The Wood between the Worlds
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Sorry, I forgot to mention that there is particular significance to poisons and potions: they were mixed up with witchcraft, which was wicked, dangerous, and frightening. Nefas, the Romans would say: unlawful, wicked, sinful, obscene. Still, ancient medicine included medicinal drinks as well as pills, unguents, poultices, and (ugh) suppositories, and I have no idea how proper medicinal drinks were distinguished from witches' potions.
Flory
It turns out Orwell was pro-life for non-religious reasons also.
It's an interesting article, although one very small criticism is that the Hippocratic Oath did not necessarily forbid abortion itself. I've been reading John Riddle's book on ancient and medieval contraceptive and abortifacient means, and one of his points is that the oath refers explicitly to giving a "drug" (it could also be rendered "poison" or even "potion") to cause an abortion. I think that probably implies that abortion itself was forbidden, but Riddle does show that other parts of the Hippocratic corpus provide instruction on abortion. The ancients mostly seem to have taken the oath to mean that all abortion was forbidden, and one possibility that Riddle does not address is that the Hippocratic instruction on abortion was for use as a desperate measure. In another place Riddle does grant that some ancients did make exceptional provision for abortion when the mother's life was at risk.
In any case, the safest thing to say about the Hippocratic Oath is that for nearly its entire history it has been interpreted as forbidding abortion, so at least it is descriptive of the Western medical tradition, both before and after the rise of Christianity.
Flory
Thursday, February 19, 2004
In response to a recent, particularly evil murder--of two policemen during a traffic stop--a bill has been proposed to restore capital punishment for some forms of first degree murder. I hadn't realized that capital punishment was not a penalty for murder in this state. I'm resisting using words like "legalizing," because of course any constitutionally acceptable punishment is legal in principle; all that would be changed is whether it would be a sentencing option. It seems to me to be absurd to speak of prohibiting or legalizing an action that only the state can ever take, and which is in fact the single action that uniquely distinguishes the state from all other institutions.
To "ban" capital punishment is only for the state to say that it will decline to execute murderers, no matter how savage, but that it retains (as it must) the right of capital punishment. Rioters, looters, people who threaten policemen, even trespassers in highly protected areas; all are rightly at risk of summary capital punishment. And if the risk of an innocent man being executed for first degree murder worries someone, how much more worrying it must be to him to think of police swat teams armed with automatic weapons. That's a form of capital punishment far less discriminate than lethal injection and one permitting no appeals. As far as risks go, it is nearly certain that the government executed more innocents in Randy Weaver's cabin than it has through the legal process in the last forty years.
OK, conspiracy check: of course nothing more went on in that case than the unhappy combination of a crossgrained, half-nuts survivalist and a hugely arrogant and over-militarized federal law enforcement system. I hate having to give any disclaimer, but certain things pick up a color unrelated to the facts, and this is one.
In any case, the state may restore capital punishment to the sentencing options for some murders. And, naturally, Catholics are trying to stop it. Putting the many good arguments for the use of capital punishment aside, and passing over just how unconcerned Catholics were about a culture of death when they treated Protestants as Texans treat spareribs, the really contemptible thing about Catholic opposition is summed up in their opening paragraph:
The Michigan Catholic Conference today announced its resounding opposition to a proposed constitutional amendment that would reinstate the death penalty in Michigan. On the issue of capital punishment, as with abortion or assisted suicide, the Catholic Church has consistently advocated against the use of lethal means to solve social issues.Oh, of course, abortion is just like executing someone who shot two policemen. It's not really any wonder that the vast majority of Catholics aren't serious about abortion, if the problem with it is only that it's the wrong way to go about "solving social issues." The Catholic position is morally vacuous, laughably incoherent, and depraved in its consequences, since it obscures the real moral problems present in abortion and simultaneously ensures that more murderers will kill again.
But at least it's infallibly depraved. That's just like virtue, as Bellarmine said.
Flory
P.S. I hope you admired my use of preterition--it's a low rhetorical figure, but extremely fun to use.
Sunday, February 15, 2004
Another article about "intellectual diversity" in the universities.
Intellectual diversity is a lousy idea, of course; for hiring faculty, the only difference that should matter is the specialty of the prospective faculty member. It's good to have Latinists and Hellenists, specialists in later and earlier works, in prose and poetry, and so on. It's idiotic to say that there is any intrinsic value at all in having a wide variation in political opinions. If it would be good to add registered Republicans, wouldn't it be even more diverse and even better also to have Communists, America-Firsters, neo-nazis, and any freelance nuts who wander by?
