Haiti (Catch all)

[Tom Kratman]

Hi Tom,



Probably inevitable; at least if you buy into Levy Strauss (Anthropology, not jeans ). Still, I'd rather fight against the self-fulfilling prophecy trend, at least as much as possible.



LOL - I remember once asking a friend what my security jacket said. his response was that it said "Known subversive, but we don't know what type!". Along the same lines (hey, all anthropologists are story-tellers), I remember spending a couple of hours chatting with Montgomery McFate over cocktails. Part of the chat, inevitably, moved into politics and I told her I was a "right wing conservative". I then had to take about 20 minutes to explain that that meant something totally different from her expectations.

Honestly, a large part of the reason why I reject the right-left binary opposition model comes down not only to the self-fulfilling prophecy effect, and that's a pretty bad one (if we ever get together for a few pints I'll tell you some stories...) but, also, to the implicit metaphysics behind the entire model. That would probably lead us into a really strange turn of discussion...



LOL. Back when i was teaching Intro to Anth, I used to describe English as a polymorphously erotic language that would roll anyone for anything .

Actually, I happen to really like English as a language - as you say, "unequaled vocabulary, subtlety, scope, and poetry". I have no problems with it mugging other languages for words or just making them up because they are cool and "fit" the concept. At the same time, I get truly pissed with people who treat English as if it was a nickle and dime, statue of Venus hooker and don't realize that they have picked up intellectual clap from their activities (hey, I've had to read a LOT of first year papers.... !).

So, let's get back to that lovely word "sovereignty" for a bit. Remember the infamous, and eponymous, phrase "Let them eat cake" from the French revolution? It plays back into the comments I was making about cultural expectations. In the West, as Machiavelli so astutely noted, our sovereigns are first amongst equals. Other cultures have other models like the God King model so beloved of the Middle east (and didn't Gilgamesh have to go through all sorts of hoops to get THAT established! Three parents?!?!?!).

But there is always a "contract" of some form built in; a "balance of terror" if you will, that seems to go back to well before we had writing and, possibly, to before horticulture (no, not Hobbes, this is from Sahlins Stone Age Economics ). We (as a species) would, I suggest, tend to reify our "contracted wills", for want of a better term, onto something - a deity, a clan, a monarch, a concept, etc.. These reifications, in turn, are the focus (not source) of "sovereignty" and, as long as they follow the cultural rules for reification, including the inevitable changes that happen over time, they are "legitimate" in that culture. If they get too far out of touch with the culture, they will inevitably loose legitimacy and, probably, their lives.

Neologisms...Ah hates me some neologisms. Sometime remind me to discuss the crime of linguistic matricide, the calculated, premeditated murder of one's mother tongue.

I'm reasonably equipped to at least discuss the legal and practical aspects of sovereignty. The cultural aspects are outside my skill set, sadly. That said, that sounds about right.

Let me posit something. The key philosophical question is and always has been "What is the nature of man," generally meaning, "Is he perfectable, or at least improvable, by breeding (nature), training (nurture), or none of the above?" Few people think about the question, of course, but nearly everybody _feels_ about it.

Now consider the whole smorgasbord of things we (at least when we're not tilting at windmills) think of as liberal/left wing. How many are driven by the usually unreasoning assumption that man is malleable by training/education/environment? Maybe the better question isn't how many are, but how few are not. Many? Any? Think Lenin's 'New Soviet Man.' Think the original draft of the Port Huron Statement ("man is infinitely perfectable'). Think rehabilitation / psychological-psychiatric treatment (as opposed to punishment) for criminal behavior. Think about the psychological scars on those poor, spanked children! Think about - horror of horrors! - the IQ/Academic Potential testing that expressly refutes this...and how much the left hates that testing and classification. Don't forget to include in there the intellectual sleight of hand, popular these last couple of decades, that man is already naturally perfect and good, and only our badwickedevilnaughtybadbadbad society turns him from that - yes, that's just another way of saying man is completely malleable, through non-genetic means.

On the other side is the notion that man is perfectable only by breeding. Beyond the Nazis (and, yes, I'm aware of the argument that they were a left wing movement. I don't buy it; similar behavior can arise out of apparently diverging goals, when there's a higher goal - perfection); these seem rare. Still, they exist and have existed, openly or tacitly.

