A Friday Hodgepodge

1. At New Ideal, Ben Bayer exposes the religious thinking behind a bitter controversy among atheists:

[A]theists need the courage of their convictions. The latest row over transgender ideology dramatizes this for all to see. When religious-style dogmatism infiltrates atheism itself, it's a sign of religion's pervasive influence on our culture, and thus of the need for the courage to challenge widespread conventional assumptions like the alleged virtue of humility. As Jerry Coyne himself once observed, "Atheists have been 'humble' for centuries (who was more humble than Spinoza?) and it hasn't gotten us anywhere." And Coyne now says he's "proud" to be a heretic. It's time to realize he's right, drop the pose of false humility, and proudly assert the value of the scientific truth over unscrutinized feelings for faddish totems. [footnote omitted]

Among the things I learned from the piece was an interesting bit of trivia: the origin of the current humility fad.

2. At How to Be Profitable and Moral, Jaana Woiceshyn makes "The Moral Case Against Tariffs -- and for Free Trade," in part because:

The economic arguments against tariffs are valid but don't explain why tariffs are fundamentally immoral. It is true that they lead to economic misery to individuals and businesses by increasing the cost of everything, from food to fuel to construction materials and by causing job losses. But most economists today do not examine the root causes of tariffs' negative impact from a moral perspective. They take the mixed economy for granted and don't think about international trade that could be free of government intervention.

As neglected as it is, this question is important because supporters of various political measures frequently do so on the basis of what they deem to be moral, often to the point that they will ignore the impractical outcomes of those very policies. (e.g., You don't really need an iPhone!)

The path to winning important cultural and political battles lies in identifying and taking the moral high ground.

3. At Thinking Directions, Jean Moroney explains why a "twofer" doesn't work as a goal:

If it seems like more than one benefit is involved in your goal, check to see if it's a "twofer." Can you name in one word what your deepest motivation is for pursuing it? Can you explain the different aspects of the goal in terms of that value?

Eliminating twofers is critical to your success. The more ambitious and life-changing your goal, the more important it is to ensure your goal is unified. Otherwise, it will not fulfill its purpose, which is to guide and motivate action to the achievement of the goal. There are at least two reasons for this.

For one thing, a twofer gives you no guidance in the critical moment when the two most important benefits are in conflict. It creates pressure and exacerbates conflict between the benefits. It can seem that you can't achieve one except at the expense of the other.

The other problem is at least as bad as being lost at such a time of conflict.

4. At Value for Value, Harry Binswanger points out that in many conflicts in today's political and cultural scene, neither side deserves support. Case in point? Trump vs. Harvard:

[I]n the end, I cannot support either side. Trump wants to bully and even destroy any institution that stands up to him. (I think the campaign to end certain bad things in the universities is just a pretext, just a way to get support from his MAGA people.)

But Harvard wants to destroy civilization. And it's been doing a damn good job of it, too. Some ... have rightly stressed Harvard's good work in fields other than the Humanities: medicine, physics, biochemistry. But weighing that against the further development and spreading of evil philosophy, I think Harvard, and all universities, are net destroyers not benefactors.

Indeed, Trump, as Binswanger indicates, is ultimately a product of the evil ideas belched into our culture by the likes of Harvard for much of the past 200 years.

-- CAV

Many people have a dim view of profits; they see them as the result of immoral exploitation by business for selfish gain.

My reaction to world affairs veers between complacency and panic. Either it is the end of the world, or everything will continue as before. I have been through enough world crises to know that not all of them end in catastrophe; it does not follow, however, from the fact that I have so far always […]