More Statistics!

Virtually every news network is trumpeting the "breakthrough" in an HIV vaccine trial, citing a "31.2%" reduction in the risk of being infected!

"In the three-year experiment, 74 of 8,198 people who received placebo shots became infected with HIV compared with 51 of 8,197 people who received the vaccine, suggesting the vaccine regimen could have reduced the risk of being infected by 31%.

The NIH said the results are statistically significant."

Statistically significant? Really?

Considering that less than 1% of either group contracted the HIV virus, how on earth can comparing the two be "statistically significant"??? Couldn't virtually any rare occurrence break down with a similar disparity in distribution?

Even if the results are "statistically significant", is it really responsible to conclude the vaccine has resulted in a "31.2% reduction"? That seems a very misleading number to me. Throw in a few isolated cases to one side or the other and the percentage would change significantly.

I am no statistician but it seems to me you might come to such numbers arbitrarily, substituting virtually any rare phenomenon.

Had the study consisted of 80,000 people, then these results might be interesting. But to come to such conclusions with so few actually contracting HIV seems highly, grossly irresponsible.

The Dangerous Mathematic Slant of Economic Theory: On 'Rational' Free-Market Behavior

Paul Kruger's recent article in the NY Times made an impression upon me; the gist of his argument is essentially this:

"...the economics profession went astray because economists, as a group, mistook beauty, clad in impressive-looking mathematics, for truth."

This got me thinking about how absolutely dangerous mathematics - and "empiricism" in general - can potentially be. The reason these are dangerous is because they appear neutral. Value free. Objective. Based on observable phenomena.

In the realm of human behavior, the golden rule - Garbage In, Garbage Out - is an aphorism for virtually any "empirical" study.

Economics, it seems to me, relies far too heavily on math. The result is a slew of sycophants, gleefully justifying the free market with clever little equations, giving everyone the impression of a system grounded in fundamental behavioral truths.

Economists love to talk about "rational" behavior. The emergent property of consumers - all making independent, rational choices in a free market - results in a near-perfect system.

Their attraction to the rational, unfortunately, is not merely derived from its ostensible resonance with observable behavior, but rather from its capacity for quantification. Rational behavior is predictable, measurable, and plugs right into an equation. This, from a strictly scientific view, is a bias that should set off alarm bells. Any behavior that lends itself to a desired methodological approach should be rigorously scrutinized.

It is not as if there aren't other perspectives. Max Weber's "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" cites irrationality as the defining quality of capitalism:

"...The earning of money... thought of so purely as an end in itself, that from the point of view of the happiness of, or utility to, the single individual, appears entirely transcendental and absolutely irrational. Man is dominated by the making of money, by acquisition as the ultimate purpose of his life. Economic acquisition is no longer subordinated to man as the means for the satisfaction of his material needs. This reversal of what we should call the natural relationship, so irrational from a naive point of view, is evidently as definitely a leading principle of capitalism as it is foreign to all peoples not under capitalistic influence."
- Max Weber

So, there appears to be some conflict, or at least irony, in the the idea - on the one hand - that the we should trust in the free market, guided by the collective rational decision-making of its actors, and - on the other - that the very spirit of capitalism itself (the Calvinist-inherited notion of vocation, making money as an end in itself rather than a means to satisfy material needs) is irrational.

When we observe our economic system at work, we see all kinds of 'irrational' behavior. It must drive the economists mad. Because there are more factors involved in life-decision making than purely market-driven sensibilities. But Weber's point is a much larger one: irrationality in capitalism extends to even those making the ostensibly correct decisions.

To infer the existing system as we know it is grounded in some empirical reality, governed by objective mathematical laws, is both foolish and extremely dangerous. Fortunately it is also false; reality has sent a discipline mired in hubris scrambling for the calculator! I suggest they crush the bloody thing with a hammer and start doing some actual thinking.

I do not mean to criticize mathematics - obviously a robust explanatory tool when accounting for a full range of predictable behavioral phenomenon within a contained, rule-governed environment. But the scientific method becomes absolutely overwhelmed when dealing with the Real World, simply because it is impossible to isolate variables or even to identify them all!