I suspect that those are the two far points that define the line or spectrum, which is why - whether I were to go and reinvent the concept or not - I still think the left-right spectrum would continue to exist as an effective, albeit imperfect, model.

[Rex Brynen]

An interesting piece in today's WaPo. I've also heard less positive appraisals of the HNP, but those came from Cité Soleil, where the HNP barely penetrated before the earthquake. Still, it does all suggest that SSR was having some effect in the country.

In a turnabout, police are the good guys in post-quake Haiti

By William Booth
Washington Post
Saturday, January 30, 2010

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI -- In the hours and days after the city crumbled and the enfeebled government of Haiti disappeared from public view, a remarkable thing happened here: The police showed up for work.

A force previously dominated by thugs has transformed itself, according to international advisers, U.N. police officers and Haitians. In Port-au-Prince today, there is something almost heroic about an officer trying to direct traffic on Grand Rue Dessalines.

...

Foreign diplomats with long histories in Haiti confess near-amazement that the police did not fold. A decade ago, during cycles of hurricanes and coups, it would have been the police careening through the city in trucks stuffed with stolen electronics.

"In the old days, you ran away from the Haitian police, you didn't run toward them. They were the bad guys," said Richard Warren, the U.N. deputy police commissioner in charge of helping the Haitian National Police. "That has changed, and you can see the change with your own eyes."

Haitian police officers are directing traffic at crazy intersections -- and most vehicles actually stop. When drivers ignore them, the police seize their licenses on the spot. The police escort water trucks into desperately thirsty neighborhoods and keep order, which the U.N. forces have not managed to do with food deliveries.

The Haitian police guarded banks, gas stations and cash delivery outlets such as Western Union when they reopened this week.

...

According to the Haitian National Police, there were about 2,500 officers in Port-au-Prince before the earthquake. At least 66 died and 50 were seriously injured in the quake, according to Haitian authorities. The police chief said 491 officers are still unaccounted for -- they could be AWOL or dead; he is not sure.

"The foreigners need to understand the earthquake did the same thing to the police it did to the population," said Antoine Franck, an officer on duty at the Champ du Mars park. "My house fell down. I lost everything. Everyone's house fell down. My dear brother's house fell down, and he is dead under there. Every policeman has dead family."

Neither Haiti's president nor prime minister has yet addressed the public. For all the talk by the U.S. Embassy and U.N. officials about operating under the command of Haitian authorities, the government is barely functioning.

"At this point, the Haitian National Police are the only real government institution that the people on the street can see," said Jean-Pierre Esnault, a U.N. official who is working on issues of law and order.

The chief of police, Mario Andresol, is operating out of the former SWAT compound near the international airport. His office is a conference table under a tree where goats wander. Andresol considers himself a swashbuckling man of the people and he understands the value of good PR. He compared himself to an actor in an action movie.

"I like to ride my motorcycle and talk to the people, to show them I was one of you and I am still one of you," he said. "In the old days, the chief is the one who sits in the big chair and acts like the big man with the dark sunglasses. I want the people to see it is not like that anymore. . . . I want the kids to say they want to be a cop when they grow up."

Just a few years ago, Andresol said, "Twenty-five percent of the police were corrupt, and they were responsible for 65 percent of the crime in the country. Now we're making some progress."

[Tom Kratman]

An interesting piece in today's WaPo. I've also heard less positive appraisals of the HNP, but those came from Cité Soleil, where the HNP barely penetrated before the earthquake. Still, it does all suggest that SSR was having some effect in the country.

In a turnabout, police are the good guys in post-quake Haiti

By William Booth
Washington Post
Saturday, January 30, 2010

I am reminded of the saying, "Anything that sounds too good to be true, isn't."

[Beelzebubalicious]

This one in the WSJ. Hmmm...I couldn't/didn't read the rest of it so I'm curious to know if anyone did and what the take-aways are.

Haiti has received billions of dollars in foreign aid over the last 50 years, and yet it remains the least developed country in the Western Hemisphere. Its indicators of progress are closer to Africa's than to those of Latin America. It has defied all development prescriptions.

Why? Because Haiti's culture is powerfully influenced by its religion, voodoo. Voodoo is one of numerous spirit-based religions common to Africa. It is without ethical content. Its followers believe that their destinies are controlled by hundreds of capricious spirits who must be propitiated through voodoo ceremonies. It is a species of the sorcery religions.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...s_Most_Popular

[tequila]

I am reminded of the saying, "Anything that sounds too good to be true, isn't."