The real problem is that hiring blatantly prefers leftists as leftists. My university just went through a round of hiring, and as a graduate student I took a small part in the selection. The graduate students discussed the candidates, who had given lectures and met us less formally, and then voted by show of hands. Of the four candidates, two were hip young leftist women, whose "theory" influenced scholarship was still connected with reality; one was a pleasant young woman whose method was much more traditional and who didn't give any indications of her politics; and one was an ill-mannered older woman, whose theory of female power hardly concealed the holes in her argument.
The first thing to notice is that they were all women. It is not the case that nearly all classics graduate students are female; the departments I've seen are about evenly split. The first non-academic hiring criterion then was clearly that the new professor be a woman. That kind of thing is a given, though.
The discussion, however, was surprising. The pleasant young woman was highly praised for her pleasantness, openness, poise, and resourcefulness, and scarcely criticized. The harsh older woman was just as strongly condemned for being the opposite in every way. From a couple of the battier students, she did win some praise for her aggressive use of theory. Of the remaining two, one was liked but dismissed as a lightweight, while the other was explicitly praised for her importation of leftist politics into her scholarship. One graduate student even portrayed her as an anti-Victor Davis Hanson. The quality of her scholarship was hardly discussed. She won the vote by a very wide margin, while the pleasant, competent, non-political candidate came second with a handful of votes.
The graduate student vote isn't decisive, but it has a little influence; more important, it's reasonable to think that it won't be too different from what the younger faculty do. Political viewpoint was not the only criterion, but it was so present in the whole discussion that it is all but impossible to imagine a non-leftist winning. And an actual conservative, like VDH, should he by some error make it to that stage, would be roasted alive. Even keeping silent about politics is not very helpful; the second-place candidate was almost certainly at least a Democrat, but they were looking for strong professional commitment to politics.
By the way, "theory" is the general name for applying ideology to a subject. "Good use of theory" or "Showed a sound grasp of theory" means that some ideology (Marxist, feminist, etc.), mixed with deconstructionism or the like, controls the person's scholarship. One history professor last year mentioned in passing that some of the oddities of a book we'd just read resulted from the author's desire to eliminate free markets from Roman history. This wasn't a criticism, just an idiosyncrasy to be noted. Also I should add that I really dislike VDH, whose writing is like a thick slice of soap.
Flory
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
As a sort of post script, I have to say that one reason I have had less than expected to post about the university is that all the people I know are civil. Their beliefs are pretty wild, but I have yet to meet anyone who goes straight to hands-over-the-head, tear-down-society madness in the way that many, many people in the SF Bay area do. Sure, absolutely every professor insults Bush in class at least once a week, but they do it much more calmly.
Once in Palo Alto I provoked a room full of co-workers into (honestly) hands above the head frenzies of Bush hatred just by mentioning his name. I haven't seen anything like that here. (I admit that I treasure this memory--now that I'm free of it all.)
Flory
There was a heavy snowfall of Latin in the area last week; it blocked the door and I've only just now been able to get out.
You may have heard about the Georgia DOE's plan to drop the word "evolution" from its curriculum. The stated intention was to help some students overcome their reaction to the word itself, and in that way to help them learn about modern biology and evolution. This is possibly a bit silly, as all euphemisms are, but just about perfectly anodyne. Evolutionists, that is to say, people for whom evolution is not merely true, but is the Truth, reacted violently. The reliable knucklehead Carter jumped in, showing a spark wholly lacking when he was dealing with, say, Iranian terrorists. Among other things, he said
There is no need to teach that stars can fall out of the sky and land on a flat Earth in order to defend our religious faith.Well, fine, we all knew Carter was, not a stupid man, but a badly deranged one. These comments hardly compare to his writing speeches for Yasser Arafat and providing him image tips.
But a Californian acquaintance was excited by the story into emailing several people about Carter's getting it right for once. I finally pointed out the obvious, and got back a fire-breathing response that, among other frothy berserknesses, demanded that control of Georgia's schools be taken away from Georgia. He was maniacal throughout, but this exchange (forgive me for pasting in email) sums it up:
>> The question is not what the political or social
>> climate in Georgia is; it is whether the science of
>> biology is to be taught as it is supposed
>> to be taught, with its entire lexicon intact and
>> unmodified by school administrators.
>
>> There's really no room for compromise on this issue.
>> Historically speaking, the creationists have always
>> been extremely excited when the
>> door of the public schools is opened for them. As
>> far as I'm concerned, the public schools need to
>> pull that particular door shut and brick it.
> This is what I mean about the evolutionary fringe
> having trouble with a free society. I know that no
> one else's most serious beliefs ever seem as serious
> as one's own, but trust me, it takes just as much
> effort for me to accept compromises on abortion as it
> would for you (if you ever did) to accept compromises
> on evolution. Yet accepting the fact of compromise is
> the absolute requirement for politics, and politics,
> despised though it is, is what distinguishes all the
> forms of free societies from those societies where
> there are no compromises, only pure clean orders.
