DAVE GWYDION

L’Exception Francaise (posted by Al.)

2005-08-24T01:28:00.000+02:00

L’Exception Francaise.

As a teenager living in the outskirts of Paris in the 70s I can remember when the machines came digging. I would hang off the Terrasse de St Germain as huge great things pushed slowly in, as the engineers popping in and out of the tunnels with their cool sideburns, consulted their plans. I remember their sideburns. And then after the engineers, hundreds of workers.

Meanwhile I was at boarding school in England, but when I returned later that year to my home outside St Germain en Laye, what a change! For some reason, that line used to have rubber tires, which gave it a particular smell.The Reseau Express Regional line from the Gare de Lyon and the Etoile came to my local station. From the suburbs to the centre of the city in 20 minutes. It seemed very impressive.

And now, as I take advantage of a particularly felicitous French transport node. The St Exupery/TGV station at Lyon, for example, I think back to the vision of those French transport planners and engineers and wonder why we in Britain can’t do the same.

Thameslink and Crossrail were meant to be the RER equivalents. The first happened, on a very low-key basis. The latter might happen in ten years’ time.

It really is a vision thing. And it is so important. Without proper infrastructure modern economic and cultural life cannot spread wings. And when Gordon Brown’s moronic PPP solutions for the underground come home to roost, we’re going to be stuffed for a generation.

Why are we so stupid? Why do we tolerate this crap when we see different effective solutions in France?

Muslim on Muslim Violence

2005-07-27T05:11:00.000+02:00

My most loyal correspondent, "Al-the-low-rent-biker-journalist," urges me to post the following. Reluctantly I agree (warning his links never work):

Our Muslim friends like to point out what they say are the double standards of the West but have a fair few themselves. Why, for example, is the usual list of grievances limited to those countries where the West is seen as attacking the Ummah? For example, far more Muslims have been killed in Darfur by other Muslims over the last three years than all the Palestinians and Kashmiris over the last 50.

When I point this out to the brothers or the sisters they say either that my figures are wrong, despite my willingnesss to provide evidence from a wide range of sources including the UN, Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and others, or that its all a Western plot.

The conclusion has to be that for them, only a Muslim persecuted by a non-Muslim counts. Why? Because grievance against the West and victimhood is such an important part of their self-identity that any facts that contradict this beconme too threatening.

I see you picked up on the Aaronovitch article. David Goodhart also wrote an interesting piece on this in Prospect which was repeated in the Grauniad and Charles Moore wrote one of the best pieces I have seen recently on the real consequences of remaining in denial about the true nature of British Islam:

Integration, Nationalism, and British Muslims: Part One

2005-07-24T18:37:00.000+02:00

In a recent article in the Spectator, Boris Johnson calls for the "re-britannification" of Britain. Amongst his many arguments is the following:

In the wake of [Enoch] Powell's racist foray, no one had the guts to talk about Britishness, or whether it was a good thing to insist - as the Americans do so successfully - on the basic loyalty of immigrants to the country of immigration.

There is, I think, something in this. Britain has certainly made a hash of its efforts to integrate its Muslim minorities. Anyone who thinks otherwise need only examine the alarming results of the latest Yougov poll. This poll also undercuts the claim of many of the Guardian-type "apologists," who believe the terrorist attacks were acts of retaliation for British foreign policy. Consider, for instance, Mundher al-Adham's confident assessment:

Attacks there, as those in London, are not about hating anybody's way of life, but straightforward revenge: revenge for Falluja and al-Qaim - and for Palestine and Afghanistan, which have been subsumed in them. The pictures of Iraq, Afghanistan or Palestine, with their dust and grime, might be different to the pictures of the London bombs, but they represent a continuity. The war of revenge and collective punishment has arrived in London. And it has its own rationality. Don't give me the nonsense about why do they hate us. They don't.

Well, sorry Mundher old mate, you're flat wrong here, because many British Muslims do hate "us." Or at least many hate British society and western liberal democratic values.
Thus one per cent of British Muslims (that's about 10,000 adults) believe that "Western society is decadent and immoral, and Muslim people should seek to bring it to an end, if necessary by violence." I suppose there's something consoling in thinking that 99 per cent of British Muslims are not intent on armed overthrow of our way of life. But then thirty one per cent of British Muslims (that's approximately 310,000 adults) believe that "Western society is decadent and immoral, and Muslim people should seek to bring it to an end, but only by nonviolent means." These responses are truly alarming. No less alarming are the responses that suggest that 24 per cent of British Muslims sympathize with the "feelings and motives" of those who bombed London on 7/7. To say that Britain has a Muslim problem is an understatement. The task is to explain why integration has failed; and why British society is seeing more and more people like "Fazel," who--as an article in the Washington Post reports--finds British society to be sick. As "Fazel" puts it:

The evil programs on TV, the music, the literature, the magazines ... are all responsible for the terrorist attacks. People are becoming rebellious because they are against fornication, gambling, alcohol," Fazel said.

"Until they get rid of Eminem and Marilyn Manson, they can't get rid of our preachers," he added.

Fazel called himself a former "kafar," Arabic for an infidel who did not fear God, and said he once enjoyed drinking with his friends and the company of young women.

Then, in the aftermath of Sept. 11, he read about al-Qaida and its leader, Osama bin Laden.

Images of the twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsing, he said, fueled his curiosity about the faith of his ancestors.

"Allah pointed me to him (bin Laden)," said Fazel, dressed in a white shalwar kameez, the traditional loose tunic-and-trouser common to men in South Asia.

Three years later, he said, an angel spoke to him.

"I needed change. Drugs and alcohol did me no good," he said.

Terrorists and their Grievances: The Case of British Muslims: Part Three

2005-07-24T00:57:00.000+02:00

The "grievances" that motivate much of the anger of British Muslims center on aspects of British foreign policy. In Kashmir, Palestine, Afghanistan, and now Iraq, the British government condones, so this argument goes, the killing of Muslims. The recent London terrorist bombings can thus be seen as acts of revenge. Britain, if it wants to avoid further attacks, needs to apologize and change its foreign policy.