Beware its corollary: "anything that does not conform to my preformed beliefs, I reject."

[Beelzebubalicious]

Here's one person's take-away from that op-ed:
http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/20...-by-awful.html

[Backwards Observer]

It is without ethical content. Its followers believe that their destinies are controlled by hundreds of capricious spirits who must be propitiated through voodoo ceremonies.

Someone should have told them... parliamentary democracy just doesn't work.

[Stan]

Here's one person's take-away from that op-ed:
http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/20...-by-awful.html

Hey Eric,
Seems the link to Reuters is more to the point without the voodoo sierra. Sounds abysmal but then sounds much like Africa with overwhelming logistics and looting. Should have been someone coordinating the relief effort before friends starting flying in from all over

"The sad truth is that no one is in charge of Haiti today. This vacuum, coupled with the robust response from the Obama administration, has inevitably created a situation where the U.S. will be the de facto decision-maker in Haiti."

Pickup trucks stacked high with bodies could be seen making their way through traffic-clogged streets on Thursday morning, on their way to drop off the dead at the morgue attached to Hospital General, the city's main health facility.

But Guy LaRoche, the hospital's director, said it was already filled to overflowing with more than 1,500 rapidly decomposing bodies. Many had been left lying out in the sun. LaRoche said he had had no contact with any government officials to see what to do with them.

[marct]

Someone should have told them... parliamentary democracy just doesn't work.

Naw, it works fine . The "problem" with applying it is that Voodoo has way too many paparazzi "spirits"

[Tom Kratman]

Beware its corollary: "anything that does not conform to my preformed beliefs, I reject."

Unless, of course, those preformed beliefs are true and the postulated 'anything' is simply incompatable with the truth.

[tequila]

After all, who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?

[Tom Kratman]

After all, who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?

Well, if it's WaPo or NYT, I'm disinclined to believe anything reported that has even a scintilla of political impact unless the information was gained from both editors and both reporters, each isolated from all the others, and under torture until the stories matched.

[marct]

Unless, of course, those preformed beliefs are true and the postulated 'anything' is simply incompatable with the truth.

That, of course, assumes that any human can know "truth" . Do we really want to open up that can of epistemological worms?

[Tom Kratman]

That, of course, assumes that any human can know "truth" . Do we really want to open up that can of epistemological worms?

Those worms strike me as being very artificial, Marc, the constructs of people who desperately want there to be no truth, so that they can substitute their own. "War is Peace." "Freedom is Slavery." "Ignorance is Strength."

Conversely: I am truly here, even if no one can see it. I am smoking a real cigarette and flicking the ash into a solid ashtray. And Haiti is hopeless.

[marct]

Hi Tom,

Those worms strike me as being very artificial, Marc, the constructs of people who desperately want there to be no truth, so that they can substitute their own. "War is Peace." "Freedom is Slavery." "Ignorance is Strength."

As a note, I may end up moving this to another forum, but we'll see where it goes.....

Okay, couple of points. First, yeah, the worms are artificial, as are all human concepts. If you notice the way I phrased my comment - "...that any human can know "truth"" (emphasis added) - it was aimed in a very particular manner based on, yes, artificial constructions . If I wanted to be really technical about it, I would have written "know and intelligeably communicate", but "know" is the short hand reference.

Second, the examples you give are ones that are part and parcel of manipulating a communicative system - playing word games if you will. What they really underscore is two things: the map ain't the territory and the inherent paradoxical nature of abstraction. Basically, they highlight one of the quintessential problems with all human systems of communication, which is that we build these systems using fuzzy sets since it is actually impossible (or has been to date), to build an exact, non-fuzzy, symbol system that accurately reflects our experiences in reality and allows us to precisely communicate them to others. The closest that we have come to such systems are the various dialects of mathematics but, in order to actually get decent representations, we have had to invent dialects such as fuzzy set theory, chaos mechanics, quantum indeterminacy, catastrophe theory, etc.

Okay, so back to this union of opposites type of manipulation: this is a very common manipulation of symbols based on the nature of the symbol systems. The "paradoxical nature of abstraction" really comes about as a result of us, as a species, taking some perception and abstracting it. Since our sensory perceptions are based on ratios and perceived oppositions, we tend to abstract along supposed scales or lines that we then proceed to "name".

