Ph.D. Octopus

By Wiz

This is a bit off subject for this blog, but I just noticed asshole bowtie model conservative commentator Tucker Carlson calling for the execution of Michael Vick because of his dog fighting past. This isn’t much of an original point, but as a vegetarian can I point out the insane hypocrisy in our society when it comes to these issues.

To me it’s a perfectly coherent and reasonable position to believe that animals, by and large, do not deserve moral consideration. This is Descartes’ position, and he wasn’t a stupid guy. There are a lot of very smart theories of ethics that privilege the human subject for one reason or another (reason, social compacts, language, etc…) and, though I disagree with them, I have no problem with people who hold these positions.

And it’s also perfectly coherent to say that animals, by and large, deserve moral consideration. For a couple of reasons, this is my position. And thus I don’t think we should eat, for instance, pigs, which might not be as cute as dogs but are just as smart, and cuteness is not a good reason for valuing something’s life.

But its incoherent to say that causing pain and death to certain animals is a capital offense, while causing pain and death to other animals is perfectly ok.

(And before anyone says it, the nutritional value of eating animals is not a good response. The vast majority of us can lead perfectly healthy, in fact probably healthier, lives without eating meat. In 99% of situations we eat meat for the pleasure it gives us, just as Michael Vick fought dogs for the pleasure it gave him.)

I would suggest that our anger at Michael Vick is actually evidence of our own self-centeredness when it comes to moral issues. Peter Singer calls this, in what is surely the worst neologism ever, speciesism, a belief that species, in itself, is a good ground for granting or denying moral consideration. Ultimately, most Americans are distressed by dog fighting because we are used to dogs in our everyday life. They’re cute and pleasant and snuggle up with us. So when we think about dogs dying we get upset, because we imagine the dogs we know. Their moral worth, then, is not intrinsic, but tied to our feelings about them. Michael Vick’s real crime wasn’t killing animals but indirectly making us sad and upset, because we were forced to imagine the death of animals that we like. For whatever cultural and personal reasons, most of us don’t become upset when we think about pigs dying, even if factory farm regimes almost certainly subject them to greater suffering than Michael Vick’s dogs ever experienced.

Now it actually isn’t crazy to say that it should be illegal to do something that causes mental pain to people. Ancient art has no inherent moral value (a statue of Buddha or a Renaissance painting does not feel pain, has no hopes for its future, etc…) but we understand that destroying it would cause mental suffering to people who get emotional or artistic comfort from the art. But surely this is a lower crime than actually killing a person. After all, Darwin caused a lot of mental pain to some Christians. Surely biology should not therefore be illegal. And, if the indirect mental pain caused to humans was Vick’s real crime, than the true villains were those in the media who advertised what Vick did, since had people not known about Vick’s dog-fighting they never would have gotten upset about it.

Which is all to say, I suggest most people dial down the self-righteousness against Michael Vick, unless it forces them into an intellectual position they weren’t prepared for.

Oh… and Tucker Carlson is a moron. That’s the other point.

by Weiner

It was not long after Filipino congressman and champion boxer Manny Pacquiao defeated Antonio Margarito in a masterful 12-round unanimous decision that somebody decided to play the race card.

In boxing, this sort of thing is inevitable. The sport has long been racially charged, perhaps most famously when Jack Johnson fought Jim Jeffries in Reno, Nevada in 1910. Much of the American public imagined Jeffries as “The Great White Hope.”  Johnson dashed those hopes, brutally battering his opponent for 15 rounds until Jeffries’ corner called it quits and riots erupted across the country (often simply in response to blacks celebrating in the streets), killing 23 African Americans and two white people.  The story of Jack Johnson has achieved legendary status, immortalized in a 1967 play, The Great White Hope, starring a young James Earl Jones, and later in Ken Burns’ documentary Unforgivable Blackness.

That story, of course, extended far beyond the ring. Johnson broke many racial taboos of his time, most infamously in his very public relationships with white women. He played upon stereotypes to suit his purposes, purportedly even wrapping his penis in gauze underneath his shorts to make it appear bigger. Johnson’s effect on American conceptions of race and masculinity is best explored in Gail Bederman’s introduction to her excellent study, Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917.

The story of race and boxing doesn’t stop there. As NYU historian Jeffrey Sammons chronicles in his Beyond the Ring: The Role of Boxing in American Society, discussion of race played a huge role in the career of Joe Louis, the first Black heavyweight champion after Johnson, and of course in the life Muhammad Ali, perhaps the most famous athlete who ever lived.

