Today, for insight and perspective, we turn, as we have so often in these times of need for insight and perspective, to our friend Occam.
And his razor.
First, because we are a full service informational provider around here, let's put aside, for a few moments, our petty partisan rancors and share an NPR-esque ponder of the razor.
And the Occam.
Turns out, first, that Occam wasn't really Occam.
He was William. Of Ockham.
Ockham is a small, rural village located in the borough of Guildford, in Surrey, England, a nation which has given us, among other things, English toffee, English muffins, London bridge, The Beatles, Big Ben, a whole lot of various and sundry teas, Princess Diana, Shakespeare, Wimbledon and, once, a long time ago, in a just formed nation, far, far away....independence.
William, of said Ockham, meanwhile, was a Franciscan friar who studied logic in the 14th Century. He was also a philosopher and theologian who wrote on matters of logic, epistemology, natural philosophy, political philosophy, metaphysics and ethics.
Put in a more relatable context, the chances that he would have ever been asked to be a Fox News contributor are zip, zero, nada.
Oh...and he was also brought to court on charges of heresy in 1327, fled his teaching post and spent the rest of his life living among the friars who,also, weren't all that jiggy with the considerable power the Church had in the day.
Proving, once again, by the way, that Trump deserves to have a little slack cut in his direction because he's a long, long way from being the first narrow minded, overly self important, wanna be authority figure to be be-boppin and scattin' all over the the logical and ethical of their time.
But I digress into rancor.
One of William's contributions to the lexicon, meanwhile, was his oft quoted razor.
Again, for those who are heart broken at the cancellation of "2 Broke Girls" and are confidently sure that PBS is that attitude that women get every 28 days, give or take, the razor of William is not the razor you assume it to be.
It's not a blade, it's not sharp and it will neither cut you, nor remove hair from places where you prefer hair not to be. It does, however, have the capacity for doin' a little shaving.
In philosophical circles, a "razor" is a principle or rule of thumb that allows one to eliminate (or, "shave off", as it were) unlikely explanations for a given phenomenon. And while William's particular savvy shave is probably the best known, it is certainly not the only principle present.
There's Hanlon's razor...which states one should never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity.
Hitchen's razor...what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Alder's razor...if something cannot be settled by experiment or observation than it is not worthy of debate.
Popper's razor (better known as Popper's falsifiability principle)...for a theory to be considered scientific, it must be falsifiable.
And, among the lesser, lesser known, there's Kanye's razor.
No matter who wins any music or video award at any given time, it should have been Beyonce.
William, meanwhile, gave us the razor that winnows away the chaff of multiple options when it comes to choosing a "wazzup wit dat?" on any given question requiring a "wazzup wit dat".
And, by the way, not really sure why it's always been known as Occam's Razor as opposed to Willliam's razor although experience and instinct lead me in the direction of surmising that it took that label because "William's Razor" is nowhere near as sexy and/or mysterious and it sounds more like either a band that opened for Nine Inch Nails somewhere along the way or it sounds more like, well, just a razor. You know. Belonging, you know, to a guy named William.
Meanwhile, the razor, the whole razor and nothing but the razor cuts through the crap pretty simply.
"In any situation or occurrence where multiple explanations exist, the simplest explanation is usually the correct explanation."
This concludes our ponder of the razor. Let's resume our petty partisan rancor.
Chris Isidore and Julia Horowitz wrote the following piece for Apple News and published it online Friday afternoon.
Maybe the most amazing thing that occurred Thursday wasn't that President Trump pulled out of the Paris climate deal. It was the response from the corner office: A string of CEOs loudly voiced strong opposition to his action.
"It's an absolutely bizarre and unprecedented moment in American
history," says presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. He
called the reaction a sign of just how damaged the Trump brand is in the
eyes of corporate America.
Critics of Trump's decision worry that U.S. companies will miss out on opportunities to profit from a global move to reduce carbon emissions. Countries, businesses and consumers will spend trillions in the coming decades on greener vehicles, equipment and sources of power.
More immediately, CEOs might be worried about selling their products abroad, where Trump's decision is overwhelmingly unpopular.
"There could be a stigma attached to every U.S. firm," said Greg Valliere, chief global strategist with Horizon Investments. "If you're marketing a movie or a product in Western Europe, you've got to be worried about how this is being perceived. They can now say, 'Don't blame us, we came out strongly against this.' It's in their own self-interest."
And it's not just people in the rest of the world who are upset with the president's actions. The decision plays well with his base. But a joint poll by the Harvard school of public health and Politico found 62% of Americans supported staying in the Paris agreement.
"You can not run a major American corporation appealing to Donald Trump's 38%," said Brinkley.
Opposition came from Silicon Valley environmentalists like Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who was the first to quit a presidential advisory committee in protest.
