Sonia Sotomayor and Affirmative Action

My wife gave me Sonia Sotomayor’s memoir as a Valentine gift – with a catch. I had to read it on her e-reader, which she wanted me to try. Verdict: I like its ease of use, but might quibble about inability to scribble.

I had expressed interest in Sotomayor’s book after hearing some interviews. But actually, she had me at the title: My Beloved World. Though not everything in her world or mine is beautiful, I share the sensibility of that title.

One small criticism. Sotomayor relates at length how, in a high school speech, she focused on the famous 1964 Kitty Genovese case. The story was that Genovese’s brutal murder was watched by 38 witnesses, who did nothing; and ever since this has been a staple of societal critiques. Turns out the story  just isn’t true; it was bad press reporting. Apparently Sotomayor is unaware of that.

While studying at Princeton, Sotomayor joined an Hispanic political action group. An issue arose concerning a local hospital where treatment of Spanish-speaking patients often suffered because of a language barrier. But instead of denouncing the hospital, picketing, etc., Sotomayor helped organize a program for bilingual volunteers to assist with Latino patients, which proved highly successful. I liked that story.

Another made me laugh out loud with delight. At Princeton Sotomayor got a computer data entry job; this was the 1970s punch-card era. Meanwhile, she was working on her senior thesis. At that time I was a PSC lawyer, and our briefs were typed onto “mats” for reproduction; so if you made any significant change, all subsequent pages had to be retyped. Sotomayor faced the same problem with her thesis. Until she had a bright idea: coding pieces of text onto her computer punch-cards, enabling her to make changes at will.

Sotomayor’s book gives this only a few lines, but I thought it was pretty stunning. As a college student, she basically invented, for herself, what came to be called word-processing; hers was the first Princeton thesis ever done that way. It shows she was one smart cookie.

Which leads me to my main point. Sotomayor was smart, and did a lot right in pursuing her ambitions, but also was a beneficiary of affirmative action, and she knew that. It’s doubtful she’d have gotten into Princeton had her name been Smith.

I oppose affirmative action, insofar as it’s ethnically based. For one thing, the whole concept of “race” is largely a societal construct and deeply flawed from an objective standpoint. (We have a president who’s more literally “African-American” than most who wear that label, yet his mom was a white Kansan.) Secondly, non-white skin doesn’t necessarily correlate with being disadvantaged in today’s America. And as for all the “diversity” platitudes, I might be more persuaded were academia not rife with “speech codes” and other enforcements of political correctness, suppressing the kind of diversity that really matters most on campus: diversity of thought and opinion.  

But Sonia Sotomayor’s case shows how affirmative action – if you must call it that – should operate. Basing college admissions or hiring, etc., strictly on grades and/or test scores is wrong because they reveal only part of what’s important about a person and are actually poor predictors of general success. (See my post on The Marshmallow Test.)

Cartoon by Rogers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Now, Sonia Sotomayor was not a textbook case of rising from disadvantage; though she was a Puerto Rican kid from Bronx’s “projects,” with an alcoholic father, her mother was a health care professional and she got a decent education in Catholic schools. But still, coming from that general environment, her path was not easy, and getting herself to where Princeton was even possible shows a panoply of personal characteristics that surely should count for more than mere test scores or grades. That Princeton chose her, over some other kids with higher numbers but born to privilege, was entirely justified. Indeed, that was a merit-based decision, not mere ethnicity-based affirmative action. Proper affirmative action should mean giving due weight to the achievement of people who didn’t have life handed to them on a platter but had to overcome disadvantages to get as far they have. Those are the people society should invest in, and we’re a better society for doing so, not only for those individual beneficiaries, but for everyone.

Unfortunately, this we are not doing. A person like Sotomayor even applying to a school like Princeton is actually unusual. A recent nationwide survey shows that only 34% of high-achieving high schoolers, in the lower income quartile, go to one of the 238 most selective colleges. For those in the higher income quartile, it’s 78%. The lower income group tends to be unaware of opportunities at elite colleges and to go, if at all, to local schools, with fewer resources, lower graduation rates, and – perversely – higher cost, because top colleges would likely offer them generous financial aid. Obviously this stunts their career potential.

Thus we are throwing away a lot of talent. Affirmative action should focus not on race or ethnicity, but on opening doors for high-achievers whose circumstances will otherwise likely hold them back.