Today, racial discourse in boxing usual surrounds the action inside the ring. We live in strange times for spectators of the “sweet science.” The demographics of fighters and fans has shifted dramatically. Boxing has always been popular among American immigrants. Every young Jewish schlemiel who aspired to some sort of masculine ideal has devoured books like The Jewish Boxer’s Hall of Fame or When Boxing was a Jewish Sport. In the beginning of the 20th century the sport was especially popular among Irish, Jewish and Italian immigrants, as many fighters of that era drew the colour line and refused to box against African-Americans, especially after the “Great White Hope” affair. At this time, boxing was the second most popular sport in America, after baseball, the national pastime.

With the rise of Joe Louis, African Americans began to achieve prominence in the sport in greater numbers. After WW2, Jewish participation in boxing fell off dramatically, though other white ethnics, especially Italians, continued to succeed, most famously Rocky Marciano. For this reason, the image of the Italian fighter resonated enough to make the 1975 Oscar-winning movie Rocky so successful.  By the 1960s, however, Blacks dominated most weight classes. This began to change, though, as Latinos earned championships, especially at the lighter weights. In the 1980s, though Mike Tyson ruled the heavyweight class and Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler and Tommy Hearns all achieved stardom, fighters like Roberto Duran and Alexis Arguello ushered in a wave of Latino champions. In the 1990s, many Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, along with Puerto Ricans and Cuban defectors, entered the ranks of boxing’s best. Boxing in the United States remained an immigrant sport, but the immigrants had changed.

Still, African Americans dominated much of boxing, like they came to dominate baseball, and to an even greater extent football, basketball and track and field. Scholars reached for scientific explanations. Books like John Hoberman’s 1997 volume Darwin’s Athletes: How Sport has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race takes a historical and cultural perspective, while Jon Ensine’s 1999 work, Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We’re Afraid to Talk About It, tackles the “science” more directly, concluding that a combination of biology and culture has led to Black athletic success. While Ensine’s conclusions are controversial and questionable, his contribution to the dialogue on this “taboo” issue is extremely valuable. To this day, when we see the runners line up for the 100 meter dash in the Olympics, most of us can predict accurately that the top three sprinters will be people of African origin. Why this is deserves to be studied.

In boxing, however, things are a bit different. Today, the fight game is not nearly as popular as it once was to the broader American public, but it remains extremely popular among Hispanics. And while African Americans once dominated the heavyweight class to such an extent that it was mocked in the 1996 parody, The Great White Hype, now the sport’s glamour division is ruled by two Ukrainian giants, the brothers Vladimir and Vitali Klitschko. Great Black athletes who weigh over 200 pounds are turning to football and basketball, and to a lesser extent baseball, where there is more money, less risk, and the possibility of getting a college education through athletic scholarships. The integration and growing popularity of America’s other major sports sounded the death knell for boxing’s prominence in American life. In a sense, Jackie Robinson killed the African American heavyweight, though he died a slow, illustrious death, and lived long enough to give the United States Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Larry Holmes, and Mike Tyson, among many other greats.

At the lower weights, however, things remain different. If you’re a great athlete, but only 5’5” and 125 pounds, your options are pretty limited if you want to make money in sports. Boxing may be your best or even only route. Indeed, this is probably true for men under 6 feet tall and 175 pounds, with some exceptions among middle infielders and point guards, and maybe the odd running back or tennis player. And so while Latinos (from the US and elsewhere) and now Asians and Europeans are an enormous presence in the ring, Black fighters in the lower weight classes still win championships, none more famously than Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Mayweather, aka “Pretty Boy Floyd,” aka Floyd “Money” Mayweather,” may be the best pound-for-pound fight in the world. The only other candidate is Pacman, Manny Pacquaio. Mayweather has already hurled ethnic slurs at Pacquaio, making fun of Manny’s Filipino heritage. Mayweather also may have beaten his ex-girlfriend. Leaving that aside (which, I recognize, is a lot to ask), many believe a fight between these two men, despite their relatively small size, could be the biggest boxing match in years. Both men stand to make millions from it. Unfortunately, they’ve had trouble agreeing on drug testing specifics before the fight. Most observers agree that Mayweather seems to be the one ducking Pacquaio, though at this point his legal troubles might derail the whole thing even if the two boxers do come to an agreement.

If they were to fight, however, who would win? Bernard “The Executioner” Hopkins, aka B-Hop, the Philadelphia fighter and former middleweight champion, clearly favours Floyd. Why? Because of his race.

