We've got it all on voicemail.
So this guy gets a random IM from someone claiming to be a college student. This person asks the guy to write a paper for them, and offers to pay for it. It needs to be done by midnight, 10AM at the latest. So what does the guy do? Why he blogs the proceedings, obviously.
The ethics of this are in question. Plagarism is wrong. Really wrong. Asking random people from the internet to do your homework is worse. But is it okay to expose someone for doing this? I'm tempted to say yes. The student runs the real risk of getting kicked out of school and being academically blacklisted for the rest of her life. Which sucks. But if she's willing to fake freshmen World Religions papers, then I don't want her to get a degree anyway. She doesn't deserve it. Does she deserve to be publically outed in this way? Maybe, maybe not, but she certainly asked for it, that's for sure.
The post has been picked up my MetaFilter, so the comment section runs several pages long, but there are a decent number of people taking her side of things. Can't say I have much sympathy. If you really are stupid enough to pull something like that, you don't deserve to have been admitted to college in the first place. Get back to the shallow end of the gene pool, where you belong.
I'm currently reading Nation of Rebels, by Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, both Canadian philosophy professors. Various publications, including The Atlantic Monthly have picked up on it recently, and it's a brilliant read. I've a few issues with their discussion of Hobbes and Freud, but on the whole it's an accurate and scathing critique of the counterculture by two progressives who are rather annoyed that the soul of progressive thinking has been hijacked by pot-smoking, patchouli-smelling, incense-burning, organic-food-buying hippies.
The following excerpt is from the chapter entitled "Thank You, India", a reference to the Alanis Morissette song "Thank You" in which she reveals how she's been using an entire culture as a backdrop and foil for her own personal explorations. The chapter itself is on the exoticism present in the counterculture and its inherent, anti-Western bias. Including this excerpt here probably violates several different kinds of copyright, but that's never stopped me before, so here goes.
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Nowhere is the temptation toward exoticism more evident - or more lucrative - than in the burgeoning "alternative medicine" industry. Any town in North America with more than a few thousand inhabitants has by now a full complement of naturopathic practitioners, reiki therapists, homeopaths, crystal healers and magnet therapists. Like "alternative" sports, "alternative" music, and "alternative" culture generally, "alternative" medicine is big money. In 1997, Americans spent an estimated $30 billion on alternative health care. (To put that in perspective, Canada's "socialized" medical system cost the government a total of $55 billion in 1997 and provided comprehensive basic health care to every citizen of the country [about 30 million]).
The concept of alternative medicine is essentially a byproduct of the critique of mass society. According to its critics, the medical establishment is simply on branch of the "technostructure", like the educational system or the prison system. The hospital as an instutition bears all the hallmark traits of mass society. In fact, it can easily be seen as the nightmare of technocratic domination. The hospital is an impersonal, bureaucratic institution, where patients are literally entered into the computer at the entrance, assigned a number and given an identification bracelet. The internal structure of the organization is stratified by class, with each group identified by a distinct uniform. Doctors (mainly men) give orders to nurses (mainly women). THe overall approach to health care is one that favors technological intervention and instumental control of disease. Diagnosis and treatment are almost entirely guided by statistical reasoning, not by the particular situation of the individual patient. If you want to feel like a cog in a machine, just go to a hospital. [The authors are unfortunately largely correct in this analysis. Emergency departments are even worse, most of the time.]
Many critics of mass society found the insutitional style of the medical system so sinister that they began to question the reality of disease. Just like those who questioned the reality of mental illness, many critics began to wonder whether the sick were really all that sick, or whether the hospital wasn't just part of a plot to control the population through "medicalization" of social deviance. In many ways, the success of modern medicine contributed to this simply by eliminating or curing the most deadly diseases. This makes it much easier to doubt their seriousness, because they are no longer part of our daily life. We have no idea what it was like living in Europe as the plague swept through town, killing half of the population. Penicillin has taken care of that. We have no idea what it is like growing up in a world where people are forced to flee the city periodically to avoid smallpox epidemics. Vaccination has taken care of that. And we have no idea what it is like giving birth in a society where 10 to 15 percent of women die in childbirth. Modern surgical techniques have taken care of that.
