Chris Hedges discusses the all-encompassing meaning of war

I just finished reading War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, a 2003 book by Chris Hedges. This is a deeply emotional book, but also a highly abstract treatise. Hedges has worked as a reporter in more than a few war zones, and he draws upon those personal experiences to illustrate his analysis of the instant and all-encompassing meaning of war. This is an extremely well-written work, that offers timeless observations. These are observations that are desperately needed by Americans and the many politicians that, perhaps unwittingly, mislead them. After reading Hedge's work, I am more convinced than ever that for many people war is an almost irresistible intoxicant. As Hedges repeatedly points out, war intoxicates news reporters too, and then the vicious cycle revs up. I'd highly recommend reading this entire book to anyone who wants to better understand warmongering, its cheerleaders and its victims. What follows, though, is a set of some of my favorite passages from War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning:

The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living. Only when we are in the midst of conflict does the shallowness and vapidness of much of our lives become apparent. Trivia dominates our conversations and increasingly our airwaves. And war is an enticing elixir. It gives us resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble. And those who have the least meaning in their lives, the impoverished refugees in Gaza, the disenfranchised North African immigrants in France, even the legions of young who live in the splendid indolence and safety of the industrialized world, are all susceptible to war's appeal.

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Barack Obama drones on into the Heart of Darkness

A recent article in the New York Times confirms Barack Obama's personal involvement in the use of drones to assassinate persons in Pakistan and elsewhere:

"Mr. Obama has placed himself at the helm of a top secret “nominations” process to designate terrorists for kill or capture, of which the capture part has become largely theoretical. He had vowed to align the fight against Al Qaeda with American values; the chart, introducing people whose deaths he might soon be asked to order, underscored just what a moral and legal conundrum this could be."

I realize that Barack Obama's unrelenting series of drone assassinations is an intensely inconvenient topic for many of the people who voted for him. I understand this reluctance to consider this topic because I too voted for Barack Obama. Back in 2008, I heard Obama repeatedly promise that he would quickly end American involvement in Afghanistan.
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The danger of giving homage to mathematical incompetence

Yesterday afternoon, a friend mentioned that in his experience people are usually embarrassed to be exposed as illiterate, but they don't seem to care whether they are exposed as mathematically incompetent. That observation resonated with me. In fact, not only aren't people embarrassed about being mathematically incompetent, but many people seem proud of being mathematically illiterate. They use their mathematical incompetence to socially bond with other people who are mathematically incompetent. More than a few times, someone in the room has mentioned that they're not very good with numbers and several other people in the room immediately come to their rescue indicating that it's okay to be mathematically incompetent because they too struggled with mathematics. I don't think it's any coincidence that American students are so deficient at mathematics compared to the students in many other countries while, at the same time, Americans have such bizarre public policy priorities (e.g., a zero tolerance policy toward terrorism at the same time that thousands of Americans are dying needlessly of treatable medical conditions and while millions of American children are subjected to terribly underfunded schools that will ruin their lives). After yesterday's conversation, I pulled out an 1988 book by John Allen Paulos, Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences. here's what Paulos has to say right in his introduction:

Innumeracy, an inability to deal comfortably with the fundamental notions of number and chance, plagues far too many otherwise knowledgeable citizens. The same people who cringe when words such as "imply" and "infer" are confused react without a trace of embarrassment to even the most egregious of numerical solecisms. I remember once listening to someone at a party drone on about the difference between "continually" and "continuously." Later that evening we were watching the news, and the TV weather forecaster announced that there was a 50% chance of rain for Saturday and a 50% chance for Sunday, and concluded that there was therefore a 100% chance of rain that weekend. The remark went right by the self-styled grammarian, and even after I explained the mistake to him, he wasn't nearly as indignant as he would've been had the weathercaster left a dangling participle. In fact, unlike other failings which are hidden, mathematical illiteracy is often flaunted: "I can't even balance my checkbook." "I'm a people person, not a numbers person." Or "I always hated math."
Paulos suggests that part of the reason for this ignorance of mathematics is that the consequences are often not as obvious as those of other weaknesses. On the other hand, the problems caused by innumeracy are serious, often times matters of life and death. Paulos lists the following examples: Stock scams, choice of a spouse, newspaper psychics, diet and medical claims, the risk of terrorism, astrology, sports records, elections, sex discrimination, UFOs, insurance and law, psychoanalysis, parapsychology, lotteries, and drug testing… Why do people struggle so much with mathematics? Paulos points to natural psychological responses to uncertainty, to coincidence, and how problems are framed, as well as anxiety, romantic misconceptions about nature and the importance of mathematics. One of the biggest consequences of innumeracy are "unfounded and crippling anxieties" and "impossible and economically paralyzing demands for risk-free guarantees." Paulos mentions that politicians are rarely helpful, because they are often "loathe to clarify the likely hazards and trade-offs associated with almost any policy." It's been a while since I read Innumeracy, but I highly recommend it. It is a timeless book filled with examples to remind us of the importance of a precise understanding of mathematics. Paulos indicates, "The book will have been well worth the effort if it can begin to clarify just how much innumeracy pervades both our private and/or public lives." By the way, if you know someone who is struggling with mathematics, Paulos book is a good place to start. He is an excellent teacher of math as well as a clear writer. If you know someone who wants to understand basic math, refer them to the many free video lessons at Khan Academy. Once we master math, I would suggest that we turn to biology. It is my firm belief that all of us would be much better off with an understand of human beings based on the understanding that humans are human animals.

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The efficiency of fish as a multi-faceted lesson

How can I be more efficient, both at work and elsewhere? How can I focus my efforts to be one of those people who gives annoying cliche, "110% effort?" I was recently reminded of a book that provides a metaphor for my personal quest to be efficient, but it also provides a powerful lesson on the topic of artificial boundaries. First, a bit of background. About 12 years ago, I had the opportunity to audit several graduate-level seminars taught by philosopher Andy Clark while he was on the faculty at Washington University in St. Louis. Andy often stressed that cognition should not be conceptualized as merely the firing of neurons within a human skull. This idea is central to his writings. In a book Andy wrote in 1997, Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again, he tells a fish story. It is the scientific story of the astounding swimming efficiency of fish, and it is also a caveat that we humans are so utterly interconnected with our environments that we need to stop characterizing those things outside of our bodies and brains as obstacles to our accomplishments. The following excerpt is from page 219-220, the beginning of the chapter titled "Minds, Brains, and Tuna: a Summary and Brine."

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Faith in secular sacred things

Ever since I was a teenager, it has been my quest to not rest until I figured out everything I could about why I existed and what it meant to live a moral life. This made loads of sense to me, since I couldn't know how to live my life until I knew the rules of the game. But now I'm 56, and I need to admit that it doesn't look likely that I'll have everything figured out before I die. In fact it looks like I'll be lucky to scratch the surface before I die. In writing this, I'm not demeaning the work of thousands of scientists. We've learned an incredible amount about human animals. It's just that each answer to each question seems to raise another question or two. Part of my strategy has been to take a close look at the things people deem to be sacred. These things have always been the head-scratchers for me (e.g. the claim that a virgin could have a baby or the claim that a country that is so politically dysfunction could be deemed "the world's greatest democracy." I’m not certain whether it is helpful in the long run to directly question others' non-questionable beliefs, but that is my faith--I believe that more knowledge is better for all of us, and that exploring these enigmas will help us to understand the kinds of animals we are. Attempting to understand human animals is one of my own sacred endeavors. The saying of Socrates constantly resonates with me: "The unexamined life is not worth living."

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