And yet they do try, don't they? And what happens? In study after study, not just in economics but virtually any discipline, causal relationships are made from mere correlations (and that even in cases where most of the variables have been accounted for). This results in all kinds of reductionisms: biological, economic, etc. - all of which merely reinforce our general cultural hegemony. Instead of opening up our world, we use science to close it. An institutionalized myopia.

That little island in The Phantom Tollbooth comes to mind: Conclusions. You have to jump to get there.

The Two Conflicted Selves of Turgenev and Chernyshevksy's Need To Respond To One of Them

Turgenev is someone I truly identify with, not as a writer (a dream, to write so) but as an individual conflicted with two competing identities: one, the liberal Country Gentleman, fond of nature, romanticism, decorum. Progressive, a humanist, but subject to the comforts of pleasant, secluded life. The other: the Stern Conscience - provocative, demanding, intellectual, uncompromising. A humanist for whom reform is not sufficient. The table should not be cleared, its legs should be kicked out. Rigorous, disciplined, haughty, and - on some level - hypocritical.

Not a terribly flattering portrayal. But I believe Fathers and Sons is a true projection of Turgenev's conflicted inner world; this - combined with the profound and disruptive resonance the novel created in Russian culture - is precisely what makes it one of the greatest works ever written.

Bazarov, the young nihilist, is his Stern Conscience. Nikolai Petrovich, the Country Gentlemen, is his weaker but ultimately more genuine self, hence the internal conflict.

Turgenev's life story absolutely reflects this pattern. His hero, the critic Belinsky (an early pre-nihilist revolutionary, himself the subject of a future post) who died earlier in Turgenev's life, almost jumps out from the grave in demanding Turgenev adhere to his strict moral obligations, while time and time again Turgenev tips his hand with ambivalence towards both the rigors of his responsibilities and the new generation in general.

While he desired their approval, their friendship, their sanction, ultimately his opinion of the nihilist revolutionaries was low:

"[He]... could not bear their fanatical rejection of all that he held dear - liberal culture, art, civilized human relationships. But they were young, brave, ready to die in the fight against the common enemy, the reactionaries, the police, the State. Turgenev wished, in spite of everything, to be respected by them.

- Isaiah Berlin (p.24)

This leads us to the fundamental question of Turgenev's novel:

Is Bazarov a positive or negative character?

That this remains in dispute only further underscores Fathers and Sons' brilliance. My own thesis is that he was a negative character; the fate and portrayal of Bazarov tips Turgenev's hand.

Enter Chernyshevsky
Now one of these fellows Turgenev desperately sought approval from was an editor of a radical paper (Contemporary) named Dobrolyubov, who wouldn't even speak to him. He would literally turn away and face the wall. That Turgenev tried so fervently to seek Dobrolyubov's respect, even under such conditions, shows just how deeply his psyche needed his Stern Conscience to validate his weaker but more authentic Country Gentleman self.

The radical Dobrolyubov's fellow editor was a chap named, surprise surprise, Chernyshevsky.

"What is to be Done?" was written in large part as a response to what Chernyshevsky and his cohort considered an affront to their movement: Turgenev's negative portrait of the nihilist Bazarov.

That Chernyshevsky felt he needed to correct the image Turgenev had created, only underscores Turgenev's true opinion of Bazarov.

Why is all this important? Well, Bazarov is often referred to as "the First Bolshevik". Thus Turgenev's opinion of him - historically speaking - is no small trifle. Further, placing the two novels in context with one another helps us understand them both.

A cursory and off the cuff analysis, but whatever. Next I will discuss the relationship between "What is to Be Done?" and Dostoyevsky's Notes From Underground, as well as the charater Roskolnikov as an antithesis to the positive/ideal Rakhmetov. There is a sort of circular portrayal, fluctuating from the negative, to positive, then back to negative, that has had an enormous impact on subsequent philosophical thought, politics, etc. etc.

Bazarov (ambivelant/negative) --> Rakhmetov (ideal/positive) --> Roskolnikov (anit-Rakhmetov/negative)

Each is a response to the last; anyhow more on this later...