To add insult to injury, we then add in the pernicious influence of Plato, specifically his concept of Ideal Types. We take a "name" and abstract it (that's twice now!) from it's already abstracted and constructed line or scale, and treat it as if it were "real", a thing in and of itself. This process, reification, shows up all over the place for one simple reason: it makes communication, knowledge and action simpler. But remember, we are dealing with an abstraction of an abstraction as if it were a thing in and of itself, which "it" isn't (BTW, notice how it is really tricky to use English to talk about this; "it"? That implies existence...).

Conversely: I am truly here, even if no one can see it. I am smoking a real cigarette and flicking the ash into a solid ashtray. And Haiti is hopeless.

If a man smokes by himself, is he really smoking?

Silly paraphrases aside, you are taking one of the few positions that I can see that has any real worth - very Baconian of you . Notice how you built this phrase - "I am smoking a real cigarette". Okay, you're smoking a cigarette (so am I BTW). "Cigarette" is a class word, and while adding the modifier "real" to it let's me drop out such sillyness as herb cigarettes, it doesn't really tell me much more than you are smoking some type of an object that falls into the general parameters of the set "cigarette". I have to make certain additional assumption that may, or may not be warranted. For example, since you are American and living in the US, you are probably not smoking an Indian Beedi and I doubt you are smoking either Turkish cigarettes or Sobranies, so I will make an assumption that your cigarette is white (or a vaguely related colour). I have no idea if it has a filter, how long it may be (beyond a range guesstimate), or it is menthol or some other flavour of tobacco. I also have no idea of what additives may be in it.

So, you may have empirically experiences a "truth", but by the time you come to communicate it, much of the quality of that experience is either lost or incommunicable. And that's for something as simple as smoking a cigarette!

But, you know, cigarettes are really good examples to use. When we say that we "smoked a cigarette", we can communicate a representation of the truth of that experience in a satisficing manner; basically, it's good enough to work, even though the "truth" of the experience cannot be communicated in its fullness.

Gregory Bateson, one of my "heroes", had a definition of information that fits here: "information is difference that makes a difference" (A Sacred Unity, page 309; originally written for a lecture on October 28, 1979). NB: this is the exact quote; it is often misquoted as "information is a difference that makes a difference". So, whether or not your cigarette is white, filtered and menthol is, for our purposes, difference that doesn't make a difference, at least as far as both of our original purposes of communication were concerned. However, it we are talking about "truth" as in the "truth" of an experience, then those differences might make a difference. Can the absence of data make a difference?

Yup, and the very absence of data on your experience of smoking that cigarette may be relevant. For example, it might be part of your normal experience of smoking to burn your fingers towards the end of the cigarette, causing you exasperation and a flash of anger. If that is normal for you, it is a difference that makes no difference to you, but would to me since it isn't my "normal". Maybe you only smoke cigarettes when you are writing and, in your mind, part of the normal truth of smoking is conveying ideas in short, pithy sentences. Maybe you are one of those people who only smokes when you are drinking (hey, I've know a few).

Feeling like I'm leading you down some academic, fuzzy headed semantic game? In some ways, I am, but there is a distinct purpose to it, which comes directly out of the last part of your comment - "And Haiti is hopeless". Basically, you are judging Haiti based on what you consider to be "normal", establishing you scale or line with, I would guess, the US (or an idealization of it) at one end and your perceptions of Haiti at the other. Nothing surprising about that; the process, if not the content, seems to be hardwired into our brains. We just need to be aware that it is not an absolute "Truth", merely a situated "truth" that may or may not be shared by someone in a different position.

Remember that discussion of the problem of amoral familiarism and the state in the H&MP context in Carnifex? There are a couple of points I've raised that play directly into that. First, you have to work with what you have, not idealizations - I think you noted that that was one of Marx's faults (amongst many). So, constructing models, which is what H&MP is about, leads to the interesting problem of how can you incorporate situated truth into a system such that it supports the desired end goal (much in the same manner as allowing some degree of "free enterprise" [ not that we've ever had it! ] into a system uses our instinctual resource acquisitiveness - aka greed - to bolster a system).

Second, you have to have a symbol system - an ideology, religion, mental discipline or whatever - that encourages a balance between certainty ("situated truth") and uncertainty (a quest for absolute Truth). This, BTW, is a crucial falure in most modern, Western cultures.

