Here is a sample sentence taken more or less at random (pp. 63-64):

“His strategic value, during the Federal Interval G. Ford – early G. Bush, as more or less the top applied-geometrical-optics man in the O.N.R. and S.A.C., designing neutron-scattering reflectors for thermo-strategic weapons systems, then in the Atomic Energy Commission – where his development of gamma-refractive indices for lithium-anodized lenses and panels is commonly regarded as one of the big half-dozen discoveries that made possible cold annular fusion and approximate energy-independence for the U.S., and its various allies and protectorates – his optical acumen translated, after an early retirement from the public sector, into a patented fortune in rearview mirrors, light-sensitive eyewear, holographic birthday and Xmas greeting cartridges, videophonic Tableaux, homolosine-cartography software, nonfluorescent public-lighting systems and film-equipment; then, in the optative retirement from hard science that building and opening a U.S.T.A.-accredited and pedagogically experimental tennis academy apparently represented for him, into ‘apres-garde’ experimental- and conceptual-film work too far either ahead of or behind its time, possibly, to be much appreciated at the time of his death in the Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar – although a lot of it (the experimental- and conceptual-film work) was admittedly just plain pretentious and unengaging and bad . . . “

Those last words can serve as my review of the book: just plain pretentious and unengaging and bad.

David Foster Wallace

Actually, I didn’t even quote the full sentence, it went on a bit further. Now, Wallace has been compared to Proust, who also wrote some very long sentences. But (apologies to Lloyd Bentsen), I’ve read Marcel Proust. I’ve studied Marcel Proust. Marcel Proust was a friend of mine. Wallace, you’re no Marcel Proust.

Marcel Proust

The book has been called clever. And there are indeed some droll linguistic and imaginative touches. But the kind of stuff quoted above I don’t find clever. It’s just sophomoric logorrhea. A little like this might be mildly amusing, but 100 pages of it became insufferable.

What is the book actually about? It’s set in a near-term future wherein America has been subsumed into some larger geopolitical union, and corporate sponsors now buy naming rights to calendar years. (That sort of satire on “corporate culture” I find tendentious and lame.) Infinite Jest is the title of a film created by a character, the late James Incandenza, that’s so infinitely entertaining that viewers are literally entertained to death. Again, a passingly clever conceit, though perhaps derivative of the classic Monte Python bit about WWII’s joke warfare (which itself had antecedents), and in any case a thin pillar to support a 1000+ page novel. There are efforts by some Quebec separatist quasi-terrorists and others to get hold of the original film. Also, a private tennis high school run by the Incandenza family, with their teenaged Hal a disturbed genius. (Some of this I frankly cribbed from Wikipedia, as the book itself is somewhat opaque about these matters, at least in the 100 pages I read.)

A big book should have a big theme. “A profound study of the postmodern condition,” said Steven Moore in Review of Contemporary Fiction. “Postmodern” evokes a mindset of effete cynical detachment, and frankly I consider anyone who uses the word seriously to be an intellectually unserious poseur. I might be interested in the modern condition, but what the “postmodern condition” actually might refer to, I haven’t a clue. This book certainly didn’t provide one. Meantime, the back of my copy says it’s “about the pursuit of happiness in America.” I didn’t see that either. Maybe my reading comprehension isn’t up to snuff.

One theme, at least, was pretty evident: substance abuse. Perhaps that’s the “pursuit of happiness” in question. And Wallace seems to speak from intimate knowledge of this subject, I’ll give him that. However, as I’ve said before, I’ve pretty much had it with the bottomless pit of substance abuse literature. And, speaking of substance abuse – regarding all those critics who label this book a great landmark of American fiction: what are they smoking? If they’re right, it’s a sad commentary on the state of said fiction. But I don’t think they’re right; rather, a bunch of postmodern poseurs whose ululations Wallace himself must have laughed at.

