The Atlantic Empire

The Atlantic has built some serious credibility in the last little while. Andrew Sullivan moved his blog there awhile back, and now it's the new home of Matt Yglesias.

"This Is Why Pitchfork Sucks"

It's hard not to laugh when an old man well into retirement says this. What's even funnier is that, in this case, he's dead right.

Springsteen-Style Rock

Bruce Springsteen gets a bad rap these days. "Springsteen-style rock" has become a pejorative in some circles. Yet even those who dislike his more bombastic material--e.g. albums like Born in the U.S.A.--ought to give his '80s masterpiece, Nebraska, a couple spins. That album will make a fan out of anyone who appreciates stark, minimalistic folk songs dealing with the lives of the weak and dispossessed in America. Nebraska is the moment Bruce Springsteen arrived as popular music's closest analogue to Raymond Carver. Springsteen attempted to build on the sounds and themes of Nebraska in later efforts: 1995's The Ghost of Tom Joad and 2005's Devils & Dust. Both albums have their moments, but neither succeeds as well as Nebraska. Few do.

Several bands have inherited or appropriated Springsteen's instinct for blue collar story-songs, though they have tended to do so while rocking a lot harder than Nebraska, more akin to Springsteen's Born to Run. Philadelphia's Marah took up the mantle and wore it proudly on their 1998 and 2000 releases: Let's Cut the Crap and Hook Up Later Tonight and Kids in Philly, respectively. Both are excellent albums.


The latter's "It's Only Money, Tyrone," which deals with a man who "slapped his lover / Put a bullet in her brain and threw her body off the bridge," only to be done in by the discovery of her body, recaptures the desperation of Springsteen's "State Trooper." Both songs see their subjects' lives for what they are: pitiful, yes, but also ultimately unchangeable. Like the great Greek tragedies, this is where they get their poignancy. These people are who they are because of how they've lived their lives, and they've lived their lives the way they have because of who they are. [Direct link to .mp3 of "It's Only Money, Tyrone"]

Enter The Hold Steady's Boys and Girls in America, one of the very few albums of 2006 with zero filler. It follows in the tradtion established by Springsteen, and picked up by Marah, of chronicling the lives of regular people to the sound of straight-up rock music. The album opens with the memorable line: "There are nights when I think that Sal Paradise was right / Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together." Their "sad time together" is the focus of this and the next 10 tracks, which are suffused with Catholicism, drugs, and relationships. Over half are downright brilliant. I wouldn't say the same about many other albums released last year.


Stop here and Boys and Girls is an exceptional album. But its most extraordinary moments are all the more impressive played one after another, juxtaposing its greatest virtues: Boys and Girls is musically diverse, yet cohesive; the lyrics are colloquial, yet literate ("Lost in fog and love and faithless fear / I've had kisses that make Judas' seem sincere"); each track stands solidly on its own, yet collectively they tell a story. It's easily the best of last year, and it shows, yet again, that "Springsteen-style rock" isn't a pejorative. [Direct link to .mp3 of "Stuck Between Stations"]

Once again, .mp3 files posted here are meant as samples only, which are up for a limited time. Please support the artists if you like what you hear. Marah, Kids in Philly [Amazon, eMusic] & The Hold Steady, Boys and Girls in America [Amazon, eMusic]

Songbird

I use iTunes with my iBook to manage my music. But Songbird is a good alternative. The application hasn't yet hit version 1.0, so it's not quite ready for prime time, but it looks promising and it has some neat features that other media players lack. For instance, Songbird allows you to access blogs like mine through its web browser. It automagically finds any music files and serves them up for you in a list, allowing you to play or download them. Here's hoping this idea catches on.

The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Logicians

Matt Yglesias posted this awhile ago and it stuck with me. Choice excerpt:

The well-intentioned person, being well-intentioned, will try his best to ensure that bad things don't happen. If things that occur as a result of well-intentioned actions are defined as not-so-bad, however, then the well-intentioned person doesn't really need to try his best to ensure that bad things don't happen. After all, the person, being well-intentioned, by definition isn't going to do any very bad things. The things he does, after all, are all well-intentioned things, not bad things.

