The Marvels of the Electronic Age
If John McCain is tired of the old-person jokes, perhaps his campaign shouldn’t pedal ludicrous arguments like this one – that Obama can’t properly form an opinion about Iraq until he has visited it in person.
I’m sorry, but is John McCain aware we no longer have to send galleons around the Cape of Good Hope to communicate with the Orient? In this marvelous new age of the telegraph and the telephone, people can actually correspond across thousands of miles – exchanging information in real time! You can learn about -- and form a complex opinion about -- places beyond your line of sight.
McCain should make use of these amazing new technologies. No longer must he rely on carrier pigeons to communicate with his campaign staff back in Arlington. No longer must he travel home to Arizona to confirm it is still in the Union.
On the other hand, perhaps this ‘how can you understand something until you've seen it in person?’ reasoning could be uniquely helpful for law students. For instance:
-- How can the California Bar know an applicant is qualified to practice law if he hasn’t visited the California Supreme Court, where such laws are made?
Conversely, since I have seen the Supreme Court in action, why do I have to take a test in 10 days? Like John McCain, my multiple visits to a place should give me unquestioned authority and insight about it.
-- How can the Boalt Administration claim I didn’t Am Jur my last three classes, if Dean Edley didn’t personally read my exams? Relying on so-called “experts” to grade my exams just shows Dean Edley can't reach a conclusion on his own.
posted by Earl Warren at 12:00 PM
17 Comments:
I'm not a huge McCain supporter or anything, but this post is misleading.
The quote:
"I found it interesting that he released his plan for the way forward in Iraq and Afghanistan prior to visiting the region or talking with any of the commanders on the ground."
The statement doesn't imply that Obama has to go to Iraq to have an understanding of the situation. It implies that he has to go there or talk to people who are there.
Well putting aside the fact that McCain and his surrogates have repeatedly brought out the fact that Obama hasn't visited Iraq or whatever, I think the "or" in a negative means an "and."
"You didn't walk the dog or the cat." I think a proper reading of that is "You didn't walk the dog and you didn't walk the cat." Similarly, the implication is Obama didn't visit Iraq and he didn't talk to the commanders. Whereas McCain visited a heavily secured bazaar and concluded that the reign of terror inspired by 40 thieves is forever in the past.
This comment might mean something to me if McCain and the entire conservative establishment hadn't been making the exact same argument for weeks. Without any qualifier.
Armen and I share an eerily similar wavelength.
Bravo EW... couldn't have said it better myself.
It's a frustrating line of reasoning, and a seemingly desperate attempt to land a quick sucker punch.
Am I not qualified to be against the genocide in Sudan since I haven't personally been to Darfur? Is it ok that I disagree with government-imposed censorship of democracy in China even though I haven't gone on a "fact-finding" mission there or spoken with the heads of the Communist Party?
Is it cool that I'm against the policies of the Bush administration, even though I haven't taken Mrs. Frizzle's magic school bus through W's brain?
Arguing with someone who reasons like this is like arguing with someone who uses Gateway theory reasoning, or Biblical reasoning... you just can't get through to them.
10 days to the bar. You had to remind me of that!
and on a more serious note...
It's also when John McCain comments about watching every episode of the Hills.
But then calling Heidi Montag an "actress." Anyone who talks about watching a show must see it. He clearly has not. It's a reality show!
Yea, "the" "Hills" "is" "a" ""reality"" "show"." """"""
It is obvious that EW has not been to the McCain camp in person.
I agree with everyone's fancy legal-epistimolgical arguments, i.e. I think that it's possible to form an opinion about a place without going there. However, I think that the real problem with the way we've conducted our Iraq and Afghanistan wars is that the key players haven't spent *enough* time there. Or if they have spent time there, they've done so behind high walls that protect them from any kind of interaction with the local population.
We should lament not that Obama feels pressure to travel to Afghanistan & Iraq, but that our lower- and mid-level officer corps and diplomats and nonprofiteers don't feel pressure to speak Arabic/Persian fluently and understand the history and culture of the places they're occupying.
Now, the British empire was uglier than our own empire in a lot of respects. But one thing it had going for it was that the people that ran it were often born in the colonies and lived there their whole lives. They spoke the local languages, understood intuitively how a third world economy works, and had a long term commitment to the place. Compare that to your average UN worker, who I would argue is "our" equivalent a British administrator or an East India Company manager. In the mid 1990s she was in Bosnia, then she was 6 months in East Timor when it became a state, then somewhere in Africa for a year or so, Thailand after the tsunami, and now she's in Afghanistan. She's drafted policy documents in each place with lots of bullet points and sections on democracy and human rights and gender perspectives, but she's been in none of them long enough to learn the language or to have an impact that goess beyond document creation.
It's even worse in the military context. Being an infantry Captain in Iraq must be the hardest job in the world--you lead your platoon into people's houses and question them about their relatives, try and decide who's telling you the truth, and you go around with the constant fear that any Iraqi you see on the street is going to shoot you. I don't how you do that job effectively without understanding what's going on around you and (especially) without speaking Arabic.
