The haphazard American response to the various upheavals in the Middle East, and in particular the current civil war unfolding in Libya, has provoked a great deal of speculation about the underlying strategy and reasoning guiding the Obama administration's foreign policy. This is a bit odd, since the underpinnings of its foreign policy have been crystal clear since at least the unfolding of the Honduran crisis in June of 2009, within the first six months of Obama's presidency.

During that crisis, the administration acted promptly and vigorously

• In defense of a rabidly anti-American Honduran president, against the more pro-American branches of the Honduran government;


• In support of generally anti-American multilateral organizations, such as the OAS; and


• In favor of an unpopular would-be authoritarian, battling against democracy, rule of law and popular opinion in his own country.

Since then, the administration's major initiatives have included

• A marked cooling in relations with democratic allies such as Israel, Britain and Colombia;


• Eager (and largely failed) attempts at "engagement" with virulently anti-American, anti-democratic regimes in Russia, China, Syria and Iran; and


• Enthusiastic embrace of anti-American multilateral institutions such as the UN and OIC.

The pattern is unmistakable--the only remaining question is whether the anti-American or anti-democratic impulse is more dominant. (Given the general hostility of multilateral organizations to American power, the multilateralist impulse is simply an aspect of the anti-American one.) And the popular uprisings in the Middle East have provided ample clarification: the most pro-American dictator in the region, Hosni Mubarak, was quickly abandoned in favor of a possibly more democratic but definitely more anti-American mob of protesters.

Since the start of the Cold War, the dominant foreign policy issue dividing politicians around the world has been the desirability of American power and influence. And in Western Europe and America, the broad coalitions of the "left" have lined up against it, while the opposing coalitions of the "right" lined up in favor of it. During the 1970s and 1980s, for instance, the leftist position was that America was supporting brutal right-wing dictators in the name of battling Communism, while conservatives made fine distinctions between "authoritarian" (i.e., pro-US) and "totalitarian" (i.e., pro-Soviet) dictatorships. Today, of course, their positions on democracy are essentially reversed, with "neoconservatives" taking an idealistic line in favor of democracy promotion, while left-wing "realists" defend pragmatic multilateral engagement with powerful tyrants.

This swap of positions demonstrates that in neither case is democracy the true motivating issue. Rather, it is the issue of American power that drives the debate on both sides, as the political contortions over Libya--the liberal obsession with avoiding the appearance of American leadership, the conservative fixation over saving America's reputation--once again demonstrate.

The recent resignation of the director of the London School of Economics over his university's lucrative and academically suspect relationship with Muammar Khaddafi's son has highlighted the general shamelessness of academics in courting wealthy foreign despots. (Daniel Drezner has a nice roundup of reports.) Middle Eastern studies gadfly Martin Kramer has been having loads of fun citing examples and implying that the academics in question--and by implication, academics in general--are essentially for sale to the highest bidder, happy to whitewash murderous tyrants if the pay is good.

In fact, the situation is far worse. Consider, for instance, the famous case of Lee Bass' $20 million-dollar grant to Yale University to expand its "Western Civilization" curriculum. Bass' grant was ultimately turned down, because he wanted to ensure that it was spent at least somewhat in the spirit in which it was offered. Similarly, Princeton sacrificed $50 million out of the Robertson's $900 million grant, plus another $40 million in legal fees, rather than accept the foundation's seemingly innocuous condition that the funds be used to prepare students for government service. Apparently, some principles are more important than mere money.

What, then, distinguishes merely questionable gifts from the unacceptably filthy ones? The easy answer, of course, is, "ideology". One could, for example, draw a parallel with universities' long history of selectively capitulating to threats of violence (only) from quarters representing the academic left's political fashions of the moment, from the appeasement of the student radicals of the 1960s to the most recent case of the Yale University Press' removal of the famous Mohammed cartoons from a scholarly book on the controversy. And no doubt a radical anti-American regime such as Khaddafi's can attract its share of ideological sympathy on American and European university campuses. But Saudi and Emirati potentates--hardly the campus revolutionary's idols--have also received more than their share of academic sycophancy. There appears to be more at work here than just ideology.

I believe Paul Rahe has identified that key extra element: prestige. It is the currency of the modern academic--indeed, of the professional scholar in every age--and he or she therefore evaluates every seductive offer or menacing threat in light of its dividends in that currency. Certainly the Khaddafis' reputations profited from their hob-nobbing with world-renowned scholars, and fromhaving the latter write glowing op-eds about them. But for the scholars, too, public engagement as an "advisor" to a national ruling family--even one as odious as Libya's--was a badge of global importance, and clearly more than one mere egghead was excited to wear it (at least until said family's status as national rulers suddenly started looking a little shaky).

Contrast this delicate quid pro quo with the Bass and Robertson cases, in which some wealthy industrialists attempted to pay a couple of leading academic institutions to do their bidding. No reciprocal status marker was offered--just cash, in return for the humiliation of being explicitly told what to teach. It's hardly surprising that the institutions in question found that deal rather unappealing.

There's a possible lesson there for philanthropists seeking to influence the direction of academia: mere bribery is unlikely to succeed. Subtler appeals to academic vanity--prizes, say, or appointments to positions of (real or apparent) influence--are likely to work much better.

This past weekend's New York Times story on the Stuxnet computer worm contained a wonderful, fiendishly clever little detail:

The computer program also secretly recorded what normal operations at the
nuclear plant looked like, then played those readings back to plant operators,
like a pre-recorded security tape in a bank heist, so that it would appear that
everything was operating normally while the centrifuges were actually tearing
themselves apart.

Now, I don't happen to believe for a minute that the program did any such thing. First of all, it'd be very difficult to do so--you'd have to alter all the changing details of operation, such as timestamps and run durations, while keeping all the consistent details the same. Anyone who understood the data generated by the monitoring systems that well would almost certainly be able to have the software simply create bogus-but-plausible readings out of whole cloth, rather than record and replay samples of previous problem-free runs. (And how would the software know those previous runs were actually problem-free, anyway? A log that contained data showing the same rare anomaly over and over would look mighty suspicious...)

On the other hand, suppose you're an intelligence official working on the Stuxnet project. You know that the worm has succeeded in disabling some fraction--but not all, and probably not even most--of the Iranian regime's nuclear fuel-generating centrifuges, and is now being thoroughly purged from all its facilities. How do you maximize the cost and difficulty of the Iranians' task, given that your whole cyber-sabotage operation has pretty much played itself out?

Why, you drop a little hint to the New York Times, to the effect that all the Iranian systems that appear to have been untouched by Stuxnet may simply have been faking it, presenting perfectly fine data while actually being infected and destroying themselves. That way, the Iranians--if they're naive enough to believe the New York Times--will have to minutely examine every single machine in their facility, to check for physical signs of damage, rather than simply scrubbing the facilities that appear to have gone awry. Fiendishly clever, indeed!

2010 wasn't quite as good as 2009 for this blog's annual end-of-year predictions, but it wasn't too bad, either. Here's a wrap-up of the results, followed by a new batch of prognostications, sure to demonstrate the principle of "regression to the mean"...

• The US economy will grow only modestly in 2010, and unemployment will remain high. Consequently, the stock market will end the year down slightly. The Fed will continue its highly expansionary (short-term) interest rate policy, but the combination of easy money and profligate government spending will spur fear of possible inflation risks down the road, forcing up longer-term rates and thus impeding economic growth. On the other hand, the US dollar will recover somewhat, and gold and other commodities will fall in tandem, as Europe and Japan continue to suffer from an even worse case of America's economic malaise. This will help dampen short-term inflation. Real Estate will, after a brief pause, continue its decline.

Right on the big picture, but off on most of the details. The economy was indeed nearly stagnant through 2010--so much so, in fact, that fears of a double-dip kept even long-term interest rates low, impeded the dollar's recovery, and sustained the gold bubble. The low long-term bond yield also sparked a stock market rally in the fall that carried the indices back above their January levels. (On the other hand, I called the real estate market pretty accurately.)

• The Iranian regime will not fall in 2010. In fact, it will begin a massive crackdown not only on oppostion leaders and groups, but also (as previously predicted) on insufficiently hardline elements among the government and clerical elite itself. As the repression gradually succeeds in quelling mass protests, Western attention to internal events there will subside.

Pretty much on target, although the ayatollahs in particular appear to have generally been cowed rather than targeted. (The arrest of Rafsanjani's grandson, for instance, seems to have kept him in line.) Indeed, if it hadn't been for Stuxnet, the country might have fallen off the news radar almost entirely.

