New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science

A hesitant thought after Boston

One brother is dead and the other is in custody in a hospital. Obviously I loathe what they did. Obviously my thoughts are with the victims and their families. Obviously I would have stopped them if I could have, by any means whatsoever. But I also feel enormously sad that a 19 year old boy could come to this. And being a naturalist - that is not believing that things happen magically because of some supernatural force for evil - I believe that there is some explanation for why this happened. Maybe his brain chemicals are at different levels from ours. Maybe he underwent some trauma - either acute or chronic. Maybe he was taken in by an irrational ideology or systematically trained as are government torturers. Maybe all of these. I have no idea, and neither do you. Probably we would never fully understand even if we tried. But something happened, something contingent and potentially avoidable. And I hope that there is a way to redeem some modicum of life for this boy also. I hope that there is a way for all to find restorative, rather than vindictive, justice in this. I hope we can do better than toss one more body on the pile.

Breivik's political physiology practices

In describing the Columbine killers in Political Affect I looked at their ability to handle the bodily intensity of their actions. The problem they faced was overcoming the wide-spread inhibition on cold-blooded killing (as opposed to berserker rage or fugue state killing) [link to draft version here]. One of the problems in using the Columbine massacre for a case study was the suicide of killers, preventing us from hearing what they had to say about the experience. 

Anders Breivik's trial testimony (see here for previous posts on the case) provides fascinating insights into his preparation for and ability to withstand the intensity of his acts (the commentary by the reporters also is important for detailing how difficult it is for the other people in the courtroom to hear the testimony). I call this negotiation of intensity "political physiology" because it involves finding ways to allow a political action that normal physiology prevents (by triggering inhibitions, as in this account of Brevik's testimony: "I thought about it for 1 minute. Whole body resisted. Felt like a year. 100 voices in head saying STOP." Note the resistance of the "body" as well as the psychological aspects of "voices in head"). 

[UPDATE, 20 April 4:10 pm CDT: See here for more traditionally "cognitive" training Breivik did, using Call of Duty first-person shooter game for practice in "target acquisition." Of course there's a heavy affective component here too, but that's not dealt with so much in the article.]

Below the fold are more excerpts from the article emphasizing the dissociative and emotion-deadening political physiology practices Breivik performed, both before and during the events: 

Petition to put Turing on ten pound note

From Andrew Sullivan's blog HERE.

In Britain, there's a charming tendency to put British figures of great achievement on the pound notes, i.e. dollar bills. One of the things that clearly separates Britain from the US, for example, is that Charles Darwin looks proudly out from the ten pound note. Check out the beard:

You think they'd use that as legal tender in Colorado Springs? Now, there's a campaign to put Alan Turning, a key founder of modern computer science, the man who broke the Enigma Code of the Nazis, and the homosexual who killed himself after being prosecuted and chemically castrated for being gay in 1954. There is surely some justice in this. No one diputes his genius; or the contribution he made to Britain's survival in the war against Hitler. But to partially right a horrific wrong against someone abused by his own government for his orientation makes it all the more poignant.

The UK government is open to suggestions for figures on the next ten pound note; and there's a petition to honor Turing in this fashion. You can sign it online here.

lonesome deaths, then and now

So this post is really just ranting. But the song is kind of perfect for the latest racist attrocity.

To recap, for those who haven't been watching the news: 250 pound white guy - part of "neighborhood watch" - is driving in his car and sees a 140 pound, unarmed 17 year old black kid walking in the rain.  Calls police.  Told not to follow.  Follows.  Gets out of car with his gun and confronts kid.  Multiple witnesses hear kid begging for help.  Shoots and kills kid.  Local police say that there is no evidence it wasn't self-defense. 

Tears ... anger... Sure as hell the time for something around here.

Dylan on Steve Allen, 1964

[UPDATE: Go read this astonishingly good poem, linked by dmf in comments below. JP]

The Witchcraft of Usurpers...

