Andrew Sullivan concludes that the choice of Palin should focus us sharply on McCain's poor judgment: To my mind, this pick is not about Palin's unreadiness to be president. It's about McCain's unreadiness to be president. This act of judgment - a blend of ignorance, gut, cynicism, and pure egotism…
This weekend, a good friend (Thanks, Eddie!) reminded me to read a “classic” on mass movements, The True Believer (1951), by Eric Hoffer, an American social writer. Hoffer was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in February 1983 by President of the United States Ronald Reagan.
Hoffer begins his book by recognizing that all mass movements have much in common:
This book deals with some peculiarities common to all mass movements, be they religious movements, social revolutions or nationalist movements. It does not maintain that all movements are data call, but that they share certain essential care to restrict which give them a family likeness.
There is more to the similarities, according to Hoffer. All mass movements “demand blind faith and single hearted allegiance.” Although they differ in their doctrines, they all “draw their early adherents from the same types of humanity; they all appeal to the same types of mind.” Hoffer speaks of the art of “religiofication, the art of turning practical purposes into holy causes.” (15)
Last night, I took a couple hours to read through The True Believer. I want to take this time to share a few quotes from Hoffer’s book:
There is in us a tendency to locate the shaping forces of our existence outside ourselves. (16)
Discontent by itself does not invariably create a desire for change. Other factors have to be present before discontent turns into disaffection. One of these is a sense of power. (17)
The differences between the conservatives and the …
As I mentioned in two previous posts (here and here), I recently had the opportunity to attend several of the sessions of the “Future Directions in Genetic Studies” workshop at Washington University in St. Louis. One of the speakers was Carl Craver of Washington University. Craver's talk was titled, "The…
Can one gene make a difference? Absolutely. One case in point is Tay-Sachs Disease, a physical condition where the central nervous system begins to degenerate in a four to six month old child who, until the onset of the disease, appeared normal. Individuals with Tay-Sachs disease have two copies of a genetic mutation, one copy inherited from each parent. In a carrier of Tay-Sachs, only one gene is different when compared to non-carriers. That’s how important one gene can be. When we’re talking about complex behaviors, though, can the “cause” really boil down to one gene? It’s unlikely.
I recently had the opportunity to attend several sessions of the “Future Directions in Genetic Studies” workshop at Washington University in St. Louis. On Friday, I attended a lively seminar led by Gar Allen, who teaches biology at Washington University. His talk was entitled “What’s Wrong with ‘The Gene for . . .’? Problems with Human Behavior Genetics and How to Combat Them.”
Allen opened his talk by asserting that claims about the genetic basis for complex human behaviors and traits are “notoriously difficult to investigate and replicate.” There is a long and troubled history of claims that genes are the cause of various conditions. For instance, in 1969, Arthur Jensen became the center of a storm when he wrote that Caucasians were more intelligent than African-Americans, suggesting that there was a genetic basis for this difference. Jensen’s position has been heavily criticized by numerous scientists on numerous …
In the interests of discussion concerning the election and some ideas that get bandied about here from time to time, I thought I’d post one of my very favorite quotes. This comes from a wonderful book about the Heroic Myths of the Greeks, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony by…