“Floyd Mayweather would beat Manny Pacquiao because the styles that African-American fighters — and I mean, black fighters from the streets or the inner cities — would be successful,” said Hopkins, according to Fanhouse.com. “I think Floyd Mayweather would pot-shot Pacquiao and bust him up in between the four-to-five punches that Pacquiao throws and then set him up later on down the line.”

Interestingly, Hopkins does not attribute Mayweather’s advantage to any biological or genetic superiority. Essentially, his strength is one of culture. For as the article notes:

Pacquiao fought and defeated Joshua Clottey of Ghana earlier this year, but Hopkins discounted that win, saying “Clottey is ‘black,’ but not a ‘black boxer’ from the states with a slick style.”

Hopkins also said this:

“Maybe I’m biased because I’m black, but I think that this is what is said at people’s homes and around the dinner table among black boxing fans and fighters. Most of them won’t say it [in public] because they’re not being real and they don’t have the balls to say it,” said Hopkins, a 45-year-old future Hall of Famer and a multi-division champion. “Listen, this ain’t a racial thing, but then again, maybe it is,” said Hopkins. “But the style that is embedded in most of us black fighters, that style could be a problem to any other style of fighting.”

So Joshua Clottey, from Ghana, doesn’t have it, though it’s “embedded” in most Black fighters. This a new, and interesting form of racial essentialism. It’s the same kind of rationale behind the argument that China will never produce a great point guard, because Chinese basketball players don’t develop the toughness that African American guards practicing on inner city playgrounds do. Is there any truth to this? Who knows? I do agree with the ESPN commentators that it is strange and surprising that Pacquiao has never faced an African American opponent. But I also agree that this has nothing to do with race.

In any case, I’m not sure if these race and sports questions can be answered. But I do want to see Pacquiao and Mayweather fight. Lord knows I’ll be rooting for Pacman, and not because of his race, but because he’s a class act and Mayweather’s a criminal and a dick. Also, I think Pacquiao should be the underdog, and I always root for the underdog.

Who do I think would/will win? I think Mayweather will be much harder to hit than Margarito was. Mayweather is a defense master and he hates getting hit. Pacquiao has incredibly fast hands, but they used to say that about Oscar de la Hoya until he came up against Shayne Mosley and Mayweather, both of whom were faster. I think Mayweather might have faster hands than Manny as well. I also think Floyd’s punching power is underrated. Though he’s not a brawler, he can punch.

At the same time, Pacquiao hits very hard, and he will eventually hit Mayweather. I don’t think the strategy he used against the bigger Margarito, in-and-out, pot-shot from different angles, will work against Floyd. He’ll have to crowd him, stay busy, stay on him, go to the body. I still think Floyd probably wins by decision or late stoppage. But then again, Manny has surprised fans over and over again. He started his career at flyweight, and now has won a junior middleweight belt, beating a guy who weighed over 165 pounds on fight night. Manny was able to hurt Margarito, so he will definitely be able to hurt Floyd. I don’t see Manny winning a decision, but just maybe he knocks Mayweather out. If he does that, he may be the greatest fighter of all time.

by Weiner

Ken Burns, every amateur history buff’s favourite film-maker, and every historian’s least favourite film-maker, is at it again, this time with a “Tenth Inning” to Baseball. I have to admit I’m excited. As a young boy, I watched Baseball not once, not twice, but four times. That’s four times eighteen and a half hours. That’s a lot of PBS documentary. We even pledged and I got myself a Ken Burns’ Baseball t-shirt. In college, I saw Burns speak about history and film-making, and they played an incredibly moving clip from Baseball, when Hank Aaron hit homerun number 715 to break Babe Ruth’s record, and I cried.

Of course, I had also really liked The Civil War. I thought the movie was absolutely beautiful, the incredible panning over those superb images, with amazing songs like “Ashokan Farewell.” The whole thing seemed so grand, so epic.

Now that I’m in grad school though, studying American history, I’ve learned that I’m supposed to hate Ken Burns. He didn’t pay enough attention to slavery, or African Americans, or women. Made the Union and the Confederacy seem like moral equals. And lots of other stuff that made historians like Eric Foner angry. There’s a whole book about this.

I know some critics didn’t like Unforgivable Blackness, Burns’ film about boxer Jack Johnson, arguing that it downplayed Johnson’s criminal domestic abuse. I recognize the criticism, but still found the film compelling.