It also came from Wall Street bankers like Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein, who happens to be the former boss of Trump's top economic adviser. Blankfein tweeted for the first time to criticize the deal.
Jeffrey Immelt, who runs that quintessential industrial conglomerate General Electric , also tweeted his disapproval. And he did so knowing that GE depends on the federal government for more than $3 billion in sales and $600 million of government-sponsored R&D spending.
Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger also quit the president's advisory council in protest. And tech executives who head some of the most valuable companies on the planet also criticized Trump. Apple's Tim Cook, who said he had lobbied the White House not to pull out, denounced the move, as did Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft president Brad Smith, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
In stark contrast, few executives voiced support for Trump's move.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has raised questions about the Paris climate deal, but it did not endorse or oppose withdrawing from the agreement. It issued a somewhat neutral statement after Trump's announcement. The American Coal Council issued a statement supporting Trump's action but did not immediately post it on its website or tweet it.
There's a key phrase, a very, very key phrase that comes and goes with barely a notice in that piece from Isidore and Horowitz. Just after "people in the rest of the world who are upset" and just before " a joint poll found 62% of Americans supported staying in the agreement."
"...the decision...plays well to his base..."
William of Occam, paging William of Occam, please stand by.
Trump has, basically, two speeds. Bully. bluster and blowhard forward. And reverse, back up, beep, beep, beep when and where necessary to avoid any possible contact, let alone collision, with blame or responsibility for anything. Ever. Eh.Vah.
Regardless of which of the two gears he's in, at any given moment, though, the destination is always, and ever, and only, the same.
It's all about the base, bout the base. No exceptions.
Making good on the promises. pledges and other poses and postures he offered up in his bid to become the sole United States distributor of snake oil to those whose buttons he pushed and, in return, flipped their voting booth switch on his behalf is all, and only what, he cares about.
In one context, it's actually a strategy. Not to better the nation, let alone the world, for heaven's sake, we're talking sociopathic narcissist here, not statesmanlike natural born leader, I mean, come on.
It's a strategy with, primarily, two purposes. To keep the base hap, hap, happy so that they will continue to want to vote for him, no matter what kind of shit he shovels out or how high that shit stacks up, again, not necessarily because he actually wants to do the job of being President or even keep the job of being President but because he "won" and in Trump's alternate reality, he's Vince Lombardi with a really bad hair style, "winning isn't everything...it's the only thing." Holding on to the power is what matters. Using that power for the greater good is irrelevant. Losing the power is to be avoided, prevented, ruled out at any and all costs. Because Trump doesn't lose. More to the point, Trump cannot lose. Losing, to Donald Trump, is like sunlight to a vampire.
The second purpose is even less noble than the first. Losing the power would be catastrophic to the man/child who was long, long ago anointed the boy king. Losing the love and adoration and worship of his peeps would be like that bucket of water on the Wicked Witch of the West.
Total meltdown, man. Metaphorical. And literal.
And, in the Ahab-esque quest to keep a death grip on the both the power and the pampering, Trump will say, do, commit, un-commit, join, un-join, build, tear down, spring forward, fall back, flip, flop and/or two and half, with a half twist, tuck position as needed for no other reason or purpose than to keep a death grip on both the power and pampering.
He promised the base he would pull America out of Paris.
So, he's pulling America out of Paris.
And it matters absolutely the aforementioned zip, zero, nada that the actual process of detaching from the Paris Accord will not bring American involvement to a conclusion until 2020. All that matters to Trump is that Trump promised the adoring, worshiping Donald devotees that he would pull America out of Paris.
That's why there's still a pretty good chance there will be a wall. Not even close to because a wall is either financially doable, let alone practical, or that it will actually serve any other purpose on the planet than symbolic or provide some walled states that don't have a Grand Canyon or a Mount Rushmore some of those ever pleasant tourist dollars as visitors show up by the carload to selfie the crap out of that concrete.
We should probably just count blessings and be grateful that he didn't promise the "come let us adore you" rally crowds anything really stupid like, say, putting somebody like Rick Perry in charge of the Energy Department or make his fashion peddler daughter a top advisor or, when in need of input and insight on making a key decision about the future of America's commitment, or exit from commitment, to a global initiative hoping to make it easier for our children and their children to breathe clean air and drink clean water, he turned to that noted expert on environmental and geopolitical dynamics, Kimberly Guilfoyle....thank the good Lord there has been none of that foolishne.....oh...wait.
William of Ockham said long ago that when faced with multiple explanations of an occurrence, the simplest is usually 'the' explanation.
Here's the simplest of the explanations regarding current occurences.
Donald Trump is not the President of the United States.
Donald Trump is the President of the Donald Trump Admiration Society.
Nothing more, nothing less.
And, at the same time, a lot, lot....lot less than this nation deserves.
No matter how you cut it.
Or shave it.
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