Of Toilet Training and Equal Rights

Call my teaching philosophy reactionary conservative, but I am a believer in students coming to class on time and prepared. (Whether students should have to go to class is one thing. Once they are in class, let us conduct a proper one.) Being prepared means having pen and paper or a laptop to take notes. It also means being able, barring unforeseen accidents or emergencies, to sit for forty minutes without needing to leave to go to the bathroom or get a drink of water. (When I gave double period lectures at Ohio State, I was careful to give a five minute break in middle). To my shock, I have learned from an experienced educator, whom I have the utmost respect for, that, as a matter of policy, one is supposed to grant female students, because of their special needs, unlimited bathroom privileges (even knowing that this privilege is being abused). This strikes at what I understand as the bargain of civil rights that, among other things, allows women into my classroom to get an education in the first place. 

Being given equal rights and being treated as an equal means taking on the responsibilities taken for granted by the rest of society. For example, as the Jews of Napoleon's Sanhedrin would point out, Jews, by taking on the privileges of being equal citizens, also take on the obligations of serving in the army, taking on socially "useful" trades and making the necessary "reforms" of their religion to remove any hatred or bias against their gentile countrymen. As I so often point out in my classes, Jews gaining equal rights was not simply a matter of gentiles becoming more liberal and finally agreeing to give Jews what they "deserved." There is a bargain being made here; this is not a simple offer and there might be good reason to turn down this Enlightenment offer of emancipation. The same thing applies to women. Women are now being given the opportunity to be equal citizens, go to school and get jobs. I think this is a good thing and fully support it. The flip side of this is that women are expected to take on the same responsibilities of men.

If I were teaching history in the year 1800 to an all-boys class, I would do so on the assumption that my students, barring serious emergencies, were capable of sitting in class for forty minutes without having to go to the bathroom. Those incapable of holding in their bladders are probably not fit to be in school and should probably go back to being serfs and working in the fields (where they will probably die of famine or the plague). It is interesting to note that early factory regulations had to include specific clauses telling adult male workers that they were not allowed to relieve themselves on the work floor. This was a generation of people raised on farms and used to being able to take care of their bodily functions at will. Toilet training is not something natural, but it is necessary for living in modern society.

Over the past two hundred years, we have had the women's rights movement and, largely as a result of this, I am now teaching a class in which there are women. As a John Stuart Mill feminist, I welcome girls into my class as "one of the guys." The same basic assumptions that I have about guys also apply to them though. It would not be an excuse for a girl to say that as a girl she has a "smaller brain," is intellectually inferior and therefore should automatically get a letter grade higher. (It is funny to read nineteenth-century literature and see women unashamedly recuse themselves as they are "mere weak women.") If she, as a girl, is intellectually inferior then we must admit that women's rights were a mistake and this girl should leave my class and go "back" to working in a kitchen and raising children. Similarly, a girl is only in my class in the first place because we assume that she can control her basic bodily functions. If she cannot then she has no business using her feminine situation as an excuse. On the contrary, if this is indeed a feminine problem and not just the general human laziness of one individual, she should acknowledge the failure of the women's movement and recuse herself to the kindergarten classroom or to where societies that have thought of women as simply large children have usually dumped them, the kitchen.

It should be noted that concerns over the female ability to control bodily functions are at the heart of women being exempt by the rabbis from various religious commandments. This "leniency" for women has, in practice, served to place women in a secondary position in that it relegates them to a position of outsiders. The man is taken as the norm and the female is the oddity to be worked into the system. The rabbinic formulation is that "women are exempt from time-bound commandments." It is taken as a given that these commandments are at the heart of normative Judaism and not extra duties to be placed on men.

It is perfectly plausible, if we are going to assume that women really are not capable of controlling their bodily functions and this is not just a matter of female students taking advantage of gullible male teachers, to say that girls should be taken out of mainstream schools. They could have their own schools, with classes they can come in and out of as it suits them; they could even take a week off once a month. We would not have to worry as to whether they are actually learning anything. Everyone would know that these were not real schools and were not meant to actually offer an education, but finishing schools meant to give "MRS" degrees. Even if this was the case, I would still wish that any girl who proved to be an exception to this rule would be allowed to attend a real school, with real classes, to get a real education. My classroom door would certainly be open for her.

Neurotypical Mental and Emotional Handicaps (Part III)

(Part I, II)


Neurotypicals do not think of human beings as isolated minds. They operate on an Aristotelian "man is a political animal" model. Of course, even to talk about models, when dealing with neurotypicals is misleading because their method of thinking is a rejection of precisely the sort of abstract universal rule creation necessary for models. Neurotypicals tend to only think of human beings in terms of their interrelationship with others and the society building that results from this. This method of thinking emphasizes, not abstract rules, but arbitrary codes of behavior that serve to further the desired relationship. The neurotypical does not ask whether an action is in keeping with universal ethical imperatives, but whether it is good manners, whether, given one's place in a given social structure, it is acceptable to do something to someone else who in turn occupies their place in the social structure.

