Bill Roper's Journal

Posted by Gary McGath

https://garymcgath.com/toscanini-musician-of-conscience/

https://garymcgath.com/?p=6674

Toscanini: Musician of Conscience was a huge reading project but worth it. It covers the long career of one of the most important orchestra conductors, the man who conducted the premiere of Pagliacci in 1892 and lived long enough to make long-playing records. He was a celebrity in Europe and the Americas and courageously stood up to Mussolini in his home country.

I must admit to skimming through parts of the book. His role in music and politics is most important to me, and I went quickly over parts dealing with his personal relations.

Toscanini was a top-rank conductor with an incredible memory, but I wouldn’t want to be a musician under him. He demanded the best from his musicians, and sometimes he could be extremely rude and unfair with them. On one occasion, he broke a violinist’s bow with his baton. At the same time, he recognized excellence.

In politics, if not at the podium, he was an enemy of tyranny. After a brief period of admiring Mussolini, he recognized that the would-be Duce was a brutal power-luster. In 1924 he refused an order to display Mussolini’s picture. On one occasion, when he refused to perform the Fascist anthem, a gang of Blackshirts beat him up as the police passively watched. In 1938 he left Italy and didn’t return until after World War II.

Sachs discusses his relationships with musicians who remained in Germany and Italy during the dictatorships. Withdrawing from the Bayreuth Festival was a painful decision for him. He condemned Wilhelm Furtwängler for continuing to lend his prestige to the Nazi government.

Sachs writes about an incredible number of affairs Toscanini had with women. He lets Toscanini look honorable for the most part, but I have to wonder. I didn’t see any mention of whether he ever got anyone pregnant; while he wasn’t an observant Catholic, he lived in a culture that was strongly hostile to abortion and even birth control. But as I said, I skimmed over those parts of the book, so I may have missed something.

My main complaint about the book is that its mentions of years are thin. I often had trouble figuring out in which year an event took place. That can be especially annoying if you’re using the book for reference.

This book isn’t a light weekend read, but it’s a fascinating look at an important musician and a courageous person. If you’re willing to commit the time, it’s an excellent book.

https://garymcgath.com/toscanini-musician-of-conscience/

https://garymcgath.com/?p=6674

Posted by Gary McGath

https://garymcgath.com/25th-amendment-101/

https://garymcgath.com/?p=6679

A lot of people on the left are engaging in magical thinking. They claim that the 25th Amendment of the US Constitution can somehow be used to remove Trump from power. It can’t. It shouldn’t be hard to understand. The relevant text is Section 4 of the amendment:

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

 
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

Action under this provision requires action by the vice president. By James David Vance. By Trump’s puppet. He isn’t going to do it. Perhaps he’d like to stage a coup, but Trump’s base would turn furiously against him if he tried. Besides, the other requirements would keep him from making it stick.

In addition to the VP, the provision requires the action of a majority of the Cabinet or of “such other body as Congress may by law provide.” Some people in Congress are trying to create such a body, but Trump would veto the bill. They’d need 2/3 of both houses to make it a law. Not going to happen. Nor is the Cabinet, which consists of Trump loyalists, going to turn against him.

But suppose alien mind control beams make Vance and the Cabinet agree to declare Trump unable to discharge his powers and duties. All Trump has to do is say, “I am able,” and he’s back in power until Congress resolves the issue. To make the removal of his powers stick, a 2/3 vote of both houses is necessary. Not going to happen.

I’m excluding hypothetical cases where Trump goes into a coma and can’t do anything. That’s what the 25th Amendment was designed for.

Impeachment is a lower bar. It requires a majority of the House and 2/3 of the Senate. That’s still extremely unlikely, but it’s not as improbable as the 25th Amendment path.

If facts matter anymore, the case for impeachment is stronger than the case for declaring him incapable of doing the job. Has Trump committed “high crimes and misdemeanors”? Tons of them. Is he incapable of carrying out his duties? That rests on a claim that he’s clinically insane, which is more open to dispute.

The Democrats in Congress can read the Constitution, or at least they have staff members to explain it to them. They know all this. So why are they pursuing an impossible path? I think it’s to divert attention from Congress’s failure to impeach Trump. They can pretend they’re doing something, knowing that Vance will protect them against any action actually happening. They can say, “Hey, we tried,” knowing full well they didn’t.

What about all the people on Bluesky who don’t have public images to manipulate? That’s easy, too. They’re stupid. In the Bonhoeffer sense, that is.

https://garymcgath.com/25th-amendment-101/

https://garymcgath.com/?p=6679

Posted by Gary McGath

https://garymcgath.com/dont-inoculate-against-reason/

https://garymcgath.com/?p=6653

I’ve been reading about a psychological notion called “inoculation theory.” The idea is that just as people can gain immunity to a disease by being exposed to a weakened pathogen, they may develop resistance to a point of view as a result of hearing weak arguments for it. Most discussions of the idea that I’ve seen focus on doing this intentionally, but it also works when people hear bad attempts to convince them.

Suppose there’s some position for which you’ve heard only ridiculous arguments. After a while, you’ll stop paying attention to any arguments for it, even if one of them actually presents a good case. If someone claims to have solid evidence that 9/11 was an inside job, Trump won the 2020 election, or the Moon landings were faked, are you going to spend much time listening? Probably not. Usually that’s a rational response; if there were good arguments for these claims, you’d have heard them before. But if you get all your information from your social media bubble, genuinely good arguments can be drowned out by the ridiculous ones. People love to repost bad arguments to expose them to ridicule. Others repost whatever favors their cause without verifying it, and readers stop paying attention.

A bad argument can be worse than silence. In a well-known story, the townspeople are “inoculated” against the boy’s cries of “Wolf!” When you offer weak or invalid claims to a skeptical audience, they’ll assume you have nothing better to offer.

Returning, inevitably, to Donald Trump, I’d like to give two examples I’ve often seen. One is the claim that he’s a “pedophile.” While there have been accusations, he hasn’t been charged with a crime, and I haven’t seen strong supporting evidence. If that’s the worst you can say about him, you’ll only convince his supporters that you don’t have a good case against him.

A second example is the statement that’s he’s a “felon.” He has been convicted of a felony, but it’s not one that gets most people excited. He didn’t report hush money as a campaign expense. It isn’t obvious to non-lawyers and non-accountants that he was required to, and some lawyers without an axe to grind have called the case dubious. These two claims are far weaker than the undisputed facts that he ordered civilian boats sunk without a legal process, started a war, pardoned everyone who broke into the Capitol to support his election claim, and threatened to destroy a civilization.

It’s also possible to inoculate people against words and concepts. Some people toss “Communist!” around as an all-purpose comeback; others use “Racist!” After a while, listeners treat the words as noise, whether they apply or not.

Some people say that more arguments are always better. They aren’t, if the arguments are weak. People have limits on their attention span and patience. If you strain both, you lose your audience, and you’ll have a hard time getting it back.

Update: I just found another good article on this issue: “The paradox of argument strength” in Nature.

https://garymcgath.com/dont-inoculate-against-reason/

https://garymcgath.com/?p=6653