The Long Tradition of Dividing People Into Good People and Bad People

Matt Taibbi, writing about Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States:

No matter how interesting a book he or she is able to write, any author who admits to looking out at the world and seeing only “victims and executioners” needs psychological help. Unfortunately, Zinn in this respect turned out to be a pioneer, presaging a generation of comic-book thinkers who understand things in binary terms, forever preoccupied with cramming people in neat categories of oppressors and oppressed.

Such mental habits are the fashion now and will definitely put you in a bind on Thanksgiving. How can I eat turkey and stuffing with a smile, when Columbus massacred the Arawaks? When the English forced the Wampanoags off their land and made many convert to Christianity? When Lincoln told Horace Greeley, “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it”?

How? Maybe because you’re more than three years old, and don’t need fairy tales to be real in order to enjoy dinner with family and a football game?

Taibbi's article is "Thanksgiving is Awesome: In reply to the haters. Happy holiday, everyone."

On a more serious note, I read Zinn's book when I was a teenager and it was a much needed shock to my system, given that I had, to that point, been exposed to a steady stream of textbooks and teachers who argued American Exceptionalism. I agree with Taibbi that both of these approaches are simplistic.

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Caitlin Flanagan: What it’s Like to Turn 60 Years Old

Caitlin Flanagan is one of my favorite writers. She just turned 60 years old, which means that it's time to reminisce, celebrate and try to make deep sense of things.

[Y]ou have been on this Earth for a really, really long time. I have a photograph of myself at age 3, standing on the docks of Cork Harbor, about to sail to New York. When I look at the picture of that small child on her sturdy legs in the foggy past, I don’t feel any connection to her. The photograph looks like something I would discover after many days on Ancestry.com. It looks like a snapshot of my own great-aunt. There’s a reason the photograph looks like it’s from another time. Because it is from another time; it was taken more than half a century ago. How can I be in a photograph from that long ago? The math makes sense, but my own life doesn’t.

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Michael Shellenberger Discusses The Origins of San Francisco’s Homeless Problem with Joe Rogan

This is an excerpt from a much longer discussion. Michael Shellenberger is discussing San Francisco's homeless problem with Joe Rogan. One of his conclusions is the well-intentioned attitude by many liberals that all homeless people are purely victims and that they cannot be blamed for any of their behaviors, including their uses of dangerous drugs.

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Daily Aphorism #7: How Much to Keep and How Much to Give to Charity?

The days keep spinning by too quickly. Or perhaps I'm not spending sufficient time to write "daily" aphorisms! I'll keep them coming, but I'm struggling to find enough time to write these days. I'll keep calling them "daily aphorisms" even though they are not daily and even though some of them are not quite aphorisms.

Here's today's thought. We aren't born with instruction manuals, which makes life quite the adventure in dozens of ways. Here's a recurring question for me: How much of my time/energy/resources do I get to keep for myself and how much am I obliged to give to others as charity?

If we gave away all that we gained by our efforts, that would seem unhealthy. If we refused to help any strangers in need, that too would seem unhealthy. In the case of a person who approaches you on the street, are you obliged to give anything at all. A friend of mine once told me that she carries an apple with her. When approached by a beggar, she hands them an apple. "How tidy!" I thought.

No one I know gives away everything and very few people that I know give away nothing to strangers in need. What's the best way to live in that middle zone? Is there a morality-free oasis, or should we always feel the pressure of helping others? What about the fact that dollars are fungible? Each time we drop $100 on a fancy dinner, we could have substantially helped the lives of desperately poor people by donating that money to a good cause.  Ten children will have starved to death in the minute you will take to read this aphorism.

Again, we aren't born with an instruction manual on this topic. How do each of us guide our actions every day and how should we do that? Do the moral philosophers in moral theory have anything useful in the real world? I think not, and that was also the conclusion of three philosophy professors I've discussed this with over the years, professors who specialize in moral philosophy.

I have no conclusion here. No call to action. No suggestions. How utterly unsatisfying!

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