The BCD Numismatic Library Sale, and Human Endeavor

Coin collecting might seem a very solitary pastime; the coins themselves mere objects. Yet for me its rewards have been not just interior, intellectual (and financial), but also very human in its interactions and relationships.

Forty years ago, I started ancient coin sales. With a xeroxed listing, illustrated by just putting a few coins on the copier. The crappiest images imaginable.

A letter from someone in Greece requested the catalog, making it sound like those few pitiful pictures were somehow important. I thought he must be a weirdo.

But that was “BCD” — he likes to be kind of anonymous — who I eventually learned is in fact the greatest collector ever of ancient Greek coins. Not only collecting them, but building the world’s greatest library devoted to them. Open to other researchers, as a resource for study of every minute variation, thus seeking to include every publication that ever illustrated an ancient Greek coin. Hence his interest in my own humble productions. BCD’s quest left no stone unturned.

He became a regular correspondent, a sometime coin buyer, and I’d often ship him boxfuls of publications I’d acquired.* He even sent me a few coins to sell for him. (I remember a dual portrait bronze of Octavian and Zenodoros, a local potentate in Chalkis, rather uncommon, that fetched a strong price.) When in 1992 I mentioned a forthcoming tourist trip to Greece, he invited us to visit. I recall eagerly sharing this exciting news with my wife — just as she was sharing hers of a positive pregnancy test!

So we got to see the actual BCD library. Tucked away in a building in Athens, it was an impressive full-scale facility, employing a full-time librarian, Pat Felch. (My wife was a professional librarian too.) Then the four of us went out to dinner.

Over the decades, I’ve regularly encountered BCD at the annual New York international coin shows; unfailingly gracious, he’s bought some of my (non-numismatic) books and has even posted comments on my blog.

Now well past eighty, his coins were pretty much all sold over the years, with some major auctions (spread among many different firms) each devoted to just one Greek locale.

The collection was immense; when I visited Classical Numismatic Group in Pennsylvania, a top ancient coin company, I was shown a cabinet taller than me and told it contained all BCD coins. Recognizable by his meticulously hand-written identifying tags — so frequently found with coins of Larissa, in particular, that in my own auctions I’ll sometimes write up a Larissan piece saying “NOT ex-BCD and rare thus!”**

Still it was a shock to see announcement of the BCD Library Sale. By Kolbe & Fanning, the leading numismatic booksellers. I can’t begin to imagine what was involved in transporting this huge library from Athens to Ohio where K&F operates.

I’ve had a long relationship with them too. In their periodic online book sales, I make schnorrer offers for leftovers, and they’ll send me two or three big carefully packed boxes, replenishing my supply of plastic bags and bubble wrap. (So frugal I even salvage the tape.) Meantime, their catalogs are trips down memory lane for me, full of names with personal resonance; so many of them gone.

The BCD catalog duly arrived, explaining that efforts were made to find a permanent new home for the library, by donation, but there were no takers, no institution willing to deal with the logistics and expense of accommodating it. So it’s being sold piecemeal at auction. A sad commentary on our modern world, actually.

I myself have found that with so much numismatic information now available online, demand for physical reference material isn’t what it used to be. But, a saving grace, such items have become collectibles themselves, with antiquarian value.

The 600-lot sale is February 17, just the first of many. (Not yet including what I assume is BCD’s complete run of all 123 Frank S. Robinson ancient coin auctions; likely the only such in existence, as my own file somehow lacks one or two.) Here’s the link: https://bid.numislit.com/

Perusing auction catalogs can give me an odd unsettling feeling. Seeing what huge effort some passionate collector had devoted to assembling his holdings. Now they’re being dispersed, a testament to how ephemeral such human endeavor so often is.

Applicable in my own case; for instance I’ve carefully preserved the hardbound 2013 German auction catalog with my name on the cover, selling my collection of Chinese cast cash. I loved building that collection, was very proud of the achievement, and it would be extremely hard to replicate today. Yet it’s like dropping a cupful of water in the ocean. A decade later, who cares? Who will care in a century? A millennium?

And so the closing words in one of the BCD catalog’s prefaces, penned by Dr. Alan Walker (another inimitable numismatic personage I’ve long known):

“My name is BCD, Greatest of Collectors: look upon my works ye mighty and despair! The empty trays and bare shelves stretch far away.”

       *  *  *

* There was a cheap seamail rate. Today it’s prohibitively expensive.

** When I googled for a picture of a BCD tag for use here, I found several. And a tag from Nick Economopoulos, one of my favorite coin dealers, citing a BCD provenance — which also had my own handwriting on it!

Russia and Republicans: Allies in Evil

Russia is winning its vicious war upon Ukraine — with no little help from its Republican bedfellows.

Ukraine’s 2023 offensive fizzled for lack of firepower. While President Biden did great at rallying the Western alliance against Russia’s aggression, he was just too squeamish about providing the weaponry really needed. Now they’re running out of ammunition, and our aid pipeline is exhausted, unless Congress votes to renew it, as Biden seeks.

A bipartisan Congressional majority favors this, but can’t get it to a vote because of obstructionism by the House Republican creep squad led by Bible-thumping Speaker Mike Johnson. They said they wouldn’t support helping Ukraine unless Democrats agree to stringent border and immigration restrictions.

Linking those two issues never made sense, it was a scam to block Ukraine aid, given that immigration reform has defied resolution for three decades. But guess what, President Biden, still actually believing in bipartisan compromise, said okay, let’s make a deal including border security if that’s what it takes.

