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Neither mock it nor lament it

spinoza1aEmily sent me a postcard from Germany with a quote from Baruch de Spinoza: “Man soll die Welt nicht belachen nicht beweinen sondern begreifen,” which could be translated as “one should neither laugh at nor lament the world, but only understand it.” I like the sentiment, which reminds us to avoid the tendency to categorize and judge other people or ideas. Instead, it calls for an openness to learning, akin to what Jane Addams calls “affectionate interpretation” in A modern Lear.

I’ve admired Spinoza since being introduced to him by Radoslav Tsanoff, a professor at Rice. Spinoza also inspired Marx, Wittgenstein, Einstein, and many others. His rejection of dogma and insistence on reason set the stage for the Enlightenment. Thinking about the quote sent me off to learn a bit more.

The quote (originally in Latin) is from his Tractatus theologico-politicus, but the general idea recurs throughout his Ethics. It’s actually not so much a “should” as it is Spinoza’s attempt to describe his own method–what he’s endeavored to do through his philosophy.

Friedrich Nietzsche picks up on Spinoza’s method in The joyful wisdom (La gaya scienza). He emphasizes that the issue is not to replace emotions with reason, but actually to build reason upon the emotions:

What does Knowing Mean? Non ridere, non lugere, neque detestari, sed intelligere! says Spinoza, so simply and sublimely, as is his wont. Nevertheless, what else is this intelligere ultimately, but just the form in which the three other things become perceptible to us all at once? A result of the diverging and opposite impulses of desiring to deride, lament and execrate? Before knowledge is possible each of these impulses must first have brought forward its one-sided view of the object or event.

This is consistent with Spinoza’s own rejection of the mind-body dualism of René Descartes. Much later, John Dewey proposes a related notion, that inquiry is reconstructive experience: The experiences, and our emotional responses, come first, but knowing is the reflection and articulation of those experiences, which leads away from simple judging.

This post necessarily glosses over the sublteties in the “sed intelligere” idea. But even so, I think it’s a useful phrase to remember, particularly as we encounter unfamiliar people or ideas.

References

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Understanding what we’re doing in Afghanistan

It’s refreshing to hear an admission that we really don’t know much about the country we’ve invaded, and that it would help if we did. Wouldn’t it be even more refreshing if we bothered to do that learning before we invade the next country?

We’re trying to understand what are the … factors that the people of Afghanistan are willing to sacrifice … to achieve,” he says. “And, I think, that right now it’s different depending on where you go, but I don’t think we have as good a grasp of that as we should. –Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, Aug. 11, 2009

via U.S. General: Taliban ‘Comfortable’ In Kandahar : NPR.

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“Free parking isn’t free”

As someone who tries to walk modest distances in town, I’ve been impressed again and again with how unfriendly our cites are for walkers. There are dangerous intersections, or worse, busy roads with no designated crossing. There are missing sidewalks and senseless barriers. Making things worse is the fact that everything is so far apart. One of the culprits here is our irrational obsession with free parking, which like any addiction creates its own need.

Seth Zeren has an excellent essay on Worldchanging about why “free parking” actually costs us all a lot.  He points out that what seemed once to be reasonable zoning requirements for parking actually costs us all a lot in terms of polution, traffic, health, aesthetics, and even direct cash.

Why do Americans drive everywhere? Because everything’s far apart. Why’s it far apart? Often because there’s so much parking in between! In the end, creating bright green cities will require undoing the damage created by mandating free parking.

Free Parking Isn’t Free, August 4, 2009

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The health care plan we can’t discuss

Health care experts agree that switching to a single-payer system would provide better care and sharply reduce health care costs. But that switch won’t happen. Our representatives in Washington won’t even allow the alternative to be discussed.

Our health care system is based on corporate welfare, not individual and family welfare:

“One out of every three dollars in our current health care system goes for corporate profits, stock options, executive salaries, advertising, marketing, the cost of paperwork,” [U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio] said. “If you took the money that’s being wasted and put it into a not-for-profit system, you’d suddenly have enough money to cover every American.”

The quote above is from an NPR story (Single Payer: The Health Care Plan Not On The Table). There are links from there to previous stories on a single-payer system and the resolute refusal of our leaders to talk about it.

Some opponents of President Obama’s health care plan warn that it could lead to a single payer system. Unfortunately, there’s little hope of that happening. The plan is being crafted to ensure that those who now benefit from the bloated health care system will continue to do so, and that those profits, stock options, and executive salaries will be secure forever.

References

Horsley, Scott (2009, July 24). Single payer: The health care plan not on the table. National Public Radio.

Nichols, John (2009, July 27). Hope for health reform? Push single-payer now. The Nation.

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Is Pluto redeemed after all?

