Schadenfreude and Ted Stevens' Conviction

I know that a lot of you out there are jumping with joy at the news of Ted Stevens' conviction today. There are reasons to feel good if you've believed he's guilty or arrogant or if you're working for Mark Begich.

Taking pleasure in another person's suffering is a universal emotion. The German's have a word for it - Schadenfreude.

But watching a man go down, a man who like all of us has flaws, yet also worked most of his life to help his state using the talents he had, shouldn't bring anyone joy. We're all imperfect. We all will have times of grief. And I imagine most of us would like a little slack from others at that time.

Is it possible to mix the feelings of triumph and sadness? To feel good about the carrying out of justice and bad about the personal fall of Ted Stevens? Ted Stevens' recent statements don't make it easy to feel sympathetic. He seems completely defiant. ABC reports him saying today:

"I will fight this unjust verdict with every ounce of energy I have," Stevens said. "I am innocent. This verdict is the result of the unconscionable manner in which the Justice Department lawyers conducted this trial. I ask that Alaskans and my Senate colleagues stand with me as I pursue my rights. I remain a candidate for the United States Senate."

Yet his reaction - his total cluelessness of why he was on trial - is part of the sadness.

Philosopher John Portmann seems to make distinctions similar to mine above, at least as described by Perez Zagorin reviewing Portmann's book, When Bad Things Happen To Other People.

[Zagorin's voice] Persons with a well-developed moral sense who experience schadenfreude are apt to feel a certain amount of shame and unworthiness at being possessed by this emotion even momentarily. Is it not mean-spirited and detestable to be glad when bad luck or adversity strikes someone else, even an enemy or rival, and much more so in the case of a friend? . . . Portmann, however, would relieve us of some of our guilt on this score by means of various distinctions. He believes that schadenfreude is rational and therapeutic in certain circumstances, and makes the important point that it can include a sense of justice when we regard the bad things that happen to people as deserved punishment for their actions. He strives consistently to distinguish between pleasure in the justice of someone's suffering and pleasure in the suffering itself. [emphasis added.]

That's what I was doing above - trying to make distinctions between different aspects of the event. Happiness over the fact that the high and mighty are brought to justice just as the powerless are, seems perfectly normal and justified. Pleasure over the suffering of a fellow human being, in this sort of situation, while also perfectly normal, is probably less justified. Perhaps age softens the edges of righteous indignation, makes me more sensitive to the pain of an octogenarian ending his previously distinguished career this way; allows me to feel comforted that justice has been done, but saddened that a man of such intelligence, drive, belief in his own causes, should have strayed onto this path.

Zagorin is not so charitable to people who take pleasure in others' pain.

This distinction, though, is psychologically so difficult to sustain that I would guess that the two sorts of pleasure continually merge. In an example mentioned by Portmann, the blessed in heaven, according to the great theologian Thomas Aquinas, both see and rejoice in the torments of the damned. This conception, which astounded Nietzsche by its cruelty, is schadenfreude at its highest, and it confirms my opinion that a God who inflicts eternal punishment on his creatures is one of the most wicked and immoral ideas the Christian religion ever introduced into the world. It is also among the reasons that make me question whether, despite Portmann's lucid arguments, schadenfreude can ever be a healthy and justifiable emotion and is not simply a base and nasty feeling which we should do our best to resist and overcome.

It seems to me reviewer Zagorin is incapable of accepting the ambiguities that Portmann suggests. "Base and nasty" seem pretty judgmental terms on his part as well. Should we be condemning those who take pleasure in Stevens' plight as strongly as we would condemn someone who has abused his position of power? My belief is that only when one is completely accepting of one's own self, can one feel truly charitable toward others who are in distress, particularly those who have gotten there through their own actions. Charity towards those less fortunate can easily stem from an unconscious relief that it is them and not me, and helping them can be a self satisfying demonstration of one's superior circumstances. (Before you attack on that one, look carefully at the word 'can' in that sentence. It doesn't have to be that.) Charity toward someone who has brought it onto himself is much harder, but probably a purer form of charity.

