“Class of 2015, you should not leave Stone Ridge High School thinking that you face challenges that are at all, in any important sense, unprecedented,” Scalia said, adding that “Humanity has been around for at least some 5,000 years or so, and I doubt that the basic challenges as confronted are any worse now, or alas even much different, from what they ever were.”
Meanwhile, at The New Yorker, there's a new short story by Jonathan Safran Foer ("Love Is Blind and Deaf") that begins:
Adam and Eve lived together happily for a few days. Being blind, Adam never had to see the oblong, splotchy birthmark across Eve’s cheek, or her rotated incisor, or the gnawed remnants of her fingernails. And, being deaf, Eve never had to hear how weakly narcissistic Adam was, how selectively impervious to reason and unwonderfully childlike. It was good.
They ate apples when they ate and, after a while, they knew it all. Eve grasped the purpose of suffering (there is none), and Adam got his head around free will (a question of terminology)....
Scalia was talking about civilization, civilized humanity. Most people think (inaccurately) that civilized societies first arose about five thousand years ago.
Another demonstration of the utter lack of self awareness of the Left. "I can hear the conservative dog whistles that conservatives can't! What is wrong with them!"
Scalia is a pretty traditional Catholic, and Catholicism rejects young earth creationism. My gut instinct is that Scalia is referring to humans living in civilizations. 3000BCE is around the time that the first major civilizations were developing around the Niles, Tigris-Euphrates, Indus, and Yangtze river valleys.
Both the myth of divine and quasi-theory of evolutionary -- not principles describing a physical process -- creation are articles of faith and perhaps fantasy, respectively. The scientific method cannot be applied to either theory in the scientific domain. The latter, in particular, relies on liberal assumptions of continuity and uniformity, exaggerated significance of correlation, and inference from a permanent state of circumstantial evidence. Ironically, the scientific method was introduced not to bind people of faith, who already distinguished between the logical domains, but people with an undeclared faith, and people generally with a predisposition to perceive patterns.
You don't understand. Scalia speaks as a Catholic, and every right-thinking person knows that Catholics, especially conservative ones, believe all sorts of irrational shit.
Foer uses Genesis as a series of literary tropes. He's a good secular Jew, and secular Jews don't believe any of that superstitious nonsense. Gosh, do we really gotta spell it out for you?
I'm with the majority. As I commented on another Althouse post earlier today one cannot understand Democrats until one understands blind, unreasoning hatred. And I think damikesc and J Farmer have it right. Egyptian civilization only goes back to 3150 BCE, although I understand that the evidence for small farming villages in Mesopotamia goes back another 5000 years further. I don't think it's reasonable to demand the Supreme Court justices be aware of all the latest finds in archeology.
I thought the Justice said, ..."at least some 5,000 years or so." Doesn't that mean no more recent than 5,000 years but possibly earlier? Sounds to me like the most inclusive way he could have said it without ruling out the evolutionists or the creationists.
You would think that the author had better things to do with his day. When you preach to the choir I guess you can say anything and they will think it important.
I'd be willing to accept Millhiser blew a dog. And reliable history doesn't go back much more than 5,000 years. So if you're talking continuity of the human experience, Scalia has a point.
Perhaps I should add a question: Was it down South?
Because I have nieces and nephews down South who were raised Catholic who delight in teasing their protestant counterparts on matters of religious doctrine.
It's inside baseball, to me, but the jokes are still pretty funny.
@etbass is right; the phrase “Humanity has been around for at least some 5,000 years or so” is false only if humanity has been around for substantially less than 5,000 years. Obviously the ThinkProgress author has never been trained in logic.
Oh, yes, very much so. And not just any Creation, but creation by the free will of God.
This belief has caused the Church no end of theological grief in its long history, as the Church sought to couch its theology first in Neo-Platonic concepts, which favored an emanationist & necessary theory of creation, & later in Aristotelian concepts, which favored the universe as co-eternal with the Prime Mover.
Creation by the free will of God meant that the existence of the universe was radically contingent. If the universe was radically contingent how could there be necessary causal relationships? If no necessary causal relationships, how can we have Physics, i.e. any knowledge of nature?
A lotta ink & parchment got used up on these questions.
I think Scalia was referring to young earth creation theory, but as a joke. I'm confident any school trying to send most of its graduates to college teaches biology and geology in a way compatible with what its graduates will learn in higher education. But he could be a creationist. I knew a Catholic high school science teacher a little older than Scalia who was convinced that he had disproved Darwinism based on the supposed statistical improbability of there having been enough mutations to get from the first single-celled organisms to the current diversity in the life of the earth. And Scalia dissented from the Supreme Court case striking down the Louisiana creation-science legislation that directly led to the rapid work-up of the "intelligent design" theory as an attempted work-around of the majority opinion.
It was a twofer. Scalia was blowing a dog whistle to anti-creationists (they are very predictable, the science is settled on that) and making a point about the "humanity" we actually care about historically, i.e. what used to be called civilization.
If God is indeed an extra-universal entity, then the universe can be causal, and, in fact, deterministic, and God, as well as the sub-entity, "human", would still be able to influence its progress, while preserving a perception of chaos or randomness where a process is uncharacterized or incompletely characterized, and unwieldy. In essence, the "human" influence would be analogous to the "butterfly effect", and through a confluence of causative and integral forces, would be barely perceptible outside of a limited frame (i.e. scientific domain). Whereas God would still have full dominion as an entity outside the system (i.e. "universe"), and limited as a projection inside the system.
Consider that we cannot distinguish between origin and expression. Our corporal bodies and brains may merely serve as platforms for a projection of an extra-universal, coherent force (i.e. "freewill"). We don't know and there is no plausible path by which we will ever independently learn the truth of our nature as long as our perception, both natural and enhanced, and causal force is contained within the system (i.e. "universe").
