With a Dictator's Death Comes a Delicate Balance

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In a New York Times Op-Ed entitled "What to Do, and Not Do, About North Korea," Robert Gallucci explores the question that pretty much every American had on their mind after Kim Jong-il's death-what does this mean for the U.S. and what do we do about it?

Most of us would like to see North Korea's "horrendous totalitarian government," as the author calls it, fall - but we want it enough to do something about it? Would that be a good idea?

The answer is, of course, unknown. Whenever there is awful human suffering in a country, the U.S. seems to at least consider doing something about it. Sometimes the government does, and it ends up being a really bad idea, like in Mogadishu. Sometimes it doesn't or does too late and then regrets it later, like in Rwanda.

Galluci, despite admitting the "horrendous" nature of what is occurring in North Korea, things that this is definitely a case when U.S. should not get involved. He states that "we should not be in the business of teaching other governments lessons. We should adopt the best policies to protect our national security." And in this case, that entails "entering a serious discussion about the North’s nuclear weapons program, aimed at its dismantlement." But not to "openly advocate the overthrow of the government in Pyongyang."

I am definitely inclined to agree with him. For all that I firmly believe in human rights and that I, as an individual, have just as much obligation to help someone from Indonesia as the United States, the government interfering is generally not a good idea. From what I know of U.S. history, it seems to me that cases where involvement in other countries' domestic conflicts has led to regret or puppet governments outnumber those where intervention has led to good. The U.S. is not some sort of superhero country, it doesn't and shouldn't go around helping out everyone else - normally "helping" really means trying to get oil or something else, or leaving before the problem is solved because the public has lost interest. All countries are out there to protect their national security and their interests, the U.S. is no different. "Teaching other governments lessons" is not a good idea from our perspective or a human rights one.

So I say we let North Korea do what it's going to do - while urging change, of course, but not really pushing. What do you think?

Neuroaesthetics

I recently read an op ed article on The New York Times website called "Art and the Limits of Neuroscience." It discusses the new field of neuroaesthetics, which studies art using neuroscience. The author, a professor of philosophy, is skeptical of the new field.


I agree with him insofar as neuroaesthetics has definitely come too soon. There is a fundamental lack of understanding about how the brain works, what thoughts are, how memories are stored, even the specifics of the biochemistry of it all. As the author points out "neuroscience has yet to frame anything like an adequate biological or “naturalistic” account of human experience — of thought, perception, or consciousness." I agree with him in that there is simply no way to tackle a problem as complex as our interpretation and experience of art without being able to understand the basics of thought and perception. So certainly the field is pretty much going to be a "fad science" kind of thing, with most books being published for the average reader and mostly just interesting anecdotes, not research that advances scientific knowledge all that much.

I disagree with him in claiming, as support for his skepticism of neuroaesthetics, that "there can be no all-purpose account of what happens when people communicate or when they laugh together." I, for one, see no justification anywhere in his article for this claim, and would say that these are probably some of the most attainable goals of neuroscience. Outside stimuli are much easier to explore and understand than the more introspective aspects of our consciousness. I think that it is quite possible for us to get an "all-purpose account" of communication. Great leaps have been made in understanding language and such, why on earth would this be impossible?

What do you think? Is an "all-purpose account" of human communication and laughter within the reaches of neuroscience?

To What Extent Are We Blind?

Mr. O'Connor, our AS teacher posed this question to us on Monday in class: to what extent are we blind? This was in reference to a discussion on Arthur Miller's The Crucible, in which many of the characters are willfully ignorant of the faults in their logic. He promised a later discussion on this subject, but I just cannot wait. This question hits on one of my favorite hobbies: learning how much of an idiot I am, and how little I control who I am. One of my favorite corners of the internet is the blog You Are Not So Smart, which, the author explains, "is a blog I started to publicly explore our self delusions." I have previously discussed one major focus of the blog, the idea that we create narratives to explain actions we see ourselves making and that we really are just a story we've told ourselves to explain our unconscious mind here.