It should be obvious from this that, one, the neurotypical mind sets itself up for hierarchal non-democratic social structures. There is no reason for a neurotypical to reject hierarchy particularly as he strives to gain a favorable position in it. If one wonders as to the slow progress of democratic reform it can be placed on neurotypicals. It is the Asperger mental universe that insists that the world be governed by universal rational law applied equally to everyone as much as possible. All beings capable of a certain baseline of rational thought (including neurotypicals who reject their mental heritage) are welcome to this society as equals. Equality is inherent in that one is either capable of a baseline of reason or one is not. People like Thomas Jefferson, Immanuel Kant, and Adam Smith were most likely Aspergers; whether or not they were in fact, their thinking was distinctively Asperger. Even today, most people struggle with the notion that political rights only exist in so far as man is a creature of reason, capable of contemplating universal laws and thus coming to form rules for all to live by. Modern liberalism is an attempt to force the concept of rights into a neurotypical social thought structure. Rights are said to belong to groups and defend social relations. For example, we now have the concept of gay rights and that they have some sort of right to have their social interaction of getting married recognized by the government and society. (Not that I object to gay marriage in of itself.)

The other thing that should be clear is that the neurotypical mindset is incapable of a "theory of mind." In the neurotypical mental universe, there is no such thing as individual minds. All minds exist in relationship with other minds. I have lived my life with the realization that other minds are not like mine. If I have one thing it is a theory of mind. With no hope of understanding other minds, I place my faith in reason as the only thing that can allow for the meeting of minds necessary to build a society. Neurotypicals, living in a world where people, at least on the surface, have similar minds, are not confronted with the life experiences to tell them otherwise and have no reason to form a theory of mind in the first place. Confident in the belief that everyone else is fundamentally like them they hoist their emotions on other people. These similar emotions are the product not so much of the similarity of minds, but the relationship network that passes on otherwise arbitrary sets of rules and expectations.

I would like to end with a word about emotions. Why should I not strive to be sensitive to other people's emotions? To an extent obviously, I do make an effort. To do otherwise would be social suicide. What I refuse to do is grant moral legitimacy to emotions. One has no right to consider emotional hurt as a legitimate wrong or to counter with physical actions that could not otherwise be justified. I grant that this is an extreme position, but to say otherwise would set me up for blackmail. I am outside the relational thought structure of neurotypicals and do not understand the emotions that come from it. To say that I have to take such things into account means that I have to live my life jumping at the shadows of things I do not understand and being forced to accept whatever value other people put on their own emotions. To make things worse, since my emotions run on such a different track, as they are outside of a relational thought structure, I can never expect other people to take them into account. Thus, I would find myself enslaved to other people's emotional concerns at the same time as everyone else becomes exempt from taking my emotional concerns into account. I would de facto be relegating myself to a subhuman station; my emotional concerns being of less value than that of others. Either my emotions count the same as everyone else's or no one's emotions count. Since the former is not practical, the only ethical solution is to say that no person's emotional concerns are of any value outside of their own head.

The only thing that can create meaningful relationships between people and ultimately create a just society is reason as we submit ourselves to universal laws that apply to all people in all times. This is not Asperger supremacy. On the contrary, the authority of reason comes from the fact that it is universally accessible. This includes neurotypicals. Neurotypicals, despite their mental defects, are not beyond the saving grace of reason and are welcome to join the society of reasonable and rational beings.

Neurotypical Mental and Emotional Handicaps (Part II)

  (Part I)

To be clear, I do not wish to invalidate all non-rational pursuits. I do see a value in fiction and poetry. I read fiction and am even in the middle of writing a work of musket and magic fantasy. I gladly share this part of myself with other people and embrace their work in turn. That being said, there is a limitation to this; when I read fiction, I understand it on my terms and incorporate it into my mental universe. Thus, when I read a book, it becomes my book and no longer the author's, whose interpretation of his own work carries no greater inherent validity than mine. Similarly, I invite readers to enter the world of Asael that I am building and feel free to let it mean whatever they feel like having it mean. My only special authority as the author is that I get to decide where I am going with this. (And believe me, when I get back to writing it, we are going to be going to interesting places.)

In my experience and to my great frustration, neurotypicals lack the sort of ingrained rationalism necessary for a "theory of mind." (Of course, there are many neurotypicals to whom this does not apply. Like many mental disabilities, the neurotypical mind can be overcome with the aid of love, support, and a good rationalist education.) While there are many very intelligent neurotypicals, neurotypicals are not inclined toward "rationalism" in the sense of abstract universal rules. Instead, neurotypicals think in terms of relationships. (This argument has been made in the past about men and women. I think this goes to support Simon Baron Cohen's argument that Asperger syndrome is an extreme version of the "male brain.")