If Obama supporters really want change, we are going to have to talk to McCain supporters, find common ground with them, understand their fears and hopes, and fashion policies that allay rather than inflame those fears. It's not about winners and losers. If we don't change that dynamic, then it is business as usual. Dancing gleefully over Stevens' conviction makes more unlikely Obama's chance of bringing Americans together. It only salts the wounds of Stevens' supporters who will wait until they can get their revenge. And Democrats in power will fall victim to the same sorts of ego imbalances that have afflicted Republicans and give those now out-of-power folks their opportunities to enact that revenge.

Taking great joy over Stevens' fall also excuses us from our complicity in

• electing him over and over again
• greedily taking all the goodies Stevens has sent our way from DC
• not taking action to change the system which ensures that lobbyists gain enormous power over legislators because of the need for campaign money

So, my concern about Schadenfreude is not simply a moral one, but much more a practical concern.

• First, let's not heap scorn on Stevens as a way to excuse ourselves, voters in a democracy, from our own share of the blame in accepting this corrupt system we have. ("What can I do, I'm only one person?" is not an excuse. What did you try to do? How quickly did you give up?) We have to be involved because legislators who fight the system - look at Ralph Nader - do not get elected.
  
• Second, if the people of the United States cannot talk to each other with respect and understanding, Obama's possible presidency won't accomplish anything of lasting importance.

Free Wifi at PDX (Portland)

I'm at PDX waiting for my flight from Portland to Anchorage. I keep posting about airports with free wifi (Anchorage, Reno, Portland, ChiangmaiJuneau, Taipei) because I think it's important for people to have access to wifi in transit and I want to alert travelers to where there is free wifi for all at an airport.







My Portland weekend is over. I had good times with friends, but also want to respect their privacy so haven't blogged about them. Also, kept busy and not blogging for 24 hours or more is a luxury. It was hard to get a good picture from the car, but there was a lot of yellow and orange and red outside of Portland.





There are a lot of pumpkin stands around outside of Portland. And in Portland tonight I saw a lot of people in costume. I'm still opposed to moving holidays to the closest convenient day. Doing that means that the god of efficiency is overtaking the god of tradition. Washington and Lincoln's birthdays - once separate holidays - have been lumped into President's day and put on a Monday so people of have three day weekends. Memorial Day used to be May 31, but it too got moved to a Monday. Fourth of July on the second of July would be weird, but if we just call it Independence Day, they might be able to get away with that sacrilege.


I didn't know that 'free cracking' existed, but today I got it.

Air Art and Snacks

I flew from LA to Portland today, via Reno, on a smaller plane that didn't fly as high. The air was clear so I got to see the art of nature and man from above. Sculpting the landscape. First, suburbs north of LA in their continuous push into the hills. Little (from the air) matchbook housing developments.
The houses moving closer and closer to the hills. Some even jumping up onto the tops of the hills.

Further out still, little isolated houses spreading like weeds.

And here's what I refer to as air ag art. The beautiful shapes made by farmers' fields from above, contrasting with the harsh natural landscape.

The dam.

And then I got my bag of Mama Mellace's Chedder stix mix. Look at the little stix. Then look at all the ingredients. But, according to the cover, no cholesterol or transfats. How can such a tiny piece of 'food' have that many ingredients? (Like usually, you can double click the pictures for a better view.)


This was somewhere in the area of Yosemite. The pilot didn't point things out so I'm not sure exactly where we were. As we flew into Reno I saw how Lake Tahoe sits above Reno, held in check by a small range of mountains.

Visiting Marty in Portland, will be back in Anchorage soon.

Free Wifi at Reno Airport

Priscilla Shanks Tried to Teach Palin to Say Nuclear

In the upcoming Sunday Times Magazine, Robert Draper tells the McCain campaign story as series of attempted narratives. I'm partial to the term narrative, because I believe that an important part of how humans think is through stories. They simplify getting all the facts. You get enough to figure out which narrative to pin on a politician or anyone or any situation.. Campaign managers work hard to get the best possible narrative pinned onto their candidates and the worst ones on their opponents. .

