We all know what a fact is.
From the Wikiquote entry on Fact:
A fact (derived from the Latin factum) is something that has really occurred or is actually the case. The usual test for a statement of fact is verifiability, that is whether it can be proven to correspond to experience.
That is the common sense, everyday, practical definition of this critical four letter word demon.
Here are three more thought provoking perspectives about facts:
#1 Facts are the world’s data
-—Stephen Jay Gould (1981)
Stephen Jay Gould was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation. Gould spent most of his career teaching at Harvard University and working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
San Marco Cathedral in Venice. Inspiration for part of an important idea in Evolutionary Biology by Gould & Lewontin (1979)*
Here is the modern empiricist interpretation of the meaning of facts, the one we strive to come closest to following.
#2 Facts were never pleasing to him. He acquired them with reluctance and got rid of them with relief. He was never on terms with them until he had stood them on their heads.
—J.M. Barrie, The Greenwood Hat (1937)
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, (1860–1937) was a Scottish novelist and playwright, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. He was born and educated in Scotland but moved to London, where he wrote a number of successful novels and plays. There he met the Llewelyn Davies boys, who inspired him to write about a baby boy who has magical adventures in Kensington Gardens (included in The Little White Bird), then to write Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up.
Sir Barrie, who created the modern story of the little boy who wouldn’t grow up, is perhaps the best suited person to school us about the essential inner Trump, and his factual approach.
#3 Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
—Aldous Huxley, (1927) Proper Studies
Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894-1963) was an English writer, novelist, philosopher, and prominent member of the Huxley family. He graduated from Balliol College, Oxford with a first in English literature.
He was best known for his novels including Brave New World, set in a dystopian London, and for non-fiction books, such as The Doors of Perception, which recalls experiences when taking a psychedelic drug, and a wide-ranging output of essays.
Huxley was a humanist, pacifist, and satirist. He later became interested in spiritual subjects such as parapsychology and philosophical mysticism, in particular Universalism. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the pre-eminent intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in seven different years.
So there is some give and take about what exactly constitutes a fact, but not as much flexibility in the meaning as Trump would have you believe.
These three examples have the great advantage of being readily understandable by the average literate adult.
It is, however, possible to become so entangled by meanings within meanings, that you might stumble your way into confusion. As in the following, which require multiple readings, and probably a Ph.D., to make much sense out of:
Besides being assailed by epistemologists, the world of facts has been undermined in recent times by developments within the theory of meaning. The cardinal assumption of positivistic philosophies of language was that all meaningful statements must refer to facts, and thus that the meanings of sentences must be given by the method of verifying the assertions contained in them.
—Quentin Skinner, “Introduction: Seeing things their way”, Visions of Politics (2002)
or this
From the abstract of Schlesinger HJ. Facts is facts–or is they?, Int J Psychoanal. 1995 Dec;76 ( Pt 6):1167-77:
The author argues that to consider the place of facts in psychoanalysis one must first of all distinguish between the use of the term fact in its everyday sense, in which its opposite would be untruth, from the scientific sense in which the term refers to a construction that has been awarded the status of fact by the theory in which it is embedded. Theories in sciences of human behavior or experience must include not just the hierarchical arrangement of concepts and constructs of the physical sciences, but also the process orientation in which time is the major organizing dimension. Facts, as constructs, have different significance in each of these versions of theory, and the meaning of validation, as well as the procedures for determining validity, also differ.
John Adams and His Famous Quotation: Facts are Stubborn Things (FAST)
When I grew up, school children in America were taught to memorize this abbreviated version of a famous quote from John Adams (1770). Adams was one of America’s founding fathers, who helped Thomas Jefferson draft the Declaration of Independence (1776). He served as a Massachusetts delegate to both the First (1774) and Second Continental Congress (1775-1778). He was the principal author of the Massachusetts state constitution (1780)He was the first Vice-President of the U.S (1789-1797) for two terms, and the second U.S. President (1797-1801) for one term (succeeding George Washington). Adams was the first President to live in the White House in Washington, DC. He was a lifelong friend of Thomas Jefferson, and they both died on the same day (July 4, 1826), which happened to also be the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.** John Adams was the father of the sixth President of the United States, John Quincy Adams (1825-1829), and he died during his son’s was term as President. Talk about a patriotic plethora.
John Adams (30 October 1735 – 4 July 1826) was an American lawyer, author, statesman, and diplomat. He served as the second President of the United States (1797–1801), the first Vice President (1789–1797), and as a Founding Father was a leader of American independence from Great Britain. Adams was a political theorist in the Age of Enlightenment who promoted republicanism and a strong central government. His innovative ideas were frequently published. He was also a dedicated diarist and correspondent, particularly with his wife and key advisor Abigail. He was the father of John Quincy Adams.
