On the Occasion of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century… (2)

(continued from Part 1)

My last blog post inspired by the publication of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century ended with a conclusion we all know from the economic inequality around us: Something is wrong.

And, Piketty informs us, it’s going to get worse.

For a while in the 20th Century, wealth was fluid as various economic and political shocks destroyed capital and recreated it, but now that those events are behind us, capital has begun doing what it does: accumulating for some and disappearing for others. Those who have capital pass it on in the form of inheritances to their children, who then begin amassing more, while those without capital don’t pass on shit. The world taking shape is, according to Piketty, a society that looks a lot like 19th Century Europe. You have your class, I have mine, and nothing short of a mysterious benefactor out of the pages of Charles Dickens is going to make me upwardly mobile.

The world isn’t without solutions, but are we prepared to accept them?

I’m reminded of an intriguing essay in Italian philosopher and politician Gianni Vattimo’s Nihilism & Emancipation, in which the author outlines what a robust progressive program might look like in today’s world. It’s part manifesto and part wishful thinking, so there is a sense he doesn’t expect governments to adopt his proposals anytime soon, but one of his prescriptions is the abolishment of inheritances. When the wealthy die, the government would reclaim their wealth and funnel it back to society through government programs, many of which are dedicated to making sure that everyone gets an equal start in life and has certain basics covered throughout their lifetime:

“A serious political program would have to focus on at least three aspects of the problem: first, the circumstances in which individuals start out (hence: limits on the right to inherit and a basic endowment for everyone, for example housing at age twenty, guaranteed education, guaranteed employment); next, emergency situations or natural ones, like illness and old age that make people socially vulnerable . . . ; and finally, security and the quality of life.”

I drew a big exclamation mark in the margin when I read that. Abolishment of inheritances is a radical proposal. Good Americans shift uncomfortably in their seats. We have trouble accepting our own paltry tax that only affects estates worth well over five million dollars. Wouldn’t removing inheritances serve as an incredible disincentive to work hard and get rich since you wouldn’t be able to pass on the excess to your children?

Perhaps, but it might be less of a disincentive than we imagine. People generally want money for their children so they can get a good education, land a decent job, buy a house, put food on the table, and retire comfortably. It’s a lower- to middle-class desire and those classes don’t have outstanding wealth to pass on anyway. They lose nothing and gain exactly what they want. Indeed, the fortunes of the rich would not pass on, but the rich too would know that their children would have lives of opportunity and plenty. For Piketty’s part, he doesn’t recommend abolishing inheritances altogether, but he has discussed optimal inheritance tax rates. (Financial Times article / “A Theory of Optimal Inheritance Taxation” by Piketty and Emmanuel Saez)

As a general rule, I don’t dedicate blog posts to books I haven’t read, but hopefully I have redeemed myself through my own comments and referencing of other sources. In any case, accept this as a few thoughts on Vox’s piece summarizing Piketty’s book and not a review of Piketty’s book itself. If anyone reading this has anything more insightful to offer about Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century, by all means . . .

 

 

On the Occasion of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century… (1)

I would love to read French economist Thomas Piketty’s recent bestseller Capital in the Twenty-First Century, but I most likely won’t. I don’t take well to hard economics, so nearly 700 pages of economic concepts, jargon, math and graphs would be a forced march I might not survive. Nonetheless, journalist Ezra Klein’s news website Vox calls the book the “most important economics book of the year, if not the decade” and has a substantial summary of it on which I would like to hazard some thoughts.

Piketty’s book has been all over the news the past few weeks, and the consensus seems to be that the true value of the book lies in the nuts and bolts--the unprecedented amount of data that backs up his conclusions--but we have all heard much about one of the main themes: economic inequality. Capital in the Twenty-First Century reminds us that income inequality is bad enough, but wealth inequality is even worse, and it’s worsening in developed nations around the globe.

From Vox:

 

Most of us have seen some version of the above presented countless times in a staggering array of visual forms on the Internet. Yet this stark inequality doesn't seem to sink in with many people. The piece on Vox asks why more people don't notice. I usually phrase it slightly differently to myself: Why don't more people care about this? 

