bo∙lus∙te∙mo∙lo∙gy (n.)

A portmanteau of e·pis·te·mol·o·gy:

…a branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge. The term was introduced into English by the Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier (1808-1864).

…and bo∙lus…

A soft, roundish mass or lump, esp. of chewed food.

Bolustemology, therefore, describes a system of intelligences and beliefs that cannot be justified or proven by any means intrinsic to the consciousness that maintains such things, because they have been pre-chewed and/or pre-digested by someone else. Bolustemology is soft and squishy intellectual matter, warm, wet, smelling of halitosis, more than likely infected with something. When you offer it to someone, you may be offering to put forth the effort they themselves cannot sustain, so that they can be nourished. But it’s far more likely that you’re engaging in an exercise to make them feel fed, without doing the necessary chewing…because you don’t want them to.

Very few among us will ‘fess up to consuming bolustemology, so infatuated are we with the fantasy of thinking for ourselves about everything. But at the same time very few among us can speak to the issue because most of us have not bothered to become bolus-aware. This is demonstrated easily. Last month, for example, Presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama was forced by the inflammatory words of his bigoted pastor and spiritual mentor, to speak to the issue of racial disharmony. And so, swaggering to the podium as if it was his idea to do this, he droned on in that Bill-Clinton-like crowd-pleasing way of his for a few minutes, after which we were offered prime tidbits of bolus such as…

Obama speech opens up race dialogue
Will it stand alongside the great speeches in US history?
:
Several students of political rhetoric suggest Senator Obama’s moving speech in Philadelphia Tuesday could stand with some of the great speeches in American history.

True, say some, the Democratic presidential candidate was forced into giving a speech that would explain his relationship to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., the outspoken minister of Obama’s church, known for some antiwhite and anti-American sermons.

While argument continues over whether Obama’s explanation was sufficient, his speech did seem to achieve this: It has sparked a conversation about race relations, one of the frankest Americans have had since the civil rights era.

And…

The Obama speech was also a topic of discussion on Wednesday at the Washington office of the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy and social welfare group. Hispanics can be white, black or of mixed race. “The cynics are going to say this was an effort only to deal with the Reverend Wright issue and move on,” said Janet Murguia, president of La Raza, referring to the political fallout over remarks by Mr. Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., which prompted Mr. Obama to deliver the speech.

But Ms. Murguia said she hoped that Mr. Obama’s speech would help “create a safe space to talk about this, where people aren’t threatened or pigeonholed” and “can talk more openly and honestly about the tensions, both overt and as an undercurrent, that exist around race and racial politics.”

If there are any facts to back up this conclusion that the Obama speech stands alongside the great speeches of U.S. history…that it opens up a “race dialog”…that it creates a safe space to talk about this, where people aren’t threatened or pigeonholed…or where they can talk more openly and honestly about the tensions that exist around racial politics…such factual foundation is missing from the stories I’ve linked, altogether, and it’s missing from every single other item of discussion about this speech. The facts simply don’t back up any of this. Nor can they, because this is all a bunch of stuff that would be judged by each person hearing the speech. It’s all in the eye of the beholder. And the ivory-tower types writing about it in such sugary tones know nothing about this, nor can they.

No, the factual foundation says the “cynics” are quite correct. Obama’s speech “was an effort only to deal with the Reverend Wright issue and move on.” In fact, you don’t need any cynicism to conclude that. All you need to have is a decent and functional short-term memory.

But our High Priests of journalism, rushing to the press with their editorials built to be printed up in the wrong sections of the respective papers, weren’t interested in factual foundations, logical conclusions, et al. Nope, that’s all out of scope. They were all about bolustemology. About pre-chewing the food for others. About bludgeoning and cudgeling. About giving total strangers instructions about what to believe.

Obama may very well have given his speech in service of purely altruistic and idealistic motives. In doing so, he may very well have accomplished his stated goal of “opening up a national dialog” or some such…created a sounding board of safety for those who otherwise would have felt threatened participating in such an exchange. All those things could, in theory, be true. But all who desire to think independently for themselves, or at least to be thought of by others as capable of doing this, should be offended at the manner in which these cognitions were being handed to them. Valid cognitions have no need for pre-chewing. Each thinking recipient can figure it out for himself or herself. Yet, here, the pre-chewing was rampant.