• In Iran's vicinity, conditions will continue to deteriorate slowly (with the Iranian regime's help, of course). The already-unpopular war in Afghanistan will grind on without anything like the dramatic progress achieved in Iraq in 2008. Pakistan will continue to totter on the edge of collapse, without actually collapsing. And sectarian violence in Iraq will increase, although again not enough to jeopardize the government. Elections there will proceed more or less normally, with the usual chaotic, not-entirely-conclusive results.

Pretty much spot-on, I'd say. I've added supporting links above from 2010 news reports.

• The Israeli government will fairly soon make a deal with Hamas to free hundreds of Hamas terrorists in exchange for the return of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit. The deal will powerfully energize terrorist groups in the West Bank, who will respond with a surge of terrorist violence and disturbingly effective subversion of the new American-trained Palestinian Authority security forces. However, Israel will step in firmly to fill the gap left by the suddenly floundering locals, and will harshly suppress the violence. This show of resolve by the Israeli government will dampen the usual global hysterics--American and European official condemnations being predicated largely on Israel's past meekness in the face of international bombast--and American and European relations with Israel will actually strengthen in the aftermath.

Okay, this one was way off-base. The Netanyahu government appears to have had considerably more negotiating spine than I anticipated--thereby avoiding the need for military spine...

• The Obama administration will hobble through 2010 weakened and flailing. Health care legislation, if it passes at all, will be watered down still further from the already-perfunctory Senate version, after the bill's big losers (Medicare beneficiaries, "Cadillac plan" customers, and most doctors) band together and start exerting serious political pressure. The administration will turn its attention to the economy, but sluggish growth and stubbornly high unemployment will nevertheless persist throughout the year (see above). The president's foreign policy will appear similarly feckless, with the already-unpopular Afghan campaign dragging on inconclusively, the "engage America's enemies" strategy garnering nothing but contempt from the likes of Iran, and the Middle East conflict (unsurprisingly) continuing to resist resolution despite the administration's best efforts. The administration will also make major personnel changes to his inner circle at some point during the year, replacing one or more key advisors with establishment figures intended to add gravitas and centrist appeal. Needless to say, the shuffle will accomplish little.

A couple of minor details were off (the Senate version of the health care bill did pass after all, and there was no major staff shuffle at the White House), but overall, I think I captured the spirit of the Obama administration's year quite well.

• Exploiting the economy's weakness and the administration's poor approval ratings, the Republicans will launch a grand policy platform akin to the "Contract with America" that led to huge GOP electoral gains in 1994. Like the previous one, the new program will consist of broad, vague, impractical proposals that poll well but stand no chance of being implemented. Armed with this putative platform and buoyed by populist conservative outrage and disappointment-bred apathy among the liberal base, the Republicans will make large gains in both houses of Congress. They will, however, fail to take control of either one.

Again, I slipped on a detail--the GOP did, in fact, win control of the House of Representatives. Otherwise, the above paragraph stands up pretty well--including the bit about the "Contract with America" knockoff.

• There will be a cultural backlash against recession-driven frugal-mindedness, and stories about straitened times for the once-profligate will give way to 30s-style otherworldly depictions of ostentatious wealth and glamor.

Does this count?

And now for this year's predictions:

• The US economy will continue to recover in 2011, and unemployment will drop, although not sharply. Inflation will remain tame, and short-term interest rates will therefore be kept very low, although long-term interest rates will rise substantially. Real estate will decline slightly again. The dollar will strengthen, oil and other commodity prices will be stable, and gold will drop.


• At least one US state or large municipality, and at least one European country, will experience a Greek/Irish-style debt crisis, which it will manage to muddle through, Greek/Irish-style, with a combination of austerity measures and external bailout funds.


• The Afghan "surge" campaign will show signs of progress, but strong domestic opposition to it in the US will force an overall de-escalation of operations and/or a shortened time limit on deployment. The gradual American withdrawal from Iraq will continue, and internal instability there will again increase, although only modestly.


• Middle East peace negotiations will remain frozen. The Palestinian Authority will enact some kind of official declaration of independence or sovereignty, which will be nominally recognized by a bunch of countries around the world, but otherwise change nothing. Similarly, the UN tribunal will indict some Hezbollah officials for the murder of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri. The move will be ignored in Lebanon, where Hezbollah's iron grip will continue unaffected. Both Hamas and Hezbollah will exercise relative restraint towards Israel, however, due to strengthened Israeli deterrence and Iranian government's preoccupation with consolidating its hold on power and shoring up its imploding internal economy.


• The Obama administration and Congressional Republicans will alternate between conciliation and confrontation over the year, co-operating on certain popular measures--possibly including deficit reduction and tax reform--while feuding bitterly over partisan ones, such as health care and the environment. GOP-run House hearings and proposed (but doomed) legislation will compete with symbolic executive and regulatory actions for partisan advantage through theatrics. Obama's approval ratings will improve to the low-50-percent range. On the Republican side, the 2012 presidential nomination race will by the end of the year produce neither a clear frontrunner nor a credible threat to Obama's re-election.


• Phenomena such as the Voca People and Mike Thompkins will lead a surge of popular interest in a cappella music.

If you disagree--or think you can do better--feel free to add a comment with your own predictions, and I'll review them along with mine next January...

The notoriety of Wikileaks completely baffles me. The huge collection of US State Department cables it recently published is interesting enough in places, but the reality is that Wikileaks' involvement in the cables' publication is entirely incidental. There are literally thousands of sites that happily accept and distribute anonymously uploaded material, any one of which could have been used by the cables' leaker. (The famous climategate emails, for example, were uploaded to a server in Russia, and their location then revealed on multiple blogs, allowing many readers of those blogs to download the entire archive within hours.)

It's shocking, to be sure, that such a large volume of State Department correspondence should be so easy for a single low-level official to copy and leak. But once the materials were in the hands of the leaker, widely disseminating them would have been utter child's play--with or without Wikileaks. The fact that Wikileaks has any place at all, let alone a central one, in the public debate over this story, says far more about the apparently extraordinary self-promotion skills of its founder than about his organization's global (in)significance.

I, too, have been thinking about everybody's favorite children-blowing-up movie, and the minds of the people who released it. Of course, the only way to think about it that doesn't make my own head explode is that it was made as a satire of environmentalists, by their opponents. In that context, it makes sense to ask whether or not it is fair, whether or not it is funny, and whether or not it is in good taste. As a film made by environmentalists, it makes no sense whatsoever. Dan's attempt to get inside the minds of the producers is brave indeed. But I don't buy his view that environmentalists view opponents as minor social annoyances, much as we view people who take a cell phone call at dinner.

Environmentalists do not deserve the benefit of the doubt. Consider this post, which contains just some of the very nasty plans that prominent environmentalists have announced for those of us who are not yet assimilated. And there is no shortage of direct violence by environmentalists as well. And environmentalists -- including the relatively sane ones -- know about these instances. For an environmentalist to "joke" about blowing up opponents is a bit like anti-abortionists "joking" about blowing up people who support legalized abortion; or Muslims "joking" about blowing up opponents of the ground zero mosque: it's not something I can get my head around.

In fact, I have no explanation at all for the mind-set of the people who made that movie.

I do, however, wish to point out one thing about the movie that I have not seen other people remark on. One of the many ways in which this movement is fraudulent is that their good cops tell us, "all we're asking for is this little thing"; but when pressed, the bad cops explain that the little thing was just an appetizer, and that the main course will -- and must -- completely overturn the economy of the world. (This point was also made in my out-of-date (even then) post.) And we see this in the movie as well. The teacher says:

The idea is everyone STARTS cutting their carbon emissions by 10% thus, keeping the planet safe for everyone, EVENTUALLY.

Clearly there will be further rounds of cutting, but don't worry about that right now. Just remember to think right, and to wear a raincoat to class.

Michael Kinsley is fond of pointing out the contradiction between anti-abortionists' moral absolutism and their rejection of its natural consequences. If abortion is, as pro-life groups routinely claim, morally indistinguishable from murder, he notes, then violence in defense of murder victims--murder of abortionists, for instance--ought to seem eminently justifiable to the entire movement, rather than just to a tiny fringe. Kinsley concludes, quite plausibly, that anti-abortion activists can't possibly believe their own absolutist rhetoric.

I have a similar reaction to the celebrity video and subsequent apology published by a British environmental group called 10:10. The video presents several vignettes in which people are encouraged to volunteer to reduce their personal greenhouse gas footprints by 10 percent...and those who refuse are shown being blown to pieces in blood-spattering explosions at the press of a big red button.