The Senate did come up with a deal giving Republicans much that they’d demanded. Our border regime was already not only a mess but a cruel travesty toward migrants, and this would have made it even harsher. Yet Biden and Democrats were prepared to accept this as the price for saving Ukraine.

But it turned out House Republicans were just screwing with us. Not even seeing the details of the Senate deal, Speaker Johnson declared it “dead on arrival” in the House.

Why?? There’s no actual rationale. Just like there’s none for Republicans blocking Ukraine aid to begin with. As to the border, the raw truth is that Republicans do not want the problem fixed, they just want to keep exploiting it to fire up their xenophobe voters.

Ridiculously accusing Democrats of seeking “open borders” — while here it’s actually Republicans torpedoing a measure to make our border much more closed! Egged on by Trump, whose rhetoric blatantly shows he just wants this phony issue as a stick to bash Biden and Democrats. Denouncing the Senate deal as one of “open borders” too — reality be damned. Standard Trump.

And he does not want to help Ukraine. Seeing Putin as a role model.

Now Republican officialdom is all falling into line endorsing Trump for president, in what look like hostage videos. Many of these contemptible cowards actually despise Trump, knowing how bad he is. But dare not cross Republican voters who refuse to know it.

The Republican party is a towering inferno of hypocrisy, dishonesty and wickedness. Its voters are ignorant fools. America, and the world, hang by a thread.

Inflation: The Big Misunderstanding

Inflation sours Americans about the economy — and President Biden. A January 14 Associated Press article by reporter Josh Boak examined this in depth. But failed to even mention a crucial point.

It does credit Biden with considerable success in curbing inflation — without sacrificing jobs — a neat trick, really, that many economists thought impossible. Boak notes that Covid-related supply chain gum-ups were a big cause of the inflation bout, and Biden tackled that forcefully, accounting for about 80% of the inflation abatement since 2022.

It has fallen nearly to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, while we’ve added about 5 million jobs under Biden, with a 3.7% unemployment rate, around historic lows. Gas prices have come down a lot. Eggs were a focus of inflation ire, and their average price has fallen from a peak of $4.82 per dozen to just $2.51.

But, as Boak notes, it was $1.47 before Biden took office. And average prices across the economy certainly remain higher. Which brings me to the key point Boak omitted. The persistence of those higher prices makes people feel the problem isn’t solved. They want prices back down to their old levels.

Reflecting a fundamental misconception, confusing inflation rates and price levels. Reducing the inflation rate does not mean lower prices. It just means they rise more slowly. Reducing prices themselves is an unrealistic expectation.

And would actually be catastrophic. That’s deflation, which is an economy killer. Because it inhibits consumer spending — expecting prices to fall further, people postpone purchases. And deflation is much harder for economic policy to cure. Japan was a poster boy for this, suffering a long chronic deflation and consequently low growth, that its central bank struggled to overcome.

This in fact is why our Federal Reserve targets 2% inflation. Just minimal inflation, to guard against slipping into the slough of deflation. A careful balancing act.

Typically, Trump — with abysmal understanding of economics — is promising to bring prices down. “Gasoline will be back to $2,” or even lower, he says. In other words, he’s promising deflation. Yikes! But fortunately, it’s just bullshit, like everything coming from his mouth.

Boak’s article notes that gas did fall below $2 during Trump’s presidency. Early in 2020, when the pandemic crushed our economy, throwing millions out of work, and reducing demand for gas. (Trump’s idiotic mismanagement of the pandemic was responsible for its severity here compared to other countries.) Is that the halcyon time he’s promising to bring back — to make America great again??

Couples

Couples was a 1968 John Updike novel. I loved his writing, but it took me ages to finish Couples. It was about sex, and I was in my early twenties, sexually clueless. But rather than being titillating, the narrative was repellent, so I kept putting it aside. It involved a bunch of “swinging” couples. Didn’t seem like they were actually having fun. A real icky downer in fact.

I read the advice columns in my local paper, part of my lifelong effort to understand people. “Dear Abby” often responds inanely — “Tell your husband just what you wrote in your letter.” Thanks a lot. Carolyn Hax is far better, with really meaty replies. Both columns, naturally, often feature marital problems. Of course people who write in are not a representative sample of the population; but still, it seems such situations are pretty common.

A recent “Dear Abby” correspondent related being thrown for a loop when her husband of 30 years suddenly asked for a divorce, moved out, and then in with another woman. She said she still loved him. Abby advised her to recognize he “isn’t the person you thought he was.”

After three decades? You’d imagine they’d know each other fairly well. And indeed, many of these letters involve long-standing dysfunctionality the writers do know all too well. Reading these accounts, I’m often asking myself — why is she still staying with this guy?

As if I’m one to talk. I stayed in a troubled relationship for ten years. Believing I could fix it (being the great optimist). Then came failed efforts to extricate myself. It wasn’t so simple. Finally she extricated herself.

Afterwards I did luck into a great marriage, about which I recently wrote. I commented about how much that enhances happiness, and how short-sighted it is to indulge in stuff that undermines a marriage. These advice columns offer a window into all such human imperfections.

A big, endemic one involves alcoholism and drug abuse, which wreak havoc on one’s functionality, behavior, and consequently one’s relationships. Another is the controlling personality type, the “my way or the highway” syndrome. That’s an aspect of just plain self-centeredness — people feeling entitled to gratify their own wishes even at the other’s expense. Reducing the other person to a tool rather than a partner. Fine, maybe, if the other person is happy to be used, but that rarely works out.

