I quite like this little page by Peter Norvig on how to become a good programmer. One quote I like: “Learn at least a half dozen programming languages. Include one language that supports class abstractions (like Java or C++), one that supports functional abstraction (like Lisp or ML), one that supports syntactic abstraction (like Lisp), one that supports declarative specifications (like Prolog or C++ templates), one that supports coroutines (like Icon or Scheme), and one that supports parallelism (like Sisal).” But he has generally interesting comments.
January 4th, 2007
In the same journal that I referred to in my previous post, New Political Science, I also read another article, and my impression is exactly the opposite - this is a very good article. The title is “Free Trade: A paradox for democracy” and it’s written by Tom De Luca and John Buell. The article is more in line with common political theory rather than critical theory. It argues how the international pressures for market liberalization and international free trade are presented by proponents of such free trade as something unavoidable, something natural, and something technical, that is beyond the control of democratic governments. It is presented as something that needs to be negotiated behind closed doors, validated by experts, and only rubber stamped by democratically elected parliaments. The result is that it stimulates lack of political efficacy among citizens and hence apathy towards the political system. Furthermore, it stimulates emphasis of one’s own identity, be it race, religion, or nationality, as a superior natural phenomenon, as the only possibly counter force against the globalization of the economy. International free trade, said to promote international peace and democracy, has thus serious negative effects on democracy and stimulates sentiments that usually lead to war rather than peace. The authors are clearly not opposed to free trade, but they argue that presenting it as something natural and unavoidable, without paying attention to its inherent tensions with democracy, leads to conflict rather than to peace. They argue for a less narrow conception of both free trade - which should include more political rights as minimum wages and human immigration policies - and democracy - which should be more than electing rubber stamp parliaments. I very much like the article, partly because it represents the kind of social liberalism I would adhere to as well.
January 4th, 2007
Last night I read an article in New Political Science. A journal of politics & culture. I cannot resist to rant about it for a little bit - how did that ever get published?! The article is by Andrew Davison, entitled “The ‘Soft’ Power of Hollywood Militainment: The case of The West Wing’s attack on Antalya, Turkey”. I should probably clarify two things first: the article is written in the postmodern, critical tradition - in political science there is a stark division between positivist, empirical camp (to which I belong) and the postmodern, critical camp. Secondly, I’m a big fan of The West Wing. In one episode of West Wing, a Republican politician temporarily takes over the White House and while he is in power, a terrorist attack takes place on a fictional cinema in Antalya, Turkey, where American soldiers were watching a movie. The President acts swiftly and decides on a military operation in the area. The director of the series, who had just taken over from the original left-wing director Aaron Sorkin, had made clear in press conferences that the series would start to better reflect the new political atmosphere in the U.S. after 9/11 and that it would give a more fair depiction of the right in U.S. politics.
Davison’s article sets out to argue that this depiction of Antalya is reducing what is a historically complex place with an exceptional beauty and a wide variety of cultures to a foreign, unknown, scary terrorist place. He emphasizes how Hollywood and Washington cooperate in providing the U.S. audience with the images of the outside world that support the policies of the Bush regime. Although I always am very reluctant to believe in such conspiracy theories, it could be an interesting thesis for a political science thesis. It would be very interesting, if you could establish how those links work, how there is intention in depicting the world like this, etc. Davison does nothing of the sort. His conclusion that there is this conspiracy is going on is pretty much assumed from the outset and not at all discussed. By using terms like ‘militainment’ and ‘Washiwood’, he creates an atmosphere of conspiracy without pointing out any details of how this would work. He even starts writing about a ‘milidirector’ and, most stupidly, a ‘millumination’ of something. So, if I just put ‘mili’ before every crucial term, I provide evidence of a conspiracy? He would probably object to the term ‘conspiracy’, since it’s all vaguer, more implicit than that, but still. As an article in a strongly opinionated piece, like a column, this would be a smart way of writing, perhaps. For an academic paper, it is incredible that this passed the reviewers.
Secondly, the article does what, in my opinion, a lot of critical postmodern articles do (and no, I would not argue that they are all bad or useless). He simply throws around the terminology from that literature to make it ‘fit’, without showing any sign of understanding those concepts or using them to shed light on what is really at hand. He uses terms like ‘place’, ‘lived experiences’, ‘hermeneutics’, etc. but it is utterly unclear why those are relevant for his article.
His argument seems to rely on two pillars: 1) the depiction of Antalya in West Wing is meant to be realistic and give a real picture of the post-9/11 world of terrorism; 2) Antalya really is a very nice place, known for its beauty and cultural complexity. The author even did ‘in depth research on location’! - I.e. he went on long holidays to be able to write that it really is a very nice place. To me it is utterly unclear how the two relate. The West Wing episode is indeed scarily realistic. It is indeed a very limited view of the world that is depicted. Antalya is indeed a dot on a satellite image rather than a beautiful city. But that’s the point!!! That’s how such politics work! That’s what the president sees in his Situation Room. He does not go on a holiday, attends annual events, and reads up on the extensive history of a city before deciding how to react to a bombing against his own soldiers. Is this ‘militainment’ and a ‘Washiwood’ attempt to brainwash Americans? No, of course not!
The article reads like a combination of a conspiracy-theory induced column and a tourist guide for Antalya. Both devoid of any solid argumentation, logic, relevance, etc. The basic premise of the article is interesting and could be investigated. This investigation could be done interestingly in a critical post-modern fashion. But this article is just nonsense.
I should add, though, that as a tourist guide, the article has been very convincing, and Antalya sounds like a great holiday location.
January 4th, 2007