In sum, the book doesn’t seem to have much in the way of a plot, let alone dramatic tension, nor any characters that remotely resemble human beings, or possess any other aspects that engage the reader’s concern (mine anyway). But it is certainly a masterpiece of verbiage of the kind I’ve quoted above, and if you have an inexhaustible appetite for such, then Infinite Jest is definitely the book for you.

This is important to economic policy debates. We’ve been hearing much about inequality. Now, if you believe prosperity and hard work are correlated, you’re apt to think the best answer for inequality lies in broadening opportunities for people to be productive. But if you’re in the other camp, believing success and wealth are matters of mere luck and not merit or effort, then you may favor just taking from those with more to give to those with less. (Especially if you yourself have less.)

This is indeed the mindset in countries like France, Greece, and Italy. They have simply lost sight of the connection between what’s in their wallets and someone, somewhere, somehow producing something. They march in the streets demanding to be maintained in their lifestyles, regardless.

What about the U.S.? Now here’s real American exceptionalism. Whereas Brits, at 57%, topped Europeans in linking work with success, in America it’s a whopping 77%. This strong consensus cuts across wealth classes and both political parties.

This doesn’t mean Americans are social Darwinists who believe the poor should be left to their fate. Nor even, for that matter, do Republicans, despite insistence to the contrary by President Obama and his party. No; Americans of all stripes strongly back the social solidarity of a safety net for those less fortunate (and do recognize that Dame Fortune plays some role). But what Americans mostly do not buy into is the left’s idea of social justice a la Robin Hood, plundering the rich to benefit the poor. Americans don’t think robbery serves justice.

The Pew poll was discussed recently by The Economist’s “Lexington” columnist (who covers America and its politics). Comparing against Europe, Lexington opined that the heart of the Euro problem, with all the bailouts of grasshoppers by ants, is that they don’t like each other enough to make their economic union work. And, Lexington says, “America should fear the spread of the crudest poison paralyzing Europe: mutual dislike between citizens.”

In Europe, it’s regional. The Germans don’t like the Greeks and resent having to bail them out, and the Greeks resent the Germans for bailing them out. In America, it’s ideological; hardened zealots demonizing opponents as motivated by evil, stymieing any compromises to address the nation’s problems.

Both parties are at fault. Republican sin is exemplified by Romney’s “47%” comment, branding almost half of Americans as unwilling to be responsible for themselves. (This in a nation where 77% believes success and hard work are linked!) But Lexington considers Obama and Democrats equally guilty, stirring up division and resentment against richer people cast as selfish hogs.

You don’t have to believe wealth is ill-gotten, and should be equalized, to justify taxing the rich more than the poor and helping the less fortunate. Nor must you deem them feckless and irresponsible, to justify believing that a society where the successful can enjoy wealth is a better society for everyone.

I won’t bore you with medical details, I’m fine now. But, in brief, I did go through the standard experience with the tunnel, bright light, and numinous beings beckoning. Next thing I know, there’s the guy with the big ledger book. Just like in all those New Yorker cartoons.

So I hand up my driver’s license, and he checks off my name. “Okay, Frank Steven Robinson,” he says, “Welcome to Heaven. Go right in.” No search, no full body scan, nothing; hadn’t these guys ever heard of, like, security?

But meantime I smelled a rat because my Christian friends had always assured me that, as a non-believer, I was bound for the other place. And Saint Pete must have noticed my skeptical look, because he added, with a wave of his hand, “Oh, you’re fine. The Lord is a forgiving God.”

(Guido Reni, Wikipaintings)

You wouldn’t know it from reading the Bible, I wanted to say; it still seemed fishy, but I shrugged and proceeded inside. And it was like that car ad guy says – huuuge. A zillion people, all in white robes with wings, all of whom I could see simultaneously in some trick of vision. Even weirder, despite the robes, most were somehow at the same time naked, and in the throes of all kinds of enthusiastic sex. A huuuge orgy in fact. I guess once you’re admitted to Heaven, “sin” ceases to be an issue. Now that’s what I call safe sex. With Heaven really being (as the expression goes) to die for.