My own rule is to always say yes to my wife unless there’s a big reason not to.

My humanism, and experience of humankind, tells me most people are good at heart. But unfortunately some are not, and they do boundless harm. And unfortunately they seem to exert a bizarre sexual attraction — the “bad boy” syndrome. Another thing I keep asking myself, reading those advice columns, is why did you hook up with that person in the first place?

Adultery is the most blatant sure-fire marriage killer. Obviously sexual desire drives much human behavior, and an illicit affair can impart excitement into an otherwise dreary existence. Yet still, it seems the price one pays is so disproportionate to the rewards. And here again, so often the paramour is not exactly a paragon of virtue. Why fall for such a person?

Maybe I’m too rational. I’ve never been tempted because women have never come on to me.

But then, why is sexual infidelity such a marriage breaker? Sure, betraying one’s loyalty to a partner is a big deal. But does adultery necessarily constitute that kind of betrayal? Recognizing, again, the libido factor, and the excitement factor, being ubiquitous aspects of the human make-up, failing to resist them is so normal a weakness that perhaps a partner should be forgiving, seeing such behavior as not truly inconsistent with a loving bond? If the spouse comes back after their fling? Why does sticking a penis into someone else’s orifice have to mean so very much? Marriage, after all, is about so much more than sex!

But another aspect is that much adultery also involves an emotional entanglement, which can seem antithetical to one’s spousal bond. However, we form all sorts of bonds with other people that don’t necessarily entail any sort of marriage betrayal. Must it be a given that engendering an emotive relationship with another person comes at the expense of one’s primary partner? Are we really that limited in our repertoire of human relations?

Still and all, infidelity is playing with fire, and not a good idea if you value your marriage.

I find it hard to gauge how common it really is. Commensurate with how large it looms in the cultural consciousness? My wife and I socialize with a bunch of couples, all of whom seem to have great relationships (some, like me, after prior unsuccessful ones). Providing a strong counterpoint to all the marital dysfunction appearing in those advice columns, and in popular culture. Significantly, none of us are drinkers. And we’re all around seventy or older.

Scant fodder there for an Updike.

My Book Review of “The Democrat Party Hates America”

Here (slightly edited) is the text of my January 2 Albany Library talk, reviewing Mark Levin’s book, The Democrat Party Hates America.

Back in September, I wrote a blog post titled “Democrats Will Destroy America.” In quotes, because I was discussing something that had become a staple of Republican rhetoric. Not merely saying Democrats’ policies are bad, but that they hate America and want to destroy it.

Then I saw on the Times‘ bestseller list this book by Mark Levin, a prominent right-wing polemicist. With, according to Politico, “a penchant for hysteria.”

I confess to being a Democrat. However, for 53 years I was an active Republican. I left the party in 2017 when it became clear that it had lost its mind, its morality, and every principle I thought it stood for.

During all my Republican decades, I certainly found much to criticize in Democrats. And still do. But here’s the thing. I always regarded those as just sincere, honest disagreements, about what’s best for the country. Never did I hate Democrats or think them bad people. And that was not unusual, such an attitude was the bipartisan norm. Together with a general civic understanding that a diverse society requires respecting the right of other people to disagree, to participate legitimately in politics, and to share in governance.

Now the word is polarization, with the two parties hating and fearing each other. However, it is not symmetrical. Republicans hate Democrats based on lies. Democrats hate Republicans based on reality. Emblematic of it is January 6, a violent attempt to overturn a legitimate election. About which Republicans try to gaslight us. They believe the election was stolen. It was not. And now this crazy rhetoric about Democrats wanting to destroy America. All this justifiably scares the pants off Democrats like me.

And Republicans are hell-bent on nominating for president the criminal culpable for January 6. At one of their debates, when asked if they’d support the party’s nominee even if he’s convicted of a felony, six of the eight candidates raised their hands. What the hell has happened to these people? And they think it’s Democrats who are a threat to America?

Turning to Mark Levin’s book, I’ll start by quoting his actual words, recapping his indictment: “America is unraveling. Our founding and history are being degraded. Individualism has been substituted for groupism. [I think he meant that the other way round] Color blindness is now racist. Capitalism and prosperity are being devoured by economic socialism and climate-change fanaticism. Classrooms have become indoctrination mills for racism, segregation. bigotry, and sexual perversion. Free speech and academic freedom are shrinking, and the police state is growing. Crime is out of control. Our borders are wide open, as drug and criminal cartels ship killer drugs into our country. The Democrat party is responsible. It seeks to permanently control our governmental institutions. To delegitimize and eviscerate the Constitution — including the Bill of Rights, the Electoral College, the Supreme Court, separation of powers, etc. — which obstructs its ideological designs. It abuses the rule of law by targeting its political opponents for harassment, investigation, and prosecution. Has a horrifying history of supporting the most contemptible causes, including slavery, segregation, the Ku Klux Klan, eugenics, and even lynching. Biden rules as an autocrat.”

And what is it Democrats really aim for? To impose Marxism. “Marxism, Marxism, Marxism.” That’s his constant refrain. Now, he doesn’t say “Communism.” Maybe because that would strain credulity. So he says “Marxism.” But what does he mean by “Marxism?” Well, on page 24, he defines it, more or less: “centralization of power . . . control over the individual; conformity and obedience; uniformity of ideas and thought; a far-reaching police state to enforce its rule.” None of which Karl Marx ever advocated. Levin is describing the Soviet Union, whose tyranny would actually have horrified Marx. Nevertheless, Levin says, “This also describes the nature and character of the Democrat party.”

