An Open Letter to Mohel Michael Henesch
This is an email I just sent to the mohel who performed my circumcision 21 years ago today. My goal in sending this was to show him the perspective of someone who wished he hadn’t been circumcised, so that he would understand what his profession could do and maybe so he would question his continued participation in the field. I’ve chosen to publish this openly for two reasons: So that my friends and family can understand how I feel personally about my circumcision (rather than just my intellectual position on circumcision in the abstract), and so that anyone out there who is considering performing a circumcision or having one performed might change their minds.
Before I get to the email, a few notes:
- The account includes personal descriptions involving my genitalia. While there is nothing graphically sexual and no pictures or anything, this may make some uncomfortable.
- I’m well aware that my parents had a significant role to play in my circumcision as well. I do not mean this letter to be construed as faulting only Rabbi Henesch. I am still not sure how to discuss this topic with my parents, or even if I should considering that they will not be in the position to circumcise another boy in the future.
- In the email, I used some transliterated Hebrew phrases that I can be sure Rabbi Henesch knows and that some of my readership doesn’t. Such phrases will be explained in square brackets; these brackets were not included in the original email.
Dear Rabbi Henesch,
You wouldn’t remember me, but 21 years ago you changed my life. Like most of your clients, I was eight days old at the time, so I doubt I was able to articulate my thoughts on the procedure. But now I’ve had a fair amount of time living with the effects of your work, and I’d like to share with you my perspective on what you did to me.
If you haven’t guessed by my tone, I wish I hadn’t been circumcised. I could show you studies that I believe demonstrate the deleterious effects of the procedure on infants, the costs to the adults that had the procedure done earlier in life, and the falsity of the supposed health benefits of circumcision, but I won’t. There are dedicated organizations that can convey that information far better than I could. What I have to offer you is my personal experience, the costs I believe your action has lead me to bear, in the hope that you might understand on a personal level the potential for harm that comes with your profession, and perhaps even consider leaving it. This account will be both physically and spiritually personal, but as someone who has had a permanent impact on my genitals I think we’re past those types of boundaries.
Almost every single day, for as long as I can remember, I have at one point or another felt discomfort in the tip of my penis. It doesn’t matter what type of undergarments I wear, if I wear pants or shorts, or whether I’m sedentary at a desk all day or out playing a sport: eventually, my penis will brush against something in an unpleasant way. It’s not a major discomfort or pain, but it’s there and it’s noticeable, and it doesn’t feel natural. It makes me feel like something is wrong, like something is somewhere it doesn’t belong, and there’s nothing at all like it for any other parts of my body that are covered in clothing all day. I can’t verify this personally, but apparently this is a problem that only happens to some circumcised men, and not to any intact ones. In fact, it is my understanding that intact men experience significantly less genital chafing in any circumstances. Regardless of the cause, the fact remains that most days I get a physical reminder of a fact of my biology that I strongly wish wasn’t so.
The permanently uncovered portions of my glans are calloused. They aren’t big callouses like might form on your hands, but the skin is thicker, tougher, and less sensitive than the skin of the glans still partially covered.
I have a scar around my penis, a visual reminder of what used to be there that I never knew. It’s not nearly as bad as some of the extreme examples of circumcisions gone wrong that I’ve seen, but it’s there and noticeable. It certainly doesn’t make me look more attractive than I otherwise would.
The area underneath the folded shaft skin that remains regularly collects dust, lint, and other foreign particles. Though I wash daily, it is fairly sticky and catches occasionally on my pubic hair or the cloth of my underwear, resulting in an unpleasant sensation when it becomes uncaught.
Sex and masturbation are less enjoyable than they could have been. I have good reason to believe, given the callouses I can feel and the physical sensitivity studies that I’ve read, that I am not capable of the same level and variety of physical pleasure that would have been available to me had I been left intact. I lose out on the sensation of loose skin sliding up and down my penis during intercourse or masturbation. My penis has less natural lubrication than it should. Sexual activity causes more friction than it should. Sexual activity is more likely to leave my penis feeling raw and sensitive for some time after the fact than it should. I am more likely to require supplemental lubrication for intercourse than I should. In particular, masturbation is more abrasive, less pleasurable, and overall more difficult than it should be (which, not incidentally, was one of the leading arguments that led to the rise in circumcision rates among non-Jewish Americans).
