MetaFilter posts tagged with crookedtimber

"If I was to die, today or tomorrow, I do not think I would die satisfied till you tell me you will try and marry some good, smart man that will take care of you and the children"

the man of twists and turns — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 07:28:35 -0800

Author Jon Meacham has a new book out on Thomas Jefferson. It is reviewed in the New York Times: Cultivating Control in a Nation’s Crucible

But this book does not address its principal concern, power, until Jefferson has accrued some. When it comes to the force that he wielded as a slaveholder, Mr. Meacham finds ways to suggest that thoughts of abolition would have been premature; that it was not uncommon for white heads of households to be waited on by slaves who bore family resemblances to their masters; and that since Jefferson treated slavery as a blind spot, the book can too.

At the same time, Henry Wiencek has written a "scathing assessment of America’s third president," and the two books together have kicked off some controversy. Wiencek's article in Smithsonian, The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson

The very existence of slavery in the era of the American Revolution presents a paradox, and we have largely been content to leave it at that, since a paradox can offer a comforting state of moral suspended animation. Jefferson animates the paradox. And by looking closely at Monticello, we can see the process by which he rationalized an abomination to the point where an absolute moral reversal was reached and he made slavery fit into America’s national enterprise.

In Salon, Meacham claims "I’m not letting Thomas Jefferson off the hook"

And if someone as monumental in our memories as Jefferson can be seen as someone trying to work out real problems in real time, making compromises, settling for half a loaf when you might want a full loaf, then I think that should give us a kind of confidence and a kind of hope that we can overcome the seemingly insuperable obstacles that lead us to think of politics as contentious and frustrating.

And in Slate, Anette Gordon-Reed replies to Wiencek: Thomas Jefferson Was Not a Monster: Debunking a major new biography of our third president.

The book's tone and presentation betray a journalistic obsession with “the scoop.” Getting the scoop can be the life’s blood of journalism. It does not work so well for writing history, which is not always (or almost ever, really) about discovering things previously unknown. This sensibility leads Weincek astray in a number of ways. To begin with, it compels him to write as if he had discovered, and was writing about, things that had not been discovered and written about before. In truth, all of the important stories in this book have been told by others.

Wiencek responds in Smithsonian: The author of a new book about Thomas Jefferson makes his case and defends his scholarship

I am not surprised that Gordon-Reed disliked my book so much, given that it systematically demolishes her portrayal of Jefferson as a kindly master of black slaves. In The Hemingses of Monticello, she described with approval Jefferson's "plans for his version of a kinder, gentler slavery at Monticello with his experiments with the nail factory." Gordon-Reed cannot like the now established truth that the locus of Jefferson's "kinder, gentler slavery" was the very place where children were beaten to get them to work. At first I assumed that she simply did not know about the beatings, but when I double-checked her book's references to the nailery I discovered that she must have known: A few hundred pages away from her paean to the nail factory, she cited the very letter in which "the small ones" are described as being lashed there.

On 30 NOV, Paul Finkleman in a New York Times Op-Ed countered with :The Monster Of Monticello

Neither Mr. Meacham, who mostly ignores Jefferson’s slave ownership, nor Mr. Wiencek, who sees him as a sort of fallen angel who comes to slavery only after discovering how profitable it could be, seem willing to confront the ugly truth: the third president was a creepy, brutal hypocrite.

David Post at Volokh Conspiracy writes: Why Don’t People Get It About Jefferson and Slavery?

This is truly outrageous and pernicious and a-historical nonsense. The truth is that few people in human history did more, over the course of a lifetime, to “place the road on the road to liberty for all” — and indeed, to eliminate human slavery from the civilized world — than Jefferson.

Corey Robin at Crooked Timber asks: Thomas Jefferson: American Fasicst? and examines his letters to conclude:

Jefferson was not a liberal hypocrite, a symptom of his time. He was the avant garde of a group of American theorists who were struggling to reconcile the ideals of the Declaration with the reality of chattel slavery. His resolution of that struggle took the form of one of the most vicious doctrines of racial supremacy the world had yet seen. That is his legacy, or at least part of his legacy. He was by no means the only one to take this route, but he was one of the earliest and easily the most famous. He is the tributary of what would become an American tradition.

