Two good friends of mine, Orad Reshef and Jesse Corbeil, have just started putting together a series of podcasts about science, which I think is a great initiative. I put a lot of effort into making philosophy accessible, but philosophy is far from the only discipline that needs a good dose of accessibility, so I'm very glad to see new efforts in that direction. (LFD fans will of course recognize the names and voices of the hosts, and keep your ears open during their theme song!) Anyway, it's nice not only because the show is good, clean, stimulating entertainment, but also because it wanders into my philosophical territory, which allows me to give some response, so it's a nice way to get back to work with some old friends while enriching both their endeavour to popularize science and mine to popularize philosophy. Good stuff all around.
So, without any further ado, let's talk about their first episode, which you can listen to here. The first episode of their show, which is called Yet Another Science Show, is entitled "The Metre and Friends," and it's all about the sordid and wonderful history of measurement. We often think of measurement as something very objective: you take a ruler, put it up to the object you want to measure, and the ruler tells you how long/wide/deep the object is. Objects just have length; we play no role in it; any subjective element is removed when it comes to measurement; measurement just gives you the clean, cold, hard, objective facts of the universe. Most scientific realists (and that probably means you too, casual reader: even if you don't know what scientific realism is, you probably believe in it anyway) believe that reality is defined by what you can measure. If you can measure it, it's real; if you can't, it ain't. Interestingly, Einstein believed no such thing: "“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts," said the great physicist of the early 20th century. So if measurement plays such an important role in determining what's real (and neither Einstein nor I believes that), then we'd better be damned sure that measurement itself is sitting on a rock-solid foundation of objectivity.
Orad and Jesse do a wonderful job of tracing the history of measurement, and the fact that each unit of measure relies on others. In the early days when one foot was actually the measure of a human foot, our units of measure were very anthropocentric, relying heavily on our bodies and our practical concerns. Over time, we've moved away from those concerns towards a completely systematic definition of our units of measure: rather than defining the metre by a platinum-iridium bar in Paris, we now define it relative to the second and the speed of light. Actually, the speed of light defines both our measurements of space and of time. The two are interdefined, that's what the move to relativity a century ago was all about. And light is a good measuring rod because it's invariant across lots and lots of circumstances. In other words, no matter where and when you are, light is going to act in pretty much the same way all the time, so it's a good standard for measurement. However, the constancy of light across frames of reference is not something that we've demonstrated; it's one of the postulates of our science.
In other words, this whole systematic arrangement is a house of cards. Each piece relies on the other pieces or on our decisions to accept something as axiomatic. Once you've used the speed of light to define the length of a metre or the duration of a second, how could you ever discover that the speed of light wasn't what you thought it was? Suppose that you use your best clock and your best metre stick and you find out that the value of the speed of light wasn't what you thought it was. What then? Well, the problem is that you used light to define space and time, and therefore you'd be forced to say that the metre stick or the clock must be wrong. The speed of light is the metre stick of your metre stick, or so we've decided to believe as a first postulate of physics.
So how is our science not arbitrary? History. We didn't just select the number 299 792 458 m/s as the speed of light. Rather, we used to have a definition of a metre (remember the platinum-iridium bar in Paris) and a definition of time. Using those old definitions, we figured out the speed of light. In those days, the speed of light was an empirical matter, something you could get right or wrong. But not anymore: now that we've used the speed of light to define metres and seconds, if you claimed that the speed of light were different than it is, you wouldn't be making a claim about how fast light moves. Actually, you'd be giving a re-definition of the metre and the second. (Be wary about doing that sort of thing, because remember that all of our other units of measure are also connected to space and time, metres and seconds, so you'd be redefining our measures for everything. That can be a time-consuming task to sort out.) So the non-arbitrarity comes from the fact that we're never just choosing a whole system at a time. We're always operating in some moment or another in history, where things already have a definition, and all we ever need to consider at a given moment is the possibility of redefining one corner of our set of measures, knowing that this will have minor effects on the others that will then need to be worked out. We never need to build Noah's Arc the first time; we're just constantly patching the hull on the high seas.
Science is always historically situated, and our measures and the revisions thereof are constantly building on the history of science. But all of these measures are interdependent rather than objective: they're not picking out the real structure underlying the world. It's not like the speed of light, measured in metres/second, is a fact out there in the world that we can get right or wrong. Light moves at a certain speed, but (at least at the moment) we use that speed to define the metre and the second, to stipulate what they mean. We choose bases for measurement that are invariant across lots of different contexts so that we don't have one metre and a different metre on Mars. Such a situation wouldn't be very helpful (though few outside the science community would really notice a difference in the day-to-day world, except that their cell phones wouldn't work).
What measurement gives us is not a way of minimising the subjective element of experience: what it gives us is a set of instructions for making something an object. The measured length of an object is not an objective fact out there in the world, independent of us, because measurement itself is a human construct, a very powerful and systematically complex one that allows us to cut the world up into objects with lengths in metres. But if we'd decided to define the metre differently, if we'd decided to "force" the speed of light to be 300 000 000 m/s for instance, then our definition would be different, as would the lengths of all objects. If you want a good example of how much we use our interrelated sets of definitions to "cut up" the world into usable chunks, you need listen no further than the comment at the 28th minute of "The Metre and Friends," when Jes says that he thinks in inches. That's exactly what these definitions do for us: they give us a framework with which to grasp the world.