Opponents have responded with outrage, suggesting that the film exposes the brutally totalitarian mindset of the 10:10 group in particular, and the environmentalist movement in general. The apology reassures readers that the whole thing was intended to be funny, not threatening--the script was, after all, written by Richard Curtis, the screenwriter behind such wildly successful comedies as the Blackadder series and Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Here's where Kinsley's point comes into play. Let us assume, for a moment--and I see no reason to doubt it--that the film was, indeed, meant to be humorous. What does that say about its creators? Certainly not that they're wild-eyed totalitarian fanatics--such people might find the idea of blowing up opponents heartening and praiseworthy, but they wouldn't consider it particularly funny. On the contrary, blowing up dissenters only comes off as humorous if the punishment is understood to be wildly disproportionate to the crime, rather than commensurate with it.

In particular, the premise of social annoyances--queue-jumping, inconsiderate driving, loud and disruptive cellphone use and the like--being punished with over-the-top violence has been a stock comedy theme for years. In the 2000 horror film spoof, "Scary Movie", for example, a disruptive moviegoer is murdered by a masked killer, to the applause of annoyed fellow audience members.

And indeed, the 10:10 film never depicts anyone either justifying or acting on environmentalist principles--the rigidly enforced social norm it depicts requires only vocal embrace of the general idea of "saving the planet", and a cheery promise to do something concrete toward that end at a later date. The gory fate imposed on those who dare dissent isn't argued for or justified--it's simply a Scary Movie-style comic exaggeration of the cold disgust that we all feel towards those whose behavior we find unacceptably rude, crass or tasteless.

The 10:10 movement's critics' rants about bloodthirsty totalitarians are thus badly off the mark. The filmmakers have in fact shown themselves to be nothing more than shallow conformist trend-followers, for whom failure to pay nominal lip service to fashionable environmentalist cant is intolerably rude and inconsiderate, in the same way that talking loudly on a cellphone in a movie theater is intolerably rude and inconsiderate. If they really believed that shirkers who neglect the 10:10 commitment deserve to die, then they could never have portrayed the idea of killing them so lightheartedly.

The story of Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers University freshman who committed suicide after his roommate broadcast live video over the Internet of him engaged in gay sex acts in his dorm room, has certainly confused a lot of commentators. To begin with, it's clearly not, as some have claimed, about "cyberbullying". There is no indication that Clementi was harassed or threatened in any way, and the passive-aggressive tone of the perpetrator's Twitter messages (not to mention their act itself) strongly suggests that they were themselves most likely incapable of even attempting to intimidate Clementi.

Second, it's only peripherally about society's attitudes towards homosexuality. While Clementi's roommate, Dharun Ravi, appears to have been unhappy about Clementi's use of their shared dorm room for gay sex (among other points of friction between them), he is not known either to have directly disparaged homosexuality, or to have been motivated by Clementi's orientation. Indeed, Ravi's action appears to have been completely opportunistic--he simply activated the Webcam on his own computer, sitting in his own dorm room, from a friend's dorm room. There's no reason to believe he would have behaved differently had his disliked roommate's companion been female. (It's likely, though, that had either participant in such a heterosexual tryst committed suicide on hearing of having starred in a live Internet video, the public reaction would have been far more muted and less passionately sympathetic.)

No, the real moral of this story is one I have touched on before: the failure of modern etiquette to evolve quickly enough to keep up with modern communications technology. Ravi and his friend appear to have thought little about the propriety, let alone the consequences, of their video streaming project before embarking on it. Perhaps they were simply not tuned in to current social conventions regarding such acts--but far more likely, such social conventions simply don't exist yet.

In Robert Altman's 1970 film M*A*S*H*, the story's "heroes" engage in an audio, heterosexual version of Ravi's stunt, publicly humiliating two "villains". (There was no Internet at the time, of course, but the army camp's public address system served as a substitute.) Now, I've long condemned this film's celebration of its heroes' shocking cruelty, but to the best of my knowledge, no other commentator has characterized the stunt of broadcasting audio of a sexual tryst between two unsympathetic characters as anything other than hilarious. On the other hand, the scenario enacted in the film was until recently sufficiently remote from common experience to be easy for audiences to distance themselves from. What makes the Clementi story so unsettling is precisely that what was once a wildly improbable gag, suitable for a ribald, off-the-wall comedy, can now be a casual, unthinking act by a disgruntled college student with no special equipment. And it will probably be quite some time before social conventions catch up to that technological shift.

Two comparisons brought to mind by recent events in the world of pop culture:

• The evolution of pop music lyrics over the last forty-three years: from here to here (foul language warning), over essentially the same melody.
• In film: from terrorist to would-be pop star; in real life: from would-be pop star to terrorist.

The standard social conservative argument against gay marriage is that it undermines and trivializes traditional forms of marriage and the family, by incorporating into them relationships that lack the same level of solemn responsibility and commitment. Two prominent moderate conservatives, Ross Douthat and David Frum, have finally managed to identify the main problem with this argument: it gets the flow of causation backwards. It's not that acceptance of gay marriage undermines traditional marriage, but rather that gay marriage couldn't possibly have reached today's levels of popular approval, were it not for the fact that the ideal of marriage as a socially enforced rock-solid commitment to fidelity and family is already, for all intents and purposes, moribund in the Western world. In an era when ordinary heterosexuals routinely enter into--and drift out of--"relationships" of greater or lesser length that can include sex, cohabitation or even reproduction, more or less irrespective of whether or not they choose to add a marriage ceremony into the mix, it's hard to see why anyone would bother to take a stand on the minor detail of whether the redundant formalism that is modern marriage might also be stretched to include yet another category of indeterminately casual or serious liaison.

In another respect, though, both Frum and Douthat hew to the standard conservative line about traditional marriage, by fretting about the effects on society of its collapse. In their characterization, disdain for the traditional family is a kind of pernicious cultural fashion, rather like uneconomical recycling programs or ugly, annoying "transgressive" art, that affluent Westerners have affected as a form of social snobbery, and that has by now percolated down to--and wrought havoc upon--the masses. The middle and lower classes, according to their theory, have embraced the elite's lack of sexual and domestic discipline, thereby ruining their prospects for social and economic stability, let alone advancement.

To be frank, I once subscribed to this view myself. But the stubborn failure of traditional marriage to revive itself, despite all the supposed incentives it offers, has led me to rethink this analysis. And I've arrived at a very different conclusion: the feminist and sexual revolutions of the 1960s, far from being mere elite cultural fads, were in fact fundamental, historic breaks with the past, of which the collapse of the traditional family is just one facet.

Although it is rarely stated explicitly, the traditional family rests on a basic assumption: that in the vast majority of cases, a woman needs (or at least benefits greatly from having) a man to provide for her. And for most of human history, that was simply true, because much of the business of survival involved physically strenuous activities--first hunting, later agriculture, and even, fairly recently, heavy industry--to which men were significantly more suited, and which were incompatible with maternal care of infants.

By the late twentieth century, however, technology and its attendant prosperity together allowed women to be more or less fully competitive with men at the majority of reasonably well-paying occupations. Meanwhile, medical advances have vastly reduced the amount of time a woman has to spend caring for infants in order to be confident of raising a small number of them to adulthood. Thus, for the first time in history, a critical mass of women have truly come to need men, as the old feminist saying goes, "like a fish needs a bicycle".

And it is this newfound independence that has brought about the destruction of the traditional family, not vice versa. While the conventional wisdom characterizes men as reveling in their sexual freedom while women still pine for a stable marriage and family, it is in fact women who have shifted their position on marriage most dramatically. Well over half of divorces, for example, are instigated by women, and the surge in extramarital sexual partnerships, from casual relationships to long-term unmarried cohabitations, would be impossible without women's consent to them--something that would have been simply unheard-of fifty years ago, when most women's economic stability was dependent on marital stability. Today's women, freed by the prospect of financial independence, can now structure their personal relationships the way men have long preferred to: based on emotional preference, rather than material need. And as it turns out--for many of them, though certainly not all of them--emotional preference is less conducive to stable, lifelong marital commitment than material need used to be.

Now, it's quite possible that social conservatives are correct in warning that this shift has had, and will continue to have, deleterious effects on society. In particular, there's the whole matter of childrearing: now that women are no longer bound by economic need to the role of wife and mother, they are having, on average, far fewer children, and caring for them less. The effects of this new family profile on society are only beginning to make their impact, and we don't know for sure that they will be even tolerably benign in the longer term.

But neither are we likely to be able to put the genie back into the bottle. If I'm correct that today's radically altered options and incentives for women are a result of prosperity and technology--two things we probably can't give up even in the unlikely event that we wanted to--then it's surely far more productive to consider how society can best adapt to the new reality of domestic instability, than to pine for a not-so-happy past era in which economic and technological backwardness made it less of a problem.

