The Illusion of Knowledge

~ "A little learning is a dang'rous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.” --Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism

The Illusion of Knowledge

Monthly Archives: December 2014

From Yalta to Crimea

12 Friday Dec 2014

Posted by Milton in Uncategorized

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Appeasement, Crimea, NATO, Putin, Russia, Ukraine, Yalta

On Sunday, December 7th, Michael O’Hanlon and Jeremy Shapiro published, in the Washington Post, a column calling for the appeasement of Russia and its leader, Vladamir Putin. Its title “Crafting a win-win-win for Russia, Ukraine and the West” brings to mind nothing so much as the phrase “Peace in Our Time.” Paul Roderick Gregory has an excellent point-by-point rebuttal to the authors’ call to compromise here. In short, O’Hanlon and Shapiro advocate that the United States comprise its leadership, moral authority and credibility on a wing and a prayer that Putin will reciprocate US compromise with concessions of his own. History and evidence, apparently, be damned.

Speaking of history, what struck me, immediately, upon reading the O’Hanlon/Shapiro piece was how similar its proposals were, in their tenor and assumptions, to another US-Russian (Soviet) agreement, struck nearly 70 years ago, where the United States accepted words on paper from Russia. We paid up-front with concrete concessions and we were stiffed on the back-end of the transaction with Russia simply declining to adhere to its commitments (actually, it actively subverted them). The results were tragic, for the people of Poland and for U.S. credibility. We looked like fools.

O’Hanlon & Shapiro, taking a page from Marx, would repeat history, with the attendant tragedy, asking for future commitments while providing Russia with immediate benefits under the belief that doing so will bring peace.

Russia can make its historically based claim on Crimea but would have to accept a binding referendum under outside monitoring that would determine the region’s future, with independence as one option.

Now let’s look at the text of Yalta:

A new situation has been created in Poland as a result of her complete liberation by the Red Army. This calls for the establishment of a Polish Provisional Government which can be more broadly based than was possible before the recent liberation of the western part of Poland. The Provisional Government which is now functioning in Poland should therefore be reorganized on a broader democratic basis with the inclusion of democratic leaders from Poland itself and from Poles abroad. This new Government should then be called the Polish Provisional Government of National Unity.

M. Molotov, Mr. Harriman and Sir A. Clark Kerr are authorized as a commission to consult in the first instance in Moscow with members of the present Provisional Government and with other Polish democratic leaders from within Poland and from abroad, with a view to the reorganization of the present Government along the above lines. This Polish Provisional Government of National Unity shall be pledged to the holding of free and unfettered elections as soon as possible on the basis of universal suffrage and secret ballot. In these elections all democratic and anti-Nazi parties shall have the right to take part and to put forward candidates. [emphasis added]

The three heads of Government consider that the eastern frontier of Poland should follow the Curzon Line with digressions from it in some regions of five to eight kilometers in favor of Poland. They recognize that Poland must receive substantial accessions in territory in the north and west. They feel that the opinion of the new Polish Provisional Government of National Unity should be sought in due course of the extent of these accessions and that the final delimitation of the western frontier of Poland should thereafter await the peace conference.

And now let’s look at what actually happened:

First, the allies gave the USSR nearly half of Poland. Since the USSR was already there, it would have been hard to remove them, but the allies went a step further and legitimized the annexation. In return, they asked for a representative government in Poland. However, they agreed to let the provisional government’s contours be dictated by Stalin, ensuring a communist-dominated regime that was allied with Moscow. The communists then rigged elections throughout the country and took complete control.

The result of Yalta was that Poland became a puppet regime of the Soviet empire. Would it have happened anyway with Soviet armies positioned as they were? Probably. But the West legitimized the action and gave it cover by agreeing, in return for a few promises that it was clear Stalin would never honor, to allow the Soviets to dominate the country. It is striking just how similar in tone and content the first element of the O’Hanlon/Shapiro proposal is to what was agreed upon at Yalta.

