Keith Burgess-Jackson

I leave you this fine evening with a column by Michael Malone. Key paragraphs:

As hard as may be [sic] for younger readers of this column to believe, twenty years ago, the New York Times was unquestionably the newspaper of record for the United States and (with the London Times) for much of the rest of the world. It had the most famous reporters and columnists, its coverage set the standard for all other news, and its opinions, delivered ex cathedra from the upper floors of the Gray Lady on 43rd Street set the topics of this country’s political debate.

Incredibly, almost every bit of that power has been squandered over the last two decades. It’s been a long time since anyone considered the Times to be anything but the newspaper of opinion for anyone but the residents of a few square miles of midtown Manhattan. Indeed, about all the newspaper has left of the old days under “Pinch’s” dad, Arthur “Punch” Sulzberger, is that old Time’s imperiousness—earned back then, and more than a little absurd today.

The Times ran afoul of Keith’s Law, to wit: Authoritativeness is inversely proportional to partisanship. If the Times becomes nonpartisan (i.e., if it ceases to be a progressive propaganda rag and returns to journalism), it will regain its authoritativeness. It won’t happen quickly, but it will happen.

Addendum: Here are the changes that must be made if the Times is to regain its authoritativeness:

1. The members of the editorial board must learn how to argue. Their opinions are little more than diatribes, replete with manipulative rhetoric, name-calling, and character assassination. To argue, one must find common ground; otherwise, there is no chance of rational persuasion. Those being criticized must be given the benefit (rather than the detriment) of the doubt, which means, among other things, that they must have good motives (rather than bad) imputed to them. It should always be assumed, for example, that President Bush is well-intentioned. Most editorial opinions in the Times seem designed to buck up progressives rather than reach out to conservatives or appeal to the undecided. Can you say “preaching to the converted”?

2.  Op-ed columnists such as Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich, and Bob Herbert must be replaced. They have long since proved two things: that they are unable to treat others fairly and that they are indifferent to the truth. They are political hacks, not intellectuals.

3. Reporters such as Linda Greenhouse must be replaced. She lacks impartiality, which is the prime reportorial virtue. It should be made clear to reporters, especially those on the political beat, that they are not to interject their values into their stories, either directly or indirectly (via the use of emotively laden terms). Readers don’t care what their values are. Readers want the facts.

There are other changes, but these are the most important.

10-18-87 The [Minnesota] Twins won again tonight, this time by a score of 8-4. Now, even if St Louis sweeps its three games in Busch Stadium, the Cardinals will have to return to the Metrodome. That has got to encourage the Twins, for they are formidable there. As these sentences indicate, I’ve yet to form a rooting interest in either team. I can’t get behind Minnesota because of what the Twins did to my [Detroit] Tigers, and how can you root for a team like St Louis which is making its third World Series appearance in six years [1982, 1985, and 1987]? Had Minnesota gotten to the Series by beating, say, Toronto [the Blue Jays], there’s little doubt that I’d be rooting for the Twins. One more thing. There are only a couple of black Twins in the starting lineup. I’ve heard allegations for years that Minnesota is a racist organization, and here’s evidence that it is. In the law, inference is permitted from outcomes to motives. That is, if a particular neighborhood has a disproportionately small number of blacks, it can be inferred, for civil rights and constitutional purposes, that there has been conscious discrimination against blacks by nonblacks. Using the same sort of reasoning, the Twins are racists.

Before the game, I took a long bike ride. The weather was nice, albeit windy. I began on my crazy route, but rather than turn around at Rob McLean’s apartment complex on Valencia Road, I kept going. I worked my way around the Tucson Mountains and pedalled [sic; should be “pedaled”] over Gates Pass. This was a first for me. Shortly after moving to Tucson [in August 1983] I rode to the peak from the east, but I never rode down [the other side]. Today I rode up and over, from the west. Whew! I rarely get below six miles per hour on any climb, but this one required that I slow to three miles per hour as I neared the peak. I refused to stop for rest. Cars waited behind me or cautiously went around, because the road is narrow near the top. When I crested the ridge, I sat up and enjoyed the downhill ride. I had to do almost no pedalling [sic] for the next five minutes. All told, I rode 72.2 miles at an average speed of 15.51 miles per hour. I got off the bike only once, to buy Gatorade at the forty-mile mark.

Many scientists are progressives first and scientists second. See here. They believe that some questions are too dangerous to be asked, some research too controversial to conduct, and some ideas too offensive to discuss or debate. Remember this the next time a progressive (1) accuses conservatives of letting faith interfere with the facts, (2) claims to be a member of the reality-based community, or (3) demands public money for “scientific” research. Science in the service of ideology is not science but scientism, which makes the term “scientist” appropriate.

The New York Yankees are imploding. Go Yankees!

