tdaxp

The recent post at Unqualified Reservations, "The ultracalvinist hypothesis: In perspective" has been a spash at Econolog, gnxp, and here. The "ultravalcinist hypothesis" holds that contemporary American atheism is actually a variant of Mainline Protestantism. One Unqualified Reservations post, found by PurpleSlog via Econolog, argued that even the leftist political correctness that comes out of academia is merely a continuation of the same religious clap-trap that's been going on for centuries:

You may or may not buy this story. But I hope you can agree that the Harvard faculty in 2007 by and large believes in human equality, social justice, world peace and community leadership, that the faculty of the same institution held much the same beliefs in 1957, 1907, 1857 and 1807, and that in any of these years they would have described these views as the absolute cynosure of Christianity. Perhaps I am just naturally suspicious, but it strains my credulity slightly to believe that sometime in 1969, the very same beliefs were rederived from pure reason and universal ethics, whose concurrence with the New Testament is remarkable to say the least.

All well and good. However, I previously featured the Weekly Standard's claims that American academia used to be liberal, as opposed to leftist:

It is plain in retrospect that the American university changed as fundamentally in the decade or so after 1965 as it did in those formative years between 1870 and 1910. The political and cultural upheavals of the period, spurred by the civil rights movement and opposition to the war in Vietnam, combined with the demographic explosion, brought about a second revolution in higher education, and created an institution (speaking generally) that was more egalitarian, more ideological, and more politicized, but less academic and less rigorous, in its preoccupations than was the case in the preceding era. It was in this period, from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, that the left university emerged in place of the liberal university.

So which is it?

Did the 1960s see the collapse of liberal academia and the raise of leftist orthodoxy? Or did Mainline Protestantism reign throughout the period, only changing which denominations (Episcopalian? Atheist?) the professoriate claimed as their own?

The answer's beyond my knowledge, but perhaps some historians who read this blog might answer...

"Memorial Day is an American holiday dedicated to those who have died while in the armed forces. Its equivalent is Remembrance Day on November 11th. The United States uses November 11th to honor those who survived their service to the country. Memorial Day is for the dead."

- Catholicgauze

Barnett ponders Brave New War...

One thing Robb's book made me realize: Core states tend to be bottom-heavy (more government below and thinner on top--e.g., the U.S. police structure), whereas Gap states tend to be top-heavy (and capital-centric to boot). The former structure disincentives the insurgent (the locals have vibrant local government), the latter is far more vulnerable to their penetration and supplanting.

Federalism (states rights, whatever you call ti)is an example of political defense-in-depth. By making it possible for insurgencies to win local vicotires, it discourages them from attacking the entire system. Further, the fact that the insurgents might actually win forces the local political elite to actually care about defeating them. Otherwise, regional governors will think that "I will leave, then this place will be someone else's problem."

Two fate of variations of Christianity, early Christianity as preached by Jesus and Paul and the Ku Klux Klan as devised by Nathan Bedford Forrest, show this well. The Christians were attacked by a centralized system where no limited victory was possible. However, their local opponents were only lukewarm in their opposition. This attitude went back to the Crucifixion, with both Governor Pilate and King Herod generally unconcerned about Jesus's fate. The centralized nature of the Roman state meant that Christians would be persecuted until they took over the whole country. So they were persecuted for a long time. And then they took over the whole country.



The United States government, however, abandoned its war against the Klan after about a decade. While militarily defeated, the political wing of the Ku Klux Klan (in the form of local Democratic Parties) soon gained power across the South and were able to implement their policies. Then the violence against the State stopped. This was unfortuante for the victims involved. However, while the centralized Roman persecution of Christians meant that time was on the side of the insurgents (just wait long enough and some mircale will happen), the decentralized American system meant that time was against the insurgents (the nothern states merely waited until they were politically powerful to reinvade with minimal bloodshed).




Read the rest of Tom's thoughts on his blog.