This whole line of argument has no merit whatsoever. Britain has almost no responsibility at all for what goes on in Kashmir and Palestine. These places are controlled by, respectively, the Indian and Israeli governments. Even if Britain wanted to intervene in these regions on the side of Muslims it couldn't. Furthermore, the two regions where Britain has intervened (Afghanistan and Iraq), the interventions were designed to serve the interests of Muslims. There's nothing pro-Muslim in leaving the poor bastards to be ruled by the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. And whatever misgivings one might have about the prudence of intervention in Iraq--and I think it was recklessly imprudent--no war launched against a tyrant can be described as unjust.

British Muslims may think they have legitimate grievances about British foreign policy. But they don't. True, the Umma is not faring well. But this is largely to do with pathologies in Arab and Muslim culture, it has next to nothing to do with Britain or its foreign policy.

There's another reason why the British government must reject appeals to apologize for or modify its foreign policy: it wouldn't do anything to deter the hardline extremists who object to Britain on the grounds of its infidel status. It's that hardline group that I wish to discuss in the next post (Part Four).

Terrorists and their Grievances: The Case of British Muslims: Part Two

2005-07-21T18:52:00.000+02:00

The previous post argued that Muslim terrorism will be difficult to combat, at least in part because the terrorists are not an isolated group of fanatics, but people animated by "grievances" that are shared by many people in the British Muslim community. These grievances center on the treatment by Western states in general and Britain in particular of Muslims around the world. Consider, for instance, Osama Saeeds's appeal--Saeed is an official spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain--for Britain to apologize for:

Britain's explicit roles in creating the injustices in the Muslim world - from the mess that colonial masters left in Kashmir to the promising of one people's land to another in Palestine. We need to recognise our past mistakes and make a commitment not to repeat them. Western leaders are outraged about London but show no similar anger for other atrocities across the world. What happens abroad matters to British Muslims as much as what happens here.

I stated, without providing any supporting argument, that this "grievance" does not warrant any remedial action by the British government or the British public. Let me say more in support of that claim.

First of all, I want to say something more about Muslim grievances. Again it is important to distinguish "extremist" (and more specifically Jihadi-Salafist) views from "moderate" views such as those expressed by Saeed.

Shortly after 9/11, the British Home Office estimated that there were 10,000 Al Qaeda sympathisers in Britain--perhaps up to a 1000 of which had trained in Al Qaeda camps in Kashmir and Afghanistan. The AL Qaeda symapthizers were likely people who subscribed to a Jihadi-Salafist ideology. To get a sense of the grievances of those who view the world from this perspective, see the following passage from a justification for the 7/7 bombings. Its author mentions the following specific reasons for targeting London:

1. The United Kingdom is an ally of the United States , and hence is part and parcel of the worst front of aggression Muslims are facing in present time. They are even worse than Pharaoh in his war against Moses. Pharaoh attacked Moses and his people on Egyptian soil, while the United States and the UK , through their Crusader alliance, attack or support attacks against the Muslims everywhere in the world. This is another reason to show happiness toward every tragedy in the West, like Moses and Muhammad did by ordering the fast of the `Ashura for their people (Yom Kippur in Judaism and the fast of 10 Muharram in Islam).

2. Britain is an infidel country since it is a Christian one, and hence an enemy of Allah and his believers. “As long as it remains an enemy, it is a Muslim duty to terrorize it…they are allies of the worst devilish idol ( Taghut ) of our times—the U.S. and the Jews—and do their utmost to support them.”

The interesting feature of this "extremist" message is that the first of these two points expresses a point that is present in the "moderate" message of Saeed: Britain is responsible for attacks on Muslims around the world. The second point ("infidel Britain") appeals, I think, only to a very small segment of the British Muslim community--members of Jama'at Al-Muhajirun, Hizb ut-Tahrir, and followers of people like Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal.

Terrorists and their Grievances: The Case of British Muslims: Part One

2005-07-20T16:16:00.000+02:00

Some terrorist organizations--the various RAF groups of the 1960s and 70s come to mind--have been animated by, what might be termed, "group-specific grievances." Other terrorist organizations--the Irgun, the ANC, for instance--have been animated by "community-wide grievances." Generally speaking, it is much easier to defeat terrorist organizations with group-specific grievances, because once the group-leaders have been killed, imprisoned, or "turned," the group tends to fall apart.

The distinction between "group-specific" and "community-wide" grievances is not meant to be binary, but to define two poles of a continuum. Few actual terrorist groups can legitimately claim to act on grievances shared by the entire community to which they nominally belong. Thus neither the IRA or ETA spoke for the entire Northern Irish and Basque community. Nonetheless, the grievances that animated these terrorist organizations were grievances shared by a significant segment of the wider Northern Irish and Basque communities.

Terrorists with "community-wide grievances" tend to be more difficult to defeat, because the community supports the terrorists--most importantly by supplying them with new recruits. The only sure way of defeating a terrorist organization of this type is to divide the terrorists from the community, either by removing the cause of the underlying grievances or by persuading the community that their grievances can be addressed through legal and/or democratic institutions.

I draw these elementary distinctions, because they underscore the difficulties the British government faces in dealing with homegrown Muslim terrorists. It would be consoling to believe that these homegrown terrorists act out of group-specific grievances. But enough has been said since 7/7 to show that many people in Britain's Muslim community, while condemning the terrorists' means, share their sense of a grievance. (For more on the topic of Muslim grievances, see David Aaronovitch's excellent column in the Times.)

But what exactly is the grievance that the community shares? The one we keep hearing on the news goes something like this: "We British Muslims feel a strong bond of solidarity with Muslims around the world. We can no longer sit by and see our brothers and sisters killed as a result of British foreign policy in Iraq, Israel, and Afghanistan."

That's the moderate version of Muslim grievances. The more extremist version goes something like this: " We Muslims, in Britain and elsewhere, wish to live in a transnational community governed in accordance with Sharia. In the interim, we will settle for a Britain that is far more sympathetic to our religious traditions."