I have always suspected there is something generational in this. While baby boomers spent their youth in the affluent post-War years, they became adults in the 1970s when the slide for America’s middle class was just beginning to pick up speed. Then they spent their middle years in the 1980s when the situation began to get heavy. Their experiences in youth told them things are better in America than elsewhere and their experiences as adults have, with each passing decade, told them economic inequality is simply a constant you can’t do anything about. Both beliefs tend to undercut the drive to protest.

Many of the economic changes in question are so gradual over time that many people have never had a good view of the big picture: They aren’t aware of how things used to be different or of how drastically they have worsened even during their own lifetime. You have to broaden your perspective through learning in history, politics and economics to grasp anything beyond sound bites, and that isn’t easy, especially when working to pay the bills takes about every ounce of energy you’ve got. It’s easier to keep believing in the American dream. It may not exist anymore, but it helps ease the pain.

According to Vox, Piketty’s data shows there's something to my generational approach:

“The life experience of the non-Millenials alive today contradicted this narrative [of inequality]. World War I directly destroyed some wealth, and also led to very high levels of taxation and inflation as wartime finance measures. Then came the Great Depression in which many fortunes were wiped out. Then came World War II which directly destroyed even more wealth (as in cities were literally burned to the ground) and was associated with even more extreme wartime finance measures. Then came a fast period of postwar growth associated with European reconstruction and the unleashing of long-suppressed consumption impulses. It's only over the past 20 or 30 years that the underlying dynamic has reasserted itself.”

Younger generations were raised on the dogmas of former generations, but their life experiences have been different. Many in my own generation graduated university only to find it suited them for little more than getting another degree. Living with Mom and Dad after graduation, working part-time jobs and whittling down crushing student debt is common. In the end, you get a job for which you’re overeducated--a job you’re likely to lose when the next financial crisis strikes. Meanwhile, your parents are elderly, living in poverty, and wondering wft, only they’re old enough to spell it out.

Perhaps that partially accounts for why so many anti-establishment voices are gaining strength, whether it’s Occupy Wall Street, the Tea Party or Anonymous. Many are now coming to realize what wasn’t as easily discernible before:

Something is wrong.

 

(more to follow)

 

 

How Guilty Is the Author for the Sins of the Text?

Many of the socially aware are too eager to hurl charges of racism. This time it’s indie artist Sky Ferreira’s video for “I Blame Myself” that has attracted attention.

 

The video draws upon stereotypes of black neighborhoods and features the star with a crew of black backup dancers, so criticism was only to be expected. At this point, it’s reflexive and unfolds by rote:

Aaron Parr on Facebook:

“I’m tired of seeing black people used as props.”

Alex Berg on Twitter:

“Sky Ferreira’s new video is a #racist mess. She, white woman, dances in Compton in front of #POC.”

Alison Margo on Facebook:

"Just because racism isn't intentional or blatant doesn't mean it's not racism."

This particular incident is barely a blip on the cultural radar, but such blips are becoming increasingly common. We all heard way too much about Miley Cyrus’s 2013 VMAs performance, and Lily Allen’s video for “Hard Out Here” faced similar criticism. The ideology of social consciousness and its curious lexicon have been gathering steam for decades, but now it has a bigger voice and makes regular appearances on the screens of our computers and phones. Poststructuralist concepts have filtered down into posts by average Joes on the Facebook pages of pop stars.

As previous blog posts will attest, I understand:

“In the post-modern world, most of us are aware that words and images speak more than they appear to at first glance, and this is doubly true for anyone marketing to the masses. Backup dancers are not just backup dancers--how they dance, how they are treated, how they are dressed, their race, their physique, and so on all speak an infinity of meanings.” (The Miley Cyrus Affair)

And this:

“It doesn’t matter what those involved intended (the death of the author in poststructuralism), their products speak for themselves and they speak the language of centuries of degradation, sexualization and commodification of black women. A photograph of a white woman perched glamorously atop a subjugated black woman exhibits, even if unintentionally, reprehensible symbolism.” (Sex, Chairs and Photographs)

However, I find it troubling how acceptable it has become to publicly brand as racist artists who aren’t racist on the inside and never intended anything racist. This is from Sky Ferreira’s defense on Facebook:

“Nothing upsets me more than being called racist because that is one of the most hateful things anyone can be . . . I never have and never will look at any human being as a prop. That's disgusting. It's also an idea that has never crossed my mind . . . I auditioned a bunch of dancers, all races & my dancers were the best ones . . . Comments like "rich little white girl exploiting the black people & the ghetto" . . . My brother is half black. My cousins are black. My family is Latina & Native American. Some of my family is in the video. I wasn't raised in a "white" household . . . Would you feel more at ease if I danced with a bunch [of] blonde white boys at a mall? Should I consciously only cast white dancers for now on? . . . I referenced 90s hip hop videos and Michael Jackson because both of those things inspire me.”

