Saturday, December 29, 2012
New book review
New review for Justin Robinson's book, Dollmaker. Short version: Disturbing, but I liked it.
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Nothing is Ever Simple
I guess I need to process a few more thoughts on Newtown and guns.
What do you do with a country where gun sales spike immediately after the election of a democratic president? And then again upon his re-election? After little to no commentary on his part, in either campaign, regarding guns? His sole accomplishment in his first term being a slight increase in the amount of places gun-owners can conceal carry guns? They've been told over and over by Trusted Sources that Obama, and the U.N. and whoever else is coming for their guns, lack of evidence stronger than hearsay not withstanding. What do you do with a subset of your population furiously stocking guns like it's the end of the world? And then occasionally going nutso and going on a shooting spree when the drumbeat of fear grows too big to handle? What do you do with that?
I'm not sure. I absolutely reject the NRA's assertion that we must simply throw more guns at the problem. It's the classic problem where, if you only have a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. The gun is a tool. It's good at killing animals and humans. That's all it does. It's too simple to declare the gun is the only solution to our discontent, because it assumes we have no other tools in our toolbox. Also, we really have become a nation of such gullible marks that we can't see the obvious scam in gun salesmen, and the lobby representing them, selling guns to both sides of a conflict? They sell them to the disturbed and then turning to the rest of us and saying, "Hey, you really need a gun to protect yourself from those crazies." Their goal is not your safety. Their goal is to make a ridiculous amount of money playing on your fears to sell you tools most of us don't need. You should listen to them with all the credibility you give a car salesman telling you this Porche is just what you need to improve your sex life.
Having said that, I'm not remotely convinced it's ethical, moral or remotely pragmatic to try and get rid of the 40 million guns in this country. For one, availability of guns is clearly not the only issue involved in our gun violence. Places like Idaho have fairly lenient gun cultures and open-carry laws, and don't have a lot of violent shootings. But there's a wide range of options in between "giving everyone a firearm and hoping no one's feeling like picking a gunfight today" and "taking away all guns forever and throwing them into the sun." What frustrates me about this, and most other debates today is we are told by extremists over and over that there is no room to maneuver in between the polar opposites of every issue. That every action we take will inevitably ride the slippery slope to the furthest extreme. And it isn't true. It's obviously not true. We should stop listening to the people who try to make us afraid enough to forget ourselves and believe it's true.
Yes, the 2nd amendment exists. But constitutional literalism has roughly the same problem as biblical literalism, in that if you insist on reading a document devoid of context and without interest in the principle behind the rule you're reading, you run the severe risk of missing the whole damn point. In a time of inaccurate, slow-loading firearms the constitution allowed for a well-regulated local militia and the right to keep firearms in your home. At the time, this was a pretty good way to ensure the federal government would face an armed and angry populace should it ever become as tyrannical as good old King George. The last and only time a portion of our populace tried this, we killed each other in staggering numbers. In my opinion, our option to effectively rise up as a populace ended roughly around the time the federal government developed tanks, airplanes, laser-guided drones, biological and chemical weapons, atomic bombs, space-based spy satellites, counter-insurgency tactics, armored SWAT and the ability to eavesdrop on your cell phones and emails. So embrace the existential suck of that notion, because like your inevitable death you can't get around it. And not to embrace worship of the founding fathers, but I'm guessing they were counting on us being capable of reconsidering the 2nd amendment in a prudent and intelligent manner, in light of a world with vastly more apocalyptic weaponry and tactical realities. And if you're interested in retaining the principle of the 2nd amendment, then a regulated and well-armed militia will also need to include weapons more advanced than a semi-automatic rifles. Because your collection of pop guns is not going to take down the federal government. If you have any further questions on that score, please ask any members of the Branch Davidian cult that might have survived Waco.
Regarding the right to defend yourself and your family via firearms, I think the arguments are stronger. I think people probably have the right to some kind of gun to defend their homes, although I don't think those need to be anywhere near military quality. I don't have a problem with people shooting at gun ranges. I don't have a problem with people hunting. I do have a problem with paranoid and unstable people stockpiling weapons like the world is about to end, or like they have absolutely NO confidence in our police or military to protect us. As far as I'm aware, that was, in fact, the point of creating a standing army and a citizen police force, yes? And if shootings are so rare that they don't need to be legislated for, then they certainly don't necessitate every citizen acquiring a defensive arsenal. I'm not sure what the best method is to re-persuade the citizenry to trust in law an order again, but it seems there are, again, a wide range of options to try well before we get to "fuck it, civilization failed. Buy a gun and jump at shadows for the rest of your life." Maybe, before sending the entire population running for body armor, hollow-point bullets and A-team seminars on how to build your own tank, we could try, I don't know, something rational like modifying existing police practice and organization to better meet civilian needs.
