An Interesting Thought on State Universities

Some interestingly counter-intuitive thoughts on the UC student protests against rising tuition from David Henderson of EconLog:

Taxpayer funding of higher education is a forced transfer to the relatively wealthy

Socialist author Robert Kuttner once called Proposition 13, California's 1978 property-tax-cut initiative, the revolt of the haves. The latest opposition by UC students to a 32% increase in tuition is a revolt of the "will-haves."

Milton Friedman used to remark that the California government, with its state funding of higher education, taxed the residents of Watts to pay for the residents of Beverly Hills. I think Friedman exaggerated substantially. Even though the California's tax system relies heavily on sales taxes, which probably makes the state tax system on net somewhat regressive, it's still the case that a given Beverly Hills family pays much more in taxes than a given family in Watts. But Friedman also focused on family income of the student, and that's misleading.

What Friedman could have said, and Armen Alchian did say in a classic 1968 article, is that state subsidies to higher education are a subsidy to the relatively rich.

I don't have strong opinions on this particular instance one way or the other (though with the state of California being close to bankruptcy, I don't see but what they have much choice to get more of the cost of running the UCs from the students) but it does strike me as interesting that providing more subsidies for college level education is often seen as a way of helping the poor and working class. The idea is, of course, that they don't have much money to go to college, so subsidies will allow them to go when they otherwise couldn't, and thus to improve their financial condition later in life.

The potential issue with this, as I see it, is that given that only 40% of those in the US earn a college degree, and given that those with college degrees earn a good deal more (on average) than those without, taxing everyone in order to help those who are able to graduate from college to do so with less personal debt is essentially a wealth transfer from everyone to the people who will make up the top 40% (roughly) in incomes in the long run anyway. So while there are lots of deserving people from low income backgrounds who would benefit from lower college costs, most of the time it would turn out that:

a) If they go to college and do well, they'll make much more money in the long run, and thus be in a position to pay off college debts themselves.

or

b) If they aren't actually able to do well in college, luring them in with lots of encouragement and cheap tuition won't actually achieve much other than landing them with a sense of failure and a costly delay on getting on to doing work which they would be good at.

So while as a "give everyone a chance to succeed" kind of guy, I certainly want to see everyone who needs it get the chance to go to college -- I'm also fairly comfortable with people financing their college educations through student loans, since they are, after all, the ones likely to reap significant earnings benefits from having gone to college.

The alternative, human side to all this, of course, is the plight of those who take out a lot of loans to go to college and then find, for whatever reason, that they don't make very much. The question would seem to be: is this group large enough and/or problematic enough for it to be worth while for society to heavily subsidize university tuition at public colleges, or not?

Writing in a Community

I don't think that I shall shock any of our readers if I reveal that my real name is not Darwin. My real-world name is not terribly hard to figure out. It takes perhaps two clicks from this blog to reach a page where it's possible to find my real name. But for various reasons, I've maintained that anonymity over the years. However, there are a good many people who know me in real life who read the blog. More than that, after writing a blog for four-and-a-half years, you get to think of a number of your long-time readers and commenters are friends. The blog becomes like a corner coffee house or bar where the same characters assemble regularly -- with the occasional stranger dropping in as well -- and discuss a range of topics, with everyone knowing the basic terrain of who everyone else is and where everyone is coming from.

The way in which a blog can serve as a combination magazine and coffee shop is, to me, one of the most appealing elements of the medium. It's more personable than simply sending one's words out into the void, knowing that someone out there is reading them but seldom sure of what others think about them.

At the same time, however, this community element to blog writing makes one particularly aware of the difficulties of writing within a community. As the number of people I know (whether locally or online) who are blog readers increases, I increasingly find myself thinking, "If I write about that, so-and-so might be offended."

There are, I think, implicitly two different sets of rules which are observed in relation to expression in a community versus published expression. When we are in social situations, it's considered impolite to discuss topics which implicitly criticize others or their beliefs. Thus, topics such as politics and religion are generally avoided, to avoid emphasizing the differences among those present. Topics which might seem to be an accusation towards someone in attendance are also out of bounds. So for instance, if Uncle Arthur has just divorced his wife so he can spend more time with his secretary, any discussion of how people don't take marriage seriously any more around the Thanksgiving table will be taken as an attack upon Uncle Arthur, and approved of or rejected accordingly.