Later, when Sotomayor was at Yale Law School and interviewing for jobs, a law firm partner openly voiced a surmise that she‘d gotten into Yale because she was Puerto Rican. She replied that being Puerto Rican hadn’t hurt; but that graduating Princeton Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude hadn’t hurt either. (But Sotomayor wryly notes the irony that when first apprised of these accolades, she was ignorant of their meaning and had to look them up!)

America on Meds: Our Future

According to a report in the New York Times, almost one in five U.S. high school boys has been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and over half of those takes medication (usually Ritalin or Adderall).

The American Psychological Association is planning to revise the definition of ADHD. To curtail over-diagnosis, you might think. You’d be wrong. It’s to allow even more people to be diagnosed and medicated.

There is no clear-cut diagnostic test for ADHD. It’s just a subjective judgment, based on talking with kids, parents, and teachers. And, the Times notes, even that process is often skipped due to time constraints and parental pressure.

The above was going to be the start of a sneering blog post. However . . .

It is indeed easy to sneer at all the medicated people in America – as though it’s not living authentically, like zombies, or something. Or to cynically cast the pharmaceutical industry as drug pushers trying to hook us on their products, for profits’ sake, contributing to ever-rising health costs.

Yet, the fact is, we get a lot of value for that spending. If living authentically and unmedicated means pain and suffering, and early death, you can keep it, thank you very much. Modern medicine gives us lives not only longer but of better quality. That’s worth paying plenty for. I’ve mentioned that someone close to me takes a medication that literally changed a crappy life to a happy life.

This is why Ritalin too is so popular. It improves self-control and focus, and school performance; it’s been called the “good grade” pill, the academic analog of steroids in sports. And as I’ve emphasized, America has a real problem with under-education. If Ritalin helps with that, good.

I’m reminded of Lincoln being warned of General Grant’s drinking. “Whatever he’s drinking,” Lincoln replied, “give it to my other generals.”

But what does bother me are the D’s in ADHD – “deficit” and “disorder.” It’s part of what I call the medicalization of normality. There isn’t one rigid behavior pattern that should be expected for everybody. Humans are complex and diverse and traits range along a spectrum, the classical bell-shaped curve. Some, for example are highly sexed (JFK, Clinton); others are the opposite (Nixon); most fall in between; but only at the extremes might it make sense to talk of “disorder” rather than merely normal variation.

The same applies to ADHD. This “disorder” should, in most cases, be more simply diagnosed as being a kid.

Now, as in everything, drugs like Ritalin have their trade-offs, with potentially undesirable side-effects. I generally believe people should be free to choose for themselves, but kids of course may be unable to. So caution is in order. But if families, weighing the risks, decide that such chemicals will improve the quality of a child’s life, I say go for it – with no need to stigmatize him as having a “disorder.”

Meantime pharmacology is advancing, and “better living through chemistry” will become increasingly available. Ritalin is just a foretaste; we can expect a more general “happy pill.”

This seemingly evokes Brave New World’s “soma” pill making everyone serene zombies. But this dystopian notion reflects what is again an irrational prejudice. There is no qualitative distinction between feelings induced chemically versus “naturally.” The neurons’ activity is the same, and any idea that one “should” feel different than one actually feels is incoherent. Anyhow, there is no virtue in authenticity to the extent it entails suffering that can be ameliorated. As I’ve argued, the only source of meaning, whatsoever, in the Universe, is the feelings of beings capable of feeling. How such feelings are affected is ultimately the only ethical touchstone.

Ethics does also encompass justice. And if you feel bad because you’ve done wrong, you should. But that’s a special case; more generally happiness is not deserved or undeserved. While some scolds do view it as something to be striven for, through a life well-lived, etc., the reality is that genetic make-up plays a big role. This makes happiness or unhappiness something befalling people, a matter of luck more than personal responsibility.

We actually already have widespread use of mood altering drugs: alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, sugar; and, for Depression sufferers, SSRIs like Prozac and Zoloft. But why shouldn’t everyone be free to utilize such a medication intended simply to make one feel better? Especially if it can be engineered to avoid the nasty side effects of drugs like alcohol or tobacco. (Even if addictive, that by itself would not be a problem absent other ill-effects, if the pill is widely affordable.)

I recently came across a 2009 Free Inquiry article, The Case for Happy-People Pills, by Mark Alan Walker. He argues that such a pill would be profoundly egalitarian. Differences in the genetic propensity for a happy disposition constitute an inequality more salient than wealth differences. After all, wealth is only an instrumentality toward happiness, and one can be happy without it. A happy pill would enable us to distribute more fairly the bottom line desideratum of well-being, by giving it to those not lucky enough to win the genetic lottery for a happiness predisposition. And this, unlike with wealth redistribution, could be achieved without taking anything away from anybody.