But to some, it IS a jungle out there. There are bad men with guns, and, so the saying goes, only a gun can stop a gun. Right? Well, except for Jared Loughner, who was tackled by unarmed citizens while he was reloading. And about 20 other stories I found from googling "tackled gunman." Not to mention the British Police force, who overwhelmingly prefer to remain unarmed even though one of their officers is occasionally shot. If only a gun can stop a gun, why would an entire country's police force refuse to carry them, even when confronted with the possibility of armed criminals? Why does the military prefer to keep soldiers unarmed when they're not on active duty and assign military police to keeping the peace? Shouldn't having them tote their guns around off-duty fix it? Is it possible there are more and potentially better solutions than the ones we limit ourselves to? I'm not saying we don't want our police to carry guns over here, and I acknowledge the U.S. faces different problems in it's criminals. But I do want to point out, there are other options in policing gun violence than simply arming everyone involved. In Chicago, the CeaseFire group uses ex-gang members or families of gang members to talk to gangs, and defuse potentially violent situations. Notably, they do this without arming rival gangs, intimidating them with weaponry or making them more afraid. Again, we need to reject people who try to narrow our options to solutions convenient for their bottom line or that soothe their fears with false security.
One thing I didn't see in Newtown was a bunch of civilians running around with guns drawn looking for the shooter. Why would we want that in any case? Would it have made the police's job any easier to arrive on the scene and have to figure out which of twenty people with guns drawn is the bad guy? Isn't there a reason we give cops a badge and a uniform? Isn't it to distinguish "the people we have paid to train in the use of guns, negotiation and crisis management to protect us" from "some crazy asshole with a gun?" If you want to be a hero in this society, doesn't it take a bit more than just owning a gun and bragging about how you'd use it to shoot a bad guy if you saw one? Don't we aspire to have the men in our society embody values more nuanced than that of Ralphie from "A Christmas Story?" Shouldn't it be understood that being a hero in this society embodies something more than just holding a gun self-importantly? Isn't Ralphie eventually supposed to learn that more important than a willingness to kill if necessary, is preserving the peace, even if that requires considerably more bravery and risk than firing a gun? Don't we value the risk of peace more than the certainty of violence? Aren't we aspiring to a society somewhat more stable than "might makes right?" Did NO ONE fucking read To Kill a Mockingbird and notice the example of Atticus Finch?
I honestly don't think we want a society where every argument ends in a spoken or unspoken, "watch what you say, I've got a gun." And I think gang violence and police shooting teach us that knowing the other person has a gun is not the deciding factor in whether they get shot at. And that having a gun is not the same thing as being safe. In fact, there is evidence to the contrary. Nor is there any evidence that the problem is TV and video games. But since I don't think being surrounded by lethally armed citizens is an environment in which people feel free to speak their minds, and since it seems demonstrably foolish to try and pretend the violence that's been in our fiction for thousands of years is suddenly the cause people killing each other, I don't think we need to abridge freedoms granted in the first amendment simply because some paranoid people interpret the 2nd amendment as a right to carry any kind of gun for any reason, a position Justice Scalia happens to agree with.
But I do think we have a problem. One that is steadily getting better over time, but still worse in areas where there are more guns than not. I don't think the level of violence requires panic or fear or a complete abandonment of the idea of a civil society, policed by men we train for that job. Nor do I think it requires we try to remove every kind of gun from civilian society. But I think we can do more than the nothing we currently accomplish on gun violence. I think we can stop listening to the people who are telling us it's the end of the world, that our death is just around the corner, that we can't talk to people who scare or offend us, that security is as simple as holding a gun, or making a prohibition law and that we have no more than two extreme options at any given time. I think we can ask more of our leaders than a lust for retaining power. I think we can ask for more of our heroes than just a willingness to kill. I think we can read and rewrite and re-interpret our constitution in ways that reflect modern realities better, while remaining true to the principles behind them. I think we can try, assess and effectively manage the solutions to our problems regardless of who is in charge. And I'm pretty sure we can come to a more interesting and effective solution than "more guns." I don't know about you, but I'm willing to bet the second amendment shouldn't be read as a suicide pact.