But clearly science advanced importantly when we started defining the metre by the speed of light rather than the bar in Paris (we also passed through an intermediate stage of defining it by the wavelength of a certain colour of light). So if these tools are what we use to cut up the world, and they are "just" definitions that we stipulate, how could we be progressing? How could we be moving away from the anthropomorphic definitions of these terms and toward something "objective"? Recall the big leap forward (not a quantum leap, cause quanta are actually ridiculously small) we made when we started to interdefine space and time. What we did there was not to strip away the subjective elements of our measures: what we actually did was to increase the systematic interdependence of those measures. We used to define metres one way and seconds another, and used those definitions to measure the speed of light. Then we started to use the speed of light to define metres and seconds with respect to one another. Metres and seconds were not independent phenomena any longer. They spring from a common source now.
Anyway, I've tried to give an argument here that measurement is not objective; rather, it's objectivizing. We never "discovered" what the metre was by walking through the world and looking at stuff. Rather, we stipulated a definition of a metre and that allowed us to interact with objects in a radically new fashion, a fashion that is improved drastically when those measures start to be defined more and more with respect to one another rather than based on objects we encounter in our day-to-day practical lives. Progress in measurement does not remove subjectivity: it actually provides the conditions of us as subjects to create a world for ourselves that has a particular structure.
Anyway, that's all I've got to say on the topic for now. Hopefully this will inspire not only some interesting feedback, but will also inspire you to start following their show. They've just released their second episode, "Black Holes Don't Suck," so give that a listen too!
Thursday, 7 March 2013
Saturday, 26 January 2013
A life of philosophy of life
In an article that is by now almost three years old, James Ladyman (Dept. of Philosophy, University of Bristol) defends specialization in philosophy and attempts to refute the claim that philosophy needs to be accessible. He's quite clear in his points, which is appreciated, and stands in stark contrast with far too many writings on this subject. (But hey, they're not paying us enough to be clear, at least not the ones around the mean of that lovely bell curve.)
First off, Ladyman has in mind here professional philosophers, that is to say, people who earn their living doing philosophy in an academic department. Second, he has in mind a particular kind of philosophy, specifically that which has an "overlap between a subfield of philosophy and another specialised subject matter, where that may be the history of philosophy itself. This is the kind of philosophy that I am most sure is worthwhile."
He then argues that, just as it is unreasonable to expect of physics or of mathematics that they abstain from any technical jargon, and to insist that they be totally accessible to the layman, so too is it unreasonable to make such a request of philosophy. After all, if physics is complex and requires specialization in order to be investigated, it seems appropriate that the philosophy of physics would be complex and require specialization as well. If the philosophy of physics aspires to say anything meaningful or helpful about physics, then its practitioners must specialize to the point of understanding the subject matter of their philosophy. "It is absurd for philosophical inquiry into nature to be conducted in complete ignorance of science. Hence, some philosophers must specialise in some parts of logic, mathematics and science, and bring their knowledge to philosophical debates with their colleagues. ... It would be folly to suggest that philosophical debates about philosophical logic – as well as ancient questions concerning essence, existence, identity, individuality, properties and so on – should be conducted among experts in an idiom that is accessible to the layperson."
Without engaging with the technical language of science, it would be impossible for philosophers to interact with scientists, therefore making it impossible to meaningfully engage with that science. To abstain from engaging in that language would mean to abstain from analyzing the science from which it arises: "There would be something badly wrong if work in the philosophy of physics were as accessible to a linguist as to a physicist, or if work in the philosophy of language were as accessible to a physicist as to a linguist."
Ladyman then goes on to set up a dichotomy between, on the one hand, these highly-specialized fields, where large advances are hard-won, and achieved through a small army of researchers each working on their highly specialized slice of the pie; and, on the other hand, those who popularize philosophy in countless books, for which there is a thriving market and an ample supply. "There are many excellent people who mediate between academia in general and the rest of the population. I am baffled as to why people are calling for all academics to do these things. The case of philosophy is in this respect no different from that of pure mathematics or microbiology. The idea that every scientist should be a part-time science journalist and public speaker is absurd."
Ladyman goes on to make some rather biting remarks about using jargon as an excuse: if philosophy is so difficult and obscure, it can't be all that important, and this belief justifies not putting in the effort necessary to learn the language and get up to speed on the ongoing debates. For what it's worth, I think that there's a grain of truth here: people really do dismiss philosophy quite quickly, and are always ready with just such a rejoinder when one (often a philosophical one) presses them to learn more.
Finally, Ladyman claims that because our knowledge has advanced so far that only through specialization and the work of experts can hitherto-unanswered philosophical questions be addressed, knowing that these questions will be minute, but add up to a more impressive totality when all taken together. "This may not amount to advancing our understanding of the meaning of life, but it is in keeping with Socrates’ conception of the philosopher as gadfly, asking awkward questions and exposing epistemic hubris. Our knowledge of the world has grown immeasurably since ancient times, and philosophers would be failing in their role if they did not specialise sufficiently to know enough to be able to point out exactly where lie the limits of our understanding."