Matt Yglesias graduated magna cum laude with a degree in philosophy from Harvard University. Knowing this, I wasn't surprised to see him make this sort of argument. It's a pragmatic argument for consequentialism; and it's undeniably clever. The whole thing is worth a read.

Online Privacy

The advent of the Internet and the explosion of online content has led some to worry about the dissolution of personal privacy. Type my name into Google and it's increasingly easy to find this blog among the results; it's even easier if you know a bit about me, like where I live. Should I be worried that a prospective employer will Google my name, see what I've written, and refuse to hire me? If so, what's the solution?

Some people adopt pseudonyms, or they post anonymously. But many others post with their real names, or they leave traces of their offline identity, which are easy to put together. Younger people, especially, seem most willing to serve up their personal information to websites like MySpace, Facebook, and personal blogs. My youngest brother, for example, maintains a personal page at Nexopia. Several months ago he challenged me to find his profile, which contains some personal information that he wanted to keep hidden from me. I found it in four minutes. I can find the same page in four seconds today.

Likewise, I'm sure anyone could do the same to me. But the costs of anonymity outweigh the benefits. If I attach my name to a post, I can be held responsible for it. I have to think before I post. It keeps me honest. Unfortunately, people say things anonymously they wouldn't say otherwise. This isn't always a good thing, as this Penny-Arcade comic amusingly illustrates.

Free Exchange On Health Care

The Economist's Free Exchange blog is on a roll. Among the wonkish economics arguments, they write:

The main things I think America gets for its extra money are shorter wait times, more lavishly appointed hospitals, richer health-care workers, greater variety of treatments, more "quality of life" treatments, and much greater innovation. Indeed, not only do they get innovation, but the rest of the world does too, which is why few people have noticed that their systems stifle innovation. I've never quite understood why people in other countries urge their systems on Americans, when the end result seems almost certain to be lower future quality of their own healthcare.

All of this strikes me as clearly correct, though it's worth noting that Canada could benefit from increased retention of health care workers if the US moves toward socialized medicine. More insightful analysis like this (and this) and less silliness, please.

James Blood Ulmer Has The Blues

The best new blues artist of the last several years isn't exactly a new artist. James Blood Ulmer earned his reputation in music playing electric guitar with jazz legend Ornette Coleman. Ulmer was the first electric guitarist to record and tour with Coleman in the '70s. From there, and throughout his solo career, he built an impressive body of work in jazz over the course of two decades. At the turn of the century, Ulmer left jazz and turned to the blues. Fans of the genre are lucky to have him.

2001's Memphis Blood is the first of three albums released on Hyena Records. It's an audacious blues debut. Every song is a cover. Many equal or surpass their antecedents. Give a listen to Ulmer's take on John Lee Hooker's "Dimples" and you'll get a good idea of what to expect [Direct link to .mp3 of "Dimples"]. His second album, No Escape From The Blues, continues on this tack, but it mixes in some originals as well.


The third Hyena release is 2005's Birthright. It marks a departure from his earlier two. Whereas those albums feature Ulmer's guitar and vocals against the backdrop of an excellent band, Birthright is all Ulmer. All 12 songs feature his vocals alone with his guitar. 10 are originals. The effect is astonishing for its minimalism and impressive for its musicianship. Ulmer has a distinctively rough guitar-picking style, and nowhere is this more apparent than on Birthright. Listening to "High Yellow," it's hard to think of any adjective more appropriate than "edgy." "Geechee Joe" is another highlight and an instant classic. [Direct links to .mp3's of "High Yellow" and "Geechee Joe"]

If you enjoy these samples, consider supporting Ulmer by buying his music. Memphis Blood: Amazon; eMusic. No Escape From The Blues: Amazon; eMusic. Birthright: Amazon; eMusic.

NOTE: Music files available here are meant to be samples only, and only for a limited time. Please support the people who produce the music by buying it if you enjoy it.

