Politics

American Sniper: Rough Men and the revulsion of the Pappataci

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In Rossini’s comic opera L’italiana in Algeri (The Italian Girl in Algiers) the heroine, Isabella, engineers the escape of the heroes from the harem of the Turkish Bey Mustafà by convincing the credulous Bey that he has been inducted into the Italian order of the Pappataci. The pappataci is described as the ultimate expression of Italian sophistication; an order of men devoted to chasing women, eating, drinking and making merry. In other words, a man that treats luxury as an end in and of itself.

A very worthy movie that has prompted some very unworthy criticism.

 

Now, why mention this? Because over the weekend the movie American Sniper going into wide release occasioned a little clash between our own class of pappataci and those Rough Men who, (as the sentiment attributed to Orwell), stand ready to do violence on our behalf. Reflections on the life of war hero Chris Kyle;

Which, in fairness, still beat the crass racial angle of this Huffington Post contributor;

And, just to make his feelings completely clear,

Now, to be fair, there is a lot going on, and the above were scarcely alone in their dislike for American Sniper. What they have is a certain similarity, a certain mode of thought that brings to mind the pappataci and his purposeful indolence. The pappataci seeks to cast off care, worry and responsibility and luxuriate, to become, in a sense, a child again. So much of the criticism of American Sniper hinges on this child-like approach:  it is the men who serve our country that are the real brutes, the real villains. At The New Republic they are so sure Chris Kyle isn’t a hero they publish a movie review by a man that hasn’t seen the movie (not kidding). The Penn State professor(!) who dismissed American Sniper after viewing the trailer alone chides the fans of Chief Petty Officer (CPO) Kyle saying,

For him, the enemy are savages and despicably evil. His only regret is that he didn’t kill more. He laments that there were rules of engagement, or ROE, which he describes as being drafted by lawyers to protect generals from politicians. He argues instead for letting warriors loose to fight wars without their hands tied behind their backs.

In other words, Chris Kyle articulated exactly the sort of truths that the pappataci cannot endure hearing: that we are at war with loathsome, vile men and that our fighting forces are ill served by the restrictive, political rules of engagement they are saddled with. This rankles the pappataci: they look at a news headline like “Boko Haram Appears to Be Using Abducted Girls as Suicide Bombers” and accuses men like CPO Kyle of being insufficiently sad for killing such men, for not having enough “moral anxiety”… as if a lack of moral certainty in the face of evil is a virtue, rather then a failing. That’s not quite true, they are quite sure that “[t]he real American Sniper was a hate-filled killer”, as an opinion piece is titled at the Guardian.

How is it possible that a man that spent his life in service to both his country and his countrymen, who so enthusiastically answered President Kennedy’s call “what can you do for your country”? Resentment, I think, explains a very great deal: the pappataci, after all, contributes nothing but consumes everything. There is a simple, and painful, truth at play here: these men that embrace luxury become like luxury: an addition rather then an essential.  As the phrase oft attributed to Orwell goes: “people sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” No one sleeps peacefully beneath the blanket of protection provided by the Micheal Moore’s or Seth Rogan’s of the world, nor are these protestations on behalf of “brown people” likely to engender much camaraderie.

Once upon a time this was different, for in ages past Hollywood and popular culture sold heroism, real heroism, without shame;

Sergent York, Hero of the Great War and devout Christian.

There can be no doubt in the world of the fact of the divine power being in that. No other power under heaven could bring a man out of a place like that. Men were killed on both sides of me; and I was the biggest and the most exposed of all. Over thirty machine guns were maintaining rapid fire at me, point-blank from a range of about twenty-five yards. When you have God behind you, you can come out on top every time.

Sergeant Alvin York

For a moment, let’s try an imagine what the pappataci of today would say had they lived in the time of Sergeant York.