These physical problems are not insignificant, and I think they alone would be enough for me to regret what happened to me, but they pale in comparison to the spiritual problems. You see, Rabbi Henesch, I do not consider myself a religious Jew. Culturally, I still maintain some of the familial values and some practices, especially those that bring me closer to my family, but I do not believe in God and do not find spiritual or moral guidance from the Tanach [The Old Testament, including the Torah] or the Rabbis. I grew up going to shul [synagogue], celebrating the holidays, going to Sunday School, having a Bar Mitzvah [the Jewish coming-of-age, at 13 for boys], and even going to a Jewish Day School, yet today I am in almost complete control over the extent to which Jewish culture and Jewish religion play a role in my daily life. The exception is circumcision: For the rest of my life, I will have to live with a penis that was cut in the name of a covenant I did not agree to with a being I do not believe exists. I expect you are a civilized man and that you would balk at the idea of adults being forced to express belief in a system they have not personally chosen, whether that expression comes in the form of a requirement to wear a cross around your neck or even a requirement that all who were born Jewish wear the tallit katan [a four-cornered garment with long fringes that is worn under everyday clothing]. Yet that is what the circumcision ritual does: it forces one participant, someone who has just barely opened his eyes to see the world, to bear a permanent, irreversible mark of the religion of the other participant. The Jewish cultural practices I’ve chosen to keep remind me of the goodness and greatness that comes from some aspects of Judaism. The physical modification I cannot change reminds me of all of the bad that helped lead me to reject it as a whole.
At one point, not too long ago, I hated you. I wanted to rage at you, to extract justice from you, to make you explain yourself. But I understand now. I understand how you could have chosen your profession, how you could have chosen to do this to me. Circumcision is viewed as a badge of honor in Judaism, is seen as fundamental to many aspects of the religion, and has a history of being a symbol for the autonomy that the Jews have held on to in the face of tyrannical governments and cultures that have conquered them in the past. I do not condone it, but I can understand why someone raised in that culture might view your job as holy and celebrated, and never even question the possible downsides. But now, you don’t have that luxury. You’ve seen the other side of the issue and now you have a choice to make.
Out of the hundreds or thousands of circumcisions you’ve done, it’s possible I’m the only one who regrets it. But next time you stand over a baby boy, ready to cut, ask yourself: Can I be sure that this boy won’t be the same? Can I be sure that I’m not dooming this child to a life of physical discomfort and inconvenience? Can I be sure that this child will embrace my faith and this symbol of it for the rest of his life? Can I be sure that I have the right to make this decision for him?
You might respond: what about the majority, those who never have any physical problems and remain religious Jews their whole life? Well, my question to you would be: What would they lose? Do Jewish daughters have a less joyous start to their life due to the simchat bat [the female celebration of birth ceremony, with no analogue to circumcision] not including any permanent physical modification? Do Jewish women who retain their faith into adulthood have any less of a role in God’s covenant with Abraham as a result of their lack of a bodily symbol of the contract? And could not a Jewish man who was left intact, upon reaching adulthood, decide that he would like to be circumcised? Given that half of the Jewish population manage to be celebrated members of the community without circumcision and that the other half could choose circumcision when they are more aware of what Judaism means to them, can you justify your next cut?
Regards,
Shea Levy
Standards and Information Technology’s Legacy Problem
The IA64 processor had to be largely abandoned because consumers wanted a 64-bit processor that was compatible with their existing 32-bit programs. Our modern, 64-bit personal computer processors are therefore still backwards-compatible with binaries compiled for 16-bit processors, which, for Intel family processors, were obsoleted with the 80386 processor in 1985. Resources have been specifically set aside to maintain this backwards compatibility, and the x64 assembly languages have additional complexity.
The vast majority of non-Apple personal computers boot using the BIOS system. Originally designed for computers in the 1980s, BIOS code is 16-bit, typically written in complex assembly, and can’t easily interface with pointer devices. The BIOS boot process relies on assumptions about disk and bootloader size that were true in 1980 but are laughable today, and as a result modern bootloaders rely on complex tricks (like storing the bootloader program in multiple stages) to boot up operating systems. For example, BIOS-readable disks can’t be any larger than 2 terabytes, and can’t have more than four real partitions. While there have been some extensions, the essence of the BIOS is still the same today as it was in 1980.