Then I noticed one fellow I couldn’t fail to recognize, even without his customary uniform.

“Hitler?” I exclaimed. “Hitler is here?”

An angel nearby heard me and explained, “Son, the Lord is a forgiving God.”

It was beginning to sound like a campaign slogan. Was the Lord up for re-election?

Just then, a stooped, bearded old man with a hooked nose shambled by, obviously Jewish. Hitler kicked him, hard, in the nuts (he wore jackboots under his robe) and when the old guy folded in agony, Hitler went on to kick him senseless. Then he danced a little jig (just like at the French surrender).

The angel saw my consternation increasing. “In Heaven, of course, everybody gets their heart’s desire. Hitler loves kicking Jews.”

I had to ask: “Does the old man love getting kicked?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” my angel friend whispered, with a conspiratorial chuckle, “he’s just a hologram. But don’t tell Adolf, it would spoil his fun.”

“So,” I blurted, “Heaven is built on lies?”

“Well, duh,” the angel answered, grinning sardonically.

“One more question,” I ventured. “Does anybody go to Hell?”

“Actually yes,” the answer came, with a hearty chortle. “But it’s a very select group. God has a sense of humor, you know. Hell is reserved for people who write books claiming to have seen Heaven.”

I didn’t get a chance to ask whether that applies to blogs, because that’s when I suddenly woke up. But I am figuring that a blog post won’t count.

This might make more sense if that pied piper and his followers stopped using it. Stopped driving cars, riding buses or trains or planes; stopped heating or air-conditioning their homes; or using any electricity, which is mostly generated with fossil fuels like oil or coal (so even electric cars still actually use those fuels). McKibben talks as though oil drilling is solely for (horrors!) profit; as if our using oil were irrelevant; as if we’d quit if the evil oil companies just bowed in contrition and stopped foisting it on us.

If only we could wave a magic wand and convert to all-renewable fuel use, with economic efficiency. Of course that’s the rub. We could displace all fossil fuels tomorrow — but at horrendous cost.

Pish tosh, McKibbenites might say, planetary health trumps money concerns. However, money buys food and other conveniences of life, and in a world where too many people still endure poverty and hunger, they’re the ones who’d suffer the most. McKibben and friends may shed crocodile tears about the plight of the world’s poor (“victims of capitalism” they imagine), but when it comes to their climate obsession, the world’s poor are thrown under the bus.

In fact, McKibben has actually said economic growth is a bad thing; and even technological progress we’ve had enough of, it should all be stopped. A breathtaking idea when in the past few decades economic growth, accelerated by technological advancement (and our use of energy), has lifted billions from poverty.

Pish tosh comes the retort; the problem is too many rich. Just redistribute their wealth to the poor; problem solved. But we live in the real world, and if this “solution” were actually implemented (not bloody likely), then afterwards why bother making efforts and investments to produce wealth? We’d have equality all right – equal poverty. At least it would remove that splinter (rich people to envy) from the left eye.

But back to the original point of declaring war on oil companies. We have enough demonization of “enemies” in our political discourse. Should we make “enemies” of those who produce commodities we all use and need, in fact a vital underpinning for our whole living standard? As if we could or should give up modernity itself. Some like McKibben romanticize an agrarian past; but that pesky point of poverty again poops on their party. Before modernity, the vast majority lived in wretched squalor. We’re not going back there.

The  fixation on curbing atmospheric carbon to combat global warming goes hand in hand with the McKibbenites’ bizarre vendetta against, once more, economic growth and the whole industrial economy. Despairing of actually slaying that dragon, they hope at least to put it on a starvation diet (for some human beings, alas, that would be literal), by cutting its energy supply. This (a) won’t happen and (b) would be bad for human progress if it did, but also (c) won’t solve the climate problem. If tomorrow we slashed carbon emissions to zero, scientists’ climate models show temperatures still rising, and rising only slightly less than if we do nothing. Yes, we should nevertheless try to limit carbon as much as possible, but to combat climate change a more rational strategy would shift the focus to preparedness, mitigation and adaptation, and exploration of geo-engineering (like adding particulates to the upper atmosphere) to recool the planet. All this will cost money, so anything impeding economic growth (like capping emissions regardless of the economics) would be self-defeating.