The narratives Draper says the McCain campaign struggled through are:
NARRATIVE 1: The Heroic Fighter vs. the Quitters
NARRATIVE 2: Country-First Deal Maker vs. Nonpartisan Pretender
NARRATIVE 3: Leader vs. Celebrity
NARRATIVE 4: Team of Mavericks vs. Old-Style Washington
NARRATIVE 5: John McCain vs. John McCain
NARRATIVE 6: The Fighter (Again) vs. the Tax-and-Spend Liberal

Narrative 4 - Team of Mavericks is where we get the background on how Sarah Palin got picked. Ultimately, it seems anti-climatic. Given this is a nine page article, there's not a lot of particularly interesting meat. All of it is just filling in details, documenting a story that isn't particularly remarkable. However, the one part confirmed something Alaskans have been wondering about is this part on Palin's voice coach:

While all of this was going on, an elegant middle-aged woman sat alone at the far end of the bar. She wore beige slacks and a red sweater, and she picked at a salad while talking incessantly on her cellphone. But for the McCain/Palin button affixed to her collar and the brief moment that Tucker Eskew, Palin’s new counselor, spoke into her ear, she seemed acutely disconnected from the jubilation swelling around her.

In fact, the woman was here for a reason. Her name was Priscilla Shanks, a New York-based stage and screen actress of middling success who had found a lucrative second career as a voice coach. Shanks’s work with Sarah Palin was as evident as it was unseen. Gone, by the evening of her convention speech, was the squeaky register of Palin’s exclamations. Gone (at least for the moment) was the Bushian pronunciation of “nuclear” as “nook-you-ler.” Present for the first time was a leisurely, even playful cadence that signaled Sarah Palin’s inevitability on this grand stage.

So who is Priscilla Shanks? There are a lot of hits for her on Google, but most of them are empty. Her Linkedin profile says this:

Priscilla Shanks’s Summary

12 years independent public speaking and media consultant in on-air broadcast training to broadcast journalists and those making the transition from print to broadcast journalistm

10 years experience as adjunct professor at New School for Social Research teacihng [sic] Public Speaking for Professionals

Currently in private practice preparing professionals and authors for media appearnaces, training executives, doctors, CEO's and business leaders in profit and non-profit organizations for their range of public speaking engagements.

On retainer to ABC Network News and CBS Network News and in private practice to broadcast journalists.

New Embedded Comment

Blogger Buzz says that we can now embed the comment box right under the post. I know some people have complained that they couldn't figure out how to comment. I've gone in and changed the setting.



Let's test it for a week and see if this is better.

[A few minutes later update: You still have to click on the comment link below the post, then you'll get the window. Try it out.]

I also noticed today when I was putting in the pictures in the last post, that the posted in reverse order - the bottom picture was on the top. That's reverse from what it's been. I'd really like to be able to load multiple pictures AND set size and location of each picture differently.

Still Hot in LA

Near the beach it's generally cooler, but it was in the 90's today. Much, much drier than Thailand, but hot nevertheless. Below are some pictures as I visit with my mom.


The Santa Ana winds have been here the whole time I've been here. Those are desert winds that blow warm and blow the smog out into the ocean. As you can see, from these three pictures looking north on Venice Beach, last Thursday when I did my first run down to the beach, it was pretty clear. Monday it cooled down a bit and the wind was off the ocean and I couldn't even see the Santa Monica mountains. Today was the clearest. I could even see Catalina Island - below. It's the lump on the horizon.

You can listen to part of the 1957 Four Preps hit song "Twenty Six Miles Across the Sea" about Catalina, the island owned for a long time by the Wrigley Gum family. I went to boy scout camp out there once or twice. Here's an interesting piece about the island.

This yoga at the beach picture was taken Monday when it was much hazier.

This picture is from last January. The white bands around the tree had a sign saying the tree was going down. These trees have been here forever. I was taller than the trees when we first moved in. In any case, the roots are making natural speed bumps in the street and wreaking havoc with the sidewalk. The link shows what I posted in January.