As many of you know, my belief is that accessibility is an important virtue in philosophy, and so I'd like to take this opportunity to respond to Ladyman. First off, he begins with the assumption that philosophy must always be a philosophy of something, where he basically believes that that "something" will be another highly specialized academic discipline. However, what about a philosophy of everyday life? Surely there are problems that one encounters outside of specialized research that have philosophical bearing, and for which a philosopher's insights would be very valuable. During the last few decades, when this sort of Lebensphilosophie has been out of vogue (in North America) and outside the realm of accessibility (basically everywhere), everyday life has changed a lot. There are new problems that need philosophical treatment, and so it is a non-starter to claim that philosophy has already solved those problems and that the only live issues are now at the fringes of our knowledge. We encounter the fringes of our knowledge every day in the practical world; one need not go to science to find such limits. If philosophy of physics is supposed to be meaningful to the physicist, then presumably the philosophy of everyday life should be meaningful to those who live it!
That is not to say, of course, that there are not interesting and important problems to be found in the philosophy of specialized sciences. The discovery(?) of the Higgs boson at the hadron collider in Switzerland raises enormous questions about the fundaments of reality, and what it is for stuff to be stuff. Ladyman's argument about such research basically claims that because we don't reprimand mathematicians or physicists for using jargon, we shouldn't reprimand philosophers either. He assumes that jargon in math and physics is acceptable. That's not necessarily the case. What's being discussed here is whether jargon should be accepted, and whether it is accepted from math or physics (or philosophy) doesn't determine what ought to be the case (that's an instance of the naturalist fallacy). If jargon is not acceptable in physics or math, then it isn't in philosophy either. If it is acceptable in physics and math, we might still not accept it from all philosophy, because not all philosophy will treat specialized subjects of this nature, as I argued above.
What I've tried to argue here is that there is important work to be done in the philosophy of everyday life, and that professional philosophers are not doing enough to address that (in a way that is accessible and meaningful to the people that it concerns). But Ladyman has claimed that there are plenty of authors who popularize philosophy, "excellent people" who mediate between academic philosophy and those outside of academia. Certainly there is a healthy market for such books, and there is an adequate quantity of them to satisfy the demand, but is there an adequate quality? As a philosopher myself, and one who currently resides in the Ivory Tower, I have had many students arrive at my office with one or another of these books, and I've seen what they have to offer. (I've even read a few of them myself.) They really aren't very good, and in my estimation that's because the academic realm doesn't give any recognition to those who successfully popularize the field. Consequently, "excellent people" by and large do not venture into these realms (with the notable exception of Alain de Botton, who's actually English once you get past the name).
It is certainly tough to recognize the great thinkers of one's own time, to separate the wheat from the chaff without the benefit of historical retrospect. But it's not very difficult to see that many people who publish these popular philosophy books are on the fringe of academia: they are not hailed even as potentially great thinkers. I hate to say it, because I have friends who have published these kinds of books, but they aren't the up-and-comers who will one day make a splash on the academic scene, and even if they do (and of course I hope for such things for/from my friends) it will be in spite of more than because of these popular texts. When was the last time that a big-wig from Oxford or Cambridge decided that they would take a nice sabbatical to write a book about the changes in the philosophical landscape brought about by the advent of Facebook, and write it in a way that Facebook users could understand, relate to, and reflect upon? The people that academia hails as its brightest lights just don't deign to illuminate such things.
Ladyman is right. Studying the philosophy of physics or math requires engaging with those fields, and that means engaging with their jargon (whether those fields ought to fall back into jargon or not). But there is an appreciably large and important segment of philosophy, namely, the philosophy of life, that should not be inaccessible in that way. Real people have real benefits to gain from real good philosophy of life. That sector of our field doesn't get enough attention; and when it does get a little, it's not the intellectual heavyweights who are weighing in. One contributing reason for the problem is that academia simply doesn't recognize such work as philosophically worthwhile, and therefore doesn't prioritize it.
First off, Ladyman has in mind here professional philosophers, that is to say, people who earn their living doing philosophy in an academic department. Second, he has in mind a particular kind of philosophy, specifically that which has an "overlap between a subfield of philosophy and another specialised subject matter, where that may be the history of philosophy itself. This is the kind of philosophy that I am most sure is worthwhile."
He then argues that, just as it is unreasonable to expect of physics or of mathematics that they abstain from any technical jargon, and to insist that they be totally accessible to the layman, so too is it unreasonable to make such a request of philosophy. After all, if physics is complex and requires specialization in order to be investigated, it seems appropriate that the philosophy of physics would be complex and require specialization as well. If the philosophy of physics aspires to say anything meaningful or helpful about physics, then its practitioners must specialize to the point of understanding the subject matter of their philosophy. "It is absurd for philosophical inquiry into nature to be conducted in complete ignorance of science. Hence, some philosophers must specialise in some parts of logic, mathematics and science, and bring their knowledge to philosophical debates with their colleagues. ... It would be folly to suggest that philosophical debates about philosophical logic – as well as ancient questions concerning essence, existence, identity, individuality, properties and so on – should be conducted among experts in an idiom that is accessible to the layperson."