In this context, it is easy to imagine that there is something suspicious about the way medicine is practiced. "Why should I get my child vaccinated against polio?" people say. "When is the last time you heard of anyone getting polio? It's probably just pharmaceutical companies trying to make a profit." Or, "Why should I go to the hospital to give birth? When is the last time you heard of anyone dying in childbirth? It's probably just male doctors trying to control and suppress women." Or, "Why should I buy pasteurized milk? When is the last time you heard of anyone getting sick from drinking milk? It's probably just propaganda from the same people who brought us Velveeta and Wonder bread."
This sort of reasoning can be even more fun if one adopts a Freudian perspective [as the authors argue most countercultural pundits do, largely in ignorance]. The obsession with cleanliness, disinfection, and the extermination of invisible germsn is easy to dismiss as simply the expression of an anal personality disorder, a mistrust of everything that is natural, sensuous, pleasureful. Herbert Marcuse, speaking in all seriousness, decribed the practice of surgery as "sublimated aggression." In other words, Marcuse thought that the surgeon's real desire was to kill and dismember the patient. Unfortunately, that's against the rules, so the surgeton settles for the more "clinical" solution of cutting the patient up, rearranging the pieces, and putting him back together again. [It should be noted, however, that surgeons are some of the most confident and aggressive people you're likely to meet.]
Despite these sorts of extreme condemnations of the medical system, the counterculture itself had very little to offer in the way of an alternative. (What does "individualistic" or "rebel" medicine look like?) Thus the natural tendency was to turn toward non-Western cultures, and to interpret their medical practices as the antithesis of everything that was wrong with the West. As a result, an enormous interest developed in Chinese, Indian, and other Eastern traditions. Each of these was seen through the lens of the countercultural critique. While Western medicine was focused on disease, Eastern medicine was holistic; while Western medicine was technological, Eastern medicine was natural; while Western medicine separated mind from body, Eastern medicine treated the whole person.
The result has been a predictible distortion of how medicine in non-Western countries is actually practiced. In every major medical tradition in the world, there has been a deep division between so-called allopathic and homeopathic approaches to health [see here for my discussion of this distinction]. The concept of "disease" comes from the allopathic tradition, which blames ill health on specific causal factors, such as a virus, a bacterium, or a tumor. The homeopathic tradition, on the other hand, regards health as a type of equilibrium of the whole organism, and illness as a state of disequilibrium. Thus, from the homeopathic perspective, the concept of "disease" is a crude simplification. There is no single cause, no "disease vector"; there are only more or less balanced states of the total organism.
Prior to the scientific revolution, homeopathic theories tended to dominate medical thinking in all cultures, including the West. Traditional Chinese medicine posited a type of energy called qi; illness occurred when the balance of yin and yang was disrupted, and medical intervention was aimed at restoring this balance. Indian ayurvedic medicine is based on the archaic idea that the body is made up of five elements: earth, air, fire, water, and ether (the latter being the substance that was thought to fill the spaces between the stars). When these elements go out of balance, the person suffers. The tantric tradition identifies a set of seven chakras, or energy centers, which are the key to wellness. And, of course, the Galenic tradition posited a ste of four humors, and identified the balance of these humors as the key to good health.
Here is the crucial point: the Galenic tradition is the original Western medical tradition - in completely dominated Christian and Islamic civilization until the 19th century. It is also impeccably homeopathic and holistic. Like Chinese and Indian practitioners, Europeans believed that the body was composed of fundamental elements: earth, air, water, and fire. On energy system in the body corresponded to each element ()In the Galenic case, blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile). The balance of these elements determined not only physical, but also spiritual and mental health. Medical intervention involved correcting disequilibria, through diet, herbal remedies, and occasional physical interventions. (This is why bloodletting was so popular in Europe until the 20th century - it was the prescribed holistic therapy for rebalancing the humors. This is why it is still endorsed by ayurvedic medical practitioners.)
All of these homeopathic systems of thinking have broad structural similarities. This is not an accident. They all developed before there was any real understanding of human anatomy (much less biochemistry) and before the discovery of microscopic organisms like bacteria and viruses [I would add that the vast majority of people who support alternative medicine today are also ignorant of these things]. Thus the debate that gets played out between Western and Eastern medical practice is in many ways quite misleading. Each culture has its own allopathic and homeopathic traditions. The reason that allopathic techniques became dominant in the West is not due to any specific cultural predisposition - Western medicine was homeopathic throughout almost its entire history. Allopathic thinking became dominant because of its stunning success at preventing and curing disease.