Catarina's confusion between a King and an elected Stadtholder is a celebrated one:

Though the accession of the Prince of Orange to the throne might at first give occasion to many disputes, and his title be contested, it ought not now to appear doubtful, but must have acquired a sufficient authority from those three princes, who have succeeded him upon the same title. Nothing is more usual, though nothing may, at first sight, appear more unreasonable, than this way of thinking. Princes often seem to acquire a right from their successors, as well as from their ancestors; and a king, who during his life-time might justly be deemed an usurper, will be regarded by posterity as a lawful prince, because he has had the good fortune to settle his family on the throne, and entirely change the antient form of government. Julius Caesar is regarded as the first Roman emperor; while Sylla and Marius, whose titles were really the same as his, are treated as tyrants and usurpers. (David Hume, Treatise, 3.2.10; emphasis added.)

Hume's paragraph is a crucial source-text in Jose A. Benardete's beautiful manuscript, Greatness of Soul: in Hume, Aristotle and Hobbes and Hume, that is circulating among his admirers.

RIP Martina Correia, anti-death penalty activist...

... and Troy Davis' sister. She died after more than 10 years of fighting against breast cancer, and only 2 months after the execution of Troy Davis. Martina Correia was a highly regarded advocate against the death penalty; according to this news item,

Correia was chair of the Steering Committee for AIUSA’s Program to Abolish the Death Penalty and was Amnesty International’s coordinator in Georgia for the death penalty program. She is a recipient of the Georgia Civil Liberties Award from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Frederick Douglass Award from the Southern Center for Human Rights.

I can only say: what an extraordinary woman. She will be dearly missed. (See also my previous post on the execution, with additional info on her in the comments section.)

Breivik and insanity

In the latest development in a case we have followed, word comes that Norwegian prosecutors have decided Anders Breivik is criminally insane and hence unfit for trial. This assessment is still subject to review before the trial date however.

A sentence at the end of this article caught my eye, regarding that old philosophical warhorse, instrumental vs prudential reason: 

The Associated Press quotes Swedish forensic psychiatrists Anders Forsman as saying, “It is difficult to see this as criminal insanity. He seems to have carried out the killings in a rational way. He is an efficient killing machine."

This blog post is a worthwhile reflection on American securitarianism w/r/t insanity, with an interesting reference to John Hinckley, Ronald Reagan's would-be assassin.

Via Aaron Bady's Twitter feed, which you should be following.

Happy Genocide Day

Today the US celebrates, by way of a national holiday, the man who launched one of the most significant genocides of human history.  This celebration is a small but non-trivial part of the extraordinary erasure from history of the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas.  For those who need a refresher on the man whose day it is in the US, here is the classic chapter from Howard Zinn.

due-process-free assassination of U.S. citizens by the U.S. Government is now a reality

Glenn Greewald is sobering, as always.

No more Troy Davises

Christopher Norris, professor of philosophy at Cardiff, sent the following message to Philos-L, in response to a CFP for a conference in the state of Georgia (re-published here with his permission):

Could I suggest that the Georgia CFP is a good opportunity for list-members to express their moral outrage at the murder of Troy Davis by the Georgia state and judiciary? This they might do either by withdrawing any previous commitment to attend the conference or by writing to the organisers and making plain their abhorrence of capital punishment generally and of this gross and hideous miscarriage of justice in particular. Short of that, delegates could make their attendance provisional on the organisers going public beforehand with a statement of protest and a commitment to do everything in their power to educate people concerning the moral evil of capital punishment. The organisers could make a good start on this by honouring Troy Davis’s memory at the outset of the conference and dedicating most of the sessions to aspects of his case and the urgent need for reform of the judicial system.

In the longer term, could British philosophers who share this view perhaps agree to boycott all conferences and so far as possible avoid all dealing with academic institutions in those parts of the US (especially the deep south) where this practice is carried on? They might even take the view – I do – that there is a moral obligation not to visit any part of the US so long as the infliction of capital punishment is left to the discretion of individual states under federal law.