These realities McKibbenites don’t want to hear, because they detract from their anti-industrial, anti-technology, anti-growth, anti-progress, and ultimately anti-human crusade.

Finally, climate change is not our biggest challenge. People’s future lives will be impacted far more by those age-old but prosaic nemeses of poverty, disease, and ignorance. Our chief weapons against them are economic and technological progress – fueled by energy use. This is humanity’s main battle. Which side is McKibben on?

POSTSCRIPT: Just after posting this I got the latest Economist, focusing on world poverty reduction. Great strides are chronicled. “Most of the credit,” The Economist says, “must go to capitalism and free trade, for they enable economies to grow – and it was growth, principally, that has eased destitution.”

Salvador Dali, “The Persistence of Memory”

This is a surrealist story, one might say an Eckhardt Tolle sort of story, because it unfolds in a perpetual now. Even though the characters age – the book follows their entire lives – indeed, we even meet the parents of one, before his birth – everything is set in an eternal 2011. That’s because Brooks is not seeking to discuss the past or the future, but to elucidate today’s life.

Well, for people like Harold and Erica. And they are not Everyman (and Everywoman). Oh no, this is a pair of overachievers of the chardonnay and brie set. Erica becomes a cabinet member, for Chrissake. Such people may not, technically speaking, be insufferable, but I do find it insufferable how they overpopulate literature. I guess it’s natural that writers like to write about people like themselves, and they tend to be more like Tom Wolfe than Stanley Kowalski.

OK, I admit to envy. It’s absurd and irrational (especially vis-à-vis fictional people); I have a great life, and if I lived Harold’s life I’d probably be wretched (as he is, for some of it). But still, he’s so successful, has so many interesting friends, and a social adeptness I never had. I’d really rather read about normal people.

At least Erica didn’t have the upscale life handed to her on a platter. She was born into challenging circumstances, overcoming which takes great force of character, which in the real world few can muster. But this, to his credit, is precisely Brooks’s point. Erica’s breakthrough was getting into a charter school at 13, via an extreme deployment of sheer will. The scene brought tears to my eyes – of exhilaration for Erica, and sorrow for all the poor schnooks left behind.

Brooks too thinks a lot about the latter, and uses Erica’s charter school to give us his prescription. Poverty doesn’t have a simple cause, it’s an emergent phenomenon rooted in a panoply of negative cultural factors; a quintessential vicious circle. Perceiving that, Erica’s school aims to give students not just classes, but an environment, a whole culture, to supplant all the negative elements of their outside culture.

This is no mere fantasy. There are such schools, enjoying great success. But alas they are rare, and our hidebound, union-bound, bureaucratized public schools are incapable of emulating them. Thus we throw a quarter of our population in a garbage dump.

There’s a section in the book headed “The Famous Marshmallow,” which I too have discussed. In brief, studies have shown that kids who, at age four, can restrain themselves for a bit from eating a marshmallow, in order to get the reward of a second treat, do very well in life; while those who can’t resist wolfing down the marshmallow right away are pretty much doomed. This personality/character factor turns out to be way more important than IQ scores. (Brooks notes one similar study using oreos; a kid surreptitiously opened the cookie, ate the cream center, and then carefully put the cookie back in place. That kid, Brooks remarks, is probably now a U.S. Senator.)

This is what fills the book: science-based information on what really makes people tick, often counter to conventional wisdom. Some is just plain fascinating. Like that women living together tend to synchronize menstrual cycles. And people named Lawrence disproportionately become lawyers. (I encountered a herd of Lawrences in my own legal career.)