What do you do with a country where gun sales spike immediately after the election of a democratic president? And then again upon his re-election? After little to no commentary on his part, in either campaign, regarding guns? His sole accomplishment in his first term being a slight increase in the amount of places gun-owners can conceal carry guns? They've been told over and over by Trusted Sources that Obama, and the U.N. and whoever else is coming for their guns, lack of evidence stronger than hearsay not withstanding. What do you do with a subset of your population furiously stocking guns like it's the end of the world? And then occasionally going nutso and going on a shooting spree when the drumbeat of fear grows too big to handle? What do you do with that?
I'm not sure. I absolutely reject the NRA's assertion that we must simply throw more guns at the problem. It's the classic problem where, if you only have a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. The gun is a tool. It's good at killing animals and humans. That's all it does. It's too simple to declare the gun is the only solution to our discontent, because it assumes we have no other tools in our toolbox. Also, we really have become a nation of such gullible marks that we can't see the obvious scam in gun salesmen, and the lobby representing them, selling guns to both sides of a conflict? They sell them to the disturbed and then turning to the rest of us and saying, "Hey, you really need a gun to protect yourself from those crazies." Their goal is not your safety. Their goal is to make a ridiculous amount of money playing on your fears to sell you tools most of us don't need. You should listen to them with all the credibility you give a car salesman telling you this Porche is just what you need to improve your sex life.
Having said that, I'm not remotely convinced it's ethical, moral or remotely pragmatic to try and get rid of the 40 million guns in this country. For one, availability of guns is clearly not the only issue involved in our gun violence. Places like Idaho have fairly lenient gun cultures and open-carry laws, and don't have a lot of violent shootings. But there's a wide range of options in between "giving everyone a firearm and hoping no one's feeling like picking a gunfight today" and "taking away all guns forever and throwing them into the sun." What frustrates me about this, and most other debates today is we are told by extremists over and over that there is no room to maneuver in between the polar opposites of every issue. That every action we take will inevitably ride the slippery slope to the furthest extreme. And it isn't true. It's obviously not true. We should stop listening to the people who try to make us afraid enough to forget ourselves and believe it's true.
Yes, the 2nd amendment exists. But constitutional literalism has roughly the same problem as biblical literalism, in that if you insist on reading a document devoid of context and without interest in the principle behind the rule you're reading, you run the severe risk of missing the whole damn point. In a time of inaccurate, slow-loading firearms the constitution allowed for a well-regulated local militia and the right to keep firearms in your home. At the time, this was a pretty good way to ensure the federal government would face an armed and angry populace should it ever become as tyrannical as good old King George. The last and only time a portion of our populace tried this, we killed each other in staggering numbers. In my opinion, our option to effectively rise up as a populace ended roughly around the time the federal government developed tanks, airplanes, laser-guided drones, biological and chemical weapons, atomic bombs, space-based spy satellites, counter-insurgency tactics, armored SWAT and the ability to eavesdrop on your cell phones and emails. So embrace the existential suck of that notion, because like your inevitable death you can't get around it. And not to embrace worship of the founding fathers, but I'm guessing they were counting on us being capable of reconsidering the 2nd amendment in a prudent and intelligent manner, in light of a world with vastly more apocalyptic weaponry and tactical realities. And if you're interested in retaining the principle of the 2nd amendment, then a regulated and well-armed militia will also need to include weapons more advanced than a semi-automatic rifles. Because your collection of pop guns is not going to take down the federal government. If you have any further questions on that score, please ask any members of the Branch Davidian cult that might have survived Waco.
Regarding the right to defend yourself and your family via firearms, I think the arguments are stronger. I think people probably have the right to some kind of gun to defend their homes, although I don't think those need to be anywhere near military quality. I don't have a problem with people shooting at gun ranges. I don't have a problem with people hunting. I do have a problem with paranoid and unstable people stockpiling weapons like the world is about to end, or like they have absolutely NO confidence in our police or military to protect us. As far as I'm aware, that was, in fact, the point of creating a standing army and a citizen police force, yes? And if shootings are so rare that they don't need to be legislated for, then they certainly don't necessitate every citizen acquiring a defensive arsenal. I'm not sure what the best method is to re-persuade the citizenry to trust in law an order again, but it seems there are, again, a wide range of options to try well before we get to "fuck it, civilization failed. Buy a gun and jump at shadows for the rest of your life." Maybe, before sending the entire population running for body armor, hollow-point bullets and A-team seminars on how to build your own tank, we could try, I don't know, something rational like modifying existing police practice and organization to better meet civilian needs.