Hari, Johann. 2007. White Man for the Job. The New Republic. April 23, 2007. Available online: https://ssl.tnr.com/p/docsub.mhtml?i=20070423&s=hari042307.

Eddie of Hidden Unities emailed me a "hit piece" against Andrew Roberts that recently appeared in The New Republic. In particular, felt the follow passage justly put Roberts in a bad light:

In 2001, Roberts spoke to a dinner of the Springbok Club, a group that regards itself as a shadow white government of South Africa and calls for "the re-establishment of civilized European rule throughout the African continent." Founded by a former member of the neo-fascist National Front, the club flies the flag of apartheid South Africa at every meeting. The dinner was a celebration of the thirty-sixth anniversary of the day the white supremacist government of Rhodesia announced a Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Great Britain, which was pressing it to enfranchise black people. Surrounded by nostalgists for this racist rule, Roberts, according to the club's website, "finished his speech by proposing a toast to the Springbok Club, which he said he considered the heir to previous imperial achievements."

I'm generally unaware of the Springbok Club, and can't comment on its mix of affection for the Commonwealth and liberationalist republicanism. Instead, I will address what appears to be the substantive theme of the paragraph: that "civilized European rule throughout the African continent."

Of course it was.

The European Powers conducted the most massive, and most intense, Systems Administration Work in the history of the world in Africa. The European regimes stretched from the horrendous (Congo Free State) to possibly the best the continent had ever known (the British Empire). This period of interventionism stretched roughly from the 1878 Congress of Berlin to after the Second World War (though native left-of-center governments took power in Rhodesia and before the end).

The retreat of the Empires saw genocides, ethnic cleansing, massacre, and terrorism of all stripes. The middle part of Africa saw near immediate devastation, while decline and stagnation would soon encircle the continent from the Pacific to the Indian, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Southern Ocean.

If not for the terrible toll, in blood and money, of fighting the Axis in World War II, Dar Fur would have never happened. Rwanada would have never happened. Because the Europeans would still be there.

Instead, a combination (in increasing order of importance) of national liberation movements, leftist-isolationist domestic intellectuals, and bankrupt Empires led to the abandonment of a good slice of humanity. While other states pulled off the grid in the twentieth century (the Soviet Union and the Chinese People's Republic, for example) experienced record-breaking democides, they had enough internal social capital to either slowly decline (Moscow) or eventually rebound (Beijing). Africa does not and did not.

I titled this post "The Genocide in Darfur is the Fault of Those Who Oppose Colonialism" not because the genocides and democides truly are the moral fault of anticolonialists, any more than a spate of immolations would be the "fault" of those who just don't feel like funding a fire department anymore. The title of the post is true in the functional sense.

European colonialism was a once-in-a-millenia opportunity for Africa. Sadly, neither Europe -- nor Africa -- were up for it.

A close blog-friend of mine has been following a dream of combining new and old technologies: specifically, audio on the web and biplane flight. So he's recorded audiobooks of "The Wright Brothers on Flying," "Captain Boelcke's Field Reports," and "The Red Air Fighters: Memoirs of Manfred von Richthofen."

This post was completely unsolicited, and like before merely a shout-out to a friend. Learn more at "Flying Circus Audiobooks: Great Stories Great Adventures."

Recently, I've been in a very informative conversation with Thomas P.M. Barnett. In a series of posts, including

• Iran is worthless, and


• Winners & Losers of a Violent end of the Islamic Republic of Iran

here at tdaxp, and

• Clinton v. Bush on the Balkans v Iraq/Afghanistan,


• Nation-building in Iraq: the good, the not-so-bad, and the ugly, and


• The side I've always been on

over at Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog. We disagree on the nature of a war with Iran (Tom thinks it would be disasterous, I view it more as a non-event) while agreeing on the purpose and effects of the Iraq War.

In particular, Dr. Barnett wrote:

attacking Iran overloads the Core on feedback, thus putting it at risk. I can't grow the Core if I split it, thus my fear.

