Professor Nicolas Howe at Berkeley loved to tell the story of Archbishop Robert Lowth, who has caused more pain and suffering to schoolchildren than any grammarian in the history of English. He singlehandedly invented such rules as the split infinitive and double negative.

Mind you, he was not seeking to heal a corrupted language back to some more pure state. No, he was attempting to make English:

• More like Latin, so you can’t do things like split infinitives. Sorry Patrick Stewart, “to boldly go” is improper grammar.
• More like Mathematics, so that “I don’t want nothing for Christmas,” means that you want something, but you’re a passive-aggressive .

Of course, this is a highly myopic way to view language. Not only is English not descended from Latin – it is a distant cousin from which we borrow many words – but, in Latin, you can’t split an infinitive because it’s impossible. It’s one word, where in English, it’s two (in fact, many would argue that it’s one word in English too, and that Romanophile grammarians consider “to go” to be an infinitive simply because it has the same approximate meaning as, say, the Spanish “ir” or one of its cognates (cousin words). And anyway, double negatives are fine in Latin. More “No’s” means you’re VERY negative. And I’m completely baffled as to what “I don’t not want to go to the bar” means in Lowthian-English.

This illustrates the dangers of “prescriptive” language study. Prescriptive language means, “I’m smart and you’re not, so our language is the way I say it should be, not the way you speak it.” It leads to many bad thinking patterns – such as ignoring what people intend and telling them they mean something completely different.

I apologize if this sounds prejudiced.

If I (an American Euro-mutt) were a store clerk, and I treated a white person with respect, and then treated a black person with contempt, he would think I was racist. He would have every right to do so, and (if he had observed the white person’s treatment) he would have convincing evidence thereof. But according to some schools of thought, if we changed shoes and I were being treated worse than some hypothetical black person by a black store clerk, the clerk would not be considered “racist.”

Most people, regardless of what they look like, would probably disagree with this assessment. Racism is racism, and – to use the schoolyard metaphor – plenty of white kids beat up black kids beat up Latinos and back around again, and a lot of it is because of stupid, ugly racism. But a sociologist would defend it, saying that “racism” is the intersection of power and prejudice – that only a powerful group can be truly “racist” towards a weaker group. Likewise for sexism, or for anti-LGBT discrimination.

There are two competing definitions of racism/sexism/discrimination at work here:

• The common “prejudice, hatred or oppression of someone because they belong to another group” definition, which is what most people think of, and
• The jargon “prejudice and power combining to systematically oppress a particular group.”

Jargon is what people in particular professions use to avoid ambiguity.

For example, I might say I’m “depressed” when I’m feeling blue, but in Psychology, “depressed” means specifically that I have clinical depression, which is described as a persistent lack of energy and negative mood for a period of some months which is not better explained by bereavement or another disorder. Or if I said “I need a new fork,” it would be variously interpreted as an article of flatware in a restaurant, the front part of a bicycle in a bike shop, a tuning fork at an orchestra practice, or as a part of a watch by a watchmaker. And, while I might say that the death of a child is “tragic,” in literary criticism “tragic” is a jargon term referring to classical tragedy and its derivative forms. If you used these terms interchangeably, people in those contexts would be rightly confused; or, in the case of my impressionistic use of “tragedy” in English papers, they would simply mark you down.

So, when a sociologist talks about racism, they’re really talking about the specific sociological jargon term. Which is fine, as long as they keep to themselves. But when a sociologist gets up in front of the general public and says, “What you think of as racism isn’t really racism. Racism is this over here,” it’s just like that fat bastard Lowth saying, “Your English is incorrect, because I’m smarter than you.” Why would they do this?

Well, on the one hand, they might be doing it out of ignorance. A lot of people go off to college and learn just enough to become dangerous, and believe, naively, that the thoughts and concepts of the general public are somehow “incorrect” and that they have access to some special knowledge with which they must enlighten the people. And on the other, they might be doing it in an attempt to shape the public discourse – to effectively replace the colloquial definition of the word with a jargon definition, and thereby change people’s thoughts and behavior patterns, supposedly for the better. And, even more “benevolently,” they might be attempting to get their jargon definition enshrined in law, such as in anti-discrimination and anti-hate crime legislation.

