When the news this morning reported yet more staggering profits for big oil companies, I realized that I could think of only three groups of Americans who have benefitted in a big way -- i.e., with obscene profits -- since George Bush took office: big oil companies (Bush's former business…
What is it to be loyal? According to Merriam Webster, to be "loyal" is to be
1 : unswerving in allegiance: as a: faithful in allegiance to one's lawful sovereign or government b: faithful to a private person to whom fidelity is due c: faithful to a cause, ideal, custom, institution, or product.I don't have a problem with this definition. I do object, however, that "loyalty" has been given a free pass in modern American culture, as though loyalty is always a good thing. In particular, the mass media has bought into this linguistic sleight-of-hand: according to the mainstream media, it is always a good thing to be "loyal." Loyalty is undoubtedly a virtue when we are dealing with pet dogs. We like our dogs to be loyal. We like our dogs to do what we tell them to do. The loyalty of a human being is not necessarily a good thing, however. Loyalty is a matter of committing oneself to a person, to a group of people or to a cause. But people and causes can be either praiseworthy or despicable (or something in between). If a social cause to which I am loyal is that all babies should have basic medical care, loyalty to such a cause would be a good thing. If my idea is that we should all give homage to Hitler, loyalty to this cause would be a horrible idea. Therefore, how can it be said that loyalty is per se a good thing unless one first examines the merit of the person(s) or clause(s) to which a person is being loyal? [More . . . ]
Here’s an interesting example on how intuition can go awry. What would you guess to be the primary factor for determining whether a scientist is receptive to new and innovative scientific theories? Education? Economic resources? Gender? None of the above!
In Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics and Creative Lives (1996), a meticulously researched book that has now withstood a decade of criticism, Frank Sulloway concluded that those people who tend to cling to old paradigms, who are not confortable with new innovative scientific theories, have something surprising in common. They tend to be firstborns. Sulloway based his conclusions on the analysis of the written positions of 3,890 persons, writers who have commented over the past several hundred years on controversial new scientific theories.
Firstborns are significantly more likely to “identify more closely with parents and authority,” and more “conforming, conventional and defensive—attributes that are all negative features of openness to experience.” [pp. 21-22.]
Sulloway analyzed the attitudes of the writers of published commentary regarding the theory of Copernicus during the early stages of that controversy:
[I]ndividual laterborns were 5.4 times more likely than individual firstborns to support Copernicus’s claim that the earth revolves around the sun. Copernicus himself was the youngest of four children.
[p. 38] There are many books written for a lay audience on the topic of birth order, but very few of them are carefully documented with statistical analyses. Sulloway’s book is a shining exception to the rule. It is a highly detailed work …
There are two kinds of people, right? That's how many analyses begin. Here is one that I humbly offer, with little optimism that sufficient numbers of people will have the courage to take it to heart. What is the opposite of Islam? Most Americans would say that the answer is…
The official Bush policy in Iraq is that "when the Iraqis stand up, America will stand down." Does it look to anyone like that is happening? See here.