Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Misquoting The Princess Bride

First Ezra Klein, now Kevin Drum. What is it with liberal bloggers from California screwing up quotations from The Princess Bride.

The exchange goes like this:

Vizzini: He didn't fall? Inconceivable!
Inigo: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

You want proof? Listen here.

Got it? Not "This Word, It Does Not Mean What You Think It Means". Not "That word does not mean what you think it means". If you're going to reference a movie, get it right, okay?

Now that we've cleared that up...

Saturday, February 19, 2005

Ross Douthat, Harvard, and liberal arts education

I'm a bit late in getting to the "Pile criticism on Ross Douthat" party, but I'm pretty sure that I'm not stepping on any toes here. Thanks to my friend Phyllis for providing the text of the article which, sadly, is subscription only over at the Atlantic Monthly.

Anyway, as you may have heard by now, Ross Douthat recently wrote an article for the Atlantic Monthly complaining about the failures of Harvard. There are lots of problems with Douthat's essay, not least in how willing he is to hold Harvard students largely blameless for their part in not obtaining what he considers to be a good education. But for now I'm going to focus on Douthat's conception of academic history. His flawed view of history reveals a fundamental misunderstanding about the value of liberal arts education.

Douthat claims that in recent years the humanities have become irrelevant. To explain this irrelevant, he points to "attempts by humanities professors to ape the rigor of their scientific colleagues" that led to the paralysis of postmodern. Exactly what the relationship between scientific rigor and postmodernism goes unexplained. Considering that postmodernism is generally seen as a product of literary studies, that putative relationship becomes even more dubious.

More troubling is Douthat's claim that history has slipped to irrelevance because "history departments emphasize exhaustive primary research and micro-history." The way Douthat describes it, you'd think that historians' insistence on careful archival research is a development of the past twenty years. Douthat apparently didn't learn much about the history of history as a scholarly endeavor at Harvard. If he had, he would know that Leopold von Ranke, generally considered the father of modern historical practice, articulate a vision of deliberate examination of primary sources in the middle of the nineteenth century. To the extent that historians devote themselves to the archives (a not entirely accurate description, considering that postmodernism's real influence on history has been the so-called linguistic turn which opens up sources to wider ranging interpretations than Douthat's rather dull "exhaustive primary research" suggests), it is a remnant of rather old conceptions of history, not the result of cutting-edge postmodernist theory. But another way, when have historians not emphasized primary research?

At first glance, Douthat's condemnation of the irrelevance of micro-history appears to hold more weight. It might be difficult to find the signifiance in, say, the economic history of 18th-century French parishes. But such research is valuable, for at least two reasons. First, such focused research allows historians to be far more confident in their conclusions. It's much easier to discover Sir Edward's Greys thoughts about war with Germany in late July and early August 1914 than it is to explain the origins of the First World War. In order to answer the big questions we need (relatively) authoritative answers to the smaller constituent questions. Douthat seems to yearn for historians to write broad, synthetic works that tell of important events and developments. Yet, as Kieran Healy wrote almost exactly one year ago in response to a similar plea from (Christ's graduate) Simon Schama, the big books can't be written without the supporting monographs of other scholars.

More intriguing than the slow build-up of scholarly research leading to popular books on wide subjects, micro-historical studies can themselves dramatically alter our understanding of big events. Let's return to those 18th-century French parishes. Frank Tallett has found that parish priests mobilized credit from a variety of sources. Clergy acted as facilitators and helped co-ordinate a dynamic web of credit that met the needs of the rich and the poor alike. In this respect, the economy of 18th-century France functioned as a stable (if dynamic) system. Explanations of the French Revolution that point to the economic failings of ancien régime France run aground when faced with evidence that the economy of 18th-century France was rather stable after all. In short, the micro-history that Douthat denigrates is not nearly as irrelevant as he suggests.

It's not clear to me what Douthat's ideal version of academic history is. As best I can tell, the most concrete improvement he has in mind is more survey courses for undergrads. Hardly a radical suggestion. Douthat wants students to know about the big stuff: the world wars, the founding of America, the French Revolution. But he doesn't say why. If academia has taught me anything, it's that very little is self-evident. There's a case to be made for such "canonical" knowledge, but it's a case that actually needs to be made, not just assumed. Douthat seems rather satisfied with the idea that there's a set body of knowledge out there that well-educated people possess (or, at least, should possess).

But why? Douthat asserts, without arguing his case, that the goal of undergraduate education is "to provide a general education, a liberal arts education, to future doctors and bankers and lawyers and diplomats." First of all, that's an awfully prestigious group. Douthat is conflating his ideal type of Harvard student (the type that goes on to the professional occupations he lists) with the typical undergraduate. Harvard notwithstanding, most college graduates are not going to be doctors and lawyers.

A liberal arts education, as many a Swarthmore booster will tell you, is as much about learning how to think as it is about learning particular things. Of course, this isn't an either-or scenario. It's possible (and ideal) for undergraduate classes to teach both critical thinking skills and a particular body of knowledge. Douthat overstates his position in arguing too strenuously for the value of the latter.