Many of the critics calling Ferreira racist take this defense as genuine, but call her a racist anyway because the content of the video stands on its own and they interpret it as racist. The death of the author is all very well and good, but it is a dangerous thing when the flesh and blood author is alive and well. How guilty is the author for the sins of the text?

I’m reminded of a rationale employed against certain classes of society by the Bolsheviks:

“Individual members of that class might ‘objectively’ be counterrevolutionary conspirators, even if subjectively (that is, in their own minds) they knew nothing of the conspiracy and thought themselves supporters of the revolution.” (The Russian Revolution, Sheila Fitzpatrick)

In other words, innocence was no defense against guilt. Those considered counterrevolutionaries could lose their jobs or be imprisoned or executed. The unwittingly guilty today are subjected to highly public ignominy because while subjectively innocent, they are objectively guilty. There is something insidious about this.

Perhaps the way out of this is to be thorough with application of the death of the author or to not apply it at all. Either the author has disappeared from a work of art, in which case she cannot be blamed for the sins of the work on a poststructural level, or the artist is a racist in her heart of hearts and has expressed an overtly racist opinion through her work. I have no objection to either approach, but most of these controversies involve a mixed approach: You may not be a racist, but your work sort of is, so you are too.

The critics have their point, and Ferreira has hers. I’m more interested in the argument itself than I am in taking sides. In exploring the complexity and ambiguities of this and similar issues, I suggest greater caution by the socially aware when disregarding the accused’s intentions in order to cast stones.

 

Would You Bed Your Celebrity Crush? (More on Milan Kundera's Immortality)

When I posted "Milan Kundera's Aside on Journalism in Immortality," I didn't expect to blog any more about the book, but I was wrong. I keep thinking about a question toward the end that Professor Avenarius poses to the author:

“Imagine that you are given the choice of two possibilities: to spend a night of love with a world-famous beauty, let’s say Brigitte Bardot or Greta Garbo, but on condition that nobody must know about it. Or to stroll down the main avenue of the city with your arm wrapped intimately around her shoulder, but on condition that you must never sleep with her.”

Later, Avenarius talks about how most people would answer:

“Everyone, including the worst no-hopers, would maintain that they would rather sleep with her. Because all of them would want to appear to themselves, to their wives . . . as hedonists. This, however, is a self delusion . . . No matter what they say, if they had a real choice to make, all of them, I repeat, all of them would prefer to stroll with her down the avenue. Because all of them are eager for admiration and not for pleasure.”

As playful as the question may be, it does strike close to the serious theme of Immortality, which the title of the book states. Much of the book consists in reflections on the care we take for our image: how we look to others and how our image lives on without us. According to Kundera’s character Avenarius, being seen with your celebrity crush is more important than actually bedding him or her. Kundera’s point is well made, and I find it intriguing that however one answers the question, the answer conceals a desire for admiration.

Answering with a preference to sleep with the great beauty is the result of a wish to look like a hedonist, the sexual conqueror, the lucky dog. Answering with a preference to be seen with the great beauty, rather than an admission of the truth, is the expression of a desire to come off as a nice person more interested in purely emotional interaction than sex.

In both cases, it's the appearance that counts. But is all appearance rather than reality? Avenarius presents a bleak outlook:

 

“Reality no longer means anything to anyone.”

I would add that perhaps we do not even know our own true desires. Perhaps, as psychoanalysis claims, part of us hides other parts of us from other parts, so that all this concern for our image, for appearance, isn’t hiding any solid core of true desire or motive. Perhaps tending the image, projecting a fantasy of ourselves, sometimes even to ourselves--as we do through endless posts on social media about what a positive, healthy, intellectual, witty, or weird person we are--is as substantial as we get.

For my part, I can’t decide whether I would prefer a meaningful encounter in seclusion or a night on the town that ends when the great beauty withdraws into a taxi, leaving me on the sidewalk feeling like a million bucks and needing a stiff drink. Either way, it would just be what I want you to think of me.