America on Disability

NPR’s “This American Life” broadcast a report by Chana Joffe-Walt about the Disability system. It’s a real eye-opener. (click here; or, for a text version, here.)

The ranks of non-working people collecting government disability benefits have nearly doubled in 15 years, to 14 million. Yet they are ignored in employment/unemployment numbers. Every month we’re told how many jobs the economy added – but not how many people went on disability – usually more. (Thus while the “unemployment rate” (currently 7.6%) keeps going down, the percentage of people actually employed also declines.)

Three big factors ought to be reducing disability rolls. The 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act aimed to remove barriers to their employment. Medical advances make more health conditions fixable or manageable. And thirdly, automation and a decline in physically demanding jobs, in favor of the service sector and desk jobs, should enable more people with health issues to work.

Yet despite all this the disability system is ballooning. Why? What NPR’s report makes clear is that it has, de facto, become a hidden welfare program. Disability benefits go to many people not because they physically can’t work but because they’re not employable. They lack the education and/or skills to participate in today’s economy. That’s their “disability.”

This outcome is promoted by what Joffe-Walt calls the “Disability-Industrial complex.” But who, you might ask, could profit from this? Well – lawyers, for one. There’s a whole genre of firms that heavily advertise their specialty of winning disability benefits for clients. The system’s rules give such lawyers a direct cut of the government’s pay-outs.

NPR noted that in normal adversarial hearings (where I spent my career), a lawyer for one side is opposed by one representing the other. But in disability hearings, there is no one speaking up for the other side – for the government and its taxpayers who’ll have to pay if the claimant lawyer wins. No wonder those lawyers usually do win, making this practice so lucrative.

Another part of the Disability-Industrial complex is state governments. If someone’s on welfare, the state pays; on disability, the federal government pays. States have figured this out, and have mounted big efforts to move people from welfare to disability. One large private company makes its money helping states do this.

Disability recipient (colored finger disorder)

Now, you may also be surprised that a major part of the disability population is: kids.

It’s called “Supplemental Security Income,” and has grown sevenfold in three decades, to 1.3 million child recipients. They’re supposed to be disabled in getting through school. But they become cash cows for their parents. NPR profiled one kid who actually seemed to be thriving in school; and of course his mother wants him to; but not so much that the disability bureaucrats will notice and stop the payments.

I don’t want to imply people live high on the hog on disability benefits. The payments are small, they can’t earn any extra, so are really stuck in poverty. But meantime disability payments now consume a quarter of a trillion dollars annually, more than food stamps and conventional welfare combined. It’s a rotten picture all around.

In a democracy, government is supposed to do voters’ bidding, and they pay for it through taxes. But I don’t think voters and taxpayers were ever asked about this disability monster. It’s a key problem of modern government: programs mutating far beyond anything contemplated at their start, with no brake, no accountability. It just happens. (Well, in fact it doesn’t just happen – self-interested people like lawyers – and of course we’re all self-interested – make it happen for their own benefit.) And notice that in the recent “sequester,” things like air traffic controllers are being cut, but not programs like disability.

Paying for disability ultimately has to come from what actual working people earn and produce. And disability is just part of our larger economic challenge: an ever smaller population percentage actually working and producing, to pay for all those not doing so: the “disabled,” the welfare recipients, the unemployed, the kids in school till ever later ages, and of course the vast numbers living ever longer in retirement drawing pensions and racking up ever larger health care bills. All this on the backs of the shrinking core of people who produce.

As I’ve stressed till blue in the face, we can no longer tolerate an education system so crappy that millions don’t even finish high school and millions are relegated to lifetime “disability” benefits because they’re not employable. And how bizarre that with so many citizens not working, we’re so hostile to foreigners who want to come here to work. Without getting more people in productive employment, America will go bust.

This is Who I Want Here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Immaculee Ilibagiza, survivor of the 1994 Rwanda genocide and author of a best-selling book about it, pledging allegiance at her U.S. citizenship ceremony Wednesday in New York. (Photos by Bebeto Matthews, Associated Press)

Welcome to America, Immaculee.

Boston

When President Obama said Americans are standing with Boston, I was reminded that we stood in solidarity with Boston before – before, indeed, there actually was a United States of America, in 1774 – also confronting a common enemy.