Without engaging with the technical language of science, it would be impossible for philosophers to interact with scientists, therefore making it impossible to meaningfully engage with that science. To abstain from engaging in that language would mean to abstain from analyzing the science from which it arises: "There would be something badly wrong if work in the philosophy of physics were as accessible to a linguist as to a physicist, or if work in the philosophy of language were as accessible to a physicist as to a linguist."
Ladyman then goes on to set up a dichotomy between, on the one hand, these highly-specialized fields, where large advances are hard-won, and achieved through a small army of researchers each working on their highly specialized slice of the pie; and, on the other hand, those who popularize philosophy in countless books, for which there is a thriving market and an ample supply. "There are many excellent people who mediate between academia in general and the rest of the population. I am baffled as to why people are calling for all academics to do these things. The case of philosophy is in this respect no different from that of pure mathematics or microbiology. The idea that every scientist should be a part-time science journalist and public speaker is absurd."
Ladyman goes on to make some rather biting remarks about using jargon as an excuse: if philosophy is so difficult and obscure, it can't be all that important, and this belief justifies not putting in the effort necessary to learn the language and get up to speed on the ongoing debates. For what it's worth, I think that there's a grain of truth here: people really do dismiss philosophy quite quickly, and are always ready with just such a rejoinder when one (often a philosophical one) presses them to learn more.
Finally, Ladyman claims that because our knowledge has advanced so far that only through specialization and the work of experts can hitherto-unanswered philosophical questions be addressed, knowing that these questions will be minute, but add up to a more impressive totality when all taken together. "This may not amount to advancing our understanding of the meaning of life, but it is in keeping with Socrates’ conception of the philosopher as gadfly, asking awkward questions and exposing epistemic hubris. Our knowledge of the world has grown immeasurably since ancient times, and philosophers would be failing in their role if they did not specialise sufficiently to know enough to be able to point out exactly where lie the limits of our understanding."
As many of you know, my belief is that accessibility is an important virtue in philosophy, and so I'd like to take this opportunity to respond to Ladyman. First off, he begins with the assumption that philosophy must always be a philosophy of something, where he basically believes that that "something" will be another highly specialized academic discipline. However, what about a philosophy of everyday life? Surely there are problems that one encounters outside of specialized research that have philosophical bearing, and for which a philosopher's insights would be very valuable. During the last few decades, when this sort of Lebensphilosophie has been out of vogue (in North America) and outside the realm of accessibility (basically everywhere), everyday life has changed a lot. There are new problems that need philosophical treatment, and so it is a non-starter to claim that philosophy has already solved those problems and that the only live issues are now at the fringes of our knowledge. We encounter the fringes of our knowledge every day in the practical world; one need not go to science to find such limits. If philosophy of physics is supposed to be meaningful to the physicist, then presumably the philosophy of everyday life should be meaningful to those who live it!
That is not to say, of course, that there are not interesting and important problems to be found in the philosophy of specialized sciences. The discovery(?) of the Higgs boson at the hadron collider in Switzerland raises enormous questions about the fundaments of reality, and what it is for stuff to be stuff. Ladyman's argument about such research basically claims that because we don't reprimand mathematicians or physicists for using jargon, we shouldn't reprimand philosophers either. He assumes that jargon in math and physics is acceptable. That's not necessarily the case. What's being discussed here is whether jargon should be accepted, and whether it is accepted from math or physics (or philosophy) doesn't determine what ought to be the case (that's an instance of the naturalist fallacy). If jargon is not acceptable in physics or math, then it isn't in philosophy either. If it is acceptable in physics and math, we might still not accept it from all philosophy, because not all philosophy will treat specialized subjects of this nature, as I argued above.
What I've tried to argue here is that there is important work to be done in the philosophy of everyday life, and that professional philosophers are not doing enough to address that (in a way that is accessible and meaningful to the people that it concerns). But Ladyman has claimed that there are plenty of authors who popularize philosophy, "excellent people" who mediate between academic philosophy and those outside of academia. Certainly there is a healthy market for such books, and there is an adequate quantity of them to satisfy the demand, but is there an adequate quality? As a philosopher myself, and one who currently resides in the Ivory Tower, I have had many students arrive at my office with one or another of these books, and I've seen what they have to offer. (I've even read a few of them myself.) They really aren't very good, and in my estimation that's because the academic realm doesn't give any recognition to those who successfully popularize the field. Consequently, "excellent people" by and large do not venture into these realms (with the notable exception of Alain de Botton, who's actually English once you get past the name).
It is certainly tough to recognize the great thinkers of one's own time, to separate the wheat from the chaff without the benefit of historical retrospect. But it's not very difficult to see that many people who publish these popular philosophy books are on the fringe of academia: they are not hailed even as potentially great thinkers. I hate to say it, because I have friends who have published these kinds of books, but they aren't the up-and-comers who will one day make a splash on the academic scene, and even if they do (and of course I hope for such things for/from my friends) it will be in spite of more than because of these popular texts. When was the last time that a big-wig from Oxford or Cambridge decided that they would take a nice sabbatical to write a book about the changes in the philosophical landscape brought about by the advent of Facebook, and write it in a way that Facebook users could understand, relate to, and reflect upon? The people that academia hails as its brightest lights just don't deign to illuminate such things.
