Confucius: "morals and art will deteriorate"

“If language is not correct . . . . . . morals and art will deteriorate":

Many years ago I went through an art exhibition at a glitzy mall in Newport Beach. I remember two of the art exhibits. One was a model wearing one of those iconic French Maid outfits - the short black, form-fitting dress with the little white apron and cap. But the model (perhaps the artist) was a rather tall man who also wore black tights, some really ugly black and white gym shoes and a gas mask. The other memorable exhibit featured wall hangings which exploited the various textures and colors of lint removed from clothes dryers.

I think there was some sort of environmental message intended by both of these art pieces, but I'm not sure what it was.

There are at this moment in history a lot of "artists" on the Left delivering political messages through "art". Relatively few on the Right, most of them
satirists pointing out rhetorical or other excesses on the Left. Moe Lane compares Australian Green protesters (dignified by American standards) to performance art. I can imagine myself in the audience. He says
about the second photo in this post:

". . . it looks for all the world like a snapshot of a particularly boring and pretentious piece of performance art. You know the kind that I’m talking about; one featuring three or four people moving about and talking aimlessly while atonal, yet annoying, stringed instruments play in the background. You’re there because your S.O.’s friend is involved with the production, and you have been promised that the party afterward will not be dull - so you spend the time trying to decipher the program, which reads like it was translated from German to English via Academic Marxist, with a quick stopover at Martian. You suspect that it has gained in the translation; meanwhile, up on the stage someone has just waved a broomstick at a man wearing a cow suit, which apparently has something to do with the Falkland Islands War.

It is about that time that you grimly conclude that the party afterward will be dull."

Hyperbole on the part of Australian Greens has reduced the tendency of the general population to pay attention to the Global Warming Issue. Particularly since the Australian contribution to greenhouse gasses is so tiny compared to, say, China's growing emissions. But the Greens still have the attention of the news media - just like in America. This may be one reason why political "performance art" gets more and more extreme while serious, fact-based discussions of issues go unnoticed.

Confucius and Clarity of Language

Confucius said:

“If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone; if this remains undone, morals and art will deteriorate; if justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion.

Hence there must be no arbitrariness in what is said. This matters above everything.”

The translation above makes me wonder how the end of a sentence is indicated in Chinese. That's some first sentence. We're really not used to long sentences these days. I put in a paragraph separation just to make the quote easier to get through.

The piece from which this quote was taken makes some over-broad statements about government spending. But it includes some really good points about how people have been misled about government money. Click on the link at the bottom of the page for comments from readers which reveal some of the ways government involvement tends to make everything more expensive while sometimes making stuff seem "free". David could tell many similar stories. Money from government allows corrupt or astonishingly inefficient systems - public or private - to survive much longer than they would if they had to earn their own money.

Dr. Helen has some interesting advice concerning how teachers can help their students think critically and clearly understand some of the ways propaganda works:

" . . . in my opinion, it is not your job to decide the politics of the students in your class, it is your job to expose them to the critical thinking skills that will help them make informed decisions and back them up in a reasoned way. This is what is sorely lacking in our present educational system."

Did you know that there was a Propaganda Game ? Some non-PC books for kids would also help provide some balance to the liberal mindset which filters down from our higher education system.

Lessons from the Big 3 auto industry crisis

Real-time confirmation of basic principles from Barbarians to Bureaucrats - a book which helped me understand how organizations work:

1. Unions are organized because management is not paying attention to workers. Unions and corporations often become so rigid in their interactions that they become involved in death-spirals. Everyone wants security, but when everyone starts to feel too secure, things fall apart.

2. Boards of Directors who pay massive salaries and bonuses to executives are often not acting in the interests of the stockholders. This distorts the ethical system upon which the corporation should be built. When leaders of corporations are out of touch with their customers, stockholders and employees, they enter a state of aristocratic decline, much like the decline of an entire civilization. These leaders start to exhibit signs of madness. Sort of like Nero fiddling while Rome burned.