Standard web URLs begin with http://. Tim Berners-Lee, essentially the inventor of the world-wide web, has said that the two slashes are completely unnecessary, but we will be stuck with them forever, two extra characters taking up small amounts of bandwidth, storage space, and typing time for no gain.
The standard C library contains several functions (such as gets()) which are known to be security risks and should never be used. Nevertheless, because older code uses them, the POSIX standard still mandates that the functions be provided by the C library, and so every Unix-like system still has them.
I could go on and on with examples of how the decisions and limitations of the past still affect us today in the computer world, but I think I’ve made my point. Almost every new standard or library is plagued with the question: Will we be backwards compatible? New hardware is stuck with old interfaces, new programming paradigms are stuck with old syntax, etc. Every time I think about this issue, three questions come to mind:
- If we were to start fresh today, destroying every old computer and piece of code and removing the need to be compatible with any thing or attitude that existed before May 13th, 2011, would we be able to design our standards, interfaces, etc. in such a way as to allow for gradual improvement without permanently saddling future improvements with current shortcomings?
- If the answer to 1 is “yes”, how can we get to a similar point without a single cutting-off of the past?
- Do other fields suffer from similar problems? Do architects have to deal with hold-overs from how castles were built, do industrial farmers have to deal with hold-overs from the hand-plow, etc.?
Thoughts?
Why Do We Need Definitions?
The topic of definitions has always been an aspect of epistemology that eludes me a bit. I kind of see the value when trying to communicate a concept to others: If someone tells me that a memristor is a resistor whose resistance depends on the history of the current through the device, then I can get a general sense of what the referents of the concept are like, even without knowing anything about any particular one. But Rand thought that definitions are essential for cognition, not just communication, and that the formation of a concept isn’t really complete until you have a definition. I would say though that for the vast majority of the concepts I use, I don’t really have a good concise definition and would have to spend some significant time coming up with one. So, what am I missing? Why are definitions so important? What kinds of real-life situations are improved by having a proper definition for your concepts?
Two Weeks Notice, and the Job Hunt
I just formally gave notice of my resignation from my current job. There were a lot of factors at play, and overall the work environment didn’t work for me, especially considering my pay. My last day will be Tuesday, May 24th.
So now starts the job hunt! My top choice right now is freelance programming work. I’ve had two major clients since dropping out, and the work has been pretty fun and I’m getting good at it. My experience ranges a bit, including general web programming (using Rails and the occasional PHP and Perl), some speech-to-text work in .Net, Android apps, and scientific programming (including modelling and data analysis). Most of my work so far has been through people I already knew personally, and my first preference would be to work for someone I already know or someone referred to me by someone I already know, but I’m also going to be looking at general job postings. Anyone have any tips for finding freelance projects online?
In case anyone reading this might be interested in hiring me, please feel free contact me at shea@shealevy.com so I can provide more details of my past work, my skills, my rates, etc.
A Preliminary Definition of Libertarian
Friday’s post has stirred up a small bit of controversy in the comments, on Twitter, and on at least one other blog. Right now I’m in an unusual situation for me: I’m pretty confident in my conclusion, but don’t really care at all that other Objectivists disagree with it. All in all, this issue isn’t that important and to me it’s a definite case where agreeing to disagree and moving on to other things is the right way to handle the situation. That being said, one of the comments on my post got me thinking about how I would define libertarian, so I thought I’d give that a shot here. I’m not terribly good at coming up with definitions, and to be honest I haven’t really seen first-hand (because I haven’t really thought about the issue, not because I think there is no need) the strong cognitive need for them in all cases, but this is what I’ve come up with:
A libertarian is a person who believes that the initiation of force has no proper role in human society.*
The measurements omitted from my concept of libertarian include, among others, beliefs about:
- Who (if anyone) should be responsible for enacting retaliatory force?
- What lead the individual to accept his political beliefs?
- What path should we take in getting from our society to a libertarian one?
- Should the abortion of a fetus be considered initiating force against it, or should the prohibition of abortion be considered initiation of force against mothers?
- Should sexual activity between an adult and a young minor be considered initiating force against the minor, or should the prohibition of such activity be considered initiation of force against the would-be sexual partners?