For example, I recently got into a back-and-forth with the family whose basement I board in over the amount of noise I make. (No I do not make a lot of noise.) I am perfectly willing to go along with any rules they choose to make as long as they agreed to play by those same rules. If they want me to use headphones I am okay with that as long as they also agree to similar restrictions. I should not have to be using headphones while they crank up their stereo or have loud conversations with friends. It is perfectly plausible for them to have conversations using pen and paper or even IM. Their position is that I, as their border, have to do whatever they want and if I have a problem with that I can leave. For me, a law that cannot be framed in general terms is, by definition, not a law, but the arbitrary whim of individuals, ending any hope of discourse. My border couple sees a hierarchal relationship structure that must be maintained. I live in the basement by their good grace and therefore must do whatever they say. Any attempt to even discuss the matter with them is deemed rude, unseemly and an attack upon the established order which forms our relationship. For me, it is of the highest good to establish reasonable and rational laws for all to follow so we may live together in brotherhood and engage in ever more ethical actions. For them, there is no higher good, at least in terms of what can be expected of our relationship, than their comfort and they will deal with issues as it best suits them and when it suits them.

The Asperger mind sees conversation as a means to exchange true and accurate information as to the nature of the world, including how other people view reality and the motivations for their actions. The neurotypical mind sees conversation as a means of establishing relationships. Usually when a neurotypical asks you how you are feeling he is not actually interested in information as to the nature of your well-being. Instead, he wishes to establish or maintain a relationship of some sort. By practicing a meaningless ritual of maintaining the pretense of empathy, the neurotypical demonstrates his "good manners" in the hope that you will place him in a favorable position in your social construct.

I have a difficult time imagining a situation where I would point blank refuse to talk to someone, particularly if it was about something meaningful like someone trying to explain their worldview and motivation. Regardless of how I might feel about the person, this is the whole reason I talk to people in the first place. Since I wish to better live according to universal principles, it is of the utmost importance that anyone driven by circumstance from the natural position of me treating them as I wish to treat all of mankind be restored to it. For neurotypicals, though, a conversation is about relationships and, as such, it can be used as a weapon against people holding an unfavorable position in your social construct. If a neurotypical decides that he no longer likes you and holds you in contempt, he will demonstrate it by not even showing you the courtesy of hearing you out.

This is the crucial distinction between ethical duties and manners. Ethics apply to all people and in all times. Manners apply only to some people and some of the time. Manners have nothing to do with good behavior; good manners are simply the other side of bad manners on a social blade designed to win a favorable place in other people's social construction and negotiate for a favorable place in yours. It is a means of manipulating people in a self-serving power game.


(To be continued …)

Neurotypical Mental and Emotional Handicaps (Part I)

Here is a wonderful satirical website, the Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical (ISNT), devoted to the study of neurotypicals as mentally handicapped. The author of the website heaps particular scorn on the notion that people on the spectrum are emotionally flat and lack a "theory of mind." I have been meaning to write about this issue, particularly of this theory of the mind claim, for some time so I thought I would take the opportunity here to do so. My friends Melanie and Noranne pointed me to this site so this post is dedicated to them.

I would hope that readers of this blog would have long come to appreciate that, while I may be an Asperger, I do have emotions. I am hardly a cold-blooded calculating machine; even my more academic writing breaths with a sense of humor and a strong sense of the personality behind it. That being said, there is something different as to my emotions and one could make a good case that it might be useful to find a different word to describe my "emotional" self. The notion of a "theory of mind" is that other minds are different from my own and that what applies to me does not apply to other people. For example, I love talking about Early Modern religion wars almost as much as I like talking about my ultimate favorite topic, myself, and can go on about these topics for an hour at a time easily. Since I do not read facial expressions very well, I have a difficult time telling when people become bored with this topic. Perhaps, some might argue, I cannot even comprehend how something that so interests me could fail to at least grab the attention of others.

I would make the case for turning the rhetorical tables against neurotypicals and argue that, on the contrary to the usual charge, it is neurotypicals who lack a theory of the mind. I would describe myself as living in a Cartesian universe. Firstly because the idea of sitting in front of the fire, (or in my case my modern electric heater) wondering about issues like whether God exists, whether I am the victim of some illusion creating demon (perhaps the Matrix) or whether I am a figment of my own imagination comes naturally to me. To me, these are important issues to be taken seriously and not to be put aside in favor of "living." Second, and more importantly, I am conscious of myself as a mind floating in a metaphysical universe hemmed in by other minds which I do not comprehend. Much of my mental energy is devoted to contemplating these other minds, theorizing about them and ultimately coming to terms with the fact that I do not understand these other minds. (Confirming one's ignorance is a worthwhile task. It is not enough to know that you are ignorant about things in general. You need to have a clear idea as to what you are ignorant about.) I do not understand other minds nor do I make any pretense to. I recognize that everyone has their own little universe that is incomprehensible to everyone else.