I am not wont to underestimate human ignorance, but I think it may be a combination of the two. A learned academic effectively manages to change a group of students’ definition of a word (in a power relationship which, in my opinion, is far more unbalanced than the majority/minority relationship in society at large). The students, being sloppy but enthusiastic thinkers, even start to equivocate the colloquial and jargon definitions, and begin to think such balls-out absurd things as, “Women cannot be prejudiced.”  Then, the students go out and blithely attempt to reshape the world, not really knowing what they’re doing, rightly mad as hell about the injustice that exists in society, but possessed of ideas so categorically wrong that it makes holding a reasonable discussion with them utterly impossible.

I’m not ashamed to admit that, when I was younger, I was a fairly opinionated little conservative. Well, maybe I am a little ashamed. But regardless of that, I think it experiencing a transition in values and opinions gives you insight into how those various opinions are formed.

Much has been said by the likes of Thom Hartmann about the masterful control of rhetoric of the modern conservative movement (say, from Reagan onwards). But, I think, part of the problem is also the shape and face of the liberal movement. With the fall of the USSR and the relatively stable lifestyle of the middle class, many liberals seemed to regard the social project that began with FDR’s New Deal to be complete. And anyway, populists were proving increasingly strange bedfellows in the Democratic Party, as many of them had racist, sexist, homophobic and fundamentalist tendencies. Attention turned towards other projects – among them the eradication of racism, homophobia, and sexism, minority economic progress, as well as spreading America’s prosperity abroad.

By writing off populism and economics entirely, heterosexual white males were effectively disincluded from the project of liberalism. Indeed, in order to be a white male liberal, you had to swallow a number of propositions:

• that the only way to get José or Jamal a job was to take it from John (or from Jiro, for that matter);
• that the historic accomplishments of people who looked like you were invalid or overblown, that all cultural virtues were relative, and Europeans in general have no cultural heritage (at least none worth being proud of);
• that white males faced absolutely no racial or gender discrimination;
• that, even if you believed yourself to be fair and just, you were by necessity racist, sexist, etc;
• that personal responsibility and independence were obsolete, cast away in favor of a culture of victim-worship and scapegoating;
• and that personal gifts were not worthy of laudation, because they might make less-gifted individuals feel bad.

Some of these things are true, or true in certain respects. I certainly do not dispute the idea that certain groups face great challenges and that many whites and males occupy a privileged position. But liberalism basically became a project of berating white dudes for things they did not do, and this made it really hard for normal or above-average white males to find a hook in the liberal movement. Just as we regard Republicans today as “The Party of No,” Democrats 20 years ago were “The Party of Blame Whitey.”

What do I mean by a “hook?” As with a narrative hook, a political idea can hook you because it is interesting, it jibes with your personal experiences, or you identify with it. It has nothing to do with whether it is correct or not. By abandoning the populist roots of the Democratic Party, they left behind the single, unifying hook that could get anyone on-board – at least anyone with a net worth of less than a million bucks.

Why did liberalism take this turn? I believe there were a number of factors.

1. Academia. Universities are fertile ground for liberal thought and many important ideas in the movement come from universities. But the very specialized nature of academia causes the discourse to be fragmented. There’s no way to get published, much less get tenure, if you’re just writing about economics and social justice, so you end up writing about women’s social justice. Or Chicana Women’s Social Justice. Or Second-Generation Chicana Lesbian Social Justice. And, in doing so, the liberal movement was afflicted by what Marx called bourgeois nationalism, pitting different groups against on another so they cannot rise against their true oppressors.
2. The apparent success of Reagonomics. When it seemed as though Reagan was the white knight who rescued us from Carter, economics did not seem to be a very good issue to contest the Republicans on.
3. Republican talking heads. They, of course, loved that so many liberals vaunted political correctness, affirmative action and victim culture as core tenets, so they sought, at every turn, to exaggerate them.