Food For Oil

The Conservative government announced $1.5-billion for biofuels in the last budget. This met with approval from farm groups because it promises to raise the price of their product. But environmentalists should be wary before they throw their support behind it. Studies show that ethanol is not the answer to greenhouse gas emissions; this Parliamentary study, for example, provides a sobering analysis of its impact. Now, we shouldn't abandon good half-measures because they fail to solve the problem, but it isn't clear that ethanol is a good half-measure. $1.5-billion is a large investment for such a small return.

Furthermore, this article in Foreign Affairs argues, rightly, that high food prices, while good for farmers, are bad for people who buy food. The people most badly hurt, of course, are those who can't afford the higher prices. There are better ways to protect the environment than distorting world markets, driving up the price of food.

Inequality In The Air

Free Exchange on inequality:

ACCORDING to the new tax data, the income gap has widened. This has led to more speculation that we will descend into a Dickensian dystopia full of the have and have nots. I recently experienced this type of reality when I had the opportunity to fly business class on a trans-Atlantic flight.

Uh-huh. Business class flights are the best example of inequality run amok. This is like complaining that your Segway doesn't go fast enough. Maybe that automated stroller just isn't for you; it could be time to think about walking. The Economist is a good magazine, but posts like this don't help to build its credibility online.

Why I Write

It's been a week and, if my stats are to be believed, I have readers. Plural. Several dozen of them! For the benefit of my readers, I suppose I should say a bit about the blog beyond my brief introductory post.

I planned to start a blog once I started travelling so that I could continue to communicate with family and friends easily and efficiently. Daniel, though, convinced me to start earlier. Feel free to head over to his site to blame him for that. I expect that the content I post will evolve with my experiences. Once I start travelling, I'll write more about my personal experiences, post photos, etc. At the same time, I doubt I'll stop talking about politics, music, and ideas because those are the things that overwhelmingly occupy my mind and I don't see that changing much. Anyway, I'm not convinced that these things are all that different: ideas and arguments--or at least the good ones--are always and everywhere rooted in experience.

Piracy As Theft

CD sales plummeted 20% over the last year. Digital sales have increased, but nowhere near enough to offset the drop in CD sales. The record industry blames this on piracy. File-sharing advocates, on the other hand, have long blamed slumps in music sales on the poor quality of new releases, or on the expense of CDs, or on the restrictions put on digital downloads, or any number of similar stories.

None of these, however, are persuasive. First, note that these arguments are suspiciously self-serving; they attempt to justify the behavior of the people who espouse them. Second, notice that the structure of these arguments follows a pattern: they always blame the record industry, while never contesting the fact that file sharing is occurring. On the contrary, they tacitly concede that illicit downloading hurts the music industry. But this harm, they claim, is self-inflicted, or at least avoidable. It's the victim's record industry's fault.

Color me skeptical. People who download all of their music and never pay for any of it are not doing the record industry a favor. They are free riding off of the people who do pay for music, without whom the free riders' favorite downloads wouldn't exist. Studio time isn't free and neither is production, packaging, and marketing. Neither, for that matter, is food and housing for the people who make their living off of the production and sale of recorded music. These people depend on music sales for their livelihood; refusing to pay for recorded music harms them. Blithe disregard for these consequences is not virtuous. Downloaders who refuse to pay for music are acting selfishly, thoughtlessly, and unethically.

Of course, not all file sharers harm the record industry. I'm confident, for example, that file-sharing services have increased the amount of money I spend on music. I pay $30 every month for 100 downloads from eMusic and I buy at least a dozen CDs every year. All told, I spend at least $500 a year on recorded music, which is much more than I spent before BitTorrent. In my case, Internet piracy has filled the role of bootlegs and mix tapes; it has increased, rather than decreased, my interest and enthusiasm for music. I pay for music not because I couldn't get it for free, but because I appreciate and I want to support the people who produce it. Clearly, though, the numbers tell a different story about how widespread piracy affects behavior. It's a worrying trend for those of us who would like to see the industry healthy and profitable, and it's distressing to hear the self-serving defenses of people who, apparently, couldn't care less.