I confess to being completely baffled by this paragraph. "This is what
I mean about the evolutionary fringe having trouble with a free
society." What, exactly, does that mean? I don't know how much (if any)
scientific training you have, John, but I can assure you that
virtually 100% of practicing biologists regard evolution as a fact.
There are theories concerning how evolution occurred, but there is no
serious doubt that it did occur.
Quotes from me in green, from him in blue.
For the last few days I've been trying to decide what to do; I wasn't done, but I couldn't handle another blast of his distinctive blend of patronizing and boasting (cf. "I don't know how much..."). I'd be sure to reply with something that I'd regret, eventually. But it also seems pretty weak to respond here where he can't reply. My consolation is that, based on many other experiences with him, I can be sure he wouldn't understand or even listen. His idea of argumentation is to demand, "Evidence. Logic. Consistency. Explanatory power." while at the same time neglecting even to read what he's objecting to.
So, with that half-hearted disclaimer out of the way, now the quotes. For the purpose of this argument, I'm willing simply to concede that the Georgia DOE was conspiring to teach that the earth is flat. It wasn't, of course, and in fact was trying to further acceptance of the substance of evolution, but for this purpose I don't care. The problem is that a free society requires compromise, even on important things. More than that, these compromises will often be in the direction of something false.
It is the fanatic who says, "That I am right absolves me of all demands of civil society." In truth, his one correct belief is irrelevant, because he exalts a far worse error: the principle that there is anything whatsoever that absolves a man of his duty to engage in civil society through politics, that is, through persuasion and compromise.
My acquaintance proved, as ever, completely incapable of distinguishing the objective truth value of his belief on the single point of evolution from the status of his belief in a free society. It was, as I thought it would be, impossible for him to accept that other people might hold as tightly to a belief in another area as he does to evolution, and that the objective truth value of those beliefs cannot be allowed to outweigh the great goal of freedom, the attempt to maintain a peaceful life both for the zealots and for the rest of us. But, he says, I'm right, I'm right, I'm right.
Well, as those kooky kids say, whatever.
Flory
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
And the second post.
It's my hope, although it won't be for quite a while yet, to teach the kids at home. If I can afford a good private school I'll be willing to try that, but many private schools are inadequate and all are expensive. There is a small academy near here that would be good, but it is $8,000/year. Pretty much that would mean having only one or two children, or else spacing them about fifteen years apart. Parochial schools are cheaper, but also not as good. And I very much don't want to hand children over to a Catholic education.
Besides that, I'm looking forward to helping teach them. I don't have any grand plans about inflicting Latin on them early, first because that's kind of weird and second because I doubt I'd carry it through. Of course they will learn Latin and Greek, but later. The idea isn't to overburden them as some ambitious parents do, but simply to give them a good education. It's exciting to read through textbooks from the early 20th century, since they covered an amazing amount of material in a calm and rational manner (current textbooks are frenetic and random--take a look at one sometime). That's about the pace I'm imagining, although another good thing about homeschooling is that there is no need to stretch out a subject over a year if the child is moving more rapidly than that. With any luck, they'll entirely escape the stultifying, soul-crushing boredom that is the defining characteristic of a public education.
Still, as I've been thinking recently, it's hard to know what it will be like for them. I homeschooled casually and only for a few years; really, I'm just about as much a public school product as anyone else. The boredom was, and even in memory still is, oppressive, but I actually enjoyed school quite a bit. The teachers were often not very bright and sometimes knew less than the better students about their own subjects, but in all but a couple of cases they were very nice and I liked them.
More than that, I can't imagine childhood without tiled halls, rows of desks, chalk and sharpened pencils, playgrounds, assemblies, and the whole daily routine. In the third grade I met my best friend; he and I spent most of the next ten years together, and I have a great many happy memories from them. We would not likely have met if it weren't for school. Nor, despite the moronic "awareness campaign," were bullies much of a problem. I must have practically cried out for bullying, but, apart from a little trouble in the first grade, I was left alone.
I didn't see others being bullied, either, although there is a great deal of casual cruelty among children. In gradeschool, one girl, whose parents were both incompetent and Jehovah's Witnesses, was very badly treated by everyone, including me. She was far too big for her age, always dirty and ragged, and, because of her parents' religion, very different, having to sit out all classroom celebrations. As everyone learns, any large group of children will savagely eliminate certain kinds of difference. I hope she turned out all right; somehow I doubt it. But the treatment she received was exceptional.