Now, some Democrats do romanticize “socialism” (without necessarily understanding it). Yet the party decisively rejected that in the 2020 primaries, going instead for the most moderate, centrist choice. This is not a party of socialists. Let alone Marxists. Let alone idolizing the former Soviet Union. Levin’s Marxism fixation makes the whole book ridiculous.

And it is thoroughly dishonest. So much of his indictment of Democrats could apply better to today’s Republican party.

One small example. He says Democrats want to pack the Supreme Court. Well, they haven’t done it. But Republicans have. Indeed, stealing a Supreme Court seat in 2016 by blocking a vote on the Merrick Garland nomination. That was arguably the moment when our civic, constitutional system truly became broken. Levin never mentions it.

Similarly, he accuses Democrats of trying to game the voting system and undermine its fairness and integrity. But this idea of widespread voter fraud is itself a big fraud. Voter fraud in America is almost nonexistent. What Democrats want is to enable more citizens to legitimately vote. Republicans work to keep voter participation as low as possible. Because they don’t believe they can win otherwise, as Trump once said with uncharacteristic candor.

And here’s a bigger example of Levin’s dishonesty. An organization named Freedom House has long monitored the state of democracy in the world. Levin quotes them at great length, on the rise of authoritarianism, carefully edited to make it sound as though it’s all an indictment of Democrats. While in fact Freedom House has been much concerned about Trump and the Republican party. It was during Trump’s presidency that Freedom House lowered America’s democracy rating.

Now, perhaps Levin could have made an argument that Freedom House’s words could also apply to Democrats. But that’s not what he did. He simply misrepresented them as though they were aimed at Democrats in the first place.

On page 5 he talks about a certain political figure’s “blatant lies,” his “lack of character, cringeworthy outbursts.” Trump? No, it’s Biden Levin is talking about. Calling him a doddering incompetent senile old fool. Yet at the same time a cynically manipulative Marxist mastermind. Go figure.

Levin quotes with alarm a Biden speech talking about America having great possibilities. What’s wrong with that? Don’t you see it?! “Possibilities” — for changing the country, of course, into a Marxist dystopia!

In psychology, it’s called “projection” when you accuse others of your own faults. Something Trump and Republicans do endlessly. I’ve mentioned the Ku Klux Klan stuff. Levin actually has a whole chapter smearing Democrats as the party of the Klan, Jim Crow, segregation, lynching, and slavery itself. We hear this a lot from Trumpers, based on white Southern Democrats having long ago been racist like that. Ignoring that they almost all became Republicans.

Most observers think that was in reaction to Democrats supporting civil rights, something Republicans exploited to attract racist whites. But Levin says it was really the exact opposite. I’ll quote his words: “southerners who defected from the Democratic Party in the 1960s and thereafter did so to join a Republican Party that was far more enlightened on racial issues than were the Democrats.” He deems phony the Democrats’ civil rights talk, hoodwinking Blacks into forgetting their historic allegiance to the party of Lincoln.

Is your head spinning?

But then comes a whole chapter on how Democrats have now gone from anti-Black racism to anti-white racism. Here again, yes, on the extreme “woke” left demonizing whiteness is a thing. But for the whole Democratic party? Seriously?

He also accuses Democrats of anti-semitism because some see Palestinians as human beings suffering injustice. Meantime, I seem to recall guys marching with torches in Charlottesville chanting “Jews will not replace us.” Marchers Trump called “very fine people.” Levin simply denies that Trump endorsed those neo-Nazis.

The next chapter is “Language Control and Thought Control.” Levin ironically starts off here citing a book titled Delusion and Mass Delusion. Well, the hard left does have a problem with freedom of expression. But here again, that’s only a small fringe of the Democratic party. Whereas mass delusion afflicts almost the whole Republican party. Like the stolen election lie. With their own cancel culture, banishing from the party anyone, like Liz Cheney, who prefers truth. Yet Levin waxes eloquent about freedom of thought.

Another chapter is titled “War on the American citizen.” Sturdy, virtuous, patriotic American freedom-lovers versus elites who hate the country, favoring “denationalization,” with some kind of globalist mentality. That’s why Democrats are “moving full speed ahead with open border policies” — Levin says their aim is to destroy America, diluting that yeoman citizenry with immigrants from what Trump called shit-hole countries. Vermin poisoning our blood, he now says. More susceptible to Marxist indoctrination, Levin says. This has been called “Great Replacement Theory.” Terminology Levin mocks even while spouting its substance. And even while screaming “Open borders!” he details how the Biden administration treats migrants horribly. Which is true. Biden, beset by border chaos and spooked by widespread xenophobia, now has immigration policies hardly differing from Trump’s.

Next, “War on the Nuclear Family.” Because Marxism entails supplanting the family by government. Schoolchildren are indoctrinated into the Marxist control agenda, separating them from their parents. Levin spouts about “Critical Race Theory,” supposedly telling kids that America has always been a cesspool of white racial oppression. And Marxist Democrats are also trying to destroy the family by encouraging transgenderism.