Interview With God

I suppose the Interview With God is an appropriate link for Easter weekend. But I've always found the presentation calming to watch, regardless. [Flash + Audio]

Lucinda Williams' West

West is the latest album from Lucinda Williams. It arrives on the heels of Patty Griffin's latest, Children Running Through. Both artists share many of the same fans, and both have inhabited the same musical territory, so a comparison between them isn't out of the question. I'm happy to heap plenty of praise on the latter, which is one of the strongest releases of the year; but I'll take this opportunity to talk about the former, and whether or not I believe it stacks up.

I own legitimate hard copies of every Lucinda Williams CD, with the exception of her first album of covers, Ramblin', of which I have a digital copy. In light of this, you might safely infer that I think there's much more to her than her latest albums. In fact, it was "I Just Wanted to See You So Bad," the first track off of her self-titled album--and the first song of hers that I heard--that got me hooked. Essence and World Without Tears brought her to the attention of the NPR-listening indie rockers, and they brought her plenty of rave reviews, but neither was her best album, not by a long shot. World Without Tears was praised as such. And like Bob Dylan's Love And Theft, it was good: solid A-/B+ work, turned in on a tight deadline; but it wasn't the best work of someone who's already an A student. Ask most of her fans these days, though, and you might get an argument here.

Regardless, few songwriters could compete, album for album, with her string of original work beginning with Happy Woman Blues and culminating in one of the greatest albums ever made, Car Wheels On A Gravel Road. Only some of the greatest songwriters can challenge her here, let alone beat her: Bob Dylan and Townes Van Zandt could do it, but few others. So, Essence and World Without Tears, while good, can't help but lose a few marks when graded on the curve set by Williams' own discography.

Amid all of this, then, where does West sit? Well, World Without Tears received near-universal critical acclaim. West will not; and, indeed, has not. It is more divisive, partly because it's similar stylistically to her later work, and also because, sooner or later, critically-lauded artists face inevitable backlashes. But West is also, I think, a bit better than World Without Tears; accordingly, I am not surprised to see some of the more serious (as opposed to trendy) reviewers lavish praise upon it. I don't think it's her best work, but it's likely the best of her last three albums.

Musically, Williams is known for her voice, sometimes rough around the edges, but also remarkably expressive and unmistakably American. Against this, she juxtaposes a unique blend of country, folk, rock, and blues styles. If folk and country won out on her work up to Car Wheels, sounding most like Steve Earle's '90s work, adult alternative rock won out afterward. West continues this. But there are a few rockers, which dial down the softer pop sound while mixing in some harder-edged stuff, venturing deeper into blues stylings. "Come On"--which is about her ex-lover's inability to make her...well, come-- couldn't be more jagged, either lyrically or musically. Those, like me, who grew tired with the day-at-the-beach feel of some of the post-Car Wheels material will feel a bit more at home with this one.

I won't say too much about the lyrics. "Learning How To Live" is one of her weakest songs in this (but not only this) respect. But others, like "Fancy Funeral," are as touching as anything she's ever done. "Words" is another highlight; it serves as a nice statement of Lucinda Williams' station as a great American songwriter. Anyway, she's a wonderful writer, whose '90s work earned her the title of America's Greatest Songwriter from Time Magazine, so it's worth giving her a look if you haven't already. Her myspace page features a few songs from her latest album.

Getting back to the start of this post, is West better than Patty Griffin's Children Running Through? The answer is: Probably not. If I could get only one of the two, I would choose Children. Lucinda Williams has done better, more memorable work with her more rootsy country-folk records. But West is a good record, on a par with, or better than, her last two. Fans looking for another masterpiece will be disappointed. But those looking for some more good songs should be satisfied. If this isn't the best record of the year, it is a welcome and worthy release all the same.