Faced with these "grievances"--and personally I don't think either even warrants the word--the British government has two possible strategies:

(i) An Accommodationist Strategy: Here the Government mounts a PR campaign designed to show that British foreign policy, despite initial appearances, is designed to improve the well-being of Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Leaving Muslims in the hands of Saddam Hussein or the Taliban is hardly conducive to their well-being. British foreign policy is, in short, good for your Muslim "brothers and sisters."

(ii) A Confrontational Strategy: Here the Government challenges the idea of British Muslims belonging to a global Muslim community whose duties to each other allegedly trump duties to Britain. This stratagy calls for a much more radical form of integrationism than Britain has hitherto adopted.

I tend to think that the Government ought to pursue both strategies fast. Unfortunately, I doubt that even this will solve the problem of homegrown Muslim terrorism. That's why I think that Britain (and Europe in general) faces a very difficult time ahead. 7/7 is more worrying than 9/11 ever was.

"Apologists," the Iraq War, and the London Bombing: Rajnaara Akhtar Independent Op Ed.

2005-07-18T17:55:00.000+02:00

Rajnaara C. Akhtar has an op ed in the Independent that makes the following point:

There is an argument which claims that Tony Blair's disregard of the unified dissent by a million people, who marched in solidarity on the streets of London, has culminated in an attack against us all from the very extreme elements of our society who saw no benefit from our peaceful protests against an unjust war. This needs to be seriously assessed.

OK, let's seriously assess this argument, which joins an empirical claim about the motivations of the bombers with a responsibility-shifting (i.e. an "apologistic") judgement about Tony Blair. It's worth noting that many people, including Tony Blair himself and Jack Straw, who are troubled by "apologists" --i.e. those who shift responsibility away from the bombers themselves-- feel the need to attack the empirical claim about the motivation of the bombers. But here it's important to recognize that it's possible to hold without contradiction the following two beliefs:

(i) UK involvement in the Iraq War increased the likelihood of it being a target for terrorists; and

(ii) UK involvement in the Iraq War was legitimate.

Claim (i) is clearly true. The Muslim bombers, like many in the UK Muslim community, were especially incensed by UK involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. This has been confirmed by the bombers' friends, family and acquaintances. The views of the UK Muslim community on the issue have been documented by opinion polls. These views were quite predictable back in 2002.

Yet to recognize the truth of claim (i) does not entail any sympathy whatsoever with those--Muslims or not--angered or incensed by UK involvement in Iraq. Nor does it entail that UK involvement was illegitimate or unjustified.

Britain went to war after a parliamentary vote and at a time when a majority (admittedly a slim majority) of the British public were in support of the war. The unified dissent of a million people--and they were not that unified, as I recall--is of no more relevance than the unified dissent of the pro-fox hunting lobby is to the law prohibiting blood sports. (A damn silly law, in my opinion, but no matter.) No government worthy of the name ought to trim its policies to the whims of street demonstrators, no matter how sincerely and solidaristically they rally to their cause. In a parliamentary democracy, a parliamentary vote alone settles the legitimacy of governmental action.

Perhaps what Rajnaara Akhtar really meant to say is that "the unified dissent of a million people" tips the scales in any overall assessment of the justification of the Iraq War. But that argument also has little validity. Whether you approach the Iraq War from a just-war perspective (like, say, Norman Geras) or from a consequentialist perspective (like, say, John Quiggin), the million marchers do not count for much. Seriously assessed, there's nothing in Akhtar's argument.

Three Wishes for the Future

2005-07-04T19:35:00.000+02:00

Just came across Alex Mckie's brilliant new website. She is travelling around the country asking people to make three wishes. She asks you to make one wish about yourself; one about the world; and another free wish. I think she then intends to examine these wishes from a philosophical/social scientific perspective.

I've been thinking about my three wishes, but haven't yet come up with any. I think I need to settle some preliminary matters first.

One obvious distinction is that between object-directed wishes and character-focused wishes. Do I, in other words, wish for the attainment of some object--wine, women, song, health, wealth, fame etc. Or do I wish to develop a particular type of character--wise, temperate, cheerful, benevolent, etc.

Another obvious distinction is that between realistic wishes and utopian wishes. Do I, in other words, take my character, my situation and social scientific laws for granted when I make my wishes; or do I relax all constraints of character, situation, and social scientific laws. Realistic wishes are, I think, the more interesting; and I think that these are the wishes Alex Mckie is looking for.

Britain as a Nation

2005-06-27T18:45:00.000+02:00

We often hear that the EU won't work, because Europeans lack a sense of common nationality. Recent squabbles over the budget might appear to confirm this view. But the more general claim that any effective state needs a robust sense of shared nationality is probably false. Doubtless, a state needs some minimum form of solidarity. Absent that, you get an Iraq: a place that can be held together only by a despot. But Britain shows that a state can survive and flourish while riven by all manner of petty national rivalries.

Anyone who still thinks that the British share a robust "we-feeling" should take a look at the discussions going on amongst Britain's exasperated rugby fans. Talk about sticking together in the face of adversity, I give you the unedited Molly Bloom-like thoughts of one Dylan Morris:

Why We Lost:

--1. we lost due to picking to many english players who have been playing poorly since the world cup. 2 wilkinson cant run or pass he is just a no go shame it was not him that got speared 3 typical english dirty play danny "hannibal" grewcock, what is the point 4 everyone knows if we play like england we are bound to loose the game has moved up a few levels since the 2003 world cup the style of game has changed someone tell stupid clive woodward. 5 all the players that are being called up for injuries should all have been there in the first place. 6 clive was not happy about not being approached to be the lions manager of 2001 in australia, im glad he never had it and i wish henry was our manager now, henry is a much better coach than woodward and henry and hansen know how they can be beaten and that is playing a WELSH game. Stuff all the english i have had a guts full of them we are in this state because of them, all the welsh , scottish and irish boys should pack their bags and leave if woody had his way he would have 45 english guys over there.