I don’t know what would make O’Hanlon & Shapiro believe, based upon the last fifteen years, that Putin will honor his commitments or mollify his behavior in response to U.S. acquiescence on the Ukraine. He is a thug sitting atop a corrupt and brutal regime that assassinates reporters and represses its own people as a matter of course. I can only conclude that they are hopelessly naïve, as were so many scholars during the Soviet era. When Roosevelt brokered the Yalta agreement, he returned to inform Congress “I come from the Crimean Conference with a firm belief that we have made a good start on the road to a world of peace.” He was wrong, and so are O’Hanlon and Shapiro.

Sally Kohn is Credulous

12 Friday Dec 2014

Posted by Milton in Uncategorized

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Liberal Bias, Logical Fallacies, Rape Allegations, Rape Culture, Rolling Stone, Sall Kohn, UVA, UVA Rape Allegations

I feel sometimes as if I should turn this blog into a register of all of Sally Kohn’s logical fallacies and appeals to emotion. Her writing, while always long on passion, often lacks critical reasoning and analysis. Rather than look for truth, she starts with a pre-determined view and then disregards any facts which might contradict her chosen narrative. Her latest CNN column Rape culture? It’s too real upholds that tradition.

We can begin with the fact that everyone is in agreement that Rolling Stone’s article was poorly written, contained serious errors and was atrociously fact checked. Most people also seem to agree that the author committed grave journalistic errors when she agreed to certain conditions on her reporting, the result of which was to refrain from interviewing certain individuals she should have.

That seems to be where agreement ends. When I see the facts above, I think to myself that everything contained in the story now needs further analysis. Any presumption of truth has been destroyed. There are only two broad scenarios which are likely given what we know:

  1. Jackie told Erdely her story and Erdely faithfully recorded it but failed to fact check it which, based on the existing evidence, would indicate that Jackie was either lying or her memory was incorrect; and
  2. Jackie told Erdely her story and Erdely misunderstood what Jackie said or changed Jackie’s story, either unintentionally or to make it fit her narrative of a rape epidemic.

Within those broad scenarios there is obviously a lot of distance, from Jackie lying completely, to embellishing her story to telling the truth but being misquoted or misunderstood. We don’t know. However, we do know that substantial portions of the story are questionable and alleged facts are wrong. As a result, it is not only reasonable, but prudent, to examine all of the facts to determine whether the article’s problems are errors or intentional lies and, if the latter, whose lies they are.

But Sally Kohn doesn’t see it that way. Rather that acknowledge the possibility that the story may be false in it substantial part or in its entirety, she has determined that the right thing to do is to attack those who raised questions about it in the first place and to assume that the alleged attackers are guilty.

And new reporting by the Washington Post does reveal that Jackie’s friends, cited in the story, say they are skeptical about some of the details. Still, they all believe that Jackie experienced something “horrific” that night, in the words of one, and we do know that Jackie stands by her story. Most of the doubts about it were apparently raised by those she’s accusing, including the fraternity and main alleged assailant — whom, I guess, we’re supposed to believe instead.

This whole paragraph is wrong on multiple levels. First it is factually wrong. Doubts about the story were raised by third parties who, looking at the alleged facts, concluded that they sounded strange and merited further investigation. As it turns out, they were right! How on earth can Kohn have a problem with that? Had those third parties verified the story I presume Kohn wouldn’t be writing a piece disclaiming the validation. Second, wouldn’t you expect doubts about a story to be raised by those who are accused, particularly if they are innocent? If someone claimed I stole their car and I was in California the day it was stolen, I would definitely bring that to the attention of anyone looking into the matter. Third, there is the last sentence; it’s a perfect straw man. Nobody is arguing that we are supposed to believe the alleged assailant. Those questioning the story are arguing that we should try to get the truth. Moreover, given that Jackie’s story contains errors, whether intentional or not, and the alleged assailants stories, thus far, hold up, what should a rational and logical person think?

Looking at the situation dispassionately, when presented with the facts, I conclude that the party more likely to be telling the truth is the fraternity brothers. That may be completely wrong. They may have assaulted and/or raped Jackie, but no objective person could come to that conclusion based upon what we currently know. Perhaps new evidence will emerge tomorrow that shows the story is more true than false, in which case I will revisit my opinion. Sadly, the concept of weighing evidence, as opposed to motives, is not Kohn’s problem. Facts matter less than the source:

While Rolling Stone’s reporting was clearly shoddy, for example, some writers who initially poked holes in Jackie’s story did so for ideological motives. For instance, even before the reporting lapses were revealed, conservative commentator Jonah Goldberg called Jackie’s story unbelievable. “It is not credible,” Goldberg wrote in the Los Angeles Times. “I don’t believe it.”