Of course, by the end of it, liberals appeared to be nothing more than a loose association of special interests – a bunch of tiny parties, none of which white males were invited to; Democrats basically accepted Reaganomics as true, and consequently that deregulation was good and government was bad; and Democrats had no competing personalities to form a unified story of liberalism to which anyone could subscribe, whereas Republican think-tanks were busy weaving the oft-contradictory stories of Libertarianism, Christian Conservatism, Neoconservatism and Paleoconservatism.

As I see it, the way forward for liberals is to dump overt political correctness and get populism back on the docket, along with progress, education and, above all, fairness. It should be apparent by now that the United States is becoming a society controlled by rent-seeking corporations, a society of haves and have-nots, and a society where diverse groups are pitted against one another so that they will not stand as one.

“I need you to reinstall Windows on this computer,” a client says.

“Okay. That’s going to take about 3 or 4 hours of my time at the usual hourly rate. Probably closer to 3 if you want it in a week, or 4 or maybe even 5 if you want it in a couple days. Maybe if it’s a real pain in the ass.”

The client balks. “Why does it take so long? I could practically buy a new computer for that much.”

Now, I’m tempted here to say, “Be my guest! It’s frustrating, difficult, time-consuming work.” But that would be undiplomatic. So, for the benefit of humanity, I’m going to describe what I do when I reinstall Windows on a computer.

1. Backup. First, I set the computer up and put in an Ubuntu Live CD. This allows me to run Linux on the computer right off the disk, without making any changes or installing anything new. Then, I connect an external drive and back up the whole Windows installation to the external drive. This process takes a few hours of machine time and 30 minutes to an hour of my time.

2. Installing Linux. Admittedly, this isn’t something I have to do. But if I ever need to restore the computer again, I’ll be able to do it in an hour instead of three. I resize Windows and put Linux on the hard drive. Then I back up the user files to the Linux installation, because if the main drive or the backup drive dies while I’m working on it, it looks like it’s my fault, and I’ll probably lose a client. Think of it like how doctors run unnecessary tests to cover their asses. Again, 30 minutes to an hour of my time, several hours machine time.

3. Installing Windows. This is a pain in the ass. This and the next step usually take an hour and a half of my time, between hunting for the right version of Windows, the CD key, the Windows CD they were sure they had but lost (I have, to date, encountered two clients who actually kept their installation media).

4. Configuring Windows. If they have the original media I don’t have to hassle about the key, but I do have to hassle about getting them upgraded to the latest service pack, which is time-consuming and buggy and difficult.

5. Restoring Applications, Documents, Etc. Depends. Usually pretty quick, but still a significant chunk of time, say 30 minutes.

6. Backing up again. This is done in Linux, so it’s fairly straightforward. Negligible.

So, that gives us a grand total of… 3 hours! And that’s why it costs so much. Each of these steps takes a lot more computer time than human time, so if the client wants the machine back quickly, they’ll end up costing more, as I’m waiting for a task to complete rather than doing something enriching or entertaining or something that I can bill to someone else.

There are a lot of starving college students and teenagers who will do it for less. I’ll do it right and I won’t lose your data – and, trust me, you’re really gambling your documents and music and movies and pictures when you go with someone who doesn’t do this for a living.

And trust me, I’m not doing this to get rich, but I can’t go around charging pennies for my work. My hourly rate is much lower than a plumber or even an auto mechanic. I’ve got a wife, I have to put food on the table, I have to pay the rent, and I hope to maybe, just maybe be able to afford a house someday in a market that, thanks to Prop 13, is very hard for young people to break into.