What is To Be Done? In Literary and Historical Context

In the next few posts I intend to discuss the literary and historical context of Chernyshevsky's "What is to Be Done?" In order to do so I felt it handy to create the diagram below as a point of reference. I may - likely - will add to it, but first want to discuss each individual connection, starting with the relationship to Turgenev's Fathers and Sons. I find this relevant to the general understanding of the Russian Revolution, its relationship to some great works of Russian literature, as well as the various philosophical strains that evolved from the fundamental question it poses.

Without further ado, here's the chart (note I've avoided for a moment the progeny of Dostoyevsky because it gets too complicated too quickly. But I will discuss shortly - I'm sure you can't wait):

Life As A Finite Pie: George M. Foster's image of limited good

The notion of life as a finite pie is correlated to the image of limited good, a term famously and controversially coined in 1965 by Anthropologist George M. Foster (yes, I know, old white guy) to explain peasant behavior:

"peasants in all societies share a common 'cognitive orientation,' which he calls the image of limited good. Since nothing can be done to increase the resources that peasants divide among themselves, one person's gain is inevitably another's loss. ...[This] accounts for a great deal of otherwise puzzling peasant behavior. For example, people who believe that good is limited will understandably be secretive about their own successes and envious of others'; they will avoid cooperative work situations for fear of being cheated; and they will resist innovations that, in their view, cannot increase the available good. ...this 'image' often persists into an era in which cooperation and acceptance of modern techniques could lead to a better life for all. Peasant communities have strong sanctions against innovation: 'The villager who feels the need for Achievement and who does something about it, is violating the basic, unverbalized rules of the society of which he is a member'..."

-(Rethinking Psychological Anthropology, Bock p. 144)

The above is essentially a verbatim definition of how one might be expected to behave in our world of Swindlers and Fools. Thus the predicament in Russia - one of 'cognitive orientation' (which sounds so - I don't know - sterilized) - is not a unique one. (On a side note, the controversy boils down to essentially that his conclusions were a little too general; probably true, but shouldn't undermine the larger and very valid point.)

What is of interest, in my view, is that ultimately we aren't giving those holding the image of limited good enough credit, when perhaps we should consider such a 'cognitive orientation' may stem from an actual reality: a material world whose resources are indeed limited and finite.

Foster's view is in this sense ethnocentric, because the underlying assumption is that in truth, life is not a finite pie, but one of possibility, freedom, and liberty. The benefit of one does not necessarily entail the detriment of another.

If we accepted the premise that a world exists somewhere in which good is indeed limited and finite, then we run into a bit of trouble when it comes to creating Liberty there:

Liberty consists in being able to do anything which does not harm another.

- Declaration of the Rights of Man

Well, in the world of Swindlers and Fools, you can't do much at all that benefits you without harming someone else!

Thus we have a bit of a problem on our hands.

This is why the spirit of the Russian, French, and American revolutions were all essentially the same: models committed to the preservation of human liberty against - in spite of - what seems to be an inevitably rising tide: increased discrepancies between rich and poor, a greater gap between haves and have nots, increased corruption, greed, croneyism, nepotism, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

One might argue the question, "What is to be Done?" has yet to be adequately answered.

Enter Rakhmetov

If you read my last few posts (introducing in a very crude way the Russian nihilist, tying him in a very crude way to the dichotomy between faith and science, and then providing a very crude sketch of his world - the world of Swindlers and Fools) then it is now time to dig a little deeper and get into the meat of what this is all about.

So let's meet one of these nihilists in person, starting with arguably the most important one: Rakhmetov. As you will soon discover (particularly once you see his photograph), his influence on Russian history cannot be understated. We will look at him as both hero and caricature, and after that we'll meet his better-known antithesis (and one of the greatest characters in fiction): Dostoyevsky's Raskolnikov. Then we will tie all of these elements together in a nice revolutionary bow.

This is going to be so exciting! But let's back to the task at hand. To meet Rakhmetov, we must return to Chernyshevsky's novel "What is to be Done?" We must return also to the world and paradox of Swindlers and Fools. Why? Because Rakhmetov has been historically interpreted as Chernyshevsky's answer to this very severe and most fundamental problem - perhaps the most daunting problem of modern civilization.