How is it at all relevant that reporters poked holes in Jackie’s story for ideological reasons? Either it was true or it wasn’t. It’s amusing to see Kohn attacking Goldberg for not believing the story since he turned out to be right. Of course, that may be luck and he might have been wrong, in which case I assume Kohn would have taken him to task for making assumptions that were false.

More problematic, Kohn (and a number of others like her) still doesn’t seem to understand that what matters at the end of the day is the truth, not a political agenda. I will venture out on a limb and say that if you ask Americans, the vast majority will agree with that sentiment. But the Kohns of the world are different. They believe because they desire confirmation of their prejudices more than they care about the truth. Consider Kohn’s closing paragraph.

Anti-feminists have it wrong. No one, myself included, wants Jackie’s story to be true (that’s absurd and offensive), but we cannot apologize for erring on the side of a fair, compassionate and credulous hearing of a woman’s account. What feminists want — as we all should — is a culture in which it is safe for women to report sexual assault when it happens, where they can trust that their families, their peers, the police and courts and, yes, the media will respond with sensitivity and compassion, not skepticism and shame.

Kohn, even by her own account, is uninterested in the truth. She wants to err “on the side of a fair, compassionate and credulous hearing of a woman’s account.” That is fine for a person’s family and friends, but it is not fine for a policy discussion. Credulous is the opposite of inquisitive. Type credulous into Google. It is a word whose synonyms are “gullible,” “naïve,” “too trusting,” “easily taken in,” “impressionable,” “unsuspecting,” “unsuspicious,” “unwary” and “unquestioning.” She lumps together families and peers with the police, courts and the media and thinks they should all perform the same function, but that is most certainly not the case. Police, courts and the media should be seekers of truth and facts, wherever they lead, even if the results are uncomfortable or disappointing. It would be nice if Ms. Kohn, as a member of the media, would do the same.

The Insularity of Lena Dunham

10 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by Milton in Uncategorized

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Allegations, Barry One, Lena Dunham, Not That Kind of Girl, rape, sexual assault

I had never heard of Lena Dunham until a few months ago, but I’ve heard and read plenty about her since. I am not impressed. Mostly, I am unimpressed in her behavior which – at best – can be characterized as obtuse. It is probably more accurately described as egotistical, self-righteous and shockingly poor.

For those who have not been following the controversy, the facts are relatively straightforward. Dunham published a memoir called “Not That Kind of Girl” in which she claims to have been raped while at Oberlin college. She identifies an individual named “Barry” as her rapist and includes several details about his identity, including that he is a Republican. There is an individual named Barry who attended Oberlin at the time Dunham was there and was a Republican. Certain other details Dunham puts in the memoir about him are untrue (such as a mustache), but by typing in all of the verifiable details into Google it isn’t hard for someone to find the Barry that was at Oberlin at that time. For nine weeks, until today, Dunham refused to clarify that the Barry that one can easily identify through a Google search was not her rapist and that, in fact, she used Barry as a pseudonym. Today, she posted a column on Buzzfeed explaining that fact, along with a series of self-serving statements.

Let’s start off with the fact that Dunham has published and sold this book as a memoir, a non-fiction recounting of events that happened to her. For her to use a pseudonym for someone without making that explicitly clear is fraudulent to the reader. It’s fine to use pseudonyms to protect people – go read The Human Factor by Ishmael Jones, virtually every name is a pseudonym – but it is not okay to allow the reader to think you are using a real name when you are not. In at least one other instance in the book, where Dunham does use a pseudonym, she makes clear that she is doing so. Omitting that fact in describing Barry looks, at the very least, grossly negligent and – given the nature of the description – malicious.

