Call It Please "Research"

May 21, 2010
Posted by Jay Livingston

The Internet seems to be a mostly copyright-free zone. Norms about using other people’s material are still evolving, and even when there’s consensus about the norms, who can enforce them?

Two weeks ago, in a post about political rumors, I took some information put together by another blogger, J.L. Bell, who had gotten it from Snopes. I turned Bell’s numbers into a simple bar graph, checked Snopes myself, and added a few comments. I linked to Bell’s blog. (I figured everyone knows Snopes, so I didn’t bother with a link.)

About ten days later, Lisa at Sociological Images, posted my graph along with a few sentences of mine and a few of Bell’s. along with a few brief comments of her own. She gave credit where due and provided the links.

Now a political blogger, Digby has pretty much copied Lisa’s post wholesale (including the links to me and Bell).

He
She has deleted one or two brief sentences and added one of

his
her own. Other than that, it’s Lisa’s post. No link to Sociological Images, no hat tip, nothing.

(Click on the image for a larger view.)

See for yourself. Lisa’s post is here ; Digby’s is here.

Digby is usually more careful. His Her posts often consist mostly of quotes from other sources with his her own brief comments interposed and links to the original sources. It’s the kind of borrowing and linking that many bloggers do. Bell borrowed from Snopes, I borrowed from Bell, Lisa borrowed from me.

But what Digby did with Lisa’s post goes beyond borrowing.

It Could Happen To You

May 20, 2010
Posted by Jay Livingston

Conservatives discount or ignore the importance of social forces. Even those observers who like to think of themselves as closer to the center, like David Brooks, emphasize “character.” As you turn the dial further to the right, you hear more and more about “individual responsibility.”

Parents need to communicate basic principles about character development, honor and individual responsibility. Young people need to know that they are not victims of their hormones . . . .

That’s from the Website of Concerned Women for America, a right-wing Christian group. (If you can’t guess their agenda, see their core issues here .)

One of their allies in congress is Mark Souder, a Republican from Indiana and a strong family-values guy. But now he’s resigning after news leaked out that he’d been having an affair with a woman on his staff. (A video of her interviewing him about his pro-abstinence views has the Internet ironists LOL in Schadenfreude.)

For conservatives, when a friend like Souder goes astray, the old responsibility rap sounds discordant, and they have to change the playlist. Penny Spence is the head of CWFA, and here’s her take on the Souder affair:

I am deeply saddened by the news of Congressman Mark Souder’s fall into the temptation of an affair. . . . If Mark Souder is capable of sexual misconduct, it could happen to anyone.

Right. The affair was not something Souder did. It “happened to” him. That seems a bit passive even by my standards. But then Spence gets downright sociological.

The frat house environment on Capitol Hill does nothing to encourage accountability. Most Members do not live with their families while they are working in D.C. during the week and have even ditched common rules of etiquette that even major corporations follow such as office doors with windows or careful examination of employee/boss interaction.

Her keen attention to situational forces does not extend to suggestions for structural changes that might discourage adultery. Instead, she merely encourages lawmakers in DC “to guard their hearts and reputations and to live by higher standards.”

To me, the interesting question is not how a solid, family-values Christian could fall into temptation. As Spence says, anyone can slip and fall.* But apparently this affair had been going on for years. How did Souder manage it? Did he change is ideas to accommodate his behavior – ideas not just about adultery but about himself – and what was that process like? What is the “moral career” of the adulterer?

*The subject line of this post is a reference to the great Burke-VanHeusen standard. If you are among the few who saw Woody Allen’s “Anything Else,” you heard this brief version by Diana Krall. Listen to the lyrics, for they reflect what Spence probably has in mind. “Hide your heart from sight; lock your dreams at night; it could happen to you.” Miles recorded it with his 1956 quintet. My favorite version is by Keith Jarrett in the 1996 Tokyo concert.)

Scouting for Titles

May 19, 2010
Posted by Jay Livingston

Tyler Cowen asks his readers to guess the best-selling book of all time (“And I mean the best-selling real book, not linked to either religion or communism?”)

Here is his answer:

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, two hundred million copies.
Next in line is Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts book and then Lord of the Rings.

Note that Tyler tactfully refers to Baden-Powell’s 1908 classic in the generic rather than by its actual title, which is so much more delightfully ambiguous: Scouting for Boys.



(Wikipedia has the full list.)

Blowback

May 17, 2010
Posted by Jay Livingston

“Unintended consequences.” The term comes from sociology – it was coined by Robert Merton 75 years ago – but it has of late has become a favorite weapon of free-market economists and other conservative and libertarian types. They use it for bashing liberals and their government programs designed to limit harm and promote the general welfare.

Conservative policies too may suffer from a similar effect. Anne Coulter famously announced, in the days following the 9/11 attacks, “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” The National Review fired her for her intemperate comments, but the Bush Administration, in its policies, seemed to take her proposals to heart.* Well, two out of three ain’t bad. Invading countries and killing leaders proved not to be too difficult. But that third one:

Since the U.S. invasion, Iraq's Christians have been mostly driven out of the country by violence directed against them for their religion. . . Relentless waves of bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, extortions and rapes have triggered a mass exodus of Christians from Iraq over the past seven years. Since 2003, over half of the estimated 1.5 million . . . have fled

So writes Nina Shea at the Washington Post’s On Faith page. Ms. Shea is identified as “director, Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom.” The Hudson Institute is a neo-conservative think tank that, although Ms. Shea doesn’t mention it, strongly supported the invasion of Iraq. Surely the good conservatives there did not intend that their favored policy should wind up limiting religious freedom, certainly not the religious freedom of Christians. But that’s what happened.


* The Bushies even adopted Coulter’s view that it didn’t really much matter who “they” was. Any Muslim state would do. “This is no time to be precious about locating the exact individuals directly involved in this particular terrorist attack. Those responsible include anyone anywhere in the world who smiled in response to the annihilation of patriots . . .”