Then again, maybe this fellow has the right of things…

Obama beats a path for the Devil

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Tonight President Obama addressed the nation, and while the judgement of history will reveal if this is a mild exercise of executive power or an unbridled assumption of an imperial air by the president, one thing is certain: the president placed as much, if not more, emphasis on the moral case as the legal one. Yes, one may point out that he has only the loosest understanding of the biblical precedent he appealed to, and that he didn’t so much make a moral case as simply assert that his actions were moral, it remains that he couched his actions in the idea of “doing right”.

I think the best evaluation of whether doing “good” or following the law is preferable is this clip, from A Man For All Seasons;

The most important exchange;

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!

Even if we are to grant that President Obama is acting in good faith (an uncertain position to be sure), his decision tonight will have consequences long after he has left office. Consequences that I think it very likely we will come to regret.

The Ebola problem isn’t the Ebola, it’s the politics

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The recent incidents of Ebola virus infections in the United States have prompted something of a crisis, but not a crisis as other outbreaks before: our present crisis is of confidence, not necessarily fear of infections.

Most damaged has been the reputation of the CDC and its head, Dr. Tom Frieden;

CDC director Tom Frieden holds press conference on Ebola, October 5, 2014

Simply put, when a person wearing the mantle of Scientist/Physician says things like;

“Though we might wish we can seal ourselves off from the world, there are Americans who have the right of return and many other people that have the right to enter this country,” Dr. Thomas Frieden told a press conference. “We’re not going to be able to get to zero risk no matter what we do unless we control the outbreak in West Africa.”

The argument of “zero risk” is a giant red flag for anyone even passingly familiar with medicine; it’s a political term used to provide plausible cover for not taking an action, in this case, enacting a travel ban. Consider, for example, that never touching a cigarette does not reduce your risk of lung cancer to zero. If we were to apply the logic Dr. Frieden espouses, why should a physician discourage a patient from smoking? It will not reduce your risk to zero.

The answer is, of course, that not smoking or quitting smoking has a substantial and positive increase in your health. The idea that people shouldn’t quit smoking because their risk will not go to zero is silly… yet this is the logic the head of the CDC promulgates. Scientists and physicians speak in terms of risks and rewards, benefits and trade-offs: ceasing or restricting the number of people coming from West Africa would not reduce the risk to zero. But!

  • Restricting ports of entry would allow concentration of personnel,
  • Concentrating personnel allows for concentration of expertise,
  • Reducing volume of incoming travelers increases man-hours of safety personnel per traveler,
  • Increasing man-hours per traveler allows systems to perform differently: health monitoring systems that would be overwhelmed with 1000 visitors per day may perform fine with 10 or 20 per day.

Now, there may be perfectly reasonable drawbacks to any of these hypothetical benefits (then again, some of them already seem to be happening), but we’re not having that discussion. Instead we’re having a discussion that leads one to conclude that “[t]he public-health profession is more committed to social justice than to sound science“, and an administration with little approval burns through yet more of the public’s confidence.

At the same time we’ve also seen some astonishing partisan attacks to go along with the flailing of the administration. While Ebola is very unlikely to become a major health hazard in the US, that doesn’t change the basic nature of the virus. So it’s especially disturbing to see political partisans in the media tear into Senator Rand Paul (one of the few MDs in Congress) for stating basic medical facts;

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky) reportedly put on his scientist hat this morning, telling CNN’s Ashley Killough that Ebola is more easily spread than AIDS–a statement that is an irresponsible, flat out lie.

You’ll be shocked to discover that Mother Jones is… pretty much completely wrong, and Dr. Paul pretty much right (or, at least, he was using the CDC’s own recommendations). This can be simply and easily understood with the following practical advice;

A person that wished to engage in sexual relations with a significant other infected by HIV/AIDS needs the following,

A sense of humor and some care would also be advised.

A person that wished to engage in sexual relations with a significant other infected by Ebola needs the following,

Also needed: a very liberal interpretation of the word “sex”.
Ebola is not the 1918 flu (*fingers crossed*). But we are poorly served when the people that need to be above politics are consumed by politics, and even worse served when the media abandons it’s own good sense.