That being said, there are many beliefs which aren’t omitted from my view, including:
- Is an employer who requires working 16 hour days as a condition of employment initiating force against his
employersemployees [Edit 5/10 14:37]? No, not according to libertarianism. - Should there be a welfare system funded by coercion? No, not according to libertarianism.
- Should businesses be bailed out with money obtained by coercion? No, not according to libertarianism.
- Should any sexual activity between fully informed, mentally healthy, consenting adults be considered initiation of force? No, not according to libertarianism.
- Should the fully informed, consensual consumption of any substance obtained through consensual trade or other non-forceful means be considered initiation of force? No, not according to libertarianism.
I’m fully open to the idea that my definition here is lacking or erroneous. I’m completely certain that the concept I have in mind is a valid one, and I’m pretty sure that the concept I have in mind is indeed “libertarian”, but I’d love to hear if anyone has a word that better fits my concept here.
*: For those who aren’t familiar with Ayn Rand’s theory of definitions, a definition does not need to state all of the common characteristics of the unit of the concept, nor can a concept be simply replaced with its definition. So don’t take this to be a mathematical or computational type of definition.
Birthday Resolutions: 22nd Year Edition
Today’s my 21st birthday. Woo hoo, now I’m a first-class citizen! I’ve never been a really big birthday person1, but I do love an opportunity for reflection and goal setting, so, without further ado, my goals for the 22nd year of my life:
- Kick my procrastination habit: This is the big one, the one I’m going to spend most of my attention on and the one that will most improve my life if achieved successfully. I know almost everyone procrastinates now and again, but I’m really bad. Nearly every project I undertake gets set back and put off time and time again (I’ve even been getting distracted from this blog post as I’ve been writing it), and the vast majority of my work gets done in the hours leading up to the deadline. The majority of every day is spent in between spurts of productivity. This has resulted in unmet obligations, extreme stress levels, lowered expectations on the part of those who are counting on my work, and a huge gap between the amazing things I could be achieving and what I actually output. Honestly, sometimes the only reason I get by as well as I do is that I’m really fucking good at most things I do. But I could and should be so much more, so this stops here. I’m going to pair some serious research into tricks, tools, and long-term solutions (don’t tell me I need to “just do it”, it doesn’t work like that and is honestly extremely condescending) with brutally honest regular introspection to identify times when I’ve procrastinated, the causes, and how I can avoid it or snap out of it earlier in the future. If I reach September 9 and don’t feel I’ve made significant progress, I will start seeing a therapist. My dad has issues like this on a similar scale, and he thinks this is just how I’ll be the rest of my life. I’m going to spend this year as a big fat NO2 to that attitude.
- Live healthier: This one consists of two main subgoals: Have a better sleep schedule and start eating well. I get into really bad cycles of far too little sleep for too long then oversleeping for a few days and not being able to sleep the next night. My first approach is going to be to set my alarm for 5 AM every morning and get up without fail, no matter when I got to sleep the night before. My hope is that this will force my bedtime to stabilize a bit, but if this doesn’t work I’ll have to go back to the drawing board. As for eating, well, I’ve been eating a lot of shit and it shows around my stomach and bank account. I don’t think I’m going to go full-on Paleo or anything (though I may try that Whole 30 thing at some point), but I just want to be more conscientious about what I’m eating and about stopping eating when I’m no longer hungry. I get cravings, though, so I’m going to have a hard time with this one.
- Treat my belongings better: I’ll probably always be a klutz, but I have way too many things that I’ve broken, gotten dirty, scuffed, and generally mistreated. My electronics are all dented and messy, I drop things all the time, I crumple up really nice clothes, etc. This is largely a problem with conscientiousness, so I’m going to try to set up some sort of system to get me into better habits and then hope I can automatize a new approach to my stuff.
- Present myself better: I’m not unhygenic or anything, but I don’t regularly put too much thought into how I look or how I carry myself. I want to try to find a style that works for me and start really embracing it, and I also want to work on things like combing my hair, trimming my nails more frequently, and improving my posture.
