First, a reminder about “law:”
“Justice, Dr. Fastolfe, is an abstraction. Only a human being can use the term.”
“If you define ‘justice’ in such a way that it is an abstraction, if you say that it is the rendering of each man his due, that it is adhering to the right, or anything of the sort, I grant you your argument, Mr. Baley. A human understanding of abstractions cannot be built into a positronic brain in the present state of our knowledge.”
“You admit that, then— as an expert in robotics?”
“Certainly. The question is, what did R. Daneel mean by using the term ‘justice’?”
“From the context of our conversation, he meant what you and I and any human being would mean, but what no robot could mean.”
“Why don’t you ask him, Mr. Baley, to define the term?”
Baley felt a certain loss of confidence. He turned to R. Daneel. “Well?”
“Yes, Elijah?”
“What is your definition of justice?”
“Justice, Elijah, is that which exists when all the laws are enforced.”
Fastolfe nodded. “A good definition, Mr. Baley, for a robot. The desire to see all laws enforced has been built into R. Daneel, now. Justice is a very concrete term to him since it is based on law enforcement, which is in turn based upon the existence of specific and definite laws. There is nothing abstract about it. A human being can recognize the fact that, on the basis of an abstract moral code, some laws may be bad ones and their enforcement unjust. What do you say, R. Daneel?”
“An unjust law,” said R. Daneel evenly, “is a contradiction in terms.”[Isaac Asimov, The Caves of Steel]
Do Americans want “robotic law,” or law conditioned to exist in conformance to a particular moral code?
Concerning “tone” and how it differs between Left and Right: It’s almost always the Left castigating the Right and its spokesmen for “incivility.” We in the Right tend to be unduly sensitive to such chidings, even when emitted by those who have made it plain that their fondest wish is our utter elimination. But the Left’s emissions are rife with every sort of “incivility,” including outright proclamations of hatred and its desire for our deaths.
With that as our frame, consider two book reviews. The first is from The Claremont Review of Books, a generally conservative organization. Reviewer David Azerrad comments on Ibram X. Kendi’s hard-Left racialist tract Stamped From The Beginning:
Kendi’s argument rests on two dogmatic assertions. The first is that race is in its entirety a social construct. There cannot be any genetic or cultural component to explaining racial disparities. His refusal to entertain such arguments is understandable. Discredited racial science has in the past been used to defend a hierarchy of races and, in the extreme, to justify slavery and genocide. But to acknowledge the biological dimension of race is not to endorse such sinister practices per se. Natural human equality is not based on natural human homogeneity. Natural rights are no more predicated on genes than they are on I.Q., height, birth order, or income. One can permit science to acknowledge the biological dimension of race, and social science to study the cultural dimensions of human diversity, while upholding the dignity of man and the civic equality of all Americans.
I can’t imagine a more temperate, reasoned argument against a Leftist assertion, especially when that assertion isn’t just “dogmatic” but is contradicted by all the available evidence. Azerrad never descends to ad hominems or blanket imputations of motive. He merely presents his case.
Now consider a snippet from a somewhat older book review:
Not in any literary sense a serious novel, it is an earnest one, belligerent and unremitting in its earnestness. It howls in the reader's ear and beats him about the head in order to secure his attention, and then, when it has him subdued, harangues him for page upon page. It has only two moods, the melodramatic and the didactic, and in both it knows no bounds.... Its spirit, regardless of the specific doctrines it preaches, is calculated to appeal to those who feel that life could and should have more meaning than they have experienced. Yet, loudly as Miss Rand proclaims her love of life, it seems clear that the book is written out of hate.
That’s from a review of Atlas Shrugged that appeared in the New York Times Book Review on October 13, 1957. The author was former Communist Granville Hicks.
The above are merely two of innumerable examples.
It is impossible to express any definite idea without wounding someone’s feelings. And wounded feelings, as we know, have been elevated to a currency. But might we be glad, at least, that while we’re badly discommoded by the lockdowns, we’re suffering no blather about “microaggressions?” David Thompson has some observations:
Attention, woke citizens. During the current lockdown, do you feel a need to “challenge microaggressions” – those “verbal, behavioural or environmental indignities that communicate hostile, derogatory or negative racial slights”? Specifically, those committed during video conferencing?According to Michigan State University’s Amy Bonomi, director of the university’s Children and Youth Institute, and Neila Viveiros, associate vice chancellor for academic operations at the University of Colorado Denver, the expanded use of virtual meeting platforms such as Zoom and Skype has created “a ripe setting for unconscious bias.”But of course. The frontier of indignation must forever expand.
“Unconscious bias includes using language, symbolism and nonverbal cues that reinforce normative social identities with respect to gender, race, sexual preference and socioeconomic status,” Bonomi said. “For example, when the virtual background of a Zoom meeting attendee has pictures of his or her wedding, it unintentionally reinforces the idea that marriage is most fitting between opposite sexes.”It turns out that the reckless visibility of a wedding photo may be crushing the self-esteem out of the touchily unwed. You see, the mere sight of a photo of someone’s happy day can “crowd out the experiences of people with minoritized social identities,” albeit in ways never quite explained. Other taboos include references to “simple activities like family dance parties,” which are apparently a thing, and “gardening with a spouse.”
Curiously, given the stated importance of “sensitivity” and being mindful of what things might mean, we aren’t invited to ponder the kind of person who would resent someone else’s wedding photo. And then complain about it. Or whether such neurotic affectations, these unhappy mental habits, are something to be actively encouraged. In the name of progress.
Astonishing. Do we need any other explanation for why “Go fuck yourself” has come to be the most popular argumentative riposte in the English language?
Now happily past her recent difficulties with her website, our favorite Bookworm provides some observations about the Left’s lack of a sense of genuine humor. While the whole thing is worth reading, Bookworm’s thesis is succinctly stated in a single short paragraph:
The problem with today’s comics isn’t necessarily that they’re bad comics. It’s that leftism is inherently humorless, something summed up in the common expression that “Democrats (or progressives or leftists) can’t meme.”
And today’s “comics” – those who have broad exposure, at least – are overwhelmingly on the Left.
Well before the full Wuhan Virus madness was upon us, a certain newly elected governor was straining to eliminate the Second Amendment rights guaranteed to the citizens of Virginia by the Constitution. At that time, I penned a monitory story that I half-expected, given what I know of Virginians and their fondness for their firearms, would soon pass from fiction to fact.
The usurpation of immense, anti-Constitutional powers by a number of state governors, founded on “necessities” arising from the pandemic, made me even more certain that my little tale would soon come to pass in some form. That hasn’t happened yet – but if it doesn’t, it might be that those governors will be saved from the noose by “Irish Democracy:”
That’s Americanism. We don’t answer to them. They answer to us – and they had better remember it before we start locking, loading, and building gallows.
That’s all I have for the moment, Gentle Reader. As usual, there’s a novel on the griddle that deserves more attention than I’ve been giving it. Not that that’s any fault of yours...but I do feel an obligation to keep this joint jumping. So in the words of a New Jersey State Trooper: “On that note, have a good day. Everybody be safe.”
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