I have some less subtle examples of the same thing in mind, in case the race-dialog item fails to illustrate the point properly. Michael Ronayne, about whom we learn via Gerard, distills the latest eco-bullying episode for us quite elegantly:

For the background, you can turn to JunkScience, which has a decent write-up including the e-mail exchange between a BBC reporter and a climate-change activist, reproduced in entirety here:

I have been emailed the following correspondence, purportedly between an activist, Jo Abbess, and BBC Environment reporter Roger Harrabin. It would appear that the result of the email exchange between the activist and the reporter was that the BBC changed its story. In particular instead of reporting the story as received from the World Meteorological Organisation, the BBC modified the story as demanded by the activist who was concerned that in its original form it supported ‘the skeptics’ correct observation that there has been no warming since 1998.

From Jo, April 4, 2008

Climate Changers,

Remember to challenge any piece of media that seems like it’s been subject to spin or scepticism.

Here’s my go for today. The BBC actually changed an article I requested a correction for, but I’m not really sure if the result is that much better.

Judge for yourselves…

from Jo Abbess
to Roger Harrabin
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 10:12 AM
subject Correction Demanded : “Global temperatures ‘to decrease’”

Dear Roger,

Please can you correct your piece published today entitled “Global
temperatures ‘to decrease’” :-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7329799.stm

1. “A minority of scientists question whether this means global
warming has peaked”
This is incorrect. Several networks exist that question whether global
warming has peaked, but they contain very few actual scientists, and
the scientists that they do contain are not climate scientists so have
no expertise in this area.

2. “Global temperatures this year will be lower than in 2007”
You should not mislead people into thinking that the sum total of the
Earth system is going to be cooler in 2008 than 2007. For example, the
ocean systems of temperature do not change in yearly timescales, and
are massive heat sinks that have shown gradual and continual warming.
It is only near-surface air temperatures that will be affected by La
Nina, plus a bit of the lower atmosphere.

Thank you for applying your attention to all the facts and figures available,

jo.

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

from Roger Harrabin
to Jo Abbess ,
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 10:23 AM
subject RE: Correction Demanded : “Global temperatures ‘to decrease’”

Dear Jo

No correction is needed

If the secy-gen of the WMO tells me that global temperatures will
decrease, that’s what we will report

There are scientists who question whether warming will continue as
projected by IPCC

Best wishes
RH

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

from Jo Abbess
to Roger Harrabin ,
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 10:37 AM
subject Re: Correction Demanded : “Global temperatures ‘to decrease’”

Hi Roger,

I will forward your comments (unless you object) to some people who
may wish to add to your knowledge.

Would you be willing to publish information that expands on your
original position, and which would give a better, clearer picture of
what is going on ?

Personally, I think it is highly irresponsible to play into the hands
of the sceptics/skeptics who continually promote the idea that “global
warming finished in 1998”, when that is so patently not true.

I have to spend a lot of my time countering their various myths and
non-arguments, saying, no, go look at the Hadley Centre data. Global
Warming is not over. There have been what look like troughs and
plateaus/x before. It didn’t stop then. It’s not stopping now.

It is true that people are debating Climate Sensitivity, how much
exactly the Earth will respond to radiative forcing, but nobody is
seriously refuting that increasing Greenhouse Gases cause increased
global temperatures.

I think it’s counterproductive to even hint that the Earth is cooling
down again, when the sum total of the data tells you the opposite.
Glaringly.

As time goes by, the infant science of climatology improves. The Earth
has never experienced the kind of chemical adjustment in the
atmosphere we see now, so it is hard to tell exactly what will happen
based on historical science.

However, the broad sweep is : added GHG means added warming.

Please do not do a disservice to your readership by leaving the door
open to doubt about that.

jo.