Then Levin blames rising crime rates on Democrats’ so-called “soft on crime” policies like bail reform and “defunding the police.” But there’s been no defunding. In fact, police budgets have risen, and while crime ticked up a bit during Covid, it’s since been falling, and it’s way down from its peak a few decades ago. Meantime, a huge element in crime is America flooded with guns. For that, it’s Republicans responsible; so they’re really the ones soft on crime. While moreover many of them now justify politically-motivated violence. All while still prattling “law and order.”

Another thing Levin bashes Democrats for is opposing school choice, which could help the disadvantaged minority families they claim to champion. I agree with Levin about this. Well, nobody can be wrong about everything.

Next, “war on the Constitution” — no mention here of January 6. Or Trump’s talk of terminating the Constitution. He’s also now said he’ll act as a dictator, but only on Day One, if you can believe him. But it’s Democrats Levin accuses of trashing the Constitution, because it’s condemned as racist by some extreme lefties.

And of course he hammers on the right-wing complaint that their free speech is being violated, calling it “police state censorship.” And “deplatforming.” Citing Tucker Carlson being deplatformed by — um — Fox News, actually. He quotes AOC chuckling over that, calling hers a “totalitarian view.”

Meantime he points to a media watchdog organization that listed the ten worst disinformation purveyors. “All skew to the right,” he complains. As if this reflects some biased censorship effort. Rather than the reality of pervasive dishonesty on the right, compared with mainstream media.

Then there’s the so-called war on religious liberty. While the Supreme Court has been assiduously smashing down the wall of separation between church and state.

But Levin does see Democrats warring against the judiciary. Something he traces back to one of his key villains: Woodrow Wilson. A quote: “Wilson argued for a judicial oligarchy that would engineer the culture along the lines of Marxist orthodoxy.” Yes, Woodrow Wilson, pre-Soviet Marxist.

The final chapter is titled, “Stalin Would Be Proud.” About what? “The Democrat Party’s scorched earth, unscrupulous, and unconscionable political and criminal prosecution of Donald Trump is totalitarian in every respect.” Such hyperbole continues. Previously Trump and his administration were almost nonexistent in this book. But now here we go: Trump a completely innocent victim of a partisan witch-hunt. The Mueller investigation was illegitimate from the get-go, and exonerated Trump. Both impeachments illegitimate abuses. All the current prosecutions baseless and improper. He was totally entitled to take those documents. Levin’s only mention of January 6 says it was merely citizens exercising their right to challenge an election. Nothing about Trump knowingly lying to overthrow that election and attempting to unlawfully retain power — replete with false electors! And now openly promising to abuse the presidency for retribution against his political detractors.

Stalin would be proud indeed. War on the Constitution indeed. And talk about baseless partisan witch-hunts: Levin wrote before every single House Republican voted to impeach Biden on zero evidence.

But he does finally condemn Republicans. For what? Failing to adequately defend America from the Marxist Democrats. He calls most Republicans a bunch of weenies, even quislings. Yes — not even today’s Republican party is right-wing enough for this guy.

Okay. Let’s step back. Once more, Levin’s obsession is Marxism. But Marxism is not what most Republicans really fear about Democrats. Rather it’s the loss of white societal dominance. They see Democrats as the party not of Marxism — but of non-whites.

That’s what makes them crazy. They were okay with non-whites advancing, until a Black president signaled a social revolution. Now they believe anything — anything — is justified to stop Democrats, and keep whites on top. Including violence, like January 6. And many of these people love guns. It was actually surprising there weren’t way more guns on January 6. Wait till next time.

Guys like Levin constantly spout about America’s traditional values, ideals, principles being under assault. Well, they are: by Levin himself, the Republican party, and their God (whose name is not Jehovah). And how they fetishize the word “freedom!” All this talk of Democrats taking it away, to regiment everybody in a Marxist dictatorship. When in fact, it’s Republicans, wherever they have power, restricting people’s freedom to live as they please. Like women’s freedom to get medical care. People’s love lives. Even trying to regulate what bathrooms they can use! “Freedom” my ass.

And they’re the ones who really hate America. Hate America as it truly is. What they love is a fantasy America that does not exist and never really did. As embodied in the flag they love — the Confederate flag, a flag standing for rebellion against America’s true ideals. The America I love is the very antithesis of the homogenized, exclusionary, repressive enclave of white Christian nationalism they fantasize. Their sick perversion of patriotism.

And they are dishonest to the core. Epitomized by Mark Levin. Can this guy really believe all this crap? I mean, really and truly?

Well, the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit proved that other Fox talking heads knew they were broadcasting lies about the 2020 election. Which they felt their Trumpy audience wanted to hear. Most Republican politicians likewise cynically know they’re lying, according to recent books by Liz Cheney and about Mitt Romney. But how about all those true believers they’re lying to?

What does it really mean to believe something? Not at all a simple question. Part of what neuroscience calls the hard problem of consciousness and the self.

A lot of beliefs are shaped by objective rational observation, obviously necessary for our everyday functioning. But political beliefs are different. They’re “freebies,” without real life consequences. Seemingly, at least. And here, what carries a great deal of weight is what you want to believe, what feels comfortable to you.

“Confirmation bias” is the term for embracing information you like and dismissing anything contrary. Smarter people are often particularly prone to this. Being better at coming up with rationales to support preferred beliefs. This book shows how a smart person can spin 300 pages of argument completely at odds with reality.

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Righteous Mind, used a metaphor of a rider on an elephant. The rider is your conscious mind; the elephant is your unconscious, which is much bigger. The rider thinks they’re directing the elephant. But mostly it’s the elephant going where it wants, while the rider’s job is to create rationales for that. Political beliefs originate with the elephant.

