Blog THIS: November 24

November 24, 2008
Book Review: Margaret Atwood's
Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth
Posted by Daniel Tseghay at 03:46 PM ET



The economy is on a lot of people's minds as Canadian newspapers warn of recession and the United States deals with its subprime mortgage problem. And so this might be the perfect time to read Margaret Atwood's new book Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth. Consisting of five essays, each presented during this year's Massey lectures, Atwood provides a discursive overview of the history of debt, lending and borrowing, fairness, and its related concepts.

Their common source, Atwood begins, is in our genes. We are fortunate enough to come equipped with a basic sense of fairness and, when it's violated, the feeling that someone is in debt and must do one thing or another to redeem themselves. By way of illustration, she discusses the capuchin monkeys who, in one experiment, were tuaght to trade pebbles for cucumber slices. They were perfectly happy with this rate of exchange. But, when one monkey received a grape (a much more desirable commodity) in exchange for a pebble, the rest of them revolted. They even refused to co-operate in future transcations, throwing their pebbles out in fits of rage. They appeared to have an innate sense of what was fair and of how things should be.

From here, she surveys literary and theological discussions of debt. She notes - with special emphasis - that the Lord's Prayer reads "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors" and that in Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus, the word for "debt" and for "sin" are the same. The once-sinful man, Ebenezer Scrooge, is then given a good hearing. This is a man who made his fortune by lending money with high interest rates and who then retained every penny - at the expense of the well-being of others.

In the end Atwood resolves the mystery of debt, saying everything must in the end come from Nature. Everything, Atwood says, is either taken or traded. The goods to be traded must first be taken from somewhere; and the goods taken can only come from Nature. Atwood describes a scenario starring a revamped version of Scrooge, named "Scrooge Nouveau", and set in a world of rapidly depleting resources. It is a world in which its most intelligent inhabitans (that's us, by the way) have consumed goods beyond their needs at costs exceeding their means. We have, that is, purchased large parts of our globe on credit with high interest rates that we must one day face. Atwood's implied imperative throughout the text: we'd be better off if we recognized this now and worked to strike a genuine balance between our only creditor, Nature, and its debtor, us.

Blog THIS: November 20

November 20, 2008
World Philosophy Day!
Posted by Daniel Tseghay at 02:00 PM ET

November 20th, 2008, is World Philosophy Day, an annual celebration initiated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). This year, in Palermo, Italy, a set of philosophers will gather for talks under the theme "Rights and Power", and with titles like "Human dignity, civil community and public authority", "From the Mediterranean to the Pacific: new spaces of power and cradles of civilization", and "Sciences and Power". There will also be a symposium, "Psychoanalysis, Rights, Knowledge", in Paris, France. The symposium will consist of conferences and debates on the significance of the "recognition or non-recognition of the 'human being' announced in the Universal Declaration for Human Rights". This is all very esoteric, I know, but it could also be increadibly illuminating. So, if you have the time, share in the celebration and flex your theoretical mind.

Blog THIS: November 19

November 19, 2008
Margaret Wente, the race thinker
Posted by Daniel Tseghay at 05:31 PM ET

Margaret Wente has now covered race and its discontents in two consecutive issues of The Globe and Mail. Yesterday in her opinion piece, "Testing, testing, bigot 1-2-3", she described an outwardly, and unabashedly, prejudiced aunt - a woman who would often have a nasty thing to say about the black people she called "coloureds". This personal sketch then led itself to a discussion of the implicit racism nearly all people in the modern world betray, at least now and again, and the role it plays in the violence and social dysfunction we can find in some communities. Her piece for today's issue follows yesterday's easily and naturally. "Discrimination eats away at you - and increases your chance of mental illness" consists of an interview she conducted with British psychiatrist, Kwame McKenzie. The title, however, is only a partial summary of the their discussion since McKenzie notes a range of issues. He spoke of the fact that people of different ethnicities and cultures may describe mental illnesses differently and how physicians might work to recognize these ways; and the prevalance of certain illness in some communities. The effects of perceived discrimation (racial or otherwise), McKenzie described as being pronounced and even debilitating with various mood disorders potentially arising.

