Karl Weintraub, beloved Ogre of Western Civ has passed away.

I never had him for class, but he used to reserve the room in Cobb where my Econometrics class met (for the time immediately following) and loom menacingly through the little glass window in the door, wanting to get into the room early.

He will be missed.

Bloggers like to take shots at the New York Times, and from what I can tell these shots are often deserved. But not enough is said about the areas in which the NYT truly, truly excels-- not just in being "the paper of record" (a record which may bear an uncountable collection of slants)-- but the crossword puzzle and the dining section.

The latter was the primary reason my roommate and I used to subscibe to the weekly paper, until some cruel soul started stealing our Wednesday Times early in the morning, which made the whole enterprise not worth it.

Anyway, after an hour of head-scratching labor with co-blogger Amy in a charming cafe on the lower West Side, I was prepared to express my frustration with the New York Times Crossword Puzzles. After another half-hour of labor this morning, I feel nothing but joy. If you have access to Thursday's puzzle (either because you have a crossword puzzle online subscription, or an old paper you haven't finished), go do it.

At Union Square, there's a giant electronic counter. When I saw it Thursday afternoon, it was in the neighborhood of 130000000000000, and rising fast (I tried to calculate how fast it was rising, but quite possibly erroneously). I passed by it late this evening (let's say 33 hours later) and it was now at 210240000000000 (approximately). Does anybody have any clue what it's counting?

UPDATE: Oh! It's a clock! 130 was 1:00... and 210 was 9:02 (military time).

It's nice to see my little-known undergraduate alma mater finally make the big time.

From Political Theory Daily Review, we have a defense of the French ban on headscarves, turbans, and skullcaps, by a member of the commission responsible for the original recommendation. It's well worth reading, especially for anyone who plans on arguing the subject in the future. On this topic, as in many others, it is helpful to remember that, as Mark Kleiman so wonderfully puts it (regarding another issue entirely), "there are patriotic, humanitarian folks who know more than you do about the problem who disagree with you." For this debate, I'd substitute "liberal, tolerant," but it's a big world: you can pretty much pick your adjectives of approval and there'll be people who meet it.

At any rate. This particular apologia didn't convince me (I feel that Jacob Levy and Russell Arben Fox provided solid reasons why the policy is a failure at almost every level), but it served as a helpful goad to thinking about what would cause me to change my mind and support such a ban.

A common argument to make here is the coordination game explanation: French Muslim girls are trapped in a suboptimal convention. If almost everyone else wears the hijab, the pressures of conformity make going along the best response. But if almost nobody did, the pressure to conform would go the other direction. By assumption, the all-wear equilibrium is worse (the person making the argument usually assumes an element of sexism in the headscarf); everyone wins if we can just move away from it to the better, no-wear solution. A law would do that. (If the game were really this simple, of course, a simple, "Okay, tomorrow we all go unveiled" announcement might, too--but let's put this aside.)

But if we examine what this commissioner, Patrick Weil says, it becomes clear that this bit of game theory in no way captures what's really going on. According to him, the impetus for the original inquiry was "the issue of violence in public schools"; apparently, a number of Muslim girls were being coerced by their fellow students into wearing the hijab, with reprisals often forthcoming against those who refused. This was an angle I hadn't much encountered; the issue was often framed as parents versus children, not children against each other. Weil argues:

"it has become clear that in schools where some Muslim girls do wear the headscarf and others do not, there is strong pressure on the latter to “conform”. This daily pressure takes different forms, from insults to violence. In the view of the (mostly male) aggressors, these girls are “bad Muslims”, “whores”, who should follow the example of their sisters who respect Koranic prescriptions."

What causes girls to wear the hijab when they would prefer not to is not simply the hijab-wearing of others, but rather insults and even violence--mostly from their male classmates. We can see the difference by recognizing that even if no other girls were expected to wear hijab, the intimidation from the boys would still push individuals to wear the scarf. It doesn't sound like a coordination problem at all, not even an uneven one that takes into account two groups of girls, one that would like to wear the scarf and a larger (by assumption) group that wouldn't.

The action that causes problems, in short, isn't scarf-wearing at all; it's intimidation, backed up by credible threats of violence. So why is the solution scarf-banning, rather than making schools safe places to express one's preferred interpretation of religious faith? One can try to advance charitable explanations here--perhaps the coercion is subtly done, difficult to detect and punish, while scarf-wearing is easily seen and changed--but it basically comes down to the admission that maintaining a functional public school system that provides this community with an safe environment conducive to learning just isn't an an option on the table. Too expensive, I guess. (Yes, one could probably make criticisms in this vein about the school system in many US inner cities, but that's neither here nor there.)

Instead of tackling the problem, the most visible symptom is papered over--with collateral damage to observant Jews and Sikhs, of course, along with all the girls who wear the headscarf without feeling any intimidation whatsoever. What's most disturbing here is that, if this is an accurate story, the consequences will be much worse than in the uneven coordination story, because nothing has been done to address the failure of the schools and police to protect young girls from coercion.