God is imperfect. God created angels, demons, and humans, sub-entities of God, that exhibit characteristics incompatible with his moral philosophy. The Judaeo-Christian philosophy records that our existence as incorporated entities serves to reveal the characteristics of coherent energy masses and thereby enable God to purify himself.
That said, it's a myth and an article of faith, that precludes application of the scientific method. Whether it is true or not may be revealed in our post-mortem, or we may just enter oblivion -- as incoherent energy threads -- and be heard no more.
Presenting the only two choices as either creation 7,000 years ago by the Elohim or a 4.3 billion year old global ball formation by a big bang fallout is the problem used to show an intentional joke on the Creationists that The Monkey Trial laughs at so hard.
But scripture has no problem with a Genesis 1:1 big bang with global ball revelation followed by a Re-creation act and Adam and Eve's genesis circa 7,000 years ago.
Whenever Scalia talks, another Angel gets their halo.
He's just another Supreme Court Justice who doesn't know what a "person" is.
He claims that he's an originalist and a textualist. And yet he says corporations are people. And the unborn are not. (Or if they are, he's somehow forgotten to mention it).
I think pro-lifers should ask Scalia some hard questions.
How many babies do you think have died as a result of Roe v. Wade?
Is it murder to kill a baby outside the birth canal?
What is a 'person'?
He's coasting on a reputation. But he's done nothing for the unborn. And his abortion dissents are no more or less angry than any other dissent he's ever written. He's not a serious pro-lifer, in my opinion.
When I was in law school, I thought his Casey dissent was strong. But now all I see are moral evasions, and his self-concern for his institution, the Supreme Court.
whatever answer Roe came up with after conducting its "balancing" is bound to be wrong, unless it is correct that the human fetus is in some critical sense merely potentially human. There is of course no way to determine that as a legal matter; it is in fact a value judgment. Some societies have considered newborn children not yet human, or the incompetent elderly no longer so.
Brainy Smurf has been reincarnated as a human being going by the name of Ian Millhiser, apparently.
Good grief that was painful to read. Just pure know-it-all dreck, and clueless know-it-all dreck at that. I'm not sure which is worse: he actually bothered to to write that much on such an insignificant moment because he is obsessed with Scalia and/or creationists, or if he is just phoning it in for a pay check because he has zero dignity. I'm willing to accept "false dilemma" as the answer. Whatever they are paying him it is too much and I stand by that statement even if he is working for free.
The New Yorker short story was actually fairly good. Thought it started out weak but it closed nicely.
Since corporations are formed by people (as opposed to sprouting out of the ground like mushrooms) and people do not surrender their rights when they form corporations, corporations ARE people when it comes to the law.
Since corporations are formed by people (as opposed to sprouting out of the ground like mushrooms) and people do not surrender their rights when they form corporations, corporations ARE people when it comes to the law.
What about that is so hard to understand?
I understand it. I prefer to mock it, and compare their treatment of corporations to their treatment of babies.
I think our authorities care more about money, than about people, to be honest.
I have always found it amazing that the creation story tracks evolutionary biology. Catholicism has a more nuanced approach to evolution to account for the specific creation of the soul and the possible separate creation of mankind. It's an open mystery. Nonetheless, we Catholics do tend to be pretty smug and enjoy teasing our Protestant and atheist friends and talking inside catholic code to them that they don't understand. Mostly we find it amazing they are so sure of their position. Doubt and mystery is an important part of free will and faith.
A human being is, at a physical level, a confluence of chaotic processes incorporated in a localized region, with a source: conception, and a sink: death. At a higher level, at a perception level, it is a corporal body capable of coherent expression, and unmatched independent causality and degrees of freedom.
To be fair to Scalia, did he every claim that a human life before birth was anything less than human or did he join the consensus and defer judgment? It seems that the Court punted to avoid addressing this so-called "wicked problem". Perhaps the better question is why they avoided answering a straightforward question that can be answered with unambiguous scientific evidence and, more so, self-evident knowledge. The answer seems to be found in the State-established pro-choice doctrine. More people than would like to admit have a libertarian predisposition, including our host, until there is a personal or external cause that requires or forces violating those principles.
Religion or moral philosophy is hard and is an impotent opiate unless voluntarily accepted. In practice, it is secular incentives/deterrents that are the opiates of the masses and elites that serve to suppress their integrity and conscience. It seems that few people actually have faith/trust in the myths passed down by our ancestors. They prefer to hedge their bet. Perhaps they are right. It would be easier to comply in a community of like-minded people. We'll see if the growing Hispanic population will resist secular and moral corruption.
@Saint Croix - under the law, corporations are deemed to be "persons" so that they can sue and be sued, so that they are obligated to perform the same duties as people. It's for a limited purpose, ie to have a civil trial. It's not a metaphysical or political statement.
To be fair to Scalia, did he every claim that a human life before birth was anything less than human or did he join the consensus and defer judgment?
It's the latter. In fact it's pretty clear that he deems the unborn human, and alive. He uses the term "baby" all the time.
But on the question of whether they are people who are entitled to the equal protection of the laws? He has been silent. And of course this silence is deemed acquiescence.
I think their use of the word "person" depends upon whether their Court is overrun by capitalists or socialists. The word is whatever they want it to be. They have no definition for it.
It might be okay to say that corporations are people, or that babies are not. It's just embarrassing when you place these two doctrines side by side.
The Supreme Court, by the way, failed to apply the equal protection clause to the newly freed slaves. While they protected corporations from the get-go.
Sophomoric shit. The story, that is. Better stuff was mimeographed for my middle school English class annual. The deus ex machina at the end is a painful sign of failure. No good writer has to explain the point he's making. Unless of course he's writing for a pretentious doofus venue, or audience, in which case a lack of imagination is often covered up with a weird pseudo-detective story. How long can I keep you guessing what my point is, throwing out little hints and clues? Won't you be awestruck when I reveal the butler did it, on the penultimate page! And you'll feel smugly smart because you figured it out four paragraphs earlier than that schlemiel in your Tuesday cycling class, the bitch with the obviously false boobs and fingernails. Gah.
