In The Biggest Ideas in the Universe, Sean Carroll relates the theoretical physicists’ joke about a spherical cow. As it runs in paraphrase,
A farmer with a milk production problem asks a theoretical physicist for a solution. After pondering the problem, the physicist returns to say, “Assume a spherical cow…” (26-28). *
Cows aren’t spherical, and therein lies the joke. And contrary to Platonists and Neoplatonists’ philosophy, no “ideal cow” of any shape exists, just as there is no “ideal tree” that serves as a model for all other trees. ** In a universe filled with multiple versions of stuff from atoms to elephants to stars, theoretical physicists pare problems to Occam-size solutions and acceptable approximations. Remember Occam (AKA Ockham)? John Punch framed his famous advice as Occam’s Razor; in Latin, it’s “Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem,” or, "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity.” Simply: “keep it simple,” the axiom advises. That spherical cow is akin to a derivative, a simple way of defining something complex.
Assume a Spherical Cow
If there is any American town that might be the ideal place for French-speaking migrants to settle, it should be Charleroi, Pennsylvania. The town was settled by Walloons in 1890 and incorporated in 1891. The Belgian transplants brought with them the art of glass-making, a profession that logically led to the emplacement of one of Corning Glass Company’s leading employers, and for decades Charleroi has been home to Corelle Brands, which makes Pyrex.
Perfect for French-speaking Haitian immigrants, right? A liberal proponent of sanctuary cities might think so. It’s a simple solution to the problem of Biden’s and Harris’s rapid mass migration. Millions of immigrants in a 3 1/2 year period? No complex problem. Send them into American towns and cities. Simple solution.
But Reality Is filled with Real Cows, Not Ideal Cows
The last census put the population of Charleroi slightly above 4,000. To that number the town can now add 2,500 Haitian immigrants who entered the country through the open border of Biden and Harris. Good boost to the population, right?
Hold on. Charleroi has been in a steady state of decline since the Jimmy Carter years. The local steel mills, zinc plant, fabrication plants, coke ovens, and coal mines have either shut down or undergone a significant decline in production. With that decline Charleroi became a typical “rust belt” town with fewer job opportunities and loss of businesses. Its restaurants and shops have dwindled in number and its once-crowded sidewalks have nary a pedestrian: A once-thriving community has become a “ghost town” with a failed revitalization effort. Its tax base is only a fraction of what it once was, and the current main employer, Corelle, has announced a shutdown with the loss of 300 jobs, a move that will further reduce local government resources. The reduction means less money for police, fire-fighting, education, and infrastructure.
More decline. Fewer resources. More decay in housing and infrastructure. Charleroi seems to be far from the liberal ideal American town. So, what is the liberal plan? Specifically? Mix in some 2,500 non-taxed residents. Place their children who might not speak English in the Charleroi school system. Does the district have more than one French teacher? Does it have the resources?
Don’t get me wrong. I have no doubt that the Haitian immigrants will eventually revitalize Charleroi though it might never reach its heydays of vital industry. There’s already at least one Haitian-owned store on Charleroi’s south-bound one-way main street, but no such store on the north-bound parallel street, which remains largely a line of empty former stores.
Haitians emigrated from a land in chaos and corruption, made so by years of ineffective leadership and the devastating earthquake that killed more than 100,000 (maybe 300,000) in 2010, just two years after Tropical Storm Fay and hurricanes Gustav, Hanna and Ike, all in the summer of 2008, caused nearly 800 deaths. So, fleeing Haiti for affluent America makes sense in the minds of Charleroi’s new Haitian population. But among American towns, Charleroi is an analog of Haiti, ranking low in economic opportunities. Haitians left a country so poor that only 33 other countries are poorer. Their new abode is a town with 2,460 housing units and a pre-Haitian population that includes 20% above the age of 65 and an employment rate of only 53%.
Assume a perfect sanctuary city…
Leftists are model idealists, people holding ideals of ideals. The cows in their world are spherical and the trees are ideal. Infinite migration is good, and tax dollars are endless. It’s one thing to postulate that open borders and sanctuary cities are ideal ethically; it’s another to deal with the specific problems generated by open-border policies and a rapid influx of people from different cultures. Some 2,500 Haitians have been introduced into into an essentially mono-culture of fifth- and-sixth-generation English-speaking Americans who cherish Friday night football games against long-time rival Monessen High from across the Monongahela River, and who have only a single grocery store located a couple of miles outside the town. Will Kamala Harris provide this community with a specific “opportunity economy”?
No doubt liberals see open borders as good. They assume, for example, that by giving away free stuff, they’ll ensure that migrants will vote for them and their ever-broadening socialist policies. That’s the ideal, but many immigrants have fled socialist governments, so that ploy just might not produce the desired results in the long term. There is no Occam’s Razor solution to human problems.
Ideals and spherical cows are unreal. Try teaching that to a liberal. Maybe I should have called this little essay “What Shape Is a Cow in the Mind of a Liberal?”
*2022. An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
**Here’s an aside: I’m always amazed at the human ability to recognize individual entities and place them in classes. Just about everyone recognizes a specific animal as a dog, cat, or horse though there are many variations of each. I can’t name all 160,000 species of moths, but I can recognize one when I see it and can distinguish between a moth and a butterfly. Plato would argue that there is an ideal lepidopteran form on which each of the 160,000 moths and almost 20,000 butterfly species is predicated. I can’t picture it anymore than I can picture “tree.” Oak, hickory, white pine all pop into my head at the mention of “tree.” Specifics, not ideals, populate the mind. i challenge you to think of "tree" without thinking of a specific tree. I do, however, recall seeing a baby white lion just after its birth and thinking it looked like a puppy, a similarity that disappeared as I watched it grow and take on more cat-like features. And as for trees, I might mistake a woody bush for one, but somehow I usually know one when I see one.