Weil claims that the "large majority [of Muslims who] do not want to impose the headscarf on their daughters but are also discomfited by any suggestion of infidelity to their religious tradition" are now given a convenient out, the ability to cloak their lack of traditionalism in obedience to the law. But let's think this through a bit. Weil suggests that the following defense be offered: “I was ready to follow your advice [and be traditionalist], but now it is impossible: I cannot disobey the law!” Is this likely to convince a boy who, a few months ago, was preparing to engage in (presumably illegal) violence to enforce traditionalism? Expecting a law condemned by much of the international press and plausibly seen as targeting sacred observances to command respect among a group of criminals is a bit much.

So, what would convince me that the French law was a good idea? First, it would help to have some real evidence about exactly how many girls feel coerced into wearing the hijab. Second, I'd like some evidence about what form this coercion takes, and what measures have been attempted to deal with it directly. If the headscarf issue really were about the young versus the old, fathers against daughters--if French Muslim girls had universally bought into the argument that the hijab represented humiliating patriarchal repression, and donned it only out of dutiful resignation--I could probably support such a ban as less problematic than the invasive social micromanagement required to protect them from all the subtle forms of coercion available to parents.

But even as portrayed by the government's spokesman, that just doesn't seem to be the case. Reading Weil's essay convinced me of one thing: there really is a problem in some French schools that involves the hijab. Unfortunately, this means that the law isn't just an illiberal overreaction to hysteria over increasing pluralism and immigration; it also leaves untouched a deep failure to protect a vulnerable community from serious harm.

The Chicago chapter of the Nathan Hale Foriegn Policy Society will be holding its next meeting on Sunday, April 4th at 7pm. We'll be discussing the media's impact on foreign policy. Once again, the meeting will be at the Cosi across the street from the Art Institute (111 S. Michigan Ave.). Hope to see you there. New members are always welcome.

Matthew A. Baum has written several pieces on this topic. Links to his writings are available here. Suggested either:

Matthew A. Baum, "Circling the Wagons: Soft News and Isolationism in American Public
Opinion," 48(2) International Studies Quarterly (June 2004). Available here.

or

Matthew A. Baum, "Sex, Lies, and War: How Soft News Brings Foreign Policy to the Inattentive Public," 96(1) American Political Science Review 91 (March 2002). Available here.

Matthew T. Harmon, "The Media, Technology, and United States Foreign Policy: A Re-examination of the 'CNN Effect.'" 8(2) Swords & Plowshares (Spring 1999). Available here (pdf download).

The Brooking Institution's discussion on "The Role of the Press in the Anti-Terrorism Campaign" may be found here.

Tom Gjelten, "Professionalism in War Reporting: A Correspondent's View" is available here. The author, a diplomatic correspondent for NPR, prepaired the report for the Carnegie Corporation.

Shaazka Beyerla, "The Middle East's e-War (Net Effect), Foreign Policy (July-
August 2002) is here.

Johanna Neuman, "The Media's Impact on International Affairs, Then and Now," 16.1 SAIS Review 109 (1996), available here.

And finally, on the effects of FOX News: Harold Meyerson, "Fact-Free News," Washington Post, Page A23 (15 October 2003). Available here.

I should have noted this earlier, but only got around to it now. Co-blogger Amanda mentioned that when she was standing in line for Newdow, a gentleman bought a place in line for $100. I asked her whether she would have bought a place in line for $100 if she had arrived too late the night before to be sure to score a seat. No, she said, she could think of prized books of poetry she'd rather blow the money on.

Then I asked her whether she would have sold her place in line for $100. No, she said, she wouldn't.

Economists will recognize this as the psychological "endowment effect". That is, the effect that causes us to refuse to sell things we have, even when we would refuse to buy them if we did not. It drives pure economists nuts, even though it's a part of how we frequently live our lives.

My own suspicion is that the vexing "endowment effect" could be more effectively labelled as a "transaction aversion." Firstly, people just don't like getting into serious monetary transactions (an unacknowledged fact that probably lies behind the failure of many market-based government reforms). Secondly, people take some of their cues about the proper monetary value of an item from the people around them (perhaps because people who are not economists rarely play the "let's put hypothetical prices on everything" game whenever they get bored.

Thus, when a gentleman comes up to try to buy a place in line for $100, my first thought is, "Gosh, is this space really worth $100 to him? Maybe it should be worth a lot to me. Maybe $200." On the other hand, if I learn that a gentleman in line doesn't really want his spot, I immdeiately think, "well maybe I shouldn't either."

I haven't done the work necessary to try to turn this "transaction aversion" into a serious theory or draw useful conclusions from it, but I just thought I'd note that this seems like a good example, and one that probably resonates with plenty of people.

The Invisible Adjunct is bidding the blogosphere (and adjunct world) farewell. Alas.