Which is why I was surprised–pleasantly surprised–in reading history and Civil War buff Ta-Nehisi Coates’ post about “The Tenth Inning,” to learn that he admits to having “long loved” The Civil War, even if Burns’ “iteration of history is too pretty.” And Coates is watching it again, for the “seven-hundredth time,” and he still loves it.

What do you all think? I know I really want to see “The Tenth Inning.”

By Wiz

Once again, Octopi are cooler than the animal you named your blog after. This time: an octopus which is predicting the World Cup games. Correctly.

It does raise the question: who thought to themselves, “well I really want to know who will win the World Cup… And I’ve got this Octopus lying around…. Let’s see what he thinks about whether Germany or England will win.”

I guess the answer, as in so much in life, is that British people are weird.

More pictures here.

by Weiner

In a recent Sports Illustrated piece, Selena Roberts compared Tiger Woods to Barry Bonds. But that comparison didn’t sit will with me. So I thought of one better.

Barry Bonds and Kobe Bryant are kind of the same person. (It also occurred to me that Sawyer from LOST and Tim Riggins from Friday Night Lights are basically the same person, but that’s another post). So here’s my thought: Barry Bonds is Kobe plus the steroids and minus the championship. Thus, any sports fans who hate Barry should also hate Kobe. Let me explain.

Both Barry and Kobe had fathers who were professional athletes. As a result, both Barry and Kobe are tremendous athletes. Both Barry and Kobe are also over-entitled assholes.

From 1990-1993, long before he took performance enhancing drugs, Barry Bonds was the best player in baseball. He won gold gloves, stole bases, hit and hit for power. He won 3 MVPs, and deserved the MVP in 1991 over Terry Pendleton. He led the Pirates to three division titles, and the Giants to within a game of one in a 103-win season. Keep in mind that baseball, unlike basketball, is not the type of game where one player can dominate offensively and defensively to such a degree to win championships. And Barry ruled the sport. Even Ken Griffey Jr., the nice guy, the clean guy, didn’t come close.

After Sosa and McGwire ushered in the PED homerun era in 1998, Barry Bonds got on the juice. And he once again became the best player in baseball, by far. In an era when everyone was doping, Barry was again the best, by orders of magnitude. He put up absolutely legendary numbers. And he nearly led the Giants to a World Series title.

At the same time, he furthered his reputation as a complete prick. According to Roberts, “Bonds demanded two lockers and a massage chair in the San Francisco clubhouse and threw his teammates under the bus when it served him.” I heard he had a chair in the locker room facing away from his teammates so he could watch television. He also famously could not get along with Jeff Kent, his major protection in the lineup who prevented him from recording 8 million intentional walks per season. He also may have physically abused his wife.

Now let’s look at Kobe.

The spoiler star took Brandy to his high school prom, skipped college for the NBA, became a dominant player very quickly, and won championships with Shaq, and then without him. He put up superb numbers. Won MVP awards.

He also developed a reputation for being an asshole. He famously could not get along with Shaq, the Lakers’ other superstar.

And then there’s the little matter of his possibly raping a young woman.

His victim eventually dropped criminal charges, filed a civil suit, and then they settled. Her story seems to have some holes in it. Still, he might have raped her. If he did, every point he scored, every championship he won since is a travesty.

But let’s see, for a moment, that he didn’t rape her, but that his testimony is in fact true. If that’s the case, we know this.

1. Kobe Bryant is an adulterer. No big surprise among pro athletes, but nothing to be proud of.

2. Kobe asked this woman if he could cum on her face, she said no, and then he told her leave.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, Kobe Bryant is an asshole. I’d venture to say as bad as Barry Bonds. So respect their athletic ability if you must. But unless you’re a Lakers fan, you should hate Kobe.

by Weiner

Before I offend any diehard soccer (or football, to the rest of the world) purists, let me say off the bat that I like the game. Liked playing it as a five year old on my local team, Dontatello (the four teams were named after the Ninja Turtles, not the artists), playing it again occasionally in the school yard in elementary school or gym class or summer camp. I even enjoy watching it: my family spent a month of the summer of 1994 in Vermont, I had broken my foot and had nothing else to do but watch the World Cup hosted by the USA (and the Expos cruise the best record in baseball in the strike-ended season, but that’s another story).