But to some, it IS a jungle out there. There are bad men with guns, and, so the saying goes, only a gun can stop a gun. Right? Well, except for Jared Loughner, who was tackled by unarmed citizens while he was reloading. And about 20 other stories I found from googling "tackled gunman." Not to mention the British Police force, who overwhelmingly prefer to remain unarmed even though one of their officers is occasionally shot. If only a gun can stop a gun, why would an entire country's police force refuse to carry them, even when confronted with the possibility of armed criminals? Why does the military prefer to keep soldiers unarmed when they're not on active duty and assign military police to keeping the peace? Shouldn't having them tote their guns around off-duty fix it? Is it possible there are more and potentially better solutions than the ones we limit ourselves to? I'm not saying we don't want our police to carry guns over here, and I acknowledge the U.S. faces different problems in it's criminals. But I do want to point out, there are other options in policing gun violence than simply arming everyone involved. In Chicago, the CeaseFire group uses ex-gang members or families of gang members to talk to gangs, and defuse potentially violent situations. Notably, they do this without arming rival gangs, intimidating them with weaponry or making them more afraid. Again, we need to reject people who try to narrow our options to solutions convenient for their bottom line or that soothe their fears with false security.
One thing I didn't see in Newtown was a bunch of civilians running around with guns drawn looking for the shooter. Why would we want that in any case? Would it have made the police's job any easier to arrive on the scene and have to figure out which of twenty people with guns drawn is the bad guy? Isn't there a reason we give cops a badge and a uniform? Isn't it to distinguish "the people we have paid to train in the use of guns, negotiation and crisis management to protect us" from "some crazy asshole with a gun?" If you want to be a hero in this society, doesn't it take a bit more than just owning a gun and bragging about how you'd use it to shoot a bad guy if you saw one? Don't we aspire to have the men in our society embody values more nuanced than that of Ralphie from "A Christmas Story?" Shouldn't it be understood that being a hero in this society embodies something more than just holding a gun self-importantly? Isn't Ralphie eventually supposed to learn that more important than a willingness to kill if necessary, is preserving the peace, even if that requires considerably more bravery and risk than firing a gun? Don't we value the risk of peace more than the certainty of violence? Aren't we aspiring to a society somewhat more stable than "might makes right?" Did NO ONE fucking read To Kill a Mockingbird and notice the example of Atticus Finch?
I honestly don't think we want a society where every argument ends in a spoken or unspoken, "watch what you say, I've got a gun." And I think gang violence and police shooting teach us that knowing the other person has a gun is not the deciding factor in whether they get shot at. And that having a gun is not the same thing as being safe. In fact, there is evidence to the contrary. Nor is there any evidence that the problem is TV and video games. But since I don't think being surrounded by lethally armed citizens is an environment in which people feel free to speak their minds, and since it seems demonstrably foolish to try and pretend the violence that's been in our fiction for thousands of years is suddenly the cause people killing each other, I don't think we need to abridge freedoms granted in the first amendment simply because some paranoid people interpret the 2nd amendment as a right to carry any kind of gun for any reason, a position Justice Scalia happens to agree with.
But I do think we have a problem. One that is steadily getting better over time, but still worse in areas where there are more guns than not. I don't think the level of violence requires panic or fear or a complete abandonment of the idea of a civil society, policed by men we train for that job. Nor do I think it requires we try to remove every kind of gun from civilian society. But I think we can do more than the nothing we currently accomplish on gun violence. I think we can stop listening to the people who are telling us it's the end of the world, that our death is just around the corner, that we can't talk to people who scare or offend us, that security is as simple as holding a gun, or making a prohibition law and that we have no more than two extreme options at any given time. I think we can ask more of our leaders than a lust for retaining power. I think we can ask for more of our heroes than just a willingness to kill. I think we can read and rewrite and re-interpret our constitution in ways that reflect modern realities better, while remaining true to the principles behind them. I think we can try, assess and effectively manage the solutions to our problems regardless of who is in charge. And I'm pretty sure we can come to a more interesting and effective solution than "more guns." I don't know about you, but I'm willing to bet the second amendment shouldn't be read as a suicide pact.