Althouse, in fact I do not have to pay attention to that to which you want me to pay attention. And I do not have to answer your questions. By the same token, you don't have to pay attention to what interests me, any more than you have to answer any question I might ask, including: how much of Jonathan Safran Foer's work have you read, and, regardless of how many works of his that you've read, what sparked your interest enough to blog a post referencing him?
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[deleted and then posted again to add a missing "to" and "that"]
No good writer has to explain the point he's making.
This sort of comment has always intrigued, interested and challenged me for many, many reasons.
In this specific case, the question that immediately jumped to my mind for Carl Pham is, "What about ancient plays/writings that specifically featured choruses offering commentary precisely intended to help explain what was happening/what was going on, center stage/in the story?"
Now, perhaps, Carl Pham, your point is that writers should write so clearly, precisely, concisely and exactly that there can be no mistake on the part of readers about what the writer has written, intended and said. I want you to correct me if I have misread what you wrote and, more than that, explain how I went wrong in reading what you wrote.
Seriously, and make no mistake about it: Please, do.
And let's flip this around. What's the damage if Scalia and the Supreme Court say that corporations are not people?
So Congress has to write a jurisdictional statute. So what? Big deal! You think they won't?
And note too that several provisions in our Constitution are broad enough to protect corporations, and other non-people. The First Amendment is an obvious example. Ditto the takings clause. The Fourth Amendment, on the other hand, might not protect corporate privacy, but rather individual privacy. And so on. You'd actually have to pay attention to the words in the provision that you are applying. Ooh, scary!
Finally, of course, being honest in regard to the non-humanity of corporations gives pro-lifers an awesome rhetorical advantage when they fight for the humanity of the unborn. I mean, it's truly dishonest to say that corporations are people, while babies are property. I know it bites Scalia in the ass when he has to say these lies. Why say them?
One nice thing about being 79, you can say what you really think. So come on, Scalia! Tell us what a "person" is!
live human being! man, woman, or child!
So go ahead and put the media in a conniption fit. Go ahead and force the media to talk about it. Fortune favors the bold. And the honest!
To answer the question. Of course Scalia blew dog whistles, but alas the liberals cannot hear them and we Catholics and conservatives have no intention of enlightening them. Watching them try and get it right and always getting it wrong is part of the joke. Especially when they are all condescending and get it wrong.
For my part, I am far, far, far, far more interested in reducing the number of abortions in this country than I am in parading around how I view the issue of abortion. I have no interest at all in deliberately riling up people who disagree with my view. It doesn't work, it hasn't worked, and it won't work. In fact, it's counterproductive.
If you can't help, St. Croix, at least stop making it harder.
I have always found it amazing that the creation story tracks evolutionary biology.
Except it doesn't. And which creation story in the Bible? Genesis has two contradictory creation stories, including the creation of mankind (in one man and woman are made together from dust, in the other God decides Adam needs a helpmate and makes Eve from his rib).
Justice Scalia, speaking with Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes:
My job is to interpret the Constitution accurately. And indeed, there are anti-abortion people who think that the Constitution requires a state to prohibit abortion. They say that the Equal Protection Clause requires that you treat a helpless human being that's still in the womb the way you treat other human beings. I think that's wrong. I think when the Constitution says that persons are entitled to equal protection of the laws, I think it clearly means walking-around persons.
I note that babies don't walk. And people in wheelchairs don't walk, either. This is lightweight stuff, the ramblings of somebody who is unengaged emotionally and intellectually.
I think highly of Mr. Scalia. I think he has a massive intellect, a marvelous wit, and a fantastic ability to write. It's too bad his heart is in the wrong place.
"'No good writer has to explain the point he's making.'
"This sort of comment has always intrigued, interested and challenged me for many, many reasons.
"In this specific case, the question that immediately jumped to my mind for Carl Pham is, 'What about ancient plays/writings that specifically featured choruses offering commentary precisely intended to help explain what was happening/what was going on, center stage/in the story?'"
Blogger rcommal said...
"Now, perhaps, Carl Pham, your point is that writers should write so clearly, precisely, concisely and exactly that there can be no mistake on the part of readers about what the writer has written, intended and said. I want you to correct me if I have misread what you wrote and, more than that, explain how I went wrong in reading what you wrote.
"Seriously, and make no mistake about it: Please, do."
Others might suggest that "no good writer will make a point so didactic that it is immediately grasped by the reader."
I think that good writers and bad write all kinds of stories and use all kinds of approaches, and good writers and bad may choose to explain themselves at times, for reasons they deem appropriate to their purposes.
Day one: light and dark Day two: land and water Day three: plants Day four: creatures of the sea Day five: land animals Day six: man Day seven: rest It even explains why there has been no evolution since man. No new species.
What does it say about this jorno-list that he deigns to parse a fucking highschool commencent address by a graduate's grandpa? Fuck this guy in the ear with dog whistle. Does this shitheel stalk the other eight SCOTUS members too?
Thanks. That's fairly conclusive evidence. I simply cannot relate to him/them on this straightforward question on a logical, intellectual, or emotional level. I would expect him/them to at least acknowledge the basic facts, and self-evident knowledge, then rationalize their way to a preconceived outcome. But not even that minimal effort.
Strange. Perhaps it's a defensive mechanism, similar to pro-choice, that allows an individual to cope with the harshness ("wickedness") of reality. I imagine the pressure to conform must be great in his position. Abortion rights are integral to gender equivalence and, of course, sexual libertinism.