*
Imagine setting up a store to seel "holistic" Galenic remedies. Imagine offering leeching as a remedy for cancer. Imagine literally trying to sell people "snake oil." Imagine trying to convince clients to opt for trepanation - boring a hole out of the skull - as a cure for headaches. People would instantly detect fraud. Why? Because we all know this stuff doesn't work. Somehow, in the case of archaic Western medical techniques, our fraud radar seems to function perfectly well [eh, not exactly: chiropractic and 19th century German homeopathy are doing just fine]. Yet when it comes to archaic Eastern techniques, our critical faculties seem to abandon us entirely. This is unfortunate. After all, selling medicine to desperately sick people based on false promises of a cure is one o fthe lowest forms of human malfeasance imaginible. The mere probability that it is occurring should be sufficient to provoke indignation. The fact that the treatments often do no harm to the patient is beside the point; what matters is that many of the most vulnerable people in our society are being exploited [as a rule, highly educated people do not opt for alternative medical options].
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Some genius has created a little device he calls the FoxBlocker, a little widgit you screw into your TV's co-ax in port before you attach the cable input. It filters out FoxNews. That's all it does.
Apparently the Left has gone so far off the rails that it can't tolerate even the existence of its counterpart. To be a Leftist, one must necessarily exist in a mental world hermetically sealed from all opposing viewpoints.
And people wonder why they lost the last election. Sheesh.
This is the first time I've been able to access anything on Chattablogs for almost a week. Sorry for the drought there: I just couldn't connect.
Later today will come reviews of both Crooked Fingers' shows I went to last weekend, plus some other stuff.
Over Christmas break, I had surgery. Nothing that interesting, nothing major, but it needed to happen. Okay. Fortunately, I'm insured. When I went home for break this past week, I saw a bill for the procedure. The total bill was for $8282.25. For an operation that lasted around two hours (I think, couldn't have been much longer than that), this isn't that bad. An appendectomy or having a baby will cost about $10k, so as far as in-hospital procedures, this wasn't that bad.
Where it gets interesting is when you look at what exactly the hospital got paid. The bill I've got in my hand is a line-item bill, and indicates the cost for every item and the total reimbursement the hospital has received to date (morphine only runs $1.15/mg, which seems pretty cheap, considering a bit dose is only 4mg). So, the hospital billed for $8283.25. Somewhere along the line they reduced this by $1272 for reasons which are not clear to me. The first two items on the bill show up again on the last page for a credit of half the original amount. Nobody ever said medical billing was simple. Anyway, that would bring the total to $7011.25. My insurance paid for $4296.98. Which would leave me with a bill for $2714.27, right? Wrong. My family paid a total of $50. What happened to the other $2664.27? A "contractual adjustment" with Blue Cross. Essentially, the insurance company told the hospital that they'd pay for a certain percentage or absolute amount, and the hospital could either take it or leave it, but they can't come after my family for the difference.
And the hospital is lucky to get it. If I was on Medicaid, they'd be lucky to have gotten $3k, as the Mediplans only tend to pay 30 cents on the dollar. And people complain about the spiraling cost of healthcare... If you were a business owner that knew that you'd get about a third of what you bill, you're going to bill three times what your services cost, just to stay afloat.
The way this really gets bad is that there are plenty of people - lower middle-class working families - who don't qualify for the Mediplans but also have no private health insurance. They get no "contractual adjustment" and have to pay the full freight. All $8200 of it. So the entitlement plan that was designed to help people pay for medical care is actually harming a lot of people. Why? Because hospitals charge way more than procedures cost because they know that the Mediplans - and thus private insurers - will only pay a fraction of the bill, and they won't be able to recover the rest of it. Thus, under the current system, unless you're benefiting from insurance or a Mediplan, you're screwed.
Anyone else for privatizing social safety net insurance?
As I'm currently in Chattanooga, my net access is generally limited to sneaking in a few minutes whilst the guys at Coptix aren't working. This, as it turns out, isn't all that often, and as I'd generally want to be hanging out with them anyway, posting for the week will be down.
On the upshot of this, if you're in Chattanooga and want to hang out, give me a call.