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
What I really saw last Friday
I didn't react very well to the shooting last Friday, like most people. Initially, I was overwhelmed both by the idea that there are a lot of disturbed, angry men in our society with little perceived space to process their shit in a healthy manner, access to a wide variety of easily available guns, and nothing to stop them, really, from shooting up a mall or a school or a park or whatever. And when they inevitably do, we're faced with a chorus of gun-stroking fetishists, who insist that the best way to deal with this kind of tragedy, is to abandon the idea of a civil, civic society, and instead arm each individual and to train them to view every social encounter as a potential shooting situation. I don't like that idea. I find the lack of faith in the idea of a civil society disturbing. It's depressing that the gun strokers and an army of lawyers have locked down the debate to such a degree that it's considered out of form to even contemplate any sort of reasonable gun restriction. The fact that "sell more guns to everyone" is an extremely convenient position coming from the lobbyists of gun sellers and gun lovers seems to float right on by the outside of the debate.
But that's not what I really want to talk about today. Yes, we saw one disturbed maniac take the lives of innocent kids Friday. We also saw two women charge a man holding an assault rifle, because of their love for their kids, their professionalism, their sense of duty and a willingness to sacrifice anything for the kids in their care. We saw a woman hide her class in closets and lie convincingly to a maniac with a gun in her face to protect her children before being shot herself. We saw teachers hiding with their children in closets and bathrooms, telling them they loved them, that it was going to be okay just in case those were the last words they ever heard. Even trying to keep them distracted and protected from even the psychological damage of the situation though they were terrified themselves. We saw an entire community rushing to the scene to help and protect their loved ones, even if they didn't know how, even though it made the scene chaotic. There was one maniac at that school Friday. And he was outnumbered, by a wide margin, by a community that ran towards danger, that chose bravery, self-sacrifice and love over their own selves. That's who we are. Not one angry, bloodthirsty maniac. Not gun-toting psychos. When you feel like despairing, in bemoaning what the world is coming to, remember the people who gave everything, and the rest of the community that would have done the same, not the one bastard who couldn't manage his shit.
Yes, we saw the worst in human nature in one man last Friday. We also saw the best in human nature, in far greater measure, from everyone else around him. I think that's what we should remember. Mourn those poor kids. Debate sensible gun legislation and security at schools. But don't let one paranoid gun nut turn us from people who choose, love, kindness, compassion, self-sacrifice and community into paranoid gun nuts who have such a dim view of human nature that we view every social interaction as a potential massacre and bring a gun to every argument. We get to decide what kind of society we want to fight for. Let's make it the one embodied by those six women, not the one embodied by that poor, paranoid coward.
But that's not what I really want to talk about today. Yes, we saw one disturbed maniac take the lives of innocent kids Friday. We also saw two women charge a man holding an assault rifle, because of their love for their kids, their professionalism, their sense of duty and a willingness to sacrifice anything for the kids in their care. We saw a woman hide her class in closets and lie convincingly to a maniac with a gun in her face to protect her children before being shot herself. We saw teachers hiding with their children in closets and bathrooms, telling them they loved them, that it was going to be okay just in case those were the last words they ever heard. Even trying to keep them distracted and protected from even the psychological damage of the situation though they were terrified themselves. We saw an entire community rushing to the scene to help and protect their loved ones, even if they didn't know how, even though it made the scene chaotic. There was one maniac at that school Friday. And he was outnumbered, by a wide margin, by a community that ran towards danger, that chose bravery, self-sacrifice and love over their own selves. That's who we are. Not one angry, bloodthirsty maniac. Not gun-toting psychos. When you feel like despairing, in bemoaning what the world is coming to, remember the people who gave everything, and the rest of the community that would have done the same, not the one bastard who couldn't manage his shit.
Yes, we saw the worst in human nature in one man last Friday. We also saw the best in human nature, in far greater measure, from everyone else around him. I think that's what we should remember. Mourn those poor kids. Debate sensible gun legislation and security at schools. But don't let one paranoid gun nut turn us from people who choose, love, kindness, compassion, self-sacrifice and community into paranoid gun nuts who have such a dim view of human nature that we view every social interaction as a potential massacre and bring a gun to every argument. We get to decide what kind of society we want to fight for. Let's make it the one embodied by those six women, not the one embodied by that poor, paranoid coward.
Friday, December 14, 2012
caveat
The below is just me processing the bullshit that went on today. I'm not sure it amounts to much. I can posture all I want, but I'm not sure how to actually change anything. I wish I could do more.
Are you safe?