A somewhat counter-intuitive result of this is that I am an almost fanatical rationalist. Reason, as the shared heritage of all non-mentally handicapped people, is the only thing that can navigate the metaphysical ether between minds; it is the one product of the mind that can be understood by another. As such, for all intents and purposes, it is the one thing that can be viewed as meaningful. You live in your own self-contained mind, its own metaphysical universe containing thoughts, personality, and emotions. (My atheist Asperger friends would tell me that there is no mind; that it is just an illusion created by the brain. To be clear, I am talking here about the perception of mind, not any metaphysical reality.) I grant you that all of these things are real. The problem is that these things do not translate into my self-contained mind, in its own metaphysical universe. I do not understand these things and cannot take them into account beyond recognizing their existence as a sort of metaphysical black hole. As such your personal qualities while real, for all intents and purpose, might as well not exist. You have no reason to expect that I would understand the non-rational parts of your mind. Therefore, there is no reason to expect me to take it into account. The only thing that you have that can be meaningful to me as it is to you is your reason.

(To be continued …)

Obama as Gollum

I guess this is over health care.

An Acknowledgement Page That Tells Us Something of the Time in Which it was Written

Robert K. Massie ends his biography of Peter the Great with an acknowledgement page of historical interest in of itself. Peter the Great: His Life and World was published in 1980 so it is a product of the 1970s Cold War. Massie offers his thanks to his friends and collaborators in the Soviet Union:

In writing this book, I made many trips to the Soviet Union. In museums, libraries and at historical sites, I was always made to feel welcome. This was particularly true in Leningrad when people learned that my subject was the founder of their beloved city. For reasons that would seem exaggerated to most Western readers, but that Soviet citizens will abundantly understand, I prefer not to give the names of those who helped me. They know who they are and I thank them.
I ask my readers to try to comprehend what it meant for it to be dangerous enough for a Soviet citizen to help a Westerner write a book about Czarist Russia that one could not risk being openly acknowledged. Keep in mind that this was the “liberal” Soviet Union of Détente, when the Soviet Union finally became open to Western scholarship.

Insanity at the Texas School Board

Last month I posted on the Texas school board and its attempt to turn history textbooks into conservative Christian propaganda tools. There is more on this popping into the news. It is somewhat heartening to see that the insanity is not just from the right. The Democrats on the board, all minorities, wanted to insist that Tejanos killed at the Alamo be listed by name. They also wanted to insist that hip-hop in addition to rock and roll be listed as an important cultural achievement. To be clear I do not support history being taught exclusively as a laundry list of dead white males. When talking about the Alamo (in of itself more important as a cultural symbol than as a historical event) it is worthwhile to point out that not everyone inside was a WASP. That does not mean that we should be memorizing names. There are more important names from nineteenth-century American history to memorize. A parallel example would be the case of Crispus Attucks and the Boston Massacre. Yes, he was a black man and he was killed. I would certainly encourage teachers doing the Boston Massacre to bring up Attucks and ask students to consider what having a black man listed among the dead tells us about Boston society of 1770. Should Attucks be a name that students should make the effort to memorize? No.

Of course, since this board has a 10-5 Republican majority, the important insanity to consider comes from them. The board has felt the need to remove Thomas Jefferson from the question: "Explain the impact of Enlightenment ideas from John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Jefferson on political revolutions from 1750 to the present." The question now reads: "Explain the impact of the writings of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, and Sir William Blackstone." First off, I should acknowledge that I was not familiar with Blackstone and had to look him up. He was an eighteenth-century English legal scholar. Let us acknowledge the purpose of this change. The board wants students to understand the religious element in the rise of modernity. I certainly support this, but what the board is doing is making the entire question meaningless.

The question, around which I teach modern history, both Jewish and general European, is how our secular society came about. Granted this very question is not as simple as most people assume; medieval society was not nearly as religious as popularly portrayed and modern society is not nearly as secular. That being said, once we get through defining what we mean by religious and secular, we are still faced with how we moved from the more religious society of the Middle Ages to our more secular society. As readers of this blog already know, this story is certainly much more complex and interesting than people all of a sudden becoming "rational" and rejecting "religious" superstition. While it is important to talk about the religious motivations of thinkers like John Locke, we should not be side-stepping modern secularism. Like him or hate him, Jefferson stands at the center of this modern divide, particularly within the American context. He wrote the Declaration of Independence and coined the term "wall separating Church and State."