Most people could not, would not, assert their will to uphold their principles. Some may not even entertain the right to self-defense, and would deny it to others in order to preserve an illusion of utopia or something. While others seek an active escape, if only momentarily, through reality distorting drugs, behaviors, beliefs, etc.
Well, people who acknowledge the scientific evidence, the self-evident knowledge, and human rights, are climbing a steep grade indeed.
That said, I wonder what he thinks "Posterity" implies. Is it also limited to "walking-around persons"? Before we walk, we crawl. Before we crawl, we lie. Before we lie, we are suspended in our mother's womb. Before we are suspended, we travel down the fallopian tube seeking temporary residence in the uterus. It's a treacherous journey. Made more treacherous through premeditated intervention and a wicked policy.
Don't the Young Earth Creationists believe the earth is 7000 years old? Wouldn't he say something closer to that if he were dog whistling? He was talking about civilization, not Adam and Eve.
Perhaps it's a defensive mechanism, similar to pro-choice, that allows an individual to cope with the harshness ("wickedness") of reality.
I think there's a certain corruption of wanting to be friends with people, wanting to be nice and have others like you. Ugly thoughts are pushed aside. You squash the upsetting thought, so that you can be polite, civil, and decent.
I understand the impulse. I'm from the South, I totally get it.
I don't know how abolitionists and slave-owners sat on the Supreme Court at the same time. Can you imagine?
It's his workplace, and he wants to be nice. He wants to like people, and he wants them to like him. So his brain shuts down. You get a sense of the stress, when he talks about "vulnerable little baby." There's a part of his brain who wants to speak to this truth. But he refuses. And he might not even realize that he's doing it.
I think part of it too is that he wants to avoid dictating his own belief system to the American people. If it were up to him? He would outlaw all abortions. He has this self-knowledge, of his own desire. And so he locks this idea away, and puts his will outside the Constitution.
Where it should be, of course! It's not his job to dictate his own will.
But the horrible thing is that in this process of self-denial, he has shut his heart--and his mind--to the idea of the unborn child's right to life. He has shut off all thought. It's obvious when he talks about it that he's not really engaging with the issues at all.
It's true our Constitution says nothing about when life begins, or when people die. It says nothing about homicide, or what actions should be crimes. But what it does say, with perfect clarity, is that our laws must apply to all people. You are simply not allowed to put a class of human beings outside the law.
That said, I think abortion is a "wicked problem", precisely because it is perceived and preserved as an abstraction, unlike other human actions that terminate human life without justification.
It may be difficult or impossible to make it illegal in the current political, social, cultural and academic climate. Consider prohibition. People are more likely to reject negative rights. Abortion has been framed as a positive right. And then there are all the other political, social, and economic issues that weigh heavily on people's minds, including: family, taxes, foreign competition, out-sourcing, immigration/displacement, entitlements, capital and labor devaluation, etc.
You are simply not allowed to put a class of human beings outside the law.
We have forgotten or are distracted from considering the consequences that follow from selective exclusion.
I think abortion is a "wicked problem", precisely because it is perceived and preserved as an abstraction
Yes, that's exactly right. Both Roe and Casey are rife with ideas, short on facts. Carhart was the first opinion where the Supreme Court is actually talking, with specificity, about what an abortion is, how it works. They discuss partial-birth abortion and the D&E. And everybody's appalled, they're all appalled.
It's a kind of arrogance of intellectuals, of people who enjoy a "life of the mind," to ignore reality. I do this too. I'm thinking of something, some idea or argument, and I'm distracted from the world.
The ideology came first; the facts came 27 years later. And they were appalled by the facts. But their minds are still rooted in the ideology, they can't let go of it. Their ideas come first; reality is unimportant.
Scalia's 60 Minutes interview took place after both Carhart opinions. He's in the middle of these atrocities, supposedly a dissenter. And this is the interview he gives?
Note too that he makes his comment right after Stahl asks him if he's "influenced" by the Catholic Church. He immediately pushes Christ from his mind. He rejects all influence. And that is when he adapts the harshest possible rule in regard to what a "person" is. Newborns are excluded. The handicapped are excluded. (In his Casey dissent he suggests the "incompetent elderly" might not be people, too).
Imagine rejecting Christ as a legal influence, while you adopt Plato or Aristotle!
Of course Jesus spent a lot of his time upsetting the rule-makers. He asks us to love human beings. "A new command I give you: Love one another." It's an amazing commandment. I think what he's doing here is upsetting the rule-bound, the people who love rules more than they love human beings.
"Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."
So Christians reason from this that we should abolish slavery, and love our unborn children. People get angry at these Christians. And Jesus is seen as a big trouble-maker who must be rejected. But his rule, to love one another? That's a good rule.
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86 comments:
No dog whistles. But Scalia knew exactly what the lefty reaction would be. He seems to delight in these reactions.
I'm sure they exist, but I don't really know any Catholic creationists....
Meh, I interpreted it as a reference to civilization, not homo sapians.
Ditto. Not a ton of civilization we know a ton about pre 3000BC.
Scalia was talking about civilization, civilized humanity. Most people think (inaccurately) that civilized societies first arose about five thousand years ago.
Another demonstration of the utter lack of self awareness of the Left. "I can hear the conservative dog whistles that conservatives can't! What is wrong with them!"
Scalia is a pretty traditional Catholic, and Catholicism rejects young earth creationism. My gut instinct is that Scalia is referring to humans living in civilizations. 3000BCE is around the time that the first major civilizations were developing around the Niles, Tigris-Euphrates, Indus, and Yangtze river valleys.
Both the myth of divine and quasi-theory of evolutionary -- not principles describing a physical process -- creation are articles of faith and perhaps fantasy, respectively. The scientific method cannot be applied to either theory in the scientific domain. The latter, in particular, relies on liberal assumptions of continuity and uniformity, exaggerated significance of correlation, and inference from a permanent state of circumstantial evidence. Ironically, the scientific method was introduced not to bind people of faith, who already distinguished between the logical domains, but people with an undeclared faith, and people generally with a predisposition to perceive patterns.