A farmer with a milk production problem asks a theoretical physicist for a solution. After pondering the problem, the physicist returns to say, “Assume a spherical cow…” (26-28). *
Cows aren’t spherical, and therein lies the joke. And contrary to Platonists and Neoplatonists’ philosophy, no “ideal cow” of any shape exists, just as there is no “ideal tree” that serves as a model for all other trees. ** In a universe filled with multiple versions of stuff from atoms to elephants to stars, theoretical physicists pare problems to Occam-size solutions and acceptable approximations. Remember Occam (AKA Ockham)? John Punch framed his famous advice as Occam’s Razor; in Latin, it’s “Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem,” or, "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity.” Simply: “keep it simple,” the axiom advises. That spherical cow is akin to a derivative, a simple way of defining something complex.
Assume a Spherical Cow
If there is any American town that might be the ideal place for French-speaking migrants to settle, it should be Charleroi, Pennsylvania. The town was settled by Walloons in 1890 and incorporated in 1891. The Belgian transplants brought with them the art of glass-making, a profession that logically led to the emplacement of one of Corning Glass Company’s leading employers, and for decades Charleroi has been home to Corelle Brands, which makes Pyrex.
Perfect for French-speaking Haitian immigrants, right? A liberal proponent of sanctuary cities might think so. It’s a simple solution to the problem of Biden’s and Harris’s rapid mass migration. Millions of immigrants in a 3 1/2 year period? No complex problem. Send them into American towns and cities. Simple solution.
But Reality Is filled with Real Cows, Not Ideal Cows
The last census put the population of Charleroi slightly above 4,000. To that number the town can now add 2,500 Haitian immigrants who entered the country through the open border of Biden and Harris. Good boost to the population, right?
Hold on. Charleroi has been in a steady state of decline since the Jimmy Carter years. The local steel mills, zinc plant, fabrication plants, coke ovens, and coal mines have either shut down or undergone a significant decline in production. With that decline Charleroi became a typical “rust belt” town with fewer job opportunities and loss of businesses. Its restaurants and shops have dwindled in number and its once-crowded sidewalks have nary a pedestrian: A once-thriving community has become a “ghost town” with a failed revitalization effort. Its tax base is only a fraction of what it once was, and the current main employer, Corelle, has announced a shutdown with the loss of 300 jobs, a move that will further reduce local government resources. The reduction means less money for police, fire-fighting, education, and infrastructure.
More decline. Fewer resources. More decay in housing and infrastructure. Charleroi seems to be far from the liberal ideal American town. So, what is the liberal plan? Specifically? Mix in some 2,500 non-taxed residents. Place their children who might not speak English in the Charleroi school system. Does the district have more than one French teacher? Does it have the resources?
Don’t get me wrong. I have no doubt that the Haitian immigrants will eventually revitalize Charleroi though it might never reach its heydays of vital industry. There’s already at least one Haitian-owned store on Charleroi’s south-bound one-way main street, but no such store on the north-bound parallel street, which remains largely a line of empty former stores.
Haitians emigrated from a land in chaos and corruption, made so by years of ineffective leadership and the devastating earthquake that killed more than 100,000 (maybe 300,000) in 2010, just two years after Tropical Storm Fay and hurricanes Gustav, Hanna and Ike, all in the summer of 2008, caused nearly 800 deaths. So, fleeing Haiti for affluent America makes sense in the minds of Charleroi’s new Haitian population. But among American towns, Charleroi is an analog of Haiti, ranking low in economic opportunities. Haitians left a country so poor that only 33 other countries are poorer. Their new abode is a town with 2,460 housing units and a pre-Haitian population that includes 20% above the age of 65 and an employment rate of only 53%.
Assume a perfect sanctuary city…
Leftists are model idealists, people holding ideals of ideals. The cows in their world are spherical and the trees are ideal. Infinite migration is good, and tax dollars are endless. It’s one thing to postulate that open borders and sanctuary cities are ideal ethically; it’s another to deal with the specific problems generated by open-border policies and a rapid influx of people from different cultures. Some 2,500 Haitians have been introduced into into an essentially mono-culture of fifth- and-sixth-generation English-speaking Americans who cherish Friday night football games against long-time rival Monessen High from across the Monongahela River, and who have only a single grocery store located a couple of miles outside the town. Will Kamala Harris provide this community with a specific “opportunity economy”?
No doubt liberals see open borders as good. They assume, for example, that by giving away free stuff, they’ll ensure that migrants will vote for them and their ever-broadening socialist policies. That’s the ideal, but many immigrants have fled socialist governments, so that ploy just might not produce the desired results in the long term. There is no Occam’s Razor solution to human problems.
Ideals and spherical cows are unreal. Try teaching that to a liberal. Maybe I should have called this little essay “What Shape Is a Cow in the Mind of a Liberal?”
*2022. An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
**Here’s an aside: I’m always amazed at the human ability to recognize individual entities and place them in classes. Just about everyone recognizes a specific animal as a dog, cat, or horse though there are many variations of each. I can’t name all 160,000 species of moths, but I can recognize one when I see it and can distinguish between a moth and a butterfly. Plato would argue that there is an ideal lepidopteran form on which each of the 160,000 moths and almost 20,000 butterfly species is predicated. I can’t picture it anymore than I can picture “tree.” Oak, hickory, white pine all pop into my head at the mention of “tree.” Specifics, not ideals, populate the mind. i challenge you to think of "tree" without thinking of a specific tree. I do, however, recall seeing a baby white lion just after its birth and thinking it looked like a puppy, a similarity that disappeared as I watched it grow and take on more cat-like features. And as for trees, I might mistake a woody bush for one, but somehow I usually know one when I see one.
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