Sticking Thomas Aquinas into this negates the entire question of modernity. Yes, Thomas Aquinas was an important medieval political thinker, in addition to his theology, and his work continues to be relevant. That being said, if you are going to understand this modern world of ours, one of the first things you have to acknowledge is that there is a giant wall called the American and French Revolutions separating us from the Middle Ages. I would add that there is a second wall of the early modern Reformation. John Calvin is one more thing that separates us from Aquinas; he is also, though, separated from us by the same Enlightenment revolutions that separate us from the Middle Ages. As such, while deserving of his own question about the role of theocracy and democracy, he should not be part of the modern political thinkers.

Again I challenge readers; either you are in favor of ideological government boards or you are in favor of the teaching of history. The only way that history or any other subject can hope to be taught in a responsible manner is if government is out of education.

Martin Luther was an Evil Pharisaic Jewish Rabbi

E. Michael Jones is a radical Catholic historian and moderate Jew hater. His book, the Jewish Revolutionary Spirit and Its Impact on World History is over one thousand pages devoted to the thesis that Jews have been behind every major revolutionary movement in the western world. You see Jews, having rejected Jesus, were in essence declaring war upon the Logos and divorcing themselves from it. Thus, robbed of any genuine religious sensibility, the Jewish religion descended into a mere collection of rules and legalistic hair splitting, hence the Mishnah and the Talmud. The other side of this rejection of Logos was that, having rejected the salvation of Christ because he was not offering political salvation on their terms, the Jews continued to attempt to overthrow the established political order in the hopes of achieving physical political salvation. The entire book becomes an exercise in connecting every revolutionary movement (in essence any movement that Jones does not like) to Jews. In essence this book is a more elaborate and scholarly version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. To be fair to Jones he does not attack Jews as a race, but only as a religion, so he cannot technically be classified as an anti-Semite. I would classify him as a moderate simply because he only hates Jews slightly more than he hates all non conservative Catholics like himself.


Martin Luther is someone that most would classify as an anti-Semite. Ironically enough, Jones hates Luther more than most Jews do. In fact Jones' hatred of Luther is even on par with his hatred of Jews. According to Jones, Luther was a continuation of this Jewish revolutionary heretical disease:

Luther did for Christianity what Jochanan ben Zakkai did for Judaism: he turned the evangelical Church into a debating society, in which the evangelical rabbis would offer competing interpretations of scripture with no way adjudicating differences other than splitting off from whomever one disagreed with. (pg. 266)

While Protestantism, because of its emphasis on the Old Testament, has a much stronger tradition of active philo-Semtism, as I have previously argued, I see Judaism as having more in common with Catholicism than Protestantism. Both Judaism and Catholicism are openly built around tradition. Unlike Protestantism, there is no pretense that Scripture has a plain meaning obvious to anyone who simply reads the text. As such the text of Scripture almost becomes irrelevant, what we really believe in are our respective religious traditions and their interpretations of Scripture. Protestants, in order to function as a religion, are forced at the end of the day to do the same thing. They are just hypocritical enough to deny that this is what they are doing and maintain the moral pretense that they support everyone being able to simply open Scripture for themselves to decide what it means.

An Old Speech of Mine on Affirmative Action

For those of you interested in what I really think about affirmative action, here is the text of a speech I gave at Yeshiva University back in 2003 as part of a contest. I ended up coming in fourth place, just missing out on winning prize money. This speech was given while the Supreme Court was hearing the Michigan cases of Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger on affirmative action. The argument I offer follows a similar line of reasoning to what I offered in regards to Aryan coffee. We cannot even begin to talk about a government interest in diversity unless we also admit a government interest in conformity in which case we are trapped into accepting segregation as at least having a plausible legitimacy.


A key corollary to the fourteenth amendment is title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. According to Title VI: No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." As Senator Ribicoff explained it: "Basically, there is a constitutional restriction against discrimination in the use of federal funds; and title VI simply spells out the procedure to be used in enforcing that restriction." This sentiment was endorsed by Justice Powell in the Bakke the decision. Bakke has recently come back into the public eye. This past month the Supreme Court has heard two cases involving the issue of Racial preferences in regards to University admissions: one involving the University of Michigan's undergraduate admissions policy (Gratz v. Bollinger, 02-51), and one involving the University of Michigan's law school admissions policy (Grutter v. Bollinger 02-241). These are two very different cases. In Gratz, the undergraduate case, there is a point system, in which prospective students are given points based on such categories as where they live and how they scored on various tests. In one of these categories, twenty points are awarded to prospective students who are either athletes, come from impoverished backgrounds or are a part of specific minority groups. In Grutter, the law school admissions case, the University simply has a stated policy that it should tailor its admissions program in order to achieve a critical mass of minority students within its classes.

The argument in regards to these cases is not about whether Michigan is in violation of, at the very least the letter, of title VI. The ACLU, which has written an amicus curiae brief in support of the university, claims though, that Michigan's admissions policy is a compelling state interest since it enables the University to have a diverse student body. I ask on this; if the state, or the institutions that it funds, has the right, even the duty, to ignore title VI out of a compelling interest in diversity, as Michigan, the ACLU along with over sixty other organizations are claiming, then cannot the state also choose to ignore title VI out of other compelling interests? Diversity certainly is not the state's only compelling interest.

