This is a forum for users to express their thoughts on new or old books. Send submissions to objectivism-www@vix.com
James Finn Garner
Politically Correct Bedtime Stories
Macmillan, 1994
79 pages, $8.95 hb.
Reviewed by Gary McGath (review (C) Copyright 1995 Gary McGath, All Rights Reserved)
In every age, children's stories have been rewritten to conform to the sensitivities of pressure groups. In older times, the "grimmness" was taken out of many fairy tales. Red Riding Hood, who was devoured by the wolf in the original, acquired a hunter to rescue her from a horrible fate. The father of Hansel and Gretel no longer consented to their abandonment. The prince no longer raped Sleeping Beauty in her sleep.
In modern times, the old-fashioned demands remain strong, but new ones have arisen as well. There is a collection of modernized Mother Goose in which the old woman in the shoe no longer beats her children, and in which other stories have similarly been made more bland.
These modern demands have grown into a travesty called "Political Correctness," which has been the subject of much deserving ridicule. (For an excellent example, see The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook by Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf.) Recognizing what could be done if PC-ness were brought to full bear on children's stories, James Finn Garner has produced an amusing collection called Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, which has made the best-seller lists.
There are some excellent bits in the stories. When Chicken Little proclaims that the sky is falling, Henny Penny advises her to get a lawyer and sue -- though they aren't sure whether "the sky per se is recognized as a suable entity by the state." The third Codependent Goat Gruff self-sacrificingly insists that the troll eat him. At the conclusion of "The Three Little Pigs," the author assures us that "no actual wolves were harmed in the writing of the story."
The mixture of alleged tolerance and actual intolerance which constitutes PC is one of the most consistently ridiculed features in the book. For example, when the "woodchopper-person" tries to rescue Red Riding Hood from the wolf, Red and the wolf gang up on him, denouncing him as a "speciesist" and "sexist," and kill him with his own axe. They then "set up an alternative household based on mutual respect and cooperation." In another story, the Three Bears eat Goldilocks, a biologist with an "aggressive, masculine approach to science"; they're vegetarians, "but we're always willing to try new things."
Still, many of the stories in the book lack satirical focus. A couple of the stories take sharp aim at particular ideas, but most jump from one theme to another with no overall plan. The use of super-PC phrases, such as "optically challenged as a bat" and "fairy godperson, or individual deity proxy," is amusing, but the lack of real substance deprives most of the stories of lasting impact.
Another problem with the book is that there is so little of it. At seventy-nine small pages of large type, it can be read in less than an hour at a leisurely pace; nor are there any illustrations except for an illuminated capital opening each story. In the introduction, the author claims that some stories originally planned for the book were deleted for space reasons, and hints that they may appear in a subsequent collection (thus stretching one book's worth of material into two, a frustratingly common marketing ploy). Considering its slightness, the price is hard to justify.
William Stallings
Protect Your Privacy: A Guide for PGP Users
Prentice Hall PTR, 1994
302 pages, $19.95 pb.
Reviewed by Gary McGath (this review originally appeared in Liberty, March 1995)
A computer book reviewed in Liberty? Of course -- when it's about software which will help you to protect your Fourth Amendment rights, when the head of the FBI wants to outlaw that kind of software, and when the author of the program is being threatened with federal prosecution.
PGP stands for "Pretty Good Privacy," Phil Zimmermann's excessively modest title for a program which encrypts messages so that only the intended recipient can decipher them. It is the most widely used encryption software for personal messages on the Internet. Stallings' book is not about the political and legal battles behind PGP, interesting as that subject is; rather, it's a how-to guide for users.
Stallings explains the key ideas behind PGP at a level which most computer-literate readers won't have trouble following. He covers public/private key cryptography, digital signatures, and key generation and verification. The DOS and Macintosh versions of PGP are covered in detail.
What does PGP do for you? Two things. First, it allows you to send messages over an unsecured channel without leaving them vulnerable to snoopers. Whether you want to discuss a plan to smuggle in Cuban refugees or to send a credit card number to a mail-order house, it can be important to shield the message from others. And mail on the Internet is definitely not secure; a message may pass through any number of computers on its way to the target.
Second, PGP allows you to show that you are who you claim to be and that your message hasn't been tampered with. The program lets you append a "signature" to a message which is based on the contents of the message and on your key. If someone else tries to fake a message or alter the contents of your signed message without knowing your private key, the signature won't match. A message can be signed without being encrypted.