I've strayed rather far from my initial focus on history. To return to that, I'd argue that Douthat is wrong in his assumption that big history is the best history. The study of history should be taught at the undergraduate level, not just the facts of history itself. This is not just so some undergraduates can go on to become historians themselves. Sophisticated historical thought (which can be taught as well in a course on the Cuban Revolution as one on the American Revolution), is a valuable in its own right, more valuable, in fact, than knowledge of any particular era of history. Studying how history is done makes learning the facts easier and helps place them in a useful and sensible framework.

Towards the end of his essay, Douthat bemoans the fact that there is no body of knowledge that Harvard grads share.

The closest thing to a Harvard education-that is, to an intellectual corpus that most Harvard graduates have in common-is probably obtained in such oversubscribed courses as "The Warren Court and the Pursuit of Justice," "First Nights: Five Performance Premieres," and "Fairy Tales, Children's Literature, and the Construction of Childhood."


Douthat is rather narrow-minded in his conception of an "intellectual corpus." to him, the only things that unite Harvard grads is the information they picked up in a few popular classes. Now, I didn't go to Harvard, so I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure that Harvard graduates learned more in their four years than a conglomeration of facts. If Harvard's doing anything right, it teaches its students how to think.

There's more to knowledge than a set of facts. Assuming Harvard's Core courses are taught well (a dangerous assumption, I know), they promote sophisticated thought and critical approaches to knowledge, regardless of their precise subject matter. The intellectual corpus of liberal arts education consists of critical thinking skills, not just a group of canonized facts. Missing this, as Douthat does, misses the very point of a liberal arts education in the first place. Douthat seems to have missed out on a lot of intellectual stimulation at Harvard, and not all of it was Harvard's fault, as he would have you believe.

(For further comments on Douthat's article, see Matthew Yglesias, who corrects Douthat's characterization of philosophy these days; Brad DeLong, who reflects on his own time at Harvard and calls out Douthat for being lazy; Tim Burke, on the difficulty of creating core courses; Caleb McDaniel, on Douthat's apparent liberalism on issues of higher education.)

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

I'm back (sorta)

Sorry for the recent lack of posting. I've had a post about the recent Trevelyan lectures stewing for a few weeks now, but I'm not quite sure where I'm going with it, so give it a few more days.

In the meantime, check out this post at Catholicae Testudines where Thomas A. argues that it's not hypocritical for ardently pro-life Catholics to defend capital punishment. I think he's wrong, as my lengthy comment to his post attests. You know, if you're going to base your argument off a particular document, you might want to check whether your argument is in any way related to that document.

Just got back from Bath this evening. Lovely, as expected. And there are hills! It's easy to forget what they look like when you live near the fens...

Saturday, February 05, 2005

Happy to be there?

In the latest entry to his Super Blog, Sports Guy Bill Simmons pumps up the Patriots' chances tomorrow by talking about how much fun Eagles fans are having in Jacksonville.

Say it with me now... Huh?

Here's what Simmons saw at a party he went to:

There were various clusters of Eagles fans spread around the party, all of whom were wearing Eagles hats and/or Eagles jackets, like they were tailgating outside of Veterans Stadium or something. I talked to some of them and enjoyed the conversations -- they were VERY giddy and VERY drunk, plus they kept the trash-talking to a minimum (which I appreciated). But one thing cracked me up -- many of them were wearing "NFC Champions" hats, one of the all-time "Happy to be there" red flags.


Okay, so he saw Eagles fans wearing (gasp!) Eagles garb. And they were drinking a lot. He sounds a bit surprised, and I can't help but wonder if he's ever been to an Eagles game in Philadelphia. This is what Eagles fans do. And the people making the trip down to Jacksonville are likely to be the most devoted fans, so of course they're going to be wearing hats and jackets. Hell, I'm pissed off with myself for not bringing any Eagles stuff back to England to wear now.

From this, Simmons reaches the following conclusion. "I can't shake the feeling that both the Eagles and their fans already had their Super Bowl, getting past the NFC Title game after three straight agonizing losses. Maybe I'm wrong."

Yeah, I think you're wrong. First of all, I don't think Eagles fans are just happy to be there and I certainly don't think they had their Super Bowl two weeks ago. I can only speak for myself, but I'll be pretty pissed if the Eagles don't win tomorrow night. They've been too good a team over the past few years not to win a Super Bowl. Philadelphia has exactly one major sports championship in my lifetime, and that was back in 1983. Were the Red Sox satisfied making it the World Series this past fall? Didn't think so.

But, even more importantly, how the hell does Simmons get from Eagles fans being satisfied with just being at the Super Bowl to the Eagles themselves "already had their Super Bowl"? Do the fans get to play now? Do they get to make motivational speeches in the locker room? What possible effect could fan attitudes towards the game have on how the Eagles actually play tomorrow night?

I think the Eagles recognize that there's still one game left in their season and that, yes, this game matters. Terrell Owens, ankle screws and all, will suit up and play tomorrow night because he knows that you don't get many chances to play in a Super Bowl. He's playing because he wants to win a Super Bowl, and you can be damn sure the rest of the team feels the same way.