We are not ultimately safe. And there's only so safe we can make things for us and for our kids. And a day like today is a sad and uncomfortable reminder of that fact.
Some of us will want things to be "more safe" forever and cling to whatever we think will get us there. Be it a fierce ban on guns forever, regardless of how practical that is. And some will claim true future safety relies on all guns for everyone forever. And neither is completely right, of course, because both answers seem more or less unacceptable or impractical. There are 300 million guns floating around this country, and we can't unsummon them, unmake or unpurchase them or outright confiscate them without risking an all-out civil war. Gun ownership is too deeply ingrained into certain sub-cultures in this country for that to fly. Not to mention the obvious ineffectiveness of prohibition regarding drugs and guns. Similarly, gun owners can't insist everyone be armed at all times, because that violates the liberty of everyone else to not add "gun accidents" to the list of dangers they want to manage in their homes. Nor have they really shown that adding a firearm to every argument will naturally lead an overall decrease in gun deaths. Trucks full of men with large guns roaming city streets is not usually a sign of a peaceful and harmonious society as far as I can tell.
Which leads naturally, if we are inclined to talk to each other at all, about what we CAN do. I don't know. I'm not sure anyone has a sure solution, but there are a wide range of options that amount to "doing SOMETHING" in between those two viewpoints. I think there's a good argument for regulating guns better. For making them more difficult to access. For requiring a somewhat expensive license. I don't really think there's a great argument for guns in the form of "it keeps the government scared of the populace," because that defense kind of went out the window when the government, now including your local police force, started stocking tanks. Neither you, nor your militia, can stop the U.S. government if it comes for you. Not since tanks, not since Waco, not since forever. You will lose versus the U.S. government if it comes for you, and lose big, and your 5 rifles won't change that. We know this because people keep trying and failing badly. When the SWAT team storms your house, rightly or wrongly, and you're holding a gun, they just kill you. And your dog. And maybe, accidentally but with no real repercussions, your family. You have no way to defend yourself by force from the U.S. government and that is the reality we all live with in 2012. And stocking guns and pretending otherwise is just delusional. So I kind of want to hear what you need your guns so much for that we need to prioritize your false sense of security over making it harder for the mentally ill to massacre children. Or why any private citizen in this country requires assault weapons for any reason.
But honestly, I do want to hear it. While I clearly have an opinion about restricting gun ownership, I really don't believe in taking them all away. Just making it harder for any idiot to get any kind of gun. And I think the real problem in all this is we've all gotten so, so bad at coming to a reasonable compromise position that nothing really gets done anymore. So more than I want my opinions above to be enacted, I want a balanced, evidence-based discussion about the pros and cons of various approaches of making middle schools "temporarily more safe" from gun nuts. And I don't think that happens until we actually start talking to each other, taking each other's arguments seriously, demanding supporting evidence and, AND, be willing to admit when our own ideas don't have enough evidence to support them. If only we had some deliberative, authoritative body that was capable of doing just that, and creating effective public policy in the process. Seriously, we should get one of those. And maybe become a populace capable of allowing them to do that without freaking out in the meantime.
We don't get to make the world safer for everyone, forever. We do get to decide what kind of society we want to be. Wouldn't it be nice if it were one where we were all just barely humble enough to talk instead of posture? I kind of wish we could at least talk about issues like gun control, mass violence and mental health like a group of reasonable adults. And I'm glad today to see more people calling for less absolutism, and more talking. And if the slaughter of some innocent kids who never got to see the end of their first decade isn't enough to start that conversation productively, then I'm not sure what will.
Some of us will want things to be "more safe" forever and cling to whatever we think will get us there. Be it a fierce ban on guns forever, regardless of how practical that is. And some will claim true future safety relies on all guns for everyone forever. And neither is completely right, of course, because both answers seem more or less unacceptable or impractical. There are 300 million guns floating around this country, and we can't unsummon them, unmake or unpurchase them or outright confiscate them without risking an all-out civil war. Gun ownership is too deeply ingrained into certain sub-cultures in this country for that to fly. Not to mention the obvious ineffectiveness of prohibition regarding drugs and guns. Similarly, gun owners can't insist everyone be armed at all times, because that violates the liberty of everyone else to not add "gun accidents" to the list of dangers they want to manage in their homes. Nor have they really shown that adding a firearm to every argument will naturally lead an overall decrease in gun deaths. Trucks full of men with large guns roaming city streets is not usually a sign of a peaceful and harmonious society as far as I can tell.