PGP uses what is called "public-private key encryption." When you set yourself up, you create two coordinated keys of up to 1024 bits each: a public key which you let the world know about, and a private key which you should guard with your life. Others will use your public key to encrypt messages to you; only your private key allows them to be decrypted. You use the private key to sign messages, and readers can use your public key to verify the signature.
The book offers some valuable tips on how to set up your key and how to distribute it to others. A tricky issue in public key cryptography is providing assurance that a given public key really belongs to the person it claims to belong to; Stallings discusses features of PGP which make this easier to do, and explains the role of key servers.
The book also covers one of the trickiest issues: how to get PGP. The program is available for free; however, the U.S. government classifies strong encryption programs as "munitions," bars their exportation without a license, and claims that unrestricted posting of a program on the Internet constitutes "exporting" it. For this reason, the sites that carry the program are few, and they make you jump through hoops in at least a token effort to guard against downloading by foreign users. There is also a commercial version, called Viacrypt PGP, which is likewise restricted against exportation.
Stallings doesn't mention Phil Zimmermann's legal defense fund, which allows users to reimburse his efforts while resisting the government's war on encryption. This fund is mentioned in the documentation which comes with PGP; while the situation may have changed by the time this article is printed, I urge everyone who uses PGP to give to it if it is still active. If Bill Clinton, Louis Freeh, and the NSA face no determined opposition, they will allow us only encryption which they can break at will, such as the Clipper chip.
The classification of encryption as munitions has at least a grain of truth to it: just as being armed allows you to defend your home, encryption software allows you to defend your private communications. Stallings' book is a valuable guide to using this weapon effectively.
Paul R. Gross and Normal Levitt
Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrels with Science
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994
314 pages, $25.95 hb.
Reviewed by Gary McGath (review (C) Copyright 1995 Gary McGath, All Rights Reserved)
And everyone will say,
As you walk your mystic way,
"If this young man expresses himself in terms too deep for me,
Why, what a very singularly deep young man
This deep young man must be!"
-- W. S. Gilbert, Patience
There have been a number of good critiques of left-wing pseudo-science, but Higher Superstition differs from most of them in an important respect. The authors have nothing but sympathy for leftist politics; their disagreement is only with the irrational attacks on science which come out of academia. While their political views hardly improve the book as such, they do free it from charges of bias which may be hurled at the others. When advocates of individual rights attack advocates of socialism for their bad science, both supporters and opponents of socialism may wonder whether politics has led the critics to overstate their case. This charge cannot readily be made against Gross and Levitt.
We have to pay for this presumed credibility, of course, by wading through some very silly writing. Chapter 2, "Some History and Politics," is a confused attempt to place the academic left in a historical context. It does not even define "left," which, like "right," is more often an epithet hurled at one's opponents than a self-description with a specific meaning. However, the confused and disconnected nature of the chapter is, perhaps, a reflection of the fragmentation and intellectual self-demolition of the left. To define is to defer to objectivity, something which doesn't sit well with the modern left. (For the present purpose, "leftism" could be defined as egalitarian collectivism, as opposed to both individualism and "rightist" hierarchical collectivism.)
Indeed, it is the left's infatuation with "postmodernism," "cultural constructivism," "perspectivism," and their rejection of objectivity which, as the authors show, stands behind many of the academic attacks on science. These terms -- especially "postmodernism" -- are buzzwords more than concepts, but they gravitate around a set of beliefs that rejects the idea of objective knowledge. Confusing relativity with relativism, and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle with a blanket confession of inability to measure reality, they declare that "the incompleteness, indeterminacy, and arbitrariness of the subject now reappeared in the natural world." Claiming that science is driven by political and economic needs, they see physical laws as inventions responding to these needs rather than as identifications of reality.
The book frequently points out the fallacy which these critics of science repeatedly commit: they exempt themselves from their claims that objectivity is impossible. In arguing against alleged distortions of their own writings, and arguing that their words have specific meanings, "the panic-stricken deconstructionists ran headlong from the implications of their own doctrine."
The chapters on feminist and environmentalist anti-science are two of the best in the book -- so good as to make the reader wonder, at least briefly, how sincere the authors are in their commitment to socialism. They tell us:
[M]any feminist tracts accept and defend the notion that there is no
"objective" science, merely a variety of perspectives, one of which --
patriarchal science -- has been "valorized" and "empowered" so as to
preclude until now the possibility of a feminist science.