I also keep coming back to religion, where of course belief is central. Religion is like a gateway drug, scrambling the brain, making it receptive to all sorts of counter-factual beliefs. If you can believe that everything is controlled by a being in the sky, and you’ll go to Heaven after death, then it’s easy to believe the 2020 election was stolen, and Democrats hate America and want to destroy it.

It is no coincidence that the most religious Americans, and the most ardent Trump supporters, are mostly the same people.

But again, the concept of belief can be tricky. Many do believe they’re going to Heaven. Yet are in no hurry to depart. How do you square that? What do they truly believe, in the deepest parts of their psyches? What do their elephants believe?

To connect religion and Trumpism is not a stretch. What we have here is not normal politics, normal civic debate, as we used to be accustomed to. This is something different: a cult, that hijacks the rational parts of one’s brain. Where being part of the group is powerful motivation. Trump rallies are really cult jamborees; like religious revival meetings, in the collective emotions participants feel.

Evolution wired us for tribalism; accentuated by segregating ourselves politically, into tribes sealed off from contact with one another. Thus tribal feelings become part of one’s personal identity, and inexorably intensify. It’s a psychology of group dynamics described in a recent book, The Identity Trap, by Yascha Mounk. Studies have shown that viewpoints within groups gravitate toward those of the most extreme members. Mounk says this is compounded when the group feels under threat —something central to Trumpism. The perceived threat from cultural diversity.

Look, they may actually have legitimate grievances. I get that. Yet it doesn’t justify supporting a vile con man who’s manipulating them and will do no good for them.

A key factor is the information environment. Reality doesn’t reach a lot of people who are marooned on another planet. The stolen election lie was so obviously concocted by a huge liar because his messed-up psyche couldn’t face losing. It would be laughable if it weren’t messing up our whole country. But Trumpers believe he must have won because — who would vote against him?

The very first time I blogged about Trumpism, back in July 2015, I said it’s fundamentally hoisting a big middle finger; and that’s still true. People feeling beleaguered want the most badass guy possible, to stick it to their enemies. And, like moths to a flame, they’re attracted to the appearance of strength. The strongman syndrome. With no clue what strongman rule really would be like. It never works out well. We never learn.

Polls show belief in democracy declining globally. Our democracy was not ordained perpetual by God. Many countries, through one election mistake, have fallen into dictatorship. Too few Americans understand any more what democracy means, understand this country’s true values and ideals. Fools are throwing them in the toilet.

I am a Democrat who loves America, and what’s happening tears my heart out. But I will end by quoting Jesus: Lord forgive them, for they know not what they do.

“Alternative Medicine” Versus (sigh) Science

My humanist society recently hosted a talk by Abhijit Chanda, founder of “Rationable,” a YouTube channel. (The name does not refer to things subject to rationing, but rather rationality.) He zoomed in from India, speaking about “Alternative Health Practices and Pseudoscience.”

A starting point was to query reasons for the popularity of “alternative” medicine as opposed to the conventional (real) sort. Chanda characterized the latter, in America, as not exactly user-friendly. People recoil from giant institutions like government, insurance companies, and big pharma. Mainstream doctors often seem cold and brusque, in contrast to “alternative” practitioners exuding warmth. Many people take modern medicine for granted, while venerating “traditional” treatments as better fitted to their beliefs, philosophies, and psychologies. As opposed to critical thinking.

But he suggested that critical thinking doesn’t necessarily correlate with intelligence. In that regard, he cited Steve Jobs, certainly a very intelligent guy, who insisted on treating his cancer outside of mainstream medicine. Bye bye, Steve.

There’s also the appeal of the word “natural,” with the idea that it equates to “good.” Wow is that wrong; Chanda called it the “naturalistic fallacy.” Humanity’s whole history is a battle against nature; it can kill you. That’s not to say we don’t get some useful treatments from nature, like penicillin. But it requires science to separate what’s good from what’s bad.

Proponents of “alternative” treatments often do make scientific claims. But Chanda was pretty dismissive of that. It’s typically window-dressing rather than real science, producing the conclusions the “researcher” wants to get. He cited the example of a Covid cure touted as 100% effective in trials. Well, to start with, 97% of people don’t get Covid in the first place. (The huckster eventually backed off the claim, instead saying his snake oil “boosts immunity.” Whatever that might actually mean.)

Yet numerous people insist that even practices like homeopathy help them. Homeopathy entails the dilution of a substance to such an extent that there’s zero molecules of it left. Thus it’s literally no treatment at all. Though of course homeopathic “cures” work via the placebo effect, which is quite powerful. It throws a monkey-wrench into any attempt at rational discussion. And homeopathy is actually harmful because it diverts users from genuine medicine, thus killing vast numbers. Yet we can’t get rid of it because its flunkies constitute a huge invested infrastructure. Like religions.

Another word often thrown around is “energy.” (Chanda displayed a website piling on the feel-good lingo, hawking “Holistic Calming Energy.”) He said these folks actually don’t know what they’re talking about when it comes to “energy” (which is actually not some Jedi-like force, but prosaically defined as “the ability to do work”). Related here is the notion of a “life force” that somehow emanates within us (“vitalism”). That just ain’t how things are.

Chanda focused particularly on “Ayurveda” practice, originating in India. The word loosely translates as “knowledge of life.” Another of his targets was Reiki, which he said is not, contrary to common belief, some “ancient wisdom,” but invented in the 1920s by one Mikao Usui. Who lived to the grand old age of 60. Quite the advertisement for Reiki’s health benefits.