Thursday, February 03, 2005

Catholicism and contraception

The number of Catholic blogs linking to my post on Dan Brown's errors in Angels and Demons has surprised me a bit. I shouldn't be too shocked, I suppose, since many of Brown's critics are defenders of the Catholic Church against Brown's slanders. I must admit that I don't fall into that camp. I'm not entirely convinced that Brown is particularly anti-Catholic; his sins are of the literary and factual sort, not the heretical kind. My guess is that if Brown were to write about some other religion, say Methodism or Reform Judaism, its adherents would take arms, too.

But all that's beside the point. As a result of all the links, I've read lots of blogs that I never would have stumbled on by myself, blogs like The Shrine of Holy Whapping and Catholicae Testudines. I've found lots I don't agree with, and plenty that just doesn't make sense. Some of that disagreement can undoubtedly be attributed to dissimilar worldviews. But I'm not such a relativist that I'm willing to cast disagreement aside and accept the validity of beliefs that strike me as decidedly wrong-headed and narrow-minded.

Take this post from Catholicae Testudines. The writer, Thomas A., opens his essay by warning "these people" not to get their hopes up about Vatican thelogian George Cottier telling an Italian news agency that there were circumstances in which the use of condoms might be justified.

First of all, Thomas A. fails to make clear just who "these people" are. The staff at the Guardian who wrote about the story? The article he linked to is straightforward news; I can't find anyone getting their hopes up in it. People in general? Maybe, but then why make it "these people"? As best I can figure out, Thomas A. is writing against critics of the Church's position on contraception. Fine, then, let's see what he has to say.

Until they understand that Catholicism is a deontological religion, not a consequentialist one, they will not understand why the Church cannot approve of contraceptive sexual activity for any reason. Perhaps they do not realize that the Church condemns as sin all genital activity that because of its nature (and not because of accidental circumstances such as the woman being out of a fertile period) is closed off to the generation of life. And that she does this because such is contrary to human nature and displeasing to God, and not because it might in some circumstances have harmful effects on bodily health.


Let's be clear here. According to Thomas, the Church disapproves of "all genital activity that ... is closed off to the generation of life." He inserts a little disclaimer in there, and that's what I want to examine more closely. What are these "accidental" circumstances in which "genital activity" that can't lead to procreation is not a sin? His example is a woman "out of a fertile period." I'm not sure whether he means post-menopausal women or women who aren't ovulating. But both seem like reasonable readings, so that's two scenarios.

Here's my question: how is either one of these circumstances in any way "accidental"? Is it an accident that post-menopausal women are infertile? Sex between a man and a post-menopausal woman will not, by its very nature, generate life. There's no accident involved here. According to Thomas's description, the Church condemns this sort of sexual activity. Now maybe this is true, maybe the Church does, in fact, prohibit post-menopausal women from having sex. If that's the case, well, the Catholic Church is even more repressive than I thought.

But maybe I'm being too harsh here. Maybe Thomas really was restricting his women "out of a fertile period" to post-pubescent, pre-menopausal females who don't happen to be ovulating at the time of intercourse. But again, where's the accident here? It's not as if menstrual cycles are random phenomena. Ovulation and fertility can be predicted and tracked with a great deal of precision. When a woman who isn't ovulating has sex and doesn't conceive, there's nothing accidental about it; that's just how it works.

The obvious counterargument here is that there's nothing about the nature of sexual intercourse between a man and a non-ovulating woman that makes conception impossible. Women can conceive when they're not ovulating, it's just not very likely. As far as I can tell this argument says that sexual intercourse with a non-ovulating women is acceptable because there's still a chance that life could be generated.
UPDATE (6 February 2005): See SRC's comment below for more precise discussion of ovulation and conception.

To this, I hasten to point out that there's nothing about the nature of sexual intercourse between a man and a woman using a condom that makes conception impossible. Women can conceive when their partner uses a condom, it's just not very likely. Condomns do, after all, fail.

It seems, then, that the Catholic Church, at least according to Thomas A.'s description, isn't terribly consistent in its condemnation of "genital activity that ... is closed off to the generation of life." Condoms are out but sex with a non-ovulating woman is in? Okay then.

Then there's the bit about such activity being "contrary to human nature and displeasing to God". Now, I don't know about the second part. Maybe God doesn't like sex that doesn't generate life. But who's to say, really? But as for the first part, that non-life-generating genital activity is contrary to human nature? Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's wrong. Now I have some doubts about the existence of "human nature" but I'm certain that it's impossible to describe it. Can you point to some human behavior or activity that has characterized all societies? Even more obviously, if all this genital activity were contrary to human nature, why has it been so common throughout history? It's not as if masturbation or oral sex are new things. Besides, don't Catholics believe that man is inherently sinful? Wouldn't it be human nature to sin?

You know, as fascinating as I find Catholicism, some of it doesn't make much sense...

I could go on, but I'm already feeling like John Holbo. Besides, my knowledge of Catholic theology is minimal; I don't want to get in over my head.