Politics Of The English Language

Stanley Fish described Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" as "turgid, self-righteous, and philosophically hopeless" in the New York Times Book Review. I don't dare to criticize Orwell for turgidity or self-righteousness. I am not so confident in myself to levy such criticisms at people like him. But I sympathize with the accusation of philosophical hopelessness.

Prescriptivism in linguistics is the idea that rules exist for the use of language, and good quality writing demands adherence to these rules. Sometimes, of course, prescriptivism is correct. There are important rules that govern language use, whose violation is an impediment to clear and effective communication. Other times, however, prescriptivists out themselves as rule fetishists. You can see this brand of prescriptivism at work wherever there are English teachers who insist, baselessly, that it is "wrong" or "ungrammatical" to end a sentence with a preposition; or that infinitives, like inseams, mustn't ever be split without embarrassment; and, finally--one of Orwell's bugbears--that the use of the passive voice must be minimized, if not eliminated. English teachers, and no one else, maintain and enforce these rules, though they manage to convince some English speakers to adhere to them.

None of these rules are defensible.^[*] See here and here for the sad story of how we managed to get to the point where people are educated into ignorance about prepositions at the end of sentences; or note, with amusement, that Orwell himself used the passive voice more often than his peers. Split infinitives, arguably, create inelegant constructions, but surely no one misunderstood the voiceover introduction to Star Trek because it decided to boldly go. In what sense, then, is it "wrong?" Unfortunately, too many people, including otherwise intelligent men like George Orwell, readily attempt to enforce spurious rules of language. See this excellent post for an analysis of why people do this, and try, like I do, to let it go next time you are tempted to do it.

^[*]If you thought I ought to have used the singular there, add that rule to the list.

Living With Darwin by Philip Kitcher

"From the perspective of almost the entire community of natural scientists world-wide, continued resistance to Darwin is absurd." So says Philip Kitcher in his new book, Living With Darwin. This will surprise no one familiar with the state of biology today, yet the politics of evolution are not so simple. No doubt many will disbelieve that the scientific community is as united as Kitcher says it is. After all, what does he know? Here, however, Kitcher stands on firm ground with the support of strong credentials: Kitcher is the John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, and his area of expertise is in the history and philosophy of science. This book is not his first on the debate over evolution, though it assumes no familiarity with his previous work.

Intelligent design is the new challenger to what is now called the neo-Darwinian synthesis, which is Darwinian evolution by natural selection combined with Mendelian genetics. Living With Darwin clarifies and adjudicates the debate between these two camps. Kitcher strongly supports Darwin over intelligent design, and if this is all there was to his book, it would be yet another--if unusually lucid and succinct--exegesis in an already crowded field. But this is not all there is to Kitcher's book.

More seriously, however, books like these are open to the charge of preaching to the choir: The kind of person who will read this book is not the kind of person who needs to read it. Perhaps. But Kitcher avoids these pitfalls as much as possible. Anyone who can read can read Living With Darwin; and few will be turned off by his argument style, which is careful and compassionate, sharply contrasting with people like Richard Dawkins, who Kitcher admits sound harsh and insensitive to thoughtful religious believers.

Against some of his peers, Kitcher argues that intelligent design is science, but it is dead science. On his riveting tour through the history of the debate, Kitcher shows that intelligent design is science in the same way that alchemy is science: Scientists at one time believed in its truth, but those scientists have been shown to be wrong. Accordingly, its only place in schools is in history of science and philosophy classes. But Kitcher adds another indictment: He argues that intelligent design cannot accommodate the kind of claims its adherents would like it to. The people who sell intelligent design, therefore, are rather like intellectual con artists. They know that people want a theory that can support supernatural religious claims, usually belief in the Bible; but they also know that intelligent design cannot offer such support. Their willingness to sell it to these people constitutes an intellectual fraud. Kitcher emphasizes the mendacity of these people, who know that if the public understood the theory, they would realize that it offers no more respite for embattled religious convictions than does belief in Darwinian evolution.