Brooks doesn’t make this connection explicitly, but while Harold and Erica are at least not assholes, they do intersect with many in their careers, and this again shows the importance of qualities other than IQ. For someone who’s considered to be on the right of the political spectrum, Brooks (like Adam Smith before him) has a pretty dim opinion of many in the business world. Nobody ever claimed capitalism is a perfect halcyon world (though critics seem to think pointing out imperfections damns the whole).

I have addressed the role of reason in human life, and Brooks’s book is very much about this. Certainly he is a man of reason, yet his position is not exactly mine. He attacks “scientism,” the supposed view that rational formulas explain everything, and the “homo economicus” construct that people are self-interest calculating machines. But these are straw men caricatures utilized, often by cynics, to subvert the whole enterprise of bringing rational analysis to bear on human problems. Nobody actually believes the purist doctrines mocked; we recognize the caveats and limitations; yet still science does explain a lot, as does even the much-derided “homo economicus” model. In stressing the critiques but not the counter points, Brooks disserves the Enlightenment cause.

Actually, he makes a point of distinguishing between the French and British Enlightenments. He describes the former as seeing society and its institutions as machines to be dissected and re-engineered, while the latter sees them as infinitely complex organisms that dissection cannot fully understand. Brooks plants himself firmly in the Brit camp. But again I find his take too categorical. A fully rounded understanding requires not one perspective to the exclusion of the other, but integration of both.

Brooks  seems to be neither a Democrat nor Republican, but a Sociologist. He sees one party wedded to government, the other to the market, but with both dysfunctionally oblivious to how much people and their behavior are shaped neither by governmental approaches nor market forces but, rather, by social forces – which he worries are fraying. With people less anchored into a rich fabric of social bonds and norms, one’s political faction comes to loom larger in shaping personal identity. This has transformed both parties into cults*, with politics becoming a war pitting identity group against identity group, heightening for each group the sense of “otherness” about the other. These are no longer disagreements among friends but morality dramas.** Trust in each other, and in common institutions, has collapsed, and compromises become impossible.

Brooks says the true aim should not be to maximize freedom but to make a society in which people flourish best. To put a label on it, he laments that “socialist” is already taken — a mislabeling he thinks, because socialists really put the state before society. A true socialism would put social life first.

*The night before reading this chapter, I’d attended a concert by an assertively left-wing folk singer, so I knew exactly what Brooks meant in using the word “cult.”

** The other day I heard Alan Chartock, head of the local public radio station, on the air calling the Republican U.S. Senate leader “evil.” And in the next breath he decried excessive partisanship!

Then we had Gregory Hicks, our second ranking diplomat in Libya in September, testifying recently about his frantic phone calls trying to get armed help to Ambassador Stevens and colleagues besieged in Benghazi. Hicks got a run-around; the military, and State Department, were either unprepared, or uncaring, or just too timorous. Hicks also said he personally briefed Secretary of State Hillary “What Difference Does it Make” Clinton about what really happened, so he was “stunned” and “embarrassed” when UN Ambassador Susan Rice later went public with a different story. And after Hicks agreed to talk to congressional investigators, he was demoted.

Then there was the testimony of Hillary “What Difference Does it Make” Clinton herself. Her famous rhetorical question referred to the “spontaneous protest” narrative versus a calculated terrorist attack. But apparently the Administration itself thought it made a big difference, because it worked hard to massage that difference, with the “talking points” being revised repeatedly. That, we’re told, was just a bureaucratic tug-of-war between the State Department and CIA. In truth it reflected an effort in political spin. The Administration knew straightaway that this was a planned terrorist attack, with no evidence for the “spontaneous protest” fable. Yet, under the guise of being cautious about the facts, the CIA’s factually detailed information about its being a terrorist attack was completely removed from the talking points (it wasn’t merely editing a single word, as White House spokesman Jay Carney insisted). And so hapless Susan Rice was sent out to tell a story the Administration already knew was false.