Notice first that both Chernyshevsky's description of the problem and his solution are embedded in the language of characters. You can play the role of either a Swindler or a Fool. You can develop into a Vera Pavlovna (the novel's female protagonist). You can model yourself after a Rakhmetov. Everything is framed in terms of the individual. This is because his entire approach is - in accordance with the time in which it was written - one of personal character: personal moral and ethical virtue is what interests him; the structure of society is only significant in how it shapes the self.

In other words, if society is soil, he is interested in the plant, and from the plant the crop. The soil is only relevant in how it nurtures the plant - it must be rich with nutrients, it must drain well, etc., but in essence his approach is an inverted contrast to the manner in which these issues are discussed in social science today. But I digress, more on that later.

Now come on, let's meet Rakhmetov already!

It should come as no surprise that Rakhmetov is a nihilist (Remember "Nothing exists except that which can be observed by the senses"? Hence he is a student of the Natural Sciences) very much like Bazarov in Fathers and Sons.

And like the other central characters in Chernyshevsky's novel, he is neither a Swindler nor a Fool. He rejects the Swindler, but he won't subject himself to be the Fool, either. He declares this dichotomy as false and breaks it over his knee, his only weapon his mind.

But he is something a bit more too.

Rakhmetov is a moral ascetic hero, an ideal. While most in Chernyshevsky's novel are people willing to dedicate their lives to the greater good, Rakhmetov has gone further: he has truly sacrificed his. He lives in the most austere way, selflessly, his actions governed exclusively by the needs of the cause, guided by "principles and not passions, according to convictions and not personal desires.” He eats raw meat, sleeps on a bed of nails, reads voraciously, that sort of thing.

There are only a few of them, but through them everyone’s life will flourish. Without them life would wither and go sour. There are only a few of them, but they make it possible for all people to breath; without them people would suffocate. There’s a great mass of honest and good people, but there are very few people like them. But these few people are within that mass, as thine is in tea, as bouquet is in fine wine. They are its strength and its aroma. They are the flower of the best people, the movers of the movers, the salt of the salt of the earth.

He is, in essence, a professional revolutionary.

So why is this all important?

Well, in order to explain that I must tell you the story of the Brothers Ulyanov.

THE BROTHERS ULYANOV
Now, a long time ago, there were two very bright brothers, the Brothers Ulyanov. The elder one, Alexander (pictured left), went off to University and was arrested for his role in a plot to assassinate the Tsar Alexander III with a bomb planted in a textbook.

The event essentially destroyed the family, already struggling with the premature passing of their father the year previous. Alexander was hung, his sister Anna was exiled for her role in the plot, and thus one can only imagine the effect this all had on the surviving younger brother, Vladimir, and his mother.

Indeed, Vladimir Ulyanov realized he knew nothing of his elder brother's political beliefs. One night he went into his brother's room, sat down on his empty bed, and took "What is to be Done?" from the bookshelf.

He read it six times that summer.

He modeled his remaining life after this moral ascetic character Rakhmetov. In 1901 he outlined his revolutionary blueprint in a paper entitled, not coincidentally, "What is to be Done?"

Thus the character Rakhmetov came to life in Validimir Ulyanov, much better known for his revolutionary moniker than his real name. Here is his photo, or rather his mugshot from his first arrest as a youth. I'm sure you'll recognize him. Now, regardless of your opinion of him, whatever it may be (and please, don't make any presumptions about mine; I might surprise you) as I mentioned before his effect on history cannot be understated.

"He plowed me up more than anyone else... After my brother's execution, knowing that Chernyshevsky's novel was one of his favorite books, I really undertook to read it, and I sat over it not for several days but for several weeks. Only then did I understand its depth... It's a thing that supplies energy for a whole lifetime." - Lenin

The Adventures of Pinocchio: More on Swindlers and Fools

Carlo Coloddi's "The Adventures of Pinocchio", first published in 1880 and the inspiration for Disney's animated classic "Pinocchio", is also set in a world of Swindlers and Fools, to the point of caricature, which makes illustrating the idea a bit easier. Pinocchio is obviously a gullible Fool; the Fox and the Cat are Swindlers, and so on.