In a similar vein to the medicine discussion that I hope to continue in further posts, here's an example of bad science. Someone did a study comparing the self-reported health of people who keep diaries versus people who don't, and reported that the diarists did a lot worse for things like headache, sleepness, etc. They therefore concluded that keeping a diary (or, if one extrapolates, a blog) is bad for you. The theory offered by the "scientist" who did the "study" is that instead of a single, cathartic overflow or a decent, deliberate repression, diarists go over and over traumatic events, keeping the damage fresh.
Slight problem, which is buried most of the way down the article: there is no way of telling whether the health problems cause one to keep a diary, or whether keeping a diary causes health problems, and no mention is made of the content of said diaries. We can thus conclude from this: absolutely nothing. We might be able to conclude that this is worth some more attention, but even that would be stretching it a bit.
I think I'll keep pointing out things like this when I see them. The sheer amount of junk science that makes it into the public eye is staggering.
I'll be leaving Central PA by 8:00AM tomorrow morning, which should put me in Chattanooga no later than 8:00PM, but hopefully by 6:00 or so. Anyone who wants to hang out tomorrow night (hint, hint) is invited to call my cell. I'll be driving all freaking day and will have literally nothing better to do.
Lillian B. Rubin has an essay in Dissent Magazine entitled "Why don't they listen to us? Speaking to the working class" in which she discusses some of the reasons why the people who she thinks should be a natural part of the progressive constituiency have, over the past few decades, turned increasingly to the right. She agrees with the basic question asked by Thomas Frank: "What's the matter with Kansas?"
Unlike most other current progressives, she realizes that it's not just that the right is better organized, better funded, etc. She points out that the way the left has pursued debate over several political hot topics has cost them. By automatically assumming a combative position against conservatives, they've isolated themselves from the mainstream of American culture (which is, I believe, fundamentally conservative in the old sense of the word: not given to big changes).
This is good. It's about time someone over there started acting like an organized opposition party instead of showing off their superiority complex. What she doesn't get though, is not just that most people don't trust the "liberal elite" - the last election is proof enough of that - but that the working class really isn't the natural ally of progressivism. Quite the contrary, in fact. Sure, the left talks a lot about equal opportunity, social justice, and economic equality. But in practice, they're just as craven to special interests as anyone is, only their special interests stand opposed to economic growth (which the working class needs), traditional family values (which the working class supports), strong defense and foreign policy (which the working class wants), and lower taxes (which the working class is affected by a lot more than anyone else). On the other hand, Republicans are supported by pro-growth, pro-family, pro-defense, and pro-tax relief interests. Sounds like a natural fit to me.
For all the supposed anger generated by Bush's recent "tax breaks for the rich", most people were probably pretty happy to see that they paid fewer taxes this year than last year. For all the outcry over Wal-Mart, most people want to shop there. For all the noise about corporations screwing their employees, most people would rather be employed than not. And for all the bluster about caring for the poor and educational opportunity, many people are coming to see that the Great Society and the public school system are almost unmitigated disasters. The problem with today's progressives is indeed that they've isolated themselves from the mainstream. But they've isolated themselves so effectively that they don't even see just how isolated they really are.
Yesterday was quite an interesting day for me in regards to the media. First off, I read a few articles from the most recent Atlantic that have to do with the state of the media, specifically with regard to their relationship with liberalism. The first is entitled "Thinking of Jackasses", by Marc Cooper, and is an insightful takedown of the recent Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know your values and frame the debate by George Lakoff, with references to some other books as well.
Lakoff argues that what progressives really need to do is "reframe" the debate by reclaiming the moral and rhetorical high ground. Instead of "trial lawyers", refer to "public-protection attorneys". To quote Cooper, "And here I thought semantic bobbing and weaving had helped cost the Democrats the vote." Cooper views both Lakoff's Don't Think... and Frank's What's the Matter... as solopsistic, naval-gazing examples of exactly why the left got so roundly stomped on in November, and he uses Nation of Rebels to support this thesis.