U.S.P.S. 6-cent (1938 issue) postage stamp commemorating John Quincy Adams, 6th President of the United States, and son of John Adams, 2nd President of the U.S.
John Adams was the real deal, a hands-on revolutionary founding father, who served in Congress, was elected to both of the two highest offices in America, and remained an intimate with the greatest political theorists and leaders we have ever had. He was an accomplished practicing lawyer, an author and correspondent, and a diplomat during his 90 success packed years on earth. His record of achievement is solid gold, and was dedicated to the public good. He was a doer for America’s welfare and security, not just a big talker. And he composed and wrote all his own stuff. Compare and contrast to a certain recent pretender to the office of president.
Famous engraving by Paul Revere telling the story of the Boston Massacre (1770)
The partial quote we were taught as children tells only part of the story. In 1770 John Adams was the principal defense lawyer for the British soldiers accused of murder in the Boston Massacre.
In 1770, a street confrontation, known as the Boston Massacre, resulted in British soldiers killing five civilians. The accused soldiers were arrested on criminal charges and expectedly had trouble finding legal representation. Adams ultimately agreed to defend them, though he feared it would hurt his reputation. In arguing their case, Adams made his legendary statement regarding jury decisions.
From the Quote Investigator website:
His defending argument did include the famous phrase as recorded in an 1788 history book [JABM]:
I will enlarge no more on the evidence, but submit it to you, gentlemen—Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence: nor is the law less stable than the fact. If an assault was made to endanger their lives, the law is clear, they had right kill in their own defense.
Again from Wikipedia on his defense summation:
He also expounded upon Blackstone’s Ratio: “It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished. But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, ‘whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection,’ and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.” Adams won an acquittal for six of the soldiers. Two of them who had fired directly into the crowd were charged with murder but were convicted only of manslaughter. Adams was paid a small sum by his clients.***
Eight soldiers, one officer, and 4 civilians were accused and tried for murder in three trials. He stood against terrible scorn and abuse from his neighbors who wanted blood and vengeance, and he won acquittals for eleven of the thirteen charged. The two others were convicted of manslaughter, not murder. In the context of the times, this could be considered a significant victory for the American rule of law, and application of justice against mob rule and violence
When John Adams speaks across the ages, it would be wise to listen carefully This applies equally to DT and his fans. The easy popular solution is too often not the best or wisest one.
Facts are Stubborn Things.
Frederick Trump & Immigration: Facts are Stubborn Things
From the Wikipedia entry about Frederick Trump (Donald Trump’s paternal grandfather):
Frederich Trump (born Friedrich Trump, March 14, 1869 – March 30, 1918) was a German-born American businessman. Frederich Trump was the father of Elizabeth, Fred Trump and John G. Trump and grandfather of businessman Donald Trump. Trump made his first fortune operating boom-town hotels, restaurants and brothels in the northwestern United States and western Canada. He later returned to Germany and married, but was forced to leave after being labeled a draft dodger.
Frederich Trump was born in the town of Kallstadt in the Palatinate, to Christian Johannes Trump and Katherina Kober. Kallstadt, a relatively impoverished region, was known for its viniculture since the Roman Empire. Trump’s ancestor, Hans Drumpf, first settled in Kallstadt in 1608, and his family owned a vineyard. In 1871, the Palatinate became part of the new German Empire. Trump’s son Fred later denied his German heritage, instead claiming his father had been a Swede from Karlstad.
After being sick with emphysema for ten years, Trump’s father died on July 6, 1877, at the age of 48, leaving the family in debt from medical expenses, although biographer Gwenda Blair described Trump’s family as “relatively prosperous”. While all five of his siblings worked in the family grape fields, Trump was considered too sickly to endure hard labor. In 1883, Trump, then aged 14, was sent to nearby Frankenthal by his mother to work as a barber’s apprentice and learn the trade. Trump worked seven days a week for two and a half years under barber Friedrich Lang.
After completing his apprenticeship, he returned to Kallstadt, but quickly discovered that there was not enough business to earn a living. He was also approaching the age when he would have to serve a mandatory three-year military service. He quickly decided to immigrate to the United States, later saying, “I agreed with my mother that I should go to America”; years later, his family members said that he left secretly in the night and left his mother a note without consulting her.
In 1885, at age 16, Trump emigrated from Bremen, Germany, to the United States aboard the steamship S.S. Eider, departing on October 7 and arriving at the Castle Garden Emigrant Landing Depot in New York City on October 19. U.S. immigration records list his name as “Friedrich Trumpf”, last place of residence as “Kallstadt”, country of birth as “Germany”, and his occupation as “farmer”.