Sometime between January and now, the city took out my mom's tree and one other down the street. Yesterday the treemen were back with new trees, but they had trouble because the roots hadn't been taken out and they couldn't dig the hole.

Today they were back and here's the new Italian Stone Pine.

Update Feb. 23, 2012:  Here's the tree now, 3 1/2 years later:

 

A collection of gulls at the beach this morning. There were two terns in with them - I think elegant terns - but they flew off before I could get my camera out. They were cool, with a little black tuft on their heads.

Heading back out to the Valley yesterday to visit Frank and "I" once more.

And I've been passing this Indian bike rickshaw on Rose when I do my morning run to the beach.
And I stopped to ask Kayumba what the word means. Hunter, he told me. Both together are "Soft Spoken Hunter." I forgot to ask what language. That is his name. He's originally from the Congo. His buddy laughed and said, "Only one of the words is accurate." He's a contractor working on a house I passed on my run. I told him about Radical Catholic Mom's adopted Congolese family.


And here's another root. At least this one doesn't seem to be messing up the street or sidewalk.

Alaskan Bloggers Are Everywhere

I was reading an LA Times Magazine article this morning over breakfast about the Santa Monica based blog Hullabalu. The article says,

But the Left's second most influential blogger prefers anonymity.

They say the Huffington Post is number one. (The author, Jesse Kronbluth is a HP contributor) I have to confess that that while Digby sounds vaguely familiar, I didn't recognize it when I checked it out. I checked it out because of this:

What could Sarah Palin do to win your endorsement?
I went to high school in Alaska and met my husband there, so I do feel a bit of kinship with Palin. But she'd have to disavow every political stand she's ever taken, denounce McCain, quit the Republican party and become a pro-choice advocate for me to endorse her. I do enthusiastically endorse Alaskan king salmon.

So I checked out the blog and she had a very good post on the Republican attack strategy that so crippled the Clinton administration with a video on how the Republicans are already preparing to fight the election with their Acorn voter fraud nonsense.

I have to say that for years, as a public administration professor, I got the annual report of Acorn. They've worked pretty quietly on projects to help develop community in low income neighborhoods and to improve the chances of poor people to take part in the American dream. Registering such people doesn't endear them to Republicans. Here's the video she has on today's post. It offers a version of this story much more consistent with my limited experience with Acorn.

It's all in the Tapes

The ADN reports today that both the prosecutors and the defense have finished their closing arguments in the Ted Stevens trial and tomorrow the jurors take control.

In the three political corruption charges in Anchorage last year, jurors reported that the audio and video tapes were very important in their decisions. These are crimes that tend to be invisible and the credibility of witnesses is critical. When the jury hears incriminating things in the defendant's own words, that has to have a big impact on their assessment of whom to believe.

In the ADN's article today Erika Bolstad and Richard Mauer write:

[Prosecutor] Bottini replayed a now-infamous secret recording of the senator, who told Allen on the telephone in 2006 that the worst that could ever happen to him as a result of a federal investigation would be a little jail time or perhaps excessive legal bills.

I haven't heard the tape, but that description doesn't bode well for Senator Stevens.

Race Matters II

From Elstun over at Celtic Diva

Barack Obama is winning over swing voters because of what is called his "temperament". It turns out that his coolness, calmness and steadiness is just what voters are looking for and those qualities stand in great contrast to the "erratic" and fuming McCain-Palin campaign.

Because of the racism in the United States, Barrack Obama, like every African-American male who wanted to succeed, has learned how to control his anger, to swallow his outrage, and to respond with coolness. Angry black men had to transform their anger into some other socially acceptable manifestation - humor, the blues and gospel, slam dunks, knock out punches, or verbal virtuosity. While open anger no longer results in lynching, it can still cause serious damage to the person who expresses it in the wrong situation.

Obama, because of the color of his skin, had to learn to turn his anger into calm, articulate phrases.