From about the age of twelve, I entered into another and more advanced stage in my course of instruction; in which the main object was no longer the aids and appliances of thought, but the thoughts themselves. This commenced with Logic, in which I began at once with the Organon, and read it to the Analytics inclusive, but profited little by the Posterior Analytics, which belong to a branch of speculation I was not yet ripe for. Contemporaneously with the Organon, my father made me read the whole or parts of several of the Latin treatises on the scholastic logic; giving each day to him, in our walks, a minute account of what I had read, and answering his numerous and searching questions. After this, I went in a similar manner, through the “Computatio sive Logica” of Hobbes, a work of a much higher order of thought than the books of the school logicians, and which he estimated very highly; in my own opinion beyond its merits, great as these are. It was his invariable practice, whatever studies he exacted from me, to make me as far as possible understand and feel the utility of them: and this he deemed peculiarly fitting in the case of the syllogistic logic, the usefulness of which had been impugned by so many writers of authority. I well remember how, and in what particular walk, in the neighbourhood of Bagshot Heath (where we were on a visit to his old friend Mr. Wallace, then one of the Mathematical Professors at Sandhurst) he first attempted by questions to make me think on the subject, and frame some conception of what constituted the utility of the syllogistic logic, and when I had failed in this, to make me understand it by explanations. The explanations did not make the matter at all clear to me at the time; but they were not therefore useless; they remained as a nucleus for my observations and reflections to crystallize upon; the import of his general remarks being interpreted to me, by the particular instances which came under my notice afterwards. My own consciousness and experience ultimately led me to appreciate quite as highly as he did, the value of an early practical familiarity with the school logic. I know nothing, in my education, to which I think myself more indebted for whatever capacity of thinking I have attained. The first intellectual operation in which I arrived at any proficiency, was dissecting a bad argument, and finding in what part the fallacy lay: and though whatever capacity of this sort I attained was due to the fact that it was an intellectual exercise in which I was most perseveringly drilled by my father, yet it is also true that the school logic, and the mental habits acquired in studying it, were among the principal instruments of this drilling. I am persuaded that nothing, in modern education, tends so much, when properly used, to form exact thinkers, who attach a precise meaning to words and propositions, and are not imposed on by vague, loose, or ambiguous terms. The boasted influence of mathematical studies is nothing to it; for in mathematical processes, none of the real difficulties of correct ratiocination occur. It is also a study peculiarly adapted to an early stage in the education of philosophical students, since it does not presuppose the slow process of acquiring, by experience and reflection, valuable thoughts of their own. They may become capable of disentangling the intricacies of confused and self-contradictory thought, before their own thinking faculties are much advanced; a power which, for want of some such discipline, many otherwise able men altogether lack; and when they have to answer opponents, only endeavour, by such arguments as they can command, to support the opposite conclusion, scarcely even attempting to confute the reasonings of their antagonists; and, therefore, at the utmost, leaving the question, as far as it depends on argument, a balanced one.

Note from KBJ: I agree with Mill about the value of syllogistic logic. I just finished teaching it in my Logic course. Gottfried Leibniz wrote: “I consider the invention of the form of syllogisms one of the most beautiful, and also one of the most important, made by the human mind.” Mill’s final point deserves comment. Suppose subject S argues for proposition p. A critic should do two things: first, show that S’s argument for p is unsound; second, construct a sound argument for not-p. In other words, show both (1) that the reasons given for the truth of p are not good ones and (2) that there are good reasons to believe that p is false. What Mill is saying is that many “otherwise able men” do (or try to do) only the second of these things. This leaves two arguments: one for p and one for not-p. If you don’t want to leave the question “balanced,” you must do both things, not just one of them. For example, suppose S argues that the invasion of Iraq was unjustified. A critic should show not only that there is a good argument for the opposite conclusion (to wit: that the invasion of Iraq was justified) but that S’s argument is bad. See the difference? If it helps, you can think of the first task as offensive in nature (wielding a sword) and the second as defensive (wielding a shield). Mill is saying that many people go into battle with only a sword. They’re fools.

Note 2 from KBJ: I love the part about James Mill’s explanations making sense to John only later. Have you experienced this? Perhaps one of your parents said something to you as a child that didn’t make sense at the time, but did later, when you gained experience. Children have good memories. Their minds should be packed full of useful advice, even if it’s not yet comprehensible to them. Later in their lives, they will be grateful to you.

Will Nehs sent a link to this story about Hillary Clinton, who is pandering to women. May she lose one male vote for every female vote she gets.

Here.

To the Editor:

Re “An Overblown Fear About S-Chip” (editorial, Oct. 16):

We should all be insulted by the semantics game the Bush administration is playing in an effort to validate its unconscionable veto of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program reauthorization bill.

Using scare tactics, mislabeling and rhetoric, the administration is trying to scare Americans into believing that expanding S-chip so that more needy children have access to health care would bring about a “government-run” health care system or “socialized medicine,” and amount to nothing less than “government handouts” to the middle class.

This faulty representation of an important program couldn’t be further from the truth, and the large majority of Americans, including politicians (Democratic and Republican) know it.

I applaud the politicians in both parties who are standing up for children’s rights. I implore those policy makers who continue to be blinded by dangerous and erroneous assumptions to remember that their override vote on Thursday is a vote for America’s future.

Corinne Kyriacou
Hempstead, N.Y., Oct. 16, 2007
The writer is an assistant professor of community health at Hofstra University.

Note from KBJ: Isn’t it nice to have such a dispassionate, scholarly analysis of the S-chip program, one that assigns proper weight to the various principles, imputes good motives to those who disagree, eschews manipulative rhetoric, and draws the appropriate conclusion?

Note 2 from KBJ: Your children’s health is not my responsibility.

Here.