 

Surely We Can Disprove Certain Gods

Many atheists like Bill Nye the Science Guy also identify as agnostics (video)--as atheists because they see no reason or evidence for belief in God, and as agnostics because it cannot be proven that God does not exist. This last point provides a favorite comeback for Christian apologists--“Sure, we can’t prove God exists, but you can’t prove He doesn’t!”--and atheists usually grant this, but I’m not sure they should.

Many of a scientific bent allow the apologists this point for empirical reasons: We haven’t observed everything in the universe, so God could be out there somewhere, in a distant galaxy, in the space between the smallest of subatomic particles, perhaps racing along the strings that bind us. If God is a thing to be discovered, then we really won’t be sure until every last nook and cranny of the great unknown has been known.

On rational grounds, however, the arguments against the existence of God are much tighter. One of the most well-known examples is David Hume’s formulation of theodicy based on the supposed attributes of God:

"Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?" (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion)

In other words, because evil exists, we know that God, if such a being exists, cannot be what people say God is: omnipotent and good. To build upon that, if there is a being out there who is extremely powerful but falls shy of omnipotent and isn't benevolent, then we would not call that being God. Therefore, God as we think of such a being, does not exist.

God is fraught with other paradoxes as well. If God is out there in the universe somewhere and involved with the world--walking his dog behind the Ring Nebula, curing a loved one’s sickness, or opening up a slot at the local daycare when you really need it--then God would be subject to the limitations of space-time. Even to break the rules of nature--like by stopping the sun as in Joshua 10:13--God would have to do something to break the rules, have to exert a certain kind and degree of effort to get the job done, have to put him/herself out. And none of this is coherent with the idea of God as limitless and subject to nothing but divine will.

It solves nothing to posit a God outside the universe, because then God would have absolutely nothing to do with us--and that doesn’t fit our idea of God either. But what about a God outside the universe, but one who reaches in to fiddle around? No, then you are back to a God subject to the laws of reality, at least to some degree.

Ontological arguments for the existence of God, abandoned by serious theologians centuries ago but still popular among charlatans on the speaking circuit, attempted to prove the existence of God by his very definition. They said the definition of God, the idea of God, includes his actual existence, so the very fact that we have an idea of God must mean he exists.

The case I’m making is sometimes called the Reverse Ontological Argument, because it seeks to disprove God’s existence by the very definition of the word. In defining God as omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, benevolent, limitless, absolute, absolute other, and so forth, we give rise to logical contradictions.

Such a being cannot exist if we take reason seriously.

I suspect that the reason Nye and other prominent atheists don’t often bring up such ontological objections is they aren’t primarily philosophers. Their books mostly stick to their respective areas of expertise. Also, public debate isn’t encouraging of dense, abstract arguments.

Not being the world’s greatest philosopher, I have probably missed weaknesses in such rational arguments. A formula like Descartes’ cogito ergo sum seems about as watertight as a first principle could be, but great minds have found holes in it. At the very least, rational arguments make a strong case for ruling out the existence of certain kinds of gods--any gods worth the name anyway--and it's a point I wish atheists were more willing to press.

 

Milan Kundera’s Aside on Journalism in Immortality

I recently finished reading French-Czech writer Milan Kundera’s novel Immortality. It proved fascinating for its unconventional narrative, insight into the human condition, philosophical reflections, and social critique. While it’s hardly a good indication of the overall book, a passage describing the recent history of journalism leapt out at me.

To summarize the narrator, journalism early in the 20th Century, back when Hemingway was on the beat, was about drawing near to the facts, asking questions with pen in hand, noting down what you were told, and then faithfully conveying it through print or radio, and later television. Ask a question, receive an answer, pass it on. This first stage of modern journalism strikes me as somewhat passive.

Later, journalists learned there was power in asking questions. Kundera raises Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s investigation into the Watergate scandal and the way it eventually led to a president resigning from office. Despite the Nixon administration’s attempts at a cover-up, the two dug until they uncovered the defining political misdeeds of modern times. Journalists learned to ask the tough questions, and the answers could have a powerful effect.