You don't understand. Scalia speaks as a Catholic, and every right-thinking person knows that Catholics, especially conservative ones, believe all sorts of irrational shit.
Foer uses Genesis as a series of literary tropes. He's a good secular Jew, and secular Jews don't believe any of that superstitious nonsense. Gosh, do we really gotta spell it out for you?
/ironic tone
Humanity is a pretty vague word. Humanists have only been around for 700 years or so. Humanity is still pretty spotty, on the record.
I assume Scalia is thinking in terms of Neolithic humanity, in which he is only off by a factor of two. That's pretty good in MSM context.
I'm with the majority. As I commented on another Althouse post earlier today one cannot understand Democrats until one understands blind, unreasoning hatred. And I think damikesc and J Farmer have it right. Egyptian civilization only goes back to 3150 BCE, although I understand that the evidence for small farming villages in Mesopotamia goes back another 5000 years further. I don't think it's reasonable to demand the Supreme Court justices be aware of all the latest finds in archeology.
I thought the Justice said, ..."at least some 5,000 years or so." Doesn't that mean no more recent than 5,000 years but possibly earlier? Sounds to me like the most inclusive way he could have said it without ruling out the evolutionists or the creationists.
You would think that the author had better things to do with his day. When you preach to the choir I guess you can say anything and they will think it important.
I'd be willing to accept Millhiser blew a dog. And reliable history doesn't go back much more than 5,000 years. So if you're talking continuity of the human experience, Scalia has a point.
Catholic believe in Creation. We just don't think God necessarily believes in OUR calendars.
My vote is: They're both clever.
Was that an option?
I really don't know.
Scalia was funnier.
Perhaps I should add a question: Was it down South?
Because I have nieces and nephews down South who were raised Catholic who delight in teasing their protestant counterparts on matters of religious doctrine.
It's inside baseball, to me, but the jokes are still pretty funny.
Does anyone but the hard left pay any attention to Thinkprogress ?
@etbass is right; the phrase “Humanity has been around for at least some 5,000 years or so” is false only if humanity has been around for substantially less than 5,000 years. Obviously the ThinkProgress author has never been trained in logic.
@rm,
Catholics believe in Creation.
Oh, yes, very much so. And not just any Creation, but creation by the free will of God.
This belief has caused the Church no end of theological grief in its long history, as the Church sought to couch its theology first in Neo-Platonic concepts, which favored an emanationist & necessary theory of creation, & later in Aristotelian concepts, which favored the universe as co-eternal with the Prime Mover.
Creation by the free will of God meant that the existence of the universe was radically contingent. If the universe was radically contingent how could there be necessary causal relationships? If no necessary causal relationships, how can we have Physics, i.e. any knowledge of nature?
A lotta ink & parchment got used up on these questions.
I love Scalia. He's a trip. Smart as hell. Refuses to bend to the whims and fads of he modern world.
By the way, the whole address can be seen on video at youtu.be/YJSOOYx6wYM. It’s 19 minutes long. The 5,000 years comment comes at about 2:15.
I think Scalia was referring to young earth creation theory, but as a joke. I'm confident any school trying to send most of its graduates to college teaches biology and geology in a way compatible with what its graduates will learn in higher education. But he could be a creationist. I knew a Catholic high school science teacher a little older than Scalia who was convinced that he had disproved Darwinism based on the supposed statistical improbability of there having been enough mutations to get from the first single-celled organisms to the current diversity in the life of the earth. And Scalia dissented from the Supreme Court case striking down the Louisiana creation-science legislation that directly led to the rapid work-up of the "intelligent design" theory as an attempted work-around of the majority opinion.
It was a twofer. Scalia was blowing a dog whistle to anti-creationists (they are very predictable, the science is settled on that) and making a point about the "humanity" we actually care about historically, i.e. what used to be called civilization.
YoungHegelian:
If God is indeed an extra-universal entity, then the universe can be causal, and, in fact, deterministic, and God, as well as the sub-entity, "human", would still be able to influence its progress, while preserving a perception of chaos or randomness where a process is uncharacterized or incompletely characterized, and unwieldy. In essence, the "human" influence would be analogous to the "butterfly effect", and through a confluence of causative and integral forces, would be barely perceptible outside of a limited frame (i.e. scientific domain). Whereas God would still have full dominion as an entity outside the system (i.e. "universe"), and limited as a projection inside the system.
Consider that we cannot distinguish between origin and expression. Our corporal bodies and brains may merely serve as platforms for a projection of an extra-universal, coherent force (i.e. "freewill"). We don't know and there is no plausible path by which we will ever independently learn the truth of our nature as long as our perception, both natural and enhanced, and causal force is contained within the system (i.e. "universe").
God is imperfect. God created angels, demons, and humans, sub-entities of God, that exhibit characteristics incompatible with his moral philosophy. The Judaeo-Christian philosophy records that our existence as incorporated entities serves to reveal the characteristics of coherent energy masses and thereby enable God to purify himself.
That said, it's a myth and an article of faith, that precludes application of the scientific method. Whether it is true or not may be revealed in our post-mortem, or we may just enter oblivion -- as incoherent energy threads -- and be heard no more.
Presenting the only two choices as either creation 7,000 years ago by the Elohim or a 4.3 billion year old global ball formation by a big bang fallout is the problem used to show an intentional joke on the Creationists that The Monkey Trial laughs at so hard.
But scripture has no problem with a Genesis 1:1 big bang with global ball revelation followed by a Re-creation act and Adam and Eve's genesis circa 7,000 years ago.
But straw man bashing is fun.
Whenever Scalia talks, another Angel gets their halo.
He's just another Supreme Court Justice who doesn't know what a "person" is.