I’ve also heard much commentary that we’ll never feel safe again. That implies we did feel safe, before Monday. Well, if the 3000 dead on 9/11 had already slipped from our consciousness, surely even sooner will the three Boston dead. That bespeaks not callousness but resilience.

But what does feeling safe mean? Who on this planet has ever been “safe”? One woman on the radio said she now worried about her husband, walking to work, being victim of a bomb. Had she never feared his being hit by a car (vastly more likely)? And, no matter what precautions we take, death is not just a danger, it’s a certainty.

That’s the human condition, but we do carry on, we go about our business, live our lives, in spite of it. Fear of car crashes doesn’t paralyze us, nor do all the other myriad threats – including bombs. Bombs fell nightly on London during the blitz, but even then its citizens got out of bed each morning. That is the nobility of human life.

It also makes such terrorist acts so maddeningly pointless. Yes, these atrocities do terrify us, yet they cannot alter our human nature. If we got over 9/11*, what makes the Boston villains envision some different result? What could they hope to accomplish?

The will to harm fellow creatures is baffling. We are all in the same sinking boat (life), nothing we do can change that, but shouldn’t our joint fate engender compassion?

Well, it does, of course; and the acts of compassion in Boston dwarfed the bombers’ acts of malice. I go back to Steven Pinker’s book about the decline of violence (reviewed by me here). Violence has indeed been playing a diminishing role in human affairs, and a basic reason is that people have simply learned better ways to gain their ends. How tragic, though, that there are still some who didn’t get the memo.

* Well, admittedly, while we the people did get over 9/11, that being our nature, unfortunately the government did not; and that’s its nature; with thousands of people whose job it becomes to not get over it. America was harmed more after 9/11 by what government did than by what the terrorists did.

My New Book – Angels and Pinheads

My new book is Angels and Pinheads: A Guide to Which is Which and What’s What. In 226 pages it packs 146 entertaining and provocative essays, commentaries, book reviews, etc., on a wide range of topics, skewering numerous sacred cows; the kinds of things you shouldn’t discuss at Thanksgiving dinner lest you wind up with gravy and mashed potatoes in your face.

The entries are selected as the best from this blog. Of course you can read them here, but the book provides a handy little package that you can enjoy at the beach or in the john.

It’s published by Verity Press International at just $9.95. For more information and ordering details, click here.

Why I am an Optimist

You know the indictment of humanity: killing and raping each other and the planet. We’re not angels. Indeed, we are animals, and some pessimists actually compare us unfavorably against other, “innocent” creatures. But in the natural realm, from which we arose, morality does not even figure. That considered, we have not in fact done badly, building a world with some justice, kindness, and virtue.

Great Britain was once the world’s top slave trading nation. This was extremely profitable, but Britons came to realize it was morally vile. John Newton, a slave ship captain who repented, wrote Amazing Grace: “I was blind but now I see.” And, seeing, the nation outlawed slavery.

Such moral feeling is not just some superficial veneer painted over our animal nature. While evolution did give us all the nasty traits pessimists harp on, it also instilled social cooperation and even altruism, because that too was needed for our ancestors to survive. That was the foundation of civilization. And while we’re certainly capable of evil, that’s not what really matters. What counts most is what we actually do, in ordinary everyday life, and most of us behave, most of the time, with decency, honesty, and compassion.

sodahead.com

Some religions tell us we’re sinners, promoting shame and guilt about natural human feelings; but we are growing beyond this, to arrive at a healthier, more rational, more life-affirming view of ourselves. We are entitled to happiness without a burden of unearned guilt. We do good deeds not from grim duty but from generous free choice. We find meaning through positive efforts, through love, and by using our creative gifts. We take responsibility for ourselves and our actions, making judgments and choices, between truth and falsity, good and bad. This is freedom: we are moral beings with the power to choose.

We’re perennially plagued by utopian idealism, dissatisfied with Man and his world, intent on remaking them. Always after much pain and blood this fails. Yet all the while, we individual human beings, from our own personal strivings, are continuously remaking ourselves. And thusly is the world too remade, in ways the utopian battalions never can imagine. No vast bludgeonings are required. Just let people be, and a new day comes.

Thus, while the past century was full of horrors, its far bigger story was of astonishing human gains. Worldwide average life spans more than doubled and incomes grew fivefold. People are living longer, healthier, and better. There is less poverty and hunger, more sanitation, less pain and disease, more education and literacy. Now, at long last, ordinary people in their billions are able to not merely survive but actually enjoy life. And this all occurred while population rose at unprecedented rates. The explanation is that adding people doesn’t add just mouths to feed, but also hands to work and minds to create, and most people produce more than they consume.