Many people are apt to look at powerful, capable and charismatic public figures and attribute their success to “pulling themselves up by their bootstraps” – as if, in addition to their quantifiable gifts, they had some uncanny moral superiority to the rest of humanity which made their success inevitable. They want to establish some kind of causal relationship between the character of Oprah Winfrey, Andrew Carnegie, or Sam Walton and the success that they achieved – and, often, their own success.

brianandisolde.com

So, I’ve been following a few housing  blogs recently – The Housing Bubble Blog, Knife Catchers and Burbed. While Burbed focuses on the Peninsula and THBB is global, Knife Catchers focuses mostly on the tiny and increasingly exclusive hamlet of Alameda.

For those who are unfamiliar with the layout of the SF Bay Area, Alameda is the site of a former  naval base right across the bridge from downtown San Francisco, a few minutes away from Berkeley, and is also a fucking island. Apparently the criminal element from Oakland can’t cross running water, because it also boasts uncommonly low crime rates and pretty decent public schools. It has decent shopping, a beach and a few good bars.

So, basically, it’s a pretty cool place to live. Jobs? Right across the bridge. Nightlife? You don’t even have to leave the island. Food? Fifteen minutes north. Lush outdoors? Twenty minutes north. Worried about the kids? The whole island is a 25-mph zone. Personally, I’d rather live in Berkeley because of BART access, but Alameda is also cheaper. Needless to say, I’m a little bit uneasy even writing about it, because I’d rather people didn’t know about it to keep the property values low. At the same time, unemployment is at 11.2%, and a lot of people are defaulting on their homes. Buyers are scarce and more property is coming on the market all the time. There’s stories about how some buyers are so arrogant that they make serial offers at 50% of asking price until some chump bites out of desperation. So, it’s kind of difficult to gauge what’s going to happen.

But strangely enough, until the author recently closed comments, Knife Catchers abounded with generically-named, incredibly verbose people with approximately the same personality and one agenda: telling us that the bottom in Alameda has been hit and that if we didn’t buy now we’d be priced out forever.

Putting aside my highly paranoid nature for the moment (which tells me that they’re all a bunch of smarmy, astroturfing realtors with too much time on their hands trying to generate additional demand), this whole thing still stinks to me. Let’s imagine, for a moment, that four people are looking at a real estate blog. None of them hold real estate broker licenses and none of them own property in the area – yet.

1. No stake, thinks market is going down

This is a person who’s not looking to buy or is not in the area. They are interested purely for academic or entertainment purposes.  They might be a realtor or they might not, but it doesn’t really matter. They seem very likely to post to a blog simply to entertain themselves. They are probably going to simply speak their minds, too. Then again, there are countervailing forces. If they don’t have a stake, why would they post to such a local blog. I’m even reluctant to post to Burbed, with its focus on an area only 30 minutes south.

2. No stake, thinks market is going up

Likewise, this person would be very likely to discuss what’s going on. It’s always nice to be a contrarian, and, hey, you might help a few people out by letting them know their window of opportunity is closing. However, the same countervailing pressures discussed above would seem to apply.

3. Stakeholder, thinks market is going down

This person is looking to buy soon, but is uncertain because they know they won’t be able to recover their investment for ten or fifteen years. Still, they are anxious to get the best deal they can, so there is a monetary incentive for them to talk loudly about how bad the market is. That will push the market down further.

4. Stakeholder, thinks market is going up

This is where it gets interesting. They’re looking to get into an area they consider to be the next Piedmont, and they want to do it soon. So why would they express their opinion? If you’re getting a good deal, a smart person shuts the fuck up about it lest it evaporate. If anything, they’d lie. There’s no reason to pay any more than they have to. Then again, they might also simply be stupid, careless, or they may think it won’t make a difference.

Now, the majority of the talking heads on Knife Catchers would seem to fall into category #4. Some of them have stated openly that they’re looking to buy soon. However, why are there so many of them? Why are they willing to write such verbose posts? Why now, as we are entering the Spring buying season? Are there that many stupid people in this area?

My conclusion: No.

5. Realtor, thinks market is going down

This person knows the market is going down. However, they are more than willing to participate in an astroturf campaign, because that extra demand will likely net them thousands of dollars of money.