I have mixed feelings about some of the suggestions he makes (e.g. academic boycotting of institutions located in states allowing for the death penalty), but I think this is a very good point. What can we, as philosophers, possibly do, both theoretically and practically, to fight judicial murder? I'd like to invite people to share their views on the matter.

UPDATE: Christine A. James, professor of philosophy at Valdosta State University in Georgia, sent the following reply to Prof. Norris on Philos-L, which I repost here with her permission:

Friday political music selection - prison

In light of the latest fight over judicial murder - at the moment a contest focused on whether to murder now, murder later, or merely continue to kidnap an innocent man while a cop killer goes free - it seemed like the right theme.  

This isn't particularly politically sophisticated, but gee, had to start here

And this just needed to be included as well.

As usual, Phil focuses on what matters.  In a similar vein here is Lou and spearhead

And to end on a lighter note, 'cause otherwise I'm so extraordinarily disillusioned with this country and where it is headed, well, who knows.  Todd

Scott McLemee on Breivik's journey from culture war to shooting war

The essay from Inside Higher Ed is here. Below I'll lay out a few thoughts on the move from culture war to shooting war as the move from ideology to political physiology. Before that, excerpts: 

Shortly before the bombing and shooting spree in Norway last month that left 77 people dead, Anders Behring Breivik e-mailed a thousand people the document he called his “compendium” -- a more accurate label than “manifesto,” as some have called it, since large chunks of text were cut and pasted from various sources rather than composed by the murderer himself....

Breivik’s anti-feminism and Islamophobic rage, his conviction that “multiculturalism” and “political correctness” are destroying civilization, and must be stopped -- all of this is the usual stuff of contemporary resentment.... But there turns out to be more to Breivik’s text than the usual hateful boilerplate. The killer was also a perverse sort of public intellectual.

Pro-Israel is not always pro-local-Jews...

In Slate Christopher Hitchens does a decent job untangling the complicated intellectual landscape of the European right. But he trips up subtly in the following passage: "Breivik has apparently declared himself a passionate pro-Zionist as well as a sworn foe of all sorts of Islamization. More attention should be paid to that last aspect: The true "neo-Nazi" gangs in Europe have violent anti-Semitism in common with their ostensibly deadliest Islamist foes, whereas anti-immigrant populists of the Geert Wilders stripe in Holland seek respectability by standing up for Israel, very often against criticism from the multi-culti left." Here Hitchens assumes that being pro-Israel means being pro-local-Jews. But this turns out to be an unreliable inference (as Dutch Jewish supporters of Wilders are discovering to their horror). Geert Wilders is instrumental in making (un-anesthetized) ritual slaughter and (male) circumcision illegal in the Netherlands. The former has already passed parliament, while the latter will probably pass parliament in 2012. With friends like these, Dutch Jews don't need enemies.

Breivik and the psychopharmacology of mass murder

Breivik's lawyer's statement that his client took drugs to be "strong, efficient, and awake" is being widely reported. He's also reporting his impression that Breivik is “a very cold person,” adding that “I can’t describe him because he is not like anyone else.” We've already remarked on Breivik's misogyny; here is another way in which this case crystallizes many dimensions of our world; Eric is exploring the role of the media-military-industrial complex here, here, and here.

I've long been interested in investigating how people manage the corporeal intensity of the act of killing. Both the drugs and the coldness are important factors, as we know from the US military (see here a review of Jonathan Moreno's Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense, which deals briefly in Chapter 6 with dexedrine and modafinil in the Air Force).

I'd be very grateful if people would email me or comment here if they see anything else of this sort in the Breivik case. 

UPDATE, T 26 July, 11:37 am CDT: Please take the time to read this very important and very perceptive comment below.

Bullshit (and probably 'bought') Experts and their fear-mongering friends in the media

This is a very important article; the link comes from the wise Glenn Greenwald.