A Fellow Celt replies:

--spot on dylan, but I don't think the celts should pack up and go home. celts have never been quitters and they shouldn't be now. I'd like to see the celtic lads take it upon themselves to play expansive rugby when the opportunity arises. obviously that won't happen all that often considering how slow neil back gets the ball. but Peel can take quick tap penalties when he can and get the team going forward. this is when the quick running and passing of the celtic players can overcome the slow bovine plodding of the english.

An Englishman responds:

--didn't know they were installing internet in council houses these days.

Andrei Shleifer Defrauds the Government and Harvard Buries the News

2005-06-20T19:21:00.000+02:00

I think Harvard needs to get a better PR dept--or someone inside its administration does not like Andrei Shleifer--author of, get this, The Grabbing Hand:

Harvard and its star economist Andrei Shleifer ’82 said on Monday they had reached a tentative settlement with the U.S. government in a five-year-old fraud suit that has spanned two continents and embarrassed both the University and the professor.

The terms of the settlement were not announced, and the parties said several details still need to be resolved. At a hearing in U.S. District Court on Monday, Judge Douglas P. Woodlock gave the parties 60 days to ink the deal.

The agreement came nearly a year after Woodlock found Shleifer, who is the Jones professor of economics, and Jonathan Hay, a former Harvard employee, liable for conspiring to defraud the government. The two men made personal investments in Russia while advising a U.S.-funded program to privatize the economy there in the 1990s.....

Yesterday’s hearing, originally scheduled for March, was postponed four times, most recently on the first of this month. That delay, according to a Harvard official who has been briefed on the case, was a public-relations move intended to push the settlement announcement until after Commencement, when the news would receive less attention.

This story has, rather mysteriously drawn very little coverage from the mainstream press. The best coverage is David Warsh's economicprincipals blog--especially here.

A Tale of Two Bus Drivers: A Note on Comparative Economic Well-Being

2005-06-03T18:20:00.000+02:00

David Brooks' latest column in the NYT has sparked a blogospheric debate about the relative economic well-being of Americans and Europeans. People are flinging around lots of statistics. But the underlying issues are these (i) what metric best measures well-being? and (ii) whose well-being do we measure? I don't have the answers to these difficult questions. I offer instead Tom Friedman's best friend--an anecdote.

Travelling on the Heathrow to Oxford Express Bus last month, I overheard a conversation between the bus driver and a friend (also a bus driver), who had just returned from a visit to New Hampshire, USA. The British based Oxford bus drivers were commenting that they earned the same in pounds sterling (25,000 p.a.) as a bus driver in New Hampshire earned in dollars (also 25,000 p.a.). They were further led to comment that the New Hampshire bus driver appeared to have a much higher standard of living. Let's say they were right about the numbers, then 25,000 dollars--which is slightly less than half of median family income in New Hampshire--buys bus drivers a higher standard of living in New Hampshire than 25,000 pounds sterling--which is roughly the median family income in the UK--buys bus drivers in Oxford. Both the Oxford bus drivers said they'd move to New Hampshire in a heartbeat.

I draw no conclusions from this anecdote. I note only that neither in Oxford nor in New Hampshire could you raise a family on a bus driver's salary.

Mark Cuban and Joseph Schumpeter

2005-04-09T04:47:00.000+02:00

Next time I teach Joseph Schumpeter, I'm going to quote Mark Cuban's account of "the sport of business." (Cuban is the billionaire founder of Broadcast.Com and the current owner of the Dallas Mavericks.) This revealing testimony distills everything that Schumpeter had in mind when he lauded the entrepreneur as the life-blood of commercial society. The death of this type of character--a death that Schumpeter prematurely foretold--spelled the death of commercial society. Next time I teach a class on the critics of commercial society, I'm also going to quote this passage. Can a society survive, cohere, flourish, if this type of character came to predominate? Would it be an attractive place to live? I doubt that Adam Smith, a man with a fine appreciation of tranquillity, would think that it was.

Relaxing is for the other guy. I may be sitting in front of the TV, but I’m not watching it unless I think there is something I can learn from it. I’m thinking about things I can use in my business and the TV is just there.

I could take the time to read a fiction book, but I don’t. I would rather read websites, newspapers, magazines, looking for ideas and concepts that I can use. I spend time in bookstores because 1 idea from a book or magazine can make me money.

I’m not going to go to dinner with you just to chat. I’m not going to give you a call to see how you are. Unless you want to talk business. Other guys play fantasy sports. I fire the synapses to get an edge.

That’s what success is all about. I’ts about the edge.

It’s not who you know. It’s not how much money you have. It’s very simple. It’s whether or not you have the edge and have the guts to use it.

The edge is getting so jazzed about what you do, you just spent 24 hours straight working on a project and you thought it was a couple hours.

The edge is knowing that you have to be the smartest guy in the room when you have your meeting and you are going to put in the effort to learn whatever you need to learn to get there.

The edge is knowing is knowing that when the 4 girlfriends you have had in the last couple years asked you which was more important, them or your business, you gave the right answer.

The edge is knowing that you can fail and learn from it, and just get back up and in the game.

The edge is knowing that people think your crazy, and they are right, but you don’t care what they think.

The edge is knowing how to blow off steam a couple times a week, just so you can refocus on business

The edge is knowing that you are getting to your goals and treating people right along the way because as good as you can be, you are so focused that you need regular people around you to balance you and help you.

The edge is being able to call out someone on a business issue because you know you have done your homework.

The edge is recognizing when you are wrong, and working harder to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

The edge is being able to drill down and identify issues and problems and solve them before anyone knows they are there.

The edge is knowing that while everyone else is talking about nonsense like the will to win, and how they know they can be successful, you are preparing yourself to compete so that you will be successful.

That’s what makes business such an amazing sport. Everyone plays it. Everyone talks about how good they are or will be at it. Just a small percentage are.

Every single day someone has an idea. Every day someone talks about some business they want to start. Every day someone is out there starting a business whose entire goal is to beat the hell out of yours. How cool is that.