He moved in with his older sister Katherine – who had emigrated in 1883 – and her husband Fred Schuster. Only a few hours after arriving, he met a German-speaking barber who was looking for an employee and began working the following day. He worked as a barber for six years. Trump lived with his relatives in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in a neighborhood with many Kallstadt immigrants, at 76 Forsyth Street. Because the cost of operating at 76 Forsyth Street was getting expensive, they later moved to 606 East 17th Street and to 2012 2nd Avenue.
A dapper Frederick Trump, age 16, in New York (1885)
Immigration Timeline for Frederick Trump (1869-1918)
1869 Born Kallstadt, Germany.
1883 Apprenticed as Barber in Frankenthal, Germany.
1885 Emigrated from Germany to New York. Age 16.
1891 Moved to Seattle, Washington. Opened the Dairy Restaurant in Red Light District; served food, and liquor, with Rooms for Ladies.
1892 Became U.S. citizen.
1896 Elected Justice of the Peace, Monte Cristo, Washington (Snohomish County).
1898 Moved to Bennett, British Columbia (Canada) during Yukon Gold Rush. Opened the Arctic Restaurant & Hotel, with Rooms for Ladies
1901 Sold his business interests in Canada. Returned to Germany.
1902 Married neighbor Elizabeth Christ against his mother’s wishes. Moved to New York.
1904 Wife extremely homesick, insisted they return to German homeland. Trump deposited life savings in German bank.
1904 German Department of Interior announced investigation for tax evasion and draft dodging. Found guilty and expelled from Germany.
1905 Returned to New York.
1918 Died from pneumonia in New York during 1918 Flu Pandemic. Age 49.
In sum, Trump’s grandfather immigrated to America in 1885 as a German citizen, speaking no English. He left his home secretly at age 16 to avoid mandatory military service. He became a U.S .citizen in 1892, after only seven years in this country.
He moved across county and bought a restaurant and bawdy house in Seattle. In 1898 he sold his U.S. business interests and went to Canada, during the Yukon Gold Rush, and opened another restaurant and bawdy house. He sold his Canadian business interest in 1901 and returned to Germany a wealthy man.
He took a bride against his mother’s advice and moved back to New York. His wife wanted to return to Germany in 1904. Upon his return, German authorities opened a legal investigation and determined that Trump had broken the law and earlier fled from Germany to avoid a mandatory 3-year military service obligation. He appealed the decision, but lost his German citizenship and was expelled from the country. He returned to New York where he remained until he died in 1918.
Trump’s grandfather was an immigrant fleeing military service and tax obligations in his native country. America welcomed him.
He engaged in less than respectable business practices and made money. America tolerated him.
He moved to Canada, as an American citizen, and opened another questionable business venture. America did not renounce him.
Trump returned to Germany, obtained a wife, and came back to New York. America welcomed him yet again.
At his wife’s request he moved back to Germany permanently in 1904, with all the money he had made in America and Canada, and put it in a German bank (the 2016 equivalent of $500 thousand dollars). German authorities prosecuted him for draft evasion and tax avoidance in 1904. He was found to have broken the law, and lost his appeals to remain in Germany. Trump was forced to leave the county with his wife and child. America welcomed him a third time.
No persecution, no jail time, no financial penalties or fines, no loss or limitation of his naturalized American citizenship.
He was allowed to raise a family and run a successful business in New York. He lived the rest of his life in peace and freedom and prosperity in America.
A mature Frederick Trump, age unknown. Note asymmetrical hair loss, greater on the left side.
Understand, there is no implication here that Trump should have been denied entry to the United States because when he was first fleeing legal problems, underage with no appreciable assets or property, or second when he had abandoned America to go to Canada and then Germany with all his money, nor the third time he came to America when he had legal problems and had been expelled from his native country. His story is similar to that of countless ancestors of families of good American citizens today. But Frederick Trump offered no compelling reason he should be admitted, and no advantages to this country, when he sought refuge and opportunity here three different times. He was simply one more immigrant (many of whom who were in trouble) wanting to do better for himself and his loved ones.
This is Trump’s own immediate family history (his father’s father) from just 30 years before he was born. Where does he get off being an immigration policy hard-ass? Balls of base metal, indeed.
The rank hypocrisy and fundamental lack of self-awareness grandson Donald demonstrates for all to see in 2016 is simply breath-taking. If Trump had any decency, he would fall to his knees and thank God that America has traditionally welcomed people of all stripes, those fleeing political persecution, or difficult personal circumstances, or economic troubles and hardships, to make a new start in a land of freedom and opportunity.
God forbid. If there was an American President Trump in America in 1869, or 1902, or 1904 who followed Trump’s oft repeated and loudly proclaimed advice on immigration policies, Donald Trump would not be an American billionaire. He would be a German citizen, and the grandson of a disgraced barber and adjudicated felon in Germany.