When someone writes for publication, there seems to be a general truce that, "Well, Alison is a writer of course, so she's always looking for subject matter, but she's not necessarily writing about the family. She needs something to write about, or they won't pay her." That, or concerned family members can simply ostracize the writer or stick their heads in the sand and not read any of what he or she writes.

Blogging occupies a certain middle ground. It is generally accepted to be a conversation of sorts, and so it seems to be considered reasonable to assume that if a blogger writes about something which appears to apply to someone the blogger knows personally, then it's probably commentary on that person. And yet, for the blogger himself, the search for material is much the same as for the "real writer". And indeed, for the blogger who thinks in a "writerly" way about his writing, discussion a situation (even one drawn from a specific real life example at hand) is often not a way of saying "I like Cheryl" or "I hate Bill" but rather of trying to come to some better understanding of the world and our place in it.

Newman Fisks it Here

I've been reading John Henry Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua for a book club. The Apologia is Newman's account of the development of his religious beliefs, culminating with his conversion to Catholicism, written in response to a charge of mendacity by the hot-headed Charles Kingsley. I've only been able to get as far, so far, as the Newman/Kingsley correspondence, and while reading it I was thinking of what someone in my club had mentioned: how like a blog exchange this is. Kingsley's ill-considered, intemperate rant is exactly the sort of thing one might read online (minus the elevated language and complex grammatical structure), and Newman demolishes him in the comments box. But what caused me to laugh out loud, and made several other mothers waiting outside dance class glance at me oddly, was Newman's fine fisk of Kingsley's "apology", in which Newman gives a side-by-side comparison of what Kingsley says, and what the British reading public will take him to mean. I suddenly imagined a Fr. Z-style fisking, with the emphases in black and the comments in red.

VI

The Rev. Charles Kingsley to Dr. Newman

Reverend Sir, Eversley Rectory, January 14, 1864.

I have the honour to acknowledge your answer to my letter. I have also seen your letter to Mr. X. Y. On neither of them shall I make any comment, save to say, that, if you fancy that I have attacked you because you were, as you please to term it, " down," you do me a great injustice; and also, that the suspicion expressed in the latter part of your letter to Mr. X.Y., is needless.

The course, which you demand of me, is the only course fit for a gentleman; and, as the tone of your letters (even more than their language) make me feel, to my very deep pleasure, that my opinion of the meaning of your words was a mistaken one, I shall send at once to Macmillan's Magazine the few lines which I inclose.

You say, that you will consider my letters as public. You have every right to do so.

I remain, Reverend Sir,

yours faithfully, (Signed) Charles KINGSLEY

VII

[This will appear in the next number]

To the Editor of Macmillan's Magazine

Sir,

In your last number I made certain allegations against the teaching of the Rev. Dr. Newman, which were founded on a sermon of his, entitled "Wisdom and Innocence," (the sermon will be fully described, as to¹ ... )

[ I Here follows a word or half-word which neither I nor any one else to whom I have shown the MS, can decipher.

I have at p. 23 filled in for Mr. Kingsley what I understood him to mean by " fully.", -J.H.N. ]

Dr. Newman has, by letter, expressed in the strongest terms, his denial of the meaning which I have put upon his words. No man knows the use of words better than Dr. Newman; no man, therefore, has a better right to define what he does, or does not, mean by them.

It only remains, therefore, for me to express my hearty regret at having so seriously mistaken him; and my hearty pleasure at finding him on the side of Truth, in this, or any other, matter.

(Signed) CHARLES KINGSLEY

VIII

Dr. Newman to the Rev. Charles Kingsley

The Oratory, January 17, 1864.

Reverend Sir,

Since you do no more than announce to me your intention of inserting in Macmillan ' s Magazine the letter, a copy of which you are so good as to transcribe for me, perhaps I am taking a liberty in making any remarks to you upon it. But then, the very fact of your showing it to me seems to invite criticism; and so sincerely do I wish to bring this painful matter to an immediate settlement, that, at the risk of being officious, I avail myself of your courtesy to express the judgment which I have carefully formed upon it.

I believe it to be your wish to do me such justice as is compatible with your duty of upholding the consistency and quasi-infallibility which is necessary for a periodical publication; and I am far from expecting any thing from you which would be unfair to Messrs. Macmillan and Co. Moreover, I am quite aware, that the reading public, to whom your letter is virtually addressed, cares little for the wording of an explanation, provided it be made aware of the fact that an explanation has been given.