Every day some stranger from any where in the world that you have never met is trying to come up with a way to put you out of business. To take everything you have worked your ass off for, and take it all away. If you are in a growing industry, there could be hundreds or thousands of strangers trying to figure out ways to put you out of business. How cool is that.

The ultimate competition. Would you like to play a game called Eat Your Lunch. We are going to face off. My ability to execute on an idea vs yours. My ability to subvert your business vs your ability to keep it going. My ability to create ways to remove any reason for your business to exist vs your ability to do the same to me. My ability to know what you are going to do, before you do it. Who gets there first? Best of all, this game doesn’t have a time limit. It’s forever. It never ends. It’s the ultimate competition.

How to Stop the Rolling Maul

2005-04-04T03:18:00.000+02:00

Due to the miraculous powers of Google, the Dave Gwydion website is now the first port of call for anyone interested in Rugby Union's "Rolling Maul." I won't bore readers with the reasons--they can read them here. I was thus pleased to read that someone else--someone who actually knows something about the laws of rugby union--had the same idea of how to stop the rolling maul. The laws suggest that the old Arsenal-style offside trap would work quite nicely against this abomination to the game of rugby union--although some of the contributors to the Newcastle Falcons website remain quite skeptical. Anyway over to Duncan Madsen of Newcastle's Evening Chronicle:

As the laws currently stand, the advantage lies almost totally with the attacking side who are allowed to obstruct at will, while the defenders are denied any legitimate ploy of counter-acting as they cannot legally pull down or collapse the maul, nor come round the side of it to get at the ball carrier.

This is the only legalised form of obstruction allowed by referees - and the quicker the lawmakers of the International Rugby Board outlaw it the better.

Until they do, we shall witness more of the same as the big packs like Bath, Leicester and Saracens throw gay abandon to the winds in a bid to strangle their opponents - unless and until someone has the wit to put a stop to all this nonsense by using the laws as they currently stand to the defender's advantage.

To understand where I am coming from, a little knowledge of the laws themselves is required.

Law 22 states: `A maul, which can take place only in the field of play, is formed by one or more players from each team on their feet and in physical contact closing round a player who is carrying the ball.'

Please note the words `each team' because if players are from one team only are involved, it is not a maul, so the offside law does not apply and the law of obstruction does.

Law 26 (1) (b) states: `It is illegal for any player: who is in an off-side position willfully to run or stand in front of another player of his team who is carrying the ball, thereby preventing an opponent from reaching the latter player.'

So if instead of engaging their opponents at a lineout, the defending side back off one or two metres, a whole new scenario opens up.

The attacking pack can either go forward to engage their opponents but then the ball carrier must expose himself to be tackled. However, if he isn't and tucks himself behind as he would in a so-called rolling maul, it is obstruction - the old flying wedge - and under Law 26, the offenders must be penalised.

Equally, the other option open to the defending side would be to come round the side of their opponents wedge and tackle the ball-carrier as there is no offside line as there would be in a maul.

This is not tosh and I have put it to a top Premiership referee who confirms my interpretation in its entirety.

THE EU CONSTITUTION

2005-04-04T02:25:00.000+02:00

Let me recommend an excellent new website devoted to debates over the EU Constitution. I've just added my two cents to a debate sparked by Raphael Paour's comments on the appropriate "left-wing" perspective on this Constitution.

Your anti-EU Constitution argument rests upon the unwarranted assumption that a more integrated European market is at odds with “social justice” (or some other set of left-wing values). Let’s assume, however, that social justice involves, at a minimum, improving the material well-being of Europe’s poorest citizens—who, for the most part, are now to be found in Eastern and Central Europe. An integrated market will likely benefit these Europeans quite substantially. (This is why "leftists" ought to lend their support to Bolkestein's efforts to open up the market for services in Europe.) It is thus not clear why we “leftists” must reject the EU Constitution, especially since this Constitution, if properly implemented, might help dismantle the many local national monopolies and corporatist rent-seekers (pharmacists, for instance—ever tried buying a bottle of aspirins on the Continent?) that currently prevent Europe from developing a robust, globally competitive economy. Your type of “leftist” makes a great mistake in thinking that Europe’s poorest citizens need redistribution rather than economic growth. Clearly they need both. But they will get neither if people like you have their way.

There is a further problem with your argument: you seem to suggest that the EU Constitution privileges one economic philosophy (market liberalism) over others. But this is clearly false. The EU Constitution reads as if it were written by a fractious committee (I wonder why?). It contains a confused rambling compendium of contradictory economic commitments. Compare the following:

The Union shall offer its citizens an area of freedom, security, and justice without internal frontiers, and a single market where competition is free and undistorted. (Article 1-3: 2)

The Union shall work for a Europe of just development based on balanced economic growth, a social market economy, highly competitive and aiming at full employment and social progress.
(Article 1-3: 3)

If the EU Constitution fails in France (as you hope) and in Britain (as it most certainly will), this failure will in large part be due to these confused and contradictory commitments, which allow left and right eurosceptics to present the EU as, well, confused and contradictory.

UPDATE: here is Raphael's very revealing reply:

Thank you for your answer which is very interesting. You say:

“Let’s assume, however, that social justice involves improving the material well-being of Europe’s poorest citizens—who, for the most part, are now to be found in Eastern and Central Europe. An integrated market will likely benefit these Europeans quite substantially.”

Euan was making the same kind of point in explaining that in the UK, the social rights brought by European norms are an improvement.

So, let’s say that the question becomes: should we, in France, accept to lose some rights in order for others to gain some? It’s a difficult question for someone who isn’t nationalist and it’s true that put in those terms I wouldn’t know how to answer it.

Your remarks about the fact that the constitution contains contradictory economic commitments are also very true. But in my view that doesn’t matter too much because no matter what these types of very large provisions say, what counts are really the institutions that have the power to interpret and apply them. The institutions count much more than the general declaration of rights for what we likely happen to social rights. The power of the commission is therefore very problematic; I may be wrong but I don’t see it implementing very social policies.

Back in London

2005-03-17T02:34:00.001+01:00

It's good to be back in London. Grey and depressing though it is. I spent the day in London's wonderful Imperial War Museum, where I'm conducting archival research on the history of military costumes. I think I've got the makings of an "unputdownable" coffee-table book on the topic.