Ladyman is right. Studying the philosophy of physics or math requires engaging with those fields, and that means engaging with their jargon (whether those fields ought to fall back into jargon or not). But there is an appreciably large and important segment of philosophy, namely, the philosophy of life, that should not be inaccessible in that way. Real people have real benefits to gain from real good philosophy of life. That sector of our field doesn't get enough attention; and when it does get a little, it's not the intellectual heavyweights who are weighing in. One contributing reason for the problem is that academia simply doesn't recognize such work as philosophically worthwhile, and therefore doesn't prioritize it.
Sunday, 20 January 2013
What, and with which, and to whom, part 2
Also, In this post last week, I treated the first five arguments from this article, which seeks to rebut some claims made by proponents of gay marriage. This week, I'll tackle arguments 6–10.
#6: Proponents of same-sex marriage point out that if reproduction is really the kernel of marriage, then same-sex couples shouldn't be the only ones excluded. Why are infertile couples allowed to marry? Or couples well beyond the years of baby-making? To these questions, Vogt replies that, in the case of young couples who are infertile, it would simply be too expensive and invasive to test them all for fertility before allowing their marriage, not to mention the fact that fertility tests are not always so reliable. Fertility, in fact, is just not so simple an issue as "yes" or "no," as many couples these days learn only once they start trying to have kids. As for elderly couples, "these marriages are so rare that it's simply not worth the effort to restrict them."
Vogt's point about the drawbacks of fertility tests before marriage is well taken. However, there's a lot more going on here. Why does child-rearing not figure more prominently in the process of getting a marriage license, or in the ceremony? Doing fertility tests may be expensive and invasive, but one could easily make it a mandatory question in the paperwork: "As far as you are aware, are you fertile?" They aren't asked whether they're fertile; they aren't asked whether they even want children; they aren't asked whether they're getting married for the purpose of having children, which is apparently the only reason that's supposed to matter. If the author were right that having children is the kernel of marriage, then we wouldn't have people getting married without any intention to have any. And that includes the elderly.
(Also, getting back to our dear elderly, the fact that Vogt is happy just to dismiss the problem because it's small suggests that he's not very concerned about applying rules consistently here. Whether he means it or not, his remark that I quoted above just comes off as him trying to shoe-horn marriages of the elderly into line with his position, despite a glaring difficulty there.)
And besides, same-sex couples can have children. I mentioned advancing reproductive technology in my last post, as well as the fact of adoption.
#7. And, claim proponents of same-sex marriage, gay parents are just as able to rear children as heterosexual couples. But Vogt disagrees. He cites the meta-analysis of Loren Marks (LSU), according to which studies showing the equivalence of homo- vs. heterosexual couples is not very well supported by the data. Vogt goes on to cite the Regnerus study, on the basis of which same-sex parents were claimed to be inferior to heterosexual parents. The Regnerus study has been the subject of massive criticism from within the academic community, and even Regnerus himself admitted that it couldn't possibly conclude anything about the quality of homosexual parenting. So Vogt shows the other side didn't do their homework on the data, and then goes about appealing to data that's just as shoddy.
However, I think that his discussion really misses the point of the adoption question. The question is not about whether we should take children from happy heterosexual families and have them bunk in with the mean old homos down the street. The real question is whether homosexual parents would be good adoption candidates for children who are either in broken homes or in foster homes. All the research suggests that stability on the home front is a massively important factor in raising happy, well-adjusted kids. Allowing same-sex couples to marry can both increased the stability of their relationship, and act as a sign of that stability when applying to adopt children. We already allow same-sex couples to adopt, and if we're so concerned about children, then we should allow these same-sex couples to adopt for the benefit of the children they raise! A stable household is better for kids than one that isn't stable, regardless of the gender of the parents, and allowing same-sex marriage is a good way to promote greater stability as well as to increase the accuracy of identifying stable couples as candidates to adopt.
#8. Opponents of same-sex marriage are often called bigots and/or homophobes, and Vogt rightly points out that this isn't the case. Certainly homophobia and bigotry are likely to lead to opposition to same-sex marriage. However, that is not sufficient evidence to conclude that all who oppose it are homophobes or bigots. (That would be to affirm the consequent, which is a logical fallacy.) Calling people bigots and homophobes is a great way to bring any constructive discussion to an end, so there are good reasons not to do it. Furthermore, it's probably not true that all people who oppose gay marriage are bigots: the fact that Vogt is engaging in rational debate shows that's true. I don't agree that he's on the right side of the debate, and I press people who oppose gay marriage to either provide a more solid foundation to their position or to give it up; but the fact that there is sensible, rational debate on this issue, rather than just name-calling, is of crucial importance, and for that I applaud Vogt (and people like him on both sides of the fence) for doing what they do. Simple vilification and dismissal get us nowhere, and many proponents of same-sex marriage are guilty of doing that.
#9. Proponents also draw parallels between the civil rights movement and the gay rights movement. Specifically, they see a parallel between the opposition that once existed (and sadly probably still does in some places) toward inter-racial marriage and the opposition that currently exists toward gay marriage. Vogt's argument, that child-rearing is the purpose of marriage, avoids this problem. Because inter-racial marriages can be fertile while same-sex marriages can't (or so he claims), he has a principled reason for accepting inter-racial marriage while denying same-sex marriage. I have offered counter-arguments to that, and still hope to get some responses that cut ice on those issues.