America, if you think about, is in a sense, for better or for worse, the great experiment in conformity. Crucial to American Civics is the notion that we are going throw Italians, Jews, Poles, Germans etc. together onto our golden streets and everybody is going to somehow turn into Americans. We generally call this phenomenon "the Melting Pot." If one can claim diversity to be a compelling state interest then certainly one can also claim that the venerable melting pot of conformity is also a compelling state interest.

Once states can get around Title VI by claiming a compelling interest in conformity then Title VI becomes absolutely meaningless. What would happen IF the University of South Carolina would decide that in keeping with its compelling interest in having a student body that conforms, the University will from now on tailor its admissions policy in a manner designed to avoid achieving a critical mass of minorities on its campus? What if South Carolina were to decide to give white applicants, along with athletes and students from impoverished backgrounds, an extra twenty points on their admissions scores? On what grounds could the University be legally stopped? Not Title VI, for the University can claim to have a compelling interest in ignoring title VI.

What the compelling state interest argument ignores is the fact that the body of Civil Rights legislation came about in order to get around the claim that the institutions of slavery and segregation were compelling state interests. The fourteenth amendment and title VI only make sense if we accept the words of Justice John Marshall Harlan, the lone dissenter in the Plessy vs. Ferguson. "Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved." The colorblind constitution is the only for the just and free society to triumph over the claims of compelling state interest.

Playing the Devil’s Advocate for Affirmative Action

I serve as the faculty advisor (otherwise known as the resident adult) for the political science club here at the Hebrew Academy. We have a very talented and outspoken group of guys and even a few girls and I am honored to be able to work with them. (I think it would make for an interesting study as to general male to female ratio in high school political science clubs. Is there something about being in a room full of people arguing with each other, often with raised voices, that pushes teenage girls away? I do make the extra effort to make sure that girls get to say their piece and are made to feel at home.) I guess it says something about white male Orthodox Jewish teenagers from middle-class backgrounds attending private school, but it is a fairly conservative group in terms of its politics. This has put me in a funny position. Politically I am what most people would view as a conservative, even if I am still to the left of many of these kids. Regardless of my politics, I do not think my role as a teacher is preaching my politics. I am here to pass on a method of critical analysis, one that will likely lead students to very different conclusions from mine. In general, I think this is the critical defense in terms of keeping one's own biases in check. It is okay to have strongly held opinions as long as you care more about the process that leads to such ideas than the actual ideas themselves. This leaves me in the ironic position where for me to be silent would be to guarantee a strongly conservative tilt to discussions. My solution to this problem has been to speak up from time to time to play the role of the "liberal." Not because I wish these students to become liberals, but because, regardless of what I might think, I am not about to allow, on my watch, students to walk away without hearing what an intelligent liberal sounds like. I may be speaking to the future leaders of the Republican Party, but a general political science club should not be the same thing as the Young Republicans.

This past week, I ended up speaking more than I usually do. The reason for this was that the topic of the week was affirmative action. Certainly a good topic to discuss since it directly affects these students in the here and now. Within a year or two, all of these students, if they have not done so already, will be applying to college, many them even to elite colleges. This is also precisely the sort of topic to bring out the most conservative tendencies in the group. The group is the very picture of an argument against affirmative action. These are white male middle-class private school students and in this case being Jewish is not going to win them any minority points. Looking around at the group, I know someone here is going to lose out on their college of choice. Essentially affirmative action in this context translates into: kids you need to sacrifice your slot at an elite college, which you have earned through your hard work and intelligence, to a total stranger for the good of society; all of this despite the fact that no one in the room, including me, is old enough to remember segregation.

So for the first time in my life, I found myself standing in front of a public audience and defending affirmative action. What I learned from the experience was that the case for affirmative action works to the extent that it is a moderate short-term pragmatic solution to a present-day problem. No, affirmative action does not mean that you are going to get a D+ black doctor working on you. It might mean that you end up with a B+ doctor, but you need to keep in mind that the focus on grades privileges the white student at the expense of other means of evaluation that might favor our black student. No one is going to be getting anything, not a job, not admittance to college, which they are not qualified for. I went to Ohio State where much of the student body comes from rural Ohio, which is predominantly white. Many of these students have grown up not personally knowing many blacks. We have a societal interest in changing this; no one should be able to go through four years of college and not regularly interact with students of a different color. You can talk all you want about improving education and that might help students in kindergarten, but we have to deal with students applying to college in the here and now. And let us be honest, you kids have benefited, even if it is just a little bit, from the legacy of racism that continues to live on in this country, just as your black competition has suffered ever so slightly from it. Is it not fair and reasonable to agree to at least a moderate level of affirmative action?