Nevertheless, after giving your letter the benefit of both these considerations, I am sorry to say I feel it my duty to withhold from it the approbation which I fain would bestow.

Its main fault is, that, quite contrary to your intention, it will be understood by the general reader to intimate, that I have been confronted with definite extracts from my works, and have laid before you my own interpretations of them. Such a proceeding I have indeed challenged, but have not been so fortunate as to bring about.

But besides, I gravely disapprove of the letter as a whole.

The grounds of this satisfaction will be best understood by you, if I place in parallel columns its paragraphs, one by one, and what I conceive will be the popular reading of them.

This I proceed to do.

I have the honour to be,

Reverend Sir,

Your obedient Servant,

(Signed) JOHN H. Newman

Mr. Kingsley's Letter Unjust, but too probable, popular rendering of it

Mr. Kingsley's Letter I. Sir,-In your last number I made certain allegations against the teaching of the Rev. Dr. Newman, which were founded on a Sermon of his, entitled " Wisdom and Innocence," preached by him as Vicar of St. Mary's, and published in 1844. 2. Dr. Newman has, by letter, expressed in the strongest terms his denial of the meaning which I have put upon his words. 3. No man knows the use of words better than Dr. Newman; no man, therefore, has a better right to define what he does, or does not, mean by them. 4. It only remains, therefore, for me to express my hearty regret at having so

2. I have set before Dr. Newman, as he challenged me to do, extracts from his writings, and he has affixed to them what he conceives to be their legitimate sense, to the denial of that in which I understood them. 3. He has done this with the skill of a great master of verbal fence, who knows, as well as any man living, how to insinuate a doctrine without committing himself to it. 4. However, while I heartily regret that I have so seriously mistaken the sense

On the more serious side, I was reflecting that many people wail that public discourse has become more debased over the years, yet Kingsley's shrill Know-Nothing-ism rather proves that the haters will always be with us. His expanded set of accusations, What, Then, Does Dr. Newman Mean? don't serve to vindicate him. As I was reading his quotations from Newman's sermon, I found myself nodding in agreement with Newman's interpretations of scripture verses on how to speak the truth.

On Kingsley's accusation of Catholics all being loose with the truth, and the throwing around of the term "Jesuitical" -- I remembered something that a professor of mine had spoken of when we were reading MacBeth. He had some interpretation of the porter's speech that proved that Shakespeare was a closet Catholic which was based around the porter's references to equivocation:

Knock, knock! Who's there, in th’ other devil's name?
Faith, here's an equivocator that could swear in both the
scales against either scale, who committed treason enough
for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven. O,(10)
come in, equivocator.

This was supposed to be a reference to those Catholics who were ambiguous or "equivocal" about their Catholicism when questioned so as to keep undercover during the horrible persecutions of the sixteenth century (the standard execution for a priest was being drawn and quartered, after God knows what other tortures). The Jesuits were especially noted for encouraging this kind of nicety with language, and heck, they still retain that "equivocator" image to this day.

The Mystery of Historical Importance, solved

A few weeks ago, I wondered: What does this mean?



Embrethiliel sends me the answer, found at Laudem Gloriae:

As it turns out, it is the work of Bosnian artist Braco Dimitrijevic (one of those modern conceptual artistes who deem themselves superior to that rabble of old-school representational artists), who, in 1971, thought it would be very clever to clandestinely lift one of the old paving stones and replace it with his own carefully inscribed tile. The point was to call into question society's assumption of the uniqueness or importance of the cathedral, challenging the observer to wonder why this place in particular was more important than, say, the loo in the café across the street. Any gormless nob with a third-grade education, of course, can answer that question, but probably not to the satisfaction of historical relativist Dimitrijevic. (One quotation gives the reader an idea of his views: "What we call History is nothing more than one subjectivity which is imposed on the whole world as objective opinion.")

The cathedral enriches me (and many others throughout the years) by its existence; the loo only serves me. Unless, of course, it is a very beautiful loo.

Rejoice with me, o my friends!

Out with the old...




In with the new!


It's kind of suede-y, hence the vacuum marks, but oh so cool! Now you're all invited to come over, now that I have somewhere suitable to seat people.