Question from the Right Coast: Is it too late to institute a French-style socialist solution? I don't see any handy, efficient "barbarians" around to reform the Big 3 without getting us into deeper trouble. Nimble Japanese car companies are doing a good job of rolling over the Big 3, another function of "barbarians".

Update: Revisiting Michael Moore's first big success. And, why couldn't GM adjust fast enough to world changes? And, why aren't our aristocratic members of Congress held responsible for their part in the disaster? Especially their failure to give assurances to the auto makers that future legislation would not destroy the value of investments the automakers were ready to make to meet the contemporaneous demands of Congress?

A Disheartening Election Season

It's been a strange, depressing political season. Glenn Reynolds describes the campaign at this point in a nutshell, with a little help from Jeff Goldstein - the stay-at-home dad leftist academics love to hate. I'll be voting for McCain's rolodex this year - or maybe against Obama's rolodex - leftist academics, liberal jurists, Hollywood, competing activist groups, etc.

I know it's not ideal to vote in terms of avoiding negatives. At least McCain has a record of opposing corruption - as does Palin. And as Jennifer Rubin points out, Obama's one constant (in political terms) is that he has never actively opposed political corruption, despite getting his political start in one of the areas of the country most famous for political corruption.

One problem is that McCain is running on Obama's turf when it comes to the economy, which is the hot-button issue right now. America may be about to elect its most left-wing national government ever. Including strengthening the Pelosi-Reid congress. Ironic that a recent poll showed that 56% of voters would throw out the entire congress if they could.

George Will reminds us that among the first orders of business of an Obama-Pelosi-Reid government would be solidifying their power by revoking the secret ballot in union elections (giving union activists great power to intimidate) and re-instating the Fairness Doctrine. This would drive Talk Radio off the public airwaves because it would not be economically feasible for stations to try to "balance" the views presented there. On the other hand, Rush Limbaugh might be broadcast on Pacifica Radio and NPR, which would be a culture shock to the Left. And we might see a requirement that "The View" be balanced by a show featuring a bunch of conservative men with a token liberal. An amusing thought.

I think forcing Talk Radio out of business could make the Right nuttier, given their existing exasperation at the brazen bias of the Mainstream media - pointed out here by former leftist radical Roger L. Simon. The loss of Talk Radio could drive the Right onto the internet, where angry groups tend to reinforce each other's feelings. This would be unfortunate. Talk Radio is out in the open where it can be monitored and challenged easily. And conservative talk shows take challenging callers (even if they are not treated fairly in every instance). I like Dennis Prager for his emphasis on reason over emotion in politics. Many other talk show hosts are also heavily into thought and fact over feelings.

The Angry Right is gearing up to act like the Angry Left has for the last 8 years: Not a good thing. Well, maybe not quite like the Angry Left.

Anger and conspiracy theories from the right would be a big mistake. The right is judged by a different standard than the left. I think an emphasis on reason, working to promote better candidates and working to limit government expansion are more useful, if less immediate, ways to limit the potential damage which could be done by a "therapeutic president" who seems to be such a nice guy and who is, by all accounts, a wonderful father.

As one of the Instapundit correspondents (in the Angry Right link above) said, "I plan to take a different tack. . . , should Obama win the election. I think conserv/atarians should "perceive the Obama Administration as damage, and route around it."

That is, fight against Government power, without focusing on who is weilding it, and rebuild our non-Governmental institutions to get done the things that need to get done."

Should we train future presidential candidates?

It's going to be a tiresome campaign season, so something a little off-the-wall may be in order. Frank J. has an interesting idea for training future presidents.

Cautionary quotes

From The Anchoress, in reference to socialized medicine, but much more widely applicable:

"American presidents may peacefully surrender their power, but bureaucrats never do."



Related quote from the comments, attribution fuzzy:

"If you think health care is expensive now, just wait til it's free."


Especially if you consider both health costs and fiscal costs. Socialized medicine in many countries is now degrading due to the accumulated weight of years of bureaucracy, among other things. Some countries, such as the UK and Canada, seem to do especially poorly now with chronic medical conditions. There is a lottery in one Canadian town for appointments to see the General Practitioner.

Good comments on the linked posts.