21.F: The Relationship Between Newspaper Scales and Career Liberal Ratings -- A Whole Lot of Nothing?

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The First-Ever Father-Daughter Jam Session. In fact, Let's Call the Band Exactly That -- "Father Jocelyn"

After Jocelyn received her new acoustic/electric for Christmas, we decided to start jamming. These photos and the songs below are from that historic session. I think we should form a band and name it Father Jocelyn. Of course, we have a long way to go because we are not that good. (Her excuse is much better than mine -- she's just starting. So the honest way to say it is that I am not that good. But I don't really play much any more myself).

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What does "policy preference" mean?

[Note: the following notes are written in Wittgensteinian format during a lunch break at the APSA on August 30, 2007]

1. The term "policy" seems to have two senses. "It is my policy to do X."  In this sense, policy is something that I select to function as a rule or standard.  This may seem somewhat strange because I am self-selecting my own regimentation or conformity. It is not a contradiction, however. It merely means that the regimentation is from something less than "law,"  something not mandatory outside of myself.  It is importantly aspirational; a desired protocol. My voluntary submission.

2. "Policy" in another sense: the array of law's choices, X{a,b,c ...}, that can be chosen by a government for formal enactment.  Hence, policy in this sense is a set of products or commodities desiring to become "law." [-- Not quite: commodities or products are already assembled. With "policy" in this sense, you can "rearrange the parts," so to speak. A better metaphor is clothing. Policy in this sense is like a wardrobe in clothing stores. You can pick and choose what components or parts you would like to see put together  into the final outfit].

2.11 Policy is law's wardrobe.

2.12 "policy preference" is like a fashion statement for legality. (e.g., This is the dress that I like).  [Of course, one surely does not use aesthetics when adopting the wardrobe. This is only metaphor].

2.2. Imagine one who says, "my policy preference is for X." (X = e.g., universal health care ... or more public choice, etc.). What is said here is "my enactment preference is." (My desire as to what should be enacted).

2.21. One would not say of something that is not yet enacted ... "my legal preference is." (At least not without sounding somewhat strange ... in need of something in the brain to process a script error, e.g.)

2.3. "Law" is post-enactment; "policy" is pre-enactment.

3. There are two grammars of "policy." Sense one: it is my voluntary submission. Sense two: It is my pre-enactment preference.                     

Where Insight Comes From

[The following are notes written in Wittgensteinian format during a lunch break at APSA on August 30, 2007]

1. Here's the problem: If you wait and catch it, it has certain way about it.  It is fresh and interesting. You understand it. It could happen at anytime. It is like something sort of deposits it in the brain.

2. But if you have to labor to find it -- if you have to "go to work," so to speak -- it becomes arduous and something else. It becomes technical. It becomes, in a way, "argumentative" [... not the right word: "proof-like," addressing all contingencies and objections].  You can find yourself feeling like you are laboring so tediously on an "outpost" of some kind.  It is like, instead of going into coal mines, you go into "mental mines." It is like finishing or polishing or welding or something.

2.1.  It is no longer a process (cognitively) like "art," but rather becomes a sort of menial or technical labor.

2.2.  The product also changes. Go try to state something as a proof. Go try and address all of the bloody senses of talking at once.

3. Once the train of thought ends and you try to revisit it, it becomes so artificial, boring and lifeless. Where did it go? Can it only be seen in a momentary impression? How do you then communicate it to others?

4. ... you had better not be interrupted.  [note: lunch came -- Ed.].

Do Justices "Vote?"

[the following are notes taken in Wittgensteinian style while vacationing at Cape Cod in the first two weeks of July, 2007: and in the third week of July while visiting Weirton ]

Political science is fond of saying that judges "vote" when they decide issues or cases.  Indeed, this way of speaking is now common among the elites in the network. They instill this way of talking to graduate students. The "studies" talk this way, and so do the participants at conferences, etc.

1.  Studying voting in and of itself is as meaningless as studying counting or tallying.

2.  Imagine a professor grading exams. What is more relevant? Do you study his marks or what produces them?

3.  The only reason you study "votes" is because they indirectly tell you something about the psychology that preceded the marks/noises ("voting").

4.  Imagine a pass/fail grade. When a professor enters the grade at the end of the term, is he or she "voting?"

5.  We don't use the term "voting" here because the grammar of the term stresses the mark or noise, whereas the grammar of "grading" stresses the "heavy lifting" that precedes it. 

6.  What does the term "voting" ordinarily imply? Probably these things: (a) a conclusion or endorsement [the finality of a decision]; (b) a limited set of options; (c) a lay activity [non-specialized? commonality?]; (d) capable of being undertaken ad hoc.

7.   So then, do justices' "vote?"  What about the conference vote? It isn't a "lay" vote, but is a sort of "feeling thermometer."  

8.  It is not that one could not "vote" with immense and complicated thought preceding the gesture; it is that the activity of voting isn't entailed by it.