However, the proponents who trace this parallel are not completely off the mark either: it has been said of both inter-racial and same-sex marriage that "that just ain't nat'ral!" While Vogt may avoid this problem because of the basis of his claims about the basis of marriage, be they right or wrong, there are certainly a number of positions against gay marriage that don't avoid this charge, and so the proponents have a point in bringing it up. However, some of the people who hold such positions might just be willing to bite the bullet on this one, and claim that, indeed, inter-racial marriage ought not to be accepted either. ... I don't even know what to say to those people other than to stare at them, mouth agape.
#10. Some proponents of same-sex marriage point to easing of attitudes on the subject here and there, and say that the tide is turning: gay marriage will soon be acceptable. Therefore, we should be on the right side of history and jump on the bandwagon. Vogt rightly points out that these tremors in the U.S. are not earthquakes: the changes have been here and there, and it's a stretch to conclude on that basis that the tide is definitively turning.
What he neglects to take into consideration, and this is a criticism that I find myself leveling against Americans far too often, is the rest of the world. The U.S. has taken a position of insulation for decades (except when their economic interests are at stake, apparently), and they forget that the rest of the world actually also has discussions about what's acceptable and what isn't (among other discussions). Looking outside their own borders more often might not be such a bad thing, on the issue of gay marriage as for so many other issues. It's important in this particular debate because the turning of the tide on this issue would not simply be an American phenomenon. The world is smaller than ever, and isolation along national borders is progressively more difficult every day.
Looking to the international scene, then, it seems that the small signs of a turn in the U.S. are relatively small fries compared to much of what's happening elsewhere in the world. Same-sex marriage is not nearly as controversial in some countries where it is legal and basically acceptable. (Note also that said countries have not yet been struck down by the will of God.) By contrast, there are also countries where it's a non-issue because it is completely unaccepted.
Vogt does bring up a very important point here, though: it's notoriously difficult to anticipate the turns of historical tide. The evidence of such a turn is usually the turn itself, and is only really discernible in retrospect. The evidence we have right now is not sufficient. The jury is still out on whether history will look back on this as the turning point, or just a blip on the radar.
Two things that he doesn't mention are that (1) we are not completely the slaves of fated history. What decisions we make now, as individuals, actually has a bearing on how people in the future will look back on us, and on what views they will hold. It's not yet a settled issue whether same-sex marriage will be accepted in the future. The other point, and this is far more important and I wish that Vogt had brought it up, is that (2) the tide of history doesn't always turn in the direction that it ought. Just because lots of people believe something, or think that it's right, does not make it so. Our history books are replete with hard-learned lessons to this effect. If you think that masses always get it right, just look at how many people believed the Nazi propaganda in the 1930's and '40's. (I had to mention the Nazis: after all, what online discussion of values, cultural change and (in)tolerance would be complete without bringing them up?)
#6: Proponents of same-sex marriage point out that if reproduction is really the kernel of marriage, then same-sex couples shouldn't be the only ones excluded. Why are infertile couples allowed to marry? Or couples well beyond the years of baby-making? To these questions, Vogt replies that, in the case of young couples who are infertile, it would simply be too expensive and invasive to test them all for fertility before allowing their marriage, not to mention the fact that fertility tests are not always so reliable. Fertility, in fact, is just not so simple an issue as "yes" or "no," as many couples these days learn only once they start trying to have kids. As for elderly couples, "these marriages are so rare that it's simply not worth the effort to restrict them."
Vogt's point about the drawbacks of fertility tests before marriage is well taken. However, there's a lot more going on here. Why does child-rearing not figure more prominently in the process of getting a marriage license, or in the ceremony? Doing fertility tests may be expensive and invasive, but one could easily make it a mandatory question in the paperwork: "As far as you are aware, are you fertile?" They aren't asked whether they're fertile; they aren't asked whether they even want children; they aren't asked whether they're getting married for the purpose of having children, which is apparently the only reason that's supposed to matter. If the author were right that having children is the kernel of marriage, then we wouldn't have people getting married without any intention to have any. And that includes the elderly.
(Also, getting back to our dear elderly, the fact that Vogt is happy just to dismiss the problem because it's small suggests that he's not very concerned about applying rules consistently here. Whether he means it or not, his remark that I quoted above just comes off as him trying to shoe-horn marriages of the elderly into line with his position, despite a glaring difficulty there.)
And besides, same-sex couples can have children. I mentioned advancing reproductive technology in my last post, as well as the fact of adoption.
#7. And, claim proponents of same-sex marriage, gay parents are just as able to rear children as heterosexual couples. But Vogt disagrees. He cites the meta-analysis of Loren Marks (LSU), according to which studies showing the equivalence of homo- vs. heterosexual couples is not very well supported by the data. Vogt goes on to cite the Regnerus study, on the basis of which same-sex parents were claimed to be inferior to heterosexual parents. The Regnerus study has been the subject of massive criticism from within the academic community, and even Regnerus himself admitted that it couldn't possibly conclude anything about the quality of homosexual parenting. So Vogt shows the other side didn't do their homework on the data, and then goes about appealing to data that's just as shoddy.