The legacy of this second stage of journalism is visible today in every television or radio interview covering topics even remotely debatable. Have you ever watched Stephen Sackur on the BBC program HARDtalk? This is my least favorite style of interview, but there’s a lot of it going around. Sackur seems to have gotten his job for the alarming way he can begin every sentence with “but.” “But your opponents would say . . . ” “But doesn’t that strike you as a little . . . ” “But surely you don’t believe that . . . ” “But I have a quote from you here that says . . . ” I long for just a moment when a statement can simply stand.

When it is balanced, aggressive journalism has its merits, but when Immortality was first published in 1988, this second stage of modern journalism was just getting warmed up and would soon slough its objective skin. The following decades have seen journalism and activism mixed thoroughly through the rise of radio talk show hosts, 24-hour cable news, and the Internet’s bewildering array of blogs, articles, blurbs and worthless tidbits. This type of journalism is so active it only asks questions so it can then provide the answers itself.

The worst of this is represented by Fox News Channel, but other networks are guilty as well. The only facts they are interested in are those that support their interests, and when the facts aren’t on their side, they’re willing to peddle fantasy. Kundera’s second stage of journalism has reached the point of propaganda.

Which brings me to what I believe is a third stage--or mode--of journalism. I believe the antagonistic mode of the journalist’s interview has evolved into a curious performance in which the two sides pretend to engage in a duel in Q&A form but all the questions and answers are known by both sides from the start. The next time Wolf Blitzer interviews someone on Capitol Hill or out on the campaign trail, he and his guest should come to me so I can write up their exchange ahead of time and spare them the trouble of coming up with something to say.

And that’s what makes the farce complete. We the audience collude in this cover-up of truth. We know the questions and we know the answers, so nothing is coming to light and nothing results. It’s like watching an episode of an old sitcom for the umpteenth time. It isn’t funny anymore, but at least we know what comes next.

Immortality isn’t really about journalism--it’s about life and love, with significant doses of big ideas--so I feel bad about focusing on a brief aside for a blog about something as bleak as the state of mass media today, but there you have it. Maybe I’ll have more uplifting things to say after reading Kundera’s better known novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

 

Katy Perry vs. the Social Consciousness Nazis

When Australian television presenter Karl Stefanovic asked Katy Perry if she is a feminist, her answer was fluff. And as usual, the Social Consciousness Nazis--bloggers and intellectuals as strict and demanding with regard to pet issues as the Soup Nazi is about his soup--can’t simply groan and click on something else. They have to bring all their wit and condemnation to bear on the supposed offender, and by their puerility discredit their cause in the eyes of many.

Perry’s answer (watch it here at 1:40):

"A feminist? Uh, yeah, actually. I used to not really understand what that word meant, and now that I do, it just means that I love myself as a female and I also love men."

The response on The Huffington Post (article) included this:

 

This diagram--drafted by Rebecca Searles, a Huffington Post editor--is representative of much that is wrong with dialogue in our internet-drenched, memed-to-death times. It reduces a complex issue into a simple, snarky visual that you would have to be stupid or evil to disagree with. The posted meme with its Like button and Comments section doesn’t allow for anything Plato would recognize as dialogue or even conversation.

The Huffington Post’s definition is all right, but feminism clearly does not only mean that. Words don’t have a single definition, they have families of definitions, they have uses, and clouds of connotations that can be hard to pin down. Feminism is no different.

Perry’s definition is pretty airy, but I take her to mean that she is a strong woman and wants this confidence for other women as well. Isn’t this an important part of feminism? I think it is, but it isn’t good enough for the Social Consciousness Nazis, who insist you see everything in exactly their terms. They will eat their own for straying from the approved script.

I suspect Perry and others are uncertain about feminism because to them the word suggests a certain style of feminism, one that many see as overwrought and unpleasant. Judging by the Huffington Post’s diagram, I have been a feminist for as long as I can remember, but I recently became more interested in it after blogging about the Greta Garbo film Queen Christina. Surfing the internet, I often find myself reading feminist content. While it is often good (I admire Laurie Penny), there is a surprising amount of pure man-hating posing as serious commentary.

No wonder girls like Perry hesitate to associate with that.

Statistics regularly show that women still do not enjoy equal opportunity in the U.S. and around the world, and the Republican War on Women is real, so I’m glad there are aggressive feminists (like attorney, activist and candidate for California State Senate Sandra Fluke) who fight hard for the cause. But ill-conceived ideology and snarky blurbs by the rank and file online will only turn away people who would otherwise be there fighting alongside them.