Ta-Nehisi Coates at The Atlantic responds to Post: Slavery Is A Love Song

This is a letter that I often turn to. It was written to Laura Spicer by her husband, who was sold away, much as Jefferson sold people away. After emancipation she repeatedly tried to rekindle their love, despite the fact that the husband had now remarried and formed another family. In this letter the husband tells us what it means to be among the refuse of history:

Coates reacts to a "predictable" defense of Jefferson

In TK, Jefferson's protege Edward Coles--knowing of Jefferson's brilliant anti-slavery writings--wrote to enlist him in the cause of ridding Virginia of slavery. Coles thought to begin this effort by manumitting his own slaves. Jefferson not only declined to help Coles, but told him he was wrong to try to free his own

Henry Wiencek writes about the 'rumpus' on his blog, while Jon Meacham was interviewed on The Daily Show on 14 NOV: aired segment and full interview.

Linear Programming Will Save Us From the Invisible Hand

JPD — Wed, 30 May 2012 14:24:42 -0800

As part of Crooked Timber's Seminar on Francis Spufford's work of speculative fiction "Red Plenty." Cosma Shalizi has posted "7800 words about optimal planning for a socialist economy and its intersection with computational complexity theory."

Crooked Timber on David Graeber

nangar — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 13:07:36 -0800

Crooked Timber's online seminar on David Graeber's Debt: The First 5000 Years (previously, previously, previously and previously). Late post by John Holbo not included in the first link. Graeber's response. Henry Farrell's response to Graeber's response.

Things I have learnt from and about IVF

escabeche — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 09:02:59 -0800

Things I have learnt from and about IVF. (apologies for linking to two long Crooked Timber posts in a week, but they're kind of on fire over there.)

Choose Your Own Greek Fiscal Adventure

escabeche — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 11:07:49 -0800

Choose Your Own Greek Fiscal Adventure.

Going Native in the World of Finance

JPD — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 10:04:54 -0800

The Guardian has launched what they term "Bankers: An Anthropological Study." One of their first discoveries? People really hate bankers. Daniel Davies - Left of Center Finance Guy, Twitterer, and Crooked Timber Blogger attempts a defense. "But who's the real criminal? Its me, isn't it?"

What science fiction thinks of science

escabeche — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 20:49:38 -0800

Six or seven stances science fiction movies take towards science. From John Holbo at Crooked Timber. Sample: "I can’t think of many films that thematize the conflict between science and, say, justice or fairness. It’s usually more ‘conservative’ stuff: hearth and home and heart. (Will Smith punching out aliens, or stopping a runaway computer that has decided it knows what’s best for mankind. Ripley in Alien.) This is true even when the story would seem naturally to require objections to technological practices on grounds of justice or fairness. Minority Report and Gattaca, for example: these aren’t films about the unfairness of severely punishing people who haven’t (yet) committed crimes, or the unfairness of gross ‘luck’ inegalitarianism. They end up being about ‘authenticity’. In a weird way, Robocop is a good example of this sort of ‘science in moderation’ film: the hero needs to be a mix of old-fashioned conservative and ‘rational’ product, even though the happy mix ends up being rather unhappy for the hero himself. (He’s like Kirk, if Kirk had to be made by gluing half of Spock to half of McCoy.)"

Best openings of essays/academic works

LobsterMitten — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 00:21:02 -0800

Best opening (or closing) paragraphs of academic works, a discussion at Crooked Timber. (This is of course different from first lines of novels, as discussed here, there, and elsewhere.

Economists in hell.

monju_bosatsu — Mon, 03 Nov 2003 10:05:27 -0800

Problems in infinite decision theory [pdf]. You are in hell and facing an eternity of torment, but the devil offers you a way out, which you can take once and only once at any time from now on. Today, if you ask him to, the devil will toss a fair coin once and if it comes up heads you are free (but if tails then you face eternal torment with no possibility of reprieve). You don’t have to play today, though, because tomorrow the devil will make the deal slightly more favourable to you (and you know this): he’ll toss the coin twice but just one head will free you. The day after, the offer will improve further: 3 tosses with just one head needed. And so on (4 tosses, 5 tosses, ….1000 tosses …) for the rest of time if needed. So, given that the devil will give you better odds on every day after this one, but that you want to escape from hell some time, when should accept his offer? More discussion here.