And there is no #6, because the market is going down and any realtor who can’t at least admit that to themselves probably won’t be in the business much longer.

Economists usually use detached jargon such as “supply” and “demand.” They talk about things like “demand shifts” and “supply shifts,” but what really causes them to happen?

To a great extent, economics – or more properly business, I suppose – is about psychology and power. A buyer’s market is a market where the buyers have power and the sellers are scrambling to lower prices to please them. A seller’s market is one where each seller feels like the prettiest girl at the prom, and can coyly refuse all but the most generous offers. It’s great to be the one with power, but it’s hard to just knuckle under and let yourself be taken advantage of when the market runs counter to your interests.

That’s why the first thing people try to do when the market works against them is change the game.

Seems logical enough, right? The world changes; you adapt to it. However, it’s important to realize that this is going to be happening so you don’t get gamed. For example, real estate agents aren’t going to be going around trying to sell houses at the current equilibrium price, no sir. They’re going to try manipulate people, and prey upon their emotions:

• Fear. You don’t want to be left out in Stockton or Tracy, do you? You’d better act now.
• Excitement. You’re getting a steal of a deal. Who cares if you have to bid a little more?
• Greed. The market is bottoming. Just think of the instant equity you’ll have when the price goes up again!
• Envy. Do you want to be the chump who’s living in a one-bedroom condo while all of your friends have 3000 sqft mansions?

As soon as you fall prey to these emotions, you’ve taken the power that the crash handed to non-landed buyers and given it right back to the realtors on a silver platter. It’s just like with the Wii. Nintendo produces too few of the console on purpose so that people will perceive them to be scarce, and therefore more valuable.

I sometimes fall victim to these emotions when I see a really nice guitar. “What if I never see a deal like that again?” “It’s such a sweet instrument! I have to have it.” “Just think! I’ll have a guitar that retails for $3500 and only spend $1500!” However, I try to get the better of these emotions. That money could be put to better use in activities that will generate money, or towards down my down payment. And, after all, it’s $3500 theoretical dollars I will never see because I intend to never sell an instrument – it’s an instrument of unknown quality – and I see deals like that all the time. Similarly, there are plenty of good deals to go around in real estate, the houses aren’t that great, and we’re likely to see more property go up on the block soon, not less.

And, anyway, “because you’ll get a good deal” is a bad reason to buy something. Instead, figure out what you need and how much of it you can easily afford, then buy it. It’s that kind of thinking that’s gotten our country addicted to over-consumption and created the conditions for massive speculative bubbles.

After neglecting my blog for a long time, and planning on building a newer and shinier website, I have decided that the path of least resistance is to simply install WordPress again and use a default theme. There are several good reasons for this:

• I have a lot of opinions, and expressing them is theraputic;
• I don’t have a lot of time, what with work, side work, and a wedding; and,
• If, at some point in the future, I decide to change the theme to one more to my liking, WordPress is an acceptable platform.

Let’s just hope I don’t have to deal with quite so much comment spam this time around.

The installation went well. Unfortunately, there have been some casualties.

Most distressing, the gallery website that I ran for the 3rd Floor of Spens-Black Hall, 2003-2004, UC Berkeley is dead.  This was back before services like PhotoBucket, or at least back before I knew about them, so it was pretty special. There were a lot of memories on there: friends, enemies, parties, day trips, and a younger, less knowledgeable, 190 lb me. I haven’t looked at it in ages, but I’m sad to see it go. rm -rf is dangerous indeed.

Also, the blog postings I had from that time are gone as well. These I am not totally sad to see go. On the one hand, it’s good to know where you come from – on the other hand, nostalgia can be dangerous. I still have the posts in a database in case I ever want to look at them, but I’d rather keep them to myself. I enjoy re-inventing myself and I don’t feel those posts are an accurate representation of my current state.

Besides, they’ve probably been scraped onto hundreds of spam sites anyway.