Ever since then I’ve enjoyed watching the World Cup, and maybe the odd European championship or Premier League or qualifying match or whatever. But like most other North Americans, I feel like the game could use some more scoring. I know, I know, the fact that goals are so tough to come by makes them special, which is why announcers can scream “gooool” for half an hour. But seriously, too many nil-nil ties. So here are some ways to make the game more offensive minded:

1) Change the off-side rule.

The rule should not be eliminated. Obviously we don’t want a striker cherry picking the entire game behind all the defenders. But the rule as it stands is stupid. So I think it should be altered to be somewhat closer to the off-side rule in hockey. So the rule can remain as it is with this crucial exception: create offensive zones. Once the offensive team takes possession of the ball in the offensive zone, the offside rule is no longer in effect and the player can make and receive passes anywhere in the zone. If the ball leaves the zone, the players don’t all have to leave, they simply cannot receive passes from outside the zone unless there is a defender behind them. It sounds  a little confusing here but think about it and it works.

This is the most important rule change. They should try it out in college, or the MLS or something. See what happens.

2) Create a back-court like rule.

You should not be able to pass the ball all the way back to the goalie. But obviously backwards passing is an important part of the game, so the rule can’t be exactly the same as basketball. Here creating offensive zones would again come in handy. The rule could be then: you are only allowed to pass the ball backwards across one line. So from one side of the “neutral zone” to the other, from offensive zone to the offensive half of the neutral zone. When the ball is in your half of the field, passing backward is unlimited.

3) Free subbing.

There is no reason why players shouldn’t be able to come in and out of the game. Let’s give the starts some rest and see them on fresher legs for longer.

So those are the rule changes I propose. If FIFA tried even just one of them, I think it would improve the game dramatically.

As for who to root for, this has always been an interesting question for me. Generally, I believe in supporting the country you hail from (in my case Canada) and any country you have ethno/religious/cultura/historical ties to (in my case, Israel, not Poland despite the fact that all four of my grandparents came from there). Unfortunately, neither Canada nor Israel typically make the World Cup. I do have the nice fall back of rooting against Germany, and they seem to always make it.

Beyond that, I like to root for the underdog. So while I root against the USA in almost every other sporting event, I occasionally root for them in soccer. I like England, because I speak English, and I appreciate the passion they have for the game, not because I’m technically a subject of the Crown and member of the Commonwealth.

I like to root for African teams because I think it’s good for the the world if they win. To a lesser extent, I root for Asian teams. If I rooted against countries that had a legacy of anti-Semitism, that would eliminate too many countries (rooting against Germany for all my lifetime is good enough, I think). I rooted for Iran in 1998 over USA because they were the underdogs and I think sports can represent positive, progressive values on the international stage (though not necessarily domestically, more on this later). But generally I think sports should be divorced from politics, at least modern politics. For example, I am a critic of the current Israeli government, but the players on the team, particularly the Arab players, have little to do with the government’s behaviour.

Weiner adds: Another bunch of rule changes: Introduce stopped time when the play is dead, and get rid of the absurd “stoppage” time. It’s 2010. C’mon. Also, how about some rule that say the team has 30 seconds to get the ball past midfield after the goalie touches. Or maybe even less time? Sometimes they really dally.

by weiner

In a recent issue of The Nation, Columbia intellectual historian Sam Moyn wrote an excellent and critical review of Jonathan Israel‘s Radical Enlightenment books, which argue for the importance of Baruch “Benedict” Spinoza in the development of modern democracy. I found Moyn’s review fascinating, though I must confess that I haven’t read a single one of the thousands of pages Israel has written on the subject. What interested me most, however, was Moyn’s observation that

Liberal secularists (notably Jews among them) have a long tradition of lionizing him; Lewis Feuer‘s Spinoza and the Rise of Liberalism appeared more than a half-century ago.

Feuer was not the first. Horace Kallen, the subject of my dissertation, even more than Feuer, celebrated Spinoza not only as a father of liberalism, but as the embodiment of a distinctly Jewish philosophical spirit.

Of course, Kallen did not limit this praise for Spinoza. He also celebrated Henri Bergson, and was distraught to learn that Bergson drifted towards Catholicism at the end of his life. In a 1906 essay, “The Ethics of Zionism,” Kallen highlighted the Hebraic spirit’s ability to “express the moral law.” As exemplars of this ethical standard, he singled out the Biblical prophet Isaiah, but also Jesus and Karl Marx, two figures one wouldn’t necessarily describe as model Jews.