The basic problem with all this stuff is that it’s grounded in ignorance of the true causes of disease and illness. Ayurveda is ancient — long predating germ theory! And, typically, it relies on the archaic concept that illness is caused by some sort of imbalance among bodily “humours.”

Such thinking, for centuries, made bloodletting an all-purpose treatment for any malady (it killed George Washington). We now know it’s complete bunk.

Chanda’s final takeaway: Just let science do its thing. (What world is he living in?)

Global Evil and Insanity Rising

The stakes in Ukraine could not be higher. Threatening our plunge into a much darker rule-of-the-jungle world where might makes right. Empowering and emboldening an evil dictator murderously serving nothing but his own vainglory. The Western alliance, long a bulwark against all that, would likely unravel amid a firestorm of recrimination if Putin wins.

Yet many in that alliance are already losing their clarity of vision. Including, alas, in the U.S., where the Republican party blocks aid to Ukraine, serving Putin’s agenda. What he’s counted on to turn his folly into triumph. While the cost of saving Ukraine now would be dwarfed by what we’d have to spend on defense in the wake of Ukraine falling.

Ukraine’s heroic resistance has been inspiring, but the grim reality is that without powerful help, it will ultimately be ground down by Russia’s greater resources and willingness to waste lives. Putin doesn’t care because he’s staked everything on this war. Only making his victory impossible will deter him.

And don’t bother fantasizing his overthrow. A rational system might indeed throw him out. Russia has instead a gangster system. Coup plotters would know they’d likely wind up dead like Prigozhin.

As if the Ukraine war were not bad enough, now we’ve also got the Gaza war.* President Biden apparently calculated that by sticking with our ally Israel, indeed holding them in a tight embrace, we could moderate their savagery. That proved wrong.

Yes, Hamas committed a great crime, deserving annihilation. But that likely cannot be achieved, making Hamas actually almost an irrelevancy now to the human catastrophe being inflicted in Gaza, whose rationale has disappeared in all the carnage. Israel has so far killed twenty times as many as Hamas did. The claim of trying to avoid civilian harm is a cruel lie; it’s clear that Palestinian death and immiseration is intended. No need to quibble over “genocide” semantics. America actually sending weapons to Israel is now morally equivalent to sending Russia weapons to kill Ukrainians.

Netanyahu, like Putin, is fighting not for his country’s true interests but his own. In fact, for decades his Palestinian policy has been driving Israel toward the maelstrom; October 7 was a consequence, and the war now will make future October Sevenths more, not less, likely. It’s madness; electing him again in 2022 was madness. Israeli voters may repent that today, but the next election could be years away, and till then Netanyahu is secure as long as his coalition of extremist religious zealots holds firm. Mass slaughter of Palestinians is something they’re fine with.

This is not anti-semitism. Not saying Israel shouldn’t exist, nor denying its right to self-defense. Just saying Israel must be held to standards of humanity.

Meantime this war threatens to metastasize beyond Gaza, notably into Lebanon. And it has added to U.S. political divisions and pulled attention from Ukraine, making that somehow seem yesterday’s news. Even making some throw up their hands in fatalism.

And as if the Gaza war, and Ukraine war, were not enough, now we’ve also got China’s Taiwan war. Or may well soon. Well, why not invade Taiwan, taking advantage of a moment when the world is distracted by two other major conflicts? Getting along with its neighbor would better serve China’s true national interests; a war would be insanely ruinous. But China’s dictator Xi Jinping suffers from the same vainglorious derangement as Putin. However, perhaps he will wait one more year — when America may get a president who’ll throw Taiwan to the wolves.

America is, indeed, throwing itself to the wolves. Polls show voters trust Republicans more than Democrats on a whole range of issues. Not seeming to notice how Republicans are dishonest to the core, epitomized by the huge “stolen election lie,” showing they should not be trusted on anything. And what a total cock-up they’ve made when given control of the House of Representatives. Electing them was deranged.

And while I do strongly disagree with Biden about Gaza, there’s no moral comparison with Trump. Will voters, fretting that Biden lacks energy for the job, elect instead a man with lots of energy — for evil? Culpable for the bloody violence of January 6 — part of his attempted coup, to retain power despite losing an election. Give him power again? Seriously?

His supporters love to call themselves “patriots.” I call them insane.

* Also a horrific one in Sudan (where a truly evil man is winning), not to mention Myanmar. But attention spans are limited.

Science, Nature, Religion, and Civilization

Charles Murray’s book Human Accomplishment is a historical examination of all the developments and advancements, in the arts and sciences, that have propelled civilization. He writes of “meta-inventions” — new concepts, giving us new tools that made a big difference.

Like writing. Though language itself Murray doesn’t cast in this way, seeing it as part of our natural endowment, sort of. It did originate quite early in the human story (and other animals have rudimentary language). But writing was not obvious to the earliest humans, being a much later discrete innovation, a new tool of immense power driving civilization forward.

Another key meta-invention was the scientific method, which Murray dates only to post-medieval times. What many don’t understand about science is the salience of method. What philosopher Karl Popper called falsifiability, putting theories to rational tests.

The earlier paradigm, originating with Aristotle, instead centered upon just using logical deduction to understand reality. Not getting one’s hands dirty grappling with it. But an even older meta-invention was what Murray labels “the secular observation of nature,” dating to around the Sixth Century BC (in both Greece and China). This entailed not only observing natural phenomena, but the idea that they have natural causes — potentially understandable. As opposed to just ascribing everything to “the gods.”