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

from Roger Harrabin
to Jo Abbess ,
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 10:57 AM
subject RE: Correction Demanded : “Global temperatures ‘to decrease’”

The article makes all these points quite clear

We can’t ignore the fact that sceptics have jumped on the lack of
increase since 1998. It is appearing reguarly now in general media

Best to tackle this – and explain it, which is what we have done

Or people feel like debate is being censored which makes them v
suspicious

Roger

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

from Jo Abbess
to Roger Harrabin ,
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 11:12 AM
subject Re: Correction Demanded : “Global temperatures ‘to decrease’”

Hi Roger,

When you are on the Tube in London, I expect that occasionally you
glance a headline as sometime turns the page, and you thinkg “Really
?” or “Wow !”

You don’t read the whole article, you just get the headline.

A lot of people will read the first few paragraphs of what you say,
and not read the rest, and (a) Dismiss your writing as it seems you
have been manipulated by the sceptics or (b) Jump on it with glee and
e-mail their mates and say “See ! Global Warming has stopped !”

They only got the headline, which is why it is so utterly essentialy
to give the full picture, or as full as you can in the first few
paragraphs.

The near-Earth surface temperatures may be cooler in 2008 that they
were in 2007, but there is no way that Global Warming has stopped, or
has even gone into reverse. The oceans have been warming consistently,
for example, and we’re not seeing temperatures go into reverse, in
general, anywhere.

Your word “debate”. This is not an issue of “debate”. This is an issue
of emerging truth. I don’t think you should worry about whether people
feel they are countering some kind of conspiracy, or suspicious that
the full extent of the truth is being withheld from them.

Every day more information is added to the stack showing the desperate
plight of the planet.

It would be better if you did not quote the sceptics. Their voice is
heard everywhere, on every channel. They are deliberately obstructing
the emergence of the truth.

I would ask : please reserve the main BBC Online channel for emerging truth.

Otherwise, I would have to conclude that you are insufficiently
educated to be able to know when you have been psychologically
manipulated. And that would make you an unreliable reporter.

I am about to send your comments to others for their contribution,
unless you request I do not. They are likely to want to post your
comments on forums/fora, so please indicate if you do not want this to
happen. You may appear in an unfavourable light because it could be
said that you have had your head turned by the sceptics.

Respectfully,

jo.

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

from Roger Harrabin
to Jo Abbess ,
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 11:28 AM
subject RE: Correction Demanded : “Global temperatures ‘to decrease’”

Have a look in 10 minutes and tell me you are happier

We have changed headline and more

Remember: Challenge any skepticism.

Now look at that graphic up there carefully: Blue is the old stuff, green is the post-capitulation, post-bend-over, post-take-it-up-the-chute-from-Ms.-Abbess stuff. And then read the nagging again…carefully. Jo Abbess doesn’t take issue with the facts presented, for she can’t — they’re facts. Facts iz facts. She objects to the conclusions people may draw from them, and nags this guy until he changes the presentation to her liking, so people will draw a conclusion more in line with what she expects. She’s trying to sell something here. Challenge any skepticism.

There are other examples around, if you simply take the effort to become bolus-aware and look around. There is, for example, the sad tale of Richard Warman. His Wikipedia page contains four major categories as of this writing: Legal activism; Canadian human rights tribunal; Political activism; References. Who is he? The wonderful glittering text in the main article informs us…

He is best known for initiating complaints against white supremacists and neo-Nazis for Canadian Human Rights Act violations related to Internet content. In June 2007, Warman received the Saul Hayes Human Rights Award from the Canadian Jewish Congress for “distinguished service to the cause of human rights”. He holds a BA (Hons.) in Drama from Queen’s University, an LLB from the University of Windsor, and an LLM from McGill University.

He’s a Nazi hunter! Wow, what a great guy! And he’s got letters after his name and everything.

But a quick visit to the “Talk” page reveals some intriguing conflict:

You removed what I believe were valid entries in support of the of criticism of Richard Warman.

You claim that the entries are not “encyclopedic”. Please explain what you mean, provide an example, and a Wikipedia reference in support of your position. Note also that one of the references was to another article in Wikipedia.