The scene I was most struck by was one neatly capturing the concept of life as a finite pie: one in which you will be lucky to get a few crumbs; slices reserved only for those who take at the expense and suffering of those around them.

Life as a finite pie is - I would argue - a foreign concept for most of us, simply because we have never experienced it firsthand. We are lucky, because if we did, it is very likely that in short while most of us would be Fools, and a few of us would be Swindlers. Most of us would have nothing, while a few of us would have more than their share.

But let's get back to the example. In the scene, the Showman Fire-eater - the basis for the character "Sromboli" in the watered-down Disney version (the cricket, incidentally, is crushed and killed by Pinocchio in the original) - calls on his two puppets, Harlequin and Punchinello, to bring Pinocchio to him:

"Bring that puppet here: you will find him hanging on a nail. It seems to me that he is made of very dry wood, and I am sure that if he were thrown on the fire he would make a beautiful blaze for the roast."
At first Harlequin and Punchinello hesitated; but, appalled by a severe glance from their master, they obeyed.

So Harlequin and Punchinello bring in Pinocchio pleading desperately for his life, and the Fire-eater (who "had not a bad heart") for whatever reason takes pity on him. He is saved.

Remember, however, that in this world life is a finite pie. If Pinocchio is not going to burn for the mutton, something - or someone - else will. And that is precisely what happens:

"...as you can see I have no more wood with which to finish my mutton, and to tell you the truth, under the circumstances you would have been of great use to me! However, I have had pity on you, so I must have patience. Instead of you I will burn under the spit one of the puppets belonging to my company. Ho there gendarmes!"
"Take Harlequin, bind him securely, and then throw him on the fire to burn. I am determined that my mutton shall be well roasted."

The gendarmes grab Harlequin. Pinocchio, beside himself, now pleads for the life of his friend Harlequin, all to no avail. Finally, Pinocchio - for the first time in the novel - shows he may just have what it takes to become a real boy. He says:

"In that case, bind me and throw me among the flames. No, it is not just that Harlequin, my true friend, should die for me!"
These words, pronounced in a loud, heroic voice, made all the puppets who were present cry. Even the gendarmes, although they were made of wood, wept like two newly born lambs.

Fire-eater, similarly touched, grants a pardon to both Harlequin and Pinocchio. Note, however, what he has to say about it:

"I must have patience! Tonight I shall have to resign myself to eat the mutton half raw; but another time woe to him who chances!..."

Thus life is a finite pie. Every act has a measurable consequence; for every give there is a take. Pinocchio is spared, therefore Harlequin must burn. Harlequin is spared, therefore Fire-eater must eat his mutton half raw.

But wait a minute, you say. Eating mutton half raw is a great deal different then being burned alive!

Yes, that is true, but that is just the point also. Fire-eater is a Swindler (albeit one, apparently, with some relative measure of compassion); Harlequin and Pinocchio are Fools. The consequence for Fire-eater is inversely proportionate to his slice of the pie.

In a world where life is a finite pie, stratification becomes inevitable because if someone must swindle for gain, someone else must therefore be fooled for loss. In such a system, when gain for one invariably results in loss for the other, we are left only with some sense of moral ethics (individual character, compassion, empathy, courage, virtue, sacrifice, etc.) as the sole counteractive force tempering suffering and oppression. And when that fails, if we are lucky and happen to live in a place that allows it, we are forced to resort to laws (in this light, a litigious society could therefore be viewed as one of individual moral failing)...

Now in the world I personally have had the good fortune live in, none of this could happen of course. Because in my world, although you could make a strong argument there exists a Fire-eater, he happens to have a large pile of wood for his fire, and therefore it is vastly easier for him to pardon Harlequin and Pinocchio. He has no dilemma or conflict; he never has to consider whether or not his mutton will be half raw at their expense.

In this same world I have had the good fortune to live in, one could argue also that the large pile of wood is rapidly dwindling (and one could also argue that this same pile was itself derived from a world of Swindlers and Fools, hidden from us behind a curtain, across an ocean, or over a border).

The question, then, is what will happen to this world when the pile of wood runs out - when the only way that Fire-eater can get his mutton properly cooked (as he prefers it) is by tossing one of his puppets into the fire?