Back in London

2005-03-17T02:34:00.000+01:00

Dirk Hennig

2005-03-16T04:48:00.000+01:00

We now know that "Gustav Szathmary" was the invention-a brilliant invention, I would add (having invented a character or two myself)-of the mysterious artist Dirk Hennig.

Larry Summers Takes a Hit

2005-03-16T03:11:00.000+01:00

So the faculty at Harvard have voted (218-185) a lack of confidence in their esteemed leader. No doubt the press reports will get the story all wrong again. Here's the inside skinny from a friend on the faculty:

Dear Dave:

Thought you might be interested in today's vote. It was splendid theater--the faculty all packed into Loeb Drama Center on Brattle Street with a gaggle of reporters and cameramen outside. I arrived late and had to force my way past a bunch of them who tried to interview me. I was all set to vote against the motions of lack of confidence--a sweeping motion from Randy Matory and a more qualified one from Theda Skocpol. After a pathetic effort (probably orchestrated by our hapless Dean) to get the motions set aside on the grounds that they were "too divisive"--Stanley Hoffman nicely squelched that maneuver by arguing that if people didn't like the motions they could vote against them or abstain--we got down to business. I certainly expected both motions to fail. The trouble is that Larry's supporters are so politically inept and/or repellent. Basically the only people who got up to speak on his behalf were the economists, Steve Pinker, and the anti-PC right. The economists are rhetorically-challenged and no one likes them, so they weren't much help. (The most gifted speaker amongst the economists--a black conservative woman (don't know her name)--berated Larry at the last meeting for treating the faculty like shit.) This left right-wingers like Stephen Thernstrom and Ruth Wisse to carry the bag. I reckon they cost him thirty votes a piece. Thernstrom charged Larry's critics with "McCarthyism." He then managed to piss-off all the women by criticizing Nancy Hopkins and poo-pooing the idea that women scientists at Harvard are made to feel "vulnerable." Then up pops Ruth Wisse to blame all of Larry's troubles on the politically-correct left who wish to curtail academic freedom of speech. She quoted a great gobload of John Stuart Mill's On Liberty at us. (I wondered at the time why she didn't choose something from one of Mill's speeches censuring Governor Eyre, a man of not dissimilar temperament to our President.) Finally, Steve Pinker took the mike to tell us that Larry's critics were voting to reject the "truths" of science. By this stage, I'd decided that I wasn't voting on the same side as that lot. Their arguments all missed the point. Harvard faculty--despite what a lot of right-wing loonies outside Harvard believe--are not that PC. Most people object to Larry either because they think he's an arrogant prick who deserves to be taken down a peg, or because they think he's funnelling money in the wrong direction. A lot of junior faculty in the humanities and social sciences, for instance, voted against him simply because they're sick of earning 50,000 bucks in a job where there's little hope of tenure, no affordable childcare, and they can't pay Cambridge rents. The vote was taken and to everyone's amazement the motion passed. So what happens now? I don't think anything will change. Larry's going to promise to transform his personality (fat chance). But I suspect he will lie low for a few months, let the hapless Dean do something for a while, and then plus ça change baby...

And here's the perfectly reasonable opinion of Lubos Motl who voted the other way from my correspondent.

A Tale of Two Airlines

2005-03-15T03:39:00.000+01:00

I had to take two long flights last week. One on Alaskan Airlines and one on Nortwestern Airlines. I've long had a deep dislike for Northwest. In my extensive experience-I once lived in one of their hub cities-their planes were the oldest; their Flight Attendants (FA's) the ugliest; and their In-Flight Entertainment (IFE) the poorest. It richly deserved its reputation as "Northworst Airlines." Alaskan Airlines, in contrast, has an excellent reputation. I was thus dreading my long transatlantic flight from Amsterdam, and looking forward to my Alaskan Airlines flight to the West Coast. Boy, was I wrong.

Alaskan Airlines, I discovered, does not deign to serve its transcontinental passengers anything resembling a full meal. All we got on a 6 hour flight was a crappy sandwich. The IFE comes as a small portable DVD player that costs 10 bucks. But the particular feature of the Airline that pissed me off was the little Christian verse they include on each meal tray. I know this is America, where God-fearing zealots control the government. But inflicting Christianity on a captive audience of fee-paying passengers is just too much.

Northwest Airlines has finally bought some new planes. The planes they run on their domestic routes are still for the most part cruddy. But my transatlantic flight from Amsterdam was on a new A330 Airbus. More importantly. Northwest now has the best IFE currently available in Coach. You get to choose from about a dozen movies that you can play, pause, and rewind at your own pleasure. The wine was free; and the food wasn't bad either.

UPDATE: Here's some more from a column in Salon last year on Alaskan Airlines' Infliction of Christianity:

If you're inclined to send a complaint Alaska's way, be prepared for the following:

"The meal prayer card has been a simple tradition on our flights for over 20 years. The quotes have application across many Judeo-Christian beliefs and are shared as a gesture of thanks which reflect the beliefs of this country's founding as in the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, Pledge of Allegiance and every U.S. coin and dollar you handle. Alaska Airlines is an international carrier with very diverse customers, and we have no intentions of offending anyone or their beliefs. An overwhelming majority of our customers have indicated they appreciate the gesture, and those who don't are not forced to read it. We do appreciate hearing from you, and look forward to welcoming you on board another flight in the future."