So basically, I think this whole I-spent-18-hours-on-the-ground-so-I-understand-the-situation thing is pretty ridiculous, but we certainly shouldn't complain that anyone is putting too *much* emphasis on local knowledge. Problem is the opposite--we need to give it more emphasis.
Ah, yes, British colonial administration was so much better than it would otherwise have been because the "sahibs" often grew up in India and other colonies. Set up to believe that they were racially, culturally, and intellectually superior to the people whose country they administered. Between that and their broken "Hindustani," they were in a much better position to systematically leech the country's wealth make their own fortunes and pay for a series of wars. They understood intuitively how a "third world economy" works because they created that economy.
I get your point about understanding a country/culture before waltzing in and trying to run it. But the British empire is not a good example.
9:18, thanks for calling me on my un-caveated praise for the British empire. You're right.
But don't you think it can be interesting to think about the British empire a little bit in trying to understand America's current role in the world?
For example, having recently taken Crim your post to me begs the question of which mens rea is more heinous for an imperialist to have--purpose or negligence. Is it worse to be consciously, intentionally, and chauvinistically exploitative (like the British), or is it worse to be ignorantly, negligently, capreciously destructive (like the Americans)? Yeah, the intent thing is pretty ugly. But on the other hand, many times more civilians have died as a result of America's poor administration and elephant-in-the-china-shop military tactics than the British ever killed Amristar. How much credit should we really get for our good intentions?
Then the British ever killed in Amritsar? That's not a fair comparison. How about comparing to the how many people were killed in the various wars with Indian princes, to take over control of vast parts of India? Or, OK, limit it to when Britain controlled India--what about the people killed in various attempts at suppression from the Mutiny until Independence? Or, how British taxation and trade restrictions created and exacerbated periodic famines? Or, how about the number of people killed at Partition, when Britain tried to deflect anti-British feeling by stoking inter-religious and inter-caste anger. By using their cultural sensitivity to draw an arbitrary line across the country, thereby ensuring that millions of people would have to leave their homes?
Again, I get the general point you are trying to make, but I can't take it seriously because you keep making it sound like the noble British were a great gift to the native savages.
You know you're in Berkeley when...even an innocent dig at John McCain can't help developing into an impassioned debate on colonialism.
(You know you're not ENTIRELY in Berkeley when...someone makes arguments about the benefits of colonialism.)
2:14, My response to your response to my response is basically much the same as my response to your other response.
First, you're right. I undermimned my own argument by downplaying the destructiveness of the British Empire. I should have deleted that sentence comparing the number of deaths and just said "but in some cases, negligence can be just as destructive." And if I knew as much about Indian history as you do be assured that I would have chosen a bigger atrocity--Amristar was just the only name that came to mind.
Second, I want to reiterate that I wasn't trying to say that the Americans are worse than the British, but merely that I think it is instructive to look at the British example in order to better understand America's current role in the world. Making comparisons and drawing distinctions is an aid to clear thinking. See e.g. law school.
However, there is one thing about your response I don't like.
I said the British were "consciously, intentionally, and chauvinistically exploitative," and mentioned a massacre that they perpetrated. You think this amounts to "making it sound like the noble British were a great gift to the native savages." How many bad things, then, do I have to say about the British before I get to be taken seriously? Or am I not allowed to make a neutral/factual mention of the British Empire at all? Perhaps the British Empire was so heinous that you can't even speak its name without immediately following it with a string of vituperative language, sort of like how you never mention the Prophet without immediately saying "may peace and blessings be upon him."
Maybe I'm blowing this out of proportion, but I find the boundaries you're putting on polite debate unnecesarily restrictive. EW mentioned "you know you're in Berkeley when..." Well, I tend to resent the social pressure I feel at Berkeley to engage in a great deal of eye-rolling, hand-wringing, or self-flagellation every time I make a casual mention of something like "free markets," "John McCain," or "the conquest of the American West." The time we spend performing those rituals of liberal orthodoxy would be better spent making substantive talk.
Oh, 11:57, I take you seriously. In fact, your point about a conquering country having some cultural knowledge of the conquered country is quite relevant. Your original premise was faulty, and I pointed it out. And then you invoked Amritsar, which struck me as not comparable in the least, so I pointed it out.
It's not the Berkeley in me that made me do so, it was the fact that your use of the British example was mangled. Took away from your overall point. That's all I'm saying.
I'm not sure what any of this has to do with "the social pressure I feel at Berkeley to engage in a great deal of eye-rolling, hand-wringing, or self-flagellation every time I make a casual mention of something like "free markets," "John McCain," or "the conquest of the American West.""
I've always quite liked John McCain and free markets, and I consider myself a beneficiary of the American West, seeing as how I live here and love it. What my pointing out the (pehaps inadvertently) revisionist nature of your British history has to do with that, I don't know. If you feel social pressure, it ain't coming from me.
Oh, 11:57.
Obviously, you haven't been given the encoded map to the secret meeting place, where we sane people speak with unchained tongues and free minds. The resistance is small, but passionate.
Go to Zeb, and place a white napkin atop your paper coffee cup. Someone will come find you.
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