Something strange is going on here. It’s not unlike Jewish sports fans, who might not accept patrilineal descent but are delighted to claim any athlete for the Nation of Israel that they can: Mike Lieberthal, gold-glove Phillies catcher had a Jewish dad? We’ll take him! Rod Carew converted? That works (actually he didn’t).

The same goes for philosophers and intellectuals. Indeed, I can imagine an Adam Sandler-style “Hannukah Song” about “Jewish” thinkers going something like this:

Jesus loved his mommy, just like a nice Jewish boy is supposed to do

Spinoza was excommunicated though his ethical precepts still ring true

Trotsky wasn’t wearing a yarmulke, when he took an ice-pick to the head

but his real name was Lev Bronstein, a Jew-boy born and bread.

You’ll find a bunch of Rabbis, if you look up Karl Marx’s family tree

Good enough for Hitler well then it’s good enough for me!

Jewish intellectuals often take a strange pride in all the other intellectuals that are Jewish. We do this even if we don’t care for the Jews we’re celebrating. I have very mixed feelings about Noam Chomsky, but am very proud that he, like so many of Israel’s most strident critics, is Jewish (and the son of a Hebrew scholar to boot). This is about more than my taking pride in Jewish leftism, as Matty Yglesias does. I’m happy that New York Times columnist and Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman is Jewish, but I also take a strange satisfaction in noting that his and my ideological opponent, Milton Friedman, was also a Member of the Tribe.

So what makes these figures Jewish? Is it anything other than the arbitrariness of their births?

Isaac Deutscher posed such a question in his famous essay, “Message of the Non-Jewish Jew.” He listed “Spinoza, Heine, Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, Trotsky, and Freud.” In Deutscher’s words, they “found Jewry too narrow, too archaic, and too constricting.” And yet he mused:

HAVE they anything in common with one another? Have they perhaps impressed mankind’s thought so greatly because of their special “Jewish genius”? I do not believe in the exclusive genius of any race. Yet I think that in some ways they were very Jewish indeed. They had in themselves something of the quintessence of Jewish life and of the Jewish intellect. They were a priori exceptional in that as Jews they dwelt on the borderlines of various civilizations, religions, and national cultures. They were born and brought up on the borderlines of various epochs. Their minds matured where the most diverse cultural influences crossed and fertilized each other. They lived on the margins or in the nooks and crannies of their respective nations. They were each in society and yet not in it, of it and yet not of it. It was this that enabled them to rise in thought above their societies, above their nations, above their times and generations, and to strike out mentally into wide new horizons and far into the future.

Thus, it was their moderate marginality, their cosmopolitanism, their limited “otherness,” their insider/outsider status, their existence on the “bordelines” (or borderlands) that enabled particular (but not particularistic) Jews to strive for the universal. Deutscher here anticipates Tony Judt, who celebrated his status as one of the “edge people.” Judt is quick to insist that this is more than being, in Stalin’s words, a “rootless cosmopolitan,” for he finds himself “too well rooted in a variety of contrasting heritages.”

By celebrating “non-Jewish” Jews who rejected the particular for the universal, Deutscher naturally went on to champion Marxist internationalism over parochical, backward nationalism. Indeed, he argued that:

the nation-state is fast becoming an archaism—not only the nation-state of Israel but the nation-states of Russia, the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, and others. They are all anachronisms.

Here again he anticipated Judt, who in his controversial article, “Israel: The Alternative:” rejected nationalism, and specifically Zionism, as a relic of the past:

The problem with Israel, in short, is not—as is sometimes suggested—that it is a European “enclave” in the Arab world; but rather that it arrived too late. It has imported a characteristically late-nineteenth-century separatist project into a world that has moved on, a world of individual rights, open frontiers, and international law. The very idea of a “Jewish state”—a state in which Jews and the Jewish religion have exclusive privileges from which non-Jewish citizens are forever excluded—is rooted in another time and place. Israel, in short, is an anachronism.

Judt, though decidedly anti-Marxist, remains more comfortable with the universal than the particular, and has celebrated French universalist Jewish intellectuals, like Julien Benda and especially Leon Blum and Raymond Aron. Of course, Aron took a turn towards Jewish identity as the Arab-Israeli conflict heated up with the 6-day war in 1967. And shortly after publishing “Israel: The Alternative,” Judt admitted a fondness for his own Jewish heritage:

despite his transformation from teenaged Zionist activist to 50-something Zionist apostate [Judt] is still happy to be connected to the “annoying, burdensome, proud, difficult, unique, Jewish heritage”…. Still, Judt said, he considers himself a “proud Jew.” He said that he has every intention of providing his two young sons with a strong education in Jewish history and tradition, while also instilling a respect and understanding for the other religions in the Western world…..“I don’t see why my position on Israel should disqualify me as a good Jew in the Jewish community or Jewish literary circles.”