Dunham says she has no interest in “exposing the man who assaulted” her. Fine. That is her choice and given the time that has elapsed there would probably be zero chance of convicting him. But then Dunham, who has been paid millions of dollars for a book that is supposed to be nonfiction had this to say:

I was not naïve enough to believe the essay in my book would be met with pure empathy or wild applause. The topic of sexual assault is far more inflammatory and divisive than it should be, with tension building around definitions of consent, and fear ruling the dialogue. But I hoped beyond hope that the sensitive nature of the event would be honored, and that no one would attempt to reopen these wounds or deepen my trauma.

But this did not prove to be the case. I have had my character and credibility questioned at every turn. I have been attacked online with violent and misogynistic language. Reporters have attempted to uncover the identity of my attacker despite my sincerest attempts to protect this information. My work has been torn apart in an attempt to prove I am a liar, or worse, a deviant myself. My friends and family have been contacted. Articles have heralded “Lena Dunham’s shocking confession.” I have been made to feel, on multiple occasions, as though I am to blame for what happened.

If this is the sort of claptrap that passes for mental rigor then we are all in serious trouble. Nobody forced Dunham to write about her assault. She was paid millions of dollars and chose to include the incident in her book, a book she is now actively promoting. What she seems to find objectionable is the concept that people who read the book will hold her to account for allegations and accusations contained within it. It is an attitude which betrays her level of insularity.

Notwithstanding an violent and misogynistic language Dunham has encountered on the internet, and which is illegitimate, Dunham’s character and credibility have been attacked because of actions she took. She chose to write the book. She chose to include the story of her alleged assault (I use the word alleged here, rather than take her at her word, because she shot her credibility when she lied about the name of her assailant). And she chose to include details which, when examined, did not hold up and which implicated an innocent person. The fact that the innocent person she accused is a Republican, and she included that as an identifying detail, only makes the situation all the worse, given her views on Republicans. It looks as if she intentionally defamed someone because of his political views. Whether it was intentional or not, it was certainly irresponsible and fully deserving of fact checking.

Evidence of Dunham’s complete cocoon from reality is further on display when she absolves herself of all responsibility for her actions:

But I don’t believe I am to blame. I don’t believe any of us who have been raped and/or assaulted are to blame. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what is written about me individually. I accept the realities of being in the public eye. But I simply cannot allow my story to be used to cast doubt on other women who have been sexually assaulted.

I have a certain empathy for the journalists who asked me questions like whether I regret how much I drank that night or what my attacker would say if he was asked about me. These ignorant lines of inquiry serve to further flawed narratives about rape, but these people are reacting to the same set of social signals that we all are — signals telling us that preventing assault is a woman’s job, that rape is only rape when a stranger drags you into a dark alley with a knife at your throat, that our stories are never true, and that lying about rape is a way for women to enact revenge on innocent men. These misconceptions about rape are rampant, destructive and precisely the thing that prevents survivors from seeking the support that they need and deserve.

Speaking out about the realities and complexities of sexual assault is how we begin to protect each other. I do not want our daughters born into a world that reacts to sexual violence against women in this way. This reaction, which ranges from skepticism to condemnation to threats of violence, is something I have been subject to as a woman in a position of extraordinary privilege.

Dunham, in an attempt to insulate herself, conflates the concept of blaming people who have been raped (illegitimate) with those blaming Dunham for pointing to an innocent man in her book (legitimate). If Dunham isn’t to blame for omitting a crucial detail about Barry in a book with her name on the cover then who is? That is the blame at issue, not being raped or assaulted. If Dunham was raped or assaulted, the perpetrator should be in prison. Furthermore, I don’t question other women who have claimed to be raped – each criminal incident has to be judged on its own merits. But for Dunham to think it is completely unfair that people are questioning her given what she wrote is ludicrous. If she had said “Barry” was a pseudonym from the start, or had she not provided identifying characteristics that would lead to an actual person then there would be no questioning of Dunham’s veracity. Contrary to her belief that the skepticism and condemnation is the result of her being a woman, Dunham’s account was questioned because the facts didn’t add up. If a reporter had looked at her account, found that there were significant inconsistencies and then decided not to publish because the issue was rape then the reporter would be granting coverage of rape, as an issue, a special privilege, effectively saying that fact checking is impermissible.