Elsewhere in the issue can be found "The Air America Plan", by Joshua Green, in which the author sets forth a brief history of talk radio - which has been and continues to be an almost exclusively conservative phenomenon - and discusses the new, liberal alternative, Al Franken's Air America, in light of this history. In short, Green believes that there exists a fundamental misunderstanding by most progressives of why talk radio is so attractive to so many people, coupled with a fundamental misunderstanding by both conservatives and liberals as to the actual effect talk radio has had on the nation's political sphere. Talk radio appeals to conservatives because they feel the need to look to alternative media sources to get what they feel is the straight dope, while progressives are perfectly okay with AP, Reuters, CNN, CBS, the Times etc. So there isn't a built in market. Furthermore, while it is generally recognized that talk radio had a significant role to play in the conservative revolution in the 1990s, it is not nearly as widely recognized that it also had a significant role to play in the movement getting bogged down in the late 90s with both the Clinton impeachment proceedings and several unfortunate political manuverings that cost the conservatives pretty badly (in momentum, if not in seats). Green doesn't think that creating a liberal version of talk radio is going to be successful on either a business or political level, and I'm inclined to agree.
Having both of those articles appear in one issue would be fascinating enough, but the cover story this month is entitled "Host", by David Foster Wallace, and is a lengthy (and I mean 23-pages lengthy) discussion of the author's experience at a conservative talk radio show - The John Ziegler Show of Los Angeles' KFI-AM - and his opinions and analysis of the talk radio phenomenon based on these experiences. It is a great read, especially in light of the previously mentioned articles. I should point out that this is the first attempt at print-media hyper-linking that I've ever seen. Certain words and phrases are highlighted and matched by color with boxes of text in the sidebars, where the author interjects commentary, opinion, analysis, and relevant context, without having to break the flow of a sentence or paragraph. It's quite effective, though someone who doesn't spend a lot of time browsing the web with multiple tabs open in multiple windows might find it a bit distracting.
The article is basically the response of a moderate liberal in a blazingly conservative environment. Wallace is at least as thoughtful and insightful as one would expect of a writer who has a cover in The Atlantic, but it's clear that he views himself as an outsider, and not just from the radio business. He doesn't agree with John Ziegler about most of what he says, and his reactions range from amusement to distaste, and occasionally gruding admiration, but most of the time you get the impression that he doesn't identify at all. He seems to think that talk radio is something that other people do and other people listen to. Which is, of course, correct, and thrown into high-relief by the other articles in the issue. This comes through most clearly in the way that Wallace positions himself so as to be able to pass down seemingly authoritative analysis while clearly belonging to one side of the discussion he so lucidly describes. Charges of being out-of-touch are harder to level at someone who took the time and energy to learn so much about what "the opposition" is thinking and doing, but it doesn't seem that Wallace has entered into their perspective in any meaningful way, or at least he fails to identify with his subjects very consistently.
He does, however, have a lot of respect for Ziegler - and by extension talk radio hosts in general - concerning tradecraft. You just try talking clearly, coherently, and constantly for arbitrary lengths of time while always managing to come to a clean breaking point for commercials and maintaining a high level of interest. Tape yourself. You're not allowed to use any filler noises - no "umm", "ah", or repeated phrases, period - and you can't descend into blather. The level of discourse doesn't have to be particularly high - mere demagougery will suffice - but it does have to be maintained. Then throw in a few callers over the course of an hour and try to maintain a semblence of civility with them. This is not nearly as easy as it sounds on the radio, which is to say nothing of the producers and sound-guys processing the live feed in real time to prevent audio peaking and ensuring that the scheduled ads get played.
If all of this wasn't enough to think about, last night I finally made it to see "12 Angry Men" on Broadway. I saw the 1957 Henry Fonda movie about three weeks ago and have been trying to get down there ever since - it sells out pretty regularly. I don't know if it was just the second viewing or if watching a production directed and acted by New Yorkers, in New York, with a New York audience made a difference, but the play seemed a lot more political than I had first thought. In all fairness, there were a few lines in the play that weren't in the movie, and one of the nastier speeches in the play makes it pretty clear that the accused belongs to an ethnic minority, while the same speech in the movie only implies that he belongs to some kind of underclass. But somehow, the 1957 movie, made just as the nation was starting to grapple with the issue of civil rights and equality before the law, seemed a lot more provokative and edgy than last night's performance, which almost seemed self-congratulatory. One of the key lines in the play is that it's probable that no one will ever know what really happened, and that facts are only as good as the people who witness them. In the 1950s, this would have been a fairly stunning idea, while today it's almost trite it's so well accepted. In the movie, I walked away with the impression that the men who were voting for not-guilty were really sticking their necks out. Today, it seemed a lot more like those voting guilty were taking an unpopular position, because juror #8, Fonda's character in the movie and the juror who casts the initial vote for not-guilty, was enforcing the spirit of the age, not challenging it.