Which leads naturally, if we are inclined to talk to each other at all, about what we CAN do. I don't know. I'm not sure anyone has a sure solution, but there are a wide range of options that amount to "doing SOMETHING" in between those two viewpoints. I think there's a good argument for regulating guns better. For making them more difficult to access. For requiring a somewhat expensive license. I don't really think there's a great argument for guns in the form of "it keeps the government scared of the populace," because that defense kind of went out the window when the government, now including your local police force, started stocking tanks. Neither you, nor your militia, can stop the U.S. government if it comes for you. Not since tanks, not since Waco, not since forever. You will lose versus the U.S. government if it comes for you, and lose big, and your 5 rifles won't change that. We know this because people keep trying and failing badly. When the SWAT team storms your house, rightly or wrongly, and you're holding a gun, they just kill you. And your dog. And maybe, accidentally but with no real repercussions, your family. You have no way to defend yourself by force from the U.S. government and that is the reality we all live with in 2012. And stocking guns and pretending otherwise is just delusional. So I kind of want to hear what you need your guns so much for that we need to prioritize your false sense of security over making it harder for the mentally ill to massacre children. Or why any private citizen in this country requires assault weapons for any reason.
But honestly, I do want to hear it. While I clearly have an opinion about restricting gun ownership, I really don't believe in taking them all away. Just making it harder for any idiot to get any kind of gun. And I think the real problem in all this is we've all gotten so, so bad at coming to a reasonable compromise position that nothing really gets done anymore. So more than I want my opinions above to be enacted, I want a balanced, evidence-based discussion about the pros and cons of various approaches of making middle schools "temporarily more safe" from gun nuts. And I don't think that happens until we actually start talking to each other, taking each other's arguments seriously, demanding supporting evidence and, AND, be willing to admit when our own ideas don't have enough evidence to support them. If only we had some deliberative, authoritative body that was capable of doing just that, and creating effective public policy in the process. Seriously, we should get one of those. And maybe become a populace capable of allowing them to do that without freaking out in the meantime.
We don't get to make the world safer for everyone, forever. We do get to decide what kind of society we want to be. Wouldn't it be nice if it were one where we were all just barely humble enough to talk instead of posture? I kind of wish we could at least talk about issues like gun control, mass violence and mental health like a group of reasonable adults. And I'm glad today to see more people calling for less absolutism, and more talking. And if the slaughter of some innocent kids who never got to see the end of their first decade isn't enough to start that conversation productively, then I'm not sure what will.
Friday, December 07, 2012
Basic Consideration is a Thing to Aspire to
I just realized the other day, that I had been incorrectly reading the phrase "business ethics" for most of my life. I believe it's intended to be defined as "the subset of ethics relating to business." I have always taken it to mean how it's actually practiced as "a shittier set of ethics that enables businesses to rationalizing unethical behavior in the pursuit of profit." I as getting it wrong, but I still think, as practiced today, it's the more accurate definition. It is, of course, bullshit.
I had a brief dust-up with a friend today on twitter about reasons to be moral in a business environment, about a post I had misread. Because I misread it, there's less to get into than I thought, but I do want to say a couple things. The article frames a reputation for ethical/honest behavior as a "exploiting societal weakness." To which my objection was, "Why not just be timely, reliable and present because that's the kind of person you want to be, in corporate or private life?" It's pedantic, I know, but I think it's important to pick good core motivations for our ethical frameworks and to consciously understand why we choose to behave the way we do. If we choose to be honest, reliable and timely only because that gets us more money, it implies we'd happily abandon being honest, timely and reliable if we thought it would make us more money to do so. Which, in my view, is incredibly problematic. I don't want to know or do business with individuals whose core philosophy is "make money at any cost," because I wouldn't trust them not to throw me under a bus if there was some money in it. And if someone else got a whiff of the idea that your core motivation was worship of money, they would likely think twice as well.
Don't be timely, reliable and present because you think it will make you more money, or because you think it "grows your personal brand," because those are poor moral foundations for good behavior. Those motivations are inherently selfish. They neglect the possibility that you are open to behaving in a way that works for everyone, not just yourself. Be timely, reliable and present because that's the kind of person you want to be, and you understand it leads to better results, not just for what you get, but for how you feel about yourself, and how you affect the people around you. When you have that framework, it doesn't matter if you get MORE, MORE, MORE, because that takes care of itself. It IS generally true that trustworthy people get better results. But that's not the point of being trustworthy, it's just one of the many perks. The point, is to behave in a manner that conforms to your values, because that's the only way you'll be happy with yourself. If all you value is money, pushing your brand and exploiting the weaknesses of those around you? Well, good luck with that. I hear they need a new James Bond villain every couple of years.