- Figure out what path I want to start on: Right now, I’ve got two really good career paths I’m pursuing: biomedical device design and computer programming. I want to spend this year making progress with both and finding out whether I enjoy both the day-to-day and the long-term outlook for either field. I want to gauge my skill and enjoyment and decide where to focus. Exploring programming will come from my job (most of the money I make is now from programming gigs), and exploring device design will come from research and some basic design attempts on the side. I’m really excited about this one, and can’t wait to see what I find
So, that’s what I’m going to be doing this year. I’ve worked on all of these for a while now, but this year I’m really going to focus on them and hammer them down. If I don’t procrastinate too much, I’ll be sure to keep y’all informed of how it goes!
1: Celebrating on my birthday has been difficult since ninth grade, since it’s right in the middle of AP exam week and college finals week
2: I don’t mean any disrespect to my father here. He has a lot of different coping mechanisms that allow him to live a really productive, great life, and he’s told me he thinks I will be a lot happier when I stop fighting this and accept it as a permanent part of who I am. I just refuse to reach that point without trying everything I can think of to try, and if that means I have the potential to resolve this issue at the cost of potentially wasting a year of my life trying to fix a problem that can’t be fixed, I’m ok with that.
Objectivists are Libertarians
Consider Joseph Stalin, Christopher Hitchens, and Ayn Rand. The three of them are wildly different on so many levels from each other, from their personalities to their jobs to their philosophies and everything in between. Despite this, there is at least one axis along which they share a commonality that distinguishes them from many other people1: religious belief. All three would agree that there is no god and that organized religion is a bad thing. Did they all come to those views for the same reason? No. Would their common belief be enough reason for them to work together for some delimited common cause? Not necessarily. But there is something to be gained in recognizing this particular commonality and, in the right circumstances, treating all three as units of the same group. We know, for a trivial example, that none of these three can be expected to be spending their Sundays in a church. The commonalities these three share are begging for conceptualization, and most Objectivists would readily apply the English word to all three: atheist.
Consider John Stossel, Radley Balko, and Ayn Rand. The three of them are wildly different on so many levels from each other, from their personalities to their jobs to their philosophies and everything in between. Despite this, there is at least one axis along which they share a commonality that distinguishes them from many other people: political belief. All three would agree that the vast majority of activities between consenting adults should be legal and that the current US government acts far out of the bounds of the proper scope of a government. Did they all come to those views for the same reason? No. Would their common belief be enough reason for them to work together for some delimited common cause? Not necessarily. But there is something to be gained in recognizing this particular commonality and, in the right circumstances, treating all three as units of the same group. For example, I would definitely prefer to have any of the them be a legislator over almost anyone that doesn’t share this commonality. The commonalities these three share are begging for conceptualization, but most Objectivists wouldn’t apply the English word to the third: libertarian.
The question of whether Objectivists qua Objectivists are libertarians boils down to two other questions: Is there a valid concept that unities Objectivists and non-Objectivists with similar general political views, regardless of the origin of those views? And if so is that concept the same one referred to by the word ‘libertarian’? I think the answer to both questions is a definite yes. Objectivists and people like Neal Boortz, Milton Friedman, or my brother absolutely have a lot of important political views in common, especially when contrasted with the political views of the average person. That political similarity is fundamental enough to allow for valid generalizations encompassing those who share it to be formed, such as “people who share this set of political views are regularly unimpressed with the offerings of the major political parties”. Moreover, I contend that the group of people who share the political similarity is exactly the group meant when people use the word “libertarian”. This is definitely the case for all the non-Objectivist political blogs, newspaper articles, Wikipedia entries, etc. I read online and all of the real-life conversations I have with non-Objectivists. So why do Objectivists typically have such a big problem with describing themselves as libertarian?
I want to make it clear that I’m not claiming Objectivists should join libertarian organizations or that Objectivists and non-Objectivist libertarians should work together on political activism. I simply don’t know enough about activism or any particular libertarian organization to say either way. Nor do I think that an Objectivist and a non-Objectivist libertarian would agree on every political issue, or that a non-Objectivist libertarian can be expected to be as consistent in his politics or philosophy as an Objectivist. But those concerns do not invalidate the concept “libertarian”, nor do they exclude Objectivists from classification under it.
So, Objectivists who don’t consider yourselves libertarians: What gives?
1: This, by the way, is why “atheist” is a real concept and “agremlinist” or “aunicornist” are not: In a world where (effectively) everybody holds a certain view, there is no cognitive utility in grouping those with that view together.