Trump might like to consult the nearby branches of his own family tree, before articulating knavish public policies about immigration procedures he wants to apply to others.
Just sayin’. Fact are Stubborn Things.
A Mini-Roundup of America’s Immigration Waves
Trump is proud to claim his mother’s Scottish heritage, particularly in business dealings in Scotland. He has been less open about acknowledging his paternal heritage, which is all German. As an aside, let’s note that Trump’s father Fred made it a point during the 1930’s and 40’s to claim his family had Swedish roots, not German forebears (it doesn’t. FAST). So much for his ethnic and cultural pride in his own heritage.
America has a long and admirable history of generously admitting strangers to our country. Of course, that legacy is complicated and bears indelible stains of shameful conduct as well. But we don’t celebrate these faults, and try to emulate or repeat them.
Lady Liberty’s Right Arm and Torch on display at 23rd Street and 5th Avenue, New York City from 1876-1882, for fund raising purposes****
There were no native Caucasians in America’s early history. Everyone who is not of native American Indian blood came from somewhere else. And many of the groups Trump would target and discriminate against were here well before his own family pedigree, which dates from hardly more than 100 years ago.
Four examples. A reasonable accounting would take several books, not the few words available here.
Example One: Hispanics settled in America in large numbers and lived in a vast area of the American Southwest and the Pacific Coast, starring around 1600-1700, that is, 400 years ago. There were Hispanic cowboys in Texas, before there was any Texas. Cattle ranching and roundups (cowboy hats and cattle brands) were not a white American invention or discovery.
Example Two: Hundreds of thousands of Africans (about 450 thousand survived the journey, according to Professor Henry Louis Gates) were brought to this county, under protest, In horrific and deplorable conditions, as chattel slaves from 1525-1866, largely from 1725-1825, more than 300 years ago.
Example Three: Starting around 1700-1750 there were Huguenot religious refugees fleeing for their lives and settling in America from across Europe. They were here at the founding of America as a country more than 250 years ago.
Hundreds of thousands of Chinese immigrants came for jobs to the U.S. during the period from 1815-1880 (the first wave of Chinese immigration). Their descendants have been Americans for about 150-200 years, well before Trump’s relatives landed ashore in New York.
Descendant families of each of these immigrant groups (Latinos from Mexico, religious refugees from Europe, African-Americans from Africa, and Asians from China and Japan) all predate Trump’s family arrival and contribution to America by decades and centuries. He and his family are not at the head of the bus, they are seated well back behind the first passengers. First on, first choice of seats. He should get over it.
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”*****
During its whole history, the best of America has been nourished and enriched by a constant flow of people seeking opportunity, or to avoid persecution and tyranny. They are of all religions and ethnicities and political persuasions. That mixture of cultures, races and religious beliefs is the bedrock source of our national strength. When Trump advocates mindless restrictions divisions, he directly weakens our national security and our civic harmony.
Surely, Facts are Stubborn Things (FAST).
*Here is a full copy of the Gould and Lewontin paper (1979) for interested readers.
REPUBLISHED FROM THE ORIGINAL WITH THE KIND PERMISSION OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON: GOULD, S. J. AND LEWONTIN, R. C., “THE SPANDRELS OF SAN MARCO AND THE PANGLOSSIAN PARADIGM: A CRITIQUE OF THE ADAPTATIONIST PROGRAMME,” PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON, SERIES B, VOL. 205, NO. 1161 (1979), PP. 581-598.
** I must thank my old friend Bob, a history and political philosophy buff, who pointed out this conjunction of events to me many years ago. I accept the ultra low possibility this wonderful combination of symbolic patriotic events occurred by chance. For my part, I choose to believe there was more than random coincidence involved.
***A fuller version of this section of John Adams’ Boston Massacre trial summation from Wikiquote:
It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished.
But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, “whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection,” and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.
The law no passion can disturb. ‘Tis void of desire and fear, lust and anger. ‘Tis mens sine affectu, written reason, retaining some measure of the divine perfection. It does not enjoin that which pleases a weak, frail man, but, without any regard to persons, commands that which is good and punishes evil in all, whether rich or poor, high or low. ‘Tis deaf, inexorable, inflexible. On the one hand it is inexorable to the cries and lamentations of the prisoners; on the other it is deaf, deaf as an adder, to the clamors of the populace.
**** For more about the building and transport of Lady Liberty from paris to New York, see the post titled “The Lady From Paris” at A Writer’s Notebook blog, August 23, 2014.
***** “The New Colossus” is a sonnet by American poet Emma Lazarus (1849–1887), written in 1883.[2] In 1903, the poem was engraved on a bronze plaque and mounted inside the lower level of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”