However, I think that his discussion really misses the point of the adoption question. The question is not about whether we should take children from happy heterosexual families and have them bunk in with the mean old homos down the street. The real question is whether homosexual parents would be good adoption candidates for children who are either in broken homes or in foster homes. All the research suggests that stability on the home front is a massively important factor in raising happy, well-adjusted kids. Allowing same-sex couples to marry can both increased the stability of their relationship, and act as a sign of that stability when applying to adopt children. We already allow same-sex couples to adopt, and if we're so concerned about children, then we should allow these same-sex couples to adopt for the benefit of the children they raise! A stable household is better for kids than one that isn't stable, regardless of the gender of the parents, and allowing same-sex marriage is a good way to promote greater stability as well as to increase the accuracy of identifying stable couples as candidates to adopt.
#8. Opponents of same-sex marriage are often called bigots and/or homophobes, and Vogt rightly points out that this isn't the case. Certainly homophobia and bigotry are likely to lead to opposition to same-sex marriage. However, that is not sufficient evidence to conclude that all who oppose it are homophobes or bigots. (That would be to affirm the consequent, which is a logical fallacy.) Calling people bigots and homophobes is a great way to bring any constructive discussion to an end, so there are good reasons not to do it. Furthermore, it's probably not true that all people who oppose gay marriage are bigots: the fact that Vogt is engaging in rational debate shows that's true. I don't agree that he's on the right side of the debate, and I press people who oppose gay marriage to either provide a more solid foundation to their position or to give it up; but the fact that there is sensible, rational debate on this issue, rather than just name-calling, is of crucial importance, and for that I applaud Vogt (and people like him on both sides of the fence) for doing what they do. Simple vilification and dismissal get us nowhere, and many proponents of same-sex marriage are guilty of doing that.
#9. Proponents also draw parallels between the civil rights movement and the gay rights movement. Specifically, they see a parallel between the opposition that once existed (and sadly probably still does in some places) toward inter-racial marriage and the opposition that currently exists toward gay marriage. Vogt's argument, that child-rearing is the purpose of marriage, avoids this problem. Because inter-racial marriages can be fertile while same-sex marriages can't (or so he claims), he has a principled reason for accepting inter-racial marriage while denying same-sex marriage. I have offered counter-arguments to that, and still hope to get some responses that cut ice on those issues.
However, the proponents who trace this parallel are not completely off the mark either: it has been said of both inter-racial and same-sex marriage that "that just ain't nat'ral!" While Vogt may avoid this problem because of the basis of his claims about the basis of marriage, be they right or wrong, there are certainly a number of positions against gay marriage that don't avoid this charge, and so the proponents have a point in bringing it up. However, some of the people who hold such positions might just be willing to bite the bullet on this one, and claim that, indeed, inter-racial marriage ought not to be accepted either. ... I don't even know what to say to those people other than to stare at them, mouth agape.
#10. Some proponents of same-sex marriage point to easing of attitudes on the subject here and there, and say that the tide is turning: gay marriage will soon be acceptable. Therefore, we should be on the right side of history and jump on the bandwagon. Vogt rightly points out that these tremors in the U.S. are not earthquakes: the changes have been here and there, and it's a stretch to conclude on that basis that the tide is definitively turning.
What he neglects to take into consideration, and this is a criticism that I find myself leveling against Americans far too often, is the rest of the world. The U.S. has taken a position of insulation for decades (except when their economic interests are at stake, apparently), and they forget that the rest of the world actually also has discussions about what's acceptable and what isn't (among other discussions). Looking outside their own borders more often might not be such a bad thing, on the issue of gay marriage as for so many other issues. It's important in this particular debate because the turning of the tide on this issue would not simply be an American phenomenon. The world is smaller than ever, and isolation along national borders is progressively more difficult every day.
Looking to the international scene, then, it seems that the small signs of a turn in the U.S. are relatively small fries compared to much of what's happening elsewhere in the world. Same-sex marriage is not nearly as controversial in some countries where it is legal and basically acceptable. (Note also that said countries have not yet been struck down by the will of God.) By contrast, there are also countries where it's a non-issue because it is completely unaccepted.
Vogt does bring up a very important point here, though: it's notoriously difficult to anticipate the turns of historical tide. The evidence of such a turn is usually the turn itself, and is only really discernible in retrospect. The evidence we have right now is not sufficient. The jury is still out on whether history will look back on this as the turning point, or just a blip on the radar.
Two things that he doesn't mention are that (1) we are not completely the slaves of fated history. What decisions we make now, as individuals, actually has a bearing on how people in the future will look back on us, and on what views they will hold. It's not yet a settled issue whether same-sex marriage will be accepted in the future. The other point, and this is far more important and I wish that Vogt had brought it up, is that (2) the tide of history doesn't always turn in the direction that it ought. Just because lots of people believe something, or think that it's right, does not make it so. Our history books are replete with hard-learned lessons to this effect. If you think that masses always get it right, just look at how many people believed the Nazi propaganda in the 1930's and '40's. (I had to mention the Nazis: after all, what online discussion of values, cultural change and (in)tolerance would be complete without bringing them up?)
