommend that DEI trainers simply expose participants to the research showing that, so that the institution they are involved with can counter it the best they can.

That racism is systemic is a core assumption of progressivism and critical race theory, and yet the DEI seminars, in trying to advance that cause, end up working against it.

Then again, isn’t the individual morality approach a more Christian take on the topic? It at least holds out hope that people can change their views, as opposed to the notion that those views are inevitable.

I’m thinking that what the authors are documenting and rightly criticizing is just inept teaching. If the goal is to change people’s perspectives, they must be reached on the inside. That would be a job for literature and the arts. Have participants watch some movies and read some books that would help them identify with and increase their compassion for victims of discrimination. That would do more to make them sensitive to the problem than trying to guilt them into submission.

At any rate, as we Lutherans have been saying for centuries, simply hammering people with the Law cannot make them change their behavior, let alone become righteous before God. It can, however, make them open to hearing the Gospel of forgiveness through Christ, resulting in an inner transformation that really does change behavior, with “faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6).

But if there is no Gospel, no grace or forgiveness–something notably missing in today’s secular ideologies–breaking someone with the Law causes them to either rebel or to despair.

Photo: Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement Employees Attend Diversity Training Week, via Flickr, Public Domain

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The Need for “Apolitical Space”

June 27, 2023 By Gene Veith

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When making conversation, we were always told, don’t talk politics or religion. Stick to safe subjects like sports or the weather.

The reason for that is that politics and religion are divisive. Not everyone agrees about them. If the person you are talking to is a friend who already agrees with you, fine. But when making social chit-chat with someone you don’t know, it’s best to talk about non-controversial topics. Liberals and conservatives, Christians and atheists can all enjoy and have common ground with sports. And everybody is subject to the weather (cf. Matthew 5:45).

But today a conversation about sports can get into teams celebrating Pride Month, athletes protesting during the National Anthems, league policy about China, and boycotts from either the left or the right. Conversations about the weather can lead to arguments about climate change and global warming.

The point is, it’s hard to find “safe topics” any more. Virtually everything has become charged with politics and religion.

In a response to billionaire Mark Cuban’s claim that “woke capitalism”– in which corporations take public stands in favor of progressive causes–is “good for business,” Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy had this to say:

“When those businesses wade into social disputes, not only is that often bad for business, just look at what happened to Bud Light, look at what’s happening to Target. . . .But more importantly, it’s bad for our civic culture in our country, because what we need is apolitical spaces that bring people together.”

Exactly! We need “apolitical spaces.” The lack of them is why our nation has become so polarized. There have always been sharp political disagreements in this country. But there have also been apolitical spaces in which Americans, for all of their differences, have found common ground, creating a sense of national unity.

Americans celebrated national holidays and appreciated our history. Everyone was grateful for our constitutional legacy of political and personal freedom, with individual rights and a democratically-elected government. During the Cold War, both Democrats and Republicans opposed communism.

The public schools were mostly apolitical. So were businesses. So were movies, television, and other forms of entertainment. So was the military. So were churches, with Democrats and Republicans worshipping together in the same theologically conservative churches.

Now these are all political minefields. Celebrating the Fourth of July has become an occasion for vehement arguments between those who vilify the founders as slaveholders and those who defend them for building a free society that eventually freed the slaves. American history, for many, is something to be ashamed of. Both the left and the right are criticizing our “liberal” political system, with its freedoms and democracy.

Schools, businesses, the entertainment industry, even the military have seemingly “gone woke” to one degree or another, sparking furious reactions from the other side. Churches now sort themselves out between those that push for progressive causes and those that steadfastly resist them.

The catalyst for this polarization and its spread throughout our institutions seems to be sex–embracing feminism, the LGBTQ+ movement, transgenderism, and support for abortion–which the progressives have tied together with racial civil rights into an intersectional package.

So we might think that sex has become politicized. But how did that happen? To be sure, certain laws affect these things–anti-discrimination laws, same-sex marriage, the overturn of Roe v. Wade, etc.–and those were political. But most of those issues, rightly or wrongly, have been settled.

The issues now seem to be not so much political as attitudinal. What is your attitude towards the LGBTQ+ movement? Companies display their support while some of their customers display their opposition. With no real political issue in question, what we have are moral issues. Those often come down to religious beliefs.

So not only does politics permeate religion, religion, of one kind or another, permeates politics.

Are there any “apolitical spaces” left? How might we bring some of those back? Are there any “areligious spaces”?

In India, for example, the concept of “secularism” by no means repudiates religion, as Western secularism tends to, but seeks to create “areligious spaces,” in the government particularly, so that people of divergent religions can come together into a political unity. That is arguably what the American founders had in mind with the “separation of church and state.” Is that kind of secularism possible or desirable today in the U.S., when secularism has come to mean opposition to religion? How might Luther’s doctrine of the Two Kingdoms help us sort out some of these issues?

Photo: Vivek Ramaswamy by Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

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When a Culture Reaches the Stage of “Decadence”

June 16, 2023 By Gene Veith

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The word “decadence” is a metaphor that derives from “decay,” when something that was once alive decomposes.