I am going to assume for the moment that you are acting in good faith, and will not censor valid criticism. Then there should not be too much difficulty in finding criticism of which you approve, since Richard Warman’s complaints before the CHRC are currently one of the most widely discussed topics on Canadian blogs. I provided just two references, whereas there are hundreds of others.

The entries you removed are:

Critics have charged that Warman abuses the intent of the Canadian Human Rights Act by personally appearing as the plaintiff in the majority of CHRA section 13 “hate speech” cases which have been brought before the Commission, a former employer of Warman. – – Critics further charge that many CHRC “hate speech” complaints such as Warman’s have had a chilling effect on the human right to freedom of expression.

I look forward to your prompt, reasoned response. Thank you.

Another piqued Wiki contributor writes in with an inflammatory sub-headline:

Bias in article maintenance and corrupt admins

This article is being maintained by politically motivated individuals trying to protect the information from being changed at all costs by removing any reference to well-sourced articles that don’t shed good light on this individual. These same individuals and admins have engaged in slander in other articles

What are these unflattering tidbits about Mr. Warman? Well, it seems lately he is in conflict with Ezra Levant, having served papers on the publisher. Levant paints a different picture of the former Human Rights Commission lawyer:

Today I was sued by Richard Warman, Canada’s most prolific – and profitable – user of section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. As readers of this site know, Warman isn’t just a happy customer of section 13 and its 100% conviction rate, he’s a former CHRC employee, an investigator of section 13 thought crimes himself. In fact, he was often both a customer and an investigator at the same time.
:
It’s impossible to criticize section 13 without criticizing Warman, because without Warman, section 13 would have been defunct years ago – almost no-one else in this country of 33 million people uses it. I’d call it “Warman’s Law”, but I’ve already given that title to another law enacted because of Warman. Warman’s Law is a law brought in by the B.C. government specifically to protect libraries from Warman’s nuisance defamation suits. (We should find some way to set up a Warman’s law to protect universities from Warman, too.)
:
The more I learn about Warman, the more I write about him. And, like the CHRC, he hates public exposure. Earlier this year, Warman’s lawyer served me with a lengthy Libel Notice, which I posted to my website here, with my commentary on it here.

Again — you may read all of the above and end up still a big, slobbering fan of Richard Warman. You may decide to dismiss all of the reservations people like Levant have against him…which might be fair, since Levant is a defendant and Warman is a petitioner. You should expect that inviting Levant and Warman to dinner on the same night and seating them next to each other, would be a plan deserving of a re-think or two.

But…wouldn’t you want to know some of the less flattering things about Mr. Warman? Especially if you’re sufficiently interested in him to go look up the Wikipedia entry about him? Well, it turns out at least some of the Wikipedia admins don’t seem to think so. They think you should only know the flowery parts. Or at least, they’ve so far come up with some wonderful excuses for excising anything else from the article.

Hell, I’d sure want to know about this:

* Complaints filed to CHRC: 26
* Former employee and investigator at the Canadian Human Rights Commission
* In December 2006, the Law Society shows he works for the Department of National Defence
* Education: degree in Drama from Queens University
* Member: Law Society of Upper Canada and EGALE Canada
* Gave a Keynote speech to the Violent Anti-Racist Action
* Warman is a frequent poster on “Neo-Nazi” Stormfront website
* Warman is a frequent poster on “Neo-Nazi” VNN website.
* Pretends to be a woman named “Lucie”
* Has signed his posts with “88” (according to Warman means: Heil Hitler)
* Has called Senator Anne Cools a “nigger” and a “c*nt” on the internet

And I’d want to know what Mark Steyn had to say yesterday:

He has been the plaintiff on half the Section 13 cases in its entire history and on all the Section 13 cases since 2002. There are 30 million Canadians yet only one of them uses this law, over and over and over again, which tells you how otherwise irrelevant it is to keeping the Queen’s peace. Section 13 is, in effect, Warman’s Law and the CHRC is Warman’s personal inquisition and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal is Warman’s very own kangaroo court. Whether or not the motivations were pure and pristine when this racket got started, at some point his pals at the CHRC and the “judges” of the CHRT should have realized that the Warmanization of Section 13 doesn’t pass the smell test: Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done, and when you see what’s done at the CHRC you understand it’s a cosy and self-perpetuating romance between a corrupt bureaucracy and its favoured son.