Worrying about what your behavior gets you, will get you a ways. Worrying about what your behavior gets you and the people around you, will get you farther. In my view, it's as simple as that. And in this day and age, I don't take it as a given that everyone in the corporate world understands that.
I had a brief dust-up with a friend today on twitter about reasons to be moral in a business environment, about a post I had misread. Because I misread it, there's less to get into than I thought, but I do want to say a couple things. The article frames a reputation for ethical/honest behavior as a "exploiting societal weakness." To which my objection was, "Why not just be timely, reliable and present because that's the kind of person you want to be, in corporate or private life?" It's pedantic, I know, but I think it's important to pick good core motivations for our ethical frameworks and to consciously understand why we choose to behave the way we do. If we choose to be honest, reliable and timely only because that gets us more money, it implies we'd happily abandon being honest, timely and reliable if we thought it would make us more money to do so. Which, in my view, is incredibly problematic. I don't want to know or do business with individuals whose core philosophy is "make money at any cost," because I wouldn't trust them not to throw me under a bus if there was some money in it. And if someone else got a whiff of the idea that your core motivation was worship of money, they would likely think twice as well.
Don't be timely, reliable and present because you think it will make you more money, or because you think it "grows your personal brand," because those are poor moral foundations for good behavior. Those motivations are inherently selfish. They neglect the possibility that you are open to behaving in a way that works for everyone, not just yourself. Be timely, reliable and present because that's the kind of person you want to be, and you understand it leads to better results, not just for what you get, but for how you feel about yourself, and how you affect the people around you. When you have that framework, it doesn't matter if you get MORE, MORE, MORE, because that takes care of itself. It IS generally true that trustworthy people get better results. But that's not the point of being trustworthy, it's just one of the many perks. The point, is to behave in a manner that conforms to your values, because that's the only way you'll be happy with yourself. If all you value is money, pushing your brand and exploiting the weaknesses of those around you? Well, good luck with that. I hear they need a new James Bond villain every couple of years.
Worrying about what your behavior gets you, will get you a ways. Worrying about what your behavior gets you and the people around you, will get you farther. In my view, it's as simple as that. And in this day and age, I don't take it as a given that everyone in the corporate world understands that.
Monday, December 03, 2012
To write:
Looper review
Science and the Afterlife Review
Essay on existential philosophy in the modern world
Comprehensive multi-part series on the origins of existential ideas that appear in multiple religions.
My complete thesis of life, religion and humanity, which will definitively answer all of it.
Incarnate (my crazy ass super gay, super nerdy mythology trilogy that I want to write)
Revenant (teleportation gone wrong SF story)
Star Seed (disturbing theory on the origin of life disguised as a story)
Engines of Entropy (story about a new soul, freshly deceased, snatched from the bliss of the afterlife to power chaos engines on a distant planet and turns the tables. Moral: Don't give a pissed off ghost control of power armor. Your failsafes will be insufficient.)
And this is all before I've even decided if I can actually write stories worth reading (either in content or style). The word "grandiose" flits through my mind several times a day. And my reading list is steadily becoming "books I need to read so I can write intelligently on some topics." Hey, at least I finally have ambitions. I'll deal with the wild impracticality later.
Science and the Afterlife Review
Essay on existential philosophy in the modern world
Comprehensive multi-part series on the origins of existential ideas that appear in multiple religions.
My complete thesis of life, religion and humanity, which will definitively answer all of it.
Incarnate (my crazy ass super gay, super nerdy mythology trilogy that I want to write)
Revenant (teleportation gone wrong SF story)
Star Seed (disturbing theory on the origin of life disguised as a story)
Engines of Entropy (story about a new soul, freshly deceased, snatched from the bliss of the afterlife to power chaos engines on a distant planet and turns the tables. Moral: Don't give a pissed off ghost control of power armor. Your failsafes will be insufficient.)
And this is all before I've even decided if I can actually write stories worth reading (either in content or style). The word "grandiose" flits through my mind several times a day. And my reading list is steadily becoming "books I need to read so I can write intelligently on some topics." Hey, at least I finally have ambitions. I'll deal with the wild impracticality later.
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