And what, to the Administration, was the difference? President Obama, running for re-election, wanted us to imagine that killing bin Laden killed Al Qaeda and terrorism. But now here was Al Qaeda, alive and well, brazenly murdering a U.S. Ambassador. That didn’t fit the party line. So better just lie, and put out this hokey story about a spontaneous protest over some You-tube video, that never happened. (To be clear, I’m not saying the President himself lied. His minions did the dirty work. But it is egregious for him to dismiss the whole thing as a “political sideshow.”)

So: what difference does it really make? It’s to understand what happened, to learn from it, and prevent recurrence. And it also makes a difference whether the Administration is honest with us, or deliberately lies for political advantage. Yes, I know, “politicians lie.” But it’s not politics as usual when it’s a matter of national security, and the murders of U.S. diplomats. In that context, mendacity is absolutely intolerable.

That’s what difference it makes, Mrs. Clinton.

I especially enjoy Fourth Century Roman, after Diocletian’s reform, which actually introduced a parade of routinized, repetitive, boring coin designs. But there are interesting variations, and also some completely oddball types. And, in the context of all the routine ones, those oddballs really have pizzazz.

My new acquisition falls into that category. It’s a half follis of Maxentius, who ruled from 306 to 312 (but only in parts of Italy and a few other bits; he ultimately fell to Constantine I). Typical for this period, most of Max’s coins conform to one basic type: a bronze follis (around 1-1/2 inches) with a temple on the back. A second type (Dioscuri and horses) is less common. Between them, that’s probably 98% of Maxentius coins. But then there are the oddballs: like the half follis. Indeed, while there were many quarter follis coins (tough to find in nice condition), the halfsie was pretty much unique to Maxentius. And it’s no mere smaller version of the follis; it’s a special type with the goddess Victory writing on a shield, “VOT X” (signifying an optimistic ruler’s vow to serve ten more years.) Thus an unusual and interesting coin.

Ancient coins in more typical condition

I’ve mentioned condition. This is extremely important in numismatics generally, but especially for ancient coins, most of which were found in the ground. Gold and silver can survive pretty well, but bronze is very susceptible to corrosion. Vast quantities have been recovered, but only a tiny percentage in top quality.

Which is what I go for. I never disparage anyone collecting run-of-the-mill coins, of course they’re still very historical and all. But for my collection, I am an insufferable condition snob. I’ve noticed even great collections, when auctioned, usually contain some blah specimens. Not mine.

Yet contradictorily for such a picky connoisseur, I’m also a bottom-feeder/bargain-hunter/cheapskate. I could actually afford to buy most any coin I’d like, but I see no challenge in that; anybody can throw money around. The sport of the thing is to find coins at what I consider favorable (well, cheap) prices. And that can be done because for ancient coins in particular, value isn’t cut-and-dried, with pricing highly variable. Also, collecting this way, effortfully, makes each acquisition, and the entire collection, more meaningful to me as an achievement

As noted, the great majority of Fourth Century Roman coins are routinized types, and while again the percentage in top quality is tiny, it’s a percentage of a very large population; so you can find them at surprisingly reasonable prices (like $20 to $50). However, for less usual types, the low survivability rate makes topnotch specimens truly elusive.

The tension between inclusivity and quality poses dilemmas. An example was a quite rare Constantine I “Adventus” follis. Normally I’d only collect such coins in “Extremely Fine” grade. This one was lovely, but only Very Fine, thus without the full detailing I look for. Yet such an important and cool type. After agonizing, I did keep it for my collection. (Similar dilemmas can afflict a choice between two coins. One might be better on one side but worse on the other; one with more detail, the other a more attractive patina; et cetera.)

The Maxentius half follis is also my kind of coin, long coveted to round out my Maxentius section, but I’d never found one at a good price. I finally got it at a monthly Albany show. I’d known the dealer for years, but was surprised to see him here. He’d taken a table the previous month, but not this time; we went to the bar, where I picked through his hefty boxful of ancient coins. Typically, nearly all were (to me) way overpriced; but I did find a few worth buying.