I eventually got stopped and asked: but you are a libertarian, how could you support affirmative action? I must admit that this was an argument I could not talk myself around. At the heart of my Libertarianism is an attempt to get around and deny the very relevance of the sort of liberal arguments I was using.  Only direct physical suffering is relevant to the government so all side effects of a racially charged culture are off the table. I do not recognize the existence of racial groups, only free and equal individuals. Government serves to protect people from physical harm not to make people more moral or build a more tolerant society. Bent over a barrel, I had to admit to playing the devil's advocate here. I guess I might be able to personally go along with affirmative action if we were talking about private institutions. I already am willing to put up with Aryan coffee shops.

Benjamin Linus the Christ Killing Jew

The character on the television show Lost that I relate to the most is Benjamin Linus. He is a morally ambiguous character, who always has a plan. He is the sort of character whom you may have a gun pointed at, but he really is the one who has you where he wants you. The really interesting thing that the writers have done with him is that somehow they have kept him from being a straight villain. Admittedly, he would be worth it as just a really creepy villain. The writers, though, have allowed him to be something more complex. They have gone through a tremendous amount of effort to make this work. Ben is the head of the Others. He kidnapped and plotted against our plane crash survivor heroes. He shot John Locke (the bald guy, not the philosopher) in cold blood. Later on in the show, he finally manages to do John Locke in by strangling him. He successfully murdered his own father years before the show. He stood by and allowed his foster daughter to die rather than give himself up and save her. Most shockingly of all, at the end of the last season, at the instigation of the satanic smoke monster, he murders the show's Christ figure, Jacob. In Lost's version of the passion, Ben turns on Jacob and repeatedly stabs him, getting Jacob's blood all over the temple room. Jacob is not wholly dead and continues to appear to the schizophrenic Hurley. This is like Jesus' resurrection before the apostles. Obviously, Jacob has foreseen the plot of the island's imprisoned Lucifer, the smoke monster now taking the form of a brilliantly evil John Locke, and has allowed himself to be "crucified" for some higher purpose. Despite all that Ben has done, the show has not placed him beyond redemption. He has now refused the chance to join the smoke monster and his followers even to save himself. Even knowing his crimes, the followers of Jacob step back from killing Ben and still accept him, even if begrudgingly.

I think of Ben as the Pharisee Jew. He is very learned and clever and believes that, because of these qualities, he is the chosen of the "god" figure of the island, Jacob. This belief is first challenged when he gets a tumor and the island does not miraculously heal it. Instead, a surgeon is "dropped out of the sky" in the form of Jack Shepherd of the plane crash survivors. Ben is particularly jealous of John Locke, whom the island miraculously allowed to walk again as soon as he crashed on to it. Furthermore, Locke is able to hear Jacob's voice, something never granted to Ben. Ben, therefore, Cain-like, attempts to murder Locke, but the island saves him. Finally Ben confronts Jacob, the human embodiment of the island and its power, to understand why Jacob has rejected him. Jacob refuses to offer the answers that Ben wants to hear to allow himself to finally make sense of his life and all of his pious sacrifices that he has made in service of Jacob and the island. Jacob refuses to be the straight forward savior God that Ben would like to believe in and instead continues to work in mysteries so Ben, feeling betrayed, commits his act of deicide. I see Lost playing itself out as a Joachim of Fiore type of redemption for our Jew, Ben. According to the medieval apocalyptic Joachim, the Jews were the chosen people of God, but they rejected him and God has punished them. The Jews, though, remain God's special people and, in the end of days, they are going to accept Christ and play a leading role in bringing about the Second Coming. Similarly, Ben really is a chosen person of the island, but his desire to be openly declared the one and only chosen one has caused him to stray to such an extent that he could fall under the influence of Satan serve his plan to kill God incarnate. Ben, as a chosen one, is still going to be saved. He is going to repent his past transgressions, humbly bow to Jacob's mysterious will and accept that there can be other chosen ones. He is going to join the new people of Jacob and save the island.

This season has brought another twist to Jacob's character. In the alternative timeline in which the Oceanic plane does not crash, Ben is a high-school history teacher even though he has a doctorate in European history. He attempts to teach his students about Napoleon despite the fact that most of them could not care less. He mixes a contempt for the students as a whole with a deep affection for those students who wish to learn. So here you have it, an academic history teacher working in a high school, who is really a Jew and has all sorts of plans to rule the world. I am rubbing my hands in Monty Burns glee.

Excellent!