He claims that he's an originalist and a textualist. And yet he says corporations are people. And the unborn are not. (Or if they are, he's somehow forgotten to mention it).
I think pro-lifers should ask Scalia some hard questions.
How many babies do you think have died as a result of Roe v. Wade?
Is it murder to kill a baby outside the birth canal?
What is a 'person'?
He's coasting on a reputation. But he's done nothing for the unborn. And his abortion dissents are no more or less angry than any other dissent he's ever written. He's not a serious pro-lifer, in my opinion.
When I was in law school, I thought his Casey dissent was strong. But now all I see are moral evasions, and his self-concern for his institution, the Supreme Court.
whatever answer Roe came up with after conducting its "balancing" is bound to be wrong, unless it is correct that the human fetus is in some critical sense merely potentially human. There is of course no way to determine that as a legal matter; it is in fact a value judgment. Some societies have considered newborn children not yet human, or the incompetent elderly no longer so.
Brainy Smurf has been reincarnated as a human being going by the name of Ian Millhiser, apparently.
Good grief that was painful to read. Just pure know-it-all dreck, and clueless know-it-all dreck at that. I'm not sure which is worse: he actually bothered to to write that much on such an insignificant moment because he is obsessed with Scalia and/or creationists, or if he is just phoning it in for a pay check because he has zero dignity. I'm willing to accept "false dilemma" as the answer. Whatever they are paying him it is too much and I stand by that statement even if he is working for free.
The New Yorker short story was actually fairly good. Thought it started out weak but it closed nicely.
Do you think newborn children are entitled to the equal protection of the laws?
What is a human being?
"Dog whistle" = lefty hallucinations about conservatives.
Since corporations are formed by people (as opposed to sprouting out of the ground like mushrooms) and people do not surrender their rights when they form corporations, corporations ARE people when it comes to the law.
What about that is so hard to understand?
He's 79 years old. I don't expect Scalia to confess, or admit error, or say he was wrong.
But if he did! If he apologized, and said the unborn are people, and people are protected by the Constitution?
That would be huge. That might change everything.
Since corporations are formed by people (as opposed to sprouting out of the ground like mushrooms) and people do not surrender their rights when they form corporations, corporations ARE people when it comes to the law.
What about that is so hard to understand?
I understand it. I prefer to mock it, and compare their treatment of corporations to their treatment of babies.
I think our authorities care more about money, than about people, to be honest.
I'd have pegged it longer, but 5,000 yrs is defensible.
I have always found it amazing that the creation story tracks evolutionary biology. Catholicism has a more nuanced approach to evolution to account for the specific creation of the soul and the possible separate creation of mankind. It's an open mystery. Nonetheless, we Catholics do tend to be pretty smug and enjoy teasing our Protestant and atheist friends and talking inside catholic code to them that they don't understand. Mostly we find it amazing they are so sure of their position. Doubt and mystery is an important part of free will and faith.
Cynicus:
Mystery and trust are important parts of freewill and faith, respectively.
Saint Croix:
A human being is, at a physical level, a confluence of chaotic processes incorporated in a localized region, with a source: conception, and a sink: death. At a higher level, at a perception level, it is a corporal body capable of coherent expression, and unmatched independent causality and degrees of freedom.
To be fair to Scalia, did he every claim that a human life before birth was anything less than human or did he join the consensus and defer judgment? It seems that the Court punted to avoid addressing this so-called "wicked problem". Perhaps the better question is why they avoided answering a straightforward question that can be answered with unambiguous scientific evidence and, more so, self-evident knowledge. The answer seems to be found in the State-established pro-choice doctrine. More people than would like to admit have a libertarian predisposition, including our host, until there is a personal or external cause that requires or forces violating those principles.
Religion or moral philosophy is hard and is an impotent opiate unless voluntarily accepted. In practice, it is secular incentives/deterrents that are the opiates of the masses and elites that serve to suppress their integrity and conscience. It seems that few people actually have faith/trust in the myths passed down by our ancestors. They prefer to hedge their bet. Perhaps they are right. It would be easier to comply in a community of like-minded people. We'll see if the growing Hispanic population will resist secular and moral corruption.
@Saint Croix - under the law, corporations are deemed to be "persons" so that they can sue and be sued, so that they are obligated to perform the same duties as people. It's for a limited purpose, ie to have a civil trial. It's not a metaphysical or political statement.
To be fair to Scalia, did he every claim that a human life before birth was anything less than human or did he join the consensus and defer judgment?
It's the latter. In fact it's pretty clear that he deems the unborn human, and alive. He uses the term "baby" all the time.
But on the question of whether they are people who are entitled to the equal protection of the laws? He has been silent. And of course this silence is deemed acquiescence.
It's not a metaphysical or political statement.
I think their use of the word "person" depends upon whether their Court is overrun by capitalists or socialists. The word is whatever they want it to be. They have no definition for it.
It might be okay to say that corporations are people, or that babies are not. It's just embarrassing when you place these two doctrines side by side.
The Supreme Court, by the way, failed to apply the equal protection clause to the newly freed slaves. While they protected corporations from the get-go.
There are Creationist bullhorns but no dog whistles that I know of.
The dog whistle is for going the other way. It's used to avoid provoking the bullhorns.
Sophomoric shit. The story, that is. Better stuff was mimeographed for my middle school English class annual. The deus ex machina at the end is a painful sign of failure. No good writer has to explain the point he's making. Unless of course he's writing for a pretentious doofus venue, or audience, in which case a lack of imagination is often covered up with a weird pseudo-detective story. How long can I keep you guessing what my point is, throwing out little hints and clues? Won't you be awestruck when I reveal the butler did it, on the penultimate page! And you'll feel smugly smart because you figured it out four paragraphs earlier than that schlemiel in your Tuesday cycling class, the bitch with the obviously false boobs and fingernails. Gah.