A maybe-not-so-old joke tells of a party of explorers of several different nationalities captured by cannibals in some remote jungle. The cannibal chief offers each a last wish before being eaten, and each responds in a noble-but-feckless manner befitting his nationality. The last captive, an Israeli, asks, oddly enough, for the chief to punch him in the stomach. The chief, nonplussed, complies, whereupon the Israeli doubles over, pulls a pistol from under his pant leg, shoots the chief, and in the ensuing confusion, leads the party to safety in the surrounding jungle. "Why didn't you shoot him sooner?", asks one. "What?", he replies, "and be branded an evil Zionist aggressor?"

I'm reminded of this joke when reading about the recent "Gaza flotilla incident", in which Israeli naval forces boarded a boat attempting to run Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip, only to be set upon by dozens of "peace activists" wielding knives, iron bars and other weapons. The consensus so far among pro-Israel commentators (of the reaction from the usual anti-Israel suspects, the less said the better) seems to be that (1) this episode was a public relations fiasco, and (2) the Israeli Navy was derelict in not using overwhelming force to subdue the thugs aboard the boat without offering any opportunity for effective resistance.

This consensus strikes me as utterly wrongheaded. Given the level of preparation and dedication displayed by the "activists" aboard the Mavi Marmara, casualties were simply inevitable. If the figures being bandied about (10-15 killed, dozens injured) are accurate, then the fighting must have continued despite casualties having been taken. And if the knife-and-bat-wielders were willing to take casualties and go on fighting, then the Israelis would simply have had no choice but to inflict them in the course of taking control of the ship, no matter how overpowering their numbers. The spectacle of Hamas and its allies waving the bloody shirts of killed or injured "peace activists" was thus a foregone conclusion, once the Israelis had made the decision not to allow the ship to run the blockade.

On the other hand, if overwhelming force had been used to suppress the resistance, several Israeli commandos would have avoided injury--but there also would have been no footage of "peace activists" stabbing and beating Israeli soldiers. If the main point of the exercise was to win the propaganda war, then the Israeli Navy's (probably inadvertent) decision to let a few of its commandos get badly roughed up was quite possibly the best option available. Like the Israeli in the joke, they're harder to brand as Zionist aggressors now that they've taken a figurative fist to the stomach.

The most important test, though, is yet to come: the disposition of the boats. Having been used in a violent attack on Israeli military personnel, they should be treated as captured enemy materiel, and confiscated. This would be by far the most effective measure the Israeli government could take against the would-be blockade-busters. Fanatical "activists", after all, are a dime a dozen. But large boats are really expensive, and even Hamas' backers can't afford to keep supplying them--and losing them--indefinitely.

Peter Beinart's cri de coeur in the New York Review of Books about how non-liberal American Jews aren't liberal enough, or something, will be familiar to readers of his small coterie of fellow anguished liberal Zionists, such as Jeffrey Goldberg and Leon Wieseltier. But in practice, it's not substantially different from the critiques of more straightforwardly Israel-bashing liberal Jews such as Joe Klein, Ezra Klein or Matthew Yglesias. The critique, which Beinart follows quite precisely, goes roughly as follows: in the old days--say, before the rise of the Likud party--liberal, secular Israel used to be a comfortable object of affection for liberal, secular American Jews. But today, Israel is less liberal and less secular, and thus increasingly alienates liberal American Jews, who respond with hostility towards Israeli policies and actions. Non-liberal, non-secular American Jews, on the other hand, continue to support and defend non-liberal, non-secular Israel, and this is a moral failing of the first order, given Israel's shocking deviations from secular liberalism.

Now, as a purely objective matter, this argument suffers from multiple serious historical distortions. Beinart's bizarre suggestion that "[f]or several decades, the Jewish establishment has asked American Jews to check their liberalism at Zionism’s door" is simply not accurate--during the Oslo years, American Jewish liberals had no problem supporting the Rabin, Peres and Barak governments.

Nor is there any historical basis for Beinart's claim that "comfortable Zionism has [recently] become a moral abdication". The liberal, secular Labor governments of the pre-Likud era, while certainly more liberal and secular, were objectively no less guilty of any of the "crimes" of which the current Israeli state typically stands accused. The annexation of Jerusalem, the establishment of Jewish communities in the West Bank and Gaza strip, pre-emptive invasions of neighboring territory, the assassination of terrorists--all these predated the first Likud government. And the consequences of these actions for Arab civilians were no less severe back when the lead perpetrators were Laborites.

Of course, back then, that was the whole point. It wasn't, after all, Israel's granola-munching pacifism that thrilled American Jews in 1967, when it turned apparent imminent doom into lightning conquest, or in 1976, when it launched a daring hostage-freeing raid hundreds of miles away in Entebbe. In those days, an unapologetically aggressive Israel was a source of pride, not shame, for American Jews.

But if Israel hasn't changed as much as its critics claim, American Jews have changed a great deal more. It was only during the 1960s that the discriminatory barriers that had previously kept Jews out of the highest levels of the American establishment began to crumble. To an American Jew in 1967, a beleaguered Israel turned conquerer was a fitting symbol for an insecure minority finally winning a chance to conquer the highest rungs of American society. Zionism was thus the rallying cry of the assimilationist, proclaiming that secular, liberal Jews, by shedding their pious, persecuted shtetl identities, could be proud, equal citizens of America, just as secular, liberal Israel, by shedding its diaspora vulnerability, could be a proud equal member of the society of nations.

Today, however, the children of those assimilated liberal Jews have completely arrived. No longer haunted by the sense of apartness that dogged their parents and grandparents, Jews like Ezra Klein and Matthew Yglesias see themselves as liberal, secular Americans tout court. For them, Zionism--even without the Likudnik/Haredi angle--is an unwelcome reminder of the old sense of otherness that they would rather avoid feeling, now that they have the option.

It is this swing against Zionism among assimilated American Jews that is creating so much conflict in more seriously Jewish liberals such as Beinart, who aren't seeking assimilation into American society as a whole, but rather into the liberal intelligentsia--including its nominally Jewish contingent. Mere anti-Israel animus on the left can't be the explanation--it's nothing new, after all, and pro-Zionist liberal Jews have long resisted its pull and vigorously countered its arguments (including a lonely few, such as Goldberg, Wieseltier and Jonathan Chait, who continue to do so to this very day). In fact, the liberal arguments in defense of Zionism are stronger than ever these days, now that even the Likud accepts a Palestinian state in principle, while Israel's Arab and Palestinian opponents have swung towards a rejectionism that's not only as brutally violent as ever, but also increasingly theocratic, quasi-fascist and nakedly anti-Semitic.

On substantial grounds alone, then, the liberal Zionist's defense against leftist anti-Zionist agitation ought to be far stronger and more confident today than, say, twenty years ago. (In the very issue of the New York Review of Books containing Beinart's essay, an advertisement by a long list of American leftists accuses the Obama administration of war crimes in the Middle East--specifically, the targeting of Al Qaeda civilians for airstrikes by unmanned drones. Yet somehow, mainstream liberals seem to have managed not to collapse in anguish over the alleged incipient fascism of the Obama administration.)

But as I've pointed out before, international political campaigns like the current one against Israel (or the one against South Africa before it, for that matter) aren't motivated by substance, but rather by their symbolic value in the context of other (usually more local) political battles. And now that such a large fraction of assimilated, secular, liberal American Jews have abandoned Zionism altogether--while non-secular, non-liberal American Jews continue to embrace it--it's much more difficult for a self-identified liberal American Jew like Beinart to break ranks with his chosen side in this domestic sectarian conflict.

Third in a series: Here's the last modern pop song you'll ever need to listen to (caution: dirty words again)...

As a followup to my previous service to readers, here's the trailer for the last Hollywood film you'll ever need to see.

More Advice For Men
I discussed here what we learned from the films "Groundhog Day" and "Superman" about how a typical man should go about winning the heart of the woman he desires. But what if, in addition, he wants to regain the respect of his nine year old son?

(Spoilers ahead!)

Fortunately, Hollywood has some answers for us here as well. One helpful film is "Night At The Museum". Ben Stiller is rejected by both his son and the woman he loves, until he hits upon the obvious solution: become the night watchman at a magical museum where everything comes alive at night! Of course, that's not nearly enough. He has to gain the trust of most of the museum's inhabitants -- including monkeys, dinosaurs, cowboys, ancient Romans, Teddy Roosevelt and Attila the Hun -- and organize them all to defeat the bad guys. Then he introduces the woman he loves to her role model Sacajawea and voila, he gets all the love and sex and respect he deserves. Piece of cake.