Reading this was somewhat baffling — because Murray never treats “gods” themselves as a meta-invention. Nor includes any religious figures in his extensive rosters of important names. Even though, at the end, he casts “transcendental” beliefs about life’s meaning as the wellspring of the greatest human accomplishments. I would actually argue that (unlike Murray’s other meta-inventions) religion was not an advancement tool, but held us back. Yet nevertheless the idea of “gods” seems to fit Murray’s concept of a meta-invention.

We have scant evidence for any such beliefs among the earliest humans. They may have harbored inchoate “spiritual” proclivities. But it seems highly doubtful that systems of “gods” or suchlike supernatural constructs were part of our evolutionary endowment (in the way that Murray treats language). For early peoples looking upon their circumstances, the notion of “gods” would not necessarily have been obvious. It had to be invented.

That human brains did prove to be highly receptive to religion, almost as though genetically programmed for it, does not belie that it had to be invented, and was far from self-evident to early people looking at nature.

Seeing the Sun traversing the sky, they would have had no idea what it was. Just a thing, one of many natural phenomena affecting them. Give it a name, sure. But to hypothesize a conscious “god” being involved is something else entirely. When Zork first proposed this in 9764 BC, his neighbors would have looked at him strangely.

And of course religion entails far more than just the bare concept of a “god” or “gods.” Begging questions concerning their full nature, origins, modus operandi, etc. Thus we got quite elaborate constructions, like the pantheons of ancient Egypt or Greece. Constructions that would not naturally occur to anyone merely trying to make sense of the world around them. Again, this required quite methodical invention. And while religions around the world differ in details, the basic concept of “religion” applies to all. So, once more, it’s somewhat puzzling that Murray didn’t include religion as among our meta-inventions.*

Anyhow, for all its ostensible strangeness, religion did become virtually a human universal. Providing at least some way to understand (if incorrectly) the mysteries of existence. Which brings us again to Murray’s “the invention of the secular observation of nature.”

“Secular” meaning non-religious. Yet our species presumably started out with “secular observation of nature” — that is, just seeing what was there before their eyes. Only after religion got in the way did it become necessary to re-invent “secular observation of nature.”

The next step, as Murray elucidates, was trying to figure out the true explanations for what was observed. Just ascribing everything to “the gods” was too facile, and there were people — like Thales, Leucippus, Hippocrates — who didn’t fall into that trap. The road they chose was much much harder. Nature does not reveal herself easily. This book impresses upon the reader what a hard slog it took to get science and civilization where it is today.

Many view science and religion as just two different belief systems — take your pick. Not so. While religion does require belief — tons and tons of it (Mark Twain defined faith as believing what you know ain’t so) — “belief” has no role in science. Belief in a scientific postulate is irrelevant. Only evidence matters.

* Buddhism and some other Eastern belief systems are more like philosophies than “religions,” and don’t fit well here. And note that it’s doubtful how seriously religion was taken elsewhere, during antiquity. “Worshipping” the gods in Greece and Rome seems to have been more a socio-cultural practice than a reflection of literal belief. (Judaism perhaps an exception.) They didn’t take the gods that seriously. It was only with Christianity and Islam that religion came to have a central place in people’s lives.

Nikki Haley and the Monster That Ate Republicanism

Nikki Haley is a good person. Pity she got mixed up with that Republican party. And, like so many, couldn’t summon the moral clarity to get out. So now she’s trying to run for president as a woman in a misogynist party, a person of color in a white nationalist party, a child of immigrants in a xenophobic party.

Actually, they do sometimes support such candidates, just so they can pretend to themselves they’re not really misogynist, racist xenophobes.

But meanwhile Haley’s been bedeviled by the fundamental problem of running against Trump in the Trump cult party. Her basic line’s been, “Too bad he can’t win.” Avoiding actually articulating it’s because he’s a stinker.

It all came to roost for Haley when asked a seemingly innocuous question about the Civil War’s cause. She burbled some pablum that it was about “how government was going to run, the freedoms, and what people could or couldn’t do.” Like, um, own slaves? What she couldn’t do was let the word slavery cross her lips.

After that caused an uproar, she did try to walk it back, but the damage to her candidacy is probably fatal. Remember, it’s only Trump who could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and lose no votes.

Meantime I was reminded of Haley’s speech at the last GOP national convention, when she spoke of how, as governor, she’d removed from South Carolina government buildings a symbol of hate. While bizarrely refusing to name it: the Confederate flag.

Both instances were efforts to avoid riling the Republican party’s white nationalist base. They love the Confederate flag, and wouldn’t cotton to hearing it explicitly besmirched. They claim it stands for pride in heritage, or some such folderol, with a sly wink because they know what it really stands for: keeping Blacks down. They also indulge in the “lost cause” mythology, painting the Civil War as a noble battle for “state rights” and “freedom” (which Haley seemed to endorse; or even calling it “the War of Northern Aggression”). Some may succeed in thusly deluding themselves there’s no racism to see there. While in reality white supremacy is central. Otherwise the whole thing would have been long forgotten.

An honest Haley should have called that out. Confederates were indeed fighting for freedom . . . to deprive Blacks of it. Her evasiveness regarding that speaks loudly about the prevailing Republican ethos. Haley’s trying to get them to vote for her in lieu of Trump is a fool’s errand, on a ship of fools.