What could it be like, never to go to a public school? Judith just this year stepped into a public school for the first time in her life, and only for an hour or two. I can't imagine it. Public education is very nearly a complete failure as education, but it is also one of the institutions central to our lives. That's regrettable, but unalterable. Or perhaps not--the number of homeschoolers rises every year, and perhaps soon enough public education will go the route of broadcast TV. Still there, still valued by the old, the liberal, the stupid, and the very poor, but ever more irrelevant.
It's a sobering thought, to think of how great an effect Judith and I will have on our children, how hard it will be to see what it will mean for them to have a childhood in some ways very different from either of ours. It's easy, having experienced what I have, to know the good of those differences, but how can I know the bad? No wonder so many parents want nothing but to fit their children right back into the childhood they themselves lived.
Flory
Two completely different posts today, since I've had something since Friday but have forgotten to post. The first will bore your socks off.
I wanted to play Scrabble in Latin (Judith is extremely long-suffering), but couldn't find statistics on Latin letter frequencies. So, Thursday and Friday I wrote a script to calculate the statistics and ran it on a large collection of Latin texts. Here they are, so that maybe they'll spare someone else (arriving by Google of course) the effort.
First, for comparison, English letter frequencies:
For Latin, I used all of Vergil's works, Horace's Odes and Epodes, Caesar's Gallic War, Ovid's Fasti, Propertius' elegy, and all of Cicero's speeches. These texts are all roughly contemporary, at any rate within fifty years or so, and should provide a good mix of prose and poetry.Cryptographical Mathematics by R. E. Lewand
a 8.2% n 6.7%
b 1.5% o 7.5%
c 2.8% p 1.9%
d 4.3% q 0.1%
e 12.7% r 6.0%
f 2.3% s 6.3%
g 2.0% t 9.1%
h 6.1% u 2.8%
i 7.0% v 1.0%
j 0.2% w 2.4%
k 0.8% x 0.2%
l 4.0% y 2.0%
m 2.4% z 0.1%
Latin words average somewhat greater length than English words, having 7-8 letters per word, so the texts totaled about 125,000 words.
Sorted by letter:
a: 90580 9.4% n: 58331 6.1%
b: 14488 1.5% o: 50302 5.2%
c: 38356 4.0% p: 26357 2.7%
d: 25738 2.7% q: 16788 1.7%
e: 115543 12.0% r: 65722 6.8%
f: 9942 1.0% s: 75332 7.8%
g: 11601 1.2% t: 78743 8.2%
h: 8360 0.9% u: 77702 8.1%
i: 98585 10.2% v: 14249 1.5%
j: 0 0.0% w: 0 0.0%
k: 30 0.0% x: 4413 0.5%
l: 32193 3.3% y: 1573 0.2%
m: 48538 5.0% z: 70 0.0%
Sorted by frequency:
e: 115543 12.0% d: 25738 2.7%
i: 98585 10.2% q: 16788 1.7%
a: 90580 9.4% b: 14488 1.5%
t: 78743 8.2% v: 14249 1.5%
u: 77702 8.1% g: 11601 1.2%
s: 75332 7.8% f: 9942 1.0%
r: 65722 6.8% h: 8360 0.9%
n: 58331 6.1% x: 4413 0.5%
o: 50302 5.2% y: 1573 0.2%
m: 48538 5.0% z: 70 0.0%
c: 38356 4.0% k: 30 0.0%
l: 32193 3.3% j: 0 0.0%
p: 26357 2.7% w: 0 0.0%
Total number of letters: 963536
For now, I'm using the following distribution of letters for Scrabble:
a 9
b 2
c 4
d 3
e 12
f 1
g 1
h 1
i 10
l 3
m 5
n 6
o 5
p 3
q 2
r 7
s 8
t 8
u 8
v 2
x 1
blanks 4
Total 105
There really ought to be only 100 tiles and only two blanks, but until I've played some more I won't have a feel for which three tiles should be dropped. And the extra blanks are to try to make it less painful while being balanced. I also have to assign point values to the letters. For instance, H is surprisingly hard to get rid of, about as hard as Z in English, so should probably be ten points. M, on the other hand, should probably be one or two points instead of the English value of three. Also, because Latin words tend to be longer, hands of nine tiles are helpful.
Judith and I had a good game, even if it was hindered by the scoring--one point per letter yields some strange scores--but by the end I think she was ready to kill me. It did go on for a while, since scrounging up Latin words from memory is, as you'd expect, a lot harder than using English. Still, it seemed like a really helpful study tool as well as a lot of fun. If I get the Latin rules worked out properly, I hope to commission a set of Greek tiles. Judith tells me that I will be playing that one by myself, which hardly seems the uxorial spirit. I'm pretty sure the vows even say "to love, honor, and play Greek Scrabble."
Flory