Althouse, in fact I do not have to pay attention to that to which you want me to pay attention. And I do not have to answer your questions. By the same token, you don't have to pay attention to what interests me, any more than you have to answer any question I might ask, including: how much of Jonathan Safran Foer's work have you read, and, regardless of how many works of his that you've read, what sparked your interest enough to blog a post referencing him?
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No good writer has to explain the point he's making.
This sort of comment has always intrigued, interested and challenged me for many, many reasons.
In this specific case, the question that immediately jumped to my mind for Carl Pham is, "What about ancient plays/writings that specifically featured choruses offering commentary precisely intended to help explain what was happening/what was going on, center stage/in the story?"
Now, perhaps, Carl Pham, your point is that writers should write so clearly, precisely, concisely and exactly that there can be no mistake on the part of readers about what the writer has written, intended and said. I want you to correct me if I have misread what you wrote and, more than that, explain how I went wrong in reading what you wrote.
Seriously, and make no mistake about it: Please, do.
And let's flip this around. What's the damage if Scalia and the Supreme Court say that corporations are not people?
So Congress has to write a jurisdictional statute. So what? Big deal! You think they won't?
And note too that several provisions in our Constitution are broad enough to protect corporations, and other non-people. The First Amendment is an obvious example. Ditto the takings clause. The Fourth Amendment, on the other hand, might not protect corporate privacy, but rather individual privacy. And so on. You'd actually have to pay attention to the words in the provision that you are applying. Ooh, scary!
Finally, of course, being honest in regard to the non-humanity of corporations gives pro-lifers an awesome rhetorical advantage when they fight for the humanity of the unborn. I mean, it's truly dishonest to say that corporations are people, while babies are property. I know it bites Scalia in the ass when he has to say these lies. Why say them?
One nice thing about being 79, you can say what you really think. So come on, Scalia! Tell us what a "person" is!
live human being! man, woman, or child!
So go ahead and put the media in a conniption fit. Go ahead and force the media to talk about it. Fortune favors the bold. And the honest!
I did not "do" the poll, by the way.
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St. Croix:
Are you more interested in reducing abortions or making it clear for the nth time that you're against people who don't view abortions as you do?
To answer the question. Of course Scalia blew dog whistles, but alas the liberals cannot hear them and we Catholics and conservatives have no intention of enlightening them. Watching them try and get it right and always getting it wrong is part of the joke. Especially when they are all condescending and get it wrong.
I suggest that Professor Althouse expand her information universe beyond NY media and lefty websites.
St. Croix:
For my part, I am far, far, far, far more interested in reducing the number of abortions in this country than I am in parading around how I view the issue of abortion. I have no interest at all in deliberately riling up people who disagree with my view. It doesn't work, it hasn't worked, and it won't work. In fact, it's counterproductive.
If you can't help, St. Croix, at least stop making it harder.
I have no interest at all in deliberately riling up people who disagree with my view.
You might be surprised to learn that Jesus was very interested in deliberately riling up people. It was one of his favorite things to do!
Recorded history is about 5000 years...
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_history
I have always found it amazing that the creation story tracks evolutionary biology.
Except it doesn't. And which creation story in the Bible? Genesis has two contradictory creation stories, including the creation of mankind (in one man and woman are made together from dust, in the other God decides Adam needs a helpmate and makes Eve from his rib).
"I think their use of the word "person" depends upon whether their Court is overrun by capitalists or socialists."
Hmmm...maybe we'll see in the unlikely and unprecedented event the Supreme Court ever is overrun by socialists.
It's litotes. He was having fun.
Justice Scalia, speaking with Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes:
My job is to interpret the Constitution accurately. And indeed, there are anti-abortion people who think that the Constitution requires a state to prohibit abortion. They say that the Equal Protection Clause requires that you treat a helpless human being that's still in the womb the way you treat other human beings. I think that's wrong. I think when the Constitution says that persons are entitled to equal protection of the laws, I think it clearly means walking-around persons.
Interview is here. Transcript here.
I note that babies don't walk. And people in wheelchairs don't walk, either. This is lightweight stuff, the ramblings of somebody who is unengaged emotionally and intellectually.
I think highly of Mr. Scalia. I think he has a massive intellect, a marvelous wit, and a fantastic ability to write. It's too bad his heart is in the wrong place.
I read the J.S. Foer New Yorker story. I liked it.
No whistles blown, that I can discern. Frankly, anyone listening for whistles is not likely to be reading the New Yorker, or Jonathan Safron Foer.
Blogger rcommal said...
"'No good writer has to explain the point he's making.'
"This sort of comment has always intrigued, interested and challenged me for many, many reasons.
"In this specific case, the question that immediately jumped to my mind for Carl Pham is, 'What about ancient plays/writings that specifically featured choruses offering commentary precisely intended to help explain what was happening/what was going on, center stage/in the story?'"
Blogger rcommal said...
"Now, perhaps, Carl Pham, your point is that writers should write so clearly, precisely, concisely and exactly that there can be no mistake on the part of readers about what the writer has written, intended and said. I want you to correct me if I have misread what you wrote and, more than that, explain how I went wrong in reading what you wrote.
"Seriously, and make no mistake about it: Please, do."
Others might suggest that "no good writer will make a point so didactic that it is immediately grasped by the reader."
I think that good writers and bad write all kinds of stories and use all kinds of approaches, and good writers and bad may choose to explain themselves at times, for reasons they deem appropriate to their purposes.
Scalia blew a raspberry to web-trawling liberal speech trolls.
It's never the dogs that hear the dog whistles, is it?
Day one: light and dark
Day two: land and water
Day three: plants
Day four: creatures of the sea
Day five: land animals
Day six: man
Day seven: rest
It even explains why there has been no evolution since man. No new species.
It even explains why there has been no evolution since man. No new species
This statement is incorrect.