Notions of feminist science range from the merely silly -- insisting that "feminist algebra's" word problems should portray the activities of lesbian couples, or claiming that the practice of "manipulating" data proves that mathematics is manipulative -- to the positively inimical to science -- asserting the necessity "to reinvent both science and theorizing itself to make sense of women's social experience." The authors point out that the feminists assert, but never prove, that science is somehow inadequate or mistaken without this feminist regeneration. The most amusing comment in the chapter is in response to Sandra Harding's characterization of Newton's Principia as a "rape manual": "We pity coming generations of freshmen physics students who, titillated by this famous remark, will spend long hours thumbing through that magisterial work, looking for the dirty bits."
In the chapter on environmentalism, the authors cast further doubt on their leftist credentials; they even cite Michael Fumento favorably. They note the penchant of radical environmentalists for casting hypotheses as facts, and ignoring all evidence against impending catastrophe, and their anti-human bias: "Human suffering, as such, while not neglected (especially when the victims are female or nonwhite) is notably secondary." They do a thorough job on Jeremy Rifkin, at one point taking three pages to dissect all the fallacies which he crams into just two sentences. And one must wonder how serious their hatred of capitalism really is when they tell us unblushingly:
Could Petr Beckmann have put it any better? On the other hand, the authors consider a certain level of alarmism to be justifiable, and give qualified support to Stephen Schneider's infamous advice to "decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest."
To us it is self-evident that a 1 percent improvement in the
efficiency of photo-voltaic cells, say, is, in environmental terms,
worth substantially more than all the utopian eco-babble ever
published.
The authors next turn their fire on AIDS activists who try to pretend that the whole population is equally at risk (once again citing Fumento), Afrocentrists who distort both science and history, and the animal rights crowd. They reserve some of their strongest contempt for the third group, noting that "Animal subject research is, without any question, enormously important to efficient medical practice, and its abandonment would entail incalculable human costs." However, they argue that Afrocentrism and animal rights advocacy are rare in what they consider to be the academic left.
The book concludes pessimistically, noting that current trends may lead to a schism between the scientific and humanistic faculties in universities, with the humanities as the chief losers. They argue that if MIT's Humanities Department walked out, the Institute could construct a new curriculum to replace them without much trouble. (I suspect this understates the case; if they walked out, their disappearance would be noticed only when people started wondering why the corridors near the Hayden Library were so quiet.)
Their pessimism is based on the assumption that teaching students to be good collectivists is desirable. For individualists, the intellectual suicide of the left is cause for optimism. As the authors note, "Scientists, and the scientifically well informed, will simply not accept any form of 'socialism' whose agenda includes the subversion of legitimate science." But unless something better stands ready to take its place, the liberal arts themselves will be discredited, and our culture will suffer for it. Advocates of reason have to reclaim the humanities, not just cast them adrift.
The authors appear to be perplexed by the question: why should leftist politics be so closely tied to anti-scientific irrationalism? To answer this, we need to observe that collectivism -- the subordination of the individual to the group -- is inherently anti-reason. The person who thinks for himself is a threat to the dominance of the collective, and scientists are people who think for themselves. Reason must be displaced by group thinking if collectivism is to prosper. In attacking science, the university leftists are showing their desperation: they must destroy reason or be destroyed by it. Their short-term chances of doing the former are slim, but unless their claims are defeated in the academic debate, they may do considerable long-term harm. Higher Superstition takes up the challenge well, and those of us who are individualists may count Gross and Levitt as our allies, if only on the issue of reason vs. unreason in science.
Shelly Reuben
Origin and Cause
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1994, $20.00 hb.
Reviewed by Gary McGath (review (C) Copyright 1995 Gary McGath, All Rights Reserved)
When you can get rich at McDonald's expense by spilling hot coffee in your own lap, product liability awards might be considered suitable material for fantasy novels. They are, unfortunately, reality, but they provide the subject matter for an excellent detective novel in Origin and Cause.