I don’t know if Judt still feels this way, but I don’t think he would call himself a “non-Jewish” Jew. I’ll admit to be proud that he is thoroughly engaged with Jewish history in a way that many of those who would make it onto the Jewish intellectual Hannukah song are not.

I’m not sure where this leaves us. I think Deutscher and Judt are right about Jewish status on the “edge” as a path to a more cosmopolitan, or universal (those aren’t always the same thing) outlook.

At the same time, I think the Jewish contribution to the world, if there is one, lies in the particular. Unlike the ancient Greeks who often celebrated abstract ideals, the Hebrew Bible is frequently rooted in the here and now, in the corporeal, in the practicalities of law and ritual. At a recent Association of Jewish Studies conference, Ruth Wisse, a scholar (and former professor of mine) I greatly admire despite our vast political differences, gave a plenary address. She argued that without a focus on the particular, there is no Jewish history. What makes Jewish history different, and unique, and indeed a distinct subject is that there has been something unique, different and distinct about the Jews. As a historian and a Jew, I have to agree.

I still love the Hannukah song though. And I’m really happy that Montreal Canadiens forward Mike Camalleri is Jewish.

by Weiner

I recently attended a baseball game at Mets game Citi/Taxpayer (no character yet, but a fine place to watch a ballgame). Staring at the players numbers, I was confused. They were all wearing #42. I then realized that they were honouring the great Jackie Robinson. And this reminded me of an interesting academic experience of my recent past.

A couple years ago, I attended the National Council for Black Studies conference in Atlanta, Georgia. As their website indicates, the NCBS promotes “academic excellence and social responsibility. It is both a scholarly and a political organization.

I was there presenting some of my work on Horace Kallen and Alain Locke. Needless to say, I felt a bit out of place, not only because I was one of the few white attendees and presenters, but because I try to maintain a strict commitment to academic objectivity. I think objective scholarship can then inform political discussion, but that scholarship itself should be as disinterested and unbiased as possible (this belief in objective scholarship makes me a dinosaur in some academic circles). This conference and this organization expressly repudiated this goal.

Nonetheless, I found the presentations extremely fascinating, insightful and informative. The panel I remember best was the one about sports and politics. One student spoke of the controversy surrounding Don Imus. A history grad student at Purdue gave an excellent talk on Tommie Smith and John Carlos, of the famed Black Power salute at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. He investigated Smith and Carlos’ activist past at San Jose State University.

The third graduate student, also a historian, bemoaned the lack of African American athletes who display any political activism today. Influenced by journalist William C. Rhoden’s controversial book, Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall and Redemption of the Black Athlete, this student expressed his ire for apolitical superstars like Michael Jordan, as he traced the history of African American athletes who engaged in political activism, from Jack Johnson to Muhammad Ali through to Smith and Carlos in 1968. And yet, when he was done, I was confused.

First, Jack Johnson’s political commitments were dubious at best (his political role came from his individualistic and hedonistic rejection of racial norms and prejudices). But my main confusion was not about what the speaker said, but what he didn’t say. I raised my hand in the Q and A and noted: “In your talk about Black political athletes, you mentioned Johnson, and Ali, and Smith and Carlos, but you did not mention Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, or Jackie Robinson. Why is that?”

The last omission was especially startling. While one can argue that Louis and Owens were used as tools by the American political establishment for propaganda purposes, Jackie Robinson was not a tool for anyone. Robinson paved the way for all future Black professional athletes in the United States. I’ll never forget the lecture I heard from William Gienapp, the late Harvard historian who taught the famous undergraduate course on “Baseball and American Society,” (he passed away before I could take it). He argued that baseball typically followed, rather than led the broader American society and culture, except in one instance: that of Jackie Robinson’s breaking the colour barrier. According to Gienapp, Robinson’s entry into the Major Leagues spurred and influenced the modern civil rights movement.

Robinson, however, was more than a mere athlete. An active member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a supporter of Black business, Robinson was extremely politically engaged. He was also conservative. He supported the Vietnam War, and Nixon over Kennedy in 1960. He had a famous and public dispute with Black communist (and former professional football player) Paul Robeson. His views put him in the minority among African Americans, yet he refused to betray his convictions, even if he softened some of his stances towards the end of his life.