The Joys of Bremen: Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler and Gustav Szathmary

2005-03-13T17:47:00.000+01:00

Just spent the weekend in Bremen on some travel industry related junket. You wouldn't think that a wet weekend in Bremen had much to recommend it. You'd be wrong. Bremen (about an hour south of Hamburg and an hour north of Hannover)is a city of about 650,000 people with a pretty decent football team (Werder Bremen), a great wooded park in the City Centre (Burger Park), a spectacular C16 Town Hall, and--best of all--a couple of very good art museums. The most interesting of these two museums is the Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum in Bottcherstrasse--a passageway off the Marktplatz. Most of the paintings are those of Paula Modersohn Becker herself. These are fine, if a bit derivative. Much more interesting are the paintings and drawings of Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler (1899-1940) and the photographs of Gustav Szathmary (who was Modersohn Becker's lover). Chris Bertram has, I see, written something interesting and valuable about Szathmary. But Lohse Wächtler is equally deserving of more attention, particularly if you are interested in German expressionism. Many of her drawings--some graphically sexual in nature--focus on the life of prostitutes in Hamburg's red-light district. Lohse Wächtler led a brief and tragic life. Throughout the 1930's, she was in and out of psychiatric hospital. She was forcibly sterilized in 1935 and in 1940 was murdered by the Nazis in their "T4" euthanasia program. Her work remains on display at the Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum until April 3 2005. It's well worth a visit.

The Rolling Maul and the Laws of Rugby Union

2005-02-21T17:47:00.000+01:00

Dr. Bleddyn Jones (Maesteg), the Dept.'s resident Welshman and leading expert on inter alia the history of military latrines, initiated a discussion at the departmental coffee hour this morning on the upcoming Six Nations Rugby matches--Wales play France at Paris next Saturday, England play Ireland at Dublin. Dr Bleddyn Jones (Maesteg) has been full of himself these days, because Wales have been playing well. A rarity apparently. In the course of the morning discussion, I pointed out what I believe to be a serious flaw in the laws of rugby. It concerns the "Rolling Maul." I've posted before on how a few changes in the laws of soccer (or football, as the British insist) and the laws of fox-hunting could improve those sports. Rugby seems to me to be in need of a similar fix.

For those who don't know much about rugby, the simple description is that it's like NFL football, except (i) you can't pass the ball forward, (ii) you can only tackle with arms (thus padding is neither allowed nor needed); and (iii) you can't oggle the cheerleaders, because there aren't any. The axiom of rugby--and that which makes it such an exciting spectacle--is that noone can be in front of the ball without being "offside." This leads to sweeping movements from one side of the field to the other with the ball constantly being passed backwards. It's a great game.

The rolling maul, however, contradicts the axiom of rugby, because it allows a team to bind together in front of the ball carrier. I'm not the only one to think that "the rolling maul" ought to go. The correspondent of Rugby Heaven (an Australian publication unfortunately behind a subscription wall) calls it "the last refuge of Neanderthal rugby that once dominated the game." He goes on to add:

Rolling mauls may be beautiful to tight forwards (past and present) and other ironheads, but they are ugly spectacles, especially for the uninitiated, and they are ugly for the game. In rugby, it is illegal for a player to "shepherd", or stand between the ball-carrier and the tackler. But shepherding is the essence of the rolling maul, which can rumble on and on because the defenders simply can't get their hands on the player with the ball.

If someone pulls the whole ugly edifice to the ground he is penalised. If a defender hits the deck, he becomes the rugby equivalent of road kill. Forwards built like beer barrels, with as much attacking flair, can hog the ball, leaning on each other, while slowly rutting in the general direction of the goalposts.

My worry is that in the current Six Nations tournament "the rolling maul" has been perfected by the least imaginative teams--Bernard Laporte's current embarrassingly pedestrian French team, for instance. The Irish also rely on "the rolling maul" a lot. They used it to beat a superior Welsh team last year. My worry is that the rolling maul will always work to the disadvantage of the more adventurous attacking teams like the Welsh.

Short of the legal abolition of the rolling maul, I think that the way to defend against it is for the defending front row on some prearranged signal to disengage en masse from the maul--in the rugby equivalent of the old Arsenal offside trap--and by doing so play all the people at the front of the maul offside. My colleagues in the Dept. of Peace and War studies were skeptical. Some think that under the current laws this would simply allow the team with the ball to continue binding together and march unopposed towards the tryline. Geoffrey ("Reader in Peace Studies") is popping over to Foyle's on the way home tonight to buy a copy of the latest "The Laws of Rugby Union," so that we can check the precise wording of the law. Others (including Dr. Bleddyn Jones [Maesteg]) think that my proposed offside trap wouldn't work, because the defending front row wouldn't be able to disengage from the attacking front row. Using the departmental teapot, we conducted an impromptu, if disappointingly inconclusive, experiment in the corridor. I now owe the department a new teapot.

Déformation Professionnelle

2005-02-21T17:07:00.001+01:00

I received a lot of outraged emails after that last post. People claimed I was being unfair--to "breeders," "economists," "sacred cows" etc. Let me add a couple of qualifications. Was I right to pick on economists for their arrogance?. Yes and no. I do think that in the modern academy, economists are generally the most unpleasant, socially-unskilled, and arrogant people. (Larry Summers is, I suspect, in hot water with his Harvard colleagues more for these traits than anything he said about women in science depts.) But I don't think that these are the worst faults. The redeeming feature of economists is that they like to argue and never (or at least rarely) get offended when you disagree with them. Indeed, they encourage and expect disagreement. The worst people in academia are the insecure. People who take offense when you disagree with them. These people tend to congregate in disciplines whose intellectual foundations are rather fragile. Political Scientists are, I think, among the worst here, because their entire discipline seems to be constructed out of authoritative figureheads (what would Marx, Weber, Rawls, Putnam, Waltz say about [fill in subject]?), typologies, and jargon. I know a few people from Grad School, who got booted out of the Political Science program for disagreeing with their Professors' pet "theory." I suspect that this happens much less in economics and history.

The Harvard President Larry Summers Brouhaha: A Guide For British Academics

2005-02-19T19:49:00.001+01:00

The departmental coffee hour at London's Peace and War Studies Dept. has been dominated of late by a debate over the merits (or not) of Larry Summers' speech on the underrepresentation of women in science and engineering. As the resident Yank in the department, I've been on the spot to explain how American academia functions. There are, I think, three general background factors worth keeping in mind: (i) the sacred cows of the Ivy League academy; (ii) the status of Larry Summers as an intellectual provocateur; and (iii) the intellectual standards of economics.

