Fly Or Die

The "no girls allowed" sign is becoming rarer and rarer. Economic study can't hang that sign anymore and neither can French presidential elections (read Segolene Royale), and the same goes for computer engineering. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Susan Athey, a Harvard economics professor, won a formerly males only award. Athey is the recipient of the John Bates Clark medal, a highly coveted award for the "most promising economist under the age of 40" according to the Journal. Athey's rise began with her dissertation on people's reaction to rising uncertainty and since then she has worked with the Canadian government on designing timber auctions and also studying how "to deepen and make more elegant the theories and methods economists use to model and measure the real world," the article also said. Athey isn't the only leading woman in her field or world leader.
The appeal of these superstars is not that they wear their womanhood as some kind of badge or identifier so that when they do succeed and surpass a man in a traditionally male dominated field they "can further equality" by noting that they are women. In academia, their respect is earned like any other's.
In politics this is a little different because the appeal of groups of people are at stake so someone different than the usual candidate has to acknowledge the difference but that candidate is, just like in academia, more appealing if the platform is themed on something other than "I'm brave enough to be different than everyone else."

Paranoid Android

A profile in a recent issue of The New Yorker reported that Paul Wolfowitz, President of The World Bank, is a staunch advocate of moral relativism. Such one-sided support seems a bit arrogant. Moral relativism is the belief that ethics are decided by cultures and there is no basic moral code. In ethical philosophy, there is an argument called The Argument from Tolerance:

1. Either moral realism is true or relativism is true.
2. If realism is true, one ought not be tolerant of other culture's moral views.
3. If relativism is true, one ought to be tolerant of others
4. One ought to be tolerant of other culture's moral views
5. Realism is false and relativism is true

The Argument concludes that realism (a basic level of morals applicable to all cultures) is false and that what is ethical is decided by the culture (relativism).
It's funny for a world leader to admit favor of one idea or the other, especially an American. Diversity and acceptance are one of the most basic beliefs of the United States, which could be called relativism, but there are numerous cases of the United States meddling in international affairs in the name of right or wrong which sounds a lot like realism. The Iraq War is apparently happening to free a country from a tyrannical dictator. America's entrance into World War II could also be an act of realism (it was a far more noble one). But the idea of bringing "democracy" to a people is a dangerous one. In the 20th century American leaders felt the spread of communism warranted American intervention in Vietnam with disastrous results. The U.S. involvement in these conflicts had other motivations than bringing democracy to a people and shielding them from communism. Usually when one society attempts to "purify" the ethical foundations of another, there are intricate ulterior motives but that attempt to change a basic moral principle is itself complicated.
Unfortunately countless U.S. politicians don't see it this way. To them the antonym for democracy is terror or anarchy. That's simply not the case. No world leader, especially those representing superpowers, should fly just the banner of realism or relativism. Killing is wrong, unnecessary and pain inflicted by others is wrong (the realist argument) but beyond that societies deserve their own way even if a different ethical code works for a different society -which is kind of what makes those societies different.
It's frightening that the entirety of this superpower's world leader's don't recognize the ethical complexity of realism and relativism.