The Maxentius wasn’t the costliest. That was an Augustus denarius with bull reverse, and a great portrait, but the back messed up, at $685. It was quite a job bargaining him down from $800, especially that last $15. I was betting I could improve the look of the back, and it did turn out beautifully. Such cleaning and similar restorative work is another part of my fun with ancient coins; it’s a real art (and also a big aspect of acquiring good coins on the cheap). Indeed, truthfully, I enjoy coins’ “objectness,” the whole preservation thing, even totally divorced from their cultural/historical significance.

Maxentius was $115. I wouldn’t have paid much more. It too had a condition issue, some encrustation. Sometimes its removal can uncover corrosion beneath; but this coin proved to have just the kind of encrustation you want, basically just impacted dirt harmlessly removable. Now it’s perhaps a $250 coin. Still not really a lot of money considering its rarity and quality.

And, yes, it makes my cut. Honestly, I’d like a little more hair detail on the beard, but let’s not be ridiculous, it’s a great coin, and a wonderful addition to the Frank S. Robinson collection.

P.S.  Click here for my current unreserved auction of ancient coins, with photos.

First let’s be clear: death is death. There’s nothing afterward, desperately though we crave a different answer. Not even most religious believers quite succeed in deluding themselves; if they did, they’d welcome their deaths, as would their loved ones. Few do.

How to live in the face of death is the one great philosophical question each of us must confront, consciously or unconsciously. Happy endings are only temporary. Every life finally ends in tragedy, because you lose everything.

True; but you do get to enjoy it for a while, and that itself is something of a miracle, a fantastic gift vouchsafed by an uncaring cosmos. (Actually an accident, a fluke.) No law of nature says you had to exist at all. Let alone with a mind capable of appreciating it. That the atoms in a brain, each utterly lifeless, somehow come together to enable us to see, to think, to feel, to love, to be, and to know it, is another virtual miracle.

And you’re pissed you weren’t given immortality besides? Come on.

Yet nonexistence is terrifying; we can’t even wrap our minds around what it means. And it doesn’t assuage the loss to say I was also nonexistent for the eternity before my birth, or that being dead, I similarly won’t be aware of it. But sandwiched between those black abysses of nothingness is this brilliant little spark of light that I live. So I keep my focus on the light and not the dark.

You play the cards you’re dealt; no use wishing they were different; or for cards not even in the deck. But play them to the hilt, knowing you’ll get no others. And the game is not for points, or money, but feeling. As I’ve stressed, the only source of meaning in Creation is the feelings of beings who can feel. Maximizing positive feelings is everything. That’s not amoral; acting morally is part of feeling good.

Living thusly in the face of death has always been the human condition. But it won’t be forever.

Ultimately, death is a medical problem. A very tough problem, yes, but don’t forget our species’ motto: The difficult we do at once, the impossible takes a little longer. The fight against death is our greatest battle, and we shall prevail.

We’ve already made considerable headway. One thing we’ve learned, for example, is the role of little structures called telomeres at the ends of chromosomes. With every cell division and replacement, telomeres shrink. And when you’re out of telomeres – you’re out. Can this be cured? Well, why not?

I don’t expect it soon enough to save me, I’m 65. But my daughter is 20, and on present form she should reach 100, and if she does, then I’ll bet she’s home free.

This will change human existence in ways far beyond anyone’s ability to foresee. Some of course would see nothing but bad, and there would indeed be problems. Like overpopulation (but would we even continue having kids?); and if you worry about inequality now, just wait till immortality becomes available – probably with a pricetag many can’t afford.

But all this really just concerns a transitory stage of human evolution, with our existences still tied to corporeal bodies. Surely that won’t last.

Now how’s that for optimism?

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!)

But I will plug my new book, Angels and Pinheads: A Guide to Which is Which and What’s What. It’s a selection of 146 essays from this blog, on a wide range of topics, packed into 226 pages, guaranteed to include something to offend everyone, attractively priced at just $9.95. Click here for more info.