Long Remembered

The new American history blog Almost Chosen People reminds us that today is the anniversary of the Gettysburg Addess, delivered on Nov. 19th, 1863. The Gettysburg Address stands unique, to my knowledge, in the American branch of the English-speaking world as the only speech by a political leader which is widely memorized and quoted in its entirety long after the fact. There are some isolated famous sections of speeches by FDR, JFK and Martin Luther King which are widely remembered, but unless anyone else can think of anything I'm completely forgetting, the Gettysburg Address is uniquely treated as a piece of rhetoric which is remembered and memorized in its entirity. (I still recall it nearly word for word, having memorized it in fifth grade.) Indeed, the only other similarly treated piece of oratory I can think of is the (fictional) Crispin's Day speech in Shakespeare's Henry V.

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate…we cannot consecrate…we cannot hallow…this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us…that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

From our international readers, I'm curious: What pieces of oratory are similarly remembered in the British-English world, or in other non-English-speaking countries?

In Which Things Are Not Nearly As Amusing As We Thought

Last night, as I was loading the dishwasher (and drinking a beer) I picked up a plastic pitcher and its lid, then paused. Even after several hours in the dish pile, the pitcher smelled very distinctly of margarita. In a flash, I recalled that when some good friends visited on Saturday, there had been left-over margaritas, which they had kindly poured into a pitcher and left for us. Not margarita mix, mind you, that poor wan creature waiting for its infusion of tequila and cointreau to achieve its full purpose in life. No, these were fully mixed margaritas.

"Mrs. Darwin?" I called. "Did you drink the left-over margaritas today?"

"No."

"Because someone did."

"Oh..."

"Did any of the kids seem odd today?"

"Oh my gosh, the neighbor kids!"

At this point, it is necessary that the reader understand that we have acquired neighbor kids. The family had actually lived in the neighborhood for some time, for for whatever reason the three youngest children (not counting the baby) have suddenly begun to spend an hour or two of every day in our back yard. On days when the house is clean, they play with the young Darwins inside as well. On most days when the two-year-old has stood astride the table throwing food to the four corners of the earth, they're advised to remain outside. However, even on these latter and more frequent sort of days, there is, it seems, an unavoidable magnetism to The Stranger's House, and so they let themselves in every few minutes to get drinks of water or go to the bathroom. This particular afternoon, MrsDarwin had several times had to expel these young foragers from the fridge. And here we were with a mysteriously empty margarita pitcher. Readers of children's literature will know what we thought first:

"Mrs. Lynde was up to see Mrs. Barry today and Mrs. Barry was in an awful state," she wailed. "She says that I set Diana DRUNK Saturday and sent her home in a disgraceful condition. And she says I must be a thoroughly bad, wicked little girl and she's never, never going to let Diana play with me again. Oh, Marilla, I'm just overcome with woe."

Marilla stared in blank amazement.

"Set Diana drunk!" she said when she found her voice. "Anne are you or Mrs. Barry crazy? What on earth did you give her?"

"Not a thing but raspberry cordial," sobbed Anne. "I never thought raspberry cordial would set people drunk, Marilla--not even if they drank three big tumblerfuls as Diana did. Oh, it sounds so--so--like Mrs. Thomas's husband! But I didn't mean to set her drunk."

"Drunk fiddlesticks!" said Marilla, marching to the sitting room pantry. There on the shelf was a bottle which she at once recognized as one containing some of her three-year-old homemade currant wine for which she was celebrated in Avonlea, although certain of the stricter sort, Mrs. Barry among them, disapproved strongly of it. And at the same time Marilla recollected that she had put the bottle of raspberry cordial down in the cellar instead of in the pantry as she had told Anne.

She went back to the kitchen with the wine bottle in her hand. Her face was twitching in spite of herself.

"Anne, you certainly have a genius for getting into trouble. You went and gave Diana currant wine instead of raspberry cordial. Didn't you know the difference yourself?"

"I never tasted it," said Anne. "I thought it was the cordial. I meant to be so--so--hospitable. Diana got awfully sick and had to go home. Mrs. Barry told Mrs. Lynde she was simply dead drunk. She just laughed silly-like when her mother asked her what was the matter and went to sleep and slept for hours. Her mother smelled her breath and knew she was drunk. She had a fearful headache all day yesterday. Mrs. Barry is so indignant. She will never believe but what I did it on purpose."
Anne of Green Gables, CH16

Sad to say, interviews this morning revealed a rather less exciting story. Our own three-year-old had poured herself a cup of "lemonaid" from the fridge, but on tasting it concluded that "it tasted like wine" and so for the general welfare she had poured the cup and indeed all the rest of the pitcher down the sink.

I must admit that, while I'm glad no one was made sick, I am a little disappointed at the true story.