When I asked my question, the speaker responded: “When I thought of political Black athletes, Jackie Robinson didn’t even enter my mind.”

I found this interesting but problematic. According to this standard, for an athlete to be political, he had to be on the Left. This view, I think, denigrates the conviction that characterized Robinson and any athlete who forgoes the life of apolitical luxury that sports salaries allow to venture out into the realm of politics. We can disagree with Robinson’s views and yet admire his role in American history and his dedication to bettering his country and his people.

As I’ve written about before, the involvement of American athletes in politics is something of a mixed bad. I think it’s ok if athletes  use their fame as a platform for political ends, provided their opinions are informed (and not the mindless conservatism of a Curt Schilling). My preference would be for these ends to be progressive, like those of linebacker Scott Fujita, who actively supports gay rights and is pro-choice. But when the views are informed and conservative, like Jackie Robinson’s, I cannot begrudge them even if I would have disagreed with them at the time.

UPDATE: As my buddy Brendan pointed out, I should also recognize Canadian hoopster Steve Nash, who has come out against the racist Arizona immigration bill, as have the rest of the Phoenix Suns, who will be wearing a “Los Suns” jersey for tonight’s game in protest. San Diego Padres firstbaseman Adrian G0nzalez has spoken against the bill as well.

I am a baseball purist. I never needed the wildcard. Interleague plays upsets me. The DH rule disgusts me. I hate steroids, mostly because they’ve damaged small-ball and baserunning. The sound of aluminum on baseball makes me cringe, and I think wooden bats should be introduced to the college game.

Nonetheless, I support the use of instant replay in baseball.

Watching last night’s opening game on the YES network, announcer Ken Singleton (former Expo), Al Leiter and that other guy debated the issue. Singleton, who I like and respect, worried it would slow the game down. I share his concern, and think time between pitches should be limited, as should time spent stepping out of the batter’s box. But that’s another story.  Here are ways I think Instant Replay should be implemented.

1) Only in the post-season. Over 162 games, bad calls even themselves out. Not so in short series.

2) Don’t allow it on balls and strikes. Umpiring home plate is more about consistency than accuracy. As long as the ump is being consistent, he’s doing an ok job. Having said that, I’d love to see the de facto strike zone narrowed, but also raised (calling the high strike more). But on close calls on the basepaths, and fair and foul balls, instant replay will be very useful.

3) Give each manager two options to use the instant replay, and one more if the game goes into extra innings. The umpires can also use it at their discretion.

With instant replay, bad calls will no longer tarnish the post-season. What do y’all think?

So apparently Stephen Harper is not only Canada’s Prime Minister, he’s also an aspiring hockey historian and is writing a book about the game’s origins and early development. I learned this from an interview he gave to to Sports Illustrated‘s Michael Farber, featured in a commemorative SI issue for Team Canada’s recent Olympic Hockey gold (the existence of this issue struck me as rather odd). Apparently Harper’s “interest is in the early decades of the modern sport 1870s until the First World War” (Hockey was first played indoors in Montreal in 1875). Harper went on:

The rage and the excitement with which this new sport swept the country was really a phenomenon. You see the development of a national consciousness that did not exist before. People forget that in 1867 Canada’s national consciousness was very fragmentary. There was a strong set of regional identities because these had been separate colonies. And there was a wider attachment to the British Empire, especially for English Canadians. The development of hockey is an important part of the development of a uniquely Canadian identity and a uniquely Canadian sense of belonging in a community across the country.

Harper may be overstating things. Earlier in the interview, when asked what hockeys tells us “about Canada and the Canadian character,” he replied, “It says, first and foremost, we’re a northern country.” Canada is cold. As a result, we like hockey. Harper notes that immigrant kids in Canada use hockey to assimilate, and then help integrate their parents. But this is probably only a superficial difference in form to how immigrants to America employed baseball for similar assimilatory purposes.

Still, there seems to be something different about a country that puts words from Roch Carrier‘s famous short story, “The Hockey Sweater” (in English and in French), on its five-dollar bills:

The winters of my childhood were long, long seasons. We lived in three places – the school, the church and the skating rink – but our real life was on the skating rink.

And so, though I don’t care much for Harper’s politics, I’m glad that he shows an interest in history, and this seems like a rich topic for historians to tackle to help explain the differences–and similarities–between Canadians and Americans, differences that Canadians have been obsessing over for generations.