Media millionaire Stanfield Standish has been found dead in a fire which consumed his 1930 Duesenberg. His heirs have sued Courtland Motors, the company which restored the car. Courtland's defense is in the hands of lawyer Max Bramble. Contrary to the popular image of his profession, he is intensely concerned with justice. "The way other boys felt about the World Series," he writes as the story's narrator, "that's how I felt about justice. Good. Bad. Right. Wrong." Handed the case with a tight deadline till trial, Bramble enlists the aid of Wylie Nolan, a private arson investigator. From his first appearance, Nolan dominates the novel with his intense energy and expert knowledge. Nolan asks questions no one else thinks to ask and looks where no one else looks, and soon uncovers evidence that Standish was murdered.
Stanfield Standish was not a lovable man. He had sponsored the development of a technology, called the "Image Transformer," which would allow him to put the faces of pop stars on the images of actors in classic films. This alone is motive enough for anyone to want to murder him. (In fact, this technology already exists and -- frightening thought -- will be soon be economical enough to use routinely.) In addition, he has hurt a number of people personally; outraged ex-employees and bitter family members are among the many suspects.
The world of Max Bramble, Wylie Nolan, movies with powerful plots, and the pursuit of justice is set in contrast with the world of Stanfield Standish and his family, unprincipled lawyers, cynical manipulation of audiences, and the pursuit of loot. This contrast provides the impetus of the story through the courtroom scene and the subsequent discovery of the murder. The technical detail is also satisfying; Shelly Reuben is herself a professional fire investigator, and the methods are described in a way which feels convincing. I wouldn't be disappointed to see Nolan become the hero of a whole series of novels.
For this to happen, of course, the first novel has to sell. So help keep Wylie Nolan in business; buy your own copy of Origin and Cause.
Dean Koontz
Dark Rivers of the Heart
Alfred A. Knopf, 1994
487 pages, $24.00 hb.
Reviewed by Gary McGath (review (C) Copyright 1995 Gary McGath, All Rights Reserved)
The latest novel by best-selling author Dean Koontz -- and the first one of his which I have read -- is a thriller whose power comes from the fact that it is so close to reality. Set in the present or the near future, it presents two people who are pursued by a gang of ruthless killers. These thugs work for the United States Government.
Spencer Grant and Valerie Keene have been targeted by a secret government agency, one which has no official existence but which does work too dirty for the official agencies to touch. The head of this agency, Roy Miro, is presented as the essence of evil. Not only does he enjoy destroying people in the course of his work, he is a cold-blooded serial murderer on the side. He kills the people whom he most admires, and feels virtuous for doing so. "When you're motivated solely by compassion," he explains, "when no personal gain is involved, then any act is moral, utterly moral, and you owe no explanations to anyone, ever. Acting from compassion, you're freed forever from doubt, and that is a power like no other." The unknowing eye may see him as a rather pleasant, smiling person, perhaps humming a little tune -- but the tune is Tom Lehrer's "I Hold Your Hand in Mine."
Spencer Grant is a man apart from society, with dark secrets in his past but with a powerful sense of integrity. He is an expert on computer security and the means of defeating it, and this expertise allows him to stay a step ahead of Miro. Valerie, too, has extraordinary skills in this area, and they and their pursuers engage in a high-tech battle in which control of information is more important than firepower.
Koontz is not simply portraying a grim fantasy; he recognizes what has already happened in our society and what may happen if current trends continue. One of the minor characters, targeted by powerful enemies, finds his home and money arbitrarily seized under asset forfeiture laws which are all too real. He cries in protest, "If my house isn't really my house, if my bank accounts aren't really mine, if they can take what they want without proving a thing, what's to keep them from coming back?" And, Koontz clearly implies, what's to keep them from coming for anyone?
The book is peppered with real-life allusions. Miro's agency is presented as having had a key role behind the Waco assault; a reference is also made to the murder of Randy Weaver's family by FBI agents in Idaho. In the afterword, Koontz makes it explicit that although Miro's agency is fictional, these outrageous acts by our government were real. He calls for a repeal of all asset-forfeiture laws, an end to the exemption of Congress from laws which apply to others, and a stop to laws that criminalize beliefs.
The book is cinematic in style, and its primary weakness is that it resorts to movie cliches. There is a wild car chase which ends in a literal cliffhanger situation, and the spectacular climax makes use of technology which is unlikely to exist for many years. But it can't be denied that Koontz presents his scenes with great vividness, whether the heroes are fleeing in a helicopter or exploring a sinister basement.
Dark Rivers of the Heart presents courageous, enterprising characters who prevail against seemingly impossible odds while giving a sharp warning about the direction our country is moving in. It is very much worth reading.