This is a reasonable concern. Iran herself is is not particularly important. However, if the developed world is hurt by an Iran War through side effects, it would be a disaster.

So we have to look to the past. Are there examples of major Core powers attacking (without plans of occupying) important non-Core powers against the wishes of other Core powers?

The best example I can think of a "Core-splitting war" was the Falklands War of 1982.



Here anti-communist Britain attacks anti-communist Argentina. This was during the Age of Decolonization, where violent attacks on western powers were considered legitimate if the attackers supported disconnectedness, "anticolonization," and "national resistance." The French defense trade press praised Argentine victories (accomplished through French weapons), while America publicly condemned both sides while secretly aiding both the Argentines and the Brits. The war ended with a victory by the British and a subsequent revolution in Argentina that overthrow the military dictatorship and ushered in democracy. (A similar thing would later happen after the NATO war against Yugoslavia.)

But what effect did this divisive war have on the Core? Only one: The Falklands War ended the Age of Decolonization. Through its (albeit unilateral and divisive) flexing of muscle, Britain demonstrate that the Core would no longer cede land to the Gap.

The Core of 1982 was more more fragile than ours today. The New Core had yet to be welcomed to the club, and America, western Europe, and Japan were still enthralled by the ideas of government control and "planning." Yet even in this weakened state, the only "overload" in the Falklands War was the lesson that the Gap attacks the Core at its peril. But this was a change in the nature of Core-Gap interaction. The Falklands War had no impact on intraCore behavior. Just as Iran does not matter today, Argentina just did not matter in 1982.

Update: Sean Meade alerts me to Cal Thomas, Counter Currents, and the International Herald Tribune, who also use a Falklands analogy.

CG, who just finished from using free GIS tools to outline the Oregon Trail, returns by adding overlays to Google's free globe:

Good work, CG!

"Nobody ever got fired for buying Big Blue."

For years IBM's strength rested on vendor-lock in and vendor-compatibility. A company that wished to buy electronic computer equipment had one choice, Big Blue, which offered complete systems that were entirely under the control of IBM. IBM keyboards communicated in IBM EBCDIC to IBM terminals, connected through IBM wires to IBM mainframes, IBM harddrives, IBM tape backups, and IBM power supplies. The complete solution set took the world by storm, offering One Ruleset (Buy IBM) which entailed numerous sub-products. The system worked.

In the same way, the One Ruleset of the Koran swept aside the old Roman world, tearing up the Orthodox and Arian peoples it subjugated, rolling back much of the Christian 4GW revolution. Islam did this almost as an afterthought, as it also spread into formerly Zoroastrian, Hindu, Buddhist, and Animist countries. No one ever got fired for buying Big Blue, and no one ever got beheaded for embracing Islam.



But IBM met Microsoft.



And Islam met Catholocism.

iWoz is the sort of book I would have loved ten years ago, and indeed it's the sort of material that makes for a great radio interview. If written in 1995, it would have been one of my favorite books of all time. As it is, Stephan Wozniak's autobiography is a fine partial history of the era that saw the rise of the personal computer. It belongs in the same class as High Noon (about Sun Microsystems) and The Second Coming of Steve Jobs (about the Next-Apple transition). A step below true classics like Fire in the Valley, iWoz is quite good.

iWoz is broken into several large parts. The first section focuses mostly on Wozniak's electric-logic experience, from earlier science fair experiments to an arpanet terminal that would eventually morph into the Apple I. These include early pranks and feature elements of obsession, sacrifices, humility, and geography that I would find as the basis of creativity in my series on Coming Anarchy. Woz's systematic exploration of electronic circuitry would finally come together in the Apple II, a product he is quite proud of and truly one of the grandest achievements of the 1980s.