Dunham closes with this thought:

Survivors have the right to tell their stories, to take back control after the ultimate loss of control. There is no right way to survive rape and there is no right way to be a victim. What survivors need more than anything is to be supported, whether they choose to pursue a criminal investigation or to rebuild their world on their own terms. You can help by never defining a survivor by what has been taken from her. You can help by saying I believe you.

I’m not sure that I agree with Dunham. I think rapists should be locked up and prevented from raping again. However, I will grant that that isn’t always a possibility and the need to heal is an important goal, and if there has to be a choice made between allowing a rapist to go free and a woman being able to heal, then the woman should be the one to make that choice. What I most definitely cannot agree on, however, is the idea that Dunham is in that position. She could have written a fictionalized account of her assault and she would not be questioned. She could have written a true account of her assault and not be questioned because the facts would show it was true. She could have written a true account of her assault but made clear that the underlying details were changed to prevent identification of the attacker because Dunham did not want to delve back into that experience. Instead, she chose to describe her assault, insert (presumably) some facts which are true alongside facts which are untrue. That created a false account, pointed to an innocent man and ultimately leads to her credibility being a question.

Assuming Your Facts Hurts When They Are Wrong

05 Friday Dec 2014

Posted by Milton in Uncategorized

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Katie McDonough, of Salon, offers up an excellent example of why objectivity, distance and reasoning are superior to emotion and passion – at least if you are concerned with being right – when analyzing current events and policy.  Yesterday, Ms. McDonough penned an article on Salon titled “It makes me really depressed”: From UVA to Cosby, the rape denial playbook that won’t go away.  Sadly, and embarrassingly for Ms. McDonough, her article turns out to be a perfect example of someone seeing only what she wants to see and disregarding evidence that might be contrary to a pre-determined position.

Ms. McDonough was upset that Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s Rolling Stone article on rape had been questioned by a number of journalists who found issues with the journalistic standards used in writing the article and questioned the veracity of some of the claims.  These articles did not claim that the article was false, but merely that there were questions that should have been answered that weren’t.  However, for Ms. McDonough, the questioners are to blame because, in her view, their questioning detracts from the central idea of the piece – that rape on campus is a problem.

That Ms. McDonough thinks that examining the truth of a story is a problem is, sadly, reflective of a leftist mindset that cares less about truth than about “ideas.”  It’s a bit reminiscent of 1984 – the truth is malleable; all that matters is what people believe.  For Ms. McDonough, the Salon story is about rape on campus and it matters less that the underlying facts are correct than that attention is being brought to an issue she feels needs to be addressed.  However, sacrificing the truth on the alter of expediency has a price – and that price is that you wind up with egg on your face when you make heroes out of liars, cheats or just plain flawed people.  (I would say just ask Al Sharpton, but given his prominence in city politics and at the White House these days I would just be damaging my own point).

And so we come to the reckoning.  Rolling Stone has just retracted the story because “there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie’s account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced.”  Ms. McDonough probably doesn’t care, since she cares more about the cause than the truth, but for those who are not blinded by personal feelings, this revelation makes a mockery out of much that is contained in the article.

Also in the same article, unfortunately for Ms. McDonough, she chose to attack the people who have cast doubt Lena Dunham’s account of being raped.  Once again, for McDonough, the questioning of the alleged facts should be outside the bounds of inquiry because it only serves to detract from the larger point that rape is a problem.

There is no way to talk about rape and escape this kind of interrogation, this questioning of character and motives and bias. How many of the people calling foul on this report as a matter of journalistic ethics in investigative reporting were also attacking Lena Dunham for including a chapter in her memoir about being raped while at college. Dunham used a pseudonym for her rapist in that personal essay, but she was still accused of lying — and ruining a man’s life.

The problem for McDonough is that, once again, the facts do matter.  It is possible that Dunham’s account is accurate.  However, an investigation by Breitbart was unable to confirm many of the claims that Dunham made.  McDonough may not think that is a problem, but for some of us false accusations of rape (or any other serious crime) are a big deal.  For one, it hurts the person who is accused and is innocent.  More broadly, for people interested in truth – as opposed to just being interested in political ideology – it is offensive to create issues and drive narratives based on lies, even if the cause is worthy.

 

 

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