The reason I'm writing a(n infrequent) blog post about this is because I just finished watching "2012". John Cusack has the same problem that Ben Stiller had: how to gain the love of a woman (his ex-wife) and the respect of his son (who won't even call him "dad"). It turns out that John's solution is a bit more difficult than Ben's. John must save his family from, quite literally, the end of the world. He must drive the car while dodging huge projectiles emitted from sudden volcanoes, while at the same time avoiding massive rifts that are opening up in the Earth, and driving around and through falling skyscrapers. For a start. He must then get everyone on board a number of airplanes (strangely, he doesn't have to pilot the airplanes himself) and make their way to a secret location in China, stowaway aboard an "Ark", dive underwater to fix the Ark's hydraulic system, and then surface for a well deserved hug from woman and son.

I suppose one can say that these movies are really about special effects, and the motivations of the characters are irrelevant. But both of the directors felt they had to give some motivation to the main character other than survival, and they both chose the same motivation. They felt that the audience would naturally and unthinkingly accept the premise that for a man, winning the love of a woman and the respect of a son is a Herculean task of Earth-shattering difficulty.

As a service to readers, here's the last television news report you'll ever need to watch. (Note: contains a naughty word.)

I went to see Avatar prepared to see a hackneyed eco-hippie-themed noble-savage-vs.-evil-technology plotline, richly decorated with spectacular visual effects. And the film fully met my expectations on both counts, although the latter were a bit too derivative (of past jungle/rainforest films, from Tarzan to Emerald Forest; of sci-fi flicks such as Star Wars, Aliens and The Matrix; and of man-battles-dinosaur classics from The Land That Time Forgot to Jurassic Park) to lift the film above the level of "mildly entertaining".

What I was not at all prepared for, though, was Avatar's take on relations between the sexes. Not since the laughable Antonia's line--which, despite its wide acclaim, appears to have been made primarily by and for lesbians--have I seen a film so strongly premised on the assumption that women are superior and dominant, and men inferior and subordinate.

The Omaticaya, Avatar's idealized indigenous hunter-gatherers, are, of course, highly matriarchal: their deity is an earth-goddess, their most powerful figure is a shamanistic high priestess, and their women are fierce hunters at least on par with their males. The only Omaticaya men portrayed in the film are the tribe's chieftain, who appears outranked by his high-priestess wife, and the chieftain's heir apparent, a rather sullen young man whom the film's hero quickly supplants. (Remarkably, Omaticaya children are nowhere to be seen in the film--perhaps because depicting women in a childrearing role might cast doubt on their seeming complete dominance over men.)

The earthlings aren't much different--the film's human males are, for the most part, followers, dupes or fools. The corporate executive overseeing the entire mining operation, for instance, is portrayed as a vapid, golf-playing buffoon. The soldiers--with the exception of a single female pilot--are simply disposable grunts following orders. The male scientists are meek minions of the hard-driving female project leader. Even the film's hero is essentially a lost, confused soul unsure whether to be a pawn of the military, a servant of science or a follower of the Omaticaya cult.

(The single exception, of course, is the film's arch-villain, who, despite being portrayed as a brutal, racist psychopath, nevertheless shows enough leadership, drive and independence of mind--enough manliness, in short--to make him by far the most genuinely interesting male character in the whole movie. Like Mad Men's Don Draper--a cold-eyed, philandering snake who has become something of a sex symbol in the eyes of the show's female fans--Avatar's Colonel Miles Quaritch benefits greatly from being, despite his flaws, a welcome island of cojones in a sea of feckless beta males.)

Now, it might seem surprising that a film clearly intended for a young male audience would so glorify women running roughshod over hapless men. And it's certainly not typical of the sci-fi/fantasy film genre: consider, for example, that the most successful recent film series of this type have all featured wise, powerful father figures--viz., Yoda, Gandalf, Morpheus, Dumbledore. Yet in this film, there are only mother figures to admire.

We shouldn't forget, however, that nerdy males--presumably the film's core demographic--are widely understood to live in awe and fear of women. And it may be that Avatar's filmmaker, James Cameron, has in fact struck a chord with his gynocratic vision. After all, if there's anyone who would be expected to understand what appeals to a target audience of adolescent filmgoers, surely it would be the maker of Titanic...

2009 may not have been one of history's most outstanding years, but it was a pretty good year for this blog's annual predictions, as you'll see in this year's review and preview. First, the roundup of last year's list:

Barack Obama's first year in office will go as badly as his mentor's, as the sluggish economy and unresolved conflicts between the moderates and progressives within his own party undermines his popularity, making his cool, detached persona seem weak and indecisive. Republicans will be somewhat rejuvenated by being able to take responsibility-free potshots from the sidelines, although no particularly prominent GOP leader will emerge. More Keynsian "stimulus" spending packages and bailouts will be enacted into law, but other government initiatives popular among Democrats, such as health care reform, will fall victim to the party's internal rifts, with some Republican help.

Health care isn't quite dead, although it's far from a done deal. Otherwise, I'd say this prediction is pretty much spot-on.

Some time during the year, a reputable source--perhaps an intelligence agency or a defense think tank--will declare that Iran most likely has already produced at least one nuclear weapon, and soon will produce more. Little attention will be paid. Likewise, Iraq will all but disappear from the news, as will Afghanistan and Pakistan, despite continuing unrest there. Domestic issues--particularly economic ones--will dominate public attention, and foreign news will focus on trade and economic matters, such as the fate of China's export industries and the Euro's troubles.

This was my only prediction to miss the mark badly. While evidence of Iran's progress to the brink of nuclear weapons production has piled up relentlessly, I don't know of any authoritative claims that Iran has actually succeeded in building a nuclear weapon. And I failed to anticipate the unrest following the June elections in Iran, as well as the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which kept those two countries, as well as Pakistan (though not Iraq) still firmly entrenched on the front news pages.

Stephen Harper will continue to hobble along with his minority government in Canada. Bibi Netanyahu will become prime minister of Israel, but in a coalition with Kadima and other parties of the center and right.

I underestimated Tzipi Livni's remarkable combination of personal ego and political incompetence, which caused her to gravely sabotage her own career by refusing to join Netanyahu's coalition. Otherwise, another pretty good prediction.

Hamas and Hezbollah will lay low following Netanyahu's election, quietly building up their military strength as they did during most of 2008. They will take advantage of the inconclusive outcome of the current Gaza operation, which will have included a limited ground invasion that damaged Hamas but failed to dislodge its de facto government, and will have ended with a ceasefire agreement that effectively restores the status quo ante. Netanyahu will thus lack a pretext--or support from an exhausted, cynical Israeli public--for a more decisive engagement, even as the long-term threat on both fronts quietly builds.

As flawless a prediction as I've ever made, I'd say.

The US economy will remain in recession for most if not all of 2009. However, Japanese-style deflation will not set in, and the CPI will be positive by the end of the year. Oil prices will rebound, but only modestly. The stock market will bounce around its recent low levels and end little changed from the beginning of the year. Likewise, housing prices will stabilize. Interest rates will fall on risky assets and rise on risk-free ones, as depression-panic subsides. Unemployment will continue to rise.

Missed the stock market rebound, but again, otherwise pretty much on target.

Environmentalism will "jump the shark" this year, as the cost of being green in a lousy economy turns off enough otherwise sympathetic folks to make the movement's excesses a target of mainstream ridicule.

Another spectacularly prescient call. Some will blame this or this, but we know the real story...


And now for this year's prognostications...

• The US economy will grow only modestly in 2010, and unemployment will remain high. Consequently, the stock market will end the year down slightly. The Fed will continue its highly expansionary (short-term) interest rate policy, but the combination of easy money and profligate government spending will spur fear of possible inflation risks down the road, forcing up longer-term rates and thus impeding economic growth. On the other hand, the US dollar will recover somewhat, and gold and other commodities will fall in tandem, as Europe and Japan continue to suffer from an even worse case of America's economic malaise. This will help dampen short-term inflation. Real Estate will, after a brief pause, continue its decline.


• The Iranian regime will not fall in 2010. In fact, it will begin a massive crackdown not only on oppostion leaders and groups, but also (as previously predicted) on insufficiently hardline elements among the government and clerical elite itself. As the repression gradually succeeds in quelling mass protests, Western attention to internal events there will subside.


• In Iran's vicinity, conditions will continue to deteriorate slowly (with the Iranian regime's help, of course). The already-unpopular war in Afghanistan will grind on without anything like the dramatic progress achieved in Iraq in 2008. Pakistan will continue to totter on the edge of collapse, without actually collapsing. And sectarian violence in Iraq will increase, although again not enough to jeopardize the government. Elections there will proceed more or less normally, with the usual chaotic, not-entirely-conclusive results.