A second, gloomer half documents Steve's inability to horizontally apply these skills to other aspects of his life. Two marriages fail and after the second he writes painfully of losing his house. Likewise, with grace and modesty Wozniak documents betrayals by Steve Jobs and poor treatment to the news media. Similarly, Wozniak documents the failures of his US Concerts to be either what he intended or profitable, and likewise his shortlived CL9 start-up firm.

In an earlier review of Robert Weisberg's Creativity: Beyond the Myth of Genius, I criticized that author for his differentiating "horizontal" and "analogical" thinking. While Weisberg's book retains many problems, this distinction is not one of them. While analogical thinking is the root of all creativity, horizontal thinking is worthless -- expertise does not "translate" from one domain to another unless analogies help bridge those domains.

So all in all, iWoz is a very enjoyable book. It's a fun guided tour of the early days of the Personal Computer, and has some valuable things to say along the way about the nature of creativity.

A recent question from a highly intelligent tdaxp reader made me think about the arrogance of much of the blogosphere. Many of us bloggers have been dismissive of politicians who confuse Shia and Sunni, but we never take the take to actually lay-out those differences.

The difference between Sunni and Shia is the difference between the Holy Roman Empire and the Priori of Sion (from The DaVinci Code). Like the Holy Roman Empire, the Sunni Caliphate was determinedby "elections" which were designed to make sure that powerful elements in the community were OK with the new leader. This may have lasted for a short while, but quickly it became a title that was passed, father-to-son, in some family. In the Holy Roman Empire the family were the Habsburgs, and in the Sunni Caliphate the last family to own the title were the Ottomans. Humorously, just as the Holy Roman Empire ended life as a secular German confederacy during the Napoleonic Wars, the Sunni Caliphate ended its life in in the secular Turkish republic following World War I. After the fall of the last Caliph, some individuals tried to revive the title (for themselves), but nothing came up this. So there is no current Caliph, just as there is no current Holy Roman Emperor.

Meanwhile, the Shia Imamate (like the secret society in the DaVinci Code) is based on blood-descent from a Holy Figure (Jesus Christ through Mary Magdeline, or Muhammed's son-in-law Ali through his daughter, Fatima). Both the Priori of Scion and Shia believe that their current leader (or "Imam") is hiding. Shia additionally believe that this Imam is several hundreds of years old, persecuted by the wicked religious establishment (in this case, the Sunnis), and perhaps hiding in a well. The Imam, like the leader of the Priori of Scion, will reveal himself when the time is right.

Now, in spite of the quirky Shia view of leadership, actual religious Shia organization makes more sense to me. A Shia Muslim "Ayatollah" is a combination of a Bishop and a Doctor of Theology. The reason that no one calls Sadr an "ayatollah" is that he hasn't completed the coursework. So he's a cleric which, like political priests, are a dime a dozen. Shia Islam is run similar to the Catholic Church, except with no strong "Pope."

Ayatollah Khomeini called himself "imam," or "leader," but claimed that this was separate from Imam, the hiding guy. In a similar way, the Catholic Church calls its leader Papa, or "Father," while recognizing this is a very different title than God-the-Father. This didn't catch on though, and the title has not remained in use. So Shia Islam is where the Catholic Church would have been if the First Vatican Council -- which established papal infallibility -- had failed.

Meanwhile, the Sunni Muslims run their religion similar to low-church protestants. How do you get to be a Sunni Muslim cleric? Say you are, and get other Sunni Muslims to follow you. Thus Osama bin Laden is a real Sunni Muslim cleric in the same sense that a KKK prayer-leader was a real baptist cleric.

In short: Sunni Muslims have to wait until some mass movement declares a new Caliph -- an event exactly as likely as the European Union naming some person Holy Roman Emperor. Shia Muslims, for their part, have to wait until their hidden Imam reveals himself and the world ends. In the meanwhile, Sunni Muslims operate similarly low-church protestants while Shia Muslims operate similarly to Lutherans.

And that's the difference between Sunni and Shia.