Thursday, 17 January 2013
The Bubble
Here's an interesting problem coming down the pike for academics in the arts. Students in Quebec protested a hike in fees, and the Parti Quebecois got elected on a platform that included cancelling the hike, which they did. However, in a summit on education, the PQ immediately announced that they were going to cut higher education budgets (retroactively, no less), which led to massive public outcry. In any case, the cuts got handed down, and so now the universities are left trying to bridge the gap. McGill University decided to bridge the gap by cancelling 100 classes in their Faculty of Arts. (The article unfortunately doesn't mention what, if anything, has been slashed on the science side of the world. I would be shocked if there weren't even minor cutbacks made to at least appear to be distributing the burden evenly.)
How are these 100 arts classes going to be cut? The proposed solution is to move to larger class sizes by cutting the smaller classes (which also typically tend to be higher-level). So these high-level, small-enrolment classes, taught by tenured faculty, will be offered either less frequently, or no longer offered at all. Those faculty members will instead be asked to teach more of the higher-enrolment, lower-level classes, which are currently taught mostly by sessional instructors. And because tenured faculty are so expensive, the university will ease the burden on their time by increasing the number of teaching assistants, with the added benefit that these teaching assistantships are probably the single most important source of funding for the university's graduate students. End of the day: bigger classes, taught by tenured faculty (who presumably are better teachers, but that's far from a given); but with more mediation between professor and student, with that mediation taking place via greater TA support; fewer high-level courses for majors; fewer sessional positions; and the capacity to fund more graduate students.
Here's The Bubble. With more funding available through TAships, the university will be able to take on more graduate students. However, the growth in holding capacity for graduate students is not an indication of a stronger and healthier market for the arts; rather, it's a particular manifestation of humanity's latest sickness. In fact, the number of viable teaching positions is decreasing, and a greater proportion of the work is being shifted onto TA's (knowing that essentially the majority of that money comes right back in tuition anyway) so that the same number of students can be accommodated with using fewer expensive faculty. Here's the rub: we'll be training more doctoral and master's students, but cutting away the academic job market into which they hope to move.
The value of an undergrad degree, especially in the arts, has been the victim of rampant inflation in the last few decades, as more and more people get them. Unfortunately, the increase in quantity has also been accompanied by a decrease in quality. So the B.A. is currently worth, at least in economic terms, a shade less than the paper on which it's printed. A B.A. gets you a job in nothing, despite the immense importance to citizenship that critical reflection and cultural exposure bring. It seems that the MA and the PhD are heading in the same direction, a fact that greatly saddens me and makes me wary of the direction in which our society is headed.
Where do we go from here? It seems to me that we need to rethink the interface between humanistic studies (at all levels), and the economic world into which graduates will mostly emerge, with fewer and fewer of us able to hide behind the shield of academic employment. And that requires looking more closely at the humanities: what exactly are the skills that we learn; how can we shed some light on their importance to the market? And how can we make it clear that the value of being a critical and reflective citizen can't be treated as an economic sector heading toward market failure?
How are these 100 arts classes going to be cut? The proposed solution is to move to larger class sizes by cutting the smaller classes (which also typically tend to be higher-level). So these high-level, small-enrolment classes, taught by tenured faculty, will be offered either less frequently, or no longer offered at all. Those faculty members will instead be asked to teach more of the higher-enrolment, lower-level classes, which are currently taught mostly by sessional instructors. And because tenured faculty are so expensive, the university will ease the burden on their time by increasing the number of teaching assistants, with the added benefit that these teaching assistantships are probably the single most important source of funding for the university's graduate students. End of the day: bigger classes, taught by tenured faculty (who presumably are better teachers, but that's far from a given); but with more mediation between professor and student, with that mediation taking place via greater TA support; fewer high-level courses for majors; fewer sessional positions; and the capacity to fund more graduate students.
Here's The Bubble. With more funding available through TAships, the university will be able to take on more graduate students. However, the growth in holding capacity for graduate students is not an indication of a stronger and healthier market for the arts; rather, it's a particular manifestation of humanity's latest sickness. In fact, the number of viable teaching positions is decreasing, and a greater proportion of the work is being shifted onto TA's (knowing that essentially the majority of that money comes right back in tuition anyway) so that the same number of students can be accommodated with using fewer expensive faculty. Here's the rub: we'll be training more doctoral and master's students, but cutting away the academic job market into which they hope to move.
The value of an undergrad degree, especially in the arts, has been the victim of rampant inflation in the last few decades, as more and more people get them. Unfortunately, the increase in quantity has also been accompanied by a decrease in quality. So the B.A. is currently worth, at least in economic terms, a shade less than the paper on which it's printed. A B.A. gets you a job in nothing, despite the immense importance to citizenship that critical reflection and cultural exposure bring. It seems that the MA and the PhD are heading in the same direction, a fact that greatly saddens me and makes me wary of the direction in which our society is headed.
Where do we go from here? It seems to me that we need to rethink the interface between humanistic studies (at all levels), and the economic world into which graduates will mostly emerge, with fewer and fewer of us able to hide behind the shield of academic employment. And that requires looking more closely at the humanities: what exactly are the skills that we learn; how can we shed some light on their importance to the market? And how can we make it clear that the value of being a critical and reflective citizen can't be treated as an economic sector heading toward market failure?
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