• The Israeli government will fairly soon make a deal with Hamas to free hundreds of Hamas terrorists in exchange for the return of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit. The deal will powerfully energize terrorist groups in the West Bank, who will respond with a surge of terrorist violence and disturbingly effective subversion of the new American-trained Palestinian Authority security forces. However, Israel will step in firmly to fill the gap left by the suddenly floundering locals, and will harshly suppress the violence. This show of resolve by the Israeli government will dampen the usual global hysterics--American and European official condemnations being predicated largely on Israel's past meekness in the face of international bombast--and American and European relations with Israel will actually strengthen in the aftermath.


• The Obama administration will hobble through 2010 weakened and flailing. Health care legislation, if it passes at all, will be watered down still further from the already-perfunctory Senate version, after the bill's big losers (Medicare beneficiaries, "Cadillac plan" customers, and most doctors) band together and start exerting serious political pressure. The administration will turn its attention to the economy, but sluggish growth and stubbornly high unemployment will nevertheless persist throughout the year (see above). The president's foreign policy will appear similarly feckless, with the already-unpopular Afghan campaign dragging on inconclusively, the "engage America's enemies" strategy garnering nothing but contempt from the likes of Iran, and the Middle East conflict (unsurprisingly) continuing to resist resolution despite the administration's best efforts. The administration will also make major personnel changes to his inner circle at some point during the year, replacing one or more key advisors with establishment figures intended to add gravitas and centrist appeal. Needless to say, the shuffle will accomplish little.


• Exploiting the economy's weakness and the administration's poor approval ratings, the Republicans will launch a grand policy platform akin to the "Contract with America" that led to huge GOP electoral gains in 1994. Like the previous one, the new program will consist of broad, vague, impractical proposals that poll well but stand no chance of being implemented. Armed with this putative platform and buoyed by populist conservative outrage and disappointment-bred apathy among the liberal base, the Republicans will make large gains in both houses of Congress. They will, however, fail to take control of either one.


• There will be a cultural backlash against recession-driven frugal-mindedness, and stories about straitened times for the once-profligate will give way to 30s-style otherworldly depictions of ostentatious wealth and glamor.

How obviously wrong are Roman Polanski's defenders? Heck, even Nina Burleigh, of all people, recognizes that "[w]hat matters is that the rape of a 13-year old girl, in a nation of laws".

She does concede, however, that "Great Men - and other men - sometimes do find pliant, young flesh irresistible. Geniuses are usually forgiven for it." Well, she would know, wouldn't she?

The latest proof of the extent to which an aristocratic, ruling-class mindset has permeated the political left and its cultural allies is Ellen Ruppel Shell's new bestseller, "Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture", which might as well be subtitled, "Let Them Eat Cake". It should no longer surprise anyone that a magazine writer with impeccable liberal credentials would casually accuse ordinary price-conscious shoppers of political ignorance, social irresponsibility and cultural philistinism, although I admit I would never have expected her to denounce, of all things, IKEA, the savior of many an impecunious urban snob--the Trader Joe's of furniture, if you will. (Perhaps the secret of IKEA has finally gotten out to the masses, ruining its cachet.)

What does surprise me, though, is the timing of this broadside against middle-class frugality. Sure, Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation could ooze contempt for the unwashed peasantry and their appalling affinity for inexpensive, convenient, tasty food--in 2001, when even those who'd dropped a bundle in the tech crash had little reason to feel particularly vulnerable. But in these difficult economic times, is there really still such a large cohort of readers so insulated from financial concerns that they feel no discomfort while sharing Shell's snooty disdain for ordinary folks and their crude habit of saving money by shopping for the best deal?

Let's say you're the "supreme leader" of a large Asian country ruled by a party with a radical ideology based on a belief system that predicts that the entire world will one day submit to its precepts. Your charismatic predecessor led the overthrow of the nation's ruling monarchy and anointed you as his successor, but the regime you inherited retained some inconvenient vestiges of liberalism and some annoyingly unsubservient members of the ruling party--not to mention plenty of popular discontent. Now, with the help of the loyal thugs of your government's repressive apparatus, you've finally eliminated those remnants of liberalism and isolated and demoted your main rivals. What do you do next?

Well, if history is any guide, you launch a massive purge of your own party and all institutions with the potential to foster leaders or ideas that might challenge your absolute rule. This will certainly cement your hold on power for a while (as well as boost your personality cult), but it'll make your subjects' lives pretty miserable in the process. So if anyone out there happens to be living in a country that fits this description, now might be a good time to get out...

Should doctors be using computers?, Part 2
I discussed here the complaint by the New York Times about the administration's "headlong rush" towards the computerization of medical records. That was the Bush administration of course, and we all still have the whiplash to show for it. By contrast, Obama recently held a health-care summit at which "the flagship proposal ... was the national adoption of electronic medical records". This time it is the Wall Street Journal that is concerned. Apparently there is no reason to believe that computers should be used for medical records, any more than they were in the writing of that article. And of course, once mistaken medical decisions are committed to computer, they will tend to propagate. Perhaps we'd be better off if doctors wrote nothing down. (I do agree with the article, however, that this proposal will not yield great savings.) Interestingly, the New York Times is not (or at least was not) completely on board. It appears that some democrats want to make sure that the privacy issues are completely settled first. Right.

A friend of mine also feels that privacy issues must be perfected before we go ahead: "Just think about how bad a person with AIDS would feel if his medical information became public." This is true, of course, but I pointed out that there is another group of people for whom it is absolutely crucial that medical records be computerized: people with AIDS. It all comes down to the fact that there are two types of people in the world: those who think that people with AIDS primarily have a privacy problem, and those who think that people with AIDS primarily have a medical problem.

It should be clear that any system that makes it easier for good guys to access (medical) data will also make it at least somewhat easier for bad guys to access it as well. That is, we will lose at least some privacy when we computerize medical records. Also, in the initial version of the system, there will be horrible bugs; with time these will be decreased, but the system will never be perfect in any sense. I think it's worth it. If you don't, then you should explain just what degree of disorganization and inaccessibility you desire for medical records.

An interesting question is: why has this computerization not happened already? Surely the privacy-mongers are partly to blame, but there are many other reasons as well. Two culprits are the medical profession, and facts of life about how standards come about. I hope to write more about this in the future.

According to virtually every press account, the recent credit card law means trouble for customers who pay their balances in full every month. Deprived of extra profits from interest rate increases on heavy debtors, the logic goes, credit card companies will have to recoup the extra revenue from non-balance-carriers. Some commentators even go so far as to argue that monthly interest payers are "subsidizing" everyone else, and that the decline in revenue from the former will have to be made up by making the latter pay their "fair share".

Arguments of this type pop up every time something negative happens to the credit card industry. Yet here we are, with annual fees hovering around zero--often with "cash back" rebates of one percent or more--for customers who pay off their balances. If credit card companies could get away with charging balance-free customers annual fees, then why don't they already?

In fact, the supposed free ride enjoyed by non-borrowers is a product of two factors:

• Whatever they may say, credit card companies make good money off non-borrowing customers. The transaction fee charged merchants for credit card purchases more than covers the costs and risks of serving those customers, given that their current balance and default risk is so consistently low.


• Customers careful and stingy enough to pay off their balances every month are also typically willing to shop around for the best credit card deal, forcing credit companies to compete for their still-profitable business.

Neither of these factors is at all affected by the latest legislation. It's therefore a good bet that any future attempts on the part of the credit card companies to squeeze more money from low-risk customers will be feeble, short-lived and unsuccessful.

The Madoff affair--in which prestigious Jewish financier Bernard Madoff bilked investors, many of them observant fellow Jews and Jewish foundations, out of billions of dollars via an elaborate, long-lived Ponzi scheme--is a fascinating lesson in the nature and evolution of social trust. Even before Edward Banfield made it a topic of social scientific research, the idea that the degree to which a society's members can trust each other affects their economic, social and political well-being was a matter of common sense. Recent popularizers such as Francis Fukuyama and John Kay have focused on the role of culturally nurtured social trust in economic prosperity, with Amy Chua (about whom I've written previously) concentrating on the economic success of certain minority populations.

One such population, of course, is the Jewish people, and the Madoff scandal illustrates the extent to which Jewish success is a result of what Fukuyama would call a "high-trust" culture, where norms and traditions cause members to expect and rely on high standards of behavior from each other. There is a downside to these expectations, though: Madoff was able to bilk so many people out of so much money precisely because they considered it implausible that someone so deeply embedded in, and respected by, the Jewish community could be such a crook.