The first four chapters, which total 116 short pages, are a powerful defense of Darwinism against its rivals. But the heart of the book--where it makes its greatest contribution--is the final chapter, which runs to 50 pages. This is where Kitcher deals with the psychological motivations for intelligent design and the future of faith. His observations are unusually insightful but, at the same time, as charitable as possible to religious believers.

Surprisingly, Kitcher agrees with religious opponents to Darwin; evolution is dangerous to faith, or at least to a certain kind of faith. It is dangerous to what he calls "providentialist" faith. This is the religious faith, held by most people, which asserts the existence of a God who intervenes in the world. Evolution chips away at some of the last remaining reasons to believe in this God; and since beliefs require evidence to sustain them, this means that religious belief is in danger. In the story of his own intellectual journey, Kitcher tells us that these considerations motivated him to become an atheist. Though he does not believe that Darwinism necessitates atheism, it does make it more attractive; and it makes almost all forms of religion untenable. The only exception is non-providentialist religion, which eschews supernaturalism altogether. This, however, is not the kind of religion religious people want. They want something or someone to breathe meaning into their lives.

So: religion, for Kitcher, is a crutch, and he supports this with an impressive display of knowledge of the history of Christianity and the Bible. The Enlightenment has steadily eroded reasons to believe in God. Religion remains not because there is good evidence to support it, but largely because it gives life meaning. He quotes William James:

For naturalism, fed on recent cosmological speculations, mankind is in a position similar to that of a set of people living on a frozen lake, surrounded by cliffs over which there is no escape, yet knowing that little by little the ice is melting, and the inevitable day drawing near when the last film of it will disappear, and to be drowned ignominiously will be the human creature's portion. The merrier the skating, the warmer and more sparkling the sun by day, and the ruddier the bonfires at night, the more poignant the sadness with which one must take in the meaning of the total situation.

Intelligent design is the last desperate stride of skaters attempting to outrun the cracks in the ice behind them.

But doesn't this completely destroy my claim that Kitcher's book is compassionate, readable by anyone? Surely this amounts to smug superiority, right? Well, Kitcher admits that all of us, atheists included, are stuck on the ice. We all need comfort. Religion provides meaning where other areas of inquiry have failed, including recent philosophy, "which has found little time for larger questions about the meaning and value of human lives." Kitcher again quotes James approvingly:

"The whole function of philosophy ought to be to find out what definite difference it will make to you and me, at definite instants of our life if this world-formula or that world-formula be the true one." Yet if philosophers since James have treated the questions of how "world-formulas" bear on human lives with distaste or disdain, writers and artists have been less fastidious, exploring the possibilities for meaningful life in a world beyond supernaturalism. One way to do philosophy as James conceived it would be to explain and elaborate on literary and artistic insights.

Philosophy isn't the only player that needs to change: Kitcher argues that we also need to address the "harsh competitiveness of American life...the vapidity of much secular culture, and above all, the absence of real community." Religion fulfills these roles, and these are its great virtues.

Living With Darwin is as good a book on the subject as anyone could have asked for. It is as sensitive as possible, without being dishonest. It is as lucid and succinct as possible, without being unscholarly or unrigorous. And, as a third way between providentialist religion and Dawkins-style atheism, it is most welcome. I'll close with a quote from the final paragraph of the book:

There is truth in Marx's dictum that religion, more precisely supernaturalist and providentialist religion, is the opium of the people., but the consumption should be seen as medical rather than recreational. The most ardent apostles of science and reason recommend immediate withdrawal of the drug--but they do not acknowledge the pain that would be left unpalliated, pain too intense for their stark atheism to be a viable solution. Genuine medicine is needed, and the proper treatment consists of showing how lives can matter.

Boldly Going Where Everyone Has Gone Before

Welcome to my blog. As the top of the page says, you can expect to see here my commentary on life, literature, music, politics, and ideas. If you know me and you have a blog, let me know and I'll add it the list of links on the sidebar. I'm always happy to chat about any of the above with friends or strangers, so feel free to leave comments or email me directly. If you're so inclined, you can also email me to report HTML bugs, broken links, bad writing, etc.