It occurs to me that I’m overdue for an update to an old blog.
She really doesn’t sit still for being held much any more.
Holman Jenkins at the Wall Street Journal effectively argues that ObamaCare is Redistribution, not Reform. But as I read it, a phrase nagged at me, “veil of ignorance,” as did a name, “John Rawls.”
Rawls’ social contract takes a different view from that of previous thinkers. Specifically, Rawls develops what he claims are principles of justice through the use of an artificial device he calls the Original position in which everyone decides principles of justice from behind a veil of ignorance. This “veil” is one that essentially blinds people to all facts about themselves so they cannot tailor principles to their advantage.
- “no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status, nor does anyone know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence, strength, and the like. I shall even assume that the parties do not know their conceptions of the good or their special psychological propensities. The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance.”
According to Rawls, ignorance of these details about oneself will lead to principles that are fair to all. If an individual does not know how he will end up in his own conceived society, he is likely not going to privilege any one class of people, but rather develop a scheme of justice that treats all fairly.
(Wikipedia on Rawls’ A Theory of Justice)
I think that under Rawls’ theory, if you accept that we have some sort of “right to healthcare” (a question beyond my current scope, but about which my inclination is inchoately skeptical), then the redistribution is, ultimately, justified. If I’m blind to the fact that I’m insurable (though not as insurable as I once was) and imagine myself as uninsurable in the present system, then the regime whereby all pay $X in premium regardless of whether they’re “healthy as pigs” or conventionally uninsurable seems okay.
The rub is that we’re so heavily invested in “choice” in such matters, including that healthy young people with beginner wages may prioritize some things over health insurance and choose to “go bare.” And of course guys (and geezerettes) don’t generally need obstetrical services.
This isn’t a big insight, necessarily, but I don’t recall hearing or reading anyone who analyzed ObamaCare, even to this paltry extent, in Rawlsian terms.
If this report is accurate, Mayor de Blasio’s top priority is getting horse-drawn carriages out of Central Park.He is either bloviating or his priorities are seriously screwed up. We report, you decide.
In other NYC News, Losing NYC Political Candidate Sues Winner Over Mural Allegedly Intended To Act As A Curse. Ya gotta read it to disbelieve it.
Matt Taibbi at the top of his game is a thing of wonder. It’s really cruel to expect such voluminous output that he resorts to a screed like Yuppie Prohibition League Denounces Pot Legalization. His opener, in case he hadn’t noticed, swings both ways:
With all the other nonsense going on in this country, it’s amazing (but of course expected) that anyone with other things to do would find the time to
denouncedefend Colorado’s legal marijuana experiment.
Why is it that in liberal-think, it’s always obsessive of conservatives to oppose the latest liberal obsessions because “there are so many more important things going on”? Oh. Got it. It’s a version of “Look! A deer!”
Some of Rolling Stone’s Marijuana Facts and Myths read like a Politifact “fact check.” That’s not a compliment. For instance, it’s a myth that marijuana is a dangerous drug because there are other drugs that are more dangerous.
But Rolling Stone isn’t making much pretext of objectivity when it finds the time to defend Colorado’s legal marijuana experiment. They must not have anything else to do.
I’m not ready to wager my 401(k) on it, but legal marijuana increasingly smells to me like another elitist enthusiasm, like surrogate moms and whelping out of wedlock, that will not end well for folks at the opposite end of the socio-economic spectrum.
Meanwhile, I run across this, which cites this, which says that Rolling Stone has become worthless. Couldn’t disprove it by me.
David Gelernter goes on a beautiful rant against dehumanizing effects of roboticists like Ray Kurzweil. The wind-up before that pitch:
The modern “mind fields” encompass artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, and philosophy of mind. Researchers in these fields are profoundly split, and the chaos was on display in the ugliness occasioned by the publication of Thomas Nagel’s Mind & Cosmos in 2012. Nagel is an eminent philosopher and professor at NYU. In Mind & Cosmos, he shows with terse, meticulous thoroughness why mainstream thought on the workings of the mind is intellectually bankrupt. He explains why Darwinian evolution is insufficient to explain the emergence of consciousness—the capacity to feel or experience the world. He then offers his own ideas on consciousness, which are speculative, incomplete, tentative, and provocative—in the tradition of science and philosophy.
Nagel was immediately set on and (symbolically) beaten to death by all the leading punks, bullies, and hangers-on of the philosophical underworld. Attacking Darwin is the sin against the Holy Ghost that pious scientists are taught never to forgive. Even worse, Nagel is an atheist unwilling to express sufficient hatred of religion to satisfy other atheists. There is nothing religious about Nagel’s speculations; he believes that science has not come far enough to explain consciousness and that it must press on. He believes that Darwin is not sufficient.
The intelligentsia was so furious that it formed a lynch mob. In May 2013, the Chronicle of Higher Education ran a piece called “Where Thomas Nagel Went Wrong.” One paragraph was notable:
Whatever the validity of [Nagel’s] stance, its timing was certainly bad. The war between New Atheists and believers has become savage, with Richard Dawkins writing sentences like, “I have described atonement, the central doctrine of Christianity, as vicious, sadomasochistic, and repellent. We should also dismiss it as barking mad….” In that climate, saying anything nice at all about religion is a tactical error.
It’s the cowardice of the Chronicle’s statement that is alarming—as if the only conceivable response to a mass attack by killer hyenas were to run away. Nagel was assailed; almost everyone else ran.
That’s just an introductory snippet.
I commented yesterday on what a Unitarian-Universalist pastor considered recommended spiritual reading for 2014. There has been a huge demand for me to give Episcopalians equal time. (Well, I am pretty huge at this point in the 12 Days of Christmas.) So:
- The “qualifications of the staff of a children’s art ministry at an Episcopal church. The teachers/administrators include a ‘certified labyrinth facilitator,’ a ‘dance/movement specialist,’ a ‘pet loss grief counselor,’ and ‘an Episcopal priests, Jungian analytical psychologist, sand play therapist and spiritual director.'” (H/T First Things, February 2014)
- A former Anglican bishop on Sunday criticised a new trial version of the Church’s baptism service that no longer calls for parents and godparents to “repent sins”.
I beat up on the GOP a lot, but:
The political left “is so taken over by sexual issues, sexual questions, that we have forgotten the traditional concern of the left was always social class and those at the bottom,” the writer Richard Rodriguez explained to Salon. And the rejection of religion reflects this. “We have forgotten just how disruptive religion can be to the status quo,” leaving it to Fox News and Islamic Fundamentalists, and this has made the left “really empty.”
(First Things, February 2014)
Speaking of disruption, Cosmostheinlost comments on the theme Subversive Orthodoxy Meets the Libertarian Preferential Option for the Rich.
* * * * *
“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 