This sort of "affinity fraud" is a familiar weakness of trust based on cultural norms. Trust is inherently brittle: the more weight it carries--that is, the greater the reliance that is placed in it--the greater the temptation for a Madoff type to come along and betray it for his own gain. Back in the days of family-owned banks and letters of introduction, for example, Madoff might have been able to wipe out the life savings of a few relatives and gullible acquaintances. But in an age of highly portable capital and global commerce, inhabited by much larger, richer networks of trust, Madoff was able to tap into, and ultimately destroy, an amount of wealth equivalent to the annual GDP of a small country.

And here's where Madoff's other cultural affiliation comes into play. America is exceptional in many ways, but one of them is that among high-trust cultures, it's the least rooted in cultural norms, traditions and expectations. As the world's most culturally diverse, individualistic and libertarian nation, it simply cannot, and collectively has no desire to, cultivate in its inhabitants the kind of rigid adherence to reliable behavioral norms that's inculcated in, say, every Japanese. Instead, America has built a remarkable infrastructure of trust out of a combination of private institutions and governmental regulations that effectively substitute for cultural norms as a way of mediating trust between parties that wouldn't otherwise trust each other.

Consider, for example, that quintessential American institution, the credit card. With it, an American can walk into an office thousands of miles from home and buy or rent very valuable goods--a luxury car, for instance--from a total stranger, without so much as a downpayment. Yet the card represents no personal acquaintance to speak of, either between the cardholder and the issuer, the issuer and the merchant's acquirer, or the merchant's acquirer and the merchant. The bonds that restrain their behavior are rather a combination of laws, commercial practices and incentives that successfully convince the participants--most of the time--that obeying the rules of the credit card game is in their interest.

Obviously, this type of behavioral restraint is less effective than the social norms of other high-trust societies, as America's stratospheric rates of crime, bankruptcy, lawsuits and other forms of conflict demonstrate. But its flexibility and libertarian commercialism seem to make it more efficient--in the dynamic modern world, at least--than trust based on tradition and social norms. In much of the world, in fact, financial structures have gradually been pulled towards American styles of operation, rather than vice versa.

On the other hand, the brittleness of trust doesn't go away just because it's mediated by commercial institutions rather than social norms. What affinity fraud has been to high-trust societies, financial bubbles have been to American-style economic trust systems. And the longer and more large-scale the mutual trust gets, the more catastrophic the shattering.

The recent (and ongoing) financial crisis , for example, apparently culminated in a massive run on money market funds. Money market funds are, of course, largely unregulated, uninsured funds that store trillions in ordinary depositors' money--money that could instead have been stored in government-guaranteed deposit accounts at banks. (Those government guarantees, let us remember, were put into place after similar runs on banks during the early 1930s.) Apparently, millions of depositors trusted the funds enough to prefer their higher returns to the comfortable security of government-guaranteed bank deposits--and would have collectively lost trillions of dollars as a result, had the government not intervened to protect them. Lulled into a collective overextension of trust, these investors came close to having their trust instantaneously and utterly destroyed--with all the inevitable economic consequences such a drastic drop in social trust can be expected to bring.

I've explained previously how expectations of continued economic prosperity can undermine that same prosperity. The effect of trust is similar: a continued boom inflates social trust, increasing the opportunities for exploiting it, until it suddenly shatters, leaving society much the worse off economically. As we observe the twin wrecks of a housing system built on trust in homebuyers' reliability, and a retirement savings system built on trust in the stock market's reliability, we would do well to remember that trust is as subject to bubble dynamics as any other valuable commodity.

A group of seventy-odd British residents "of Jewish origin" have written a letter to the Guardian comparing Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto, and urging British sanctions against Israel. No doubt they are highly atypical of their self-declared demographic, but then, out of a population of some 280,000, one could no doubt find seventy to endorse just about any point of view, including the view that Israel is treating Gaza too harshly, and should be punished for it.

But I find it fascinating that they felt compelled to identify their "Jewish origin" in their letter. Why should their ethnic roots matter? Would a group of seventy or so Americans of British origin ever get together to express their opposition to British policy? Do critics of the Chinese government who happen to be of Chinese descent (as opposed to, say, Chinese birth or citizenship) like to call attention to that fact?

Indeed, it's a good bet that the Guardian letter's signatories are predominantly secular leftists who disdain Judaism as a relic of arcane superstitions, consider Jewish peoplehood a reactionary chauvinism impeding international solidarity, and condemn Israel as a colonialist imperialist outpost. In other words, in any other circumstances, they'd take great pains to minimize the significance of their Jewish heritage. Why, then, would they mention it so prominently here?

The answer, I believe, has to do with one of the more minor, less well-known costs of the Holocaust: while powerfully discrediting (to say the least) anti-Semitism, it has also implicitly raised the bar, so to speak, for anti-Semites. Whereas previous Jew-hatred was founded on libels about Jewish religion, culture, moral character or group behavior, the Nazis went a step further, concocting elaborate theories of Jewish genetic inferiority. As a result, many classic anti-Semitic slurs--such as, say, conspiracy theories positing various Jewish plots to achieve world domination--have actually come to seem somewhat milder by comparison, to the point where their modern promulgators often straight-facedly claim that they're not really anti-Semitic at all, since they make no genetic claims about Jews. (One obnoxious commenter here at ICBW, for example, tried this tack, apparently in all sincerity.)

It is in this context that the Guardian letter writers' assertion of Jewish origin makes sense. If extreme hostility towards Israel is widely associated with anti-Semitism, and anti-Semitism is is widely associated with a belief in Jewish genetic inferiority, then rabid critics of Israel might be expected to attempt to insulate themselves against charges of anti-Semitism by identifying their own Jewish genetic heritage. In effect, they're saying, "Hitler would consider us Jewish--so when we say we think Israel is behaving like Hitler, you can believe us."

Perhaps they should stop letting Hitler set the standard for so many of their moral distinctions.

Well, it's that time of year again. Here's my annual assessment of the previous year's predictions, and a futile attempt to do better this year:

• Hillary Clinton will be elected president in November, by a solid margin, in an election with relatively light turnout by recent standards. The Democrats will retain control of both houses of Congress.

Well, she would have, if her staff had been competent enough to pay attention to those caucus states...

• The US counterinsurgency effort in Iraq will suffer significant setbacks in Iraq this year, but the political reconciliation process there will in fact make progress. Iran's nuclear program will last another year without either a military strike or a successful nuclear test.

The very first part was off, but the rest was on target.

• The Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan will grind on without resolution, aided by safe havens in Pakistan, where Pervez Musharraf will continue to rule, in one guise or another, replicating his neighbor's stalemate with its Islamists.

Again, on target with the exception of one key detail (Musharraf's fate).

• Ehud Olmert will survive another year in office. The Winograd report will criticize him harshly for being too recklessly aggressive during the Lebanon war, thus providing him with cover against his more hawkish main rivals. He will also authorize at least one fairly large-scale incursion into the Gaza Strip, which will achieve little but will further shield him against charges of dovish, indecisive softness. Meanwhile, Hezbollah's position as the largest single power in Lebanon will be consolidated and officially enshrined in the country's political power structure.

It was touch and go there for much of the year, and he's of course on his way out, but darned if he isn't hanging on to the bitter end, and charging into Gaza--almost as if to validate my prediction with his last ounce of strength...

• The US economy will narrowly avoid recession this year, but will experience very sluggish growth. Inflation will stubbornly refuse to fall, preventing the Fed from easing enough to really boost the economy. The stock market will have a down year, and oil prices will fall modestly. The housing market will not recover, but the US dollar will, somewhat, from its recent plunge.

Rather too optimistic about the economy, but I figure I'm in pretty good company on that one, and possibly more on target than most prognosticators. Also, correct on the direction (if not always the magnitude) of the movements of the stock market, oil, housing and the dollar.

• "Product placement"--advertising embedded into content such as music, films and television shows--will become more widespread and conspicuous, to the point where it becomes a subject of pop-culture irony.

Not this year (that I noticed), but then, I'm always ahead of the curve on these things...

And now for this year's reckless forecasts:

• Barack Obama's first year in office will go as badly as his mentor's, as the sluggish economy and unresolved conflicts between the moderates and progressives within his own party undermines his popularity, making his cool, detached persona seem weak and indecisive. Republicans will be somewhat rejuvenated by being able to take responsibility-free potshots from the sidelines, although no particularly prominent GOP leader will emerge. More Keynsian "stimulus" spending packages and bailouts will be enacted into law, but other government initiatives popular among Democrats, such as health care reform, will fall victim to the party's internal rifts, with some Republican help.


• Some time during the year, a reputable source--perhaps an intelligence agency or a defense think tank--will declare that Iran most likely has already produced at least one nuclear weapon, and soon will produce more. Little attention will be paid. Likewise, Iraq will all but disappear from the news, as will Afghanistan and Pakistan, despite continuing unrest there. Domestic issues--particularly economic ones--will dominate public attention, and foreign news will focus on trade and economic matters, such as the fate of China's export industries and the Euro's troubles.