Alice in Pretentious Artsy Self-Satisfied Modern Bigotry Land (Part II)

(Part I)

I wanted to scream at the audience around me: don't you people understand. This society of nineteenth-century Victorian England was one in which the vast majority of people, except for a narrow elite, lived in a poverty that we cannot even imagine. Do you know what it means to have a society in which starving to death is a real issue? The only thing saving our elites from falling in with the wretched masses is the force of tradition. Anyone who plays with convention is pulling at the spider's web that keeps not only them feed but everyone around them. I would like to see you tolerate such a person. This was particularly true for women, who were limited in their labor prospects and lacked the sort of education that might have allowed them to hold well-paying jobs even if society let them. Can you imagine the position of a widowed mother, living with the trappings of wealth and its expectations, knowing that without her husband to support them there is nothing to stop her and her daughter from sinking into abject poverty? And by poverty we do not mean food stamps, but the slow demise over years due to malnutrition and disease as you work yourself to death. The only thing saving this person is the prospect of a good match. How dare you any of you smirk or feel superior when such a person decides that whether her daughter is in "love" might not be of utter importance.

We now move from the film's pointless introduction to having Alice fall down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. My father often likes to say that comedy is the hardest genre to perform. Comedy is an either/or proposition. Either you are funny or you are not. There is no in-between or partial success. With drama you can always hope to salvage something even if the project fails as a whole. Humor is not a science; it is something that happens sometimes, but cannot be created at will. You can have genuinely talented people who get out there and, through no one's fault, the material just does not work. Without a question, there were some talented people in this production. The team of Tim Burton, Johnny Depp and Helen Bonham Carter is nothing to be laughed at. (Just watch Sweeny Todd.) There is no logical reason that this team should not have once again produced something absolutely magical. Except that for some unfathomable reason the material just failed to click.

This failure may have had something to do with the fact that, as Lionel put it, they tried to mix whimsical fantasy with epic fantasy. It was not enough that Alice should explore this strange and downright psychedelic world; the film also had to have her go on a quest to defeat the Red Queen, restore the White Queen to her rightful place and defeat the Jabberwocky. Tolkien just does not go with Carroll. This could have still worked as tongue and cheek. The problem is that of all comedy, I would argue that tongue and cheek is the hardest. For tongue and cheek you have to succeed on two counts. In terms of comedy, you still have to actually be funny and as drama you still need to produce characters who make sense and whom the audience connects with on a deep emotional level. One can always try to cover trash by saying that it is only meant tongue and cheek. Saying that something is meant only tongue and cheek can in no way be an excuse for bad writing. I have so much respect for people like Joss Whedon, J. K. Rowling and Stephenie Meyer who use tongue and cheek and make it work. To all those who turn their noses up at their work as popular entertainment that "anyone" could do, I say give it a try.

I could not end this without saying something about what happens back on the top side of the rabbit hole once Alice comes back to her Victorian world. She rejects her upper-class twit of the year and approaches her father's old partner about a really radical business venture, trading with China. Someone needs to offer the writers a history lesson and explain that even our stuffy Victorians were up to trading with China; there was nothing radical in the nineteenth-century about such a prospect. The West even fought several opium wars to open China to western trade. Even people in the Middle Ages were imaginative enough to try trading with China. This was how we got Columbus accidentally discovering America in the first place.

I really wanted to like this movie. I was waiting for it since I heard about it this past summer. I even had a poster of it up as my desktop background. (This proved to be a mistake as some of my little Haredi cousins wanted to use my laptop and started screaming about the not "tznisudic," immodestly dressed, girl in the picture.) However much I respect the people behind this film, it was a failure and not even having it in 3-D could save it.

Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein Goes Sledding

In the recent Jewish Action, Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, one of the leading rabbinic authorities for Modern Orthodox Jews, reviews a collection of essays, titled the Eye of the Storm, written by his Haredi colleague Rabbi Aharon Feldman. Rav Lichtenstein attacks Rabbi Feldman, but does so in the sort of sporting gentlemanly fashion that one often despairs into thinking is out of date in this world. Rav Lichtenstein begins by recalling his childhood relationship with the older Rabbi Feldman when they both lived in Baltimore in the early 1940s. While Rav Lichtenstein hints at his disagreements with Rabbi Feldman when it comes to Zionism, feminism and Rabbi Slifkin, his real focus is on Rabbi Feldman's polemical stance. Rabbi Feldman writes out of anger and denies the very possibility that others could reasonably disagree with him. Rather than attempt to reach out to others Rabbi Feldman openly states that he is writing for members of his community, for those already agree with him. Rav Lichtenstein ends with a touching plea for mutual understanding that I think is worth sharing:

Dear Reb Aharon: That pair of juvenile prattling sledders is now well past seventy-five. Each has, besiyat diShmaya [with the help of heaven], in successive contexts, respectively, learned much Torah and has been blessed with the ability and the circumstances to enable reaching out and personally transmitting to others that which we have been endowed. It stands to reason and is, presumably, mandated by joint mission, that our worlds meet and attain mutual fruition. As we both painfully know, however, this occurs rarely.

Must the walls that separate our communities and our institutions soar quite so high, the interposing moat plunge quite so deep? Shall we never sled again?