10. What is the difference between these words: voting, solving, resolving?

11. The activity of solving or resolving suggests contemplation of some sort -- "mental steps" of some kind.

12. When a student takes an exam and answers a multiple-choice question, is he or she "voting?"

13. When a student answers an essay exam, it would not be called "voting," correct? Imagine that the exam question is value-centric in that it does not have a single correct answer. The professor evaluates it based upon how well course material is marshaled into a coherent analysis/opinion. Why does it seem inappropriate to say that the student is "voting" the exam rather than "solving" it?

14. Is it because of the way we are taught? If we were taught to call the answering of the essay exam "voting," would that make it so? Firstly, if we adopted a way of speaking that called the student's behavior "voting," it would only be a term confined to its use. That is, there would still be a conceptual difference between "voting" and "solving" no matter what name was given to the answering of the essay question.

15. Compare: the federal sentencing guidelines. The fact that this is its name does not mean that the guidelines are, in fact, "guidelines" -- for they surely are not. They are mandatory. (At least they were for over 10 years. Whether they are or not today is theoretically a matter of debate -- but I think not).

16. So if the essay-exam writer is not "voting" in the ordinary sense of the term, how can justices be voting when they decide a legal issue?

17. Of course, if a justice is particularly poor at solving or resolving, perhaps we might say that he or she was "voting." But isn't this intended as an insult?

18. We might say of such a judge that, instead of deciding, he voted.

19. Even this insult, however, is talking colorfully.

20. The activity of trying to form a well-reasoned opinion is closer to "solving" than "voting." But what if the subject mater is resistant to "reasoning?" (Is this even possible? How about: is harder to submit to reasoning?)

21. Compare three situations: (1) solving for X; (2) solving for the essay question; (3) solving for the academy awards.

22. It is funny that only (1) seems completely correct because of existing patterns of usage. Solve for X.

23. What is the standard use for (2)? Finding the answer? The expression suggests a quest or expedition. Whatever the nomenclature, you cannot deny that the idea involves piecing things together.

24. The problem is that (1) and (2) have answers that are more clearly governed by, respectively, rules and standards. You can distinguish between "good" and "bad," so to speak. But (3) is less clear. With respect to it, some may rightly say "this one was better than that one." Some might properly complain that the selections (or final work product) for (3) are not properly distinguishable from other selections (or forms of work).

25. Here is the question: if the means of deciding involve the same or similar cognitive process, Q, but the end result is not the same for purposes of demonstrating superiority -- does that matter?

26. Is art appreciation voting?

27. Wittgenstein's comments on aesthetics are helpful here. The words "good" and "beautiful" are, ultimately, sensations. But appreciation of aesthetics is a learned or acquired trait. You learn it by being exposed to it and the "rules" that comprise it. There may be disagreement about it, but as long as judgments follow the requisite process by the requisitely trained, this is all that can be accomplished (satisfactorily).

28. If someone like me had to judge a beauty contest, it would not strain convention to say that the behavior was "voting." This is because the activity in the mind most resembles what Wittgenstein says about the adjectives "good" or "beautiful." That is, there is a sensation in my brain -- probably a change in brain chemicals -- which cause a pleasing sensation. And so I say "this is good" or "I like her." Hence, if I decide the beauty contest like this, it would not strain conventional usage to say "that is my vote."

29. But what if the judgment occurred differently? What if it were considered "objective?" Let us say that 3 heterosexual women judge a beauty contest involving a talent competition between women of several states, and that there is a set of norms and rules which constitute a culture for this sort of activity. Is it right to characterize the judges' decision as "voting" where we mean that word NOT as a name (but a description)?

30. Why do we say so-and-so has to judge a beauty contest instead of saying so-and-s0 has to vote a contest?

31. Imagine if I were selected to judge an art or poetry competition -- to give some kind of award -- and I knew nothing about what art or poetry involved. Imagine if lay people judged art. Is the grammar of the vocabulary different? cf. The American Idol show. The people vote on the telephone but the three judges decide on the show. You get voted into the Pro Bowl, but inducted into the Hall of Fame.

32. Imagine someone who judges the case of another where no law whatsoever exists in the polity. Perhaps it is a dictatorship or monarchy. (I mean no "law" in the sense that something in writing tells the judge what he or she should do). Imagine that the person is asked to judge a case where one is alleged to have wronged another in some way. Or maybe the person is accused of violating the dictator's wishes regarding some kind of "criminal" behavior. Imagine that the judge in this case sits and listens. He hears testimony, etc. Imagine further that he wants to make a proper conclusion -- one that is not arbitrary. If he does this, is it not improper to say at the conclusion of the case, that "the judge voted?" (Or isn't it a strange expression given the convention of usage?). It is not that it cannot be said; it is that it is an odd or imperfect way of talking (something Wittgenstein calls "queer").

33. When political scientists say that judges "vote," what do they mean?

34. Does it mean nothing -- an idiosyncratic use? Or does it mean something about the cognitive process used in the behavior of judging? And if it is the latter, what evidence allows one to make this assertion scientifically? (Is it even intended as a scientific assertion?)