Knowledge, science, and technology are crucial. Population has not outrun the food supply because farming advances made the opposite occur. Our working hands and minds become ever more productive. That spreads wealth and raises living standards, widening our choices and ability to control our lives. It’s a virtuous circle. More prosperity impels people to insist on more democracy. More democracy means less war. As Francis Fukuyama wrote, democratic life and free markets allow people to finally satisfy the age-old human hunger for recognition and self-worth, reducing conflict. Less war means yet more affluence, which in turn slows population growth and enables more education. More education and knowledge means yet more technological advancement and spreading prosperity. Society grows not only richer, but more open, tolerant, humane, and fair.

The German philosopher Hegel said that history shows rationality and freedom on the ascent. It’s remarkable he could see this two centuries ago; even more remarkable that some deny it today, when it’s so much more evident. Progress is not some mystical force pushing us forward, it’s driven by our own efforts. It’s no coincidence that modernity has seen explosive growth in human understanding, and at the same time huge improvements in the human condition.

It is true that all our gains have a cost; there’s no free lunch, hence our environmental challenges. But increasing knowledge equips us to cope with them too. And never forget that this is the unavoidable price for the lives we enjoy. We could never have risen from the caves while leaving the planet unspoiled. Humanity’s central story is our battle with that environment, to overcome its limitations. Our achievement has been stupendous. Be proud of it.

We arrived here as naked animals, starting with nothing, daring to quest for the great prize of knowledge. By toil and tears, we are getting it. And we are using it to improve the world. Today’s is the best ever; tomorrow’s will be better still.

No Fan of “A Fan’s Notes”

A Fan’s Notes is Frederick Exley’s famous 1968 “novel.” I finally read it because it keeps appearing atop all those “best books” lists. I don’t see why.

It’s a memoir cloaked as fiction. Partly it concerns Exley’s football fandom, particularly an obsession with his ex-classmate Frank Gifford.

But mainly it’s a drunk memoir. Yes, yet another drunk memoir. Reading the Times Sunday Book Review, I keep asking myself, how many substance abuse memoirs must we endure? Didn’t Malcolm Lowry and William Burroughs, among others, cover that territory quite adequately? Yet it seems there’s a new one every darn week, which the Times remorselessly deems worthy of sober attention. Similarly prolific are the bad parent memoirs. Some even combine the two genres (vide Domenica Ruta’s new book, With or Without You). Do we never tire of reading about drunks, addicts, and lousy childhoods? Is it schadenfreude?

While Exley offers his book as fiction, it actually follows his own life pretty closely, in all its yucky glory. Yes, the writing is quite droll, occasionally piquant and amusing, sometimes “searing” or “gut-wrenching,” the usual type of adjectives applied to such books, but in the end it’s just another drunk memoir. And given what a thorough and thoroughly useless drunk Exley actually was, the only edifying thing about the book is the bare fact that someone leading so disorderly a life was able to get it written, and published.

The later Exley

One could possibly read it as a morality tale – this is how not to live. The downside is certainly vivid here. And yet the narrator seems to be having more fun than suffering. Even thrown in the insane asylum, even while undergoing insulin shock and electroshock treatments – sometimes simultaneously – he still basically seems to be enjoying himself.

Also, considering what a full-time drunk Exley was, his life was quite successful, in its way. It’s amazing how many jobs he was actually able to land, and how many people willingly catered to his fecklessness, how many folks’ couches he was able to literally domicile on.

And then there’s the sex. Even when Exley is drowning in drink, living on someone else’s sofa, unshaven and unbathed, he’s still getting chicks galore. And not ones the cat dragged in, mind you. One time, he has awesome sex with an awesome beauty, who insists he write down her address and phone number. What was his appeal? I guess you had to be there. But afterwards, so cocksure is he about his ability to repeat such conquests at will that he ostentatiously crumples and throws away the paper. This he later regrets, horribly; but of course horrible regret does go with the territory.

To be sure, the book is not given under oath, and presumably the sex escapades are somewhat fantasized. Still, these aspects of the novel, and others too, serve to glamorize the life. For all the offsetting awfulness, Exley seems to be saying he was really living – in contrast to the drab semi-existence all us normal dopes experience (derisively portrayed by the author). Thus it’s a subversive book (not in a good way).