“Decadence” as a stage of culture has a long history. The Wikipedia article on the subject gives these contemporary definitions. Historian Jacques Barzun says decadence is when “the forms of art as of life seem exhausted, the stages of development have been run through. Institutions function painfully.”

Columnist Ross Douthat, who has written a book on the subject, says decadence is a state of “economic stagnation, institutional decay and cultural and intellectual exhaustion at a high level of material prosperity and technological development.”

By these standards, contemporary American culture has become decadent. The forms of art are exhausted? Hollywood keeps making the same movies over and over. The same can be said of modern art and literature. Our institutions are indeed functioning painfully. We are indeed intellectually exhausted. And yet we have a lot of material prosperity and technological development.

I came across another definition in a book review in “Quillette,” in which Robert Zubrin concludes, “If you think that the world has had quite enough of freedom, progress, science, and reason, this is the book for you.” In the course of that takedown, he says this:

“The French historian Fernand Braudel remarks in Out of Italy that “decadence” is what occurs in a civilization when it rejects the ideas and ideals responsible for its origin and growth.”

This formulation has the virtue of being specific. And I think it holds up.

The Roman Republic was famous for its virtue, its rule of law, and the rights of its citizens. This degenerated into the decadence of the Roman Empire, notorious for its sexual depravity, its cruelty, and its absolutism.

The Victorians were famous for their propriety and their sense of duty. The later 19th century bohemians who called themselves “the Decadents” were known for their licentiousness and irresponsibility.

The United States of America is currently in the midst of a wholesale reaction against its founding and its founding principles. Elements of both the left and the right are criticizing “liberal democracy.” Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and other civil liberties are receiving little respect. Free market economics, personal liberty, limited government, individualism, and other foundational values of American culture are being repudiated from all sides.

Instead, we are getting. . .the opposite of all of these.

American culture is decomposing.

We have become decadent.

Illustration: “The Romans in Their Decadence” By Thomas Couture (1847) – Rama, CC BY-SA 2.0 fr, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41447559

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A Cranach Miscellany

March 6, 2023 By Gene Veith

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So much to blog about! So little time! So much of interest, yet I don’t always have much to say about them!

So I want to experiment with a new feature on this blog: short bits of information, oddities, and observations. A “miscellany,” which means “a miscellaneous collection or group of various or somewhat unrelated items.”

I might do this weekly, I might do it occasionally, or I might never do it again, depending on how you like it. Here goes:

New Zealand and Maori Science. New Zealand schools must now teach Maori “ways of knowing,” grounded in myth and tribal lore, alongside courses in modern science. Militant atheist Richard Dawkins is raising the alarm about this, calling Maori beliefs a form of “creationism” (the worst critique he can imagine). He has a point, though, that animistic worldviews are not on a par with the scientific method. But this is what happens when we adopt the postmodernist assumptions that there is no objective truth and that knowledge is determined by culture. Throw in critical theory’s concerns about “white supremacy” and “colonialism,” and the science we take for granted and depend on cannot survive. (HT: Bob Foote)

Florida Registering Bloggers? A Republican state legislator in Florida has introduced a law that would require any bloggers who discuss Gov. Ron DeSantis or other state officials to register with the state and file financial reports on any income generated by the posts. Failure to do so could incur a $2500 fine. Newspapers and professional journalists would be exempt.

This would really cramp my style, especially if DeSantis runs for president! I wouldn’t think I would fall under Florida jurisdiction, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Oklahoma would extradite me.

This law, on the face of it, would be unconstitutional, especially since it targets the speech of private citizens. And I wonder if it isn’t a serious proposal, but rather an “if this, then why not that” ploy, as in schools responding to Christians’ efforts to ban controversial books by also banning the Bible. My impression is that the bill had something to do with a proposal to make lobbyists register. If they have to, why not bloggers?

I haven’t seen anything to suggest that DeSantis himself is actually in favor of this bill. If he is, it would suggest an affinity with “illiberal conservatives”–that is, conservatives opposed to liberty–that would be concerning. But I don’t think this is the case.

Cancelling the Very Mention of the First Talkie? The “Carousel of Progress” ride at Disneyland is being interrogated for its political correctness. The educational ride through the development of American technology at Tomorrowland depicts a character from the 1920’s saying how excited he is to see The Jazz Singer, which is the first motion picture with sound. A fan points out that the movie stars Al Jolson and that Jolson appears in blackface. The Guest was “shocked” that the ride mentioned the historically important movie and called for the reference to be removed.

This issue was raised in a Reddit thread and most commenters disagreed with it, and there is no indication that Disney is planning to delete mention of the movie. Except that the complaint was published on Disney’s website Inside the Magic, at the end of which it solicits fans’ reactions. So it looks like the company is testing the waters to see how offended their customers might be.

So far cancel culture forbids saying or depicting anything offensive. The Disney ride doesn’t say or depict anything offensive. But forbidding the very mention of a work because it includes something offensive would be a new frontier in cancel culture.

Canceling the Black Professor for His “Triggering” Critiques of Racism. As Nathanael Blake says about the incident, “it would take a heart of stone not to laugh.”

Illustrations: Lucas Cranach’s seal. See this for its heraldic meaning.

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