27181601There’s a fascinating article, Is Pluto a planet after all?, by Stephen Battersby in the July 27, 2009 New Scientist about the continuing controversy over whether Pluto is a planet. It shows how scientific discourse reflects multiple cultural and political forces, why defining any word is hard, and how our continuing transactions with nature lead us to think again.

How many planets are in the solar system? The official answer is eight – unless you happen to live in Illinois. Earlier this year, defiant Illinois state governors declared that Pluto had been unfairly demoted by the International Astronomical Union, the authority that sets the rules on all matters planetary.

Click on the image to see the New Scientist diagram, which explains part of the debate.

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Opening the door to single-payer health care

Tommy_DouglasMy previous posts on national health care, The bottom line in health care and The bottom line in health care, and Single-payer health care: Why not?, make the case for a national health program. But Canada established its program in an incremental way.

Tommy Douglas, premier of Saskatchewan from 1941 to 1960, led the province to develop a universal, publicly-funded “single-payer” health care system. It was so successful that other provinces soon copied it, and ultimately, so did Canada’s federal government. In 2004, Douglas was rated by his compatriots as “The Greatest Canadian” of all time.

Saskatchewan has been a leader in many areas of health care, but that happened over many years. The Saskatchewan Government site lists six reasons why the province was able to do what it did. These are worth thinking about for the US health care debates today:

  • There was a vision of health care for all.
  • Citizens showed a co-operative spirit, trust, and a willingness to help one another.
  • Municipal politicians were forward-thinking and innovative.
  • Provincial governments responded quickly to needs.
  • Medical doctors were altruistic, with service to sick patients as their primary goal.
  • Economic hardship, particularly during the 1930s, meant that virtually everyone was in the same predicament.

A US House committee recently approved an amendment allowing states to create single-payer health care systems. Doing so might be a way around entrenched, moneyed interests that have thus far thwarted every attempt at health care reform in the US, but only if we can find a similar vision and co-operative spirit. Could we do it without the economic hardship of the 1930s?

References

Nichols, John (2009, July 17). A real win for single-payer advocates. The Nation.

Physicians for a National Health Program.

Stewart, Walter (2003). The life and political times of Tommy Douglas. Toronto: McArthur. Gripping, humorous, and revealing story of Douglas’s amazing life.

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The wisdom of crowds

There’s an interesting report this week in The New Scientist on the wisdom of crowds. It summarizes a number of recent studies showing that crowds may be wiser than we’ve been told. Here’s an excerpt:

The “unruly mob” concept is usually taken as read and used as the basis for crowd control measures and evacuation procedures across the world. Yet it is almost entirely a myth. Research into how people behave at demonstrations, sports events, music festivals and other mass gatherings shows not only that crowds nearly always act in a highly rational way, but also that when facing an emergency, people in a crowd are more likely to cooperate than panic. Paradoxically, it is often actions such as kettling [corralling the entire crowd into a small area] that lead to violence breaking out. Often, the best thing authorities can do is leave a crowd to its own devices.

via Why cops should trust the wisdom of the crowds – life – 17 July 2009 – New Scientist.

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The bottom line in health care

healthIn my previous post on Single-payer health care: Why not?, I talked about our family’s experiences with health care in France, UK, Ireland, Italy, China, Australia, and other places in comparison to that in the US. This included health care for children and the elderly, and both minor (blood donation, physicals, skin growth removal) and major (broken hip, eye infection) procedures.

Thinking a bit more about this I realized that there were four essential facts that emerged from this wide variety of experiences. In every industrialized country except the US,

  1. Equitable: Everyone has the right to health care.
  2. Effective: People live longer, healthier lives.
  3. Economical: They spend less on health care, as much as 50% less.
  4. Efficient: There is much less bureaucracy, fewer forms, less running around, less waiting.

dollarI might add a fifth point, too: The scare stories that we hear (“you have to wait forever!” “you can’t choose your doctor!”) are simply false, or they index issues that are the same or worse in the US. The information we get about health care promotes profit, not health.

There are many issues–changing demographics, new technologies, new medical knowledge, changing standards, globalization, and more–which affect health care. But the fundamental difference in the current US situation is that health care is driven by the bottom line. Insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, media corporations, hospitals and clinics, doctors and other health care professionals, and all others involved in health care operate in a system in which rewards bear little relation to the overall quality of care or efficient use of resources.

One can debate each of the points above, but the evidence from OECD, UN, WHO, WTO, and other international organizations is overwhelming in support of them. Other systems offer health care that is more equitable, more effective, more economical, and more efficient.

So, why is single-payer, or national health care not even worth discussing? Why does the Obama plan dismiss it? Why does even public broadcasting ignore it?