Just a cartoon

Late October Post

I haven't posted in a while, and I don't have new cartoons today. (I actually have some that I haven't scanned, but tonight is not the time.) A lot is going on, good stuff, but it's kept me pretty busy.

Tonight I'm thinking about something that happened maybe a couple months ago - certainly several weeks. I could probably figure out when, but it doesn't really matter.

Up until recently, I conducted a group of teenagers as a chaplain - the details aren't terribly important here, but I never brought a "message" to them, I mostly checked in to see how they were doing. Sometimes they opened up about what was really bothering them, but not usually.

But back a while, something I said brought up a debate that the kids had been having over lunch, about feminism. One of the older girls had been defending feminism, and two of the older boys were talking about how it wasn't necessary.

What really bothers me in retrospect is that I more or less just let it happen: I didn't intervene, didn't add my two cents, didn't use it as a "teachable moment." That's because I like to see the kids interacting with one another, and articulating their own positions. I think "people like me" dominate too much of the public discourse.

But one of the older boys, who I like, and is fairly intelligent and articulate, was talking about how feminism wasn't necessary. I have hopes that he'll grow out of that in the next five years or so - precisely because he's fairly intelligent.

I wish I had intervened, though. He shut down the older girl (who I also like, for the same reasons) - and I wonder what would have happened if I pointed that out. "You just talked over the top of CJ until she just gave up. You didn't think anything of it, you didn't notice it. That's why we need feminism."

But I didn't - and I wish I had. I don't think it would have damaged my relationship with the boy, and it might have strengthened my relationship with the girl. She never really talked about her problems, although I know if I were in her shoes, I wouldn't have either.

In any case, I probably won't see any of them again.

Maturity

When I was a junior in high school (10th grade), I turned in an essay in AP US History on one of the Leatherstocking books - probably Last of the Mohicans. In it, I described Cora Munro (again, I'm not sure if this is the right book, but if it was, it was her) as a femme fatale. The teacher of the class was relatively young (and not the teacher we had expected when we signed up for the class - a long story), and she circled the term in my essay.

My response at the time was, "I can't believe she doesn't know what a femme fatale is! How does someone graduate from college, much less get a teaching position, without knowing what a femme fetale is?" I was a very smart 17 year old, and (although I didn't know it at the time) headed for Duke!

Years later - and I'm not sure how long, because this isn't a story I thought of often - it dawned on me that she circled it because I didn't know what the term meant.

I was thinking of this recently because I was rereading a book by Anthony Appiah, and was reminded of an encounter several years ago when I was still teaching. I was vetting essay topics, and a student told me he wanted to write on Appiah as an African philosopher. I responded, "He was born in London, educated in English boarding schools and Cambridge, and has taught in the US for most of his career. Why does he qualify as an African philosopher?"

The student dropped the class, so I never got to have the conversation I wanted to have with him: I was actually reading a lot about African philosophy (and essays about what qualified as African philosopher, by various people including Kwame Anthony Appiah) shortly before this student posed the question; and Appiah had been one of my professors at Duke. I probably spent more time in Appiah's office, talking philosophy, than any other professor I had as an undergraduate. But with regard to my student, I worry that he had the same reaction I had as a high school student: how does this guy not know that Appiah is an African philosopher?

Well, it's not necessarily that he's not, but Appiah himself has problematized the issue. You have to demonstrate that you understand the term.

(Note on the cartoons: the top one is from several years ago, originating in a discussion of Motivational Interviewing - and I ought to write more about that at some point. The second is much older, but I don't think I've posted it before, although I haven't gone back and checked.)

Restraint

Drowsy inspiration

I have had a lot of cartoon ideas over the past month and a half (since I last posted) that I haven't gotten around to drawing.

Some of my best ideas come to me while I'm either falling asleep or just waking up: this is one of those cartoons.

Although I'll admit, it was more a "persistent" idea rather that one that I actually think is one of my "best."

Belated post

A few weeks back, something struck me (perhaps something I knew before and had forgotten - it doesn't seem like a new insight).

So, when I describe myself as a Marxist, I am usually explicit about endorsing Marx's critique of capitalism - but not his notion of history, particularly the part about the socialist utopia. I can say more about the critique of capitalism at some point, but I want to focus on the second half. I will try to clarify this point by saying that Marx didn't have a good understanding of human nature: people tend to be horrible to one another.