• Stephen Harper will continue to hobble along with his minority government in Canada. Bibi Netanyahu will become prime minister of Israel, but in a coalition with Kadima and other parties of the center and right.


• Hamas and Hezbollah will lay low following Netanyahu's election, quietly building up their military strength as they did during most of 2008. They will take advantage of the inconclusive outcome of the current Gaza operation, which will have included a limited ground invasion that damaged Hamas but failed to dislodge its de facto government, and will have ended with a ceasefire agreement that effectively restores the status quo ante. Netanyahu will thus lack a pretext--or support from an exhausted, cynical Israeli public--for a more decisive engagement, even as the long-term threat on both fronts quietly builds.


• The US economy will remain in recession for most if not all of 2009. However, Japanese-style deflation will not set in, and the CPI will be positive by the end of the year. Oil prices will rebound, but only modestly. The stock market will bounce around its recent low levels and end little changed from the beginning of the year. Likewise, housing prices will stabilize. Interest rates will fall on risky assets and rise on risk-free ones, as depression-panic subsides. Unemployment will continue to rise.


• Environmentalism will "jump the shark" this year, as the cost of being green in a lousy economy turns off enough otherwise sympathetic folks to make the movement's excesses a target of mainstream ridicule.

As always, past performance is no guarantee of future results, although it's pretty good evidence that this blog's name is no idle boast...

I've already noted that the extraordinarily successful are a poor choice of model for those who would understand how to achieve more mundane varieties of success in life. Now, along comes Malcolm Gladwell to devote an entire book to this poor choice, studying a few off-the-charts-successful cases such as Mozart and Bill Gates in order to try to understand how people in general manage to succeed. And his conclusion, apparently, is that the most successful people may well have all been extraordinarily talented, but they have also all been extraordinarily lucky. Gladwell draws the standard luck egalitarian conclusions from this supposed insight.

Much discussion has ensued in the blogosphere, all of it completely missing the point. Of course the most extremely successful people have all been extremely lucky--just as they've all been extremely talented, and extremely hardworking. That's precisely why they've succeeded far beyond the ranks of competitors who only excelled in two or fewer of these three respects.

The far more interesting question is what proportions of luck, talent and work typically contribute to the kind of moderate success that sensible, realistic people aspire to achieve. In those cases, I strongly suspect, talent and dedication weigh far more heavily than luck. Then again, that's probably not the kind of study that would help make Malcolm Gladwell the spectacularly successful writer that he's become.

Yossi Klein Halevi and Matthew Wagner have both written lately about the remarkable relationship between Chabad/Lubavitch and secular Israelis. Unlike other ultra-Orthodox sects, which all coldly reject both the state of Israel and secular Israelis as betrayers of Jewish law and observance, Chabad considers itself a kind of internal missionary organization, winning over secular Jews to piety through good works and generosity.

Unfortunately, Chabad's missionary service is rooted in essentially the same messianism as Christian missionaries': they believe that winning Jews back to observance hastens the coming of the Messiah. Ultimately, that motive can't sustain a generic service ethic, because it inevitably draws the missionaries towards more susceptible recruitment targets, such as the poor and the distressed. (Christian missionaries, for example, certainly follow this pattern.)

It's possible, though, that Chabad (or perhaps an offshoot, or a rival sect) could gradually evolve its beliefs in a way capable of sustaining its passion for serving fellow Jews in general. All it would require is a subtle shift away from believing in the need to convert all Jews to its brand of piety, and towards believing in its members' need to maintain its own brand of piety--including its practice of helping all Jews--as an end in itself.

I believe that such a shift would be of enormous benefit to the Jewish people. For the truth is that the fanatically observant, the fanatically secular, and the broad spectrum in between are all parts of a far stronger whole than any single one of those groups would be on its own. Other religions have discovered this, and typically maintain a pious class--priests, monks, monastics, and so on--that is respected for its dedication and service to its correligionists, but understood to coexist with a more worldly majority, rather than rejecting it.

Already, ultra-Orthodox Jews in general act as a kind of priestly class among Jews, devoting themselves entirely to study and piety at the cost of living on charity, and typically in poverty. They also perform a number of purely religious services to the community, such as recovering bodies for ritual burial (most famously after terrorist attacks). Unfortunately, rather than consider themselves a kind of spiritual elite serving a larger Jewish nation, they tend to view other Jews as apostates doomed to drift away from Judaism towards paganism of one kind or another. And of course, they denounce the state of Israel as a secular travesty.

That's strange, because the Jewish religion itself provides an admirable model for a "spiritual elite", rejecting both militant proselytizing and cultish insularity in favor of the role of duty-bound "light unto the nations". If only the ultra-Orthodox were to embrace that role themselves, they could become as valuable a resource for the Jewish people as the Jewish people have proven, time and again, to be for the entire world.

Say you've just been elected President of the United States after campaigning on the themes of "hope" and "change". Your opponent, an aged former military pilot, had campaigned as an experienced statesman whose decisiveness contributed to a major military achievement in Iraq. But a sharp economic downturn shortly before the election made his foreign policy expertise seem somewhat irrelevant, and his Vice-Presidential choice became a national laughingstock. Meanwhile, your moderate, optimistic proposals to cut taxes for the middle class while making the rich pay their fair share, improve health care coverage, and create national service programs for young people, were attractive enough to voters to allay their doubts about your alleged radical past. (Fawning press coverage didn't hurt, either.) Now you have a solid electoral victory under your belt, as well as clear Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. What do you do next?

Well, the future is always difficult to predict, of course. But experience suggests a few do's and don'ts:

• DON'T expect the free ride from the media to continue. Given their irrationally stratospheric expectations, attack-dog mentality (possibly exacerbated by guilt over their previous obsequiousness) and lack of a suitable alternative powerful figure to tear down, your every scandal, misfortune or embarrassing incident, no matter how big or small, will be jumped on.
• DON'T pander to your base with appointments and executive orders that alienate moderates and inflame conservatives. You'll only end up backing down under pressure to save your administration's tattered reputation.
• DON'T attempt to create any grand, elaborate new social programs of breathtaking scope and complexity. You may think you have a mandate to do such things, but you don't.
• DO go ahead and raise taxes at the high end of the income scale. If the economy hasn't recovered in a couple of years, your presidency is doomed anyway, and if it has, then the resulting improved fiscal condition of the government will more than compensate for the slight drag on spending, laying the foundation for a robust economic recovery.
• DON'T get lured into expanding ill-defined foreign military missions. Your crisis manager and commander-in-chief cred is shaky enough already.
• DO support free trade. Again, good economic fundamentals will come in handy once the current economic storm passes--and if it doesn't, then having pandered to unions years before won't do you much good.
• DON'T expect your first midterm election to be a happy one.

If any of you readers happen to be in this situation, I hope this list has been helpful...

In the aftermath of the Republican electoral wipeout, conservative intellectuals will no doubt continue to busily plug their thoughtful treatises on how to resuscitate the conservative movement. That's understandable--after all, if your stock in trade is formulating and marketing partisan ideas, then it's natural to believe that the cure for what ails your party is more and better ideas.

Unfortunately for these thought-peddlers, that's simply not the way politics works. Newt Gingrich, for example, will no doubt insist that it was the collection of policy ideas known as the "Contract for America" that led to his greatest political victory, the Republican congressional sweep of 1994. Anybody remember what was in the "Contract for America"? Which parts were actually enacted into law and which never made it? Which ones actually had their intended effect?

In fact, the 1994 Republican victory had nothing to do with the particular policy details of that year's Republican platform. Rather, after four decades in power, the Democrats' flaws and political missteps--corruption, arrogance, captivity to "special interests", and so on--were immediately conspicuous, whereas the party out of power had been away long enough for their roughly comparable flaws to be forgotten.

Needless to say, after twelve years of Congressional dominance and eight years in the presidency, the roles are at least somewhat reversed. Barack Obama and the Democrats aren't now ascending to power with an exciting agenda of new, innovative and popular ideas that the Republicans were somehow too hidebound or ideologically blindered to embrace. Rather, they have been elected to avoid repeating, and where possible to reverse, the political and policy blunders committed by their predecessors--and that is agenda enough for any party.

Of course, once they begin governing, they will accumulate their own set of missteps and unpopular actions. And astute Republicans will notice them, and add their reversal to the list of goals of the new Republican agenda. That--not the combined chin-tugging of a bunch of conservative policy wonks--is what will eventually rejuvenate the conservative movement.