SACRED COWS

Having been an Ivy League Professor for a few years, I've been socialized into a particular academic sub-culture--"a politically correct mainstream," if you prefer--that places certain ideas beyond the pale of rational debate. Raise these ideas only at the price of grave professional danger. Idea (i) work trumps pleasure. Idea (ii) intellectual ability does not track gender or race. Idea (iii) Israel is a worthy recipient of unqualified US support. (In my own case, for what it's worth, socialization has beeen quite effective. I endorse all three ideas, even if I have some misgivings about (i) and would prefer it if all three could be opened for debate without provoking a shitstorm.)

It's against the background of these sacred cows that Larry's remarks must be understood. Initially, the controversy centered on his attack on (ii). Clearly, Larry has been spending too much time in the company of Steve "Blank Slate" Pinker and now shares some very controversial "intuitions" about the "innate abilities" of men and women. If Larry were an ordinary academic--like Steve Pinker--these "intuitions" would be merely eccentric, but he's no ordinary academic. People are, I think, legitimately anxious about a University President with such "intuitions," especially since these "intuitions" are likely--or at least would have been likely, prior to this particular shitstorm-- to color his response to the under-representation of women in Harvard's science and engineering depts.

Now that we have the transcripts of the NBER talk, attention has shifted away from idea (ii) towards idea (i). Here I think Larry holds fairly conventional views. Everyone in an Ivy League institution is something of a workaholic. Hedonism is much the most unpopular and controversial "-ism" in such places. (Just try yelling down the departmental corridor, "LET'S ALL GO CLUBBING" and see what response you get.) The sole exception to the tyranny of work concerns, what Larry termed, "legitimate family desires." For some reason, Ivy League academies give "breeders" special treatment--extended tenure clocks for parents (male and female), hand-outs for tuition fees etc. In our dept., we have to have faculty meetings at "family-friendly" times--i.e. at ungodly hours of the morning. The family-oriented feminists who have attacked Larry have failed to notice that on this issue he's one of them. (I am yet to hear a good argument that justifies the privileging of "family desires" over other allegedly less important "hedonistic" desires. But that's a topic for another post.)

INTELLECTUAL PROVOCATEUR

I'm all for intellectual provocation, but the idea--put forward by Larry's defenders--that he's some fearless intellectual iconoclast is quite laughable. As I've already noted, he endorses sacred cow (i) and he rejects sacred cow (ii). On sacred cow (iii), he's something of a zealot. Thus in Sept 2002, he said that he thought that critics of Israel were guilty of anti-semitism "in effect if not intent." This sacred-cow affirming comment led Theda Skocpol at the faculty meeting last Tuesday to accuse him--quite legitimately, I think--of making remarks in his NBER speech that were sexist "in effect if not intent." These modes of unpleasant ad hominem exchange are a direct consequence of "sacred cowdom." It would be better if universities had no such untouchable topics. Rational inquiry ought to roam freely--even so far as to cover the history of US support for Israel.

INTELLECTUAL STANDARDS OF ECONOMICS

For any non-economist, the most striking feature of Larry's comments on the released transcript is their low intellectual calibre. Remember, he is speaking from notes on an issue he claims to have thought a lot about. I'm not surprised he didn't initially want the transcripts released. It'is thus quite puzzling to find many economists (Claudia Goldin, Larry Katz, Ed Glaeser etc.) pat Larry on the arse for his intellectual brilliance, courage, and candor. Goldin, for instance, claims that Larry's talk displayed "utter brilliance." In God's name, why? Reading over the remarks, nothing comes through more clearly than a sense that here is someone who knows little about the topic at hand and lacks the right sort of smarts either to pose the relevant questions or to distinguish valid from specious arguments. All academics have their own déformation professionnelle--we historians are terrible pedants--but none more so than economists. Many of Larry's faults are the characteristic faults of economists: overweening arrogance, a wholly misplaced sense of their own intelligence, and an unwarranted confidence in their own reductive models. An eminent physicist who knows Larry well, once told me that Larry's very good at weighing two measurable variables, but he cannot handle the complex systems that "real scientists" confront. In support of this point of view, it is revealing to take a look--as one of Brad DeLong's commentators suggested--at the writings of the Harvard Physicist Howard Georgi, who unlike Larry understands the issues and--on the evidence of these writings--possesses a finer more discriminating mind.

UPDATE: Among the most interesting blog discussions of this brouhaha, see Brad deLong's (cited above), Kieran Healey (Crooked Timber), and Mark Kleiman, and Bitch Ph.D.--and a couple more--Elizabeth Anderson and Matt Yglesias.

A Crap Shag

2005-02-12T00:22:00.000+01:00

Sitting in a pub in Oxford yesterday waiting for Chris Brooke--the bugger was late--I listened in to the conversation of half a dozen British students at the next table. I heard an unfamiliar use of language--the words "crap" and "rubbish" as all purpose adjectives. "Ulysses" was dismissed by one of them as "a rubbish book." The students then discussed the extraordinary misfortune of a friend who had recently lost his virginity to his longstanding girlfriend. The following day, she dumped him on the grounds that he was "a crap shag." We live in a harsh and unforgiving world.

My Word of the Year: Extraordinary Rendition

2005-01-12T23:18:00.000+01:00

The linguists are meeting in Oakland, a wonderful place for a conference, to select 'word of the year': 'wardrobe malfunction,' 'reality-based,' 'Santorum,' 'improperly-sourced' were among the candidates. My choice: 'rendition.' Both the term and the practice reveal just how far we have sunk beneath liberal-democratic standards of decency in the conduct of our ill-fated 'war on terrorism.' The term itself is a piece of legal bureaucratic gobbledeegook designed to obscure the shameful practice it names: secretly dispatching some alleged terrorist into the clutches of foreign torturers. (For an account of what it involves, see the cases of Maher Arar (more here) or Mamdouh Habib or Khaled el Masri.) It would be satisfying to pin this practice on Bush. But it was introduced under the Clinton administration and has involved the cooperation of a number of European governments (including Britain, Sweden, and Germany.)