My answer to the question "to what extent are we blind?" Is "in nearly every extent possible". Although I could write tons of blog posts about this, I'll write one about the most famous example: confirmation bias. Working from the post on it from my beloved You Are Not So Smart, available here, the illusion of confirmation bias is that your opinions are based on "rational, objective analysis." This is not at all the case. In reality, your "opinions are the result of years of paying attention to information which confirmed what you believed while ignoring information which challenged your preconceived notions." We are all blind to anything that contradicts our opinions. And you know what is so amazing about this bias? Most of you are reading this saying "yeah, I can totally see how that would be true of most other people, but I really do like to pay attention to the other side and really to change my opinions based on evidence." Your brain does not want to acknowledge the bias. It would much rather you be blind to it, that's much easier for you. But guess what? Every single one of us has it, and does it. Every single one of us does is blind to everything, basing our opinions off of a world run through thousands of biases and fallacies and narratives in our own brain.

I would ask your opinion on this, but it wouldn't really be based off of anything more than your own false biases, and I'd probably ignore it anyways if it contradicted me because I clearly am the only one free of these faults, so why bother?

What Goes Up Must Come Down: The Aftermath of the Arab Spring

Protestors in Egypt running from security forces. From The New York Times

We all heard and read about the Arab Spring revolutions beginning in December of 2010, which have so far resulted in Ben Ali's resignation and flight to Saudi Arabia, Mubarak's resignation and Qaddafi's death at the hands of the rebels on October 20th, among other things. But there is much more to revolution than just getting rid of the leaders. Tunisia's first free election on October 24th went very well. Of course some people were unhappy and some protests occurred, but that's not very concerning. Tunisia's success, however, does not necessarily foreshadow success in Libya or Egypt. Tunisia has a largely apolitical military, as well as a fairly homogeneous population with a history of a unified national identity. The apolitical military certainly helped Tunisia out, as Egypt is not having much luck with its military interim government.

Today's New York Times featured an article, available here, on renewed protests in Egypt against the interim military government. The catalyst was a provision the constitution allowing for the military to intervene in civilian politics. Of course, that is only one part of the military government's abuses. The article notes that "After pledging to turn over power to civilians by September, the military postponed the handover until after the ratification of a constitution and the election of a president, sometime in 2013 or later." As long as the time frame for turning over power to civilians contains the words  "or later," I find it difficult to be very optimistic about Egypt's future. The military can always postpone, and postpone, and postpone. However, the new protests show that the people are not blind to what is going on, so I do have hope for a democratic Egypt.

The situation in Egypt constantly evolving and changing, and I am interested to see it unfolds. What do you think? Will the uprising's hopes be realized?

The Evolution of Tituba Part 2

Tituba, again. Source

Last week I wrote a post on Tituba in The Crucible. I examined how her character was changed from what the historical documents list her as, "Indian," to Arthur Miller's portrayal of her in The Crucible as somehow of African descent. I mentioned I began doing research because I was confused about something in Act IV. I was confused about the beginning scene where Tituba and Sarah Good, both accused witches, were taken out of the jail. I wasn't sure whether Tituba and Good were going to be hanged or released. Because Miller promises at the beginning of the book that the fates of all the characters are the same as that of their historical counterparts, I took to the internet to see what actually happened to Tituba. Tituba, it turns out, was not hanged - but Sarah Good was. So why does Miller show them leaving the jail together, presumably bound for the same fate?

Last week I discussed how Miller also increased Tituba's role in the witchcraft of Salem by changing the magic the girls were practicing from English to Voodoo. This would seem to be an effort on his part to increase Tituba's guilt. However, throughout the rest of the book he seems to make efforts to incriminate Abigail by making her motivation "a whore's revenge" (102) despite the fact that the real Abigail was 11 and there is no evidence to support an affair with Proctor. Because Miller was trying to show the wrongness of Cold War McCarthyism, he also shows much of the blame as lying with those in power, by casting doubt on Danforth by making him seem ridiculously black and white when he says "a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road in between" (87).

Thus, according to his delineation of good and evil, Tituba should be an innocent victim. Is Miller trying to increase this sympathy by suggesting she was hanged? If so, why increase her role in the magic, making her seem like the source of much of it? If not, how does making Tituba seem more guilty support Miller's argument?