One might imagine that achieving, in spite of everything, serious literary acclaim, would have made some difference in Fred Exley’s life. It did not. He was not detoured from his true vocation: booze. He continued exactly as before. Exley managed to survive another quarter century of this, dying at 63 after congestive heart failure and a couple of strokes. His further literary efforts were feeble failures (probably because they were, typically, not efforts at all).

My main reaction to this book was: what a waste. Because, as my previous comments indicate, to have negotiated through life, and loves, not to mention publishing’s shark pool, as Exley managed to do, all the while saturated in alcohol, must have taken some prodigious talents and resourcefulness. Just imagine if such talents had been put to better use.

Imagine

I propose that the United States Constitution be amended to add the following provision:

“It shall be the duty of every citizen to develop the scientific temper, humanism, and the spirit of inquiry and reform.”

 

Now, you may say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one.

In fact, these exact words are already included in the Constitution – of INDIA! (Section 51A(h))

An Ideology of Reality

I’ve done many blog posts, books and articles, and otherwise engaged in public discourse, upon a wide range of topics. So I ask myself if there’s a unifying idea, a thread connecting it all.

I’ve previously discussed what really matters: and the only possible answer is the feelings of beings capable of feeling. Hence the over-arching goal to advance human flourishing.

But this verges on banality; most people would embrace some variant of it, and likewise profess to aim at human betterment. Even some of history’s worst villains would have. Where did they go wrong? Fundamental mistakes about reality (including realities of human nature).

It’s not enough just to want good. The road to it runs through truth and reality. Other roads lead to Hell.

And so, there’s the real essence of my ideology: truth and reality.

Of course, we all think we see truth. But it’s not so easy. Too often, people believe things because they want to, because it’s comfortable believing them. Ideology or faith drives perception, to see the world in ways that comport with the belief system. Cynics in particular flatter themselves that they’re seeing through to real reality; but very often this too is just what makes them feel good and isn’t reality at all.

So, mindful of all this, I turn things around. I try to make perception drive ideology. I strive to base my beliefs on what I see, not the reverse. That IS my ideology. (Or do I too flatter myself? At least I’m cognizant of the pitfall.)

My core belief system is to respect and accept truth rather than trying to wish it away. Only by understanding the world’s realities can we ever hope to overcome the constraints they impose on us, and make life truly better. The quest for the good cannot be divorced from the quest for the truth.

Consider the example of our current gun debate. Gun control opponents believe a gun in the home protects you. Reality check: statistics indisputably show it’s many times more likely to hurt or kill you than protect you. Gun fanciers believe differently because, well, they just prefer to. (Or they don’t think the statistics apply to them.) They also believe guns can fend off potential government “tyranny.” And pigs can fly.

I’ve written before how some Lefties idealize the likes of Hugo Chavez. I look at the reality. Some people see vaccination as causing autism, and dangers in GM foods. I look at the reality. Some reject evolution. I see the evidence. Ideology leads some to deny the reality of climate change; others, to cling to a solution that denies reality.

The problem is especially prevalent in economic matters. The whole antipathy toward market economics is grounded in caricatures rather than the reality of how it works, what it actually does, and its results. Not to speak of alternatives. While some advocates of protectionism do act with clear-eyed self-interest, most who go along are blind to the broader harm, indeed the harm to their actual self-interest. Opposition to outsourcing reflects a simplistic zero-sum economic picture totally at odds with the reality. And the French, many Democrats, and even Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman seem to think there’s no limit to how much can be borrowed to pay out ever spiraling “benefits” (the Greeks learned differently). And so forth.

Of course the biggest whoppers people tell themselves are religious. Now, there isn’t great harm in believing inconsequential nonsense like astrology. But when you believe some divine being is running the world and your life, that’s consequential in the highest degree. Likewise belief in Heaven. How can one make proper sense of life, and operate rationally in the world, laboring under such profound reality mistakes? You can’t even get right the basic “mattering” question if you think God is in the answer.

I’ve written about Muslim societies and violence. I did say there’s something besides just religious belief in play. Nevertheless, imagine how Muslims might settle down and behave if all that religious insanity went away. And please don’t tell me religion is the only check on their baser impulses. I know lots of atheists, and nearly all behave quite nicely. As for Muslims, the reality is that conflict and violence aren’t doing them any good; and if they got a better grip on the reality of the world they live in, they would realize this, and act differently.

Gimme that old time reality – it’s good enough for me.