So far, so good. But I hadn't remembered putting this in terms of Hobbes versus Rousseau before. Hobbes (very roughly speaking) thinks that people are basically bad, and that society has a good influence, keeping our aggression in check. Rousseau (again, very roughly) sees people as basically good, and society as inherently corrupting. (I know that is a cartoonish view of their position, and look! You get actual cartoons as well!) To connect these pieces: Marx follows Rousseau, but the so-called Communist states tend to get pretty Hobbesian (arguably, Marx's theory has never been put into practice, but I'm not sure what it would take to implement it well, and of course his view of history said that this would arise naturally in any case, which obviously hasn't happened).

What's the converse of this? I tend to see libertarians as the opposite - and the (new insight) that struck me is that the libertarians I've talked to tend to endorse a Rousseau-esque view of human nature. It goes something like this: "If only we got rid of all the regulation, people would just naturally behave, rather than spending so much time trying to conform to, or subvert, unnecessary rules." Maybe you would phrase this differently, but this seems to be the gist as I understand it, from talking with several different libertarians over the years.

And what's wrong with this? Well, it's either very naive - I mean, seriously, do they understand that the regulations tend to be in response to people doing bad things in the first place? - or else extremely cynical. I'm willing to give the libertarians I know the benefit of the doubt, but it does seem in general that there's a cynicism to libertarians in general that I really, really dislike.

That said, I'll say one thing for Ayn Rand: at least she's honest about being an unapologetic asshole.

Quick Rant

I haven't posted here in a while, and I don't have a cartoon for you today - but I'm upset about something that was said in a meeting yesterday, and the more I think about it the more irritated I get.

So, we have work phones. I understand that they're primarily for work. They necessarily have data plans because most of what we do is by email. But some people (yes, including me) also use them for personal stuff.

Someone at yesterday's meeting said, "That's stealing from the company!"

That's a defensible position, even if I wouldn't defend it (I know I've written about Amartya Sen at some point, but I can elaborate on that if anyone cares).

But let's suppose we take this seriously: using the phone for personal stuff is "stealing from the company." It would be nice if the president didn't send out photos of her granddaughter (or nice sunsets) to the entire staff: how much data does that use? And it would be nice if the vice-president didn't include a link to her other business at the bottom of her signature line.

But let's push this a little bit further. Should I charge my work phone at home? The company seems to be "stealing" my electricity. Should I let my phone, or my work computer, have access to my wireless network? That's stealing bandwidth, even if I'm not paying for wireless by the amount of data I'm using.

I might have to bring that up at some point, to the appropriate people, rather than just putting it on the internet; but having typed it all out, I'm hoping I can stop being irritated as I head off to my other job.

Another night

I have been thinking about something I saw on the internet earlier today (and a variation on that, a few days earlier) - having to do with discrimination, and the ways it impacts individuals and groups, and the asymmetries between the way different groups experience this. 

However, I seem to have spent too much time making sure that the reflections on the piano were more or less accurate, so you'll just have to enjoy the cartoon.

Don't Get Used to It

...but I have more cartoons this week. One of which needed to be posted today (or tomorrow).

Doodles from a meeting

Just some doodles from a recent meeting.

Notes from Work

Doodling through my meetings - an old habit. This time, though, I can't make fun of my co-workers, even when they're acting stupid.

"Very Serious People"

I like Paul Krugman - I've at least mentioned him a few times on this blog - and particularly appreciate how he captures an idea in a phrase (e.g., the Confidence Fairy).

I was reminded of his phrase "Very Serious People" the other day. It started in a meeting when someone noted that we had an unspent balance in the part of the budget set aside for something particular, and that there were a couple programs that the group could quickly pull together that would fulfill the function and stay within the budget.  So far so good?

The "Very Serious Person" objected, worrying about the budget, about the outlays, what about setting something aside for next year, etc. Very Serious Things to worry about!

Except that the budget he was talking about was completely distinct - I can elaborate in the comments if necessary - and the money that had been set aside for this purpose had already been sitting there for several years (because it can't do anything else, having been set aside). Sorry if this is too abstract - it was along the lines of saying, "this county can't afford that outlay, because the state budget is already in the red!"

I think that was clear to almost everyone else in the room: the objections sound very serious, making hard decisions because someone has to, but in fact were completely irrelevant.

I wouldn't be worried about this so much if he weren't on a path to take a significant position of leadership sometime soon.

Last Day

I thought I was going to post more this year - at least keep up with last year - but I'm not off to a good start.

I also had something I was going to write about today, but I forgot what it was. Oh well.

Happy New Year!

I got a couple books for Christmas that I'm enjoying at the moment (as well as catching up on a book I never got around to from last year, and a couple books on Quakers - I'm pretty much always reading five books at once) - and one of them is about the biological basis for morality. I'll probably have something to say about that one when I've finished it. That, and some better cartoons.