What does it say about this jorno-list that he deigns to parse a fucking highschool commencent address by a graduate's grandpa? Fuck this guy in the ear with dog whistle. Does this shitheel stalk the other eight SCOTUS members too?
Saint Croix:
Thanks. That's fairly conclusive evidence. I simply cannot relate to him/them on this straightforward question on a logical, intellectual, or emotional level. I would expect him/them to at least acknowledge the basic facts, and self-evident knowledge, then rationalize their way to a preconceived outcome. But not even that minimal effort.
Strange. Perhaps it's a defensive mechanism, similar to pro-choice, that allows an individual to cope with the harshness ("wickedness") of reality. I imagine the pressure to conform must be great in his position. Abortion rights are integral to gender equivalence and, of course, sexual libertinism.
Most people could not, would not, assert their will to uphold their principles. Some may not even entertain the right to self-defense, and would deny it to others in order to preserve an illusion of utopia or something. While others seek an active escape, if only momentarily, through reality distorting drugs, behaviors, beliefs, etc.
Well, people who acknowledge the scientific evidence, the self-evident knowledge, and human rights, are climbing a steep grade indeed.
That said, I wonder what he thinks "Posterity" implies. Is it also limited to "walking-around persons"? Before we walk, we crawl. Before we crawl, we lie. Before we lie, we are suspended in our mother's womb. Before we are suspended, we travel down the fallopian tube seeking temporary residence in the uterus. It's a treacherous journey. Made more treacherous through premeditated intervention and a wicked policy.
Don't the Young Earth Creationists believe the earth is 7000 years old? Wouldn't he say something closer to that if he were dog whistling? He was talking about civilization, not Adam and Eve.
Saint Croix:
I think it comes down to what it takes to gain and keep power. Americans should be careful who they sacrifice on principle.
Perhaps it's a defensive mechanism, similar to pro-choice, that allows an individual to cope with the harshness ("wickedness") of reality.
I think there's a certain corruption of wanting to be friends with people, wanting to be nice and have others like you. Ugly thoughts are pushed aside. You squash the upsetting thought, so that you can be polite, civil, and decent.
I understand the impulse. I'm from the South, I totally get it.
I don't know how abolitionists and slave-owners sat on the Supreme Court at the same time. Can you imagine?
It's his workplace, and he wants to be nice. He wants to like people, and he wants them to like him. So his brain shuts down. You get a sense of the stress, when he talks about "vulnerable little baby." There's a part of his brain who wants to speak to this truth. But he refuses. And he might not even realize that he's doing it.
I think part of it too is that he wants to avoid dictating his own belief system to the American people. If it were up to him? He would outlaw all abortions. He has this self-knowledge, of his own desire. And so he locks this idea away, and puts his will outside the Constitution.
Where it should be, of course! It's not his job to dictate his own will.
But the horrible thing is that in this process of self-denial, he has shut his heart--and his mind--to the idea of the unborn child's right to life. He has shut off all thought. It's obvious when he talks about it that he's not really engaging with the issues at all.
It's true our Constitution says nothing about when life begins, or when people die. It says nothing about homicide, or what actions should be crimes. But what it does say, with perfect clarity, is that our laws must apply to all people. You are simply not allowed to put a class of human beings outside the law.
Saint Croix:
I am by my nature a patient person, but patience is a relative virtue. I found the following encouraging.
In 1789..., In 1791..., ..., In 1833, the Slavery Abolition Act was passed
William Wilberforce pursuing abolition of slavery in Britain
That said, I think abortion is a "wicked problem", precisely because it is perceived and preserved as an abstraction, unlike other human actions that terminate human life without justification.
It may be difficult or impossible to make it illegal in the current political, social, cultural and academic climate. Consider prohibition. People are more likely to reject negative rights. Abortion has been framed as a positive right. And then there are all the other political, social, and economic issues that weigh heavily on people's minds, including: family, taxes, foreign competition, out-sourcing, immigration/displacement, entitlements, capital and labor devaluation, etc.
You are simply not allowed to put a class of human beings outside the law.
We have forgotten or are distracted from considering the consequences that follow from selective exclusion.
I think abortion is a "wicked problem", precisely because it is perceived and preserved as an abstraction
Yes, that's exactly right. Both Roe and Casey are rife with ideas, short on facts. Carhart was the first opinion where the Supreme Court is actually talking, with specificity, about what an abortion is, how it works. They discuss partial-birth abortion and the D&E. And everybody's appalled, they're all appalled.
It's a kind of arrogance of intellectuals, of people who enjoy a "life of the mind," to ignore reality. I do this too. I'm thinking of something, some idea or argument, and I'm distracted from the world.
The ideology came first; the facts came 27 years later. And they were appalled by the facts. But their minds are still rooted in the ideology, they can't let go of it. Their ideas come first; reality is unimportant.
Scalia's 60 Minutes interview took place after both Carhart opinions. He's in the middle of these atrocities, supposedly a dissenter. And this is the interview he gives?
Note too that he makes his comment right after Stahl asks him if he's "influenced" by the Catholic Church. He immediately pushes Christ from his mind. He rejects all influence. And that is when he adapts the harshest possible rule in regard to what a "person" is. Newborns are excluded. The handicapped are excluded. (In his Casey dissent he suggests the "incompetent elderly" might not be people, too).
Imagine rejecting Christ as a legal influence, while you adopt Plato or Aristotle!
Of course Jesus spent a lot of his time upsetting the rule-makers. He asks us to love human beings. "A new command I give you: Love one another." It's an amazing commandment. I think what he's doing here is upsetting the rule-bound, the people who love rules more than they love human beings.
"Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."
So Christians reason from this that we should abolish slavery, and love our unborn children. People get angry at these Christians. And Jesus is seen as a big trouble-maker who must be rejected. But his rule, to love one another? That's a good rule.
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