With the movie, my sympathys obviously ran towards juror #8. That's what's supposed to happen. Last night, I felt a lot more for juror #4, the broker, who seems to hold a stronger allegiance to anyone in the room to the idea of factual truth. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm increasingly not a fan of absolutist theories of truth, but that doesn't mean that I think it's appropriate to twist evidence to whatever end is desired by the speaker. In the particular case considered in "12 Angry Men", that isn't what was happening, but it today's legal culture, that's exactly what happens, and I really resonated with the frustrations of the men who felt that the clear truth was being manipulated by bleeding-hearts for reasons unknown.
I also started to have doubts as to exactly how legal some of what went on could have been. I'm under the impression that the jury is to consider the case in light of the evidence presented by the prosecution and defense, and the jury never once made reference to the arguments presented by the defending attorney. He may have been a bum who didn't want the case, but I think - and I could be wrong here - that the jury isn't allowed to do any deconstruction of testimony that hasn't been done in open court. They certainly aren't allowed to consider new evidence. This had a lot more to do with the second viewing than differences in the performances. The introduction of the second knife bothered me the first time, but I figured out why last night.
Throw all of that in with the internal monologue I'd been having about liberal media and you've got quite the interesting evening.
If you're into short fiction, you need to check this out. I found the link from MeFi, as usual, but this is some pretty well-written stuff. Much better quality than you'd tend to expect from some random netizen. It's pretty dark, but unless I've completely misjudged the readership around here, I figure that's just fine for most you.
Not that I'd have all that much use for something that does this, but it's still cool.
I mean, really. I don't drive but about once every two months. Would it have been that hard to wait until after my spring break?
Okay, all you Wal-Mart haters out there, here's something that you should, if you're actually serious about caring for the people that you claim Wal-Mart hurts, be completely thrilled about: the National Bank of Wal-Mart. What's that, you say? Wal-Mart wouldn't be the first retail giant to go into the banking business - Target and Nordstrom already own banks - but it's the largest corporation in the world and absolutely relentless about driving down consumer prices. This could be a phenomenally good thing for an industry that is founded upon screwing people without much money, i.e. the people who need good financial services the most.
The banking industry is understandably running scared over the prospect of having to be efficient in their pricing schemes and has already blocked Wal-Mart from purchasing two financial services firms, one in OK and one in CA. If you'll read back through my archives, you'll see that usury is one of my personal vendettas, and I would absolutely love to see Wal-Mart end it for good. I'd be in favor of regulating usury out of existence, but it Wal-Mart can do it without changing the laws, that'd be even better.
Just got back from my church small group. Learned there that Over the Rhine is playing on Sunday night at the Mercury Lounge. I'll be there.
I'm starting to think that a lot of the things I was saying last semester about the state of the conflict between the West and the Islamic world may have been off. Recent events are pushing me towards the idea that the Arab street isn't really what we're fighting against, but against the tyranny and autocracy embedded in the majority of Islamic states.
The past few weeks have seen change of the sort that I wouldn't have believed possible, and I'm glad to have been wrong. But this only encourages me to be even more hawkish in my sentiments towards the Middle East. The solution now is to assist in the liberation of these oppressed peoples as best we can, whether that be military intervention as in Iraq or more subtle means, as is now occurring in Lebanon and - perhaps - Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Islam may not be a religion of peace, but it seems that Muslims will take it where they can get it, and that the much vaunted hatred of the West by Muslims may be slightly more resident in the leaders and media than in the average guy on the street. So, I say we take the bastards down and let the people do their thing. And what makes this more compelling for me is that all we're really doing is cleaning up messes that we left by Western invervention in the last few centuries, Iraq and Afghanistan particularly. We essentially created these failed states, shouldn't we have some role to play in restarting them afresh, even militarily if need be? Does anyone really want to argue that the sovereignty of dictatoral states outweighs both the security concerns of the United States and the humanitarian concerns of oppressed peoples?