Third, and finally, you (generic - I'm preaching right now ) have to be able to step into other people's "minds", regardless of their culture or social position at least to the extent of being able to establish some form of commonality of interpretation of experience so that you can actually communicate with them (technically, it's called verstehen or empathic understanding).

One last point before I end this post. All to often inside academia, this third point is interpreted as you have to "feel their pain" and "stand with them against oppression". That is one possible result of attempting to establish verstehen, and some element of it is probably inevitable. That said, it is also a warm and fuzzy fantasy that too many of my colleagues have fallen in to since they fail to actually judge what they "understand"; the don't exercise "critical thinking" since they forget that the word "critical" comes from two Greek roots: "kriticos" (discerning judgement) and "kriterion" (standards). They apply what I consider to be a flawed judgement based on incorrect standards by assuming that understanding (verstehen) equates with agreement.

That is a round about way of saying that sometimes the only way to effectively establish communication with someone is to eliminate them from the conversation; a point well known by many of those same PC colleagues - they just use exclusionary hiring practices rather than bullets.

[Tukhachevskii]

First, yeah, the worms are artificial, as are all human concepts. If you notice the way I phrased my comment - "...that any human can know "truth"" (emphasis added) - it was aimed in a very particular manner based on, yes, artificial constructions . If I wanted to be really technical about it, I would have written "know and intelligeably communicate", but "know" is the short hand reference.

Basically, they highlight one of the quintessential problems with all human systems of communication, which is that we build these systems using fuzzy sets since it is actually impossible (or has been to date), to build an exact, non-fuzzy, symbol system that accurately reflects our experiences in reality and allows us to precisely communicate them to others.


If a man smokes by himself, is he really smoking?

.

This reminds me of a debate I once had with some friends. We started off with Tarski's (semantic/correspondence) definition of Truth ("Truth is that which corresponds to an objective state of affairs" if I recall rightly), got stuck on how exactly to "objectively" apprehend a "state of affairs" (Husserlian "bracketing" didn't help) and went on to Hume and the problem with objective knowledge per se (empirically speaking) to Heidegger and the "Tradition" (phenomenologically speaking) which led us to Peter Winch, Sapir & Whorf, Charles Taylor (not THAT Taylor), and, of course, Kuhn. Strangely, this kind of discussion almost always occurs whilst we/I am smoking. What the hell do they put in those things? (Although I personally roll my own...with liquorice rolling papers).

[MikeF]

If a man smokes by himself, is he really smoking?

Hi Marc,

I think that I'm gonna try to recruit some other social scientists to the council this year. If we could get some sociologists, psychologists, and Priests (or Iman/Rabbi) to give points/counter-points to your thoughts, we might really get somewhere. Or else, we'll all need therapy.

Mike

[marct]

This reminds me of a debate I once had with some friends. .... Strangely, this kind of discussion almost always occurs whilst we/I am smoking. What the hell do they put in those things? (Although I personally roll my own...with liquorice rolling papers).

LOL - maybe that's why this type of discussion has practically disappeared from our grad student pub; the no smoking Gestapo !

I remember a year I spent one day reading Husserl's Crisis - man, he really needed to smoke! He kept painting himself into corners that he couldn't get out of! Too bad, for Husserl, that fuzzy-set theory hadn't been developed at the time he was writing .

[marct]

Hi Mike,

I think that I'm gonna try to recruit some other social scientists to the council this year. If we could get some sociologists, psychologists, and Priests (or Iman/Rabbi) to give points/counter-points to your thoughts, we might really get somewhere. Or else, we'll all need therapy.

Beer - therapy is a) too expensive and b) doesn't work very well. Let's just find a decent pub where we can smoke.

Go ahead and recruit. The stuff I just posted is only my starting position - things could get truly weird from there, especially if you bring in a Sufi or a Kabbalist . Then I will definitely have to move this part of the thread over the the Social Science forum!

[MikeF]

Hi Mike,



Beer - therapy is a) too expensive and b) doesn't work very well. Let's just find a decent pub where we can smoke.

Go ahead and recruit. The stuff I just posted is only my starting position - things could get truly weird from there, especially if you bring in a Sufi or a Kabbalist . Then I will definitely have to move this part of the thread over the the Social Science forum!

I was only half-joking. The best working groups that I've participated in had an amalagram of experts combined with practisioners. The Core Lab at NPS is a good example. Many of the ideas developed after heated discussions were truly innovative.