But the over-zealous Wiki editor(s) says no. They’re taking the Soup Nazi approach with these nuggets of unflattering information about Mr. Warman. Not-a For You!

Lying by omission — that’s a perfectly good example of bolustemology.

Perhaps you’ve heard of Matthew LaClure. He’s just like Richard Warman, it seems…standing for our rights, in his satin tights, and the old red white and blue-hoo-hoo-hoo…

Matthew LaClair, of Kearny, NJ, stood up for religious freedom and the separation of church and state in the face of ridicule and opposition. During his junior year in high school, Matthew had a history teacher who promoted creationism and other personal religious beliefs in the classroom. When Matthew confronted the teacher and asked the school officials to address this, he became the target of harassment and even a death threat from fellow students. Despite this opposition, Matthew worked with the ACLU of New Jersey to make sure that the First Amendment is respected and upheld at his high school. Matthew won the battle at his school and thanks in large part to his advocacy, the Student Education Assembly on Religious Freedom was created at his high school so that all members of the school community will understand their rights and responsibilities.

There follows an essay from the young LaClair about what he did, what happened to him as a result, and how it changed him. I suppose it might be encouraging to some who share his and the ACLU’s values, such as they are…but regardless, you have to notice the phrase “civil liberties” is peppered throughout, with negligible definition about what exactly this two-word cliche is supposed to mean.

I hope that what I did encourages others to stand up for civil liberties. I want to take what I have learned from this situation and apply it to other situations I will experience in my life. I now have a greater chance of making a bigger difference in the world, and I think that the experience will serve to expand my abilities further.

To figure out what “civil liberties” he’s droning on about, you have to consider what exactly it was that he did. And what he did was…start mouthing off at teachers when he was asked to stand for the pledge of allegiance. So the civil liberties in question would be…uh…the civil liberty to sit there while everybody else stands. Well, gosh, it turns out to the extent kids have that civil liberty post-LaClair, they had it before he ever came along. How about the civil liberty of doing that without some strutting martinet getting in their faces about it? Well, no change there either.

In the final analysis, the ACLU is making their apotheosis because Master LaClair mouthed off like a little brat. Any fantasy involving any more nobility than that, is bolustemology and nothing more.

But what’s he done for us lately, you might be asking? Glad you asked. Matthew LaClair, who has no axe to grind here, nosiree, has again impressed certain segments of the halfway-grown-up community by making a big ol’ racket about…exactly the same kind of stuff as last time.

Talk about a civics lesson: A high-school senior has raised questions about political bias in a popular textbook on U.S. government, and legal scholars and top scientists say the teen’s criticism is well-founded.

They say “American Government” by conservatives James Wilson and John Dilulio presents a skewed view of topics from global warming to separation of church and state. The publisher now says it will review the book, as will the College Board, which oversees college-level Advanced Placement courses used in high schools.

Matthew LaClair of Kearny, N.J., recently brought his concerns to the attention of the Center for Inquiry, an Amherst, N.Y., think tank that promotes science and which has issued a scathing report about the textbook.

“I just realized from my own knowledge that some of this stuff in the book is just plain wrong,” said LaClair, who is using the book as part of an AP government class at Kearny High School.

Yyyyyyeah. Uh huh. Just kind of blundered into that one, huh? Kinda like Murder She Wrote…have to wonder what dead body you’re going to find next week.

Just plain wrong. How interesting. Especially when one takes the trouble to actually read the report from the Center for Inquiry.

Unlike Matt LaClair, I’ll encourage you to do so. But just in the interest of saving time, the report boldly confronts six distinct areas of “just plain wrong” ness: global warming; school prayer; same sex marriage; constitutional government and “original sin”; the meaning of the Establishment Clause; and the significance of the Supreme Court’s denial of a writ of certiorari.