We need a more flexible health-care system consisting of insightful professionals capable of adjusting their methods to suit the needs of their patients. The one-size-fits-all approach will not work in a country as diverse as ours.

Blog THIS: November 13

November 13, 2008
Review: Thomas L. Friedman's
Hot, Flat, and Crowded
Posted by Daniel Tseghay at 12:52 AM ET



Thomas L. Friedman, Foreign Affairs columnist of The New York Times, has written a new book called Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution - and How It Can Renew America. This is Friedman's contribution to the growing literature on environmental issues, and it's an ambitious one.

The first few sections of the text do an admirable job of laying out the problem. The world is getting hot, warming at unexpectedly exponential rates. Some of the consequences will include what he calls "Global Weirding". Not only will the globe become intolerably warm; but even the smallest of atmospheric changes will bring with it strange occurrences and unpredictably bizarre events.

The world is proverbially flat because of the rise of the middle-class in places like India and China. A greater percentage of people in the world are becoming affluent. Crowded, naturally, refers to the incredible population growth around the world and, once again, places like India and China.

In his story, Friedman's primary culprits are what he calls "Dirty Fuels". Coal, oil, and other "fuels from hell", as he puts it. The world is getting hot because of the carbon they emit. The growing wealth of India and China's middle-class, and their accompanying consumption needs, are increasing demand for dirty fuels. And the growing global population is increasing this demand even further. So, not only are things very bad, but they can get much worse if we don't act.

We must, Friedman argues, develop our Energy Technology. Advocating strong state intervention, Friedman says we need a complete re-structuring of our energy system. We need funding for innovation; tax breaks for alternative energy producers; as well as carbon taxes and price floors for oil (if the price gets too low, there will be no real incentive for finding clean alternatives). In one evocative section, Friedman paints a picture of a future Energy Internet of perfect efficiency and synchronization between our energy needs and their supply.

Friedman's one contentious argument is that the leader of this new movement must be America. Speaking, it seems, directly to his American audience, Friedman warns that if they do not re-organize with clean-energy, other countries will. And if those other countries, like China, do so before America, well, they'll develop more efficiently, make more money and become more powerful. I can't help but think: so what? His unabashed Americanism was just a little bit annoying considering the critical condition of the environment.

America should become a participant in the creation of clean-energy. And it should do so, not for a sense of global dominance, but because of the danger we collectively find ourselves in.

Blog THIS: October 31

October 31, 2008
Strike at York University?
Posted by Daniel Tseghay at 04:41 PM ET

York University may find itself embroiled in a strike next week. The strike may be the last resort for teaching assistants, graduate assistants, research assistants, and contract faculty, if negotiations regarding wage increases and job security, among other things, do not prove fruitful. Sadly, the media, with its poor research and resultant inaccuracies, has not been helping the situation.

The Globe and Mail published an article today covering this development but omitted some key facts and, frankly, got others completely wrong. The article says that the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the representative and organizing body for the teaching assistants, graduate assistants, research assistants, and contract faculty, "is seeking a 30-per-cent wage increase".

Yet from a third-party, I obtained an email from the union's Chief Steward, Tyler Shipley, and he wrote this about their wage demands: "we have been clear with the employer that our wage demand - currently 15.6% - is flexible and subject to change". That was 15.6% - not 30. How did the Globe get this wrong? Couldn't they have spoken with any one of the union's representatives for some accurate numbers? The article ends with the line "Union officials did not respond to calls"; perhaps this serves as an answer?

Well, unfortunately, that is simply untrue. Tyler Shipley, in the same email, writes this: "I got a message at 10:00 this morning from the Globe and Mail asking for a comment on negotiations. When I called back at 12:00, no one answered the phone. At 12:15, I noticed this article". Continuing, he says "the union did respond, I phoned the individual reporter myself, but...the Globe and Mail chose not to answer the phone."