Of those six, the fourth and last are the two items that represent, in my mind, what you might call “a real stretch.” The CFI takes issue, there, with small snippets of the textbook in question, and reads meaning into them so that the whistle can be blown. For their criticisms to stand, a certain interpretation has to be applied to these snippets. The fifth objection is probably the most durable because it’s clear to me it is the best-researched. But here, too, the phrase “last minute” has to be given a literal interpretation (in the context of the time frame in which the First Amendment was ratified in the late eighteenth century) — so it can be properly debunked. So with all of the final three of the subjects, the authors of the textbook under review could respond to the CFI solidly and plausibly by simply saying “that isn’t what we meant.”

But it’s with the first item that my interest was really aroused:

The textbook‘s discussion of the science of global warming is devastatingly inaccurate. As explained below, the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence establishes that global climate change caused by global warming is already underway and requires immediate attention. The international scientific community is united in recognizing the extremely high probability that human generated greenhouse gases, with carbon dioxide as the major offender, are the primary cause of global warming and that this global warming will produce harmful climate change.

And much later…

In brief, debate within the scientific community over the existence and cause of global warming has closed. The most respected scientific bodies have stated unequivocally that global warming is occurring and that human generated greenhouse gases, with carbon dioxide as the major offender, are the primary cause of well documented global warming and climate change today. These conclusions are detailed in the landmark 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the international scientific body organized to evaluate the scientific evidence for human-induced climate change.

Have you got any red flags raised when you read hackneyed phrases like “overwhelming weight”? If so, maybe you’re on the road to becoming bolus-aware. If not, then maybe you aren’t. Perhaps all six of the objections are legitimate, meritorious, and productive. But it’s easy to see the CFI report seeks — not to inform, but — to bully. To intimidate. To coerce. To get the whole world running the way certain people want it to…and since Matt LaClair is one of ’em, naturally he thinks they’re wonderful and vice-versa. None of this changes the fact that this is all pre-chewed pablum.

Notice — none of these observations have to do with truth. They have to do with who is recognizing it…and the subservient role others are invited to fill, as they are beckoned to slavishly follow along. The only other important thing to remember about this is that once one person is caught up in the undertow, he’ll piss rusty nickels to get everyone else sucked down with him. People who suck down bolus, don’t want to see anyone else do any chewing.

Oh, but I do have one thing to point out that deals directly with truth: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is not a scientific body, it is a political one.

The common perception of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is one of an impartial organisation that thoroughly reviews the state of climate science and produces reports which are clear, accurate, comprehensive, well substantiated and without bias.

One only needs examine some of its procedural documents, its reports and its dealings with reviewers of the report drafts to discover how wrong this impression is.

The IPCC is not and never has been an organisation that examines all aspects of climate change in a neutral and impartial manner. Its internal procedures reinforce that bias; it makes no attempts to clarify its misleading and ambiguous statements. It is very selective about the material included in its reports; its fundamental claims lack evidence. And most importantly, its actions have skewed the entire field of climate science.

As the saying goes, I’m much more concerned about the intellectual climate. Happy reading.

Class dismissed.

Update 4/11/08: You know, it occurs to me that even with all the examples above of strangers figuring things out for us and telling us what to think, not even handing us the glimmer of factual foundation so we could at least go through the motions of coming to the conclusions they want from us on our own…and with all the other examples we continue to be handed on a daily basis — Iraq is a quagmire, Boy Scouts is a hate group, etc. etc. — for some among us, the point still might not yet be pounded home. When you aren’t bolus-aware, you are very easily convinced of some things, but it’s an endless chore to bring your attention to certain other things.

It further occurs to me that it doesn’t need to be this complicated. Not even close.

We have three clear front-runners for the President of the United States in ’08, one Republican and two donks. Can there possibly be any example of our societal gullibility, than what follows. The one Republican is, by far, the most liberal left-wing Republican in the entire Senate. The two donks are, against all odds, the most liberal left-wing donks in the entire Senate.

If what I have used all those paragraphs to describe, above, is not an epidemic covering all the mass between the great oceans, lately reaching “I Am Legend” proportions and intensity…you would be forced to conclude that that is just a cohweenkadeenk. The odds? My calculator says one in 124,950.